Killigrew Clay Read online

  ‘What’s tickling your fancy now?’ Celia’s eyes danced with shared excitement. ‘Wondering if it’ll be Ben Killigrew you spy through the Larnie stone, or our John?’

  ‘It’ll be your John, with my luck,’ Morwen groaned, and then blushed. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, Celia—’

  ‘I know.’ Celia forgave her. ‘No one could call our John very bright. And you and me both want summat more than a country lummock! Your Ben just fills the bill from what you tell me—’

  ‘He’s not my Ben!’ Morwen was charmed by the sound of the words, all the same. ‘His cousin might suit you, Celia, if you like a rougher cut—’

  ‘Stuck up like college Ben, is he? No thank you—’

  ‘He’s not a bit like Ben. He’s got an eye for the girls, I reckon, so you mind yourself if you see his face through the stone—’

  ‘Well, as I’ve never laid eyes on un, I’ll never know, will I? ’Twill just be a face in the mist to me.’ A tingling thrill ran through her. ‘Do we dare, Morwen? ’Tis tempting fate, and your Mammie wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘My Mammie won’t know!’ The more Celia voiced her doubts, the stronger Morwen became. ‘If you want to change your mind, I’ll do it alone—’

  ‘You wouldn’t, would you? Promise me you wouldn’t go alone in the dark.’ Celia was pale at the thought.

  ‘All right, ninny!’ It didn’t take much persuasion. Being alone on the moors after dark with a mist rising was utter madness. A person could be driven crazy, becoming disorientated in the dark, losing the footing and breaking a leg. Or worse, falling prey to any villains on business of their own. Even the wreckers, if they chanced to be crossing the moors with their spoils from a broken ship floundering along the coast.

  Morwen shivered. They certainly wouldn’t venture out on a bad night. It must be a night bright and shining with moonlight. It would be less unnerving to take the walk to the standing stone, and it would make any ghostly lover’s face float that much more clearly in front of them. The uncertainty passed. They had the potion, and they would use it. And if necessary, Morwen thought, somehow she would find the courage for both of them.

  Chapter Five

  Morwen arrived home from her walk on the moors with Celia, and quickly hid the small green bottle among her possessions, amid the uproar among her normally harmonious brothers. They argued the toss with their father, while Bess tried to keep the peace.

  ‘You’re a lily-livered, whining babby!’ Sam blazed at his brother. Matthew glared at him murderously, the cords on his neck rigid as reeds. His voice rose furiously.

  ‘Where’s the sense in it? What good will it do if Killigrew turns against us, tell me that! You’re a fanatical strike-monger, and I’ll have none on it. March to hell and back again if you must, but I’ll not be with you!’

  Hal crashed his fist between them. The table creaked ominously, and Bess snatched up a platter before it hit the floor. She knew better than to intervene for the moment.

  ‘Stop slandering one another, and listen to me,’ Hal thundered. ‘I’ll have one of ’ee marching to town wi’ me, and it’ll be Sam, since our Matt’s averse to putting one foot in front of the other for a cause—’

  ‘Not because I’m afraid, Father, and I’ll fight any man who says it—’ Matt flared up at once.

  ‘All right, dammit!’ Hal snapped. ‘If you’d both listened to me, I’d have told ’ee I’m in agreement with Matt over this. I don’t want the men to think we Tremaynes are the only ones involved. It’s to be a fair representation from the works—’

  Morwen managed to get a word in, as she looked from one angry face to another.

  ‘What’s happening? Will somebody tell me?’

  Jack spoke from his curled-up position on the settle, his eyes round with excitement as he babbled out the information.

  ‘Our Sam and Matt are fighting over who’s to march wi’ Daddy to the clay office on Monday, and Matt don’t want to go, and Sam’s calling un a coward. Daddy’s to take seven men from the works, same as the other pit captains, and Ben Killigrew and Jude Pascoe’s to march wi’ em and all, if they show up at the works on Monday morning—’

  Hal gave Jack a friendly cuff about the ears and told him to leave mens’ talk to the men. It was all startling news, but the most startling to Morwen was that Ben and his cousin were to be at the works on Monday morning. Her heartbeat drummed at the thought. She saw Sam turn quickly, and stamp out of the cottage, presumably to walk off his anger.

  ‘Why would Ben Killigrew and his cousin be at the works, Daddy?’ she asked Hal.

  He snorted. ‘Seems we’re to be honoured by their presence,’ he said sourly. ‘The nephew was bandying it about in the kiddleywink, and Gil Dark informed me I’m to have two new apprentices for one day a week. Just as if the young bucks can learn all there is to know in so short a time—’

  ‘We had to start somewhere, dar,’ Bess said gently. ‘Give the boys a chance, even if ’tisn’t right that you weren’t properly informed. Now, if you’ve all finished trying to split the table in two, Morwen can help me set it, and I’ll tell her my own news.’

  ‘What news, Mammie?’ She tried to sound interested, but there was only one piece of important news spinning in her head. She would see Ben at the works on Monday. She would see him again, so soon… but her mouth opened in astonishment as Bess told her of Mrs Pollancy’s offer.

  ‘You’d stop working for Killigrew Clay?’

  Bess laughed, handing her daughter a pile of dishes for the table, and a loaf to slice.

  ‘Did you think we were all fixtures there, Morwen? This is a golden chance for me. I love to sew, and to be paid for it too, and to be at home all day – well, I feel as if I should pay the ladies for the privilege!’

  Morwen gave her mother a quick hug.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. They’re the lucky ones to have you, and so are we. Is this what you really want, Mammie?’

  Bess looked thoughtful. ’I didn’t know it until it was offered to me. It’s even lovelier to realise an ambition without even having to strive for it!’

  Was it? To Morwen, an ambition fulfilled without striving and working for it seemed like no ambition at all, but she wouldn’t dim her mother’s elation by saying so. Instead she got on with preparing the family meal, and tried not to think too much about Ben Killigrew.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon Ben Killigrew was visiting the Carricks in Truro for tea. Jane’s blood ran fast at the thought, but not in the way her mother might have imagined. She and Ben would stroll through the cobbled town, and make for a narrow, tucked-away street, there to climb some rickety stairs to the attic rooms of a tall terraced house. The home of someone very dear to Jane, someone she wanted Ben to meet. Tom Askhew.

  Even thinking of his name made Jane warm inside. She was in love, and it was a glorious feeling, however much her parents would throw up their hands in horror at her choice. Tom would be condemned at once. He was not only a northerner, speaking with flat, nasal Yorkshire tones. He was also a newspaperman.

  Tom Askhew boasted that he had printer’s ink in his veins, and it was the very trade that Richard Carrick detested, dealing as he said in garbled muck-raking gossip. Jane knew very well that her scrupulously honourable father would never understand some of Tom’s methods of extracting information for his paper. Far from hating them, they exhilarated Jane, adding a spice of drama to a mundane world.

  Today, Ben had agreed to meet Tom for the first time. She dearly wanted the two men to like each other. There was no need for rivalry between them, nor ever had been. She felt a shivery delight. Tom was earthy and virile and spoke his mind without frills. When he held her he smelled faintly of that printer’s ink that he loved, sweet and tangy and alive. There was power in his work, and matching power in his body.

  Tom did double duties in his work, like every other man on the vigorous new paper, the Informer. The paper was dedicated to exposing all that was bad in society, giving o
pinions and comments without fear of reprisal, and all reported in short, pithy sentences that were easy to read, far removed from the wordy coverage of the established press. The Informer was hated or applauded, but never ignored.

  * * *

  ‘Ben, this is Tom Askhew,’ Jane said, as the two men eyed each other. ‘Tom, this is my good friend, Ben Killigrew.’

  She made the distinction carefully. Tom was sensitive about her long friendship with Ben, but she needn’t have worried.

  ‘It’s good to meet you, Tom,’ Ben said easily. ‘I began to wonder if Jane had invented this wonderful man of hers.’

  Tom laughed, visibly relaxing. ‘Aye, I’m real enough,’ he spoke in the Yorkshire twang Jane found novel and attractive rather than tiresome. ‘So you and Jane intend to prolong the myth of your courtship, do you? It seems a wise move for the present.’

  ‘It does, Tom,’ Jane said quickly. ‘You know Mama wouldn’t approve – she means well, and wants the best for me—’

  ‘So do I, and we both know what that is, lass,’ Tom said slyly, without taking offence.

  Ben gave a short laugh. ‘I see you’re a man of plain speaking, Tom.’

  Askhew’s eyes were suddenly keen. ‘Happen you’d best be the same come Monday, lad, if all I’ve heard is true. Jane says you’re to report to the clay pit, and there’s other tales doing the rounds. There’s dissent among the Killigrew workers and other pits and rumours of a march to your father’s office to demand like payment for all. How do you fancy choosing sides, Ben?’

  Ben was angry to hear it from a newspaperman, whom he had no doubt had got the gist of the matter. Tom’s reputation assured him of that. He was angry at being told of private matters in so casual a way, and if it hadn’t been for Jane’s anxious look he might have demanded to know more. As it was, he shrugged stiffly.

  ‘I’ll decide that when I’m good and ready,’ he said coolly. He looked at Jane. ‘I don’t think we should stay out much longer. Your mother will be expecting us for tea.’

  ‘Give us a moment or two, Ben,’ Jane pleaded.

  He nodded, leaving the two of them together, his thoughts racing. If there was trouble at the works, then perhaps it was as well that he was home for good. He still resented being thrown into the thick of it with Jude by his father’s irritating insistence that they should be properly employed, but something basic in Ben began to assert itself. Family pride was involved if there was dissent among the clayworkers. That Tom Askhew’s nose for a story had discovered it first was really of no consequence.

  Jane appeared a few minutes later, tucking her hand in his arm and looking anxiously into his face.

  ‘Do you like him, Ben?’

  He noted that her mouth looked well and truly kissed, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, and he hid his irritation.

  ‘I’d say his goose is cooked,’ he said irreverently. ‘You’re as determined a woman as your mother, and a mere man doesn’t stand a chance—’

  ‘You like him,’ she stated. ‘And you’ll tell Mama you’re taking me to Truro Fair, won’t you, Ben? And if I disappear for an hour or so until you take me home again, you’ll understand, won’t you?’ Her cheeks coloured more, knowing he would understand exactly what she meant.

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing?’ Ben looked directly into her eyes.

  ‘I know perfectly well,’ she said calmly.

  She knew more than she would say, even to Ben. Tom was putting everything into the Informer, and there were influential northerners with an eye on the ambitious young man. He had already been half promised their backing on a similar newspaper in Yorkshire if this one showed continued promise. When he left Cornwall to begin that new venture, as Jane was confident he would, she had every intention of going with him. But that was a secret known only to herself and Tom.

  * * *

  By the time Morwen went to bed on Sunday night, she knew it was impossible to put Ben Killigrew out of her thoughts. She would see him tomorrow… and from the moment she had heard the news, he had seemed to fill every corner of her mind. She had thought she would rarely see him, because the fine folks didn’t mix with the workers very often. She could pretend that all Celia’s teasings about her dreaming of marrying Ben Killigrew were like will o’ the wisp…

  She could forget that his pearl pin had scratched her cheek, leaving a tiny indentation in her skin, as if he really had branded her, reminding her of his words every time she touched the mark. Every single time…

  While she believed she would rarely see him, it had been easy. Now she knew she had only been deluding herself. She had such feelings about Ben Killigrew… akin to the thrill of turning a sixpence at the sight of a new moon and guessing at its luck. They muddled her senses and fired her blood. She didn’t understand them, but she knew their power. They excited her and angered her, because she knew they could lead nowhere.

  Morwen’s throat tightened with a bittersweet pain, knowing she wanted a man who was destined for someone else. She told herself she wouldn’t think of him… but she couldn’t stop him filling her dreaming hours. Foolish, impossible dreams, where Ben Killigrew marched right up to her and took her in his arms, and told her he loved her… sweet, wonderful dreams that made her sigh gently in her sleep, and let the soft trickle of tears dampen her pillow.

  * * *

  Ben had marching of a different kind on his mind on Monday morning. He still bristled over last evening, when he’d gone to his cousin’s room. He’d looked at Jude’s sprawling shape on the bed with disgust, noting the smell of drink and the dulled eyes and flushed face of his cousin.

  ‘You know we’re to go to the clay works tomorrow?’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you know anything of a march to the town?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Jude slurred.

  Ben glowered at him. ‘With the kind of company you keep in the kiddleywinks, I thought you might have known. It seems there’s dissent over payment between the pits. Father seems in the thick of it—’

  Jude began to laugh, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up so fast his head swam.

  ‘We’d best keep away, then. We’d be an embarrassment—’

  ‘No we won’t,’ Ben snapped. He’d had no plan until a short while ago, but now he knew exactly what to do. ‘We’ll show our faces, dressed for work and not as gentry, which won’t be difficult for you. We’ll go on horseback, and we’ll apply ourselves to whatever’s asked of us. And since my father wants our full co-operation with the clayworkers, we’ll join this march and show him and the clayworkers that we sympathise with their cause and are not just play-acting with them.’

  Jude’s eyes flickered with surprise. ‘Defy your father, Ben?’ he said mockingly. ‘You’d march with men demanding more pay from him and cut your own throat? ’Tis your money in the end—’

  ‘If Father wants me to be one of them, we back them all the way,’ he said curtly. ‘Are you with me?’

  ‘That I am!’ Jude wouldn’t miss this chance of getting one over on his uncle, which was just what Ben expected.

  ‘For once we’re in agreement. Be ready to leave the house soon after seven o’clock in the morning.’

  He strode from the room, not wanting to prolong this conversation with Jude. They had acknowledged their mutual dislike long ago, and only the blood ties made them tolerate each other.

  The march had begun to appeal to Ben. He had no thought of toadying up to the clayworkers, and he knew there would be plenty who resented the owner’s son amongst them, and would suspect him of spying on them. But if he was to be one of them, however briefly, then he’d abide by their rules, and by God so would that toe-rag Jude Pascoe as well.

  The two of them left Killigrew House next day, while the mist still hung about the moors above the town, and the good dames of St Austell were barely stirring in their beds. Jude hated the dampness, but Ben found the early morning ride exhilarating, and sharpened his wits. He realised he looked forward to the day, and also to
seeing Morwen Tremayne again.

  She figured in his thoughts a great deal. Seeing Jane and Tom together in Truro, and their shared closeness, he’d realised the lack in his own life, and he’d thought of Morwen. And known it was as unlikely a match as that of Jane Carrick and Tom Askhew. Jane was right. If ever her parents found out…

  ‘Well, look at that, cousin! There’s a sight to see on a Monday morning, like a gift from heaven.’ Jude’s sly voice broke into his thoughts.

  Ben looked ahead and saw the group of bal maidens laughing and gossiping on their way to Clay One pit, and found himself searching for a dark-haired girl with the bluest eyes…

  ‘She ain’t among ’em,’ Jude jeered, guessing at his thoughts. ‘But there’s a pert little maid if I ever did see one.’

  He made an exaggerated bow from his horse as the bal maidens went giggling by. Some glanced shyly at the two handsome young men on Killigrew horses; others were more bold, smiling freely, and it was Celia Penry smiling at the admiring leer of Jude Pascoe.

  ‘Looks like he fancies ’ee, Celia,’ one of the other bal maidens giggled. ‘You want to watch the likes of ’ee!’

  Jude heard her laugh and glance his way again. He liked the sound of her name. Celia. A pretty name for a pretty maid. And looking as though she knew her way about too. His practised eyes took in the swinging hips beneath the flouncing skirt, and the way her waist nipped in to accommodate a man’s grasp. He liked the way her dark hair rippled down the straightness of her spine, and felt a quickening interest. Perhaps working one day a week at Killigrew Clay would have its compensations after all.

  ‘Let’s find Hal Tremayne,’ Ben said shortly, irked at not seeing Morwen, and feeling even more annoyed to know it. What ailed him lately? He acted like a love-sick swain at times, which was galling to a young man with the world at his feet.