The Posthorn Inn

by The Posthorn Inn (retail) (epub)

  When midnight had passed and the room was still full, Daniels began to feel concern. Then, gradually, silently, people drifted out into the night. William and John Maddern seemed to be affected by drink and he heard them ask Pitcher if he could find them a room for the night. Surely it was an attempt to mislead him?

  Within minutes he saw William and John being led away, then when Pitcher did not return he asked Arthur to find him. He was told by Arthur that Pitcher was nowhere to be found. He had been right! Tonight the smugglers would walk into a trap that was large enough to capture them all.

  Up in the room above the door of the inn, Pitcher and Emma watched the dark street below. The men who drifted out of the doorway gathered for a while then scattered in ones and twos and made their way to their beds, noisily and with no attempt at concealment.

  * * *

  On the cliffs all remained quiet apart from the call of a vixen and the churring of a nightjar. Dawn slid through the horizon in splendid glory and lit the rocks and the grass above in all their beautiful colours. Rabbits hopped without fear around the recumbent forms, accepting them as harmless as the soldiers hardly moved and made no sound. When the officers in charge of the 400 men decided to abandon their watch, the wary creatures flashed their scuts and disappeared as men thankfully straightened their aching limbs.

  Another colour was dramatically added to the muted greens and shadowy browns of the slopes above the sea as silently, the men stood and stretched their arms high above their heads. Red uniforms blazed in the incipient dawn, growing up out of the grasses and bracken like bizarre flowers.

  * * *

  Daniels was sitting in his armchair, dozing near a low fire when the officers knocked on his door to tell him of the failure of their ambush. His disbelief was absolute. He accused them of sleeping, and of surrounding the wrong cove. He had been certain that the numbers and letters were a clear indication of a planned landing. The officers dismissed their men and went wearily back to their camp.

  To Pitcher’s amusement, a large number of the soldiers sat at his tables and described to him their futile and wakeful night.

  ‘Seems William Ddole’s idea worked,’ Pitcher whispered to Emma. ‘That should stop them bothering us for a month or two!’

  * * *

  Pansy crept down the stone steps and interrupted Arthur at his work. He was rolling the heavy barrels from one end of the room to the other, getting the fresh ale behind the old. Tilted on one side balanced against his left hand, he was rolling a full barrel with his right. He almost dropped it as Pansy gently touched the back of his neck.

  ‘My dear Arthur, my dear love, how I long for your kiss,’ she whispered and as she had closed her eyes to receive his kiss she did not see his own eyes flash a warning. From behind the partition wall stepped Pitcher.

  ‘Pansy!’

  The unexpected sound of her father’s voice made her shout in alarm. Her mind fumbled for an excuse to explain her presence, but Pitcher did not give her time to speak it. He took her arm and marched her up the steps and up again to the parlour where Emma was taking a much needed rest.

  ‘Mistress Palmer!’ Pitcher shouted. ‘This daughter of yours was interfering with my domain in a way I do not like!’

  ‘Pitcher, what happened?’ Emma, woken suddenly, her wig slightly tilted, sat up quickly recovering and frowned at Pansy. ‘Pansy, dear, are you under your father’s feet? Don’t tell me I have two daughters who want to be involved in business! I couldn’t bear it!’

  ‘Business with my potboy!’ Pitcher said. He was surprised to see his wife laugh.

  ‘Don’t tell me you expect your daughters to miss a chance of teasing the boy. I did a bit of that myself and no harm in it for sure!’

  ‘Pansy, tell your mother your explanation of how I found you kissing my potboy!’ Pitcher instructed and instead of a reply, Pansy ran to the top of the stairs and called for Arthur to join them.

  He came and stood uncomfortably beside Pansy. His Adam’s apple jigged uncontrollably, his eyes were opened wide enough to encompass the whole room, and as he began to stammer out a few incomprehensible words, it was Pansy who finally said. ‘Arthur and I wish to be married.’

  There was a moment’s silence which was broken by a stifled sob from Emma. Pitcher finally said, ‘Don’t be a fool, boy, go back to the cellar and finish the job we was at. My daughter is behaving badly by you and don’t think no more of it. We’ll make sure she doesn’t torment you again.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Pitcher,’ Arthur blurted out. ‘I love Pansy dearly and Pansy loves me.’

  ‘Daughter, you haven’t—?’ Words failed to come and Emma sank once again into silence.

  ‘We want you to give your permission, Mamma,’ Pansy said. ‘I can’t imagine ever wanting to marry someone as much as I want to marry Arthur.’

  ‘But how—? When—? Oh, Arthur my boy, this is all beyond me!’ Pitcher marched round in a circle, pulling at his hair. Then he turned to Emma and complained, ‘Why did you have so many daughters, woman? It was sons I should have had, then there’d be none of this!’

  Emma burst into loud and unmusical crying and Pansy and Arthur both ran to console her. All three grouped together and glared at Pitcher who threw up his hands and shouted, ‘Stop it! What are you looking at me for as if I were the wicked one? Done nothing but work hard for to give my daughters the good start you thought they should have, Emma Palmer! That’s what I’ve done! And where has it got us all, tell me that!’

  Pitcher approached his wife and as they began to shout at each other, Pansy took Arthur’s hand and ran with him down the stairs to tell Daisy of their announcement.

  ‘Pansy, you can’t mean it? You are giving Mamma a fright to persuade her to give in on something else, aren’t you?’ Daisy looked from the demure face of her sister to the thin, anxious face of Arthur and read something of their joy. She closed her ledger and stared at them in surprise. ‘No, you do mean it!’

  ‘Mean it or not. It will not happen!’ screeched Emma from the top of the staircase.

  Daisy saw a shared look between her twin and the potboy and wondered which side would win.

  Emma was so upset that although she guessed the woman would gloat, she went across to talk to Ceinwen. Kenneth was sitting before the fire and he gave only a brief nod when Ceinwen ushered her inside. He was pulling his pipe at a fast rate suggesting to Emma that he was fuming about something and that before she left, she would be told why.

  As soon as Ceinwen had offered and served tea and a plate of small cakes, he fumbled in his pocket and brought out a few coins.

  ‘I’ve discovered that my wife, who I am promised to support, has been given money each week to compensate us for your husband stealing our livelihood,’ he said in his pompous way.

  ‘Well, here it is returned. We won’t be needing it. I have plans afoot to increase our business, in the same way Pitcher increased his!’

  ‘There’s glad I am.’ Emma spoke softly, reasonably and the puff evaporated from the small man. He had been building himself up to say a lot more but her reaction had defeated him.

  ‘Kenneth has applied for the house to serve ale,’ Ceinwen said.

  ‘Hush, woman,’ Kenneth exploded. ‘I wish you would keep a still tongue!’

  ‘An alehouse? So close to the inn?’

  ‘There, you don’t like it when someone poaches close to you, do you?’

  ‘It wasn’t that, but I think you’ll be disappointed, being so close to us and several others. There isn’t the need.’

  ‘It will go before the justices in September. They’ll decide in my favour for sure.’

  * * *

  There were only a few people present in the inn that afternoon, but the news spread in the way that Emma and Pitcher dreaded, and at every opportunity they denied the story and begged the teller of it to report its untruth. Pansy and Arthur just smiled. Emma told Pitcher to send Arthur away, and Pitcher told Emma to control her daughters, so t
he situation remained static for a few weeks. Pitcher tried to cheer Emma by suggesting she had a dinner party to celebrate the news about Violet’s new baby.

  ‘And would we invite the potboy as a servant or a guest, Mr Palmer, tell me that,’ she wailed.

  * * *

  Olwen’s depression deepened as days passed without seeing Barrass. She had been told what had happened in the cellar of the inn and knew that Madoc’s threats were real. The need to see Barrass kept her awake at night and inconsolably troubled during the day, but she said nothing to anyone. Not even to Mistress Powell to whom she told most of her secret thoughts.

  One evening towards the end of August she gave up all attempts to sleep. She slipped out of her covers and went down the ladder to the living room.

  The fire was low, little more than a red-edged greyness. She poked a few sticks into its heart to encourage flames and as she sat in its brief flickering saw that Mistress Powell was awake. The knotted hands were poised over a shawl and a needle had slipped from her fingers.

  ‘Surely you aren’t working at this time of the night, and with no light?’ Olwen whispered.

  ‘The candle died and I was too comfortable to move and replace it,’ Mistress Powell sighed. ‘But if you would light one I would like to finish sewing in the ends of this shawl.’

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ Olwen asked as she fetched a candle from the box on the wall and lit it from the burning stick.

  ‘I just want to get this done and ready for your mother to sell at the big Neath Fair next month. I don’t think I’ll be starting another.’

  Olwen looked at the old woman and saw with a shock how frail she had become. So used to seeing her, the gradual ageing had escaped her and now she hugged the shrunken shoulders and said, ‘Don’t worry if you are too tired to knit and sew. You don’t need to work for your place with us. You are here because we love you and you are as much ours as any other member of the family – more than that Enyd will ever be!’ she added in a whisper. She was pleased to hear the old woman chuckle.

  ‘If I’m family, won’t you tell me what is troubling you?’ Mistress Powell asked softly.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ Olwen assured her, taking the needle and threading it with wool. ‘Mam says all girls of my age get times when they are melancholy. It’s nothing more than that.’

  * * *

  Partly to keep his mind busy and away from Olwen, and partly because the work interested him, Barrass took to riding into Swansea on the evenings he was free and helping Walter to sort the letters. Most times Walter was absent and he found himself with the sole responsibility for arranging the post into the various piles for the different areas of the town.

  The small room was usually in a muddle with unrelated mail piled in untidy heaps on the counter and the ledger open with letters sitting on it waiting to be entered. Barrass made shelves which he partitioned into spaces. The outgoing and incoming letters were then separated and when someone called to collect one it was easily found. If Walter noticed the improvements he did not remark on them.

  When Walter was present, his first question was always about Daisy. When he was told that she was coming into town he would abandon the office and watch the road for Pitcher’s wagon to come into sight and invite her to take tea with him. Daisy always refused.

  Lowri rarely appeared, although Barrass suspected that she shared Walter’s bed. He wondered idly if Walter wanted her there or whether he was too vague to tell her to go. The man seemed obsessed with Daisy, yet unable to do anything determined enough to earn her respect. A bit like me and Olwen, he thought with a sigh.

  He knew that like Walter, he spent a lot of time hanging about in the hope of just a glimpse of Spider’s beautiful daughter. Olwen refused to give him even a word and the look on her face was mystifying. She wore the melancholy expression of a kicked dog, yet when their eyes met he saw anger. What had made her change so dramatically towards him? She had been adoring when he had not valued it, yet now her attitude seemed closer to hatred.

  He tethered the patient Jethro under the large tree and went into the sorting office. There was no one there. The letters were strewn about for anyone to take, and he called up the stairs as he usually did, to rouse Walter from his sleep. He busied himself first with the scattered letters, then he began to enter the transactions into the ledger. The box under the counter did not rattle when he lifted it and he saw to his alarm that the clasp had been torn off. Someone had stolen the payments.

  He ran up the curving stairs to the room above and shook the sleeping man. Of Lowri there was no sign.

  ‘Walter! Wake up you fool! The money has been taken!

  Tousled and bleary-eyed, Walter sat up from among the tumbled covers and stared at Barrass.

  ‘What did you say? Where’s Lowri? She promised to call me.’

  ‘Call you all sorts of an idiot I should think. If she’s gone it’s likely she has the money with her!’ Leaving the man to wash and dress, Barrass ran back down and from the crowd waiting for Ben’s son chose a boy to run for Daniels.

  Annie watched from the doorway of her boarding house but she did not come out to see what had caused such a lively talk and excitement. Behind her, Lowri stood smiling.

  ‘Now Mother, do I have a share of what you stole from us or do I tell Daniels you helped me?’

  Without turning to face her daughter, Annie said, ‘I don’t think you would face prison just to punish me, Lowri. The money I took was mine. It was I who worked for it, I who kept the boarding house running while your father drank himself to the point of death.’

  ‘But he isn’t dead, he’s being cared for by friends while he waits for me to find you and tell him where you are.’

  Annie stared across the open space to where Ben and his son had just arrived. To an onlooker she was smiling, but her deep dark eyes were cold.

  ‘Go away, daughter, and come to see me in a week from now. I’ll have the money you demand of me.’

  ‘For the moment, where shall I hide?’

  ‘In the tall cupboard behind the dresses. Hurry now for here comes the Keeper of the Peace and he will be looking for you.’

  Ben arrived amid cheers. His head was swathed in a large white bandage and his hat had been cut to accommodate it.

  ‘I says to myself, Ben, where’s the sense in being so brave as to have folks say, “He died a hero saving the Royal Mail”? No, friends. I’ll have my son here to keep an eye to my back for as long as ’til the thieves is caught!’

  Amid laughter the crowd gathered around him and half carried him into the inn to tell his story once again. His son joined Barrass and Daniels to investigate the situation within the sorting office. As soon as the letters had been examined, Daniels saw the letter-carrier on his way and went to see Annie.

  ‘She isn’t here, Daniels,’ Annie assured him. ‘That daughter of mine might be an ungrateful child but she wouldn’t have taken from the man who has taken her in and given her food and a bed. She’s just taken it into her thoughtless head to go wandering off again. She isn’t a one to settle. But it isn’t at her you need to look for your thief.’

  ‘It seems to me that your position here gives you the opportunity to see much of what goes on,’ Daniels said.

  ‘More than people imagine,’ Annie smiled.

  ‘Then can I ask that you take extra interest in what passes and let me know your thoughts and opinions, Mistress Evans?’

  ‘I hope I know my duty as an honest citizen,’ she agreed.

  Once Daniels had returned to the sorting office where an anxious Walter was trying to find his way through the neglected routines, Annie called her daughter out of hiding.

  ‘I’ll go, Mother, but I will be back for what you promised within a week,’ Lowri said.

  ‘A week. No sooner,’ Annie smiled.

  When Daniels had departed and the area had returned to its usual quiet, Annie knocked on the door of Sally Ann’s room.

  ‘I am going away,’ she
told her. ‘I want you to take charge of the house and act as my manager.’

  ‘But of course. For how long will you be away?’ Sally Ann asked.

  ‘That I cannot say, but you must promise me that whoever asks and however urgent their business, you will not tell anyone where I am.’

  Sally Ann agreed, and a few hours later Annie was packed and aboard the stagecoach for Cardiff.

  * * *

  At the inn the following day when Barrass had returned from his two-day journey with the letters, he was sitting in the bar-room playing nine-men-morris with Arthur, Pitcher and Daisy, when Olwen walked in. She hesitated when she saw him sitting there and for a moment, Barrass thought she would run back out.

  ‘Welcome, Olwen!’ Pitcher said and he beckoned for her to sit with them. ‘Come to see me teach these how to play, have you?’

  ‘I’ve brought some oysters and cockles for Emma to cook.’ she said heading for the back room. ‘Put them on the table, shall I?’

  Barrass stood up and walked towards her. Taking the basket from her he asked, ‘Stay a while, won’t you? We see so little of you, less than when you worked all day at Ddole House.’

  Olwen shook her head. She waved brightly to Pitcher and the others, but ignored Barrass and went out.

  Following her out into the dullness of the late summer evening, Barrass caught hold of her arm to stop her.

  ‘Olwen, let me at least walk a little way with you,’ he pleaded. He thought she looked around as if to make sure no one could see them before agreeing with a brief nod. Once on the steep path they were partly concealed by bushes and tall grasses and he saw her shoulders relax. What could he say that would make her talk to him?