How Green Was My Valley (18 page)

Ianto was coming the next day, so the night before, everybody who knew him met at
our house, and walked down with my father to the Chapel house to make up their minds
what to do for the welcome.

Ellis had sent telegraph messages to Davy and Owen, and Gwilym he had told on his
way over the mountain. Ceridwen had come home for a couple of days, Ivor and Angharad
and me were home, so there was the family together all one again.

There is pleased was my father.

As soon as he got in the door when he came back from the meeting, with Mr. Gruffydd,
he went on his knees in prayer to give thanks. The very skin of his face seemed to
shine, and his moustache was like pure silver, with him.

“Oh, Father in Heaven,” he said, with his knuckles on the edge of the table, “how
you feel when your sons return to you, so I feel, now, in my little way. I give thanks
to have seen this day. I give thanks that my boys and girls are in health. And, O
God, I thank Thee for to-night and for to-morrow. Amen.”

Then we all sat down to supper and after, Mr. Gruffydd and my father drew up the procession,
starting with the band and ending with Twm Pugh’s coal-cart to carry the bottles and
casks.

Up early next morning, and my father home an hour before the night shift finished
to go with Thomas the Carrier in the wain down to the railway station to meet Ianto
and the boys, with Ivor.

No climb on the mountain for me that morning, indeed. Washing cups and saucers and
plates and cutlery out in the back, me. All the women on the Hill were bringing their
own, but for the people coming from over the mountain, we always borrowed china to
have enough, and my mother would always have it washed before using. That was my job,
and though I had no liking for it, I did it because of Ianto and the boys.

The hooter had just blown for noon at the pit when we heard the band down in the Valley,
where the procession was meeting my father and Ianto and the boys.

Well, there is excitement.

My mother stopped putting butter on the bread and put down the knife to hold her chest.

“There they are,” she said. “Ceridwen, help me with my dress. Angharad, finish the
bread and butter. Bronwen, watch the pots.”

Then everybody made haste to finish what they were doing so that when the band came
up the Hill they would be outside watching.

When Ifan Owen came round the corner at the bottom by the railings with his big silver
stick and the cord round it, and the brass blazed up and the drums thumped and boomed,
indeed my heart nearly stopped to beat. The band was not very big, only ten all told,
but they played all together, and all of them by ear, and all very good, too.

Up they came, and blowing to push down a house.

After them a procession of our friends from all round the valleys, and from the pit,
of course, and from the farms. Four choirs were there, all from the mountain, and
our choir, and then the football clubs in their jerseys, and the women in their tall
hats and red petticoats, and then everybody from the Chapel, and all the other chapels,
with the preachers all walking together, then the children’s choir.

And behind them, on Thomas the Carrier’s wain all dressed up with flowers and grasses
and coloured cloth, my father was standing with his five good sons.

I was standing in our front room at the open window but so great was the crowd that
once the band was passed I could see nothing, except the heads of my father and my
brothers, and when they got down, nothing except hats.

So, knowing my brothers, I went through the kitchen and out in the back and met them
coming down through the back lane, dodging the crowd, see.

Ianto was even bigger than Ivor. And in good clothes, too, from London. There is strange
you can tell London in a man’s suit. Why is London such a wonderful place that it
will speak to you even in a piece of cloth?

“Well,” he said, “there is a big boy you have grown, man. How old, now?”

“Twelve,” I said, “and a birthday next week.”

“Oh,” he said, “like that, is it? Birthday next week, so put your hand in your pocket?”

“No, no,” I said, “only telling you, I was. If you want to give me a present, good.
And if not, good.”

“I brought you a coming-home present from London,” he said. “It is in my trunk. So
if you have a chance, look inside the lid.”

“There is one in my box for you, too, Huw,” said Davy.

“And mine,” said Owen.

“You will have mine on your birthday,” said Ivor.

“And I will give you a sixpence now,” said Gwilym, “and I will see about your birthday
when it is your birthday.”

“How are you liking married life, Gwil?” asked Ianto.

Gwilym’s eyes went once to Owen and down on the mat.

“O, all right, you know,” he said. “How is your wife?”

“Dead,” said Ianto.

“Dead?” said Ivor. “We heard nothing of that.”

“I chose to say nothing,” said Ianto, and put me on my feet very kindly.

“O,” said Ivor. “Very long ago?”

“Six months,” said Ianto. “She and the baby. But say nothing to Mama. I will tell
her to-morrow. And keep close by me or she will be asking questions. Quiet, now.”

The singing and shouting outside was something to marvel at, and now a press of people
were all round the house, shouting for Ianto, and all the women were coming in to
get the food and make the tea.

The boys were dragged away by their friends and I was left standing in the corner
to watch. But the room was so hot, and so many people were trying to get in and so
many in already, that I climbed out through the window and went in the back shed out
of the way.

There was a little loft up in the back, a quiet little place full of the smells of
soap, and oil, and coal, and wood, and potatoes, and apples, and onions, where my
mother put the blankets and linen when she had no use for them. A little window let
you look right up to the top of the mountain if you lay flat on your back on the blankets.
Here I looked at my school lessons and read during the day when my mother had friends
in, or wanted the kitchen so that she and the girls could bathe.

So I was up there, in quiet, and resting, with the sound of the crowd a long way off,
when Marged came in quietly and shut the door.

I made no sound but turned my head to watch her going to the bench where Owen had
worked while she had been in the house with us. Some of his tools were still in the
racks, and the brace and bits and the vice were shining as though Owen had only just
been in. I was at them every day with sandpaper.

Marged sat on Owen’s little stool and put her hand on the vice and started to turn
the screw, very slowly, as though she was thinking.

And I knew she was crying.

Even while I was wondering what to do, the door opened again and Owen was standing
there looking at her. For a moment he stood with the door open wide and then, knowing
that people were all over, he came in and shut it, and stood again, with his back
to it, very still, and in his black suit almost hidden in the darkness.

“Marged,” he said, in a whisper. “I saw you come in. I had to come.”

“Owen,” she said, and the words were riding on her tears, “I have starved for you.”

“Marged,” Owen said again, and went nearer. “Many and many a time I would cut my throat
but I am a coward. My life is a curse to me. I loved you, Marged, my beautiful one,
but I loved too much. I love you still.”

“There is nothing to be done,” Marged said. “I am married. That is the end.”

Owen was kneeling by her. She was still holding the vice.

“Do you remember when you kissed me in here the first time?” she said, with smiles
in her voice. “You pressed me against this old thing and my back was nearly cracked
in pieces.”

“Is Gwil good to you?” Owen said, with hunger.

“None better, not even you,” said Marged. “And he is so like you sometimes it is like
being married to you, indeed.”

“Why were you crying just now?” Owen said.

“Because the old ache was back,” said Marged. “I had it with me too long to forget
it. Ache, ache, ache, for days and weeks and months. And only one voice, one kiss
would have burnt it away. But it went on aching. Then it stopped.”

Owen got up.

“Stopped?” he said, and his voice was higher than hers.

“Stopped,” said Marged, solid as a house. “One night I was in torments and going mad
and shouting, and poor Gwil going mad, too, trying to soothe. And I prayed for strength
to forget you.”

“And you did?” asked Owen, with a full throat.

“I will never forget Owen Morgan,” said Marged, and got up to settle her cloak, and
I saw her waist that a man’s hand could span. “Owen, who kissed me, and said I was
his before the times of the Pyramids. Never. I will love him with my soul till the
day I die.”

“And now?” said Owen.

“And now I am Mrs. Gwilym Morgan,” said Marged, “and Owen Morgan has gone away and
will never come back.”

“But, Marged,” said Owen, “here I am, girl, look.”

“You?” Marged said, and looked up at Owen, full in the face and shook her head. “No,
you are not Owen Morgan. There is no man like Owen Morgan. He went away. He will never
come back. And he gave me away to his brother.”

“Oh, Marged,” said Owen, and turned his back.

“Yes,” said Marged, “and I am living in that little house with him.”

“Would you come away with me if it will make you happier?” said Owen.

“Nothing will make me happy,” said Marged, “only Owen Morgan. And he will never come
back.”

“Have sense, Marged,” said Owen, and turned quickly to catch her by the shoulders
and look down into her face, as though to beg.

But he spoke to himself and his words went to powder, and his eyes went wide and then
tight shut. His hands fell from her, and quickly, with a cry, he went to the door,
and threw himself against it.

“Marged,” he was sobbing. “Oh, Marged, my beautiful one. What did I do to you, devil
from Hell that I am? What did I do?”

He went out and closed the door. Marged stood.

Then boots ran across the cobbles and Gwilym threw open the door and stood to hold
his breath. He went quietly to Marged and put his arm about her shoulders.

“Come, my pretty one,” he said, and indeed I had never heard him in that voice before.
“We will get in the trap and go home, is it? And I will bathe your head and nurse
you to sleep, is it? Come you, my little heart, and have rest.”

And talking like that, Gwilym took Marged quietly outside and shut the door.

I was boiling with heat and dry for a cup of tea, so I climbed down and went into
the house among the people. Most of them were out on the mountain, having their food
in the open, with the women hiding under umbrellas afraid of the sun, and the air
full of talk and laughing.

In the kitchen my mother was looking white, and Angharad was crying in the corner,
with Bronwen standing beside her patting her shoulder. My father and the boys were
in the front room with Mr. Gruffydd and the other preachers.

“Huw,” said my mother, standing quickly and holding out her hands to keep me from
the front room, “take what you want and go out on the mountain like a good boy.”

“Yes, Mama,” I said, and Bronwen came smiling to help me choose and pack.

“No use,” my father said, in a voice above all the noise, that made my mother turn
to hold her mouth. “No doctor can do her good, Mr. Gruffydd. We have spent much on
them. The poor girl is mad, and I am worried from my life for my poor boy.”

“Go you, now,” said Bronwen, whispering to me, in a hurry, “and be tidy for a couple
of hours, will you?”

So out I went, and down to the river to tickle a couple of trout, and eat and drink
on a rock in the sun with the river all round me.

Tidy, indeed.

That night we had supper all over the house. The tables were not big enough for all
to sit down at once. So we had to manage.

I was in the kitchen with my father and mother and my brothers and Mr. Gruffydd and
a couple of other preachers, and Mr. Evans the Colliery, Dr. Richards, Mr. Parry,
Mr. Owen Madog, and a number of the deacons and elders.

We were all with our elbows under the ribs of the next one, but there was plenty to
eat and drink so nobody was troubling. Ianto was telling about London and what he
had done up there. He was in the counting-house of Hopkin Jones, the draper, and then
cleaning engines in the Great Western sheds, and then clerk of works on a road-building
job, and goodness knows what, he said.

“There is a jack of all trades for you,” said one of the preachers. “Why not one job?”

“Because I was never in the right job,” said Ianto. “So I went on looking till I found
it.”

“Did you?” asked the preacher.

“No,” said Ianto. “We were treated like dirt. In the clerking jobs we were supposed
to dress like princes on the money of a maggot. And in the rough jobs we got more
pay, but the conditions of living were worse than the animals out at the back here.
So I left one for the other and kept on looking.”

“But you never found it?” asked the same preacher, who was one of those men who enjoy
making an ill-natured joke of all that goes against his understanding.

“No,” said Ianto. “I never found it. And never likely to.”

“So,” said the preacher, “you are going to be a rolling stone all your life? Not much
credit to that, at all events.”

“At all events,” said Ianto, with the lights in his big grey eyes set stone-still
at Danger, “I am going to have credit for not squatting on my bottom like you, talking
a lot of rubbish three times every Sunday, and mouthfuls in the week. Thank God I
am not a limpet on society.”

Down went everybody’s knife and fork, except mine and Davy’s, and Owen’s, and Ianto’s.
I had known what was coming so I was ready.

“I am not prepared,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “to sit here while my colleague is insulted.
His observations might have been put in a happier manner, it is true.”