Read Online Father Unknown by Lesley Pearse - Free Book Online

of leaves, it had majesty, for the waves would crash over the rocks in the cove and frost stayed glittering on bare branches. Purple and white heather sprang up in crevices, rose-hips and other berries were bright on the bushes. In spring the stream to the right of the house, swollen from snow further inland, would gush down its rocky path to the sea; wild iris, bluebells, primroses and violets grew in profusion on its banks. There were rhododendrons too, huge masses of purple and pink, and as the new lambs skipped around their mothers it became a place of enchantment. By summer the trees made a thick canopy of leaves and welcome shade, the fields were bright with buttercups and the cove was paradise for children.
    Now, at the end of September, there were signs of autumn approaching. Dew-sprinkled spiders’ webs adorned every bush, Old Man’s Beard festooned the hedges, and elderberry bushes were weighed down by their purple berries.
    Normally as Ellen came down the narrow footpath through the woods to the farmhouse she would linger, looking out for squirrels, squeezing elderberries between her fingers to stain them purple, and checking the horse-chestnut tree to see the progress of the conkers, but today she didn’t even notice her surroundings. She was turning over in her mind what Sally had told her, cutting out everything else. As she finally came to the clearing above the farmhouse and saw her father cutting cabbages down below, she ran towards him at full tilt, tears pouring down her face.
    ‘Whatever’s wrong, me handsome?’ he said in alarm, lifting her up into his arms to comfort her.
    Albert looked like a gypsy, not just because of his torn checked shirt, the knotted handkerchief around his neck and his moleskin trousers. His skin had a leathery texture and deep brown colour, and his long, curly hair flowed out like a flag behind him as he strode around his fields. His hair had once been as bright as his daughter’s, for curly, red hair was the Pengelly trademark, but now that he was thirty-seven it was peppered with grey and growing thin. It wasn’t known for certain why he never cut it, but some old men in the village claimed it was intended as an insult to his father who had ill-treated him as a child and used to shave his son’s head to humiliate him.
    Yet no one dared laugh at Albert’s long hair, or his tenacity in farming land that yielded so little reward. They even described him as a big man, although in reality he was just five feet eight and quite slender. But perhaps that was because his shoulders were powerful, his fists like sledgehammers, and he had a reputation as a man who was dangerous to cross.
    Ellen of course did not see him that way, for he was affectionate with her and gentle with animals. But then her knowledge of other men was extremely limited for the only ones she knew were other farmers who were as strong and silent as her father.
    ‘Sally Trevoise said my mum was mad and jumped off a cliff,’ she blurted out. ‘She said she killed her baby too and Josie isn’t my sister.’
    She felt a sense of relief once she’d got it out and she buried her face in her father’s shoulder, expecting him to chuckle and tell her it was nonsense. But instead he said nothing, just held her.
    ‘It’s not true, is it?’ she asked, not daring to lift her face and look at him.
    Albert Pengelly was thunderstruck. A quiet man by nature, only partially educated and scraping a meagre living from his land, he felt he had little to offer anyone. Over the years, the hard life and the bitterness that went with it had made him withdraw into himself even more. He had always known that a day would come when he would have to tell Ellen about her real mother, but he hadn’t expected it to come this soon. He silently vowed to get even with Meg Trevoise for her vicious, loose tongue. How could he explain something as complex as his wife’s death to an eight-year-old?
    ‘It isn’t true, is it, Daddy?’