How Green Was My Valley (38 page)

Instead of Mr. Jonas, there was Mr. Tyser.

So glad I was to see him that I stared, and felt the surprise hardening my face, and
he smiled to see me, but then pretended not to notice and went to his books.

O, and then came to me a grim, grim feeling, when the blood inside my body froze and
yet was boiling, and I shook, and my breath was stopped, while I resolved to repay
a thousandfold the kindness of Mr. Motshill. Nothing would be too much, everything
too little.

Work.

Out in the playground at dinner-time I had another surprise, but it made me feel sick,
and angry, and then pleased, but not comfortable.

Mr. Jonas was in charge of the infants’ class, the one just before they came to Standard
One, with boys and girls of seven and eight. I saw him come from the infants’ door
and walk away with his hands in his pockets. There was a look about his back that
made me feel sorry for him, for one shoulder hung down lower than the other so that
his coat had a big crease at the back, and his heels dragged, and his hands were not
right in the pockets, but just on the top, with his cuffs pushed up and his wrists
red, as though he cared nothing if they were in or out, cold or hot.

I thought of the smile, and of the little children. I thought pity for them, and shuddered
with gratitude to be free of it myself.

Chapter Twenty-Two

T
HE GLASS IN THE KITCHEN
window-panes has fallen in at last. I am glad now that I took so many out and gave
them away for it was good glass, made in a day when men did the rolling by hand. A
lovely roundness they had to them, looking from the side as though they were rising
from the pane as a pastry crust will rise from the edges of the dish, and a pleasure
to clean, so clearly and bright they shone. Many and many a time I saw my mother clean
them inside. She could reach up to the third line on tip-toe, for the fourth and fifth
she used the stool, and for the sixth, she put paper on the sill and climbed on it
from the stool to reach. Then she got down and looked at it from the side to see if
she had left any marks, and if she had not, she folded the paper to put in the cupboard,
gave the stool a good polish, and put it back by the fire, and then to the glass in
the cupboard, for window-day was glass-and-china-day, and every pot, piece of glass,
and window-pane shone at the end of it.

The next to go will be the doors downstairs or the panes up here. The next movement,
the next downward slip of that heap outside there is bound to cover the house. It
may take the roof off. Poor little house, I hear you groaning, and I feel your pain,
with all these hundreds of tons bearing down upon you. Almost I can see your little
face crooked with pain and looking at me to help you. But I am helpless. It would
take me ten generations to move it from you with a shovel, and not even a shovel I
have got to my name, now. All I have got are the clothes on me, and those couple of
shirts and socks that I will take with me in the little blue cloth. I used to have
such plenty, too. Good tweed from the cloth mill, and old Hwfa Williams to cut it
and sew it cross-legs on the floor in his little shop.

The first time I went in there was with my father to have my measures taken so that
he would know how much tweed to buy from the mill. Two and a half yards.

Down we went to the mill and inside the yard, and through the low doorway into the
weaving-room. There is a lovely smell with tweed. Good it is, and honest, of the earth
and of humankind, and a pleasure to wear, and always a friend to you.

I had a brown tweed, the colour of a ploughed field in the pebbly soil, when leaf
has been put down about three months before, and grass is just poking through, barely
to be seen, but there. That, and a grey, the colour of spring rain, and almost as
soft to the touch. My father bought a bolt of it for my mother and sisters, and black
for himself and my brothers, and we watched a piece come from the loom in green, and
that my father took for Olwen and Gareth to have little cloaks.

We went from there like journeymen loaded for a trip to the Indies, and by the time
we got to Hwfa Williams I was ready to drop, so heavy was my share.

“Long trews or short, Mr. Morgan?” Hwfa asked my father, and his eyes smiling and
shining at me like little blue shoe-buttons. “Shall he be a man or stay a boy?”

“O, Dada,” I said, “long, is it?”

My father looked at me, and turned to look through the window that was covered with
pictures of elegant gentlemen with narrow waists and trews tight at the ankles, with
capes, and canes with tassels. I was aching all over and shouting at him in my mind
for him to say yes.

And Hwfa rubbed his thimble along his bottom lip, and his blue shoe-buttons went first
to me and then to my father.

“Very well, Huw, my little one,” my father said, and I could have swung on the beams,
“long trews. You are grown, now, of course.”

“Four button front, do up the top,” said Hwfa, and coming very practical. “Front pocket
trews, collar to waistcoat. Flaps to top waistcoat pockets?”

And the shoe-buttons went again to my father, and my father looked at me.

“Yes, Dada, please,” I said.

“Yes,” said my father, and looking through the window again.

“Fitting for Master Huw Morgan, Thursday next, five of the evening,” said Hwfa, all
business now, and speaking to old Twm, who kept the writings and the patterns, and
put braid on coats and sewed buttonholes.

“Right, you,” said old Twm, with needles sticking from the side of his mouth and all
over his waistcoat. “And Nan Mardy coming in at half-past the hour for a three-quarter
coat and a rain-cloak with black braid and pockets both sides.”

“Never mind to talk of Nan Mardy, man,” Hwfa said, “Master Huw Morgan, I said.”

“Well, only saying I was,” Old Twm said, with impatience, “in case.”

“In case, in case,” Hwfa said, and the shoe-buttons flying everywhere. “What, in case,
for the dear love of God, you old fool, you?”

“In case he do have his trews about his boot-tops and the shirt tails above his chin,
man,” old Twm shouted, out of temper.

“O, to hell with you,” Hwfa shouted back. “Mind your own shirt tails and let everybody
else mind his and devil fly off with old Nan. A good look at a shirt tail would put
life in her.”

“Come you,” said my father. “Mr. Williams, please to guard your tongue while this
boy is near you.”

“The boy will learn quick enough,” Hwfa said. “Five on the evening of Thursday, and
to hell with Nan Mardy and this old fool by here, is it?”

“Good afternoon, now,” said my father, and I pulled the door the harder to have more
noise from the bell. Hwfa was still shouting and old Twm was swearing back at him
when we were two houses away, and my father looked at me and smiled.

“Why will a good look at a shirt tail put life in Nan Mardy, Dada?” I asked him.

“Mind your business,” said my father, “then Nan shall mind hers, and we shall all
be happy.”

Again I had that feeling in me of helpless heat at being denied to know a matter which
only a few words would explain. I made my mind firm to know about it, and tried to
think of someone who would tell me without laughing at me. Tegwen Beynon I thought
of, and Ceinwen Phillips, for I felt they knew much more about the things that the
grown-ups wanted to keep to themselves than I did. But there was a look that I remembered
in their eyes, and it came to me that Tegwen and Ceinwen had the same look, a heated
fogginess within, that clouded their eyes, yet left them clear. Then I thought of
Bron, and I knew with warmth that I had the right answer.

Ceridwen and Blethyn were going to marry as soon as their house in the next Valley
was ready, in two weeks’ time. For that, and Angharad’s marriage to Iestyn, I was
having the new suits.

Ceridwen and Blethyn made no fuss about their match, for they were happy, they knew
they were going to be married, their house was going up brick by brick in front of
their eyes, their furniture was bought, and Ceridwen’s bottom drawer was full, so
there was no need for fuss.

And if ever a girl had less fuss in her I would like to put eyes on her. As for Blethyn,
well, nobody lived within a yard of her. She was his eyes, his heart, and his soul,
and it was funny and yet sad to see his eyes upon her going with her wherever she
went. And if she passed him, she tickled the back of his head with her fingers, and
sometimes pulled the lobe of his ear, but gently not to hurt, and he looked up at
her, then, with a smile that would go to the heart as a spear.

But Angharad and Iestyn.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kiss and Scratch,” my mother said of them. “Kiss one moment, scratch
the next. Arms round now, fists up then. I will chase them from the house with a dishcloth
if there is more of it.”

Indeed, my mother had cause to complain, too.

As soon as Iestyn was back from London, up to the house he came in a new dark blue
gig with red lining round the wheels, and a polished brass rail with a long brass
holder for a hickory and ivory coach whip, lovely, indeed, with a white lash that
came round in a beautiful curve at the top, and then curled round the handle, and
a little bay mare, polished like a piece of furniture, with a short barrel and a neck
that came round like the top of a letter S, with knots in her mane and four white
socks. And her little shoes shining like silver with her.

I could have cried to watch, so pretty she was, and so proud of her red leather bridle,
and the sun strong upon her.

Iestyn, in a grey bowler hat and black-and-white check suit, with a white stock and
pearl pin, and brown boots. There is a swell for you. A light flew to my mother’s
eyes and flew out again to make you wonder if you saw it or not, when she saw him.
He took off the bowler hat and gave her a bow with his good morning, and she nodded,
looking at him straight, and went to the kitchen. Iestyn stood with the bowler going
round and round in his hands, not knowing whether to go in or stay out. Then Ianto
gave him a wink and a nod, and he smiled as though he had caught a finger in the door,
and went in as to a lion’s den.

Out he came again in a minute, and gave us all a wink of discomfort, and climbed up
on the seat, put the rug about his knees, and drove up the Hill toward the farm.

When we went in my mother was still having her temper out of the clothes in the washtub.
Up comes a shirt of my father’s frothed with soap, and quickly she screws it round
and round, slap against the board, then, and rub, rub, rub till it was a wonder there
was shirt or board, and a bit of her hair falling from under this little blue cloth,
and hanging down across her face, and soapy from her impatient hand trying to push
it away.

“Did you see him?” my mother asked us, with her hands in the froth, and looking at
us, and trying to blow away the hair with her eyes going up at it.

“Yes,” said Ianto. “There is a lovely little mare.”

“Mare?” my mother said, and slap, slap, slap with the shirt, and froth flying. “Him,
I mean.”

“Well, if he can afford to dress like that,” Ianto said, “he has got the money. Leave
him, now.”

“Money or not,” my mother said, “let him dress in satin and diamonds. It is no matter
to me a bit. But let him wait to dress like that till he can wear them with comfort.
He was in pain with him to have them on his back. Wait till Miss Angharad sees him.
She will pull the hairs from his head.”

Next day Angharad came home just after I came from school. There seemed nothing wrong
with her, for she looked just the same, and she laughed, and just as ready to wipe
up after supper. Yet there was something wrong that I could only feel. It was as though
an extra light had gone out inside her. Iestyn was there for supper, and he took her
for a walk after, but although they were smiling at one another, they were not a bit
like Ceridwen and Blethyn. I never felt for Iestyn that pity I felt for Blethyn. He
never once made me sad as Blethyn did, or made me laugh. Iestyn was fierce to kiss
her when he thought they were unseen, and Angharad was ready enough to be kissed.
But she never once looked as I had seen Ceridwen look, with that happiness that is
not of the earth, when the world could tumble to blue ruin and it would be no matter.

Then Ianto came in with
The Times
one night, and showed my mother and father a piece on the left of the front page
with ink marks round it.

“From who is it?” my mother asked him.

“Well,” said Ianto, “Ellis just gave it to me.”

“By post?” my father said, and putting on his glasses to read.

“Yes,” said Ianto, and smiling with a lot up his sleeve. “Who from, Mama? Guess, now
then.”

“Well, from who?” my mother said, and frowning.

“Owen,” said my father.

My mother’s hands fell to her lap and she looked about the kitchen as though the house
was going from her. Ianto put his arms about her, and she held on to him.

“Goodness gracious me,” my father said to the paper, “Evans, Morgan. A marriage has
been arranged between Iestyn Dylan Evans, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Christmas Dylan
Evans, of Tyn-y-Coed….”

He stopped and looked at my mother with his mouth tight shut.

“Read, boy, read,” my mother said, in wonder.

“Not another word,” said my father, in anger. “But I will read something to Mr. Iestyn
Evans when I do see him. His father not cold, and putting this old nonsense in the
paper. If a marriage has been arranged, I know nothing of it. I will be consulted
if there is arranging to be done. Mr. Iestyn has got too many English ways. I will
put a bit between his jaws before he is an hour older.”

“Please to tell me who sent the paper,” my mother said, and slapping her knee with
each word, “and from where?”

“Owen,” my father said, bending down to her. “Owen sent the paper from London. And
he says will we let Angharad marry this fool, and love from both, home soon.”