Jack snorted, still annoyed at being shouted down by his easy-going father. ‘Tin-mining!’ He scoffed, his blue eyes flashing. At seventeen he was a big, handsome boy, with a string of bal maidens anxious for his attentions, but so far he teased them all and favoured none. ‘They old tin-miners thought themselves such fine feller-me-lads, and spent half their time afeared of the spirits under the earth—’
‘Mr Pengelly told us about they too,’ Freddie chirped up. ‘Knockers, they was called. Supposed to look like little old men with screwed-up faces, who tormented the tin-miners unless they left ’em summat to eat on every shift—’
‘I thought you was being taught the right way to speak, our Freddie,’ Hal turned on his youngest son now. ‘You’m not ready to grace any fine London school yet, I’m thinking!’
Bess spoke up in exasperation. ‘I could box your heads together, the lot of you. We’ve more important things to consider besides Freddie’s learning and our Jack’s arguing. What’s to be the outcome of today, Hal?’
‘I can’t tell ’ee that, dar,’ Hal grunted. ‘I’d need old Zillah’s second sight to tell ’ee that. Mebbe one of us should go and ask her—’
‘You know I don’t like such talk!’ Bess snapped, her face flushed with annoyance now.
Freddie darted a look at both his parents. He was tempted to say that his sister Morwen hadn’t had such qualms about visiting old Zillah in the days when they had all lived in the cottage. Freddie hardly remembered how cramped and small it had been then, with all of them there. All the same, it had been a cottage filled with love and laughter.
The only black day Freddie could remember at the cottage was the day Celia Penry had drowned herself, and Matthew had found her and dumped her on Morwen’s bed without realising that Morwen still lay there. He shivered. There had been many lurid tales of how terrible the once-pretty Celia had looked, all white-slimed with the slurry from the clay pool… he couldn’t really recall her face, since he had been only eight years old at the time, but he remembered the nights that Morwen had cried…
‘What be ’ee looking so gormless about now, our Freddie?’ Jack baited him again.
‘Oh, leave un alone, our Jack,’ Bess rounded on him. ‘I don’t know what’s got into ’ee these days.’
‘Mebbe our Jack wanted to go to a posh school like me,’ Freddie chanted, and was rewarded with a swipe from the back of Jack’s powerful hand. Hal was quick to clip him back, and the boys glowered at each other, knowing when enough was enough.
‘If we’ve all done wi’ talk about the excitement at the works today, then we’d best talk of summat else,’ Hal snapped. ‘And first off, I’m warning the two of ’ee to keep the peace at the babby’s baptising on Sunday. I want no nonsense, do ’ee both understand me?’
They both did, and went their separate ways in the small house: Jack to brood on why he felt so irritated all the time, especially with his older brother, Sam, whom he had once hero-worshipped; Freddie to sprawl on his bed in the tiny box-room that was all his own, and to dream of London and the brilliant future he could have if Mr Pengelly, the school-teacher, were to be believed.
Bess, meanwhile, spoke quietly to her man. ‘Does it really look bad, Hal?’
‘I fear that it does, dar,’ he said heavily, using their special, shortened endearment. ‘God knows how long these officials could be deciding what’s what with the rail tracks. Thank the Lord the spring despatch of clay is done, and there’s only Ben’s excursions to come to grief for the next six months. But if they find proof of subsidence due to old tin workings and insist the present rail tracks must be dismantled and a new course laid, ’tis doubtful ’twould be ready in time for the autumn loadings. Killigrew’s clay waggons would have to go through the town again.’
‘’Tis not a complete disaster,’ Bess soothed him. ‘Ben will put safety above all, dar, and it may only be one despatch of clay to go by the old method. Other pits still use it—’
‘Ah, but Killigrew clay waggons will be bound to stir up hatred because o’ the accident,’ he growled. ‘Memories can be short when it comes to putting blame, and ’twas a Killigrew waggon that killed so many folk, remember?’
Bess squared her shoulders resolutely. ‘I think we’ve talked enough about it, Hal. It may all come to nothing yet.’
Privately Hal thought such a likelihood was doubtful, after the arguments that had gone on at the works that afternoon, but Bess was right. They had talked about it enough, and talk alone never solved anything. He was in full agreement with his son-in-law on that score.
* * *
News of any impending disaster, true or false, invariably spread to all corners with lightning speed. And to Truro in particular, where there was always a chance of being paid for information at the offices of The Informer newspaper. The chief reporter and editor had already departed for Killigrew House to interview the owner of Killigrew Clay, and town gossip among the townsladies taking an afternoon stroll down Lemon Street the following day had eventually reached Mary Carrick. Holding in a tight smile of satisfaction at Ben Killigrew’s prospective downfall, she awaited her husband’s homecoming from his legal chambers with much impatience.
‘What did I tell you?’ she finished triumphantly, when she had bombarded him with the garbled tales being bandied about Truro town. ‘Ben Killigrew was always too big for his boots, and this is no more than he deserves—’
Richard Carrick looked at his wife with exasperation. He became less tolerant with her as the years went by, and simply closed his ears to anything he didn’t want to hear. But this was something he couldn’t ignore. More than the disturbing news about possible subsidence beneath Ben Killigrew’s rail tracks at the clay works, Mary’s sneering bitterness wounded him.
The Killigrews were his friends, and had always been his friends. And more than that. Until Ben had proved his astute business sense and gambled everything on owning Killigrew Clay outright, Richard Carrick had been a partner in the clay works with old Charles Killigrew.
Richard had only admiration for the way in which Ben took control at that time, settled an ugly strike and built the rail tracks St Austell so greatly appreciated. He would have liked a son like Ben Killigrew… and that was where all Mary’s bitterness began, of course. From the time they were babies, she had dreamed of her daughter, Jane, marrying Ben Killigrew.
Mary seemed totally obsessed by the idea. It was almost less of an affront to her when Jane ran off with the terrible newspaperman to live in the Godforsaken wilds of Yorkshire, than when Ben himself married the common bal maiden. It was obviously on the rebound, Mary averred doggedly. No young man in his right senses could prefer the clayworker’s black-haired daughter to her beautiful, golden-haired Jane!
No matter how many letters arrived from Jane, begging their forgiveness, and telling them how blissfully happy she was with her Tom, Mary never fully forgave her. It had taken Richard a long while, not because he didn’t want his daughter’s happiness, but because he had an inborn dislike of newspapermen.
But Tom Askhew had written private letters to Jane’s father, and he finally admitted that the fellow seemed straight and honest. And when the Carricks were invited north to Yorkshire on the arrival of a golden-haired granddaughter, the image of her mother, his forgiveness was total. Even Mary had seemed to submit to the inevitable. Now, in a moment, it seemed as if all the old aggression towards Ben Killigrew was back again.
‘Won’t you ever forget, Mary?’ he said angrily.
‘Not as easily as you do, obviously!’ She was furious at his lack of comment on the subsidence talk. Half of Truro was excited about it, and here was Richard, coldly glaring at her as if she had invented the whole thing. He used to be far more mild-mannered, more easy to manipulate, and she liked to get her own way. ‘I don’t forget the way Ben Killigrew came here and calmly bought you out, nor the way you let him! You’ve always been spineless, Richard!’
‘If that’s what you think, you’re perfectly at
liberty to go north and spend some time with Jane and Tom, my dear,’ he said coolly. ‘They’re always asking you, and I assure you I shan’t stop you.’
‘I’ve no wish to live in the same house as Tom Askhew, as you very well know,’ she snapped.
‘Then you must stick to your guns if you’ve no wish to see your granddaughter either,’ he went on. He knew for a fact that Tom was far too busy editing his fine Yorkshire newspaper, The Northern Informer, offshoot of the Truro newspaper he’d begun, to travel south-west to Cornwall for visits to his carping mother-in-law. Mary Carrick could visit them any time she pleased, but by not taking up the invitation, in common parlance, she was merely cutting off her nose to spite her face.
The look she gave him was one of almost pure hatred. If only Jane and dear sweet little Cathy would come visiting without that obnoxious husband of hers, whose flat nasal voice and blunt way of speaking so offended Mary’s sensitive ears… but such a likelihood was as remote as pigs giving milk.
Mary felt her cheeks colour as the coarse simile came to her mind. It was that oaf, Tom Askhew’s fault. She switched her annoyance from Ben Killigrew to Tom with consummate ease. Tom could always bring out the worst in her. She wouldn’t mind at all if she never saw him again.
* * *
The sentiments were in complete opposition to the ones her daughter Jane was expressing to her husband a few nights later. The news Tom brought home to their adorable little stone-built house on the edge of the Yorkshire dales was enough to make her turn as pale as death. She clung to him.
‘You can’t mean it, Tom!’ Jane gasped, her pretty face almost bloodless at the determination in his eyes. He was a ruggedly-made man, a newspaperman to the core, and Jane adored him. Together they enjoyed a lusty marriage, an extension of the secret hours of passion in the Truro days, about which her mother would have been horrified.
Even more so had Mary Carrick known that Ben Killigrew had been a party to them, letting the illusion continue that he and Jane would eventually marry. For some reason Jane thought briefly of Ben in these anguished moments. She loved Ben as a brother, but it had never been with the tumultuous love she felt for Tom. And now he was telling her he was going to leave her… and she couldn’t bear it… she just couldn’t…
‘Jane, listen to me!’ Tom spoke harshly, holding her tightly as though he thought she would collapse if he didn’t. He was probably right, she thought faintly.
She listened to the words he spoke in that flat voice of his, and they were all the more terrible because they conveyed so little expression. But Jane knew that for all his coolness, he felt very deeply, which was probably the reason for all this… she had felt a strange premonition when he had gone for a special meeting with Sir Garside Sefton that evening, the owner of The Northern Informer. She was Cornish, and felt such things.
‘The soldiers in the Crimea need war correspondents, Jane. It’s a new idea. They need good reporters to send back the truth about what’s happening, instead of these rumours that distort everything. They need me, Jane, and Sir Garside knows I’m the best man to send for the paper.’
‘You were never modest, were you?’ She heard her voice break, knowing that if Sir Garside wanted it, then Tom would go. If the country needed him, he would go…
‘Good God, lass, if young women are willing to go as nurses with Miss Nightingale, then you wouldn’t have it said that your husband’s afraid to go too, would you?’
‘I’m the one who’s afraid, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Afraid you won’t come back to me and Cathy—’
‘I’ll always come back, love,’ Tom said roughly. ‘But if ’tis what you want, I’d have no objections to your staying with your parents while I’m gone. God knows how long ’twill be, and that’s a fact.’
Jane’s eyes blurred with tears. ‘You really want to do this, don’t you, Tom?’
She could sense the longing in his voice now when he answered. A newspaperman would always have ambitions she didn’t understand, she thought sorrowfully. Always that need to be where there was action and excitement. And for the past year and more it had all been concentrated in that distant, unknown part of the world, the Crimea.
‘Perhaps I should enlist as a nurse for Miss Nightingale too, and come with you,’ she said wistfully, and in answer he crushed her to him. The faint sweet scent of printers’ ink and chemicals still lingered on his body.
‘You have your own duties caring for our sweet little lass, Jane. I’ll want you waiting here when I come home, whether in Cornwall or in Yorkshire, not in some hell-hole of a military hospital halfway around the world.’
No matter that that was where Tom would be, and most probably in far more dangerous and unsavoury places. Jane shivered, having heard something of this war from Tom’s talk of it. They looked at each other without speaking for a moment.
Then, as though the thought struck them both that there may not be many more nights like this, they moved towards the stairs and into their bedroom, and Tom made love to his wife with a passion reminiscent of the first time they had lain together. Just as spectacular… just as wonderful… and for Jane, leaving her with tears dampening her eyes at the feeling that in the giving, she had also lost a little of herself.
Chapter Three
The April days had been alternately blustery and gentle, but on the Sunday of Primrose Tremayne’s baptising, it seemed as though the spring weather had decided to be on its best behaviour for the occasion. Ben’s father would want to know every detail of the day and its happenings when they got home again.
The air was almost as warm as summer, the moors soft and beautiful and bursting with new greenery and wild flowers. The pyramid peaks of the Killigrew Clay sky-tips on the crest of the hill above St Austell glinted in the sunlight, and the milky pools reflected the puffball clouds passing leisurely across the blue sky.
The talk among Killigrews and Tremaynes, clayworkers and townsfolk, had concentrated so much on the Honourable Mrs Stanforth’s report recently, that it was a relief to put it behind them for a few hours. Ben had given the interview to the reporter from the Truro newspaper with a bad grace, knowing it would provoke more questions that he wasn’t yet prepared or able to answer.
‘For this one day, at least, try to forget the troubles, Ben,’ Morwen begged, as they made the journey to Penwithick church in the Killigrew trap.
Ben glanced at his wife, as lovely as the spring day, and noted the way her hands were clenched tightly together in her lap. He put one hand over hers, and she felt its reassuring warmth. And wondered fleetingly if this day, although so joyous in many ways, was something of an ordeal for her.
It was the third time they had acted as godparents for Sam and Dora’s children, and vowed to care for babies not their own… he squeezed Morwen’s hand, at least intending to make an effort, and put his own anxieties aside.
‘Do you remember another time in Penwithick church?’ he said suddenly. At last he saw her smile, and the faintly haunted look left her beautiful eyes.
‘Would I ever forget, or wish to? ’Twas there that I first knew you loved me, Ben—’ the voice was husky, liltingly soft. He had always loved her expressive voice.
He shook his head. ‘The first time I put it into words, my Morwen. But it was something you always knew, wasn’t it?’
Mischief suddenly danced in her eyes, because she could speak of things now that had wounded her years ago.
‘Did I? I was as convinced as anyone that you were going to marry your Miss Finelady from Truro!’
Ben laughed, caught by her new mood, and forcing himself to forget the gnawing worry of the inspections of the rail tracks that were now going on daily, with no positive results as yet.
‘And now you’re my Fine Lady!’ He twisted her own words. ‘You always were, Morwen, from the day I saw you again after I came home from college. Remember that? When you tripped into my arms and scratched your face on my neck-tie pin?’
‘And you said you had branded me�
��’
It was a good day for reminiscences. Blue and golden and sweetly scented. Even the tang of the sea was carried on the air as the breeze twisted and turned and danced among the bracken as they rode high above the town and towards their own white world.
Past the strange, evocative sky-tips; the sprawling landmarks of the four Killigrew Clay pits; the patchwork of clayworkers’ cottages, snug and warm; the old Tremayne family cottage that was now Sam and Dora’s; and the one where Celia and the Penrys once lived…
Morwen felt her throat thicken a little. She could never pass Celia’s cottage without remembering how full of life her friend had been. How alive… and then how dead…
‘Nearly there,’ Ben said evenly, just as though he could read her thoughts. She smiled quickly, blinking back the shine of tears on her lids. She was the one who had said that today mustn’t be spoiled by morbid thoughts. Today was a day for celebration.
She sought for something else to say, not wanting the day to slip into sadness. Killigrew House had been gloomy enough of late, what with the threat to Ben’s rail tracks, and his obsession with the London newspapers with their current war reports from the Crimea, and the aftermath of the terrible winter the brave British soldiers had spent in atrocious conditions.
‘I wonder what your Miss Finelady is doing now,’ Morwen said lightly. ‘Is Yorkshire a cold place, I wonder?’
‘I daresay it’s colder than Cornwall,’ Ben commented. And then, as if Morwen’s thoughts had been transmitted to him, he went on grimly, ‘But not as cold as for those poor devils in the Crimea. Yesterday’s account in The Times was nothing short of horrific.’
He had read some of it aloud to Morwen and Charles, and she had shuddered, listening to the graphic words describing it. But she still couldn’t really relate to it all.
‘I can’t think why you keep reading about it, Ben. You’re always restless when the London newspapers arrive. There’s nothing you can do about the war—’
Clay Country Page 3