‘Well, yes, I believe he’s here,’ she said, flustered. ‘But are you sure you’re ready for business? I mean, well, it’s so soon, and I’m sure there’s no need for you to bother with such things until you feel more like yourself.’
‘For pity’s sake Betsy, don’t baby me! I never felt more like myself, and if anyone expects me to shut myself away for months on end like some latterday Queen Victoria, then they don’t know me as well as they think they do.’
She heard a slow handclap coming from the open sitting-room, and the next moment Theo sauntered through it.
‘Well said, cuz. I always knew you had more fire in your belly than the rest of the clan put together. So what’s this business matter that won’t wait?’
Betsy melted into some retreat of her own without even being noticed. Skye followed Theo into the sitting-room and shook her head at his offer of a snifter of brandy.
‘I’ve been to see Roland Dewy’s wife,’ she said.
He paused in mid-pouring. ‘Good God. Was that wise? I wish you’d leave such things to me, girl.’
‘Why should I? Anyway, it was quite accidental. I had stopped my car for a breather and she thought I was unwell and invited me into her cottage. I had no idea who she was, and she didn’t know me until we introduced ourselves.’
‘And I’ll bet she was almighty pleased to see you,’ he said sarcastically.
‘She was fine, and Alice is fine too.’ She wasn’t going to elaborate on that little matter. He could work it out for himself. ‘But I’m sure Roland hasn’t finished with it yet. I reckon he’ll want revenge for his girl being spoiled—’
Theo hooted. ’Spoiled? You think that was the first time she’d lifted her skirts? You don’t know these slappers like I do, cuz, and it would have been just another mark on her bedpost to have been shafted by a German boy.’
‘You disgust me, Theo,’ she said coldly. ‘But never mind that. What do you propose to do about the boys? I say we let them go now before something happens that we’ll regret.’
‘Like starting another war, you mean?’ he sneered. ‘No, my sweet one, they’ve been hired to do a job of work, and they’ll stay until it’s finished. Otherwise, we’ll just be seen as giving in to these scumbag clayers, and no Tremayne has ever been accused of doing that!’ He swallowed his brandy and poured himself another. ‘Anyway, what did your fancy lawyer friend have to tell you? If you’re as rich as Croesus now with some wild idea of paying Dewy off, then you’re even madder than I thought.’
Skye stared at him, not comprehending for a moment, but of course he had known where she was going today. And not for all the tea in Asia was she going to tell him what Philip’s will contained. She lifted her chin up high.
‘If I am, it’s no business of yours,’ she retorted.
‘No nasty little surprises in the will then?’ he said, his eyes narrowed.
‘None that I can’t handle.’
* * *
It was true, she thought, driving away from the house and back to her own domain. The first shock of Philip’s bequest to Ruth Dobson was fading a little. She would handle this crisis as she had handled all the others in her life. And it was hardly a life-threatening crisis! Dear Lord, she had come through a war and faced her mother’s death, then her brother’s, and her darling Morwen’s. She had dealt with Uncle Albie and risen above any thought of scandal surrounding him and Primmy. She had had a love affair and put it to one side where it belonged. For now. She was strong. She was a survivor. She used the words as a mantra, repeating them to herself all the way back to New World. And for once it wasn’t Morwen Tremayne’s voice inside her head, approving her thoughts. It was her own.
And she didn’t even realise she hadn’t once put Philip’s death into her reckoning.
* * *
Theo took her words at face value after all, Skye discovered. He had already taken the German youths away from the clayworks and put them onto the packing at White Rivers, where the Christmas orders were in the last stages of completion now.
He also insisted that they kept to a strict curfew. So, with luck, nothing was going to happen on the Dewys’ account after all, and Skye breathed a little easier.
Two weeks later Nick telephoned to say he’d be calling at the house with an assistant to collect the encyclopaedias, and whether or not that meant he’d located Ruth Dobson, Skye didn’t ask. She arranged to be out of the house on the day he was due, knowing she was being cowardly, but unable to see this last act of spite on Philip’s part being carried through.
By now, that was how she chose to see it and she gave instructions to Mrs Arden to give Mr Pengelly access to her husband’s study, and to obtain a receipt for whatever he required. Everything businesslike and impersonal.
David Kingsley had also telephoned one afternoon.
‘I know it’s too soon to discuss other matters, my dear, but it may take your mind off things,’ he said awkwardly.
Like my husband dying, you mean?
‘Go on, David.’
‘It’s this proposed exhibition of your uncle’s work. I mentioned it to Mr Theo Tremayne, and we both thought that after Christmas might be a better time. I’m thinking about The Informer doing a big spread about it when the time comes, of course, with perhaps some background information on the artist that you might like to write yourself.’
And how much background information were you thinking of? A suspected relationship with my mother, the artist’s sister? Or the way he had transferred that unhealthy lust to me?
David was still talking as she gripped the telephone receiver in her hand.
‘I understand you have a rather large business project on right now, and also, after Christmas would coincide with the proposed selling of the studio and effects.’
Her heart jolted at his words. ‘Who told you the studio was to be sold?’
‘Oh Lord, I’m sorry if I’m treading on someone’s toes, but Mr Tremayne intimated—’
Her quick temper subsided. After all, wasn’t it the only sensible thing to do? Albie would never return to Cornwall.
The doctor who had helped her through Philip’s death said he was slowly going into a complete decline, but that he was well and happy in his new home. As far as it was possible to be, for a man in his twilight condition, he had added significantly.
‘We’ll leave everything until after Christmas then, David.’ And meanwhile, she would ensure that others in the family took on some of the responsibility. It wasn’t just hers. It wasn’t fair to expect it of her, especially now…
‘Mommy, are you crying?’ she heard Wenna’s fearful voice say as she put down the telephone.
‘Of course not, honey,’ she said, blinking back the tears. ‘I was just thinking we should do something while the weather is still fine, and a walk by the sea might be the very thing. What do you think?’
Wenna clapped her hands and then eyed her mother cautiously. ‘But Celia’s doing lessons, and Oliver’s asleep.’
Skye recognised the hope in her wistful voice. Wenna not only wanted her mother to herself, she needed her exclusive attention. She wanted to feel that sense of belonging between the two of them. In an instant Skye remembered the times when her brother Sinclair had insisted on being with her and Primmy, when she too had wanted her mother all to herself.
‘Then it will be just the two of us,’ she promised, rewarded by the glow of pleasure in the small, beautiful face.
* * *
It was something she needed too, Skye realised, as they walked briskly towards the shore and the small sandy cove beneath the cliffs. To feel the bonds that existed between mother and daughter, and to remember that Philip’s legacy to her was more precious and important than all the encyclopaedias in the world. How could she have been so foolish as to let it cloud her common sense? Whatever Ruth Dobson had, Skye had her children, but she refused to wallow in sentimentality, and she and Wenna spent a joyful hour tossing stones into the oncoming waves, and screaming with
laughter as they scrambled back from the creamy swell.
‘Is it all right to laugh, Mommy?’ Wenna said once.
‘Of course it is. Daddy wouldn’t want us to be gloomy for the rest of our lives, honey.’
‘But Miss Landon said we shouldn’t be too noisy and upset you. She said we should have respect for the – the dead…’
Skye caught her up in her arms and looked into the troubled blue eyes. ‘We’ll always have respect for your daddy, darling. But we can’t live in the past. We have to go on living in the here and now.’
‘Does that mean we can still have a tree at Christmas – and presents?’
Skye laughed. ‘Of course it does! Why on earth wouldn’t we?’
‘Miss Landon says it might not be right—’
‘Miss Landon isn’t your mommy, and if I say it’s right then it’s right,’ Skye said, resolving to have words with the children’s nanny about one or two matters. She was a treasure, but there were certain house rules that she had to understand, and one of them was to let the children recover from their father’s death in their own way. Shunning all thoughts of childhood fun certainly wasn’t the right way.
By the time they returned to the house, Skye was feeling more refreshed than when she left it. The road ahead was one without her husband, but life went on. You couldn’t stop it, and nor should you want to.
The children needed their childhood, and Albie needed his exhibition, whether he would be aware of it or not. He deserved recognition for his talent, and despite her earlier resolve, Skye knew she was destined to be the one most closely involved in seeing that he got it. The mourning time for Philip wasn’t over, but she was starting to see things more clearly now and to look ahead to the future.
A few days later she went up to White Rivers to see for herself how the Christmas orders were progressing. The staff were somewhat embarrassed to see her, but when they realised she was here to discuss business, they visibly relaxed.
Adam Pengelly was openly pleased to see her. In his married state as a relative now, he had lost his one-time awkwardness with the elegant lady boss.
‘Our Nick came and had a meal with us t’other evening,’ he told her. ‘He were saying he hadn’t seen anything of you lately, and I told Vera we should have asked you too, to get you out of yourself.’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, smiling at the quaint phrase, ‘but thank you for the thought.’
‘Ah well, Vera said you prob’ly wouldn’t want to do too much mixing wi’ folk just yet.’
And Vera would know the reason why she wouldn’t want to do too much mixing where Nick Pengelly was concerned…
‘So tell me, how are things going here?’ she went on determinedly. ‘No problems with the helpers?’
Adam’s face darkened a little. ‘We had Mr Theo up here t’other day, and he gave us all a good talking-to about not making trouble, as if ’twas one of us who was sporting wi’ the moors girls. Anyway, young Gunter gave him back a right mouthful, and said he’d please himself what he did, and who he did it with.’
Skye felt her nerves tighten. ‘I was told that the Dewy girl’s been sent away—’
‘But she ain’t the only one, is she? There’s talk, see, and the damn fool can’t stop his boasting, nor keep his tackle where it belongs, begging your pardon for being so frank.’
‘I told Theo they should be sent home,’ she snapped.
‘And he’s a stubborn mule,’ retorted Adam. ‘You’ll not be rid of ’em until the job’s done. But most of the shipments have already been sent off, so we’re well on course.’
‘Then thank goodness it’s nearly over and done with, Adam. But I don’t like to get such news second-hand, and you’ll be seeing far more of me from now on.’
As she left the pottery, she realised that for all her unease her spirits were strangely uplifted, knowing it was far better to be involved in something than to languish in misery. Even if it was something that could still have an unpredictable outcome. The clayers were volatile at the best of times, and the simmering resentment against their one-time enemies could as soon erupt into a cauldron of hate, with unforeseen consequences.
Chapter Fifteen
The reckoning came one dark Friday night in early November.
The clayworkers had been biding their time out of respect for Skye’s bereavement, but after the Dewy girl’s departure it was discovered that Gunter and several more of the brawny German youths had been sporting with other girls in the warm linhays at Killigrew Clay, and boasting about their conquests.
It was more than the clayers could take. They lay in wait for the youths, setting about them and beating them about their heads with sticks, knowing that these easy come easy go workers didn’t have to report for work until the following Monday morning.
Although they fought back, the young men were heavily outnumbered. And as if to emphasise that the Cornishmen meant business, the little white rivers of claywater began to run red with German blood as their gory heads were plunged under the milky water time and again until they came up gulping for air, pleading and fearing for their lives.
‘That’ll teach you forrin buggers to mess wi’ our maids,’ screamed one, and echoed by the other clayers, not sparing any one of them.
‘You fools,’ the boys screamed back. ‘They only get what they want. What they ask for, instead of how we were told your bastard English Tommies defiled our German girls—’
The merest reference to the war incensed the clayworkers more. Every one of them had lost someone dear to them and their vengeance was raw and violent. The beatings went on until the boys lay groaning and near-insensible, their heads and bodies a bloody mass of pulp. Only then did the clayers walk away, satisfied that in their eyes, honour had been done.
* * *
There were no German packers at the pottery on Monday morning. By then, still nursing their wounds, they had sullenly refused to leave their temporary lodgings, barracading themselves into their rooms and frightening their landlady with their foul-mouthed oaths. And long before then they had broken into the White Rivers packing room, leaving the remainder of the Christmas orders smashed to smithereens.
Adam Pengelly discovered the carnage with his workmates when he went to unlock the main door to the pottery early on Monday morning and found it broken open, the door creaking on its hinges.
‘Christ Almighty,’ he said hoarsely, as he took in the magnitude of the sight in front of him. In the packing room he strode over the smashed plates and pots, feeling as if he walked on the remnants of his very heart as he did so. But suppressing his unmanly distress as much as possible, he reached for the telephone and called Theo Tremayne.
‘The bloody buggering swine!’ roared Theo predictably. ‘Whoever did this, I’ll have ’em strung up by the bollocks!’
‘Ain’t it obvious?’ Adam said bitterly. ‘The forriners ain’t reported for work, and if ’twas them that did it, they’m keeping well out of sight. Young Ethan said he saw a gang of clayers with bloodied faces over the weekend as well.’
‘So it came to a fight, did it?’ Theo snarled. ‘Well, what’s the extent of the damage? Do we have enough stock in the showroom to replace the last of the orders?’
‘Maybe, with a bit of luck.’
‘Then the bastards will just have to come back and do the work they’re being paid for! I’ll fetch ’em myself and frogmarch ’em back to work if I have to.’
‘I’m not sure that’s wise, Theo.’
‘You’re not paid to be wise,’ he snapped. ‘Get on with the clearing up and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
The line went dead, and Adam stared at the phone in resentful silence. He was a skilled craftsman, not a cleaner, but with one sentence Theo Tremayne had reduced him to a menial worker. Without moving another muscle, he quickly spoke to Skye on the telephone, relating all that happened, and his certainty as to who had done the damage.
‘Dear God, I knew something like this would happen,’
she raged. ‘I’ve feared it all along –and Theo will only make matters worse. He must see now that we must send the Germans home right away. If the clayers get wind of them returning to work we’ll have a strike on our hands – or worse.’
‘’Tain’t only the clayers neither,’ Adam snapped, beyond trying to keep his temper now. ‘We all lost family at the hands of these buggers, and there’s plenty here who’ll refuse to work with them after this.’
‘Not you, Adam? You wouldn’t strike, would you?’ Her voice rose shrilly as everything seemed to be falling apart.
‘You ain’t seen the damage,’ he shouted. ‘All our finest work’s been ruined, and no craftsman can be expected to put up with that outrage.’
Skye knew he was seriously understating the searing blow to his pride. ‘I’ll come at once,’ she said, and put down the telephone with trembling hands.
If the potters, the undisputed linchpins of the business, went on strike, then everyone else at the pottery would follow suit. The showrooms always did well at Christmas time, since David Kingsley was generous in advertising their local products as being the pride of Cornwall for Christmas gifts. But with no staff to price and sell the goods…
Skye’s thoughts sped ahead like quicksilver. She wasn’t so bloody grand that she wouldn’t do it all herself, but it would take more than one person…
She drew a deep breath. This time, she knew that if Adam refused to work, she couldn’t expect any help from Vera. You couldn’t, and shouldn’t, split the loyalties of husband and wife. But there was Lily, who certainly wouldn’t have patience with any strike nonsense, and would stand shoulder to shoulder with Skye as stridently as if she was one of Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes.
Before she even left the house to see what was happening at White Rivers, Skye telephoned her cousin in Plymouth and explained the situation as briefly and succinctly as possible, considering the way her stomach was churning. But it was better to be forearmed, than to wait and see what further damage Theo would do in his bull-headedness.
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