‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Growing up you may be but to me you’ll always be little Olwen.’ He stepped nearer, cautiously. His loving shadow was his no more. She was like a frightened animal that might run from him at any second. ‘I’ve some news for you,’ he coaxed. ‘Come and sit down and I’ll tell you.’
‘Another woman having your baby?’ she sneered.
He was puzzled, the sneer on her face did not match the tears threatening to flow. She looked so utterly miserable he wanted to pick her up and hug her, let her cry the hurt away.
‘I spoke to William Ddole this morning and he wants you to go back to work in his kitchen. I think he misses your beautiful lively presence, Olwen, as I do. Why are you avoiding me?’ he demanded as she began to move away from him.
‘You think that every woman must want to be with you! I for one can manage to survive without adoring you and waiting for a kind word. I’ll leave that for the others. Plenty of them to please you for sure.’
‘Olwen!’ He stepped across the stream following her wild flight but after a few paces he stopped and walked slowly back to Jethro. Best to leave her, she was not the sort of young woman to be persuaded.
‘Don’t forget to go and see Florrie about returning to work!’ he shouted after her. To his alarm the only response was a sob.
Wrenching himself away from her, he rode back to her house and explained to Spider and Mary about William’s change of heart.
‘I’ll tell her,’ Mary said sadly, ‘but I don’t think she will go. There’s something frightening her and none of us can get her to tell us what it is.’
‘She’s too stubborn altogether,’ complained Enyd, overhearing from her room. ‘While she’s had time to spare I’ve asked for her help many times and she’s refused, and me not feeling well enough to cope.’
‘Olwen is always willing to help where it’s needed,’ Mary replied pointedly.
‘Perhaps that’s the trouble.’ Spider said. ‘Those Morgan boys are in trouble and perhaps she has been persuaded out of kindness to do more than she wants to do for them.’
‘No,’ Mary said. ‘It was only when Polly and Seranne were there that Olwen visited.’
Realizing that Olwen had said nothing to her parents about her visits to the lonely cottage, Barrass quickly said, ‘She once wanted to work at the inn with Emma and Pitcher. Would you be willing for that? I would see that she was not harmed.’
‘Perhaps that would take her mind off whatever’s troubling her,’ Spider agreed. Barrass went at once to ask Pitcher. But when Mary and Spider told her there was work for her if she wanted it, again Olwen refused.
* * *
Cadwalader returned to The Posthorn Inn at that time. He asked Pitcher if he would find him work to pay for a bed in the stables and a meal each evening. Pitcher agreed but told Barrass and Arthur to, ‘Watch him! Remember that although we know a part of his story we don’t really know why he’s here. His sister has found herself a place with Walter Waterman and his mother has bought a fine boarding house in the town. Now with Cadwalader here, they are all in good positions for finding out information. The family is a strange one but best we have him here where we can watch him and that you must do.’
* * *
Emma was not completely happy about the way the new inn was going. She had imagined herself sitting up in her parlour listening to the murmur of genteel voices coming from below, with an occasional visit from one of the better dressed visitors from the town. Daisy and Pansy would be sitting dressed in their smartest clothes and attracting the eye of those who came to take the air.
In fact, she was so busy cooking when the various girls she employed for the task decided the life was too busy and failed to arrive she hardly had time to talk to her daughters. She seemed unaware that Daisy had become more and more important to the collection and distribution of letters. Daisy sat at the desk in the corner, throwing insulting repartee to all and sundry, while her mother bustled to and from the kitchen behind the bar scolding her, telling her to behave, and to go upstairs away from the rabble.
‘In a moment, Mamma,’ Daisy said time and again, but a few moments later, when Emma looked into the bar-room she would see Daisy still sitting there, the big ledger in front of her, handling the money, keeping the books of both the post and the inn itself.
‘I don’t know how I’d manage without her,’ Pitcher admitted one evening. ‘You haven’t time to see to the ledgers as you used to.’
‘A fine situation you’ve brought us to, Mr Palmer!’ Emma complained. ‘Your beautiful daughters and your loving wife all made into servants for your greed and satisfaction!’
‘It won’t be for long,’ Pitcher promised. ‘I never dreamed it would be so different. The rooms are almost always filled, and the food you cook so well is famous already and brings people from far afield. A finer wife no man ever had, Emma Palmer, and that’s a fact!’
‘Hush your foolish chatter, and tell me what I am to do about Daisy!’ Emma wailed. ‘How can we expect a gentleman to look at her with any thought of marriage if she is sitting at that desk and burying her head in those ledgers like a paid servant? Tell me that?’
‘She’ll tire of it soon enough,’ Pitcher reassured her. ‘When has Daisy ever enthused about anything for more than a few weeks? All except parties and dancing and herself that is. And what about Pansy? She keeps away from it all, doesn’t she?’
‘All she does is sew, and goodness alone knows who for! Oh, was ever a mother made to suffer like this!’
‘She regularly walks with Arthur’s dog,’ Pitcher smiled.
‘And what good is that in the search for a husband, tell me that? What worse could happen to a doting mother but her daughters are indifferent to the need for a good marriage?’
That evening she thought she had found something far worse.
‘Mamma.’ Daisy said brightly, ‘you are to be a grandmother again!’
‘What? You wicked girls! Which one of you has disgraced me now? Oh, Pitcher, I think I am going to faint.’
Pitcher ran to catch his buxom wife. She leaned but didn’t fall.
‘It’s Violet, Mamma.’ Pansy explained. ‘There’s no disgrace in that!’
Emma slapped them both anyway, for the fright she had.
* * *
On Olwen’s next visit to the Morgans’ house, Vanora was there. She welcomed the girl affectionately not knowing she had come to see Madoc.
‘How kind you are to come and see me,’ Vanora smiled. ‘I confess it’s lonely with only two morose brothers to tend to. Both out at the market they are, giving me a day at home to cook and freshen the house.’
‘Can I help you?’ Olwen offered, and together they took out the damp bedding and replaced it, brushed and restamped the earthen floor. When Madoc and Morgan arrived home on borrowed donkeys, there was a meal simmering above the fire and the house was aired and sweet-smelling.
Madoc insisted on walking Olwen part of the way home and when he left her at the beginning of the green lane, he showed her a partly burnt letter.
‘This will find its way into Barrass’s pocket if you don’t walk with me after church on Sunday,’ he warned, and too frightened to argue, Olwen agreed.
Cadwalader sat in his favourite position, cross-legged against a tree, when the villagers came out of the church and he watched curiously as, with a stiff smile of welcome, Olwen walked with Madoc, leaving her family staring and unable to decide whether or not to intervene. Unnoticed, Cadwalader followed the ill-matched couple as they headed for the Morgans’ cottage, trailing Morgan and Vanora, Olwen’s hand on Madoc’s arm.
In a large oak tree, hidden by its lush leafy green, Cadwalader continued to watch the shabby cottage near the stream. Olwen’s unhappiness, reported to him by Barrass, had made him curious and he had the patience to sit and wait and watch and learn.
Chapter Seventeen
Madoc began to feel a stronger emotion than convenience in his relat
ionship with Olwen. As days passed and he forced her to spend more and more time with him, affection for the small, fair-haired girl grew. His jealousy of Barrass increased at the same time and he wanted to drive the man from Olwen’s heart. Absence was the only method he could think of. If Barrass were absent, then Olwen would be free to think only of himself. The half-burned letter hidden away under his bed, deep in the earth and fortunately not discovered by Vanora and Olwen when they cleaned the room, was once more taken out and considered.
* * *
When Madoc and his brother Morgan approached the inn the following day, a noisy game of fives was just ending and Cadwalader was serving ale at an outside table. They did not look at the players or the dark-haired man with the white streak who was wiping froth from a table. They ignored the glances from both curious and friendly patrons and called loudly for a tankard of ale and food.
Cadwalader continued to wipe the drips from the table, not appearing even to glance in the brothers’ direction. Cadwalader was such a quiet man, smiling pleasantly and attending to customers with politeness and servility, but he rarely joined in a conversation. In the few days he had worked for Pitcher he had become a part of the scene, ignored by most except when they needed their tankards refilled or wanted a plate of food.
Having finished serving, he went back through the door into the overfull room and to the corner near the fire. An excited crowd pushed its way through the rest, arguing over the result of a game of fives they had played outside against the wall. Now they were each trying to persuade the others that the cost of the drinks did not rest with them.
For the convenience of the customers, a lavatory was placed in the yard near the stables and when Morgan disappeared, followed by his brother, Cadwalader thought that was where they were heading, but a sudden impulse made him put down the pile of dirty plates he had collected and follow them. Morgan was indeed going outside, but he was in time to see Madoc slipping down the cellar steps.
Cadwalader ran up the first flight of stairs and in the gloom of the landing he watched. The players still argued good-naturedly, others called for more ale, Pitcher shouted an enquiry as to his whereabouts but if Cadwalader heard he gave no sign. He saw Madoc’s head appear above the cellar opening and then watched the man quickly jump up and walk back into the barroom. Madoc was joined by his brother and gave him the slightest of nods.
Without giving the impression of hurrying, Cadwalader served the impatient drinkers and went between the kitchen and the tables with food. Only when he saw the brothers leave did he approach Arthur and tell him what he had seen.
‘What could they have wanted?’ Arthur asked in his high-pitched voice. ‘They didn’t steal anything, did they?’
‘Nothing that I could see, so I wonder if perhaps they left something.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ Arthur had one eye on the customers complaining about the lack of attention, and he frowned doubtfully as he made his way back to serve them. ‘What sense is there in creeping into a place and risking a hiding without taking something?’ He ran back to his work.
‘That Madoc walks out with Olwen, who is very unhappy,’ Cadwalader insisted as he followed the thin-faced boy towards the serving counter. ‘And if he hates Barrass – well, Barrass sleeps in the cellar, doesn’t he?’
Arthur stopped suddenly and stared at Cadwalader.
‘We’d better look at once!’ He thrust an overflowing pitcher into Cadwalader’s hands and said, ‘Me first,’ and disappeared down the stone steps.
It was Arthur who found the torn letter. It was cleverly placed in a corner of the blanket, rolled and slipped slightly behind some large stitches. It hadn’t fallen out when Arthur then Cadwalader had shaken the blanket, and it was only when Arthur had gone down for a second try that he had felt around the edge of each blanket and found it.
They said nothing when Daniels came in tall, impeccably dressed, and important, insisting that he be allowed to search the cellar where Barrass slept. They frowned with Pitcher as the man left having found nothing, and shook their heads and wondered with him at who or what had been the cause.
Later that night, when Barrass had returned, the three of them discussed the implications.
‘It doesn’t necessarily mean the Morgan brothers are involved in the robberies,’ Barrass said. ‘What it does mean is that they want me blamed.’
‘Because of Olwen?’ Arthur queried.
‘But why? She clearly seems to prefer Madoc to me, so why would he have to send me to prison?’
‘She doesn’t prefer him,’ Cadwalader said softly. ‘I think she is afraid of them both, but especially Madoc.’
‘Olwen is too brave to walk with him out of fear,’ Barrass defended. ‘She is brave and she speaks her mind. I can’t think of a way he could make her do what she had a mind not to.’
‘Yet she is unhappy,’ Cadwalader pointed out.
The small portion of the letter was burnt and the ashes safely ground to powder. As they were sprinkled into the dying fire, Barrass was silent. Could Olwen have been forced into walking out with Madoc? Or had she been persuaded by his illness to keep him company out of pity? That she was acting out of fear he did not consider.
When he went out to deliver the Gower letters on the following day, Barrass stopped first at the house on the cliff to talk to Olwen. If there was something troubling her surely she would tell him? She refused to see him at first, but when Mistress Powell told her to offer him refreshment, she glanced into the room where Enyd was still sleeping and stepped back from the door to allow him to enter. When he told her what Cadwalader and Arthur had discovered on the previous day, the frightened look in her eyes intensified.
‘Keep away from me, you are making me unhappy,’ she lied. ‘While you bother me and invent stories about Madoc, I can’t enjoy a moment of contentment.’
‘You mean it’s me who is making the cloud that hangs over you?’ he gasped.
‘Who else?’
‘Olwen, if you are in any difficulty, you would tell me, wouldn’t you? I’m your truest and most trusted friend, aren’t I?’
‘People change, Barrass,’ she forced herself to say coldly. ‘I’ve grown up and away from fanciful dreams of you being true to me.’ Stunned, he stumbled from the white cottage and mounted Jethro like an old man.
* * *
Ben’s son had taken his father’s place while the old postboy recovered from the latest attack, and it was he whom Daniels stopped, a mile or two from his destination of the Swansea sorting office.
‘What I am going to ask you to do is against the law,’ Daniels told him. ‘I want you to allow me to look at the letters before you hand them to Walter Waterman.’
‘First you’ll have to tell me why,’ the young man insisted. ‘I can’t go back to my sick old father and say, Father, what d’you think I did today, why, I opened the bag in the wilds of nowhere and handed the contents to someone wearing the uniform of the Keeper of the Peace! He would think I was dafter than the look on the face of a lovesick boy! You take one step closer and I’ll sound this here horn ’til the end buckles!’
Daniels stretched himself to look down his nose at the angry young man.
‘If I explain, I want your word that you will not repeat it. Lives may depend on it,’ he warned.
As briefly as he could he described the letters and numbers that had appeared on a letter which, once returned to the sorting office, no one had claimed.
‘You thinks as though it’s messages about time and place?’ Ben’s son lowered his body as well as his voice, afraid of the knowledge he had been given and which he did not want.
‘It seems too much of a coincidence to be wrong,’ Daniels told him, irritated by having to confide in this gossip-mongering mouthpiece.
‘Here, you take the bag and I’ll shut my eyes as tight as a dead man’s, then I won’t open them until you put the bag safe back into my hands.’ Closing his eyes into creases, Ben’s son sat on his horse muttering pr
ayers to himself in a monotone while Daniels searched through the mail and examined every letter. When the younger man opened his eyes, Daniels was smiling.
Before the letter-carrier had reached Swansea, Daniels had sent messages to three people, the information was spread and plans were quickly set to cover the cliffs around the area of the small cove on the night. The sign on the envelopes Daniels had looked at was, 9 A 2. The night of August the ninth, at two in the morning. Next Thursday, a week after the previous delivery. It had to be the explanation, and this time they wouldn’t get away.
Early on Thursday evening, Daniels walked into the busy inn. He bought one of Pitcher’s clay pipes and sat contentedly puffing on it. The herbal smoking mixture sent its doubtful fragrance into the air, and around him he could smell the aroma of good quality tobacco. His thin nose quivered with suppressed excitement. After tonight few would be able to afford to pack their pipes with such quality filling.
He watched as people came and went, noting the absences and the arrivals, committing to memory who sat and spoke with whom. He could barely contain his excitement when William Ddole entered with John Maddern and Edwin Prince. He acknowledged them with a polite nod but did not attempt to join them.
The evening wore on, and by ten o’clock the room was so full that even the chill of the evening did not prevent the outside tables being used for the overflow. Smoke floated against the ceiling, the hum of many conversations flew with it. Daniels still watched, undistracted by the laughter and the occasional song, although he was good-humoured with those who sat near him. He did not want to show by the slightest innuendo that he was anything but a relaxed and comfortable customer.
On the cliffs it was as black as the August night could be. With no moon, and even the false light from the sea invisible under low clouds, figures moved silently and unseen into their positions. Well back from the cliff path, soldiers lay as still as the sleeping fields. Extra men gleaned from the towns further inland were dispersed among the red-coated soldiers, and all were listening for the first sound of oars, or the first sight of those coming to help land the cargo.
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