One Dragon's Dream

by Catrin Collier

  ‘In that case to please you I’ll let myself go in Russia. I’ll forgo my corset and wear my stockings rolled down to my ankles. Dress in loose smocks and lie on a chaise longue all day long reading novels while our servants bring me sweet tea and cream cakes.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see you get fat. But not from cream cakes.’ He pulled down her bloomers. She stepped out of them.

  ‘No, leave your stockings,’ he ordered when she reached for her garters.

  ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  ‘You make me happy.’ He lifted her off her feet and entered her standing up.

  ‘You, dear husband, are insatiable.’

  ‘If I am, sweetheart, you have only yourself to blame.’ He fell back onto the bed, carrying her with him.

  Mountain above Cyfarthfa Castle

  Merthyr, June 1870

  Richard left Georgetown and looked past the ironworks up the hill to the massive ornamental gates that marked the entrance to Cyfarthfa Castle. The first season he’d worked in Merthyr he’d accompanied Alf Mahoney, the senior miner he ‘buttied’ under, to the Castle to help clean the guns for the annual rabbit shoot.

  The drive was out of bounds to all except the Crawshays and their guests, so they’d followed the other workers who’d been pressganged to assist, and entered the grounds by a side road. He’d caught a glimpse of the gardens that swept down the hill from the front of house. An opulent, exotic wonderland of blooms set against the grim background of the smoking furnaces and chimneys that floored the valley.

  The “help” had been shown to wooden benches and tables in the yard outside the stables. After they’d finished working on the guns they’d been given beer and food. The back doors to the house had been open and he recalled palatial painted passages and corridors floored with marble.

  Richly dressed men and women had ferried trays of food and drink and cleared the dirty plates and beakers. The women wore lace caps and collars and a few had made a fuss of him because he’d been the youngest there, ruffling his hair and feeding him sugar pastries. He’d assumed they were Crawshays but afterwards Alf told him they’d only seen the outdoor staff, not even the indoor servants, let alone the Crawshays themselves.

  Since then, he’d thought of the mansion as a palace. He imagined Robert Crawshay and his family living within its walls like royalty looking down the hill at the workers who’d made them rich – a million and a half pounds rich, or so rumour had it. Not for the first time he wished he’d been born in Cyfarthfa Castle. If he had he’d …

  He kicked a stone out of his path. Some dreams were so fanciful they weren’t worth dreaming.

  He left the road that led to the high street chapel and continued to climb. The trees were blackened and stunted, the grass dry. Smoke from the works hung heavy, tainting the atmosphere with a metallic tang but he knew when he reached the summit, the air would be cleaner.

  He passed a farmhouse that had been old before the Crawshays had arrived in the valley. A mile to the left was a field with a dry-stone-wall sheep pen. A century ago trees had been planted inside it to shelter the animals during winter storms but the trees had outgrown the pen and their roots had damaged the walls, causing falls in a few places.

  He headed for a May tree that leaned precariously close to the ground, took a red handkerchief from his pocket, and spread it on the grass before sitting down. His mother had an eagle eye when it came to dirt on his clothes and he didn’t want to have to explain how his hand-me-down father’s Sunday best had acquired grass stains when he was supposed to be in chapel.

  He leaned against the tree, turned his face to the sun, and breathed in deeply. He relished his one day off a week. The Tunnel Pits never seemed to have enough air, no matter how fast the trappers worked the ventilators.

  Seductive as the summer’s day and smell of grass was; he grew restless. He envied the older workers their watches. He’d intended to start saving for a pocket watch on his first day at work, but he was no nearer buying one than he’d been then. One day, he’d buy himself a watch and an eight-day clock for his mother, but not until they moved out of the basement. He couldn’t bear to watch the polished wood of a clock case turn white and warp the way his mother’s dresser and table had after they’d been forced to move out of their cottage in Treforest.

  Church bells tolled in the distance and he wondered if Alice Perkins would be able to get away. He imagined her pleading a headache to be excused from Sunday worship; pictured her father, mother, and sister leaving their double bay-windowed manager’s house for church – not chapel. Like most of the managers Alice’s father had abandoned chapel to join the same congregation as the Crawshays.

  Richard had seen the Perkinses’ cook, maidservants, and man of all work walking behind the family as they made their way to their chapel two streets below the church. Alice had told him her father had given their housekeeper permission to attend morning services on condition she remain behind on Sunday afternoons and evenings to look after the house. He also knew Alice wouldn’t be able to get away unless the housekeeper stayed in the servants’ quarters.

  He visualised Alice’s family joining the congregation of elite (or, in Welsh terms, crache) in the church. Alice left behind in her pink and white wallpapered bedroom she’d described at such length he felt he’d visited it.

  When the house was quiet and Alice was certain the housekeeper would remain in the servants’ quarters, she’d leave her bed, lace on her boots, and pick up her cape – she’d need the hood to conceal her face. She’d run down the main staircase, out through the French doors of the dining room, and into the garden. Avoiding the basement windows, she’d walk through the shrubbery to the back gate that opened on to the mountain.

  In his mind’s eye he followed Alice every step of the way. It was easier to picture her walking up to meet him than it was to imagine the town hall clock. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t hazard a guess at the time. If Alice didn’t come soon, church and chapel services would be over and they’d have no time together – that’s if she turned up. She had to come … she had to … He picked up a blade of heather and pulled off the tiny flowers one by one.

  ‘She’ll come … she won’t … she’ll come … she won’t …’ His chant ended on “she won’t”. He cheated, broke a piece from the stem and whispered “she’ll come”.

  Irritated, he discarded what was left of the heather and tried counting the time away. Mr Edwards had told him it took a full second to say twenty-one – slowly. He tried to repeat ‘twenty-one’ sixty times but forgot how many he’d said after thirty.

  He peered over the wall of the pen. The hillside sprawled below him, devoid of life apart from sheep cropping grass. Just as he was about to give up and make his way back, he heard humming. A lively music hall tune, unsuitable for the Lord’s Day, laced with a catchy chorus of, ‘tap tap tap and click click click.’

  He recognised ‘The Telegraph’, Alice’s current favourite. Ducking low, he caught a glimpse of the hem of Alice’s frock. He’d seen it before, a blue cotton with an over pinafore, the only concession Alice’s mother would allow to placate Alice’s craving for a bustle; a fashion Alice’s father had decreed unsuitable for any girl below the age of eighteen.

  He’d learned a lot about women’s clothes since he’d been stepping out with Alice Perkins. Not that they actually ‘stepped out’. Not anywhere where there was any danger of them being seen. Alice had warned him her father would be furious if he discovered his youngest daughter was secretly seeing any boy, let alone a common collier.

  Richard heard the clatter of stones as Alice climbed over the dry-stone wall. Raising his head he watched her from behind the tree, admiring the sweep of her fair hair as it rippled down her back. Alice couldn’t wait to pin it up, but like the bustle, ‘grown-up’ hairstyles had to wait until her eighteenth birthday. Alice found her father’s edict hard to bear. He was glad she was too young to wear it up. It wa
s soft and silky as he’d discovered when she’d allowed him to run his fingers through it.

  ‘Richard!’ Alice caught sight of his cap as he bobbed behind the tree and ran towards him. He leapt to his feet, caught her when she tripped, and led her to his handkerchief.

  ‘I’ve missed you terribly this week.’ She flung her arms around him and pressed her lips inexpertly against his.

  He pulled her close and dared to do something he’d been thinking about all week. He slid his tongue past her teeth into her mouth.

  She jumped back. ‘You’ve never done that before.’

  ‘It’s been a long week without you.’

  ‘I told you. No liberties. Not until we’re married.’

  His face burned. Blood rushed to his cheeks. He pointed to his handkerchief. ‘Let’s sit down.’

  ‘Only if you promise to be good.’

  ‘I promise, but damn it, Alice …’

  ‘And, no swearing,’ she added.

  ‘You’re worse than the minister.’

  ‘Because I expect you to respect me?’ she challenged.

  ‘Because you criticise everything I do.’

  He pulled a second, green handkerchief from his pocket, set it next to the one she was sitting on and knelt beside her. He knew he was still blushing. It didn’t help he couldn’t stop staring at the curve of her breast beneath her bodice. He would have liked to have stroked it but he knew she wouldn’t hesitate to slap him.

  ‘I don’t mean to criticize. I’m sorry.’ She moved towards him.

  He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her, and dared to allow his right hand to slip lower … and lower.

  She wriggled closer. He left his hand, resting between them. Her hair smelled of lavender, her skin lemon, her breath of mint.

  ‘I love you, Alice Perkins. One day we’ll be married.’

  ‘I know.’ She kissed him with unpractised enthusiasm.

  He pushed her on to the grass and slid his hand beneath her skirt until his little finger rested on the garter above her knee.

  ‘No! Richard!’

  There was fear in her voice that came from more than her reaction to the “liberty”.

  He opened his eyes and saw terror in her eyes. Whirling around, he was aware of dark shapes crowding in on them.

  Something large and heavy crashed on the back of his head. Stunned, lost in a violent, red-tinged explosion he tumbled headlong into agonising darkness.

  The last thing he heard before pain overrode his senses was Alice screaming his name.

  Chapter Six

  Basement house in a court off John Street

  Georgetown, Merthyr, June 1870

  Mary stared at the archway that linked the court with John Street so intently, Anna felt as though her mother was willing Richard to return.

  ‘Your brother’s found himself a girlfriend, hasn’t he?’

  ‘If he has, he’s not told me, Mam. But, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Anna handed Mary her tea and sat beside her on the narrow step.

  ‘If he gets married we won’t be able to manage. It’ll be the workhouse for the rest of us.’

  ‘Richard knows his responsibilities, Mam. He won’t let us go into the workhouse.’

  ‘You’re young; you don’t know what men are like once their heads have been turned. They stop thinking with their brains and …’ Mary faltered. It wasn’t easy to keep a young girl innocent, living in close proximity to their neighbours in the yard. Anna had seen and heard things Mary had rather she hadn’t but still she struggled to keep Anna in ignorance of the more brutal and physical side of men’s natures.

  ‘Like you turned Dad’s head?’ Anna had become skilled at dispelling her mother’s black moods.

  The ghost of a girlish smile played at the corners of Mary’s mouth. ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Richard will look after you, me, and the boys for as long as we need looking after.’

  ‘I don’t know what I would have done without Richard after your father was killed.’ Mary looked inwards, as she always did whenever she spoke about either of her husbands. ‘I can’t believe he’s been gone nine years. Richard never shed a tear at the time. Never murmured, even when I took him out of Treforest School. The schoolmaster said Richard was bright. With the right education he could have gone a long way. Become an engineer even. But I had you and the others. I couldn’t afford to feed all of you without Richard’s help. I had no choice but to put him, David, and you to work. Mr Edwards’ offer to find the three of you places in the tunnel mines was a Godsend. If the cholera hadn’t taken George and Victor along with David and your sisters, the younger ones would have had to join you as soon as they were old enough. It’s the only way I could have kept them.’

  ‘I know, Mam, and Richard knows you had no choice, but we’re better off now than we’ve been for a long time, and it’ll be better still once I start doing extra hours in the Boot.’

  Mary ignored Anna’s attempt to reassure her with the promise of increased wages. ‘Richard’s right. We’ve a lot to be grateful to Mr Edwards for. Without his help Richard and the boys wouldn’t have found work away from the iron that killed your father.’

  Anna knew it was useless to point out there were as many, if not more dangers in the tunnel mines where her brothers worked as in the ironworks where her father had been killed.

  ‘When the new colliery in Merthyr Vale goes into production, the boys can get jobs there. We’ll move out of this damp house into one of the new ones they’re building in Aberfan. Mrs Parfitt said they’re going to have their own backyards with ty bach and tap, not one shared between six families like here. Just think, Anna, there’ll be no more breaking our backs, hauling water in buckets. It’ll be better for all of us, healthier …’

  Anna stopped listening. She’d heard it all before, many times.

  ‘Mr Edwards says it could be five years before the Merthyr Vale pit goes into production, Mam,’ Morgan broke in.

  ‘Not that long, surely?’ Mary looked to Anna to contradict him.

  ‘It could, Mam,’ Anna was reluctant to tell a lie, even a comforting one. ‘And, it’ll cost money we haven’t got to move.’

  ‘No point in hiring a cart to take furniture from here. It’s all been ruined by the damp. We’ll leave with what we carry and make do with a roof over our heads. Five years …’

  ‘A lot can happen in that time. Richard’s doing well and knowing him, he’ll soon be doing even better. There are plenty of new pits being dug beside Merthyr Vale. Richard’s ambitious.’

  ‘A fat lot of good Richard doing well will be to us if he spends the money he earns on a girl.’

  ‘Don’t start that again, Mam. You’re looking for trouble where there’s none.’ Even before her father had been killed, her mother had been prone to grim predictions that the family would end up in the workhouse. But the last few weeks she’d been worse than usual.

  ‘Mark my words. Trouble’s coming, girl,’ Mary said darkly. ‘When it does it’ll be in the shape of a no good, red-lipped, bright-eyed, flibbertigibbet who’s set her cap at your brother. And he’ll be too blind and taken with her to see it – or think of us.’

  Before Anna could answer, a gang of urchins burst through the archway into the court shouting, ‘Auntie Mary, quick! It’s your Richard!’

  Mary turned, stumbled, and fell up the steps in her haste to reach the yard.

  ‘Your Richard’s been beaten to death …’ the young boy paused for effect and to catch his breath.

  ‘Richard … dead.’ Mary swayed and fainted.

  Anna caught her but not before Mary’s head hit the cobbles.

  ‘You stupid boys!’ Anna shouted, shock manifesting in anger. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Tom Farmer’s bringing him now,’ the boy mumbled shame-faced. ‘He and Bert Farmer have him in their cart.’

  ‘See to Richard. I’ll take care of your mother.’ Maggie Two Suits, so named because her husband, Tim Two Suits, had inherited a s
econd from his brother he’d refused to pawn, was a large woman accustomed to taking control. She swept Mary into her arms and carried her into her own house.

  Anna charged through the archway. Tom and Bert were lifting Richard from their cart.

  ‘Bert and me were working with the sheep and dogs in the top field, training a couple of pups, when we saw a crowd of men coming up from the works. We knew a gang that size would be up to no good.’ Tom took Richard’s legs and signalled to Bert to take Richard’s shoulders. ‘They went into the west field, the one with the sheep pen. Next thing, we heard a girl scream as if she was being murdered. I ran down with the dogs while Bert went back to the farm to get the shotgun.’

  Bert took up the story. ‘Dad had harnessed the cart ready for him and Mam to go Sunday visiting. I told him what me and Tom had seen. We stopped to get the gun and took the cart so we reached the field before Tom. We saw the men – ten or eleven of them beating your Richard. He was on the ground out cold. Couldn’t have lifted a finger to save himself if he’d wanted to.

  ‘Ianto Paskey was kicking him and Ianto’s brother Mervyn was holding the girl. She was trying to fight but she didn’t stand a chance against those louts. Dad tried to bring her off the mountain along with Richard but the girl’s father was with the men and wouldn’t have it. In the end we thought it best to leave her, so we could get your Richard seen to.’

  Anna was too concerned about Richard to take in what Tom and Bert were saying. ‘I’ll send for the doctor.’

  ‘Already done, Anna. Mr Edward Edwards saw us coming down off the mountain. He told us where you lived and said he’d bring his doctor brother here, quick as he could.’ Spreading Richard’s weight between them, Tom and Bert hoisted him from the cart and carried him through the archway into the court. ‘Which is your house?’

  Anna pointed to the open door.

  ‘Best get him to bed.’ Tom advised.

  Anna shouted to her brothers. ‘Morgan, run upstairs and turn down your bed.’ He raced into the house. ‘Owen, stir the fire under the kettle, doctors always need boiling water, and fill the water buckets, both of them.’