‘I’m going to look at the corner of the wood to see if there are any violets still in bloom, for my mother,’ she extemporized.
‘Find some ragged robins,’ Betson smiled. ‘They will tell you who you’ll marry.’
‘I know who’ll be my husband,’ Olwen replied, blushing and wishing she had not spoken the words.
‘Ask the ragged robins.’ Betson’s voice was slow and she smiled deeply. ‘Take some flower heads, give them each a name. The first to open will be the one you’ll marry.’
‘I must go, Florrie will shout if the work is delayed.’ She waved and ran off.
‘Come and see me again, little fishergirl,‘ Betson called after her.
Olwen did not run for long. She glanced up to the woodland where she knew she would find the plant to which Betson had referred. It was nonsense of course. But her feet refused to take her in the straight line to Ddole House. She looked at the sun, weak and enshrouded with a mist but rising in the sky. She was late. But another few moments wouldn’t make Florrie shout any louder. Picking up the skirt of her dress, she ran to the damp corner and picked her way through the hazel and birch trees and looked at the pretty, pink, ragged flowers she had come to find.
She picked the heads and holding them in a row between her left forefinger and thumb, she said, ‘Arthur, the potboy, Tom, the soldier, Barrass, the letter-carrier.’ She ran away from the trees and, afraid now of the lateness of her arrival, she hurried on, down the drive and to the kitchen door of Ddole House and a day spent working in the busy kitchen.
She looked the epitome of a beautiful country girl as she burst through the door. Her face was glowing, her eyes sparkled with health and good humour. To her surprise, Florrie was dressed, not in her prim grey-striped flannel dress, but her black one over which her voluminous cook’s apron was tied. Of Seranne, who was paid for the role of cook, there was no sign.
‘Where have you been, girl? There’s the breakfast things not washed yet, Seranne has failed to arrive and me with a meal to cook for the master and three guests!’ Florrie hardly gave Olwen time to remove her cloak and put on an apron before pushing the empty water buckets into her hands. ‘Go and fill these and be quick about it.’
Olwen went to the yard and working the pump as if life itself depended on it, filled them in a rush and hurried back to the kitchen. She was not frightened by Florrie’s outburst as she would have been a few weeks ago, used as she now was to getting a scolding to be followed moments later by a sudden kindness.
The morning was filled with preparations for the meal, which would begin at three, and end when the men had settled the business they had met to discuss. Bream, freshly caught and delivered early by Olwen’s brother, were already baking in the large oven and would be followed by a saddle of lamb. Assorted sweetmeats were already prepared and a syllabub, well spiced and flavoured with French brandy, was cooling on the windowsill. When they had only the vegetables to prepare, and they were allowed to stop for a while to eat the food Florrie had prepared for them, and luxuriate in a drink of good strong tea, Olwen looked at her flowers. The one she had named for Barrass was slowly opening its forked petals.
She knew Barrass loved her best of all, but she also knew that he did not keep his heart free of others. Three girls in the village had produced babies, each one claiming him to be the father. One was the daughter of Pitcher and Emma at the alehouse, and although Violet had since married Edwin Prince, a wealthy farmer, everyone knew that the child was not her husband’s, but Barrass’s.
Olwen was convinced that her youthful, not to say childish, appearance was to blame for Barrass’s reticence. She would make him forget all the rest once she was accepted as a woman and not a little girl. She put the flowers back and took another thick crust of the bread remaining on the table. If she ate plenty, surely that would increase her size?
It was as if, out of her thoughts, she had conjured up Barrass. As she had filled her mouth with the crust, there was a knock at the door and it was opened to reveal him standing there, filling the space with his height and width, and swelling her heart with the warmth of his smile. His appearance lightened the day more than the sun that had just broken through the thin veil of cloud and had entered with him.
‘Barrass!’ she ran to greet him and felt his arms around her, one of the rare times when she felt glad to be small. When she was with Barrass she was more sure of herself and confident. It was easy then to forget her lack of inches, and the way everyone referred to her as ‘the little girl belonging to Spider and Mary-the-fish’.
‘Florrie? Where is Seranne today, you aren’t supposed to be the cook as well as the housekeeper now, are you?’
‘She isn’t here, that’s for sure. But where she is I can’t tell you. Forgotten the time, lolling about in that bed of hers no doubt. At the alehouse yesterday fit as you like, now she’ll complain of feeling ill.’
‘Not reliable, is she?’ Barrass took the ale Florrie offered and sat near the fire to drink it.
‘She wouldn’t know the meaning of the word!‘ Florrie snapped. ‘If you pass her house, will you knock and tell her what day it is, supposing she cares?’
‘I’ll go, Florrie,’ Olwen offered at once. ‘Go like the wind and be back before you’ve missed me.’
‘All right, I know how you like to escape from the house for a while. But don’t be long, mind!’
Putting a fresh bowl of water ready for washing the few mugs and plates from their light meal, Olwen hurriedly found her cloak. If she were quick, she might be able to walk a short distance with Barrass.
She hurried from the house as Barrass began to walk up the drive. She watched hopefully as he reached the gate; if he turned to the left, then he would be walking in the same direction as herself. At the gate, he stopped and waited for her.
‘I heard footsteps behind me, and guessed it was you,’ he smiled.
‘I was afraid you wouldn’t wait.’
‘Of course I’d wait. I don’t see you often now you are a working girl. But I thought I’d better get out of sight from the kitchen in case Florrie thinks I’m encouraging you to waste time. Going to the house of Seranne and her family, are you?’ He began to walk as she reached his side. ‘I’m going that way too. Not that there’s a letter for that family, I doubt if they can read!’
‘Of course they can read!’ Olwen defended. ‘Taught by their mother. She worked at The Ship and Castle, and did the accounts until she was drowned, poor thing.’
‘She and her husband died together, didn’t they, in a boat involved in the smuggling?’
‘Leaving five children to fend for themselves. No storm or anything, they left the ship with a fully loaded boat and it just broke up and sank. They drowned before anyone could get to them. And don’t say it was justice, Barrass!’ she added sharply. ‘We all know how you feel about the smuggling!’
‘I wouldn’t wish that to happen!’ he protested. ‘Besides, I’ve helped, haven’t I? That makes me as involved as all the rest. Once you have become a part of something like the nightboats, you can’t ever be free of it.’
They reached the small field in which a once neat cottage stood amid the chaos of partly prepared ground, and the relics of outhouses in the process of being rebuilt. A stream ran down, close to the walls of the house; in it the long fingered leaves of the water crowfoot were already sending up a few pale, buttercup-like small flowers.
A rat ran across their path as they walked through the open gateway. Chickens scattered at their approach and a goat stared but continued chewing, its baleful eyes accusing and unfriendly. A dog tied to a post watched the rat pass close to its paws as casually as he might watch a bird fly past, then he raised his head a little and gave one lethargic bark to announce their arrival.
Olwen walked to the doorway and looked inside, curiosity making the errand a pleasant one. The Morgan family were well-known, but only through their occasional visits to the village. No one was invited to call, and the attitude of
the family did not encourage anyone to visit uninvited or try and make friends with any of them. It was surprisingly neat, but the smell of mildew and dampness caught at her throat and she did not enter when a voice invited her to do so.
‘Seranne?’ she called. ‘It’s me, Olwen, come to see if you’re all right, sent by Florrie who’s worried.’
‘Worried that her dinner won’t be cooked more like!’ Seranne came out of the house, coughing and holding a hand to her chest. ‘I’m sick, tell her that will you, and say I’ll be back to work just as soon as I can stand without my knees giving way.’
‘Is there anything you need?’ Olwen asked. She looked at Barrass; the girl was obviously in need of a doctor.
‘I am passing the house of the doctor, shall I ask him to call?’ Barrass suggested.
‘No need. I get this cough each winter but it passes as the sun gets stronger. Nothing he can do except send me a bill for medicine that’s foul to take and which doesn’t ease the pain.’
As their eyes became accustomed to the dark interior viewed through the open door, they saw that Seranne’s two brothers were there, sitting at a table, drinking from large pewter mugs. One of them turned around and waved his mug at Barrass and called,
‘Stay for a quaff of ale, will you, Barrass-the-post?’
The prospect of sitting in that dark, mouldering room was not one that appealed to Barrass. He shook his head as if in regret.
‘I am already late and some take pleasure in complaining,’ he excused. He looked again at Seranne, leaning on the door and trying to steady her breath to hold back her coughing. ‘If there is nothing I can do?’
Seranne looked across the field as if waiting for someone.
‘Our sister Vanora will be back presently. Gone to gather some coltsfoot leaves to boil. With some sweet honey, that will help take away my affliction.‘ The last words were lost as she once again succumbed to violent coughing. Her brothers took no notice of her distress.
‘I have to run, or Florrie will have me busy ’til midnight!’ Olwen and Barrass moved away, both relieved to be distancing themselves from the unhealthy family and the house that smelt of poverty and neglect.
‘No wonder their sister Polly always looks so sickly,’ Olwen whispered.‘The place is worse than a swamp.’
Barrass thought of the pale, thin girl who worked for Pitcher and Emma and nodded. ‘I think they are unlikely to improve unless they move from that dreadful place. Living under the skies would be safer.’
Olwen looked thoughtful. ‘The place isn’t that dreadful. Tucked in the corner of the field with the stream so conveniently close, it would be a lovely place to live, if those brothers would do something to improve it.’
‘Fancy the job of sorting them, do you?’ Barrass grinned. ‘I’d have thought you’ve enough to do, with working for the Ddoles, helping your mother with her wool and spending time with your father and Dan and their fish!’
‘I haven’t time, and I wouldn’t fancy spending too many hours with those brothers. Make me nervous they do.’
‘Olwen, I have to go. Run back now and tell Florrie what you know. Come and see me at the alehouse tomorrow night if you can, and we’ll talk. It’s not easy to find time now, is it?’ He bent and kissed her lightly on her warm cheek and turned quickly to continue his round.
She watched him go, large, strong and so dear to her. The sun glinted on the horn which was tied across his shoulder. That, and the red waistcoat, worn to tell everyone who he was, seemed to have separated them from each other. She longed to follow him, walk the lonely miles at his side, regain the special friendship they had until recently always enjoyed. If she couldn’t have his love yet, then she would settle for a return to that companionable warmth they had shared for so long.
When he had passed from her sight, without even a final wave, Olwen reluctantly set off back to Ddole House. With Seranne obviously unable to work, it seemed unlikely that she would finish work early enough on the following day to go and see Barrass. She kicked irritably at a tuft of grass that was high above the rest and ran back to face her busy day.
For a while, it seemed that Barrass had accepted what she had always known, they were partners for whom marriage was the inevitable conclusion. But somehow he was more distant now than when he had been a homeless beggar, excluded from every house, surviving on what he could beg from the kind-hearted villagers.
* * *
Behind her, the brothers of Seranne stepped out of the doorway and watched her go. Morgan Morgan was seventeen and Madoc Morgan two years older. Since the death of their parents in the boating accident, their sisters had treated them like naughty but lovable children. Polly, who was fifteen, worked for Emma. Seranne was almost thirty and had had a succession of jobs. She now cooked for Ddole House, when she was well enough to walk the distance from her home. Vanora, although not the eldest, had taken charge of the family. The brothers did little work, being adept at finding reasons for not completing the many jobs they were set, but none of the sisters thought to complain, even when they knew that the brothers had earned money and not given a contribution to the running of the home.
Now, they threw down the dregs of their ale on to the earthen floor and put the mugs on the table.
‘Best we have another go at this shed,’ Morgan sighed. ‘Else we’ll never get them chickens comfortable and in a mood to lay.’
The chickens for whom the henhouse was planned lived in the house and were clucking around the doorway in the hope of a few crumbs. Vanora had begun to tire of finding one or two perched beside her when she woke in the mornings and had tried to persuade the others that the chickens and the goat should be partitioned off from the one room in which the five of them lived and slept. As usual, Madoc and Morgan willingly agreed to do the work, but no progress had yet been made.
The brothers saw Vanora coming back with a basket filled with the leaves of coltsfoot to make a healing brew, and at once began banging with enthusiasm on the partly built henhouse. As soon as Vanora had gone indoors, they dropped their tools and sidled off to find something less energetic and more fun.
They returned several hours later with three squealing piglets.
‘Madoc! Morgan!’ Vanora screeched in dismay, her tall, thin figure stretched in outrage as she glared at her brothers. ‘Where d’you think we can keep them? In with the rest of us?’ It did not occur to her to ask where they had obtained them.
‘Only for a while, until we finish the henhouse. We thought that hens, well, they don’t bother us much, and if we used the shed for pigs, well, there’s food for the whole of next winter, or a fine profit for us on the market.’
What Madox said seemed to make sense to Vanora’s tired mind. She had been awake for three nights disturbed by both sisters’ coughing, and she was too weary to argue or even try to find a convincing way of saying no.
‘Just make sure that place is finished before Sunday comes. Or you’ll be finding pigs where your bed ought to be and your bed outside!’ she snapped in rare anger. Then she went to prepare another dose of the soothing coltsfoot brew for Seranne.
* * *
Olwen hurried back to the kitchen of Ddole House and looked apprehensively at Florrie, expecting a telling off for being so long, but when she explained about Seranne’s illness and the unlikeliness of seeing her for a few days, the woman just nodded and arranged for one of the stableboys to take a basket of food to the family.
‘Anyone called while I was away?’ Olwen asked with a sly wink at the girl they all called Dozy Bethan, who was dreamily washing pots at the sink.
‘Only Daniels the Keeper of the Peace,’ Florrie replied and the girls shared another look of understanding. It had become apparent to them both that there was nothing so guaranteed to put Florrie in a pleasant and amiable mood as a visit from Daniels.
Daniels, the local Keeper of the Peace, was a tall, smartly dressed widower with five children who seemed to be an admirer of Florrie; a regard that was recip
rocated by their worthy housekeeper. He took his work seriously and was known to be determined to seek out and arrest those local families involved in smuggling. For this reason he was feared and few would call him their friend. But to Florrie, who had enjoyed many cups of illegal tea and several bottles of the best French brandy without a qualm of conscience, he was a way of transforming her life from the servant of the Ddoles, to being a respected and comfortably situated wife.
Florrie had been the cook at Ddole House for many years, and recently, after the death of Mistress Dorothy Ddole and the departure of their daughter, Penelope, for London, had been promoted to the position of housekeeper. Today, because of the absence of Seranne whom William Ddole had chosen to take her place in the kitchen, she was once again relegated to the task of cooking the meals.
* * *
The meeting which took place at Ddole House that afternoon consisted of Markus, the blind man; Edwin Prince, who was married to Pitcher’s daughter, Violet; John Maddern, a visitor from London, and William Ddole himself. William waited until his guests had eaten before beginning to discuss the business reasons for their meeting.
‘I have to tell you that for a while, my house can’t be used for our – activities,’ he said, refilling the glasses of his friends with more brandy. ‘Daniels is a regular visitor here, now he and Florrie are walking out. He isn’t a man to turn away from a hint of suspicion and he certainly isn’t a man to ignore what he sees.’
‘Does this mean that we have to find another permanent place?’ Edwin asked. ‘It isn’t easy. All the people we trust are already helping.’
‘Florrie told me today that she and Daniels will marry. I doubt she will continue working for me, although she has not yet said so. Daniels has five children and I suspect Florrie, efficient as she is, will be kept busy enough caring for them.’
The Posthorn Inn Page 3