by Rosie Harris
Tentatively she stretched out her hand and placed it on his shoulder. This time he didn’t shrug it away. He held his breath and lay perfectly still as though etched in stone.
Her momentary relief changed to panic as he choked and fought to breathe again. His eyes, wide with fear and desperation, locked with hers. His mouth distorted into a grimace of agony as he gulped for air. The strangled rasping in his throat frightened her.
‘I’ll send Dai Jenkins to fetch Dr Davies?’
Olwen Price had followed her up to the bedroom and was standing by the door, her round face concerned.
Kate nodded gratefully.
While she waited for the doctor’s arrival, Kate tried desperately to persuade Mathew to relax. As soon as he was a little calmer, she helped him into a sitting position, propping him up with pillows.
When Olwen Price came back upstairs to see if there was anything more she could do, Kate asked her to open the window and let in some fresh air. With Olwen’s assistance, she wrapped Mathew in a blanket and they lifted him on to a chair.
‘Try and keep your back straight, Mathew,’ urged Kate.
Whimpering with distress, he tried to sit upright.
‘Now, lean forward and let your arms rest on your knees. Come on,’ she exhorted gently, ‘it will help you to breathe more easily.’
Persuading him to inhale deeply, instead of in shallow gasps, so that air filled his lungs, took patience and perseverance.
Her own brow was damp with perspiration by the time the doctor arrived, her problems forgotten as she concentrated on Mathew’s breathing.
Dr Davies summed up the situation in one swift glance.
‘Bring a glass of water, Mrs Price,’ he ordered.
‘This will put you right, Mathew,’ he promised as he mixed up a whitish powder.
‘Is there anything else I can do?’ asked Kate.
‘No. You’ve handled things well,’ he told her.
An hour later Mathew was breathing calmly. Exhausted by his ordeal, he let Kate undress him and put him to bed.
‘What brought on the attack this time?’ Dr Davies asked abruptly as they left the room together.
‘He overheard me telling Mrs Price about the baby and the new arrangements here.’
‘I’m surprised that should upset the boy.’
‘He also heard me say that I was marrying his father.’
‘Marrying Morgan Edwards! I see!’ He pursed his lips. ‘It would have been better if you had taken Mathew into your confidence instead of him overhearing gossip,’ he censured.
‘I had every intention of doing so,’ Kate snapped.
‘But you didn’t!’ He coughed irritably.
‘I never got the chance. I didn’t even know he was in the house.’
‘Humph! I would have thought it was his father’s place to explain matters to him.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘Where is Morgan Edwards?’
‘Mr Edwards and Brynmor have gone to Cardiff on business. They’ll be away for two or three days.’
‘So you sent for me to be on the safe side, eh?’
‘It seemed to be the right thing to do,’ Kate told him, shrugging her shoulders lightly.
‘Should we send for master to come home, Doctor?’ Mrs Price asked, emerging from the kitchen and looking at him anxiously.
‘No need. Mathew will sleep now until morning.’
‘I’ve never seen him so bad before,’ stated Mrs Price. ‘Choking he was. Miss Stacey sat him up and told him how to breathe.’
‘Yes. Highly commendable. It must be a relief to you to know that Miss Stacey is to become one of the family.’
‘A bit of a shock, doctor.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Now, if you will hand me my hat I will be on my way.’
‘Thank goodness that’s over!’ Olwen Price let out a long sigh of relief as Dr Davies left. ‘I’d better get back to the kitchen and cook your dinner. I wonder if Glynis has laid the dining table yet.’
‘She probably hasn’t,’ agreed Kate. ‘Since Mathew won’t be coming down tonight it hardly seems necessary. I’ll eat with you in the kitchen.’
‘Well…’ Mrs Price looked indignant. She was about to protest when she caught the look on Kate’s face and shrugged helplessly. ‘If you’re sure that’s what you wish…’
‘I do! Friends should stick together when there’s a crisis,’ Kate told her meaningfully. ‘We’ll eat right away.’
‘It will take me an hour at least to cook…’
‘In that case we’ll just have some bread and cheese and an apple,’ Kate ordered.
‘I can do better than that,’ Olwen Price protested, her professional pride roused.
Half an hour later they were sitting down to a cheese omelette, followed by cold apple pie and fresh cream.
‘It’s not the sort of meal you should be having,’ Mrs Price said worriedly. ‘Is there anything else you would like to finish off?’
‘While Glynis clears the table and washes the dishes, I think we should both adjourn to your parlour and enjoy a cup of tea… or perhaps something a little stronger,’ Kate told her.
At first, Olwen Price was reluctant to talk about the changes that would take place at Machen Mawr once Kate and Morgan were married. After the second nip of whisky she became more garrulous. By the time they both retired to bed their friendship was on an even firmer foundation than before.
Chapter 18
Within days, news of Morgan Edwards’ forthcoming wedding had spread throughout Ebbw Vale and the Top Towns. Tradesmen calling at the kitchen door of Machen Mawr discreetly pumped Mrs Price, eager for details.
‘They like a bit of gossip, don’t they,’ she remarked caustically to Glynis.
‘Lovely, I think it is,’ sighed Glynis dreamily. In her eyes Kate had become more like the girl on the chocolate box with each passing day.
‘Don’t stand there daydreaming, get on with your work.’
‘Just fancy, she’ll be mistress of Machen Mawr!’ Glynis murmured.
Mrs Price’s double chin juddered as her mouth tightened disapprovingly. Overnight, her world had been knocked sideways. She didn’t know which had disturbed her most, finding out that Kate was pregnant or learning that Morgan Edwards intended marrying her.
It wasn’t as if he was all that taken with Kate, or she with him. They spoke civilly to each other but she’d never seen him so much as peck her cheek, let alone take her in his arms.
She felt uncomfortable at the thought of Kate sleeping in the great oak four-poster Myfanwy had shared with Morgan Edwards. It didn’t seem right.
‘Something fishy about it, if you asks me,’ sniffed Dai Jenkins’ wife, Blodwyn, wide-eyed with astonishment when she first heard the news.
‘Just what do you mean by that?’ asked Olwen Price sharply.
‘I’d bet my best Sunday bonnet that neither Kate Stacey nor master care one jot for each other, so why is he marrying her?’
‘I thought you’d know the answer to that,’ rejoined Olwen Price sarcastically. It wasn’t like her to gossip, but events had taken her off balance and undermined her natural reserve.
‘She’s so much younger than him, barely older than Brynmor…’
‘Duw Anwyl! Is it possible?’ gasped Olwen. She sat down heavily in the straightback wooden armchair, fanning her face with her apron.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing… nothing at all.’ Olwen Price shook her head, refusing to say anything, her thoughts so confused that she wondered if she was imagining things.
After Blodwyn Jenkins left, though, she began putting two and two together, remembering what Kate had told her about Brynmor’s nocturnal visits.
The more she remembered the more confused she became.
It was one thing to think of Brynmor as a man because he was running his own business, but in years he was a mere youth.
Thoughtfully, she chewed on the inside of her cheek as she tried to marshal her thoughts. Surely,
under the sort of outrageous circumstances Kate had described, it was hardly likely to be Brynmor’s child.
Thoroughly upset, Olwen Price went through into her own parlour, unlocked the cupboard and took out the bottle of whisky she’d secreted there. Although it was early in the day, she felt she needed a tot to settle her nerves.
The more she thought about it the more involved it all seemed and the more confused she became. It couldn’t be the master’s child that Kate was expecting, she now reasoned, so it had to be Brynmor’s… or was it?
Kate could perhaps have already been pregnant when she arrived at Machen Mawr. Perhaps she had encouraged Brynmor to visit her room so that she could accuse him of being the father.
Was that why she hadn’t complained to Morgan Edwards right away about what was going on? Or had he taken his place in her bed after he’d dealt with Brynmor?
Once she and Glynis were asleep on the top floor, then anything at all could have gone on, Olwen Price told herself as she put her empty glass down on the table. Both master’s room and Brynmor’s were right across the passageway from where Kate slept.
‘To think when I said I’d thought I’d heard someone moving around in the night she told me young Mathew had been restless,’ she muttered out loud. ‘Young Mathew indeed!’
Olwen Price was filled with righteous indignation. She’d had the wool pulled over her eyes and she didn’t like it. The more she thought about it the more uncertain she became about whose child it might be that Kate was expecting.
If it was Brynmor’s child, then why was the master planning to marry Kate? she pondered. What was wrong with letting Brynmor accept the responsibility for his actions? He could well afford to set up his own home.
None of it made sense as far as Mrs Price was concerned and as preparations for the wedding went ahead she became increasingly tetchy.
Kate misinterpreted her mood. She assumed that Olwen was afraid that things at Machen Mawr would be different, so she went out of her way to constantly reassure her that everything would remain exactly as before.
‘Nothing is going to be any different for you after the wedding, Olwen.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
‘It won’t… I promise you.’
‘I’m not so sure. You’re fond of changing things to suit yourself.’
‘Everything is just as I want it… and will stay that way. Even to our cups of tea and chats together.’
The feeling of constraint remained.
Olwen was suspicious of every movement Kate made. She listened avidly to every snippet of gossip that came her way, not only from Blodwyn Jenkins but from the delivery men and even old Sarah who came in to help out.
‘So you’re getting married in a registry office,’ she sniffed when Kate told her what was being arranged.
‘That’s right.’
‘I would have thought Morgan Edwards would have wanted it to be done properly. I suppose, though, his conscience wouldn’t let him be married in church before God.’
‘Everything will be quite legal.’
‘Underhand way of doing things, if you ask me.’
‘We wanted it to be a very quiet affair. Just the immediate family… and you, of course, Olwen.’
‘Very different from when he married my Miss Myfanwy,’ Olwen Price sighed. ‘A proper wedding that was. Old Rhys Carew put on one of the finest spreads ever seen in the Valleys! Barrels of beer for the workers and tables out in the streets laden with food for their families.’
‘I’m sure people loved it.’
‘They did, I can tell you. They talked of nothing else for weeks.’
‘Then they will be able to say that this is the quietest wedding they’ve ever known. That is if they trouble to mention it at all.’
‘Oh, they’ll mention it! Tongues are wagging nineteen to the dozen already.’
‘Yes? What are they saying?’
‘Most of them are wondering why a pretty young girl like you should want to marry a crabbed, middle-aged man.’
Knowing Olwen didn’t condone what was happening, Kate refused to discuss it.
In the days leading up to the wedding, the tension worsened. Kate sensed Olwen Price watching her every movement. She even suspected her of listening at doors.
Morgan Edwards, too, seemed to be nervous and edgy.
Often he stared at her in an inscrutable manner, sending a shiver of apprehension through her, reminding her that she knew next to nothing about him and that he might be even more demanding and perverted than Brynmor.
If only things could remain as they are now, she thought wistfully. Morgan had obviously taken Brynmor to task about what had happened and Brynmor hadn’t spoken a word to her since. He was seldom in the house and never joined them for dinner. She learned from Mathew that he was planning to go and live in Pontypool and she hoped it was true.
Several evenings when she had gone in to draw Mathew’s curtains she had seen Brynmor walking across the yard to the stables.
The nearer the day came for the wedding, the more distracted Morgan Edwards seemed to be. He was short-tempered with Mathew and barely civil to her. She wondered if he was having second thoughts about going through with the arrangement.
Her mind was set at rest on that score when she overheard Blodwyn Jenkins and Olwen Price talking and learned the real reason for his preoccupation.
‘My Dai says they’re bringing in the Redcoats from Brecon Barracks.’
‘Duw anwyl! No wonder the master is so distracted.’
‘With so much on his mind he should leave marriage for a while.’
‘In her condition it’s not possible!’
‘To my mind there’ll be a revolution before there’s a wedding,’ Olwen Price prophesied.
‘You could be right. Plenty of secret meetings at all the pubs, my Dai says.’
‘Blaenafon has always had more than its share of mountain fighters…’
‘But the discontent has spread.’
‘It’s these Chartists that are to blame.’
‘Brynmor told my young Twm that there are even men at his japanning works joining the agitators. Says it’s their duty even though the wages he pays them are more than fair.’
‘Jack Frost is the one stirring things up in Pontypool, you mark my words,’ Olwen opined.
‘My Dai says they’re coming from all over the place to hold secret meetings,’ agreed Blodwyn morosely. ‘Not just from Nantyglo and Brynmawr, but from Beaufort and Blaina.’
‘They’re coming from even farther afield than that!’ agreed Olwen.
‘Brandishing their benefit club banners like an army raising its colours, Dai says.’
‘All of Wales it seems is caught up in this Chartist movement. They are after more than just fair wages.’
‘Is that the reason why this wedding is such a hole-in-a-corner one, then?’ prompted Blodwyn slyly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought master might be afraid to put on a show in case he gets lynched by his workers.’
‘Your head’s as empty as your larder, Blodwyn Jenkins!’ Olwen told her angrily.
‘I don’t know so much. Look what happened over at Fforbrecon colliery…’
Kate’s heart raced at the mention of Fforbrecon. She strained to hear more of what the two women were saying but suddenly they lowered their voices. Seconds later she heard a man’s voice raised in anger and knew that Dai Jenkins had come into the kitchen looking for his wife and the gossiping was over.
She was worried and disturbed by all she had heard. In the few weeks she had been in Ebbw Vale she had seen for herself the awful conditions the people lived and worked under. As she drove through Blaina or Nantyglo in the trap with Mathew, ragged, barefooted children ran alongside them, their dark Celtic eyes mutely begging.
She was always glad to get clear of the towns, the sulphurous, odorous air was so stifling and the sound of hammers clanging, engines rumbling and snorting and the deafenin
g noise from the blast furnaces defied description.
As they drove past the furnaces, she was horrified by the sight of men, stripped to the waist, dripping with sweat in the unbearable heat, their bodies stained by splashes from the ore they were handling, and tainted by the smoke and fumes that hung like a pall over them.
Everywhere there were signs of deprivation. The squalid homes had faded, peeling paintwork. Broken windows were stuffed with rags to keep out the treacherous winds that crept round the mountains, whipping up dust from the coal mines and slag tips and forcing them into every nook and cranny. Even the tiny babies, wrapped in shawls, bundled so close to their mother or an older sister that the outline was of one grotesquely shaped body, had faces streaked with grime.
The whole place was a breeding ground for revolt.
It was ironic, but as the wife of one of the leading ironmasters of Nantyglo she would become one of the gentry. She’d be one of the tight-fisted owners who imposed such unbearable conditions on their workers, paying them in shillings while they reaped pounds, condemning them to live in filth and degradation while they had riches and comfort.
On which side of the fence did she really belong? she wondered. David, too, was gentry and one of the hated owners. Like her he believed everyone should have some schooling. Perhaps if things had been different they could have opened a school together, worked side by side to teach these poor children to read and write instead of being forced to work in such harrowing conditions.
Hearing Blodwyn Jenkins mention trouble at Fforbrecon colliery had revived her doubts about marrying Morgan Edwards. If only she had heard from Helen. There was so little time left now that the wedding date had been set. Everything was fixed. Unless she ran away there was no escaping her fate. Yet, if she married Morgan Edwards and afterwards David came looking for her, still wanting to marry her, what then?
Her mind darted like mayflies in spring. She couldn’t settle on one single thought for more than a second before another claimed her attention. She wondered what Blodwyn Jenkins had meant about trouble at Fforbrecon colliery. If the problems had been greater than David had expected it might account for there having been no news from him.
If the uprising was supported by Chartists then the men would hardly settle things at one meeting. It might take weeks, or even months, before agreement was reached.