by Rosie Harris
Myfanwy had been Rhys Carew’s only child, his most cherished possession. Morgan remembered how honoured he’d felt the first time he’d been detailed to escort her to a public function.
Her friends had giggled behind their fans knowing he worked for her father. The only one who had not done so was Helen ap Owen. She and Myfanwy had been friends all their lives and in those days seemed inseparable.
He’d liked Helen. She’d been a sweet, friendly girl, easier to get on with than Myfanwy. Her father, Tudor ap Owen, owned Fforbrecon, the biggest colliery in Ebbw Vale, and supplied Rhys Carew with coal for his blast furnaces.
Tudor ap Owen lived at Llwynowen, a magnificent mansion midway between Blaenafon and Govilon. Not all his fortune came from coal. Some came from the herds of black cattle that grazed the estate and the sheep that roamed freely over the Blorenge mountain.
It was after Helen married Sir George Sherwood that the close friendship between her and Myfanwy waned.
Tudor ap Owen had been puffed up with pride because his daughter was the first of the two girls to marry and that her future husband had a title as well as a country estate in Wiltshire.
Not to be outdone, Rhys Carew had announced his own daughter’s forthcoming marriage… to the man he’d put in charge of his ironworks.
Neither union had been a love match.
Morgan had been in awe of Myfanwy and well aware that she considered herself far superior to him. He’d known it wouldn’t be easy living up to her standards. She’d been determined to educate him to her fine ways, insisting it was necessary if he was to take his proper place alongside her in local society.
There had been some gruelling moments but by the time they walked down the aisle his behaviour was impeccable. He’d even learned to tolerate George Sherwood’s company without batting an eyelid.
When Helen was first married she corresponded regularly with Myfanwy. He was never shown the letters but he gathered from what Myfanwy told him that George Sherwood was something of a martinet. Helen’s new life in Wiltshire was not the romantic bed of roses she’d dreamed it would be.
On the rare occasions when Helen came home to see her father, Myfanwy visited her. Sir George Sherwood didn’t approve of his wife making social calls without him. Afterwards Myfanwy always expressed concern about the way Helen had changed. She had become so subdued and formal that even Myfanwy felt uncomfortable in her company.
The rivalry between Tudor ap Owen and Rhys Carew had flared anew when Myfanwy’s son was born. Tudor ap Owen waited impatiently for a grandson of his own and only thinly disguised his disappointment when Helen gave birth to a daughter. After the arrival of Helen’s second baby, also a girl, Tudor had discouraged her from visiting him. Instead, he focused his attention on his son, David, who was several years younger than Helen and still at school.
By now, David must be finished at university, mused Morgan. He wondered if he was as bigoted and overbearing as George Sherwood, now that his head was crammed full of fancy theories. If so, he’d probably exploit the workforce the same as his father had done and not know one man from the next. To him they would be as indistinguishable as pit ponies.
Perhaps it was because he came from humble beginnings himself, thought Morgan, as he poured himself a whisky, that he took such an interest in the men who worked for him. If they had a problem he wanted to know about it. A man couldn’t do his job to the best of his ability if he was worried. That much he knew from personal experience!
Some said if he’d spent as much time bothering about his own affairs as he did about those of the men he employed, then his wife would be alive today. He had tried. He’d been more than willing to do everything in his power to get her well again, but she’d shut him out. There had been an invisible barrier between them. He often wondered if it had been because of his humble background, if she felt she’d been sacrificed in order that Rhys Carew could ensure his precious ironworks were handed on to the only man he could trust to run it in the same way as he had.
He’d proved himself many times over, Morgan thought confidently. He’d been the one to persuade Rhys Carew that they should have their own colliery at Blaina and not rely on Tudor ap Owen for their supply of coal. It had caused a rift between the two men, but economically it had been a great success.
He got up and poured himself another whisky, and stirred the glowing nest of coal in the grate with the toe of his boot.
As the flames shot up, firing the soot at the back of the chimney with a thousand sparks, it brought back memories of the great blast furnaces and the fierce competition he’d been up against from Joseph and Crawshay Bailey, the most ruthless and successful of the Ebbw Vale ironmasters.
All that was in the past. Joseph had retired some ten years ago and Crawshay was no threat to him these days.
He wished Rhys Carew was still alive to see how he’d achieved everything he’d set out to do and how he was now numbered amongst the greatest ironmasters in South Wales.
Chapter 10
When she woke next morning the first thing Kate resolved to do was to take stock of her new surroundings. She was pleasantly surprised to find that in daylight Machen Mawr was a much grander house than she had first thought it to be.
Built of warm red brick, it had contrasting Bath stone at its corners and a slate roof. The six bay windows on the ground floor were all mullioned with elaborate cartouches above them; the long, narrow, upper windows had swags beneath them. Barley-sugar columns flanked the enormous oak door.
The forecourt was divided from the roadway by a set of splendid wrought-iron gates. On the other side of the house, a further sweep of drive led to the stables and garden.
Inside, Machen Mawr was equally impressive.
All the main downstairs rooms were panelled and the ceilings decorated with intricate plasterwork. If everywhere had been in pristine condition, floors swept and polished, furniture gleaming, ledges and ornaments dusted, it would have been magnificent, but to Kate’s critical eye there was a general air of slackness. It was as if the cleaning had been rushed, carried out indifferently by someone who knew that nobody would take the trouble to check it.
The previous evening, Morgan Williams had implied that he would expect her to oversee the running of his home as well as look after Mathew, which was why she felt it was necessary to explore her surroundings in such detail.
In one room, Kate stopped to admire an impressive collection of exquisitely japanned trays and boxes that were artistically displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet. She noted with surprise that these really did look cherished and that the cabinet gleamed from regular polishing.
As she wandered through the house, Kate found her first impressions confirmed. The furnishings were expensive and bore the hallmark of good taste but the niceties that turned mere rooms into a home were lacking. It was as if no one ever used the rooms or had any interest in the things in them.
Kate left visiting the kitchen until last.
‘You’ll have to handle Mrs Price with kid gloves,’ Morgan Edwards had warned. ‘She’s been cook-housekeeper here since the day we moved in. Doted on my wife. Broke her heart when Myfanwy died.’
She found that, unlike the rest of the house, the kitchen had an air of warmth and friendliness.
The array of china and glassware spaced out on the impressive Welsh dresser sparkled. Copper cooking pots gleamed. The open range had been newly black-leaded. The steel fender and trivet that stood on the freshly whitened hearth shone like silver.
Mrs Price was making bread, her arms bare to the elbow as she kneaded dough in a brown earthenware bowl. Mathew was kneeling on a wooden chair, at the other end of the scrubbed pine table, spooning up a bowl of porridge.
She acknowledged Kate’s greeting with a stiff nod of her grey head, her dark eyes wary as she studied the slim young stranger from top to toe.
She certainly looked respectable, she thought with relief, noting the neatness of Kate’s grey dress, the demure white lace
collar, white stockings and canvas boots. There was no guile in the cornflower-blue eyes that met hers and the sweetness of her smile would win the stoniest heart. A trifle too pretty, perhaps, Mrs Price decided, noticing that although Kate’s black hair was pulled back in a knot in the nape of her neck, wispy tendrils had escaped, and tiny ringlets framed her face.
It had come as a shock when the master had told her what had happened. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine what sort of young woman would be traipsing round the countryside after dark, knocking on doors of people she’d never met. And then staying in a strange house without even being sure there were other womenfolk sleeping there.
Her immediate thoughts had been that the girl must be a right young hussy, bold as brass and no better than she should be.
Now, faced with this sedate young woman whose voice had a gentle West-Country burr, she felt nonplussed.
Still, looks weren’t everything, Mrs Price told herself. She wasn’t going to be fooled by a pretty face. She’d wait a while before passing judgement. Sweet and pretty she might seem, but it could be a different story when she’d settled in and started imposing her will and making all manner of changes.
‘So this is where you are, Mathew,’ Kate chuckled. ‘Having breakfast by the kitchen fire.’
‘It’s warm down here, and that old nursery is cold until Glynis gets round to lighting the fire. And she hasn’t the time to carry coals up there first thing in the morning. Too many other jobs to be done, see,’ Mrs Price said defensively.
‘A very sensible arrangement,’ agreed Kate mildly.
‘Mathew spends a lot of his time down here with me. Lonely for the boy all on his own in a great barn of a place like this,’ Mrs Price added challengingly.
‘Well, we’ll soon find plenty to occupy his time now,’ Kate told her, turning to smile at Mathew, who kept his head down and attacked his bowl of porridge ferociously.
‘Not had a lot of schooling, poor little lamb, him being weakly and everything,’ Mrs Price explained. ‘Bright as a button though, aren’t you, Mathew? Going to be like Brynmor one of these days,’ she added fondly.
‘Brynmor?’
‘His brother,’ explained Mrs Price. ‘You’ve not met Brynmor yet, of course.’
‘He lives here?’
‘Indeed he does! He comes home today, doesn’t he, Mathew? Been down to London on business this past week. All that way and him only nineteen!’
‘I see. He works for his father, does he?’
‘Gracious me, no!’ Mrs Price exclaimed. ‘Runs his own business in Pontypool, does Brynmor.’
‘And what sort of business is that?’
‘Makes Japanware, does Master Brynmor. Very clever he is at it, see. His new methods have outsmarted all the others doing such work. He has the very finest painters working for him. Wonderful designs and patterns in his range. People from all over the world send orders for his Japanware,’ she added, her eyes shining, her hostility forgotten in her fulsome praise.
‘Well then, Mathew, if you are going to be as clever as your brother, perhaps you should be off to school.’
‘He’s not too well,’ Mrs Price said sharply.
‘Really. What’s the matter, Mathew?’
‘Been at home all week with a nasty cough. I’ve kept him busy helping me here in the warm,’ Mrs Price replied for him.
‘Come on,’ Kate held out her hand. ‘If you’re not going to school, how about showing me round Machen Mawr? There are so many passages and corridors, I keep getting lost.’
Eyes shining at his reprieve, Mathew looked anxiously at Mrs Price to make sure she approved.
‘Off you go then, Mathew. I’ll send Glynis to find you at mid-morning with a glass of milk and a bakestone?’
‘Yes, please!’ he grinned widely at her.
‘And what about you, miss. Would you prefer coffee?’
‘That sounds most acceptable, Mrs Price,’ agreed Kate, smiling her thanks as she steered Mathew out of the kitchen.
* * *
By the end of the morning, Kate and Mathew were firm friends.
After he had shown her over the house they wandered across to the stables where Dai Jenkins and his son Twm were tending a handsome chestnut stallion with white markings, and a placid grey cob that Mathew told her was used for the trap.
Mathew looked sheepish when she showed surprise that he didn’t have a pony to ride, and hurried her along to the kitchen garden where Huw Parry was lifting potatoes and storing them in a straw-lined pit for winter use.
Morgan Edwards surprised everyone by arriving home for his luncheon. Flustered, Mrs Price offered to lay out a dish of cold meats for him in the dining room.
‘I’ll take my meal with Mathew and Miss Stacey in the morning room, and share whatever they are having,’ he told her.
Kate judged from Mathew’s nervousness that it was a rare occasion for him to eat with his father. Tentatively she enquired if they all dined together in the evening.
‘The two girls and I always joined Sir George and Lady Helen unless they were entertaining,’ Kate told him.
Morgan Edwards was silent for a moment as he gave the matter further thought. He was surprised that George Sherwood would sit at table with a servant, but if such an arrangement was good enough for George Sherwood, then it suited him.
‘Mathew has never come down to dinner in the past, but I suppose that’s no reason why he should not do so from now on,’ he observed.
‘What time do you dine?’
‘Promptly at seven.’
‘Very good. I’ll make sure we are both there on time.’
‘I’ll explain the new arrangement to Mrs Price on my way out,’ he said, pushing back his chair and rising from the table. ‘Perhaps you and Mathew should take a drive out this afternoon, Miss Stacey,’ he suggested, pausing at the door.
‘Thank you. I would like that.’
‘You can’t get lost as there’s only one main road. Mathew can point out our ironworks and coal mines. You’ll find it very different from Wiltshire. Best to see it for yourself before you decide whether or not you want to stay.’
‘Oh, but I am sure,’ Kate told him quickly, her eyes darkening with sudden alarm in case he was thinking of changing his mind about her appointment.
‘You need to be quite sure.’
‘I’ve thought over all the things you mentioned last night, Mr Edwards.’
‘And you are prepared to oversee the household as I asked?’
‘Providing the ordering of provisions and the supervising of the kitchen remains in Mrs Price’s hands.’
‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ He took a briar pipe from his pocket and proceeded to fill it with tobacco from a leather pouch.
‘Then can I take it everything is settled?’
‘Brynmor will be home by dinner time. Perhaps you should meet him first.’
‘There’s no need… I’ve already made my mind up.’
‘Go and take that drive,’ he ordered abruptly. ‘Do young Mathew good to get some fresh air in his lungs.’
Mathew watched anxiously as Dai Jenkins harnessed Gryg, the grey cob, between the shafts of the trap for their outing. He fidgeted uneasily until Kate took the reins, and as he climbed up beside her she was aware that he was biting his lips nervously.
As they drove out of the wrought-iron gates of Machen Mawr, Kate saw that the Valley resembled an immense basin, the sides formed by mountains. The one that loomed up to their right ran along the skyline. Her interest quickened. She recalled David telling her that his home was ringed by mountains. Had he been speaking of these? she wondered.
She listened attentively as Mathew pointed out the scattered white farmhouses, telling her who lived in each one of them. She felt disappointed that he didn’t mention the name Owen, until common sense told her that David’s family would live in a much grander house than any they could see dotted about in the valley, and that it would probably be shielded from o
pen view by trees.
As they approached Nantyglo, Kate looked around her in disbelief. She had never seen anything like it in her life. Row upon row of tiny terraced houses stretched like strings of beads around the lower slopes of the hillsides.
The mountain towering up behind them seemed to block out the rest of the world. A pall of smoke, that almost obscured the sun, rose from the conglomeration of sheds and chimneys at the foot of the hillside.
Long before they reached the ironworks, she was aware of the brown, unpleasant dust that permeated the air. As they drew nearer, they passed towering heaps of cinders that gave off acrid fumes, streams of molten metal, and enormous furnaces that glowed fiercely, sending up a myriad of sparks that turned the sky red.
Kate suppressed a shudder; the hair on the nape of her neck rose as their ears were assailed by the thundering noise of hammers and all kinds of other dreadful sounds. An immense wheel, impelled round with incredible velocity by a steam engine, astounded her. It was a hell hole. The malodorous fumes that stung her nostrils were like something from a dark satanic pit. She understood why there was unrest among men who had to work in such conditions and why they formed unions to try and improve their lot.
They drove on quickly. When she turned to look back, the great black towers were belching out smoke and flames from their tops and it looked as if the mountains were on fire.
Although she felt she had witnessed enough horror for one day, curiosity made her agree to Mathew’s suggestion to visit one of his father’s coal mines before they went home. One coal mine would be very like another, she told herself, and it would bring her just that little bit closer to David if she knew what was involved.
Half an hour later she reined the trap to a standstill. They were high on a hill looking down on the scene of activity at the pit head, where a great wheel turned and coal spewed up from out of the ground. As they watched, a group of miners were brought up from the bowels of the earth. Small, hunched figures, they climbed wearily from the cage, their faces and clothes black with coal dust. The whites of their eyes gleamed as they blinked in the bright daylight.
