How Green Was My Valley (24 page)

Back home, we had time to eat dinner in our house or Bron’s, and then off to Sunday
School at the Chapel again, Angharad, Ceridwen, Owen, Davy, Ianto, and me. Going to
Sunday School was not so serious as going to Chapel, so we could join the other boys
and girls on the way, and pick flowers, or nuts and berries for our favourites to
eat on the sly in school. I had no favourite, then, neither was I the favourite with
anybody. That came later. But we always had a few sweets in the pocket. Sunday School
was very flat, indeed, without a sweet or two when teacher was looking in the book.

Who was outside the Chapel when we got there, but Iestyn Evans, very smart, with a
buttonhole. That was wrong, for a start, on a Sunday, but I thought it looked very
good, indeed, and I have worn many a hundred since. There is good to have a little
flower so near to you, good colour and good smell, too.

“Hulloa, Angharad,” he said, the fool, with Owen and Davy and Ianto right behind her.

“Who are you talking to?” Ianto said, and stopped, white in the face and pale in the
eye, quiet, with a small shake in his voice. Murder, to anybody with sense.

“Angharad,” Iestyn said. “Your sister, perhaps?”

I was looking at the face of Angharad, but from the side of my eye I saw Davy’s fist
flash in the sun and heard the fat click of it meeting Iestyn’s jaw. When I looked
he was falling backwards, flat, out.

“You devil,” Angharad screamed, and went to claw, but Owen and Davy took her by the
arms and dragged her inside the lobby and shut the door on her.

“There is a swine for you,” Ianto said.

“What shall we do with him?” Davy said. “Throw him in the river?”

“London tricks,” Ianto said, looking at his knuckles. “He must be taught. Leave him
there for everybody to see.”

“If Dada hears about this,” Owen said, “he will have it out of Angharad.”

“Say nothing.” Ianto said. “She knows what will happen if there is more of it.”

We went through the quiet, big-eyed crowd and Owen opened the door, Angharad was crying
under the notice board, and Ceridwen trying to hush.

“I will not allow my sister to be treated like a pit-woman,” Ianto said to Angharad,
but so quietly that only a few could hear. “Next time, if there is a next time, I
will kill him. If he wants to speak to you, let him ask permission. We have a home
and he knows well where it is. Now go in to Sunday School.”

The text for the lesson that afternoon was “Love ye one another,” and when it was
read, everybody was looking at Ianto over their books, but only when he was not looking
up. Mrs. Talfan must have chosen it on purpose, because when she read it, she stopped
and looked straight at Ianto, and then to each of us about him. But we all looked
up at her as though there was nothing behind it, so her score was nothing.

After Sunday School we always had a play on the mountain, the boys chasing the girls,
or the other way about, or Red Indians among the boys only if there were no grown-up
people near us. But that afternoon we went straight home.

And there was Mr. Evans and Iestyn, with my father and mother and Iestyn pale, with
a swelling round his chin.

“Did you hit Iestyn Evans?” my father said to Ianto.

“Yes, Dada,” Ianto said, and put his hands behind him.

“Outside the Chapel, on such a day?” my father said.

“That was where he was,” Ianto said. “Buttonhole and all.”

“I will have you in Court, young man,” Mr. Evans said, and went to get up, but Iestyn
stopped him.

“Doubtless you had a reason,” he said to Ianto, but speaking as though Ianto were
four foot the shorter.

“Doubtless,” Ianto said. “And doubtless I will break your back if I will have another
reason.”

“Ianto,” my father said, “why did you hit him?”

“Let him tell you, Dada,” Ianto said.

“I spoke to your daughter, Angharad,” Iestyn said.

“O?” said my father, “and how do you come to speak to my daughter?”

“Well,” said Iestyn, and there is surprised was his father, “I have seen her several
times.”

“Did seeing her give you the right to speak to her?” my father asked him.

“This is a civilized community,” Iestyn said. “We are not brute beasts.”

“That is because there are men here who use their fists,” my father said. “If you
had spoken to her in my hearing, you would have had worse.”

“Gwilym,” my mother said, and looking with her teeth in her lip at Mr. Evans’ face.

“Hisht, girl,” said my father. “There is too much of this slack talking done.”

“I was coming here with Angharad after Sunday School,” Iestyn said.

“There is kind,” said my father. “We are honoured, indeed.”

“Look here, now, Gwilym,” Old Evans said. “I knew nothing of the girl. I only knew
there had been a fight. I will have back what I said of your son, for if a man spoke
to Iestyn’s sister, there would be murder done again. I will shake hands with you,
Ianto, my son.”

“Thank you, Mr. Evans,” Ianto said.

“Now, where is the girl?” said Old Evans. “Let us see the bone these two dogs have
lost hair over.”

“She is upstairs,” said my mother, “and she will be down tomorrow morning, not before.”

“There it is,” said Old Evans, and got up to go. “No malice anywhere, is it?”

“None,” said my father.

“I will call to ask your permission to-morrow evening, Mr. Morgan,” Iestyn said.

“Good,” my father said. “I will wait for you.”

Mr. Evans gave my father a wink and a little punch as he went, and Iestyn shook hands
with Ianto, but an unhappy little shake, like boxers touching hands.

“Iestyn Evans and Angharad,” my mother said, and looking in the fire to dream. “Too
young.”

“How old were you when we were married?” my father said, with his hand over his mouth
not to laugh.

“Much older, boy,” my mother said.

“Go on with you, girl,” said my father. “You were younger still than Angharad. A good
cup of tea now, quick. Nobody is too young to be married. That is a law. Where is
the tea with you, girl?”

After that, there was nowhere in the house to go without coming in to black looks
from Angharad and Iestyn, or Ceridwen and Blethyn, and sometimes Davy and Wyn when
he brought her over to us, instead of staying at her house over the mountain.

So I spent a lot of time with Owen in the back, trying to make his engine go. There
is a noise the old thing made. But it did go at last, and that was a night of nights,
indeed.

It was a long way from our house to Gwilym’s and with little Olwen, and the meals
for my father and the boys on different shifts, my mother had plenty to do all day
and little strength left for walking, though she went over sometimes twice a week.

Extra tired one afternoon, she asked me to take them the basket, so off I went, down
the Hill, and round into the flat of the Valley, along the path by the river.

I have never liked that road since.

That way, I had to pass the two heaps of slag that had grown and grown till they looked
half as big as the mountain. Even grass was growing in some places, as though to take
pity on us and cover the ugliness of them. The river running between was drying up,
so sick it was of the struggle to keep clean, and small blame to it.

Farther on, past the last of the cottages, green grass grew again, and happy it was
to see a flower growing after all the brute sadness, though the river was still running
black and the plants and reeds dead and dying on both banks.

Up the mountain it was better, and on the top it was good to look back and see all
the filth hidden behind trees and blackberry bushes, even though I knew it was still
there.

Gwilym’s house was the end one in a row on the other side of the mountain from us,
a tidy little house, but open to the weather, and the winds had choir practice whenever
they could on every side of it. There was washing hanging when I got there, so I felt
it and found it dry, and gathered it in to take inside with me.

The house was in uproars. Gwilym’s bath water was still in front of the fire, dirty
from last night. Pots were on the table for at least three meals. The floor was brittle
with coal dust from Gwil’s boots and clothes, and furniture was everywhere except
the right place.

So I set to work and emptied the bath, and put on water for Gwil’s fresh bath, washed
the floor, washed the pots, lit the fires, peeled potatoes and pulled a cabbage from
the garden, and went next door to have a bit of meat for Gwil’s supper.

The woman next door was very civil, and gave me a shoulder of lamb, with a lesson
in cooking, as though I had watched my mother and Bron for more than two years for
nothing. She asked no questions and I told her nothing, though I knew she was losing
years keeping it back.

When the lamb was in the oven, I went upstairs to see if I could do something to the
beds. Just the same upstairs as down, so I made the double bed, and I was just putting
the windows up when I heard a noise in the second room. It was going from evening
to night and not a lamp alight in the house, and I have never been a great one for
noises in darkness.

I waited a bit, and I heard it again. A little laugh, it was, not very loud, but clear.

Now lamps were going yellow down in the Valley, and the sky was smoking blue, with
the trees black in it, and the wind singing flat, and going loud, and then dropping
away.

There is funny to have your feet fast to the floor in fear. You can see and hear and
think so well that it will hurt. But you cannot move. There is a force outside yourself
which makes you stand still, and it will take a grinding of teeth and tears to the
eyes to turn against it.

One step at a time I went to the door of the second room on the little landing, though
how I got there I will never know. There is a spirit greater than you, always within
reach of you, but he only comes to take charge when your own spirit is lost, and cries
out in his own tongue, which you cannot know but only feel, and it is in feeling that
you will have orders. Yet not even in feeling, for I felt nothing, only surprise that
I was going forward. I heard no voice, I felt no hand, yet I was at the door, knocking,
and wondering how I had come by there, and then I opened it to look in.

Marged was sitting over in the corner by the window, and looking at me with the light
from outside touching the wet of her eyes and mouth.

The room was just like our back, with the same sort of bench and vice, all the tools
in racks, with a hay-cutter on the side, and sacks of potatoes and seed piled along
the wall, and onions and hams and leeks hanging up. Even beams had been nailed up,
the same number and the same colour as ours, though there was no need of them, only
to make the room more exactly like our back.

Marged stayed still, just looking, with her hands in her lap and her feet flat on
the floor, going back into the darkness with every moment, and the wind blowing tin
trumpets round the house.

“Owen,” she said, from the black corner, and laughed again. “You have come then?”

“No, Marged,” I said, and indeed I sounded very loud even to me. “Huw, this is, see.
I have put Gwil’s bath for him, and a bit of lamb to cook. Now I will go back.”

“No,” she said, and moved. “You shall never go from me again. I have waited too long.”

“But, Marged,” I said, “it is dark, girl, and a long way to go over the mountain.”

“You shall stay,” she said, and stood, and I saw her black shape against the window,
reaching over to the tool rack. “I will have you with me. I will have you in pieces
and hang you on hooks, is it?”

I saw the light on a tool, white in her hand.

“Come you,” she was whispering. “Long I have waited in this old place in the cold
and now I shall be warm. Come and kiss me, Owen, come and kiss. Kiss your Marged.
Never leave me again, is it?”

And in between her words were whisperings, and noises. I waited till she was so near
that I could feel the warmth of her fingers on my face, and then quickly I pulled
the door shut. Kick and scream from her, then, and digging at the door with the tool.
Down the stairs I went, and ran to have my cap from the kitchen, and off through the
back door and up the mountain.

But when I looked back in the darkness, I could see the pale mark of her apron running
up the path after me, so quietly that the breathing of the trees was louder. I stopped
dead, with my legs like bars screwed to the ground, and then she screamed, and that
seemed to have them free, and I turned and ran.

I ran through bushes, and round rocks, and through bushes and over rocks, and through
grass and ploughed land, through briars and over hedges, I ran and I ran and the breath
gone before taken, until my legs were dragging along the ground and my mouth wide
to the sky, the air red about me and sickness inside me. Up on the top of the mountain
I fell flat, face down to the cold short grass, with sheep at peace near me, looking
up as I ran, but going back to crop as I fell.

And in a little while the sheep looked up again, but this time they ran down the other
side, and Marged came up over the edge, slowly, holding her chest with both hands,
and I could hear her breathing, like a tearing of sacks, and walking as though she
had drunk too much. She went to the rock and leaned against it, and hit her head against
it and the wind brought the sound to me, with her crying, and hit, hit, hit, with
her head against the rock.

Trembling I was, but with tiredness, when I went to her, and pulled her away. She
was bent from the waist and hitting herself by ducking her head into the rock, but
as I pulled her she fell and I beside her.

“Owen,” she was saying, “Owen.”

“Hisht, you,” I said to her. “Sleep, is it? Sleep, now. Owen will come in a minute,
yes?”

“If he will come, yes,” she said, and indeed, she slept, not good sleep, but as one
dead.

In the Valley it was pitch black, with only a light from the farm. The moon was on
us, but not yet high enough to see over the mountain. I knew well we would perish
of cold if we were there much longer, so I covered Marged as far as I could, and then
made a start to light a fire with twigs. In a few minutes I had a fire roaring by
the rock and giving good heat, too, so I pulled Marged where she would have warmth,
and started back to Gwil’s for help.