Hosts of Rebecca

things at Cae White lately, with Morfydd coming snappy with overwork, Mari mooning about Iestyn and Grandfer stupefied. Enough to think of without having to put up with guardians of virginities, and it infuriated me that Mam, of all people, should go under skirts with thoughts of Mari who was pure and beautiful, for a thought like that brings canker into a house and we had given her no reason for it. But with every day’s passing now Mari was more substantial, less of a relation. This working together, the sweet intimacy of her presence, had brought me joy, obliterating something of Tessa, the girl. I loved her, of course.
Cursed myself for it under the stars.
The moon was hanging doomed in a friendless sky as I went down to Tarn.
The sheep track from Cae White leads to Black Boar tavern, a track that carries the refuse of the north; the Midland drovers with their stinks, ghosts of the transportation hulks and prison, the fire-scarred puddlers of the Monmouthshire iron – not a pint of good Welsh blood in a thousand; all come flocking to the coal industry of Carmarthenshire and to Betsi’s place, the strongest ale in the county. Light and smoke hit me as I shouldered the door.
Betsi Ramrod is serving the jugs, dark eyes flashing in her hatchet of a face, swabbing up her counter now, scooping up her pennies. Irish as Killarney is Betsi Ramrod – the Welsh had a name for her – man-hating, man-loving but fearful of conceiving, straighter than a fir tree and twice as prickly. She hoofed it out of Ireland ten years back, it was said, her black shawl scragging her domed head, her stockinged sticks of legs plastered with the mud of her barren country – running from the rumbling bellies of a potato famine, one hand gripping her twopenny fare, the other waving the last crust in Ireland: running for Rosslare Wharf and Freedom’s schooner, a walking ballast journey of no return alive. A hundred thousand Irish crossed the sea about then, most to neat Welsh graves, but Betsi was one who did well out of it. From the ballooning stomachs of her country to the best cellar in Carmarthen county via the bed of a travelling tinker, she gave short change over the counter if you dared to bat an eye.
A few of my neighbours were drinking when I got in there – Osian Hughes Bayleaves for one, shivering in his corner to draw my attention, mortifying for Morfydd still, scared of her reception, for she’d split his skull with the nearest thing handy if he tried it on, and he knew it. Hairy Abel Flannigan sat opposite him, one hand gripping a jug, the other a bottle, stupefied, trying to forget tollgates, and God help him if Biddy his mam finds out, for she is still serving him beltings. Job Gower, of all people, Morfydd’s Ponty boss; up at the counter, dwarfing every man in sight, his eyes still black-ringed from the day shift and roving for good labour. And the sawdust was jammed with farmers and drovers, with the foreigners of iron quarrelling and bellowing, spilling out their wages; ragged men, beggars, hoydens and hags, two per cent Welsh, thank God. A cock-fight in a corner now, bloodstained, wine-stained, elegant with dandies; a man-fight in another – two north country drovers, their blue chins jutting with lip from Lancashire, fists bristling, eyes glaring, dying for each other and the meaty thuds of the slug it out, with dark Gipsy May thrusting between them to take the first thump, hands spread on their chests, her white teeth shining as she laughs at the lamp.
“Trouble, Betsi, trouble! Grandfer Zephaniah, up by here and give me a hand with some muscle!”
“Settle your own business,” says Grandfer, steering up his quart.
Not seen me yet.
“Oi! Osian Hughes Bayleaves – six-foot-six of you for God’s sake. Part these two pugilists for your poor little gipsy, eh?”
And Osian trembles and goes deeper into his mug. From the table rises Abel Flannigan and shoulders through the crowd, undoing his coat: a north country drover every week for supper, this one.
“Now, now!” shrieks Betsi Ramrod, and up on the counter she goes, landing in the sawdust with a flurry of drawers. “Sit you down, Abel boy, Betsi will handle it.” She shoves the drovers out of it. “This is a respectable establishment, me boyo, anyone fighting will pay for the damages, a penny for every mug broken, twopence for a jug. By all the saints suffering, God what a life. Fighting, fighting! Good evening, Jethro Mortymer, most unhappy you are looking for somebody courting the gentry. How is Tessa Lloyd Parry?”
“She does not come in here,” I answered, and shouldered drovers aside for the counter.
“No offence, mind, only asking. Heard she was poorly again, that’s all.”
“Right poorly,” said Gipsy May, joining me. Strange about this gipsy. Coffee-coloured, blowsy, half a yard of breast showing and bangle-earrings, was Gipsy, the daughter of Liza Heron of a Cardigan tribe; a woman in love with things that screeched and as tame as a meat-fed tiger, but mother-gentle when it came to Tessa. I lifted the mug and blew off the froth with Grandfer’s eyes boring holes in my shoulders. First time we had shared Black Boar.
“You heard what ails her, Jethro Mortymer?”
I had heard but I would not say in there. Weak in the chest, was Tessa, and coughing with her the last time I saw her, eyes as bright as stones in her fever, and I had called old Ben, her servant, and he had carried her back to the house in tears. Three Sundays running I had walked to the Reach, letting Grandfer Badger off with a caution, feeling dull, and Tessa had not been there. Called at the house once and fished out old Ben, but he had turned up his nose at the garbage.
Sixpenny Jane in the corner by there, buxom, dark, pretty as a