‘Quite right. Where’s the sense in him being Works Manager if he does the work himself? Ben says there’s no point in keeping a dog and barking yourself!’
‘Ben allus had a clever turn of phrase,’ Bess gave a small tight smile, and Morwen knew her mother was more worried about Hal than she admitted. She would get Ben to have a word with the doctor as soon as she could.
Dear God, let Daddy be all right! Morwen offered up a silent prayer. This family had had enough worries for a while, and now that Dora was ill, and with Ben’s court case hanging over all their heads…
‘Have you heard from Jack lately?’
Bess looked at her quizzically. ‘’Tis only just over a week since he went back to Truro. He’ll be busy wi’ his work, and spending his spare time with Annie. She’ll be taking his mind off our Sam, I’ve no doubt.’
Morwen realised how insular she had become at the cottage. She had no idea of time. All the days were the same. The pleasure in caring for these three delightful children was lost in the worry over Dora, and the lingering sorrow over Sam.
‘What of Freddie?’ Morwen said, determined to get a proper smile from her mother, and this time she succeeded.
‘The young can allus get over things. He was a real comfort to me until he went back to school, Morwen. The house was cheerful, despite all. I miss un now.’
‘Well, it’s not far up here now you’ve got the trap, and I’m glad of your company. You can take the boys back for tea any time now they’re better. They’d like that, Mammie.’
‘Perhaps I will sometime,’ Bess said vaguely. ‘Has Ben heard anything about his court case yet? Your Daddy says the men are bandying rumours about like fishwives, wonderin’ what’s to become o’ the works.’
Morwen felt a great annoyance at this news, and was instantly defensive of her husband.
‘Killigrew Clay won’t close, Mammie, nor will it be sold off!’ she said passionately. ‘Ben’s father put his whole life into it, and Ben has done the same since he took control. You know it as well as I do, and Daddy should put a stop to it. He and Sam were always a good team when it came to ending rumours.’
She stopped abruptly, and her mother patted her hand as she saw the glint of tears in Morwen’s lovely eyes.
‘Well, that will give your Daddy summat to live up to, then. He wouldn’t want to let our Sam down.’
They all propped one another up, Morwen thought with deep emotion. When one of them was down, another held out his hand and led them out of despair.
That was really what being a family was all about, and the Tremaynes were a family that was stronger than most.
They both heard the thin voice calling from the bedroom above, and Morwen lay Primmy in her baby carriage before following her mother upstairs. One look at Dora, and Morwen felt a stab of alarm. The girl breathed so oddly, as if she could hardly draw in enough air for her needs, and she motioned Morwen to come near.
‘Take care o’ the babbies if anything happens to me, Morwen,’ Dora gasped out. ‘I give ’em to ’ee. They’m yours and Ben’s, with my love. Sam ’ould want that.’
She lay back exhausted. Morwen said roughly that nothing was going to happen to her, but Dora was already sleeping. She had no strength to fight, and no wish to remain in a world without Sam, and long before the dawn of the following day, she had given up the struggle.
Chapter Twenty
Morwen and Ben took the children home with them to Killigrew House. It had been Dora’s wish, and it was the most natural thing to do since they were the children’s godparents. The little boys were still bewildered by all that had happened, though mercifully too young to understand fully, while Primmy merely gurgled and clapped every time Morwen went near her.
The cottage had been left with the bits of furniture intact, until Ben found a suitable family to rent it. Right now, he had no heart for it, knowing how Morwen’s family and then Sam’s had made such a cosy nest of it.
Once Dora’s burying was over, she and Ben had come to a decision. The children must have as normal a life as possible. From now on they would be brought up as their own family, with no thought of favour to any child of their own that may eventually arrive.
Only Bess guessed at the guilty delight that caring for Sam and Dora’s children brought to Morwen. In her heart Morwen knew it was almost wicked to thank God for giving her this chance of fulfilment. In doing so it seemed that she was thanking Him for Sam and Dora’s deaths. But it wasn’t meant like that, and Morwen hoped fervently that God would understand.
But now when she went walking in the town she looked every bit the young matron with a small family. Walter and Albert soon got over their shyness when ladies paused to admire the straight-backed children with their shining dark hair and blue Tremayne eyes, already looking as handsome as their father. And the baby, who could enchant anyone with her tumbling curls like Dora’s, and already with the look of a tiny temptress.
And Morwen also held a secret too breath-catching to reveal to anyone yet. Not even to Ben. It was Doctor Pender who looked at her keenly one morning when she took him upstairs for his customary visit to Charles Killigrew.
Nurse Wilder had gone into town to fetch some of his regular medication, and Charles was sleeping, his lopsided mouth slack and pathetic. As always, Morwen gently wiped away the spittle that gathered there, careful not to waken him.
‘How long is it since you’ve given any thought to yourself, Morwen?’ the doctor said bluntly. She looked up, startled.
‘To myself? I’m fine, save for my natural grief for my brother and his wife. I don’t get over that in a day, but I control it—’
‘That’s not what I mean, girl. I’d like to take a look at you, and have a little talk. I don’t want you overdoing it with these three children in the house—’
Her beautiful face seemed to glow as she laughed at his words, leading him dutifully to a small sitting-room near to Charles’s bedroom.
‘There’s no hardship in that for me, Doctor! I didn’t think I needed to tell ’ee that! They’re little angels. Mammie’s taken them off for the day, though, to give them a change.’
‘Angels they may be, but I want to talk about you, not them,’ he said drily. He looked at her thoughtfully.
‘You look a mite pinched in the face, and not quite as robust as you should, even giving due regard to all the unhappiness of late. I’ve seen you come through bad times before, Morwen, and they’ve always put new fire in you.’
She gave a grimace. ‘Mebbe those other times I wasn’t plagued by feelings of nausea every time I think of our poor Sam and Dora. Grief can tie a body up in knots, Doctor—’
‘So can pregnancy,’he said calmly.
Morwen’s heart leapt at his words. She stared back at him, her face flushed with colour. The doctor went on before she had a chance to speak.
‘Hadn’t you even considered it, my dear girl? The fact that it has not happened before doesn’t exclude the possibility, as I’ve always told you!’
‘No, I hadn’t considered it!’ Morwen stammered, her thoughts whirling. ‘There’s been no time to think of it, and if – if anything physical was amiss – then I assumed ’twas due to all the upsets of late.’
‘But you’re considering it now?’ the doctor said kindly, seeing how the thought had truly thrown her into confusion. At the moment it was disbelieving confusion. Later, he was certain, it would be ecstatic.
Morwen’s thoughts flew back. She and Ben had had no physical contact of the sort that could result in a baby for some weeks. It hadn’t seemed right, after the double tragedies… and the threat of the court case still awaiting Ben was enough to quell any loving notions.
But if Doctor Pender could already suspect that she was pregnant, then it must have happened before the railway accident, and surely some time before that for the signs to be showing to an experienced eye. At least six or eight weeks ago…
A night when she had clung to Ben came instantly to her mind. Th
e memory of her softly wistful voice begging him to say that their own little world was back to normal now. Freddie’s trauma was settled, and the despicable Captain Peterson had been banished from their lives forever… Jane and little Cathy Askhew had gone home to Truro and Killigrew House had felt like Morwen’s own domain again… They hadn’t known then of the disaster still to come.
Ben had turned to her in the intimacy of their bedroom. He had taken her in his arms, and she had felt the powerful strength of him as he held her close.
‘This is our world, my Morwen,’ he had said gently. ‘The two of us here, where nothing else can touch us. Don’t think of anything else but that, my sweet one. Shut it all out of your mind. There’s only you and me, and the love between us.’
His voice had been almost mesmeric, his hands and lips caressing her in ways that were both new and familiar and infinitely beautiful to her. His eyes had adored her, his body worshipped her, and it was a night when she had truly known the meaning of belonging.
It was a word that Dora had used. In that moment of remembering, Morwen completely understood why Dora had had no more will to live without Sam. When two people complemented one another so well that they were like two halves of a perfect whole, there was no reason for going on alone…
* * *
‘Well, Mrs Killigrew?’ She heard the doctor’s faintly amused voice as she continued to gaze unseeingly ahead.
Her face suddenly blazed with happiness, as though lit by an inner fire, the hope she had hardly dared consider for so long suddenly a reality.
‘I think – I think it may be so! But ’tis early days, and I won’t count my chickens yet—’
She smiled shakily, using one of his own fond clichés.
‘I’d say there’s little doubt, Morwen, but I’ll take a proper look at you in a month’s time. Meanwhile, if you need any powders for the nausea, just let me know.’
Her brow creased. ‘But Dora always said the sickness came in the mornings. It comes on me at any time, so I didn’t consider it as anything other than lack of food.’ She was shame-faced. ‘I must confess that since I’ve been so busy with the children, and Ben has been occupied away from the house, I haven’t always bothered with proper meal-times.’
‘Well, if you want to produce a healthy son and heir for Killigrew Clay, you’ll start bothering with them now,’ the doctor said sternly. ‘As to the sickness being only in the morning, that’s an old wives’ tale. A woman’s own body decides what reaction it will take to the welcome invasion of a child.’
Morwen hardly heard anything beyond those first magic words he spoke. A son and heir for Killigrew Clay… it was what she wanted most in the world for Ben; the dream she cherished above all for herself. But still her country-born caution came to the fore.
‘Doctor, please say nothing of this to Ben yet. It’s too unbelievable, and if ’twere to come to naught, it would be too cruel to dash his hopes.’
‘I thought you’d be rushing to tell your husband! How do you expect to keep it a secret with that impetuous nature of yours?’ he asked teasingly.
‘I don’t know. I just know it feels safer with me alone for the present, until it’s certain. Just for a few weeks more, that’s all. The knowledge is too precious to share. It feels as fragile to me as the porcelain they make from the rough clay. If I’m not careful with it, it will shatter.’
She spoke with quick embarrassment, praying that the doctor wouldn’t think her some peculiar specimen of womanhood for not running straight to her husband with this news. But miraculously, he seemed to understand instantly and gave a small murmur of agreement.
‘Sometimes the roughest clay makes the most beautiful porcelain, dear lady,’ he said gravely, and they both knew he was speaking ambiguously. ‘Your secret will be safe with me for now, but don’t take too long in denying your husband his right to this most joyful news.’
She nodded, suddenly choked as the momentous realisation really began to take hold of her. She was carrying Ben’s child at last. After all these years, these agonising longings were to be answered. There would be a son for Killigrew Clay.
The possibility of a daughter never entered her head. In any case, it didn’t matter. That it would be a child of their flesh was glory enough. How beautiful that phrase was… a child of their flesh, unique to them alone, made from their wild sweet loving… but in these ecstatic moments, everything was beautiful to Morwen Killigrew…
‘Morwen, I have other patients to attend. I would just like to offer my congratulations, for I know what this means to you.’ The doctor prepared to leave the house before he became as maudlin as a young practitioner experiencing his first sight of a woman expecting a much-wanted baby.
‘Thank you, Doctor. And you’ll remember to keep it our secret?’ her eyes misty with tears of happiness.
‘I’ll remember.’ He spoke solemnly, wishing he had the means to bring such joy to everyone he visited. The glow from Morwen Killigrew was enough to warm him for the rest of the day.
* * *
When the doctor had gone Morwen was suddenly disorientated. There was so much to think about and, as yet, no-one to share it with. It was partly superstition that stopped her telling Ben immediately. As though to put it into words might mean that it wouldn’t happen after all.
She put her hands tentatively on her belly. What miracle was developing there? The thought was both wonderful and poignant. It made her want to cry, where seconds before she had felt like dancing. Was this one of the effects of pregnancy?
Dora had always said a woman was halfway between life and death during childbirth, and went through something similar to a kind of madness while she was carrying – sometimes in a high state of content or excitement – sometimes filled with such tension she was near to tearing the ears off her poor patient husband with her grumbling.
Dora was a country girl, the same as Morwen. She realised she was thinking a lot about Dora lately, and regretted that they never really became like sisters until it was too late. But suddenly Morwen knew what she had to do. It was something Ben might not understand, but Dora would.
Morwen would tell the bees. It was an old country ritual that ensured safety in the telling. Once the bees knew of the new baby growing inside Morwen, it would be safe.
It was no longer high summer, and there were no outdoor hives humming with activity in garden and farm, but there were folk who kept bees up on the moors who wouldn’t think it in the least bit odd that Morwen Killigrew was calling on them to spend half an hour in a rickety old shed, while she related whatever troubles she had to the bees.
When she had done, she would collect the children from her mother’s house, as she had already arranged. Ben wouldn’t be home until evening, and by then Morwen would be perfectly composed and hopefully able to eat her dinner without wondering just how long it was going to stay down.
* * *
While Morwen was receiving her stupendous news from Doctor Pender, Ben was with Richard Carrick, Jane’s father, who was acting for him in the court case. They were in bitter consultation with the surveyors at Bodmin. Engineer Prole, their new man, had carried out his duties to the best of his ability, Silas Newton the surveyor said pompously.
‘It wasn’t good enough! If he’d done the job properly, and been provided with all the facts, the accident might have been averted—’ Ben snapped, ignoring the efforts of Richard Carrick to keep him silent and to lead the discussion himself.
‘Are you saying we suppressed certain facts, Mr Killigrew? If so, you’d best watch that you’re not in court for libel as well as everything else. Even if we had kept something from Engineer Prole – which we most definitely did not – it would have been only because you were pressing us so badly to re-open the tracks. Such a thought never enters your mind, I daresay!’ he spoke with heavy sarcasm.
‘I’m saying I’m far from satisfied with the way you conduct your business, and a counter-charge should be brought against the Bodmin surveyor’
s office for negligence!’
Every discussion between Ben Killigrew and the surveyors ended up as a heated affair, and Richard knew only too well that it didn’t do for the boy to antagonise them too much. But it was like telling the sea not to ebb and flow to try to stem Ben’s fury and the undoubted feeling of guilt he couldn’t suppress.
Ben dismissed the fact that his own loyal supporters said he wasn’t to blame for the accident. The rail tracks were his, and in his eyes he was therefore responsible for their safety.
Besides, it was his wife’s own brother who had died and that was something for which he could never forgive himself. But he despised, too, these complacent men who sat behind a desk and controlled other people’s livelihoods with a stroke of a pen.
‘Mr Killigrew!’ Silas Newton jumped to his feet, his face red and bristling with indignation. ‘We’ve tried to be patient with ’ee, but you go too far. I suggest your lawyer teaches you to have a cooler head before your appearance in court, or you’ll find your business and your reputation ruined. And now good-day to you both. We have other matters to attend to.’
The three men in the surveyors’ department stood stiffly, forming a solid band of outraged respectability. Ben might rage all he chose, but he couldn’t hope to win the day by a show of temper. Not when he was fighting the entire establishment, as Richard Carrick was quick to point out to him when the two of them sat in a small Bodmin coffee shop a while later.
‘You’re a fool to yourself, Ben,’ Richard said curtly. ‘If you want me to advise you, listen to what I say and heed it well. Your case will be heard in a month’s time, and you had best prepare yourself for some very close questioning on the safety of the railway, and why you allowed its use to begin again—’
‘You know why, damn it! Because this new Engineer Prole gave us the say-so for it! The guilt lies with him, if anyone—’
Clay Country Page 26