‘I’ll dance with you both!’ Morwen shouted down at them above the din. ‘Where’s your Daddy gone? Wouldn’t he dance you round the bonfire?’
She wove her way in and out of the cavorting figures, who readily parted to make room for two more little Tremaynes who wanted to join in the fun.
As she spoke, she saw her brother Jack, more handsome every time she saw him. He had his arm around a pretty girl’s waist, a girl Morwen didn’t recognise, and she felt a small shock that Jack, too, could soon be thinking of courting and marrying.
Since he had been away from the family and the clay works and fulfilling his needs with the boat-building, Morwen hadn’t given much thought to how he would have grown and matured. To her, it seemed to have happened overnight.
She glimpsed Freddie too, with his old group of friends, kiddley boys as gangling and tousled as himself. She drew a sigh of relief that they no longer ostracised him for being so posh now he was away at St Austell school, which was as alien to them as a London college; and that Freddie seemed perfectly capable of enjoying himself once more.
‘Daddy’s gone wi’ Granddad to help carry the pies for the feastin’,’ Walter squealed. ‘I’m having two on ’em —’
‘An’ me,’ added Albert.
Morwen laughed, skilfully keeping the two children away from the large boots of the older dancers.
‘You’ll be ill if you do. What would your Mammie do then, with two sick babbies in the house, and little Primmy to look after as well?’
‘I ain’t a babby,’ Walter said indignantly. ‘I’m three!’
‘An’ me—’
‘You’re not! You’re only two. You’re a babby, Albert Tremayne—’
‘I’m not! I’m not!’ Albert screeched, and Morwen laughingly hauled their enraged little bodies away from the group of dancers before they got trodden underfoot.
‘Can I give them back to you, Dora, before we have another war up here?’ she grinned. ‘I’ve never known such tempers. They’d do credit to a pit captain!’
Dora took her charges a mite smugly, handing over the baby to Morwen’s willing arms. Primmy settled cosily into this new haven. But the little boys instantly tore away from their mother, pulling at Morwen’s skirts, wanting her to dance them around the bonfire again.
Above the child’s head, Morwen met Ben’s eyes, and interpreted his look instantly.
How fulfilled she must look at this moment. How glowing and alive, surrounded by Sam and Dora’s children, here on the firelit moors in her own environment.
For a second she felt apart from Ben, alongside her own womenfolk. Yet strangely not with them. It was as though it was just Morwen and the three children, isolated in the soft shadows away from the firelit crowds.
Quickly Morwen went across to where Ben stood, nestling her head against his shoulder as his arm went around her waist. As if they were part of her, the little boys went with her, still clinging to her skirts.
Primmy was held softly between them, and the soft sweet baby scent of her rose poignantly into Morwen’s nostrils.
This is how we should be. The thought suffused every pore of her. Ben and me, and our own little family…
‘Morwen! Come over here, our Morwen!’
She heard her brother Jack’s voice calling her, deep and strong, and blinked away the small scalding rush of tears.
These were Dora’s children, and Dora was impatiently saying that she must take them home to bed before the boys became too naughty, and Primmy kept them awake all night with all the excitement. Dora took the baby from Morwen’s arms. Bess tugged at the boys to help her daughter-in-law, and the spell was broken.
‘Our Jack wants ’ee to meet somebody,’ Bess murmured in Morwen’s ear.
Before Morwen could ask any more, Jack was at her side. Morwen had to look up at him. He must be six feet tall by now, she thought in amazement, as tall and powerfully built as Ben. Jack was the tallest of all her brothers. She had always expected Sam to be, but he was stockier and so it didn’t show so much.
‘Morwen, this is Annie,’ Jack said. The words were simple, but the tone of his voice and the softening in his eyes, and the protective way he held his arm loosely around the girl’s slender shoulders said far more. ‘Annie, this is my sister. I’ve told you summat about her.’
‘Not too much, I hope,’ Morwen said teasingly, feeling this was quite a momentous moment.
Young Jack was clearly enchanted with this pretty girl with the dancing golden ringlets and eyes the colour of warm toffee. And Annie too… looking up at him from beneath her spectacular fringe of eyelashes as though uncaring if she saw anyone else ever again…
For some reason the sight of them both, on the brink of love, brought a lump to her throat. This was herself and Ben… she felt as though she looked into a crystal ball and saw the future… Jack and Annie with a brood of golden-haired children with blue Tremayne eyes, while she and Ben…
‘I’m very happy to meet you, Annie,’ she heard herself speak as if in a dream. She was twenty-one years old, and suddenly she felt so old. She felt her life slipping away from her. She felt as futile and frustrated as Celia.
Yet not like Celia. Celia had conceived a child, and had known the feel of it in her belly. For the first time in her life, Morwen felt bitter resentment towards Celia, and a fury that the two of them had wickedly brought that child’s life to an end before it had begun.
‘Are you all right, our Morwen?’ she heard Jack speak as though from a distance. ‘You look a bit greenish—’
‘Of course I’m all right!’
Ben was joining them, and she forced away the strange fey feelings, and especially the resentment of Celia.
‘I’ve had too much dancing and too much sweet-drink. It always made my head spin.’
She bit her lip, remembering a time long ago when she and Celia had gone to Truro Fair, and Celia had let Jude Pascoe ply her with sweet-drink, and Celia’s head had been turned by the attentions of Ben’s roughly handsome cousin. From now on, there must be no more sweet-drink for her, Morwen vowed…
‘It’s Annie Boskelly, isn’t it?’ Ben said with a smile. ‘What are you doing here so far from home? Did your father allow you to come all this way with this young rogue?’
As he spoke playfully, Morwen guessed Annie’s identity at once. Boskelly… Jack was an apprentice at Boskelly Boat-builders in Truro. Ben had known the Boskellys and arranged the introduction for his brother-in-law. And this was Annie Boskelly.
The girl hugged Jack’s arm. ‘Father knows I’m safe with Jack. He’s becoming quite an important person in the yard. Father says Jack has more feel for the wood in his little finger than a lot of so-called skilled boat-builders. Father says—’
‘Annie, if you go on so, Morwen will begin to wonder if ’tis her brother you’re talking about, or some paragon she’s never met!’ Jack reproved her slightly as Morwen laughed, but it was obvious that they knew each other well enough for the words to make no difference.
Annie clearly idolised him, and Jack was already a different person in the short time since he’d gone to Truro. He had even begun to lose the old dialect, and to improve his speech in line with Annie’s. Just as Morwen had done during her marriage to Ben. In a way it saddened her to realise how they were all changing. In another way, she was pleased that Jack had found himself this delightful girl.
Ben spoke again, as a thought occurred to him. ‘Your father and uncle are to be invited to the opening of the town excursion next week, Annie. Perhaps you and Jack would care to come too? We’re all having tea at Killigrew House afterwards—’
‘Oh, it would be such fun! I would love it!’
‘We would both be delighted, Ben,’ Jack said with such studied formality that Morwen could have wept with a mixture of love and pride. Young Jack, no longer the awkward, most irritating of her brothers, but a young man wanting desperately to impress his love.
‘We shall love to see you both there, Annie,’
she added her words to Ben’s. ‘Perhaps you and Jack would care to come to tea some other time too, when we can get to know each other without all the other folk around.’
‘Thanks, our Morwen.’ Suddenly red around the ears at this sisterly approval, Jack lapsed into his more familiar tones. ‘Mammie’s asked us to tea at the little house tomorrow for the same purpose.’
* * *
It was evidently quite serious then, Morwen reflected as she and Ben drove tiredly back to Killigrew House very late that night. Harold Boskelly must approve of Jack as a suitable suitor for his daughter to have let him accompany her to the bonfire celebrations that night, although Jack had taken her home shortly after their introduction. That, too, was a novelty.
Jack hadn’t wanted to go drinking with his old friends or stay up until the small hours like the rest of the young bucks undoubtedly would. Bess and Hal must be delighted too. Morwen hadn’t had time to speak to them again after the festivities ended, but how exciting it all was…
Another possible wedding for the Tremaynes, and such a feather in Jack’s cap to have captured the heart of a pretty and potentially wealthy young lady. Not that that would matter a jot to Jack. Morwen knew him too well. His ambitions were all centred around his craft, and the Boskelly brothers would recognise and rejoice in this particular facet in their young apprentice.
Morwen sighed happily, snuggling up against Ben beneath the rug in the small trap. The September evening was balmy, the night still and glittering with stars, the moon full. It was a night made for lovers…
‘I almost hesitate to ask for your thoughts, sweetheart,’ Ben said softly. ‘You seemed so deep in concentration, I know they must be worth far more than a penny.’
‘I suppose I was thinking how lucky we are to have one another,’ she said with the simple honesty he had always loved in her. ‘I’m so happy for everyone who has someone to love, yet a little sad for those who don’t.’
‘What a profound statement,’ Ben commented, his voice gentle. ‘Was it Jack’s appearance tonight that brought on this introspection?’
‘If you mean, am I thinking more than usual, then yes, it was Jack’s happiness that brought it on,’ she said lightly, a small bristle in her voice. ‘There was a moment back there tonight when I felt – oh, somehow close to God, to nature, to the earth – I don’t know – I don’t have the words to say it—’
‘You don’t need the words, dar. Your eyes said it all.’
The horse clattered through the narrow cobbled streets of St Austell town, taking them towards Killigrew House. It was as though they were the only two people awake in the whole town.
It was an unearthly feeling, adding to Morwen’s own deep conviction that all of life was only loaned to them.
That they had to give something back and couldn’t constantly take… it was her own peculiar kind of religion, and it was something to which she hardly gave conscious thought.
Only very rarely with Ben had she ever shared these most intimate thoughts and feelings. Without him saying a word, she knew he shared them now as he covered her hand with his; as he leaned forward to brush her cheek with his lips; as he whispered that he loved her in a voice as soft as thistledown, and as meaningful as if it soared out in some vast cathedral.
She leaned against Ben’s shoulder, safe and warm. ‘We’re the lucky ones, aren’t we? You and me; Mammie and Daddy; Freddie, now he’s over his bad time; Jack and Annie; Sam and Dora and the children. There’s only our Matt – oh, Ben, if you knew how I crave for news of our Matt at times. ’Tis the only thing missing in our lives, to know how he fares. ’Twould bring the joy back into Mammie’s life to know it—’
Her voice thickened, as much from the desperate need to sleep after all the excitement of the night, as for the sudden poignant longing to see all her family together again. The ties were as strong as ever.
The Tremaynes themselves were strong, and they always came back… Morwen and Jack; Freddie who nearly went away; and Sam who had never left… everyone but Matt, her dearest…
‘There’s no use wishing for the moon, Morwen. I wish it was mine to give you. If it was—’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m so grateful for what I have. I am, Ben, truly I am!’
‘Grateful? What kind of word is that to use between husband and wife?’ He teased her out of her dark mood.
She gave a tremulous laugh back.
‘I told you I was no use with words, didn’t I?’
His arm around her shoulders meant more than words. His strength and his love were more dear to her than gold. She wanted to tell him…
‘When did you and I need words, dar?’ Ben said simply, using the sweet endearment they had now made their own. ‘There are better ways of showing love than merely telling it.’
She felt the soft colour steal into her cheeks. Even after four years of marriage to Ben Killigrew, there were still times when it seemed as though she stood apart from herself and watched in amazement at the change of fortunes in Morwen Tremayne’s life.
And the best of all, the most glorious of all, was that Ben Killigrew loved her, and had vowed in Penwithick church to go on loving her until death did them part.
Morwen gave a little shiver, as the solemn binding words of the marriage vows swept through her head. They had always seemed so awesome to her. Wonderful, but awesome too.
‘Stop laying ghosts or chasing rainbows, or whatever else is going on in that beautiful, busy little head of yours, Morwen,’ Ben said. ‘We’re home.’
She blinked. Killigrew House lay ahead of them in all its gracious moonlit splendour. There was a time when Morwen could never have thought of such a great pile of stone as home. But with Ben at her side, that was exactly what it was.
The incongruous thought of acting the lady of the house next week when all the fine folk gathered for afternoon tea after the rail excursion suddenly tickled her. But she would do it, of course. If she had married the most dashing, eligible man for miles around, then Morwen Killigrew could accomplish anything. But there was a faint sense of alarm in the thought all the same.
* * *
Morwen dressed in the finest gown her mother had sewn for her. No longer someone else’s muslin cast-offs, adorned with ribbons to make it a little different, but a gown of fine bronze silk with a little matching cape, appliquéd with roses of pale lemon, and a bonnet atop her gleaming dark hair, curled for the occasion by an admiring Fanny. On her feet were dainty shoes made especially for her by St Austell’s best cobbler. Over her arm was a pretty little drawstring bag in which to keep her toilet water and personal items.
Ben was not allowed to see the finished effect until she walked down the sweeping staircase, where he awaited her.
‘You look stunning,’ he said simply. ‘How could any man fail to fall in love with you?’
Morwen laughed, her blue eyes glowing like blue fire at the compliment. Ben, too, was elegant and handsome, and together they would present a perfect couple.
‘I’m not looking for men to fall in love with me! Only one man—’
‘And he did so a long time ago,’ Ben spoke softly as she reached his side. He kissed her gently on the mouth, so as not to ruffle the fine figure she made, and then squeezed her hand.
‘We must leave, dar. It wouldn’t be seemly for the boss and his lady to arrive after the guests. Although I would much prefer to stay here with you and undo all the efforts you’ve made to look so delectable this afternoon.’
His meaning was clear to her, and she laughed up into his face, sure of him, loving him.
‘It can wait, Ben, and will be all the sweeter for it,’ she murmured back.
They walked out to the waiting carriage hand in hand. The day might have been made especially for them. The sky was a limitless blue, the sun warm but not stifling in the still air, and Killigrew’s rail tracks were operational once more. They gleamed like silver, the little engine shone with all the loving care and enthusiasm polished int
o it.
The trucks that were normally used for clay deliveries had their customary wooden seating replaced in them for the excursions, with cushions included to make the journey more comfortable. Ben Killigrew was no skinflint, one and another remarked. He did them proud.
This was a day for special guests. Morwen smiled happily at Bess and Hal, included in the list since her Daddy was Ben’s works manager, a position he had once never dreamed of attaining.
Since Freddie was the only young Tremayne left at home now, he too was spruced up beside them and looking more cheerful than of late.
Morwen waved to her brother Jack and the pretty Annie Boskelly, who might have been on another planet for all the notice they took of anyone but each other. Beside them were the stocky grey-haired Boskelly boat-building brothers.
Jane Askhew arrived with her father and little Cathy, quite recovered from the measles and excited at going on a train for the first time. There were many important folk from St Austell and Truro towns, and Lew Tregian with his ever-busy pencil, recording every moment for The Informer.
Before letting the assembled guests alight at the little junction built at the foot of the moorland slope, Ben addressed them all. He spoke simply, wishing them an enjoyable day, and welcoming them all to Killigrew Clay.
Sam was to be their guide for the day. When the little train arrived at the top of the moors, chugging and spitting and billowing smoke, he alighted first, explaining briefly the viewpoints all around.
The guests could see for themselves the distant misty sea; the wide spread of fragrant moorland, green with summer; ahead of them the gougings of the clay pits, the pale milky-green pools, the gleaming clay tips…
‘I see now why they call them the porcelain hills! They look so pretty, don’t they?’ trilled one large, well-bolstered lady in a cultured voice.
Clay Country Page 21