Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  I was dumbfounded. My face began to burn with pleasure.

  “Of course you’re young,” said Jared Roslyn, “and just a boy in some ways, I dare say, but the miners I spoke to thought of you as a man who could act like a man and think like a man as far as the mine’s concerned. You’ve also got one great advantage, be it unjust or not; you’ve been reared as a gentleman. You’ll know how to talk to the Government and they’ll listen to you more readily than they’d listen to a Cornish working man. Well, there it is. Will you go to London for us and present our case?” And as I began to stammer he added, “You’d best think it over. I don’t want to be accused of rushing you into any rash judgment. I’ll be at the Working Men’s Club in Zillan tonight—come over after eight and give me your answer, if you will.”

  “You needn’t wait till eight for my answer.” I was so excited I could hardly speak. “I don’t need time to think it over. I’ve been thinking about that mine for over twelve years. I’ll go to London for you and get that mine opened and, by God, I’ll find that tin and strike that lode if it’s the very last thing I ever do.”

  TWO

  “Warcraft was his specialty and everything else was sacrificed to indulging it.

  It was no use his enemies taking refuge in castles, for Richard would detect a weakness in even the most allegedly impregnable of them and exploit it with precocious skill.

  —King John,

  W. L. WARREN

  I NEEDED MONEY THEN, not much, just enough for my fare to London and to pay for my meals and my hotel. Also I had discovered that my best suits, which I had put away in the wardrobe on my return to the farm over three years ago, no longer fitted me. I had filled out; hard work had made me muscular and the material of my jackets now strained across my shoulder blades and refused to meet across my chest. My mother had money saved, but I hated to ask her for anything, and nothing on earth would have induced me to go crawling to my father. In the end I approached Jared. He was astonished to hear I had no money, I suppose because he believed that anyone who spoke as I did should have too much money for their own good.

  “Look,” I said bluntly, “I’m a working man, just as you are. The farm makes enough profit to enable me to live very simply, and now I no longer have to ask my mother for a share of my father’s maintenance payments, but I only have seven pounds of my own in the bank and nothing more, so if you can’t help me I’ll have to borrow from somewhere else, and frankly I’d rather borrow from you than from a professional moneylender. And don’t suggest I borrow from my mother. She’s supported me financially for long enough and I don’t want her to support me any more.”

  He didn’t ask me why I couldn’t approach my father. He knew, just as everyone knew, that my father and I were estranged. Instead he said with reluctance, “I haven’t much money to spare myself, but I wouldn’t want to see you in debt to the moneylenders. I’ll talk to my brother Joss. He married a rich woman and has only one child to provide for. He’ll lend me the money.”

  So I got the money and had a new suit made and after Christmas I went to London to see our member of Parliament. He said he would look into the matter. I said that wasn’t good enough. He became annoyed, but when I reminded him of my father’s power in the Duchy and how many votes he could influence he said he would speak to the Minister. I hung around a few days longer, wishing I was back in Cornwall and wondering how they were managing without me at the farm; I had never liked London, and London in wartime was even more depressing than when the world had been at peace. Peace now seemed a thousand light-years away. “I give the Germans exactly six months!” Marcus had declared before leaving Cornwall to enlist, but he, like so many others, had been hopelessly optimistic.

  The war was dragging on. All the action had taken place within the first four months and now matters had reached a stalemate—or so it seemed, although since information was scarce rumor was rife and it was hard to know what was really going on. However, it was generally agreed that the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French had done well after crossing to France in August; it had reached Mons in time to thwart the Schlieffen Plan and prevent the Germans reaching Paris; it had forced the enemy back across the Aisne, and presently at Ypres it had halted the German advance to the Channel. But now in December both sides had paused to replenish their supplies and it was hard to forecast what might happen next. Both sides were evenly matched and there was no hint that a clear-cut victory was just around the corner.

  I was made more aware of the war while I was staying in London. In Cornwall it was easy enough to think of the conflict being confined to France, but in London I was conscious that the war had reached across the Channel to lay drab, dank fingers upon a city which had been until so recently the most brilliant, most opulent and most colorful capital in Europe. Men in uniform, unending speculation on the war, rabid Germanophobia, new rules and regulations, a drop in the quality of food and service—the war permeated everything. It was a gray, grim winter in a gray, grim city and I grudged every moment I was kept waiting by those incompetent politicians.

  While I was waiting I heard a rumor of compulsory enlistment if the recruiting campaigns did not measure up to expectations, but the news was a false alarm. Patriotism ran so high that everyone was in a fever to enlist, and no one suspected then that the war would be so lengthy and the casualties so high that compulsory enlistment would become necessary. I relaxed. It was not that I was unpatriotic. I would have defended Cornwall to the last ditch if the invaders had tried to advance across the Tamar, but I saw no point in rushing off to France to fight a bunch of foreigners who were causing trouble because some fool had got himself shot in Sarajevo. I had my own wars to fight anyway. I hadn’t the time to run around France killing Germans when I was needed in Cornwall to fight the battle for my mine. Besides, why shouldn’t the French fight their own battles? If they’d had more backbone Britain wouldn’t have been dragged into the war and I wouldn’t have been placed in such an embarrassing position.

  I was just thinking I would have to send home for more money when I heard that the high-ranking civil servant who advised the Minister on matters such as my mine would be willing to give me an appointment, and presently I went to Whitehall with my member of Parliament to see him.

  He was an ill-tempered aristocrat with a dissolute mouth and eyes weary from worry and overwork.

  I tried not to show how nervous I was. Making a great effort, I kept my voice forceful and began the concise speech I had prepared for the occasion.

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted me irritably, his hands twitching the copies of the miners’ depositions before him, “but who owns this mine?”

  “A man called Mark Castallack, sir.”

  “Castallack? The historian?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked at me oddly. “Didn’t you say your name was Castallack too?”

  “Yes, it is. He’s my father.”

  “Your father! Good God, why on earth didn’t you say so!” He gave me a conspiratorial smile as if to say, “So you’re one of us after all.” When I refused to return his smile and waited politely for him to continue, he was somewhat taken aback. It took him several seconds to think of what to say next. “What is your father’s present position in regard to the mine?” he inquired distantly at last “Was he a shareholder before the old company became defunct? I assume it was once a company with capital, shares and so forth.”

  “Yes, sir, it was.” I was glad the interview had become more formal again. The atmosphere of a cozy chat would hardly have helped me to state my case succinctly. “However, the Penmars—my grandmother’s family who owned the mine—were never content to be just landowners taking a percentage of the dues. They were adventurers—speculators and shareholders, that is—as well as landowners, and they were the moving force in floating the old company and seeing it established. They owned two-thirds of the shares, and even when the company was wound up they of course remained the landowners. For the last
couple of years I’ve been trying to persuade both my father and various well-known adventurers to reform the company, but my father’s not interested in spending his money in that way and the adventurers these days seem to be wary of the old mines, especially after what happened at the mine East Wheal Rose in the Eighties—although there are plenty who say Wheal Rose was closed just when the greatest wealth of all was within reach … But to return to Sennen Garth, there’s no doubt that it’s still a rich mine. First of all there’s tin left in the old workings. No one denies that. Second, there’s tin beneath the lowest level of the old workings. No one seriously denies that either. Third, the greatest wealth of all can most probably be reached by extending the mine out under the sea, just as they’ve done at Levant and Botallack. In those depositions you’ll find expert mining opinion which reinforces this probability. Why, you may ask, in these circumstances does the mine remain closed when it obviously has such a great potential? Sir, that’s a fair question and I’ll tell you the answer. It’s because considerable capital investment is required and investors are fighting shy of the Cornish tin mines because economists in London—who know nothing of Cornwall—have been spreading a rumor for a long time that the Cornish tin industry has moved into an irreversible decline. It’s the attitude that’s to blame, sir, not the facts. If the Government now backs Sennen Garth, you’ll revive not just my mine but the whole Cornish tin industry. You’ll give the investors faith and you’ll get your tin. You can’t miss! And as far as Sennen Garth is concerned, it would really be a very simple operation. All you would have to do would be to get a new engine, drain the bottom of the mine—”

  “What does your father think about all this?”

  I tried to keep my temper. “Sir, my father’s not a miner. He knows nothing about mining and very little about Sennen Garth. That’s why I’m here.”

  He smiled cynically. “Have you ever been down a mine?”

  That was the moment when I nearly punched him on the nose. He spoke of the mine as one might speak of a lavatory.

  “I’ve studied mining for a long time,” I said abruptly, “and “I’ve been down the Levant mine at St. Just more times than I can remember.” How I managed to hold onto my temper I don’t know. “I was sent here by the miners of St. Just,” my voice was saying reasonably, “because they believe I know what it means to be a Cornish tinner. I wasn’t sent here because I’m my father’s son. That’s why I made no effort to trade on his name when we first began our conversation. It was the men of St. Just who sent me, not my father.”

  “Are you a Socialist?”

  I saw red. By this time I was clinging onto my temper with both hands and sweating with the strain.

  “Frankly, sir,” I said, “I’ve no more use for politics than you have for mining. In my opinion in such a time of national crisis any talk of internal politics is pretty damned irrelevant. The only reason I’m here talking to you now is because I’ve got something you want and you’ve got something I want and what we both want is for England to win this bloody war. If we two can reach an agreement as quickly and painlessly as possible we’ll both of us benefit but England would benefit most of all. Why don’t we concentrate on the facts instead of wandering off into side issues and wasting time? What the hell does it matter who my father is? What the hell does it matter if I’m a Socialist or not? Is that fact going to help England win the war? The important fact is that there’s tin in this mine, probably ten times as much tin as anyone even dreams there is, and if you agree to finance—”

  “You can regard that as agreed,” he said coolly, “I’ll advise the Minister to sanction the reopening of the mine and grant the appropriate funds since the prospects are evidently so promising. You’re right. We need every ounce of tin we can get.” And as I stared at him dumbly, unable to believe the magnitude of his words, he added, “How old are you?”

  “I … Twenty in June, sir.”

  I fully expected him to say, “Then why the devil aren’t you in France?” but he did not. All he said was “You’re a very unusual young man. You should go far.” Then he rose and shook hands and the interview was over and I never saw him again.

  Within two weeks Government officials were at Penmarric to talk to my father; within a month the preliminary operations were being organized, and at last on one morning at the end of March the main engine was christened “Castallack” with a bottle of port, the engine house was decorated with spring flowers, and every man with mining in his blood came from miles around to cheer the resurrection of the Sennen Garth mine.

  2

  That was when I first met Alun Trevose.

  He was a mining expert from Camborne’s East Pool and Agar, one of the men whom Jared had approached when he had been gathering his depositions, and he too believed in the wealth of Sennen Garth and the existence of the lodes under the sea.

  He was just like me really. Not obviously like me—not like me in appearance or background or education, but like me in the ways that mattered. We thought alike, felt alike, acted alike. For he was a born miner, just as I was, a man with a passion for mining that equaled my own, and I knew soon after I had met him that this was the best friend I would ever have, anywhere at any time.

  I had had plenty of friends at school but none of them had shared my interests. By this time I did not expect to make such a friend, and when I first met Trevose I wasn’t even sure I liked him. He was half Welsh, half Cornish, totally Celt. He had been born in Redruth, where his father had been a miner, but at the age of eight he had gone to South Africa, where his father had chased easy money in the gold mines. That hadn’t lasted long; the dust of the gold mines can play havoc with a miner’s lungs and then not even the best pay in the world can stand between you and an early grave. At sixteen Trevose was back in Redruth and vowing to spend the rest of his life in Cornwall instead of following his father’s example and dying on foreign soil. He had been married, but that, hadn’t worked out; his views on God, the upper classes and women soon became famous throughout the more conventional circles of the mining parishes, and at first people were suspicious of him, distrusting his nasal South African accent, which had supplanted the native speech of Redruth, and rating him little better than “one of they furriners” with “powerful uppity ideas.” But there was Cornish blood in Trevose and he didn’t remain an outsider for long. He knew mines and he knew tin and he knew how to lead men below ground, and after a time people forgot his strangeness and learned to live with his eccentricities because he was a good man to have around and kind too for all his roughness and coarse speech.

  I liked him long before he could permit himself to like me. It went against the grain with him to be other than surly to someone with my kind of background.

  As a miner he was an expert. No other word could do him justice. Sometimes I felt he could almost smell tin a hundred yards away behind a wall of granite. He was young, only ten years older than I was, but I trusted him more than I would have trusted a man twenty years his senior because he had the mysterious flair of the born miner and it was this flair that seemed to speak aloud to me and identify him as a man after my own heart.

  He was with me on all those preliminary surveys of Sennen Garth, and it was he who organized the draining of the lower levels. A Government official had been appointed “managing director” of the mine and another official was acting as purser, but neither of those civil servants knew much about the Cornish tin mines and their principal purpose was to keep a watch on the expenditure of Government money. From the beginning it was understood that I was in charge of operations, but since I was young and inexperienced I knew I needed someone whom I could rely upon to give me good advice. There was no shortage of advice itself; endless streams of interested miners, anxious to work for “tutwork or tribute” in exploring the possible new lodes, were continually at my elbow, but Trevose was the one I trusted. When we finally sank a shaft farther below sea level and began to strike out under the sea, it was he who decided on t
he level to sustain and it was he who went on believing that we would blast our way into wealth.

  There’s tin there,” he said. “I know it.”

  The Government began to worry about expenditure and the civil servants suggested we should concentrate on mining the tin which remained in the old workings, but in fact it had turned out that there wasn’t nearly so much tin left in the old workings as everyone had thought there was. Soon I began to realize that the entire success of the venture depended on whether a series of rich lodes really did exist beneath the sea. I still thought they did, but now the amount of speculative risk involved seemed greater to me than ever before and I could understand why adventurers had fought shy of Sennen Garth for more than twenty years.

  “Relax,” said Trevose. There’s tin there, waiting for us. I can feel it.”

  So we went on under the sea and the walls ran with water and the noise of the pick and the hammer and the drill nibbled at our ears, but there was no lode of tin. The miners began to look worried. The old men at the surface shook their heads wisely and said there were no seams below the sea at that point and that they themselves had said so all along.