As the last of Tuesday’s rain left the moor in mist, it was, thought Hilary, exactly like it must have been back then in Cornwall. The bleak and lonely road made its way across the windswept land where everything seemed bent and torn, and the silent boulders stood like ancient kings.
One felt the past deeply in the darkness of tussock-ringed pools or in the water-filled, bracken-crowded ruts that led to the stark ruins of the old engine house. The story she was writing came so readily at times like this. Pindanter would have stood here as she was now.
The coach from Saint Austell would have been and gone, yet he would listen for its clatter until the wind and the pounding of the sea had finally found him alone.
Zennor lay that way, to the southwest and but two miles from the cottage, while just a little to the northeast of that village, at the tiny hamlet of Tregerthen, the cliffs pitched down to meet the shattering waves, while offshore a piece, the Carracks poked their ragged heads above the sea to tear the bottoms out of ships.
Pindanter was afraid of what he must do that night, afraid that M’lord Darcy would turn them all in and see them hang from the gallows tree while he drank port with his friends and laughed about it. And wasn’t M’lord Darcy the bastard man with eyes that never looked at one for long?
Yes, Pindanter would stand here like this, with the mist beading on his oilskins. He would stare after the coach and he would pray that something unforeseen would come to stop the whole mad business before he had to light the beacon fire and the Anne of Athlone would be drawn onto the rocks.
Where poverty and hard times had frayed the cuffs of his oilskins, the mist would gather before seeping over the broad and hairy backs of his hands. It would seep into his sea boots too—cold, it would be like ice, and would send shivers through him.
Gilbert Roope had got him into this, got him in deep, she said to herself. If only he hadn’t listened to Gilbert with his scheming ways. If only Blind William’s alehouse hadn’t been there on that cursed moor, the two roads crossing at a broken signpost and him with a lame whim horse near to death.
‘ ’Tis a right kettle of fish I be in,’ he said and turned away at last, as she did, to stand here still and stare at the lonely stack of the engine house where life had been and life had gone with the crash in the price of tin.
The cottage was well back of him now, hunkered down into a distant furrow and with the slates rattling miserably every time a gale would blow.
Alone, and with time to kill because it had to be killed, he headed well out onto the moor, as she was now heading. The distant engine house drew him as it always had until he was standing lonely by its high stone walls. Through the silence, and in memory, he heard the stamp mill pound and the wheel turn as it hoisted ore and the men climbed down into the depths below, the pumps working nonstop to suck the water out.
‘Them was good times,’ he said. ‘Good work, but damp, mind. The damp was ever fearful. Got t’ th’ lungs, it did.’
He coughed, and Hilary spat harshly as he would have done, all the bitterness of a man burdened by a wife and two young babes with nought to eat roaring through her mind.
The vessel must be wrecked. These were desperate times, and they were desperate people. It had nothing to do with conscience or morals. Nothing to do with God and preachers. All must die. There couldn’t be any witnesses. The Anne of Athlone must be smashed upon the reefs. The passengers must be put into the boats—crowded, terrified, a mother calling out for her child, the rain beating mercilessly down to blind her and drown her cries. Oh God …
Frightened by the splashing of her boots, a Montagu’s harrier lifted off the tall stone chimney stack to wing its way down into the mist with a cry, Hilary immediately thinking of falcons and of King Arthur riding to the hunt, of ancient Druids, too, and of the kingdom of Dumnonia, but here before those very Celts, another people, and before those yet others.
Cornwall threw up its history. It was always doing this when she least wanted other parts of that history to confuse things, but she should have brought her notebook—why hadn’t she? Pindanter would have to kill someone. The night would be wild with the wind shrieking in from the sea. He would have a capstan bar in hand like all the others, would be wading out into the raging surf, fighting to hold on to someone now, fighting to maintain a footing.
He would swing that capstan bar, would dash it down hard. A woman, she asked, blood matting her hair to wash away with the rain and the waves? A girl like the daughter of David Douglas Ashby? No!
Angry with herself for worrying about such things, Hilary hunched her shoulders against the mist and plodded up the rutted road until she came at last to the ruins. Then she looked up suddenly to the stack that towered some ninety feet above, and wondered why fate had brought them all together.
Fate had a habit of doing things like that. Fate and Cornwall. This place. She was now two miles and some from the cottage, 400 feet above it and another 300 to sea level.
The tin had been in the granite, but near the contact with the slates and schists that were grey-green and laminated, or black, so black down by the sea, they were all mangled and mashed up against the speckled grey of the granite that formed the boss, the naked breasts like this one, in the heartlands of Cornwall.
The ore deposits were said to be zoned, so that in the slates and schists, in the killas, there was little tin, but in the adjacent granite it began to increase with depth and distance until the lode was reached, after which the tin would peter out.
There were rough-hewn blocks of granite in the chimney stack and walls, buff pink, whitish grey and shot through with black flakes of mica. The blocks were set amongst the laminated slabs of slate—not run in individual courses or anything like that, just set here and there, randomly, with ironstone too. The whole had been mortared to stand the test of time, and she thought then that the engine house and its chimney stack would be here long after she had passed away.
Would they bury her here, if she requested it—with a bronze plaque, bolted to the wall of the engine house? Here lies the body of the Wheal Deep’s last owner, one Hilary Bowker-Brown, author of The Legacy and other novels. All of the latter rejected so far.
‘They’ll chuck me down one of the shafts,’ she said aloud and to no one but herself as she picked her way cautiously through the bracken and the arched stone doorway to stand in the hollow of the engine house—stand staring up at the open windows and portals and the gaping, empty cavern where the roof had once been.
The walls were four and five feet thick—beautifully made—with timbers inset for lintels where even larger timbers would once have spanned the gap between the walls.
From there, up so high and open to the sky, to the black and gaping pump shaft just outside the west wall, was only a moment in time. You would think they might have thought to fill the shaft in or at least to cap it over with better timbers and concrete that had since caved, but no, there it was, staring up at the sky, waiting for its votive offerings. The other shaft, the one that hoisted up the ore and that the men climbed down, was over there, not seventy feet away. Larger and just as empty.
Stooping, she picked up a slab of slate. The rain came down.
The letter had stated:
My dear Miss Hilary Bowker-Brown,
It is with regret that I must again remind you of the insurance coverage. As sole owner of the Wheal Deep you are fully responsible and liable should any claims for damages be brought against the mine. It is derelict and extremely dangerous. You may post hazard warnings if you like, but your father and I are in total agreement that these will avail you little in court. Therefore, it is in your best interests to be adequately insured.
Our statement is rendered yet again. You will note that it is now long overdue. Please see that it is attended to immediately, both to save us all any further embarrassment and to save yourself from further concern.
The
bailiff
In addition, there was a bill for fifteen pounds, ten shillings, four pence at the provisioner’s in Saint Ives. Another for two pounds, two shillings and five pence resided with the stationer—paper, that and ink. Pencils too, rubber bands, erasers and God knows what else.
Yet another bill was for wines and spirituous liquors, namely two bottles of Burgundy and one of brandy for medicinal purposes.
She had had to sell herself—sell a part of her time—to Mr. David Douglas Ashby, who had at first looked so much like one she had imagined from MI6*, only to come further into the boat shed to tell her that he was a schoolmaster. ‘I work in the mornings until one or two,’ she had said, ‘so anything after that is fine.’
Damn! The responsibility would interfere with the writing, indeed as the child already had. To kill her like that, to have Pindanter crush her skull …
Disgruntled that things hadn’t been working out as well as planned, she pitched the slab of slate into the gaping pump shaft, it to fall forever in silence, before hollowly striking a timber and bouncing to throw up a dreadful racket, only to plunge again as the echoes fled.
Try as she did, she could never hear the stone hit the water below, yet knew the workings must be flooded. There just had to be a bottom to that shaft and to the other one, but no answer ever came back.
Pindanter had tried to continue mining, at first with some of the other lads and then, as they had drifted off, by himself alone, stubborn to the last, but did he really have to kill? Was it really that necessary? A woman? A young girl like Karen Ashby? It would mean the end of him. The very end.
He was desperate. Mary Ellen was with child again. Why were some women so fertile?
When she reached the edge of the cliffs, Hilary gazed off towards the Carracks. Again and again the images of what was to come appeared before her. The wreck, the horror of it, that crucial step over which, once passed, Pindanter must fall.
Far below her, the sea boiled into the cove to wash up on the strand. The apron sands went back and forth, while the grey-green slates were plunged into blackness and the granite boulders mingled with them where the storm beaches had built their ramparts.
The boat shed was higher still, set well off to one side of the cove on a substantial platform of broken waste from the mine. To the east, a good 200 yards from where she stood, a break in the cliffs gave access to the cove, a set of steps having been cut and formed where possible, but still one went down there by degrees, and once at the cove, was suddenly shut off from all else depending entirely on the tide.
There was, or rather there once had been, a ramp of rock over which the boat had been launched, but she didn’t think it would ever be possible to do so again. The seas were far too murderous most of the time.
Shivering for no reason, she went back to the cottage, and on the following afternoon while still hard at her writing, Monica MacDonald brought the child. The pleasantries were stilted, Hilary embarrassed and fussing with her papers, only to finally apologize and say, ‘The Legacy is about the tin mines, about what happens to good men when things over which they have no control go wrong.’
Right away, though, Monica caught the drift and said, ‘Nothin’ would have been left t’ them. Nothin’.’
‘Yes … Yes, that’s it exactly,’ said Hilary, giving Karen a hurried glance. ‘They were at a loss, you see. All their skills were suddenly of no use and they … why, they had to turn to other things, like wrecking.’
Light from one of the two small windows fell across the plain deal table whose boards had once held each day’s catch and had felt the endless scour of the holystone. Monica wondered how on earth Miss Bowker-Brown had managed to get the table up from the boat shed. The manuscript, neatly piled, sat to one side of the straight-backed chair. The writing pad, fountain pen and bottle of ink had only just been left. ‘Won’ teachin’ Karen English bother your work?’ she asked.
‘Englisch!’ spat Karen in Deutsch. ‘I don’t want to learn Englisch!’
‘Hush, lass. Miss Bowker-Brown …’
‘Hilary … Please let her call me Hilary, yourself as well. Bowker-Brown is far too stuffy. I’m thinking of changing it to just plain Brown anyway. … Fräulein von Hoffmann, would you like to see the Tordalken? There are still some eggs.’
The razorbills … The switch to German had been so easy, Monica knew she had done the right thing by bringing the child here, but Karen wasn’t having any of it.
Hilary smiled at the girl and said to her in English, ‘Look, if we’re to get on, we’d best get one thing straight. Even if I did happen to be Jewish, it wouldn’t matter. They would still be razorbills and you would still see how they lay their eggs on the rocky ledges. Just the egg and the rock and a bit of bird poop!’
Confused and taken aback, the child hesitated, Hilary translating everything she had just said into Deutsch, then asking, ‘Shall we?’
Reluctantly Karen stomped outside, leaving Monica at a loss for words, Hilary’s gentle chuckle infectious as she said, ‘Make us some tea, will you, and have a read, just a bit? Please, I … I have to know what someone else thinks.’
There were ups and downs for them to negotiate, as well as bits of bog to avoid. The razorbills occupied the steepest parts of the cliffs—sheer drops in places—and to see them, both she and Karen had to lie flat on the rocks and work their way cautiously towards the edge. Only at the last moment did she take Karen by the wrist. The wind made their eyes water. Pointing down to the left, she shouted in Deutsch, ‘Don’t be scared. I won’t let you fall.’
‘I am not. I am cold!’
‘Look, down there. The egg, on that little ledge?’
It was, thought Karen, a very stupid egg and a very stupid-looking waiter-bird with a white front, black frock coat and long, scrawny neck. It stood there looking dumbly up at them, a dunce, and when the wind perilously rocked the egg, what did this Englisch bird do but fly away to circle in the air, the waves crashing far below.
‘Karen, your father wants me to help you learn English.’
‘Jüdin, you are all Juden! I hate you. I hate …’
Shocked, Hilary let go of her wrist. Panicking, Karen threw a glance far below them, then let her gaze come back defiantly as her wrist was taken hold of again, Hilary saying, ‘Look, if you don’t want to come, I don’t want to help you.’
The Jewess let go of her again, and as the waiter-birds croaked and growled and spat like drunken Poles, high above them, the purest white Germanic gulls soared. Ach, they were like Messerschmitts und Stukas.
Hilary was at a loss as to what to say, but managed, ‘Why don’t you tell me about your mother? I’ll bet you miss her very much. I know I did. I felt as though my life was over.’
Die Jüdin was begging, therefore she would spit at her and say, ‘Ein Volk, ja? Ein Reich!’
‘Karen, do you mean you’re Aryan, of the highest race?’
‘To ask such a thing is to tell me you are just as stupid as those birds!’
‘But … but you’re only seven?’ said Hilary.
‘Opa says I am one of the Gewälhte.’
Grandpa … the Chosen.
‘Mein Grossvater is a general. He will kill you if he ever finds out you are keeping me a prisoner here!’
Later, alone and indoors with Monica, Hilary didn’t hesitate. ‘My God, what have they done to her? You didn’t tell me she was ein eingefleischter Nazi, one of the diehards.’
‘Och, please don’ be too upset. David had t’ get her out. He says they’re destroyin’ a whole generation of young people and that it’s very frightening. Thousands and thousands of school-aged children at the rallies, all shoutin’ along with the adults, “One people, one Reich, one Leader.” ’
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer! thought Hilary in despair, the torches, banners, kettle drums and uniforms, rank upon rank and all rigi
dly at attention, facing their glorious leader as in Nuremberg’s gigantic stadium where, from 31 August to 3 September 1933, to celebrate Hitler’s rise to power, more than half a million were said to have been involved, its grandstand alone having been built overnight to hold 60,000. At last year’s rally, he had loudly claimed the Third Reich would continue for a thousand years.
‘David had t’ get her out,’ said Monica. ‘He would never have been able t’ get across the German border had he na done it at Easter when so many were on the move. Och, of course the border guards demanded t’ see his papers, but he claimed he was an SS major in mufti and threatened them with dismissal if they didn’t let him hurry after someone he was following, the one thing they fear above all others being that of a higher authority and immediate dispatch to Dachau.’
One of three concentration camps that had been set up in 1933, and already infamous in its own right, which was saying something, thought Hilary sadly. ‘And Karen’s mother, his wife, what exactly did that one want?’
Fingering the manuscript that she had been reading, Monica glanced out the window to see the child waiting by the gate. Nothing, really, could excuse what David had done, and yet she would have to try. ‘Och, if you knew how much he loves the lass, you would understand. He hadn’t been allowed into the Reich t’ see her, not for a full two years and some, and it was breaking him up.’
She would let a breath escape, thought Hilary. ‘So he kidnapped his own daughter.’
Monica knew she would have to tell her. ‘He and Christina were torn apart when Karen was three. At first Christina did let him go over t’ the Reich t’ see Karen every once in a while, just enough, mind, but never for long. A day or two, then a few hours, then … why then, when Karen was five, he was refused altogether. Och, he’s tried the courts, but theirs are na like ours.’
The breakup had been in 1934, thought Hilary, when Hitler had become president and chancellor of the Reich, the visits cut off entirely in 1936, the Reich and its Luftwaffe in particular helping Franco in the Spanish Civil War. ‘Getting into the Reich like that was one thing, but exactly how did he then get her out?’
The Sleeper Page 5