Summer’s Last Retreat

by Summer's Last Retreat (retail) (epub)

  It was the twins who woke first that morning and they had to shake Violet out of her dreams. If they were curious about the look of wonderment on their sister’s face, neither mentioned it.

  Emma saw that her daughter was different. But as she became aware of it only after Kenneth had brought them a letter containing an invitation to visit Edwin for afternoon tea, she presumed the farmer was the cause. She re-read the short note aloud and smiled at her daughter, whose bright eyes smiled back at her across the table.

  ‘Thank goodness you had the good sense to send that Barrass packing, Pitcher,’ Emma sighed later as she sat looking again at the invitation. ‘Once Edwin proposes to Violet, there might be a chance of his friends meeting Pansy and Daisy. Just think of what you risked by having such a one as Barrass on the premises near your beautiful daughters.’

  ‘Aye, but I miss the boy, there’s none so willing and so skilled who will take so little money, Emma my dear. Your drawing room will cost me more than I’d had a mind to pay.’

  ‘Mr Palmer!’ Emma exploded. ‘Surely you can’t put money above the welfare of your daughters?’

  ‘No, my dear, but if you’ll come-along-a-me and look at my accounting, you’ll agree I’m sure that things is less than fine with us. And,’ he added in a low voice, ‘with the Keeper of the Peace wandering around asking questions and poking his nose where it shouldn’t be poked, it doesn’t do for us to be seen to spend money we can’t explain the earning of. Daniels is being more persistent of late and we don’t want no trouble, not if we wants to impress people like Edwin. Best if we let him come back, wife, or the work’ll never be done before Pansy and Daisy are well and truly settled in the chimney corner.’

  ‘Don’t even think such a thing!’ Emma waved her fat little hands at him, the rings catching light from the fire.

  ‘Perhaps if he worked in the yard but found somewhere a long way off for to sleep…’

  * * *

  News that Barrass no longer had anywhere to sleep reached Olwen via Arthur. He had arrived at her door with his dog as she returned with her father and brother, having helped them gut their catch. In the distance the gulls could be heard screaming and clacking as they argued over the offal she had discarded.

  ‘If you’ve finished for the day, shall we walk on the cliffs?’ Arthur suggested and, as she began to refuse, he went on, ‘No use looking for Barrass. He set off before dawn to go into Swansea.’

  ‘What for?’ Olwen asked, at once wondering about a pretty young woman. ‘Who does he know in Swansea, then?’

  ‘He’s borrowed a horse from the stables and hopes to ride with the post-boy. He wants to talk to others on the route and show himself and ask, “Have you seen my dad?” Daft if you asks me.’

  ‘But how will he get back in time to help Pitcher? He won’t allow him a day off for sure, until that drawing room is finished.’

  ‘He isn’t working for Pitcher any more.’ Arthur’s face closed up, warning Olwen that he would not tell her the reason. He knew only too well Olwen’s reaction to the thought of Barrass with a girl.

  She pestered and pestered, until he admitted, ‘It’s something to do with Violet, and that’s all you’re getting from me. Right?’

  ‘But surely Barrass isn’t fancying that Violet now? She’s a-w-ful old and has long straight hair and a long straight body and is as pretty as a yard of mucky pump water!’

  ‘I’m not saying he has a liking for her, but that’s the reason he’s been booted out into the cold.’

  ‘Out of his mind he is for sure. Is there a full moon? Granny Hughes would say he was afflicted by moon madness.’

  ‘Full moon or not, he’s without a home again. And him with not a flea on him. Pity for him,’ Arthur piped, as shrill as the seabirds wheeling above them.

  ‘I’ll ask Mam again, she always says there’s room for another, but perhaps that means when she is going to bring me another brother,’ she frowned.

  ‘We could go and have a look at the old barn, see if we can make it weatherproof again?’

  They walked across the fields and were surprised to see a small group of soldiers half hidden in the trees. One of them was Enyd’s brother Tom, called in for some exercise or other about which the youngsters did not bother their heads. Olwen carefully avoided him as they passed the bushes in which the small groups were quietly waiting. They also saw Enyd and Dan, who were too busy arguing to heed them. The couple parted then, Enyd walking back to the village and Dan striding off along the cliffs at speed, anger apparent in their attitude and haste.

  ‘They must love quarrelling, them two,’ Arthur said with a shake of his head, ‘it’s all they ever seem to do.’ They discussed the stupidity of adults as they walked towards the scorched barn.

  The day grew warmer, autumn’s last fling before retreating, the air was moist and sweet after an earlier refreshing shower and as the temperature soared, late insects swarmed and birds sang.

  * * *

  While Olwen and Arthur, accompanied by his dog, searched amid the blackened walls of the barn in a hopeless attempt at planning repairs, Barrass was talking to Ben Gammon. He noticed, as he rode beside the post-boy along the tracks, that the man’s hair gave a hint of former redness. Could this elderly man be the father he had dreamed about? He forced his memory to give a picture of his own face and compared that image with the man riding beside him. There was nothing to hint at a relationship. Everything about the man was wrong, and, he decided finally, Ben Gammon was far too old.

  The thought of his young mother with a man who must have been approaching fifty made his lip curl in disapproval. Then his thoughts flitted back to Violet, who was hardly out of his mind for more than a moment. She was older than him, and that was not always a good thing. Childbearing became more difficult as a woman grew older, and while a man could always give a child to a woman, at least according to what he had learnt in conversations with Spider and Pitcher, a woman’s body grew too old to receive it.

  It was something to be considered when a man chose a wife, he understood that, but Violet had chosen him and he wasn’t planning to tell her she was wrong. His knees trembled as he thought about the previous night and imagined how it would be on all the nights to come. Four years wasn’t an impossible difference, was it? He wondered who he could ask. Somehow it didn’t seem right to question Pitcher!

  They reached the point at which Ben Gammon handed over his bag to the next man on the route and Barrass went forward with interest to meet him. The sorting office was at an inn, and the horse stood ready to depart, the rider leaning against the horse’s flank puffing on a clay pipe.

  Barrass could see at a glance that the man was not a candidate for the role of his father. He was tall and broad, but barely twenty-five years old. Barrass asked the usual questions and the young man smiled and repeated much of what Ben had said: a request to find a father among the travelling post-boys was not an unusual occurrence.

  ‘I’ll bear your likeness in mind, boy,’ he promised. ‘And should I ever come across a man who looks so like you I’ll say, “Well I’m damned if that isn’t like young Barrass”, and I’ll send a message to you as fast as this here horse can gallop.’

  ‘He even talks like you,’ Barrass said with a smile.

  ‘So he should, my boy, for he is my son and proud of him I am, so much I wished I’d married his mother!’ With a laugh, Ben trotted off to where his wife and family waited for him.

  Barrass rode back to the village, allowing the horse to set its own pace, his disappointment overriding his haste to be back where he might catch a glimpse of Violet Palmer.

  When he reached the village, the road took him along the edge of the tide and before he came in sight of the alehouse, he heard voices raised in anger. He touched the flanks of his mount and hurried to see what was the cause of the riot and rumpus.

  On the beach a fire had been built and around it, crowds of people had gathered. Driftwood had been brought and in unusual extravagance,
was being thrown into the blaze. Olwen and Arthur were two of the first people he recognized and he demanded to know what was happening.

  ‘My dadda has been arrested,’ Olwen sobbed. ‘Along with Dan and Pitcher and a dozen others.’

  Before he could hear more, stones began to be lobbed in their direction and Barrass quickly shielded the girl from the danger.

  ‘What has happened to them?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Why are they throwing stones at you?’

  ‘It’s you they’re meant for, flea breeder!’ a young boy shouted, and Barrass asked again what was the reason for their anger against him. No one spoke; they just muttered among themselves.

  It was Olwen who told him that they were blaming him for giving information to the customs men. Arthur reluctantly admitted that it was so, and they had been warned not to talk to him. They walked with him, moving fast to escape another volley of stones, as he took the weary horse back to the stables. Then they sat to tell him the full story.

  ‘Somebody said too much and there were raids on three houses in the village and two beyond,’ Arthur said in his squeaky voice. ‘That Daniels must have tricked them into giving the names of others and a group of revenue men were sent over from ports as far away as Cardiff and Fishguard. They all swarmed in and took prisoners. Treated them rough too, so they say, pushed the women out of the way with the butts of their firearms.’ Outrage made his voice so high-pitched, it seemed he was about to burst into song.

  ‘What will you do, Barrass?’ Olwen looked at him with such trust, so confident that he would be able to free her father and the others that he felt a stab of sickness.

  ‘What can I do? If no one trusts me, there is nothing I can suggest that will even be considered!’ His dark eyes showed dismay and hurt, and Olwen hugged him, reassuring him that as always he could rely on her support when other faces turned away.

  He looked at the sky, it must be after eight o’clock and he knew that in a few hours Violet would be waiting for him. What did it matter that everyone else accused him of disloyalty?

  ‘There’s nothing we can do tonight. Go to bed, both of you, and I'll think of something tomorrow. I promise.’ He crossed his fingers as he said the words, having not a single thought that would lead him to an idea. All he could think of was Violet, offering her long slim body to him in the darkness of the archway behind the alehouse.

  ‘Will you walk home with me, Barrass? I’m a bit frightened now that Dadda and Dan aren’t there.’

  He nodded. ‘Come on, Arthur, we’ll walk Olwen safe home then go and see if Mrs Palmer will have me back, for a while at least. She’ll need someone to help with the casks with Pitcher away, won’t she? I needn’t sleep in the house, the archway at the back will do,’ he added, half to himself.

  * * *

  Emma reluctantly agreed that Barrass should help out during the day, but insisted he found somewhere else to sleep.

  ‘Although I don’t know whether I should have you on the premises,’ Emma sobbed, her face a red, shiny mask of distress. ‘Seen talking to Daniels you were, and not a day later, the men were taken from their homes.’

  ‘Mistress Palmer,’ Barrass sighed in exasperation, ‘Daniels was talking to me. The same as he talked to everyone else in the village. He was talking to Mistress Ddole. Do you suspect her of talking of things best not mentioned?’

  ‘Stay until Pitcher comes back, then he can decide on the rights and wrongs of it all,’ Emma said, knowing that she needed him if the alehouse was not to close.

  Violet joined him an hour after the house had fallen into silent darkness and Barrass thought he had never been so happy in all his life. The misunderstanding about the men would soon be cleared up, once they were out of prison, and surely that was simply a matter of time? There would be no evidence of their guilt and of a certainty, no one to speak against them. He put it all out of his mind and luxuriated in the pleasures of exploring Violet’s willing body.

  The next morning, while he was cleaning barrels and bringing fresh supplies from the brewery beyond the arch-way, Olwen arrived breathless and smelling of fish.

  ‘Mam and I took baby Dic out in the boat and we caught enough fish to sell from the cart,’ she explained hurriedly.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ Barrass began, ‘I’ve got too much—’

  ‘Oh yes you can! I’ve had an idea!’ Her young face was lit up with excitement as she absentmindedly wiped her hands down her dress to clean off the fish scales that lingered.

  ‘To sell the fish?’

  ‘To help my father!’ she announced, pulling him to leave his work and listen. ‘I know where the boats have left a crop of barrels which they intended to gather later. Out in the bay, not far, and I can row there easily if you won’t come with me. I thought if they were gathered while Dadda and Pitcher are in prison, and the revenue found out, they’ll have to let them all go. They can’t be guilty if the crop is harvested while they’re in prison, now can they, Barrass? You will help, won’t you? Yes, I knew you would!’

  Olwen was referring to the method of weighting a barrel down out at sea, and tying others to it so they floated. Touched with white paint to be invisible in the foam-tipped waves, the floating crop could remain there until the revenue had given up their searches, then harvested at leisure.

  ‘Olwen, I think you should leave alone things that don’t concern you. You might end up in prison yourself. How will that help? And those men don’t play children’s games, as you well know. If they thought you were taking what’s theirs, you might not live to tell the tale.’

  ‘But you will help us, won’t you Barrass? If we leave evidence of our activities, and a trail leading the customs to the place where we hide the barrels, they’ll believe it was men from another village using our beach and not Dadda and the others, and they’ll have to let them go.’

  ‘Olwen, we can’t! The risks are too great, both from the revenue men and the others. If they get wind that you’re stealing those tubs, it will mean death. Young as you are you know what that means!’

  ‘Stop going on as if I’m a child! Young as I am I know a lot of things, Barrass!’ She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘More than you think. And if you don’t help us, I’ll tell on you.’

  ‘Tell what? I haven’t been involved with smuggling,’ he whispered.

  ‘I saw you making cow-eyes with that Penelope Ddole. I’ll tell her father and he’ll have you whipped.’

  Relief made him smile. ‘I’ll think about what you suggest and, if I do agree to help, it’s without you being there. You must stay close to your mother and baby Dic, and invite others to stay with you for evidence so no one can say you’re involved. Right?’

  Olwen did not agree, she lowered her head as if in submission but her mouth was tight and her forehead wore a stubborn frown. Barrass went about his work content that he had discouraged her, and sure that, eventually, Spider, Pitcher Palmer, Ivor Baker and the rest would be freed for lack of evidence. His confidence was unfounded.

  A week passed and there was news of a trial. Olwen came to him again and this time he could not refuse. Although he had been treated with ridicule and indifference, and now distrust by the villagers, these were his friends, and what Olwen suggested did have a faint chance of success. And surely the revenue men would not be on the cliffs looking for suspects if they believed they had them all in prison?

  He felt momentary guilt at the thought that in helping Olwen with her plan he might miss Violet’s nightly visit. He would have to explain to her that it was to help free her father, although the actual facts of what he was going to do would be held back from her as from everyone else.

  To free the men of the village would surely improve his standing in the community, help people to forget his past and treat him as he deserved? Pitcher and Emma would perhaps be grateful enough to consider him as a son-in-law when the time came for him to take a wife. Violet was too old for there to be other suitors. She would surely wait until he was
ready.

  The other aspect of his decision-making was the look on Olwen’s face. Silent for once, pleading with her lovely blue eyes, knowing he could not let her down. It was more than he could resist. Olwen, who had been his friend even when no one else would have him near. He nodded.

  ‘All right, on the understanding that you stay clear away and make sure that you and Mary have visitors to vouch for your being indoors all evening. Arthur and I will do what you suggest. You can go to the Keeper of the Peace at a signal from us, and tell them there’s sounds of activity on the beach and remind them that it must be men from other Villages.’

  He studied the tides and the state of the moon, made his plans with Arthur, sitting on the planks which lay ready to be made into flooring for the new room, then sent Arthur off for a few hours’ sleep and waited for Violet. He had been excited to see that the tide made it possible to see her and share an hour of her loving before he need wake Arthur and set off on their adventure.

  Chapter Six

  There was no moon and the night was dark and still as Barrass and Arthur made their way down to the water. It had an oily blackness, with only the thinnest of white lines showing at the edge of the tide. If he could find his way, following Olwen’s directions, to the place where the smugglers had hidden their cache, the task would be easy. He found Spider’s boat without any trouble – Olwen had hung a piece of white cloth on the beam end to help them – and they began to push it off the gravelly shore into the water. Arthur jumped in and, after a few more steps, with the water rising up his legs, Barrass joined him.