Hosts of Rebecca

by Alexander Cordell

  “I have written to Mam and Tomos – Osian Hughes got it on the mail coach,” she said. “Had to say both of you had gone, in case it was opened. Policemen are opening all letters, they say. When she hears of the pair of you Mam will go mad.”

  “But you were wise,” I said.

  She was wandering from window to window, pulling the curtains tighter, hands trembling, her lips dead white, and I longed to hold and comfort her.

  “Mari,” I said, and she turned as if struck.

  “O, God,” she whispered, and wept.

  Up then, pulling her against me. She did not fight free as I expected but clung to me, her fingers as claws on my back. Cold her face when I kissed it and she twisted away when I tried for her lips.

  “You have got to get away, do you understand? There is no time for this. O, but a damned child you are, Jethro! They will drag you off as they dragged off Flannigan and the others. Transportation, that will be the end of it.”

  Death, I thought.

  “Talk sense,” I said, pushing her off. “I have less than a pound saved – how far will I get without money? Best to wait here till things cool down.”

  “I have money,” she said.

  “You will need every penny you’ve got.”

  “I have fifty pounds all but two shillings. Fifty pounds. I told you before.”

  Me staring now.

  “Grandfer’s money,” she said.

  I sighed. “You kept it pretty dark.”

  “I told you down on the Burrows but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I remember.”

  I sat down, sweating, trying to get the size of it. Me setting three years aside to save fifteen pounds and her standing here with fifty.

  I rose. “Then come away with me, Mari. We will take the boys and leave this damned place. There is a ship lying at Saundersfoot. …”

  “Not with you, Jethro,” she said.

  And she came nearer, standing above me as I sat down before her. Soft her voice now, every word as measured, her eyes unflinching on mine. “Time was when I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you, but not now. The women of you Mortymers are solid gold, Jethro, but they bring forth sons of solid iron – fighters all – one word and the blow, the fist before the word always, seeing but one side of the argument. Up workers, down gentry, isn’t it – and there are gentry folk in America as well as in Wales. And where you find gentry you will find the Mortymers to stand against them to take that which is theirs by right.” Her voice rose now, her eyes grew large and she swept her arm to the window. “Some damned good gentry people live in this county – not the puffed up little magistrates who have thieved ten fields – these are the people who have raised your gates, the absentee landlords who jump in to buy and jump back to London to live on their rents – these are the enemies.” She folded her arms and smiled down at me. “But there are other kinds of gentry, boy – gentlefolk whose ancestors have made their roots here – who were great in this county and decent to their workers before you damned Mortymers turned an eye to light. And that is your trouble, you Mortymers. You tar and feather every gentleman in sight, never choosing, never dividing the black from the white – everything with a foot of lace or a carriage is branded by the Mortymers as enemies of the people, but you are blind. Look towards Squire’s Reach – hasn’t Lloyd Parry treated us decent – did you not give your love to a gentry girl? Look North and West to the great mansions that were built by the Welsh as the beating hearts of the people – this is the true aristocracy who think like you, Jethro – not the jumped-up little pit-owners who have raced into Wales to drive a shaft for quick profits – hating the evil little magistrates, these gentry, aye, and taking them to law.” She paused, bending above me, one hand clenched. “These people are one with you, Jethro, with all their birth and nobility, and you will never make me think otherwise, for I am one of them.”

  New, this Mari, as tempered by fire, commanding. I stared up at her.

  “I have had too much,” she said, her voice dying. “I have been hit too hard by you Mortymers, the people I love. I have a son to consider now, and Morfydd’s boy now she has gone. It is a load. And the fight of the Mortymers is in these boys, I know it, but I will drive it out. I will teach them peace, not war; to love and not to hate; to make light of the injustices that is the lot of the poor and triumph over them with the help of God – Church or Chapel, makes no difference – God just the same.” She knelt then, smiling in tears, and bowed her head, her fingers smoothing the knuckles of my hands. Skinned and swollen, these hands. I drew them away, and she raised her eyes to mine.

  “The soldier is dead, Jethro,” she said. “Do you remember?”

  The sweat sprang to my face and I rose, turning from her.

  “You?” she whispered, instantly beside me.

  Cool the glass of the window on my forehead. I bowed my head.

  “My God,” she said, and wrung her hands. “This is the end of it, then – murder.”

  I had lost her. The knowledge was enough to silence me, obliterating remorse. I could hear her pacing the floor behind me. Her steps ended.

  “And you killed him in cold blood.”

  “Him or me,” I said, flat. “It was a fair fight. I did not seek it. He must have rolled and drowned in the brook after I left. I did not kill him.”

  “And do you expect them to believe that?” She caught my arm and swung me round. “They will search the county. They will never give up. When they learn you did not die with Morfydd they will come back. O, what are we doing talking, wasting time. Quick, you must get away!”

  Agitation gripped her again. Her face was stark white. “Quick, now – how much the fare for the ship at Saundersfoot?”

  “Five pounds.”

  “You shall have twenty-five – half what is in the box.”

  This turned me. “It is one way of getting me out of your sight, isn’t it? Give me five and you will have back every penny.”

  “O, God,” she said, empty. “It has come to that? O, Jethro, can’t you see that I love you? It is not the dirty old money – you can have all fifty. It is because I love you that I could not bear you to be taken.”

  “But you will not come with me?”

  She lowered her hands as if slapped in the face. Eyes closed, she stood.

  “And after I am gone – what then?” I said.

  She emptied her hands at me.

  “Back to Nanty with Tomos, is it, and labour in bloody coal?”

  She opened large, rebellious eyes at me. “Do not swear at me,” she said. Beautiful, she looked.

  “Humping and heaving fourteen hours a day, ending the same way as Morfydd, and you shout to me about gentry,” I said.

  “Did it once before, Jethro,” she replied. “Two children now, and I can do it again.”

  “So you will not come with me?”

  “Not to America, not anywhere, to start the same fighting all over again.”

  “Because of the soldier, isn’t it?”

  “Because I want peace – nothing to do with the soldier!”

  “Mari, I beg of you,” I said.

  “Jethro, for God’s sake go.”

  “Better to stay and be taken. I have loved you for years, and yet but once. What kind of a life with three thousand miles between us?” Cold her lips when I kissed her, with no response, as if I had drained her of youth and fire. Strange the excitement seizing me at her nearness, the sudden torrent of my breathing drowning the chance of footsteps, the knock. So I held her, unable to leave her, unable to go.

  “O, that Tomos was here!” she said as a whisper.

  Just sweated and held her, ears tingling, fearful to move.

  “Ask Tomos,” I said, gripping her. “Tomos will know what to do. You are of me now, Mari, I am of you. Ask Tomos!”

  She held me away, smiling sad. “Jethro, Iestyn – both the same. Loved them both the same. Queer, isn’t it, they cannot do without me. He brought m
e home in rags, clothed and fed me, and left me for you. And while you hold me here I am dying inside, until you go.”

  “But you will speak to Tomos? Mari, I beg you!”

  She said softly, her eyes closed: “I will tell him that I am afraid. And I will tell of the soldier, because you have killed. I have my God, Jethro, you have yours – that is the difference. Now you will swear to me that you did not leave him dead?”

  “I swear it,” I said.

  “Now go. Wait at the ship. I do not promise to come, but if it is his wish Tomos will bring me, for Tomos and me have the same God. We will leave it to Him, is it?” She turned from my arms and set her back to me. “Do not kiss me again, Jethro. I could not bear it. Just go.”

  I stood there, hands clenched, hearing the rustle of her dress as she went past me to the stairs, catching the scent of her. Barren of her, I died in seconds at the click of the door; listened to the creak of the stairs.

  Empty that room in the dim light of the lamp. I stood looking at it, at my mother’s empty chair by the fireplace, the place where Morfydd sat. And I saw, standing there, the shine of the table grow to life again, the snow of its cloth, the gleam of knives, and heard the tinkle of cups and plates. Blinding the lamp, its wick turned low; shimmering, dancing to the chatter and laughter. Morfydd’s high shrieks, Mam’s sharp replies, Mari’s soft voice, Grandfer’s snores. This the mood of the table, the centre of the family, the servant of life. Laughter, joy one minute, heads bent low to the plates the next; sidelong glances at someone in disgrace, nudges and winks. Cursed is the mind that it brings such visions, cursed the table. Swung away from it, cursing, and took five pounds from the box on the dresser and shouldered the door to the back, but turned.

  “Goodbye,” I said.

  I could not see the table.

  Out in the night now, the shippon was steaming. I ran over to the barn and whistled for Tara and she came out wriggling.

  “Up,” I said, and she leaped into my arms.

  Randy turned and snorted hate at me as I closed the door and dropped the stick. Lonely it was, standing in the shippon with Tara against me, looking up at the blind windows, seeking a hand. Nothing. I turned.

  Grandfer was right. My mind went back years. Fifty feet down, spreadeagled in the peat bog on the track to Tarn, head lolling, suspended in mud, I reckon he smiled.

  CHAPTER 27

  NO STARS that night, not even a moon, thank God. The world was as black as a witch’s gown, the air velvet and warm coming over the estuary. I walked fast at first, eager to get north to cross the barriers of the Tywi and Taf rivers, reckoning for a journey of thirty miles to Saundersfoot though it was twenty as the crow flies. I was heading for Llangain, taking the same route as I had done when we last burned the gates, striking north first, then south-west, keeping to the low ground, trotting at times with Tara running at my heels. Good to have Tara with me. Funny how a little dog can make up for humans; there always with her excited grinning, tongue seeking your fingers, in love with you, her eyes adoring though you are less than muck to your race, unloved by those you love, criticized and rejected. And I knelt at times in the darkness and held her to me. Queer little woman.

  With the face of Mari sweeping back. I stopped once before dropping to the Gwendraeth and turned, looking back. Distantly I saw Cae White, hooded and bewitched by night, one chink of light beaming from a curtain Mari had forgotten to pull, its gables and twisted chimneys outlined starkly against white, rolling clouds, and the standing corn beyond sweeping into blackness. Turned my back on it, whistled at Tara and hurried on, keeping to the tracks, seeking the safety of woods and thickets. Midnight was tolling from a blind clock as I reached the Tywi opposite Llangain, and I went down the bank to the water and stripped naked while Tara, squatting, shivered and looked appalled at me. Not fancying to travel soaked, I tied my clothes into a bundle and hung them round my neck, then waded in while Tara whined delighted. Gave her a whistle and struck out. Muzzle sweeping the calm water she swam beside me, one eye cocked at an otter that barked and dived at our approach. Out now, streaming, shivering, and I rolled in the river grass to dry myself, Tara copying, leaping to this new adventure after the years of neglect. Dressing, I started off again at a trot to warm myself, eyes skinned for every rustle of a thicket, going for St Clears and the narrow reaches of the Taf. Treating it likewise at Whitehill Down I reached the high ground above Newton, and lay there in the stubbled grass with Tara in the crook of my arm, shivering at the sky where the first grey streak of dawn was flushing up from the east. I slept, awaking in bright sunlight with Tara licking my face, encircled by rabbits, five all told. A man with a dog can conquer the universe. Kissing and scolding her, I picked up a rabbit and stuffed it into my coat, rose and ran down the hillock, leaping the boulders, alive to the joy of the newfound day of sun and warmth, until I remembered Cae White and Mari. In the shelter of jutting rocks now, a disused quarry, I gutted and skinned the rabbit, rubbed for a flame and hung him from sticks for roasting. God must have a special heaven for rabbits in return for the sacrifice of their bodies to Man. Never smelled the like of this one after a sleep in the open, and between us we put him well down with Tara running in circles sniffing and whining for more.

  We stayed in the quarry all that day and crept out at dusk to the evening star. Brilliant this night with the full moon showing me across country to Windleways and Amroth, leading me south to the sea. Deserted country this, a few miles from Saundersfoot and I reached the bay at midnight and lay on the short grass looking at the stars. There, with the sea beneath me, I watched the procession of the worlds; helmeted Mars beaming at the molten Jupiter, Saturn spinning in his rings of white satin, the white-dusted Heavens of worlds beyond worlds. Uranus and his servant moons, I saw, Venus making her crucifix sign; Little Bear, Great Bear, the Plough in all its regal majesty; stars and constellation dripping white light in the obliterated eye of the Mother Sun. I dreamed, eyes half closed to the beauty of night. Strange, I thought in a moment of wakefulness, that this same earth upon which I was lying was the tissue and bones of men long dead; holding the cinders of tongues long silent in the billion years of time and space, warm under the belly of the panting Tara. Just the two of us, Tara and me, man and dog linked in friendship, lying on a cliff that had echoed the wolfhound, the screamed commands of primaeval man. How small the ambitions and the loves compared to the greatness of earth and sky, the unmeasured wastes of the sea, how pitiful, I thought. One man running, and loving; seeking the new in exchange for the old. So trivial this seventy years of living and dying; all ambitions ending the same, in earth.

  After more than a week of hiding in sea caves, poaching and trapping to keep alive, I reached the hills dominating the harbour. The sea was flat calm and misted as I crested a rise and looked down to the quay. Yellow sands flashed brilliant light, fishing-boats dotted the bay. And the black hulk of the Cestria stretched its great length against the jetty where coal trams were rumbling from the nearby mine to a waiting schooner. Already the ship had unfurled her sails, jerseyed seamen were running her decks and the air was filled with hoarse cries; merchants’ stalls were end to end along the sea wall, their vendors screaming their wares as I went down the main street to the quay. Market day by the look of it, the place thronged with coalmen, limemen, and labourers from the mine, coal-grimed, weary. Women bent under loads too heavy for men, barefooted children ran in the gutters, screaming a Welsh I did not understand. Beggars flung up skinny arms as I went down to the ship, fishermen lounged by their boats or needled at nets. Excitement grew within me at the sight of the ship, but I knew that I must not raise suspicion. Too many fugitives were travelling these days for eagerness. With Tara gripped against me I turned into a tavern. The room was crowded to the doors with men, seamen chiefly, roaring, bantering, thumping the counter, the mugs going down, mugs upturned in shafts of the morning sun. Welsh here, chiefly; men of the sea, barrel-chested, brown-faced, with the blue slits of eyes for scanning horiz
ons. They parted good natured as I elbowed my way to the counter.

  “A quart ale,” I said, slapping down money, and got the mug and steered it through the sailors to a corner, and set it down.

  “God,” said a voice.

  Matthew Luke John, his corn-coloured hair standing on end.

  “Lord,” he breathed. “You on the same do as me, boy?”

  His eyes were shadowed with the sleeping out, his face pinched and pale with hunger.

  “The Cestria, evening tide,” I said. “You leaving your mam to fend alone, then?”

  “The old man passed on,” said he. “So she sold up and got out of farming – other ways to starve, she said. You hop out of it, man, she said, and take the chance I missed, and she gave me five pounds for steerage if I brought back a fortune.”

  “America, is it?”

  “Couldn’t be worse than this bitch of a place though it ought to be God’s country. Lucky my mam was poorly or I’d have been on the march for Carmarthen. You heard about Flannigan?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “And Toby Maudlin, Tom the Faith, and …”

  “Tom’s not taken?” I asked, straightening.

  “Taken like the rest of them. John Penry, Howell Jones, Will Raven, I for Walker – could go on for weeks. The dragoons were knocking on my door within two hours of the Carmarthen business. Justin did us well.”

  “Justin?” I stared at him.

  “You haven’t heard? Turned Queen’s Evidence. They booted him twice in the workhouse yard and he couldn’t gabble the names quick enough.”

  “God Almighty,” I said.

  He raised his sad eyes to mine. “You reckon he’s Welsh?”

  “Doubtful,” I said.

  “Nothing you can put your tongue to, eh? Forget him. The dragoons booted him harder after it and now he’s explaining to St Peter. Found dead in a well within two miles of Carmarthen.”