Pennyroyal

by Stella Whitelaw

  “We could look through his study. If there are any papers, then that’s where they’ll be. He used the little front room off the hall.”

  The room had not been opened for weeks. The air was stale, the curtains half-drawn, the desk still as her grandfather had left it, the evening before he died. Cassy went across to the window to let in the afternoon sunlight, the disturbed dust motes dancing in concentric whirls.

  “It looks as if someone has a fan club.”

  She heard Jake’s amused drawl behind her and turned to see what had prompted the remark.

  The walls of her grandfather’s study were festooned with glossy photographs, magazine covers, cuttings from the fashion pages, snippets from newspapers now curled and browning with age.

  They were pinned to every available space. Some of the glossier photographs had pride of place in frames on his desk. All the pictures were of Cassandra Ridgeway, the model, the cover girl, the fashionable seen-around girl about Town. Her lovely face smile mysteriously from every single frame.

  “Good heavens,” said Cassy, embarrassed. “I had no idea. What a collection. They go back years. Don’t look at them.”

  Jake was traversing the walls, head at an angle as if assessing paintings in an art gallery. He tapped a faded, full-length shot of Cassy looking windswept on a Scottish moor.

  “I like this one. It’s natural looking.”

  “I think it was taken on Rannoch Moor.”

  “And this?”

  It was a large penetrating close-up, her hair for once ruthlessly scraped back so that her face was all eyes and cheekbones. Few faces could withstand such scrutiny but Cassy’s unconscious beauty shone right through the camera lens.

  “That was for a new brand of perfume called Mandala.” She began opening drawers and bringing out piles of paper and files. Her grandfather’s collection of photographs had upset her profoundly. She had not known that he followed her career so closely, even to the extent of buying magazines in which he could have no interest beyond her photograph. It spoke of a love and pride that she had not deserved. She had kept her promise to her mother, but the cost had been too high.

  “And who is this skinny, little miss holding a Mickey Mouse bucket?” Jake was grinning.

  He had found a group of childhood snaps on the mantelpiece and was looking at them with more interest than the professional shots.

  “Don’t knock it. The bucket is still selling,” said Cassy drily, wishing Jake would stop looking at the photographs. She was longing for a hot bath and a change of clothes. She could leave Jake to get the information by himself but she did not quite trust him. She ought to sift through the papers quickly to see if there was anything confidential that should be removed.

  There were documents relating to the mine, assessments of the mineral veins at the turn of the century and evidence of the actual financial returns. The figures looked complicated and Cassy was tired. She left Jake absorbed in some beautifully drawn and coloured maps and went to find Mrs. Hadlow.

  “You’ve been my grandfather’s housekeeper for years, haven’t you?” Cassy began. “What was it like when you first came here, when my mother was little?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve been here a very long time. I came in 1940,” said Mrs. Hadlow. “My dear husband had been killed at Dunkirk. Your mother was nearly nine years old. Lovely little thing she was, not unlike you in colouring, but she was not as tall as you. She was so small and slight, she was like a fairy. And your grandfather doted on her. In fact, she was quite spoilt when I arrived here; it took a few months to get that young lady into order.”

  “Did they get on well together, my mother and my grandfather?” Cassy was probing, not certain what she was looking for, but knowing there was something more to the closing of Pennyroyal.

  “Alician was willful, there’s no doubt, but your grandfather always loved her. She was all he had. His wife died soon after the baby’s birth and his life revolved around Alician.”

  Cassy listened to Mrs. Hadlow reminiscing on about Alician’s childhood years. She imagined the little girl, fair and fey, getting her own way with a mixture of fierce independence and an innocent charm. Thomas Ridgeway would have been at a disadvantage, a young widower, bewildered by the loss of his frail wife and left with the difficult responsibility of bringing up his small daughter. The seeds of waywardness had been sown long before Mrs. Hadlow arrived at Ridge House.

  It did not make sense. Alician had no reason to hate her father. He had loved her. So why those desperate pleading words…“Promise me, Cassy, never to see him again…”?

  “Who was Lewis?” Cassy asked.

  Mrs. Hadlow hardly paused in her knitting, but she lifted the garment and peered at the stitches. “I’ve gone wrong,” she said. “That’s what comes of talking and knitting at the same time.” She sighed and began the tedious unpicking.

  Cassy gave up. How could she ask Mrs. Hadlow why Alician had come to hate her father?

  “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mrs. Hadlow,” said Cassy.

  “Mind you do that, Miss Cassy, or I’ll be disappointed. There’s always a welcome for you at Ridge House. This is really your home and you know that.”

  As Cassy slipped the Daimler into gear and reversed into the lane, she realised that she had not told Jake Everand that she was going. There was no real reason why she should. It might demonstrate her indifference if she left without a word.

  It had been an amazing day and Cassy felt an undercurrent of excitement pulsing through her veins.

  It was total insanity to let Jake Everand influence her in any way. She ought to return to London to give herself time to cool off; but the fascination of Pennyroyal was strong, as strong as her wanton desire to feel that man close to her again. It was a craving that had an element of self-destruction. Cassy knew it was dangerous, but like the moth, she was dazzled by the bright flame.

  She began the process of removing him from her mind, but her face told another story. Her reflection in the driving mirror was of softly flushed cheeks, eyes languorous and glowing. If this was the effect of one kiss, how would she look if this madness continued?

  Probably bleary-eyed and haggard from lack of sleep and crying, she rebuked herself sternly, as she drove into the small car-park behind Castle Inn.

  The bath water was hot and took the last ache out of her body. Cassy had ordered her evening meal for eight o’clock so she had no need to hurry. She shampooed her mane of hair, surprised at the amount of grime it had managed to collect.

  She did not stop rinsing until she was satisfied it was squeaky clean. As she sat wrapped in her towelling robe, she began to feel really relaxed and comfortable for the first time that day, rubbing a silky body oil into her feet and legs, the familiar actions allowing her to become herself again.

  The woman who walked downstairs into the Castle Inn bar was a vision rarely seen in those parts. Cassy had for years worn only the palest of neutral colours; it was a policy which enabled her to assemble a wardrobe of expensive clothes which mixed and matched and always looked perfect. With her tawny hair and luminous honey-tanned skin, she had the appearance of some golden princess, elegant and remote.

  Yet there was nothing cold about her looks; everything about her appearance was tinged with warmth and radiance.

  Even her back view was beautiful. Jake Everand stopped in the doorway, caught out by the realisation that one glimpse of Cassandra was overwhelming. She had a rare talent for touching off primitive responses that he normally kept well hidden.

  He swung on his heel and went back out into the cold night air. He would eat elsewhere, some cheery welcoming hostelry on the road to Matlock where the green eyes of Miss Ridgeway would not tempt or mock him.

  “What can I get for you, Miss Ridgeway?” asked Bert Armstrong from behind the bar.

  “You won’t make a fortune out of me,” said Cassy. “I’d like a tonic and lemon, no ice, thank you.”

  “I can see what you mean,” he said. “It’s
no wonder you’re so slim, and very becoming if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  She smiled at him and hitched herself up on to a bar stool, her long legs curling round the frame. She sipped her drink slowly.

  “You must know everything about Netherdale,” she said in a friendly, casual manner. “Pennyroyal must have been the heart of the place at one time. Do you happen to know when the mine closed?”

  Even as she spoke, she knew she had missed something. An elusive piece of information had been presented to her and she had not grasped its significance. Whatever was it? As Bert Armstrong chatted, part of her mind was raking over the day’s events, trying to remember what it was that she had missed.

  “Now that was a bit before my time,” he said, polishing glasses. “I did hear it said that one day the Pennyroyal was open and the next day it was closed and everyone paid off.”

  “How very mysterious.”

  “The storm at Pennyroyal, that’s how people used to refer to it.”

  “Storm?” asked Cassy curiously. “Did they mean a thunder and lightning storm, or a storm of passion, anger?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” said Bert Armstrong, backing off. But he could not resist a last remark. “You could ask yourself what a man like Mr. Jacob Everand is doing around here.”

  “Jacob? Oh, you mean, Jake Everand. He’s doing the survey.”

  “What’s a top expert doing in Netherdale looking at a mine the size of Pennyroyal? He told me himself that he’d just flown back from South America, then driven up from Cornwall in order to do this survey. Now, I ask you, what’s in the Pennyroyal to interest a man like Jacob Everand?”

  “What indeed? But I am paying him a good fee.”

  “I don’t think he’s short of a pound or two. He inherited a manor house around these parts, but he’s been too busy travelling the world to live in it.”

  “How very strange,” said Cassy. “He never mentioned it.”

  Bert Armstrong produced a folded menu and opened it on the counter. “Would you like to choose, Miss Ridgeway?”

  It was a pleasant selection for such a small establishment. Cassy decided on a seafood pancake with a green salad, managing to resist a jacket potato with butter. Jacket potatoes were her downfall; she could become addicted.

  She thought about Bert Armstrong’s remarks and it puzzled her more and more how she had been able to engage the services of Jake Everand. Pennyroyal was small fry. He could have sent one of his staff. Why had he come in person? She felt a flutter of anxiety; the survey might not be the simple matter she had envisaged.

  After her meal, Cassy said she would take her coffee in the lounge. This time she had the deep armchair by the fire and a whole pot of coffee to herself. She stretched out her legs, wriggling her slim ankles, the firelight reflecting on the metallic sheen of her strappy shoes.

  “Enchanting,” said a deep, grave voice. “I hope angels don’t ever rick their ankles in such high heels.”

  “No chance. We have a celestial insurance scheme.”

  Jake stood in the oak-beamed doorway, tall and cryptic, a bottle of old brandy in one hand and two glasses dangling from his fingers. There was music coming from the bar, the sound of voices and laughter; Jake and Cassy looked at each other as if they had forgotten anyone else existed for miles around.

  “I thought you might like to join me in a toast to that grand old mine, Pennyroyal,” he said, putting the bottle and glasses down on the table beside her. “To the first trip underground tomorrow.”

  His voice was casual, betraying nothing of the maelstrom of feeling that whirled between them. Cassy withdrew her toes from the fire and sat back.

  “What a nice idea,” she said lightly. “Though I’m sure someone as experienced as you won’t be needing any luck.”

  “Never turn down luck, Cassy. She’s a mercurial lady.”

  He smiled the lazy grin that showed his irregular tooth, the one flaw in his good looks that could make her heart turn over.

  She reminded herself how rude and arrogant he could be yet, despite this, all she really wanted was to feel his arms holding her again.

  “Then here’s to lady luck,” she said, taking the glass he had poured for her. She looked at the lines on his face, no longer bantering, etching them into her heart. “May she never leave you, down the Pennyroyal or anywhere else in the world.”

  Chapter Four

  “You are not coming down the mine.”

  “This may come as a surprise to you, Jake, but I am! As you can see, this time I’m well prepared.”

  Cassy straightened her back, determined that Jake would neither weaken her resolve nor set her blood on fire. They were standing in the dusty yard of Pennyroyal, the wind rushing down the windy gates of Winnats Pass with spiteful fingers, tossing Cassy’s hair around and across her face. Cassy pulled a Dior scarf out of her pocket and tied her hair back in a firm knot.

  Jake looked big and bulky in a one-piece, waterproof garment and rubber boots. A row of studs fastened the tunic top to his neck, but Cassy caught sight of a thick jersey rib at his throat. He was obviously anticipating the cold down the mine.

  “What a fetching outfit,” he said mildly. He ran a hand down her arm slowly, right to her fingertips, as if testing for quality. “What do you call it? A Bond Street second?”

  “I don’t call it anything,” she sparked.

  Cassy had made sure that Jake could not taunt her for not wearing the right clothes. Over her jeans she was wearing waterproof trousers and a thick, padded anorak, all once belonging to her grandfather and borrowed from Mrs. Hadlow the previous afternoon.

  She knew sneakers were unsuitable footwear for the trip ahead but the long trouser legs were covering her feet. Everything was oversized. She felt like the Michelin Man. There was a momentary gleam of amusement in Jake’s flinty eyes.

  “I’ll give you six for trying,” he commented laconically.

  “As that’s over half a score, put me down for the trip,” Cassy said quickly.

  Albert Beadle was unloading the Land Rover. There seemed to be a lot of equipment, including a pump to inflate the dinghy. A pile of instrument boxes and tools grew on the paved stones. Cassy was impressed. She went to the parked Daimler and took a rucksack off the front seat.

  “A thermos of hot coffee. Extra point,” she awarded herself cheerily. “That makes seven.”

  Jake shouldered one of the boxes, and took it inside the office, but Albert grinned with a nod of approval.

  “Good idea, miss,” he said. “There’s nothing like a hot brew when you’re down below.”

  “And an extra pair of hands,” said Cassy, lifting a leather-cased surveying instrument and following Jake into the office. “There, I’m up to eight already.”

  Jake swung round and caught her shoulders, his fingers pinching hard into the soft flesh. For one stupid moment, it flashed across her mind that she was going to be kissed again but this was instantly erased by the expression on his face.

  “You have scored exactly zero,” he warned. “And be careful with that theodolite. It’s not a mink coat.”

  “Okay, not a mink coat,” she said, setting it down with exaggerated care. “So, you used to work the Pennyroyal,” Cassy said to Albert. “How long ago was that?”

  “Quite a time, miss. I was just a lad.” His lined face was inscrutable.

  “You must know the mine really well then,” Cassy prattled on, trying to put him at his ease.

  “There’s not much Mr. Everand don’t know about mines.”

  “But every mine is different, isn’t it? There’s so much I don’t know. For instance, what are these rakes and scrins and pipes Mr. Everand was talking about yesterday?”

  “Now that’s an easy one,” said Albert, quite willing to talk on a safer subject. “They’re different types of lead vein you get around here. A rake is a really big vein; why it could go for a mile or more, right across the country. It usually goes straight downwards, or sloping a bi
t, sometimes ten feet in width. If you find a rake, then you’re into the big money.”

  “Not much chance of that. And a scrin?”

  “A scrin is a small vein branch off a big rake, perhaps a few inches wide and maybe not more than a few hundred yards in length; but still worth finding, the price lead is today. Pipes now are just little bits of patchy stuff lying about.”

  “I want to learn all I can,” said Cassy. “Pennyroyal was my grandfather’s mine and I ought to know all about it. When did it close, Albert? No one seems to remember.”

  “No, I don’t rightly remember either,” said Albert, returning to the work of shifting equipment. “I’d already left. I went to work steel in Sheffield. That were quite a time ago. Now, don’t you lift that one, miss. It’ll be too heavy.”

  Cassy found herself shunted off with a coil of cable in its original polythene wrapping. She shrugged her shoulders and dumped the cable by the pile at the mine entrance. No one seemed to remember anything.

  Why all the mystery? Perhaps Mrs. Hadlow would be more forthcoming.

  The entrance was flooded in light. Jake had brought in some sort of auxiliary lighting and was halfway down the flight of steps, replacing the blown bulbs.

  “Looks bright,” she called out. “You’ve been busy.”

  “It’s called electricity,” Jake informed her. “I reckon it’ll catch on.”

  “Is that a prediction? I’m not letting you read my tea leaves.”

  She did not hear his reply as he went out of earshot, but it sounded light and bantering. Perhaps he was beginning to accept having her around and that was a good sign. She was determined to go with the two men, whatever Jake said.

  Cassy wondered what Anton would think if he could see her now, hair scruffed back, the shapeless clothes hiding her figure, probably a film of Derbyshire dust on her face. She was almost happy, humping goods like a navvy, beginning to feel quite warm inside the layers.

  With a pang she thought of the agency she had always wanted to own: “Cassandra.“ An agency run with an impeccable efficiency so that every client could rely on the organisation and every girl would feel that she was an important part of its image. Cassy knew she could do it. She just needed her chance.