Sea Mistress Read Free Page A

‘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.’
    â€˜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.
    In the mill, Boyo was thrusting a slice of wood into the grinder, he glanced at her shyly, his dark eyes sliding away from her exposed ankles. ‘Master sent me in by here to help you, missus,’ he explained, ‘thought you was looking a bit tired, like.’
    â€˜Thanks, Boyo. Perhaps you’ll take that basket of oak bark out to the pits for me then.’
    She sighed as she watched him drag the basket towards the door, struggle to lift it and then stagger out into the sunlight with it. Everything was the same, every day was like another, hard days and long nights spent lying beside Jubilee like father and daughter not husband and wife. Was this what she really wanted from life? Was there nothing more to look forward to?
    Shame filled her, she should not be moaning about her lot, she should be going down on her knees and thanking Jubilee Hopkins for all he’d done for her. The knowledge was there inside her head, why then did her soul and spirit cry for something more?
    The church was packed to the door, there were men standing in the aisle of Tabernacle, the fine building built on the main road in Morriston.
    â€˜Man must be good.’ Jubilee looked unfamiliar in his best suit and his white shirt with its pristine starched collar. His white hair had been brushed back as a token of respect for the occasion and his moustache was neatly trimmed. He was a fine man, must have been a very handsome man in his prime. It was a great pity that he was not sitting there with a brood of children and grandchildren around him, Ellie thought soberly.
    Ellie remembered her wedding, perhaps it was the heady aura of expectation in the church that brought it to mind. The ceremony had been quickly performed, the preacher had no time for a bride who revealed her sin for all to see. The breakfast had been a simple one, with no guests present, just Jubilee and his new wife eating ham and cold chicken at their own fireside.
    The night had been a strange one, Jubilee had held Ellie in his big arms, had rocked gently, calming her trembling. ‘I won’t touch thee, girl,’ his voice was reassuring, ‘got no seed