When her day’s work was finished, Olwen hung around waiting for the letter to be returned. When it was made clear that she would have to wait until tomorrow, for William Ddole to see it and approve its delivery, Olwen ran home and told her father what had happened.
Spider and Dan walked to Ddole House and knocked loudly on the front door. They demanded of a startled Annie that they be shown in to see William Ddole and, as William had already seen them coming, Annie had no alternative but to obey.
The letter was handed over and Annie told politely and firmly, that should any other letters arrive, they must not be withheld. As compensation for the girl’s upset, William took a few coins from the pile left month by month by Annie, from the wooden bowl on the sideboard, and handed them to Spider.
‘This is to pay for the delivery,’ he explained. ‘I doubt my daughter thought, when she wrote, about the four pennies plus Kenneth’s fee, or that such an amount might be impossible for your daughter to find.’
When Annie had left them, William checked that she was not behind the door listening, then in a whisper, the three men discussed the arrival of a cargo due in a few days. William walked with them to the end of the drive, and said casually,
‘Should the letter contain any news other than the chatter young girls so enjoy I would be glad to know.’
‘I’m sure Olwen would keep nothing from you,‘ Spider assured him.
Olwen took the letter up to her small room and sat on her bed. In the light of a tallow candle she read the words which in deference to her early skills in reading, Penelope had printed.
My dear friend Olwen, whom I miss most terribly [it began]. Life in this big and noisy city is terrifying. I fear for my life every time I go on the streets, yet I find it exciting too. The ladies are dressed with such skill and elegance that I am made to feel like a poor country maiden who has never left the safety of her nursery. How I wish you had come with me, together we would have had so much to talk about and so many sights to enjoy!
The letter went on to describe some of the new clothes the Thomases had bought her, but under the excitement of shopping in the large and expensive London shops and full descriptions of outings and new friends, Olwen sensed a loneliness. She had promised her father that she would show the letter to William Ddole and she sat on her bed, thoughtful and wondering if she dared to hint that Penelope would be far happier at home.
She suggested as much to Mistress Powell and that old lady shook her head firmly.
‘It’s none of your business, my girl,’ she warned. ‘Penelope was very kind to bother to write to you and I don’t think you should abuse her generosity by causing trouble.’
‘But I think that is why she wrote to me,’ Olwen argued, ‘Just so I can cause trouble, and make her father see how mistaken he was to send her away. After all,’ she added, a scowl shadowing her face, ‘it’s because of Barrass that she’s gone and I’m sure he’s learnt his lesson, and won’t go near Penelope again.’
‘There you go again, interfering!’ the old lady laughed ‘How can you speak for Barrass?’
‘Because he’s my friend, and if I explain, tell him he must keep away from the likes of her, he’ll—’
‘—laugh at you!’
Olwen’s scowl deepened and she tucked the sheet of paper away, angry at Mistress Powell’s words, even though she knew they were probably correct. The following morning, she handed the letter to William Ddole and said no more than, ‘If you please, sir, can I have it back once you have read it? I haven’t had a letter before and would treasure it for always.’
‘Sit down,’ she was bidden, and she sat on the edge of a wooden chair while he studied the page, apparently reading it several times before handing it back.
‘Why should my daughter write to you?’ he asked.
‘Because she taught me to read and thought that a letter would be a sort of reward, sir. At least, that is what I think.’ She crossed her fingers and with a beating heart added, ‘Unless, she wants to let me know how brave she is and how well she copes with the loneliness of being away from you, sir.’
‘She says nothing about loneliness,’ he said with a frown.
‘Not in the words, but I think she writes a brave letter not a happy one, don’t you?’
‘Here is your letter, Olwen. I would be obliged if you would show me any others you receive.’
‘May I write back, sir?’ she dared to ask.
‘If you have any news that would interest her, I’m sure she would be pleased to read it.’
He smiled as she scuttled out of the room, tucking the letter into a capacious apron pocket, but the smile faded as he thought of his daughter so far away. Olwen’s words had added to his increasing opinion that sending her away had not been the wisest move. He sat for a long time, wondering how he could word a letter suggesting she could now return. Olwen was probably right in that Penelope was unhappy, but if he left her there much longer, she might begin to enjoy city life and then he might lose her for always.
* * *
Kenneth set off to discuss the new arrangement for him to be responsible for Gower letters, feeling confident. After all, he had never been reported for holding up the mail, whereas many of his counterparts had been repeatedly warned for lax timekeeping, slowness and missed connections. No, there was little chance of his application being refused.
He went across the sands to the town, the tide being a slack one and almost fully out. He did not hurry, but enjoyed the ride, knowing that with Barrass on his deliveries and Ceinwen at home to take in any letters that might arrive, everything was well ordered. Really, he thought as he approached the town, his life was a good one.
There was the usual gathering outside the receiving office and he handed his horse to a boy to look after and pushed his way importantly to the doorway. The widow of the Postmaster was still there, draped in heavy dark shawls, her face almost hidden in the depths of them, and behind the counter a new face.
‘My son Walter Waterman,’ she said by way of introduction. ‘The new Deputy Postmaster for Swansea.’ She gestured to the young man who sat behind the counter gazing at a page in a large ledger, apparently uninterested in the new arrival.
Walter was pale-faced, with washed out freckles on his nose and forehead. His hair was fair with a touch of redness and the moustache he wore failed to give the impression of the soldier he had once been. He wore a slightly bored expression and this alone was enough to annoy Kenneth, who liked to feel he was someone to whom others gave their full attention.
‘I am the letter-carrier for Gower,’ Kenneth said with an authoritative sharpness.
The young man looked at him and with an offhand nod said, ‘Who’s who and what’s what in the world of His Majesty King George’s Royal Mail, well now, that’s for others more important than ourselves to decide.’
‘I think perhaps you do not understand, being new to the office. I am Kenneth, and I have held the position of letter-carrier on Gower for many years.’ Kenneth was put out by the young man’s attitude; he was used to being treated with politeness as befitted the position he held.
‘However long you’ve held the post doesn’t matter. It’s whether you hold it now is the question and that’s a question as cannot be answered until we hear from London.’ Walter Waterman lowered his head and with a finger keeping his place, he read out the entries for his mother to check against her list. Kenneth had been dismissed.
He went out into the warm sunshine and walked around like a farmyard cockerel who had been confronted with a rival. Without feathers to ruffle and a comb to waggle, he managed to give the same effect by puffing out his cheeks and flapping the cloak which hung loosely around his shoulders. He tutted to anyone whose eye he caught but said nothing to explain his agitation. He needed time to think. Should he go back in there and tell them again who he was? Walter Waterman might be a dullard and his mother refusing to face the fact? Or was it best to wait until Ben Gammon arrived for support?
He was so put out by his reception he was unable to wait and after a few more minutes spent strutting up and down outside the receiving office door, he flung it back on its hinges and marched back in to demand that he be given an assurance as to his position.
‘I didn’t come here to beg leave to continue,’ he spluttered, ‘but simply to introduce myself!’
‘Your name will be considered with the rest,’ Walter said calmly, ‘but I must warn you that the other names have already been sent forward. You’ll go in as a latecomer.’
‘A latecomer?’ Kenneth glared at the young man but when Walter stood up and with some apparent difficulty, limped around the counter, he backed off and quickly found himself outside the door and it being closed firmly in his red face.
He rode into town every day for more than a week. Each time he went to the office and saw Walter Waterman, he was told that so far there was no confirmation from London about his appointment.
Ben Gammon met him there one day some eight days after his first meeting with Walter Waterman, and to Ben, Kenneth poured out all his anger.
‘Why, I have the very letter here in my bag as you be awanting to read, Kenneth of Gower,’ Ben said, having listened to Kenneth’s complaints at the way he had been treated. He delved into his leather bag and waved a single-page letter in front of Kenneth’s worried face. ‘I seed that it was addressed to Walter Waterman the new representative of the Royal Mail for the town of Swansea and I thinks to myself, Well then Ben, I thinks, there’ll be a few who will value the speed with which you gets that one to its destination! So I ignores the urge for a rest and a draft of ale at the middle of the day and continues on so as to arrive just a few minutes earlier to put you out of your misery.’ He laughed, and jumping down from his horse, pushed his way through the waiting people and into the office.
Kenneth sank down on to a bench and waited for the door to open and his name to be called. Pitcher appeared from inside the inn and sat beside him. Kenneth muttered something about treacherous friends and turned his back on the alehouse keeper.
Ben Gammon came out after several minutes had passed without a word spoken between them, and nailed a notice to the outside of the door. Kenneth wanted to run quickly and read it but he deliberately waited until Pitcher had reached the door, expecting to be able to sneer at the man for the impudence of applying for his post.
‘So then,’ Ben’s voice boomed across the open space. ‘The decision is not yet made?’
‘What?’ This time Kenneth could not be still. He bounded across and demanded to know the reason for the aggravation.
‘Him as is called Walter Waterman being the son of his father, has now to write a report on the suitability of each and every applicant,’ Ben reported for the benefit of those who could not read the notice. ‘And he says as how he can’t see anyone today, him being fatigued and ready to drop. And,’ he grinned, his mouth opening to reveal stubs of black teeth, ‘talking about drop reminds me that I have a strong need for a drop meself if one of you would be so obliging.’
Kenneth watched as the postboy walked through the inn doorway with the crowd gathered around him to ply him with drink and listen to his specialized version of the news he had brought.
With Pitcher standing beside him, Kenneth read the notice. Walter had stated that those who had applied for the post should call on him on the following day to discuss their suitability. Kenneth went for his horse and giving the boy who had looked after it a halfpenny, set off home to discuss the development with Ceinwen. The only pleasant episode in the whole day was when he saw Pitcher walking beside his limping horse. Pitcher asked for help and Kenneth gleefully ignored his request to send Percy to meet him with another horse.
‘I hope your boots rub ’til your feet split!’ he muttered as he hurried past.
* * *
‘There’s nothing definite,’ Pitcher warned Emma later that day as he sat with his sore feet in a bowl of water to which Emma had added some leaves and flower heads of ragwort. ‘I think we must go together, my dear, so this Walter Waterman can see for himself how respectable and morally upright we are.’
‘I think I should come as well,’ Daisy said. ‘For if there’s a young man involved, then who better to deal with him than a young woman?’
Daisy sat silently as her parents gave her a dozen reasons why she would not, could not, go. Then a smile, that was hardened by a steely look in her blue eyes, lightened her features and she said firmly, ‘I will be ready to leave with you, Dadda. I think I will wear the newest of my bonnets. Mamma, will you help me to fix the decorations more firmly?’
Pitcher sighed. He recognized in his daughter something of the determination he frequently met in his wife. Daisy was the only one to inherit it, he thought, Pansy being the gentler of the twins and Violet altogether more pliable and conventional. If only one of his children had been a boy, then he would have had a partner to work beside him and see the dream of a smart and successful inn materialize before them. Pitcher and son. Yes, that was what Emma should have given him, a son.
Pansy smiled at him and he had the startling realization that she had been reading his thoughts as she put down her sewing and said, ‘Daisy might not be the son you wanted, Dadda, but she’s as close to you and your ideas as many a boy, don’t you think?’
‘Rubbish!’ snorted Emma. ‘A boy is a boy and a girl is a young lady and that’s how it will always be!’
In defiance of Emma’s outraged arguments to the contrary, Daisy was with Pitcher when he went once more into town to discuss his application for the alehouse to be a receiving house for the King’s letters. She had spent a lot of time on her appearance and everyone they passed stopped to look at her.
She sat in their wagon, the seat of which had been covered with Welsh wool blankets fringed extravagantly with red and green. She wore a dress of cream cotton, with a neckline lower than Emma thought permissible, but Daisy lifted it to a more decorous height before they left and was amused to see Emma nod approval. Her straw bonnet was large and held in place by ribbons of cream and green, and on it were huge flowers made from the same cotton as her dress.
Pitcher wore a suit of cinnamon-coloured wool, trimmed with light brown. His leather hat was brown and his boots were of the same fine quality.
‘What a pity that the fine waistcoat Pansy was making for me was not a good fit, being a bit tight,‘ Pitcher sighed. ‘With that on I’d have looked so smart they’d have taken me for a man of the city.’ He frowned and asked, ‘What happened to it, d’you know?’
‘Put aside for Arthur I think, Father,’ Daisy replied vaguely. She wasn’t interested in Pitcher’s clothes, only her own, and the effect of them on the new Deputy Postmaster in Swansea.
Pitcher was very proud to have Daisy beside him and although he knew she would not be able to add anything to his persuasions, business being the province of a man, he was glad he had given in and allowed her to accompany him. He smiled and waved at everyone they saw, and he called out good wishes almost, he thought with a chuckle, as if they were like those wealthy people who arrived in grand carriages and walked along the seashore breathing the sea air like it was a precious commodity discovered by themselves!
There was such confidence about the well-attired couple that people made way for them as they approached the door of the sorting office. Despite his intention of leaving Daisy at the inn while he attended to his business, he did not insist when she headed for the Postmaster’s house after he helped her to alight. She went before him, her skirts held up out of the dusty earth, and stood while a young boy jumped up and opened the door for her. Inside, she stretched to force the neck of her dress to its intended low line and smiled at Walter Waterman. Pitcher pretended not to see.
‘I,’ she said with a dazzling smile, ‘am Daisy Palmer, the daughter of Pitcher Palmer of Pitcher’s alehouse in Mumbles.’ She offered him a small, delicate hand and smiled as he stuttered his greeting. ‘My father wishes to see you on a matter of
business. May I stay and listen? Please?’ she added, pouting prettily. She looked around for a chair and frowned at the dusty one that stood in a corner of the small room.
Still stuttering, apologizing for the awful neglected state of the chair, he dusted it with a stock hastily unwound from his neck and begged her to sit.
‘You are most welcome to my humble room,’ he managed to say. He shouted to a boy standing at the doorway to fetch a second chair and offered his own to Pitcher.
Pitcher had difficulty not to smile as he watched his daughter flirting and making the young man aware of her attractions. He knew he should stop her, and send her back to the wagon to wait for him, but he could not. The possibility that her presence might sway Walter to decide in their favour was too tempting.
‘Lucky for you that your mother can’t see the way you’re behaving, Miss,’ he managed to whisper.
‘I understand you have a proposition regarding the managing of Gower letters?’ Walter said when they were all seated and ale had been sent for. ‘Can you tell me exactly what you had in mind?’ He spoke to Pitcher, but his attention was on Pitcher’s daughter, who sat staring at the young man with admiration and full attention.
‘I want to offer the use of my alehouse as a centre for the collection of the letters,’ Pitcher began, wondering how much of his explanation the bemused Walter would remember. ‘The house of Kenneth is small and inconveniently placed up on a high bank where some of the older messengers can hardly climb. The alehouse is in the process of being improved and soon the house will be one of the most excellent in the village. Where better to distribute the letters of the King’s Mail?’
‘Oh, I agree with you, sir,’ Walter said. He shuffled a few papers as if searching for something, then stood up. ‘I think if you and your daughter will spend an hour with me at the inn, going into details of your argument, I can make a good case for your application being accepted.’
The Posthorn Inn Page 16