Fields of Gold Read online

  ‘Hop in,’ Granger said. ‘I guess you’re used to travelling in one of these.’

  Jack dutifully kept the hat box on his knees. ‘Not as often as you’d think. My father believes I should earn my way.’

  ‘Oh, your turn will come, young man. And you’ll appreciate it all the more. Besides, who else is there for your father to leave it all to?’

  Jack shrugged. He was convinced his father would rather donate his money to the church than leave it to his only son.

  The ride back was pleasant enough. Lost in his bleak thoughts, Jack was only vaguely aware of the soft blur of the countryside and the drone of Granger’s voice.

  Familiar landmarks passed by. The inn at Newbridge was still open and he felt the drag on the car of the steep hill out of the village as they steered onto the North Road. Jack’s cheeks were stung by the northerly wind as they crested the hill and he registered the small chapel just before the top but he only really became aware of his surroundings as they ran downhill past Carn Kenidjack and its unique sound called him back from his thoughts. Nicknamed the ‘hooting carn’ it gave a mournful sound as the wind whistled through the narrow gap in its rocks. They drove on towards the lighthouse. Jack could see low lights in the small row of cottages a hundred yards ahead, where the lighthouse men and their families lived and served not just as the Pendeen Watch but also for the Longships and Wolf Rock, off Land’s End.

  ‘… of Britain. Did you know that?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jack said, suddenly realising the car had slowed.

  ‘This is the most westerly town of Britain.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘I love it up here by the lighthouse, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I think in a different life I would have chosen a life at sea.’

  ‘Truly?’

  Jack nodded. ‘Sailor, fisherman … I would’ve enjoyed either very much.’

  ‘Instead you plumb different depths,’ Granger observed.

  ‘Yes, but the boom is long behind us. It was a false industry while the war raged. It will collapse completely now.’

  Granger nodded, inhaling the sharp salt air. ‘You’ll be all right, though, son. Your family is well protected.’

  Once again Jack didn’t choose to correct him. ‘Thank you for the lift home, sir. I can walk from here.’

  ‘Perhaps a pint at St Austell Arms?’ Granger said with a genial wink.

  ‘No, straight home, I think. I hope Mrs Granger enjoys her surprise.’ He got out of the car to prevent any further protestation.

  ‘Oh, now that we’ve lost both our sons, who else can I spoil?’ Granger looked instantly embarrassed.

  Jack was used to this awkwardness when people spoke of the young men who’d given their lives in the war. He didn’t even wait for Granger to start spluttering an apology.

  ‘She deserves it,’ Jack said, lifting a hand in farewell. Granger mercifully crunched the car into gear and was off again.

  Jack pulled his jacket around him against the wind that seemed determined to flay his skin from his bones. Autumn’s snap cold – certainly up here on the cliff top – would be followed by the bitter winter months to come. He buried his head deeper into his jacket and prepared to face his father and a chill of a different kind.

  2

  In the darkness, the two-storey house on the hill was like a huge hunched shadow, brooding quietly, well away from the clump of other shadows that held the good folk of Pendeen. Jack loved the majesty of this house that his father had rebuilt for his young wife and son, extending the once-modest dwelling into a grand house within manicured gardens. Charles Bryant had chosen the granite that was quarried less than a mile away, had helped to carry it laboriously by the cartload and then directed how the massive blocks of greyish-brown stone – some as tall as two feet and six inches deep – were used to form the new façades of the additions. Windows with a score of panes at the front, eight or twelve in the side windows, looked out down the small incline to the village. The slate roof supported no less than four proud chimneys and Jack knew at least three would be gently puffing away this night, for his father hated his mother to be cold. Although at night the house loomed dark and sombre, by day the mortar separating the granite blocks took on an almost luminous quality beneath the sharp sunlight and even the slate lintels above the windows glinted beneath the sun’s embrace.

  Jack had never forgotten how his father had kissed his mother tenderly when he had carried her over the threshold for the first time. The dream of enclosing his family somewhere safe had left a deep impression on Jack. He hoped their family would never part with this house.

  All was quiet as he entered, just the ticking of the clock on the hall mantelpiece a reminder that people were alive within its walls.

  An older woman emerged from the parlour as Jack threw his door key onto the sideboard. Mrs Shand originally came from Penryn but these days she found it easier to live with them – there was no one waiting at home for her anyway – although Jack wished his mother had not agreed to this arrangement.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Shand,’ he said brightly, ignoring her ever-present look of disapproval. ‘Any soup on?’

  ‘Help yourself. I’ve laid a place for you in the parlour,’ she said briskly, her mouth instantly returning to its pinched shape.

  ‘Where’s —’

  ‘Mr Bryant senior is not here,’ she said, seemingly untroubled by talking over him. ‘Mrs Bryant is taking a late supper in the dining room with Mrs Hay, who is marking her first year mourning for her son.’

  Jack frowned.

  ‘He died in Ypres.’

  Jack knew Ypres was where Mrs Shand’s own son had given his life, when the Germans used poison gas for the first time against the Allies. She seemed to lay shame at the feet of every surviving son of Cornwall because they were alive and young Tommy Shand was dead.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave the ladies to it, Mrs Shand.’

  ‘But what about your soup?’

  ‘I suppose I’m not really that hungry,’ he lied. ‘I’m tired, and shall be off to bed now.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Climbing the stairs silently, wearily, pleased at least that he didn’t have to face his father’s dour countenance tonight, Jack hesitated on the landing outside his parents’ room. He wondered why his father hadn’t moved fully into the spare room next door, in keeping with the practices of other wealthy gentlemen. The spare room was called ‘Father’s room’ all the same and its furnishings clung firmly to all things elaborate, dark and Victorian.

  Taking a breath, Jack stepped quietly over the threshold of what he considered his mother’s room, taking care to miss the floorboard that invariably gave a loud groan. He entered a feminine sanctuary of chintz, prettiness and paleness. Though a polar opposite to Charles Bryant’s taste, it didn’t seem to trouble him. He treated his wife as gently as one would a tiny bird.

  It reassured Jack, during his moments of rage or despair, to know that his parents deeply loved one another and that he would always be a product of that love. Charles gave Elizabeth Bryant whatever she desired, but she was neither spoiled nor demanding. What she most wanted, Jack realised, was an entirely happy home, and that was something Charles couldn’t give her – because Jack lived in it.

  Jack sighed, hating himself for being such a curse on their lives. Tiptoeing across the beautifully furnished Edwardian chamber, he arrived at his mother’s dressing table, lit by a magnificent Tiffany lamp – a recent purchase that attested to Elizabeth’s fashionable taste. While some of the much grander houses had enjoyed electricity for a couple of years, the Bryant home was still one of the earliest in the region to be electrified and he couldn’t blame her for wanting to take advantage of this new luxury.

  Jack knew exactly what to look for. Not pearls, as Rally had suggested, but the beautiful diamond watch his father had presented to Elizabeth before Jack was born. It was a little ostentatious for her taste, he’d heard her remark, but Jack
had always admired the platinum casing studded with tiny blazing diamonds. He was fascinated by the notion that something so exquisite was crafted from gems that had once been buried beneath the earth. It appealed to him as a seeker of the treasures that existed far below the world’s surface.

  Easing open the lid of the engraved silver jewel box, Jack carefully picked through the pieces until he found the watch. His mother wouldn’t miss it for weeks – possibly months – he was sure, for she so rarely wore it, and by then he had every intention of buying back the watch and returning it to its owner, who would be none the wiser for its theft.

  He stared at the diamonds winking in the low light and the tiny round face fashioned from a blue shell that looked, in this light, as black as his heart felt. This was it, he decided as he twisted the thread-like leather coil of the wristband around his long fingers; this was the last time he would let them down. From here on, he would work hard and live up to his father’s ideals.

  Consumed by his promise, Jack did not hear someone ascending the stairs, and if not for the telltale creak, he might have been caught red-handed. Fright gripped him when he heard a foot on the noisy floorboard. He had only a moment to slip the exquisite watch into his pocket and school his features into innocence.

  ‘Jack, dear?’ Elizabeth Bryant said.

  ‘Hello, Mother. You look lovely as always,’ he said calmly, moving over to kiss her cheek and enjoying the gentle waft of her perfume.

  Her hazel eyes twinkled in the soft light. ‘Thank you, darling. It’s very easy to understand why the girls fall for you, my boy,’ she said, cupping his face gently as she accepted his kiss.

  ‘Mrs Hay gone?’ he asked.

  ‘Powdering her nose. I thought I heard you come in. You’re so much earlier than I expected. Anyway —’

  Before she could ask, he jumped in. ‘You haven’t seen my leather gloves anywhere, have you?’ he asked, glancing around. ‘I’ve no idea where I put them but I have no intention of another day like today – my fingers froze!’

  She gave a soft laugh, the one he always loved to provoke. ‘What on earth made you look in here?’

  He grinned. ‘Desperation, I think,’ he said, more honestly than she could imagine. ‘I put a vase of flowers in here yesterday, don’t you remember?’ he added. Even he could believe the lie. He glanced at the bowl of lilies he had actually opened the door for Mrs Shand to carry in.

  ‘Oh, they’re not here, darling, I’m afraid. But the flowers are heavenly, thank you. Jack, you look tired. And that mop of yours could use a good trim – you have the Bryant curse of lustrous hair.’

  ‘But you’ve always said that’s what makes us so handsome.’

  ‘That’s true. But I have to criticise now and then or you may think yourself too perfect.’

  He grinned. ‘And how has your day been?’ he asked, noticing some new grey in her hair, which was elegantly swept up behind her head. She’d resisted cutting her hair into a fashionable, finger-waved short bob and he was glad of her restraint. He liked how she wore it, even though it revealed what she worked hard to keep secret – that she was now approaching sixty. She’d had many miscarriages before giving birth to John ‘Jack’ Bryant in her thirty-seventh year. It was old to be a first-time mother but she had embraced her role with tireless energy.

  ‘Well, your father’s gone to Truro and will probably stay overnight now, I think,’ she said, looking out into the darkness.

  ‘Oh? What’s happening over there?’

  ‘The usual,’ she said in a resigned tone, ‘business.’

  Jack nodded. He knew his father told her little about his work. ‘All’s well, though?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said distractedly, primping her hair in the mirror. Her figure remained enviably trim, so her clothes hung perfectly off her frame. ‘Business has never been better.’

  Jack looked surprised. ‘I’d have thought being a supplier to the mines would have its problems these days.’

  ‘Quite the contrary. He’s recently signed a new contract to supply mines overseas. It’s all go in places like India and Africa, can you believe?’ She shrugged. ‘He has the experience and knowledge, I suppose.’

  ‘No doubt. But still he makes me work like an ordinary labourer,’ Jack grumbled.

  ‘Jack, don’t, darling. We’ve been over this so many times. You forget your father had his fair share of hardship when he was your age. He was hammering rock!’

  ‘Suggesting my job is meaningless, I suppose,’ he replied.

  ‘That’s not what I meant. You’ve had the benefit of a top education at the School of Mines, and now you have a very responsible position and you’re barely twenty.’

  ‘It still hasn’t impressed him. And let’s be honest here, I only have the job so young because so many of our men are dead.’

  ‘That may be. But you hold those miners’ lives in your hands. They are your responsibility. Don’t you forget that!’

  Her love and support were unstinting. He was sure she was the key reason his father was able to appear so strong, so solid.

  ‘Mother, there’s no future in the mines. Malayan and Bolivian tin is cheap. They pay their miners in silver but they sell their tin for gold. The industry in Cornwall is as dead as the miners littering the fields of France and —’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘Why? Does talking about the war embarrass you as much as it does Father?’

  There it was, the real reason for the anger bubbling up within him. Once again he’d directed it at the person who least deserved his rage.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, sounding hurt. ‘You volunteered like all our young men. They insisted you remain in Cornwall and keep the mines working.’

  ‘Not everyone sees it that way, especially my own father.’

  ‘He understands. It wasn’t up to you. Crofty’s tungsten was needed badly for munitions.’

  ‘So how do you explain the white feathers I find left in my work gear so regularly?’

  ‘Oh, Jack.’

  He shook his head as though it no longer mattered. ‘How much longer do I have to do this?’

  ‘He just wants you to appreciate all that we have; he doesn’t want you to take it for granted, or forget your roots. But, Jack, you throw it back in his face. You seem to have a dark streak in you that turns away from all that he’s trying to teach you, give you …’

  ‘Father only got wealthy because the mining magnates wanted Grandpa’s land. That’s my inheritance too, Mother. Grandpa said so. I was there … I heard him say it!’

  ‘You’re right. Grandpa’s land took your father out of the mines, for which I’ll be forever grateful. But don’t forget he’s made that money work for us tenfold. Your father is a shrewd businessman and as long as you keep behaving so recklessly, he won’t entrust the family’s wealth to you.’

  ‘So it’s punishment?’

  ‘No, darling. It’s education, it’s growing up, it’s acting responsibly. He believes the mines will keep you honestly occupied. I suppose the mines are as unyielding as he can be.’

  He said nothing, looked away angrily.

  ‘Jack, I have to return to my guest now. I just wanted to see you before you went to bed. Don’t be angry, and don’t make me stretch to kiss you. You’re far too tall these days.’

  He kissed her again gently and she touched his cheek affectionately.

  ‘I wouldn’t let your father kiss me with a stubbly chin like that. Now, promise me you’ll do as he wishes. You’ll be surprised how things might turn out.’

  Jack already hated himself enough, with the diamond watch burning a hole in his pocket. He watched his mother glide from the room, knowing he was blessed to have her on side, and yet resenting his situation even more fiercely.

  Jack left the house at dawn, still shrugging himself into his thick working jacket in his eagerness to be gone. He had slept fitfully and was only too pleased to get up and head to work. His woollen trousers kept out most of the cold but he could fee
l winter’s threat in the air. He buttoned up his jacket over his favourite flannel shirt and wished once again that he had waited long enough for a couple of breakfast pasties to help warm his hands, if not his belly.

  The delicious aroma of the baking pasties followed him from the house. His belly rumbled but he would go hungry today. He couldn’t face Mrs Shand’s look of disapproval and he’d have to take his chances with the knockers, the tiny mischievous spirits that miners all over Britain believed inhabited the mines. The Cornish were of the opinion they were the spirits of dead miners, who knocked on the walls of the shafts to warn of impending danger. The miners always left behind the last tiny knuckle of their pasties in the mines for the knockers.

  He buried his chin into his scarf, feeling the rasp of his stubbly beard catching on its wool, and rounded the hill to walk down into the town, the shapes of the small miners’ houses brightening around him. He turned left onto the main street and trudged past the Austell Arms and on towards Geevor, where a steady stream of men were now heading to take over the next shift. Jack ignored everyone, briskly turning down the smaller pathway that would lead him into the Levant mine. Now the blast of the Atlantic Ocean hit him full in the face. The sea was just a dark smudge still but he could taste the salt in the air and across the fields could make out the Levant chimneystacks.

  Levant was privately owned and not profitable – not even during the war years. It was still very much a mine of the previous century, with its crooked shafts and poorly equipped dressing floors. His father had told him the mine was to be closed down – that was certainly the expectation as soon as the war ended – but arsenic, a by-product of tin, was needed by other mines and Levant could supply it and so it limped on.

  The average wage was pitiful and considering the ten-hour days that turned into fourteen, with the miles walked to and from work, the sickness, the terrible working conditions, Jack wondered how most of the miners survived. His job as an engineer on the surface was much better paid and a walk in the park compared to those men he would lower into the shaft.