A Castaway in Cornwall Read online

  © 2020 by Julie Klassen

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-2807-6

  Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Scripture quotations labeled NKJV are from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Jennifer Parker

  Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC

  Author is represented by Books and Such Literary Agency.

  To Marietta and Ted Terry,

  prayer warriors and friends,

  with love and gratitude.

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Discussion Questions

  An Excerpt from The Bridge to Belle Island

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  During severe weather yesterday three vessels were wrecked near Trebetherick Point, beaten by the waves, and gone to pieces.

  —WEST BRITON, FEBRUARY 1818

  Obscurest night involved the sky,

  Th’ Atlantic billows roared,

  When such a destined wretch as I,

  Washed headlong from on board,

  Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,

  His floating home for ever left.

  —WILLIAM COWPER, “THE CASTAWAY”

  “What woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’”

  —LUKE 15:8–9 NKJV

  Prologue

  OCTOBER 1813

  NORTH CORNWALL, ENGLAND

  Flotsam or jetsam?

  According to the heavy old volume of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary in my uncle’s study, flotsam is any goods floating on the sea where a ship has sunk or been cast away, while jetsam is anything purposely cast out of a ship when in danger, in hopes of saving it, or at least lightening the load.

  Almost daily I walk along the shore, eyes keen for either one.

  I step, and sometimes leap, from rock to rock pool, from beach to beach grass. Looking, looking, always looking, my gaze pinned not on the unfathomable horizon or heavens but on the practical earth at my feet. Up, down, and over I go, across craggy rocks, shifting sands, and slate shelves with nary a misstep or hesitation.

  All around me is the sound of the sea. Not a roar but a rhythm—a watery hum, strumming like a vibrating chord, a quickened heartbeat. The Atlantic rolls in, lapping and slapping at rocks with percussion, punctuated by the mournful cries of gulls.

  Even with the chill of autumn pressing in, dainty stoic flowers—purple, orange, white—grow on the otherwise barren rock. Beauty amid harsh conditions. Life where nothing should thrive.

  Can I say the same for myself? Am I thriving, or merely surviving?

  Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here in Cornwall, so far from my childhood home. I feel like a castaway, set adrift on the tide by the long-ago deaths of my parents, and left wanting answers. Is there a plan in all this? Does God truly hold my fate in His hands, or has my life all been happenstance, the mysterious ebb and flow of chance?

  I don’t belong here, yet here I am. Washed up on this strange shore with its strange ways. Here, anyone not born and bred in Cornwall is eyed with suspicion and viewed as a foreigner. I have lived among them now for eight of my three and twenty years, yet I still don’t belong . . . and doubt I shall ever belong anywhere again.

  Standing on a rock, wind tugging at my bonnet, I wonder once more—am I flotsam or jetsam?

  On Monday last the brigantine Star of Dundee was wrecked near Padstow. Her crew of five took to their boat which soon upset, and melancholy to relate, they were all drowned.

  —WEST BRITON, NOVEMBER 1811

  Chapter 1

  Laura!” twenty-one-year-old Eseld called from the coastal path above the beach. “Mamm is angry and bids you come. You left something foul in Wenna’s best pot again.”

  Laura’s stomach sank. How could she have forgotten? She called back, “I was soaking a leather purse I found. Could be saved with proper care.”

  “The only good purse is a full purse to Mamm. You know that. Come on! I don’t want her angry with me as well.”

  Laura sighed and picked up her basket. “Coming.”

  As they trudged up the steep footpath to Fern Haven, Eseld said, “I don’t know why you come down here every day. It would be one thing if you found gold or valuables we could sell.”

  Laura didn’t remind Eseld that she had sold several things to the antique and curiosity dealer in Padstow. She’d not earned a fortune but had contributed to her upkeep and begun saving for a voyage she dreamed of taking one day.

  Before selling anything, however, Laura felt duty bound to wait the prescribed “year and a day,” in case the owners might come forward to claim their property. Eseld always shook her head at the precaution, parroting the local saying, “What the custom and excise men don’t know won’t hurt ’em.”

  Even Uncle Matthew, a kindly parson, saw nothing wrong in helping himself to anything that washed ashore near Fern Haven. “’Tis God’s bounty, my girl. It isn’t as though we’re stealing,” he’d say. “The crates and barrels come to us. Gifts from the Giver of all good gifts.”

  Between treacherous Trevose Head, Stepper Point, the Doom Bar, and the rocks off their own Greenaway Beach, wrecks were a common occurrence, claiming many ships and many more lives. In fact, from Trebetherick Point, near their home, Laura could look down onto the rocks and see the remains of more than one shipwreck, the wooden pieces half buried in the sand like carcasses—the spine and ribs of giant ancient birds. Many lo
cal dwellings and outbuildings had been built of salvaged ship timbers.

  Reaching Fern Haven—a two-story whitewashed house with a slate roof and dormer windows—they passed through the gate, also built from salvaged timbers, and climbed the few steps to its covered porch.

  “Wipe your feet,” Eseld admonished, sounding very much like her imperious mother as she did so.

  Laura obliged, wiping the worst of the sand and seaweed from her worn half boots.

  As they paused, voices from within reached them.

  Eseld’s mother, Mrs. Bray, said, “Thank you for the kind invitation, Mr. Kent. Mr. Bray and I, and Miss Eseld, will happily join you for dinner.”

  A lower masculine voice said something that included her name.

  “No, I don’t think Laura will wish to come,” Mrs. Bray replied. “She doesn’t like family occasions, not being one of us. And I believe she has a cold coming on. Best to leave her home, especially as the weather has turned decidedly chilly.”

  Eseld rolled her eyes, gave Laura an impish grin, and pushed open the door with a bang. “We’re ho-ome, Mamm dear.” She winked at Laura and sallied into the modest parlour, where Mrs. Bray was talking with two male visitors: handsome, golden-haired Treeve Kent and his younger brother, Perry.

  “Ah, here is Eseld now,” Lamorna Bray said with a smile, a smile that quickly faded when she turned to Laura. “Laura, child, you look a fright. Your face is nearly as red as your windblown hair. Roaming the beaches again, I suppose?”

  “I . . . yes.”

  “Why must you go scampering about the countryside? You look wild . . . almost blowsy!”

  Laura felt her cheeks heat, but Treeve Kent smiled at her. “Actually, madam, I think her eyes and complexion are quite brightened by the exercise, and her hair shown to best advantage.”

  Was the handsome man mocking her? Laura wondered. He must be.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not realize we were expecting callers.”

  “We’ve come unannounced, I’m afraid,” Treeve replied. “Unpardonable to a Town miss, I suppose?”

  Laura blinked. “I . . . hardly know.” As a child she had lived in Oxford, not London, but the local Cornish youths often called her an “up-country girl” or a “Town miss,” as though a great insult.

  Treeve turned to his shorter and quieter brother. “Speaking of manners, I am not sure if you’ve met my brother, Perran. He’s been away most of the time you’ve lived here, I believe, either at university or training at Guy’s Hospital.”

  Guy’s Hospital, Laura knew, was a London teaching hospital. Her own father had trained there as well.

  “We have met,” Laura said. “Though I don’t expect he will remember.”

  The dark-haired man smiled shyly at her. “Yes, I remember you, Miss Laura.”

  “And what about me?” Eseld asked with a coquettish fluff to the blond curls framing her face.

  “Of course I remember you, Miss Eseld.” Perry bowed.

  Eseld dimpled and dipped a curtsy.

  Treeve went on, “We have just come to invite you to join us for dinner. All of you.”

  A moment of awkward silence followed, marked by the ticking of the clock. Mrs. Bray said nothing, did not even look her way, but in her stony profile, Laura saw her irritation. The woman probably thought Laura would jump at this chance to override her wishes and experience an evening with the local gentry. But Laura knew too well that Mrs. Bray did not want her anywhere near this particular gentleman.

  Instead, Laura said, “Thank you, Mr. Kent. But I shall have to decline the pleasure. I feel a cold coming on, and the weather has turned rather chilly.”

  Treeve’s eyes glinted knowingly. “You look perfectly healthy to me.” He turned to his brother. “What say you, Perran? You’re the professional.”

  “I am not well enough acquainted with Miss Bra—”

  “Callaway,” the older woman swiftly corrected. “Laura is my husband’s niece through his first marriage.”

  “Ah. That’s right. I forgot.” Perry shifted from foot to foot, his face reddening.

  “Never mind,” Eseld soothed. “It’s a natural mistake. And Laura is practically my cousin, living together as we have these many years now.”

  Laura felt weak gratitude seep into her heart at the young woman’s words. Dear Eseld. She was probably only saying it to curry Treeve Kent’s good opinion, but to her credit, Eseld had always treated her like a cousin, and not an unwelcome addition to the family.

  For as Mrs. Bray pointed out, Laura was not really family. She was not related by blood to any of them. If not for Matthew Bray acting as her guardian after the deaths of her aunt and parents, Laura would be all alone in the world.

  While Eseld and her mother dressed for dinner at Roserrow, the Kents’ home, Laura helped Wenna in the kitchen—her penance for using their elderly cook-housekeeper’s favorite pot to clean one of her finds.

  Wearing a pained expression, Uncle Matthew appeared in the open doorway and beckoned Laura into his study. “I am sorry, my girl. I think you would have welcomed an evening out. You enjoy far too little entertainment or society.”

  “That’s all right, I don’t mind. I think I shall walk over and visit Miss Chegwin.”

  He gave her a rueful look. “The society of a woman in her seventies was not what I had in mind.”

  She reached up and adjusted her uncle’s cravat, noticing his softening jaw, long silver side-whiskers, and kind hound-dog eyes. How the years and loss had aged him. Fastening the collar of his greatcoat, she said, “Button up. It’s a blustery night.”

  “Yes, the wind is rising. If I don’t miss my guess, we’ll be hearing Tregeagle before the night is out, wailing for his lost soul. . . .” He cleared his throat. “If I believed in such things, which, as a learned man of God, I do not.” He winked. “Mostly.”

  He was referring to the old legend of the wicked man who sold his soul and had been wandering the coast and moors ever since, bewailing his fate. When the wind rose to its worst, its howl did sound almost human, hauntingly so. Cornwall, Laura had learned, was full of such myths, though the fierce storms and deadly gales were all too real.

  “If Mrs. Bray did not have her heart set on a match between Eseld and Mr. Kent, I would beg off,” he continued, “but she won’t hear of us not going. I pray to God we don’t regret it.”

  “Be careful,” Laura urged. Uncle Matthew was the closest thing to family she had left, and she didn’t want to lose him too.

  “We shall be.” He patted her hand and reached for his hat, then turned back. “If you go out tonight, take Wenna or Newlyn with you. I don’t like the idea of you out alone after dark on a night like this. It’s not safe.”

  “I can see Miss Chegwin’s cottage from here,” Laura protested.

  “Please. For my sake, all right?”

  “Very well, though it shall have to be Newlyn, for I dare not ask Wenna. She is still cross about her pot.”

  “Wenna is always cross about something.” He grinned. “Good thing she’s an excellent cook.”

  Laura let herself into nearby Brea Cottage as she always did, her neighbor long ago insisting she treat their home as her own. Moreover, Miss Chegwin might not hear a knock above the howling wind.

  Short, plain Newlyn sat resolutely on the small bench in the entry porch, refusing to go any farther.

  “You can come in, you know,” Laura said. “She does not bite.”

  “No, but Jago might.” The seventeen-year-old housemaid shuddered.

  “Silly creature. He is harmless.”

  “All the same, I’ll wait here.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Laura entered the snug sitting room, and the old woman looked up, delight written on her craggy features.

  “Good evening, my lovely. How are’ee?”

  “I am well, Mamm-wynn.” Laura called her Grandmother as a term of affection and respect, for she knew it pleased her.

  Mary Chegwin smi
led, the lines of her wrinkled face softening under her halo of white hair. “Meur ras, my dear. And what brings you out on such a foul night?”

  “I came to see you. The others have gone to Roserrow.” She glanced around the humble sitting room. “Where is Jago?”

  “Out looking for firewood.” Trees were scarce in the area and firewood dear.

  “I see.” Laura sat down near the dying fire, keeping her cape fastened around her.

  The woman watched her. “And did you not wish to go to Roserrow?”

  “I . . . would rather see you.”

  The blue eyes, still keen, glinted knowingly, but she did not press her.

  “I brought you something.” Laura stretched out her hand.

  “What is it?”

  “A coin purse. See the embroidery there?”

  The old woman squinted. “Pretty. Now if only I had a farthing to put in it!” Mary giggled like a girl. “Did you find it today?”

  “No. That one is still wet. This one I found a year and a day ago.”

  Mary gave her a crooked grin. “You’ll have to become less exacting if yer ever to be a Cornish lass.”

  “If I have not become one by now, I doubt I ever shall.”

  “Well, there are worse things, though I can’t think of any at the moment.” She cackled again.

  “I also brought you some cake.” Laura handed over a napkin-wrapped bundle.

  Mary’s eyes widened. “Wenna sent me cake?”

  “No, I saved mine for you.”

  “I can’t eat yer cake.”

  “Of course you can. You like it more than I do. But it will cost you.”

  Mary’s wiry brows rose. “Oh?”

  “Another tale.”

  The blue eyes twinkled. “I’ve already told’ee about the merry-maid’s curse, but have I told’ee about the jealous piskies?”

  Laura shook her head, eager to listen.

  The old woman nibbled the cake, and then began the tale. “One night, during a harvest moon, the captain of a schooner called Sprite saw lights dancing on the waters and followed them to his demise. You see, those naughty piskies were jealous of the ship’s beautiful figurehead, so they gathered a big jarful of glowworms to lure the unsuspecting mariners onto the Doom Bar. By morning, the sailors was drowned and all that remained of the ship was that figurehead, scarred by the rocks and no longer beautiful. It now marks the grave of all those lost on the ill-fated Sprite.”