by Zoë Archer
Only when he said her name again directly behind her did she stop walking. Had to be a surface captain, ready to chastise her for leaving work early—even though she had the managers’ permission. She was just about to say so, when she turned to face the man pursuing her.
It was him. That stranger who’d been in the engine house.
“Seeing as how it’s my new home,” he said, “I was hoping you could show me the way to the village.” He didn’t sound at all winded, even though it looked like he’d been running to catch up with her. With his thumb, he pushed back the brim of his cap, revealing a thatch of wheat-blond hair.
In the engine house, she’d only had a brief glimpse of him beneath the gaslights—seeing mostly the winter blue of his eyes—but now that they were out in the sun, she could observe him more clearly.
“Got the job, then?” she asked.
“Good thing, too,” he answered. “I need the work and that pump engine needs a nursemaid.”
He wore a laboring man’s clothes, filling them with a leanly muscular body that had seen its share of work. Growing up and living among men who spent hours a day tearing ore from the ground made her no stranger to the sight of a young man in prime condition. But something about this man—the confidence with which he carried himself, the stretch of rough wool across his broad shoulders and down his long legs—made her aware of his physicality.
“Men aren’t nursemaids,” she pointed out.
He gave an affable shrug. “A friend of mine told me that the definition of a man is that he does whatever’s necessary. And if that pump engine needs me to change its nappy and rock it to sleep, then I’m the man for the job.”
She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her thoughts briefly scattered like startled thrushes when she got a good look at his face. Blessed saints, she didn’t know men could look like this. All clean lines, high cheekbones, and elegantly carved jawbone. His lips were thin, but the bottom lip was unexpectedly full. Someone long ago in his bloodline must have birthed an aristocrat’s bastard, for there was no denying the natural nobility in his features.
It seemed a strange contrast to the clothing he wore and his accent—which she placed somewhere around Sheffield, and not the nice parts of that city, either.
A face was just a face—nobody had power over how they looked. It didn’t matter how handsome this man was, he was only that: a man, like any other.
She pointed to the path, worn into the ground. “If you’re looking for the village, follow this for another mile and a half. It’ll take you right there.”
“Since we’re headed in the same direction,” he said with a smile, “may as well keep each other company.”
For all her bold talk, she was a woman, and not entirely immune to a handsome man’s smile.
Still, she said indifferently, “As you like.”
Setting down one of his bags, he extended a broad hand to her. She hesitated for a moment, not really wanting to touch him, but he glanced down at his hand and saw that machine grease smudged a few of his fingers. With an apologetic grimace, he wiped his hand on his trousers—drawing her attention to his thigh—and then offered her his hand again.
“Simon Sharpe,” he said. “Just got hired as a new machinist.”
It would be downright rude not to shake his hand, so she did so. The contact of palm to palm sent a fast shiver of awareness through her. “Alyce Carr,” she said, trying for a level voice. “And you’d be wise to take up your bags and find work elsewhere, Simon.” Only the managers and bosses referred to the miners and workers by their last names.
She let go of his hand and walked toward the village. He quickly fell in pace beside her.
“Wheal Prosperity’s the only mine that’s hiring right now,” he said. “Don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“There’s always emigration. Or you could try something different—like the music halls.”
“I get seasick something terrible, so crossing the ocean’s out. And as for the music halls”—his low, husky laugh trailed along the nape of her neck—“they’d only pay me not to sing and dance.” His gaze was sharp and curious as he looked at her. “You work at Wheal Prosperity, but if it’s as you’re implying, why don’t you leave?”
The managers rode by on their trap, trailing thick clouds of dust as they returned to the village, and paying her and Simon no attention. Coughing, Alyce tried to wave the dust away. Finally, it settled, the trap already a speck in the distance.
For a moment, she debated whether or not to be honest with him. There was always the possibility that he could be yet another of the owners’ snoops, hunting out agitators. But she’d never made a secret of her complaints, and she hadn’t yet been fired.
Because they know I can’t do a damned thing against them, and I’m one of their best bal-maidens. To them, I’m just a gnat. A very productive gnat.
“Can’t,” she answered bluntly. “I assume they gave you a chit to pay for your food and lodging for the week.”
“Five shillings’ worth.”
She whistled. “A princely sum. And did you read the words on the bloody thing?” She recited them from memory. The words themselves were stamped upon her very brain. “‘Payable in Merchandise, Non Transferable.’ That’s how we’re all paid now. With that damned chit.”
“And there go anyone’s hopes of saving actual money. Couldn’t even buy a train ticket to carry you to someplace new.”
“Just so.”
A narrow stream dotted with rocks crossed the path they walked. Every so often, some enterprising person from the village thought to lay a wooden plank or two across the stream to make it easier to cross, but the planks never lasted. People rather liked skipping across the rocks—a little reminder of childhood play.
Simon nimbly jumped from rock to rock and landed on the other side of the stream with just a few strides. He set his bags down and reached out a hand for her. To help her across.
The gentlemanly gesture flummoxed her. It was so natural for everyone who lived in the village to cross the stream that no one ever thought to give anyone assistance. And she still didn’t like the idea of touching him. No, that wasn’t quite true. She didn’t like the sensations in her body caused by touching him. This man who was an utter stranger.
Ignoring his outstretched hand, she picked up her skirts and leaped from one rock to the next until she reached the other bank. There wasn’t any harm in him seeing her ankles. Her boots were nearly as stout as his. Nothing provocative about heavy, sturdy leather.
Even so, when she dropped the hem of her skirts, something like disappointment flashed in his eyes.
She continued walking, with him right beside her. “Besides, all I know is working at the mine, and everyone I’ve ever known is here. My father worked here, as did his father, and his father’s father. My brother, too. And all my foremothers were bal-maidens or took care of the babes at home. This is my life.” It surprised her, the defiance in her voice—or was it self-defense?
No, she was proud of the work she did, and the people around her. She had no pride, however, regarding the men who ran the mine. Outsiders, the lot of them.
Like this man—Simon. A complete stranger. Granted, an extraordinarily handsome stranger, but a man unknown to her. Well, she could learn a few things, too.
“Where are your people?” she asked. “Parents, siblings … wife?”
Her cheeks heated that she should ask so bold a question.
He didn’t seem to take offense. “Sister’s in Buxton, and my father’s in Sheffield. No wife.”
No reason at all for her to feel a twist of pleasure at that—none at all.
“You could’ve stayed in Sheffield,” she noted. “Plenty of work there.”
“Everyone I knew worked in the knife factories.” He shook his head. “The world’s a narrow place behind a grinding wheel. Joined the army for a spell—engineering corps. That’s how I learned the way of different machines.”
“And did you?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Did I what?”
“Make the world less narrow?” She’d only been as far as Newquay, and then for only a half-holiday. The rest of the globe seemed a terribly fascinating, terribly big place. How lost she’d feel, out in the middle of everything with nothing but her own name to anchor herself.
“Oh, aye. India, South Africa. Fascinating places. Remind you that there’s more to life than being English.” She must have looked surprised by his answer, because he said, “Seems I’ve caught keen-witted Miss Carr by surprise.”
“Most of the men I’ve spoken to who were soldiers called those places savage or heathen. Not fascinating.”
He slanted her a smile. “All sorts of men in this world. Some don’t fit perfectly into the uniforms they’ve been given.”
She was beginning to learn that he didn’t. Looking off to the hedgerow on her right, she saw the old elm tree, its branches bent from the winds that swept down into the valley. She’d seen that tree twice a day, every day, for the whole of her life. Yet for the first time in a goodly while, the long walk from the mine to the village held something new and surprising. That something was him, with an aristo’s looks, a working man’s accent, and a philosopher’s outlook. She saw now the military bearing in the way he carried himself, posture upright, as if he hadn’t spent decades crouched in a mine but marching boldly across the globe.
“Wheal Prosperity isn’t like other mines, either,” he noted. “Most pay with actual money, not scrip. I thought that was something they only did in America, in their coal mines and logging camps.”
He may as well know the history of the place if he was determined to work there. “Ownership changed about ten years ago. The American and Australian mines drove the price of copper down. More than half the mines in Cornwall shut down. We all believed we were goners, then thought it a blessing when a new group of adventurers offered to buy the mine out.” She shook her head. “None of us knew the cost. Not until it was too late.”
Those had been terrible days. Every morning waking up with fear cold in her belly, wondering whether any of them could go on, or if they’d lose everything. She’d been afraid, truly afraid. Poverty had hovered like a thin-faced ghost over the village and the mine, as everyone had anxiously gathered on stoops and in the two taverns, waiting, waiting. Would they have a way to keep the rain off their heads? Would their children go to bed complaining about the emptiness in their bellies?
Alyce had been only fourteen at the time, and her parents had still been alive. She’d heard her father and Henry talking in low voices by the fire.
We’ve got a little money set by, Henry had said.
But not enough, my lad, her father had answered. Not enough to support all four of us.
I have to run away, Alyce had thought. One less mouth to feed. Maybe I can get work in London at a shop or in a house, and send my wages home.
The following morning, Alyce’s mother had found the pillowcase stuffed with Alyce’s meager possessions. Instead of giving her a scolding, however, Alyce’s mother had enfolded her in a hug, scented of mineral ore, chimney smoke, and warm, maternal flesh. We stay together, her mother had said. And that had been the end of that.
How happy they’d been when they’d learned the mine had been bought out. How the village had celebrated: everyone in the high street, singing, dancing. Toasting their good fortune with glasses of ale.
Now there was rancid butter in the company store, and no one would or could do anything about it.
She pushed the discouraging thoughts from her mind. She would find a way to make things right, but the how of it was something she hadn’t figured out. Yet.
“Sure this is where you want to work?” she asked Simon again. Dusk had begun to fall in a violet haze, and the lights of the village could just be seen beyond the next rise.
“Like I said, not many places hiring now, and I don’t fancy reenlisting.”
Alyce only shrugged. She’d done what she could. If Simon found himself trapped here in a cycle of poverty and debt—just like everyone else—that was his business, not hers.
They made the rest of the trip to the village in silence, for which she was grateful. Talking about the old days only reminded her of what everyone had had, and lost. Reminded her of the invisible shackles around her ankles, the same shackles binding every man, woman, and child in Trewyn. The few hours between shifts at the mine belonged to her, and she wouldn’t waste them on anger or despair.
After crossing the last hill, they reached the village. Alyce had been born in Trewyn, and had woken up and fallen asleep here every day of her life. Yet, with Simon walking beside her, she tried to see it now with a stranger’s eyes.
Houses of granite crowded the high street, with more creeping along the winding alleys leading off the main avenue. Some sported optimistic flower boxes, and a few doorways had cheerful vines of ivy twining around them. At either end of the high street stood the villages’ two pubs, quiet now since the men hadn’t yet returned from the mines, but a few old men sat outside on benches nursing their ales with a measured, deliberate pace.
No shops presented cheerful, merchandise-filled windows to the street. There used to be, but they’d gone, and had been transformed into more houses. Only one place to buy anything from mutton to muslin in Trewyn.
“You need to make any purchases,” she said, “that’s where you go.” She pointed to the company store looming at the top of the street.
“It’s one of the only wooden buildings in the village,” he noted.
That he should notice this detail surprised her. “Yet it holds the most gravity—even more than St. Piran’s.” She nodded toward their plain little church set up on the hill. A rueful smile curled her mouth. “Funny that the store stands at one of the highest points in the village, as if water—or money—should flow away from it, the way it might in nature.”
“But nature’s rules don’t apply here.”
“Everyone’s work and toil flows up into the store. Unnatural, that’s what it is.”
“There’s that scientist bloke—Darwin,” he murmured. “He said that creatures adapt to their environment, no matter how unnatural it might be, or else they don’t survive. Seems like you’ve done the same here.”
“We haven’t got any say in it.”
He cast her a glance. “You’re ignoring your own decision to endure. But that’s just what you’ve done. You made a hard choice, and stuck with it.”
She peered around the village. Trewyn wasn’t a pretty place—she’d seen illustrations and photographs of nicer villages and towns, laid out in neat grids, with public squares, subscription libraries, and tea shops. It was a village born from need, built by a people who never expected luxury or even softness from life. Not pretty, but practical.
An unexpected throb of affection beat in her chest. My home. All she’d ever really known, and, shabby as it was, she’d defend the village until the last of her blood stained the soil.
Alyce cast a quick, surreptitious glance at Simon, wondering what he saw. After all, he’d been many places, in England and abroad, places far grander than Trewyn.
Yet she didn’t see disgust, or contempt, or dismay in his eyes. Instead, he seemed to be studying all that he saw, his gaze sharply perceptive, taking note of everything. As if looking for strengths and weaknesses. As though readying himself not for a new job in a new town, but preparing for a siege.
Military habit, I suppose.
Even so, it surprised her to see how he’d changed subtly. The faintest trace of danger emanated from him, like a concealed knife. Unseen, but that didn’t lessen its potential.
A shiver danced up her spine.
“I feel as if I should offer you some kind of welcoming gift,” she said. “A pot of flowers or loaf of bread. Knitted blanket.”
The wariness in his eyes faded slightly as he smiled. “An old bachelor like me would just kill the flowers, devour the bread,
and turn the blanket threadbare. But thanks for the sentiment.” He glanced up and down the high street, as if searching for something.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Trying to figure out which one of these houses is yours. I expect you’ve got some kind of banner flying out front, like one of those old-time knights. Seems only right for the Champion of Trewyn.”
A shocked laugh burst from her, to be painted that way. But then, it did make a kind of sense. She seemed to be the only one in the village who regularly complained to the managers about the conditions at the mine and at the village.
Strange that Simon, who barely knew her, saw her as a guardian or knight. Strange, and flattering.
“Any particular interest in knowing where I live?” She surprised herself with the sauciness of her tone.
A corner of his mouth turned up. “I might be out taking a stroll and get lost. I’ll need someone to show me the way back.”
She frowned a little. Was he flirting with her? “It’s impossible to get lost in Trewyn. We’ve only got one street.”
“Maybe the place is more complicated than you know.”
Before she could answer, the rumble of hundreds of men’s voices and the thud of booted feet drifted into the village. She and Simon had left the mine fifteen minutes ahead of quitting time, but now the rest of the workers had caught up with them. Women’s higher tones wove through like flutes. Some laughed, relieved after the end of the long day, but most spoke in low voices, too tired to do much more. Alyce could almost identify every single person, even with her eyes closed. John Gill and his rough chuckle. Danny Pascoe, who still talked with the piping notes of a lad despite his age. Cathy Weeks, whose voice was as deep as Danny’s was thin. Henry was somewhere in the crowd, as well, but somewhere toward the back, since she didn’t hear him yet.
Alyce moved aside to give the returning workers room as they trudged up the high street, and Simon did the same. She greeted many as they passed, and took a bit of good-natured ribbing from some that she’d left work early. Dozens of curious gazes fixed on Simon, intrigued by the stranger. More than a few bal-maidens let their gazes linger for a bit longer. Alyce gave many of the curious her own silent, speaking glance, letting them know that she’d be by later to give an accounting of the newcomer. But as for making introductions—he’d have to do them on his own. She had enough to manage without becoming the unofficial welcoming committee.
