‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ Lily said in answer to her garbled words. ‘Don’t worry about a thing. You and I will be shopkeepers and to blazes with the rest of them.’
Skye felt her eyes fill with tears. Lily was so loyal, but by now she was already wondering if shopkeepers would even be needed. The Informer’s advertising had worked wonders for the pottery in the past, but the clayworkers could turn their hands to propaganda as well as anyone else. If the whole county turned against them for employing Germans, there would be no customers for Christmas, if ever. And if the boycott continued, White Rivers could be ruined because of this folly. But they had no option. They had to try.
* * *
Skye stared in horror at the ruined packing room. Theo was shouting loudly at the regular workers, standing around awkwardly and not knowing what to do. Skye walked carefully over the broken pieces of pottery to confront him.
‘For pity’s sake, control yourself! This isn’t doing any good. We have to see how we can repair the damage.’
‘Oh, do we, my fine feathered cuz? And how do you propose we do that? By setting the potters to work day and night and paying them an extortionate rate to get the orders finished?’
‘Yes. Exactly that,’ she said calmly. She turned to Adam and his fellow craftsmen, standing silently by.
‘How long would it take, Adam?’
Unbelievably, she saw him fold his arms, his face mutinous. All the others followed suit. Like sheep. Like bloody aggrieved sheep, she thought hysterically.
‘We’ve had a meeting, Mrs Norwood.’
She stared at him, startled, as he used her formal name, but he stared her out and went on grimly.
‘We ain’t prepared to continue with this order. If Mr Tremayne gets the toerags back to work, then we go on strike. And if you expect us to work all hours of the day and night to provide plates and pots for the forriners’ tables, then you can think again.’
‘Adam! For God’s sake think what you’re saying. You’ll all benefit from extra wages, and what does it matter where the goods end up? We need to expand and export—’
‘It matters to we, ma’am,’ one of the others put in. ‘My missus is still grieving over our boy who was killed in the war, and I ain’t ready to think of some forrin fam’ly enjoying our hard labour.’
Theo snarled. ‘Hard labour, is it? You’re not gouging out the clay from the earth and getting your feet and your brains soaked in all weathers – if you’ve got any brains, that is.’
‘I did once, and so did my father before me, and so would my son now, if he weren’t lying dead somewhere in France.’
There was total silence for a few moments, and then Theo’s voice was practically spitting fire. ‘But you can’t seriously mean to strike, you stupid buggers. Your womenfolk will give you plenty of tongue-pie if you don’t bring in your Christmas wages.’
‘We’ll put up with that,’ Adam retorted. ‘Meanwhile, this is the deal—’
‘Deal?’ Theo yelled. ‘I don’t make deals with minions!’
Before she could stop herself, Skye slapped him hard across the face. He had humiliated these good men, and he had humiliated her too. He made to lunge at her, but before he could retaliate, several of the men had pulled him away.
‘Listen to what Adam says, Theo, and stop making a bigger fool of yourself than you already are,’ she said in a choked voice, touched that these men should champion her so visibly.
‘The deal is this,’ Adam went on forcibly, ‘we’ll work for Mrs Norwood and get some goods ready for the showroom, but we’ll have no Germans here, and we’ll have nothing more to do with the German order. It was a mistake in the first place.’
‘No, it was never a mistake, Adam,’ Skye put in swiftly before Theo could draw breath. ‘And what you’re suggesting is just perpetuating what was over a long time ago. I know individual feelings have run very high lately, but the overall business scheme was always a good one. Bringing the boys here was the big mistake.’
‘And I ain’t sending ’em back until I’m good and ready,’ Theo continued to roar, his face purple with rage. ‘I ain’t being dictated to by workmen and women as to what I do.’
‘Then we strike as from now until they’re gone,’ Adam said. ‘Every man here is at liberty to follow his own conscience, so those who are with me will be leaving now.’
He turned on his heel, and the others followed him silently. At the broken door, one of the men turned and glared back at Theo with pure hatred in his eyes.
‘You’ve had this coming a long time, Tremayne, and I’m warnin’ ’ee that it ain’t finished yet. My two brothers work at Killigrew Clay and if we strike, they strike.’
Skye gasped and made to protest, but Theo stopped her.
‘Let ’em go. They’ll soon come crawling back when they’ve got no money to pay for food for their children’s bellies.’
‘How can you be so stupid? You risk putting the whole of Killigrew Clay out of production as well as White Rivers, and whatever else you think, these people are vandals and should be sacked immediately.’
‘Oh ah, my clever little cousin. And I thought you were all for forwarding Anglo-German relations, as you called it?’
‘So I was, and I still am. We must look forward and not back, but you handled everything badly, Theo, the way you always do. And while we’re on the subject of your men and your goods, this is a good time to remind you that White Rivers belongs to me, and not to you.’
He glowered at her. ‘Then you can do what you like with it from now on, for I’ve done with it. But I ain’t sending those boys back home until I see fit to do so.’
He stalked out, his feet crunching on broken pottery and leaving her alone in the mess that was once her pride and joy. There was no one else here now. Even the women who normally appeared for work had clearly got wind of the situation and decided to stay away. Or more likely had been forbidden by their menfolk to work for a boss who consorted with the enemy.
Skye felt an almost hysterical laugh bubbling up inside her. Didn’t they realise – couldn’t they understand – that she had as much to condemn the Germans for as they did? Her husband had suffered a terrible injury because of them, and he had finally died from its legacy. But they all had to go on, to rise above it all, before bitterness became a cancer that in time would destroy them all. If she could forgive and forget, why couldn’t they?
Yet here she was, little more than a month after her husband’s death, plunged into a war of her own, and having to face it entirely alone.
Into the silence of the once-thriving pottery, she heard a small sound. She spun around, her heart pounding, wondering if she was about to be molested, or worse, and faced the scared young face of Ethan Pengelly.
‘What are you doing here?’ she choked out.
‘I work here,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I just passed a gang of angry folk on their way to Killigrew Clay, and Adam told me what had happened. He said I mustn’t speak to you, but that ain’t right, is it, Mrs – Skye? We’m fam’ly, and fam’lies stick together. That’s what Our Nick allus says, anyway.’
And if Our Nick says so, then it must be right.
‘Come here,’ Skye said, holding out her arms to him, her heart full. He was such a darling boy, and Our Nick could always put things right… and she had never yearned for him more than she did at that moment.
But she realised that in his loyalty to her this young boy was about to split his own family in two, and she couldn’t allow that. Although hadn’t that already been done? Vera would stick by her husband, no matter what, and Lily was on her way here right now. Two sisters were already on opposite sides.
Ethan moved towards her uneasily, wondering if he was going to be clasped in Skye’s arms and full of adolescent embarrassment at the thought. Sensing his feelings, at the last moment she reached for a broom.
‘Then if you’re going to stay, you can help me clear up all this mess for a start,’ she said as calmly as she c
ould. ‘We’ll put it all into the packing boxes and then I’ll arrange for someone to take it all away. We’re going to have the showroom open for business as soon as possible, no matter what anyone else thinks.’
Ethan’s eyes sparkled with hope for a moment. ‘Then do ’ee think maybe I could throw a few extra pots, Mrs – Skye? I’m a dab hand at it now, so Adam says.’
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘We’ll show them all.’
She wasn’t sure herself just what she meant, but already she had a glimmering of an idea. She was good with words. Journalism had been her job, and she had written extensively in the past, sending back authentic articles for The Informer newspaper from the front line, and revealing the truth and the heartbreak of wartime from a woman’s viewpoint. Why not make use of that expertise again, turning a bad situation into a positive one? And there was one person who could help her.
* * *
‘Well, this is a turn-up,’ Lily whistled, when her boneshaker of a car finally rattled up to White Rivers that afternoon. She tried to hide her shock at the state of the place, although by now, Skye and Ethan had done a fair job of clearing up. There was still dust everywhere, choking and cloying, and turning the pair of them into ghostly white figures worthy of the clayworkers themselves.
‘You should have seen it this morning,’ Skye said hoarsely, her throat dry. ‘But we’ve been working like Trojans, and it’s beginning to look quite respectable now.’
But as Lily gazed around, unable to disguise her horror, Skye’s eyes filled with tears. It still seemed a thankless, insurmountable task, but she was going to see it through if it killed her in the process. Old Morwen Tremayne would have expected nothing less of her. But it was hard not to feel defeated. She was limp with exhaustion and the tension of the morning, and she was also very hungry, she realised.
As if anticipating her thoughts, Lily dumped the hamper she was carrying, seeing that Skye looked all in.
‘Food and drink before anything else, my girl,’ she announced. ‘No army ever won a war on an empty stomach, and we three will have a jolly picnic before you tell me your plans.’
Skye gave a short laugh. ‘What plans?’ she shrugged.
‘Oh, I’m sure you must have some by now,’ Lily said. ‘You were never short of ideas, however far-fetched they seemed.’
‘Well, I have thought of something,’ Skye murmured. ‘But it will depend on how far David Kingsley will go to help me.’
‘The newspaper chappie? Oh well, that’ll be no problem, will it?’ Lily said with a grin. ‘You’ll get no opposition from him. He was always your willing slave, ready to do anything you asked.’
‘Not always,’ Skye said, aware that Ethan Pengelly was becoming more interested by the minute at this female talk. ‘But at least he’s a more impartial newspaperman than most, and I think he may agree to champion our cause.’
Lily looked at her thoughtfully, seeing her white face and her luminous blue eyes, as beautiful as ever, but seemingly almost too large for her face now.
‘Are you really ready to do battle, Skye? So soon after Philip, I mean?’ she asked, more gently.
Skye gave a brief smile. ‘I’m more than ready, and you know as well as I do that Philip was always one to champion a cause too.’
Not that he’d enjoy the spectacle of his wife becoming a shopkeeper, or wrangling with common folk, or writing impassioned articles for a provincial newspaper. But since it was her choice and not his, she didn’t feel the least bit of guilt in recognising that his opinions no longer mattered.
‘So where do we begin?’ Lily said, when they had finished the bread and cheese and bottles of lemonade that she had so thoughtfully brought.
‘Ethan has already begun,’ Skye told her, giving him a warm smile. ‘I’ve telephoned for a locksmith to come and fix a new lock on the door and make it safe, and I shall speak to David Kingsley this evening. Meanwhile, we’ll finish clearing this mess up, and put up a “Temporarily Closed” sign.’
‘What do you think Theo will have to say about that?’
‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for what Theo thinks. This is my property, not his. Granny Morwen left it to me, and I’ve no intention of letting her down by throwing in the towel after one little setback.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Lily said softly. ‘She’d have been so proud of you. But then, she always was,’
It was a sentiment that left Skye glowing for the rest of the day until she finally said they had done enough. By now the door was fixed, and Ethan had gone home.
Since they both had their motor cars at the pottery, Lily followed Skye down the undulating slopes of the moors until they reached New World, where Lily would stay.
‘Mother will probably wash her hands of me, anyway, when she hears the stand we’re about to make,’ she had told Skye cheerfully. ’Lady Charlotte always had to hold her head up high in the community, no matter what anyone else did. She missed her vocation in not being born a Killigrew.’
Skye laughed. ‘You do me so much good, Lily, and the children will love having you here. This house has been so gloomy lately, and I really can’t bear it.’
‘Poor love. Do you miss him so very much?’ Lily said sympathetically.
Skye lowered her eyes. For a horrible moment she had been tempted to tell the truth and shock her cousin rigid. To say that no, she really didn’t miss Philip at all, and the house was a much more relaxed place without him… it was just gloomy with the aftermath of a death in the family and its required sense of hushed reverence. If the whole truth be told then this resolve to do something positive about the pottery had given her just the boost she needed.
‘I’ll survive, Lily. And thankfully, the children seem to be taking things in their stride now.’
‘Children are very resilient,’ said Lily, not realising how neatly Skye had turned her thoughts away from the widow’s own feelings.
‘So let’s decide what to do next. I suggest that when I call David I’ll ask him to come here for a meeting. I don’t want to say anything over the telephone. What do you think?’ Skye said, bringing her into the plans.
‘I think you’re bloody marvellous,’ her cousin replied.
‘But apart from that?’ Skye said solemnly, before a smile broke over both their faces.
Before they thought of doing anything else, though, they spent an hour with the children in the nursery to help settle them down. Lily was totally undomesticated and had no maternal instincts on her own account, but she was always ready to play rough-and-tumble with the three of them. Oliver in particular, adored her.
‘I could be jealous,’ Skye said mildly, when he screamed that he would let no one else put him to bed but Lily.
But she wasn’t. Lily was like a sweet breath of moorland air inside New World, and she resolved that from now on, no one should treat this house of mourning as somewhere akin to the grave itself. Victorian protocol was of another age, and tomorrow Skye would order that the curtains should be drawn right back from all the windows, instead of still half shading the daylight. Others could think what they chose. This was her house, and she made the decisions.
Glory be, she thought. I’m in danger of becoming as strident as Lily!
Not that that was any bad thing. But all that was for tomorrow, and there was still tonight…
* * *
‘David, it’s Skye Norwood here.’
‘Skye, my dear, how are you?’ his voice said cautiously. It was odd how you could detect every nuance in a person’s voice over the telephone, she mused, sometimes more acutely than when you were facing them. And he was clearly wary of how she was reacting to her husband’s death. He had sent the usual card of condolence, but nothing more.
‘I’m well enough, thank you, but my state of health is not why I’m calling. There was some trouble at Killigrew Clay a few days ago, and I fear that it’s overlapping into White Rivers. Maybe you’ve heard something about it already?’
‘I’m afraid I have. Such
news travels fast, Skye. I presume you’d like me to print your side of it?’
Of course the news would have travelled. Clayworkers were never slow to air their grievances, but his words gave her the perfect opening. ‘I’d rather not say anything more over the telephone, but I wondered if you could come here this evening to discuss a plan of action with my cousin Lily Pollard and myself? And I’ll give you the correct version, David.’
It had suddenly struck her that he might have already heard a very different and damning version.
He spoke again. ‘This evening, you say?’
‘Yes. Why don’t you come to dinner?’ she added hastily.
‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked. ‘I mean, do you feel up to having an extra dinner guest?’
‘I never felt more up to it,’ she repeated quaintly. ‘And I need your support, David. About seven o’clock?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Skye replaced the receiver slowly and drew a deep breath. She had begun the process that she hoped was going to stop the total annihilation of everything she had worked for all these years. Everything Morwen had approved for her.
Lily said, ‘You handled that very well. Just as long as he doesn’t think you’re harbouring fond thoughts about him.’
‘I shouldn’t think so. We dealt with all that a long time ago. And besides—’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, love. I just didn’t think. No one would dream of your having such thoughts about anyone else so soon after your husband’s death.’
They certainly wouldn’t dream of her having yearnings for Nick Pengelly, but that thought had been uppermost in her mind at that moment. It wouldn’t go away, no matter how much Skye tried to make it. And it was David himself who brought up his name once dinner was over and the three of them sat companionably in the sitting-room of New World.
White Rivers Page 25