September Morning, page 25
Though, regaling Nick that evening with the nonsensical result of her cousin’s temper, it made her realise just how unpredictable he could be.
‘I should probably have got his agreement to the proposed name in writing,’ she said, remembering it too late. ‘But he more or less believes he had the final say on it, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.’
‘Then the sooner we get the next meeting over and everything agreed between all parties, the better. The rally has been fixed for the tenth of September.’
‘We should let David Kingsley know it then, since he’ll want to cover it for the Informer. And I had better warn you that Olly wants me to give him an exclusive interview—’
‘That child?’ Nick said sceptically. ‘I suggest you’d better write it yourself unless you want it to sound like a schoolboy essay.’
She reacted at once. ‘Give him some credit, Nick. He needs to do this and I’m not going to alter one word of it – once I’ve checked that he doesn’t distort anything I say. Not that I think he will for one minute,’ she added hastily. ‘And he’s not a child any longer, either.’
‘If you say so.’
* * *
But by the following week when the new partners were due to meet again in Bodmin, Theo was confined to bed with a serious flare-up in his foot and leg that the doctor pronounced as phlebitis. Betsy informed Skye on the telephone with an unsympathetic note of I-told-you-so in her voice.
‘He’s not allowed to put his foot to the ground, and if he don’t rest it he’s in danger of losing his foot to the surgeon’s knife. So that’s put the wind up him, I can tell you, but he’s driving me demented with his constant whining and demands for attention. I’m to tell you that Seb will be bringing you a signed note confirming your chosen name for the new company. He says ’tis secret until ’tis all agreed.’
‘So it is,’ Skye said, sure that by now Theo was quite convinced he’d thought of it himself. ‘Please tell him I’m sorry he’s ill, but I’ll let you know what’s decided the minute I get back from Bodmin.’
She couldn’t help a sneaking feeling of relief. Everything always proceeded more smoothly when Theo wasn’t around. She was sorry for him, though. Phlebitis could be very painful, as she knew from tending the soldiers in the field hospitals who had suffered from it in the Great War. Even worse, she had witnessed the physical and mental effects of gangrene and amputations… she shuddered, wishing such memories hadn’t entered her mind.
She tried not to think of them as she and Nick drove to Bodmin, as this was to be a momentous day. She wondered what name the Bourne and Yelland partners would produce and how many arguments there would be on the choice of a new company name.
In the end it was all a damp squib.
‘My clients have thought of several names, but none that meet with any enthusiasm,’ Mr Pascall said tetchily. ‘So we await your suggestions in the matter.’
‘Then perhaps you will consider Bokilly Holdings,’ Nick said. ‘It is an amalgamation of the original names and has a substantial authority about it.’
The look of relief on the other three faces told Skye that there had probably been considerable harassment between them all during this past week, and that they were simply thankful that someone else had taken the initiative. It was quickly apparent that the end result suited them all.
* * *
‘Thank heavens for that,’ Skye said later, when they were on their way back to Truro to get Theo’s signature on the documents. ‘Though it all feels a bit like an anti-climax, Nick. I was expecting fireworks and we didn’t get any.’
‘That’s because your cousin wasn’t there. Even if it was his idea – or he thinks it was – he’d still have made some kind of fuss.’
It was sad too, she thought. Such a huge decision to make, and it all been settled in a matter of minutes. And yes, crazy though it was, damn it, she had missed Theo’s fireworks!
Incapacity certainly hadn’t softened his temper. He was as irascible as Betsy had said, sitting up in bed with a huge wooden cradle over his leg beneath the bedclothes to keep any pressure off his painful limb.
‘So how did it go?’ he growled. ‘Did the buggers put up much of a fight?’
Skye saw him wince for a moment as he eased himself up higher in the bed, and thought how old he looked. Pain did that, of course, and he was no longer a young man. He was sixty-one years old, and looked every day of it right now.
‘They agreed to Bokilly Holdings without any arguments, Theo,’ she told him. ‘In fact, they hadn’t even been able to think up a title of their own.’
‘Typical,’ he sneered. ‘I always knew we were dealing with dullards when it came to using a bit of brain power.’
Skye mentally counted to ten. He really was insufferable, and rarely gave anyone else any credit but himself. Zacharius Bourne was an intelligent and astute businessman, regardless of any underhand dealings. She didn’t know Gideon Yelland that well, but he had certainly not struck her as a slouch. She was about to defend them, but Nick forestalled her with a sharp glance. She read it correctly. Once they got into any kind of arguments here, Theo was just as likely to refuse to sign the title document until he’d given it more thought.
The news had come through only that week that both the Vogl and Kauffmann firms had slimmed down their orders for raw china clay, so they couldn’t afford to let anything go wrong now. If they must look for more home orders than exports, they needed this merger more than ever before. As yet the German orders were only slightly less than the previous ones, but with the uncertain European situation it could be the start of a more general slide.
‘The other partners have signed the title document, Theo,’ Nick said crisply. ‘It only needs your signature.’
He held out the document and the pen, and Skye saw her cousin give a sly smile.
‘Gives me the final say, don’t it, cuz?’ he said. ‘If I choose to change my mind on this.’
‘I hardly think you’d be so foolish,’ she said. ‘After all, you’ve wanted this merger all along, and you made the final choice on the name, so I can’t think why you would go back on your own triumph.’
She was giving in, but she just wanted to get out of here, with its cloying sick-room smells and the overwhelming sense of betrayal that could still unexpectedly stab her.
He signed quickly, and thrust the document back at Nick.
‘Now leave me be to get some rest,’ he snarled. ‘I need to be fit for the rally, and I ain’t planning to be wheeled there in a bloody bath chair.’
They left him and declined Betsy’s offer of tea. It was done, and it gave Skye no sense of satisfaction at all.
‘I feel terrible,’ she said, once they reached the car. ‘Right until this moment, it never seemed quite real, but now it is and there’s no turning back. You know damn well the clayworkers won’t oppose anything with the bonuses Theo and Bourne are dangling in front of them. The rally will be no more than a farce and I don’t want to be there.’
‘You have to be there, Skye. You have to show them that this was the only way Killigrew Clay could progress. It’s part of something bigger and better now.’
‘Is it?’ she said bitterly. ‘Oh, I know you’re right from a business point of view. But I can’t separate my head from my heart, and my heart still tells me it’s wrong, and that something very precious has gone for good.’
‘That’s why you’re going to write about it,’ he said calmly. ‘So that what it was will never be forgotten.’
He started up the car while she stared unseeingly ahead. He was so right, and she had the means and the skill to do something that no one else could do. So that something precious would never be forgotten.
‘I’m so glad I’ve got you,’ she said thickly.
‘Well, thank you, ma’am,’ he said, in a pseudo-Amercan voice to echo her own. ‘I’m glad I’ve got you too.’
* * *
Her prophecy about the rally was proved correct. Where in times past, hundreds of clayworkers had gathered in belligerent fighting mood, or marched to the meeting-house in St Austell to argue their rights, this time it was a reasonably orderly mob who stood shuffling their feet in the hot sunshine of a September morning.
Each of the partners was to give the clayworkers their spiel, assuring them that they had their best interests at heart, and that this merger would benefit everyone. Zacharius Bourne was eloquent enough, but his partner declined at the last minute owing to a throat infection that rendered his voice hoarse and useless.
‘More like a convenient way o’ not riling the workers,’ Theo jeered. ‘None of ’em has much faith in the likes of him.’
Skye felt her face flame. Whatever Theo thought about Gideon Yelland, and she had begun to have similar suspicions, it was best kept to himself.
‘It’s a good thing you and I are seen to be so normal then, isn’t it?’ she hissed at him under cover of a rousing cheer as the bonuses were outlined. ‘If normal is the right word for a pig of a man,’ she added beneath her breath.
But she had to admit that he gave his speech his roaring best, interspersed with blasphemies that were undoubtedly his style, and one that the men knew and accepted. Then it was her turn, and she had barely begun when it was clear there was going to be some organised heckling.
Nick shouted back at them to give her a chance, but she stopped him with a glare and stood firm on the small platform that had been erected for the speakers.
‘I thought you were all intelligent men with the gumption to know that what’s being done is in your best interests, but if you aren’t prepared to listen to me, then I suggest you all go back to work while you’ve still got a job to go to,’ she snapped.
‘Who d’you think you are, missus, all done up in your fancy clobber and telling we what to do?’ a few voices jeered.
‘She ain’t Morwen Tremayne, that’s for certain sure,’ yelled another. From the look of his grizzled face he must have been near eighty years old, Skye thought, and still devoted to the clay and the old ways. It gave her a lead.
‘No, I’m not Morwen Tremayne, nor ever could be,’ she said in a clear voice. ‘Some of you knew her, and those who didn’t, knew what she stood for. I’m her granddaughter, and from the moment I met her, what I wanted most in the world was to be like her. I’ve done everything in my power to uphold her views and ideals and to preserve Killigrew Clay in the way my family controlled it.’
‘You should have thought o’ that before selling out.’ A lone voice continued to yell amid more subdued mutterings.
‘Sir,’ Skye said passionately, ‘I assure you it’s the saddest thing in the world for my cousin and myself to accept that we can no long continue alone, and that Killigrew Clay has to be merged with another company. But many of you here know the integrity of Bourne and Yelland and that none of this has been considered lightly. Together we can grow stronger.’
‘So what’s this new company to be called?’ the grizzled one shouted. ‘You’m taking our clayworks, and the rumours say you’m taking our name too, and I ain’t working for no Bourne and Yelland fancies.’
‘Leave it, Theo,’ she said, as he began to add his roars to the sudden outburst. ‘We all agreed that this was my time.’
She was shaking inside. The new title, that had sounded so grand and perfect, was already stamped and registered, but these people had to be pleased. They had been a law unto themselves many times in the past, and could be now, if they chose to go on strike. And with the autumn despatches imminent, however much the orders were depleted, it was a risk she couldn’t afford to take.
She held up her hand for silence, and spoke with as much dignity as she could.
‘In any merger, just as in any marriage, both sides have their opinions, and the new title has been thought out carefully and agreed by all of us. We will no longer be Killigrew Clay—’ she had to pause for opposing shouts and cheers ‘—but neither will we be Bourne and Yelland Holdings. Instead we have merged the names of the companies together and come up with a sensible solution. The new company will be known as Bokilly Holdings.’
There was silence for a moment and then some slow handclapping from the back of the crowd was taken up by the rest. Like bloody sheep, Theo muttered. But knowing that David Kingsley and Olly were here, writing their reports for the Informer, Skye wasted no time on Theo’s sneering asides.
It had been left to her to do this, and she had given up wondering if it had been a good idea. She just wanted to get the rally over and get back home. When the noise finally died down, she continued.
‘As for working conditions, nothing will change. You all know your duties under your pit captains, and the central distribution of the china clay will be an administrative matter. When we have your ayes on it, you will separate into your old company groups and, as an act of goodwill, the bonuses will be paid out personally and immediately to each of you by Mr Bourne and Mr Yelland and by Mr Tremayne and myself.’
‘That’s the blackmail, be it, missus?’ a final heckler bawled out. ‘Once we’ve got our bonuses to sweeten the pill, there’s no going back on it.’
She gave him a wide smile, recognising him at once.
‘That’s about right, Ned Forest. I’ve learned a few of Morwen Tremayne’s tricks in my time, and I still don’t know which of us is getting the better of the other. Do you?’
There was a ripple of laughter at this and the heckler was silenced. But once they had given their ayes on it, the lines were organised and they began to separate into two factions and shuffled forward to receive their bonuses, overseen by the two lawyers.
‘By God, with all this money jingling in their pockets there’ll be some business for the local kiddleywinks tonight,’ Theo muttered, handing out the packets into the grasping hands, and still begrudging the fact that he was willingly parting with his money.
‘My Lord, I haven’t heard that word in years,’ Skye said to him, as one and another clayworker touched his forehead to her by way of acknowledging their pay packets.
‘They’m all called inns and hostelries now,’ Theo scowled. ‘But they still serve the same gut-rotting ale and clog the lungs wi’ foul-smelling smoke.’
But the thought of it filled his senses with an unexpected sense of nostalgia, and he knew he bloody well intended being in one of them tonight, whatever poncey name they gave the places now. He’d done his duty to Betsy for a good few years now, and he was feeling more like his randy old self since his medication had done its stuff.
Oh, yes, a few roisterous jars at a kiddleywink and a trip down memory lane – if that was all he could manage – at Miss Kitty’s bawdy house, was definitely on the agenda for tonight. Even if it killed him.
Chapter Fifteen
The Pengelly girls read their mother’s latest letters with varying emotions. Far away in New Jersey, sitting in the shade of an apple tree in the fruit farm where she was now firmly ensconced, Celia gazed into the distance and let the pages fall from her hands on to the grass.
‘Bad news?’ a voice beside her said, and as Jarvis’s shadow passed between her and the sun, Celia smiled quickly.
‘No, at least I don’t think so. Not for me, anyway, and my mother seems quite positive about it.’
‘So are you going to tell me about it, or do I have to guess?’ he asked encouragingly.
She laughed, gathering up the pages and stuffing them back into the envelope.
‘It’s just a merger between two china-clay companies in Cornwall that you wouldn’t even have heard about, if I hadn’t told you about my family connections. It’s like the end of an era, of course, and I know I should feel sad, but somehow I don’t. Life has to move on, doesn’t it?’
‘And there, fellow students, class of ’38, speaks the voice of the nation,’ he said solemnly.
‘Oh, very noble! Are you aiming to be the head of your college debating society or what?’ she teased.
‘Not really. I’d rather have a certain person agree to wear my college pin,’ he said, so coolly Celia thought she had misheard him for a minute.
And then she knew she hadn’t.
‘Jarvis, for pity’s sake, you’ll have your mom and poppa on my back for cradle-snatching,’ she said, scrambling to her feet. She gathered up her letter and the newspaper reports of the rally and the newly formed Bokilly Holdings. She was amazed at how astute her little brother had been in his exclusive interview with their mother. But as the American boy’s face flushed darkly, she realised she had humiliated him, and put her hand on his arm.
‘I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that. It’s just that – well, you know how fond of you I am, of all of you,’ she emphasised. ‘But you’re only just starting your college education—’
‘And I’m lame,’ he said bluntly.
She stared at him, genuinely startled. ‘Do you think that would ever be an issue for someone who loved you, Jarvis?’
‘Probably,’ he said. He turned away from her, his shoulders stiff, his frustration and anger making his limp more pronounced as he walked away.
She ached for him. He was more vulnerable than anyone might suppose, despite his brash manner. It was obvious that he had taken a real shine to her. Maybe it was time she moved on, too… except that she didn’t want to. She loved it here. Anyway, Jarvis would be starting the new semester at college soon, so he wouldn’t be a problem.
There were hints of a long-term position here for Celia. As well as helping with the various fruit harvests, she would be a child-minder-cum-book-keeper, and try to straighten out the chaotic accounts Poppa Stone returned to the IRS.
They had such a warm and relaxed way of life. Working with the younger ones, and as good as being a general dogsbody to the admittedly slapdash Momma Stone, would hardly be stretching her mind as the prestigious post in Berlin had done. But since all that was no longer part of her life, she was definitely tempted.
