By the summer of 1942 she wore a khaki uniform with the honorary rank of lieutenant, though she knew she had done nothing to deserve it. She also wore a special badge on her shoulder, and had a privileged amount of petrol and a driver assigned to her if she needed to go anywhere in a staff car. They appreciated her qualities, she conceded, and she had more than proved herself with her knowledge of German patois that frequently clouded the coded messages that came across the wires regarding German military and airborne manoeuvres.
She had become friendly with her immediate boss, a more highly ranked individual called Bertram Moon who everyone called Captain Moonlight because he preferred the evening shift to any other. On one of their joint assignments, Celia dared to broach something she had been dying to ask for weeks. By now she felt she could trust him.
‘Moonie,’ she said, with her own pet name for him, ‘you know I worked in Germany for a time, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, his attention still on the mass of gibberish coming through his headphones. ‘That’s how you got this job in the first place, sweetie.’
‘Then you realise I must have known a lot of Germans.’
‘Naturally. And learned the language amazingly well, including some very juicy phrases you keep threatening to teach me,’ he teased. Then he saw her face. ‘Go on.’
‘I fell in love, Moonie. It was, and is, a really serious, passionate, forever kind of love, not one of those one-night things.’ She blushed, knowing she was laying all her cards on the table and that this kindly man could shop her in an instant if he so chose. And she would probably lose this plum job if he did.
‘Go on,’ he repeated. ‘I’m listening, but if you want to stop now, you have the choice, Celia. This passionate love of your life was obviously a German.’
‘Is a German, God willing,’ she said desperately. ‘And that’s what I want you to find out if you can. If you will.’
She knew he had access to places and people that she didn’t. Despite the importance of the work she did, she knew she was no more than a link in a chain, while Moonie had a vast number of contacts in Germany.
Spies was what they called them in all the action novels, men who risked everything to send back news of the enemy’s movements, and who infiltrated the most secret places of an enemy’s headquarters, feigning loyalty to both sides, until no one was quite sure to which side they truly belonged.
They were shadowy men, Celia always thought, always having to conceal their true identity and allegiance, but remarkably brave, for all that, with the proverbial nerves of steel. Why, even Captain Moonlight himself could be one of these double agents for all she knew, feeding back false information to British Intelligence, of no use whatsoever…
‘Drink this, Celia,’ she heard his voice say in her ear, and she blinked, realising that she was sitting ignominiously on the floor of the operations room, and that Captain Moonlight was pushing a glass of spirits to her lips. ‘I don’t know what the hell got into you just now but you looked as if you had seen a ghost. You passed out for a moment.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, fighting down the almost irresistible urge to fling some crude and idiomatic German phrase at him and see if he reacted in any way.
‘So tell me about this man of yours,’ he said gently.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I mustn’t.’
‘You have to now. I presume he’s working for them?’
‘Well, shouldn’t he be? He’s on their side, after all. He’s one of the enemy,’ she said, angry and frustrated at having to say it at all. ‘But as a matter of fact, no, he isn’t working for them. If my information is correct, he objected strongly to the Gestapo using his home as a base, and he was interned for his trouble. That’s if my information was correct, of course.’
And now that she had said it, it sounded so thin, and from so unlikely a source. She only had a prisoner of war’s vague word on it, and her cousin Ethan might even have got the name all wrong. She was a damn fool ever to have believed it at all, and in her reckless way of allowing her imagination to take over, she had endowed this nice and kindly officer by her side with the added indignity of thinking him a spy.
If it hadn’t been so ludicrous, the shame of it would have made her weep. She swallowed her huge sense of disappointment and impotence.
‘Why don’t you start from the beginning, Celia? And by the way, you and I are on the same side, so if I can do anything to help, I will.’
She knew by the steady look in his eyes then that he had read her only too well.
‘We were lovers,’ she muttered, and if she had thought this would shock him, she was wrong again. ‘I loved him – love him – more than I ever thought I could love anyone. He was eventually going to sell his estate in Germany, and we had thoughts of moving to Switzerland to live. That was before the war came and spoiled all our plans.’
‘As it did for so many others,’ Moonie reminded her.
‘Well yes, of course,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘There are many people worse off than me, I know that. My mother’s friend had a Jewish husband, and he killed himself rather than face what was happening to his family and friends in Germany. And then she died in an air raid in the Blitz…’
‘Anyway,’ she went on painfully, ‘my cousins have a farm in Ireland, and some prisoners of war were sent to work there. One of them said he was a relative of Stefan von Gruber, and that he had been interned for the reason I gave you.’
‘Sort of like a conscientious objector, then?’ Moonie said thoughtfully.
‘He’s no coward!’ Celia exclaimed angrily. ‘But neither could he – or anyone with any sensitivity – sanction the things the Gestapo were doing, even to their own people. You should know that as well as I do, Moonie.’
‘Calm down, Lieutenant, and get it in perspective. If your von Gruber was resistant to the Gestapo moving in and taking over his house, he as good as signed his’ – he caught her agonised look and revised his words – ‘own sentence. Not that it was such a terrible crime, compared with others, but why wasn’t he conscripted anyway?’
‘He’s forty-two years old,’ she murmured.
‘And you’re twenty-three.’
She turned aside, her face burning. ‘Age has nothing to do with it, but if you’re not going to help me, then say so. I’m sorry I bothered you.’
He gave a lopsided grin. ‘My God, you’ve got a temper on you, haven’t you? Is it a family thing, or do all Cornish women have it?’
‘Tremayne women do,’ she whipped back, and then began to laugh as she wondered why the hell she had said it. She wasn’t a Tremayne, except way, way back. Her mother had been Skye Tremayne before she married Philip Norwood, Celia’s father, and later married Nick Pengelly. But who the hell was she, she thought, starting to feel the sense of panic again?
‘It’s time we took a break, and you can explain that odd remark over a cup of hot sweet tea,’ Captain Moonlight said briskly. ‘That’s the correct remedy for shock, I believe.’
‘I’m not in shock—’
‘You will be when I tell you how many strings I’m going to pull to get information about your von Gruber,’ he said.
Her smile was dazzling. ‘Oh Moonie, I love you!’
‘No you don’t, more’s the pity. Save it for your man.’
* * *
There had been a time when Killigrew Clay was one of the largest and most important clayworks in Cornwall. Its steady decline had been due partly to the constant fluctuations in the industry itself, and partly to the intrusion of two world wars. Now that it was part of the larger company known as Bokilly Holdings, and no longer a sole concern, Nick Pengelly was still legally concerned in its fortunes.
But after a lengthy and painful meeting in Bodmin with the present clay bosses and their own lawyer after the product analysis at the end of 1942, what he had to tell his wife was no more palatable to him now than if she and her rip-roaring cousin Theo Tremayne had been in complete control.<
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‘You can’t be serious, Nick,’ Skye said, white-faced. ‘Things can’t really have got as bad as that?’
‘I’m afraid they have, darling. Many of the younger men have joined up or been conscripted, of course, which helped to keep the company finances afloat, although Bourne and Yelland promised to keep their jobs open for them. A vain promise, as it happens. Production is very low, and the Roche pits are as good as played out of china clay. Orders have dwindled to practically nothing, and they’re simply having to let men go.’
‘But what about the newsprint and medical contracts? I know it’s a horrible thought, but wasn’t this war supposed to bring new business for china clay on account of all the medical supplies that would be needed? And do you suppose Theo knew any of this when we sold out – about the Roche pits being nearly played out, I mean?’ she added angrily.
‘I’m sure he didn’t, love. Theo was always looking to the main chance, you know that. And there was nothing underhand from Bourne and Yelland at the time. The pits have simply become exhausted.’
‘But we’re not paupers, are we? We still have dividends coming in from the combined venture, don’t we?’
‘We do while the venture exists. Once it closes for good, that will be the end of it.’
Skye felt her eyes blur. For all this time – a hundred traumatic years – the clayworks had been part of her family. Even after selling out, which had seemed at the time to be the biggest betrayal of all, the pits had still been there. They could still walk the moors and see the row of old cottages where Hal and Bess Tremayne had raised their five children and worked for old Charles Killigrew in the industry’s heyday.
They could still see the scars of the four pits that had once comprised the proud Killigrew Clay itself. Through her own ingenuity, White Rivers Pottery had risen like a phoenix from the ashes to continue and further that name and industry.
What would happen to it all now? It was unthinkable to imagine it idle and still, with only the sky-tips to remind the world of what had once been Cornwall’s pride and joy.
‘Darling, it’s a dying industry,’ Nick said gently, as he registered every emotion on her ashen face.
‘How many times has that been said?’ she cried, with a passion worthy of her grandmother. ‘How can you say it now?’
‘Because it’s true. Bourne and Yelland are planning to close, and there’s nothing we can do about it. They’ll offer it for sale of course, and some other firm will snap it up at a pittance, hoping to make a go of it, but it won’t last.’
‘Then we could buy it back, Nick! I don’t care if we’re in production or not. We don’t need huge profits right now. We just need to keep control of it until this war is ended and we get back our European markets. I know we could do it—’
‘Skye, for God’s sake, be realistic. How could we possibly buy them out?’
Even though she knew he was right, and that he would put every obstacle in her way, her thoughts went off at a tangent, seeking and hovering over a new solution. A solution that seemed so daring, so grand, so impossibly forward-looking, that she knew it must work.
‘They won’t get much for a dying concern, will they? A pittance, you said. The cottages go with the clayworks and a couple of them are empty so they can’t be many clayworkers left now. If we guaranteed to let them continue doing what work they can, it would salvage a little of their pride as well. We still need clay to supply White Rivers,’ she pointed out, ‘and I prefer to use our own clay than to buy it in from outside sources.’
Nick couldn’t see the sense in it, but he couldn’t help but be stirred by her passion. These wild and crazy clayfolk, he thought, distancing himself from the whole lot of them – especially from the hot-headed Tremaynes.
‘You’re completely mad,’ he said finally.
‘You haven’t let me finish,’ Skye rushed on. ‘It’s something David said—’
‘What the devil does he have to do with it?’ he said, jealousy of his wife’s long-time admirer showing through.
Skye ignored it. ‘David reckons that in time Cornwall is going to become a mecca for visitors. Think about it, Nick. Once this war is over, people will want somewhere calm and peaceful to visit. They’ll want the beauty of the countryside, and they’ll have had enough of bomb-damaged cities and want somewhere to restore their spirits.’
‘And you think the sight of an old clay-pit is going to do that?’ he said sceptically.
‘The evacuees have already discovered Cornwall and will want to bring their families here. That’s partly why I’m writing the history of the clayworks and my family – to interest those visitors who have never seen such places before. And maybe if one of those old pits was turned into a vast area where visitors could go and see just the way it was all those years before, including the old cottages – well, don’t you see the potential in it? Someone else may do it if we don’t.’
When he didn’t answer immediately, she plunged on as her imagination took hold.
‘We could have my booklets for sale, and some of Uncle Albert’s pictures to add more local and family interest. And if you don’t think our finances will stretch to buying out Bourne and Yelland in the first place, you know I still have a collection of Uncle Albie’s pictures upstairs. I’d willingly sell them to raise the money. So do you still think I’m completely mad?’ she added.
It had been an inspiration to remember the legacy of Albie’s pictures. Dozens of them were stacked in a locked room at New World, and those that had already been sold had always fetched a handsome price. With the proper advertising, and David’s help in it all through the newspaper, it couldn’t fail. Skye was sure of it.
It would all work. And the need to do it, to continue everything that had always been theirs, was as urgent and necessary to her as breathing.
‘We’ll think about it and discuss it privately later on,’ Nick said, as cautious as ever, as Daphne and Butch came bursting in from school with tales of how their classes were going to rehearse Christmas carols to sing at the local hospitals and for the poor soldiers at Aunt Betsy’s place.
Skye felt a glow in her heart, because nothing could have told Nick more plainly how integrated these children were now, and how they would want to come back to Cornwall after the war, and bring their folks, and how successful her new venture promised to be, given half a chance.
She felt more optimistic than she had in a long time, even though her own children had left the roost, and these two had sometimes been more troublesome than she had bargained for. She thought she knew now exactly why Morwen Tremayne had opened her heart to her brother’s children when he and his wife and died.
Tremayne women had a huge capacity for loving, and there was always room for more, though she had never expected these two to be the catalyst to some new challenge that would stir her imagination and keep her business brain alive. She hugged them both, ignoring their squirming, and recklessly promising them something special for tea.
‘Bread and scrape, more like,’ Daphne observed, prosaic as ever, which made them all burst into hysterical laughter for no logical reason at all.
* * *
They decided to call a family council. It was only right that all members of the family should be aware of their proposals. Even in the middle of a war, domestic matters still had their place, though those who couldn’t be present had to be informed by letter of what Skye Pengelly had in mind for the future.
By now Sebby had returned home to Killigrew House, and was proving as difficult as his brother Justin had predicted. He couldn’t accept what had happened to him, and while his participation in the war was past, the battle within himself was far from over.
He had been driven to the pottery a few times, and had played around with the clay, but his fingers were out of touch with it, and he had flung it down in frustration when the once-skilled hands didn’t do what his brain told them they should. Even Butch Butcher could do better, he thought bitterly, and was bragging to all an
d sundry that the minute he left school next year he was going to be apprenticed to Adam Pengelly.
It was more than likely now, since the day the billeting officer had arrived at New World to tell Butch his father had been killed in an air raid. After a wretched night of crying, Butch had emerged, red-eyed, to say that he wanted to stay here for ever now, if Mrs Pen didn’t mind.
She had seen the fear in his eyes that he might be sent away, and she had taken him in her arms and said that of course he could stay. After all, where else would he go? The legalities could wait until after the war, she told Nick determinedly.
The family council consisted of Skye and Nick, Betsy and Seb Tremayne, Adam Pengelly, and Lily and David Kingsley. David wasn’t strictly family, but since he was going to have more than a hand in what Skye envisaged, she insisted that he must be included. Apart from that, she had already got her own children’s written approval. Justin had written to say it was all right by him whatever they did, and in any case he’d never had his brother’s intense interest in china clay.
‘You all know why we’re here,’ Nick said, taking charge. ‘I’ve given you all a plan of what Skye wants to do, and I’ll leave it to her to explain further.’
‘We’d like her to explain how she plans to raise the money,’ Betsy said, glancing apologetically at Skye. ‘I don’t have no business brain, my lamb, but I know how tight things were when you and Theo decided to sell Killigrew Clay, so how come you can manage to buy it back now?’
Seb snorted. ‘Her family has always managed to find money when it was needed. They never went short, sending their girls to their fancy Swiss school and sending Celia to America.’
‘Neither did you, Seb,’ his mother said, ‘so mind your manners and let Skye speak for herself.’
He glared at them all, and Skye hoped he wasn’t going to make things awkward. Then she saw how he grimaced with pain as he stretched out his leg, and she readily forgave him.
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