‘He said nothing to me, Ma’am,’ the housekeeper said, still stuffy with her. Morwen sighed. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole world was against you, she thought wanly. She gave a nod as if she had just remembered, even while she hated the subterfuge.
‘Oh, I recall it now. He was meeting up with Walter and going to the clayworks with him.’
Her head was too muddled to know if he had really mentioned the fact, or if it was merely guesswork. She knew Ran had already gone to prepare the way yesterday. But it was a fair bet that today the two of them would show a united front to the clayworkers. The two present partners, solidly standing together… and she was the third.
‘You children hurry along now and go to the nursery,’ she said. She felt as if she spoke quickly, but in reality she heard how her words dragged. She had spent such a miserable and wretched night. And if Ran had drunk himself stupid, then God only knew what his head would be like this morning, she thought. Her own was still aching and woolly, and she needed to breathe some fresh air into her lungs.
Luke and Emma needed little persuading. They were still full of importance from the things they’d collected on the sea-shore yesterday, and eager to win Miss Pinner’s praises. Each of them kissed her dutifully, and went off, still chattering like magpies.
‘They’m good children, Mrs Wainwright,’ Mrs Enders said for no reason at all. ‘They were no trouble at all while you were staying at Killigrew House.’
‘I’m sure they weren’t, Mrs Enders, and I never doubted that they would be well cared for in my absence,’ she said, lest the woman thought otherwise.
‘That’s all right then. Just so long as you know.’
As she went out of the dining room, Morwen resisted the urge to salute her stiffly retreating back. She stifled an unexpected giggle, which was something of a relief after feeling as if she were slowly being constricted, when the old Morwen had so revelled in being a wild child of nature.
But even as the thought struck her, it sobered her. She was no longer a child, and a responsible woman in her forties should have more sense than to yearn for such youthful recklessness. She left the dining room, and went upstairs to change into a suitable garb for riding. What she needed now was fresh air, and to feel the strength of a horse’s galloping gait beneath her. And she too, would put in an appearance at Killigrew Clay, to explain the new order of things to any who wanted to hear it. It was her right, every bit as much as the men’s.
* * *
The air was as clear and sharp as wine on the moors today. It was the kind of morning her daddy always said was spruced up and polished to a green and golden lustre, with the glittering, silvery clay mounds the jewels in the crown.
She reined in her horse when she had ridden him hard across the moors, keeping away from the clayworks until her head had cleared. Until that happened, she wasn’t ready for the undoubted curiosity from those who wouldn’t be backward in asking Hal Tremayne’s daughter what was what.
She steadied the horse to a trot, and squinted her eyes against the bright June sunlight. Nearly July now, she remembered, thinking how quickly the weeks were moving forward. Matt and his family would be going back to California very soon, and taking Primmy with them. She pushed down the sadness at the thought, knowing it was what her girl wanted so much. Knowing that she wanted to be with Cresswell.
Her heart suddenly jolted. She had come farther than she realized, and ahead of her was an old standing stone with a great hole in the centre, as if some gigantic mystical hand had forced its way through. Such a pagan memento of a long-forgotten past was a familiar feature on these moors. But this stone was special. It was their stone, hers and Celia’s.
Morwen shivered. She hadn’t been this way for years, and it was probably a mistake to be here now. Ghosts of the past were opening up old memories, and she didn’t want them. She didn’t want to remember how she and Celia had danced so wantonly around this stone, chanting the words the old witchwoman had suggested to them, each hoping to see the face of their true love through the stone.
But she couldn’t deny the warm and pleasurable feelings stealing through her now, remembering how she had seen the face of Ben Killigrew. She could still remember how her heart had leapt with such unbridled joy at the magic of it all. And she had known, even then, that he was the only one for her, no matter how unlikely it might seem for a bal maiden to wed the boss’s son.
And Celia had seen the leering face of Jude Pascoe, Ben’s cousin, who had been the cause of her bitter downfall, and so much agony.
‘Be ’ee seein’ ghosts, me dear?’ came a shrill, cackling voice close behind her, and Morwen jumped so much that she almost stumbled and fell. She felt the snatch of a claw-like hand reach out to save her, and she twisted away fearfully as she turned and faced the old woman.
‘Zillah,’ she whispered hoarsely, her face white. ‘I thought you were dead.’
The cackling laugh rang out again, chilling Morwen through. Dear God, she wasn’t really seeing a ghost, was she? And especially not this old hag of a woman, with her wispy grey threads of hair and her wizened old face. If she was still alive, she must be nearing a hundred years old by now…
‘There’s many a fool thought that, after my cottage burned down, dearie. But you can’t kill couch-grass, no more’n you can kill a body who ain’t finished wi’ the world yet.’
Morwen licked her dry lips. ‘I must go—’
‘Why must ’ee? Be ’ee too fine now to spare the time o’ day wi’ a body that was once of help to ’ee?’
Morwen fumbled in her skirt pocket for a few coins.
‘Maybe this will help to repay you, Zillah. I’ve got no more with me at the moment—’
‘What do I want wi’ your money?’ the old crone wheezed. ‘No. ’Tain’t me who’s wanting summat, be it, girl?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, ’tweren’t just chance that brought you here today. You came for a purpose, and you’d best say what it is, afore old Zillah can help ’ee.’
Morwen gave a forced laugh. ‘I certainly did come here by chance. I was out for a ride to clear my head—’
‘Oh ah. And is it cleared now?’
Morwen realized that it was. It had cleared from the moment she’d seen the standing stone. Dear God, had she really been in the grip of this old woman’s magic these last minutes? She tried to dismiss the idea, but Zillah had proved herself in many ways before now. She’d concocted the love potion that had produced the images of hers and Celia’s future lovers… and she had brewed the bitter mixture that induced Celia’s miscarriage, and instructed them what to do with what she had so poignantly called ‘the waste’.
‘And I see that you ain’t forgetting old Zillah’s help,’ the old woman wheezed again. ‘So say your piece, my fine lady, and let me get back to my cats.’
Morwen dragged her thoughts together, pushing this madness out of her head with a great effort.
‘I want nothing from you,’ she said forcefully. ‘I just want to live in peace.’
The old hag’s eyes seemed to look into her very soul at that moment, and the throbbing headache was instantly back again. But Morwen stared her out, trying desperately not to show how very afraid she felt. She was Cornish-bred, and she knew that there were more things born of mystery than could ever be explained.
But, finally, Zillah seemed satisfied by what she saw in Morwen’s face. She nodded, pursing her thin lips together until they were all but absorbed into her leathery cheeks.
‘Peace, is it? It’ll come to ’ee in due course, me dear, but I’d say you’ve a way to go yet afore you reach it. Your daddy’s found it, but not you—’
‘My daddy’s dead!’ Morwen said, her heart lurching with fright. ‘I’m not asking to die, nor for anyone else in my family to die!’
‘I know all about yon Hal Tremayne,’ Zillah said, turning to hobble away across the moor in her ancient boots. ‘And you ain’t fit for joinin’ ’im yet, girl. Peace will come to you in ot
her ways, you mark my words.’
Her voice faded as she disappeared into a dip in the hillside, seeming to vanish into thin air. And Morwen almost fell over the back of her horse, as she urged him on. She was suddenly frantic to get away from this place as fast as she could, feeling as young and vulnerable as the two young girls who had once ventured here at midnight with such eager, ill-advised, romantic hopes.
Chapter Eighteen
Tom Askhew stalked purposefully through his newspaper offices with a vitriolic expression on his face and a sheaf of papers in his hands. His staff fell silent, wondering who was to get the brunt of his wrath this morning. Most of them breathed a sigh of relief as he stopped at Ellis White’s desk, since few of them cared for the fellow. Ellis himself visibly paled as Tom flung down the papers on his desk and leaned on it, palms flattened, and his face puce with barely-contained rage.
‘So, my fine treacherous bastard, ’tis you who’s been filtering in these anonymous letters to my paper, is it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean—’ Ellis blustered, glancing around for support and finding none.
‘Yes, you bloody well do! I’ve suspected for a long time that it had to be an insider. The wording was too slick by half to have come from a peasant, and the pet phrases were becoming just too familiar, my fine laddo. So what d’you mean by it, eh?’
Ellis capitulated at once, as he always did under pressure. ‘I meant no harm, Mr Askhew, sir. It just seemed a good way to get my point across—’
‘To get at my family, you mean!’ Askhew roared.
‘I never did that—’
‘Oh no? Then what’s this?’
Slowly, like a cat playing with a mouse, Askhew drew out a crumpled piece of paper from his trouser pocket, and Ellis’s face blanched even more as he saw it. He felt physically sick. He wished Leonard was here to help him, but Leonard had never really approved of the letter writing, and they were out of sorts with one another lately.
Leonard had tired of the quiet life and was preparing to move to London. He’d said Ellis could come with him, but it had been said so carelessly that Ellis had dithered, and he didn’t even know if the offer was genuine or not. But it was the last thing on his mind as he gaped at the crumpled paper that Tom Askhew was slowly unfolding in front of his eyes.
He wanted to die at that moment. He’d merely been playing with the idea of a taunting letter about how the fortunes of Walter Tremayne had changed. He hadn’t intended publishing it. He’d just set it out for his own amusement, to see how the words looked on paper, and then got rid of it…
‘You should be more careful of the things you throw in your wastepaper basket, you scumbag,’ Askhew raged. ‘This is my daughter’s husband you’re sneering at here, and however little love I’ve got for the Tremaynes and the rest of them, I’ll not have my Cathy upset by your measly-minded slander. So clear your desk and get out.’
‘What?’
‘Are you deaf as well as an imbecile? You’ve got ten minutes to get out of my office before I send for the constables and have you forcibly thrown out.’
‘You can’t do that! You have to give me notice, and there’s wages owing to me—’
‘Don’t push me, White,’ Tom said, his eyes glinting dangerously. ‘Ten minutes, and no more. Collect any money that’s due to you from the wages clerk, and if I get wind of any more letters appearing in any other newspaper, make no mistake about it, I’ll make bloody sure that your private life is made public. Do I make myself clear?’
Ellis’s white face changed instantly. It was scarlet with humiliation now. He’d always been so careful in the office, but from the sniggers from one or two others, it was obvious he hadn’t been careful enough.
‘You can’t do this—’ he spluttered.
‘I’ve already done it. And you can take this with you as well.’
As he flung a battered notebook on the desk, Ellis’s bowels felt dangerously near to opening at that moment. He recognized his own notebook at once. It was the one in which he’d kept a record of all the letters he’d sent to the newspaper, and he’d revelled in recording all his shady doings in a barely disguised code of his own devising. It wouldn’t have been hard for someone of Askhew’s ability to break.
‘You had no business prying in my notebook—’ he began shrilly, and then wilted at Askhew’s look.
‘Don’t come the pious martyr with me, lad. I’ve had my say, and your ten minutes is already down to six.’
He marched away, and Ellis knew there was nothing left for him to do but to go. He hurled his belongings into a box within minutes, and scurried out of the office, head bent. He didn’t even bother to collect his wages. He knew Leonard would take care of him. Right now all he wanted was to go home and be soothed by Leonard, and to start a new life in London with him.
Ironic as it seemed, he could even thank Tom Askhew in a way, for making up his mind for him. Now, he felt a growing excitement inside him, imagining the freedom of the new, Bohemian city life ahead.
* * *
Morwen felt far too unsettled to go to the clayworks after her confrontation with old Zillah. She was troubled and upset, and she couldn’t face a clamour of voices, some sympathizing over the death of her father, some more than curious to know how she felt about the new order of things. She couldn’t answer any of their questions today. And if Ran or Walter were there, they’d know at once that something was wrong. They’d see it in her face and hear it in her voice.
She turned her horse away from the moors and the sky-tips and began the descent towards St Austell. She would visit her mother, and try not to feel guilty because it had only just occurred to her that Bess would be glad of her company. Freddie would be leaving for Ireland any day now, and she could hardly expect Matt to dance attendance on her mother. Besides, he’d be preparing for his family’s return from Europe, and then they would all be leaving for America.
Morwen sighed, wishing things didn’t ever have to change. Wishing she could hold everything in a state of perfect serenity, the way a chrysalis remained so still and safe inside its protective covering until it was forced into the real world. And knowing she was being utterly ridiculous to feel that way.
‘You’re a fool, Morwen Wainwright,’ she said aloud, since there was only the breeze and the gorse to hear her. A fool to be so unsettled when she had fulfilled all the dreams a bal maiden could ever hope to attain. She had everything… yet right at that moment she felt as if she had nothing.
She rode past the little house that old Charles Killigrew had insisted that her parents should move into, after her marriage to his son, despite her daddy’s resentment of so-called charity. But when Charles had rightly pointed out that it wasn’t seemly for his daughter-in-law’s parents, and a man of Hal’s new status at that, to continue living in a little clayworker’s cottage on the moors, he had given in.
It was such a nice, cosy sort of house, Morwen thought now, and for all the splendour of New World that Ran had built especially for her, there had always been so much love in the Tremayne family in the meanest of dwellings. She gave a sigh, knowing she was fast descending into melancholy, and it was the last thing her mother would want to see. She had to perk up by the time she reached Killigrew House, for Bess’s sake.
When she arrived, she discovered she wasn’t the only visitor that day. She had been prepared to sit quietly with her mother, knowing she’d be missing Hal keenly now that all the initial fuss and sorrow over his dying were past. But she stopped in amazement outside the drawing room as she heard Bess chuckling in quite an animated way, and she opened the door quickly.
The two women in the room glanced round, both faces flushed with pleasure as they leaned over something lying on the sofa. Something that kicked energetically and gurgled loudly. Walter and Cathy’s baby.
‘Well, this is another surprise,’ Bess said, almost gaily. ‘Come you in, lamb, and see how this little charmer’s growing so fast. I swear his grandaddy Hal wouldn’t ev
en know him now.’
She said it so naturally, so determinedly bringing Hal’s name into the conversation, that Morwen swallowed hard. She nodded to her pretty daughter-in-law, thinking that this visit was exactly what her mother needed. And Cathy had been so thoughtful to have come here with the baby today. She had inherited her mother’s thoughtfulness all right… Morwen bent over baby Theo and clucked at him, tickling him under the chin and seeing a windy grimace that might just pass for a smile.
‘Oh, I’m sure Daddy would know one of his own anywhere,’ she said, just as determined. ‘Look at those blue eyes, Mammie. There’s not been a Tremayne yet who didn’t follow Daddy there.’
‘My father says just the same,’ Cathy put in, and then looked a little awkward. Morwen patted her hand, imagining the sarcastic way Tom Askhew would have put it.
‘After all these years, there’s no need to be embarrassed about the lack of feeling between your family and mine, Cathy,’ she said drily.
‘Not on my mother’s account, though,’ the girl said quickly. ‘My mother admires you so much, and always has done.’
It was the most ludicrous statement Morwen had ever heard, and the thought that Miss ‘Finelady’ Jane had ever admired her sent her own colour rising.
‘You’re surely mistaken, my love, but I thank you for your tact.’
‘But I mean it, truly I do!’
Theo gave an obliging belch at that moment, and the attention of all three women was drawn towards him. The tortuous smiles the baby had been making turned to twists of pain, and the next second he was roaring his head off.
‘He’s got a good pair of lungs on un, I’ll say that,’ Bess remarked, and Cathy picked him up at once and tried winding him.
‘I haven’t mastered the knack of this yet,’ she apologized. ‘He always seems to fight me, and we both end up tearful.’
She looked so hot and bothered at appearing inadequate in front of the older woman that Morwen held out her arms for the baby.
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