Pulling her shawl closely around her shoulders, she stepped warily down the stone steps, her slippered feet not making a sound. Pansy was sitting on a wooden crate which had been upturned. Beside her, talking to her in whispered tone that to Daisy’s ears sounded companionable and familiar, was Arthur. Arthur’s dog was on Pansy’s lap and was enjoying the caresses of both of them. A lantern standing close by lit the trio, surrounding them in a glowing nimbus.
‘Pansy!’ Daisy said in a coarse whisper that made the couple spring apart like the jaws of a trap. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘It’s the dog,’ Pansy said at once, and her sister had the strong feeling that the story was a prepared and rehearsed one. ‘It’s the dog, he has a splinter in his paw. I came to help Arthur remove it.’ By the time she had finished telling her reason, her tone had changed from shocked embarrassment to one of haughty control.
‘Removing a splinter would be better done in the bright light of the sun, not feeling around in candle and torch light in the cellar,’ Daisy said. ‘Come on, get out of here before Dadda comes back. He won’t believe your story either!’ she added pointedly.
While her sister jumped down from the crate and hastily brushed down her woollen skirt to remove any dust, Daisy looked around her. The cellar was different from how she remembered it. It was smaller, less frightening. The walls, instead of being a dark grey stone, were whitewashed and clean. The floor was cobbled and surprisingly free of litter. In one corner, beside a huge barrel in which the dog obviously slept, was a bed. It was of sacking filled with heather, showing the indentation of Arthur’s body. There was a cover too, one made of linen, ragged at the corners, that had once been on her and Daisy’s bed.
She didn’t follow her sister when she and Arthur made for the steps, but walked to the end of the cellar where, she remembered, the room had continued with a lower ceiling. So this was where the illegal goods were hidden. Her sharp eyes noticed the slight gap between the wall and one of the pillars. The end had clearly been partitioned off. It was not only the uncertain memory of childhood plus growing up into a new concept of size that made the place appear to be smaller. It really had shrunk.
Daisy had always known about the smuggling, but had accepted it as a part of life that did not concern her. Now she thought about the danger and felt a surprising warmth and love for her father, who had risked so much to give them a comfortable life. She was smiling as she climbed back up into the brightness of daylight after her sister.
Daisy didn’t return to the drawing room. Let her sister wonder for a while about how she would deal with her discovery. Befriending a servant like Arthur would make their mother very angry. She had no intention of telling Emma about what she had seen in the cellar, but best to let her sister worry a little. That way she’ll be extra nice to me for a while at least, she smiled. Perhaps even give me that brooch of hers I so admire.
She stood at the doorway of the alehouse, another forbidden thing to do, and looked out at the sea and at the small houses nestled so dangerously close to it. Almost touching the tidemark, their walls were green and patterned with seaweed and the small crustaceans that depended on the twice daily tide for nourishment. A group of people was sitting watching the boats being prepared for their next voyage, and others were standing looking up towards Kenneth’s house, waiting for the arrival of Barrass with letters and news from his travels.
So that was why the alehouse was empty. Everyone gathering for gossip that came with the Post. She pushed the door closed, unreasonably angry with the disloyalty of the customers who had left their tables to stand and wait at Kenneth’s door. Further down the road, small groups of people were heading towards the house on the bank. They had been waiting at other establishments, supping ale to while away the time before the arrival of Barrass.
She watched as Barrass came into view, his red waistcoat visible long before he was close enough to be recognized. Stepping outside, she saw people gather around the bottom of the bank below the receiving house. Kenneth opened his door and stepped out to stand importantly waiting for the letters to be handed to him, his nose raised as if to compensate for his lack of height.
Ceinwen followed behind him and it was she who took the bag and the notebook in which Barrass had reported all his transactions. Kenneth talked with Barrass for a few moments then, while the boy went inside to be given a drink, Kenneth took his customary place and began to tell his audience the news brought back by the letter-carrier.
Barrass returned, mug in hand, to prompt him, but it was Kenneth who told the news, acting out some of the reports passed to him by Barrass. Ceinwen came out with trays of small cakes and fancies to sell, and the people who sat listening to Kenneth’s performance and discussing the few items of gossip Barrass had brought, chewed the cakes and sweetmeats, passing money into Ceinwen’s willing hands.
At the corner of the alehouse the wind whipped Daisy’s hair into a dark cloud. The coldness of the air was unnoticed as her mind filled with thoughts and ideas that excited her making her unaware of the discomfort. What if the letter-carrying could be taken from Kenneth who didn’t deserve it anyway, and brought to the alehouse? People would wait there, take food from their tables instead of buying Ceinwen’s offerings. Even those who habitually waited at other eating establishments might prefer to wait at the place where Barrass arrived with news and letters.
Her rather severe expression softened as she imagined the scene. A comfortable place, warm and with good food and ale easily available would make people gather and, more importantly, stay, until Barrass came with the letters. He would sit among them and entertain them with his gossip while they ate Pitcher’s food and drank Pitcher’s ale. They wouldn’t have to stand in all weathers and listen to the self-important pronouncements and opinions of Kenneth!
Unaware of how closely her thoughts matched those of her father, she ran in to talk her ideas over with Pansy.
‘Not that it would involve us,’ she explained to her sister, who had returned industriously to her sewing, but with tension in her straight back and tight jaw. ‘But it would bring in more custom and that means we might not have to lose our clothing allowance after all!’
Pansy’s answers and comments were vague. Daisy considered beginning over again but decided not.
Pansy was thinking about the possibility of Arthur losing his place. She was unaware of what Daisy was telling her, waiting for her to finish so she could ask for her promise not to tell.
‘You won’t tell Mamma, I mean about me going down the cellar?’ Daisy asked anxiously. ‘It isn’t that I mind. Mamma’s punishments are hardly severe. It’s for Arthur’s sake I would rather she did not know. It was nothing but a kindness for a poor animal on my part, but Mother will not understand. If Arthur loses his place it will be his home as well as his work. What would he do?’ Pansy looked at her sister and saw that she had not listened to a word of her pleading.
‘Daisy, my dear?’ she questioned. ‘Do you agree?’
‘I think I will talk to Dadda this evening,‘ Daisy replied.
‘What? About Arthur? Daisy, you cannot!‘ Pansy stood up in alarm.
‘No, sister dear. About another matter entirely.‘ Daisy smiled.
Chapter Five
When Barrass rode back from Swansea with the letters a few mornings later, Pitcher was waiting for him. This time, it was not a letter Pitcher was anxious to see, but Barrass himself.
‘Barrass, I want to talk to you. Come-along-a-me and get some food inside you, then spare me a while before you set off.’
Barrass gladly agreed. The breakfasts served to him by Arthur were large and nourishing.
He took the postbag to Ceinwen for sorting and took pleasure in refusing her offering of ale and a crust of bread.
‘Pitcher has invited me for food,’ he said. ‘Arthur has it cooking already. Damn, I think I can smell it from here.’
‘Don’t dawdle, boy,’ Kenneth warned. ‘There’s a letter for Llanmadoc an
d that means you go the long way round.’
Barrass groaned. What was it about that village that it attracted men of business who wrote frequent letters? Small farms and a church was all that was there!
When he had eaten his fill, Arthur left them and Pitcher sat beside him near the smoking fire.
‘Emma and me, we want you to come back and live here,’ he said. ‘It’s not right, you living in a damp old place and walking all the miles you do. There’s the food too. You know how much store Emma holds for a full belly. She wants you to live and eat with us. You can share the cellar with Arthur.’
‘Emma does?’ Barrass was surprised, knowing how much Emma had hated the idea of him being under the same roof as her daughters. ‘But why, Pitcher? What’s changed her opinion of me?’
‘Her opinion hasn’t changed, boy,’ Pitcher laughed. ‘She still thinks you a danger to any young girl with a less than downright ugly face. You won’t be allowed upstairs in her living rooms, just the cellar and yard. And the bar-room should you ever feel like helping out.’
‘I still don’t see why—’ Barrass frowned, his dark eyes lighting up at the thought of a dry bed, meals to satisfy his large appetite and best of all, some company to share the hours between work and sleep. He looked at Pitcher and saw the man was uncomfortable. ‘You haven’t told me the full story, have you?’ he questioned. ‘I just know there must be a reason for Emma’s agreement.’
Pitcher looked at the young man, then nodded as if coming to a decision.
‘I want to tell you something of my plans, but I beg you to keep a still tongue once you know of them.’ When Barrass nodded, he went on, ‘Me and Emma think to try and take the Post Office arrangement from Kenneth. He doesn’t deserve it, not doing any of the work himself and paying you less than an idiot could earn mending roads.’ He waited to see the reaction. Barrass looked surprised but he did not interrupt.
‘Seems to me that instead of people standing out in all weathers for their letters and the news you bring, they would be better served to wait in here with ale and some food to comfort them while they wait. Emma and me, we thought to go and see the Deputy Postmaster in Swansea and ask him to write to London on our behalf. There you have it. Well, what’s your opinion?’
‘Pitcher, you can’t take from Kenneth and Ceinwen!’
‘I’ve been awake half the night pondering over it, and I can’t think of a single reason why not!’
‘Just – take his living from him?’
‘It’s you who does the work, boy, you and Ceinwen. Kenneth just puffs on his pipe and struts importantly and gives the impression he does it all.’
Barrass stood to leave, a frown darkening his features.
‘I have to go. I’ll think about it while I travel, but I don’t feel that it’s right, Pitcher.’
‘One more thing. I might not have thought to do anything even though the idea was in my mind, but d’you know, my daughter, Daisy, came to me with the same idea? Yes, she and I thought along the same lines! And her a young lady brought up to look pretty and not much else besides. Surprised me proper she did. I never thought a daughter brought up by Emma would ever have the brains to see a business opportunity as sharp as that one.’ He followed Barrass to the door. ‘Goes to show, doesn’t it? The idea must be a good one if me and my empty-headed daughter came up with the identical thought?’
* * *
When Barrass went back to collect his bag, he could not meet Kenneth’s eye. Although the idea was not his, just knowing of what Pitcher planned made him carry the guilt of it. He set off with a solemn expression and for the first time hated the prospect of the long miles ahead of him. He felt the need to sit and think about Pitcher’s words and decide how his own conscience would deal with the idea.
He had no delivery for Ddole House, but it was his intention to go there first. He had to see Olwen and retrieve the letter she had undoubtedly stolen from him. If William Ddole saw the message from his daughter, Penelope would undoubtedly suffer further punishment. The letter made clear her intention of seeing Barrass again as soon as she were allowed to return home. William Ddole would make sure she stayed away for even longer than he now intended.
When he had missed the letter, soon after leaving Olwen on the cliffs near her home, he had searched the cliff path between where he had missed it and the gate where he had sat reading it. To and fro he had gone until long after the light had faded, forgetting about the letters on his shoulder and forgetting his arrangement to meet Kenneth near the green lane.
The watchman at Markus’s house came out suspiciously and demanded to know what he was about. When Barrass explained that he had lost a letter, the grumpy man had helped him search. Far beyond the path, inland across the small fields they wandered. There was only a slight breeze but they made certain the letter hadn’t been lifted and dropped beyond the vicinity of the tree-lined path. They found a kerchief torn and ragged, a dead rabbit and a shoe, but no letter.
Barrass had slept badly. He wondered if somehow the letter would reach William Ddole and planned his response to the man’s accusations. It was as morning approached that he came to the conclusion that Olwen had taken it. Relief, then anger stirred in him and he wanted to rise then and go and face her, demand she return it. He wished he had done what he had promised, and destroyed it. Like the other two, he had planned to keep it beneath his mattress so he could re-read them all.
When he arrived at Ddole House there was an air of abandonment about the place. The kitchen door was shut and there was no sign of activity. Barrass began to fit the silence with the loss of the letter and thought that William had gone storming to London to demand tighter control over Penelope. The explanation was simpler.
‘Master Ddole has gone to Bristol on business,’ Dozy Bethan told him. ‘We’ve been given some spring-cleaning to do then we can relax a little. That makes a change in a busy house like this! Seranne and Florrie are in town replenishing the stores, Olwen has been given the day to spend as she will. Tomorrow is my turn and I think I’ll just have a lazy day,’ she said slowly. ‘Best to take things easy while you can.’
Barrass was angry. He did not have the time to go searching for Olwen, he had to get on with his journey. It would be tomorrow before he would be back in the village, another day to worry about the whereabouts of the damaging letter.
After reaching Llanmadoc and delivering the letter, he was offered a ride and late afternoon found him in Port-Eynon, with hours to spend worrying about who was examining the note meant for him only.
The accommodation arranged for him was poor and he defiantly turned away from it and asked at one of the houses for a bed and a meal. The meal was fish, but better cooked than at his usual lodgings, and well served by an attractive woman, Charity, whose husband was out with the boats.
Charity made it clear that she did not sleep well alone and Barrass, unhappy and worried as he was, took little persuading to slide into her bed and comfort her. When he eventually slept he did not dream about Penelope being confronted by her angry father, but of the soft, welcoming body of the fisherman’s wife.
He was jerked from his slumbers by Charity shaking him.
‘The tide has turned, he’ll be here soon!’ she warned, and without a morsel to break his fast or a sip to ease his dry throat, he was wrapped in a kiss full of passion and promise, then pushed out through the door into the cold morning.
He still hadn’t given much thought to Pitcher’s proposal and when he returned to Kenneth’s house later that day, he handed in the letter bag and walked away from the direction of the alehouse, not ready to discuss it. He went straight to the cliff path intending to search for Olwen.
She was on the grass at the edge of the cliffs, kneeling admiring the flowers that abounded amid the short grasses and low shrubs. For a moment his anger left him and he stood watching her, admiring her innocent beauty. She looked up and saw him and smiled, her wide eyes as blue as the bugloss that flowered in June. The freckles th
at covered her face so delightfully in summer were already apparent.
‘Barrass, come and see,’ she said and he bent down beside her.
As excited as a child, she pointed out the boldly blue spring squill and the less bright bugle. Sheepsbit also blue peered shyly just above the grass and nearby, the almost unnoticed ground ivy. She pressed the leaves of the wild thyme for him to smell its strong fragrance and found a clump of the sage-like wild clary for him to admire. Forgetting his mistrust of her, he marvelled with her at the miniature beauty so casually displayed about them.
He had considered his tactics and began by telling her that he was indeed in touch with Penelope.
‘She was so distressed at being sent away from her home and all her friends,’ he said, ‘that she needs to keep a contact. Her love for me is only loneliness and unhappiness,’ he added. ‘I would hate her to be in trouble for writing to me, wouldn’t you? You are her friend too. I have to find that letter to make sure her father doesn’t see it.’
Silently, Olwen felt in the pocket of her full, cotton skirt and handed him the letter.
‘I wanted to read it but I couldn’t, if it was talk of your loving, I couldn’t bear to know,’ she whispered.
They were silent for a while, neither knowing what to say. Then Barrass put the letter safely inside his coat and began to talk to her about Pitcher’s intentions to take the postal deliveries from Kenneth.
‘Kenneth offered it to Dan you know,’ she told him. ‘When Dan married Enyd, he had the chance never to go to sea again, but the sea is what he wants. Enyd knows that now.’
‘You don’t sound angry? Don’t you think it’s wrong of Pitcher to cheat Kenneth out of his living?’
‘No, Barrass, I don’t! Kenneth cheats on you. He gives you as little as he can and makes you do all the work. Ceinwen breaks the law and serves drink from the back window of her house. He cheats on Ceinwen too,’ she added, looking at him with a bold provocative stare. ‘Him going to the green lane to see that Betson-the-flowers whenever he can. No, Pitcher is right to try and take the post. I wish him luck!’ She concentrated on a flower she had just picked for a moment or two, then went on, ‘You want to be someone important, don’t you, Barrass? Well, to be important you have to be determined and even a bit ruthless. William Ddole wouldn’t hesitate to take something from someone else if the need and opportunity were there.’
The Posthorn Inn Page 8
