Gwenna the Welsh Confectioner

by Vicky Adin

  Everyone murmured their agreement and set off as instructed. Gwenna and Tom set a fast pace, heading along Karangahape Road and down Ponsonby, looking down every side street and alley, before entering the park from the top end. Within moments the dark shadows cast by the trees and the fading light gave Gwenna the shivers. A sense of doom settled in her stomach. “Tom, what if something bad has happened to him. What will I do?”

  “Hold fast, Gwenna. He’s a clever lad. He’s probably rushing home right now, realising how late he is. Don’t upset yourself. We’ll find him soon.”

  The further away from the road they got, the more fearful Gwenna became. Tom lit the lamp he carried and pushed on, confident he knew the path in front of them. Feeling better for having a light close by, Gwenna followed, calling Charlie’s name over and over.

  The shadows at the bottom end of the park were deeper, and the few lights from houses and gas lamps on the ridge looked a long way away. They could see little. About to make their way back up the hill, Tom spotted something pale on the ground. “Look, Gwenna. He’s been here. This is one of your bags.”

  They called Charlie’s name again in unison, paused and waited, hoping to hear a response. “I’m just going over to check behind that clump of trees. Keep talking so I know where you are.”

  Shaking like a leaf blowing in the wind, she blinked several times to adjust her eyes to the sudden darkness. Still calling out and placing one foot carefully in front of the other, she walked a few more steps and found another bag; a third one lay a few feet further along. “Tom, I’ve found two more.”

  Tom came rushing back and, taking her hand in his, they ventured further into the darkest shadows, calling Charlie’s name. They heard a faint answering cry.

  “Wait here,” he said, hurrying towards the sound. But Gwenna didn’t listen and followed in his footsteps.

  They found Charlie lying on the ground.

  Tom put the lamp down and, kneeling beside the boy, turned his head towards the light. Gwenna gasped at the sight of the congealed rivulets of blood down the side of a face streaked with tears.

  “Is he ...?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Memories of Johnno turned her knees to jelly and her tongue thick with fear.

  “He’ll be fine,” Tom assured her.

  “Gwenna?” Charlie groaned.

  Gwenna dropped to her knees and started to lift him onto her lap.

  “Don’t do that, Gwenna,” said Tom. “Let’s see if anything’s broken first.”

  Being careful not to hurt the boy, Tom ran his hands across Charlie’s shoulders and down his arms and legs until he discovered what had prevented the boy from returning home. His ankle lay at a sickening angle. Tom raised the lamp higher and Charlie flipped his arm up to hide the light from his eyes.

  “Gwenna,” he croaked.

  “Yes, Charlie, I’m here.” Tears flowed down her cheek, and she clutched his hand and kissed the grazed knuckles. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m so sorry. I never meant for any harm to come to you.”

  “The barrow’s broken, Gwenna,” he sobbed.

  In the faint light, Tom spotted what was left of the barrow. The canvas roof lay in a heap, tossed to one side, one shaft had come to rest a foot or two beyond Charlie’s head; the side of the barrow had been smashed in.

  “No matter, Charlie, bach. You’re all that matters.”

  “There was too many of them, Gwenna.”

  Tom interrupted. “Let’s leave the explanations until later, young man. Let’s get you home.”

  Gwenna picked up the lantern while Tom gathered Charlie into his arms. They’d not gone far before Tom realised he wasn’t going to make it back up the hill with Charlie positioned as he was.

  “Sorry, lad. I’m going to have to toss you over my shoulder. It won’t be comfortable and I’ll try not to bump your ankle, but I’ve no choice.”

  Charlie nodded stoically, biting his lip to suppress a cry as Tom changed positions and leant into the hill. Tom forged ahead up Howe Street with Charlie’s head and arms bouncing against his back. Gwenna scurried along behind, holding one of Charlie’s hands and reassuring him.

  Ten minutes later, Tillie welcomed an out-of-breath Tom into the house, relieved Charlie was safe and equally as concerned at the state of him.

  “Put him on the sofa for now,” said Tillie, opening the door to the sitting room.

  Tom lowered him down while Tillie eased a cushion under Charlie’s ankle. After a more thorough investigation, they decided it wasn’t broken, just badly sprained.

  “You’re not going to be able to walk on it properly for some time,” said Gwenna, soaking a towel in cold water and wrapping it around the boy’s ankle to help reduce the swelling.

  Tears rolled down Charlie’s face. “They took the lollies. And the money. I couldn’t stop them.”

  Gwenna wiped his face clean with her handkerchief. “Shush, Charlie, bach. None of it matters. Only you, my pet.”

  “Any sign of the others?” panted Tom, still trying to recover his breath.

  “No, not yet.” Tillie checked the clock. “You said eight, and it’s not yet seven thirty.”

  Getting to his feet, Tom turned for the door. “I’d better go look for them – Hugh and Bethan at least – and tell them I’ve found him.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Tom Griffiths,” said his wife. “Sit down. Get your breath back first. You don’t know for certain where they are and they’ll be here soon enough.”

  A few minutes later, Louisa and Percy arrived back and were overjoyed to learn Charlie was safe.

  “We hurried back to tell you we’d been talking to a couple of blokes near the markets,” Percy explained. “They said Charlie’s been having some trouble with a few of the older lads. Something to do with Charlie taking their trade. They said to check the park, which we knew you were doing.”

  Within fifteen minutes, Hugh and Bethan returned. Nearly out of her mind with worry, Bethan rushed through to Charlie the second she heard he was safe. Fussing over him eased her nerves, and before long one of her famous poultices had been applied and he’d been given a small dose of laudanum to ease the pain. He fell asleep before he’d finished his story.

  “Well, that’s it,” stated Gwenna. “He’s never going hawking again.”

  “Don’t be hasty, Gwenna,” said Tom in all seriousness. “It wasn’t the lad’s fault.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. Why would you even think it was? It’s those hooligans. Thugs. Beating up on a little boy. And left lying there on the ground, injured like that, in the dark. It’s just too much. The poor boy would have been frightened out of his mind.”

  “Sounds to me like he stood up to them quite well,” said Louisa, who sat smoothing the sleeping Charlie’s brow.

  “That’s not the point, though, is it? He was out there selling my sweets and got attacked because of it.”

  “I’m sure he’s not telling us everything,” said Tom. “But this is likely to be a bit of rivalry gone wrong. They smashed up his barrow, yes, and they got into a fight. But he gave as good as he got by the state of his knuckles. You can’t blame the boys because Charlie tripped over a tree root and twisted his ankle. Nor for the cut on his face. He probably did that when he fell. It’s just a bit of boys’ rough and tumble.”

  Gwenna wasn’t convinced, but the others agreed with Tom – Charlie shouldn’t be punished for it. “I’m not punishing him,” she humphed, indignant at the suggestion.

  “Indirectly, you are. And Charlie will certainly think you are. He wants to be out on the streets selling sweets. If you won’t let him any more, he’ll believe you blame him for it all,” said Tom.

  “Tom’s right, Gwenna, bach.”

  Surprised Mam would agree with Tom, Gwenna stared open-mouthed at Bethan. “Not you, too?”

  Bethan smiled. Now Charlie was safe, she could consider the event more rationally. “You don’t know little boys very well yet, do you, Gwenna, dear? Charlie’s been too sickly
till now to be one of the lads, and I’m right glad he is well enough these days,” she shrugged. “Boys will be boys. You’ll see, when Georgie gets bigger.”

  “No son of mine is going to be found brawling in the streets.” Gwenna folded her arms across her chest in a perfect imitation of her old schoolteacher. No one bothered to cover their mouths or hide their mirth.

  Hovering in the background, perched on the edge of a balloon-back chair listening to it all, sat Hugh. “The lad’s capable of looking after hisself, Miss Gwenna.” If Hugh spoke when the family were together, he always addressed her formally, which sounded odd to her ears. “I’ve been teaching him a few moves,” smiled Hugh – something he didn’t do often. “I’d heard about these other lads pestering him, so I figured he needed the odd trick or two up his sleeve. I’ll take a bet the others don’t look much better. He’d ’ave landed a few punches.”

  “And you never thought to tell me?” challenged Gwenna.

  Hugh shrugged. “It’s boy stuff. You’d have stopped me if you’d known.”

  “Did you suspect something like this might have happened when we set off?” asked Tom, slightly miffed Charlie hadn’t asked him, or more to the point that he, Tom, hadn’t thought of it. “You didn’t say anything.”

  “I couldn’t be certain, and I didn’t want to upset Mrs Price till I was sure. I thought we’d find him down amongst the sailors. Charlie’d not said anything in a while about the other lads.”

  “You mean this has happened before?” squeaked Tillie.

  “No. Not like this,” Hugh reassured them. “Just a bit of pushing and shoving. He’d lost a few bags of lollies and they took his money once. It was the last straw as far as he was concerned and he asked me what he could do.” Hugh coughed to hide his embarrassment. “He thinks the world of you, Miss Gwenna. He’d protect you with his life if he had to.”

  The unspoken echo, ‘and so would I’, filled the room.

  Exhausted, Gwenna could take no more and burst into tears.

  * * *

  Days passed and nerves settled as Charlie recovered his spirits and chafed against being kept indoors. Even little Olwen and Georgie held no interest for him any longer. He’d grown out of them in the weeks when he’d been helping Gwenna. But never mind what he said, no one, not even his co-conspirator Hugh, would let him go anywhere.

  “But I feel fine now,” he said, hobbling badly.

  “Will you sit down, Charlie!” barked Bethan. “You must not walk on that ankle.”

  She tended all the cuts and grazes, rubbing balm into his aching muscles and with the uncanny ability of the young, Charlie bounced back quickly. Even Bethan admitted he’d come to no great harm.

  The next day, Hugh appeared with a home-made crutch. Charlie was thrilled and soon learnt how to get around the house, annoying them all with his demands to be useful.

  In the end, Gwenna gave in, and with a newly made stand Hugh had put together, she allowed Charlie to sit up at the corner of Pitt Street, peddling sweets and waving a sign with an arrow on it pointing to the shop.

  “Do not move until someone comes to get you. Do you hear me?” Gwenna was terrified to let him out of her sight in case something happened to him again. She was determined to make him understand. “You are to sit here and wait. Hugh will carry the stand back.”

  “All right,” Charlie said, bemoaning his lot. In all innocence, he gazed at his big sister. “Gwenna? Your eyes are all black. You don’t look good.”

  “I’ll see you later,” she said, ignoring his comment, and returned to the shop.

  She wasn’t at all surprised by what Charlie said. She had reached the point of dreading closing her eyes at night. Within minutes of falling asleep, the dreams began. She often woke in a sweat and gasping for air, as if she’d been running, and could only doze from then on until Georgie and the dawn light allowed her to get up.

  The anniversary of Johnno’s passing was fast approaching. She hoped and prayed once the 18th – the date on Johnno’s death certificate, and her twentieth birthday – had passed, she would sleep again. She’d told no one – not Tillie, not Mam, not even Hugh – the date written on that miserable, defining piece of paper, the day when life had pitched her in another direction. It was bad enough that she associated her birthday with such horror, but she wouldn’t inflict it on others. Tom knew of course, but he, too, had kept it to himself. Gwenna assumed the others would mark Johnno’s funeral date as his day of passing, if they bothered. Johnno meant little to anyone else. Either way, the week ahead would be a trial.

  Last year on her birthday, a day of supposed celebration, she’d been alone in the house in Onehunga. This year, she sensed Mam and Tillie had plans for a celebration. She would have to find something inside her to show appreciation for their efforts, even if she was feeling tormented.

  36

  Nightmares become reality

  18 April 1901

  This time when she woke, something other than her dreams had disturbed her. Gwenna rose, tied her wrap around her and tiptoed downstairs. Her heart hammered like a pounding steam engine. Certain she’d heard a noise, she stopped to listen. Footsteps? No one else in the house had stirred but, beginning to think she’d imagined it all, she heard the sound again. Like a sack being dragged.

  In the months to follow, she would berate herself for not lighting the lamp when she entered the shop through the connecting door as she had done hundreds of times over the previous six months.

  The street lamp was no longer lit, and with no moon the solid darkness became impenetrable, but she had this overwhelming need to check the door was bolted. Like a blind person, Gwenna edged her way to the door by feel, reaching out to the table on her right, the mantelpiece on her left.

  She sighed with relief when she checked the bolts and they were still in place. She’d taken a few steps on her return journey when an object flew through the window, sending glass flying. Gwenna lost her balance and fell heavily against the table, toppling it as she crashed to the floor with a yell. How she missed landing on the glass she would never know, but before she could fathom what was happening, another object smashed through the second window, and the third. Glass shards flew everywhere. She whimpered with every bump and bang, but whoever was outside, intent on destroying the windows, hadn’t finished. The door glass shattered before another attack was launched on the front windows, using what Gwenna assumed was an iron bar, to smash every remaining pane.

  Terrified whoever it was would attack her too if they saw her, she lay absolutely still, praying her white nightdress and robe would not give her away. Hearing sounds from the house, her addled brain realised the noise would have disturbed Bethan and Louisa. Georgie would probably be crying. She had to stop them coming through to the shop. She pulled herself into a kneeling position against a chair, taking care to make the least amount of noise as possible. From there she struggled to her feet amidst the tangle of clothing. Pain shot up her leg and she vaguely worried about what damage she’d done. She stood up at the same time as the door opened and her eyes were assaulted by a bright light, and the shadow of a person looming large came towards her.

  “Gwenna, wake up. Come on, Gwenna. You’re safe now. Wake up, Gwenna, bach.”

  The soothing voice of her mam echoed in the fog behind her eyes until the astringent smelling salts passing under her nose had her sitting upright. Her head exploded with the movement, and she lay back down again, groaning with the pain.

  “What ...” She licked her lips. Memory returned and with it panic. She tried to sit up once more, but the room spun, and she was forced to close her eyes and lie down to still the clanging in her head.

  “Is ... every ... one ...” She seemed unable to find the words.

  “Shush, Gwenna. Rest. We’re safe. You’re safe. The doctor will be here soon. Hugh’s gone to get him,” soothed her mam.

  Louisa pressed a cold compress, smelling faintly of lavender, to Gwenna’s forehead. “You fainted when you saw u
s. The light was too much of a shock.”

  “What ...” Gwenna began again. “Tell ...”

  “No talking,” ordered Louisa, stroking her arm. “You’re to rest. And I’m here to make sure you do.”

  Louisa’s voice faded. Oblivion overtook her.

  * * *

  “You should consider yourself very lucky, Mrs Price,” said the doctor. “In my opinion, you were headed for a complete nervous breakdown, young lady.”

  Gwenna only half listened to the doctor lecture her about her ailments and what should be done about them. Today was her birthday. Two years in a row circumstances had ruined it.

  “You are exhausted,” continued the doctor, “and grossly undernourished. We need to build your strength up. It will be a slow process requiring long-term bed rest. The bruises will heal, but I am a little concerned with the ligament in your knee. Do not put any pressure on it until I tell you. Initially, I’m confining you to bed for one month.”

  “A month!” Whatever else he had said, that word was enough to bring Gwenna to her senses. “I won’t stay in bed for a month. I can’t.”

  “You can, and you will,” said Louisa firmly. “I promised Mam.”

  Louisa had taken on the role of chief carer. Her skills in the kitchen were limited, and she had never learnt how to make lollies.

  Not at all happy with being contradicted by his patient, the doctor began to put his instruments back in his bag. Tersely, he said, “I’ve given Mrs Evans here some tonic to help strengthen your blood and something to help you sleep. She has a list of recommended foods. I strongly suggest you follow my advice, if you know what’s good for you. Good day, madam.”

  Mam and Louisa were constantly in and out of her room, giving her possets of warm, spiced milk laced with brandy, soups of varying tastes and disgusting aspic jellies. The custards were much better, and the sweet milk toast a treat. They allowed her out of bed long enough to use the commode and propped her up on pillows for an hour at a time, but mostly she slept. The soothing lavender oil Louisa put on her pillow and rubbed on her temple and inside her wrists, helped Gwenna’s body take control over her mind.