Charles Killigrew opened his eyes as he heard the light step approach his bed. Of all the people in the world, he would choose to have Morwen beside him, and good riddance to that old snot-bag of a nurse… his hands waved feebly towards his daughter-in-law, and she leaned over him to catch the words.
‘Sorry, my love – couldn’t stand – the woman – a minute longer. More work for you—’
Morwen wiped his chin gently. ‘Stop gabbling,’ she said cheerfully, which brought a lop-sided grin to Charles’s mouth, for gabbling was an impossibility for him. ‘Anyway, what else would I do with my time? I’m glad to care for you, Father. Ben has his own worries with the clay works, and I would far rather be useful up here.’
Even as she said it, Morwen knew it was only partly true. What she would infinitely rather do was to be caring for Ben’s children. Hers and Ben’s… she blinked back the mist in her eyes as she saw Charles’s shrewd old watery ones watching her.
‘Ben won’t – have it,’ he wheezed. ‘He’ll insist – on a new nurse. You see to it, love. You’ll know – the right one.’
He drifted off to sleep again, awakening after a few minutes to request that Morwen read to him. His moods were as changeable as ever, she thought sympathetically. He just didn’t have the stamina to control them any more.
But there was no reason why she couldn’t care for him. There was a bell beside his bed, the cord placed in his hand every night. One of the maids could sleep in Nurse Stevens’s adjoining room and call Morwen the moment Charles needed any assistance. There was no need for a professional nurse.
After two weeks, Morwen was forced to revise her ideas. She was utterly exhausted. Jane and Cathy Askhew had long since gone home, escorted by an attentive Ben, and Charles had become irascible since their departure. He alternately moped and ranted, and finally Ben put his foot down, as she sat wearily on the side of their bed late one night.
‘You’re worn out,’ he said angrily. ‘I know you think it’s for the best, but Father needs more than a loving daughter-in-law to nurse him, Morwen. I’ll see Doctor Pender about it tomorrow morning.’
She didn’t argue. ‘Just one point, Ben. Your father has asked me to choose any new nurse. Please give me that privilege, otherwise I shall feel utterly useless.’
He pulled her into his arms. ‘My dearest one, I don’t mean to imply such a thing! You’ve been more than a daughter to my father, and no-one knows it better than I do. But I want a wife, not a drudge.’
His hands combed through her long black hair, and caressed her neck, his fingers warm against her skin. She felt them move across her soft lips to quieten any more discussion, and then his mouth replaced the fingertips, and she was held fast in a sweet embrace. She felt the familiar swift response to Ben’s hard demanding body, and swayed against him as they fell together across the bed.
‘Are you too tired for me, my Morwen?’ he said softly, and she knew that all the aggression in him now was of the man for his woman. The exquisite aggression of love…
‘Oh, no,’ she breathed. ‘I’m not too tired, Ben. It’s been so long—’
He undressed her quickly, pausing to kiss each new exposed area of her as he did so, and the need to belong to him completely was as new and elating as ever.
‘Too many problems have come between the important things, Morwen,’ he murmured against her throat as they lay together for a moment, cocooned in their own world beneath the bedcovers. ‘But nothing is more important than my love for you.’
‘Nor mine for you, dar.’
She felt the exploring fingers she knew so well, teasing and loving. She followed her own instincts to give Ben the pleasure he gave her, and the love words between them became an erotic accompaniment.
But they were both too impatient for preliminaries, and as he eased himself over her, she felt the small sweet pain as he entered her, and gloried in it. He moved gently, and she moved with him, part of him, as she had always wanted to be. She lost all sense of time as the pleasure engulfed her, winding herself around him, her flesh his flesh, her love his.
When the final moments came, and the love flowed from each of them, she clung to him as he rocked her against him, as close to heaven as any two mortals could be. Ben’s skin was damp with exertion, and Morwen pressed her mouth to his smooth muscled shoulder, thinking faintly that she asked little more from life than this. To be with her man… and to have his child…
‘You said something very special to me tonight, Morwen,’ she heard the throb of his voice against her breasts.
‘Did I?’ She gave a shaky little smile. ‘I don’t ever remember what I say, Ben. At such times I fear you have a wanton for a wife—’
He laughed with her. ‘Then I wish every man could have such a wanton!’ He was reluctant to move away from her, and cupped her flushed face in his hands. ‘God, you’re so beautiful, Morwen. I love you so much it scares me at times—’
The moment was too emotional for Morwen. Her throat thickened. ‘Nothing scares you, Ben,’ she said huskily. ‘It’s one of the things I love about you.’
‘Oh?’ His mood changed. ‘What are all the others then?’
‘I’m not telling you,’ she teased. ‘You’ll be swollen-headed. But you still have something to tell me! What was this special thing I said to you?’
His finger circled her cheek. He leaned forward and brushed his mouth intimately against hers, just touching it as he spoke, his breath soft and warm.
‘You don’t use many endearments, Morwen. You’re like your mother in that respect—’
‘Clay folk don’t waste useless words—’ she began in mild defence. He silenced her with firmer pressure on her mouth.
‘I know that!’ he said, moving his lips against hers once more. ‘But you called me dar, your mother’s special word for your father, and it was the sweetest sound I ever heard.’
She didn’t remember. She only knew it had been the only word to use at the time. The right word, for someone who was more precious to her than life. She didn’t have his education to put it into words, but if that one little endearment had said it all, then it was as rich an inheritance as Ben Killigrew’s.
Ben contacted Doctor Pender the next morning, and a succession of ladies arrived to be considered as Charles Killigrew’s new nurse. Morwen interviewed them all, and took the most suitable to Charles’s bedside. After three days she began to despair that they would ever find anyone, but at last his eyes sparkled as the small and sprightly Nurse Wilder breezed into his room. The moment their eyes met, Morwen knew that Nurse Wilder was the one.
‘Wilder by name, and wilder by nature, if ’tis no nonsense that you want, m’dear,’ Doctor Pender had chuckled with his usual addiction to clichés. ‘She’s a fine little body, and a midwife to boot, so mebbe she can do two jobs in one in due course, if you take my meaning, dear Mrs Killigrew.’
Morwen certainly wouldn’t let that influence her! But once Nurse Wilder was installed and Charles seemed more settled, she felt free to visit her mother and find out how Freddie fared.
Bess was a little scratchy at first at not seeing her daughter for several weeks, although she knew of the measles in Killigrew house, and would not have wanted it carried outside. But once Jane Askhew had taken her child home to Truro, Bess had expected Morwen daily.
‘Mammie, I’m a married woman now, and I can’t come running every minute!’ Morwen retorted.
‘You’re still my daughter, and I’m your mother and deserving of some respect,’ Bess came back.
Morwen bit her lip. They had always been more than mother and daughter, and she couldn’t bear this prickly reception, especially when she felt it was undeserved. She ran to her mother’s side and put her arms around her, leaning her head against Bess’s plump shoulder.
‘Mammie, I’m sorry, but if you knew what a time we’ve had with Ben’s father! His nurse walked out to join Nurse Nightingale in the Crimea, and I had to do all the fetching and carrying for un—’
Bess softened at once. ‘I thought you had skivvies for all that, my lamb!’
‘Not for nursing,’ Morwen said feelingly. ‘The old man only wanted me – until we found a treasure called Nurse Wilder. Now she’s living in the house, and I’m not so tied, so here I am, and dying to know all about my family. I’ve missed ’ee so, Mammie.’
‘We’ve missed ’ee too, lamb. Sit down while I warm some tea and then we’ll talk.’
Morwen watched as Bess bustled about in her little house, as clean as a new penny, and the pride of her mother. The tiny cottage where Morwen had grown up on the moors had been snug and warm, but so cramped with them all, especially when her brothers grew so big and broad.
Sam and his family would have the same problem in the cottage when their children grew… but when Morwen had lived there it had seemed no problem, because the Tremayne house had always spilled over with love, the same as this one did now.
‘How’s Freddie, Mammie?’ Morwen couldn’t wait for the tea to brew to ask. She kept her tone casual, but she saw Bess’s lips tighten a little.
‘He’s as contrary as a cat with a mouse. He were all for this posh school in London and now he don’t want to go, and all he says is he wants to go a’ boat-building wi’ our Jack in Truro. I don’t know what to think.’
‘What does Daddy say to it?’
‘He’s tired of it all. Sam says we should let the boy go wi’ Jack, and ’tis only what he expected wi’ our Freddie getting too big for his boots and getting cold feet because of it. What frets me is why he changed his mind so sudden, and if he’ll change it again if we let un go wi’ Jack.’
Morwen took the cup of tea and kept her eyes down as she stirred it.
‘Let him go, Mammie. He said summat about the boat-building to Ben and me, and I think ’tis what he’s fitted for. Don’t send him to London.’
Bess stared at her. ‘Nobody’s sending un away! ’Tis what he wanted, and now he says he don’t. What did Ben say to it all, since it seems you’ve already discussed it?’ Her voice was ruffled.
‘Ben says that a young boy on his own in London can be very unhappy, and he knows what he’s talking about, Mammie.’
She dare not say more. How could she describe to this simple countrywoman all the drama of the Peterson affair?
Her mother didn’t answer for some minutes, and Morwen felt her heart begin to thud. If she was questioned further, she was so afraid that all her bitterness towards Captain Peterson might overflow. But whether or not Bess sensed that there was something she didn’t know, she evidently decided not to pursue it.
‘You know that I trust Ben’s judgement, Morwen, and I’ll pass on his thoughts to your Daddy. ’Tis probably for the best. Our Freddie would only have got above himself at this posh London school, and he and Jack should do well together, if Boskelly’s will have un.’
‘I’m sure they will, Mammie. Ben will see to it,’ Morwen said with relief.
Bess laughed, and handed Morwen a fresh-baked bun that rivalled anything that Fielding’s Tea Room could provide.
‘Does Ben have a finger in that pie as well? He don’t have shares in Boskelly’s boat-yard, does he?’
‘No, but folk respect his wishes, Mammie. ’Tis useful at times.’
‘Oh, ah! ’Tis useful to have a name and a fine house and a reputation for fair treatment. So tell me, what’s the news about the rail tracks? Your Daddy keeps tight-lipped on it lately, which means he knows nothing, and won’t admit it.’
‘You don’t think I’m going to betray anything I know, do ’ee?’ Morwen teased.
Bess pounced on the hint. ‘So you do know summat. Out wi’ it, our Morwen, and ’twill be just between ourselves.’
Morwen shook her head sadly. ‘Mammie, I never thought you’d suggest such a thing. Ben was summoned to Bodmin yesterday, and was told that Engineer Trent had died from the consumption in Switzerland—’
‘The poor man! But wasn’t Ben in a fury over the need for more delay? If the rail tracks aren’t in use soon, ’twill mean using the old waggons to transport the autumn clay blocks to the port. Your Daddy’s been bemoaning the fact for weeks now.’
‘Listen, Mammie! A new chief engineer has already been appointed. Knowing the situation here, the business of Killigrew Clay was given priority. He’s studied all the information, and was present when Ben went to Bodmin. And since there was no real evidence for subsidence, or of rogue tin mines under the moors, he says the rail tracks can begin full use again. Ben’s gone to the works to inform Daddy today, since it was too late when he got home last night.’
Her mother’s eyes were shining when she finished speaking.
‘Thank the Lord for it! I daresay Ben will get the town excursions going again while this fine hot weather lasts, and after the autumn despatches, the children can go on their annual excursion to the sea. Quite a few on ’em thought their babbies wouldn’t get their treat from Killigrew Clay this year.’
She smiled broadly. ‘And mebbe my menfolk will show more cheerful faces from today. Dora says that Sam’s been a real sore-head these past weeks, and Primmy’s teething and screaming is nearly driving her to the kiddleywink.’
Morwen was thankful she had been able to bring good news for once. She changed the subject.
‘You’ll have heard the news from the war, Mammie?’
Bess looked vague, her thoughts still on more homely affairs. Morwen looked impatient. Ben had been so full of it, and it was surely important to them all.
‘There are great hopes that the French soldiers will conquer Sevastopol very soon! They’ve been bombarding the city for several weeks now. They say it will all be over by the middle of September—’
‘Oh, Morwen, lamb, what does it mean to folk like me? ’Tis no more than a name I’ve heard Ben mention. As long as my family is safe around me, a foreign war means nothing.’
Morwen was shocked, and realised in an instant how effortlessly her own attitudes had changed since being Ben Killigrew’s wife. At one time she, too, would have felt nothing for a war across the sea. But now she shared Ben’s fervent wish for it to be over. She even shared Jane Askhew’s anxiety for her Tom to come home safely, and knew that she meant it sincerely.
‘No doubt you’ll be joining in the celebrations on the moors, though?’ Morwen said coolly. ‘When the news comes, they’ll light bonfires as usual, and dance around them—’
‘Oh, we’ll all be there then,’ Bess said happily, oblivious to any reproof in her daughter’s voice.
Ben was so cheerful, it was as if he had been given the moon and stars on a plate. His works were in full production again. There was no more talk of the men not getting their fair dues and bonuses. The rail tracks could begin operations the very next week.
Meanwhile, he had teams of men cleaning the tracks from the mud and grime that had collected on them in their idleness. Others cleaned and polished the little rail trucks, and made them as comfortable as possible for the re-opening of the town excursions to see the porcelain hills glinting in the sunlight, and watch the mysteries of the clay works at first-hand.
Ben had ridden over to Truro and called on the Carricks, receiving a stiff welcome from Jane’s mother, and an enthusiastic one from Jane and her father. Cathy remembered him and climbed all over him. And he had never felt so good as when he gave the news about the rail tracks to Lew Tregian for The Informer.
Morwen would like to have gone with him, except that she had no wish to meet Mary Carrick again, who had always either snubbed her or ignored her on the few occasions they had met.
‘And The Informer will announce that the rail excursions are to begin again?’ she asked on his return from Truro. ‘I hope that folk won’t be afraid to risk the journey because of what’s happened, Ben.’
‘I hope so too,’ he commented. ‘But since you and I and various others will be taking the first invited tour from St Austell town to the works, I hope it will prove our faith in it, Morwen. I’ve asked Jane and Cathy and her parents. Mrs Carrick has declined, but Richard is agreeable to bringing his daughter and granddaughter. I’m going to invite thirty or more notables from the town, and have promised to let Lew Tregian know their names when they accept. He’ll print them in full for the readers of The Informer to read, and has also said he will be on hand to report on the day.’
‘So you spent some time with Mr Tregian in Truro too?’ she asked with forced innocence.
Ben laughed, twirling her round in his arms until her long hair spun around her head and around Ben’s shoulders as he held her close, capturing both of them in its dark tresses.
‘Yes, my jealous darling, I spent some time with Lew Tregian. It was not all in Jane Askhew’s company. It seems to me that we’ve had this kind of conversation before!’
But this time it didn’t matter. Ben was too elated by his own news to bristle at her words, and Morwen was too sure of his love to waste time on real pique.
Besides, she hadn’t expected the first rail journey after its long absence to be such an occasion. Nor to be included in the list of notables. She said as much to Ben.
‘Included! Morwen, you and I are the owners of Killigrew Clay!’
She stared at him. ‘Don’t be silly. I own nothing. I’m just your wife—’
He shook her gently, his eyes teasing. ‘And if I were to die…?’
‘Don’t say such things! ’Tis bad luck!’ Quickly she crossed her fingers behind her back. She would have crossed eyes and toes too if he hadn’t been laughing down at her. But it was her old Ben, her teasing, laughing, wonderful Ben, and she forgave him everything.
‘All I’m saying, you goose, is that if I were to die, then Killigrew Clay would be yours. It would belong to you. How does that sound to you, Morwen Tremayne?’
She was numb. It had never occurred to her. His teasing with her old name told her he guessed at her feelings. Morwen Tremayne, clayworker’s daughter, the sole owner of Killigrew Clay? It seemed as unlikely as suddenly donning a crown. As for what her family would think…
‘Ben, I don’t want to hear any more of such talk. I never want it to happen, because if it did, it would mean I no longer had you. And I wouldn’t want to live without you—’
‘Darling, stop it,’ he commanded as her voice wavered. ‘I was only stating a fact for your own security. We’ll forget it was ever mentioned. Instead, help me draw up the list of people you’d like included on our excursion to the porcelain hills.’
‘How grand it sounds.’ She was forced to smile. ‘I know that’s what the townsfolk call the clay-tips, but they always seemed no more than cosy places where Celia and I could keep out of sight for a while in our tea-breaks.’
Her smiled slipped a little. How far away it all seemed. With a little shock she realised that for a second she hadn’t been able to recall Celia’s face clearly, though four years had done nothing to dim her memory of the awful events of that time.
Ben was still holding her, and she felt his lips touch her cheek, and heard the swift sympathy in his voice.
‘Come back, Morwen. Does it still pain you to remember?’
She nodded. ‘I think it always will,’ she said simply. ‘I can never forget what your cousin did to her, any more than I can understand how my brother Matt could have gone off to America with him the way he did. It was as if he could charm his way into any person’s mind that he chose. If I was old Zillah, I’d say those people were ill-wished to have Jude Pascoe’s attentions.’
She shuddered. Celia had found Jude charming and exciting… to Morwen, the very thought of him had been odious.
‘Well, there was at least one person’s mind he couldn’t charm,’ Ben said drily. ‘I thought we had decided never to mention Jude’s name in this house. The less I know of his doings, the better—’
‘I would still like to know of our Matt’s doings,’ Morwen said sadly. She took a deep breath, knowing she was clouding this lovely day, the best day the Killigrews had known for some time. She put a smile on her lips.
‘Are we going to begin this list for the excursion? And do I have to go knocking at fine folks’ doors to invite them?’
‘You do not!’ Ben caught her determined gay mood. ‘We’ll have invitations sent round to their houses, and do it as grandly as my lady wishes.’
So there were to be celebrations all round. The next issue of The Informer took up half a page in telling people that Killigrew’s rail tracks had now been declared safe by the new Chief Engineer of the district, and that therefore the excursions to Killigrew Clay would begin again immediately.
Those wishing to enjoy the benefit of the fresh moorland air, the views of the town and the sea, and the excitements of the clay works, were advised to contact the Killigrew Clay offices in St Austell town, where bookings could be made. The first excursion was by invitation only, and there followed an impressive list of the wealthy and the elegant who wished to be known as Ben Killigrew’s guests. Particularly as Morwen had suggested holding a fine tea for them at the house afterwards, an expense to which Ben readily agreed. It was a sound move, he told Morwen. There were plenty of people who considered an invitation to Killigrew House to be a status symbol.
‘I know that,’ she smiled. ‘Why else do you think I suggested it? Invite them to tea, and they’ll all want to come on the excursion!’
Ben laughed, delighted to see the lights dancing in her eyes once more. ‘Mrs Killigrew, I’d say you have all the makings of a shrewd businesswoman,’ he said admiringly.
‘Thank you, Sir, but I think I’ll leave all that to you. Just so long as you’ll agree to joining my family on the moors for the bonfire dancing on Saturday night. You know they’re lighting them to celebrate the victory at Sevastopol. Please say we can go, Ben!’
‘My lady is so knowledgeable all of a sudden,’ he teased. ‘Of course we’ll go! Do you think I’d deny you the pleasure, my pagan love?’
He smiled back, and she wondered if he understood more of her feelings than he ever revealed.
For it would be so good. So good to dance around a bonfire, one of the glowing orange faces whirling and laughing, with the scent of woodsmoke in their noses and stinging their eyes, and the crackle of bracken underfoot. To smell the wild gorse and the crushed purple clover, and to be a child of the moors once more…
She smothered the thought, reminding herself that she couldn’t ever go back…
Only for a little while, just a little while…