Daniels was thoughtful as he rode home. He was content in his work, in a small community like Mumbles the task was not an arduous one, and he had plenty of time to sit and enjoy a book. But he had long hoped for a promotion. With promotion would come extra money and privilege and then he would be able to pay for a servant to come in and deal with the time-consuming, and the tedious.
The smugglers! If only he could catch those responsible, then he would be considered for a higher position. It was ironic that to persuade Florrie to be his wife he would have to catch her friends in the act of carrying illegal cargo. An act hardly likely to endear him to her. But she knew of his occupation and his determined intention of capturing the locals involved in the trade. She wouldn’t help him, she had made that clear and he dare not ask again, but surely she would understand the necessity of his hunting them down?
Much as he hated the idea, he was going to have to spend time out on the cliffs, and sitting at the alehouse listening for a careless word. The alehouse was to reopen as an inn in a few days’ time. There would be celebration and that meant tongues loosened by drink. A good time to begin his intensified efforts.
First of all he needed an assistant. Someone who was a familiar face, yet willing to earn some extra money for reporting what he heard. He sat for a long time in the evening sun, considering the most likely candidate.
He went first to find Kenneth and found him still bemoaning his lot with a blank-faced Ceinwen who was seemingly deaf to his complaints. From Kenneth’s small cottage, he rode into town. At The Voyager Inn he soon learnt the whereabouts of Annie and her daughter. The conversation he then had with these two was most interesting, although he had to persuade Annie to tell him what she knew about her ex-employer’s activities, bound as she was by what he considered false loyalty. The man had sent her packing for chastising one of the servants, she told him, and sent her on her way without even a letter of recommendation. Yet she had felt the strong need to protect him.
He thought of Florrie and mused sadly that loyalty to husbands came far below that to an employer! He could not help anticipating the moment when he told Florrie he had arrested William Ddole. Perhaps then she would remember what the words of the marriage ceremony meant and consider how she must support him against all the rest. With William Ddole behind prison bars sharing the tribulations of the lowest criminals, perhaps she would give his calling its rightful respect. He rode back to Mumbles a more contented man.
* * *
The gifts from Madoc still appeared at Olwen’s door on occasions. It amused Olwen to think that while Madoc was giving food to her, others were supplying the Morgan family with food of a different kind. The generous villagers, having heard of the sickness affecting the poor family, were leaving fresh fruit and vegetables to improve the family’s diet.
A grouse, a partridge, a hare were left at the door of the cottage on the cliff. Then, to Olwen’s surprise and Mary’s and Spider’s alarm, a haunch of venison.
‘We can’t keep it!’ Mary gasped. ‘It’s stolen for sure. What is he thinking of? He could get us hung!’
After urgent discussion, they decided to give it to Pitcher, who had ordered several meats for celebrating the opening of his long awaited Posthorn Inn.
‘Among all that he’s bought it won’t be noticed,’ Spider agreed and, at midnight, having agreed the arrangement with Pitcher, he walked down the steep path carrying the sacking-wrapped parcel on his shoulders and praying that no one would meet him and ask what his heavy burden contained.
He moved silently and carefully, his feet hardly disturbing the grass. At the bottom of the path he hesitated, looking up at Kenneth’s house and across at the alehouse, where a faint light showed. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out to cross the open space and had almost reached Pitcher’s doorway when a voice called,
‘What you got by there then, Spider? Fishing in the dark is one thing, but knocking at doors after midnight to sell it is another altogether, isn’t it?’
‘Kenneth! Couldn’t you sleep either? No this isn’t fish, just a bag of winkles I forgot to bring for Pitcher. Couldn’t sleep, and when I remembered it I thought a nice stroll down would settle me off. Smell they will, by tomorrow, if they aren’t salted.’ He looked up at the dark window above the door and then at the doorway. As Kenneth moved towards him, he called through the door, ‘Got the winkles you asked for, Pitcher. Sorry it’s so late, boy.’
Pitcher came out and seeing Kenneth, speedily took the sacking-wrapped joint from Spider’s shoulder and carried it inside. Emerging again a moment later, he said, ‘Sorry I can’t invite you for a drink but it’s ready for bed I am. Thanks, Spider, goodnight.’
Inside the dark building, a high pitched voice called from the cellar, ‘What’s happening? Who’s throwing dead animals down on me? What have I ever done to you?’ Arthur’s face wore an offended frown as he drowsily hugged his pillow and drifted back to sleep. The dog came out of his barrel and sniffed at the parcel. He peed on it to claim ownership and went back to bed.
On the cliff path, Spider hurried home, wondering why Kenneth was watching at such a late hour. He had betrayed them once and might do so again. He would need to be watched.
* * *
Olwen had been unhappy working for Annie at Ddole House, but now she no longer had to go there each day she missed it. She had become accustomed to the chatter of the other servants and even when the number had been reduced by Annie’s attempts at economy, there had been Dozy Bethan with her gossip about what went on in the house, and the people who worked in the yard, stables and farm. To be told to leave for impertinence had been a disgrace and it was this as well that made her wish to be back there.
Mary and Mistress Powell were busily filling basket after basket with goods to sell at the big September Fair, and Olwen was expected to help them. Enyd was asked to add her skills to the ever growing pile of work, but Enyd always managed to find a good reason for avoiding the crafts which would help to keep the family during the winter months.
‘Why do I have to do so much while Enyd sits on her chair and stares out to sea?’ Olwen demanded one morning when she had finished sewing up the neck of the seventh jumper. ‘It isn’t fair!’ She stamped her foot and threw the offending garment down.
‘If you hadn’t been so badly behaved, you would be working at the house and earning the money for us to buy more wool!’ Mary snapped. She too wondered how Enyd could be persuaded to do her share, but she said nothing, knowing that with a baby on the way, some women acted oddly. She hoped that the baby was the cause of Enyd’s idleness. If it were not, then Dan would have a lifetime of problems ahead of him.
‘Mamma, can I go and see Madoc? I think we should tell him not to bring any more gifts.’
‘He must be reminded of the danger to us all. I’m sure he doesn’t realize we were at risk,’ Mistress Powell said.
‘Go then, you aren’t much use to me today,’ Mary sighed. ‘But won’t you wait until Dan or your father can go with you?’
Olwen had already decided that it being a Friday, she would search out Barrass and ask him to accompany her.
‘No need,’ she said, hiding her joy. ‘I won’t be long, back in time to help gut the fish.’
She found Barrass helping Pitcher and Arthur to move old and new furniture into the recently finished bedrooms. Emma, leaning over the banisters, was calling instructions as Arthur, wearing a chair like a snail’s shell, was trying to ease himself up the first flight of stairs without touching the banisters.
‘Careful. The paint is hardly dry and you’re shaving it off like skinning a rabbit!’ she wailed. ‘Oh, Mr Palmer, can’t you see to it before the place is wrecked and we have to start all over again?’
Olwen found herself carrying up bed linen and hanging curtains and before she realized it, half the day had gone.
‘Best I go now,‘ she said, when they had all eaten a scrappy lunch at one of the tables set outside near the shore. ‘I told Mam I woul
d be back to help with the fish.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Barrass said. ‘There’s still plenty to do, but I can’t let you go to the Morgans on your own.’
‘If it’s the Morgans you’re visiting,’ Emma said, ‘You can ask about Polly, see if there’s any chance of her coming back. Take her these,’ she added, and handed Olwen a bunch of flowers and a basket of small turnips and carrots.
They set off across the field on foot; the distance was not great and Olwen was glad to have the chance of more time with Barrass.
‘Never see you these days,’ she scolded. ‘My father must have been very insistent that you don’t spend any time with me, and you must be as soft as an overripe plum to do as he says! I doubt you’d keep away from that Harriet if Carter Phillips asked you to!’
He laughed and put an arm across her shoulders, pulling her closer.
‘I haven’t seen anyone apart from Pitcher and Arthur, except when I’m delivering the letters,’ he said. ‘Too busy getting the place ready for the grand opening!’
‘Not even Harriet?’
‘Not even Harriet.’
They managed to hold hands while carrying the gifts for Polly and sauntered through the fields chattering contentedly about small, unimportant things, and their mood when they reached the house was light-hearted. A glance at Polly changed that to one of concern. The young girl was in great pain and obviously very ill.
Olwen stood outside having glanced at where the girl lay, taking deep breaths to help her overcome the shock, preparing for what she would say. Barrass went to the sick girl and knelt down beside her pallet mattress. Olwen slowly approached and knelt beside him.
‘Polly, we hoped to find you a little more improved,‘ Barrass said. ‘Emma is in quite a state without you. Never knew how much she depended on you, that’s what she told us, isn’t it, Olwen?’
‘More fussed than usual with you away,’ Olwen agreed.
Unable to sit and look at the thin, wasted face, Olwen busied herself in the room. She found a teapot minus its lid and with a broken spout and into it she put the flowers they had brought.
‘Put them where I can see them,’ Polly asked. ‘I love to see bright colours around me.’
Olwen did so, wondering how anyone could live with such drab surroundings without crying. The room was tidy, with shelves to hold the many bottles and jars filled with medicines and ointments made by Vanora. The fire, although low, burned well enough to keep the big cauldron simmering above it.
But the ground around the cottage was bare and churned up as if someone had spent a demented day digging it then changed his mind about completing the job. Tufts of grass and a few sad roots of corn were all that could be seen. The soil was poor, filled with stones, and rubbish was strewn all over the place with no attempt to disguise it.
She cut up the few vegetables and added them to the meat that was simmering, washed the plates that littered the rude wooden table and then stood, anxious to leave. The place depressed her, yet with the desolation of the place she felt an urge to sweep out the poor contents and refurnish it with clean, properly made furniture, and in her mind’s eye she imagined it warm, cosy and neat. All things it lacked at present.
She went back to Polly and forced herself to sit and talk to the girl. She exaggerated all the happenings in Ddole House to amuse her, and added some items of news about Emma and the new inn. Polly only made brief replies and when a time passed without even that much, Olwen looked and saw that the girl was sleeping.
Barrass and she were just about to leave when Madoc and Morgan arrived. They greeted them then went at once to their sister.
‘She’s sleeping,’ Olwen said unnecessarily.
‘Best for her,’ Barrass added.
‘It’s you we came to see,’ Olwen said when the brothers came out again into the sun. ‘I want to beg you not to leave any more gifts of food. Get us caught by Daniels you will! What would happen to us if he found us with a haunch of venison?’ She stood in her usual scolding pose of arms on hips, bending slightly towards Madoc as she spoke. ‘Besides,’ she added lowering her voice, ‘you’d show better sense if you sold it and spent the money getting the doctor to call for Polly!’
‘We have,’ Morgan told her. ‘Nothing he can do except tell us to move from here and where would we go?’
‘Can’t you get the place made safe?’ Barrass asked. ‘It only needs a strengthening wall beside the stream and a good raised floor to the house to make it dry. Perhaps I could—’
‘What business is it of yours!’ Madoc shouted. ‘Go on, clear off from here, telling us how best to look after our own!’
‘I only thought…’ Barrass didn’t move away from Madoc, and standing his ground seemed to inflame the man. Madoc shouted abuse and the dog who had followed him began barking and growling his support. But the cough that was ever present with the whole family brought the flow of words to a halt and Madoc bent over and was comforted by Morgan.
‘We do plan to do it,’ Morgan said. ‘But it takes all our time feeding us all and getting money to pay what we owe to the doctor.’
‘All their energy more like,’ Olwen said sadly as they walked away.
‘I won’t bring you anything more that would endanger you, Olwen,’ Madoc managed to say before once more succumbing to the coughing.
‘And thank you for your call,’ Morgan added. ‘Our Polly values a visit.’
When Olwen returned home her mind was full of two things; the first was the seriousness of Polly’s condition and the second, the possibility of working at the alehouse, or the inn, as Pitcher now called it. She planned to discuss the second idea with her mother, but the voice of Enyd complaining took it from her head.
‘Olwen! Where have you been? I’ve had to see to the meal and bake the bread, and look after baby Dic!’ Enyd complained.
‘Where’s Mam then!’ Olwen asked, looking with dismay at the small, hard loaves Enyd was taking out of the oven.
‘She’s gone selling fish. Dan and Spider are off after mackerel. Seen out in the bay the shoals were, the water boiling like a cauldron with their numbers so they said.’
‘You didn’t go and see?’ Olwen ignored the complaints Enyd shouted after her and ran to the cliff top to see the boats gathered for the rich harvest of summer.
A few mornings later, a strange sound greeted her when she opened the door. She looked out and saw, tethered to the fence, a young sheep. It was injured, having a previously broken leg that caused it to limp badly.
‘Mamma!’ she wailed. ‘Madoc has done it again!’
Spider promised that this time he would go and see the Morgans and taking the creature under his arm, he set off to ask them to take it back. He found the two brothers attempting to clear the weeds from a patch in which to plant some straggly-looking cabbage plants.
‘Honestly got!’ Madoc assured him breathlessly. ‘We are grateful to Olwen for befriending Polly and we thought it proper to give her a real gift to comfort her after the fright of the stolen ones. Ashamed we were for our thoughtlessness.’
‘Where is Polly?’ Spider asked, and was shown the bed where the girl was lying. He gave her some sweetmeats Mary had made and offered to bring a thicker blanket than the one spread over her.
‘Ask Olwen to bring it, will you,’ she pleaded. ‘She makes me laugh with her tales.’
‘She’ll be glad to,’ Spider promised.
Still carrying the small sheep, he walked home, saddened by the plight of Polly and wondering how long before the brothers too were confined to their beds. Only Vanora seemed free of the sickness that had laid them all low, and she looked tired and without the spark of youth although she was only twenty.
Olwen went every day to visit Polly and each day found her weaker. She took broth and many other tempting dishes made by Mary and stayed with her while Vanora went into the market to sell her medicines or searched the fields for the plants with which to make them. With Barrass’s help, she found wood
to raise the sick bed off the damp earth floor and brought blankets and pillows to make the girl as comfortable as was possible.
She tied the sheep to the fence on a long rope and ran back each day to play with it and feed it. One day she arrived home to find Barrass there. With Dan’s help, he had enlarged the goat’s pen and made a small house for it to shelter in at night.
‘Large enough,’ Mary said, ‘to hold several fully grown ones!’
‘Now there’s an idea!’ Olwen said, looking at Barrass with a frown of concentration on her freckled face.
One Friday, Barrass met her as she approached the Morgans’ cottage.
‘I am getting from under Emma’s feet,’ he explained. ‘She’s so frantic getting everything in readiness for the guests they hope to attract, there’s no sharing a house with her!’
‘Barrass, I thought to ask Emma if I could work for her. They will be needing extra hands now, won’t they? Not yet, mind. I think I would rather be free to spend time with Polly while she needs someone. But later, when she is recovered, perhaps I will ask Dadda to talk to Pitcher.’
Barrass declined to comment on the passing hope that Polly would recover and said instead, ‘I mislike the idea of you serving at an inn, even with someone like Pitcher to look out for you.’
‘But why!’ she frowned. ‘Why have I got to be treated different from everyone else? Other girls choose what they will do, I am always told “no, you can’t!”’
‘Ask your father, but I can tell you what his reply will be.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I was back at Ddole House. At least there even with Annie I had some choice, even if it was only whether to get the coal first or carry in the water!’
Barrass decided to suggest to Mary that she go to see Florrie in the hope that William might have relented. To Olwen, he said, ‘Let’s pick some flowers for Polly, you know how she loves them.’
That Polly was worse was at once apparent. She was bright red, and tossing about on the bed, throwing the covers off in fever one moment and the next, shivering like the ague. Olwen bathed her forehead and talked soothingly to her while Barrass ran to find the doctor. Before the doctor could be found and informed by the dozen or more people Barrass sent in search of him, Polly had died.
The Posthorn Inn Page 25