Killigrew Clay Read online

  Killigrew Clay

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Read More

  Copyright

  This book contains views and language on nationality, sexual politics, ethnicity, and society which are a product of the time in which the book is set. The publisher does not endorse or support these views. They have been retained in order to preserve the integrity of the text.

  To Geoff and all our family, with love

  Chapter One

  The thunder and clatter of iron-shod wheels were heard well in advance of the china clay waggons careering down the narrow cobbled streets of St Austell town on the first of their twice-yearly arrivals from the pits.

  Morwen Tremayne’s blue eyes sparkled as she emerged from the warm spicy interior of Nott’s bakery into the spring sunlight. It was her seventeenth birthday, and she had been sent to town to buy a bag of fruit buns for the family tea.

  Her excitement grew, knowing she would be in the steep-sided town when the clay waggons came through, on their way to Charlestown port from the works, up on the moors. When the waggons reached here, they would be crawling, inching carefully to avoid damage to people and property. The waggons would be piled pyramid-high with the great white blocks Morwen had helped to stack, and on the precarious descent to the port they would need three good horses to pull them down the hills, and six to drag them back up.

  Morwen’s family all worked for Killigrew Clay. She felt a tingle of pride at her father’s new position. Pit captain for Mr Charles Killigrew! And they were Killigrew waggons coming through St Austell town that afternoon…

  ‘Dear heaven preserve us! These dreadful vehicles!’ a townslady near Morwen exclaimed angrily, pulling her fine skirt above her ankles, regardless of dignity as the first lumbering waggon wove its way to lessen the gradient of the hill. Horse harnesses creaked and strained, chains rattled, waggoners roared to everyone to keep clear.

  The streets were constantly white with clay traffic from various pits, and this new arrival sent flurries of white powder spinning from wheels and clay blocks. The waggoners, bare arms corded with taut muscles as they strove to control horses and load, were stippled ghost-like from the dust as they hollered like demons for the townspeople to mind themselves.

  Morwen watched their weaving progress. The clay waggons were part of her life, and she didn’t often see them from this vantage point. Usually, she was cheering the waggons away from the pits with the other bal maidens like herself, with the kiddley boys who made the tea and did the menial jobs, the clayworkers and the captains themselves. Sometimes, the owners would be at the works, away from their big houses and offices.

  It was a great day, after months of allowing the china clay to dry until it was ready for cutting and blocking, loading and despatching, for use in industries far removed from its humble beginnings in the earth. For paper-manufacture and medicinal items, and fine china to grace society tables…

  Morwen’s mother had once said lyrically that on a day like this, the china clay was no longer their own, but belonged to the world. The comment was met by hoots of laughter from her brawny husband and three strapping sons. Even small Freddie had chuckled, without really understanding why. Only Morwen had smiled dreamily, liking the poetry of the words, and sharing a moment of pleasure with her mother, when there was normally little time for such sentiments.

  In the dust-filled streets of St Austell town on that sunlit spring afternoon, Morwen knew exactly what Bess Tremayne had meant. She heard a quick bellow from one of the waggoners.

  ‘Fastest time yet, Morwen,’ Thomas Penry roared above the din of the wheels. ‘Did ’ee have a wager on us?’

  She shook her head, her long dark hair dancing beneath her white bonnet as she laughed. Her Daddy didn’t allow wagers from his own, though most clayworkers took bets on the time the loaded clay waggons took to get from Killigrew pits to St Austell. It added a bit more spice to the thrills of the day…

  Morwen stopped laughing, suddenly aware that the two townsladies beside her had realised that the comely young girl outside the bakery, with the flushed face and jewel - bright eyes, must be one of the common bal maidens from the clay works. In her best yellow dress and her boots polished for the walk to town, in defiance of the clay dust, Morwen could easily pass for town-bred. Her features were delicate, and not weathered by the winds of the moors.

  ‘If you know these men, young woman, you might tell them they’ll be the ruin of this lovely town!’ the lady snapped, needling Morwen into a quick retort.

  ‘If you’ll tell Mr Charles Killigrew to build a railway track from his works to the port, the waggons needn’t come through the town at all! No waggoner enjoys risking his life on every journey!’ she flashed back.

  But Morwen knew that they enjoyed it immensely, calling it the finest paid sport in the county. She smiled at the thought, which the good dames saw as insolence.

  ‘You young women are as bad as you’re painted,’ the other lady said coldly, noting every bit of Morwen’s dew-fresh appearance. ‘Wild and unruly—’

  Morwen tossed her head. She might have stalked away with head held high, when a familiar voice sounded right behind her, deep and masculine, and as thickly-textured as lemon-curd. It could be harsh, but right now it was jovial, and it addressed one of the tight-corseted ladies.

  ‘Now then, Hannah! Gossiping with Morwen Tremayne, are you?’ Charles Killigrew chuckled.

  Morwen’s face turned scarlet, and she hardly noticed the ladies’ affront at Killigrew’s assumption. She faced the thick-set man with the curling whiskers, the shock of grey hair still abundant, the portly stomach covered by a tweed waistcoat and a heavy watch-chain inside his country suit.

  ‘I’m on my way home, Mr Killigrew.’ Morwen was furious to find herself stammering, and the man laughed genially.

  The girl was a welcome sight to any man. More so than his disapproving sister Hannah and her scratchy friend.

  ‘No need to explain, m’dear. Your father tells me it’s your birthday—’

  A second waggon came thundering through, clay blocks rocking, and scattering the townsfolk quicker than a swarm of bees. Charles Killigrew smiled with satisfaction. Each waggon-load for the waiting ships at Charlestown meant more money in Killigrew’s pocket. He was a self-made man, with a little help from a rich wife, now departed, and he relished both facts.

  His eyes shone as brightly as Morwen Tremayne’s as he waved the waggon through. In the flurry of activity, Morwen had slipped away. As Charles turned to speak to her, he saw her collide with a tall young man, whose arms reached out to steady her, his grasp firm on Morwen’s shoulders.

  She felt the warm pressure of his fingers through the gauzy fabric of her dress, and her face flamed anew at this contact with a young gentleman. Barely glancing at him, she twisted away, picking up her skirts with far less fuss than the St Austell dames, and sped into the cr
owd.

  The young man stared after her, intrigued by the pleasant sensation of holding her so briefly. The fresh clean scent of her hair had swung across his face for an instant. There was something about her… an elusive memory… he frowned slightly as he caught sight of the yellow swirl of her skirts, and the frown enhanced his good-looking face. He was healthily tanned, his features well drawn and very strong. More than one of his contemporaries at his fancy London college had respected the fists of Ben Killigrew when the sons of dukes and lords had sneered at his Cornish accent.

  The girl was vaguely familiar, Ben thought, but he couldn’t think why. He would certainly remember again those wide blue eyes and that creamy skin that had flushed so alluringly. Her cheeks were heart-shaped, shadowed charmingly by the white bonnet… and that very soft pink mouth had been parted in momentary confusion. She had made a surprising impact on him…

  He leapt back hastily as the next clay waggon strained its way down the steep hills of the town, and a hand clapped him on the shoulder. Charles Killigrew smiled at his son, seeing in him the fine cut of the sprig he had once been. Young, virile, handsome… and Ben had all the advantages too. Ben’s legacy was all there waiting for him, and the evidence was rolling through St Austell streets today. Charles beamed at his son, elegant in frock coat and tight white breeches, the fashionable neck-cloth at his throat caught by a pearl pin, and was well pleased with the results of the London college, despite the small fortune it had cost.

  ‘Father, who was that girl?’ Ben asked at once. His eyes still roamed after Morwen’s straight, retreating figure, long since gone out of sight.

  ‘What girl? Oh, Morwen Tremayne, d’you mean?’ Charles spoke carelessly. The girl was the daughter of his newest clay captain, no more.

  ‘Good God! That’s it. Morwen Tremayne!’ Ben said, his dark eyes gleaming. ‘The last time we met, she was ten years old, and fighting like a whirling dervish with a group of bal maidens twice her size. You’d taken me to the clay pits to explain the workings to me after Mother died—’

  ‘And you were bored silly,’ Charles grunted. ‘You’ll find a good many changes now, boy.’

  And Morwen Tremayne was one of them, and still in Ben’s thoughts as they were joined by his Aunt Hannah and her friend, Miss Emily Ford. Ben saw that his aunt was still ruffled about the gathering at the house that evening, and looked even more put out than usual.

  Hannah Pascoe was her brother’s housekeeper, which meant that she and her son, Jude, had a permanent home at Killigrew House. Most of the time, the household was harmonious enough… but when Charles made one of his spontaneous decisions to hold a supper party, as he had done for this evening, Hannah had no choice but to deal with it. Even when he invited the most impossible people, as he often did, Hannah was reminded in no uncertain terms that if she objected, there were plenty more widows willing to keep house for Charles Killigrew!

  And where would that leave Hannah? With no husband to support her, and a dissolute son who had gone through what little money Ned Pascoe had left her like sand through a sieve. Jude was a constant thorn in her side. She alternately loved him and hated him, and she more than resented the fact that Ben would inherit all the Killigrew pits and prosperity, while Jude seemed destined to live by his wits and his uncle’s hand-outs.

  * * *

  Morwen was glad to leave the town and continue the steep climb to the moors above St Austell. The last of the day’s waggons from Killigrew pit number one had passed her now, making relatively easy work of it in the fine spring weather. It was very different later in the year, when the tracks became quagmires, and waggon wheels dug inches deep in mud. St Austell dames really did have a complaint then, with fine wool dresses all mud-spattered as the vehicles wove through the narrow winding streets.

  She paused for breath on the short moorland turf, drinking in the clean, furze-scented air, filled with whispering bracken and nodding pink clover, and the aromatic white blooms of yarrow. Above her were the huddles of the clayworkers’ cottages, built in short rows of fours, all adjoining one another and set at angles to give a higgle-piggledly appearance.

  The inner cottages were more snug and insulated by the walls of the others, but the outer ones had more yard space, in which to keep pigs or chickens. The Tremaynes lived in an outside cottage, and rightly so now, since Hal had been made captain of number one pit, working up from being a lowly kiddley boy, as his youngest son, Freddie, was now.

  Beyond and around the clayworkers’ cottages, rose the pale mounds of the spoil heaps, made eerily beautiful by moonlight, and as much a landmark for a returning clay-worker in his cups as any standing stone on the moor. In sunlight, the spoil heaps glinted with the discarded small mineral deposits. By then, the more valuable china clay had been washed clean of such impurities, leaving in its wake the milky-green pool that typified every clay pit working.

  The exhilaration of the day had whipped up more colour in Morwen’s cheeks. She untied her bonnet, letting the breeze spin through her hair, and loved the wild freedom of it. Far below her, beyond the town, the sea glittered.

  Calmed and mirrored by distance, it belied the way it could thresh and churn into mountainous waves that made the Cornish coastline so magnificent and so treacherous.

  The harbour and port of Charlestown, where the clay waggons were bound, was in the lee of the town. Down there, Charles Killigrew had his fine big house. Morwen drew in her breath as a warm gust of wind stung her cheek where a thorn or a pin had scratched her flesh…

  A pin! She remembered instantly! A pearl pin in a gentleman’s neck-cloth. From the moment she had stumbled into a strong pair of arms and felt her breasts flatten against a broad male chest, she had puzzled over his identity. Now, she remembered… and felt the old antagonism…

  ‘Ben Killigrew!’ she said to the breeze. ‘That snot-nosed owner’s son, too scared of dirtying his fine leather boots at his father’s pit. And when he did come, it was to catch us scrapping, and to look down his nose—’

  She heard running feet, and a child’s laughing voice.

  ‘You know what they say about folks talking to themselves, our Morwen. They’ll call ’ee as batty as old Zillah! I’m sent to find you. Mammie’s asking for the fruit buns, though we won’t be needing ’em today now—’

  ‘What are you drivelling on about, Freddie?’ Morwen said crossly, annoyed that her small brother should have caught her talking to the air. Freddie was eight years old, and quite likely to go crowing to the older ones that his sister was turning as moon-struck as the old crone who lived with her cats in the hovel across the moor. Zillah the wise one, Zillah the witch – or just plain old crazy woman, depending on each private opinion.

  ‘Why shouldn’t Mammie want the buns for my birthday tea?’ Morwen demanded, since Freddie had lost interest in her now, and was busily chasing butterflies instead. His blue eyes, as candid as all the Tremaynes’, glowed with excitement.

  ‘We’re all invited to the big house tonight, that’s why! Mammie says the buns can keep till tomorrow, and ’tis a shame she didn’t know about Mr Killigrew’s supper before she spent the pennies on buns—’

  ‘Mr Killigrew’s supper!’ Morwen taunted. ‘Why would he want to invite us to supper, you ninny? You’re gaming with me, aren’t you, Freddie?’

  Her heart was jumping in her chest. It couldn’t be true, and if it was, she wouldn’t go to be inspected like a fly on the wall. None of the Tremaynes had been inside the big house, which to Morwen was as large and palatial as a mansion, and only emphasised the meanness of the humble cottage where she and her family lived.

  Morwen felt no resentment about that. The Tremaynes and the Killigrews lived in two different worlds, which was as it should be. Owners in the mansion, workers in the cottage, and the two should never mix socially. Freddie must be mistaken. She willed it to be so.

  ‘Mr Killigrew’s son has come home to stay,’ Freddie said importantly, glaring at his sister. ‘Mr Killigrew told us so
when he came to the works. You’d gone off to town by then. He came in a fine carriage, all for one person, and went off to S’n Austell faster’n flying! You missed un, Morwen, and Daddy told un you’d be dawdling because it was your birthday. And Mr Killigrew said if that were so, then we must all go to supper tonight, because he were so pleased with the clay-loading!’

  He paused for breath. It must be true then. She had wondered how Charles Killigrew had known it was her birthday. Owners didn’t keep account of such things. Now she felt doubly embarrassed – because of her Daddy telling him about her birthday, and because she would be seeing Ben Killigrew for the second time that day. And her Sunday best dress was already rumpled and dusty, and her cheek was scratched, and she didn’t know why she should care, but she did!

  She got to her feet, the precious bag of buns already tacky. She felt the same. She grabbed Freddie’s hand.

  ‘Let’s get home then. I want to find out some more about this posh supper. What do the boys say to it?’

  ‘Sam says he don’t fancy poncing about in some big house. Matthew don’t mind, but Jack’s saying he won’t go. Mammie says he will, and there’s an end to it.’

  He sounded so like his mother that Morwen smiled in spite of herself. The tide would stop ebbing and flowing before Bess Tremayne changed her mind about a thing. But Morwen didn’t want to go to Killigrew House either. It wouldn’t be a comfortable evening. Perhaps the Tremaynes would be the only guests, she thought hopefully, and doubted it. Just as though Charles Killigrew would arrange a supper for a handful of employees and nobody else. There would be fine ladies and gentlemen, and Morwen would be all fingers and thumbs, conspicuous with her country manners and her dusty dress, and ashamed of her family’s shortcomings, when she loved them fiercely, every one.

  She stopped so quickly that Freddie almost fell over her. What was wrong with her? She was seventeen years old, and as good as anyone, even Mr High-and-Mighty Ben Killigrew with his new city ways and smart clothes. She needn’t even speak to him. He probably wouldn’t notice her among all the more important folk invited that night. Her chin tilted.