Primmy's Daughter

by Primmy's Daughter (retail) (epub)

  ‘Keep your voice down, Walter. You know Mother won’t tolerate that kind of language,’ Albie said sharply.

  It was too much for Skye to resist. Without seeming to hurry, she moved across the room to join the men. Protocol or not, this was her party, and she dearly wanted to know what they were talking about.

  ‘Who’s been murdered?’ she asked, loud enugh for everyone to hear. Charlotte glanced her way, and Cathy was clearly disapproving. Rose came swiftly to join her.

  ‘I think we should leave men’s talk to the men,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Poppycock, Rose!’ Emma was suddenly there too. ‘What’s to do, and who’s been murdered?’

  ‘It’s nothing that need concern you, Em, nor any of the ladies,’ Albie said shortly.

  ‘It sounds as if it might concern me, though, if you think my mother might want me to return home,’ Skye told him. ‘So you may as well tell us, because I surely won’t give up until you do, Uncle Albie, dear.’

  Her voice was light, but her eyes were steely now, with a look that Albert recognised only too well. Primmy’s eyes had looked just that way when she demanded the truth, and nothing and no one was going to stop her from getting it.

  Walter shrugged. ‘Well, if you must know, the Austrian Archduke and his wife were shot dead by an assassin as they toured Sarejevo. It’s far removed from us, but the newspapers have been creating a fuss about it as usual, and predicting all kinds of outcomes.’

  ‘Like war?’ Skye said. When they didn’t answer, she gave a shrug. ‘Oh, come on, all of you. Don’t treat us women like children! If there’s going to be a war, we need to know about it, don’t we?’

  Morwen’s voice was suddenly loud and sharp.

  ‘Skye, my dear, do leave the men to their own discussions. I realise you have a literary interest, but I think we should enjoy your party without any talk of war.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Granny Morwen,’ she muttered.

  Morwen had never been averse to a verbal battle or any other kind, but this was one she couldn’t fight and couldn’t win, and she was finally realising it.

  ‘In any case, your visitors have arrived,’ Theo told her. ‘Put on a pretty face, there’s a good girl, or they’ll wonder what kind of household they’ve come to.’

  She glared at him for patronising her, feeling her heart begin to race erratically, knowing that she was about to see Philip once more. And too late, she realised she had said nothing about Ruth to warn them.

  She spoke quickly. ‘I should have told you that Miss Dobson is deaf, but she is remarkably skilled at understanding all that is said, providing you don’t turn away from her.’

  And if that didn’t sound like the most awful, patronising remarks, she didn’t know what did!

  Mrs Arden showed the newcomers into the room, and Skye tried to greet them both with the same amount of enthusiasm, while her eyes saw only Philip. This feeling has to end, she thought, appalled. It’s not right.

  For a moment, she caught her grandmother watching her, and she could have sworn a frisson of understanding flashed between them. Then to her amazement, Charlotte’s daughters took Ruth Dobson in hand, talking to her in the expressive sign language that she had seen Philip use.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, Skye,’ Charlotte said with a smile. ‘It happens to be part of the girls’ training, and they’ll be glad to be able to put it into practise.’

  ‘I’m so sorry you heard that,’ Skye murmured to Philip. ‘The women in my family are not the most tactful.’

  Including herself…

  ‘But you are the most beautiful,’ he told her quietly. ‘You shine like a star in this company, and in any other.’

  ‘You know you musn’t say such things,’ she said, but it was one of those rare moments in a roomful of people when everyone else was occupied, and it was almost as if they were alone. But not quite. As Skye raised her glass of cordial to her lips with hands that shook, she saw their reflections in the large mirror that took up one side of the drawing-room. Everyone was reflected as if in a little tableau. And across the room, facing them, and no doubt reading their expressions, if not their lips, was Ruth Dobson.

  ‘Tell me how you’re liking it in your new college.’

  ‘Well enough, when I can keep my mind on the curriculum, though I’ll know more when the next term starts in September,’ he said. ‘And how do you like your large family?’

  She wondered if she had really heard his first words, but she knew she must have done, because she could see his feelings reflected in his eyes, and they echoed her own, so much… and it frightened her.

  ‘I’m having a good time, and bicycling all over the place,’ she said determinedly. ‘But you really must come and talk to my grandmother, after showing such an interest in the family background.’

  She walked away from him, knowing he would follow, before he could give the expected reply that his interest was only in her. Was she becoming a thought-reader now? she wondered. Or was she just imagining the things she wanted to hear? If so, it was a dangerous game she was playing, because he belonged to someone else, and she would do well not to forget it.

  ‘I’m afraid Ruth has been taken over by my female relatives,’ she added. ‘Should you rescue her?’

  ‘Actually, no. She dislikes meeting too many people, and she much prefers to sit in a corner and observe the world.’

  And you don’t, Skye thought silently. You prefer to be involved in the world, and not to be just a bystander.

  ‘So this is your Mr Norwood,’ Morwen greeted him for the second time. ‘Sit beside me, young man, and tell me what you think of my grand-daughter.’

  ‘Granny Morwen, please,’ she said with an embarrassed laugh, moving swiftly away from the pair of them, but she didn’t miss Philip’s reply.

  ‘I think she’s the most delightful young woman who ever crossed the Atlantic.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Morwen told him. ‘So watch out that you don’t break her heart, or anyone else’s.’

  ‘I aim to do nothing of the sort, Ma’am.’

  A little later she told him to go and mix with the others then, and she watched him go with a strange sense of sadness. For didn’t she know only too well that gnawing ache to be with the one you loved, when you were not free to do so? And it was as plain as a pikestaff to Morwen, that if ever two people were in love, it was her granddaughter, Skye, and Philip Norwood.

  Almost to Skye’s surprise, she saw how Ruth blossomed by being the centre of attention among Charlotte’s girls. She was relieved, not quite knowing what to say to her, nor how to say it. She wasn’t accomplished in the art of silent conversations, she thought ruefully, remembering the many spirited discussions she and her parents had enjoyed. And she had always preferred the company of men – not in any sexual way, but in the intelligent ways they conversed with an intelligent female.

  ‘What are you looking so serious about, Skye?’ Albie’s voice said beside her. ‘You’d best not let Cathy suspect that you’re not enjoying this little gathering. It may be Mother’s house, but it’ll have been Cathy’s organising.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course I’m enjoying it. But tell me, do you really think this assassination portends war?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘There are hot-heads in every race, and it only needs a spark like this one to light a tinder-box of emotions.’

  ‘Well, if anyone thinks I’m going to be sent scuttling home because of it, they can think again! Mom would never send for me as if I’m a child – and if she did, I wouldn’t go!’

  ‘And there speaks Primmy’s daughter,’ Albie said dryly. ‘But I suggest you leave any more thinking and eat something instead, or Cathy will be affronted that we’re not doing justice to her catering.’

  * * *

  But the next day brought a telegram boy toiling up to the house, with a message from her mother that Skye didn’t want to read.

  “Newspapers here full of the happening in Sarejevo. Adv
ise that you cut visit short and come home.”

  Skye had no intention of doing any such thing. Wars were horrible, but there was a stimulus about being here on the fringes of Europe where it might all be happening, that Skye knew would be far removed from the comfortable life back home. But she consulted Morwen right away.

  ‘You don’t think I should go, do you, Gran? I’m only just getting to know people.’

  ‘You must do as your heart dictates,’ Morwen said. ‘If events take an ugly turn, your folks will be anxious about you, but you’re not a child, Skye.’

  ‘And it’s not as though I’d be crossing the English Channel to be really in the thick of it, is it!’

  But she avoided Morwen’s eyes. For of course she would want to be there. She was a journalist, and that very day she intended cycling into Truro to send back a telegram of reassurance to her parents, and to visit the offices of The Informer for information. Not to seek a job, for they would almost certainly not want to employ a woman in a man’s world – at least, not yet. For who knew what might happen, if war came, and all the young men – and older ones – went away to war? Might not women be seen as useful citizens at last?

  She shivered as her thoughts raced on, wondering if she was having one of those old premonitions her mother used to relate, that was part and parcel of the Cornish make-up.

  ‘I liked your Mr Norwood, Skye,’ Morwen said, and she didn’t miss the rush of colour in the girl’s cheeks.

  ‘He’s not my Mr Norwood.’

  ‘But you wish that he was,’ Morwen stated without condemnation. ‘Be careful, my lamb.’

  And who was seeing far too much now?

  ‘He was a very pleasant shipboard companion,’ Skye said solemnly, and then her composure slipped, and she twisted her hands together. ‘And as you so rightly suspect, Granny dear, we rather fell for one another, and I had hoped – but you see, I didn’t actually know about his fiancée until our last evening. He should have told me before.’

  Her voice was full of pain and resentment now, and the unspoken words were plain for anyone to hear. He should have told her before she fell in love with him, and then perhaps she could have controlled the wild emotions that were racing around her senses now.

  ‘Then think of this as a test, my love, and you’ll be all the stronger because of it.’

  But she didn’t want any old test. She wanted Philip Norwood, with a fierce and primitive passion that almost shocked her. She had been mildly in love before, but never like this, never so that she couldn’t think of anything else now that she had seen him again.

  ‘I doubt that people of your age were ever tested in such a way,’ she told Morwen, for want of something to say to cover her turbulent feelings.

  Her grandmother’s laugh was slightly incredulous.

  ‘Oh, Skye, do you think love was only invented for your generation? Or only for the young?’

  ‘Well, no, of course not,’ she said, floundering. ‘But you’re such a stable, family person, I can’t imagine that you would ever have been tempted to do anything wrong.’

  ‘Then just go on believing it, for I’m not telling ’ee any more,’ Morwen said with a chuckle that was almost girlish.

  Skye’s face broke into an answering smile, recognising the old patois in the older woman’s voice.

  ‘Why, Granny Morwen,’ she said softly. ‘I do believe you’re hinting that you were quite wicked in your youth!’

  ‘Mebbe so, but ’tis in my head and heart and nobody else’s,’ Morwen replied more tartly.

  How sadly true that was, she added silently. There were no husbands or lovers to make her heart beat more wildly, to share her life and fill her body and soul with ecstasy now… she composed her face quickly, before this young ’un could dream at the stupid thoughts going through an old woman’s brain.

  But she saw more than even Skye imagined. The girl was in love with this Philip Norwood, and he was more in love with her than ever he was with his pale-haired fiancée. There was tragedy in the making here, and she knew it. Maybe they should send Skye to Yorkshire, she mused, to spend time with the Askhews and her cousin Jordan. She would enjoy their newspaper world. But she already knew that no one would send Skye anywhere that she didn’t want to go.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked now.

  ‘I’m going into Truro to send a telegram back to Mom,’ she said. ‘And I may call on Uncle Albie.’

  Before she left the house, Walter arrived, saying he had something of importance to say to his mother.

  ‘I’m just leaving,’ Skye said.

  ‘No, wait, girl, since ’twas summat you said that started the whole idea stirring in our minds,’ he said.

  ‘Something I said?’

  It could only have been something reckless, she thought uneasily, but for the life of her she couldn’t think what.

  ‘Well, you and Emma between you,’ he went on, and then looked at his mother. His blue eyes were alight with the kind of glow a man had for a woman – or a sense of ambition.

  ‘You’d best get to the point, Walter,’ Morwen said. ‘Or ’twill take Skye all day to get to Truro.’

  ‘I’ll drive her there.’

  ‘Thank you all the same, but I’d rather cycle and see the countryside properly.’ And why didn’t he get on with it!

  ‘Well then, me and Theo have been up all night thinking about it, and coming to the same conclusion as Emma. Why the devil haven’t we exploited what we have right under our noses, and gone into pottery production on our own account? It’s like she said. Folk will always need cups and plates, and it’s acknowledged that Killigrew Clay produces some of the finest and whitest clay in the district.’

  ‘But you know nothing about pottery-making.’

  ‘We can learn. If Em can do it, I’m damn sure we can. We’d start off in a small way, Mother, and we’d bring in skilled craftsmen to do it. We’d want to make it distinctive enough so that everybody knows this is Killigrew pottery made from Killigrew clay. What do you think? We obviously need your say-so before we go any further with the notion.’

  Morwen didn’t say anything for a moment. It was a completely new venture, and one that had clearly caught Walter’s imagination. And she could guess why. She had frequently seen potters demonstrating at Truro Fair, inviting children to try their hand at it. The young ’uns hadn’t been able to resist, especially Walter, loving the feel of the wet clay in his hands as always. This would be an extension of his boyhood dreams, but perhaps that was all it was.

  ‘I’m not sure, and it takes some thinking about.’

  ‘Uncle Walter, it’s a marvellous idea!’ Skye burst out. ‘How clever you are to have thought of it. It surely can’t fail to be a success.’

  ‘Now, hold on, missy,’ Morwen told her. ‘There’ll be enough excitement in these two boys without you adding to it and trying to persuade me.’

  Walter smiled faintly at being called a boy, but he hadn’t inherited the Killigrew passion for nothing. Though it was more the Tremayne passion in his soul, he thought. The Killigrews and the Wainwrights were afterthoughts, compared with the Tremaynes from the upalong moors above St Austell. And that was something else that needed thrashing out.

  With a fierceness he hadn’t felt for some time, he knew he wouldn’t want their new venture to be called Killigrew Pottery. There had to be some special name for it that was separate from the clayworks, and yet had a special significance with it. But that could come later. For now, he had to convince his mother that this was the way forward.

  If there were to be dwindling china clay markets because of any conflict in Europe, they had to look inwardly to other outlets. The paper-making industry took a certain amount of clay to glaze their product; and Stokes and Keighley would always be loyal buyers; there were cosmetic firms showing an interest in the usefulness of the clay; but using it themselves, and seeing their own proud name stamped on every piece of pottery, whatever its name, fired his imagination as
brightly as ever his sister Emma fired her humble pots.

  ‘I’ll leave you two to discuss it,’ he heard Skye say now. ‘But for what my opinion is worth, Granny Morwen, I think it’s a wonderful idea.’

  She left them then, knowing how business folk worked. There would be talks and arguments, backtracking and doubts, discussing the finances and looking at every angle, and allowing themselves time to think.

  Nothing would happen quickly. It could hardly do so, since nothing like this had been considered before. But she felt an excitement akin to Walter’s, and her business mind soared ahead. Advertising was the way to get any product noticed. The Informer newspaper in Truro would be a start, and they had connections with The Northern Informer, where her cousin Jordan worked. If the pottery became really famous, she could arrange for advertisements in her own magazine in New Jersey, and they could export.

  She laughed at her own enthusiasm as she pedalled along the lanes towards Truro, and free-wheeled down the slopes, feeling the sun on her head, and breathing in the sharp tang of the sea, and the scent of wild flowers and bracken growing on verges and moorland all around her.

  And remembering that her first mission that day was to send a telegram back to her mother, the thought surged into her head that she felt that she wanted to stay for ever. She hadn’t been born here, but this place was already a part of her. It was in her heart. And coming from a modern young woman who thought herself beyond such emotional thoughts was one of the most surprising ways in which her attitude was changing.

  That, and being in love.

  Once she reached Truro, she took a breather on a bench by the river, and then the answering telegram was dispatched before she found the offices of The Informer newspaper. Her nostrils twitched at the familiar smells of ink and chemicals, and her ears were instantly assaulted by the clatter of typewriters.

  The bored receptionist had been disinterested as she asked to see the editor, but he came forward with a smile at hearing her name. David Kingsley was younger than she had expected, and good-looking in a heavily-set, swarthy way.