Daughters of Rebecca

by Iris Gower

  Shanni glanced at Mrs Mainwaring, who was smiling encouragement. She meant well: she wanted Shanni to be a lady. She had explained that she was often lonely, with Mr Mainwaring and their son being away so much. And she had lost her daughter at birth so in some ways Shanni felt she was there to make Mrs Mainwaring happy, not the other way round.

  Mrs Mainwaring rose to her feet and walked elegantly across the room. ‘The lesson will take about an hour,’ she said, smiling, ‘and then we shall have some tea.’ She went out and closed the door behind her.

  Madame Isabelle took Shanni’s arm and led her to the piano that gleamed with beeswax polish and pressed her down on to the stool. ‘Now, let us see what you are made of. This is middle C. Play it for me.’

  Shanni did as she was told and the key responded to her touch. The sound pleased her and she smiled.

  ‘Now you run along the keys thus,’ Madame Isabelle demonstrated, ‘and so you complete an octave.’

  More to humour Madame Isabelle than because she really wished to learn Shanni made an attempt to understand what the teacher was telling her. But she was bored and her eyes strayed to the fine paintings on the walls, to the heavily draped curtains on the windows.

  The scent of beeswax polish reminded her of poor Flora, who rubbed at the furniture endlessly, eager to please. The girl was so grateful to be given a good position and have enough food to eat that she would have laid down her life for her mistress. And no-one should be made to feel like that.

  Shanni forced herself to concentrate on her lesson but her mind was becoming filled with a confusion of quavers and semi-quavers, and with major and minor keys.

  ‘It’s all so difficult,’ she said, rising from the stool.

  Madame Isabelle inclined her head. ‘It is now but after a few months it will become clear to you.’ She smiled. ‘You have a good ear and you will learn very well under my tuition.’ She sat on the stool and lifted her hands, her fingers gleaming with jewellery. Then, as she began to play, the music soared into the room, fine and stirring.

  Shanni felt her heartbeat quicken. ‘That’s so beautiful,’ she said, when Madame Isabelle at last lifted her hands from the keys.

  Madame Isabelle turned to face her. ‘What are you really interested in, Shanni?’ she asked quietly. ‘I can see you like to hear me play but your heart is not with music, is it?’

  Shanni frowned. Should she speak her mind? She looked into Madame Isabelle’s clear brown eyes and decided to tell her the truth.

  ‘I want to make the world a better place for the poor, especially for women,’ she said. ‘I want to put right injustice, to get rid of poverty.’ She was unaware that she was spreading her hands wide. ‘I want to educate women, to give every girl the chance of a better life.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve explained all this to Mrs Mainwaring but I’m not sure she understands.’

  ‘I’m sure she does, my dear,’ Madame Isabelle said. ‘Mrs Mainwaring is a remarkable lady. She took a failing pottery and made it the success it is today. Don’t underestimate her, Shanni. It would be a mistake.’

  Shanni supposed Madame Isabelle was right: Mrs Mainwaring was a very special person. She must be to have taken Shanni into her fine home.

  ‘I would like to see the downtrodden of the world seek their rightful place in society,’ Madame Isabelle said. ‘I believe it wrong that a husband owns his wife as though she was little more than a chattel. But, my dear, education is required to achieve such aims.’

  She stood up. She was a tall woman and towered above Shanni. ‘To start on that road you must learn your lessons well. You must learn oratory and for that your voice must be improved. You will lose the cadences of your forebears, you will speak like the gentry and then, only then, will you be listened to. Do you understand?’

  Shanni did. Her coarse speech had become apparent once she was settled in her new home. Listening to Mrs Mainwaring’s cultured, gentle voice had emphasized that Shanni sounded rough and uneducated.

  ‘I will bring you some books to read, my dear,’ Madame Isabelle said, ‘but by some they would be considered subversive, so you must make this our little secret.’

  Shanni nodded and Madame Isabelle smiled in approval. ‘And in the meantime you will practise the scales just as I have shown you.’

  ‘I will,’ Shanni said, delighted at the prospect of learning more than the intricacies of music. ‘I will try my best to master them by the time you come again.’

  ‘Ring for the maid to bring in my hat and gloves, there’s a good girl.’ Madame Isabelle was once more in charge. ‘I will forgo tea as I have another appointment.’

  Shanni obeyed, storing away in her mind the fact that the music teacher was not the martinet she had first thought her but an intelligent, educated woman who seemed determined to show Shanni a better way of life.

  Together, Mrs Mainwaring and Shanni watched from the window as Madame Isabelle rode away in her coach. ‘Well, what do you think of her?’ Mrs Mainwaring asked. ‘Is Madame Isabelle as strict as she appears to be?’

  Shanni shook her head. ‘She is a very interesting lady,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I will learn a great deal from her.’

  It was on the following day that Shanni first met Lloyd Mainwaring. He had come home on holiday from his college and Shanni watched from the window as he climbed out of the coach and stepped outside on to the dried earth of the forecourt.

  He was a handsome boy, whose hair clustered around his face in tight curls. He was tall, his limbs slender like those of a newborn colt. He looked every inch a gentleman in his fine suit of clothes yet he did not stand aside as the coachman lifted down his luggage but pitched in to help him.

  He looked up suddenly and his eyes held fire as he saw her framed in the window. He smiled and Shanni smiled back at him, knowing instinctively that in Lloyd Mainwaring she had found a friend.

  ‘He needs feeding up.’ Llinos sat beside Joe in the garden and stared at her son as he walked through the lawns with young Shanni at his side. The girl’s head was bent and her shoulders turned away from the boy in an attitude of shyness. Llinos laughed. ‘I do believe that Shanni is falling for our son, Joe.’

  ‘No, I think this is simply her first real friendship. She likes Lloyd and he likes her, but love? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Llinos mused. ‘It’s good for her to learn to mix with all sorts of folk and, in any case, she will probably fall in love several times before she becomes mature.’

  Joe took his pipe from between his teeth, his eyes thoughtful. ‘I think she will fall in love only once,’ he said, ‘and her love has not yet entered her life.’

  ‘I only fell in love once,’ Llinos said, ‘and I have stayed in love with the same man all my life.’ There was a break in her voice.

  ‘Llinos, I have always loved you. Why do you keep on reproaching me with what is past?’

  ‘Because it still hurts,’ Llinos said honestly. ‘And in any case, it’s not past, is it? You write to her often enough and sometimes you make the trip to America to visit her.’ She bit her lip, forcing down her anger, but when she spoke again her voice trembled. ‘I hate to think of you lying in the arms of that woman, of fathering a child with her. How can you expect me to forget all that, Joe? You are asking the impossible.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘It was something I could not control,’ he said heavily. ‘I felt I was doing the right thing by my mother and by her people. My son will grow up as a leader in the Americas. He will restore stability to the Mandan peoples.’

  ‘Your son is there, before your eyes,’ Llinos said flatly. ‘The other one is a by-blow, an illegitimate child with no name.’

  Joe was silent, retreating into himself as he did whenever anything displeased him. He did not seem to feel shame that he had betrayed his wife, that he had left her for an Indian squaw. Joe was a man who had different values from the other men, she knew. Eynon would never have acted in that way.

  But then, in thinking
of her friend Eynon, she realized that Joe was not so different, after all. Eynon Morton-Edwards had tasted many women. He claimed he would have been faithful if he could have married Llinos but did she believe him? Could she believe any man capable of faithfulness? She sometimes doubted it.

  ‘Don’t think about unpleasant things now, Llinos.’ His voice was forced. ‘The sun is shining, the sky is filled with light, and bitterness is always destructive to the one who feels it. Forgiveness heals.’

  ‘That’s easy to say.’ Llinos looked down at her hands. ‘To ask someone to forgive such a betrayal is asking a great deal. Why shouldn’t I feel bitter sometimes? Isn’t it natural?’

  She waited for Joe to speak again but he was silent for a long time. That was his retreat, his silence. When she cornered him, when she forced him to confront her feelings, he went into his own little world.

  She looked at the figures of Shanni and Lloyd close together, talking animatedly, and felt a sliver of comfort. She was making a difference to the world if only in the rescue of Shanni from poverty and shame. The girl was becoming more confident, her eyes were not so haunted these days, and the company of another youngster of her own age was sure to do her good.

  ‘Perhaps it would be wise to discourage Lloyd from seeing too much of Shanni,’ Joe said.

  ‘Why?’ Llinos said. She grimaced: Joe had deftly diverted the course of the conversation. But she was surprised at his words. Joe had never been bigoted: a foreigner in Swansea, he had often been the subject of prejudice himself. ‘It’s not like you to be a snob, Joe.’

  ‘I’m not a snob, Llinos, but the young are hot-headed, and I do feel there is something of the rebel about Shanni Price. She has need to right the wrongs of the poor. I’m sure she will make her mark on the world one day.’

  ‘Oh, is that all? I thought you were saying she’s not good enough for your son.’

  ‘He could do far worse.’ Joe took her hand and smiled. ‘I have heard that the local maids have a strange courting ritual, don’t they?’

  ‘You mean bundling?’ Llinos asked. ‘Well, I don’t believe Shanni would be happy with that sort of behaviour. She’s a respectable girl. In any case, the practice of courting by sharing a bed at night is not widespread. It’s just that rich folk like to find a way to blame the poor for what they are.’ Llinos’s voice was clipped. ‘Then we don’t have to feel guilty about our luxuries.’

  ‘Oh, I see, you’re still a bit of a rebel yourself, aren’t you?’ Joe’s voice was teasing. ‘My Llinos, my firebird.’

  It was a long time since her husband had called Llinos by her pet name. Once it had been an indication of his love and admiration but that was a long time ago. She took a deep breath. ‘Look, Joe, if more young girls were educated they would realize that to allow a boy liberties is to give away something precious.’

  ‘Are you saying it doesn’t happen?’ Joe asked, and Llinos read him well. It suited him to discuss the morals of others and so distract her from his own failings.

  ‘I’m not saying that at all.’ Llinos decided to play along: she was weary of going over the same ground with him. She had lost count of the times she had begged him to give up contact with his mistress and all to no avail. ‘The practice suits young men, of course it does. They can sow their wild oats with the benefit of parental approval.’

  ‘Poor Shanni,’ Joe said. ‘Her mother didn’t set her much of an example, did she? I’m surprised the girl is still pure.’

  ‘I think you do Shanni and her mother an injustice,’ Llinos said sharply. ‘Mrs Price thought the man loved her. She allowed him to father a child on her and for that she was made the scapegoat. And, in any case, I think your own views on morality are more than a little suspect.’

  Joe was staring into the sky. ‘Will you never let the past lie, Llinos?’

  ‘How can I when you are incapable of forgetting it yourself?’

  A butterfly landed on a branch of the lilac tree and Llinos watched it, focusing her attention on the beautiful things in her life. ‘I’ll make life good for Shanni.’ She spoke as if it was a vow. ‘I’ll try to teach her about life, about feelings and about pride.’

  ‘She seems very adaptable,’ Joe said. ‘I think she will learn her lessons well.’ He turned to look at Llinos. ‘You are very good to take her into our home and treat her like a daughter. Perhaps she makes up a little for the daughter we lost.’

  Llinos was suddenly angry. ‘Don’t be absurd!’ She rose and stared down at him. How dare he hurt her like that? She left Joe sitting in the garden his head in his hands.

  Once inside, she hurried upstairs, feeling tears burn against her eyelids. She wanted to cry for the daughter she and Joe had lost; for the trust she had lost when he left her to live with an Indian squaw. She wanted to shed tears for the sweetness of first love when Joe had been her hero and life was a wonderful thing.

  ‘So you are to be a radical, are you?’ Lloyd said, and his hand brushed hers.

  Shanni moved slightly away from him. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘But you think people of that sort are right to burn down barns and pull down toll-gates, do you?’

  ‘If that is the only way to achieve justice, yes, I do.’ Shanni felt uncomfortable. Lloyd was so well educated, so nicely spoken that he made her feel rough and ignorant.

  ‘Well, in the end they will destroy their own livelihood,’ Lloyd said. ‘Folk should work with their masters not against them.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to say that.’ Shanni forgot her shyness. ‘You were born to privilege, born to eat good food, to read books and wear clean clothes.’

  ‘And you were born to poverty,’ Lloyd said. ‘Were conditions really as bad as you describe?’

  Shanni looked up at him. ‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘Shall we dress up as street urchins? Then you can see at first hand what poverty really looks like. That’s a challenge. You can’t refuse me or I’ll think you a coward.’

  She saw Lloyd smile. ‘I don’t think I’d have the courage to refuse you anything, Shanni Price.’

  She glanced at him covertly, wondering if he was teasing her. ‘Will you come with me, though?’

  ‘Yes, but for heaven’s sake don’t let Mother know.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Why tonight?’

  ‘One of the maids told me the Ceffyl Pren is riding tonight.’

  ‘What on earth is that?’

  ‘Duw! For a Welshman you are very ignorant, Lloyd Mainwaring!’ she chided. ‘I suppose your English schooling has taken away all your pride in your country. Anyway, the wooden horse is a custom the poor have. It’s used when the assizes and judges can’t be bothered to punish the wrongdoers – and sometimes as a means of revenge.’

  The bell rang out across the garden and Lloyd relaxed and smiled. ‘Tea is being served. Come on, we’d better go indoors and wash our hands like good children.’

  Later, under the cover of darkness, Shanni met Lloyd near the back gate of the house. She smiled at his too-short trews and the ragged shirt that hung on his thin shoulders flapping like the wings of a bird.

  ‘This all right?’ he asked, with a grin that lit up his eyes and illuminated his face.

  ‘Wait.’ Shanni bent, grasped some soil between her fingers and rubbed it into his face. ‘There! That’s more like the street urchins I know.’

  ‘You look pretty awful yourself.’ He took her hand and together they left the house.

  Once in Pottery Row, the narrow street leading towards the town, Shanni breathed more easily. ‘Your mother wouldn’t thank me for this, you know.’ She looked up at Lloyd. His head was high, his eyes shining. Clearly, he was enjoying himself.

  ‘Mother will never know, will she?’ He winked at her, and Shanni felt warm, as if she had found a real friend. But she began to doubt the wisdom of bringing Lloyd to town during a march of the Ceffyl Pren. Much as Mrs Mainwaring liked her, she would not approve of Shanni taking Lloyd into the slum streets of Swans
ea.

  The town was alive with people. The doors of public bars stood open, candlelight gleaming on to the roadways. The sounds of laughter and drifts of smoke from fires and pipes gave the evening an atmosphere of jollity.

  ‘I’ve never seen the town like this before,’ Lloyd said.

  Shanni drew her hand away from his. ‘Be quiet!’ she said warningly. ‘Or your voice will give you away.’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ he whispered, and Shanni felt a sudden urge to giggle. She must be mad to bring him here, yet Lloyd had no such qualms. He evidently thought this a huge adventure, something of a joke.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lloyd whispered in her ear.

  Shanni pushed him away. ‘All in good time, boy!’ she said. She drew him into a small court, near where she had lived with her mother. ‘It’s one of my old neighbours, Dan Spencer, a married man.’ She felt the bile rise in her throat. ‘He was the one who dishonoured my mother, gave her a baby then blamed everything on her.’

  She felt Lloyd look at her. ‘And now he is to be punished also?’

  ‘Not for what he did to my mother.’ She heard the bitterness in her voice and caught her breath. ‘He has seduced a young girl, ruined her.’ She looked up and met Lloyd’s gaze. ‘The daughter of the woman who led the mob to my mother’s house.’

  ‘Divine retribution, wouldn’t you say?’ Lloyd took her hand again. ‘You’ve had a damn’ awful time of it. I’m sorry, Shanni.’

  ‘Hush, they’re coming for him.’

  The cacophony of sound echoed through the mean courts leading to Potato Street. The beat of a drum, then the clash of sticks against tin buckets rang through the alleyways. Shanni drew Lloyd into the shadows, crouching against the doorway of the saddler’s shop.

  The sound came closer, the jangle of tin against tin, the crack of wood against wood. The voices raised in anger sounded almost inhuman in the clear air. Shanni held her breath as the Ceffyl Pren, followed by the procession of men and women, came around the bend.