by Rosie Harris
He paused, and the vacant look came back into his eyes as if he’d travelled back in time and was reliving it all.
Kate gave him a sip of water and waited patiently for him to go on.
‘We were all outside in the yard, see. They were standing on some sort of makeshift platform. There were raised voices… arguments… a lot of shouting and threats.’
‘Who were these men?’ she asked tentatively.
‘The bosses. The men who own the coal mines. When there’s trouble at a pit they gather in a body to give one another support.’
‘And was the owner of Fforbrecon colliery there?’
‘Probably not. He’s an old man now, mind. Usually sends his agent to do his dirty work for him,’ he added bitterly.
‘So tell me what happened.’
‘The platform the owners were standing on tipped over, throwing them on to the ground. A free-for-all broke out. Men were grappling with each other, sticks, stones and lumps of coal were being hurled around. I remember being in the thick of it all and then… nothing.’ He looked at Kate blankly. ‘Just nothing. I don’t remember any more. I don’t know how I came to be injured!’
‘Dr Pugh thinks that the blow to your head would have knocked you unconscious and that your broken arm and other injuries may all have happened afterwards,’ she told him.
‘I don’t know!’ His face puckered, a blank look came into his eyes. The lids drooped as though he wanted to shut out the memories hovering at the edge of recall.
Kate left him to rest.
Eager as she was for more details, and to ply him with questions, she felt that what mattered most was that he should make a full recovery. She was worried in case forcing him to remember what had happened was taxing his strength.
He was not easily pacified. His thoughts rambled. Repeatedly he asked where they were and how he had come to be there.
‘Dr Pugh will be able to answer all those questions when he gets here,’ Kate assured him.
‘But when will that be?’
She turned away, not wanting him to see the fear in her eyes and realize how anxious she was because the doctor was overdue. They had very little food left and all the medical supplies were exhausted. Soon they would be without candles.
She tried to distract them both by reading to him from the crumpled pamphlets she had found and telling him what she knew of the Chartist uprising.
He would listen for a while then grow restless, so she would talk to him about how different life was in Blaenafon to where she had lived in Wiltshire. Or she would recite the poems by William Barnes that she knew by heart, trying almost anything to hold his interest and keep him awake because it stopped her worrying about why Dr Pugh had not come and kept her from asking questions about David that she knew he couldn’t answer.
Chapter 36
Dr Elwyn Pugh was in a quandary. Having finally decided that it was impossible to continue tending the man concealed at Tretower he had no idea how to put an end to the situation.
People were becoming curious about his thrice-weekly turnouts around midnight. The occasional emergency was acceptable but such consistent journeyings were hard to justify. Several of his patients had already commented and tried to question him and he had no doubt that tongues were wagging behind his back.
Since the Chartist uprising in Westgate Square everyone in Newport had become suspicious of his neighbour, and it seemed to Dr Pugh that not even his professional calling exonerated him completely.
He had always been regarded as a pillar of society and now, in his declining years, he had no wish to change that status. Furthermore, he found the need for secrecy and the long, tiring drive at the end of a busy day played havoc with his constitution.
It had been traumatic times but now that all the Chartist ring-leaders had been arrested, life was slowly returning to normal in Newport and he didn’t want to cause any scandal.
Fourteen men in all were now in Monmouth Gaol. They would appear before the special assizes at the end of December charged with high treason and doubtless they would be sentenced to death or deported to Van Diemen’s Land.
Many more faced lesser charges.
So far, his own name had not been adversely associated with the uprising and Elwyn Pugh didn’t want to chance his luck. He felt he’d taken enough risks, having found himself in the invidious position of tending to the injured from both sides.
‘I’m getting old, and that’s a fact,’ he muttered aloud as he packed his black leather bag. ‘I prefer to be abed by midnight, not traipsing round the countryside. And what happens if I’m stopped by the military and they start to question me?’
What to do now with Owen Jones was the problem. He couldn’t hand his patient over to the authorities. There would be far too many questions asked. The man seemed to cling on grimly to life. With careful nursing he might last for weeks, or even months, without ever regaining consciousness.
And there was Kate Stacey to consider. If only she had never become involved, sighed Dr Pugh. It had seemed a good idea at the time, a way of keeping her out of sight of the military. Yet if the man had been left unattended he would have sunk deeper into the coma he was already in. He would have felt no pain, known nothing about what was happening.
He thought back to that eventful Monday morning. At the height of the skirmish, he’d been summoned to attend the mayor, Thomas Phillips, who’d been wounded in both the hip and arm as he valiantly stood his ground at the Westgate Hotel.
It was no wonder that he had been regarded as the hero of the hour by the citizens of Newport, mused Elwyn Pugh.
Such was the way of things, he ruminated. He could remember when Thomas Phillips had first come to Newport, a cinder-tip labourer from the Ebbw Vale Ironworks. Within a very short time though he had put his humble beginnings behind him and become a scholar.
He’d married well. His wife Anne, one of the gentry, had come from Crickhowel. She was a descendent of the famed Sir David Gam, who became a hero at the battle of Agincourt for saving the life of King Henry V.
Now it was the turn of Thomas Phillips to be a hero. And as he had stood outside the Westgate Hotel, his cloak flung back to show his injured arm supported by a sling, the people of Newport had duly accorded him that honour.
His own friendship with the mayor had served him well, though, Elwyn Pugh reflected. When he’d called at Thomas Phillips’ home a week later, to check his progress, he’d been alerted to the fact that the military were looking for Kate.
‘Did you see a young woman in the square at the height of the troubles?’ Mayor Phillips asked.
‘A woman, you say?’ His eyes narrowed and he snapped his teeth together sharply.
‘She had dark hair curling round her face and over her shoulders. She was trying to comfort some of the dying men. One of the soldiers who went over to see what she was doing butted her out of the away with his gun.’
Elwyn Pugh made no reply but concentrated on dressing the mayor’s wounds.
‘Are you sure that she never came to you for help?’ persisted Thomas Phillips. ‘Not a face I’ve seen in the town before.’
‘Probably a wife or sweetheart who’d come down from the Valleys with her man,’ answered Elwyn Pugh evasively.
‘To fight? A woman!’
‘They can resent injustice just as deeply as men and feel the need to change the conditions they have to live under,’ the doctor replied drily.
‘We must find her. She must be brought to trial with the others,’ avowed the mayor.
Knowing the power Thomas Phillips had and the fact that he could use both the military and the constabulary to do his bidding, Elwyn Pugh fretted over Kate’s safety.
‘We must do something to protect her,’ he told Iestyn. ‘She worked valiantly nursing the injured men we had in our care.’
They’d talked at length before agreeing that it would be best for her to remain at Iestyn’s house for a week or two.
And that would have been
the end of the matter, reflected Elwyn Pugh, had not Rhys Pendric, the doctor at Abergavenny, been taken suddenly ill and begged him to look after a man he and Huw Jenner were hiding at Tretower.
Hugh Jenner had shrugged non-commitally when Dr Pugh had told him it was much too far for him to visit more than once or twice a week.
‘I know of someone who might be willing to stay there and nurse the man,’ the doctor had added.
‘Those arrangements are up to you and Dr Pendric. All I ever agreed to do was supply food and fuel,’ Huw Jenner grumbled.
And now he was anxious to be relieved of even that responsibility.
‘Troubled I am, Doctor,’ he protested. ‘People are becoming suspicious. All this coming and going late at night. They’ve only to mention it to the constabulary and then they’ll be keeping watch on me. It’s too much! I can’t stand the worry of it all any longer, see!’
‘What can we do?’ frowned Elwyn Pugh, snapping his teeth together irritably.
‘I was going to ask you the same question, it being your responsibility like,’ answered Huw Jenner slyly.
‘If only we knew who this man was, then perhaps we could persuade his family to look after him.’
‘No! Duw anwyl! If that had been feasible we wouldn’t be hiding him out here now, would we?’
‘How did he get here in the first place? Surely you know that much.’
‘Daro! Of course I do, but I was told not to say anything.’
‘Is he a Chartist?’
‘No! He’s not one of them.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Dr Pendric brought him here after the dispute at Fforbrecon colliery. This man had been injured, left for dead, like.’
‘Then he must be a local man! Can’t we find out his name?’
‘Not quite that simple, see,’ Huw Jenner muttered, rubbing his hand over his chin in a worried manner. ‘Dr Pendric said this chap had been involved in a fight with one of the owners. Everyone thought they’d killed each other.’
‘And what about the other man?’
‘Can’t say.’ Huw Jenner fidgeted uneasily. ‘All I know is that the dispute was called off, the men went back to work and the whole thing was hushed up.’
‘Has no one come looking for this chap?’
‘Not a soul. A bachelor he was, see. They’d just add his name to the list of those trapped by the cave-in.’
‘So if he dies?’
‘Bury him and that’s the end of it,’ shrugged Huw Jenner.
It certainly seemed a simple solution, thought Dr Pugh, and for a fleeting moment wished he had never taken the Hippocratic oath and sworn to save lives.
December snow gave him an excuse to delay his visit. He half hoped there would be a further fall, enough to make the roads impassable and the journey impossible. Without fresh supplies of medicine it was unlikely the man would recover.
But there was still Kate Stacey to be considered, he reminded himself.
She was young and robust though and would survive a few days without food. She’d be upset if the man died but she’d soon put it all behind her.
For his own sake, as well that of the Lewises, he would have to make sure that all interest in her whereabouts had died down before he sent her on her way. It would be calamitous if she was arrested on suspicion of taking part in the uprising and sent for trial.
Perhaps she could go back to the Lewises for a while, he mused. They seemed fond of her, Morag was always asking after her.
Huw Jenner would be no problem. He wouldn’t question where she’d gone.
As he trotted through the night, Elwyn Pugh began making new plans. He decided to tell Kate that because of the weather and the risk of them being snowed in, the man was being moved and he was taking her back to Newport to stay with the Lewises. She would be so delighted at the thought of seeing Morag again that she wouldn’t question his decision, he assured himself. After all, what did an unknown man matter to her!
The plan seemed perfect. And once they were all sure that Mayor Phillips and the military had lost interest in Kate’s whereabouts she could go on her way. He sighed. She was an attractive young woman with a manner as pleasing as her looks. It was regrettable that Mayor Phillips had noticed her, otherwise he might have considered offering her employment.
Meg Roberts, his housekeeper, was old and had grown crabby. Kate Stacey would have brought a freshness to his home that was sadly lacking, he decided. Twenty years of being a widower had not completely blinded him to the comforts a comely woman could provide.
His thin mouth twisted into a grim smile as he thought what people would say. Or Meg Roberts for that matter. She’d hardly welcome the girl with open arms, he thought wryly.
Unless… He pushed the thought away as though it was a red-hot cinder. At his age, close on sixty! He must be going out of his mind.
Yet the idea warmed and comforted him as he made his way towards Tretower. Perhaps after Kate Stacey had stayed a while with Morag and Iestyn Lewis he could give it more thought, he decided.
He shook the reins, urging the horse on, anxious to reach his destination and put the first part of his plan into effect. He’d stop at the tavern and tell Huw Jenner there was no need for him to accompany him. They’d not be needing any further supplies of food and fuel.
Having carefully rehearsed what he was going to say to Kate about why he was moving the man she was nursing and why he was taking her back to Newport, it came as a shock to Elwyn Pugh when he arrived at Tretower to see the dramatic change in their patient.
Kate, her face wreathed in smiles, was eager to tell him all that had happened and everything Owen Jones had told her about his accident.
Elwyn Pugh listened in silence, knowing that it had scuppered all his plans.
Chapter 37
Tudor ap Owen was not a man to be easily dissuaded from his ambitions. He was proud of his noble ancestry and ruled what he considered to be his kingdom with a fierce possessiveness.
His determination that his son should marry Penelope Vaughan was not a passing whim but a carefully formulated plan, one that he had envisaged from their very birth.
There had been Vaughans in the area since the Middle Ages. Penelope’s ancestry could be traced back to Sir Roger Vaughan the Younger, who had resided at Tretower Court in the fifteenth century. One of his descendants, William Vaughan, had served as High Sheriff in 1591, followed by his son Charles, who held the same rank between 1621 and 1625.
Sadly, there were no longer Vaughans at Tretower Court.
What had once been a fortified manor house was now a farm. Tretower Castle that had stood close by was reduced almost to rubble. Only a single tower remained, rising starkly above the ruined twelfth-century hall and solar.
Tudor ap Owen held such past glories in high esteem and was determined that one day he would own both Castle and Court and restore them to their former illustriousness, a perfect setting for the future ap Owen dynasty.
If David and Penelope didn’t marry, then, of course, such a vision no longer held any meaning.
Selecting the right partner was all-important. No one knew the value of selective breeding better than Tudor ap Owen. He had proved it with cattle, earning a far-reaching reputation with his pedigree herd. That was why he was so determined that David should marry Penelope Vaughan.
The crux of the matter, as far as he was concerned, was the continuation of the ap Owen line. Penelope Vaughan had the right background and splendid child-bearing hips. Her no-nonsense outlook would keep David’s feet on the ground.
It would recompense for his own laxity in the way he had brought the boy up, Tudor ap Owen thought grimly. Elaine dying when David was little more than a child had been a sore trial.
He had at least been fortunate in being able to marry Helen off as well as he had done. George Sherwood might be many years her senior, and a pompous ass to boot, but he was wealthy and had a title. She seemed to have settled to her new life well enough, even t
hough she had produced only two meek and mild milksop girls.
The news brought to him by George Sherwood that David was enamoured of a young woman whom Helen had engaged as a nanny for their daughters had irritated him. The sooner such an indiscretion was nipped in the bud the better.
It was a trifling matter, of course, since David was now old enough to marry and settle down, and dallying with servant girls was a recognized prerogative of the gentry, Tudor ap Owen reflected.
David was his great hope. He’d father sons who would bear the ap Owen name and follow in the family tradition of mining and farming. Penelope Vaughan was as fit and healthy as any prize animal in his herd. She could handle a horse as well as any man and she would certainly make sure their offspring were raised with a firm hand.
Penelope was no beauty, he had to admit that. If he hadn’t been so determined that she was to be his daughter-in-law he would have described her features as showy. Her flaming red hair gave her an aggressive look, her green eyes were bold and as direct as a man’s. Her mouth was much too straight for a woman and her chin as firm and square as her father’s.
She took after her father in other ways, too, Tudor ap Owen reflected. Tomos Vaughan was an arrogant man, a harsh employer who demanded loyalty as well as hard work and was loathe to pay a penny more than he had to for the privilege.
His ironworks were the most profitable in Ebbw Vale partly because he employed a higher percentage of women and children than any other owner.
He kept a register of every man, woman and child who worked for him. Married men were obligated to inform his agent whenever there was an addition to the family. He insisted that this information was necessary so that they could be properly housed. It also made sure that every child was gainfully employed the moment it was old enough to work.
Unlike some of his fellow owners in Blaenafon, Tomos Vaughan did not approve of families living under the viaduct arches. Instead, he housed them in the rows of terraced houses he had built in the shadow of the ironworks. Packed in along the foot of the Blorenge mountain they looked as though they were huddling together for shelter, but each one had a kitchen and living room downstairs and two bedrooms up over.
