Killigrew Clay Read online

  ‘Of course I’ll tell them, but no one will know! It’s not written on your face, Celia, and I daresay Jude Pascoe was too drunk to remember too much of what happened. By tomorrow you’ll be wondering if it ever happened. Anyway,’ she tried to tease her, ‘you always said you’d be the first to be broken. You always had to be first in everything, didn’t you?’

  They made their painful way home across the moors, each knowing it would be a long while before either would forget this night. And one of them, at least, hoping desperately that it wouldn’t show, on her face or anywhere else.

  * * *

  In untying his horse, Jude’s fumbling fingers had loosened Ben’s. The animal had wandered off, and it had taken Ben a while to find him. By the time he reached home that night, he was in a towering rage. He’d galloped back to Killigrew House in a fury, then having to give the nag a quick rub-down where it was lathering so much. Finally he stalked upstairs to find his cousin, barging into his room without knocking.

  Jude was spread across his bed, still fully dressed, a lazy smile on his face. Ben strode towards him, jerking him into a half-sitting position by hooking his fingers in his collar. Jude gurgled, his face reddening as he glared at his visitor.

  ‘What’s to do?’ he snarled, his eyes pig-small in the half-light. ‘Finished sporting, have you?’

  ‘I’ll finish you, you little turd, if you’ve ruined that girl!’ Ben ground out the words, surprised at his own anger. She was nothing to him, but she was Morwen’s friend, and that made her important. If Morwen despised him, then he would sort that out later. For now, it was this little runt he had to deal with.

  ‘What girl? The one wi’ the knowing eyes? She was ripe for it, cuz, just like t’other one! Don’t tell me you had no luck. I know a lusty look when I see it, and you’ve been lusting after Morwen Tremayne all right. I wonder what your pretty Jane would say to it?’ he crowed, dodging sideways as Ben lunged at him.

  The blow missed Jude’s body, and Ben’s fist sank into the bed-covers, pulling him off balance. He ended in an undignified sprawl across Jude’s bed, and moved away in disgust at the reek of drink and body sweat from his cousin. Jude’s guttural laugh ended in a great yawn.

  ‘I won’t be the one to tell her, Ben. I got more interesting things to do than worry about Jane Carrick’s breaking heart. That’s summat you and she can sort out for yourselves.’

  Ben’s fury mounted again, but he saw he was wasting his time. Jude was already asleep, inert across his bed, a vigorous rhythmic snoring coming from his slackly open mouth.

  Ben turned abruptly and left him. And only when he reached his own room did his tight-stretched nerves begin to relax, though he couldn’t forget the memory of that girl’s dreadful scream, magnified by the silence of the night. If Jude had damaged her… his brain had felt like scrambled yarn ever since that moment, when he had been torn so cruelly away from Morwen by Celia’s scream, but it was unravelling at last.

  Now, lying between the cool sheets, with only the night sounds of the house and gardens, and the distant first-light cry of the sea-birds, his thoughts returned to Morwen, whom he had so nearly made his own that night.

  He had known instinctively that it would have been the first time she had lain with a man. He had intended making it so perfect, so beautiful. Ben had lain with many others before her, and was amazed at the feelings her nearness had awoken in him. He’d wanted to love and cherish her, and he wanted to tell her so. He had wanted to show her the way to the stars. There was a life-force in him that needed her as he had needed no other in his life before.

  Two people, one love. Out there, on the moonlit moors, he could have found the words, and fulfillment would have been theirs. Instead of which, Ben was frustrated and alone, and for all the advantages that his father’s money could buy, he had never felt so lonely in the whole of his life.

  Chapter Eight

  Hal delighted in finding Bess at the cottage each day when he returned from his shift, the sewing spread around her, the clean smells of cloth and chalk about the place. He liked the change in her, away from the clay. He didn’t like the change he saw in his son, Matt.

  ‘Where do you get to these nights, our Matt?’ he asked finally, when he decided the boy had had every chance to confide in his folks, the way he used to. ‘John Penry was saying he’d seen nothing of ’ee lately, away from the pit, not even in the local kiddleywink.’

  Hal didn’t miss the colour in Matt’s face at the words, nor the way he avoided his father’s eyes. It was a few months since Hal had become Killigrew’s Number One captain, and over a month since the march to the St Austell office. In that time, he and Matthew seemed out of step with one another.

  His daughter, too, seemed taken up with secrets, Hal thought. He knew that women had thoughts of their own that a man could never understand, so he could disregard Morwen’s closed-in looks a little. But if Matt had something troubling him, then the sooner it was out in the open, the better.

  ‘Can’t a body make new friends wi’ out it seeming odd?’ Matt countered his father’s question. ‘There’s no rule that says clayworkers have to stick together after their shift, is there?’

  ‘There’s not,’ Hal agreed keenly. ‘There’s no ruling that says a boy has to be civil to his father when he shows an interest in his son’s doings either, but I’d prefer it in this house.’

  He was aware of a sudden tension between the two of them, and then Matt rushed out with the words he’d obviously been boiling up in his mind.

  ‘Is there any rule that says a son has to follow in his father’s footsteps, Daddy? Or would a fair-minded father object to a son working at the harbour? He’d still be involved wi’ the clay, and wi’ other goods besides. What would be your thoughts on that?’ He stopped, clearly expecting opposition.

  Hal spoke evenly. ‘If ’tis what you want, Matt, I’d say good luck to you, though you might make Charles Killigrew a mite sad to think another Tremayne is deserting the clay works. But mebbe ’tis not such a bad thing. Having all your eggs in one basket is not always the best move—’

  ‘Then I have your blessing?’ Matt said at once, and Hal guessed that this was no idle query, but had been thought out already. It could be that Matt’s visits to the town were no more than a wish to be near the sea that he loved, and not the suspected nightly drinking with disreputable ragtags.

  ‘Yes, you have it,’ Hal said. There was nothing more soul-destroying than for a man to be tied to a job he hated. He’d never thought Matt actually hated the clay, but he’d always known he didn’t love it either. Not the way Hal did, with a fierce pride in gouging the thick wet substance from the earth and seeing it go through all its processes until it was finally loaded onto the waggons for the docks.

  Hal always felt a sense of achievement in seeing the loaded waggons careering away from the works, and never mind what happened to it after that. He cared nothing for the fine tableware his family would never possess, nor the excited talk of medical products and far-reaching refinements of newsprint. His were the hands that claimed the clay from the earth, and in that Hal had his pride. If Matt couldn’t feel that way, then he was best out of it.

  * * *

  Charles Killigrew made irregular visits to all his pits, especially in summer months, when the air seemed to crackle with life, with the dry scent of clay dust mingling with the wild flowers and the drone of bees. His workers were like busy swarms of bees, all touching their forelocks to him when he appeared, and Charles liked that too.

  He was especially pleased with Hal Tremayne. Hal was a leader, but he still had the common touch with the rest of the clayworkers. Charles congratulated himself on his choice of Number One captain. But for the circumstances of birth, Hal would have made a good boss. Probably better than himself, Charles thought in a rare moment. Hal’s temper was more even than his own…

  ‘What ails that girl of yours, Hal?’ Charles asked now. He’d been watching Morwen and her friend for some minutes,
and all the sparkle seemed to have gone out of the girl for whom he had an odd fondness. ‘She’s not wanting to join the rest of your brood in making the break from Killigrew Clay, is she?’

  He spoke jovially, but he noted the strain on Morwen’s pretty face. She was only one of his workers, and they were all his minions. But she touched a spark in Charles, and it was irksome to him to see her look so troubled. Hal mistook his meaning, and began gabbing about his son Matt’s reasons for leaving the clay works, until Charles brushed aside his explanations.

  ‘Good God, man, d’you think I’d censure you for your son’s ambitions? If he’s unhappy working in the clay, then he should get out, and you and I both know it. It’s Morwen I’m curious about. It’s not like her to be so quiet!’

  ‘That ’tis not, sir, but ’tis only girls’ talk, I’m sure,’ Hal smiled, though he had noticed Morwen and Celia in deep conversation many times lately, and wondered about their unusually downcast looks. He hid his concern from Charles Killigrew though. A boss wouldn’t want to be bothered with a bal maiden’s small discontents.

  It was an understatement, for the corner where the two girls sat was more tension-filled than a stew-pot about to burst its lid. He changed the train of Charles Killigrew’s thoughts by mentioning how well Bess liked her new role as seamstress.

  ‘I’m glad,’ Charles said easily. ‘Though you must all be cramped to death in that small cottage of yours. When a bigger house comes vacant on the estate, I’ll remember your family, Hal. A good worker deserves recognition.’

  Hal was startled. Charles had never mentioned such a thing before, and to Hal it was as likely as a pig flying to the moon, but he touched his hard hat in acknowledgement and muttered his thanks. Killigrew nodded, striding off to his horse and trap.

  Charles was asking himself why he had made the obscure offer. Not especially for Bess Tremayne’s eyesight! Not even because he liked Hal Tremayne better than any pit captain before. He felt a fondness for the whole family, dammit, and especially he hated to see Morwen so dejected. Almost as dejected as that friend who worked alongside her. He began to feel irritable at his own feeling of responsibility towards the Tremayne family.

  He’d made no demur when Matthew Tremayne had requested to leave his employ. Nor shown surprise when it was clear the boy had already made his future plans to work at Charlestown port. Charles had seen in Matt’s blue eyes the longing to be free of family ties and to stand on his own feet, and he respected that. He knew the feeling. He saw it in his own son, even though Ben didn’t seem too sure where he was going at the moment. But Ben was a man now, and Charles was only just realising it. So was his nephew, Jude Pascoe. The thought changed the smile on Charles’s face to a scowl, and he urged his horse on over the sun-kissed moors and down the steep slopes towards St Austell.

  * * *

  The two bal maidens sitting tensely together in a corner of the linhay tried desperately to jolt each other out of the black mood they shared. Morwen spoke harshly, fear sharpening her voice.

  ‘I’ve heard tell it can’t happen first time, Celia. You must have counted wrongly—’

  ‘I’ve not miscounted!’ Celia was equally harsh. ‘’Tis too important to make such mistakes. Twice the flow’s not come, and I know it won’t come. And since I’m not in my middle-life, nor dying of the blood sickness, there’s only one reason for the flow not arriving every month. You know it as well as me, Morwen.’

  ‘I’m trying to calm you, that’s all,’ Morwen said, as the other girl’s voice rose. ‘Do you want everyone to hear about your trouble?’

  She bit her lip. The trouble… that was the phrase whispered behind cupped hands when a girl got herself pregnant without a wedding-band on her finger. Morwen felt cold, knowing that Celia’s trouble could only have come from one night when the moon shone full, and they had gone so recklessly to the Larnie Stone. A night filled with sweet enchantment for Morwen, until that horrendous scream that had wrenched herself and Ben Killigrew apart cleaner than a surgeon’s knife.

  The images of herself and Ben were out of place now. They were precious and private, but they were bitter too. She had hardly seen Ben since that night. For him, the incident was probably no more than a small diversion. The kind the rich folks had when they went slumming for a moment’s excitement…

  ‘What does it matter, when they’ll all know it soon enough?’ Celia lashed out. ‘We both know what’s wrong wi’ me, Morwen, so stop pretending!’

  They looked dumbly at each other, and then Celia seemed to crumple as she clutched at Morwen’s arms.

  ‘What shall I do, Morwen?’ Her voice was cracked with fear. ‘’Twill kill my Daddy to know the shame of it!’ Morwen knew that it would. Other girls had held their heads high in defiance of the shame, but a small closed community never forgot. And for all Celia’s hot-eyed glances at the boys, her nerve would fail her when the shame became obvious.

  ‘We must see Zillah,’ Morwen said huskily. ‘She gave us one potion, and she must give us another to put things right—’

  Celia’s face paled even more. ‘I can’t do it, Morwen. ’Tis an evil thing to take a life, however unwanted—’

  ‘What of the brute who put the life there against your will?’ Morwen said, vibrant with anger. ‘Did you ask for this new life inside you? If it had been started in love, ’twould be different, but this one – if it is one – was begun in hate. You can’t deny that, can you?’

  Celia shook her head violently. Hate was all she felt whenever she thought of Jude Pascoe. She tried never to think of him at all, and that made the trouble she bore seem like a cancerous growth she had spawned by herself. It was blasphemous to think so. It was likening herself to the blessed virgin, and nothing could be more shameful when the thing that she carried came from the seed of that devil Jude.

  Sometimes she felt that her head would burst with the hate she felt for him. How could she ever have fancied him, or felt excitement surge through her at his touch? The thought of that was as blasphemous to Celia as wanting to lie with a beast in a field. She shuddered, forcing herself to listen to Morwen’s words.

  ‘We have to go back to work, Celia, but think about it, please. We must see Zillah. We have no other choice. Think of it as ridding yourself of a troublesome visitor. ’Twill be little more than a speck of dust in your belly yet, hardly flesh and blood at all!’

  Celia moved away from her as though in a dream. Hardly flesh and blood… but it was flesh and blood – hers and Jude Pascoe’s. The thought of it festered and anguished in her mind like a recurring sore that would never heal. It was a mingling of his seed with hers, the crowning obscenity from a night of pain and violation, and if a living child emerged from her body it must surely be decked with horns and a cloven foot… the horror of it was a continuing nightmare…

  ‘Celia, you ninny, look what you’re about!’ another bal maiden shouted angrily at her, cursing at her carelessness in the linhay as she dropped a tool on the woman’s toe. ‘You young wenches have your heads filled with boys and gigglings when you should be working—’

  Celia bent her head to hide the stinging tears. Morwen was right. She must see Zillah. But she would wait one more day… one more week… just in case the flow would come naturally, and she didn’t have to live with the fact that she would be taking a life…

  If her brother John hadn’t slipped and broken his leg, she would have gone to see Zillah sooner. As it happened, she was needed at home for nursing, and it assumed so much importance in her mind that even her father was surprised at this sisterly concern. Her nerves were as ragged as sheeps’-wool, and Thomas Penry finally decided to ask his sister Ruth to take over the household duties to give his daughter a break.

  ‘Your Aunt Ruth’s been wanting to take care of us since your Ma passed on, girl,’ Thomas said with rough kindness to her. ‘’Tis time you looked to yourself and had some funning wi’ that pretty friend of yourn.’

  ‘Is that what you want, Daddy?’ Celia sa
id huskily. She’d hardly realised the strain of these last weeks. The summer was hot, the sky a cloudless blue, and she had enjoyed none of it, because of her trouble, and her self-imposed dedication to her brother’s needs.

  And it had done no good, she thought bitterly. God hadn’t sent down a miracle and rid her of the cancer in her womb, so she may as well do as Morwen suggested and see old Zillah before it was too late. By now, she had convinced herself that the thing inside her was a hideous growth that must be removed before it destroyed her. It was the only way she could accept the fact that she felt nauseous each morning, that her breasts were swollen and tender so that even the fabric of her dress against them felt rough and sore. She was ill. The growth would control her entire body if she didn’t get rid of it. It dictated what food she ate, and how fast she could move each morning. It grew insidiously, like a vine that would ultimately strangle her unless she killed it first…

  * * *

  Morwen opened the cottage door to her friend, shocked to see the burning light in her eyes, and the fire in her cheeks.

  ‘Will you come wi’ me, Morwen?’ Celia asked, her voice shaking. ‘It will have to be now, while my Daddy’s away fetching my aunt to look after us all—’

  She didn’t need to say any more. Morwen told her to stay there, not wanting her mother to see the state Celia was in, and told her parents she was off for a walk with her friend. Morwen was afraid for Celia, with that feverish look about her. She had been so reluctant to set foot in Zillah’s cottage again, yet now she seemed fanatical to get there as fast as she could. Morwen could hardly keep up with her as she sped across the moors. Only when they neared the cottage did Celia clutch Morwen’s arm.