The Posthorn Inn

by The Posthorn Inn (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  ‘You’re treating her unkindly, aren’t you, Barrass?’ Arthur said when the girl had left them. ‘Always been your friend she has, even when you had no others.’

  ‘She feels too protective towards me, she doesn’t want any other friend except me,’ Barrass said, his expression stiff. ‘Spider thinks it would be kinder for me to keep away, give her a chance to meet other, younger people. More innocent than me I think he means. That was why he and Mary sent her to work for the Ddoles, to get away from me.’ He smiled when he said it, suggesting it was a cause for amusement, but Arthur saw in his eyes a sadness that belied the gesture.

  ‘Olwen is very young,’ Arthur conceded.

  ‘But I’m very fond of her. I miss her company, miss her funny ways. But I can’t disagree with Spider and Mary. They love her too and I can see how they wouldn’t want her to become too fond of someone like me, with three children in the village each demanding to be given my name. I’ll have to stay out of her life and let others seek her out and enjoy her friendship.’

  Arthur shrugged.

  ‘No point me trying to walk out with her,’ he said in his high-pitched voice that made the vicar sit him with the Sopranos in church. ‘She’d rather kiss my dog than me!’

  The sound of a cart approaching led them to the door and they saw Kenneth and his wife Ceinwen struggling down with arms filled with parcels. Their daughter, Enyd, sat waiting to be helped down, a pouting look on her haughty face.

  Arthur and Barrass were pushed aside as Emma came out to greet the family and inspect their shopping.

  ‘Got plenty of lace, have you?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t have too much lace for a wedding. And ribbons! Did you remember the ribbons?’ Emma followed Ceinwen across the road to the bank on which her house stood. Behind them went Kenneth and his daughter, then Barrass, who was removing the leather postbag from his shoulders.

  Barrass stood for a moment at the foot of the grassy bank, looking up along the path that Olwen would have taken back to her cottage. He felt as lost without her as she obviously did without him. But Spider had to be obeyed. After all, how could he even think of giving his love to a beautiful child like Olwen? He was older in far more than years. He had no right to besmirch her perfection with his grossness. Not Spider’s words but clearly the essence of his ‘request’ for Barrass to discourage her. He had not dreamed it would be so hard to do.

  * * *

  The wedding of Olwen’s brother, Dan, and Kenneth’s daughter, Enyd, took place on a Sunday. The village went to the morning service as usual, but reassembled later for the ceremony.

  For Olwen, the day began early. She had to go to Ddole House to attend to the routine tasks that even after the most fervent pleas of the vicar could not be neglected. She helped Seranne, now fully recovered from her sickness, as the cold platters were arranged for luncheon. She and David, one of the stableboys, helped Bethan with the fires, carrying up extra coal and logs to feed the fires that would burn in both bedroom and living room, besides the big cooking fire in the kitchen.

  All the servants were being given a few hours of freedom to attend the wedding, once they had accompanied William to morning service and completed the tasks necessary to make his day a comfortable one. In between the chores, they discussed what they would be wearing. Excitement at the rare opportunity to dress in their best gave a flush to even Seranne’s pale face. Only Florrie was absent. She was walking to the church with Daniels, his sister and his five children, showing the village they were ‘walking out’ and that a wedding was also on their minds.

  Olwen raced home and hurriedly changed into the cotton frock her mother had patiently made, to which old Mistress Powell, who spent her days in the chimney corner of their living room, had added small bows of pale lemon ribbon.

  She had no mirror in which to view herself in her finery, but twirled and enjoyed the sensation of the full skirt flaring about her thin legs, held out by the frilled hem. For her feet she had borrowed the shoes, hand-sewn from coarse linen, her mother had kept from her wedding day.

  ‘Don’t put them on until you reach the church, and take them off the moment you come out, mind,’ Mary warned as she tried them for fit on Olwen’s dainty feet.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mam, I’ll want them for my own wedding one day.’

  Baby Dic was not left out of the preparations. Mary had sewn bells on to ribbons for him to wear on his wrists and ankles, and he sat, shaking them experimentally, chortling at the merry sound.

  Olwen smiled as she added wild flowers to her shiny fair hair, imagining the day when she would walk through the church gate, past the graves and into the dark, strange-smelling old church to stand beside Barrass and become his bride.

  She picked up the posy Mary had made for her to carry, then put it down again to re-adjust her hair. Unseen by Olwen or her mother, baby Dic crawled determinedly towards it, and when she bent to pick it up again, she saw him chewing happily on the fresh blooms.

  ‘Mam! Dic has ruined my posy!’ Olwen wailed. ‘And us with no time to make another!’

  Mary took the half demolished flower arrangement and, with her clever hands, swiftly restored it at least partially to its former neatness. Pushing Olwen impatiently in front of her, afraid they were late, Mary scooped up the baby and stepped out into the sunshine of the May afternoon. With a hasty goodbye to Mistress Powell, the three of them hurried down the path to the village.

  Spider and Dan had already left. Olwen imagined them sitting in the chilly church, excited but anxious too, Dan hoping he wouldn’t stumble over the formal words, Spider wondering where Mary and the baby were. They would be listening for the sound of the congregation arriving, wishing they could stand at the doorway to see them sooner, but sticking to their seats and pretending to be calm. A great swelling of love for her father and Dan filled her heart and made tears sting and cause her to blink.

  As they approached the road outside the alehouse, they heard the mumble of voices and saw that most of the village had congregated to walk together to the church. As if they had been waiting for them to arrive, the family of the bride began to move slowly off. Enyd with her father. Kenneth. Ceinwen close behind and supported by her soldier son, Tom, fortunately home for the occasion from his army posting.

  Enyd wore muslin, but her dress was of several layers, each one embroidered and touched with colour. The veil, also muslin, was embroidered to match. Palest blues and greens and lemon seemed to float about her as she walked beside her father. Her long, dark hair seemed to emphasize the almost fairy-like quality of her appearance.

  As she fell into step behind her, Olwen saw that Enyd’s usual disapproving look had remained and spoilt the illusion of utter happiness the more distant view suggested. Behind the bride, looking even larger than usual, Ceinwen had chosen a skirt of dark blue over which a loose top flowed and flapped in the breeze from the sea on their left. She wore a hat with a flower-covered brim which threatened to fly away every second, and she used both hands to hold it a prisoner to her head.

  In natural order, relations of the bride and groom followed on, and with a few sightseers making up the tail, the procession made its way along the road beside the sea, past the harbour and to the church door. A few unnecessary touches to the bride’s dress and headdress and a few useless attempts to make Ceinwen’s untidy hat behave, and they stepped inside. Olwen, Kenneth and Enyd waited in the porch until the rest had found their seats and the organist had found his place. Notes of the chosen hymn, wrong notes and dust were produced by the organist in equal quantities.

  Emma and Pitcher, followed by their twin daughters, Daisy and Pansy, were among the last to settle. They walked down the aisle of the ancient church as if they were the people the rest had come to see. Emma was wearing a colourful, full and flowing skirt and a blouse over which she had thrown a silky scarf but, seeing Betson-the-flowers outside wearing something very similar, she had discarded the scarf as if it were a badge of shame and it was
now sticking out of Pitcher’s pocket, like a guilty secret.

  Olwen looked for Barrass, and saw him when she had almost given up hope, standing in a corner at the back of the church. Then her heart leapt painfully with dismay. Beside him was Harriet, the Carter’s sister. Why wasn’t he near her family? He was their friend, wasn’t he, not Harriet’s, who, according to her mother, was free with favours and unfussy about choosing whom should receive them! The thought made her want to run out of the church and hide where she couldn’t see them together, where she could pretend he was truly her own.

  She wasn’t aware of much of the actual service and hardly looked at the couple apart from sharing a brief smile with Dan. She was waiting for the moment when she could turn and look once again at Barrass. Perhaps this time he would be alone, although this she doubted.

  Was he content with Harriet for a companion? Had he sought her out? Or – as she fervently prayed – was Harriet forcing her company on him and him trying to escape?

  Throughout the simple service her movements and the responses she gave to the comments around her were automatic, she heard her voice as if it were the voice of someone else. When they walked out through the church, her eyes at once turned to the corner where she had glimpsed Barrass and Harriet. They weren’t there! In an agony of determinedly hidden impatience, she walked sedately behind Enyd and Dan, and out into the sunshine.

  The procession re-formed, but this time, Dan walked with his bride, and behind them Olwen, Tom and their parents. Then others joined as they saw fit. On impulse, Olwen took Dic from her mother’s arms, his bells jingling in time to their steps. The rhythm seemed to represent music and they began to sing, the waves beside them an accompaniment. Hymns they had just sung came naturally to them, but Olwen knew that before the day had finished, the songs would be earthy and audaciously aimed at the newly married couple’s first night together. She hoped her father wouldn’t send her away.

  Emma turned once or twice to check that her daughters’ appearances were perfect, and, seeing Arthur talking to Pansy, she waved her hands at him and told him to return to the alehouse and prepare for the guests’ arrival.

  ‘Really, Pitcher,’ she whispered, ‘that boy’s becoming too familiar. You’ll have to talk to him.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him as soon as we get back, my dear,’ Pitcher promised, as he had promised several times before, and put it from his mind immediately.

  Several families who had not intruded on the marriage ceremony were waiting for them outside the alehouse. Two unwelcome sights met Olwen’s eyes. Unmarried Bessie Rees with her unmarried daughter and granddaughter, and Ivor the builder and his wife, with their unmarried daughter with her child.

  Both girls claimed that Barrass was the father of their daughter, and Olwen hated seeing them. A reminder of Barrass’s affection for those girls and others, and a reminder of her own immaturity always depressed her. To add to her dismay, Emma and Pitcher’s daughter Violet Prince was there too. Although married, Violet too admitted that the baby was not her husband’s but Barrass’s. Olwen threw down the now untidy posy and, hidden from sight by the crowd, kicked it to a scattering of fallen petals and green leaves among the pebbles and stones of the road.

  She watched as the new bride walked over to the girls and waved her wedding ring in front of them. Emma took the opportunity to lecture the twins on the dangers of succumbing to the weaknesses of desire.

  Daniels the Keeper of the Peace was there and he held Florrie’s arm as he paraded with his five, beautifully dressed children. The girls wore dresses of flowered material covered with cream, lace-trimmed pinafores. The boys were in knee-length trousers and high socks, and coats of soft woollen material. The party looked, to most eyes, rather ostentatiously apparelled for the wedding of a fisherman and his girl. He had intended to stay only a few minutes after the service, but his children were enjoying the spectacle and Florrie was meeting and talking with so many friends, he agreed to stay a while longer.

  ‘After all, my dear,’ he said proudly, ‘I want everyone to see what a handsome family we will make, just as soon as you and I follow the example of Enyd and Dan.’

  Florrie smiled up at him, admiring his splendid, well-groomed, almost noble appearance, but the words which he wanted to hear, that his eyes pleaded to coax from her, would not come. He wanted her to agree to go with him to see the vicar and name the day for their marriage. But she could not. She knew she would be a fortunate woman to have Daniels for a husband, but something made her hesitate; there was a formality, a stiffness about him that augured badly for her future happiness.

  She tightened her grip of his arm, smiled lovingly up into his eyes, but was glad of the crowd around her, needing to be a part of the mass, fearing that the day when she married Daniels she would be cutting herself away from them all. The people who were her friends would not be considered suitable company for her once she was Mistress Ponsonby Daniels.

  Smiling but impatient to leave, Daniels was persuaded to stay ‘just a while longer’, time and again, using the children as an excuse. Florrie was pleased when the children gradually slid off the cloak of hesitancy and joined with others of their ages to have fun. With luck Daniels would be persuaded to stay for the evening’s entertainment. It would surely do the children no harm to share in the laughter and gaiety. To Florrie’s eyes, they lacked the spontaneous vivacity of children.

  Although the sun was not strong, adding a brightness but little warmth, the crowd ate outside, going in to fill their plates with the food provided by Ceinwen, Mary and Emma plus several of the villagers, and coming back outside to sit on chairs provided or on the sea wall, where they could look across at the two islands of Mumbles Point, the inner one joined by an arch of rock to the mainland.

  Olwen avoided Tom, Enyd’s brother. She had once been frightened by his urgent kisses and his thrusting body and was afraid that even a smile might persuade him she had changed her mind about her lack of interest. He wore the red uniform decorated with white and touches of gold proudly but held no attraction for her. She hoped ruefully that he might take Harriet into the deep grasses and keep her away from Barrass.

  Rather than lessening, the crowd increased as the afternoon faded to evening, and with the tide happily accommodating them by working its slow way back and back, to extend the beach, they began to move from the outside of the alehouse on to the sands.

  Olwen had searched in vain for Barrass. He had finished his Sunday deliveries early, she had learnt that from Kenneth. So what was he doing, and more important, was he with Harriet? In the pretence of looking for Enyd and Dan, she went into the alehouse and through the bar-room to the room beyond. He was sitting at the top of the cellar steps, a book in his hand, a candle helping to light the pages.

  ‘Barrass? Why aren’t you enjoying the celebration?’ she asked, relief flooding through her like a breach in the sea wall. ‘You aren’t ill?’

  He looked up and smiled. How could he tell her that avoiding her, and being watched by Spider and at the same time chased by both Harriet and her brother, Carter Phillips, was more than he could cope with?

  ‘I was on my way to get more ale from the cellar,’ he lied, putting aside the book he had been reading. ‘Arthur is kept so busy I offered to help.’

  ‘Arthur is helping to build a bonfire on the sands,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come as well?’

  ‘Best I stay here, in case Pitcher needs a hand,’ he said. ‘Go you, and I’ll try to come out later, when there’s less demand for drink.’

  ‘If I wait for that I’ll wait for ever!’ she laughed, but she left him, puzzled by his attitude but unwilling to ask him to explain.

  As darkness fell, some people left the crowd, to return wearing more comfortable and practical clothes, and as the last of the day faded, and torches and lanterns were lit and spread around the area, Carter Phillips drew a long, enticing note on his fiddle and dancing began.

  The new steps learnt by Emma’s three daughters
and others with such diligence were attempted by some but soon abandoned. The dances were impromptu and followed no set pattern, but then Carter Phillips didn’t play a recognizable tune, so no one cared, except Emma, who disapproved of anything not done ‘properly’.

  Mary, with Dic wrapped close to her in a Welsh shawl, danced with her long-legged husband. Emma stayed at the edge of the crowd and tutted as the music refused to fit with her carefully executed steps as she brought an unwilling Kenneth to partner her. Olwen refused all invitations to join the throng; she was waiting for Barrass.

  Dozy Bethan was there but Harri, the young man who had for a time walked out with her, ignored her. He worked for Markus and his attention was fully on Polly, the shy, thin little servant who worked for Emma. Bethan did not seem unduly worried, even when she was told by Polly that Harri had ‘given her up’ several weeks ago!

  ‘He’s got black teeth,’ she told Olwen in her slow way. ‘Never liked black teeth.’

  Seranne and Polly were dressed alike, as they did whenever possible to show kinship. Over their black serving dresses, they had on their best aprons, with full, deeply frilled broderie anglaise straps that went across their shoulders and down their backs to join with the waist strap and the long, frilled ties. They wore their hair loose, enjoying the feeling of their unrestrained tresses folding themselves around their shoulders and falling down their backs.

  During a lull in the dancing, Seranne began to sing, her sweet voice silencing the crowd magically, but before she reached the end, she succumbed to a bout of coughing, and Dan finished the song for her. Olwen was horrified to hear a murmur of voices speak of the fear that the morbid lung disease was likely to rob Seranne of her life before she reached thirty, in a few months’ time. Seeing them together, Olwen realized that the disease was probably present in Polly too and she shivered.