Longing (10 page)

Prices had seemed high to him. Not that he was in the habit of shopping for groceries. Really he knew nothing about such matters. Two other women came in while he was there. Both looked at him saucer-eyed and did not react to his affable nod, but neither retreated. One made her purchases, paid for them, and left. The other whispered to the shopkeeper in Welsh, flushing as she did so. The shopkeeper pursed his lips, drew a ledger from a shelf, and wrote in it. The woman made a few purchases, did not pay for them, and hurried away, her head down.

The woman had asked for and been given an advance on next week's wages, the shopkeeper had explained.

“The day after payday?” Alex had asked, frowning.

The shopkeeper had shrugged. “She had a large advance last week,” he had said. “There was very little in the wage pack last night. Her man drank it up as usual. There are four little ones at home.”

On further inquiry Alex had discovered two disturbing facts.
One was that a large number of women would be taking up advances on their husband's wages before the week was out. The other was that wages were paid at the Three Lions Inn, which apparently he owned, and that the men, naturally enough, often sat down for a drink or two before taking their pay home. A few had more than one or two drinks.

Alex had not been pleased and had explained his concerns to Barnes after luncheon. Perhaps, he had said, wages should not be lowered after all. It appeared to him that his workers were not living in any great comfort and could ill afford to be paid ten percent less than they had last week. His examination of the books had shown that the company profits were handsome enough to take the slight loss that the current lower demand for iron would entail. And he himself was a wealthy man even apart from the Cwmbran works.

Barnes had been aghast. The wages paid out were the main expense of operating the works and mine, he had explained. When profits fell, expenses had to be cut. It was good business sense. Otherwise the business collapsed. Wages were the only expense that could realistically be cut.

But there were people behind those wages, Alex had pointed out. It was not an impersonal expense about which they spoke. But Barnes had repeated what he had said before, that the workers were comfortably well off and fully expected to be paid less in tough times. He had added something that had silenced the arguments Alex was still prepared to make. What would happen to the workers, Barnes had asked, if the business collapsed and the works had to be closed? Sometimes what might seem to be cruelty was in fact kindness. Wages must be reduced for the workers' own good.

Company profits looked healthy enough to Alex. But what did he know? There was that frustration again of not knowing. That realization that he must trust the experience of his agent, even when it went quite against the grain to do so. Being at Cwmbran was a humbling experience, Alex was finding.

Besides—Barnes had not finished and again he had had a telling argument, one against which Alex had no defense at all—there were
coal mines and ironworks all across the valleys, and people and news traveled. The owners had to work together so that what one did they all did. Only so could chaos be averted. If wages were lowered in all works except one, there would be mass discontent and strikes and untold suffering. The master who had thought to be unrealistically generous to his workers would make all the others suffer.

All the other owners and agents, Alex had learned, had been living and working in the valleys for years and knew how the industry was to be kept profitable—for the sake of both workers and owners. He had been there for only a few days and had had no previous experience whatsoever with industry. How could he come here now and change things and perhaps destroy what he did not understand? He could not do so. And so his workers must live on ten percent less this week than last. The same cut had been made right across the valleys.

The lowering of demand was likely to continue for some time, Barnes had told him. It was part of the cycle of business and not to be worried about. Things would swing upward again eventually. But in the meanwhile it was possible that in a few weeks' time wages would have to be reduced a further ten percent.

Alex had said nothing. But he had decided there and then that he would fight against such madness. He would meet personally with all the other owners if he must and argue the point. But he would not jump the gun. Perhaps it would not happen. Or perhaps by the time it did he would know more, understand more. But he was feeling sick at heart and troubled at his own inability to act from personal conscience as he usually did.

“I can hear music, Papa.”

Alex came back to the present and his surroundings with a start. He felt instantly guilty. He had been away from Verity all day again and now was ignoring her. He had spoken scarcely a dozen words to her since leaving home.

“Music?” He listened carefully, tightening his hold on Verity's hand and drawing her to a stop in the middle of the pavement. She was quite right.

“It is people singing, Papa,” she said. “In that building at the end of the street.” She pointed ahead. “Is it a church? It looks funny.”

“A chapel,” he said. “Not quite the same as the church we go to. Most Welsh people go to chapels. It's a choir singing. Let's walk a little closer, shall we?”

It was a male voice choir. A large one judging by the volume and richness of sound. Mellow basses, sweet tenors—the balance was perfect. He had heard about Welsh song, Alex thought as they drew closer and could hear the music just as clearly as if they were inside the building. This must be a particularly fine example of it. By unspoken consent he and Verity stopped walking again to listen. The choir was singing in Welsh.

“Ah,” Verity said regretfully when the song came to an end, “is it finished? Are they not going to sing any more, Papa?”

“I don't know,” he said, watching a group of women leave the chapel, but no men. “But we had better walk on. Nurse was right. That breeze really is chilly when we stand still. I don't want you catching a cold.”

But they had taken no more than two or three steps when the music began again and they stopped once more by mutual but unspoken consent. The choir sang without words and without accompaniment, producing a harmonious sound that made Alex think of wind on a lonely mountain or foamless waves on a full tide. It was achingly sweet. And then a single voice—a single tenor—sang a haunting melody above the choir's accompaniment. His voice was as clear as a bell, but he sang in Welsh, so that the words, though heard, had no meaning to the two listeners.

Alex closed his eyes. It was so sweet that it was almost unbearable. His chest ached with unshed tears. And that feeling washed over him again with almost overpowering force—that feeling he had had first up in the hills. He opened his eyes when he sensed that the song was nearing its end and felt himself an outsider again. The music and the choir were inside the chapel and he was outside on the pavement. It was not a conscious thought. Merely a feeling.

And then the song was over.

“Ahh!” Verity sighed with contentment. “I wonder who that was singing, Papa.”

But before he could reply, the chapel door opened and another woman—this one alone—stepped out. She closed the door quietly behind her. She was dressed the same way as the evening before—and the same as on two other occasions when he had seen her. She was not a woman with a large wardrobe, it seemed. But she too must have felt the chill of the breeze. She lifted one fold of her shawl over her head before crossing the ends beneath her chin and tossing them over her shoulders. She turned and hurried toward Alex and Verity. But she suddenly became aware of them standing there and looked up. And stopped.

He touched the brim of his hat to her. “Good evening, Mrs. Jones,” he said.

“Good evening,” she said. Her eyes turned to Verity and then she moved again and would have hurried past them.

“What was that song?” he asked her.

“‘Hiraeth'?”
she said. “You mean the last one they sang?”

He nodded. “Heer—?”

“‘Hiraeth,'”
she said. “It is an old Welsh song. It is one of my favorites. No, it
is
my favorite. It touches me here.” She pressed a hand to her left breast and flushed and removed the hand when she noticed his eyes following the gesture.

“What is it about?” he asked.

“
‘Hiraeth'
means”—she sketched small circles with her hand for a moment—“it is difficult to translate. Longing. Yearning. It is the longing one feels for perfection, for the absolute. For God. That reaching beyond ourselves. The yearning that is never fully satisfied, except perhaps in heaven. I am not explaining it very well.”

“Oh, yes, I think you are,” he said. It was almost as if he had known. As if he had understood the Welsh words. Or perhaps some ideas conveyed themselves through music and emotion without the necessity of words.

She looked at him rather uncertainly. “It is part of the Welsh soul,” she said. “
Hiraeth mawr
—the great longing. Maybe it comes
from the wildness of nature. From the hills and the valleys. From the sea. Maybe— I am sorry. I am sounding foolish.” She glanced at Verity again.

“My daughter Verity,” he said. “She is six years old. This is Mrs. Jones, Verity. I asked her to be your governess, but she was unable to accept the position.”

“My grandmama taught me how to read and do sums,” Verity said. “But I want to learn to sing. And I want to speak Welsh. I think you must speak it. You sing when you talk. That means you are Welsh.”

Siân Jones smiled at his daughter. God, but she was beautiful. Alex wondered if she would be as lovely dressed in all the finery of a fashionable lady at a London ball. He rather suspected that she would. But not lovelier. And she had been inside that chapel. She belonged. He felt a wave of loneliness again. This Welsh adventure was doing strange things to him. He did not normally think of himself as a lonely man.

“My mother spoke it to me almost all the time when I was growing up,” she said in answer to Verity's comment. “Since she died, eight years ago, I have spoken almost nothing else.”

“But your English is very good,” Verity said politely.

“Thank you.” She smiled again, but she looked uncomfortable. She looked once more as if she was about to move on past them.

He spoke on impulse. He had not yet sent to London, and he had made no decision about going down to Newport himself. But he certainly had not intended to pursue this option any further. Indeed, he had concluded that she would not after all have been a suitable choice.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you have had a chance to think further about my offer during the course of the day. Perhaps you would like to change your answer?”

He was surprised to see that she hesitated before looking into his face. “No,” she said.

“Or perhaps you would like a few days before giving a final answer,” he said. “How does a week sound?”

“I don't need—” she began. But she did not complete the sentence. She bit her lip and looked at Verity.

“Do you go to that chapel instead of going to church?” Verity asked.

She nodded. “It is where my family and friends go,” she said. “Most of the people of Cwmbran, in fact. Not many people go to the church. It is English and we are Welsh. The singing is dismal there.” She laughed, a low musical sound that did strange things to Alex's insides. Her eyes danced and her face lit up with merriment when she laughed. Her teeth were white and perfect.

“If you were my governess,” Verity said. “I could go to the chapel with you. I could sing those songs if you taught me Welsh. Or is it only men who can sing?”

Siân Jones laughed again. “Oh, no,” she said. “We all sing. You cannot be Welsh and not sing. You would be exiled to somewhere horrid, far, far away.”

“The back of beyond,” Verity said.

“Well?” Alex asked, looking at Siân, compelling her through a knack he had learned in a lifetime of commanding servants to look back.

He saw her hesitate again. “A week,” she said. “But I don't think it will be yes.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “I shall await your answer. You will come in person?”

She hesitated yet again and nodded. And then she smiled at Verity once more, tightened her shawl beneath her chin, and strode on past them. He turned his head to watch her walk down the street. She did not look back.

God, he thought, shaken, he wanted her. He wanted to bed her. To make love to her. To a Welsh laboring woman who harnessed herself to a coal cart in his coal mine by day. To a woman who could look him directly in the eye and address him without any bending of the knee or courtesy title. To a woman with the foolishness and courage to sneak from her home at night to spy on a men's political meeting. To a woman who yearned for the absolute. To a woman who was part of the soul of Wales.

He could remember the feel of her body against his. Tall,
shapely, generously breasted, firmly muscled. He could remember the warmth and softness of her lips within his own. He could remember the surge of desire that one brief kiss had aroused in him.

He hoped she would refuse the offer he had renewed. It would not be a good thing at all to have her living and working under his own roof. He was not sure he would be able to keep his hands off her, and it had never been his way to defile his servants or those dependent upon him.

He wondered if she would come to tell him if her answer was no. He should have specified that she must come anyway. But he supposed he could send for her at any time. She was his employee, after all. And a very lowly one at that.

“Papa,” Verity said, tripping along at his side, “I wish I could speak like Mrs. Jones. I could listen to her talking all day long.”

Yes, so could I,
her father thought. Siân Jones's soft Welsh accent was not by any means the least of her attractions.