Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven Page 4

  The first thing that she noticed as she neared the village was that it was quieter than usual. There was still the murmur of talk from the market, but it sounded subdued. She tensed, without really thinking about it. The murmuring sounded like the talk of people who are afraid of being overheard.

  Once she got there, it was obvious why. There was the constable, in the glory of his dark blue uniform with its brass buttons and buckles, truncheon at his belt, helmet on his head, surveying all of them from a slightly elevated spot on the church steps. He stood out like a red apple in white snow. He didn’t belong, he looked it, and he looked as if he knew that.

  He might have been a pleasant man; there was no way of telling, for his expression was stony. And the glances being cast at him were heated and full of resentment. People weren’t talking around him, and their conversations over goods in the stalls were in low murmurs meant to be kept from his ears.

  What in heaven’s name did he think he was accomplishing, standing up there like some sort of sentry? Did he think that he was preventing theft or trouble? Or was he trying to cow everyone?

  She went first to the post office, ostensibly to get some flannel to patch her petticoat, for the cloth-merchant from Criccieth wasn’t in evidence today. As she had expected, it was packed full, and away from the ears of the constable, the talk was as heated as the glances had been.

  “… and he orders me, orders me, mind you, that I’m to clean his cottage!” sputtered Mrs. Fychan, who lived next door to Violet Cottage. “I asked him what right he had to order me about, and he says, all high and mighty, ‘By order of the Crown.’ I gave him a right piece of my mind, let me tell you.” She was actually red-faced with indignation, as the others gave her every bit of their attention. Her heavy eyebrows were going up and down, up and down with agitation. “I told him, ‘The Crown got no right to order a good woman to let her childern starve and be left alone just so you can be waited on. You got some sort of paper saying you can order me about?’ Well, of course he hadn’t. So I said to him, I said, ‘You go find yourself a charwoman and you hire her at a decent wage, and we’ll be having no more of this nonsense. I won’t be your char and I won’t be treated like your sarvant.’” She snorted, and heads bobbed in agreement. “Then I marched back into my house and let him see I had better things to do than tend to His High and Holy self.”

  “Well, I expect you heard what Sawyl Cale was told he was to do: fix that chimbley for no pay,” said someone in the crush. It sounded like one of the little boys.

  “Aye but I heard he fixed it good!” said the postmaster, with a titter. “Heard it from Sawyl himself, I did!”

  “So, what happened?” asked Bythell’s wife, from behind him. “You never did tell me the tale.”

  The postmaster was only too happy to be prompted. “He waited till the place had been cleaned up, then came up with his old shotgun and shot it up the chimney with no warning and no covers laid. Soot and clinkers and soot dust, and bits of swallow’s nest and a skellington of a rook, everywhere! A waterfall of soot! Sawyl was black as black, and grinning because he recked it was worth it!”

  There was a gale of laughter. “I was there. He had t’hire my ald woman to char all over again. It looked like a coal mine in there!” exclaimed old Bran Codd, wheezing with laughter. “Oh, he was madder than a washed cat! He had to pay her handsome to get it cleaned up again!”

  “And he had the nerve to ask Sawyl what he was doing, having a shotgun!” said Mrs. Fychan. “And Sawyl says, with a straight face, ‘’Tis for fishing. ’Tis how we get bream hereabouts.’”

  The tightly packed crowd roared with laughter again, as Mari wiggled in to the counter to make her purchase. “Half a yard of red flannel, sir, please,” she said. Mr. Bythell measured it out and sold it to her, then said, “Now, imagine this, if you please. The snoop has even been making inquiries about the Protheros!”

  Mari blanched, as the others growled or muttered in indignation.

  “Oh he has!” Mrs. Awbrey confirmed. “All manner of questions. Who’s got the cottage? Why’ve they got a cottage where there ain’t a farm? Who’s their landlord? Why ain’t they got one? Have there been unusual comings and goings? On and on… and not just to me!”

  “Asked the very same of me, he did,” Mr. Bythell confirmed. “Probably to half the village. Has a nasty mind, does that one.”

  “Well, and I told him as much. ‘You’ve a nasty mind, Constable Ewynnog,’ I told him straight to his face,” said Mrs. Awbrey. “‘Daffyd Prothero is the hard-workingest, honestest fisherman on the water, like his father, and his father before him, and his fore-fathers back to Owen ap Tudor. Out on the water in every weather, supporting that little bit of a girl all on his own, and evil to him that evil thinks, I say.’ Sent him away with a bee in his ear.”

  “Well done, Mrs. Awbrey,” Mr. Bythell said, and Mari sighed with relief, seeing that if the village was closing ranks, it was closing the Protheros inside those ranks. The postmaster patted her on the head as if she was a child. “Don’t you worry, Mari. We’ll abide no nastiness about your da.”

  She thanked them, and wiggled her way out of the crowd and down to the pub to see about getting her da’s beer keg refilled. And there, in the other site where village news could be gleaned, she heard more stories.

  If the man had wanted to put every man’s hand against him, he could not have gone about it more thoroughly. To begin with, he was clearly a city man, and expected things that simply didn’t exist out here. The cottage had clearly unsettled him. He’d asked about gas, about water lines, and with increasing desperation, about other cottages he might get, only to be looked at blankly.

  Then he had done the most foolish thing he could have. Constable Ewynnog had begun his tenancy in Clogwyn by putting on airs of importance and ordering people about as soon as he entered the village and discovered the state of the cottage he was being given.

  First, on being told there were no other vacant cottages, he had gone up to the “English landlords” at the Manor and tried to evict others from their rightful homes. That had gotten him short shrift up at Gower Manor, where—so Mari heard—he was told in no uncertain terms that no one was being displaced, that he wasn’t wanted nor needed and hadn’t been asked for, and that he could act like a man, hire what needed to be done, and get his own affairs in order. And if he didn’t like it, he could appeal to his superiors for help, for he’d be getting none from the Manor.

  Which was interesting, since it meant that the Manor hadn’t been the ones that sent him or sent for him. From the approval with which that tale was told, it looked as if the village had decided that if the Manor was “the English landlords,” the Manor was their English landlords and not such bad sorts after all.

  He then came marching down to the village and began issuing his orders. But word of gossip had already come flying ahead of him down from the Manor, and he either got snubbed or ignored until he parted with money—and then he got as little help as people could reasonably get by with giving him. He’d wanted those with building experience to come and put a jail cell on the back of the cottage free of charge, since there was little enough room for one inside; those with building experience had told him bluntly that they had families to feed, and were not taking time off their work, and that he could hire it done in Criccieth if he wanted it. Same for the roof repairs. And it appeared that the man—in the midst of the bounty of the sea, the rivers, and the farms—was going to be eating out of tins, tinned food heated over the fire and tea boiled in a kettle, because not a single woman in the village would cook for him, and he seemed to lack all domestic skills. He’d bought all the tinned food that Mr. Bythell had, and had left orders for more.

  Small wonder, Mari thought, he looked so sour.

  It made her feel warm to know that the villagers included her and her father in their company. She really had not expected that. She and her da were off by themselves so much…

  And unlike the tenants of the
half dozen farms around the village that belonged to the Manor, she and her da didn’t have the protection of the Manor.

  But for now, at least, it looked like they had the protection of the village.

  Something told her not to let her guard down, however, and she made sure to keep at least two people between her and the eyes of the constable while she finished her shopping. And when she left the market, she did so by going the long way, so that when she took the path back home, she was out of his sight. Eventually, she knew, she was going to have to talk to the man. From the sound of it he was asking everything about everybody. But she was going to put off that day as long as possible.

  To her relief, there were no uncanny things about today, no whispers in her ear, no odd creatures showing themselves. She couldn’t run, carrying the heavy basket as she was, but she certainly kept her steps as brisk as she could without running, and whisked inside the cottage with a heavy sigh of relief. She made the pie, tidied up, put the rest of the shopping away, and did the washing. Last of all, she washed her newly purchased flannel to get the stiffness out of it—red flannel always bled out its dye, so she took advantage of that by washing one of her faded petticoats with the new flannel to freshen the color up a bit.

  By now, there was a brisk wind blowing, holding her skirts against her legs as she pinned up the laundry. She was glad that the wash line was on the side of the cottage away from the village. A line of washing would have told the constable there was someone home, if he looked. He might be too busy making a show of watching the market to look, but then again, he might not. Would he actually walk all the way out here?

  Possibly. From the little she knew of constables, they were supposed to walk a great deal. “Making the rounds,” it was called. So he might not consider the long walk a hardship.

  But the wind was lovely, and it finally smelled like spring, all green and growing. The sun warmed her head and arms, and even the smell of seaweed—

  Wait…

  “And why are you so afraid of the new man, Mari Prothero?” asked a voice behind her. “He is only one man. You are an entire village. You should not be so afraid of one man no matter who he is.”

  She gritted her teeth. She was not going to turn around. She was not going to talk to this… whatever it was.

  But it didn’t speak again, and when she was finished pinning the wash to the line, and turned, it was to see that there was nothing there but a damp spot and a strand of weed on the cat’s favorite sunning rock. She marched back inside, her fear now slowly turning to annoyance.

  Just as she was taking the dried clothing in, she saw Daffyd’s river-coracle out at sea. Although the boats could actually be carried on the back, he often took the little thing out in the surf, trusting to his skills to get it home. She waited while he pulled in to shore, and pulled the round, single-masted boat up on the shingle above the high-water mark beside the bigger sea-going vessel.

  She saw he had a salmon over his back, just as he had promised. He looked up to the cottage and spotted her, and waved.

  “Took the long way home,” he said by way of explanation, once he reached the bit of grass that extended out to the shingle. “Stopped in the village, sold the rest of my catch, made sure I had witnesses to my fishing to say I was in the proper waters. And did a fair lot of talking with the others.” He shook his head. “Never heard of a man making himself enemies faster than Constable Ewynnog.”

  She nodded, and as he stood at the cleaning table outside and expertly dealt with the salmon, she told him what she had heard.

  He pursed his lips. “Not sure what to be making of this, no, I am not. It might be that he is a pitiful stupid man, and this is all his stupidity. It might be that constables are being sent out everywhere, on account of the striking. It might be that he’s so stupid, so very stupid, that he got himself in trouble, and this is his punishment—to be sent to our little village that’s got no need of him, to live in contempt and discomfort. It might be he was sent here to be rid of him put him where the only harm he can do is to himself. And if there just happened to be mischief here, well one pair of stupid eyes is better than no eyes at all, in the way of the thinking of our lords and masters.”

  Mari thought about that as she gathered the innards of the salmon for the cat. She put it all down on the stone the cat preferred to use as his dish, and brought her da water to wash with and a platter for the newly cleaned fish.

  She began to feel that—whether or not the thing that had spoken to her had been real or some disturbance of her mind, it had made sense. Constable Ewynnog was only one man. Why was she afraid of him? Neither she nor her father had ever done anything wrong. The village thought well of them. Unconsciously, she stood a little straighter, as resentment overcame her fretting.

  “If he’s so stupid,” she said slowly, “what would he do, given how things are in Clogwyn? Will he let well enough alone and just try to lord it over everyone? Wouldn’t he try and make trouble, if there’s none to be found?” She could imagine him doing so, actually, and more resentment built within her.

  “He might. So that leads me to other thoughts. It might be he was sent here, knowing he’d make trouble, so there would be an excuse to meddle. Maybe send more constables. Maybe more meddling than that.” Daffyd’s eyes narrowed in thought as they both walked back into the cottage. “See now, I don’t rightly know, and I expect no one rightly knows, but there is a lot of anger about the striking. The high and mighties have got their hackles up; there’s talk even of having the army in.” He shook his head. “Before this is over, there’ll be blood on the rocks and blood on the coal. Probably killings.”

  Mari shivered. Something about his words… they felt prophetic. They stood like a cold shadow between her and the bright day. But it wasn’t fear that made her shiver, it was that shadow. Resentment began to blossom into defiance. If that was how they wanted it…

  “Here now…” He patted her shoulder, making her jump a little. “It won’t be coming here. Mostly, if the worst comes, there will be some baddish times. People being harassed, more laws to follow. We just need to be as clever as the stoat; we stay out of sight and out of trouble, keep out of the constable’s eye. Don’t try and make ourselves agreeable and don’t be disagreeable. That’s all.”

  She nodded, but he wasn’t quite through. “See now, this is your da, and his story-telling, and this might be a story or it might not. I just try to think things through, like you do when you tell a story. So here is the third thing. It might be Constable Ewynnog isn’t stupid at all. It might be he’s clever. It might be he’s clever enough to act in stupid ways to see what he can stir up.”

  Mari bit her lip, and looked up into her father’s far-seeing eyes. He was clever, was her da. He’d thought not only of the obvious, but the not-so-obvious, and the not-at-all-obvious. “So.… we do the same as we would regardless?” she hazarded. She wasn’t sure she liked that. She wasn’t at all sure she liked being passive. If trouble was going to come, she preferred to meet and fight it.

  “Aye. That we do.” He smiled faintly down at her. “And for right now, lovey, we have some pie.”

  Nan sighed over her best friend and shook her head. Sarah sat quietly at her dressing table while her friend tried to make some sense of her hair. “If you had your way, you’d wear the same two plain linen dresses for summer and the same two plain woolen dresses for winter. Your hair would always be in an untidy bird’s nest of a knot on the top of your head. And you would never wear a hat.”

  Nan had come a very long way from the wild little cockney street-waif who could barely make herself understood. Two things had stood her in good stead in her transformation from mudlark to respectable young lady: a gift for mimicry and the dawning realization that if she sounded like a guttersnipe, she’d be treated like one, no matter what she looked like. After that, it had been an uncanny sense of what she and Sarah looked good in that had guided her. They might be unconventional in dress, but no one could say they
weren’t attractive.

  “I don’t like hats,” Sarah protested, as Nan finished combing out her hair, and with deft fingers began to roll it into a fashionable pompadour.

  Nan could not for the life of her understand how someone who was so pretty could be so careless of how she looked. Literally care-less; she simply did not care. So knowing that Lord Alderscroft was coming to dinner, it was Nan who dug into their trunks, Nan who extracted two dresses she rather fancied for the occasion, Nan who ran them down to the laundry and with the help of one of the Indian servants, got them presentable.

  Then it was Nan that turned her attention to the bird’s nest; with a little work, she had wound it into a nice, soft chignon, and when she was done, Sarah looked quite lovely. A bit like one of those artist-women, since they both favored artistic gowns when they got dressed up, but altogether lovely.

  “No lady is without a hat,” Nan said, severely.

  “Are you saying my mum isn’t a lady?” Sarah countered.

  “Oh honestly…” Nan threw up her hands. “You know very well your mum wears hats when she comes to England. Now hurry up and get dressed. I want Lord Alderscroft to see us and realize we aren’t a couple of hoyden girls any more.”

  “Why?” teased Sarah, as she slipped into a flowing gown that completely obscured the fact that she wasn’t wearing any corset. “Have you set your cap for him?”

  In answer, Nan snorted. Neville laughed.

  Sarah’s gown was made of tussah silk and linen, with bands of heavy lace, in warm creams and golds. Nan’s was brocade and damask, with bands of more brocade, in more somber browns. Sometimes Nan wished she could coax her friend into something even frillier, but that would be like trying to put Neville into a christening gown. No one would be happy about the process or the outcome.