Copper Kingdom (3 page)

‘This is the spot I've picked out for my Jinny,' he said sombrely. ‘Just here underneath the trees with the wall running alongside.'

The gaping hole that was Mam's last resting place was all ready to receive the coffin, for Davie had worked off and on as a gravedigger during the last weeks. He had spent several hours a day at the cemetery, toiling so that his wife could have a decent resting place at very little cost.

Davie struggled to slide the coffin from the sloping cart, easing it into the ground. His strength was great but even he felt the strain, for after he had put Jinny into the earth, he leaned panting against the tree trying to recover his breath.

After a time, he took up the spade and filled in the grave. Mali bit her lip, wishing there was a minister from the chapel present, just so a few holy words could be read over Mam. Mali stared up into the branches of the tree that was barren now but in spring would be heavy with blossoms, and her grief was almost too much to bear.

Davie had finished filling in the grave and was mopping his brow. With an uncharacteristic gesture, Mali moved forward and slipped her hand into her father's strong fingers, which were still grimed with earth.

‘I'll say a prayer, Dad.' She spoke softly and after a moment, Davie nodded and bowed his great head.

Her voice, lilting and small in the silence, asked the Good Lord to look down on Jinny Llewelyn and to be with her always. Mali moved away then, sensing that Davie wanted to be alone.

‘I'll come after you in a minute, Mali,' he said softly, and it was as though they both recognised that she had become a woman.

As Mali walked past the lines of wooden crosses, she shivered a little and drew her shawl closer around her shoulders. The sound of hooves clopping along the pathway drew her attention and looking up, she saw that the procession of mourners from the Richardson funeral was returning along the path towards the gate.

Suddenly a dark shape loomed up out of the twilight, bounding towards her. Mali had cried out in alarm before realising that it was only a large dog, coming to a halt before her with tongue lolling as though waiting to be patted.

‘Sam, to heel boy!' The voice was strong and masculine, fine and English. Mali stood with her hand on the dog's head as the tall figure approached her.

‘Sorry if Sam startled you.' He was much taller than Mali, with a proud set to his shoulders. He stood with easy grace and yet there was a quality of litheness in his stance that suggested whipcord strength. Even in the gloom she could see the gleam of his bright hair.

‘I'm all right,' she said self-consciously.

The clouds moved across the sky and a late shaft of light pierced the dimness, the last flare of the dying sun. Mali caught her breath as she saw clearly now the clean-cut line of the jaw and the level brows framing piercing violet eyes. The mouth beneath the golden moustache was strong and sensual, curled upwards at the corners as though in amusement.

He was regarding her steadily. ‘Do I pass muster?' he asked lightly, and Mali felt the rich colour suffuse her cheeks as she realised she had been staring. She turned to move away but he caught her arm.

‘Don't run off.' His voice was assured and he spoke with such authority that Mali stood obediently still.

He was the one staring now; his eyes moved over her with such an intense scrutiny that Mali almost felt he was reaching out and touching her.

‘Mr Richardson!' The voice calling through the stillness broke the spell and the man holding her in such an arbitrary manner glanced over his shoulder.

Mali froze. She tugged her arm away and stood staring up fiercely.

‘Are you Mr Richardson,' she demanded, ‘boss of the copper works?' Suddenly she longed to hit out at the handsome face, of course he was Mr Richardson, who else would he be?

‘So you're the one who gave my Dad the sack.' She heard her voice strike at the silence like hard stones. ‘Punishing a man because he takes time off to look after a dying wife, that's your way isn't it? Well I hate you, Mr high and mighty Richardson, and I hope you rot in hell!'

Mali turned and ran back to where her father stood over his wife's grave. He did not notice her presence. She leaned against the flank of the patient horse and Big Jim turned and nuzzled her arm. Suddenly tears were in her eyes, trembling on her lashes and running into her mouth. ‘Oh, Mammy I miss you!' she whispered and the cold wind lifted her words and carried them away.

The small township of Sweyn's Eye huddled round the basin of the harbour, encroaching insidiously on the surrounding hills. Shops crouched on grey cobbled streets, glassy-eyed windows bearing gaudy advertisements for Sloan's Liniment and Pears Soap.

The outer edges of coffin-shaped doorways sported strings of highly polished boots from which emanated the tangy smell of leather. Brisk scrubbing brushes lay, like a plague of overturned bugs, in wide-mouthed zinc buckets.

Set between twin hills, Sweyn's Eye faced the seas of the Bristol channel, a small, South Wales town grown fussy and important by involvement in the business of copper smelting. Once graceful barques had sailed into the wide, natural harbour but now steamships brought bustling activity to the proud new docklands. Chinamen walked with easy familiarity along the narrow, stone-built quays while Indians in fine bright clothing bartered with Welshmen over the price of a chicken.

To the east of the town lay the copper works, diminished in number now for the foreigners from Chile had learned the art, kept secret so long, of extracting pure blister copper from crude ore. And yet the smoke and stench still lingered on and some of the eastern hills were desolate and barren, sporting only a show of bleached camomile flowers resting like skulls against the brownness of the earth.

Around the headland to the west sat fine villas with gleaming windows facing clean golden beaches and rolling seas. All were elegant but the most magnificent of them was Plas Rhianfa, a tall, turreted house supported with pillars like a Grecian temple. This was the home of the Richardson family, come from Cornwall a hundred years before to build an empire.

Sterling Richardson was now the head of that empire and at twenty-six years of age, he was man enough, he felt, to do justice to the task before him. He sat in his bedroom, staring into the fire and thinking about the funeral earlier that day. It had all seemed strangely unreal, and rather than grief he had felt only relief that his father had slipped so painlessly from life. He closed his eyes and the image behind his closed eyes was of a young girl with tousled dark hair and large, trusting green eyes.

He had been chasing after Sam; the damn dog had spotted some small creature in the grass and had run away from the funeral cortege. Truth to tell, Sterling had felt relieved to be given an excuse to leave the long faces behind him for a moment. Perhaps that was why the girl had provided a pleasant diversion, at first.

He had been amused at her scrutiny of himself and more than willing to oblige her with a tumble in the hay at some future date but then, once she'd known his name, she had treated him like a leper.

He had watched as she'd run away from him, skirts flying, and had seen her join her father beneath the shelter of the trees.

Sterling knew David Llewelyn of course, a strong man and a fine ladler. What he didn't know was that the man had been dismissed, for Ben the manager dealt with matters of that sort. But there was no great difficulty, he would reinstate Llewelyn as soon as possible. Not that he cared a damn about the opinions of others, certainly not some little wench from the poorer quarter of the town. But Llewelyn was too good a worker to lose, especially as the man had a reasonable excuse for his many absences from work.

Workers were easily dealt with but Sterling was not too sure about his partners. Both James Cardigan and Dean Sutton were older than he was and might well resent the fact that he was now in charge. What they didn't know was that Sterling had taken the burden of work from his father's shoulders, albeit discreetly, for some time now. But if the partners chose to remain distant, as they had done, then they must accept decisions that were made without their knowledge.

Some months before, Sterling had cornered his father in his study. ‘Look Father,' he had held out a sheaf of papers. ‘You can see from these trade figures that Chile is manufacturing enough copper to supply all demands. They have their own mines while we need to import ore.'

His father had waved him away. ‘We have developed the finest method of smelting in the world, son, there will always be the need for Welsh copper.'

Sterling had sighed. ‘But we are too slow, Father, it takes six operations to bring out the blister copper. Why not change to steel? Just consider it, that's all I ask.'

But Arthur Richardson had been adamant, change was unwelcome to him and he would not hear of it.

Sterling rose to his feet and moved across to the window. Outside, a pale wintry moon was shining across the sea; he could just make out the headland of Gilfach with its lighthouse sending out intermittent signals warning ships to steer clear of the craggy reef that reached with long fingers out into the channel.

Cuts would have to be made. He would pare the workforce down to a minimum, streamline the existing copper sheds before beginning to explore the possibilities of introducing steel and tinplate.

A chain of lights shone into the sea, colouring the water. Sterling smiled, thinking once more of the girl at the cemetery. If he was not mistaken, she was a blossom ready for plucking.

Victoria Richardson sat alone in her room. Soon she must go downstairs to the dining room, sit with her sons, talk with them, make a pretence of eating. No doubt any suspicion of vagueness on her part would be taken as a sign of her natural grief over the loss of her husband. And of course she would miss Arthur badly, he had been solid and dependable, always there when she needed him.

She rose to her feet and stared at her reflection softened by the gas lighting. At forty-five she was still an attractive woman, she thought a trifle complacently. Her glossy hair, brushed wide on her forehead, held only a few streaks of grey. Her round face above the high collar of her dark velvet gown was scarcely lined at all. Jet beads, a gift from Arthur's mother and a sign of mourning, hung over her full breasts. She turned from the mirror abruptly, there was no one to admire her looks now and her eyes misted with tears of self pity.

But she had been loved in her time, oh how she'd been loved. She sat in her chair and stared into the coals. She had been young and her blood had run singing through her veins. She had given herself to James Cardigan with complete abandon, meeting him secretly wherever and whenever she could. It had been difficult to escape from the vigilance of her parents but she had been cunning, stealing an hour from a visit to one of her friends or meeting him in summer on the outskirts of her parents' estate while she was walking her pet dogs. No one had ever suspected, not until she had conceived James's child.

Marriage was impossible for he already had a wife and a baby daughter, and James had turned her love for him into despair when he had told her there was nothing he could do to help her.

‘My advice is to marry as soon as possible.' His eyes had been dark, unfathomable, and she had longed to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to desert her when she needed him most.

Arthur Richardson had been the means of her salvation. A man twenty years her senior, he had outlived one wife who had left him no issue and he had become a constant visitor to Victoria's home, a close friend of her parents.

He had always indulged and pampered her and when Victoria turned to him for comfort, he had arranged the marriage between them with surprising speed. To this day, Victoria never knew how much Arthur understood of the situation but certainly he had accepted Sterling as his own.

She had always been grateful to him, respecting him even while she could not give him the passion she had spent upon James; and Arthur had loved her dearly, his possessiveness a balm to her broken spirit.

It was a relief when, some time later, she had brought forth a son who was the image of Arthur in every way except one. Where Arthur was steadfast, Rickie was wild. He seemed to grow up with a strange grudge against his elder brother, almost as though he knew that his rightful place as heir to the Richardson fortune had been stolen from him.

Victoria moved towards the window and stared out into the darkness. How many times had she stood here this way thinking about James? She had been unfaithful to her husband in her mind many times but never once in fact.

And James had continued to be involved in her life though she had thought it strange at first when he had decided to buy into the copper company. But in those early years, his quick mind and his flair for a good purchase had made him an asset.

After a time, he had lost interest in the business, leaving the bulk of the work to Arthur. It seemed to Victoria then that once he was satisfied that his son's future was secure financially, James was content to keep his distance.

She realised that it must have been difficult for him over the years, seeing Sterling growing up to manhood, especially after his wife had died leaving him with only one daughter and no son to bear his name.

And now they were good friends. James was almost fifty years of age and just as handsome as he had always been. Victoria's heart lifted a little, was it not possible that some time in the future they might come together again?

Dreamily, she moved to the desk that stood to the left of the white marble fire place. Her fingers searched in the small niche beneath one of the drawers and she took out the tiny key, staring at it speculatively. There was no need for secrecy now that Arthur was dead.