Sea Mistress (2 page)

Jubilee Hopkins came further into the mill and sat down on an upturned box. ‘Now I've stopped work for a minute, I'll have a smoke, I deserve it, those skins I'm cleaning are giving me callouses on top of my callouses.'

‘Do you have to smoke that foul thing in here?' Ellie demanded, her hands on her slim hips. She pushed back her fair hair, which was damp with perspiration, and stared at this man, this old man who was her husband.

‘Don't grumble, girl, the tobacco covers the stink of the yard, you should be grateful.'

Ellie had long since been unaware of the animal smell of the tannery where she had worked ever since her marriage. Even the sight of the stray dogs eating the debris of flesh from the skins newly in from the abattoir had ceased to offend her.

On an impulse, she crouched on the ground beside her husband and took his roughened hand. ‘Jubilee, you will tell me if the work gets too much for you, won't you?'

‘Aye, girl, don't fret, I'll be put in my box when I can't work in my own tannery.' He looked at her wryly, ‘Not much good for anything else am I, not at my advanced age?'

Ellie felt her colour rise, theirs was a marriage that was not consummated, she had never expected it to be; Jubilee Hopkins had been in his seventies when he'd slipped the gold band on her finger.

‘Don't talk like that.' She said the words almost without thinking, they were her usual response to any suggestion that her husband was mortal.

‘Oh, love, I know what the men say about me, that I'm an old man without bullets in my gun.' Jubilee ruffled her hair. ‘There's not one of them out there as wouldn't like to service old Jubilee's wife given half a chance.'

‘Aye, well that's what none of them will get, there's no chance for any of them. I'd never risk going through all that anguish again.'

‘Don't dwell on the past, Ellie,' Jubilee rose, ‘what's done is done and can't be righted, see? Now, I'm going in to Swansea, got to buy some more skins, business is brisk this time of the year what with saddles and horse-collars and such. See you later, my little sweetheart.'

When Jubilee had left, Ellie thought about him with a warm affection; he was a fine man and she was lucky to have him. Old he might be but he was twice the worker that any of his men were. Oh, she had seen them, the casual labourers in the yard giving her the eye, knew that they watched her, expecting her to fall into the arms of one of them but they were wrong. Ellie Hopkins wanted none of them, once bitten twice shy. She sighed, pushing back memories of her past. In any case, it was high time she got on with her work, the oak bark would not grind itself.

Later, in the large house Jubilee had built for himself many years ago, Ellie put the big black kettle onto the fire and prepared to make tea for the four workers and the two casuals. They would take it out in the yard or if it was raining they would gather in the currying house where it was warm and dry.

The two older men were no problem, both Luke and Harry were much older than Ellie, in their forties and happily married with buxom wives who sometimes helped out at the mill. And Boyo was a young boy from the workhouse, he was so shy he could scarcely bring himself to speak to Ellie and when he did, he touched his forelock as though she were some fine lady. Her face softened; Boyo, young though he might be, was fiercely protective of her, trying his best to ward off the attentions of the one man who gave her trouble.

Matthew Hewson was handsome, young and with a fine tongue for the poetry but he had one conceit, he fancied his chances with any woman who came his way.

Ellie would have liked to have been indifferent to him, that sort of reaction would offend him more than anything. But she felt a deep mistrust of him and a scorn for the way he lived his life, the way he used women and tossed them aside. She could hardly help knowing that he was a womanizer, he spoke often enough about his prowess and in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

She went outside in the sparkling spring air and banged on the gong that hung outside the door. The tea was brewed, the bread and cheese set out on the plain wooden table in the kitchen. The men would pick up their grub packs and place a few coins on the table in payment. It was an arrangement that Jubilee's long dead sister had instituted and which Jubilee had wished Ellie to continue.

Ellie clattered the enamel mugs on the table, side by side, and lifted the brown shiny teapot.

‘Let me do that, Mrs Hopkins, it's too heavy a job for the likes of you.' The voice spoke directly behind her shoulder and Ellie sighed in resignation.

‘I'm perfectly capable of pouring a cup of tea, haven't I done it these past years well enough?'

‘Why so prickly?' Matthew Hewson was close, too close and Ellie moved away from him but not before he saw the pulse beat in her neck. He smiled. ‘Why won't you let me be friends with you?' he said softly, ‘I mean you no harm.'

Ellie looked at him steadily. ‘Friendship is not what I'm offering, nor anything else. You work for my husband, that's the only reason I'm civil to you.'

‘You don't like me, even a little?' Matthew picked up his bread and bit into the thick brown crust with white, even teeth.

‘I neither like you nor dislike you.' Ellie poured the tea with a steady hand, ‘You have enough to do with the village girls chasing after you from what I hear.'

‘Ah, jealous is it? Well you needn't be, the girls are silly giggling creatures, you, Ellie Hopkins, are what I'd call an enigma, a beautiful, delicious woman.'

Ellie suddenly felt old, she was past twenty, her youth had vanished some years ago when she had put her trust in a man she had loved. Just look where it had got her.

‘Stop your silly nonsense.' She put down the teapot and refilled it with hot water from the kettle. With a sense of relief, she heard the sound of Boyo's light footsteps as he came towards the house. She supposed he had a proper name but she had never known it and neither had he.

Boyo stepped into the kitchen and looked from Ellie's impassive face to take in Matthew's twitching smile. He frowned and placed himself directly between them.

‘The master's on his way back, missus, I heard the sound of the cart from down the lane.'

Ellie concealed a smile, she knew that Boyo wished he was strong enough to punch Matthew on the nose but he was a youth, his muscles scarcely showing beneath the sleeves of his flannel shirt.

‘Good.' She poured the boy's tea and watched as he took up his grub pack. The bread and cheese was wrapped in muslin to keep it fresh and Boyo undid the cloth and bit, with a delicacy rarely seen in a young boy, into the yellow cheese.

Ellie wished sometimes that the men ate in the kitchen. It would be good to listen to the interchanges of banter between them. Harry had a fine, dry sense of humour; he often poked gentle fun at Matthew, teasing him for his pride at being a bard. Matthew took it mostly in good part but sometimes, his colour would ebb, his fists would clench themselves into white-knuckled weapons and then Harry would smile.

‘Come on now Mat, only teasing, I am, mun. Wish I had your way with words not to mention with the women.'

Ellie had come to realize that Matthew was unable to resist flattery, he was a vain man but there was about him a warning that he could also be a dangerous one.

Jubilee came into the kitchen, his bowler awry, his pipe jutting from under his moustache.

‘There's such talk in Swansea.' He sat, scraping back a chair, mindless of the polished slates of the floor and sinking down into it gratefully. ‘Seems this new Bible-puncher is come to town, setting the place on its ears he is, with his talk of the wonders of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.'

Ellie smiled indulgently, it was a rare occurrence when her husband didn't come back home from town with a new piece of gossip.

‘What's he like?' she asked, pushing the kettle onto the flames of the fire. ‘A Methuselah like you, is he?'

‘Don't be rude, girl.' Jubilee was not offended by her reference to his old age, rather he revelled in her affectionate insolence; it was a sign that she was a woman of spirit. ‘Young as a sapling, he is, handsome and with a way with the ladies that would take your breath away.' Jubilee glanced at Matthew who had paused in the doorway, half inclined to beat the other men to the currying house and get the best place to sit and yet fascinated in spite of himself.

‘Is it that Evan Roberts you're talking about?' he asked, his tone derogatory. ‘Preaching like a maniac, telling us all to get saved, trying to run the lives of Christian people he is, mind. Why doesn't he go and convert the heathens, not tell respectable folk how to live?'

Jubilee barely glanced at him. ‘Come from a place near Loughor, so it seems, got the
hwyl
all right, folks are going to the chapels in droves just to hear the word from him.' He looked directly at Ellie, ‘Do you want to go and see him,
merchi
?'

Ellie considered her husband's words. Jubilee must be interested in hearing this new preacher for usually he favoured the Church of England's pomp and dignity. ‘Where's he preaching next, then?' She sat down at the table and pushed a mug towards Jubilee. Her back ached and she wanted to kick off her boots but there were still some hours of work to do yet. The prospect of a day off was appealing.

‘I hear he's going up to Tabernacle in Morriston, I could drive us there in the cart, be a good break for you, Ellie, looking a bit peaked you've been lately.'

‘Perhaps she's with child.' Matthew's voice was overtly innocent and Jubilee looked at him sharply.

‘
Darro
haven't you got work to do? Perhaps there's not enough jobs here to warrant the employment of three men and a boy, perhaps I'd best get rid of a full-time worker and employ another casual labourer.'

Ellie wanted to reach out and cover Jubilee's hand with her own; he was stung, his manhood imputed by Matthew's jibe. She glared at the man in the doorway and he had the grace to look abashed.

Boyo stood beside Ellie, he was puzzled by the charged atmosphere and a little dismayed, not understanding it. How could he know that Jubilee Hopkins was a man who could not father a child? An illness, the swelling of the glands in his neck when he was a young man had done the damage, at least that's what the doctor had told Jubilee.

‘Get out of here, leave me and my wife to eat in peace.' Jubilee rarely lost his good humour but now, his mouth was drawn down, his eyebrows met across his brow and he suddenly looked like the old man he was.

When they were alone, Ellie smiled reassuringly. ‘Don't notice the men, especially Matthew, he's all talk that one.'

She stared into Jubilee's eyes and saw a tear there. ‘Love, don't be unhappy, we've got a good marriage, haven't we?'

‘But I wanted sons,' he said flatly. Of course, it was the reason he had married her, taken her off the hands of her shamed family, made her respectable. He'd wanted the twins she was carrying.

‘I'm sorry.' Her voice was scarcely audible and he shook off his bad mood as though it was an unwanted garment. ‘No, it's me that's sorry, behaving like a big kid, I am. You suffered more than me when you lost the babbas and I should be the first one to recognize that. Wasn't I there holding your hand, poor little girl?'

A pain filled Ellie's body and filtered into her mind. Her children, her sons. Born too soon as was the way of twins, they died without having lived. Jubilee saw her stricken look and rose, taking her into his arms, holding her against his barrel chest. ‘Damn Matthew Hewson,' he said.

She was comforted by his nearness, Jubilee was a good man and she loved him. It might not be the love of a wife for a husband but it was a strong love nevertheless. And Ellie was grateful to him, Jubilee had given her a life of respectability that she had no right to expect, only now and then when someone like Matthew stirred the muddy waters did she remember her past.

On an impulse, she made up her mind. ‘We'll go and hear this wonderful new preacher man,' she said. ‘I think we both need a day off from work, Jubilee my love.'

‘Right then,' he moved to the door, ‘It's settled. But for now I suppose I'd better make sure the skins are getting worked properly, can't trust young ones to be as fussy as us old ones are. Good leather needs proper treatment from the grinding of the oak bark down to the last soaking in the pits. Three long years it takes to make fine leather that will last the course and I don't want any of my workmen ruining my reputation.'

Alone in the kitchen, Ellie washed out the teapot at the huge white slab of a sink and stared through the window to the fields beyond. The Hopkins tannery was separated from the house by a few acres of scrub land; it needed to be because the stink of it was worse than anything produced by the plethora of works along the banks of the Swansea river.

Ellie remembered her shock when she had first come here as a bride, a bride with a large belly, she thought ruefully. She had never been used to hardship. She had been the pampered daughter of a respectable, if not too thrifty, merchant.

She had fallen in love, had become even more pampered as the mistress of Lord Calvin Temple. He'd given her everything she wanted, money, clothes, an apartment of her own. But what he wouldn't give her was marriage.

Ah, well, it had taken Jubilee to give her that and she owed him everything. Her face softened for a moment, dear Jubilee, he'd been kinder to her than her own father in the end.

She left the cottage and hitched up her skirts as she walked, tucking the hem into her belt. She had enough trouble washing the stink of skins from the clothes on a Monday without dragging her skirts in the dust.