Daughters of Rebecca (7 page)

‘Three jugs of cordial, please.' Watt delved into his pocket and brought out some coins. ‘And have a drink yourself. You look all hot and bothered.'

The boy touched his scruffy hair and hurried away. Watt sat next to Shanni and she felt uncomfortable – it was as if she formed a barrier between husband and wife.

‘I didn't expect to see you at the fair, Watt,' Rosie said. ‘I thought my brothers were coming but they are probably off courting some girl or other.'

‘Probably,' Watt said. ‘Anyway, I wanted to see you, I owe you an apology for not being there to fetch you back to Swansea. Things were difficult, the men were in a bad mood – still are, come to that. Half of them are ready to tear the town apart.'

‘But they have good reason,' Shanni said slowly. ‘The tolls the farmers have to pay will raise the price of everything we buy from meat and drink to fripperies like this.' She flicked at her
ribbon. ‘I'm surprised you're not with them, Mr Bevan.'

Watt glanced at her. ‘And I'm surprised at your cheek, young lady!' He smiled, his tension vanishing. ‘I think our Llinos is teaching you to be a little rebel or is it Madame Isabelle we have to blame for your radical ideas?'

‘My thoughts are my own,' Shanni said heatedly. ‘I see injustice all around me. My mother was killed by it and the poor are kept down to serve the rich.'

Watt leaned forward. ‘Lower your voice, little Shanni, otherwise the wrong ears will hear. Your thoughts may be your own, but keep them to yourself. That's my advice.'

Shanni stared at him for a long moment then nodded. ‘I understand,' she said, ‘and you're right.'

Rosie touched her arm. ‘Come on, Shanni, we're supposed to be enjoying today. All this talk of rioting and violence worries me.' She rose and shook the creases from her skirts. ‘We'll doubtless see you around, Watt.'

‘Rosie,' Watt pushed himself from his chair, in a swift easy movement, ‘Rosie, I would like to talk to you.'

‘Not now,' Rosie said sharply. ‘I just want to enjoy the sunshine and the music of the fair. Another time.'

‘Look, I'll go and have my fortune told,' Shanni said quickly. ‘I'll meet you back at the tent in ten minutes or so.' She hurried out into the sunshine and glanced back to see Rosie arguing with Watt, and doubted her wisdom in leaving them alone.

There was a queue of grand ladies waiting to have their fortunes told and Shanni turned away in despair. In any case, she knew her future: work, learn and keep her mouth shut until the time was right. Speak like a lady, as Madame Isabelle had instructed her, and remember to tread carefully rather than rushing into things like a fool.

‘Shanni!' Rosie's voice startled her and Shanni turned round. ‘Wait for me.' She slid her arm through Shanni's. ‘I know you were trying to be tactful but I don't want to be alone with Watt, not yet. It's too soon after losing my dear friend. I can't take any more upheaval just yet.'

She drew Shanni towards the hoop-la. ‘Come on, let's have a go at winning a rag doll, or a bead necklace. It'll be fun.'

Shanni smiled. Rosie was older than she was by several years but here she was like an enchanted child, drinking in the fun of the fair.

It was Shanni who won the prizes, a black bead necklace and a matching black fan, painted with ladies of the royal court of Queen Victoria.

‘I wouldn't like to see you with a firearm, my girl,' Rosie said. ‘Your aim is deadly!'

‘Well, that's not likely,' Shanni said. ‘At the moment I'm learning ladylike things, the pianoforte, deportment and elocution.' She chuckled. ‘Not that I'll ever think like a lady, mind.'

‘Gentility comes from inside you, Shanni,' Rosie said. ‘Money, position, these things can be earned, but a kind heart and a sense of fair play are born in folks.'

Shanni sobered. ‘Are you being fair-minded
with your husband? Was it so wrong of him to marry you to take care of you?'

‘I wanted love,' Rosie said. ‘Is that asking too much?' She turned towards the edge of the park. ‘Come on, let's have fun.'

She hurried away and Shanni saw her step up on to the carousel. She climbed on a carved horse tucking her skirts around her legs. ‘Come on, Shanni, don't get left behind!'

Laughing, Shanni straddled a fierce-looking animal with white wooden teeth yellowed by the sun. The music began, loud and discordant, but Shanni did not care about that: she was here, with a friend and she intended to have a good time.

It was Rosie who weakened first. ‘It's time I went home,' she said breathlessly. ‘I feel so tired.'

Shanni looked at her closely. Rosie was very pale. ‘Your spirit is weary, not your body,' she said. ‘Here, have these beads and the fan too. I wouldn't have won them if it wasn't for you. And thank you for a lovely time.'

Before Rosie could reply, Shanni was running across the dry ground her skirts flying. At the edge of the field she turned to wave but Rosie was nowhere in sight.

Watt stood in the smoky taproom of the Castle Hotel and stared at the angry faces of the men seated around him. ‘Try to stay calm,' he urged. ‘Rioting is the wrong way to go about things.'

‘It's all right for you, man.' Tom Levinson had been a sailor until his eyesight failed. Now he ran errands for the potters and painters, fetching beer from the public bars knowing his way instinctively
without the aid of sight. ‘You has your pay whatever you does, and you don't have to bow the knee to anyone. Tell us, Watt Bevan, why should men of pride have to suffer so that the rich can get richer?'

‘Burning and plundering is not the answer,' Watt insisted.

‘Don't talk daft, man!' Bill Brazil lifted a beefy arm. ‘It worked in the thirties, didn't it?'

‘Bill, you might be a good potter but you're not very good at reading the signs, are you?' Watt said, in exasperation. ‘Men were killed in the thirties, good men, and what did it achieve? Nothing!'

‘It showed we was together, though, didn't it?' Bill Brazil said. ‘Showed we had strength and wasn't going to take no nonsense from anyone. Now, Watt, are you with us or agin us? If you're agin us, leave now so you can't carry tales back to the bosses.'

Watt shook his head in despair. ‘I'll leave, then,' he said. ‘I can't talk sense into you so it's best I go. As for carrying tales to the bosses, you're talking out of the seat of your trews, Bill Brazil. You should know me better than that.'

Watt left the hotel and walked towards the river. He was tired of arguing with the men. They would do what they wanted in the end so what was the use of talking? In any case, how could he be sure he was right to advise caution? What good had caution done them in the past?

He sat near the river watching the moonlight playing on the swiftly moving water. He guessed the tide must be full in because the river was high
against the bank and small eddies made gurgling inroads into the lower grassy areas. The weather had turned colder now: the Indian summer that had come with autumn had spent itself at last. Soon, the cold winds of winter would drift in with the tide, the seas would be rougher and the hills covered with misty rain. Many folk hated winter but Watt would have welcomed it, had he been able to spend his time with Rosie.

It was silent on the bank except for the rush of the water. The birds had nested for the night and sensible people sat around their own fireside. He thought of Rosie alone in her cottage up on the hill. Why had he been such a fool as to lose her when he had held her in his arms?

When he saw Rosie at the autumn fair, she looked so cool, so unattainable, it was hard to believe they had once slept in the same bed. He had longed to kiss her sweet lips, to touch her fresh skin. And when Rosie had walked away from him it had hurt him deeply.

But could he blame her? He had not even been the one to bring her back to Swansea. As always, he had been too wrapped up in pottery business to think of himself and his relationship with his wife.

‘All alone, Watt?' The cultured voice of Joe Mainwaring cut into his thoughts. Joe sank down beside him and rested his hand on Watt's shoulder. ‘Been down at the Castle trying to talk sense into the men, have you?'

‘Aye, and a fat lot of good it did,' Watt said. ‘I might just as well have saved my breath. They are hell bent on some scheme or other and I'm best
out of it.' He glanced at Joe: the man's profile was strong, handsome even in the dim light of the moon. ‘Who am I to try to talk sense to anyone else when I can't even sort out my own problems?' he said ruefully.

‘You haven't had a chance to talk to Rosie, then? She is still your wife after all.'

‘I think she's forgotten all about our marriage and I can't say I blame her for that.' Watt picked up a pebble and skimmed it into the water. Dark ripples moved in restless circles across the surface of the water. ‘Perhaps I should have made my life in America, like my old friend Binnie Dundee. Binnie was like me once, a lowly worker at the pottery, and now he owns a huge business. He has a wife who loves him and sons to bear his name after his days. Binnie's had two wives who adored him and I'm wondering what his secret was.'

‘Who knows? It's a brave man or a liar who claims to know the mind of a woman,' Joe said.

Watt frowned. ‘I thought if anyone understood women it would be you.'

‘No! I'm as big a fool as the next man. I did wrong by Llinos and now I'm paying for it. To tell you the truth I'll be glad when my business takes me away from Swansea again. Sometimes I think I can't bear the reproach in Llinos's eyes.'

Watt sat in brooding silence. He knew what Joe meant because he, too, had broken the vows he made at the altar. He had taken other women but only as release from the unbearable desires of a man alone. If he had Rosie's love he would be faithful to her till the day he died.

Joe seemed to pick up on his thoughts. ‘When I
took another woman, an American-Indian squaw, and fathered a son on her I thought it was fated for me in the stars but was it all an excuse, Watt?' For once Joe sounded uncertain. ‘Was I fooling myself that it was my destiny to enjoy the delights of another woman's passion? Llinos and I lost something then, Watt, something we might never reclaim.'

‘So you are telling me that you enjoyed the love of the Indian lady?' Watt said. ‘That duty soon gave way to pleasure.'

‘I was lusty then and I know it,' Joe said. ‘Like any man I wanted to taste other fruit. It does not pay in the long run, Watt. A man should sow his wild oats before he marries and afterwards keep all his love for his wife. I will try to teach Lloyd to learn by my mistakes, but I doubt if I'll succeed.'

Joe pushed himself upright with ease. He was as lithe and fit as he had been when he first came to Swansea as a young man. Watt had been very young then, and had looked in awe at the stranger who was batman to old Captain Savage, master of the Savage pottery.

Watt got to his feet and stood beside Joe. He was younger than Joe by eight years or so and was putting on weight. His shoulders had grown broad, his muscles hardened by hours of labour in the pottery. Beside him Joe was as lithe and slim as a boy. No wonder women found him irresistible.

He stared up at the night sky, forcing his mind back to the present difficulties that plagued the pottery. ‘There will be bloodshed before long,' he said, ‘and I can't find any way to stop it.'

‘Life will work its pattern without our help,' Joe said. ‘Just be true to yourself and pray that God spares us all to live to see our grandchildren.'

Joe vanished as soundlessly as he had come, disappearing into the darkness. What had he meant by his cryptic words? He was as much of an enigma as he had ever been. Watt shook his head. It was time he was getting home to his bed. There would be work to do in the morning.

Then he lifted his face to the stars, wishing that Rosie would come to him, forgive him, give him a second chance of love. But that was a dream and it was about time he faced reality. Briskly, feeling the chill now, Watt began to walk away from the river and uphill to his home.

THE BOOKS MADAME ISABELLE
brought for Shanni were difficult to read but the message was clear enough. It was time women took possession of their own souls as well as their bodies. One of the books was about the law regarding married women and Shanni felt angry as, finger pressed to the page, she laboriously read every word.

Once a woman married she was her husband's chattel, his to do with as he wished. He could beat her and abuse her, in some cases he could even offer her for sale or exchange if the mood took him. Shanni had believed ill-treatment of that sort happened only to the ‘lower orders', the women who had no education, who had been subjugated all their lives. From what she read, nothing could be further from the truth.

The door opened and Flora stood back to allow Madame Isabelle to enter the drawing room. Madame glanced at the piano and then at Shanni, who closed the book marking the page carefully with the piece of ribbon Rosie had bought her at the fair.

‘Have you been practising your scales?'
Madame Isabelle asked easily, as the maid closed the door behind her. ‘Or have you been too busy reading?'

‘These books you brought me, they make me so angry!' Shanni said, keeping her voice low. ‘How can women allow themselves to be treated worse than the cattle in the fields?'

‘It is because many of them lack education, which you are privileged now to receive, thanks to Mrs Mainwaring.' She looked at Shanni and smiled. ‘I know you won't forget to whom you owe a debt of gratitude for all you have here.'

Shanni nodded but she felt she owed as much to Madame as she did to Mrs Mainwaring.

Madame Isabelle sat at the piano and ran her fingers over the keys. The music swelled softly into the room and Shanni felt her heart lighten with joy. She listened in silence for a while, then Madame Isabelle rose from the stool, twitching her skirts into place. ‘Shall we begin?'