Chapter Four

The air in St Austell’s meeting house was thick and cloying, blue with smoke from the mixture of many expensive cigars and humble hand-rolled cigarettes. But it was neither thicker nor bluer than the insults and blasphemies flying backwards and forwards across the room, in the ever-growing crush of clayworkers and bosses gathered there. The meeting had dragged on through the morning and afternoon, and was now into early evening, nothing sensible having yet come out of it. Nor was it helped by the Union men who objected to every suggestion put by the bosses, and scotched most of them.

‘’Tis madness,’ Hal Tremayne shouted above the din. ‘What bloody fool let all these buggers in? If we get many more coming off shift and trying to put in their two pen’orth, the floor will be fair near to collapse with all the weight.’

‘You were the one who said all and sundry should be allowed to come, man,’ Ran Wainwright snapped at him.

Hal glared at his son-in-law. He respected Ran, liked him well enough, but there were times when his sardonic American twang drove him wild. Bloody colonials, he thought viciously, coming over here and thinking they’re God’s gift to humanity… he caught the gleam in Ran’s eye, and knew the American was following his every thought.

‘They’ve every right to be here, Wainwright,’ one of Bult and Vine’s bosses leaned forward and spoke. ‘’Tis our way to let the workers have their say, and always has been, and we don’t aim to change now.’

And sure as hell not for the likes of you, said the unspoken words. Their eyes clashed, and Ran felt the same spark of animosity he had felt from Hal. It was he who who looked away first, but only when his stepson Walter cracked the wooden mallet on the table, bellowing into the rowdy crowd, and making them all jump as if it was a pistol shot.

‘Why don’t you all shut up and let them that know what’s what have their say?’ he yelled, his words tripping over themselves in his effort to be heard. ‘We’re gettin’ nowhere with all this arguing, and I for one want to get home to my bed tonight.’

‘Yeah, and who wouldn’t, with a pretty little wifey like yourn,’ one of the clayworkers at the back of the room heckled, sniggering suggestively. In the momentary silence Walter had created, the words were audible to all, causing more sniggers and obscene gestures, and his proud face flushed a dull, angry red.

And one man at the back of the room, dressed in clayworker’s garb and with a slouch hat pulled well down over his face, made discreet comments in a notepad under cover of the crumpled newspaper he carried. He was careful not to be observed. If any of these roughnecks ever guessed that a disciple of Tom Askhew’s newspaper, The Informer, was present at this closed-shop meeting, he’d be skinned alive before he could reach the door.

But he knew Askhew would be pleased with the ingenuity of his young protégé in gaining access to this meeting, and gleaning what information he could. And any gossipy snippet about young Walter Tremayne and the news editor’s pretty daughter would be a bonus, especially when it was sent in anonymously to the letters page. Even more so when that same ambitious young reporter with an eye to the future knew how it would incense Tom Askhew and undermine his confidence as to where those damn letters were coming from.

Ellis White bent his head as a burly clayworker alongside him suddenly stared hard at him. Deftly and surreptitiously, Ellis managed to slide his notepad and pencil into his coat pocket.

‘Who’re you with, boy?’ the older man said suspiciously. ‘I ain’t seen you afore at Killigrew Clay and I know most of the men here from Bult and Vine’s.’

‘I’m from over St Dennis way,’ Ellis said quickly, evading the main question. ‘I’m a newcomer to the business, and I need to know what’s in it for me, see?’

The other man laughed raucously amid the din that was already starting up again.

‘You’m in the wrong trade then, boy. There ain’t no money in china clay no more. Any fool can tell ’ee that. Why the devil d’you think we’re all here?’

He turned away from the younger man, bored with an idiot without the gumption to see there were no fortunes to be made from an ailing industry. There never had been for the clayworkers, the man scowled. Even for the bosses, the glory days were past. And by all accounts, unless a miracle happened, those days that were left were fading fast.

The bosses were so busy filling the works with newfangled machinery that did the job no better than the old ways, in order to compete with one another, that there was no money left for those that toiled in the sodding wet clay in all weathers. All that happened was a glut of clay, with nowhere to sell it, except at rockbottom prices.

The man became incensed with his own thoughts, and the indignity of the clayworkers’ lot. And this young fool was daft enough to come into it at what some saw as the worst of times… To the horror of Ellis White, he suddenly found himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck and almost pulled off his feet by a pair of huge hairy hands.

‘Take a look at this young feller-me-lad,’ the man bawled out, while Ellis’s heart thudded furiously, thinking his ruse had been found out. He’d have to bluster it out somehow, he thought wildly. He might be ambitious, but he wasn’t a physical man, and nor was he prepared to take on these uncouth bastards for the sake of a newspaper story…

‘What’s to do wi’ him, Herbie?’ the man jostling him yelled back with some relish, sensing a fight.

The man called Herbie bawled out above the heads of the crowd, many of whom were turning their heads to look at the to-do at the back of the room now. Herbie’s voice gathered pitch and momentum.

‘This is what we’m here about, men. A young whippersnapper like this ’ere ’andsome lad, just making ’is way in the world. What future is there for the likes of ’ee, when the bosses won’t even consider givin’ us the piddlin’ extra two shillin’ a week they promised us back a year and more. How’s the likes of this un going to raise a family on such a pittance as is paid now, I’d like to know?’

The roars that accompanied Herbie’s words drowned out the choking sounds from Ellis White’s throat. He managed to point desperately at his throat, while he felt his eyes begin to bulge and his knees to buckle.

As if only just aware of what was happening, Herbie let him go. Whether or not he’d actually been suspended an inch or two above the floor, Ellis couldn’t even tell. But it felt as if he had. He could barely swallow, and he wanted to crawl away and die from the fiery sensation in his throat. He’d be bruised tomorrow, he thought savagely, just when he’d arranged to meet a new friend, and now he’d be black and blue…

Well, if they wanted news of their doings put in print, they’d get it. An honest and fair report of their grievances by ‘our correspondent’ would appear in The Informer, no matter how mysteriously they thought it had been obtained. And the anonymous and infamous letter writer who was causing such a stir whenever he put pen to paper, would take a sadistic pleasure in condemning the mentality of men as clodhopping as the clay beneath their feet, who conducted their meetings with all the finesse of wild animals tearing at each others’ throats.

He felt his own throat tenderly for a moment, but his anger was being tempered now by knowing his own capabilities. He had few friends, and he was what folk termed a lone wolf. But if he didn’t get along with people, at least words were his friends, and his education wasn’t going to waste, he thought, preening himself. Words were powerful weapons, and although Tom Askhew himself was unaware of the letter writer’s identity, Ellis got great satisfaction out of sniping away at all and sundry, especially his own editor, whenever he felt like it.


There was a sudden hush in the room, and the combined raised voices of Walter and Hal Tremayne, Ran Wainwright, and Bult and Vine’s representatives, dwindled away. Ellis swivelled his neck, wincing as he did so, and relishing the bloody tale he’d have to tell, of how he was manhandled in the company of these clayers…

Then, even his vicious thoughts were scattered as he saw what folk nearer to the door had seen.

A flash of scarlet satin startled him. Among this company of drab, dishevelled clayworkers, most of whom had lately come off their shifts, with grey-white, unwashed faces and filthy garb; and the bosses in their pressed suits and their high-polished boots and gaiters; the newcomer shone out like a glorious, glowing beacon.

Ellis’s considerable command of words made his thoughts momentarily lyrical, and then the vision moved determinedly towards the platform where the bosses sat, and he closed his gaping mouth to try to think who the devil she was.

And a woman, for God’s sake! What was a woman doing here, in this company, when no bal maiden would dare show her face, and not even Morwen Wainwright, with her rightful stake in Killigrew Clay, interfered with mens’ business to this extent. His newspaperman’s curiosity was aroused, overcoming his recent urgent need to get out of the cloying atmosphere and to breathe some clean salt air in his lungs.

‘Who the devil is she?’ he heard himself croak, and as the pathetic squeak came out he wondered for a frantic moment if his throat had been permanently damaged from the clay lout’s rough handling.

But he didn’t need to ask a second time. As the silver-haired woman with the feathered scarlet hat atop her curls, and the proud bearing in her slim, scarlet-clad shoulders, approached the platform with such assurance, the whispers of recognition were already rippling around the room.

‘’Tis Harriet Pendragon from over Bodmin way.’

‘’Tis she who puts the fear o’ God into her workers, but pays ’em shillin’ for shillin’ for a good week’s work.’

‘Oh ah, wi’ all the money old Pendragon left her, she can do as she pleases, but ’tis dragon by name and dragon by nature, by all accounts.’

‘She be a fine creature, for all that, and one that a man ’ould be mighty eager to get his leg over, and her wi’ no man to call her own no more—’

Ellis craned his neck, his interest quickening. He’d never seen the lady before, but he’d heard of her right enough. Who hadn’t heard of Harriet Pendragon?

So this was the woman who had scandalized the county by taking over her husband’s clayworks when he lay dying, and had continued to lord it over her workers ever since, behaving with all the ruthless power of a man. The woman with rumoured untold wealth at her disposal, who threatened to undercut the prices the other bosses got for their clay blocks, and was one of the prime suspects for already doing so, though nobody seemed able to prove it. And one who already paid her workers sixpence a day more than any other owner to keep them sweet.

If there hadn’t been so much superstition attached to working for a woman, together with her reputed toughness, it was certain there were plenty of workers who’d desert their old employers and go to work at Pendragon Pits.

But, good God Almighty, Ellis thought anew, as he saw her mount the rostrum with voluptuous grace. This was no scarecrow bitch, ready to tear the eyes out of the first man to get in her way. This was a charmer of the first order… and one filled with staggering self-confidence to turn up in a whore’s colour, and wear it so magnificently… he didn’t dare get out his notepad again, but his memory was pin-sharp, and he mentally noted every iota of her appearance, and was ready to record inside his head every word she uttered.

He saw Hal Tremayne rise angrily to his feet. He knocked over his chair and left it where it fell, glowering at the woman with no quarter given in face or manner.

‘Madam, you have no place here. This is a meeting called to order among men to discuss men’s business, and I’ll ask you to leave quietly.’

Harriet Pendragon stood her ground and stared him straight in the eyes. Hers were a strange silvery grey, almost matching the unnatural colour of her hair, as opposed to Hal Tremayne’s hard blue eyes. If Ellis had been of a more regular inclination, he could have been stunned by such brittle beauty, but women held little interest for him.

He pushed such thoughts out of his mind for the present, and concentrated on what was happening on the platform. It was as if the whole roomful of men were doing the same, but for various reasons. Few of them had moved, and yet it seemed as if they all pressed forward, hanging on the drama being unfolded in front of them.

‘None can dispute my right to own Pendragon Pits, and as a boss I’ve every right to have a say in the general mechanics of ownership. You’ve all shut me out for too long, Tremayne, and you’re all fools if you take no notice of me, for I’ll have the lot of you on your knees yet,’ she said, in a musical voice that belied the threat in her words.

‘A woman can’t control a couple of hundred men—’ Hal snapped at her.

‘Can you?’ Harriet Pendragon countered. ‘I’ve seen no evidence of it here, and I understand this miserable meeting has already lasted most of the day with no conclusions drawn.’

You had to admire her, thought Ellis White, as the mutters of assent ran round the room. She knew exactly how to pull the listening men to her side, while they waited for Hal’s curt response. But it was Ran Wainwright who put a restraining hand on his father-in-law’s arm and got slowly to his feet to face the woman.

‘Mrs Pendragon, you have my sympathies,’ he said coolly. ‘A woman trying to walk in a man’s shoes is always a pathetic creature.’

She stared in disbelief at his gall, taking in every lithe line of him, infuriated yet intrigued by what she saw. A man to lean on was something Harriet had never had, nor ever wanted. But she could see that the Killigrew widow had got herself a man of some stature in all respects, despite the dislike she saw in his face towards herself.

What?’ she finally said, starting to laugh. ‘I don’t think you know just who you’re talking to, sir.’

‘Oh, but I do,’ Ran went on, his voice insulting and clipped, and at his New York best. ‘Just as I see exactly the effect you were trying to make in coming here tonight dressed like a streetwalker.’

Harriet gasped in outrage, her hands clenched tight by her sides. Walter hid a chuckle, but she heard it, and rounded furiously on him.

‘You think that’s amusing, do you, young Killigrew? Well, perhaps you won’t find it so funny when I take half your workers and give them decent jobs, and house them in cottages where the damp doesn’t seep through the walls and give them all consumption by the time they’re twenty-years-old!’

Some of the reps from Bult and Vine’s had clearly had enough of this wrangling upstart, and had begun gathering up their papers, preparing to stalk out until another day. And the body of men in the room were alternately cheering and shushing their neighbours, in order to hear what was going on.

‘I can see there’s nothing to be gained here today,’ Harriet said, staring directly at Ran. ‘You’re beneath bothering with, the lot of you. I came to offer the hand of friendship, but you’ll never get any assistance from me now. I’ll see you all rot in hell first.’

She paused, and then spoke more coldly. ‘As for calling me a streetwalker, I’d look to the various amusements of your own adopted family if I were you, Ran Wainwright, before you start throwing insults at others.’

She turned, and with her head held high, she walked through the throng of clayworkers, who parted their ranks at once, as if she was a ship in full red sail going through the parted waters of the sea. She was just as majestic, thought Ellis White admiringly, and his newspaper column was going to be full to the brim with today’s events. He couldn’t wait to get back to his digs and get started on it, and he was already composing the first paragraphs in his head by the time he slid out of the meeting house.


‘It’s high time we went home, my lovelies,’ Morwen told the children again, seeing how darkness was falling.

The younger ones were all but falling asleep on Bess’s sofa now, and Bradley had stopped prowling about the house, his head now buried in some of the books in old Charles Killigrew’s library.

By now, he had wheedled his grandmother into letting him stay the night, much to Morwen’s annoyance. But she had eventually given in, knowing how much Bradley liked to jaw with his Grandpa Hal, though Lord knew what time he would be coming home tonight.

There would also be less friction in their own house without Bradley there, which left Morwen feeling guiltily that this was a fine way to regard her own son. But knowing it didn’t alter her feelings. She glanced at her mother now, trying not to show her anxiety about the men’s business.

‘Do you suppose all is well in town?’ she murmured, avoiding saying too much in front of Luke and Emma.

Bess shrugged. ‘Whether ’tis or not, there’s nothing we can do about it, my dear, so we might just as well not fret over it.’

‘I knew you’d say that. You always do,’ Morwen said with a smile. It didn’t help her at all, and she wasn’t at all sure that her mother believed in her own wise words.

‘The men know what they’re doing. Strikes have been averted before, and there’s no reason to think we’m heading for trouble yet,’ Bess said sagely.

‘A strike wasn’t averted earlier this year, was it? It lasted all of nine weeks then, and more than one family were made paupers by it,’ Morwen said.

She couldn’t forget Tom Askhew’s screamingly abusive newspaper headlines over a clayman who’d taken his own life rather than face utter destitution, and putting the blame for it squarely at the door of the clay bosses.

It wasn’t as if Morwen hadn’t sympathized, or agonized over the incident. She’d quietly visited the wife and children and taken them gifts of food and cast-off clothing. She wasn’t one to broadcast her actions, but no matter what her part in the ownership of Killigrew Clay, she couldn’t forget her roots, nor how it felt to be without shoes or shame, or food in her belly, and the little family had been pathetically grateful.

Bess couldn’t follow her thoughts, and commented sharply on Morwen’s remark.

‘Ah, and it all began through one young idiot being martyred after being let out of jail after one riot, and causing another. They all want their heads banged together if you ask me. ’Tis a pity women don’t rule the world, then there’d be no talk of strikes and suchlike.’

Morwen gave a half-smile, despite her worries. Her mother could always be relied upon to uphold the virtues and common-sense of womenfolk compared to their male counterparts, and she didn’t altogether disagree with her.

‘Anyway, I hope you’re right about things being settled tonight,’ she said with a shiver. ‘Ran insisted that I keep well away from the town while the rioting went on in the new year, but I remember another time when the clayworkers marched right down to St Austell from Killigrew Clay. It terrified the whole town, and I hate to think our menfolk will have any hand in such a thing happening again.’

‘You can’t dictate to claymen. It depends how much they want food in their bellies, and how strong their leadership is. If they think they’ve got a just cause to fight, there’ll be no stoppin’ ’em, Morwen. Never was, and never will be,’ Bess said.

Her mother was doing nothing to allay her fears. Morwen thought. She’d wanted Bess to say that of course the men wouldn’t do anything so horrendous as marching on the town again and smashing up all that was in their way, and frightening decent folk to death… she wanted Bess to say that of course the bosses would see reason and go halfway to settling their demands… but she hadn’t.

And as one of the bosses, Morwen knew just how bad the situation was. You couldn’t just put your hand in your pocket and give extra dues when there wasn’t the money to spare. Clay fortunes had fluctuated badly recently, and there was a glut of unsold clay in the whole industry going for dirt-cheap prices. You couldn’t get gold out of a stone… and it was well known that there were some unscrupulous bosses ready to sell to any bidder in order to clear their stocks. Those who had unlimited resources of their own…

Emma yawned, and Morwen rang for the maid to alert Gillings to bring the carriage to the front of the house, and said they would be ready to leave for home in five minutes.

She caught sight of Bradley hovering by the door.

‘You can come in, Bradley. I won’t eat you,’ she said. ‘And since you persuaded your grandmother to indulge your wishes, I’m not insisting that you come home with us.’

He came inside, relief on his face. And something else. He held an old book in his hands, and his usual ruddy complexion had become decidedly pasty.

‘What have you found there?’ Bess said at once.

‘It’s a strange tale about the town of St Dennis,’ Bradley said, his voice hoarse. ‘Did you know that three hundred years ago a shower of blood rained down on an acre of land thereabouts, and the stains stayed visible for about twenty years? And soon afterwards there was the great plague and the city of London burned, and all kinds of other ills occurred. You believe in such omens, don’t you, Mother?’

Emma gave a little scream of fright, and the child rushed to her mother and hid her face in her skirts.

‘He’s horrid, Mammie, he knows I hate hearing about blood. It couldn’t really rain blood, could it?’

‘Of course it couldn’t,’ Luke said loftily. ‘Bradley’s making it all up.’

‘If you weren’t such a dunce I’d tell you to read it for yourself,’ Bradley snapped. ‘It’s all here, recorded in this book, and I bet the preacher could tell us something about it, too.’

‘Well, it was all so long ago I daresay it’s got coloured a lot in the telling,’ Morwen said evasively. ‘I’d advise you to put that book away before you go to bed, Bradley, or you’ll be having nightmares.’

She was determined not to let his words upset her tonight, when all her thoughts were on the threatened clay strike. She wanted no ancient omens to disturb her, nor would she acknowledge that of course she believed in omens. It was part of her nature to believe in all things being possible beneath the moon and stars, and even the fact that Bradley had discovered this ancient bit of folklore on this particular night could be construed as a bad sign.

She took a deep breath and ushered her children together as the sound of carriage wheels was heard outside. Thankfully, she bade her son and her mother good night, and let Gillings tuck the travelling blanket cosily around the younger ones before taking them home.


The night was starlit and still and very beautiful. A great yellow moon had risen in the sky, lighting the leafy lanes and byways almost as brightly as if the daytime hours still lingered. This was a good sign, Morwen thought determinedly. The moon and stars were guiding them safely home, and no bad things would happen to them between here and New World.

But she found that her fingers were crossed as she thought it, and superstitiously, she prayed that a hare wouldn’t run across their path, for that would be a very bad omen indeed. If an old moorswoman was wandering abroad in the dark hours, begging for coins or food, this too would be bad, for she had nothing with her to give.

And everyone knew that a moorswoman who was refused sustenance could turn in a trice and curse the non-giver with all manner of ills. Morwen had been a child of the moors for too long to ignore such beliefs. So it was with enormous relief that she saw the solid structure of her home come into view, light beaming out from the windows, welcoming them home.

‘We’re here, children,’ she murmured, wondering why she had let herself become so gripped with terror and fancies that she had hardly been able to say a word to them on the journey. But it hadn’t mattered, for both children were fast asleep now, and oblivious to anything other than their own sweet dreams.

‘I’ll call Mrs Enders to help ’ee in with ’em, Ma’am,’ Gillings said, as he called the horses to a halt at their own front door. But as Morwen alighted thankfully, the front door opened, spilling out more light into the night, and the housekeeper bustled out to greet them without being called.

‘I was getting feared for ’ee, me dear,’ she said, with the familiarity of one who had been in the same family’s service for many years. ‘’Tis not a good time to be out of doors with these babbies. And it seems that you’ve lost one of ’em already.’

Morwen smiled. ‘He’s staying at his grandmother’s house tonight, Mrs Enders.’

As the children stirred and fought against the housekeeper’s embraces, Morwen spoke quickly. ‘Leave the children to me, and just make us a hot drink, Mrs Enders. I’ll be down in ten minutes.’

‘As you wish, me dear. Will Mr Wainwright be following on soon?’

‘I don’t know how long he’ll be, but I’ll be waiting up for him, however late it gets. He’ll be glad of a bit of company when he gets home, so I’ll keep the fire stoked.’