‘Looking for Morgan, are you?’ he hissed. ‘Then so am I!’
‘Please, Barrass, leave me!’
‘We can walk on with you struggling, or we can walk sensibly. Which is it to be? For one way or another I am not letting go of you until we talk.’
‘Not now,’ she pleaded, her blue eyes full of fear, as she glanced around, expecting Morgan to appear. ‘I’ll meet you this evening, I promise, only go now.’
‘Where you go, I go!’ he said firmly. ‘First, the cottage. That was where you were heading, wasn’t it? Meeting with Morgan, were you?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know. Oh, Barrass, why won’t you leave me alone?’
‘I have ridden here from the furthest end of Gower, Jethro thinks I have gone completely mad, and all so I can see you, Olwen-the-fish. Now I’m here, we are going to look at the Morgans’ house, then we will talk.’ His hand gripped her arm and he half lifted her so her toes were barely touching the ground.
‘Barrass, you’re hurting me.’
‘Pity,’ he said, urging her to move faster.
His jaw was tight with determination, but his heart was filled with compassion at the sight of her. She was dishevelled; her dress was torn and dirty, her hair, grown through the summer to touch her shoulders, was tangled and dull. It alarmed him to see her so neglectful of her appearance but he hid his anxiety, determined to settle the disharmony between them.
They both saw the house at the same time and a gasp of surprise escaped them both. The house was a ruin. The mud walls had been pushed in, the thatched roof was nothing more than a brown mess and apart from three hens pecking about in the debris, there was no sign of life.
Releasing Olwen’s arm, Barrass ran with her to the ruin, and they tried to ease up blocks of the mud walls to search beneath them. It was soon clear that the place was deserted. They could see that an attempt had been made to burn it, but the thatch had been so damp, moss covering it like a soft green blanket, that the attempt had failed.
They stood looking at the pile of useless rubbish that had once been a home for a family of seven people and wondered what had made Morgan knock it down.
‘He blamed the house for them all being ill,’ Olwen said.
‘How could that be?’ Barrass asked.
‘After their parents died, it became damp, cold, the stream seeping in under the walls and soaking their beds no matter how many times they were changed. The doctor agreed with him, but he couldn’t get the others to find a better place.’
They turned away from it, but Barrass took off his coat and gave it to Olwen to hold.
‘We might as well take the hens with us. It’s a miracle they haven’t been taken by a fox.’
The hens were laying birds and as he held a hand over their backs they crouched and allowed him to pick them up. With one under each arm, he walked back while Olwen helped open a sack she had found. Barrass carried the sack and Olwen led Jethro.
‘Will you go and tell Daniels what we have done?’ he said. ‘I don’t want us in trouble for stealing.’
‘I’ll leave them at Betson-the-flowers’s,’ Olwen said. ‘I don’t want to go home yet.’
Having done so, they stood outside the shabby cottage and Olwen began to walk away from him.
‘Olwen. We must talk,’ he began. Then something in her expression made him look in the direction of the small woodland where she was heading. A movement amid the russet colours of the dying leaves made him run to investigate. He saw a crouched figure stumbling away from him and caught him easily.
‘Morgan!’ he gasped.
‘Help me,’ the man whispered, his face blotched and wet with perspiration. His eyes went from one to the other as Olwen reached Barrass’s side. ‘Hide me.’
Before they could recover their wits sufficiently to make a decision, men appeared from the bushes around them and Morgan was held. He was so weak he needed no restraining; two men had to support him. He looked at Olwen and shook his head.
‘We’ll be freed when we tell what we know!’ he gasped. There was no roughness as he was led away after one last malevolent glance at Olwen.
‘He believes I led them to him,‘ Olwen sobbed, unable to tell Barrass the meaning of his words. ‘There’s so much hatred in him.’
‘I think he is dying,‘ Barrass said softly.
‘I think you have been helping him, Olwen!’ Daniels appeared, immaculate as always, his tall imposing figure making her afraid so she clung to Barrass.
‘What if I have,’ she said defiantly. ‘poor, sick and in debt, always in trouble. Someone had to care!’ Before either Daniels or Barrass could stop her she ran back past Betson-the-flowers’s house and disappeared through a hedge.
Daniels glared at Barrass as if it were his fault.
‘What is it about you people?’ he said. ‘You’ll protect your own even when they have robbed and cheated. When they have disobeyed the law and assisted the smugglers to deprive His Majesty King George of his excise money. Even the Morgans, who, I suspect, were behind the attack on Ben Gammon and who left him bleeding and battered unconscious. These you will protect?’ He stalked off to where a man was holding his horse. These people do not deserve me, he thought angrily.
Olwen ran from Barrass, but she stopped as she thought of Vanora. Now working at Ddole House, she would not know of the capture of her brother. Changing direction, Olwen ran to tell her.
Feeling a bit uneasy approaching the house where she had worked so recently, Olwen knocked on the kitchen door and called for Florrie. To her amazement, it was Barrass who opened it.
‘I thought I should come and tell Vanora where her brother is,’ Barrass said in explanation. ‘It seems we both had the same thought.’
Vanora came out of the house wearing a cloak and carrying a box which Olwen guessed would contain food.
‘Barrass is giving me a ride to Daniels’s house to see Morgan,’ she said as she hesitantly approached the horse tethered near the stable door.
Barrass strode from the doorway as Olwen prepared to leave and gripped her arms. He bent to touch her check with his own. ‘Olwen, you belong to me,’ he said. ‘Not to Morgan or Madoc or anyone else. You are mine.’
He looked into her eyes momentarily, his own liquid and large. Then his lips touched hers so briefly she thought she must have imagined it as he released her and went to where David was helping Vanora up onto Jethro.
‘I will see you tomorrow, when I have finished my deliveries,’ Barrass called, as he jumped up behind Vanora and urged Jethro forward.
‘And I will see you now,’ Florrie said, having to speak twice before Olwen heard her. ‘The master has said you can come back here to work. There’s no time to go home. Clean yourself here. We can’t have you here looking like that.’
‘But…’ Olwen protested.
‘Hurry, girl. There’s three extra for dinner and only me and Dozy Bethan to see to it!’
Bemused by the sudden change in her day, Olwen obeyed.
She was glad of the work to keep her occupied as she waited for the announcement to come from Daniels that Barrass was arrested. She told Florrie nothing although the woman guessed that something was troubling her. If Madoc or Morgan did what they threatened then all she had suffered to save Barrass had been for nothing.
Washing the endless dishes, her mind wandered to Barrass’s brief declaration he had made with Florrie and Vanora close by. If only she could have thrown her arms around him, told him how much she loved him. But while there was a chance of protecting him, she must keep away from him. Association with her would confirm his guilt if the Morgans swore he was involved. A word from the imprisoned brothers and Barrass would be past anyone’s help.
For five days she waited for news to come from the prison in Swansea, days of avoiding Barrass, hoping that if she did as Madoc had asked, and insisted she was their alibi for the days of the robberies, they would not accuse him.
She was beginning to believe her life would be spent
avoiding questions, and keeping away from everyone who tried to make her speak. Then on Thursday Daniels came to Ddole House and asked to see her. He ignored Florrie as if she were lower than the simplest kitchen maid, and insisted on William Ddole being present while he interviewed the girl.
‘I think you should tell me everything you know about the activities of Madoc Morgan and his brother Morgan Morgan,’ he said when Olwen was standing before him in William Ddole’s study. ‘Before you say anything,‘ he added as the girl began to shake her head, ‘—let me tell you that I know a great deal already, and will know at once if you are lying.’
‘Olwen doesn’t lie,’ William defended.
‘I hope for her sake that is not true!’ Daniels said. ‘Now, on the day of the robbery, the brothers were supposed to have been digging their garden.’
‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘That’s wrong. They were beating Ben Gammon into the ground with sticks and taking the letters he carried.’
‘No, it couldn’t have been them—’
For a moment, Daniels waited, watching the colour spread on Olwen’s face. He slowly shook his head.
‘How did they persuade you to say that?’
‘They didn’t persuade me. Ask Vanora. She would know how long it took them to dig such a patch of hard earth, sick as they are.’
‘How did they persuade you, Olwen?’ he repeated. ‘Surely you didn’t lie for them because of any affection for them?’
She didn’t reply and after a pause, he took out a piece of paper and began to read.
‘We the undersigned, do declare without persuasion, that we attacked several persons including Ben Gammon, with the intent to steal. We also declare without persuasion that we forced Olwen, daughter of Spider Fish, to support us, under the threat of involving her and Barrass, letter-carrier of Gower.’
‘Is that true, Olwen?’ William asked.
Olwen nodded.
‘How did you find out?’ William asked.
‘You have Cadwalader to thank for the speed at which I solved this muddle,’ Daniels said. ‘He could see that Olwen was unhappy and by diligence that would make him a fine Keeper of the Peace, if he had some learning from someone as expert as myself, he observed that Madoc was the cause. What he knew, added to what he guessed and surmised, gave me sufficient information to persuade Madoc and Morgan I knew it all.’ Daniels was unable to resist giving her a lecture about the importance of truth, and the need to trust in the law of the land. William could see the girl was trembling and he stood, implying that the interview was at an end.
‘I think Florrie will spare you for the rest of the day, Olwen,’ William said. ‘Go home and tell your parents everything. They have been as confused as the rest of us about why you were so troubled.’
Daniels left the room beside her and waited until she had gathered her cloak before walking through the kitchen. Olwen saw that Florrie had placed some cake and a mug of ale on the corner of the big wooden table for him, but the solemn man ignored both refreshment and Florrie.
‘I can’t give you a ride, Olwen,’ Daniels said. ‘I have to get back to Swansea and complete my report on this case. But I will see you again, soon, together with your father and mother and we can get everything clear.’
‘Yes, and thank you,’ Olwen said, anxious to be away. She walked calmly and casually as he rode past her, but as soon as he was out of sight, she skipped, and shouted her joy. She was free of the danger! Now she could tell Barrass why she had been so indifferent to him. Singing loudly she ran through fields that were still rich with the colours of late summer flowers and approached the house, breathless, rosy and sparkling with happiness.
She heard the wailing of Enyd crying before she had come in sight of the front door. At once anger flared in her. There was always something wrong, something to make Enyd complain. Never a day when her crying or her criticism did not touch them all. Even on this day when Olwen’s world had suddenly come right again, Enyd was threatening to ruin it.
‘What is it now?’ she demanded when she entered the room, off which Enyd and Dan’s home was situated. In answer, the wailing grew louder.
‘Where’s Mam?’ Olwen asked. The room was dark after the brightness of the outside, and she could see nothing.
‘I don’t know. I’m here, facing it on my own. Dan’s gone, and your father, there’s no one to help!’
At once Olwen was concerned. The baby, there must be a problem with Enyd’s baby!
‘Enyd, what is it?’ she asked, pushing her way into the recently built, overfull room. Her sister-in-law was lying on the bed, curled up, hugging herself, tears streaming down her fat cheeks.
‘It’s terrible to be on your own at such a time,’ she wailed.
‘What is it? Please tell me. Shall I go and find Bessie Rees?’ Olwen asked. It was Bessie who helped most of the village children into the world.
‘Yes, you better had. It’s Mistress Powell. She’s dead.’
The shock was so great that Olwen did not feel immediate relief that it was not after all Dan’s baby in trouble. Mistress Powell had been a part of their family for months only, but she had been so important to Olwen, that the loss of her stunned her. She ran back into the family room and saw what she had missed the first time; Mistress Powell had fallen forward from her chair and was crouched on the floor as if picking up something she had dropped.
So small had the old woman become it was easy for Olwen to lift her. She sat with the body across her, rocking, crooning comforting sounds, as if it were a baby she held. Enyd continued to demand attention but Olwen did not hear her any more. She had lost a dear friend.
She looked up when a shadow crossed the threshold and only then did she cry.
‘Barrass, oh how glad I am to see you.’
He knelt beside her, hugged her and kissed away her tears and together they nursed the body of the old woman until Mary and Spider returned.
* * *
Before the burial, Mary and Olwen sorted through the old woman’s few possessions. In a box they found thirty pounds in assorted coins. With it was a note.
These are for Olwen to start a business for herself so she need never again be unhappily employed.
Chapter Twenty
Olwen had blossomed in the knowledge that Barrass loved her. She still looked childlike, but there was a new expression in her blue eyes, a new awareness about her that seemed to add stature to her slim figure. As the days shortened and winter signalled its approach, she continued to work at Ddole House, but ideas for a change were brewing in her head.
‘Barrass,’ she said one day, ‘I think I have an idea for a business Mistress Powell would approve of. Something I would enjoy.’
‘As long as it doesn’t take you far away from me,’ Barrass smiled.
They were sitting in Mary and Spider’s crowded living room. Dan and Enyd had managed to squeeze themselves in and the family were sharing a meal.
‘And so long as you don’t want to keep a lot of equipment in here!’ Mary added with a laugh. ‘Prisoners we’d be, unable to move an inch!’
‘I want to use the money to buy some animals, sell milk, cheese and butter. I’ve even thought of a name for what I sell,’ Olwen said. ‘Olwen is my name and it’s very like Olwyn the Welsh word for wheel.’ She turned to her brother. ‘Dan, could you make me butter pats and a beautiful sign with a wheel on it? I’ll call my products, Olwyn.’
Dan agreed to carve the butter pats and make her a sign.
‘I’ll paint it so it will be readily seen and long remembered,’ he promised. ‘A big one you can put up when you display your wares at the market, or even the fairs.’
‘I’ll help with caring for the animals,‘ Mary promised.
‘There’s often stale fish which will help to feed them.‘ Spider added.
‘What can I do?’ Barrass demanded. Then he went silent, a frown creasing his brow. Mary’s mention of prisoners had brought the Morgans’ home to his mind
.
‘Barrass? You aren’t pleased?’ Olwen asked.
‘Olwen, how would you feel about living in the field and rebuilding the Morgans’ cottage? There would be plenty of room for animal pens and hen coops.’ He looked at Spider. ‘The field slopes nicely down to the stream, the soil looks good to me, and if we built at the highest point…’
‘Barrass, I’m not sure,’ Olwen frowned. ‘With Madoc and Morgan in prison waiting to be hanged, we couldn’t be happy there, could we?’
‘I’ll talk to Vanora, although she’s made it clear she won’t go back there even if she could rebuild her home. And I’ll discuss it with William Ddole, it’s he who owns the land.’ His eyes shone with excitement, already planning the position of the house he would build. ‘As for the house, well there’s Pitcher to help, and Dan and Spider, and – if only Arthur came back – but there, we’ll have plenty of willing hands. Oh, Olwen, to have a home of our own!’
* * *
Spider went with Barrass to see William, who did not welcome the sight of the younger man. For this reason, it was Spider who did the talking.
‘Mistress Powell’s left money for Olwen to begin a business,’ Spider explained when they had given the reason for their visit.
‘So, you want permission to use the field, build yourself a house, and take away one of my servants?’ William frowned. Then his face relaxed. ‘Very well. I’ll go and look at the sorry place and let you know my decision in a day or so.’
Barrass and Spider were dismissed and they walked back to the cliffs with doubts over the generosity of William Ddole. He had not seemed too willing to allow what they asked. They did not know how pleased William had been to hear that Barrass was to marry. Surely now he could write a more pleading letter to Penelope and ask her to come home?
The next day, when Barrass called at the house with the account from the post office for William’s monthly transactions, he was handed a two-page letter addressed to Penelope at the London home of Gerald and Marion Thomas. Barrass handled it and wondered whether he too should write to Penelope and explain about his wedding plans. But he did not. Best, he thought, to wait a while and see what happened. Although he loved Olwen deeply, passionately and possessively, he could not altogether abandon the hope of seeing Penelope again.
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