Family Shadows

by Family Shadows (retail) (epub)

  But she wasn’t oblivious to the fact that times like these were far less frequent now than they once were. It was only natural, she supposed. Time moved on, and they moved on with it… but she wished she could hold on to these golden moments for ever, and never let them go.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until the next morning over a late breakfast that she asked him how the meeting went. The children were already at their lessons in the nursery with their tutor, and Justin hadn’t yet appeared downstairs. Last night had been too precious to spoil with mundane reports, since Ran had already implied that there was nothing of any great import to tell. But now she had to know, and the questions tumbled out.

  ‘Were the men satisfied that it’s impossible for any of us to improve their wages for the present, Ran? Did you make the position absolutely clear, and were you convinced there was no threat of any new strikes in the offing? And were Bult & Vine solid behind us?’

  ‘For God’s sake, one question at a time, Morwen! It all ended reasonably peaceably, given their natures, and Bult & Vine’s were rock solid behind us – eventually,’ he said grimly. ‘God help them if they hadn’t been, after all our efforts beforehand. We had to be solid, honey, or we’d surely have had a riot on our hands.’

  ‘But I can’t believe there was no hint of trouble. Are you telling me everything?’ she persisted, unable to imagine such a meeting being conducted quietly.

  She knew the clayers too well. And she knew her own menfolk too well. There had been other times when shots were fired in the air to quell the noise… she saw Ran frown, and half-wished she’d never started this inquisition. But it was her right to know, and if he didn’t tell her, her daddy would.

  ‘There was the usual heckling and baiting, and a couple of irritating incidents,’ he said, more sharply.

  ‘Well? Am I supposed to guess what they were?’ she demanded as he paused.

  ‘I suppose your father or your son will report it all, if I don’t,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Yes, they will. And I do have a right, Ran!’

  ‘Oh yes, I was forgetting. You were a Killigrew before you were a Wainwright, weren’t you?’

  Morwen bit her lip, refusing to retort to this jibe. After last night, she simply didn’t understand how he could be like this. As if the loving had never happened. As if the closeness between them had vanished like a moorland mist. His ability to switch from passion to coldness so successfully seemed to signify the difference between a man and a woman, she thought. For her, the magic still lingered…

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said now, as she remained silent. ‘That was an unnecessary remark, and I withdraw it.’

  You can’t withdraw it, Morwen thought. Once said, the words were there for all time.

  Justin came into the breakfast room at that moment, and she turned to him with some relief. He looked tired, and she said at once that Daniel Gorran was working him too hard.

  ‘Don’t mamby-pamby him, Morwen,’ Ran said at once, before Justin could answer. ‘He’s a man, for God’s sake, not a callow youth. At least, he’ll be old enough to call himself a man in a couple of week’s time.’

  ‘That bothers you, does it?’ Justin said, staring him out with his cold blue eyes. Morwen had never realised how cold those eyes could be until they looked at her husband with such dislike. Since she loved them both, she mourned the fact that they would never get along, but she wasn’t prepared to let it ruin her life.

  ‘Why should it? You’ll always be a boy while you’re living under my roof,’ Ran snapped.

  Justin turned to his mother, while he helped himself to kippers and toast from the side table.

  ‘That’s something I have to talk to you about, Mother,’ he said. ‘Daniel Gorran has offered me a partnership on my twenty-first birthday, and I can take over fully in six month’s time when he retires to St Ives with his sister.’

  ‘Justin, that’s wonderful news!’ Morwen said.

  ‘But I can move into the living accommodation above the Chambers as soon as I like. I thought I’d do so after my birthday, if you’ve got no objection.’

  Morwen stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to live at home for ever, but nor had she expected this to happen so soon. But the small sneer in Ran’s voice warned her that it was the most sensible thing to happen for all of them.

  ‘Congratulations, Justin. A legal partnership at your age is quite a feather in your cap.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’m grateful for all I’ve learned at Gorran’s, and I mean to take this chance,’ he said quietly.

  And oh yes, Morwen thought. Whatever Ran might think of Ben Killigrew’s son, he was already a man. He was modest enough to know his worth, and strong enough to be unaffected by it. She went to her son and kissed him.

  ‘Well done, my love. I shall miss you, though,’ she said softly.

  His arm slid around her slim waist and hugged her. ‘It’s not as if I’m going a million miles away, is it? And I’ll still be involved in the fortunes of Killigrew Clay through my work.’

  Before Ran could comment further on every damn Killigrew and Tremayne having a finger in the pie, Morwen spoke quickly.

  ‘Grandma Bess wants to throw a party for your birthday, Justin, and I’ve said we’ll hold it at Killigrew House. You won’t make a fuss now, will you? She wants to do it for ’ee so much.’

  ‘I can hardly refuse then, can I?’ he grinned, hearing the way her voice softened and mellowed, and thinking that between the two of them, his mother and grandmother could twist most folk around their little fingers.

  ‘I’ve work to do in the study so I’ll leave you two to your discussions,’ Ran said, pushing his chair away from the dining-table, as if he couldn’t bear to watch the intimacy that existed between them. Justin, of all her family, was the one he seemed to resent most. And Morwen didn’t need telling that it was because he was so like Ben.

  But when her son had left for St Austell she followed Ran into his study, knocking on the door first and being told coldly to enter. She stood with her back to the door, waiting until her husband finished fiddling with the sheaf of papers on his desk, and decided to look up and ask what she wanted.

  ‘You can be so ungracious!’ she burst out. ‘I sometimes think there are two people inside you, Ran! One that can be warm and loving, and everything I want, while the other one—’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, then I’m afraid it’s the bad guy that you see this morning,’ he drawled. ‘Now, what is it that you want? I’m very busy, as you can see.’

  Her eyes caught sight of the long envelope on his desk, with the distinctive American postmark. She drew in her breath, and everything else was forgotten for the moment.

  ‘Have you heard from Matt?’ she exclaimed.

  He shuffled the envelope and its contents into the folder in front of him.

  ‘I haven’t heard from your brother in months,’ he said. ‘These are business documents, and nothing more. Now, I must ask you again what you want, Morwen?’

  Her swift excitement dwindled into disappointment. She hadn’t heard from Matt in months either, and nor had her mother. And he’d been so good in writing in recent years, and telling them all about his life in California with Louisa and Cresswell. His own son would be twenty-one very soon too, she remembered, and wondered what kind of celebration they would be having for him.

  ‘Well?’ Ran snapped.

  The frisson of annoyance she felt towards him erupted into something much wilder. She marched forward and leaned on his desk with the flat of both hands, her eyes jewel-bright with anger.

  ‘You are without doubt the most irritating and impatient man I know!’ she snapped back. ‘I’m still waiting to hear about these two incidents at the meeting yesterday, and I demand that you tell me right now. Is that too much to ask? Or do I have to ride up to Killigrew Clay and get the news from Walter? A fine sight that will look, won’t it!’

  For a moment they glared at one another, and then a slow gri
n spread across Ran’s face.

  ‘It may be a tired old cliché for a man to tell a woman she looks magnificent when she’s angry, but by God, Mrs Wainwright, you sure as hell do!’

  She said nothing, but despite herself, her mouth began to twitch, and then she was grinning back at him, as daft as a Cheshire cat. But she sat down on the chair on her side of the desk and folded her arms, and had no intention of moving until she got an answer.

  ‘There was a fellow at the meeting I hadn’t seen before,’ he said abruptly. ‘There was something about him I didn’t like. He could have been a county man or a spy from some other works, for all I know. One of the men almost throttled him, by all accounts, but it happened so near the back of the room that the truth of it was garbled. It probably meant nothing, but for some reason it niggles away at me.’

  It didn’t sound like much to Morwen, but she knew how the men guarded their precious meetings from prying eyes and ears. They hated the interference of the Union men, and not even the bal maidens were allowed to join in, no matter that many of those women had given all their working lives to one particular clayworks.

  ‘What was the other incident? You said there were two,’ Morwen said, thinking that if the second was no more interesting than the first, she was sorry she’d bothered to ask at all.

  She saw Ran glance at her and then glance away, and at once her intuition was alerted. She didn’t know the reason, but she knew Ran would prefer not to pass on this second piece of information. And she was just as determined to hear it. She stared at him without blinking, knowing how it would push him into speaking.

  ‘You’ve heard of Harriet Pendragon, of course,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Of course. Who hasn’t?’ she began, and then the farthing dropped. ‘You aren’t going to tell me that woman turned up at the meeting, are you?’

  ‘She said she had every right to be there. She’s a clay boss—’

  ‘So am I, if it comes to that! At least, I’m part owner, but I wasn’t invited to attend—’

  ‘God dammit, woman, neither was the Pendragon female! You know that well enough, so don’t go making something out of it that don’t exist.’

  ‘So did she just walk in and join you all on the platform then?’

  She hadn’t felt jealousy in years. There had never been any cause, and there probably wasn’t any cause now. If the accounts that circulated about the Pendragon woman were anything to go by, she was probably an old hag. But the feelings of jealousy surging through Morwen’s veins right then were sharp and bloody and cancerous.

  ‘She tried it,’ Ran said, unwittingly adding to the feelings. ‘But between us all, we soon sent her packing.’

  ‘So what did she want?’ Morwen said, trying not to let the red rage take her over completely.

  ‘To make some kind of a deal, I gather. We didn’t listen long enough to find out. We just wanted to get her out of there before she undid all the good we’d done.’

  Morwen didn’t say anything for a moment. But she had to know something more.

  ‘What was she like? She’s kept well away from this district for so long, I can’t think why she would want to interfere with us.’

  ‘Maybe times are hard for her too, despite all her assets,’ he said, though without conviction. Any fool could see that wealth oozed out of the woman. Her self-assurance alone confirmed as much.

  ‘Are you going to describe her to me, or do I have to ask Walter about that too?’ Morwen demanded.

  ‘Damn it, woman, why can’t you leave things alone? She was no more than a bloody interfering nuisance, flouncing through the men, done up in scarlet satin and feathers that would have looked more at home in a whorehouse!’

  Morwen felt as if she physically reeled backwards, even though she didn’t move a muscle. The words were vicious and ugly, but even if he didn’t realise it, Ran painted a vivid picture of a beautiful woman, not the hag that everyone had believed Harriet Pendragon to be.

  ‘So,’ she said slowly, when the silence between them stretched into minutes. ‘This Pendragon woman is somebody to be reckoned with, is she?’

  Ran looked at her in surprise.

  ‘I didn’t say so, and nor do I think so. She’s one woman among a dozen clay bosses—’

  ‘I’m a woman too, and I own a share in Killigrew Clay,’ she reminded him. He brushed her words aside as if they were of little consequence.

  ‘But you’ve always agreed that the running of the business is rightly left to men, Morwen. This damn woman is no more than a thorn in our sides, that’s all.’

  But still somebody to be reckoned with, Morwen thought, and not just in the business sense, either.

  But it would do no good to question Ran further. He was already busy with his papers, and shutting her out. It was as if she had nothing to do with Killigrew Clay at all. Well, she had a say in everything. The works belonged jointly to Hal Tremayne, Ran and herself, and she’d be damned if she was going to be pushed aside as a mere woman, especially when there was another one on the horizon who seemed to have control of everything she owned.

  Morwen had never been covetous of the business before, and she wasn’t now. But she could see that this Pendragon woman wielded a power that she herself didn’t have, and there was nothing like the aphrodisiac of a powerful business rival, man or woman. She prayed that the woman wouldn’t be a rival in another sense too.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your papers,’ she said quickly, wishing to God the thought had never entered her head.

  ‘All right,’ Ran said, as carelessly as if he hardly heard her. ‘Enjoy your day, honey.’

  She went out, resisting the childish urge to slam the door behind her. Enjoy your day indeed! As if she was one of those females who spent their days idling in social chit chat, when she had always done an honest day’s work…

  She brought herself up short. She was thinking in the past again. It had been many years since she’d toiled in the clay with the other bal maidens in their bright dresses and bonnets, scraping the blocks in the linhay and being part of a close-knit world that was unlike any other.

  Where men and women and young uns all worked together like an army of ants on the moors above St Austell, gouging out the earth’s humble white substance that had such rich, far-reaching properties. Providing fine table-ware for dukes and princes. Settling a clayman’s stomach after a night’s drinking by scooping up a handful of slurry that they swore was God’s own medicine.

  Seeing through the production of the clay, the drying and stacking, and sending off the twice-yearly careering wagonloads piled precariously high to the ports, down the steep hills to St Austell and beyond. Remembering the pleasures and pains of it all, the cheery young kiddley-boys, the bronzed young men stoking the fire-hole, stripped to the waist with their bodies gleaming with sweat…

  She drew in her breath as a sudden sharp image of Ben Killigrew filled her senses; young and virile and determined not to let the men think he was too proud to do a man’s work despite being the boss’s son. And her own daddy, Hal Tremayne, pit captain of Clay One at that time, viewing the educated Killigrew boy with new respect as he never wavered all that long, hot day in the fire-hole.

  Was it true that, after all, she still longed in her bones for the man she had once loved to distraction? Did love ever really die? Was Ran Wainwright more canny than she supposed, in suggesting that she still wanted Ben Killigrew in her bed, alive or dead?

  Morwen jerked herself into action, knowing she was letting herself be overtaken by disturbing and distasteful thoughts. But the longing to be as she was, just once more, was too strong to resist. Without questioning it any further, she went upstairs to change into suitable clothes and then went to the stables, instructing Gillings to saddle her mare.

  ‘’Tis a good day for a ride, Ma’am,’ he said, nodding. ‘You know what they say – rain afore seven, fine afore eleven. I reckon theym right an’ all.’

  She hadn’t even been aware that it had been r
aining earlier in the day, but now she could see that the moors above were shining in the April sunlight, as new and green and gold as if they had been specially painted by an artist’s hand. And far above them, their tips just visible from here, were the towering sky-tips. She couldn’t see them glinting from this distance, but she knew they would be diamond-bright. But the rain wouldn’t have stopped any of the work at Killigrew Clay. The beam engines would be grinding away, the little trucks would be shifting slurry onto the ever-growing spoil heaps, the chatter would be never-ending…

  She hadn’t left any messages as to where she was going. The children would be busy at their lessons all day; Justin would have departed for Gorran’s Chambers by now; and Ran wouldn’t miss her.

  * * *

  The closer she got to Clay One, the more the sense of excitement seized her. This was where they had all worked, all her large, rumbustious family; her Mammie and Daddy, her brothers Sam, Jack, Matt and small Freddie; and herself. It had been their life, and as she breathed in the chalky dampness of the clay and nodded to one and another who recognized her, she felt a peculiar sense of coming home. Only when she passed the milky-green waters of the clay pool did she feel a twist in her heart, for this was where her friend Celia Penry had been found floating face down in the scum.

  ‘Mother, is something amiss?’

  She turned her head swiftly, thankful for a familiar voice, and smiled reassuringly at the tall figure of Walter Tremayne, as she slid down from the mare’s back. The fact that the heels of her fine leather boots sank immediately into the slushy earth didn’t bother her in the slightest.

  ‘Of course not, Walter. Why should there be?’ she said brightly.

  ‘What are you doing here then?’

  It occurred to her that he looked less than pleased to see her. She frowned, surprised by his businesslike manner.

  ‘Can’t I come to visit my own son when I choose? I hardly see you or Cathy these days, and I do have a personal interest in Killigrew Clay!’