Sea Mistress

by Iris Gower

  ‘Good.’ She poured the boy’s tea and watched as he took up his grub pack. The bread and cheese was wrapped in muslin to keep it fresh and Boyo undid the cloth and bit, with a delicacy rarely seen in a young boy, into the yellow cheese.

  Ellie wished sometimes that the men ate in the kitchen. It would be good to listen to the interchanges of banter between them. Harry had a fine, dry sense of humour; he often poked gentle fun at Matthew, teasing him for his pride at being a bard. Matthew took it mostly in good part but sometimes, his colour would ebb, his fists would clench themselves into white-knuckled weapons and then Harry would smile.

  ‘Come on now Mat, only teasing, I am, mun. Wish I had your way with words not to mention with the women.’

  Ellie had come to realize that Matthew was unable to resist flattery, he was a vain man but there was about him a warning that he could also be a dangerous one.

  Jubilee came into the kitchen, his bowler awry, his pipe jutting from under his moustache.

  ‘There’s such talk in Swansea.’ He sat, scraping back a chair, mindless of the polished slates of the floor and sinking down into it gratefully. ‘Seems this new Bible-puncher is come to town, setting the place on its ears he is, with his talk of the wonders of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.’

  Ellie smiled indulgently, it was a rare occurrence when her husband didn’t come back home from town with a new piece of gossip.

  ‘What’s he like?’ she asked, pushing the kettle onto the flames of the fire. ‘A Methuselah like you, is he?’

  ‘Don’t be rude, girl.’ Jubilee was not offended by her reference to his old age, rather he revelled in her affectionate insolence; it was a sign that she was a woman of spirit. ‘Young as a sapling, he is, handsome and with a way with the ladies that would take your breath away.’ Jubilee glanced at Matthew who had paused in the doorway, half inclined to beat the other men to the currying house and get the best place to sit and yet fascinated in spite of himself.

  ‘Is it that Evan Roberts you’re talking about?’ he asked, his tone derogatory. ‘Preaching like a maniac, telling us all to get saved, trying to run the lives of Christian people he is, mind. Why doesn’t he go and convert the heathens, not tell respectable folk how to live?’

  Jubilee barely glanced at him. ‘Come from a place near Loughor, so it seems, got the hwyl all right, folks are going to the chapels in droves just to hear the word from him.’ He looked directly at Ellie, ‘Do you want to go and see him, merchi?’

  Ellie considered her husband’s words. Jubilee must be interested in hearing this new preacher for usually he favoured the Church of England’s pomp and dignity. ‘Where’s he preaching next, then?’ She sat down at the table and pushed a mug towards Jubilee. Her back ached and she wanted to kick off her boots but there were still some hours of work to do yet. The prospect of a day off was appealing.

  ‘I hear he’s going up to Tabernacle in Morriston, I could drive us there in the cart, be a good break for you, Ellie, looking a bit peaked you’ve been lately.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s with child.’ Matthew’s voice was overtly innocent and Jubilee looked at him sharply.

  ‘Darro haven’t you got work to do? Perhaps there’s not enough jobs here to warrant the employment of three men and a boy, perhaps I’d best get rid of a full-time worker and employ another casual labourer.’

  Ellie wanted to reach out and cover Jubilee’s hand with her own; he was stung, his manhood imputed by Matthew’s jibe. She glared at the man in the doorway and he had the grace to look abashed.

  Boyo stood beside Ellie, he was puzzled by the charged atmosphere and a little dismayed, not understanding it. How could he know that Jubilee Hopkins was a man who could not father a child? An illness, the swelling of the glands in his neck when he was a young man had done the damage, at least that’s what the doctor had told Jubilee.

  ‘Get out of here, leave me and my wife to eat in peace.’ Jubilee rarely lost his good humour but now, his mouth was drawn down, his eyebrows met across his brow and he suddenly looked like the old man he was.

  When they were alone, Ellie smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t notice the men, especially Matthew, he’s all talk that one.’

  She stared into Jubilee’s eyes and saw a tear there. ‘Love, don’t be unhappy, we’ve got a good marriage, haven’t we?’

  ‘But I wanted sons,’ he said flatly. Of course, it was the reason he had married her, taken her off the hands of her shamed family, made her respectable. He’d wanted the twins she was carrying.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was scarcely audible and he shook off his bad mood as though it was an unwanted garment. ‘No, it’s me that’s sorry, behaving like a big kid, I am. You suffered more than me when you lost the babbas and I should be the first one to recognize that. Wasn’t I there holding your hand, poor little girl?’

  A pain filled Ellie’s body and filtered into her mind. Her children, her sons. Born too soon as was the way of twins, they died without having lived. Jubilee saw her stricken look and rose, taking her into his arms, holding her against his barrel chest. ‘Damn Matthew Hewson,’ he said.

  She was comforted by his nearness, Jubilee was a good man and she loved him. It might not be the love of a wife for a husband but it was a strong love nevertheless. And Ellie was grateful to him, Jubilee had given her a life of respectability that she had no right to expect, only now and then when someone like Matthew stirred the muddy waters did she remember her past.

  On an impulse, she made up her mind. ‘We’ll go and hear this wonderful new preacher man,’ she said. ‘I think we both need a day off from work, Jubilee my love.’

  ‘Right then,’ he moved to the door, ‘It’s settled. But for now I suppose I’d better make sure the skins are getting worked properly, can’t trust young ones to be as fussy as us old ones are. Good leather needs proper treatment from the grinding of the oak bark down to the last soaking in the pits. Three long years it takes to make fine leather that will last the course and I don’t want any of my workmen ruining my reputation.’

  Alone in the kitchen, Ellie washed out the teapot at the huge white slab of a sink and stared through the window to the fields beyond. The Hopkins tannery was separated from the house by a few acres of scrub land; it needed to be because the stink of it was worse than anything produced by the plethora of works along the banks of the Swansea river.

  Ellie remembered her shock when she had first come here as a bride, a bride with a large belly, she thought ruefully. She had never been used to hardship. She had been the pampered daughter of a respectable, if not too thrifty, merchant.

  She had fallen in love, had become even more pampered as the mistress of Lord Calvin Temple. He’d given her everything she wanted, money, clothes, an apartment of her own. But what he wouldn’t give her was marriage.

  Ah, well, it had taken Jubilee to give her that and she owed him everything. Her face softened for a moment, dear Jubilee, he’d been kinder to her than her own father in the end.

  She left the cottage and hitched up her skirts as she walked, tucking the hem into her belt. She had enough trouble washing the stink of skins from the clothes on a Monday without dragging her skirts in the dust.

  In the mill, Boyo was thrusting a slice of wood into the grinder, he glanced at her shyly, his dark eyes sliding away from her exposed ankles. ‘Master sent me in by here to help you, missus,’ he explained, ‘thought you was looking a bit tired, like.’

  ‘Thanks, Boyo. Perhaps you’ll take that basket of oak bark out to the pits for me then.’

  She sighed as she watched him drag the basket towards the door, struggle to lift it and then stagger out into the sunlight with it. Everything was the same, every day was like another, hard days and long nights spent lying beside Jubilee like father and daughter not husband and wife. Was this what she really wanted from life? Was there nothing more to look forward to?

  Shame filled her, she should not be moaning about her lot, she should be going down on her knees an
d thanking Jubilee Hopkins for all he’d done for her. The knowledge was there inside her head, why then did her soul and spirit cry for something more?

  The church was packed to the door, there were men standing in the aisle of Tabernacle, the fine building built on the main road in Morriston.

  ‘Man must be good.’ Jubilee looked unfamiliar in his best suit and his white shirt with its pristine starched collar. His white hair had been brushed back as a token of respect for the occasion and his moustache was neatly trimmed. He was a fine man, must have been a very handsome man in his prime. It was a great pity that he was not sitting there with a brood of children and grandchildren around him, Ellie thought soberly.

  Ellie remembered her wedding, perhaps it was the heady aura of expectation in the church that brought it to mind. The ceremony had been quickly performed, the preacher had no time for a bride who revealed her sin for all to see. The breakfast had been a simple one, with no guests present, just Jubilee and his new wife eating ham and cold chicken at their own fireside.

  The night had been a strange one, Jubilee had held Ellie in his big arms, had rocked gently, calming her trembling. ‘I won’t touch thee, girl,’ his voice was reassuring, ‘got no seed to give you, no passion either.’

  She was relieved and immediately felt ashamed. ‘What are you getting out of all this, Jubilee?’

  Her question had remained unanswered for a long time. At last, he’d spoken. ‘I heard all the talk about you, merchi, carrying twins they say. I want them babbas you got in there.’ He rested his hand on her stomach, ‘I need sons, see, can’t get ’em myself so I’m content to take another man’s offspring as my own. Give me boys and you’ll have repaid me a thousand times.’

  The organ burst quite suddenly into life and Ellie blinked, trying to reorganize her thoughts. She had come to love Jubilee. She never had, and never could, repay Jubilee for all his generosity.

  Evan Roberts was in the pulpit, he was a man of the people, decently but not richly dressed. When he spoke, his words were plain; he was not a gifted orator yet Ellie, watching him, was fascinated, and in spite of herself, moved by the message he was proclaiming so forcefully. She glanced up at her husband as he took out a large handkerchief.

  ‘Duw, he’s bringing tears to my old eyes.’ Jubilee’s whisper carried around the church. ‘A man of God I’m not but I can’t help but be impressed by all this “come to Christ” business.’

  Ellie smiled up at him. ‘I know,’ she mouthed the words, Jubilee’s hearing was not what it used to be. ‘So am I.’

  Behind them, a man rose to his feet and waved his arms above his head. ‘Forgive me, God, I have sinned.’

  He moved towards the pulpit and sank to his knees. He had begun a reaction that seemed to spread through the congregation. ‘Praise the Lord!’ The words passed from mouth to mouth and Ellie saw one young girl fall into a swoon on the floor. Willing hands rushed to help her and she was lifted and carried towards the preacher.

  ‘Let’s go, I can’t abide theatricals.’ Jubilee took Ellie’s arm and led her outside. She understood exactly how he felt, the emotion within the church had been overpowering, even a little frightening.

  ‘He’s a good man, though, Jubilee, a sincere man, you’ve got to admit that.’

  ‘I’m not saying that I didn’t listen to what the man was preaching. I suppose he can’t help it if people start babbling and throwing themselves on their knees before him or that a silly woman chooses to swoon in the middle of the sermon but I like a bit of decorum myself, give me the Church of England any time.’

  Ellie smiled. ‘Old stick in the mud,’ she said and kissed him on the cheek.

  The words of the preacher stayed with Ellie over the next days. She had a great deal of time for thinking, working as she did in the mill. Mostly she was alone though sometimes Boyo helped her, bringing in the oak bark from the yard and thrusting the pieces into the blades of the mill. Boyo had a fancy for her, she knew it but it was perfectly harmless, the fancy of an unformed lad. He respected her, held her in high esteem and his manner was entirely devoid of the insulting familiarity with which Matthew treated her.

  As if drawn by her thoughts, Matthew came into the mill and stood near the door, his hands thrust into his pockets beneath his leather apron, his waistcoat jauntily unbuttoned.

  ‘You went to hear this new preacher man, then, what’s he like?’ He made even the most innocent words seem implicit with hidden meaning.

  ‘He’s very good.’ Ellie wished Matthew would go away, she was uneasy in his presence, fearing him, though she didn’t know why. What harm could he do when there was a yard full of men outside?

  ‘Hear he likes the women.’ Matthew’s smile beneath his moustache was thin. Ellie lifted her head and looked directly at him.

  ‘And if he does, is that a sin, then?’ She realized she was rising to the bait by the gleam that came into Matthew’s dark eyes. ‘It’s natural enough for a man to like women, doesn’t mean there’s any harm in it.’

  He came closer to her. ‘Well said. No harm at all. I like women very much indeed. Usually, they like me, too.’

  She felt threatened by his masculine aggressiveness, he towered over her, his shoulders broad, his eyes running over her as though his gaze could penetrate her clothing.

  ‘Married women, too?’ Her tone was sharp and immediately she had spoken, she regretted the words. As she’d expected, he misinterpreted them.

  ‘Especially married women.’ He was so close she could almost taste the smell of leather about him. He rested his hand on her shoulder. ‘In particular women married to senile, useless old men.’

  Her hand lashed out and caught his face with a resounding slap. The sound echoed around the wooden walls of the mill and Ellie felt alarmed at her action. She had lost her dignity, admitted to this man that his words had stung.

  ‘Go away.’ She moved around the mill putting the machinery between them. ‘Haven’t you any work to get on with?’

  He rocked back on his heels but there was no anger in his eyes, only amusement. ‘Right you are, missus.’ He touched his cap and looking at his clear-cut features and square chin Ellie wondered why she never found him attractive. Perhaps it was his coarseness, she wasn’t used to men of his sort.

  He swaggered from the mill and paused for a moment, held in the motes of sunlight beyond the door. All Ellie could see was his outline, the square bigness of his frame, the booted feet firmly planted on the ground as though he was master of all he surveyed. After a moment, he turned and left her.

  She returned to work, thinking of the turn her life had taken. She was to all intents and purposes leading the life of a nun. She was as cloistered as if she was hidden away in some crumbling abbey. She was wife in name only to an old man, in that Matthew was right, but she loved her husband in a way that even she found difficult to understand. And it must be enough for her.

  Passion she had shared with her lover, the young, hot-blooded passion of a girl believing herself in love with a sophisticated man. Calvin Temple had been a vigorous lover and perhaps he had loved her just a little too. But not enough.

  Ellie became aware that the sun was fading from outside the door. Her arms ached as she moved the basket of oak bark, full to overflowing now, away from the sloping chute of the grinding mill. The wood had an earthy smell that reminded her of winter fires when the logs blazed in the hearth of the home she shared with Jubilee, the home he had so generously given her.

  In return he’d received nothing, nothing except her undying gratitude and the determination to work her fingers to the bone if necessary.

  ‘Come on, missus, it’s time to knock off.’ Boyo was standing in the doorway, a pathetically slight figure looking much younger than his fifteen years. As he came further into the mill, she saw that his face was blotched with weariness, his eyes half-closed as though he could scarcely keep awake.

  ‘Aye, so it is.’ She dusted her hands on her skirts and put her arm around his
thin shoulders. ‘My back is in half, I suppose it’s about time I called it a day.’

  She watched as Boyo made his way towards the loft above the stable, where he slept at night, his small frame stretched across the old bed Jubilee had given him. Boyo had no family, no kin to care for him. Glyn Hir Tannery was where he worked, ate and slept; not much of a life for a boy scarcely grown from childhood.

  This was yet another example of Jubilee’s kindness; he had taken Boyo in, given him a home, a job and a fair wage. More he had given Boyo the benefit of his wisdom, urging him to put away his money for the future.

  In the kitchen of the rambling house, Jubilee was seated in his big rocking-chair near the fire. The logs lay dead and unlit, no warm flames reached out to warm the cool of the spring evening. This was unusual, Jubilee saw to it the fire was built up in good time for Ellie to make the evening meal.

  His eyes were closed, his skin appeared grey in the dark of the evening. He didn’t seem aware of her watching him and as she looked, she saw not Jubilee, her strong-willed husband, but an old man sitting there. Suddenly she was afraid.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I want to put an advertisement in The Swansea Times, please.’ Ellie smiled at the clerk behind the desk. He was handsome and very young and he was gazing at her in open admiration.

  ‘What ad is that, miss?’ He leaned over the counter and his eyes were sparkling. He must be a new addition to the staff of Arian Smale’s daily for quite obviously he didn’t recognize Ellie, didn’t know she was a married woman and in a way she found that strangely moving.

  She usually accompanied Jubilee when he came to The Times, today she was alone and so, to give her courage, she was wearing her best clothes. The much worn, outdated hat with its ostrich feathers and the heavy, winter coat and skirt had seen better days but the muted colours of peach and fawn suited her fair complexion.

  She pushed the piece of paper across to him; on it Jubilee had scrawled the usual bald phrases that offered to the wholesalers leather suitable for the making of harnesses, boots and shoes.