‘Olwen!’ Barrass said in surprise.
‘This would mean you’d have a fairer share of the money from the letters, wouldn’t it? Pitcher is a more honest man than Kenneth?’
‘Well, yes, he is, but—’
‘Then it’s Pitcher you should trust. Be bold, and do as Pitcher says if you want to rise in the world.’
‘Olwen, you constantly amaze me,’ he said.
‘Surprises in plenty you’ll get from me, once you accept that my childhood is over!’ She snuggled against him and slid her arm around his waist as they walked companionably back.
They separated before they could be seen and Barrass prepared to go down the path to the village.
‘Do you love her, Barrass?’ she dared to ask. ‘Would you marry Penelope Ddole if you could?’
‘No chance,’ he said lightly, ‘saving myself for when you grow up, aren’t I?’
‘Don’t tease me!’ She bent and grabbed handfuls of grass which she threw at him before running through the open door of the cottage. He watched her go, a smile on his face as she lifted her long skirt revealing bare feet and legs as thin as lace-makers’ bobbins.
* * *
The coach from Bristol was lurching badly, throwing William Ddole and his fellow-travellers away then another. The roads were bad after the winter mud and frost and so far, the stretch over which they were passing had not been repaired. Ruts in the surface were soft with the recent and continuing rain, yet deep enough to threaten to roll the coach far enough to dislodge those unfortunates riding up on top. He was tired and the sudden uncomfortable jerks as the coach leaned and then righted itself made his neck ache. Dozing fitfully, he found this journey interminably long.
When the way became less bumpy, an elderly woman who sat opposite him stood and prepared to use the coach pot that stood between the seats. William sighed, took out his handkerchief to attempt to block out the smell that emanated from the foul contraption. He saw by glancing around at the faces, the efforts of others to hold their breath until the copper lid was safely back in place, the inserted china bowl safely hidden from sight.
Outside, the weather reflected his mood, rain and gusting winds making it impossible to allow any fresh air into the coach. The windows were steamy and even if it were daylight, he would have been unable to see anything to break the monotony of his ride. The passengers had at first been prepared to chatter, but lethargy and tiredness soon discouraged them, the effort required too much for more than the occasional politenesses.
He imagined the journey from the coach terminus in Swansea to his home in Mumbles. Another uncomfortable ride. As always at this stage of a journey home, he wondered why he had left, and half promised himself that it would be the last time he would travel so far. But business frequently called him away and sometimes, Ddole House was so large, so empty, that he had to find a reason to escape from it.
The house was well-run, although, with Florrie threatening to leave and marry Daniels, another change was likely. Dozy Bethan and young Olwen managed well enough. Seranne was a capable cook, even if she lacked Florrie’s flair. He was well blessed with his staff, but they did nothing to hide the emptiness.
He missed his wife, who had died so recently. He still wore the black mourning clothes that the villagers thought an extravagance but which gave him inexplicable comfort: the clothes and the constant visits to her grave, which he covered with any flowers he could obtain.
He bitterly regretted sending his only daughter, Penelope, to live in London. At the time, with his wife so recently taken from him, he had lacked the confidence to deal with the matter of her affair with the local boy any differently. Now there were only servants to welcome him back. He sighed, adding a little more to the opaqueness of the coach windows. Servants weren’t enough.
The coach clattered to a stop in the courtyard of the Coaching Inn in Wind Street, and he stretched his stiff limbs preparing to dismount. The old woman in the corner had fallen asleep and he left it to the guard to waken her, sliding past her spread-eagled feet and avoiding touching the unpleasant coachpot as he stepped down on to the rough, cobbled surface.
The rain continued, determined, he thought irritably, to make the day as unpleasant as possible up to the final moment. He ran into the inn leaving the servants to fetch his luggage and went to buy himself food and drink. David was waiting at a table near the fire, a glass of ale in front of him, his hat on a chair beside him.
‘Master Ddole, sir, glad I am to see you. What a day! What a journey you must have had!’
William allowed the boy to chatter, while he sat before the fire and allowed the welcome warmth gradually to ease away the stiffness of the journey.
He did not stay long, tempted as he was to ask for a bed for the night and delay his arrival until the following day. David brought the small carriage to the door of the inn and William sank into the soft, leather seats, hoping the roads were not blocked, or deeply muddied. He had no fancy for any more delays or other trouble this night.
He was met by Seranne, who had stayed past her usual time to greet him.
‘Food is ready and hot as you’d wish, sir,’ she said, as she followed him through to the dining room, where a cheery fire glowed. ‘A warm meal will be what you need after a journey like that.’
‘Have you ever travelled on a coach, Seranne?’ he asked.
Seranne shook her head reproachfully. ‘Sir, what would I be doing riding on one of those things? I’ve never been further than I can comfortably walk!’
When he had eaten, Seranne put her coat on to go home.
‘You had a visitor this afternoon,‘ she told him. ‘I said she was to come back tomorrow and not before nine.’
‘A visitor? Who would that be?’
‘Says she’s from Bristol, sir, and come about the job of housekeeper.’
‘From Bristol you say? But who – ? Good heavens, Seranne. I spoke to a lady there only hours before I set off. How did she arrive before me?’
‘I sent her to find a bed with Bessie Rees, although I doubt she’ll be very comfortable,’ Seranne added.
Too tired to vex himself with the answers he went to bed and forgot about it until the morning.
Florrie was there when he rose the next morning. He felt refreshed and over his melancholy. He took the list she had written down, names of those women who had applied for the position she was about to vacate.
‘I think it should be you who chooses, not me,’ he smiled. ‘How can a mere man know what to ask, and how to evaluate the answers?’
‘Best you see them at least,’ Florrie said. ‘You will know well enough those whom you can’t abear to have in your house.’
Looking down the list, William asked to see Bessie Rees.
‘She looked after Henry Harris your secretary well enough until he died,’ Florrie reminded him, ‘and now looks after John Maddern when he is here. But the house is small, and there’s never been any entertaining to fluster her.’
William interviewed the elderly woman and saw at once what Florrie’s words implied; Bessie had not the confidence. He thanked her kindly for attending and for giving a bed to the visitor from Bristol. Then he asked Florrie to send in the next on this list.
‘Daniels’s sister!’ he exclaimed, looking at the list. ‘But it’s bad enough having your fiancé himself wandering in and out of my kitchen, without his sister come spying inside my home!’
‘I did hint, sir, that she might be lacking in experience,’ Florrie smiled. ‘Best you see her though, to show there’s no unhealthy concern over her brother being who he is, sir.’
Harriet, the sister of Carter Phillips, was also rejected as both Florrie and William considered her ‘too flighty’. Carrie, the one-time maid was also turned down as she had a small child, by Barrass, and even the thought of that young man made William resentful. Barrass was to blame for Penelope’s sojourn in London.
Finally there was only the woman from Bristol, whom Florrie had kept waitin
g until the last, convinced that she was the only likely candidate.
‘The lady is called Mistress Annie Evans,’ she told William. ‘A widow of a sailor. She has run a respectable house where young and old rent rooms, and she has cooked for them and provided warm, clean beds. Or so she tells me, sir,’ she added cautiously. ‘She has letters confirming that, but none of the signatures are known to me.’
‘Write letters to them asking for assurance if you please, Florrie.’ William rubbed his eyes wearily. All this nonsense was not for a man to do. Oh, how he missed the unnoticed efficiency of Dorothy. He was not meant to be a widower so young. He stretched his long legs, and walked around the room while he waited for Mistress Annie Evans to be shown in.
He was startled by her youthfulness. Her hair was light brown and was fashionably styled in a loose halo pushed back and fastened at the centre with a small, twisted pigtail of a bun. Her lashes and eyebrows were thick and gave the impression that her eyes were small. When she smiled, her eyes shrank even further in creases of accustomed good humour.
When she spoke it was in quiet, modulated tones and at once, William knew that this woman would be the one to organize his life and allow him to forget the problems that occurred from day to day. He hardly knew what to ask her, and it was Florrie who drew the information that Annie Evans was forty-two and had no children, that she was free to start at once as she had sold her business in Bristol, having the desire for a change of scene.
‘As I intend to leave in a month or so,’ Florrie said, ‘I suggest she works with me and learns how you like things done, sir.’
William agreed and he rode out to talk to Edwin Prince, relaxed, knowing that the irritation and misery of so many household changes would soon be a thing of the past. Annie Evans would take all the strands of his daily life into her small, yet capable hands.
As requested, Florrie wrote to the people whom Annie Evans had given as referees and asked for confirmation of their remarks. She felt sad as she did so, resenting the woman who was to replace her. She had worked at Ddole House since she was twelve, starting as a kitchen maid and learning from the various cooks that had come and gone, until, when they were again without someone to organize the kitchen, she had stepped into the position and had never been asked to leave it. When Dorothy Ddole had died and Penelope had been sent to London, she had slipped just as easily into the role of housekeeper.
The four letters finished and sealed, she placed them on the small table near the kitchen door with several others written by William, to wait for Barrass’s next visit. Next, she had to make ready a room for the new arrival. Annie would have to use Penelope’s room until the day she herself left to marry Daniels, the Keeper of the Peace.
The thought thrilled her. At forty-five she had given up all hope of marrying. Yet there was a residue of regret. The work here was hard, the hours long, but she suspected that looking after Ponsonby Daniels and his five children would be harder and after a few exciting months, thankless.
She shook off her apprehensive mood and went into the kitchen to check on the day’s activities. Behind her, as the kitchen door closed, the cloaked and hooded figure of Annie Evans re-entered the house and picked up the four letters and, slipping them into her capacious pocket, left the house.
Annie smiled deeply as she hurried along the drive and made for the house of Bessie Rees. Good fortune was smiling on her without doubt. She had booked a seat on the coach for Swansea, choosing the town at random. Then, as she sat sipping tea and waiting for the time to take her place, had heard William Ddole talking and revealing his need for a housekeeper.
His loneliness and unhappiness were apparent and the look of him pleased her. She would soon make herself indispensable to him and who knew what would come after that? The previously booked seat had enabled her to arrive before him and make the appointment to be interviewed without delay.
* * *
Having decided to take the business of the Gower letters from Kenneth, and persuading Barrass to agree, Pitcher then had no idea how to set about it.
‘Seems we’ll have to wait for something to happen,’ he said to Emma one evening a few weeks after his discussion with Barrass. ‘Wait for something to happen that we can take advantage of.’
‘Such as what, Pitcher?’ his wife asked, raising her eyes from her sewing to look at him curiously. ‘What sort of “something”?’
‘I don’t know and that’s the vexing part. I just have to hope that something will happen and that we are sharp enough to grab the opportunity it offers.’
‘You could offer Barrass the use of a pony for his travels,’ Emma suggested. ‘Specially if you want him to help you with the building work. That way he’d be a partner to you and less of a partner to Kenneth.’
Pitcher went to look at the stables and decided that he needed to buy a small Welsh cob, a sturdy animal that could cope with the weather and the terrain and carry Barrass with ease. He found one easily enough after a word with Edwin Prince, who seemed to have dealings in many and varied trades. He rode the cob back, and after stabling it, called at the room behind Kenneth’s house and left a note for Barrass to call on him at the earliest moment.
‘Come-along-a-me, boy,’ he said when Barrass appeared. Curiosity widened Barrass’s brown eyes and raised his thick eyebrows.
‘Not news of a change already?’ Barrass asked in a whisper.
‘A beginning, boy, a beginning,’ Pitcher smiled. He walked to the stable yard and opened the door of a stall to reveal the horse. ‘There you are, Barrass, and she’s yours. Now what d’you think of that? Jethro he’s called.’
‘Mine? But – why?’
‘Not such a generous gift. I want you to have some time and strength left at the end of your day to work with me on the changes to the alehouse,’ Pitcher confessed. ‘Go on, boy, try him out, you’ll find him a comfortable and good-natured ride.’
Not waiting to be asked twice, Barrass saddled the horse and with a shriek of joy, rode off along the road which led around and up to the cliffs where Olwen lived.
‘Olwen!’ he called, knowing that at such a moment, she had to be there to share it. Mary came out followed by Spider, and they admired both the horse and the generosity of Pitcher in providing it for his use.
‘Not providing him,’ Barrass almost shouted. ‘He’s mine! Jethro is mine! Where’s Olwen, I must show her.’
‘Not yet back from her work,’ Mary said.
Disapproval showed in Mary’s face and she glanced at Spider anxiously. Barrass knew they couldn’t refuse, not today, not when he had such joyous news to share with her. ‘I’ll go and meet her then.’ He looked at Spider, only a slightly tilted head showing that he was asking permission.
‘Go you,’ Spider nodded. ‘Olwen will love to meet your new friend.’ Behind him stood the tall smiling figure of his son, Dan, with Enyd on whose young face a scowl deepened. Good fortune for others was not something she could celebrate. Mistress Powell stepped from between them, her wrinkled face lighting up at the boy’s obvious delight. They all waved him off as he remounted and set off, cheering him as if he were an adventurer setting off for dangerous places.
Barrass saw Olwen strolling down the green lane, a bunch of bluebells in her arms, and when he stopped near her, the smell of the flowers rose to meet him and became a part of her, the sweetness and freshness of the early summer becoming the perfume and newness of her youth and beauty.
‘I have a friend who would like to meet you,’ he smiled, his voice thick with unaccustomed emotion. She was a part of this perfect day, the joy and excitement of Pitcher’s gift embodied in her welcoming smile. ‘Meet Jethro, my own horse, given to me by Pitcher.’
As he had guessed, Olwen’s excitement matched his own and she hugged the gentle-eyed animal and Barrass in turn. A tirade of questions burst from her and he laughed as he tried to answer them all.
‘Come on, today your father won’t object to my giving you a ride.’ He lifted her up on t
o the animal’s back and mounted behind her. A click of his tongue and they were off, along the lane, across the fields, startling flocks of pigeons that were feeding on newly germinated peas and beans, laughing as they answered the shouted comments of friends.
Along the cliff path they rode, not fast as the path was unsafe in places, but to Olwen they seemed to be flying, her hair streaked out behind her like a banner held by a warrior riding off to war. They went down on to the beach called Longland to the west of the village, and then, excitement took all three of them in its grip and the horse was given its head. They raced across the hard sand, turning and racing back. The horse, firm and sure-footed, gave them a smooth ride, apparently enjoying the freedom as much as its riders.
Returning to the cliff path, Barrass slackened the reins and allowed Jethro to walk. Olwen was leaning against him, the smell of her had changed to send wafts of the sea breezes up to him, clean, fresh and bewitching. It was with regret that he dismounted and helped her down outside the white-painted cottage on the cliffs, where her parents waited for her. Handing her back to them was a wrench.
He returned to the stables and a smiling Pitcher.
‘Thank you. I have never had a more wonderful gift,’ Barrass said.
‘The idea was Emma’s,’ Pitcher said, brushing the gratitude aside. ‘Tomorrow when you go on your round, we’ll see how much it helps.’
Barrass stayed at the stables for a long time, caressing Jethro, whispering to him, his heart threatening to burst with the happiness of the day. He had never owned anything apart from the clothes he wore, and the generous gift from Pitcher had surprised and uplifted him.
The Posthorn Inn Page 9