Edward asked if he could live with us, as he is your brother I told him he could. I know from Richard and Anna’s letters to Owen and Morgan that they are living with you. Would you find another house for all four Parrys so we can live in private as a family for the first time in our married life?
Try not to be angry, Glyn, but I have to confess that I’ve kept a secret from you. Don’t blame Edward or anyone else for not writing to you about it. I begged Edward and others to keep silent because I wanted to do what was best for my father.
You have a daughter, Glyn. I named her Harriet Maud after my mother and grandmother. She was born nearly eight months after you left Merthyr, at six o’clock in the morning on Sunday February 5th 1871. There is nothing of me in her. As Edward says, and poor Judith used to say, “she is all Edwards.”
She has your dark eyes and hair, doesn’t know what it is to be still or quiet, and is a healthy child. I have spent as much time with her as I could. The maids looked after her when I was busy in the inn and I’ve been careful to only leave her with the better-spoken, better-behaved girls.
She knows you are her father as I show her your photograph every night when I tuck her into bed.
As I’ve written, I’ve been busy looking after the Parry boys but most of all helping my father. The reason I didn’t tell you about Harriet is I knew you’d want me to take her to Russia.
I couldn’t do that because the first thing Dad said to me after she was born was, “I suppose you’ll be taking her away from me, to Glyn in Russia now.” He couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to see his only grandchild growing up. Now he’s gone there’s nothing to keep me here, or us apart any longer. Owen and Morgan are excited about seeing Richard and Anna again. They’ve showed me the letters they’ve received from them.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Fancy Richard Parry, little runny-nosed Richard Parry, working as your assistant, and Anna the kitchen skivvy, a nurse. I would never have thought it possible. Not even in a land of heathens.
Enough of my ramblings and more of the plans Edward has made. All of us, that’s Owen and Morgan as well as Edward, me, and Harriet, have decided to travel to Russia with a view to staying permanently.
The photographs you sent of your house suggest it could be made comfortable once it’s been refurnished and decorated. I was relieved to hear you’ve found a good English-speaking housekeeper as well as a cook and servants. I know the town is still being built. I hope it will be a fitting place to bring up Harriet.
We’ll be leaving Merthyr early next week and taking a train to Southampton. Edward says we’ll be following the same route you took and we’ll be travelling with other collier and ironworker immigrants bound for Hughesovka.
Richard will have a surprise too. Don’t say anything to him but I know Alice, that was Perkins, and is Wilkins now, has written to him. Her husband died a month ago. He left half his money to his children and half to her. It’s a tidy sum and she wants to escape from her father and the gossips and go to Richard. At least now he’ll be able to marry the girl of his choice.
That’s all for now, Glyn.
There’ll be no point in me writing when we’re travelling as I’ll reach you before any more of my letters.
Edward tells me he hopes we’ll reach Taganrog by September or early October at the latest, which he said will be before the really cold weather sets in. It would be nice if you could come to meet us, but if not, Edward says he will arrange transport for us.
With fondest regards,
Your wife Betty and daughter Harriet
I didn’t have to imagine the look on Glyn Edwards’ face when he read Betty’s letter. I saw it myself when I walked into the drawing room minutes after he’d opened the envelope. But I had to imagine the look on Richard’s face when he read his letter from Alice because I was working in the hospital when he returned from Taganrog and went through his mail.
I presume he read it several times because it had more creases than any of the others in the box.
High View
High Street
Merthyr Tydfil
August 4th 1871
Dear Richard,
Are you shocked to hear from me after all this time? I think of you and the promises we made one another often. I still love you as I know you love me. You must have heard even in Russia that my father forced me to marry Josiah Wilkins after he caught us on the mountain together. He threatened me with all sorts if I didn’t. I had no choice. Josiah died a month ago. I don’t want to write what it was like being married to such a horrid old man but I will say that I never stopped loving or thinking of you.
I can’t wait to leave Merthyr. You know what people are like here and how they point fingers. After you left there was nothing but gossip, about the way your mother dropped dead when she saw how the Paskeys had beaten you, and how the Paskeys raped Anna. But you know all that. Anyway I thought we’d be better off making our lives in Russia rather than you come back here.
Betty Edwards said that you write to Owen and Morgan and you and Anna are living in Mr Glyn Edwards’ house. Well, that’ll have to change, Richard. I want my own house and I’d rather not have your brothers living with us, or Anna. Not after what the Paskeys did to her. I’d feel dirty every time she came near me. It might be as well if you look for a house for us as soon as you get this. Betty says her husband has found servants that can speak English; I hope you can do the same. Betty also said the shops won’t be as good as the ones in Cardiff or even Merthyr but she said that Mr Glyn Edwards wrote that he can order most things to be delivered. Please don’t order any major items of furniture before I get there. I’d like to organise our first home together.
There’s no point in answering this letter. By the time you get it I will almost be there.
Looking forward to our life together.
Love Alice.
There was another letter written the same day from Merthyr to Hughesovka. It was more of a note from Edward to Glyn.
Cartref
High Street
Merthyr Tydfil
August 4th 1871
Dear Glyn,
I know Betty has written to you and Alice to Richard.
I hope you can forgive me for not telling you about your daughter. I felt guilty about it from the beginning but Betty was adamant that she wanted to stay to care for her father and your letters were so full of the difficulties you were encountering in setting up the works and the collieries while grieving for Peter I thought it best to go along with what she wanted.
We should reach Taganrog in September or October at the latest. If I can arrange transport to Hughesovka I will.
Like Betty there’s one piece of news I hoped to keep not only from you but Anna and Richard as well, but I’m afraid I can’t, not any longer. The Paskeys were tried for raping Anna but the case collapsed because there were no witnesses to the actual assault. The judge even told Jenny Swine she was lucky not to find herself in the dock for causing grievous bodily harm to Ianto.
Deputy Perkins fired the Paskeys and they haven’t found regular work since. Both have signed up as ironworkers with Mr Hughes’s agents. They travelled out a month ago, which is why I booked passage for Betty, Alice, and the boys so late. I didn’t want to be on the same boat as them.
I hope this reaches you before the Paskeys so you can be prepared.
If you can put a word in with Mr Hughes for me I’d be grateful. I’m not expecting the same job or wages I had in the drift mine in Merthyr but frankly Merthyr is such a lonely place without Judith I’d welcome anything.
Your brother, Edward.
I replaced all three letters in the files, closed my eyes and drifted once more through my memories. This time one I’d only heard about.
September 1871 – the year Sarah Edwards and my brother Richard married in a simple ceremony in the Anglican Church in Taganrog, two days before they came face to face on the Taganrog quayside with Edward Edwards, Betty Edwards,
Alice Wilkins, and my brothers Morgan and Owen …
The Tsar’s Dragons series
by
Catrin Collier
For more information on Accent Press
titles, please visit
www.accentpress.co.uk
CATRIN COLLIER
A Foreign Shore
ISBN 9781783755950
Published by Accent Press 2014
Copyright © Catrin Collier 2014
The right of Catrin Collier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A Foreign Shore Page 10