Copper Kingdom (38 page)

A little later, Mali was carving the joint of beef with great difficulty for it had always been Davie's job, when Rosa came in through the door, holding her hat on her head, her ragged fur collar hanging untidily over her shoulders.

‘Damn me it's a terrible day, the wind is enough to blow the knickers off you. There's a lovely smell, makes the mouth water it does and I'm starving, didn't have no breakfast today.' She sat at the table, still wearing her coat, and Mali could smell gin on her breath.

‘Davie's much better,' Rosa said, nodding firmly so that the bright plumes on her hat waved to and fro as though they had a life of their own. ‘Spoke my name, so he did, he knew me, you see, said my name quite plain. He's going to be better soon, my Davie is, then I won't have to go round the street no more.'

Mali leaned forward eagerly. ‘Are you sure, Rosa, he really recognised you?' Her heart lifted with hope as Rosa nodded her head emphatically.

‘Yes, I told you, he said Rosa plain as anything. Going to see him, later are you?' Rosa pulled off her hat and threw it onto a chair. ‘God, where's the dinner, I'm so hungry my belly thinks my throat is cut.'

Mali picked up her coat. ‘Get your own dinner, I'm going down to see my father,' she said lightly, almost laughing at the look of comic dismay on Rosa's face.

As Mali hurried past the canal, she drew her coat more tightly around her, for the wind was keen. She stared up at the shooting sparks from the copper works and waved her fist at them. ‘You haven't won,' she said to herself, ‘my Dad is getting better.'

When Mali entered the infirmary, she was greeted by a smiling nurse who knew her at once.

‘Miss Llewelyn, good news, your father is much more his old self today and his back is healing beautifully. Go along in, he'll be pleased to see you.'

Davie was propped up against the pillow. He still looked thin and gaunt but his eyes were clear and he attempted to smile when he saw Mali.

‘Dad, thank God you're better.' Mali put her arms around him and he felt fragile beneath her hands.

‘I want to come home Mali,' his voice was painfully weak. ‘Tell them you want to take me home, I can't abide it here any longer.'

Mali took a deep breath, ‘I'll speak to the doctor later, Dad,' she said. ‘But for now, rest, there's a good boyo.'

By the time she was ready to leave the infirmary, Mali was exhausted. ‘See you tomorrow, Dad,' she said gently. ‘And I'll ask the doctor about you coming home, I promise.'

Davie looked as though he was about to cry. ‘See that you do, my girl,' he said with as much energy as he could muster.

The walk down the ward seemed never-ending and by the time she reached the double doors, Mali felt as if she was wading through cotton wool. She paused just outside and closed her eyes for a moment. The world was spinning away from her; she was falling down into a deep black pit and it seemed there was nothing she could do to save herself.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on one of the beds in a small side room, a doctor was bending over her and the nurse who had spoken to her earlier was watching with a strange expression on her face.

‘There's silly of you to go and faint like that,' she said sympathetically. ‘But then your dad's accident has been a terrible strain on you hasn't it,
cariad
?'

‘Would you like Nurse Evans to bring you a drink of tea, perhaps?' The doctor was smiling kindly and Mali shook her head, wanting only to get off home.

‘I feel so foolish,' she said, ‘there's nothing wrong with me, nothing at all, except that I haven't been eating very well.' She spoke almost apologetically. ‘I'll be all right in a minute.' She attempted to swing her legs to the ground but the nurse put a restraining hand on her arm.

‘You do know about your condition, don't you?' she said, staring at Mali curiously.

‘Condition, what do you mean?' Mali stared at her, knowing that her worst fears were about to be realised.

The doctor exchanged glances with the nurse. ‘I'll leave it to you to break the news, Nurse Evans, and perhaps afterwards, the young lady would like that cup of tea.'

‘What is it, what's wrong?' Mali asked when the doctor had left the room. A feeling of dread was creeping over her and she leaned back weakly against the hard pillows.

‘You are about four months gone. I mean you're having a baby, didn't you even suspect, Miss Llewelyn?' She spoke kindly but the words seemed like spears flung into Mali's heart. She stared around her anxiously as though seeking a means of escape.

The blood seemed to pound in Mali's head. She covered her burning face with her hands, closing her eyes tightly, trying to swallow the tears that formed a hard lump in her throat. It was pointless to panic, she must try to be calm and rational, crying would solve nothing at all.

Yet it was so bitterly unfair, she had given herself for one night only to Sterling Richardson and now she was going to bear his child.

‘Here my dear, drink this tea.' Nurse Evans had left the room and returned without Mali even noticing and now she put a hand on Mali's shoulder in a comforting gesture. ‘It's been very hard on you with your dad so sick but you must begin to look after yourself, no going without decent food. Your baby will need nourishment and only you can provide it.'

Mali drank the tea, grateful that it provided an excuse not to reply. At last she put down her cup, realising that the nurse was staring at her curiously. She was no doubt wondering about the father of the baby but that was Mali's secret and no one would hear the truth, not from her lips.

‘I'll come tomorrow to see how Dad is,' she said, brushing down her skirts. ‘He wants to come home, you know.'

Nurse Evans smiled. ‘I'm sure he does and if he continues to make progress then it shouldn't be too long.'

Mali found herself out in the cold once more, staring across the sands, grey now under the cloudy sky with a dark sea running swiftly shorewards. How on earth was she going to manage to support herself and Dad now? And soon her condition would start to show, people would gossip and doubtless the deacons would want to call her before the
Set Fawr
to impress upon her the sinfulness of her ways. But nothing mattered against the worry of earning money enough to put food in their bellies.

Mali stood for a long time staring out to sea and slowly an idea formed in her head. At first it seemed impossible and yet after a time, she knew it was her only lifeline.

She began to walk home back along the winding street, past the shops closed and shuttered and past the busy chapels full of people in their Sunday-best dress, calloused hands holding hymn books, singing praises to God as though their lives were one long bed of roses. But she must not become bitter, Mali reproved herself, she would be strong and face up to the consequences of her own actions, not blaming anyone but herself.

Tomorrow, she would take the money Sterling had given her, blood money she still felt it to be, and give it to Mr Waddington in exchange for a share in the business. And then she would begin to make all the alterations that she felt were necessary to bring the laundry to a peak of efficiency. It was a risk, God knew it was, but the alternative was to live fairly comfortably on the hundred pounds for a year or at the most two, and then to be responsible for a young child as well as an invalid father and no money coming in.

Her steps were more certain now as she made towards home. She felt pangs of hunger inside her and somehow a softness seemed to fill her as she thought of the child she was carrying. Her hand unconsciously went to her stomach, fleetingly, and she felt a momentary lifting of her spirits. They would be all right, all of them, she Mali Llewelyn would make up to the unborn child she carried and to Dad for the harsh way fate had dealt with them. She would make the Canal Street Laundry the most successful business in Sweyn's Eye even if it meant doing the washing herself.

She stepped out along Copperman's Row, her head high, and high it would remain, she told herself fiercely. Even when her condition became obvious to everyone, she would still keep her pride for she would one day pay back all Sterling Richardson's ‘compensation' and then he could go to the devil for all she cared.

Immediately she opened the door of the cottage, the smell of burning meat overlaid by the sickly stench of gin caught at her, making her retch. She looked around at the disordered room and saw with disgust that the remains of a crude meal of bread, and chunks cut from the meat, were still on the table.

She closed the door moving further into the room, looking around her despairingly. Rosa's dirty washing lay on the floor near the sink in amongst debris from the meal. All the cleaning that Mali had done was wasted effort and she knew she could not go on like this.

The house was empty and silent and Mali felt a scream rise in her throat and she took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. But Rosa would have to go, and when Mali next saw her, she would give her the order of the boot in no uncertain terms.

She sank down then in her chair, staring at the almost dead fire and after a moment, she put her head down on her hands and wept.

As Sterling drove the Ascot towards the Kilvey Deep, his thoughts were on Mali and the strange way she had behaved towards him, almost as though he had committed some vile crime. He was puzzled by her reference to Bea Cardigan. All right, so he'd slept with her but that was Bea's wish and in any case, as he'd told Mali in no uncertain terms, it was none of her business. He wondered how Mali had come to hear of the brief affair – servants' gossip he supposed, for there were not many families in Sweyn's Eye who weren't related to each other in some way or other.

He had been taken aback by Mali's uncompromising attitude and concerned too, for she had looked pale and thin, with large violet shadows beneath her beautiful eyes. She was deeply affected by her father's accident, which was only natural, and yet her bitterness against himself was something he had not expected.

He drew the automobile to a halt and climbed down swiftly. The coal dust crunched beneath his feet as he moved forward to the engine house, where he was pleased to see the beam engine was working perfectly.

At first, Sterling mused, the miners of the Kilvey Deep had looked upon him with suspicion – he was a hard-nosed man who had deprived Alwyn Travers of his livelihood. But as the weeks passed, he had been – albeit grudgingly – accepted as the boss man, the rightful owner of the pit, the one who paid their wages and a darn sight more promptly than the old boss had done. And so easily was allegiance changed, Sterling thought ruefully.

‘Morning, sir.' Ceri Morgan touched his cap respectfully. ‘Rain's still causing us trouble, keeps the pump working full stretch.'

He was a young man, this Ceri Morgan, and Sterling had taken a liking to him from the start. He had an open honest face, dark-eyed and with the thick hair and stocky body of the Welsh, and a pleasing way of looking at Sterling as though he really saw him and not just a wage packet.

‘Morning Ceri, the weather is bad, more rain fallen in the last weeks than all through the year, I think, but the beam engine can cope, can't it?'

‘Oh, yes, good engine this, cope with much worse weather than we've been having. Which is lucky for the pits further down the mountain.'

Sterling looked around him searchingly. Everything was well maintained, the machinery greased and operating smoothly. He saw Ceri Morgan watching him and smiled his approval.

‘You look after things pretty well in here, can't fault you however hard I try.' He smiled and the Welshman nodded.

‘Got to be fussy, something as simple as a blocked valve could lead to an explosion that would blow me to kingdom come. I'm fussy, all right.'

When Sterling left the engine house a few minutes later, he hurried across the yard to the small office. The old manager was not unlike Ben, he thought wryly, managers seemed to be a dying breed, now, for instead of gentlemen with waxed moustaches and spectacles, owners seemed to be employing rough tough youths who would beat the living daylights out of anyone who dared to disagree with the boss.

Alwyn Travers himself had briefly engaged such a man and a guard dog to boot, but it had done him no good. Sterling smiled wryly to himself as he remembered the encounter; thank God he was young enough to stand up for himself or right now he would be sitting twiddling his thumbs instead of looking over his latest acquisition.

He spent only a short time studying the figures for the last month for he could tell at a glance that production had improved dramatically, due no doubt to the bonus he had offered as an incentive for the man who brought out the most coal.

He had concluded the business more quickly than he'd thought and as he left the mine, he felt somewhat at a loose end. Just the same he was pleased with the progress he had made over the last few months. For a start, the bank balance was certainly much healthier now he had taken the mine over.

The production of zinc wire had exceeded all his expectations, too, selling as fast as he could manufacture it. Sterling felt a sense of pleasure as he contemplated his future. For the moment at least, the copper company was in the clear.

Plas Rhianfa was still being held as surety of course, but fairly soon now the profits he was making would more than cover that debt.

As he drove into town, the streets were full in spite of the inclement weather and he had to concentrate on guiding the Ascot through the maze of horse-drawn vehicles. He would have to head back to the works soon but on an impulse, he decided to stop off and see Ronnie Waddington.