Copper Kingdom Read online

  About the Author

  Iris Gower has been described as the Catherine Cookson of Wales because she writes with such insight and power about the world where she was born and bred. She is the author of the highly successful Sweyn’s Eye and Cordwainer series of novels. Iris Gower has two sons and two daughters and writes full time.

  Also by Iris Gower

  Proud Mary

  Spinner’s Wharf

  Morgan’s Woman

  Fiddler’s Ferry

  Black Gold

  The Loves of Catrin

  Sins of Eden

  The Shoemaker’s Daughter

  The Oyster Catchers

  Honey’s Farm

  Sea Mistress

  The Wild Seed

  Firebird

  Dreamcatcher

  Sweet Rosie

  COPPER KINGDOM

  Iris Gower

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781446472286

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by Arrow Books

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Iris Gower, 1983

  The right of Iris Gower to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1983 by Century

  Arrow Books Limited

  Random House UK Ltd

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

  Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney

  New South Wales 2061, Australia

  Random House New Zealand Limited

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited

  Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa

  Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 0 09 927912 6

  To Tudor

  and our family

  with love

  CONTENTS

  About the Author

  Also by Iris Gower

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter One

  The sounds, repetitive and ominous, echoed through the squat, whitewashed cottage, reverberating from the sparsely furnished parlour and along the cold flagged passageway. Hammer upon nail, pausing and continuing, penetrating the thick, drystone walls to the kitchen where the scrubbed table gleamed like raw bones in the shaft of winter light probing the dusty glass of the single window.

  The rhythm, like a pulse gone awry, brought father and daughter together in an unexpected slant of January sun that washed over the cobbled yard at the rear of the building. The two stood as though frozen in a moment of heavy stillness, eyes refusing to meet over the stark shape of the coffin that stood between them.

  Both were dark and vital but David Llewelyn was a bull of a man and everything about him was large from the breadth of his shoulders beneath the leonine head to the hands that wielded the hammer with more strength than skill.

  As he crouched now over his task, his thighs bulged hugely beneath the coarse flannel of his trousers. His entire body seemed coiled like a spring. There was a tension in him and a deep sadness that was reflected in the lines around his mouth.

  Mali had her father’s darkness. Her hair, thick and abundant, fell like a cloak to below her trim waist. But her features were more delicate, beautiful even now with fatigue and despair etched into them. And her most striking resemblance to her father was in her eyes, which were clear green, large and luminous.

  She was almost seventeen but might have been taken for little more than a child for she was small boned, with tiny hands and feet. And yet her carriage was upright and she had an air of dignity that belied her youth.

  Mali breathed in the scent of pine shavings that lay strewn like bright curls over the yard, and a great pain filled her as she remembered Mam’s hair, so fair and silky even to the end.

  The grating sound of metal against stone brought Mali’s attention back to where her father was sorting nails, his big fingers so clumsy that she knew he was not concentrating on his task. His head was bent, his big neck exposed so that he seemed very vulnerable. He turned to look at her questioningly and sweat ran from his face into the open collar of his striped shirt, dampening the springy dark hair on his chest. He was persevering with a job that was foreign to him in every way and suddenly she was achingly proud of him.

  The long box was almost finished. The wood, clean and sweet with fine patterns of grain running its length, had somehow taken shape. She caught his glance and knew he did not like her watching and yet she longed to help him so that their grief might be shared.

  ‘There’s some hot tea brewed, Dad.’ The words came out harshly and not at all in the way she’d intended. Her father shook his head, resuming his efforts to strike home the nails, and Mali turned away, feeling that she was dismissed. Her eyes were suddenly bright and her throat ached with the effort of holding back her tears.

  Indoors it seemed dark and gloomy after the brightness outside. She glanced towards the steep wooden stairs and to the bedroom door above, a door that was firmly closed.

  ‘Mammy.’ Her voice was a strangled cry to which there could be no answer, not ever again. Mali hurried into the warmth of the kitchen, shivering. A fire burned brightly behind the blackleaded bars of the grate and she crouched before the flames, feeling as though she would never be warm. It was here in the kitchen that she felt most alone, for the room had once been the hub of the house in Copperman’s Row.

  Now Mali must work alone. This morning she had been up from bed early, unable to sleep. And the brass fender glowed with reflected light from the fire for she had worked fiercely, rubbing the metal with an abrasive made from ashes and water.

  Restlessly Mali rose to her feet; the hammering seemed to be within herself and her head began to ache. She stared around her, wondering what she could do to k
eep her thoughts occupied but water had long since been fetched from the pump in the yard. Dishes were washed and dried, the plates set out neatly on the dresser, the cups hanging in uniformity from the brass hooks on the shelf. The mundane tasks that had always been part of the pattern of her life had offered a sort of solace but she had worked at them too eagerly and now there seemed nothing left with which to fill the silent, aching void.

  She would pour herself tea from the brown earthenware pot, she decided, and watched the fragrant liquid spill into the cup. She bit her lip, worrying about Dad. He had eaten little, for he was bent on continuing with his job of making the coffin. Not that he confided in her at all, rather he was dumb and silent in his sorrow.

  The tea warmed her a little but her hand shook and drops of liquid patterned the blue slabs of slate underfoot and they gleamed briefly, spots of gold caught by the glare of the fire.

  The outer door opened and her father was in the kitchen, filling it with his size and presence. His great hands pushed back the dark curls from his forehead and his eyes looked hauntedly about the room as though he was searching for somebody.

  ‘I’ll have some of that tea now, girl.’ He spoke harshly and she knew that it was not anger that coarsened his voice, but pain. And yet in spite of her concern for him, she felt irritated because even now when they were alone, he did not use her proper name. She wanted to tell him that she was a person, not simply the girl child he had got from love for his wife. He sat down, resting his arms on the scrubbed wood of the table, and sighed wearily.

  ‘A cart,’ he said. ‘I must have a horse and cart.’ He did not look up. ‘You will have to go and ask Tom Murphy for a loan of Big Jim.’

  Mali trembled as protests rose to her lips. Mam could not go to her rest with such a lack of dignity.

  ‘Mr Murphy’s cart is for fish, Dad,’ she said reasonably.

  Davie did not reply but his fingers were suddenly twisted together so fiercely that his knuckles showed white. With swift insight Mali realised that the cost to her father’s pride in asking for anyone’s help was great indeed.

  ‘You can use a scrubbing brush, can’t you, girl?’ He shook his head from side to side like a wounded beast and Mali longed to go to him, put her arms around him, lean against his broad shoulders, but she knew she would be rebuffed for Davie was not a man to make a show of his grief.

  She took a deep shuddering breath and moved woodenly towards the back door. There, with her hand on the latch she paused for a moment, struggling for words of comfort, but her own hurt was so hard to bear that she was afraid the tears might come.

  ‘I won’t be long, Dad,’ she said hoarsely. In the bleakness of the yard she stood for a moment, breathing in the cold air. The sun had gone and shadows lay thick and heavy beneath the shallow back wall. Mali clenched her small hands into fists, it was going to be hard to ask anything of the rough-hewn Irishman for he had always put the fear of God into her. Sometimes in the night, his voice would ring out in anger, sending the rats scurrying into the crevices between the walls, and in her bed Mali would shiver.

  The Murphy house, although joining the cottage where Mali lived, was not part of Copperman’s Row at all but was the beginning of Market Street where the small traders of the area lived. Willie the Bread occupied the tall building next door to ‘Murphy’s Fresh Fish’, which sounded grand but was only a house with the front room turned into a shop, and Dai End House lived at the corner of the dusty lane running behind the cottages.

  As Mali opened the gate facing the Murphys’ back kitchen her heart was beating so loudly within her that it seemed to echo the knocking of her knuckles against the door. She stumbled so badly over her request that she was forced to repeat her words several times before Tom Murphy could make sense of them.

  He drew her inside, his hand warm on her shoulder, his pale eyes probing her small breasts beneath the cotton of her high-necked blouse. He frowned and a jutting shelf of ginger brows drew together over his large nose.

  ‘Go on ahead into the kitchen with you,’ Tom said amiably enough, but his tone changed as the crying of the baby echoed loudly throughout the building.

  ‘For love of the Blessed Virgin shut that infant up, woman, and leave the gin alone, for sure it does you no good.’

  Mrs Murphy sat in a low rocking chair, the newest child held close in her arms. She fumbled in her bodice and the baby fell into a soft quiescence, sucking sleepily at the meagre breast.

  ‘Our Katie’s not in, bless you.’ She brushed back her tangled hair with thin fingers. ‘But sit down and have a drop o’ gin and don’t go listenin’ to my Tom, he likes a drop of the hard stuff well enough himself.’

  Tom Murphy shook his head at his wife as though in despair as, ignoring him, she poured a liberal measure of gin. The sweet sickly smell of it drifted towards where Mali stood in embarrassed silence.

  ‘She’s not here to see Katie, not at a time like this. Have a bit of sense, woman. It’s the cart she’s come for.’ As though reminding himself of his task, Tom left the kitchen and Mali could hear the tinkle of horse brasses as he gathered the tack together.

  ‘Sit down, Mali, Tom will not rush himself, you may as well be comfortable while you wait.’

  Obediently, Mali seated herself on the shabby artificial leather chair, and glancing round saw that the two older Murphy babies were lying side by side in an old pram body that had no wheels but rested on a rag mat on the floor. There was little more than a year between the children and they slept alongside each other like two peas from the same pod.

  ‘Our Katie’s out courtin’,’ Mrs Murphy volunteered. ‘Though to be sure my Tom does not know of it, nor likely to, not from my lips. Shake the very heavens he would with his anger if he knew his only girl was out with a man.’

  Katie was the eldest of the Murphy family, the only surviving child of the first years of the marriage. For a time it had seemed as though many miscarriages had left Mrs Murphy barren, but quite suddenly and in quick succession she had brought forth three fine sons. Yet it was Katie who remained the apple of her father’s eye and it was no wonder, for she was a beautiful girl and gifted with a fine sense of humour.

  For as long as Mali could remember she and Katie had been friends. They had giggled together, confiding their hopes for the fine marriages they would one day make. It was no surprise to Mali that Katie, with her lovely red-gold hair and creamy skin, had been the first to realise her dreams.

  William Owens was a copperman, young and dark and vital. His skin was bronzed, coloured by slow impregnation from the metal which he worked. He was handsome and intelligent and Mali had been tonguetied when she had first met him.

  ‘Katie’s a very lucky girl.’ It was as though Mrs Murphy was reading Mali’s thoughts. ‘Will spends his fat wages on her, always buying her some frippery or other.’ She sighed. ‘And sure doesn’t she love him as though he was the only man in the world?’ Her eyes clouded. ‘I fear for her sometimes, she’s that trusting.’

  Tom Murphy’s return saved Mali from making any reply. He rested his hand on her shoulder, leaning too close for comfort.

  ‘Cart’s out the back lane and I’ve hitched up Big Jim. Don’t you be afeared of the creature, he’s docile enough in spite of his size.’

  Mali followed him outside, wishing he would take his hand away; it felt moist and warm against her neck and she moved uneasily. As the huge, liver-coloured horse turned as though to look at her, Mali breathed in the pungent odour of fish with distaste. She wondered if it was ungracious of her to wish for something finer than a fish cart to carry Mam’s coffin. She felt Tom Murphy glance at her.

  ‘Goin’ to do it up a mite, I expect.’ He frowned. ‘Shall I not come wid ye then, give you an’ your dad some help?’

  ‘No thank you, Mr Murphy, we can manage.’ How could Mali explain that Dad was a private man who hugged his grief to himself, not even allowing his own daughter to share it with him?

  Tom Murphy handed her the reins
and clucked his tongue, urging the great horse into movement. Spurts of dust were raised by the animal’s hooves but Mali did not notice. The residents of Copperman’s Row fought a constant battle against the fine particles of copper, so abrasive that they scored the glass in the windows.

  Mali heard the Irishman return to the cottage and close the door behind him and as though released, she leaned her head against the warmth of Big Jim’s wiry mane, clucking to the creature softly, finding the animal’s nearness comforting.

  She tied the reins to the scratched woodwork of the gate leading into her own yard. There was dimness now, creeping over the cobbles and the heavy shape of the coffin crouched menacingly in the deep black shadows against the ground. For a moment Mali stood still, gathering her courage for the moment when she would enter the kitchen where Dad would be sitting lost and alone.

  But there was work to be done, the cart must be scrubbed clean while some vestige of light remained.

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ she said as Big Jim nuzzled her hand with a soft mouth. ‘Wait by here, I won’t be long.’

  Davie was still leaning on the table. Now that his bout of activity was over, he seemed drained and empty. His head was sunk low onto his big chest, his hands lay, palms upwards, calloused fingers curled. Tears formed a lump in Mali’s throat, she wanted to cry out her pain but the habits of a lifetime were hard to break and the Llewelyns had never been given to shows of emotion.

  She reached beneath the stone sink and drew out a bag of soda and a scrubbing brush. Her father did not even look up as she poured water from the kettle into the zinc bucket. The flow drummed against the ridged bottom, sending steam into Mali’s face, and the beads of moisture felt like the tears she could not cry.

  The bucket was heavy but she managed to haul it out into the yard. She skirted the spot where the long box lay and pushed at the creaking gate. The wood of the cart was old and splintered and scales of fish gleamed silver in the dim light. A jagged splinter caught Mali’s soft palm and she winced with pain, sucking at the blood before continuing with her efforts.