Hosts of Rebecca

by Alexander Cordell

  Worn out, ragged old thing. God, she didn’t miss much.

  “Night before last,” I said.

  “My property, Jethro. I will have it back, if you please.”

  “Slit over the shoulders now,” I said. “The thing wouldn’t fit me.”

  She flung the rag into the sink, dried her hands and turned to the dying fire. The lamp was low, flinging soot into her eyes as she sat down. “Eh, Jethro, come to me.”

  I went, standing before her.

  “Down by here, boy,” and she patted. “Now, listen. Time was when I was as you – full of the injustices, mixing gunpowder, and where has it landed me? Alone with my son and not a thing gained, save bitterness. Where did it land the Chartists – even your brother Iestyn?” She shook her head. “They are too big for us, too many. Power is always slipping from the many to the few because the few are more vigilant. In my time I have fought to raise the poor, but do they want to be raised? Nothing but defeat on the end of this Rebecca business, boy, believe me – the poor are the mass but they are not behind you – too afraid to help, and too weak.”

  “You are a fine one to talk,” I replied. “Fight and be damned, it was, less than six months back.”

  “We are doing all right!” said she, thumping the chair. “We are making a living, What else do you want?”

  “What living we have you are making. If you came from Ponty we would start starving tomorrow for there is nothing in farming. Every yard I move now swallows the profits.”

  “Then let the farm rot – come back to Ponty.”

  “Any day now,” I said, “but there is more to it than that now. You may be beaten, but I am not. Whole families are starving between here and Pembroke, bled to death by grasping landlords. The magistrates are corrupt, the workhouses spilling from the windows – whole families are queueing at the doors – children torn from parents, husbands from wives, living like animals on scraps, working their fingers to blood on the oakum. Is it decent for men to sit down under this?”

  “And you will fight for them, is it?”

  She looked at me steady. The fire blazed suddenly, lighting her face, and she never moved her eyes from mine.

  “Are you sure you are fighting for the poor?”

  “For the lot of us – for you, Mam, the children – even for Grandfer.”

  “But not for Mari?”

  Still those eyes. Uncertain, I moved away. She was watching me. The clock ticked in the sudden silence.

  “A bitch of a sister, isn’t it?” she said.

  “For … Mari, too,” I said, sullen.

  “Thank God she’s mentioned. You love her, don’t you?”

  “Not in the way you think.”

  Damned women. They take a lever to the soul and prise and peep.

  “Think again, Jethro.”

  This swung me. “I do not love her as you call love!”

  “All right, all right. You are not selling pigs. I only asked.”

  A moth flapped over the lamp, creeping from his rot-corner, thinking it was summer, and the shadow of him was as big as a bat on the wall as he pecked at the glass.

  “Singe your wings,” said Morfydd.

  “I do not love Mari!”

  “Half dead if you didn’t. If I were a man I would want her lying. Couldn’t help myself. I would want all of her, soul and body.”

  “You and me think different,” I said to wound her.

  “Much obliged. We think the same, but I am more honest.”

  “She is Iestyn’s wife!”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” Very smooth now, possessed, smiling. She rose. “Listen, you. You are hitting seventeen now – big enough for double your age – big enough to be talked to straight. The way you love Mari is the way you love me, Jethro. And any other kind of love you can save for Sixpenny Jane down at Betsi’s place, though the way she looked at you Fair Day I reckon you could get her free.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, furious.

  “About men?” She laughed soft and low. “Duw! If you know of one wild enough you can send him down to Morfydd for taming, just to keep my hand in. If you throw enough buckets you quench the fire but the sister still burns bright, thank God. Aye, I know most about men and you in particular, including the birth mark somewhere special …”

  “Please don’t be vulgar.”

  “Right, then, but hear this, Jethro. To love Mari wrong is to love her vulgar, and I will not have it, not while Iestyn breathes.”

  Gave her a glance and wandered about. Witch-black she sat, hands folded in her lap, her eyes following my every move.

  “You do her no credit, Morfydd,” I said, but I could have struck her.

  “And I do you less, boy, but I know I am right. Poor Jethro.” She cornered me by the fire and her arms went round me. “Do not be ashamed,” she whispered. “To love her is dangerous. It will grow and grow inside lest you knife it quick. O, the little shrew, she is, being so beautiful, being Mari. Jethro, come back to Ponty. I will help you, I will make it easy.”

  “I … I would not touch her, you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Not … not even give her a look.”

  She nodded, kissing me although I twisted away. She caught my hand then and we stood together. Strange the heaping love I felt for her then.

  “If you must fight for Mari, then do it careful, Jethro. Look now, there is soot on your collar.” She ringed it with her finger showing the black.

  “Those are the mistakes,” she whispered, “sometimes the difference between life and death. When you blacken your face for the night meetings tuck a rag round your collar first. Has Flannigan mentioned that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Saw it last night,” she said. “Now look at the fire. Do you see the grooves of your fingers scratching on the chimney? Take it with your palm, boy, not the tips of the fingers, for the first thing they looked for in Twm Carnabwth’s house was the marks of his fingers on the back of the fire. None there, and as white as snow was his collar. They knew who broke the Efail-wen gate, but no one could prove it. Another thing.”

  I listened.

  “Watch for informers – the prissy men like Osian Hughes, the evil men like Waldo Rees Bailiff, though he will never join Rebecca. But a man like Hughes would not stand for two minutes with his hands tied behind him and a dragoon booting him in the belly. You can trust your Flannigans for all their Irish names – real Welshmen, see. But men like Osian are an abomination – with a name as Welsh as Mynydd Sylen but ashamed of his ancestry.” She narrowed her eyes at the fire, sitting down. “Strange is my country – the people are either afire – harp-Welsh people and dying to prove it, or Welsh to their toes and dying to forget it; slipping and sliding and whispering about being English – Irish, Scottish – anything will do. Lucky those people are few, but we’ve got them. And God knows what Wales has done to have to put up with them.”

  Never seen her in this mood before. Leaning against the wall, I listened.

  “And people write books – wish I could write. For I would write a book that would stand for a century – a book telling of my people and how they fought to live; telling of their music, their courage, their forbearance, their love of things beautiful, their fire, their God. And I would write of the money-beggars who suck them, the magistrates, squireens, the gentry who live on them, the gaols, the transportations, the unfair trials, and of those who spit on our language.” Her voice rose. “And what the hell am I talking English for now? With centuries of Welsh behind me I am speaking in a foreign tongue, which shows the job we are making of it.” Empty, she looked, fingers spread. “And if my book was printed they would call it fairy tales, revolutionary, a pack of damned lies, for people believe only what they are told to believe, and anything contrary to the preachings of Church and State is rejected. People are strange – no intelligence, no compassion. Aye, muckraking they would call it in a hundred years time, because they did not know my generat
ion that died for the things they will enjoy.” She sighed, and the blaze in her died with her sad, sweet smile. “Well, fight if you must, but fight for Wales, nothing else, remember, for the land of your fathers. Your blood is of Wales, every drop – your heart is of Wales, for she created you – the breath you draw is of the mountains of my country. O, God, to be part of this country, to love her as I do! And listen. Make it vicious – no half measures – for the people who oppose you are clever and vicious. Hit the big man, easy with the small man, do not take advantage. Burn your gates not singly but in hundreds, and when they go up again burn them down again. Fire your hayricks, massacre your salmon, walk with the ceffyl pren against the moral injustices – put the wrongs right! ‘Woe of the bloody city! it is full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; the noise of the whip … the horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear … and there is none end of their corpses … Nineveh is laid waste!’” She put her hands over her face, whispering now. “Fight to the death if needs be, for the land is despoiled. Better to destroy the Wales we love than stand to see her degraded.”

  I nodded, commanded by her, unable to reply. She rose, trembling.

  “Got to be up early tomorrow,” she said. “Dawn; deep shift with Liam Muldooney, bless him. God, there is Welsh Irish, good little man. Agitators, is it? Crawling round on all fours harnessed like a bloody donkey, fine job we’ve made of it.” She came and kissed me. “Fight, but be careful – remember Iestyn. I will not stand idle if I lose you, too.”

  “I am not afraid,” I said.

  “Aye, of course not.” She shrugged, looking helpless. “Do not mind old Morfydd – an old frump she is getting. All embers now, no fire. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” I said.

  CHAPTER 15

  AS A MOTH on a pin Tom the Faith fluttered, and a month went by and my mother made no move to stem the bleeding heart. Then Waldo Rees Bailiff tried her, and Morfydd slipped with a bucket of water, half drowning him, though what she was doing with a bucket on a window sill was anyone’s guess. Terrible to see poor Tom, though – mooning around the lanes, hand-wringing on the doorstep, never within yards of Black Boar tavern, hangdog, drooping with lovelight in December.

  These were the mornings of the frozen water butt; of ice-cold water freezing teeth in their sockets when you washed every morning in the grip of the frosted land. The snows came in beauty and the flaring bare arms of winter were all over dripping with icicles. The rivers were shouting again after the drought of summer, their music a thunder that bellowed at Cae White, and with Christmas upon us I thought of Him Who was born for us. I am not much one for religion but I believe in the Man, though I could never accept Him from the brushes of painters; soft-faced, doe-eyed, gentle as a baby. For great are His works, and wonderful. So the God I see is a man of strength, with a chest as a ship’s prow and ten feet tall. Seaweed for hair has He, seven fathoms deep are His eyes as green as the waves in anger, with a voice as the thunder.

  I gave Him more thought as I went up to Tom Rhayader’s place that night for my third proper Rebecca meeting. The sky was lanterned over the crest of the hill where Toby Maudlin lived. Not very bright, was little Toby, but a good man with a vixen of a wife from Cardie, sharp as a needle and a tongue as a razor, and she raised lumps on Toby every Monday night regular when he went to Black Boar for his weekly pint. Light kissed the snow from his door as I passed, and I saw him creep out with his boots in his hand.

  “Good evening, Toby Maudlin.”

  “Good evening, Jethro Mortymer. Where you bound for?”

  “Same place as you by the look of it. You joining?”

  “Got a gate,” said Toby, lacing his boots.

  “Damned lucky. I’ve got three and more every week.”

  “Same up at Tom Rhayader’s place – you heard? Four if he works to St Clears. But he can still work to Carmarthen if he adds six miles though he’ll be paying out more for boots. Eh, these Trusts! The county’s gone mad.”

  “Not as mad as you think, Toby. Speculation is the same whatever road it takes. They know what they’re doing.”

  “There’s a queer old word. Speculation, is it? New words cropping up every minute. Is the toll money likely to go on road repairs, for instance – I’ve got Moses’ tablets on mine.”

  “That is the excuse,” I answered. “But most of the money is for paying out the investors and we don’t get a pothole filled till the rich get their cut, and there isn’t much left after Bullin takes his share and we build new bridges near the houses of the gentry.”

  “Good God,” said he, “there’s education for you. Speculation and investors, is it, bridges and Bullins and gentry. Explain it, please.”

  “The money is being stolen, or just about.”

  “Good enough for me,” said Toby. “Thieves and vagabonds, is it. Count me in, man – you know the password?”

  “Genesis for us. You brought a petticoat, and soot?”

  “The soot I have here,” replied Toby. “Got me old girl’s nightshirt under me waistcoat. Hunted high and low for it, she did, then hopped in naked. Hope she bloody freezes. You know what she hit me with a week last Monday?”

  “Hush, you,” I said. “Rhayader don’t like bellowing.”

  “Better get garmented, lad. We’re here.”

  Ghostly he looked in the moonlight with his little round face blackened and shrouded in white, nightdress trailing, for his wife was a head the taller. I raised my fist to hit the barn door.

  “Wait, you,” said Toby. “Somebody’s coming.”

  A lanky wraith now, mooching against the snow.

  Tramping Boy Joey.

  I had not seen Joey for months. Last time I heard of him he was cowman over at Kidwelly with a Cardie farmer and I’d heard he had done a stretch in Carmarthen workhouse in between. Now he was poaching Waldo again, sleeping at the lime kilns where we went for our lime. Not much time for me, Joey – couldn’t forget his ferret, though he must have had fifty through the passage of the years. Strange, I thought, that Joey should stand for Rebecca when a labourer, for the movement was backed mostly by farmers.

  “There’s a stranger,” I said.

  “That makes two of us,” said Joey, looking evil.

  Abel Flannigan opened the door.

  Fifty or so Rebecca’s daughters were squatting in Rhayader’s barn, mostly smocked, but some dressed normal like me. Powder-guns, I noticed, were stacked near the door; axes, hatchets, scythes were piled in a corner. Looked like business. The place reeked with smoke, pipes glowed in the darkness.

  “Right, Jethro,” said Flannigan, and I was in. “Who’s this?”

  “I’ve got a gate, mind,” chirped Toby.

  “Through,” said Flannigan. “And watch that tongue. Who’s this one?”

  “Joey Scarlet,” said Joey, eyes shining in Flannigan’s lamp.

  “You a farmer?”

  “Workhouse boy, mind,” said a voice. Got a shock when I saw the speaker – Tom the Faith. “He’s entitled.”

  “To what?” grunted Flannigan.

  “More to it than gates,” said another. “The first thing Rebecca did, damned near, was to burn Narberth workhouse. What workhouse, son?”

  “Carmarthen,” said Joey.

  “In,” said Flannigan. “And get here on time – midnight. The Sunday school’s next door, not here.” He turned and hung the lamp. “Two new members, eh? Let me make something clear. Rebecca has a knife and a fancy for tongues, so we brought in Justin Slaughterer to oblige. You can take the oath afterwards. Right, Rhayader.”

  And Tom Rhayader rose from his box in the corner; small, lithe, nothing like a leader save for his eyes. On fire were those eyes, bright in his strong, square face. He had kept to himself till now, coming down from the north with his wife and daughter a year or so back, and Mam had delivered his second. He had never seen the counter of Black Boar tavern; was a bit of a lay preacher and three times to Chapel every Sunday, Baptist. Easy w
as Rhayader, fists on hips, an inch higher than Flannigan’s shoulder, but he had the thin scars of fighting over his eyes. I would have backed him against Flannigan there on the spot.

  “First,” he began, “I have a message from Rebecca who governs West Wales, our leader. Listen,” and he read from a paper, “‘The masses to a man throughout the three counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan and Pembroke are with me. O, yes, they are all my children. When I meet the lime-men on the road covered with sweat and dust, I know they are Rebeccaites. When I see the coalmen coming to town clothed in rags, hard worked and hard fed, I know they are mine, these are Rebecca’s children. When I see the farmers’ wives carrying loaded baskets to market, bending under the weight, I know well that these are my daughters. If I turn into a farmer’s house and see them eating barley bread and drinking whey, surely, say I, these are the members of my family, these are the oppressed sons and daughters of Rebecca.’”

  Rhayader lowered the letter. “The message is unsigned,” said he. “And if the message were signed it would rock the magistrates of the county, for we are led by a man of high birth and responsibility. May his name never be mentioned lest someone die for it. May he be respected and shown honour by all the daughters of Rebecca, this man who works for justice and against the oppressions that bring us together this night.”

  Very cool, very calm, and the men nudged each other and murmured. I glanced at Joey. Mushrooms for eyes had Joey, staring hypnotized, and Justin Slaughterer beside him, his broad chin cupped in his hairy hands, intent.

  “So let us pray that we are together tonight,” went on Rhayader, “for this is a meeting of war. The time has come for this village, too, to take its part in the fight against oppression and we are the better equipped because we are men of God. Yes, we will burn the tollgates, we will smash tollhouses, and carry the fight to the very seat of authority, but have this clear in your minds. Do not encompass your minds with mere bars and chains, for the barred road that exacts the unfair toll is only the symbol of the resentment we suffer. The mud-walled cottages must be razed to the ground, the rat-infested hovels of the starving poor swept away and new dwellings built to house a fair people. Our men and women must be fed well, not on rye bread and potato soup; be clothed in wool, not in rags. Our women must come from the fields and carry their children with dignity, not labour as oxen at the plough from dawn to darkness, barefooted, ill-fed, treated as animals. Skeleton children must be fattened and taken from straw when in fever. North and west of us the gentry are merging their farms into holdings, their rents going higher to turn small farmers out. From Llandovery to Pembroke the workhouses are crowded by people who have lived in dread of the workhouses which are leaping up under the new Poor Law, dividing whole families, making it a sin for a man to honour his wife.” Rhayader paused, his dark eyes drifting over us. Powerful in oratory, this one, with the hwyl of the good minister. No need to raise his voice.