by Iris Gower
‘I bumped into Shanni Morgan. She’s married to one of the potters.’
‘Oh, did you, indeed? And did she have any gossip to impart?’
Everyone was obsessed with gossip, Katie thought, from the mistress down to the servants in the kitchen.
‘Not really, but she did ask me if I’d like to visit her on my day off.’
Jayne digested this in silence and, to Katie’s relief, she did not seem to be angry about her maid talking to one of the potters’ wives.
‘Did she speak about Mr Buchan?’ Jayne did not look at Katie: she drew her legs up onto the bed and sat with them crossed, careless that her good silk dress was being creased.
‘Only to say that she worked for him.’ Katie thought that innocent enough. She watched as Jayne pulled the combs from her hair allowing it to fall in pale waves down her back.
‘I’ve quite got a headache now,’ she said. ‘Fetch some rosewater and bathe my forehead for me, Katie, there’s a good girl. Oh, and Katie, I would like you to accept Shanni Morgan’s invitation but you must keep your ears open for anything she might say about me or about my husband. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Mrs Buchan.’ As Katie left the room she was frowning. If her mistress thought she would act like a gossipmonger, she was mistaken. Still, it would be nice to make new friends, and somehow Katie felt that in Shanni she might have found a good friend indeed.
CHAPTER NINE
Llinos sat in the drawing room of Caswell House staring unseeingly into the fire. She had been so foolish to accept Eynon’s invitation to visit his daughter. True to form, Jayne was keeping her guests waiting and Llinos was imagining her and Dafydd together. Jayne would watch him dress and shave, see how beautiful he was in sleep, all the intimate things she remembered so well. It hurt.
‘When will Joe be home?’ Eynon broke the silence. ‘It seems so long since he went off to America.’
‘I don’t know,’ Llinos said. ‘He hasn’t paid me the courtesy of telling me that yet.’ As soon as the words left her lips she felt guilty. After all, it had been her choice to stay in Swansea.
‘I wish he would come home,’ she said. Without him she felt vulnerable.
Before Eynon could reply the drawing-room door opened and Llinos sat back in her seat, expecting to see Jayne make her entrance. But it was Dafydd who came into the room, his eyes searching for hers. She bit her lip and looked away, as if to distance herself from him but his presence dominated the room.
Almost directly behind him was Jayne, her face flushed, her hair less than neat. ‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Papa,’ she said, ‘but my husband has been busy telling me how beautiful I look, haven’t you, darling?’ She reached for Dafydd and as Llinos watched her kiss his cheek she felt her heart shrink.
Dafydd came towards her and she held out her hand almost without thinking. He took it, and the touch of his fingers, the way his eyes bored into hers, made her feel almost ill with regret for what might have been.
‘It’s so good to see you, Llinos. Tell me how life is treating you?’ He sat close to her, and she was very aware of the warmth of his body. Her heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if he would hear it.
‘My darling’s had a bad day,’ Jayne said.
‘There’s been a bit of trouble down at the Llanelli pottery,’ Dafydd explained, ‘but nothing that can’t be handled by Pedr Morgan.’ He addressed himself to Llinos. ‘Seems some of the men want to leave the pottery and join the railway navvies. The fools can’t see that the work on the line is almost finished.’
Llinos had still not composed herself so Eynon filled the uncomfortable gap. ‘Talking of the railways, I’ve managed to buy some shares.’ He avoided Dafydd’s eye. ‘I was lucky to get them – some old man fell sick and wanted to get out of the business world. I took just a few. The rest went to an unknown buyer.’
‘I’ve tried my best to get hold of some Great Western shares,’ Dafydd said. ‘They’ll be worth a goldmine in a very short time.’
Llinos swallowed hard, wondering how soon she could make her excuses and leave. Everyone was keeping up the façade that this was a meeting of friends but she could tell from Eynon’s expression that he was only too aware that Dafydd could not take his eyes off her.
‘Have you managed to buy some of the shares, Llinos?’ Dafydd asked.
She shook her head, unable to speak. It alarmed her that Dafydd could still move her in this way and she wished she could leave their affair in the past.
She glanced at Jayne, who was looking smug: she had something up her sleeve, some secret. Could she be expecting Dafydd’s child?
‘I must be going,’ Llinos said quickly. ‘I didn’t realize how quickly time was passing. My son will be wondering where I am.’
‘How is the boy?’ Dafydd asked.
Llinos was afraid to look at him. ‘He’s very bright, learning his lessons with no trouble. He will have to go away to school soon.’
‘It’s no wonder he’s bright – he has such a brilliant mother.’ Dafydd spoke in a low voice, but both Jayne and Eynon heard him. ‘If you can get your hands on some railway shares, they would stand him in good stead later in life.’
‘Don’t bore them with talk of railways and shares, Dafydd,’ Jayne said waspily. ‘I’m sure Aunt Llinos has no interest in such things.’
Llinos rose. She had heard the hostility in Jayne’s voice and wanted to escape. Good thing she’d insisted on bringing her own carriage. ‘Eynon, will you come to the door with me?’ she asked, but Dafydd was already on his feet.
‘I’ll see you out,’ he said decisively. ‘I’m on my way to a meeting anyway.’ He towered over her, but she kept her eyes turned away from his face.
‘I’ll come too, darling.’ Jayne slipped her hand through her husband’s arm in a proprietary way. Dafydd could not hide his displeasure.
‘Let’s make a party of it – I’ll come too.’ Eynon sounded disgruntled, and Dafydd glanced at him.
‘There’s no need for all this fuss. You and Jayne stay here near the fire and keep warm. It’s rather cold outside for the time of year.’ He untangled his arm from Jayne’s grasp and led Llinos into the hall.
The maid brought her coat, and Llinos slipped her arms into the sleeves. Dafydd opened the door and stepped out into the pale sunlight of early winter. He looked so virile, so alive . . . so dear.
‘That was foolish,’ she said, as he led her to her carriage. ‘You’ll give yourself away if you keep acting like that.’
He smiled. ‘I’m merely seeing a guest out. No harm in that, is there?’ He took her arm to help her in. Llinos felt the warmth of his fingers and shivered – she wanted him so much. Even now, with grey hairs appearing, she still felt the urge to lie with Dafydd, experience his vigour, his love.
‘I want you so much,’ Dafydd said. ‘I want to take you to bed, to make love to you until we’re both exhausted. Will I never stop wanting you, Llinos?’
‘It’s torture, I know.’ She averted her eyes. ‘I want you just as much but it’s impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible,’ Dafydd said. ‘Llinos, we both want this so much, why deny ourselves?’
She struggled to find an answer. Her mind told her that Dafydd was forbidden to her, but her body had no care for honour or truth or fidelity. She looked up at the branches of the trees, stripped now by chill winds. Overhead ominous dark clouds threatened rain.
‘You are married, Dafydd,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t forget that you belong to Jayne.’ But she had made love with him when she was a married woman. She had not kept her own vows.
Dafydd echoed her thoughts: ‘But you did not care about your vows when you came to me, Llinos, so why should mine be any different?’
‘Dafydd, I can’t hurt Jayne in the way I was hurt.’ She paused, trying not to cry. ‘I felt justified in being with you because Joe had been unfaithful to me.’ She hesitated. ‘But in spite of that, I always felt the betrayal keenly, both mine and
his.’
‘Joe’s away. He’s chosen to go off without you, which I would never do.’ He sighed. ‘When I walked away from our love it was to give you and Joe a chance to restore your life together. Well, you are not together, are you?’
He looked up into her face, holding her hands while the carriage rocked as the horses shifted uneasily between the shafts. ‘Please, Llinos, just say you’ll meet me tomorrow. We’ll walk in the park, if that’s what you want, but I need to be with you at least for a while.’
She tried to draw away her hands – Eynon was probably watching from the window. ‘All right, then. Tomorrow in Victoria Park, the early afternoon. Now I must go.’
The driveway from Caswell House seemed to stretch to infinity, and Llinos pressed herself into a corner of the carriage as though she could make herself invisible. But she could not escape her conscience. Why was she agreeing to meet Dafydd? She knew the temptations of being alone with him. She would not go, she decided, and Dafydd would have to accept that there was nothing he could do.
Then she heard the sound of hoofs pounding along behind her and wondered if he had come after her.
‘Stop, driver!’ Eynon appeared at the side of the carriage. He was holding his horse on a tight rein and his face was white with anger. ‘Llinos, don’t do this to Jayne.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Llinos said. ‘Do what, Eynon? I have done nothing but talk to Dafydd. What else could I do outside in the drive?’
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ Eynon said. ‘You can’t hide the longing in your eyes whenever that man is near you. Are you ever going to behave like a responsible woman, Llinos?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Llinos knew her anger was driven by guilt. ‘Since Dafydd took his vows we have done nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘I don’t believe you! That man makes love to you with his every gesture.’ Eynon’s face was white. ‘I could kill the bastard for the way he disregards my daughter’s feelings.’
‘Are you sure it’s not jealousy that is clouding your judgement, Eynon?’ Llinos’s voice rose. ‘You are wrong about us! We have done nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Tell me you don’t care for him any more, then,’ Eynon said angrily. ‘Just tell me that, Llinos, and I’ll leave you alone.’
‘My feelings are nothing to do with you, Eynon!’ Llinos was as angry as he was. ‘Nothing gives you the right to tell me what I can and can’t do.’
‘I’ve been your friend for as long as I can remember. Doesn’t that give me some rights, Llinos?’
‘And can you tell me you’ve never done anything wrong, Eynon? Have you never given way to your feelings?’ She looked into his anguished eyes and remorse built inside her. She was about to make a conciliatory gesture when Eynon wheeled his horse away.
‘When will I see you again, Eynon?’ Llinos called, but he was already riding away. She shrugged. She was hurt by his attitude but she knew that as soon as he’d thought things over they would be friends again.
‘Well, Katie, are you getting used to being lady’s maid to Mrs Dafydd Buchan?’
Katie heaved her basket on to her other arm. ‘Well, when she’s in a good mood I enjoy my work.’
‘And that’s not very often, is it?’ Shanni fell into step beside her. ‘You know Sarah, one of the maids at Caswell House, don’t you? She’s a good girl, talkative, too, and not above a bit of gossip. She says she’d heard Jayne and Dafydd quarrelling.’
A carriage pulled up sharply alongside her.
‘Katie Cullen, what do you think you’re doing, girl?’
Katie bit her lip as she saw Mrs Buchan lean out of her carriage. ‘Get in at once. You know I don’t like my servants talking to the likes of Shanni Morgan!’
Katie was confused. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Buchan, but I am doing my job, that’s all.’
‘And gossiping the day away by the look of it. Now, get in at once if you value your position in my household, and you are never to talk to her again.’
Katie was angry now: maid she might be, but she deserved to be treated with courtesy. ‘I think it’s my business who I talk to when I’m out on the street – and didn’t you tell me yourself that it was all right to talk to Shanni?’
‘I said no such thing!’
Katie stared at her in dismay. ‘But you did, Mrs—’
‘Don’t answer back, girl! How dare you call me a liar? I’ve got a terrible headache and you’re making it worse. Oh, I’ve had enough of you. You can collect your belongings and leave my house. Get out of my sight for good!’
Katie stared open-mouthed as the carriage disappeared along the road. ‘Well!’ she said. ‘I don’t want to work for the likes of her anyway.’ But for all her brave words she was upset. Where would she go? What could she do?
Shanni took her arm. ‘Look, let’s go and fetch your things. I’ll come and help you and then we’ll ask Dafydd to find you a place somewhere else, right?’
Katie nodded and quickened her step. ‘Let’s just get it over and done with,’ she said.
Shanni touched her arm. ‘You spoke up well for yourself there. I’m glad to see you’re not afraid to talk back to the gentry.’
‘Well, they’re no better than us, they just have more money,’ Katie said, with a grin.
‘Apart from which,’ Shanni began to laugh, ‘she has to pee the same as the rest of us.’
The walk to Caswell House passed more quickly than Katie expected, mainly because she was listening to Shanni’s strange views on women’s place in society. ‘You see, Katie, women can pull themselves up by their bootlaces if they want to. We don’t have to be maidservants and wait on the rich. Many of the women who are successful now were poor like us, once upon a time.’
‘Who, for instance?’ Katie looked at Shanni’s red hair blown in tendrils across her pale skin. She was so lucky to be such a beauty.
‘Well, there’s Llinos Mainwaring. Her father fought with the Duke of Wellington and was injured badly, so they say, and she was left as poor as a church mouse when the pottery got run down. It was only because she had courage and talent that she could pull everything together and make a success of her life. Except in love, though. She made a right mess there.’
Katie was intrigued. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you know anything, Katie? Well, perhaps you’ve lived a sheltered life up there on Greenhill. You had a strict mam and dad to take care of you, didn’t you?’
‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t make me stupid.’
‘I’m not saying it does! Duw, duw, no need to be so jumpy. I only meant you were brought up in a respectable household.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Katie said, ‘but because my family were Irish some folk treat me like a fool. Anyway, are you going to tell me more about Mrs Mainwaring?’
‘She married a foreigner, didn’t she?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ A glimmer of a smile lit Katie’s face. ‘I suppose you could say I’m a foreigner, too, my mam and dad coming from across the sea an’ all.’
‘Well, not so foreign as Mr Mainwaring. He was an American Indian and he took a squaw woman as his mistress and gave her a baby too, so all the old women say.’
‘Mrs Mainwaring can’t help that, though, can she?’ Katie frowned. ‘Quite a few men go funny over women, don’t they?’ She thought of her father, the way he used to eye up the young Catholic girls in church then go to the alehouse and get drunk.
‘Ah, but Llinos Mainwaring took her revenge.’
‘How?’
‘She had an affair with Dafydd Buchan – surely you heard about it? She’s got a child by him too – you can see the likeness a mile off.’
Katie heard a touch of bitterness in Shanni’s voice and realized there was more to the story than met the eye. Still, it was shocking that a woman could openly flaunt the child of a man who was not her husband.
‘Mr Buchan is as bad as she is, then,’ she said aloud. ‘You can’t always blame th
e woman, can you?’
‘And you a good Catholic girl?’ Shanni laughed. ‘You’re like me. We both have spirit, and we both think a man is as much to blame as the woman in these affairs.’
Katie looked at her closely. ‘You might say that but I can tell you’re angry with Mrs Mainwaring.’
‘No! Well, yes, I suppose I am. As far as I can see the affair is still going on, and that’s not fair to Jayne. She might be a spoiled madam but she doesn’t deserve a husband who strays.’
Caswell House loomed on the horizon and Katie quickened her steps, wondering what sort of reception she would get. She led the way to the back of the house and let herself into the scullery.
Susie was laying a tray with dainty cups and an elegant silver pot from which the fragrance of coffee emanated. ‘You’re out of a job, then, Katie,’ she said. ‘So sorry, love.’
Katie put down her basket and looked at Shanni. ‘Come upstairs and help me collect my things, will you?’
Shanni pushed ahead of her and, to Katie’s surprise, made her way across the hall towards the drawing room. ‘We’ll see what Dafydd has to say first, shall we?’
She knocked at the door in a peremptory manner and pushed it open. Jayne was sitting on the large sofa, her feet neatly crossed, and Dafydd was flicking through a sheaf of papers.
‘Shanni!’ He looked up at her in surprise. ‘What are you doing here? I thought it was your day off. Is there more trouble down at the pottery?’
‘No, Dafydd, Pedr has sorted it out. I’ve come to talk to you about Katie here. She’s been sacked and she doesn’t know where to go.’
Jayne prickled visibly. ‘Yes, she has been dismissed and rightly so! And how dare you, Shanni Morgan, come into my house as if you own it? You’ll be the next one out of a job, if you aren’t careful.’
‘Calm down,’ Dafydd said. ‘Tell me, Shanni, what’s happened?’
‘Katie was shopping for Mrs Buchan and we were walking down the street talking. Jayne – Mrs Buchan didn’t like it so she told Katie her job was finished.’
