Sea Mistress (48 page)

He sighed heavily as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. ‘I wish I could believe that, Ellie, I really do but that time, when he came into the kitchen, when your husband had died, when he resented my attempts to comfort you. I had a feeling even then that he was more to you than just a workman.'

She was becoming angry and she tried to curb her emotions; there would be nothing gained by an exchange of cruel words. ‘What do you know about Matthew Hewson, Dan, is there anything in his character to suggest he is truthful, honest, an individual who can be trusted?'

‘He's a cheat and a liar, he's everything you imply he is but that doesn't prove anything.' Daniel rubbed his hand through his hair. ‘Women are often attracted to scoundrels, I saw enough of that in my newspaper days to be convinced of it.'

‘Dan, believe me, I was never attracted to any man, not until you came along. Are you so blinded with anger and jealousy that your sense of reason has deserted you?'

‘I don't know what to think.' Daniel bowed his head for a long moment and then, taking a deep breath looked up at her. ‘Let's try again, at least try, shall we?' he said evenly, ‘I don't want to quarrel with you Ellie, I love you in spite of everything.'

‘But you can't find it in your heart to trust me and believe in me?'

‘It's difficult, Ellie, you are a frail woman when it comes to men, you must admit that much.'

Her face grew hot, he was referring to her affair with Calvin, how dare he? ‘So my past is to be dragged up, I am to be goaded by my one mistake every time a man looks at me, is that it? Do you think I'm so “frail” that I'd fall into any man's arms then? Do you think I've bedded Harry and Luke too, they've been around me all the time I was married to Jubilee remember?'

‘Don't be coarse, Ellie.' He looked away from her ashamed and she knew her barb had hit its mark.

‘So the doubt is there, is it? You think I'm a whore.' She rose to her feet bitterly hurt, hating him in that moment. ‘Go away Daniel and don't come back, do you understand me?'

She moved to open the parlour door and hung back to allow him to pass. As he stood looking down at her, he shook his head. ‘I hate to leave matters this way,' he said. ‘I thought to solve something of our problems by coming here and making my peace.'

‘Well you have a strange way of making peace when you practically accuse your wife of taking to her bed any man she meets.'

He left her then without a word and she closed the door after him, feeling the tears hot on her cheeks. She didn't return to the parlour for fear Martha would come and question her, instead, she hurried up to her room and bolted the door and flung herself face down on the bed she had shared with Daniel for such a short time.

It was a few days later when Ellie made a journey through town and up the hills of Mount Pleasant to the workhouse. The untidy spread of gaunt buildings seemed forbidding in the grey, misty day that had greeted her when she awoke. Still, she had made a promise to Boyo and it was one she intended to keep.

At the gate, the porter, seeing that she was a respectable, well dressed lady asked her to wait while he arranged for someone in authority to see her and he left her standing on the steep slope leading from the roadway to the main body of the building. Presently, the porter returned and led her in through the door and across a wide, cold entrance hall towards an office located near the back of the main building. Ellie was ushered into the room and saw she was facing a formidable woman dressed in the garb of a matron, the stiff, cotton cap crackling as she turned her head.

‘Good morning, what can I do for you, Mrs Bennett?' The woman's tone was not welcoming. It implied she was extremely busy and had little time to spare for trivialities. ‘Are you collecting for some charity perhaps?'

‘No,' Ellie said, ‘it's nothing like that.' She took the seat the woman indicated with a quick, impatient gesture of her hand and pulled her gloves more firmly over her fingers in an unconscious move, as though to impress on this officious woman that she herself was more than a little busy too. ‘It's about a boy, taken into my husband's employ some eight or nine years ago. All I know about him is that he's called Boyo.'

‘We'll need a great deal more than that to go on, Mrs Bennett, your husband, Mr Bennett can't he enlighten you?'

Ellie shook her head, this was going to be difficult, the matron's attitude didn't exactly encourage confidences.

‘I was married before, to Jubilee Hopkins, owner of Glyn Hir tannery. It was he who took Boyo from here.'

‘Ah, yes, Jubilee Hopkins, a fine old man.' Ellie looked at her was it her imagination or did the woman emphasize the word ‘old'?

‘Not been gone from this earth very long, has he?' The tone was definitely censorious. Ellie chose to ignore the question.

‘I am anxious to know what Boyo's origins are, my present husband, the Reverend Bennett believes it necessary now that the lad is getting older.' She guessed that her little exaggeration of Daniel's position in the church would impress and it did. The matron visibly warmed. ‘Ah,
that
Bennett family, good stock and the son a fine upright man, you are a very fortunate lady if I may say so.'

There wasn't much the formidable matron would not dare say, Ellie suspected.

‘I remember the case of the boy very well indeed,' the matron allowed herself a tiny smile. ‘I would advise you to speak to your late husband's lawyer on the matter, Mr Bernard Telforth is in possession of all the relevant facts concerning this boy's forebears.'

It was clear she knew something that she was not prepared to divulge. Ellie rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for your time, Mrs . . . ?'

For an instant the matron looked uncomfortable. ‘It's Miss Bowden,' she said ‘but everyone calls me Matron.'

Ellie was glad to leave the grey, depressing buildings behind her. Surrounded as they were by high walls they resembled not so much a place for unfortunates as an abode for habitual criminals.

She walked back down the hill towards the town, pausing for a moment to enjoy a glimpse of the sea and the splash of sunlight that shone briefly between the buildings. She wondered if she should go to Bernard Telforth's offices straight away but suddenly, she felt tired and her spirits were low. She paused to sit on a flat stone on the bank leading upwards from the busy streets of Swansea examining her feelings. The visit to the workhouse had saddened her, if it hadn't been for the intervention of Jubilee, wonderful, kind Jubilee, she might well have ended up there herself.

She took a deep breath and entered the busy streets, hearing the sounds of wagons, of horses' hooves on cobbles; of a street vendor's raucous tones exhorting the good citizens of the town to buy
The Swansea Times
and she was possessed by a feeling of unreality. All around her people were living their lives, working in offices or shops, sharing the joy of companions and she, Ellie Bennett was alone. Was she destined to be that way always?

Had she not lain with Daniel, become his wife in fact as well as in name, the marriage could have been annulled. Is that what he would have wanted? She felt tears constrict her throat, she loved Daniel so much, why had he turned against her, how he could choose to believe a scoundrel like Matthew Hewson was beyond fathoming.

She passed the door of a public bar and heard the sound of raised, happy voices, someone was laughing uproariously and suddenly she felt she was on her own against an unfriendly world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ellie looked at her reflection in the mirror that hung in the hallway of the house at Glyn Hir, nothing about her outwards appearance, except perhaps for the shadows beneath her eyes gave any indication of her inward turmoil. She had been preparing to go out when the letter had come from Daniel. She had opened it with hands that trembled and scanned the contents eagerly, her throat constricted with a mixture of hope and fear.

A feeling of relief washed over her, he was coming here again this afternoon, he wanted to see her, he had missed her, he needed to talk to her. She reread his words and had hugged the note paper, the only frail link between them, and tears misted her eyes.

She took off her hat and placed it carelessly on the stand and returned to the mirror, tidying her hair, wondering how she would look to Daniel. Would he see the woman he loved, the woman he'd married or would he see one who had betrayed him? What did his letter mean?

She moved to the parlour where Martha was sitting bent over her sewing. ‘Not going out after all?' she said breaking a piece of thread in her teeth. ‘I thought this meeting with Mr Telforth was important.'

‘Not as important as my marriage,' Ellie spoke breathlessly and waved the letter. ‘Dan is coming home again, he wants to talk to me, oh, please God let it be all right this time.'

Martha put down her sewing and turned to face Ellie. ‘It's to be hoped that he's come to his senses.' Her tone was unusually sharp. ‘I never could understand why he was so angry with you, he should have known you would never do anything to hurt him.' Martha rose to her feet. ‘I'm going up to my room, I'll give you a bit of privacy so that you can get this foolishness sorted out once and for all.' She smiled. ‘Rosie isn't likely to bother you, she's entertaining Caradoc Jones in the kitchen.'

‘Oh, is she? I didn't see him arriving.' Ellie sank into a chair, ‘It's not his day to go over the books, is it?'

‘I think he has other matters on his mind these days besides columns of figures. He's come courting and I trust his intentions are honourable because I think Rosie's really in love this time. I wouldn't like to see her hurt for all her faults.' She shrugged, ‘But there we are, you can't live a body's life for them.' Martha left the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

The afternoon seemed to drag by and it was almost an hour later when the bell rang out harshly, echoing through the hushed silence of the house. It was Dan and he was behaving like a visitor to Glyn Hir not her husband.

Ellie waited a moment, listening intently, hearing Dan's vibrant tones with a lifting of her heart.

‘Ellie, it's Mr Bennett,' Rosie was at the door of the parlour, on her face was an expression of triumph, it was almost as though she had conjured Daniel out of thin air by her own cleverness.

‘Thank you, Rosie.' Ellie was on her feet, her eyes on Daniel's face searching his eyes, his mouth for any signal that she was forgiven. Ellie stared at Daniel for a long moment, almost afraid to speak. He returned her gaze longingly and she saw, with a catch at her throat, there were tears in his eyes.

As the door closed behind Rosie, they moved together and then Daniel was holding her, his face pressed into the warmth of her neck. ‘Ellie . . .' he began but she pressed her mouth to his, silencing him. Words could hurt, could cause misunderstandings and she wanted nothing to spoil the safety of being in his arms.

They remained for a long moment, just holding each other and then he kissed her so tenderly that she knew that somehow, by some miracle everything was all right between them.

‘What a fool I've been,' Daniel whispered the words in her ear, ‘a fool to doubt you. I've missed you so much, Ellie, I can't live without you, I know that now.' He held her away from him. ‘I've spent time on my knees praying for guidance, I remembered the times when together we listened to Evan Roberts preach, I thought of your honesty about your past and I came to the conclusion at last that I should believe your word before any other.'

He kissed her again, very gently. ‘I have a confession to make, I've had a letter from Boyo, he told me the whole story, how you'd reacted after that bastard tried to attack you. How Boyo had fended him off with the sharp end of the shovel. What an awful time you must have had and I didn't make it any better.' He paused. ‘I'm sorry for doubting you, Ellie, I'm so very sorry.'

‘It's all right,' Ellie hid her disappointment that it had taken an outsider to convince her husband of the truth. ‘It's over and done with now. You are here with me, that's all that matters.'

‘I meant to make it right, convince you of my love,' Daniel said earnestly, ‘even if it had taken me all night.' Ellie leaned against his shoulder.

‘It might well do that,' she said, softly, ‘take you all night, I mean.' And as she looked up into his eyes, a smile curved her lips.

The next day, even after Daniel had left for Lampeter, Ellie felt his presence, his love surrounding her. She sang as she walked around her garden, she felt alive again, part of the world, not just an unhappy spectator.

So engrossed was she in her thoughts that she jumped when she heard footsteps on the path behind her. She turned quickly and saw the tall, rangy figure walking towards her. ‘Boyo, come and talk to me.'

They sat together on the warm wood of the bench situated between two tall alders. The leaves of the trees were gold and red, some of them already making a carpet in the grass. Boyo looked down at her, the questions in his eyes not lost on her.

‘Thank you for writing to Dan.'

‘I know you told me not to,' Boyo said, ‘but I thought it for the best, I couldn't just wait around doing nothing. Is everything all right, now?'

‘Everything is fine. Now we have to sort your affairs out.'

Boyo's features lit up. ‘You learned something of my past?' He was tense and she felt a tinge of guilt that she had put his worries out of her mind.

‘Not yet,' she hated to dampen his hopes. ‘But I have a lead, I might know someone who will be able to tell me everything we need to know.'