Hosts of Rebecca

she hit the tub with all the corkings and bubblings of a man from shift.
“Well, now,” said she, rubbing for a glow. “And what is it thinking?”
“My business.”
“O, aye? Then it do happen to be mine also. D’you know what time Grandfer got in last night?”
“I go to bed to sleep,” I said.
“Not much option round these parts, mind,” and she winked and held the towel against her. “Coo-dove time, an hour or so back. Belted with quarts, he was, climbing up one stair and belly-sliding ten – making enough commotion to raise the damned rent. Reckon you must die if you didn’t hear Grandfer. Drunk? Three nights running now.” She jerked her head at the standing corn. “The place won’t get a shave this side of Christmas the way he’s going. Time those fields was down.”
“Where he gets the money from puzzles me,” I said.
“Grandfer’s business – not yours, or mine. Neither is scything my business. What I know about farming can be written on a toenail, but I reckon to eat next winter.”
“And I know less than you,” I said.
“Time somebody learned, then, time somebody moved. I’m a different shape in the chest to you but I’d have a try if there wasn’t a man around.”
“What about Ponty? Do I hew with Muldooney and farm, too?”
“I’ll handle Ponty.”
“Twenty acres of corn,” I said. “Abel Flannigan might help.”
She was tapping her foot now, eyes narrowed.
“Or Osian Hughes,” I said.
I had made a note of Osian. With Morfydd’s suitors tiptoeing around Cae White thicker than fleas in workhouse bedding, Osian was the handiest. She had only to wink her eye and he’d have lowered our corn in fifteen minutes.
“Listen, you,” said she. “If we take scissors to these fields we will cut them alone, for our men have never gone crying yet. Grandfer’s finished, understood? Give him six months and he’ll be boxed in cedar and brass handles. When a man slips on quarts he slides to the devil. Do you want your Squire Parry to take the place over? For he’ll damned soon do it if the corn isn’t lowered.”
“He will not do that,” I said.
“Gratifying. Influence, is it? You’ll get some influence if he catches you with Tessa.” She turned to the door. “You heard what happened at the Reach last night?”
I nodded.
“And how your Parry is roaring and threatening to put out his tenants?”
With good reason, I thought.
For his river had been emptied between Tarn and the Reach; near four hundred salmon littering the banks, brought out by the poachers and left to rot. This was Rebecca again, dishing out punishment because Squire had lent money to a turnpike trust. By night she visited the Tywi with flares and cudgels and the fish were harpooned and dragged out to die; scores being spitted on the railings of the mansion, flung over his steps and lawns, thrown through his windows, tied to his knockers. There is no law to say that Squire is sole owner, of roads or salmon, said Rebecca in her note. With hungry men in gaol for poaching the temptation must be removed, said Rebecca, and Squire Lloyd Parry must have the lot. As his gates will be burned when he puts them up.
“And tonight we are eating like fighting cocks,” said Morfydd, “for I fetched in a fresh one at midnight.”
“That is asking for trouble,” I replied sharp. “Waldo Bailiff has a nose for boiling salmon.”
“Boiled,” said she. “And if he shows his dewdrop in here he will breathe his last. I will handle Waldo – you handle that corn. I am going alone to Ponty.”
Cups and saucers were tinkling from the kitchen as I came in from the tub. Smoke curled from the twisted chimney, chairs scraped on flagstones, and I thought of the days when we first came to Cac White. Grandfer was in charge then. Seven of us down to supper at night and not a whisper while we fed; just belches and pardons from Grandfer at the top and wallowings from Richard and Jonathon, while the big black clock on the mantel ticked time to the pork crackling, with hands reaching for bread or grasping pewter for cider gulps. Money in plenty those days, too, and Grandfer was a giant of a man for five feet odd, very much in charge; beating his breast with one little hand, thumbing up the Testaments with the other, and every Grace was the same – a whine about some poor soul at a feast who was told to get shifting and who up and said that even curs were due for crumbs, Amen, and slap went the Book and into things went Grandfer, for the head of the house had to be fed with a regiment of in-laws to keep. Different now. Grandfer was finished with Cae White. So with my first harvest waiting I went into the kitchen, and the table, I saw, was laid for one. Husbandman first, said Mari, smiling. Farming stock for generations and proud of it.
I sat down, watching her as she sweated over the hob.
“Men first, Jethro, women later,” she said, smiling wider, and I knew then that the women had been planning, with Morfydd having the first go at me and Mam coming after. Fat bacon was sizzling in the pan, God knows where they got it; the kettle singing his lovesong to the pot; buttermilk, bread whiter than usual, and the cloth was as snow. Most important now, Jethro Mortymer, with the head man gone lazy and pickled in hops.
“Sit you down, bach,” said Mari, smoothing and patting, and I looked at her.
Expectation was in her, evident in her trembling hands, and I saw the ring of gold that bound her to my brother, and smelled the lavender sweetness that was Mari’s from the day Iestyn brought her home to Blaenafon. Bright were her eyes, meeting mine but once, flicking away with the colour reddening her cheeks. Jonathon, Mari’s baby, was two years old now,