by Mary Balogh
The door latch lifted quietly and two dark figures tiptoed inside.
“Grandad?” Siân whispered. “You have come safely home?”
“Safe, fach, me and Emrys both,” he whispered back. “No danger at all. Just an old meeting it was.”
“Go to sleep, Siân,” her uncle Emrys said, not bothering to whisper. “Stayed awake worrying about us, did you? There is silly you are, girl. The morning shift comes early. To sleep with you now.”
“Good night,” she whispered.
She could not tell them about the very real danger there was. The danger that would surely break over their heads in the morning. Or over Owen’s anyway. She listened to their footsteps on the stairs as they tiptoed up to bed so as not to disturb Gran, and felt physically sick.
And then she remembered that he had kissed her. She could remember the blind terror she had felt at the largeness of his body—he was very tall and had appeared dauntingly strong and well muscled. He might well be a soldier. And the terror and fright she had felt when his mouth had covered hers. His lips had been parted. She had thought—she had fully expected—that he was going to rape her.
He would be able to identify her too. He had said so.
Siân pulled the blanket over her head and burrowed underneath it, her knees drawn up, as if by doing so she could hide from the menacing Englishman, half devil, half angel, who had stolen a kiss from her and had it in his power to have Owen thrown into jail. Perhaps even hanged for treason.
Dear Lord. Oh, dear Lord, she prayed fervently.
2
JOSIAH Barnes was a short, balding man with a large stomach that proclaimed he drank too much beer. He was an unmarried Englishman who lived in the stone lodge cottage inside the gates of Glanrhyd Park. He kept very much to himself, associating with the owners of the other ironworks and mines at the heads of the valleys on terms of a type of junior partnership. They respected him as an excellent agent who in a dozen years had made Cwmbran as efficient and prosperous as any of their own works.
Alex was a little in awe of his knowledge. He felt his own terrible ignorance of both business and industry during his first full day at Cwmbran, when Barnes showed him around the ironworks. It all looked bewilderingly strange to the eyes of an English aristocrat, who had spent almost all of his twenty-nine years on a large country estate or in London. He was listening carefully to what Barnes said, trying to absorb at least some of what he was saying.
Alex was unable to converse with any of the workers, though he nodded affably to them. They spoke to each other in Welsh—though of course he knew for a fact that they understood English.
Alex found himself distracted somewhat from what his agent was telling him by his curiosity about the workers. He looked keenly at each of them, trying to recognize faces. It was hopeless, of course. He was almost convinced, though, that one of the puddlers—they were the most highly skilled and prized of the ironworkers, according to Barnes—was last night’s chairman. The man was bared to the waist now, his upper body and arms glistening with sweat. He looked rather like a prize-fighter. But Alex was not sure he would be able to swear in a court of law that he had been the man.
Look as he would, he could not see his maiden of Cwmbran among the women workers. He would certainly have recognized her. He would have enjoyed seeing her too—and he would have enjoyed watching her reaction to seeing him.
“That was all extremely interesting,” he said to his agent at the end of the afternoon. It was a rather lame remark, he realized, and one that might well invite contempt from the man who had made his works so prosperous. “The coal mine tomorrow, then? I shall want to know too about the human factor—numbers employed, hours worked, wage levels, extra benefits, and anything else there is to know.”
“I shall have the books in your office by tomorrow morning, my lord,” Barnes said.
“And about workers’ organizations,” Alex said carefully. “Are there any?”
“Some Friendly Societies,” his agent said. “Some workers pay into them and then have benefits in times of sickness or such. But no unions if that is what you mean, my lord. Any known members of unions are immediately dismissed. All the other works do likewise. Unions are disruptive. The running of the works is best left in the hands of men who understand all that is involved. We do not need to be told what to do by ignorant workers and held to ransom by united action.”
It was as Alex had thought, then. “Is there any interest in Chartism in this part of the world?” he asked. “It is quite strong in the industrial cities of the Midlands and the North, I have heard.”
“They are prowling around here,” Barnes said, “trying to work the men up into a fever against the government and against law and order. The men know that anyone who attends their meetings will be sacked instantly. We don’t need that nonsense here, my lord.”
Alex dismissed him for the day and hurried homeward so that he could take tea with his daughter. He hated to leave her alone all day in a strange place, with only an elderly nurse for company. Poor Verity. He should have forced himself to remarry long ago. He should have married Lorraine soon after their betrothal instead of hesitating and procrastinating until she suggested breaking it off.
So mass meetings were strictly forbidden—or any united action that might spell trouble to those in authority. The men of Cwmbran had risked a great deal in gathering on the mountain last night. And they had somehow kept it a secret from Barnes. There must be a great deal of trust and self-discipline among them—and no informers.
He did not know why he had not told Barnes about last night’s Chartist meeting. He was rather amused by the thought that if Barnes’s rule was to be enforced there would be almost no one to run the works or hew the coal from the mine today. And yet he ought not to be feeling amusement. Those men had definitely been doing what they knew was strictly forbidden at Cwmbran, or anywhere in the Welsh valleys. And the Welsh leader—one of his puddlers if he was not very much mistaken—had actually told the men that unanimity was essential, that those who did not sign or join the Chartist organization would be asked why today.
Alex wondered how exactly the men were to be asked. Politely and verbally? Or in some other way?
And yet he had said nothing to Barnes. Perhaps it was that he was new to Cwmbran, he thought, and had no desire to stir up trouble yet. Not until he had got his bearings and knew what was what, anyway. Or perhaps it was that he was sympathetic to the aims of Chartism. The six demands of the Charter seemed quite reasonable to him. They should at least be negotiable. And there was nothing seditious about presenting a petition to Parliament. There was nothing in it to make all law-abiding men fear a repetition in England of the revolution that had destroyed France just fifty years before.
Whatever the reason, he was keeping mute about something that might well lead to trouble.
He took the stairs up to the nursery two at a time when he was inside the house, pushed open the door, and swept up his shrieking daughter into his arms to twirl her about.
“How is my favorite girl?” he asked her. “Have you missed Papa?”
* * *
Siân was drying dishes after the evening meal although her grandmother had protested. Siân had been working a long shift underground all day and was weary from the backbreaking task of dragging coal carts from the seams where the miners cut the coal to the shaft, up which it would be hauled. All day she wore a harness around her waist so that she could more easily drag the load. Sometimes, in the lower tunnels, she had to go down on all fours. The darkness and the heat and dust did not help.
But she was drying dishes anyway. Her grandmother had not exactly been idle all day long. The house was clean and tidy, as it always was, the dirty work clothes from the day before had all been washed and dried and folded and put away—washed with water that had had to be hauled a pail at a time from a distant pump and heated over the kitche
n fire. And warm bathwater had been waiting for her when she came home—and had been waiting for Grandad and Emrys when they came home before her from the iron furnaces. And of course Gran had cooked the meal for them.
Perhaps, Siân thought, she would have been more tempted to sit down to rest her feet, as Gran urged, if she did not feel it necessary to occupy her hands. They were talking about the Marquess of Craille, absentee owner of Cwmbran, who had come on an unexpected visit of inspection. He had spent much of the day at the ironworks.
“A proper Englishman,” Emrys said, seated at one side of the dying fire, his legs stretched out, almost touching those of his father, who was seated at the other side. “Wasn’t he, Dada? You should have seen him, Mam. Strutting about the works like a prize turkey, nodding about at all of us just as if he was really interested in us instead of just in the money he makes off our sweat. I almost spit at his back, but Barnes was watching like a hawk.”
Does he have blond hair? Siân wanted to ask. But she just rubbed hard at a plate that was already dry. She would bet a week’s wages that he was blond. And tall. The man who had been up on the mountain. The man who had kissed her.
“Now, now, Emrys,” Gwynneth Rhys said to her son. “We have not heard any bad of him have we, now? And the fact that he is English is not his fault, poor man. We will have a little respect for your employer in this house, if you please.”
“We do not know any bad of him?” Emrys looked at his mother incredulously. “When he and his uncle before him have been bleeding us dry all our lives, Mam, and hiding behind the coattails of Barnes? When we work like dogs just to feed ourselves and keep a roof over our heads and are threatened with the sack if we try to get together to improve our lot? I’ll give him bloody marquess and English airs.”
“Emrys!” His father’s frown was thunderous. “You will apologize to Mam and to Siân for using such language in this house. You may be thirty-five years old, but I am not too old and feeble to take you out the back and blacken both your eyes.”
“Sorry, Mam, Siân,” Emrys said sheepishly.
“Perhaps he is not a bad man,” Hywel Rhys said. “Perhaps there will be some changes around here once he has seen for himself and assessed the situation.”
Emrys snorted. “There is stupid you are sometimes, Dada,” he said. “Nothing will ever change. We exist to make the rich richer, more is the pity. That is why the Charter is our only hope.”
“I think,” Gwynneth said, squeezing out the cloth over the bowl of water as if to wring every last drop out of it, “Dada had better blacken those eyes for you after all, Emrys. There is disrespectful you are, calling your own father stupid.”
“It is what comes of stopping going to chapel,” Hywel said. “Emrys has become godless.”
Emrys had given up on God, Siân thought sadly, when his wife and infant son had died in a cholera outbreak ten years ago—and two years before Siân came to Cwmbran to live. Apparently he had taken exception to the Reverend Llewellyn’s preaching at the funeral that such was the will of God and that the bereaved husband must give praise that the two of them were in heaven where they were needed more.
Emrys had stood up in chapel in front of most of the people of Cwmbran and sworn profanely before pushing his way out of the front pew and past the coffins of his wife and son out of the chapel, never to return.
There were those in Cwmbran who still looked at him as if they expected to see horns sprouting from his head.
“I get tired of listening to fools,” Emrys said now. “Though the Reverend Llewellyn did go up the mountain last night, to give him his due. And prayed long enough that I expected to see dawn in the sky before he had finished.”
His mother clucked her tongue but said nothing.
They were going to talk about the meeting, Siân thought. And blank terror gripped her again. She could not understand why the whole day had gone by and nothing had happened. But something surely would happen. It was the Marquess of Craille himself who had witnessed the meeting and who had had a good look at least at Owen and at the Reverend Llewellyn. And he would recognize her. He would perhaps think himself able to squeeze more names out of her.
Perhaps he was waiting for some special constables to arrive, she thought. Or a company of soldiers. Perhaps the arrests would not be made until tomorrow. Or perhaps they would come tonight. She was sorry suddenly that she was on her feet. There was a buzzing in her head.
“Four hundred and fifty-seven signatures,” Emrys was saying. “It was a good night. Of course there were at least five hundred there. Some men came up from the other valleys, Mam.”
“I do not want to hear it,” Gwynneth said, tight-lipped. “I do not want to have to visit my men in jail. And I won’t do it, either. There is shameful it would be for chapel people, Hywel.”
“Silly, Mam,” Emrys said, getting to his feet to set an arm about her shoulders. She shrugged them but did not push him away. “How can they put us all in jail? There would be no one left to work. And no one to guard us.” He grinned at Siân and winked.
“They will put who they can in jail,” his mother said. “Beginning with those with the biggest mouths, Emrys Rhys.”
He chuckled and kissed her cheek. “No one knew about the meeting except those who were meant to, Mam,” he said. “You are very quiet, Siân.”
She folded the towel deliberately and hung it up to dry. “I am afraid too,” she said. But she could not say more. How could she warn them that the meeting had been watched last night—by someone who was not meant to. Doing so would be to reveal that she too had watched it. Besides, what was the use of a warning? It was too late. “I am afraid for Owen.”
“Owen can look after himself, fach,” Emrys said. “You don’t have to be afraid for him.”
“I walked home from work with Iestyn,” she said. “He signed the Charter but would not join the Association, he told me. He believes in the six points but is not willing to organize to enforce them. But he told me that those who will not join are going to have pressure put on them. Is that right?”
“Iestyn Jones should have been a girl,” Emrys said scornfully. “How old is he, Siân? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
“Seventeen,” she said. “He works as hard as everyone else, Emrys. The fact that he is sweet-natured and that he would love nothing more than to study and be a preacher does not make him into a—girl, as you put it.”
“You are partial,” he said, “because he is Gwyn’s brother, Siân. Your brother-in-law. But he is too cowardly to pay his penny and stand up for what he believes in.”
“That is not being a coward,” she said indignantly. “Perhaps it is the opposite, Uncle Emrys. It would be a lot easier for him to do what almost everyone else is doing. Including Huw, his own brother. But Iestyn believes in law and order.”
“Well,” he said, “it is only by acting together that we are going to get anywhere in this life. Perhaps he will be persuaded to see things differently, fach.”
“Persuaded?” She looked at him warily and remembered what Owen had said the night before.
“Enough,” Gwynneth said firmly. “You may throw the dishwater out the back if you will, Hywel. Enough talk of Charters, is it? There are better things to talk about in one’s own home when work is done and evening is here. We can be thankful for home and family and nice summer weather.”
“Yes, Mam,” Emrys said affectionately. “Sit down and take the weight off your feet, Siân. I do hate to think of you down in that mine every day, girl, doing the hardest job there is. I could still plant a fist in Barnes’s nose for sending you there.”
“He gave me a job at least,” she said, sinking gratefully into the chair he had recently vacated. “That was more than I could get at Penybont.”
“He gave you a job all right,” Emrys said. “He did it to humiliate you, Siân.”
“Well,” she said quietly
, “he will not succeed in doing that. Many other women do the same job. There is no reason why I should not be one of them. I am not afraid of hard work.”
“You should not be working at all,” her grandfather said gruffly. “I take it as a shame that any woman of my family is forced to work outside the home. Especially in the mine. Emrys and I earn enough to keep your gran and you in the house.”
“But, Grandad—” she began.
“But Siân has her pride,” Emrys said, cutting her off. “When she came to live with us after my sister died, she was too proud to make it seem that she was asking for charity. And again after Gwyn died.”
“Oh, there is wicked,” Gwynneth said indignantly as she sat at the kitchen table, a pile of darning on the table before her. “As if our own granddaughter would be accepting charity by coming to live with her own gran and grandad. Don’t talk nonsense, Emrys.”
And yet it would have seemed like charity, Siân thought, looking into the last embers of the fire and setting her head back against the chair. Emrys understood that. She had grown up alone with her mother, who had been driven out first from the chapel and then from the community of Cwmbran when her womb had begun to swell. She had been housed close to Penybont farther up the valley by the man who had disgraced her—Sir John Fowler, owner of the Penybont works. Siân had never been invited to call him Dada or even Papa. She could not quite think of him as her father, though he had sent her to an expensive girls’ school in England when she was old enough to go. And he had tried to provide for her at the age of seventeen when her mother died by offering her in marriage to Josiah Barnes. It would be an excellent match, he had told her. Barnes was an important and powerful man.
But Siân had refused to marry him. Lonely and caught between two worlds, she had wanted to join the one to which perhaps she could belong. She could never belong in Sir John Fowler’s world. No one there, including Josiah Barnes, would ever let her forget her origins or her illegitimacy. And so she left her mother’s cottage, where she had no wish to live any longer. But she had been refused a job in any capacity at her father’s works.