SERIAL Oilskins And Oil

With an influx of artists, life in Cornwall was changing, though not everyone believed it was for the better . . .

WHAT’S your favourite animal? Is it a cat, a frog, a dog . . .” Morwenna smiled at her daughter, Tamsin, to encourage her to reply to the artist, poised in front of his easel, brush in hand.

Tamsin had gone all shy, like six-year-olds do, and was half-hiding behind Morwenna’s long skirt.

“. . . an elephant, a giraffe, a hedgehog?” he continued.

He waved the brush as he spoke, and paint splashed on to his beard.

Some of the crowd that had assembled to watch him working laughed. He laughed himself, his brown eyes dancing merrily. Still Tamsin said nothing. “Which do you think?” Morwenna urged.

She couldn’t loiter on the harbour front all day. A widow with a child to support, she’d only paused in her customary rush from one bit of work to the next to join the group because the artists were still something of a novelty.

Sure, they’d had them in Newlyn along the coast for a good few years now.

Her late husband, Jory, had taken a proud interest in local history and he’d told her that the first painters had arrived there in the early 1880s.

The railway had been extended to west Cornwall by then. That it had taken 15 years or so for the artists to turn up in their little village didn’t surprise Morwenna.

Jory had said they should move away for a better future. It was she who had wanted to stay.

Not wishing to dwell on that, she turned her attention back to the painters. There were two of them today – the bearded one who’d spoken to Tamsin and another man.

This second one was a few years younger, cleanshaven and fair, whilst the first had hair worn long and curling and almost as dark as Morwenna’s own.

Rather, it was as dark as most of Morwenna’s own. Down one side of its length was a section that was almost silvery.

She imagined that was why the bearded man seemed to be staring at her. Artists probably noticed odd characteristics like that.

Feeling embarrassed, she replied for her daughter. “A hedgehog.”

With a rapid movement that reminded her of a magician she’d once seen, he whipped paper and pencil from the pocket of the coat he was wearing.

There was something about the way the garment caught the light when he moved. Was it velvet?

Morwenna couldn’t believe it. A whole coat made of velvet! “There!”

Even in the short space of time Morwenna had been marvelling, he’d finished a drawing of a hedgehog and showed it to Tamsin with a flourish of his hand.

Tamsin was laughing, her shyness gone.

It was a hedgehog designed to amuse, with

clumpy boots on its feet, assorted berries and leaves speared by its spikes, and a comical grin on its face.

All the gathered crowd, old and young, joined in with Tamsin’s laughter.

It was very welcome, Morwenna thought. The boats had too often been coming back empty of late, and laughter as well as fish had been in short supply.

She turned to smile gratefully at the other artist as well, for this bit of cheer. His face was grim.

“I can’t work, Roderick, with all these people gawping!” he announced to his friend before grabbing up his equipment.

“Ned . . .” Roderick began.

But Ned was already marching off.

Watching his departing figure, Morwenna frowned. In his haste he’d nearly knocked a boy flying.

Just as she’d decided she liked Roderick, she reckoned Ned was terribly rude. Other bystanders obviously felt the same, for the crowd was now dispersing, many of them muttering.

To make the point that local people might not have velvet clothes, but they did have manners, she thanked Roderick for the sketch he’d given to Tamsin.

“You’re very good at drawing,” she said.

She immediately thought how silly it sounded – he was an artist, after all! But she was feeling a bit odd. Her heart was going like a drum.

“Thank you.” He gave a brilliant smile. “In that case, how would you like me to do a proper painting of you?”

“You want me to sit for you?”

Another daft thing to say. Though she tried to keep Tamsin nice, it would be obvious to him from her shabby clothes that she was in no position to commission a portrait. He nodded.

“I’ll pay London rates.” “What might they be?” He told her and Morwenna was incredulous. All that just for sitting?

She had heard from Newlyn that money could be earned posing for artists, but it was more than she’d expected and she’d never dreamed any would come her way.

She was about to reply when she heard activity nearby. A couple of fishermen were standing at the harbour steps.

At first she could only see them from the back, but she knew immediately one of them was Jacca. His height and broad shoulders gave him away.

He was speaking with his companion, but she now felt his gaze on her. He was watching out for her, like he always did.

He’d been a friend of Jory, and honoured that friendship by keeping an eye out for her and Tamsin.

“You can always count on me, Morwenna, you know that,” he’d told her, and she had plenty reason to be thankful to him.

Guilt stung her. The locals were divided about the arrival of the artists. Some didn’t want them in the village, and Jacca, so kind to her and Tamsin, was firmly in that camp.

And here she was, chatting to one of them.

“I’ll think about it,” she said to Roderick abruptly, “but I must go.”

Catching up with Jacca outside the harbourside inn that also served as a village store, she exchanged a few words with him before he went inside.

“Say hello to Rona for me,” she said as they parted.

She occasionally did some work for Rona, who “helped” her father run the inn. As far as Morwenna could see, Rona pretty well did it all.

Her widowed father was slowing down a lot after an injury. He was for ever telling Rona how best to do things, and Rona would listen, then do exactly as she thought best.

Morwenna admired Rona. Slightly built, with waving hair that she wore loose, she looked fragile, but energy she had aplenty, running the inn and caring for her father and a nephew, Tomas, who lived with them and worked down the mine.

She’d have made someone an excellent wife, Morwenna often thought, and they would have been lucky children, too, to have had her as a mother.

The talk in the village was that, because of the early death of Rona’s own mother, she’d felt obliged to look after her father.

Or that was what most people said, but some of the older ones didn’t seem so sure, and Morwenna wondered if there had been someone in Rona’s past.

She reckoned she’d be about forty now. Did you ever recover from a broken heart?

She’d thought she’d never recover from Jory’s death, but lately she’d been feeling better, and today she felt almost happy. She put it down to Roderick’s offer of work.

She smiled as she took Tamsin’s hand and they set off through the maze of narrow lanes to their tiny rented house.

“Will you move yourself?” Rona said to her father, who was in his usual place by the window. “I want to close the curtains and save the warmth now the day’s dying.”

“No need,” her father replied. “These fellas keep the chill out.”

He gestured at the thick granite walls.

“True,” Rona agreed. She proceeded to close the curtains anyway, before returning to the serving counter where Jacca was holding court again.

“It’s a fact that can’t be denied,” he said, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. “The artists don’t fit in here.

“We’re fishermen, tinners, farm workers; that’s how it’s always been. They’re unsettling us with their bohemian ways.”

A number of the men voiced their agreement.

Rona sighed. She’d known Jacca all his life and liked him well enough, but he was annoying her about this.

“That’s rubbish, Jacca,” she said to him, getting straight to the point as was her way. “They’re bringing in new ideas. A fresh approach.”

She looked round at the assembled group.

“They’re a good thing, that’s my opinion.”

“Well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it?” Jacca replied, smiling. “I wouldn’t expect you to hold any other view.”

“And why’s that?” “Because along with these new ideas you mentioned, they’re doubtless also bringing a good deal of new trade to your inn,” he replied with a meaningful nod of his head.

He wasn’t afraid of an argument, Jacca. Rona knew that. But neither was she.

She sent him packing with what her nephew Tomas had labelled “that Rona look”, to the great amusement even of those who supported him.

Her father smiled, too, at the time.

Later, when they were alone, he turned to her.

“Whether you’re right or not, as trades people it’s best we keep out of disputes for fear of upsetting the customers.”

“As if she’ll pay heed to that!” Tomas commented, back from the mine and tucking into fish pie. “Not our Rona.”

She was touched by the pride in his voice and, when she looked, in her father’s face, too.

At last Ned thought he’d found an answer. He wanted to paint outside in the natural light.

After his disastrous first attempt to work on the quayside, when he’d left Roderick on his own, he’d tried again

several times, over several weeks. But still he couldn’t get used to people peering over his shoulder.

He’d discovered, though, that all you had to do was get out of the village and you’d hardly see a soul.

Normally he sought a lonely cliff-top. That was what he wanted to do: paint the sea.

Today, following a farm track inland, a field of wildflowers had caught his eye and his mood, so he’d set up his gear there.

The sun was warm, the gentle domesticity of the scene reminding him of home, and probably for the first time since coming to Cornwall, he felt completely relaxed.

When he’d arrived and found Roderick already installed in the village, he’d almost turned round and gone straight off somewhere else. In truth, he didn’t like him much.

But was that just jealousy?

He had to ask the question, because Roderick was a better painter than he was. He was considerably better than most, even those in Newlyn, with their grand reputations.

In the end he’d stayed, taking rooms in the house that Roderick was renting. It was at the end of a short terrace where other artists were also living.

Another chap he knew quite well, called Jerome, was coming shortly with his wife and child, and the idea of a little colony had appealed to him.

The house he was sharing with Roderick had other advantages, too, being the largest in the row. There was plenty of space for their paraphernalia, and good views over the bay.

Suddenly sensing someone behind him, Ned halted progress on the mosaic of meadow flowers he was making on his canvas and turned round.

A boy was standing watching.

Ned recognised the lad. He was the one he’d nearly knocked flying when he’d fled the harbour front that day. He remembered him because he was a lot better dressed than anyone else in the crowd.

He remembered, too, that in his haste he hadn’t apologised, so he did so now.

The boy nodded, but was clearly more interested in Ned’s painting.

“While I was watching, it was like you were just putting blobs of paint anywhere for the flowers. But all together it looks right. Just like it is.”

He stepped closer to examine the work more carefully.

With real interest, Ned thought. Not just as though it were a fairground sideshow.

“I want to be an artist,” the boy said. “That’s why I came out today, to do some sketching.”

Ned noticed the pad he was carrying.

“Shall I have a look at what you’ve done?”

He was just being polite to make up for his earlier rudeness, which wasn’t his normal way with people.

But when he looked at the drawings, he saw the boy had ability.

“They’re very good. Have you tried charcoal? I think that might be better for what you’re trying to do.” “Charcoal?”

Ned smiled at the lad’s serious face.

“Yes. I’ve got some here.” They spent an hour sitting together on the grass, with Ned giving him some basic tuition. He found he enjoyed it.

The boy’s name was James. That was all Ned found out about him, though his clothing and manner suggested he came from a family of some wealth.

The boy wasn’t interested in small talk, but he was keen to learn and extremely focused.

They were interrupted by a girl a few years older than James.

“There you are,” she said. She, too, was expensively dressed, in her case all puffed sleeves and ruffles.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she added.

“My sister,” James explained, busily smudging a charcoal impression of a nearby rustic-style gate in the way Ned had shown him. “She’ll be interested to meet you, too, you being an artist.”

Ned stood up to greet her, wondering if this was going to involve him in more impromptu teaching.

But it soon transpired her interest in the influx of painters was from a quite different angle.

“A woman who used to be one of our maids,” she told Ned, “is now an artist’s model. Our cook saw her in the village the other day and she told her.

“There’s another woman I heard about from along the coast. She’s the toast of London after she was painted and her picture was exhibited in one of the big galleries.

“Oh, to have your portrait in a gallery!”

She sighed theatrically and clasped her hands together in an attitude of longing, making Ned wonder if she’d ever considered a career on the stage.

He’d dealt with the boy in a serious way because the boy himself was serious, but she just vaguely amused him.

She was pretty, he supposed, but prettiness wasn’t that important. What he looked for was an arresting face – like the woman who’d been on the quay that day with the little girl.

She had a face that haunted you. And that flash of lighter hair gave her an almost otherworldly quality.

Hoping James’s sister wouldn’t ask if she could model for him, Ned was relieved when an authoritative voice boomed out, “You two!”

“Father,” the girl said, exchanging a look with her brother.

“Yes, we had better go,” James replied. He turned to Ned. “Thank you for your advice. I hope I see you again when I’m home from school. We live there.”

He pointed to a house partially hidden behind some trees, near which their father, a short, bulky figure, was standing.

“Yes, we’ll look out for you,” his sister added, giving Ned a Mona Lisa smile.

The stage, he thought again, would be perfect for her.

Returning to the village later, as the sun was setting with glorious ceremony, Ned walked past the house among the trees.

It was a fair size. Clearly he’d been right in his guess that they were a wealthy family.

It had probably looked quite graceful once, but recent additions of pillars and balconies had given it an overly ostentatious, boastful appearance.

All this he observed in a passive sort of way. He was more interested in the odd shapes of the trees, sculpted, he supposed, by the winds that came in from the sea.

On a day like today, it was easy to forget about the gales. But they were frequent angry visitors, and he’d already experienced a few.

Sometimes, when the wind howled in from the sea, you could be forgiven for thinking the house he was sharing with Roderick was going to blow down.

It couldn’t be easy, he reflected as he walked back to the village, being a fisherman.

It was the only life Jacca had ever known, and he loved it. Especially on nights like this, with the sea calm and smooth.

And what a reflection in it! The moon and the stars . . .

He frowned. He was thinking like a fanciful artist, he supposed.

It had been another terrible night, with very little caught.

“Roddy, that’s what she’s calling him now,” he grumbled to Daveth, one of the men who co-owned the boat with him.

With no wind tonight and the waves gentle, he heard Daveth’s doleful sigh.

He suspected his friend was fed up with

him going on about Morwenna posing for the wild-looking artist. A handsome artist, he’d heard Daveth’s wife say about him.

But he couldn’t not talk about it, because it was for ever in his mind.

Daveth finally spoke, as though he’d been weighing up his words.

“You’re seeing things that aren’t there, Jacca – like tonight’s fish,” he added wryly, in the hope of returning the conversation to something he considered more relevant to their lives.

But Jacca wasn’t being diverted.

“You hear about artists and their models. All kinds of things.” He shook his head disapprovingly.

Another silence was broken only by the soft lapping of the waves. Then Daveth tried again.

“You’re wrong about how it is between them and their models. The wife’s father, he’s been earning good money sitting on the wall with his cronies for one of them other painters.

“A few old men in their caps and jerseys, puffing their pipes and gazing out to sea. No way were they chosen for their looks!”

Daveth’s tone suggested he was expecting a laugh, but Jacca just shrugged.

It wasn’t the same thing at all. Morwenna was the beauty of the village. There would be plenty who’d agree with him there. And lately she’d seemed at last to be getting over Jory’s death.

Jory had been a friend of his, so he’d considered it right he did what he could for his widow and child.

He’d spent a fair bit of time with Morwenna, calling in at her house regularly and making sure all was in order.

While doing repairs and helping her in any way he could, almost without him realising it was happening, he’d fallen for her.

At first it hadn’t seemed right to express his feelings. Not with her still grieving.

But now time was passing, he’d been on the point of making a move towards offering her and Tamsin a home with him.

He’d had hopes she’d be receptive. Then the artist in his daft velvet coat had come on the scene.

Roddy had better watch out, he vowed to himself. Because it was he, Jacca, who was going to marry Morwenna.

Rona shook the washingline strung across the passageway between the inn and the neighbouring dwelling, and the seagull that had been resting there flew off with a squawk.

“It was settled there for the day.” Morwenna, coming down the passage, greeted Rona with a smile.

Rona was delighted to see her friend at last returning to how she’d been before Jory had been taken.

“I’m sorry to disturb it, but I’ve got to get this out while there’s no rain,” Rona replied, indicating her washing.

Once, Morwenna might have offered to take the washing, Rona reflected, in exchange for a couple of portions of her fish pie, which she sold at the inn.

But now, of course, she had more lucrative work.

Roderick was with her and Rona watched as he set up his easel in front of Morwenna, who was arranging herself on the harbour wall. Tamsin was with them and had been sent to gather shells.

The picture was, according to Morwenna, going to be of her playing with a handful of shells.

“Like they’re dice. He’s going to call it ‘How They Fall’, or something.”

It wasn’t the first painting of Morwenna that Roderick had started. Apparently he’d not been satisfied with the earlier ones and had abandoned them.

He might have a casual manner about him, but with his painting Roderick was a perfectionist.

Over the months they’d been in the village, Rona had got to know the artists quite well. There had been some truth in Jacca’s accusation that their presence was good for business at the inn.

Ned was the one who came in most frequently. He would perch himself at one of the windows, sketching what he saw and talking to her father. Lately he’d coaxed her father to do some drawing, too.

Rona was thrilled about this. It was something her father could do that didn’t demand a lot of mobility.

Ned went out on the cliffs a lot. Her dad wasn’t up to that, but he could sit at a window and sketch the passers-by.

Ned was patient with him, demonstrating different techniques, and her father’s efforts were improving.

“I discovered, quite by accident,” Ned had told her, “that I like showing people how to draw. Imparting such poor skills as I have.”

He’d smiled and Rona had protested.

“Such work of yours is very good.”

“That’s kind of you. But Roderick’s the genius in our midst.”

She wasn’t sure about that, but she’d accepted that Ned was speaking honestly. She hadn’t detected any sarcasm in his tone.

Jealousy, maybe? Maybe there had been a touch of that, she thought now as she started back towards the inn.

She was nearly at the door when she heard footsteps on the cobbles of the passageway. Heavy ones this time, unlike Morwenna’s happy skip.

Mr Hursby, from the big house.

Rona had never been there. None of the villagers, she was quite sure, was on his guest list.

Several worked in one or other of his local enterprises – the tin mine, for a start – and lived in one of the properties he’d acquired since he’d taken to spending time here.

And not always acquired by fair means, so it was said.

What’s he wanting here, she wondered to herself.

He looked about to say something, and then his gaze fell on Morwenna.

It didn’t surprise Rona that he didn’t smile at Morwenna, or at Tamsin, who was back from the beach. But it did trouble her.

Morwenna had worked hard at his house for him as a maid before she married.

Shaking her head, Rona quickened her scuttle into the inn, keen to avoid the man.

She wasn’t fast enough and soon felt his hand on her shoulder.

Hands now hooked over the pockets of the waistcoat stretched across his portly form, he gave her a cursory nod.

“I am pleased to have seen you. It is yourself I came down to speak to.”

“Oh?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral.

“Yes. You are well thought of in the village. You have good access to the people because of your role in the inn.”

His tone was flattering; excessively so, Rona felt, though she accepted what he said. The inn was the hub of the community and she was always there.

“You speak to most of them daily,” he continued. “You are in an ideal position to use your influence to help rid us of these artists.”

He spat the word out, though Rona knew from Morwenna that his own house was full of paintings in fancy frames.

“To convince others that we are better off without them so they may be driven out,” he finished.

“Forgive me, but that is not how I feel.”

Rona squared up to him and repeated what she had said within the walls of the inn, that the artists were an asset to the community and should be welcomed.

She tried to keep calm, but they were soon locked in a heated row.

“My family,” he shouted, “are getting caught up with daft ideas. Would yer believe my lad’s saying he wants to be a painter? It’s his job to take over from me when the

time comes.”

From the way his face was going red, Rona thought that his time might come a lot sooner than he expected. She was considering saying so, but then he was off again.

“And my daughter!” His eyes were bulging. “My daughter’s talkin’ about being an artist’s model!”

Here he deigned to glance again at Morwenna. Rona had had enough. “You are wrong. The artists bring new life to the region, new opportunities.

“We have to accept change because this island of ours is becoming a smaller place, opening itself up to those in crowded cities –”

“Shut up, woman! You sound like one of them guidebooks!”

Rona stared at him. Why had he said that? Did he know?

She decided he couldn’t. It had happened long before he’d bought his mansion and started spending time down here.

“So will you do as I say?” he asked quietly.

“I will not,” Rona replied. She made for the door to the inn. Thankfully he didn’t follow her inside.

“Are you all right?” Ned asked.

He was with her father by the window.

“Yes,” she said.

She wasn’t a woman who was afraid of confrontation. She said what she thought, on every occasion.

It was a decision she’d made after a past incident when she hadn’t spoken. She regretted the outcome of that to this day.

But ready as she was to speak her mind, she didn’t brood afterwards about what had been said. She got if off her chest and then forgot about it.

This time, though, it was different. She felt a deep unease that stayed with her all day.

“Tomas is late from the mine,” her father said as the light started to fade.

Her worries homed in on the whereabouts of her nephew. Had something happened at the mine?

When at last he turned up, she learned that she was both right and wrong.

There hadn’t been an accident, which was what she’d feared most. He swallowed.

“I’ve lost my job.” Tomas slumped on to a chair. “I’ve been told not to come back. How will we manage?”

“Who told you not to come back?” her father demanded.

Tomas replied with the name of the man who oversaw the miners.

Rona didn’t interrupt, but she knew who was behind it.

Hursby. She didn’t know how much of the mine he owned, but he had a significant financial interest in it. This was his revenge for her lack of co-operation.

Because it was right what he’d said – she did have influence in the village.

Her mother had been a governess before marrying her father, and had provided Rona with a better education than was usual.

Locals sought her help with anything that came along outside of their daily experience.there was respect for her opinions.

Why had she said no? She could have pretended to agree with him. Certainly she needn’t have actively defended the artists.

Aflame with guilt, she recalled her father, still trying to comfort Tomas, saying to her that they should keep out of it. He’d been right.

Wanting to be alone, Rona went outside.

Making for the harbour wall, she nearly collided with a familiar figure coming the other way.

“Have you heard the latest?” Jacca asked her. “Tomas. Yes, he told us.” “No, not Tomas.” He paused. “Has something happened to him as well?” “As well as what, Jacca?” “Hursby. He’s evicting Morwenna from the cottage she rents from him.”

In the starlight Rona saw a fury in Jacca’s face that scared her.

“She and Tamsin will be homeless!” To be continued.