Forever and Ever (16 page)

He took a step toward her. She literally shrank from him: her eyes widened and she squeezed back against the doors, rattling them. He halted in shock. “For God’s sake, Sophie. Are you going to say anything?”

“Have you finished?”

He stared at her. “Yes.”

“Then you can go.”

Her icy calm was a facade, but it was working, freezing him to death. “Stop it.” His voice came out harsh. “Stop doing this.”

“I want you to leave.”

“Not until you talk to me. Say something to me, Sophie, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Get out of my house.” She moved then; he thought she was leaving. He reached for her arm, and she whipped away from him in a violent white blur of hands and elbows. “Don’t touch me,” she warned in a dead, lethal whisper. “It makes me feel sick.”

Her face wasn’t her face—he couldn’t bear to look at it. He stared at the gold locket around her throat, the links of the chain disappearing into the blond hair at her neck. “Don’t say that. Everything—Sophie, nothing else was a lie, only—”

“All of it.”

“No.”

“You were my lover. I took you to my bed, and you let me call you ‘Jack.’”

There it was. “I—”

“
In bed.
You let me say it to you. You’re a coward and a liar. I’ll hate you for that as long as I live.”

She meant it, and everything she said was true. He hadn’t told her the truth about himself because he’d been afraid he would lose her. He had been a coward. His shame was so bitter and complete, it made him belligerent. “What difference does a name make? I meant everything I said to you. You said things to me, too. If they were true, you wouldn’t recoil from me like this. It’s your pride that’s been broken, not your heart.”

“You’re right,” she flared, “but you’re still a liar. All you cared about was seducing me.”

He lifted his arm toward her, then let it fall. “You can’t believe that.”

She didn’t hear. “Your summer conquest. Who else did you entice? Too bad the mine owners at Tregurtha and Looe aren’t women, you could have had them, too.”

“You’re deluding yourself,” he snapped. “Think back, Sophie. Who asked me to come here in the dead of night? ‘Come when the moon rises,’ you said. I never seduced you and you know it.”

“
Bastard.
I’m ashamed of myself for having anything to do with you. Do you know—I hate myself even more than I hate you, because you taught me how low I could sink. I’ll spend the rest of my life repenting what I did with you—like a sinner with a hair shirt. You’re my penance. I committed a sin with you, a low, grievous error, and I’m too mortified to confess it.”

There was a haze in front of his eyes; he could barely see her through it. “I was right about you the first time. You’re shallow, and vain, and self-involved, and bourgeoise. The report in the journal was too kind—you’re the worst kind of capitalist because you soothe your social conscience with nonsense—leading the church choir, teaching your condescending ‘literature’ to a handful of sleepy, Sophie-worshiping burghers one night a week, believing you’re Lady Bountiful, while down in the mine you didn’t do one damn thing to acquire, men are losing their youth and their vigor a drop every day, becoming weak, demoralized, and diseased. And you could stop it if you tried, if you cared more about human beings than being the belle of this backward, provincial, small-minded town you’re so goddamned proud of—”

She slapped him. He flinched, because the blow caught the livid scar her uncle’s cane had left on his cheek. He didn’t think she could go any whiter, but she did. “Get out,” she whispered, drawing away in revulsion, from him, from what she’d just done to him.

He couldn’t wait to get out. And he couldn’t speak, although he knew they would never meet again. Her face was too hurtful to look at any longer. He pulled the doors open and left her.

XIII

An accident at the mine brought Sophie back to life, or a semblance of it. Afterward she wondered how much longer she’d have stayed at home under the pretense that she had reinjured her ankle, seeing no one, too lethargic to put on her clothes, keeping to the house because the garden brought back unendurable memories. But Moony Donne came close to losing his head in an explosion, and even though he would recover, and even though the resulting cave-in hadn’t caused any lasting damage, the incident brought home to Sophie the truth that she couldn’t continue in seclusion forever.

Besides, the shock that had numbed and cushioned her emotions at first was beginning to wear off. Every day it grew harder to avoid considering the possibility that everything she had ever believed about herself, every quality she’d ever convinced herself was admirable, was in fact a sham. Rather than look that monster in the eye, she would gladly stop being a recluse and return to Guelder.

But nothing was the same. Once before when happiness had been wrenched away and her life was in turmoil, the mine had saved her. This time it did not. Days passed before she could bring herself to acknowledge why, and the reason made her more despondent. Since childhood, she had seen Guelder through her father’s eyes, but now she was seeing it through the eyes of Connor Pendarvis.

It changed everything. And she was as loath and unwilling as a martyr forced on the rack to repudiate her faith, but she wasn’t blind and she couldn’t deny what her opened eyes saw. Or what her ears heard: she questioned her men—not the managers, the miners themselves—about their working conditions, and when they gave her cheerful, evasive answers, she delved deeper, would not settle for politeness or uneasy justifications. Naturally no one wished to impress her as a complainer; she could understand that. At times, though, she had the unnerving sense that some of the men were trying to protect her, like gallant but misguided swains, because they were concerned that the truth would upset her. Increasingly it embarrassed her that she hadn’t gone down in her own mine in six years, and then only as the merest tourist.

So she went. Jenks, hardly able to keep his disapproval to himself, acted as her guide. He took her to the twenty level, walked her around two galleries, and started back up. When she explained that she wanted to go down to the one-sixty and see everything, he couldn’t contain himself. “You’ll get dirty,” he protested, holding his candle aloft, making a gesture at her clothes. She replied that she had a fair idea that mines were dirty places, and that she’d left her ball gown at home this morning. “You’ll tire out,” he tried next; “you’ll never have the wind to climb up again. It’ll take hours to see everything—whatever would you want to do it for anyway?” His attitude made her angry, not because it was impertinent, but because it came too close to her own way of thinking not very long ago. It struck her as willfully ignorant now, and arrogant as well. But she only said, “I’d like to go down, Mr. Jenks,” and the burly mine captain snorted, shrugged, and took her.

It wasn’t a revelation, exactly. She saw nothing she didn’t already know about, came upon no shocking surprise. But there was a difference between looking at a map of the slope of a mineral lode or a diagram of a scaffolding system, or listening to a miner describe the clay-slate he’d dug out over a six-day marathon to unearth a seam of pure copper—there was a difference between that and experiencing the black, dripping, smoking, booming guts of the mine with her own five senses. In that way, it
was
a revelation, and she had a long time to ponder it as she struggled back up the straight, muddy, killing ladders, pausing at every sollar to rest while Jenks gazed off into space a respectable ten steps below and tried not to let
I told you so
show in his dark, glaring features.

Two long days and three sleepless nights later, she made up her mind. Jenks read about it in a memorandum she drafted to him, Andrewson, and Dickon Penney. Using the capital currently earning interest for funding exploratory excavations, management—Sophie—intended to contract for the construction of man-machines to replace the longest ladders, as well as an improved ventilation system at the deepest levels. Effective November and lasting until March, hot soup at midday would be available aboveground for anyone who cared to come up for it, at a cost of three pennies a bowl. A heated shed would be built for the use of grass workers in wintertime, and washing facilities for the miners would be expanded and improved. In addition, she was authorizing a committee of six men, three of them ordinary miners, to study safety concerns, including contingencies for emergencies, and draft a report in three weeks with recommendations for changes.

The news traveled fast. Before the cores changed in the afternoon, she saw, through her dusty office window, Uncle Eustace ride into the mine yard on his big bay mare. Sophie had a fair idea that he wouldn’t approve of the changes she was proposing, but she was unprepared for the violence of his opposition.

“You’ve lost your mind,” he declared flatly, striding around her tiny office like a tiger, so wrought up he forgot to take off his hat. “If you were trying to ruin yourself, you couldn’t have chosen a faster way. Capital cannot be used like this—capital must be turned back, reinvested in the enterprise that created it in the first place, at least until the business is on an unshakable footing. I never thought I would have to tell you this. Guelder—”

“You don’t have to tell—”

“Guelder has only begun producing well in the last two years. Anything could happen. If your working veins dried up tomorrow, what would you use for money to dig elsewhere? What good would your ‘man-machines’ be if they led nowhere? You’re operating legally right now, there’s no law in the world requiring these so-called improvements.”

She stayed in the chair behind her desk, out of harm’s way, and answered him as calmly as she could. “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you. I think it’s the perfect time for improvements, while copper prices are stable and the mine is producing well. If it slows down in the future, at least its substructure of—of safety and convenience will be in place, and I’ll be able to concentrate solely on new sources of ore.”

“Do you have any idea how much these machines will cost?”

“It’s substantial.”

“It’s hundreds of pounds—a thousand pounds!”

“It’s been done at the Fowey Consols, and the investment was returned in miner productivity within a year.
With
a profit.”

“The Fowey Consols is ten times the size of Guelder!”

“I’m aware of that. I can’t do it all at once; the machines will have to be phased in gradually. Even so, there will still be money for venturing—not as much, I admit, but barring catastrophes or a sudden fall in the price of—”

“You cannot bar catastrophes,” he thundered, banging the tip of his cane on the floor like a war club. “Use your head, Sophie. What does Penney have to say about all this?”

“He’s—considering it. He’s taking it under advisement.” So far Dickon Penney, her mine agent, had been too stunned to react.

“Hah! He’s delighted, I’m sure, to learn that you’ve turned your mine over to the miners.”

“That’s a bit of an—”

“What’s next? A union? Sharing of the profits with your bal girls?”

“You know that’s—”

“This isn’t only your own throat you’re cutting. I could stand by and watch you bleed to death if it were—but what you’re proposing affects every mine owner in the district.”

“Good,” she said grimly. “It’s long past time for most of these measures. They’re not only common sense, they’re common decency.”

“You’re deluded.”

“How long has it been since you went down in your own mine?” she dared to ask.

He smacked his palm on top of the desk and leaned in toward her, his hard, handsome face red with emotion. “I heard about that. Everyone in the county has heard about your little tour by now. You speak to me of
decency.
”

“What are you saying, Uncle? What did I do that—”

“I’m saying I’m ashamed of you.”

She gripped her hands together in her lap, desperate to hold on to her composure. “I’m sorry. I think you’re angry because I didn’t consult with you before I made these decisions. I’ll tell you the truth—I didn’t ask for your advice because I knew what it would be. I’m sorry if that offends you, but Guelder is mine, and I’m doing what I believe is right for it. And for me, and the people who work for me.”

His cold, careful anger was infinitely worse than his hot rage. “I know who’s responsible for this,” he said quietly, venomously. “Don’t mistake me for a stupid man, Sophie.”

She stood up. “I don’t want to have this conversation any longer.”

“You were seduced by that Judas.” Her heart stopped until he added, “He’s polluted your mind with his socialist rubbish. I can understand how it happened—you’re a woman, your sensibilities are soft, not focused; you can’t see reality in the way a man can.”

“That is the most—”

“I was against Tolliver leaving the mine to you, as I’m sure you know, and nothing has happened to change my mind since then. In fact, quite the reverse.”

“Are we to be enemies, then?”

“Enemies?” He frowned, disconcerted. “No, of course not. I think you’ve embarked on a path of monumental folly, Sophie, one that may have disastrous repercussions throughout the entire district. But you are still my niece,” he finished, as if that said everything.

She could think of nothing else to say. They parted with equal stiffness, and she sat in her chair for a long time afterward, reliving the unpleasant exchange. But gradually her mind began to clear. The worst, she could almost hope, was over. The decision was made; she’d taken the first irrevocable steps toward doing a thing she knew in her heart was right. It didn’t matter quite as much anymore that it was Jack—Connor, rather—who had put the idea in her head. She felt better than she had in many days. Perhaps she could bear to think about him now. If so, that would be the first step in the process of forgetting him.

That night, Maris came into the study, where Sophie was poring over figures in her new draft budget, trying to change the totals by glaring at them. “Somebody here to see you. I put ’er in the day parlor.”

“Who, Maris?”

“It’s that Timms girl.”

“Who?”

“Sidony Timms, the dairymaid over to the Hall.”

Feeling a queer sort of dread, Sophie went to greet her visitor.

The interview didn’t last long. Sidony, pretty and sweet, shy as a turtle, had come to ask a question. “I was wondering, ma’am, if by any chance you might know where Mr. Jack Pendarvis is living now.”

Sophie could barely speak civilly to her. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh.” She hung her head. “I was hoping you might, being as his brother worked for you.”

“No.”

“Con—Jack, I mean,” she corrected with a blush, “said as he’d write to tell me where he was going once he got there. But he hasn’t yet, and I . . . I . . .” Her dark eyes filled with tears.

Sophie knew sympathy and mortification in equal measures. Awkwardly patting Sidony’s shoulder, she faced the fact that she and this girl, this dairymaid, were in exactly the same situation. If Connor Pendarvis had wanted to humiliate her, he had succeeded with a vengeance.

“I don’t know where they’ve gone, Sidony,” she said gently. “If—if I should hear from Mr. Pendarvis,” she added with a twisted smile at the unlikelihood of that, “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I wouldn’t’ve come here and bothered you and all, except I thought you might know. Con”—she made a face—“
Jack
made a promise that he’d write to me. And since he’s so sick, I was thinking he might’ve got worse, might even . . .” She covered her face with her hands and wept.

Sophie didn’t know what to do. “I’m so sorry,” she said helplessly. “I thought—forgive me, but I had assumed that you and William Holyoake had an under—that you . . .” She subsided, embarrassed.

Sidony lifted her face, wet from fresh tears. “I know. I know, and that’s what makes it all worse. William’s my best friend, and until I met Jack I thought we’d get married. Oh, I’m so mixed up,” she whispered, wiping her cheeks, miserable. “I’ve hurt William so much, and now Jack’s gone and won’t even say where. Before he left he told me he wasn’t good enough for me and I should forget him. But I can’t, even though I wish I could, because that would solve everything.” She fumbled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. She was petite and lovely, with long black hair that gleamed blue in the lamplight. Sophie remembered her at the Midsummer Day fair, the way she’d blushed and laughed at the things Connor’s gaunt-faced brother had whispered in her ear. Had she given Jack everything? Something told Sophie that she had. The Pendarvis men went about getting what they wanted from women in different ways, but both ways were devastatingly effective.

Sidony went away after Sophie told her, as disingenuously as the first time, that she would pass along any information she might receive about Jack’s whereabouts. The rest of the night, she had plenty of time to reflect that the older Pendarvis, whatever his other shortcomings, at least had had the decency to tell the woman he was exploiting that she was too good for him. Such a refinement had never occurred to his lying, false-hearted brother.

***

“I’ve decided to stand for Clive Knowlton’s seat at the by-election,” Robert Croddy told Sophie one evening a week later. They were standing in her foyer, saying goodnight to one another; he’d brought her home in his carriage after a glum and uncomfortable dinner at Wyck House, her uncle’s home in Wyckerley.

The news amazed her. “Clive Knowlton is resigning? But why? Anyway, he’s a liberal,” she said naively. “Aren’t you a conservative, Robert?”

He smiled at her indulgently. “I’m a Whig, and that’s what counts. Knowlton’s leaving to take Holy Orders, and he has the power to name his successor. If I can gain his patronage, there won’t be any need for an election.”

“I see,” she said thoughtfully. “And do you think he will favor you?” Knowlton, one of two Members for the Tavistock borough, was a wealthy, influential, deeply respected gentleman, who had been returned to the House of Commons in every election since before Sophie was born. That he would choose Robert Croddy to succeed him seemed . . . unlikely. Not that there was anything wrong with Robert. But still.