* * *
Hal was striving in vain to quieten a meeting of his clayworkers. Number One pit was oddly still without the trundle of the little waggons to the sky-tips. The kilns were silent, and the only fires were those around which the clayworkers huddled in blankets to keep out the cold and damp, grudgingly listening to their pit captain.
‘You’re fools if you think violence will get you anywhere,’ Hal had to shout above the din. ‘It was madness to go to Killigrew’s offices and smash windows. Someone will end up being killed—’
‘What of our families being killed wi’ no food in their bellies and no warmth in their cottages? Killigrew’s the murderer, and the bastard stays smugly in his big house while the likes of us starve—’ they hollered back.
‘We’ll send a deputation—’ Hal tried again.
‘We don’t want no more talking. We want our dues! Can ’ee give us they, Hal Tremayne?’
‘My Daddy’s not God!’ Sam intervened angrily.
‘No, but he’s a boss’s man,’ some began to chant.
‘If he were that, would he be standing here wi’ us all in this weather?’ Sam shouted back. ‘He’d be warmin’ himself by his own fire, and we’ve little enough o’ that. We send our children to gather sticks, same as the rest on ’ee.’
‘All right, Sam, we may as well let them go home. They’ll not see sense—’ Hal muttered wearily.
‘No more will Charles Killigrew,’ Sam snapped. ‘Why isn’t he here to sort this out? Groups of them are talking of going to Bultimore and Vine’s. Did you know they’re offering free ale at the kiddleywink for all Killigrew’s men who’ll go to a meeting to talk over terms? I don’t know how many have gone already, but ’twon’t be long before they do. They can’t hold out. The strike pittance won’t help the large families, and you know what they’re like. When they’ve had money, they’ve spent it. None of them are savers—’
A commotion near the gate momentarily stopped the growling discontent among the men. Freddie Tremayne came running towards them, his blue eyes wide with alarm. He gasped to get his breath as the words tumbled out.
‘Daddy, you’m to come home quick. Mr Ben Killigrew’s there wi’ a note for our Morwen, and when she read it she fell about crying, and so did Mammie, and they won’t tell me what ’tis all about, but said I had to come and get you and Sam and our Jack, and to say ’tis urgent.’
At mention of Ben Killigrew’s name the clayworkers moved in a body behind the Tremayne men. They raced over the moors to the cottage, where the clayworkers stayed silently outside until they knew what was to do. Ben’s horse was tethered to a post, so it was clear he was still there.
Hal went to his wife’s side. Her face was red and filled with pain, and he saw that she and Morwen had been crying.
‘What is it, dar?’ he said harshly.
Bess’s throat was thick. ‘’Tis our Matt, Hal. He’s gone across the sea to America. He left from Falmouth three days ago wi’ that cousin of Ben’s, and he sent us a note. ’Tis all we have of him now, Hal—’
She began weeping again, the silent tears running down her face, more awful to him than violent sobbing. He folded her to his chest, not yet ready to see any note. He heard young Freddie begin to wail, and Jack was sniffing loudly, finding it hard to be a man at that moment. Morwen went to comfort Sam, who looked as stricken as any of them, and Ben could only stand by helplessly, hating himself for being the one to bring even more sorrow to them.
It was Morwen he wanted to hold, to comfort, but after the first shock of seeing him when her heart had leapt in her chest, she had seemed as aloof as on that first day he’d seen her in St Austell town, and had his first brief contact with her in his arms.
He ached to have her there now, to be alone with her and say all the things he wanted her to know. But this wasn’t the time. These moments belonged to her family, and he felt very much the interloper. They were the strong ones, Ben thought suddenly. They supported and comforted each other, while he and his father, who were supposed to be so superior, were more often at each others’ throats. It was ironic and poignant at the same time.
‘I’m sorry to bring you such news, Hal,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to leave now—’
Hal turned from Bess at once. Even now, part of his mind could be with his workers, Ben thought humbly, as it became obvious that personal problems must be put aside. Hal spoke gruffly.
‘The men are outside, Ben. It’ll make things worse if you don’t say a few words to them. They’re in an aggressive mood because your father hasn’t come to the works—’
‘I know that. I’ve seen our offices this morning, and I’ve every intention of speaking to them,’ Ben said curtly. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to be in this little cottage. He’d seen it filled with so much love, and today it oozed sorrow. He wanted to be away from it. But he couldn’t leave Morwen like this.
‘My father asked me to speak to you, Morwen,’ he invented quickly. ‘Perhaps we could meet somewhere else a little later. I’ve intruded here long enough.’
He didn’t dare to suggest meeting at the Larnie Stone. It was too far distant on such a day, but it would have been a sweet trysting-place… but Morwen would be in no mood to think of such things. She said that if Charles wished Ben to speak to her, then she would be walking over to the churchyard where Celia was buried, since it was her day to visit her friend’s grave. She would meet him inside Penwithick church.
His eyes met hers. As if there was a sudden telepathy between them Ben knew instantly that Morwen intended telling her friend that the hated Jude Pascoe was gone for good… or was he going as mad as the old woman on the moors for letting his imagination run away with him? He nodded to her abruptly before going out of the cottage to face the clayworkers.
* * *
‘What’s to do, Killigrew?’ they shouted at once. ‘Has your father come to his senses?’
Ben looked at them coldly. ‘My visit has nothing to do with the strike. It’s a personal matter for the Tremaynes. If Hal Tremayne wants to tell you, then it’s his place to do so—’
‘The whelp’s as stubborn as his father,’ the shout went up. ‘They sit on their arses in that big house o’ theirs, and care nothing about us. We can all starve. I say we take Bultimore and Vine’s offer, men. Take the free ale and take the jobs they’m offering! ’
Ben’s voice was drowned in the cheers that echoed round the men. Several of them bent to pick up stones, and threw them at him. He dodged as one of them grazed his cheek, and waved his arms frantically; knowing he’d made an appalling mistake. He’d been caught out by his own emotions inside the Tremayne cottage, and now he was paying for it.
There was no stopping the stampede of clayworkers away from the row of cottages. From the direction they took, Ben guessed they were making for the rival pit. He had failed miserably. He stumbled away from the cottage, not wanting the Tremaynes to see his humiliation. His senses were reeling as he straddled his horse and galloped off across the moors.
For the moment he was too upset to remember his meeting with Morwen. But after half an hour’s hard riding, she was the only sane thing in his mind, and finally he turned back towards Penwithick. Once he reached the church he tied up his steaming horse and went inside the old stone building.
It was dark inside, and he couldn’t see anyone at first. He couldn’t blame her if she’d decided not to come, Ben thought bitterly. She’d probably witnessed the whole scene outside her cottage, and thought he’d gone home like a dog with its tail between his legs.
‘Ben.’
His heart stopped beating for a moment as he heard her soft voice from one of the high-backed pews. He caught sight of her long black hair as the shawl slipped away from it as she rose to meet him.
‘What was the message from your father?’
She paused, looking at him mutely for a moment, her eyes still swollen from the tears shed over Matt, and he covered the distance between them in long stri
des. Pride held her taut until he pulled her swiftly into his arms, and then she was soft against him. All the way here he had agonized over the right words. And now there was only one thing he could say.
‘There was no message, and you know it! God, Morwen, I’ve missed you so,’ he spoke roughly against her hair. ‘I’ve missed you—’
‘Have you? You haven’t been near me—’
‘You know the reason for that! It’s been impossible, and you made it plain that you wanted to be with your family. It would have made things worse if the clayworkers had seen us together in that way—’
She looked up at him, her mouth trembling a little, the colour warm in her cheeks. She wouldn’t give him an inch.
‘In what way, Ben?’
‘Do I have to spell it out for you—?’
‘I think you do,’ Morwen said gravely. ‘I’m a mere bal maiden, a clayworker’s daughter, sir, and I don’t have your education—’
He held her fiercely, bending her backwards and holding her head in his hand to kiss her mouth and to feel its swift response to him. He thanked God for it.
‘You have everything I ever want or need,’ he said. ‘You have my heart.’
Morwen drew in her breath, wondering if this was really happening… she still couldn’t quite believe he was here… and then the memory of what had brought him here this day rushed into her mind. How could she have forgotten it so soon! Her eyes misted over, and her face burned.
‘Ben, I must go home. My mother’s distraught over Matt’s leaving, and I mustn’t stay away too long. She’ll need me.’
‘I need you too. You know that, don’t you?’
She had to ask. ‘And – and your Miss Jane Carrick?’
Ben smiled gently. ‘Miss finelady, you mean? Would it surprise you to know that she’s going to marry someone else very soon, and move right away from here, my Morwen? I can’t tell you any more than that, but it’s another secret you and I share.’
Morwen’s blood sang at his words. There was something else she needed to say.
‘Did you guess why I came here today?’
‘To tell Celia that Jude had gone for good,’ he said calmly.
‘And you didn’t think I was crazy?’
He touched her mouth with his finger. ‘Why should I? I’m as Cornish as you are, and there are some things only we understand. You had to come here, to make Celia content.’
Between any other two people the conversation might have seemed totally illogical, but Morwen knew he understood her completely, and now at last she felt as though her heart brimmed over with love for him.
‘You know we can say nothing about our feelings until this damn strike’s settled?’ Ben went on. Her face whitened again.
‘I’d forgotten! How could I have forgotten?’ In an instant the barrier was there between them. He the owner, she the champion of the clayworkers. She wriggled out of his arms. ‘Have you any brilliant ideas for putting an end to it?’
‘None that my father will agree to,’ he said caustically. ‘Sometimes I wonder if we’re of the same stock, we think so differently. He’s the most obstinate man in the world. I think it will take a miracle to shake him.’
‘Or an earthquake,’ Morwen said with a shiver.
‘You’re cold, my love. Let me take you home, or at least part of the way.’
He didn’t say that it was best that they weren’t seen on horseback together, but he didn’t need to. They left Penwithick church and she sat in front of him on his horse. As they rode, her hair streamed against his face, and suddenly Morwen put her hand against his cheek.
‘You’re hurt, Ben. There’s blood on your face.’
He’d hardly noticed the sting of it before.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said brusquely, forcing a laugh. ‘Maybe you scratched me the way I scratched you with my pin that first day. Do you remember? When I said I had branded you?’
‘I remember,’ she said softly.
She said no more about it, but she was perfectly sure she hadn’t been responsible for the cut on his face. She asked to be put down a fair way from the cottage. The mist was swirling again, conveniently hiding them from prying eyes. Ben kissed her swiftly. Morwen clung to him, and the moment was sweet.
‘Trust me, my darling. I’ll do all I can to get this thing settled,’ he promised. Then he was gone, his horse’s hoofbeats soon muffled by the sodden October ground.
* * *
Ben had every intention of declaring his love for Morwen Tremayne to his father the instant he got home. Charles Killigrew should know that he couldn’t mark out his son’s life from infancy, and both Ben and Jane had minds of their own, and would love whom they chose. He stormed into the drawing-room, to stop at once on seeing Richard and Mary Carrick there. Richard’s face was ashen, while Mary continued weeping even more noisily the minute she saw Ben. He knew immediately…
‘Have you seen this rag?’ Charles shouted at his son, thrusting a copy of the Informer under Ben’s nose. ‘The fellow’s gone too far this time! Calling me a strike-monger, and practically inviting Bultimore and Vine’s to take our clayworkers away from us, and promising to print leaflets for the men to inform them of better working conditions at other pits! It’s libel, that’s what it is! I’ll have Askhew’s guts for this—’
‘No, you won’t, Father,’ Ben said as calmly as he could. ‘I helped Tom compose the article. It was my idea about the leaflets too. If you won’t give the men their dues, then they have every right to go where they get fair pay for their work.’
Charles’s jaw dropped in a fury. ‘Have I got mutiny in my own house now?’ he shouted.
‘Not mutiny. Just a wish to see the strike over, and to be fair—’
‘I’m sorry, Charles, but we didn’t come here just to listen to your arguments,’ Richard said sharply. ‘Mary’s in a state of shock, and I hardly know how to tell you, my boy—’
‘If you’re going to tell me that Jane’s eloped with Tom Askhew, and that they’re to be married in Yorkshire where he’s starting another newspaper called the Northern Informer, then you don’t need to,’ Ben rounded on him. ‘And if the three of you had taken the least notice of Jane and me all these years, you’d have known that we only cared for one another like brother and sister, so please don’t be upset on my account! We have more important matters to think about—’
‘More important than my daughter’s future?’ Mary Carrick suddenly screamed at him. ‘How can you be so heartless, Ben? I can’t believe what I’m hearing—’
‘Do you mean you knew what was being planned by Jane and this – this newspaper muckraker?’ Richard demanded.
‘I’ve said so. I also knew that this article in the Informer was the only way to make you all see the strike the way decent people will see it. When the facts are known to them, they’ll think the clayworkers very hard done by, and it will be Killigrew Clay that loses face, unless you make amends right now. Give them their wage rises and their rail tracks and Tom’s successor has promised to print a follow-up article that will exonerate Charles Killigrew from being such a skinflint, and make folk respect him again!’
‘I’ll tell you all one thing!’ Richard Carrick shouted. ‘You Killigrews take so much on yourselves that in future you can deal with everything. All the decisions will be yours and I wash my hands of them. I’ll see that it’s all legally drawn up. Just send me my dividends each quarter and do what you like with the damn clay works!’
Mary’s ragged sniffling was the only sound in the brief silence that followed. Then, as he expected, Ben saw his father’s face darken with rage. He waited for the tirade, but it never came. Instead, Charles suddenly clawed at his throat as if unable to breathe. His massive shoulders seemed to crumble and his eyes glazed as he slumped to the floor.
Chapter Nineteen
Kitchen gossip spread quickly through the town. It soon became common knowledge that Charles Killigrew had suffered a stroke, leaving him partially paralysed an
d bed-bound, only able to mumble gibberish, and with one side of his face and body hideously contorted.
‘They say he cries like a baby the whole time, and has ordered every mirror in his bedroom to be taken out,’ the story got more embroidered with every telling.
‘He were always a vain un—’
‘But a fine figure of a man, for all his bawling,’ some said fairly. ‘He’ll not want to see the shadow of himself. They say the son’s in a terrible state as well, and Mrs Tilley could hear a woman screaming in the drawing-room long afore the old man collapsed.’
‘Ah, I heard that too. Seems like his young lady’s gone off to marry some newspaper chap, and her folks had come to tell young Mr Ben. ’Course, when all the excitement happened, he had to forget all that and see to his father, and the others went off back to Truro, no doubt sorry for bringing all this extra trouble on the Killigrews.’
The town sages shook their heads dourly.
‘’Tis a bad time for ’em. Money don’t make merriment, do it? What wi’ the strike an’ all, we’m best off in our own small cots, neighbours!’
* * *
It hadn’t taken long for the news about Charles Killigrew to reach the clayworkers, and on a miserable wet morning the men at Number One pit were grouped around Hal Tremayne, even more uncertain of their future. Until the clayworkers arrived, the only daily movement at the pit was in the stables, where the stable-lads had been allowed to feed and exercise the waggon horses, the pit captains deciding it was no fault of the animals that all work had ceased.
‘I know as little as you,’ Hal told them tersely. ‘It’s several days since he was taken ill, and the tale’s got so garbled, there’s no knowing what condition the boss is in—’
‘We know what condition we’m in, Hal Tremayne! And if Killigrew’s not in his right mind, then you’d best see the son, and get some sense out on him, afore we all starve!’
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