Longing (20 page)

“That is what you will be singing at the festival?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Siân”—he stopped beside the pianoforte and rested his elbow on it—“I am sorry that you had to put up with such bad manners and such well-bred insults.”

“It does not matter,” she said.

“It does.” He searched her impassive face. She was still looking down at the keyboard. “He was saying something to upset you. Was he insulting you?”

“No,” she said.

He could not leave it alone. He could not mind his own business. He could not stay out of her life. “What is he to you?” he asked quietly.

She rubbed one finger over a key without depressing it and then looked up at him, her eyes huge and blank. “He fathered me,” she said.

The way she expressed the relationship said volumes. “Ah.” He nodded. “Then I was not mistaken. He turned you off when your mother died?”

“He turned me off,” she said. “I turned myself off. We never could like each other. He resented me—perhaps for being conceived in the first place, certainly for always being in the way when he visited my mother. I resented him—perhaps for begetting me and stranding me in a world shared by no one except my mother and me. When Mam died, there was nothing left between us except mutual dislike.”

And yet she did not look indifferent. There had been more than that, even if she did not know it herself.

“He made no attempt,” he asked, “to look after you? After spending a great deal of money on your education?”

“He had a marriage planned for me,” she said. “I would have been caught forever between two worlds. I don't think he ever understood that. Provided one is safe and well cared for, one must be happy. He has no imagination.”

Alex had an uncomfortable memory of offering to make it worth her while to become his mistress. Of offering to strand her forever between two worlds.

“Whom did he want you to marry?” he asked.

She smiled fleetingly, though there was no amusement in the expression. “Josiah Barnes,” she said.

He felt a little as if someone had punched him in the stomach. No imagination? she had said. Fowler must be a complete blockhead. And another question flashed into his head.

“How did you end up working in the mine?” he asked. “Your grandfather and your uncle, I understand, are both at the ironworks. I have also learned since coming here that working in the mine gives a person a lower status than working at the ironworks. You had the worst job of all for a woman.”

“I preferred it,” she said, “to the alternative.”

“Did Barnes give you the job?” he asked.

“He said there was nothing else available,” she said. “It was take it or leave it. I took it.”

“Your grandfather was unable to support you?” he asked.

She looked at him steadily. “I had lived a life of privilege,” she said. “To anyone who had not lived it, it would have seemed that I had a far better life than most of my peers. I had something to prove—to my family, to the people of Cwmbran, and to myself.”

He gazed at her, trying to imagine what it must have been like. What if he suddenly had to leave the life he had always lived in order to work in that coal mine, harnessed to a heavy coal cart in dust and darkness all day? He thought it altogether possible that his spirit would be broken in no time at all. Yet Siân Jones had done more than survive. She looked back at him with pride and dignity.

“It was not as bad as it may sound,” she said. “You cannot imagine, perhaps, how I had yearned all my life to belong to my mother's people. She used to tell me stories about them and about her life as a girl. I longed for it. Here.” She spread a hand over her left breast. “You would not be able to understand. Most people would not. The longing to be a part of something, no matter what the cost.”

“Hiraeth,”
he said softly.

She laughed unexpectedly and then sobered again. “Not quite,” she said. “But something like that.”

“The cost was a few years of your life in the mine,” he said.

“Yes.” Her eyes grew luminous. “And my Dafydd.”

“Your husband?” he asked.

“My son,” she said. “He never breathed. He was so perfect. So very perfect. But too small. He came too early. He never breathed.”

Alex felt robbed of breath. He could feel her pain like a tangible thing. And he was not sure what sort of Pandora's box he had opened with his curiosity. She was being transformed before his eyes from a lovely and desirable woman into a very real person. Something in him wanted to stop her. He did not really want to know her. He did not want the burden of the knowledge. He could not have explained to himself why that was.

Perhaps because knowledge might transform his feelings from simple desire to—something else? And feeling something else for her would only complicate his life impossibly.

But it was too late to stop her or his own need to know.

“He told me,” she said, “that he would not have allowed me to go back down the mine if he had known I was going to have a baby. But he had never made any inquiries at all. He had never shown any interest.”

He had missed something essential. She was looking down at the keyboard again and was scrubbing at one of the keys.

“You worked,” he asked, “when you were pregnant?”

“Gwyn died,” she said. When she looked up at him suddenly, her eyes were brimming with tears. “We needed the money. His dada was already home with the coughing sickness and Iestyn was still too young to be earning much. Gran and Grandad stormed at me and Uncle Emrys too, but I went. I had to prove that I was one of them. But I think it was the working that brought on my time too soon. He was dead. He never even had a chance to live. He was dead.”

God! He watched a tear spill over from each eye and roll down her cheeks. He felt frozen to the spot. He could not even reach for her and hold her. The loneliness of her memories and her grief was too intense.

“Why were you allowed to work if you were pregnant?” he asked after a while. He was whispering, he realized.

“There is no rule against it,” she said. “Sometimes it is necessary.”

Lord God. “Is it still happening?” he asked. “Do you know of any woman right now who is with child and pulling one of those carts?”

“Yes.” She scrubbed at one tear with the back of her hand. “Blodwyn Williams. Her husband is injured and they have a little one to feed.”

Alex felt as if all his insides had turned to ice. He stared down at her bowed head.

“
Who
would not have allowed you back down the mine if he had known?” he asked.

“Him,” she said. “Sir John Fowler. He said it just a little while ago, standing where you are now. As if he cared. Just as if he cared.”

“Perhaps he did,” he said.

“There was not a word,” she said, “after I had gone to live with Grandad and when I went to work in the mine. Not a word when I married Gwyn. Or when he was killed. Or when Dafydd was born dead. His own grandson, he was, my little one. Not a word. Or in the years since. Nothing until today. Yet he said he would have stopped me going back down the mine if he had known. Does he expect me to believe that he cares?”

“Perhaps, Siân,” Alex said, “he really wanted to provide for you the best he could. He could not take you into his own home. He had a wife and daughter there. He planned a marriage for you. To a man with little imagination, it would have seemed a good marriage. Barnes has a steady job and a good income. He has considerable power. Perhaps your—father was hurt when you rejected his plans and returned to your mother's people.”

“Hurt.” She laughed a little. “Hurt.”

“I am sorry,” he said, “that I unwittingly brought you into this situation today. I had no idea.”

“Well”—she got to her feet at last—“you had no way of knowing. I will be going home. It is late.”

“And I am sorry about the child,” he said. “I believe it must be about the most devastating thing that can happen to a woman. I am sorry, Siân.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “Perhaps I will have—I am going to be married next month.”

Perhaps she would have Parry's child nine months after next month.

“Yes,” he said softly, reminded again of what he had tried not to think of.

“It is what I want,” she said. “It is what will make me happy.” She sounded defensive, as if she thought he was going to argue with her or question her motives.

“I am glad for you,” he said, feeling anything but glad. Feeling
somehow bereft. Feeling lonely. “If he can make you happy, Siân, I am glad for you.”

“He will make me happy,” she said. “I am happy. I love him.”

He nodded and straightened up from his position against the pianoforte. He realized that she was finding it difficult to walk from the room, not sure if she had been dismissed or not.

“Come,” he said, “I'll see you out.”

But he stopped her with a hand on her elbow before opening the drawing room door. “Siân,” he said, “the singing really was beautiful. I had to call on all my powers of self-restraint not to throttle Lady Fowler when she so rudely talked above your singing.”

She turned her head to smile at him, amusement in her face this time. She looked not only beautiful, but pretty too when she smiled like that.

“I believe,” he said, “you cannot fail to take first place at your festival this year.”

“But you have not heard the opposition,” she said.

“I don't need to,” he said. “I am highly partial. There could not be another contestant with a lovelier voice or one who sings with such feeling that I find myself fighting tears.”

She actually laughed. “Perhaps,” she said, “I should try to have you appointed adjudicator. Sole adjudicator.”

He chuckled and opened the door. He had felt the need to do something to rid her of the stricken look she had worn since walking into the drawing room and seeing Fowler there.

“I will try what bribery and corruption will do instead,” he said. “Not that they will be needed. I want to come and hear you sing and see you win, Siân.” The words were unintentional, but he realized that he meant them.

The laughter died from her face, though there was still a glow of warmth in her eyes. “Everything will be in Welsh,” she said. “You would be horribly bored.”

“Then you must be my interpreter,” he said. “Besides, the language of music is universal. And besides again, Verity has her heart
set on going, and who am I, a mere father, to fight the will of a six-year-old child?”

“You would have to take your carriage the long way around the heads of the valleys,” she said. “You would never be able to walk over the mountain with the rest of us. You are used to soft living.”

He stopped at the outer door, which a servant was holding open. “If ever I heard a challenge,” he said, “that is it. If I do find the climb beyond my strength, perhaps you and Verity will take a hand each and drag me to the top. You can roll me down the other side.”

Laughter was back in her eyes and spilled over into sound. She turned away to leave the house.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Jones,” he said. He stood in the doorway for a while, watching her walk down the driveway to the gates. His smile faded. There, he had fallen into temptation again. He had committed himself to going with his people—and with her people—to their festival. He must learn its Welsh name. He would ask Verity.

He had shared laughter with her, Alex thought. And pain. She was becoming precious to him. He recoiled in some alarm from the word his mind had chosen.

T
HE
street outside the chapel was so crammed with people that it made a body wonder there was enough air to go around—or so Mrs. Beynon was proclaiming loudly to anyone who would listen. Most people seemed more intent on talking than listening. And on laughing. Children were darting about among legs and skirts, playing hide-and-seek. Mothers were calling shrilly for them to come back and behave themselves. Occasionally the more authoritative voices of fathers would bring them slinking to heel for a minute or two until they were forgotten and could start the game again.

The scene had all the chaos and all the cheerfulness of a normal
eisteddfod
day. It always amazed Siân that everyone could be up and full of energy so very early in the morning—although it was light, the sun had not yet risen and the air was brisk with the morning chill. But there was scarcely a man, woman, or child of Cwmbran who was not there in the street waiting for the trek over the mountain to begin. Inside the open chapel door stood Glenys Richards's harp, which would be loaded onto a little cart made especially for it as soon as the street had begun to clear, and hauled over the mountain by Ifor Richards and his two sons. Glenys always insisted on taking her own harp to the
eisteddfod
. It was a very good thing that the organist was not so particular, many people joked.

“Where is the Reverend Llewellyn?” Ianto Pritchard asked loudly enough for many people around him to hear. “Still sleeping, is he? Who will come with me to his house to give him the old heave-ho, then?”

There was cheering and laughter. The idea of entering the preacher's house in order to turn him out of bed was one that tickled all but the most deeply devout among them. But they were not to discover if anyone would have been bold enough to do it. The Reverend Llewellyn, clad in his best clerical black and newly polished black boots despite the long walk and climb he faced once in the morning and once again in the evening, appeared in the chapel doorway and raised both arms for silence. He got it almost instantly.

“Let us pray,” he said, his practiced orator's voice carrying clearly to the most distant member of his flock.

Every head was instantly bowed. Even Emrys's, Siân noticed as she dipped her own and as Owen's hand took hers and he laced their fingers.

They had not come after all, Siân thought as the minister prayed. She had not seen the marquess since that disastrous afternoon when she had been invited to tea. But Verity had assured her that they were to come. She had been beside herself with excitement all week. He must have decided after all that it would not be appropriate. Siân tried to tell herself that the feeling she had was not disappointment. Or if it was, she thought, it was disappointment for Verity's sake. She had so wanted the treat.

“Well, well,” Owen said when the long prayer was finally at an end and the massed “Amen” had given place to jokes and laughter and more shrill yelling at children impatient to be on their way. “To what do we owe the honor, I wonder?”

When Siân looked in the direction of his nodded head, it was to see the Marquess of Craille at the far edge of the crowd, Verity up on one of his shoulders. The child spotted her at the same moment and waved with sunny enthusiasm. Siân had not mentioned to Owen that they were planning to come.

“I know they have heard the male voice choir practicing,” she said. “I think they must be coming to cheer you on, Owen.”

“Well,” he said, tightening the pressure of his fingers about hers, “this is a holiday for you,
fach
. He can look after the child today. You will stay by me, is it?”

“Of course.” She smiled at him. A dazzling smile, which she knew was not quite natural.

“And perhaps,” he said, “they are coming to hear you sing. Have you sung for them at the castle?”

“Yes,” she said. “I told you that I am to teach Verity music. I am given an hour each day to practice on the pianoforte. I have taken her downstairs a few times for a singing lesson.”

“And him?” he asked. “You have sung for him, Siân?”

She wished she could control her blush. But she could feel her cheeks grow hot.

“He had me bring her down for tea one afternoon,” she said, “when there were—visitors. He asked me to sing.”

The crowd was moving off up the street in the direction of the hills. It would take them a good three hours to reach the next town, less than five miles away over the mountain as the crow flies. But they would be there in time for the opening of the
eisteddfod
. A town would be shamed indeed if its people walked late into the pavilion.

“I am nervous,” Siân said. “Are you, Owen?”

“I have a whole choir to hide myself among,” he said. “But you don't need to be nervous,
cariad
. A lovelier voice there is not in these valleys. You would have won last year if there had been any justice in Wales.”

Siân laughed and remembered doing the same with the Marquess of Craille the last time she saw him when he had threatened to use bribery and corruption on the judges of the soprano solo competition. And when he had offered to let her and Verity roll him down the hill. Despite herself, she searched for him in the crowd, and found that he was quite close by.

“Wretched boys,” Ifor Richards was proclaiming fiercely from the chapel doorway while Glenys stood beside him, wringing her hands. “Run away to hide, they have, because there is work to do. A good hiding I will give them both when I get my hands on them.”

“I will not use that harp they have over by there,” Glenys wailed. “It will not fit my fingers and I will shame myself and all of Cwmbran by making errors.”

“Hush, woman,” Ifor said, his look thunderous.

Owen laughed, but even as he released Siân's hand to lend his help, he was forestalled.

“What seems to be the problem?” the marquess asked.

“It is this bloody harp that is the problem,” Ifor said, too exasperated to be cowed by the identity of the man who questioned him but switching to English nonetheless. “Don't ask me why they can't manufacture something that makes the same sound but can be tucked nice and tidy under the arm. And Glenys will play only this one—as if every harp that was ever made was not exactly the same. So over the mountain it has to be carried, all five tons of it. A little cart I have put together to make the task easier, and two boys I have begotten to help their dada humor their mam. And where are they? Romping with the other boys, they are, with never a care in the world. There is sore their bums will be when my hand has finished with them. And trews down for it too.”

Owen's shoulders were shaking, and Siân was biting hard on her upper lip. Poor Ifor would not appreciate laughter at this precise moment. Glenys looked as if she was about to have hysterics.

The marquess was grinning broadly. “Perhaps I can help,” he said. “It looks to me as if two men will be enough for the job—one to pull the cart and one to hold the harp steady. Shall I do the latter?”

“Oh,
Duw, Duw
!” Glenys, hands to cheeks, whispered loudly in Welsh. “No, Ifor. It is the Marquess of Craille.”

“If Cwmbran is not to be shamed over the mountain by turning up with a harpist and no harp,” Ifor said, “I would accept the help of the King of England, if there was one. Right-o, man. We lift it as gentle as we can onto the cart and then bounce it all over the mountain, is it? There is a stupid thing it is to be married to a harpist, I tell you.”

“Verity.” The marquess looked around him and then directly at Siân, so that she realized that he had known she was there. Perhaps it was her he had been approaching. “Take Mrs. Jones's hand, will you, and promise me that you will not get lost.”

And so when they started up the mountain, she and Owen, Verity was between them, holding a hand of each, and prattling excitedly. Owen looked ruefully at Siân and raised his eyebrows.

*   *   *

Before
they reached the top of the mountain, Alex was in his shirtsleeves, his coat hanging over the harp. And he was enjoying himself immensely. He had spent a few weeks wandering about the works by day and even visiting a few of the people of Cwmbran, in an attempt to get to know them and their concerns. It had all been without apparent success. And yet now, toiling up the mountain with the unwieldy harp and the useless cart—it would have been a great deal easier if the two of them had just slung the harp over their shoulders, he thought—and the exasperated Ifor Richards, he suddenly felt a part of it all. An outer part, perhaps, and one that could never fully belong, but a part, nevertheless. And accepted by the people among whom he moved.

He was the butt of merciless teasing and laughter by both men and women. Even one group of children danced about the cart, hands linked, and chanted at him to play them a tune on the harp before Glenys Richards shooed them away, looking as if she was about to have a heart attack. Alex was not sure if her concern was for him or her precious harp.

It made him feel good to be teased. He could not be quite hated if they teased him.

“Oh, ho,” one wag said, “off comes the coat now. Next it will be the shirt and you will be expected to take it to your scrubbing board, Glenys Richards.”

“But a lovely set of muscles, mind,” a woman said. “Showing them off, he is, taking his coat off.”

“Pretty soon,” another man said, “it will be the marquess you will have on that cart, Ifor, and the harp left on the mountain to pick up on the way back. Pretty red in the face he is looking, muscles notwithstanding.”

“One thing if his heart stops,” someone else added. “He will be let straight into heaven because he will have a harp to play.”

They all took the trouble to speak English so that he would know how he was being insulted.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I will be posted beside St. Peter at the pearly gate so that I can help him keep out the rabble Welsh when they try to get in.”

“There is a wit he has,” the first man said. “You had better save your breath for holding the harp, man. Glenys will beat you about the head with it if you let it fall.”

“Oh,
Duw, Duw
,” Glenys said.

The Richards boys appeared at the top of the mountain when the worst part of the exertion was over. They claimed to have lost their parents in the crowd.

“And lost the bloody harp too, did you?” their father asked them. “Two blind boys I have been raising and did not know it. Never mind, boys. I will lead you by the hand out the back when we get home tonight, one at a time. Sleeping on your bellies you will be all night, the both of you. Too sore you will be to lie on your backs.”

“Oh, Dada,” they protested in chorus.

Alex chuckled inwardly and wandered away. Almost everyone was taking a rest at the top, he noticed, and dipping into the contents of the picnic baskets most of them had brought with them. He strolled a little apart and for the first time was aware of his surroundings. He had not been to the top of the mountain before. The land fell away to either side of him over grass- and heather-covered hills to two valley floors, each with its river winding away into the southern distance, each with its little town snaking out along the narrow valley and its smokestacks and coal tips and giant colliery wheels. Farther north, on the Cwmbran side of the valley, he could see Penybont.

The scenery was wild and quite breathtakingly beautiful. One thing was certain at least, he thought. Man could not compete with God in the creation of beauty.

And then he looked down to smile at Verity, who had come running up to his side and had taken his hand. Siân was with her, he saw. He smiled at her too.

“We saw that you were free,” she said. “I thought I had better bring Verity back to you.”

“Thank you for watching her,” he said. “I had more important things to take my attention. Mrs. Richards's harp.” He laughed.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “It is her most prized possession, and that includes Ifor Richards and her two boys.” She laughed too.

“Is that the harp that will accompany you?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Then I am very glad that I risked life and limb to get it up here,” he said. “I believe the boys will help their father down the other side with it in an effort to avert this evening's promised spanking.”

“I am going to play with those children from the Sunday School again,” Verity said, pointing, and ran off.

“Are you nervous?” Alex asked Siân.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Every year I swear I will never do it again. I feel sick with fear.”

“You will be wonderful,” he said. “You will win.” He wondered if she realized how very beautiful she looked with her hair blowing free behind her in the wind at the top of the mountain, and her best dress flattened against her curves and blowing out behind.

“Winning is not really the point,” she said. “Taking part is. I must get back to Owen.” She turned and hurried back to where Owen Parry was standing with a group of men.