‘Why not?’ Primmy said. ‘Mother married you, and we know what she was. She’s still more of a lady than you’re a gentleman.’
‘Primmy – darling—’ Morwen gasped, but she was too late.
Ben was across the room in a few strides. He hit Primmy so hard that she staggered and fell against the piano. The keys reverberated around the room. He looked fit to do murder, but before he could move, he was suddenly leapt upon from behind. Walter caught him off-balance and knocked him to the ground beside the sobbing Primmy. The boy had him by the throat, twisting the neck-cloth and making Ben’s eyes bulge.
‘If you ever touch my sister again, I’ll kill you,’ Walter snarled. ‘You may be our father, but it doesn’t give you the right to behave like an animal when somebody tells you the truth for a change.’
Ben spluttered furiously, but no words came out of his mouth, and Morwen felt a sudden alarm. In those terrible seconds she could see old Charles Killigrew suffering from the stroke, unable to speak and turning from a bull of a man to a pathetic bedridden lump.
‘Walter, that’s enough!’ she shouted, seeing that the boy hardly knew when to stop. Later, he would probably be appalled at himself, and if anything should happen to Ben after this… She pulled Walter away, and the children all crowded together. The family ties were as strong as steel, and, even through the holocaust, Morwen couldn’t help being aware of it.
And it was only Ben’s pride that was hurt. He got to his feet with an effort, seeing Morwen in front of the group, her arms outstretched. Primmy was still weeping, and Morwen spoke hoarsely.
‘Get out of here, Ben, until you’re sober. You stink of brandy and God knows what else. And I’ll repeat what Walter said. If you ever touch Primmy again – or any of the children – I shall leave this house and take them with me, and you can live with the scandal of it.’
Their eyes met and held. He was strong, but she was stronger. She looked at him unflinchingly out of her blue Tremayne eyes, and in the end he growled something unintelligible, and then went storming out of the room, bellowing back that they’d all have to leave here if their fortunes didn’t change direction soon, and if he had to go on the streets, it would be his pleasure to take them with him.
Morwen closed her eyes for a long moment after he had gone. She stood rigidly, before her arms fell to her sides, and she suddenly felt old and beaten. The girls were snivelling behind her now, the younger boys muttering that they hated Ben, and then Walter put his arms around her.
He was taller than she was now, and she hadn’t even noticed it happening. He held her like a man comforting a woman, and for a moment she leaned against him, drawing from his strength.
‘Don’t let him frighten you, Mother.’ His voice was thick with emotion. He had surprised himself by his reaction, but he didn’t regret it for an instant. ‘I’ll always take care of you, and he’s only taunting us with his threats.’
‘We wouldn’t really have to go on the streets would we, Mama?’ Justin said in a fright. ‘We belong here, don’t we? Nobody could take Killigrew House away from us, could they?’
‘Of course they couldn’t, you little snob,’ Walter said roughly, before Morwen could reply. ‘And if they did, we could always go and live with Uncle Ran, so stop that grizzling.’
Morwen felt the weak tears squeeze out from behind her eyelids at his show of bravado, which proved to her that he wasn’t yet a man after all. If he was, he would have understood the sweet impossibility of his own words…
Chapter Fifteen
Strangers weren’t usually accepted as readily into local activities as Ran Wainwright had been. There were still a few who spoke of the American suspiciously, but for the most part Ran was well liked for his open manners and genuine interest in the clay-stone quarrying. This was no fly-by-night from up-country England out to make a quick shilling and then disappear. This was an intelligent fellow who listened when they aired their grievances and agreed that their pay should be raised to provide a decent standard of living. This was a man who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty in order to understand what went on at the works, and was less temperamental than that Killigrew cousin of his over at St Austell, the old wags said dourly.
And of course, if the Wainwrights and the Killigrews were cousins, then their new boss couldn’t be called a total stranger, despite the strange quick accent they couldn’t always follow. But family ties created instant bonds between them all.
Ran discovered to his satisfaction that china-stone fetched a consistently high price. While profits from china-clay ebbed and flowed, china-stone remained steady, and companies that produced both had the best of it, using the china-stone reserves as a buffer when times were bad for the clay.
Prosper Barrows should have been in its heyday when Ran took it over from an ailing owner, but the huge deep quarry and the grinding mills had been slowing down merely because the owner’s lack of interest had been transferred to the men.
Now, there was a new injection of enthusiasm, and the American owner was not averse to putting advertisements in newspapers and periodicals to advertise the finest Cornish china-stone for sale to genuine clients at competitive rates. The quarry-workers preened themselves on seeing their works displayed so prominently in local advertising and gave Ran of their best because of it.
It was the American way, Ran smilingly told Morwen, when she first exclaimed at seeing the name of Prosper Barrows splashed all over The Informer.
‘I’ve seen advertising before, but not quite on this scale,’ she commented.
Ran laughed. ‘If you’ve got something to sell, you need to make people aware of it, honey.’
‘You also need money to put into the advertising,’ she said wryly, and he knew she was thinking of the fortunes of Killigrew Clay.
It would be disastrous for Ben to start speculating at the present time, when it was all he could do to pay off a few debts at a time. The news seemed to be common knowledge in St Austell and Truro now, and Ran could only admire Morwen for the way she held her head high whenever she walked in either town. Her husband’s circumstances might be in an appalling state, but no one would ever guess it from Morwen Killigrew’s calm features. The more he knew her, the more he loved her, and nothing could change that fact.
‘I suppose you’re counting the days until Matt comes home now?’ he said quickly, and saw her face light up. She had come to Truro to visit Annie, and called in at Ran’s fine town office to admire it. The width of his oak desk separated them. He was the elegant successful businessman, she the beautiful wife of a clay boss. They were cousins, but the ties between them went far deeper than that.
‘Of course! Only three weeks, and Ben will be so busy right up until then with the spring despatches to get away to Charlestown port.’
She hesitated, then said the real reason she had come to his office. ‘Ran – there will be two parties: ours to welcome them to Cornwall, and yours as your housewarming.’
‘And you want to keep the distinction between them, do you? Perhaps we should have special cards printed—’ he smiled, not understanding.
‘No. It’s not that. We want ours to be just the family,’ she said in a low voice. ‘At least – it’s what Ben wants.’
His smile faded. ‘You mean he doesn’t want me in his house? I thought I was family too. What of Louisa? What’s she going to think if your husband cuts me so obviously? Believe me, I’ve no wish to socialize with Ben any more than I have to, but this is being childish and ridiculous.’
‘I know it!’ Morwen said in misery.
‘And am I supposed to leave him out of my invitations as well? Because I shan’t. He’s welcome at my hearth, Morwen, and I didn’t come to Cornwall to make enemies.’
Nor to make love, nor to make this beautiful woman’s eyes fill up…
‘Ran, I’m just passing on what he said last night. He was in a strange mood. He may change his mind. He’s always tense until the clay’s safely on board the ships—’
>
‘He’s always tense lately,’ Ran said drily. ‘But I shan’t leave it there. It will be an insult to Louisa if she doesn’t see me at your house, and Ben must realize that! I shall speak to him. He’s no right to make you his go-between.’
‘He doesn’t know I’m here. He wouldn’t like that either.’
For a moment she looked so abject, so lacking in the fiery spirit that made her so uniquely desirable to him, that Ran moved swiftly around to the front of his desk. He caught her hands in his.
‘Dearest, I can’t bear to see you look so unhappy.’
She pulled her hands away. Not because she didn’t want him holding her, but because she wanted it too much.
She wanted him too much, and the knowledge of it was suddenly unbearable.
‘I must go, Ran. If you leave it until the spring despatches have gone, I’m sure Ben will be more reasonable.’
She turned and went out of the office, suddenly unable to look at him. If she stayed a moment more, she would have been in his arms, and it must not happen. She prayed that Ran would understand, and not think that her feelings had changed because she was so abrupt. If he thought that, he might easily turn to someone else, and Morwen would have lost him as well as Ben. She couldn’t have them both, but with Ben the way he was, she sometimes felt already that she had neither.
* * *
Two weeks later Ben was feeling more expansive than he’d done in months. Some of his debts were paid off, and he was just scraping by. And today, the last of the clay blocks were being loaded on to his railway trucks and being sent to Charlestown port. Clayworkers and bal maidens and kiddley-boys grouped round to watch the last load being hoisted, cheering and dancing and welcoming the spring in their own special way.
‘’Tis a good load, Ben,’ Hal said with quiet pride. ‘For all that you had to employ some scaggies to help get it down to the port.’
Ben grunted. It was the only sour note. He’d let off so many men that there weren’t enough hands for the final hectic days’ work, and he’d agreed to some scaggies coming in and helping out. He despised them all. They were drifters, picking up pennies here and there for whatever work they could find, and fights among them were everyday occurrences. They disrupted settled men and turned the heads of the bal maidens by their bohemian ways.
For once, Ben had allowed the children to come and watch the clay loads leave the works, and saw the way young Albert laughed with the scaggies when they made their raucous jokes. He didn’t understand half of it, but the atmosphere had clearly caught hold of him. The scaggies played up to him, and Ben disliked the way Albert responded.
‘You children can go home now,’ he said sharply. ‘Walter, I’m trusting you to take them straight back. Don’t dawdle, but you can call into your Grandmother’s for a drink, since Hal says she’s expecting you.’
He could hardly refuse them that. Walter had barely spoken to his father since the scene at home, and Ben seethed over it. The boy was no longer a child, although he persistently treated him like one. Inside was the fear that Walter would be stronger than himself one day, and there was no charm in that thought.
But he wasn’t going to bother with all that now. His clay was on its way to the ship, and his white-dusted workers could be pleased at their efforts. He called out to the children again.
‘If you stay at Hal’s until I arrive, you can come to the port with me and see the clay being loaded on the ship.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Primmy said sullenly. ‘I shall go straight home when I’ve seen Grandma.’
‘So shall I,’ Justin said.
‘And me,’ Charlotte echoed.
Ben scowled. ‘What of you two?’ he asked Sam’s sons.
‘We’ll come to the port with you, Daddy,’ Albert said eagerly. Ben looked enquiringly at Walter, guessing rightly that Walter would be unable to resist seeing the final destination of the clay before it went off for refining for the manufacture of fine tableware.
Ben’s rail tracks ended at Charlestown port, from there the clay was loaded into chutes that took it directly into the holds of the waiting tall-masted ships. Some went north to Staffordshire to the potteries. The rest went to more distant destinations, to France and Spain.
The negotiations between Killigrew Clay and these countries were coveted by Ben, having gained the concession in fierce competition with Bultimore & Vine’s clayworks several years back. It was a French ship awaiting the last load of blocks in early April, a good load from which Ben expected to make a fair profit once the blocks were safely delivered. And a few more debts could be paid off.
The scaggies accompanied the rail trucks on their journey, sitting astride the blocks like lords of the manor. Ben rode alongside, hoping that Walter and Albert wouldn’t loiter with Bess. It was a fine sight to see the end product of sweat and toil, and the eight long months drying of the clay in the winter damp.
He remembered his father once saying it was like giving birth. All the hard work was done, and the child was about to be safely delivered… and while the scaggies were unloading, Ben intended paying a visit to Daniel Gorran to report the good tonnage of the spring despatches. It was a satisfying showing, the news of it might stop Daniel looking so all-fired gloomy the minute he saw Ben Killigrew, and could only do good for his precarious reputation.
* * *
‘Why don’t you come to the port, Justin?’ Walter asked the youngest boy when they had had their fill of Bess’s seed cake and lemonade and were back in the cart.
‘Because it’s messy and horrible and the seamen push you about,’ Justin said belligerently.
Walter laughed contemptuously, knowing he’d goad him into some such reply.
‘You’re a soft egg, Justin. You’re better off with the girls. I’m surprised you don’t wear their skirts.’
‘Don’t be beastly, Walter,’ Primmy defended her younger brother angrily. ‘If Justin doesn’t want to go to the port, he needn’t. You can leave us at the gates of the house and we’ll walk the rest of the way, thank you.’
She was cool and distant to him, though she was fonder of him than she ever let on, and she would never forget how he had championed her with their father. But Primmy kept her feelings very private. If she didn’t, she’d reveal how much she agreed with Walter. Justin was a softie, and she really didn’t like him much. But that was so wicked, that she never let on about that either, and made up for it by being especially nice to him.
The older boys left the others at the gates of Killigrew House and Walter jerked the reins of the horse to take them the short distance to the port. He was adept at controlling any horse now, whether he was on horseback or in this small cart, or even one of the carriages, when he could persuade Ben or one of the drivers to let him take the reins. Walter wanted to be best at everything. It was a compulsion he couldn’t explain, but one that he knew was important to him. He needed to prove himself.
He felt a personal pride in watching the clay blocks hurtle down the chutes into the waiting ship. The clay was part of him. He felt it as surely as he breathed, and not just from an owner’s stance. Ben was the owner, but Walter felt much nearer to the heart of the clay, like his grandfather Hal. He would never dare try to explain such a feeling to Ben, who would think he was going queer in the head.
‘Hey there, young Killigrews,’ one of the scaggies called out jeeringly. ‘Want to try your hands at shoving some o’ these blocks down the chute?’
‘I wish we could,’ Walter muttered. ‘But Father would have our hides—’
‘Why can’t we?’ Albert said at once. ‘It would get the job finished sooner.’
‘All right.’ Walter became reckless as the scaggies continued to throw ribald remarks their way. ‘Father’s not about, so let’s do it.’
They tied up the horse and scrambled over the piles of ropes and rubbish at the quay. The scaggies cheered, showing the boys where to heave the blocks and tip them into the dark hold, where the clouds of clay dust rose to
gag their throats and sting their eyes. The scaggies whistled while they worked, muscles straining and bodies reeking of sweat, and the seamen joined in the bawdy laughter at the sight of the two young gentlemen dirtying their hands and clothes and seeming to enjoy it all.
The load was almost complete when Albert leaned forward too far in order to see how the black hole was filling up with clay blocks. One minute he was shouting to Walter to come and see how far down the ship sat in the water now with all the extra weight. The next minute the shout turned to a scream of terror as he lost his balance and plunged head first down the chute.
‘Albert!’ Walter screamed back. He scrabbled to the edge of the quay, peering downwards. He could see nothing in the chute, and he could hear only an ominous silence. He turned blindly to be held fast by the nearest seaman.
‘Steady, mon brave,’ the man spoke in a strange, halting accent. He stunk of garlic as his arms strove to stop Walter struggling out of them.
‘My brother’s down there! He’ll be suffocated,’ he screamed. ‘We’ve got to him out!’
‘Not you, mon petit. The others will find him, but don’t worry. He’ll be black and blue, but not dead.’
Walter shuddered. Putting such thoughts into words made them terrifyingly real. And what if Albert were dead? Their father would blame him for not looking after him. He was the eldest, and would take all the blame. He felt a cold sweat run down his back and into his groin.
‘What’s happening here?’
Walter heard Ben’s bellowing voice. He had been so stunned for the last few minutes he’d been unaware of all the commotion around him; the scaggies shouting, and the French seamen on board the ship getting access to the hold. With Ben’s arrival, everybody seemed to shout at once, and Walter felt himself cringe with fear at the look on his father’s face.
‘If the boy’s hurt badly, I’ll hold you responsible,’ Ben ground out, just as Walter had known he would.
They brought him out carefully. By then, Doctor Pender had been sent for, and Ben wondered if he would have need of his services himself. For the first time, he was aware of a searing pain in his chest, and knew that the London doctor’s warning wasn’t an idle one. Until now, he had ignored it. He hadn’t visited Doctor Pender, nor made the slightest concession to ill-health. But now, as he saw them bring out Albert’s limp form, he knew he was only mortal after all. He waited, hushed with all the rest, while the doctor leaned over his son, trying not to listen to Walter’s ragged beathing beside him.
Family Ties Page 20