Chapter 12
Singing was a balm to the soul. She had always known it and it was proved again. Even singing to herself while she was about her daily work was soothing. But singing with other people, hearing the richness of harmony all about her and lending her voice to it was as wonderfully soothing as a bathe in the river on a hot day. More so. She prolonged the practice, singing more hymns than they needed for the coming Sunday.
No one objected.
But when she finally signaled the end of practice, Aled jumped to his feet and held up his hands for silence.
"I have something of importance to say," he said. His face was pale and set, Marged noticed. "Those of you who do not wish to hear it may leave now. There will be no compulsion put upon anyone as there is in some other places."
Marged's heart leapt and began to beat uncomfortably. This was it, then. She could tell from Aled's voice that it was not the usual news of delay that he was about to impart. She looked fixedly at him as a few people got to their feet and left the schoolroom, among them Ceris, who hurried out, her eyes directed at the floor.
"Well," Aled said when the door had closed again, "the time has come. All is planned. The night after tomorrow. Every man who wishes to follow me should meet me down by the river after dark."
"Gate breaking?" Dewi Owen asked. "Which one is to go, Aled? Or which ones? I am with you every step of the way, man."
"I cannot say which," Aled said. "The less you know the better, Dewi. I am sorry but that is the way it must be."
"Rebecca?" Marged leaned forward in her chair. "There is a Rebecca, Aled?"
"Yes." He nodded curtly. "We have found a Rebecca, Marged."
"Oh, who?" She found that she was agog with eagerness.
He shook his head. "I cannot say that either," he said. "It is safer for everyone if almost no one knows his identity."
She was disappointed. "But he is not from here?" she asked. "No, he cannot be. But is he anyone we know? Anyone from close to here?"
"Aled is right, Marged, fetch," Ifor Davies said. "It is better we do not know. No one can squeeze out of us what we do not know, girl."
"But is he suitable?" She could not let it alone. "He is not someone who has been pressed into it against his will, Aled? Or someone who is merely a daredevil with no sense of responsibility? Or someone who is ruthless and will do more destruction than is necessary?"
"He will do, Marged," Aled said. "He will be the best Rebecca there has been, I believe."
She raised her eyebrows. Aled was not given to wild enthusiasms. This was praise indeed.
"I will show my support of him and my trust in him by being one of his daughters," Aled said. He smiled faintly. "Charlotte."
Charlotte was, by tradition, Rebecca's favorite daughter. The leader's right-hand man. Rebecca must indeed be someone Aled believed in. Marged was more curious than ever.
"Bring with you crowbars or anything else that will help destroy gates and tollhouses," Aled said. "But no guns or anything else designed specifically to harm people. There is to be no violence shown to any people. Rebecca has made it a firm condition of her service to us, and I support her wholeheartedly."
"Duw," Eli Harris said, "but there are a few gatekeepers I would not mind putting the fear of God into—with my fists or something a little more convincing."
"Rebecca will not tolerate a rabble," Aled said. "He will expect a disciplined army and he will demand obedience. Anyone who cannot accept that would do better to stay at home."
Eli grumbled to himself, but he appeared to have no supporters.
Rebecca, Marged thought, was winning her respect with every passing minute. She hoped Aled was not exaggerating. But where had this man been hiding all this time?
"I am all for you, Aled, and for Rebecca," she said. "At least something will be done to speak loudly and clearly to the government. At last the likes of Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern, will have something rather more serious to bother him than a few stray mice and escaped horses and ashes in his bed. I can hardly wait to see how he reacts."
Aled looked steadily back at her. "I imagine he will be very angry, Marged," he said.
She smiled brightly at him. "I hope so," she said. "Duw, but I hope so."
He had forgotten the feeling. He had lived with it for years, this combination of excitement and fear, the one inextricably a part of the other. He had been a child then, poaching for a living, thrilled by the sheer delight of snaring food for himself and his mother, titillated by the knowledge that sure punishment awaited him if he were caught.
He was a man now and realized that for many years life had been tame. Not that he had not enjoyed it, but it had been without challenge. His boyhood exuberance returned to him as if the intervening years had fallen away. There was a new challenge on which to focus all his energies. He was to lead the Rebecca Riots in this part of Wales. There would be perhaps a few hundred men to lead and control and keep safe. There was his identity to be kept secret from both sides—from both the authorities and the men he led. There was his own safety to be guarded against possible informers. There were always large rewards offered for the capture of a Rebecca, he had been told.
And there was the fear. Definitely the fear. Fear that he would be unable to control his men and that he would be merely creating a mob that would wantonly destroy property and perhaps harm people. And fear of being caught. Transportation for life—that was what lay in wait for any Rebecca who was caught. None had been yet. Perhaps in this case, since he was a landowner and an aristocrat and would be seen as someone who had betrayed his own class and perhaps his country—in his case, perhaps the ultimate penalty.
Geraint had made his appearance before the committee, conducted to their meeting blindfolded, as he had suggested, by a grim Aled. He had been kept behind a screen in a darkened room. For longer than an hour he had made his case and answered questions and withstood a thorough grilling. He had lost hope. They were not going to accept him. But they had. Perhaps they thought they had little to lose. If he failed, if he was somehow trying to set a trap, they would be safe. He had seen none of them except Aled. It was clear to him that they had even disguised their voices.
He had set his conditions. Only tollgates and tollhouses were to be destroyed. There was to be no damage to private property. There was to be no harm done to any person. No one was to be coerced into joining the rioters, as was happening in other areas. No one was to carry a gun. And one gate was to be exempt. There was a gate on Tegfan land, the Cilcoed gate, kept by an elderly woman, Mrs. Dilys Phillips. He had given her the word of the Earl of Wyvern that he would protect her from all harm.
And so he had a third identity. He was Geraint Penderyn and the Earl of Wyvern—and now Rebecca. He was to become Rebecca for the first time on Saturday night. His disguise had been found for him and was safely stowed away in a derelict gamekeeper's hut at the northern tip of the park. He had studied the rituals that were always observed at a gate breaking. They were foolish rituals, perhaps, as was the whole idea of Rebecca and her daughters, but he knew that sometimes ritual had its function in giving form and orderliness to a situation that was fraught with dangers. He thought Saturday night would never come.
He found himself unable to settle to anything for the intervening days but wandered restlessly about the house and park. He found it difficult to eat. He found it almost impossible to sleep.
He was excited and afraid.
She was terribly afraid. Perhaps more afraid than she had ever been in her life. But, no, that was not true. She had been more afraid when Eurwyn had been out trying to destroy that weir. And her feelings at his trial and afterward had gone beyond fear. Fear was a dreadful emotion when it was accompanied by utter helplessness.
There was an element of excitement and exhilaration mingled with this fear. And this time she was not helpless. She was doing something. She was in control of her own destiny.
Her mother-in-law and grandmother always went to bed early. Sometimes Marged regretted the fact. Evenings could be long when they were spent alone. But tonight she was glad. She dressed quickly and quietly in the old breeches and jacket she had cut down from Eurwyn's size to her own. She pulled a woolen cap over her head and then stooped down by the fire to blacken her face with some of the cooled ashes she had mixed with a little water.
Wet ashes. Her hand paused for a moment over the dish.
But she would not think about him or about what she had done to his bed. She had not seen him for two weeks and she could not be happier. It seemed that the less than warm welcome he had received from them all and the "accidents" that had befallen him had had the desired effect. He had retreated into the house and park of Tegfan. Perhaps soon he would retreat all the way to London. Perhaps the riots that were to start tonight would drive him away.
She could not somehow imagine Geraint running from danger, though. But then she was remembering him as a daring urchin. She did not know anything now about the state of his courage. Except, she thought unwillingly, that it must have taken courage both to go to chapel and to go to Mrs. Howell's birthday party. She had not thought of it that way before. And did not want to think it now. Or to think of him.
She slipped out of the house quietly, closing both the kitchen and the outside doors slowly, hoping that her absence would go unnoticed. She did not want the other two women involved in what she had decided to do. It would be unfair. They had suffered enough anxiety with Eurwyn.
She hoped she was not too late. She wanted desperately to be part of this first mass demonstration. She wanted to be a part of all of them, even though they would become progressively more dangerous as the authorities were alerted to trouble. It was a very dark night. Heavy clouds hid the moon and the stars. It was better so. And yet bounding downhill was not an easy thing to do. She hoped she would be in time.
She was. They were gathered at the river beyond Glynderi, perhaps twenty-five men, and more joined them within the next few minutes. They were all on foot except for the one figure on horseback, wearing a dark flowing robe and a dark woman's wig. His face was blackened. Rebecca, Marged thought for a moment, and her heart beat faster. But he rode closer to her and looked down at her.
"Marged?" he said in Aled Rhoslyn's voice. "You should not be here, girl. Go home now where it is safe, is it? It is enough that Eurwyn worked for the cause."
It was Aled, of course, looking grotesque but somehow menacing as Charlotte. Rebecca was from somewhere else. And Rebecca, if tradition was being followed, would be clad recklessly in white.
She shook her head. "I am not going anywhere but with you. Aled," she said. "You will not drive me away. Unfortunately it is gates we will pull down and not Tegfan, but Geraint will know after tonight that he has powerful enemies. I am one of those enemies and I will not cower at home."
"We will be walking for many miles over the hills," he said. "It will be a long, hard night, Marged."
"And chapel in the morning?" she said, smiling broadly at him. "I will not have any of my choir missing, mind, and staying in their beds to catch up on sleep."
"Well, then," he said, wheeling his horse away from her, "don't complain to me of blisters."
He had not exaggerated. He led them straight into the hills and over the crest—and through valleys and over other hills. Miles and miles of walking. Most of the time he walked with them, leading his horse by the reins. There was not a great deal of talking. They picked up more men as they went and two more "daughters." There must have been more than a hundred of them eventually, Marged guessed, all moving together and so quietly that no one standing close by who did not know of their presence would have suspected it.
And then suddenly it seemed that they were to join forces with another group at least as large and as close-packed and as quiet as their own. Marged, who was walking almost at the head of her own group, close to Aled, felt a thrill of excitement and fear again. At the head of the new group, seated on a large dark horse, was a figure dressed in a flowing white robe and a long blond wig. Even the face looked white—masked, Marged realized, rather than blackened.
Rebecca!
She sat motionless on the horse, appearing to tower over the crowd on foot and even over her mounted and darker daughters.
Who was he? Marged wondered, staring at him. He looked even more grotesque than Aled. And many times more magnificent. Aled rode forward with the other daughters from their group and they took up their positions to either side of Rebecca.
And finally she raised both arms upward and outward. White sleeves fell like wings from her wrists to her sides. It was an unnecessary gesture since there had been no noise to hush. But it was a commanding gesture. The silence became almost a tangible thing. Marged could almost hear the beating of her own heart.
"My daughters," she said, "and my loyal children, welcome."
It was a rich male voice, speaking Welsh. A voice that seemed not to be raised and yet spoke clearly enough to be heard by the farthest man in the crowd. It was a voice that sounded accustomed to command.
"I will lead you to a gate," Rebecca said, "a gate that ought not to be there, taking as it does the freedom of passage away from my countrymen. You will destroy that gate, my daughters and my children, and the house of the gatekeeper. You will destroy them when I give the command. You will not harm the gatekeeper or abuse him with words. My followers are courteous people who perform a necessary service for their families and neighbors and friends. If anyone wishes to turn back, now is the time."
No one moved. There were low murmurings of assent.
He was magnificent, Marged thought again. They were a rabble with destruction in mind. But he was converting them with very few words and in a very short span of time into an army with a noble purpose. He had them all eating out of his hand, herself included. She felt at that moment that she would follow him to hell and back if he asked it of her.
"Lead on, Mother," Aled said.
"'We will follow you, Mother," a few of the other daughters said.
Marged found that her heart beat faster at the foolish ritual, which somehow at this moment did not seem foolish at all.
And then Rebecca lowered her arms, and they were all making their way down from the bleak hillside on which they had gathered. Down toward the road and a tollgate, though it was invisible in the darkness. In the darkness it was hard to see even the ground ahead of one's feet. The horses ahead and the hundreds of men on either side were mere shadows in the darkness, felt more than seen. The only thing that could be seen with any clarity was Rebecca's white garments. Marged fixed her eyes on them.
Who was he? He was someone from another valley, another village. The chances were that his name and face would mean nothing to her even if she heard the one and saw the other. She knew he was no one from near Glynderi. He had not come with them. Besides, she would recognize a man with such a commanding presence no matter how well he was disguised, if she knew him at all. It was hard to believe that in everyday life he must be a farmer or a tradesman. Or perhaps a lawyer. She knew that the few men who had been arrested for participating in Rebecca Riots had all been defended by such able lawyers that none had yet been convicted. Those lawyers were rumored to be Rebeccaites themselves. Perhaps one of them was actually a Rebecca. He spoke perfect Welsh—almost as if he were an educated man.
And then suddenly, without any warning, they were on the road and turning to walk along it. Marged could feel its harder surface beneath her feet. And the dark shadow ahead of the horses suddenly resolved itself into the distinctive outline of a tollgate across the road and a squat house beside it.
The horses stopped and the crowd closed in behind. Marged was almost at the head of it. There was an eerie silence. And then Rebecca raised both arms again.
At the same moment there was light. Only a thin thread of it, but it was startling to eyes that had looked into nothing but almost total darkness for a few hours. The door of the tollhouse had opened and a man and woman had come out, huddled together. The man held a lantern aloft. In its light Marged could see that both were terrified.
The reality of it all hit her powerfully then. What they were doing, what they were about to do suddenly had a human face. And the danger of the moment was so apparent that she thought the beating of her heart would make it impossible to catch her breath. There were hundreds of men all about her, angry men, as she was angry. Men who were perhaps looking for a scapegoat. It would need only one spark to ignite a fire of violence and revenge. Rebecca had appeared commanding up in the hills. But the real test had come.
Now.
Rebecca spoke, her voice as quiet and as clear as it had been earlier. She ignored the gatekeeper and his wife. "My daughters," she said, "there is something in my way. What is it?"
Aled was the one who replied. "It appears to be a gate across the road, Mother," he said.
"But why is it there? I wish to ride on with my children but cannot."
Marged recognized the ritual she had heard of. It sounded very much more menacing in reality.
"It is there to stop travelers like you and me, Mother," Aled said. "It is there to force money from us, the money we have already paid to our landlords in rent and tithes and poor rates."
"It is there to impoverish us and force us from our land, Mother, and into the workhouse." Another daughter took up the story.
"It is there to prove to us that we Welsh are not free in our own country, Mother," a third said.
A fourth spoke up. "Shall we destroy it for you, Mother?"
Marged felt a stirring about her as men grasped clubs and crowbars and axes more tightly and prepared to surge forward. But Rebecca had not lowered her arms.
"In a short while, my daughters," she said. "But we will not be hasty." For the first time she looked at the gatekeeper and his wife. "This is your home, my friends?" She spoke to them with quiet courtesy.
The man pulled himself together. "You will not get away with this," he said. "Powerful men own this trust—the Earl of Wyvern, Sir Hector Webb, Mr. Maurice Mitchell. You will be caught and punished."
"Our quarrel is not with you and your good wife or with your personal possessions," Rebecca said. "My children are not patient, but they will obey their mother. They will wait for ten minutes while you remove your possessions from the house and make your way to the nearest habitation for shelter. Ten minutes."
The man took a step forward, seemingly prepared to take on the whole army of them. But his wife plucked at his sleeve and dragged him back toward the house.
"Don't do anything stupid," she said. "Let us hurry, then, Dai."
His arms must be tired, Marged thought several minutes later, watching Rebecca from behind. They were still raised and spread. He looked like the statue of an avenging angel. And the control he held over the crowd was amazing. She could feel the tension all about her, the eagerness to be at the job they had come to do. And yet no one moved and the few who spoke did so in whispers.
The gatekeeper and his wife reappeared before the ten minutes had passed, their arms laden with bundles. The woman would have stumbled away into the darkness, but the man stood his ground and glared up at Rebecca.
"My wife has an oak chest in by there," he said. "It is too heavy for us to carry. I will hold it against you for the rest of my life." He spat in the dirt at his feet.
Rebecca spoke with continued courtesy. "Charlotte, my daughter," he said, "choose two of my children who are on foot, if you please, and direct them to carry out this good woman's oak chest and set it down with care some distance from the house."
Aled turned and pointed to the Owen brothers. They scurried into the house to do Rebecca's bidding.
"And now, my children," Rebecca said when the job was done, raising her voice only slightly, "you will destroy this obstruction across the road and the house beside it." Her arms swept downward.
And then at last there were noise and movement as more than two hundred men surged around the house and the gate. Marged went forward with them, raising the club she had brought with her.
This is for you, Eurwyn, cariad, she thought as she brought it down on the top bar of the gate. This is for you. And this is a blow against him. For your sake I will never stop hating him.
It was over in a matter of minutes. The gate was down and strewn in several pieces across the road. The house was a mere heap of rubble. Several men were sweeping the bits clear of the road so that horses and vehicles and pedestrians might pass unobstructed.