Copper Kingdom (6 page)

Mali still held the poker between her fingers when the door opened and her father entered the kitchen with Rosa at his side. Davie appeared hangdog, refusing to look to where Mali now stood but the woman with him stared around her insolently.

‘He says I can stay here tonight.' Her red lips curved in triumph. She edged Davie into a chair and then straightened the fur collar around her thin neck.

Fury such as she had never known before rose within Mali. How could Dad bring home this whore so soon after Mam's death? She moved forward menacingly.

‘You'll stay under this roof over my dead body, slut!' She heard the words, clipped and hard, force themselves from between her clenched teeth. This was a part of her self she did not recognise and furthermore did not like.

‘Davie, your girl wants to chuck me out into the streets.' Rosa pouted, seeming a little uncertain of herself now. ‘And after all the comfortin' I've done an' all.'

Mali stared at her. ‘And after all the drinks you've had on him. Your sort doesn't do anything for nothing.'

Rosa turned on her. ‘And what do you know about my sort?' she shouted. ‘You with your nice warm kitchen and enough food to go in your belly every day, you make me sick! Look at you, never done a hand's turn in your life and you a woman grown, there's a pity you aren't married with a string of kids around your neck, you might know a bit then.'

‘And you'd have the coast clear to move in with my Dad, is it? Well I'm telling you once, get out of this house while it's still decent and respectable before I put you out.' She waved the poker in the air and Rosa fell back a step or two.

‘I'm going,' she said. ‘But I'll be back, Miss hoity toity, and then we'll see who's got the upper hand.'

She flounced through the door, pausing to look back at Davie who was hard put to keep his eyes open. His great hand was slumped on his chest and his cheeks were red, a heat caused by the ale, Mali reasoned, for the fire had gone down into grey ash now and the cold draught from the doorway chilled the room.

‘I'll be seeing you, Davie boyo,' Rosa said and with an angry tweak at the brim of her dingy hat, she clattered away down the cobbled street.

Mali subsided into a chair. She had won but how permanent the victory would be she could not say. Rosa seemed an uppity sort of person and she would not let go easily, not once she had her hooks into a fine man like Dad.

Davie was suddenly awake, his head raised as he stared unseeingly into the blank fireplace. His big hands clenched together and his lips made a straight line of self disgust. Mali went to him, kneeling beside him, putting her arms around his neck, ignoring the scent of cheap perfume that clung to his clothing.

‘Good news, Dad,' she said softly. ‘Mr Richardson called when you were out, you're to have your old job back, can't do without you, it seems, best ladler in Sweyn's Eye, you are.'

Davie was silent for a long time and at last, Mali looked up into his face. As she stared at her father, her entire being seemed to dissolve for there were tears glinting on his rugged cheeks.

‘It's going to be all right, Dad.' She buried her head against the warm hollow of his neck. ‘Don't cry, no need for crying mind, everything is going to be just fine and dandy, you'll see.'

The early morning light cast a pale glow over the town as Sterling rode his horse down the hill and away from the gates of Plas Rhianfa. Ahead of him lay the works, crouched along the dull, metallic line of the river, the chimneys already sending flames high into the sky. Sterling shivered and it was with a feeling of relief that he rode in through the gates and slid from the saddle, handing over the reins to the young stable boy before striding across the frosty cobbled yard.

It was warm in the office after the biting cold of the street outside and Sterling made his way towards the tall stove, drawing off his gloves, eager to warm his hands. The works manager sat in his customary seat near the old stained desk, tweaking the ends of his waxed moustache, looking as though he was a permanent fixture in the works, part of the furnishings.

‘Good morning, Ben, damned cold out,' Sterling remarked conversationally but the old man did not reply and when Sterling glanced sharply in his direction, Ben was staring down at the pen in his hands.

‘What's wrong?' Sterling asked at once and Ben raised his head.

‘Reversing engine's broken down again,' he said gloomily. ‘Can't roll any copperplate until it's fixed.

Sterling concealed his impatience. ‘Had anyone to look at it?' he asked and Ben shook his head.

‘Twill cost a pretty penny, can the firm stand the expense?'

Sterling shrugged off his topcoat.

‘It's a case of needs must when the devil drives,' he said grimly. Damn it, did everything have to go wrong at once?

‘What else?' he asked and Ben brushed back his thinning grey hair moodily.

‘Two of the furnaces are choked up, need a good clean out, they do, haven't been seen to these many months. Another thing, this last batch of ore is nothing but gangue.' He ran a finger inside his stiff collar as though it was suddenly too tight for him. ‘Travers is to blame, no eye for copper, no feel for it.'

Sterling seated himself in the straight-backed leather chair and tapped the desk with his fingers. ‘What you are saying is that Glanmor Travers is no good at his job, Ben.'

The old man pursed his lips as though unwilling to allow the words to spill forth, his face reddened and his pale eyes behind his glasses stared intently into the flames of the stove.

‘He's no good at his job,' he said at last. ‘Not half the man his old dad was. Too keen on swilling down ale at the dockside taverns if you ask me. Comes in here late, he does, parading around the office as though he owned the place and all because he's in thick with young Master Rickie.'

Sterling rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. Old Ben did like to grumble and he wondered how much of his complaint was justified. If it was true that Glanmor Travers was failing in his job then something would have to be done about it.

‘See, old Joss Travers was a genius when it came to choosing ore,' Ben continued. ‘Not a bit of rubbish did he buy in all the years he worked for Mr Richardson, God rest his soul.' He paused. ‘But his son is no chip off the old block, he thinks that college can teach a man to sort out good copper from dross but that's his first mistake.' Ben hid his face in a large spotless handkerchief before taking off his glasses and polishing them with quick, nervous movements.

‘Where are the figures for last month, Ben?' Sterling waited patiently while the old man sorted out the dusty red ledger from a pile of books on the shelf.

‘It's bad enough without the likes of Travers making it worse,' Ben said. ‘See, once we'd have got ninety pounds a ton for the copper, now we're lucky to get twenty.'

In silence, Sterling looked over the pages. It seemed that over the last six months, sales of copper vessels to the brewing industry had slumped.

‘How long is it since we signed Glanmor Travers on?' he asked, already knowing the answer. Ben frowned in concentration.

‘Just after your father took real sick, it was,' he said. ‘Let me see now, summer wasn't it? Yes, six months I'd say.'

‘I see, then we're going to have to let him go, make up his wages Ben, give him a month in lieu of notice.'

‘He won't like it,' Ben said and there was a gleeful light in his eyes. ‘He won't like it one little bit.
Duw
, I can't wait to see his face.' He was silent for a moment.

‘You do know that your father gave the man's brother a loan, don't you?' he asked. ‘Not that I agreed with it. Too soft you are, Mr Richardson, I told him, but he wouldn't be swayed.'

‘No, I didn't know about it, Ben, tell me.' Sterling sat back in the chair, tipping it onto the sturdy back legs, thawing out a little as the heat from the stove permeated the room.

‘Mr Joss Travers approached Mr Richardson,' Ben said. ‘It was all done legal and proper, mind. It appears that the other boy, Alwyn Travers, was in difficulties, his mine was losing money though the Lord knows why, the price of coal today. In any event, your father made Alwyn Travers a substantial loan, holding the deeds of the property as surety.'

‘I see.' Sterling shrugged. ‘Well, I have nothing against this man and so long as he continues to meet his obligations, repaying the loan regularly, I shall honour the agreement.'

Sterling suppressed a smile, he could see by Ben's face that he thought the young Mr Richardson as soft as his father. Ben rubbed at his glasses once more before settling them upon his nose.

‘Well you're the boss right enough, Mr Richardson,' he said reluctantly. ‘But them two boys are not a credit to old Joss Travers, wasters, the both of them, drinking and brawling in the publics and afraid of a bit of work as well.'

Sterling was too deep in his own thoughts to answer the old man. It surprised him that his father had digressed from the usual run of business procedures and made a private loan even to please an old friend and a loyal employee. One thing was sure, now that Joss Travers was dead and his wild sons were left without a steadying hand to guide them, Sterling intended to keep an eye on things. The copper company was not in the business of subsiding loafers.

‘Shall I get a man in to look at the reversing engine, Mr Richardson?' Ben's voice penetrated Sterling's thoughts. He glanced up and nodded.

‘Yes, right away Ben, we can't afford to lose any time, not with Chile and Cuba to say nothing of Australia exporting large quantities of blister bar.'

Ben looked glum. ‘Sink us they will,' he said bitterly. ‘These foreigners, taking good Welshmen and getting the secret of the smelting process out of them one way or another.
Duw
it's not right, not right at all.'

Sterling looked carefully through the pages of the ledger resting on the table before him; it was clear that drastic action was needed if the business was to survive.

‘We have problems, Ben,' he said. ‘You've worked in the copper all your life, what do you think is going wrong?'

Ben whistled through his teeth. ‘Mainly it's them old calciners,' he said at last, ‘most of them are cracked, should have been replaced these twenty years since.'

Sterling nodded. ‘I agree. I've been looking at some Gerstenhofer furnaces which have the advantage of utilising the copper smoke, converting it into sulphuric acid.'

Ben pinched at the end of his moustache. ‘No good, you'd need to have alkali and phosphate plants right alongside the works.'

‘That settles it then, I must forget about trying to make the copper more viable and turn to some other source of income.' He smiled and if Ben had gained the impression that this was what Sterling had been leading up to all along, he was not wrong.

‘Zinc,' Sterling said firmly. ‘I've been looking into the manufacturing of zinc very carefully and it seems the only solution.'

‘Very different it is to copper,' Ben said with maddening slowness. ‘Most of the works round here have tried the English method of production and damned expensive it is too.' He coughed and rubbed at his glasses. ‘The ores are reduced in vertical retorts inside a circular furnace, seen it done many times and it's a process that only yields about one ton of zinc a week.'

Sterling smiled. ‘But there are other forms of processing available now, the Belgian method of extraction for example. It is done by using fireclay about three feet long and six to eight inches wide, closed at one end and arranged in tiers within a cast iron frame.'

Ben looked impressed. ‘You've certainly made it your business to find out all about it,' he said. ‘But do you know that the consumption of fuel in these zinc furnaces is most extravagant?'

Sterling shook his head. ‘No more coal is used than in the smelting of copper.'

Ben shrugged as though bowing to Sterling's superior knowledge. ‘I may be a little old-fashioned,' he said, ‘but these newfangled ways are not proven, not like the copper process which has been a secret to the family for over a hundred years.'

Sterling sighed. Ben did not have to speak of his resistance to change, he lived in the past, remembering the glory that had once been the Richardson Copper company. There was a time when the works prospered and flourished so quickly that the word copper was almost synonymous with gold. Well he intended the company should one day in the not too distant future be rich once more. He had examined other companies, seen that change however small had brought increased profits. If he did not move ahead then the firm would go bust, nothing was more certain.

Ben coughed nervously. ‘Do you think you should consult with Mr Cardigan or Mr Sutton before you commit yourself?' he asked a trifle diffidently. Sterling shook his head.

‘I don't really think they are interested Ben,' he replied, ‘and I can't say I blame them. My father made sure that the company was always firmly under his control and all his partners really did was to put up money, funds that should have been used then for expansion but which have merely subsidised our losses thus far.'

He closed the ledger with a bang. ‘Anyway, I shall have the calciner furnaces replaced.' He gave a wintry smile. ‘We shan't lose sight of the copper altogether, don't worry.'

Ben took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. ‘I'm glad about that,' he said, ‘for copper's in my blood Mr Richardson and I can't imagine the works given over entirely to spelter or the coldness of steel, losing us the good name we've got for copper.'