The Posthorn Inn

by The Posthorn Inn (retail) (epub)

  When the brothers and Vanora returned from the market, and arrangements had begun for another funeral, Olwen and Barrass went back to the village to try and find the mood to join the rest of the village in celebration at the opening of The Posthorn Inn.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The opening of The Posthorn Inn was marred by the loss once more of the letters from the postbag. Barrass went to Swansea with the money he had collected the previous day and the letters he had been given for sending along the route with Ben Gammon, and when Walter opened his bag it was empty.

  ‘I shall have to report it, Barrass,’ Walter said. ‘This is the second time you have lost the King’s Mail. Pitcher is clearly failing in his duty.’

  Barrass took the letters for Gower and hurried back to Pitcher. On the previous occasion the letters had been found in the quarry and it was there they went; Barrass, Pitcher and Arthur followed as always by the dog. They found them under a bush with a heavy rock holding them down and a quick glance showed none missing when compared with Barrass’s notebook which was also under the rock.

  ‘Best I take them at once into town, while you go on with your deliveries,’ Pitcher said. ‘Perhaps I’ll take Emma with me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Arthur agreed at once, ‘Mistress Palmer will be happier to be involved in the explanations and excuses.’

  Returning to the stables for Jethro, Barrass set off. All day, his thoughts were on the perpetrator as he rode across the beautiful, sun-drenched peninsular, through narrow lanes and across downland richly coloured with myriad flowers and grasses. For once he did not stop and admire the small ponds which fish and frogs made into larders for herons and eagles, or watch the scaring kestrels and mewing buzzards riding the wind, heads moving from side to side as they watched for a movement below them that would disclose the presence of a meal.

  Even from the highest point at Cefyn Bryn, where the shimmering sea was in view on both sides within a few short paces, he did not stop to marvel. He was unaware of the impressive rocky bays, the long stretches of sandy beaches and the small, secret coves where seals basked in the sun, and gannets dived dramatically for fish, and the showy little puffins dived and filled their bills neatly with small fish. His mind was distracted from the beauty he so enjoyed, by worries about the post.

  He tried to think who would be foolish enough to interfere with the Royal Mail. Trying out every possibility with questions and answers in his mind, he decided eventually that there was only Kenneth, and he vowed to face the man on the following day when he returned to the village.

  * * *

  Emma dressed in her smartest clothes for the interview with Walter. Her wig was firmly fastened with a deeply-brimmed hat which in turn was fastened by a flowing scarf. She needed to look her most impressive; she was embarrassed by the way Daisy had taken up with Walter only to drop him once Pitcher had what he wanted from him.

  ‘Clothes,’ she reminded Pitcher as she dressed him in his brown trousers and waistcoat over a full-sleeved shirt and long, neatly tied stock, ‘clothes give a man confidence as well as making him appear cleverer than those less smartly turned out.’

  ‘But it’s so hot I’ll boil!’ he protested. She conceded only that he need not wear his gloves.

  To their chagrin they had to deal with Lowri as well as Walter. Emma tightened her lips; she did not intend to behave meekly in front of someone like Lowri! She glared at Pitcher, warning him silently not to interfere and, instead of the apologetic speech she and Pitcher had prepared, she launched into a complaint.

  ‘Really, the way you went on at Barrass, Walter!’ she said. ‘You’d think it was a fault with Pitcher and me! Stolen, those letters were, and it was only through dedicated effort on the part of my dear husband and our devoted staff that we found them before snails made a meal of them!’

  Walter backed from the room and Lowri opened her mouth to respond, but Emma did not give her a chance to speak. She glared at the young woman and ignoring the startled-looking Walter, went on, ‘You can tell your – master – or whatever—’ she said pointedly, raising a quizzical eyebrow, ‘that we take the greatest care of the letters in our hands and any complaints should be directed at Daniels. The man is obviously not doing his duty as well as we do ours.’ With her nose in the air she left the office, leaving Lowri still trying to formulate a reply. Pitcher meekly followed her.

  ‘D’you think Lowri is Walter’s – er – “whatever”—?’ he chuckled.

  Going into the inn for refreshment, they were surprised when Walter joined them. He had not given up hope of a reunion with Daisy, and he needed to explain the presence of Lowri. He apologized for his sharpness with Barrass, and assured them that he would indeed report the matter to Daniels without fail.

  ‘No!’ Pitcher shouted in alarm. They didn’t want to attract the attention of the Keeper of the Peace! ‘Don’t make trouble, boy. We’ll sort it ourselves. I have an idea who it might have been.’ He leaned forward and whispered, ‘jealousy, Walter, and the trouble not aimed at us but you, due to the attraction you hold for – some beautiful young woman – and that’s a fact.’ He didn’t name Daisy as the cause of the jealousy, but hoped it was implicit. He hid his face from Emma with a hand and nodded and gestured to explain his unwillingness to say more.

  On impulse, Walter called for a boy standing near and sent him to buy flowers that he gave to Emma for her daughter.

  ‘Just tell her they are from a devoted admirer,’ he said, glancing back at the window of his sorting office where Lowri stood watching him. ‘I hope one day to have the pleasure of calling on her again.’

  ‘Of course,’ Pitcher said, wincing from the sharp kick from his wife.

  ‘That, Pitcher, was going too far!’ she admonished as they set off again for home.

  * * *

  They were absent from the house only four hours but the time was enthusiastically enjoyed by Arthur and Pansy. In the pretence of needing a fresh breeze on such a hot day, Pansy set off with a parasol bought from a second-hand clothes seller who occasionally visited the town. She went down the stairs and stood where her voice would carry to the cellar, from which she could hear Arthur busily engaged in brushing the floor.

  ‘Goodbye, Daisy,’ she called up to her sister. ‘I will be but an hour. I will walk along the edge of the tide and perhaps cool my toes.’

  Arthur’s thin face appeared over the rim of the cellar door and he quickly jumped up beside her.

  ‘Meet you near The Ship and Castle,‘ he whispered before darting back down the stone steps.

  They did not walk on the beach but kept to the drangways that traversed the hillside to serve the groups of houses built at odd places on the steep rocky slope. Breathless after a particularly steep climb, they stopped and rested on the slate threshold slab of an abandoned cottage hidden deep among summer-heavy trees. The sea was close but far below them, an indistinct susurration.

  ‘This is like heaven,’ Pansy sighed, leaning towards him for a kiss. ‘So quiet, yet the air is filled with sound.’

  ‘Welcome sounds,’ he smiled, hugging her close to him. ‘Birds pouring out their wonderful melodies. Love songs they are for sure! And the accompaniment to their song is the gentlest movement of the branches around them, keeping the birds in tune with their rhythm.’

  ‘And the sea a soft murmur,’ Pansy added. Then their lips grew closer and touched and words were superfluous.

  * * *

  Barrass hurried through his calls on the following day, anxious to face Kenneth with his accusations, the conviction that the ex-letter-carrier was the guilty one growing each hour. He raised the horn to his lips and blew to announce his arrival, threw the letters at a surprised Pitcher and went to the house on the green bank.

  ‘I know it was you, Kenneth.’ Barrass said at once when the man opened the door to him. ‘If you touch the letters again it won’t be Pitcher who will be in trouble. Daniels will hear of it.’

  ‘How dare you accuse me! How dare you
talk to me like that? You, a penniless beggar that I pitied and took in and fed!’

  ‘If you want me to tell about your kindnesses, if you want me to broadcast the whole truth about you, Kenneth, like the seeds scattered in the spring, then just touch those letters again,’ Barrass warned. He felt a pleasant satisfaction in the way Kenneth lowered his gaze and retreated into the house without a blustering denial.

  Having told Pitcher of his suspicions and of Kenneth’s lack of argument, they both thought the matter would end.

  ‘Emma and me, we told Walter what we suspected, at least Emma did! I could hardly squeeze in a word. There’s no man has lived who’s more determined than a woman set on sorting something! We said that some jealous person was at the back of it, jealous of Daisy’s attraction for him I implied, if he was sharp enough to understand my hints. I think he believed us. Anyway, he promised to hold back his complaint for a week, and if there were no more incidents he would forget it.’ He lowered his voice and added, ‘Watch your back, boy, watch your back.’

  * * *

  The opening of the new style inn was in difficulties due to the shortage of extra servants. When Emma discussed this with Florrie and found that Florrie’s problems at Ddole House were the same, the women decided to go into town together and try to solve their difficulties.

  ‘David will drive us in the carriage,’ Florrie said. ‘I’ve been told that it’s for my temporary use as there are such problems.’

  They went early one morning and at the market filled the carriage with extra food, both to fill the sadly depleted store cupboards of Ddole House and to add to Emma’s supplies for the grand opening of The Posthorn Inn.

  When their shopping was completed, they went to the house of a young woman who kept a list of names. In her house not far from the castle walls, she was regularly visited by both those in search of good servants, and by servants in search of a place. She charged no fee for the service she supplied but always managed accidentally to rattle a tin containing a few coins as a reminder that she was not too proud to accept a small ‘generosity’.

  Sally Ann was dressed rather smartly in a dress of pale mauve linen that was trimmed with bows of purple and pale green ribbon. Trailing strands of the same colour were woven through her hair. She sat just inside her door in a house that had been separated into individually rented rooms. A kettle simmered on a small fire and she made them tea in a china dish as they sat down.

  ‘It’s servants you need, is it?’ she said, summing them up and deciding that they were both too well dressed to be looking for a place. ‘Can you tell me first why the previous people left you? I like to know how best to please you and it saves time to get a few things straight.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find any complaint in the way we look after the people working for us!’ Emma said, puffing out her ample chest.

  ‘My friend is the owner of a newly opening inn and needs people to help run it,’ Florrie quickly explained. ‘There has never been any complaint that led to her servants leaving her.’

  They spent a while explaining their needs, then a small girl was summoned and sent to find the people named by Sally Ann. Before an hour had passed, they had both found the staff they needed and there was only one surprise. A door opened further along the passageway and Annie stepped out.

  ‘What are these people doing here?’ she demanded, her face smiling politely so they wondered if they had heard aright. ‘Show them out if you please, Sally Ann, unless you wish to lose your room before nightfall.’

  ‘What is she doing here?’ Florrie asked of Sally Ann.

  ‘Mistress Evans owns the house,’ Sally explained, one eye on Annie to see that her words didn’t cause complaint.

  Emma began to argue but was ushered out by Florrie.

  ‘Best we don’t indulge in arguments with the likes of her,’ she said. ‘We’ve got what we came for and be thankful for that.’

  Annie watched them go and as they approached the sorting office of Walter Waterman, she smiled. Now she owned a boarding house again, and with a little money to spare, there would come a time when she could repay Florrie and perhaps Olwen too, for interfering in her plans to become mistress of Ddole House.

  Kenneth was also watching the sorting office, wondering if a plea to Walter Waterman would persuade the man to reconsider his decision to give the handling of the Gower letters to Pitcher. Sitting quite near him was Markus. The man’s watchman was muttering, telling his master who was there, describing the scene, blissfully ignorant of the fact that below the wide-brimmed hat Markus wore, the man’s eyes were seeing for himself. Annie caught his eye and beckoned him. Without a movement of his head to reveal his interest. Markus saw him go.

  ‘You are an ex-post-carrier, I believe?’ Annie said, having been primed by Sally Ann.

  ‘I carried letters all over Gower until Pitcher cheated me of the privilege,’ Kenneth said. ‘But I’ll get them back one day, be sure of that.’

  ‘Perhaps I can help,’ Annie said, smiling her kindly smile. ‘Supposing you are a law-abiding man, I can perhaps share with you some information.

  ‘If you will walk to the Inn and take a little light refreshment?’ Kenneth smiled back.

  Leaving town an hour later, Kenneth headed not for Mumbles village but for the house of Daniels. What Annie had told him about the arrangements to send payments with the assistance of the post was most interesting.

  Taking a short cut back by Betson-the-flowers, he stopped a while and then walked past the shabby home of the Morgans. Madoc and Morgan were sitting outside their door listening to Vanora singing a hymn. Inside, he guessed that the body of Polly lay in her coffin awaiting the journey to the churchyard.

  ‘Sorry I am for you in your sadness, boys,’ he shouted.

  ‘Someone will be!’ Morgan sobbed. ‘Two sisters gone and only for lack of a bit of money to provide a decent home.’

  Kenneth declined to point out that they might have both home and money if they had not been so lazy. They were so distressed that even he could not speak his thoughts so unkindly. Then, as he was about to pass on, he had an idea. He waited until Vanora had finished her singing and had disappeared inside, before saying, ‘Such a shame, when there’s plenty of money to be had.’

  ‘Not for the likes of us,’ Madoc said.

  ‘Perhaps not for you,’ Kenneth shook his head in utter agreement. ‘But for someone less honest, more careless of the laws of the land, well, it’s there all right.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  When they approached him, Kenneth abandoned his intention to tell Daniels, and explained.

  * * *

  The grand opening of The Posthorn Inn was planned to begin at midday, but others thought differently and the free drinks that Pitcher had promised to those who took the trouble to call and see what he had to offer, began to flow before Barrass had begun his journey across Gower. By evening, the place was littered with comatose bodies, which Arthur and Pitcher, in desperation, dragged out into the yard, there to lie in untidy heaps until they should recover.

  Daniels came soon after the place opened officially and by using his authority, found himself a place near the fire, a mistake as he soon realized as the crowded bar became unbearably hot. Emma was so busy preparing the food that was an immediate attraction to both local people and visitors coming to walk beside the sea, that she was not aware of how much time Daisy was spending at the desk in the corner of the bar-room. Pitcher had bought a desk which he had set up near the door and at which letters were received and collected. The bookkeeping had slipped casually and swiftly into Daisy’s enthusiastic hands. Her bold writing and figures covered the pages in an orderly way that had needed no teacher to describe.

  Her superior attitude remained. She was rude to the people who came for her services and they loved it. Something about her appealed to men and women alike. Those she was polite to adored her. Pitcher wondered curiously what it was and decided that in their dull lives, the lo
udly confident Daisy was something to talk about, to complain about and on occasions, about which to boast.

  Her rudeness was discussed and chuckled over by those who overheard the sufferers and loudly complained of by the recipients. Everyone who visited the inn had their turn, to laugh and be laughed at as Daisy inflicted her sharp wit on them all.

  The wealthy travellers were soon made aware of the fact that she was no servant, but a lady with an education and an intelligent mind. Towards these her attacks were the most cruel and they too came back for more and brought their friends.

  Soon it had become the normal procedure for her to dress early and be at the desk in time to receive Barrass and help him sort the letters for his route. Barrass stopped being surprised at Emma allowing it and was grateful for Daisy’s efficiency. On the day of the party to celebrate the long delayed opening, Emma suddenly realized what was happening.

  ‘Mr Palmer! A word!’ she demanded as red-faced she threw down the bread she had been cutting up and walked from the back kitchen, puffing breathlessly up the stairs to the parlour.

  With a sigh and a heavenward glance, Pitcher followed.

  ‘I understand why you needed help while we were so low in bodies, Mr Palmer,’ she shouted. ‘But now the need has gone, we have servants in plenty and I want you – I demand you – to send your daughter back up here where she belongs!’

  Pitcher, who had been making tables and benches with Barrass and Arthur in the yard behind the house, just glared at her.

  ‘Mis Palmer, here upstairs and your children is your domain. Below is my domain and right now, my domain is in desperate need of my presence.’