‘I’m sure it is her,’ insisted Amelia. ‘She looks quite distressed.’
His sister was right, Miss Kellow stood with a carpet bag at her feet, looking about her as if she didn’t know which way to turn. How had he not seen her when he disembarked? Too wrapped up in his own thoughts, he chided himself. They watched her accost a platform guard and gesticulate at the train as she explained her problem. The guard’s reply did not help to relieve her anxiety.
‘What do you think? Shall I call her over?’ asked Amelia.
Talek sat back in his seat. ‘I don’t think she will appreciate our help.’
‘Of course she will. She looks upset.’
‘The platform staff can help her.’
‘They have not so far.’ Amelia called out to her through the window, before he could stop her.
‘She won’t be able to hear you,’ warned Talek.
Amelia smiled, delighted he was wrong. ‘She has! Look, she is coming over to us.’ His sister enthusiastically beckoned her over, much to his discomfort. The young woman abandoned her bag and followed the sound of her name. Fortunately, she quickly realised what she had done and returned to retrieve it, before navigating the gate and approaching the waiting carriage. Relieved to see a familiar face, she smiled. It lit up her drawn face, until her eyes came to settle on him. Her smile faded as quickly as it appeared. He was sure she would have fled if Amelia had not been present.
‘You look distressed, Miss Kellow. May we help you?’ he asked. Her sudden appearance had unsettled him, making his stilting offer sound insincere. He heard it in his voice and suspected she did too. Her eyes were red, as if she had not slept well or had just been crying. He suspected the former was more likely. He smiled to reassure her, but she turned away from him and addressed his sister instead. The dismissal irked him more than he cared to admit.
‘I was intending to travel north,’ she explained to his sister, ‘but I’ve missed my train.’
‘You were on the wrong platform if you were intending to travel north, Miss Kellow.’ He couldn’t help himself. He would not be dismissed as if he was a lackey.
Her body stiffened at his observation and he felt a curious pleasure at seeing her response.
‘If I were on the right platform, Mr Danning, I would have boarded my train,’ she replied without looking at him.
Amelia, forever the peacemaker, attempted to soften the frosty exchange. ‘We are sorry to hear that. Aren’t we, Talek?’
His sister’s pointed stare begged for a friendly response.
‘Indeed we are,’ he replied, crisply, settling back into his seat. Miss Kellow still refused to look at him. Her rebuff sharpened his tongue and he could not help adding, ‘If you had not missed it, we would not have your company now.’ The remark was unnecessary and he was not proud of his behaviour, yet it had the desired effect. She finally turned to look at him. Despite her predicament, her sad green eyes held a steady gaze. So calm and focused, he mused, that if they were poisoned darts, he would be a dead man.
‘When is the next train?’ asked Amelia.
‘Tomorrow,’ replied Talek. To his annoyance, he was the one to break away from her emerald scrutiny first. He feigned interest in the train pulling away from the station. ‘What I can’t understand is why you are at this station at all. The more direct route is from Bodmin, not here.’
‘Talek, please . . .’ His sister tugged at his arm. ‘Can’t you see that Miss Kellow is distressed enough as it is? I know that if I were to travel I would get confused too.’
Amelia’s rebuke silenced him. Had his sister seen something he had not? He looked at the woman with new eyes and saw what his pride had not let him see before. She clutched her shawl about her face with trembling fingers, each one blanched white as they dug into the cloth. Her breathing was erratic, her concentration flighty when she was not challenging him with a stony glare. She reminded him of a cornered animal looking for an escape. At best he had been childish at taunting her; at worst he had been unkind and ignorant.
‘We’ll take you home,’ soothed Amelia, patting the seat beside her. ‘It is out of our way, but it doesn’t matter. The drive will do us good. Open the door, Talek.’
Talek did as he was asked.
‘I have no wish to go home,’ blurted Miss Kellow. Noticing their surprise she added lamely. ‘I don’t want to trouble them.’
Talek frowned. Grace Kellow’s predicament was involving them more than he cared for. He had little regard for the woman. She’d accused him of murder and had the unfavourable habits of jumping to conclusions and trespassing on other people’s property. However, he couldn’t leave a distressed woman at a train station with the evening drawing in. Besides, he liked her father and didn’t envy the task of facing him should anything untoward happen to her due to his lack of help. What help could he offer?
‘You must come home with us.’ The words were out before Talek realised what he was going to say. It was a natural suggestion to remedy the situation, but not one he had expected to make. He was about to offer another solution instead, perhaps a hotel for the night, when he realised his sister had agreed and was already beckoning her into the carriage.
Amelia made room for Grace to sit beside her. As Grace climbed in, Amelia reached for her shawl to take it from her. The shawl slid from Miss Kellow’s head and revealed short, crudely chopped hair. Talek’s heart lurched at the sight at the same time as Amelia gasped.
‘Your hair! Have you been ill?’ she asked, horrified.
Miss Kellow tentatively touched her hair, or what was left of it. ‘Yes.’ She quickly replaced the shawl about her head. ‘It was cut to reserve my strength.’
Talek and Amelia exchanged glances.
‘I hope you are recovered,’ replied Talek. A quick nod of her head reassured Amelia, but not him. His eyes narrowed, but he chose not to question her further. She was unsettled enough as it was without having to explain her recent illness to a stranger.
‘Then let’s be on our way, Talek,’ replied Amelia with a bright smile on her face. She leant towards her new friend. ‘I hate carriage journeys,’ she confided. ‘Horses can be so unpredictable.’ Amelia sat back in her seat and braced herself for the carriage to lurch forward. It did so almost immediately and Amelia’s hand automatically shot out and grasped Miss Kellow’s. Amelia immediately apologised as she realised what she had done. ‘Talek is used to my nerves. He obliges me and tolerates them, but I know that I’m a great burden to him and he would rather I was braver.’
Miss Kellow enclosed Amelia’s hand in hers. ‘If it makes you feel better to hold my hand, then I’m happy for you to do so. It’s the least I can do, considering the circumstances.’
And what are the circumstances? thought Talek as he recalled her once beautiful hair. He would dearly love to know.
* * *
Thank goodness for Amelia. Her constant talking throughout the journey helped Grace more than she would ever know. The truth was that Grace still felt dazed. A combination of a lack of sleep and still reeling from her shock discovery had made it impossible to think clearly since her early morning escape. With no clear plan, she had penned a very short letter to her parents stating that she was going away and that they must not look for her. She needed time to find herself, she had told them. It seemed an inadequate explanation but her anger made the few sparse words in her letter more than they deserved. Thankfully she still had enough wits about her to ask them to employ Mrs Smyth, which was odd considering she had found retaining information almost impossible since discovering the family secret.
She had left home in the early hours with a vague destination in mind, however she had not been thinking clearly and had later realised she had foolishly boarded the wrong train as it was taking her southwards to St Austell instead of to her northbound destination. She had disembarked confused as to how such a mistake could have happened and was desperately trying to find out which train she needed to catch to get back en route again when she had heard Amelia’s voice calling to her from a carriage. If making such a stupid mistake had not been humiliating enough, discovering Mr Danning was also sitting in the carriage and would learn of it was even worse. Thankfully, the journey with them was not unpleasant. The carriage left the moderate bustle of the station to follow the windy country roads. High hedges, laced with yellow primroses, guided them along their route, occasionally offering a view of farm labourers working in the fields beyond. They travelled through several villages, each growing larger than the last, until finally the carriage began to slow.
‘We’re almost home,’ said Amelia. ‘I can see the Alps.’
Curious, Grace looked out to the horizon ahead. Tall, white pyramids reached upwards, slicing into the blue sky like razor-sharp teeth. The strange shapes appeared to engulf the entire flora in the area, carving a new unworldly landscape that had a strange beauty of its own.
Mr Danning answered her question before she had a chance to voice it. ‘You’re entering clay country, Miss Kellow. They are the spoils of mining clay.’
