The Pool of St. Branok (2 page)

There was a richness about life in those days. I was vitally interested in everything about me. “Miss Angel’s nose b’ain’t what you’d call a big ’un,” was Mrs. Penlock’s verdict, “but it be into everything.”

I loved the little cottages with their whitewashed cob walls all huddled together on the quay. If ever I had a chance to get inside I seized it. I would go visiting with my mother at Christmas when we took gifts to the cottage folk in accordance with the custom of years. Those homes of the poor consisted of two dark rooms divided by a partition not as high as the roof which I understood was to allow the air to circulate. Some of the cottages had a
talfat,
a sort of shelf close to the ceiling, and here the young would sleep, climbing up by means of a rope ladder. The only light was what they called the
Stonen Chill—
an earthenware lamp in the shape of a candlestick having a socket in which they would pour oil before inserting the
purvan,
the local name for the wick.

The woman of the house would dust a chair for my mother to sit on, and I would stand beside her, eyes wide, noting everything and listening to the talk about how our Jenny was getting on as maid up at the rectory or when our Jim was expected home from sea. My mother knew their business. It was part of the duties of the lady of the big house.

There was always a smell of food in the cottages. They kept the fires going with the wood they picked up from the beach. I loved the blue flames which they said was due to the salt in the wood and betrayed the fact that it had been salvaged from the sea. Most of them had cloam ovens in which they did their baking, while a kettle, black with soot, hung on a chain over the flames.

They had a different language from ours, I often thought, but I learned it. They ate different foods such as
quillet
which was a mixture of ground peas rather like a porridge and there was
pillas,
a kind of oatmeal which they boiled into a mixture called
gurts.
My mother told me that in the last century when these people were very poor they used to pick the grass and roll it in a pastry made of barley and bake it under the ashes.

They were more prosperous now. My mother frequently pointed out to me that my father was a good man who looked on it as his duty to see that no one in his neighborhood should starve.

The poor fishermen depended so much on the weather, and the winds on our coast could be violent. A certain melancholy descended on the Poldoreys when the knowledgeable predicted fierce winds and storms which would keep the boats idle. Of course, sometimes these appeared without warning and that was what fishermen and their families dreaded most. I heard one fisherman’s wife say: “He do go out and I never knows as whether he’ll be coming back.” I thought that was very sad. It was the reason why they were so superstitious. They certainly looked all the time for signs and portents—mostly evil ones.

The members of the mining community were the same. The moor began about two miles from the town and close to the moor was Poldorey’s tin mine. It was affectionately known as the old “Scat Bal” which meant useless, worked-out old has-been. It was far from that for it had brought prosperity to the community. We were on visiting terms with the Pencarrons who lived in a pleasant house close by, called Pencarron Manor. They had come to the district some years ago, bought the place and started working the mine.

The superstitious miners used to leave a
didjan,
which was a piece of their lunch, in the mine for the knackers in order to placate them and stop their wreaking some mischief which was very easy to do in the mine. There had been some fearful accidents and there were several widows and orphans who had lost their breadwinner to the old Scat Bal. They, like the fishermen, took notice of signs. They could not afford to ignore them.

“They are naturally fearful,” said my mother. “One understands it. And if it means giving up a little of their lunch in order to buy safety this is a small price to pay for it.”

I was very curious to hear more of the knackers. They were said to be dwarves—spirits of those Jews who had crucified Christ. My mother did not believe in them. It was easy for her. She did not have to go down the mine. But she was very interested in superstitions.

She said: “How they would laugh at us in London. But here in Cornwall they do seem to fit sometimes. It’s the place for spirits and strange happenings. Look at the legends there are … all the wells that give special qualities … all the stories of the piskies and the unexplained mysteries. And then, of course, there is Branok Pool.”

“Oh yes,” I said, round-eyed and eager, “tell me about Branok Pool.”

“You must be careful when you go there. You must always have Miss Prentiss or someone with you. The ground’s a bit marshy round the pool. It could be unpleasant.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s an old story. I think some of the people round here actually believe it. They’d believe anything.”

“What do they believe?”

“That they hear the bells.”

“Bells? What bells?”

“The bells that are supposed to be down there.”

“Where? Under the water?”

She nodded. “It’s a ridiculous story. Some say that the pool is bottomless. In that case, where could the bells get to? They can’t have it both ways.”

“Tell me the story of the bells, Mama.”

“What a child you are! You always want to know everything.
”

“Well, you said that people should try to learn as much as they can.”

“Of the right things.”

“Well, this is one of them. This is history.”

“I’d hardly call it that.” She laughed and put a lock of my hair behind my ear for it had fallen out of the grip of the ribbon which was meant to be holding it back. “Long ago, it is said, there was an abbey there.”

“What! In the water?”

“Not in the water then. That came after. At first when they built the Abbey they were all very good men, very religious; they spent their time praying and doing good works. It was when St Augustine brought Christianity to Britain.”

“Oh yes,” I urged, fearing it was going to stray into a history lesson.

“People came from far and wide to visit the Abbey and they brought gifts with them. Gold and silver, wines and rich foods, so that instead of being poor the monks all became rich. And then they took to evil practices.”

“What were those?”

“They loved their food. They drank too much; they had wild parties; they danced and did all sorts of things which they had never done before. Then one day a stranger came to the Abbey. He brought them no rich gifts. He just went into their church and preached to them; he told them that God was displeased. They had turned their beautiful Abbey, built to serve Him, into a den of iniquity, and they must repent. But the monks by this time were too much in love with their way of life to give it up, and they hated the stranger for warning them. They told him to leave without delay and if he did not go they would drive him away. He would not go and they brought out whips and sticks which in the past they had used to chastise themselves which was supposed to make them holier—though I could never see why. They turned on him and beat him, but the blows just glanced off his body and did not harm him at all. Then suddenly a great light surrounded him. He lifted his hands and cursed St Branok’s. He said: ‘Once this place was considered holy, but now it is accursed. Soon it shall be as though it never existed. Floods shall carry it away from human sight. Your bells will be silenced … save when they shall proclaim some mighty disaster.’ And with that he disappeared.”

“Did he go to Heaven?”

“Perhaps.”

“I bet it was St Paul. It was just the sort of thing he would do.”

“Well, whoever it was, according to the legend, he spoke truth. When they tried to ring the bells no sound came. Then the monks began to be afraid. They started to pray but it was no good. The bells were silent. Then one night it started to rain … and it rained and rained for forty days and forty nights and the rivers were overflowing and the water rose and rose until it covered the Abbey and in place of it was St Branok’s Pool.”

“How far down is the Abbey?”

She looked at me and smiled. “It’s just a story that has been made up. When there was a disaster at one of the mines people said they heard the bells. But to my mind, when something dreadful happens, people fancy that they heard them, because you never hear about the bells until after the event. It is just one of the old Cornish legends.”

“But the pool is there.”

“It’s just an inland lake, that’s all.”

“And is it bottomless?”

“I doubt it.”

“Has anyone ever tried to find out?”

“Why should they?”

“To see if the Abbey is down there.”

“It’s just one of those old Cornish superstitions. No one investigates them. No one examined the water in Nun’s Well at Altarnun to see what it contains to prevent insanity, or St Unys Well at Redruth to see if it could prevent those who drink it from being hanged. There are just people who like to believe these things … and the rest are skeptical. It is the same with Branok.”

“I should like to hear the bells.”

“They don’t exist. I doubt there was ever an abbey there. You know how these legends grow up. People fancy they see or hear something which they can’t explain. Then the legends start to grow. Don’t go too near the place though. It’s unhealthy. Stagnant water always is … and as I say the ground is marshy.”

I must say I did not think very much about the pool then. There were all sorts of stories about weird happenings such as certain people ill-wishing others and how some had the power to do harm by making waxen images of them and sticking pins in vital parts. There was a man who died suddenly and whose mother accused his wife of killing him by sprinkling salt round his chair—a method which would not be considered evidence of murder in a court of law. There was Maddy Craig who was a Pellar which meant that an ancestor of hers had helped a mermaid, who had been stranded on the shore, to get back to the sea. Pellar families were those which had been endowed with special powers because they had assisted mermaids. So I did not attach much significance to the bells of St Branok.

My mother was very interested in our family and knew a great deal about it because so many of them had kept an account of their lives. Most of these were all bound and kept at Eversleigh which had been the original home of the family; but marriages throughout the years tended to send people off to different places; and Eversleigh was now the home of what was almost another branch of the family. We visited rarely because it was such a long way to the other side of England—the south-east, whereas Cador was in the south-west.

My mother had seen some of the volumes and she would tell me about them. I was very interested in my ancestor Angelet. She had had a twin sister called Bersaba and both had married the same man—Angelet first and her sister Bersaba afterwards: that was when my namesake had died.

At Cador there was a picture gallery, and the portrait which was of greatest interest to me was that of my grandfather. As he looked down on me his eyes seemed to follow me wherever I was in the gallery and I could fancy his face changed as he watched. It was a clever portrait, I suppose, because one had the impression that at any moment he was going to step out of the frame. He was dark; there was a great strength in his face; his mouth seemed to turn up at the corners as one watched and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He looked as though he thought life a great joke.

My mother discovered my interest in the picture.

“You are always gazing at it,” she said.

“It seems as though he is really there. The others are just paintings. He looks alive.”

She turned away; I knew she did not want me to see how moved she was.

Then she said: “He was a wonderful man. I loved him … dearly. When I was young he was the most important person in my life. Oh, Angel, how I wished you could have known him! I sometimes think that our lives are planned for us. He had to die young. He could never grow old. He had lived adventurously, violently even … and then he came to peace with the family he loved dearly … my mother, Jessica, Jacco and me.”

She stopped, too emotional to go on.

I slipped my arm through hers.

“Let us not look at him, Mama,” I said, “if it hurts you.”

She shook her head. “If he were here he would laugh at me. He would tell me not to grieve. She went with him … my mother … and Jacco too. They all went. They left me alone. Even now … I remember it so vividly. I can never forget … even now I think of that day when they went away and never came back.”

She told me the story of grandfather Jake Cadorson. “This was his home. He had an elder brother who was the heir to the Cador estate. They didn’t get on well together. Jake left home and lived with the gypsies.”

“He looks a little like a gypsy.”

“It was in his nature. He was never afraid of life. He challenged life and life met the challenge … and won in the end. When he was living as a gypsy he killed a man. The man was some aristocrat who had attacked one of the gypsy girls. Jake sought to save the girl. There was a fight and during it he killed the man. He was transported to Australia for seven years. He would have been hanged for murder if your grandmother Jessica had not prevailed upon her father to do all he could to save him. Her father was a very influential man. And so … the punishment was transportation to a new land for seven years which was considered a slight punishment for killing a man.

“While he was away his brother died and he inherited Cador. He returned to England and married your grandmother. My brother Jacco was born and then I was. We were a very happy family. Then we went to Australia. Jake had prospered there when his seven years’ term was up and he had some land there. It was while they were in Australia that he went sailing on that terrible day … he, my mother and Jacco. They never came back.”

“Don’t talk of it.”

“It affects me … even now. It seems so clear.”

I put my arm round her. “Never mind. You have Papa and us now … Jack and me.”