When Seranne went home to tell her brothers and sisters she no longer had work, Madoc rose from his bed and, coughing between almost each word, threatened to make William Ddole pay for his cruelty.
‘Robbing us of the means to earn an honest wage and threatening us with prison if we do anything the law frowns on,’ he growled. ‘What justice in the law? How can people like Daniels uphold a law that says we must starve?’ He settled back on the bedding, and turning restlessly, almost delirious in his fever and anger, he muttered that he was determined the food and medicines they all lacked would come, if not from William Ddole’s purse, then from his woods and fields. ‘Better be hanged for poaching than die of hunger and cowardice,’ he muttered. Beside him, Morgan whispered his agreement.
* * *
Once she realized that her brother had moved on, Lowri decided that until someone told her she must leave, she would stay on in the house of Spider and Mary, and share Olwen’s bed. To earn her keep she offered to help with whatever work was on hand.
‘Come on the boat if you like,’ Dan offered. ‘Dadda has to go into the market and if you will come with me, we can land a harvest we’d otherwise miss.’
Lowri tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of the invitation and when she had been on board the small fishing boat a few minutes, Dan guessed why.
‘You’ve never worked on a ship,’ he accused. ‘I doubt your feet have ever left the shore. You certainly didn’t come off the boats from France the night Barrass found you.’
Lowri looked at him standing beside her as he stepped up the mast, skinny but threatening and strong. She knew that at that moment she was in danger of being pushed overboard and held under. The smugglers rarely took chances.
‘I’m not from France, and I didn’t come off the boats. I was sleeping not far from where the boats came in and was curious. Foolishly so, I’ll admit, but curious enough to crawl along and see what was happening. I fell rather badly and I was caught between the men with their unloading and the safety of the fields. When Barrass found me I said the first thought that filled my mind.’
‘Who are you?’ Dan demanded.
‘Who I said I am, Cadwalader’s sister.’
‘Dressed as a boy?’
‘It’s safer sometimes than showing yourself to be a girl travelling alone.’ She pointed to the southeast. ‘It’s Bristol I’ve come from, before that. London. I’m searching for my mother. But please, don’t tell anyone. She – she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘He’s looking for her too, but we have different ideas about what happens when she is found.’
‘Are you brave enough to go on with our fishing?’ he asked. ‘Even a small boat like this one needs an extra pair of hands to pull in the nets.’ When she nodded, he unfurled the sail and allowed the small craft to glide swiftly on the shining water.
She soon found her sea legs and Dan was able to teach her the minimal skills needed to hold the boat steady while he leaned over and released the nets. The sun was bright and Dan managed to catch very few. The net was easily seen and the fish wary. But, he admitted to himself, he was more interested in hearing Lowri’s story.
He would have to tell the others about her, and leave it to them to judge the story. He looked at her while she stared across the water apparently at peace with herself. She was probably about thirty years old, and the white streak in her dark hair gave her a youthful look rather than adding to her age. He wondered who she was and, if she were Cadwalader’s sister, why they were searching for a mother who didn’t want to be found? He had lots of questions, but Lowri, although very polite, was reluctant to give him any answers. Best I leave it for Blind Markus to sort out, he decided, and he altered the sail and set the boat towards home.
* * *
At the Swansea market, Spider and Mary had a good day. Mary sold all of the woollens and woven cloth she had managed to make, and the fish, caught that morning and on the previous evening by Spider and Dan, were almost gone. Mary left a sleeping Dic with Spider and wandered around the few remaining stalls looking for a last-minute bargain, when she saw Seranne.
‘Are you having a day off from Ddole House?’ she asked in surprise. ‘I thought this Annie Evans was overstrict about the hours you worked?’
‘Not with me anymore. Told me to go, she did, and after the extra hours I’ve put in to show my willingness too.’
‘Why?’ Mary asked.
‘I got sick again. Not that I didn’t hurry to get back to work the minute I could stand, mind. No, I was off for three days only and when I went back she told me I was no longer required. Your Olwen will have to watch out or the same will happen to her,’ she warned.
‘I sometimes think it would be best if it did,’ Mary sighed. ‘She’s so unhappy there.’
‘Can I walk back with you and Spider?’ Seranne asked, and she looked around her at the few rabbits hanging on a bar against a wall, the line of small, plump partridge and the pheasants, their long tails waving in the rising evening breeze. ‘I would like to wait a while longer, there’s still a chance that these will sell.’
‘I’ll buy a rabbit from you.’ Mary offered, and while they discussed a price, two others came and bought, and within moments others had scented a bargain, the wall was emptied and Seranne’s pocket jingled with coins.
‘I’ll go to the apothecary’s stall to get something for Morgan and Madoc’s coughs,’ Seranne said. ‘And some foot rub to ease the aches poor Polly suffers.’
When the three of them set off for home, Seranne had bought fresh vegetables and an assortment of bottled medicines, each with a label proclaiming its efficaciousness in disagreements of the lung.
‘Isn’t it unusual to find pheasant for sale, now, in the breeding season?’ Spider queried hesitantly.
‘Culling the weakest,’ Seranne said, and quickly changed the subject.
* * *
Annie was jubilant. Already she had disposed of several of the servants who gave the impression they might be troublesome, and Florrie had been made to understand that, having given William her intention to leave, she no longer had any say in the way things were run. She knocked on the door of William’s study and stepped inside. In her hands were the accounts books and in her pocket, the money she had saved him from the allowance he had given her for the first month.
‘Forgive me for disturbing you,’ she said in her quiet gentle voice. ‘But I would like your approval on the figures for my first month.’
‘Mistress Evans,’ he said, raising his eyes from the book he was reading. ‘What you do with the money is your concern. As long as I am comfortable and well catered for, and you have adequate arrangements to entertain my friends when I ask it, I leave the small matters to your good self.’ He wanted to add that neither his wife Dorothy, nor his previous housekeeper Florrie ever bothered him with the details of the household, and he found it a trifle irritating.
She put her hand in her pocket and drew out a handful of coins, which she placed on the table before him.
‘This is surplus, sir. Shall I keep it and take less for the month to come, or would you take it and allow me to begin afresh?’
He looked at the glinting coins as if seeing money for the first time, then up into her small fascinating eyes, half hidden in a nest of thick lashes and eyebrows.
‘How should I know,’ he said, uncomfortably aware that he had been staring at her. ‘Do what you will, just don’t bother me with it.’
‘I see you are used to someone taking complete charge, sir,’ Annie smiled, her eyes almost disappearing yet giving the impression of deep interest and concern. ‘With a wife that can happen. Such a sadness for you to lose her so young. And Penelope, whom I have yet to meet. Gone without a thought for your comfort, such is the independence of young people today.’
‘Penelope is the dearest and most considerate of daughters,’ William said. ‘It was I who sent her away, and I regret it with every passing
moment.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t understand. I thought, if you had lost your wife, then your daughter’s presence would have been necessary to you.’
‘It is.’ William, soothed by her gentle tone and quiet solicitude, told her of how he had sent the girl away to save her from the attentions of an unsuitable young man, although not how lowly was the man’s position.
‘Loving is a pain as well as a pleasure,’ Annie said. Leaving the coins on the table, she glided softly from the room.
The pattern began then. Every afternoon, except when William was otherwise engaged, Annie would knock on the door and stand quietly and listen to him. He began to look forward to her visits, confiding, at her subtle invitation, all his inner sadness, especially regarding the absence of Penelope.
‘Sir,’ she suggested one day, ‘why don’t you take a few weeks away from your work and visit your daughter? It would be a tonic for you both, deprived as you are, one from the other.’ As he hesitated, she smiled and patted his shoulder daringly. ‘You need not fear for anything going amiss. I will run the house exactly as if you were here.’
‘I don’t want to miss Florrie and Daniels’s wedding,‘ he frowned. ‘I promised to be there.’
‘Then go soon, sir, and be back in comfortable time. I understand there is no date yet fixed so it cannot be until the autumn.’
* * *
Florrie frowned at these téte-a-tétes, but with diminishing authority in the household she had once commanded, she could say nothing. Gradually, and with more and more firmness, she was being separated from the duties she had once called her own.
‘It isn’t that I don’t understand her need to change things to the way she wants the house run,’ Florrie said to Emma when they met in Swansea one market day. ‘I know it’s my fault for not leaving promptly, but I find it hard to let go.’
‘Hard to let go of the reins of Ddole House? or take hold of the reins of Daniels’s household?’ Emma asked shrewdly.
Florrie did not reply; instead she said, ‘And there’s that daily chat. Never been allowed in Dorothy Ddole’s day! We all knew our place in the household and that was best for everyone. Even little Olwen knew what was expected of her and although she was always a bit forward, treating Miss Penelope as almost a friend, she knew her place. Didn’t always like it, mind, but knew it. Now this Annie woman takes on the role of loving friend, listening to all his thoughts and opinions as if she were a wife rather than a paid servant!’
‘Perhaps that it what she intends?’ Emma said thoughtfully. ‘With both Dorothy and Penelope gone he is very vulnerable to a bit of sympathy and flattery.’
‘Now there’s a thought!’ Florrie said. ‘And her only here five minutes!’
Seranne saw the two women approaching her and put forward her remaining goods in the hope that they would buy. She was tired, and longing to be home. They smiled, commiserated with her about losing her post at Ddole House and moved on. Emma turned back and enquired about Polly.
‘Will she be back to work soon, Seranne?’ she asked. ‘I am finding it difficult to be without her.’
‘She’s mending nicely, Mistress Palmer,’ Seranne said encouragingly. ‘Back she’ll be in a day or so for sure.’
She watched as the two women separated, each having several purchases to make, and she heard them promise to meet again and travel home together in the wagon that Percy the stable boy had driven in with Emma aboard. Seranne watched them go with something approaching envy. There was such a small increase in her funds needed to make life for herself and her family reasonably comfortable. Funds which the two women probably wouldn’t miss. She thought of them riding contentedly home with their purchases, to homes where warmth and good food were the norm, and hunger something they read about in storybooks.
With only two rabbits left to sell, she decided to give up. The extra meat wouldn’t be wasted; her brothers were not yet sick of the taste of rabbit although it was their only source of meat and had been for a long time, with the unknown kindness of William Ddole! She picked up the handles of the simple cart and trundled off towards the Sketty road.
She had passed Sketty when the wagon overtook her. She had strung the rabbits about her neck and occasionally, when she saw a likely purchaser, called ‘fresh meat’ in the hope of a sale. After passing her, the wagon drew to a stop, the horse snorting, impatient with the further delay. Emma turned and called for her to climb up.
‘Plenty of room and I’m sure you would be glad to reach home a bit earlier,’ Emma said, and after helping Percy to put her handcart on the back, Seranne gratefully took a place on the bench seat beside them.
With the well-dressed and reasonably sweet-smelling ladies, Seranne was aware of her own state. Setting out before seven that morning in the hope of finding work, she had wandered through the streets asking if there was a job for a scullery maid, knowing that her appearance would now discourage anyone from employing her as a cook. Then, with the cartload of produce, she had stood all the afternoon in the market.
* * *
Morgan Morgan and his brother Madoc were slowly recovering from the illness that had kept them in bed for days. Hollow-faced and thin, they dragged themselves into the fields and along the river banks to find illegal game and wildfowl for Seranne to sell at the market.
As well as the stock being stolen, Seranne’s very presence at the market was illegal, not have paid for her space to set up a stall. But she waited until a seller had finished and left his spot. and quickly spread her own rabbits and birds, and began shouting her wares, hoping people would think she had been there all day.
It meant selling for a much lower price than she would have received in the early part of the day, but the risk of setting up without permission was too great. Once the majority of the traders had packed up and left, the inspectors were less diligent, and the chance of her being questioned unlikely.
At home, her brothers sat in the weak sun of late afternoon. making nets for another foray into William Ddole’s woods. Between two broken chairs weighted down with rocks, Madoc had tied the head rope and with the aid of a shuttle-like netting needle and using a sheet bend knot, the end result was a square net of some eighteen inches. He threw it on to the pile already made and sat to rest when Morgan set up another head rope and started the process again with a row of evenly spaced clove hitches. Armed with a dozen of these small nets, they would throw them over the entrances of a rabbit warren to catch the frightened animals as they escaped the small terrier they sent down the holes.
‘I wonder how Seranne has done at the market,’ Madoc said.
‘She’ll have earned enough to buy some food and some medicines with luck,’ his brother replied. He gestured to the doorway with a nod and lowering his voice, added, ‘Best we get some warmth into young Polly there or we won’t have her come another winter.’
Sitting on a wooden chair, wrapped in a thin blanket and dozing in the rays of the sun, Polly heard their remark and sadness filled her. She knew what they said was true. Her face was rosy so she looked pretty, although the flush was not a healthy one but a sign of the fever that raged in her. She wondered vaguely if she would ever work at the alehouse again, and felt only a brief regret that she wouldn’t.
‘I have an idea for making better money,’ Madoc said. ‘Dangerous, but if it’s successful, it will bring us enough to feed and warm Polly and the rest of us and see that the doctor will treat us properly.’
‘Vanora does her best,’ Morgan defended. ‘But I know what you mean. Money would give young Polly a better chance.’ He finished the row of clove hitches and watched as his brother began the first row of the net. ‘What did you have in mind, Madoc?’
‘Robbing the King’s Mail, that’s what.’
They said nothing more as their sister came into sight, having left the handcart near the alehouse, the rabbits strung around her neck threatening to pull her to the ground with their weight. She smiled at them, ignored the food Vanora had pre
pared and went to bed.
* * *
Pitcher’s plan to take the letter-carrying from Kenneth seemed to be at stalemate. Unwilling to go and complain about the man’s idleness and of how he was passing the work to a poorly paid Barrass, Pitcher dithered and wondered how to set about it. Taking a part of their livelihood from Kenneth and Ceinwen was not easy even though he was consumed with anger at the way they used Barrass.
‘I can’t just go into the sorting office and say, I wants the job because I can do it better and I wouldn’t take advantage of a boy like Barrass,’ he said to Emma. ‘All I can do is wait and see if an opportunity arises. Be sure that if it does, I’ll be ready and a-waiting.’
‘I see your predicament, Pitcher,’ Emma said. ‘And I like you for your concern, but if we are to make this Posthorn Inn pay for all the expense and trouble, we have to get the extra custom.’
‘We could report Ceinwen for selling ale, I suppose,’ Pitcher mused. ‘She uses the house like the tipple houses I’ve read of in centuries past, buying a barrel and selling it for retail, and that the law frowns on.’
‘That’s difficult too, her being my friend,’ Emma sighed. ‘You’re right, best we wait and see if something turns up for us to take advantage of, my dear.’
‘Meanwhile, there’s the building work to busy myself with.’
‘And the sooner that’s done and finished with the better I’ll be pleased,’ Emma said sharply. ‘I haven’t been able to arrange a single dinner party or an entertainment of any kind, since you began it. How am I to find husbands for Daisy and Pansy without even a room that’s free of dust, Mr Palmer, tell me that?’
Seeing that Emma was back on her old complaint, Pitcher hurriedly made his excuses and ran down the stairs calling for Arthur to get a move on and get the bar-room floor washed while there was a spare moment. His anger with the boy was not real but an echo of Emma’s criticism.
The Posthorn Inn Page 14