How Green Was My Valley (41 page)

“There is little to be known about you that is unknown to me, Huw, my son,” Mr. Gruffydd
said. “Are you going to Dai Bando in the mornings, still?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “You will have good of it, but keep it to the mornings. Never let
them have your time at night. No public houses, and no prize fights, is it?”

“No, sir,” I said, with surprise. “There has never been talk of it, yet.”

“Good,” he said. “Home to your supper, now.”

“Are you coming to-night, sir?” I asked him. “The place is always ready laid for you.”

Mr. Gruffydd was quiet for moments, putting the tools back in his box, and pushing
the wheel against the other wall.

“Give your good mother a kiss on the cheek,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and excuse me again
to-night, please. Good night, now.”

“Good night, sir,” I said, and went out in the coming darkness with feelings that
the world was upside down and the people in it all as silly as cuckoos. But now I
understood why Bron had held from telling me, and I was grateful to her, and free
of anger.

It was only a little time after that when Iestyn had his way with Angharad and took
her to marry in London. Ianto and Davy went with them, but my father and mother stayed
at home because they had wanted the wedding at our Chapel, and turned their faces
from a marriage outside it. Ianto and Davy came back, and very quiet, with no news
of London, and no talking about the journey. And from the looks on their faces, I
knew better than to ask.

We got cards of Calais and Paris from Angharad, with a word or two, and a letter from
Berlin that my mother and father read together, with my mother looking over my father’s
shoulder at the window one morning. Their faces were stiff and serious to start, lit
white by the paper, but as my father read a page and turned his eyes to watch for
my mother to finish, the stiffness passed and the seriousness failed, until, when
they had finished, and were putting away their glasses, my mother patted down her
apron, in thought, and looked at my father straight.

“Well,” she said.

“It is all right with her, girl,” my father said, and took her hand. “I told you.
Settled down, she has, now.”

“I hope,” said my mother, through the window.

“Certain,” said my father. “No worry. Wait till she will come home, and you shall
see.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

B
UT IT WAS LONG AFTER
that they came home, long after the weddings of Ceridwen and Blethyn and Davy and
Wyn. Married together they were, in our Chapel one Saturday, the first day the snow
had been off the ground for months. I remember, because if it had been snowing or
slush underfoot I should have had to wear my school boots instead of my best, and
they were too thick and out of keeping with my best suit of good grey tweed, and there
is no sense to wear thick old boots with a good suit.

There is proud I was to go for my first suit made by hand. Before, of course, my mother
had made my suits, or bought them from the shop, but there is no feeling to be had
from a shop suit because there it is, made, and ready to hang on you. And hang it
does, with lumps in the seat of the trews, and lumps under the arms, enough in the
front to fold round you twice, the cuffs down to the tips of your fingers, and the
trews too short to be long trews, and too long past the knee to be short trews. But
you will wear what you are given, and you will be proud in it for two or three Sundays
because it is new, but then the creases that show its newness go from it, and it is
only a best suit again, and long on you, and bought big because you shall grow in
it.

But to have a suit to your measure, with tape and chalk, eh, dear, there is a good
feeling, indeed.

For a long time I had waited to have word from my father to go for my suit, but because
Angharad and Iestyn went to London to marry, nothing was done. Then I got the word
just before my brother said he would marry Wyn when Ceridwen married Blethyn, so that
day I ran home from school with a purpose and straight down to Hwfa Williams and Old
Twm.

“Master Morgan, a fitting,” Hwfa said to Old Twm, as soon as I was through the door.

“Yes, yes,” Old Twm said, and stitched faster to finish a little piece, and bit the
cotton off, and stuck the needle in his waistcoat.

“Well,” said Hwfa, with sweetness, and his little shoe-buttons fast on the big brass
iron, “shall we have your bottom from the board, and a piece of chalk with you, if
you please?”

“Gracious Goodness,” said Old Twm, with the start of temper, and rolling over to come
up on his hands and knees with grunts and stiffness, “am I fast on a winding wheel
to come up with a bump every time some old fool is doing a bit of shouting, then?”

“I will thank you to hold the tongue,” Hwfa said, coming to be red in the face, “and
please to have your orders from me without the pleasure of your voice. Silence is
golden.”

“You are right, for once,” Old Twm said, on his feet, and hands on hips to look at
Hwfa, and as sweet in the voice. “The money you have lost in your time would close
up the banks, indeed.”

The shoe-buttons came to look at me for pity.

“All I am asking is for a bit of chalk,” Hwfa said, to rend the heart. “What I am
having would put marks against the names of saints.”

“Chalk,” said Old Twm, and very delicate in the voice, with a thin wedge of chalk
on the palm of his hand. “Shall we see a master tailor using it on a good bit of cloth,
now?”

Hwfa took the chalk with slowness, and his eyes all over the face of Old Twm all the
time.

“You shall see a master man in his own shop,” he said, every word of equal weight,
“going about his business in ways that have gained a name for him wherever men speak
of suits for men, and costumes for women, and outfits for riding to hounds, top coats
and covert coat, cloaks and rain-cloaks, and all articles of attire to be made in
cloth for all, old and young.”

“Will we start now?” Old Twm asked him, very serious, and hands held up with the fingers
loose and hanging down ready to start on anything, “because much longer of this and
I will be smelling in my grave and the boy will grow whiskers to the knees.”

“Peace, for the love of God,” Hwfa said, and flying into a rage, with his shoe-buttons
sliding all over the shop, on me, on Old Twm, on the ceiling and on the floor. “If
old Pharaoh could be had from the world to come he would see in you the seventh plague,
indeed.”

“Good,” said Old Twm, and coming to slit the sleeve in my coat. “So exodus is only
a matter of waiting, then, and you will be home safe to your tea in time for supper,
Huw, my little one.”

“Scissors,” said Hwfa, and Old Twm had them in his hand as by magic.

Every man to his business, but indeed the craft of a tailor is beyond all doubt as
noble and as secret as any in the world. To take a bolt of cloth and work with such
simple tools as chalk, needle and thread, scissors and hot iron, and bring from them
a suit to fit every little bump and crevice of the body, without ugliness, is a royal
mystery indeed, and ancient beyond the knowledge of man, for all mankind has had joy
to deck himself, right from the Beginning, and none shall say when that was.

“More in the shoulder,” said Hwfa, making little marks with the chalk. “Up with the
back.”

Old Twm pulled up the cloth at the back only the smallest bit.

“Wait, wait,” Hwfa shouted. “Will he have his collar over his ears, with you, you
old fool, you? Down a bit. Down more. Wait. Wait.”

“What, now, in the name of God?” asked Old Twm, with impatience, and fast losing sweetness.

“A coat I am making,” Hwfa said, with froth, over my shoulder. “When it is trews I
will let you know. Will you have the collar round his waist?”

“Nothing will surprise me in this place,” Old Twm said. “There will be buttonholes
in the bottoms of his trews before long. Collar a bit high in the back.”

“I know, I know,” said Hwfa. “Please to close the head.”

“Close head, close sense,” Old Twm said, “perhaps that is why.”

Hwfa looked long at me as though he would cry, then he bit his lips, and still looking
ready to cry, went to mark the front for buttons, but savage, and with quick side
looks at the big shears on the table, as though ready to use them for a killing at
the wink of an eye.

“Right sleeve short,” said Old Twm, as though it were no business of anybody.

Hwfa took a big breath, and went to work on the left cuff.

“Right sleeve,” said Old Twm, with a suck of a tooth.

Hwfa dropped his arms and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, looking as though
the worries of the world were in his keeping, and went to work on my trews.

“Tighter at the waist,” said Hwfa, “and higher, if it is no trouble to anybody in
the shop.”

“Shortness in the right sleeve,” said Old Twm.

Hwfa started humming some tune of his own, and making little marks all over my trews
with the chalk.

“There is pretty,” said Old Twm, very serious.

“A journey of six months of Sundays and a good pair of feet,” said Hwfa, almost in
whispers, “would have to be had to find anything so pretty as you.”

“So my mother said,” Old Twm said, “and that sleeve of his is just below the bone
of his elbow with him.”

“Take off the coat, Huw, my little one,” said Hwfa, with grandness. “A master tailor
has no need to give a second look to anything. Come you Friday night and have it hot
from the goose.”

“O? He will give it to you himself, then,” said Old Twm, going to sit. “And if you
will find a leg of your trews hanging from your necks, and cuffs instead of flaps
on your pockets, raise your eyes from my face, will you, please?”

“Yes,” said Hwfa, flat, “in suffering and in pity, for he is the last of the Gadarene
swine, and no more to come, thank God. Good night, now.”

“Good night, Hwfa and Twm,” I said, and off, with Hwfa hitting the goose in the iron
holder to cover what Old Twm was saying to him.

There is a day and a night we had when Davy and Wyn and Ceridwen and Blethyn were
married, and no sleep the night before, either.

We were down at the Chapel, giving the hall next to it a bit of paint and a good scrub,
and putting tables for the tea and cakes, and polishing chairs ready for the people
on Saturday. My father, Ianto, Davy, Ceridwen, and Bron and me, and Mrs. Lewis and
Mrs. Jones, our next-doors, and their boys and girls had been at it for hours and
just getting the place to look in shape. Ivor was over the mountain conducting the
big choir, and Mr. Gruffydd was up at a cottage where there was sickness, for I had
chased a chicken in our back for him to take up, and nothing I hated more than killing
one of our chickens, for I knew them and they knew me, and we were friends.

James Rowlands, one of the deacons, came in the hall from polishing the pulpit in
Chapel, and held up a finger at my father.

“Visitors to see you,” he said, “in the Chapel.”

“Thank you, Jim, my little one,” said my father. “Somebody about the weddings, I suppose?”

“Yes, I think,” said James Rowlands. “But special. Come quick.”

“Bring them in by here,” said my father, on top of a ladder, with hammer and tacks
for candle holders.

“Come in the Chapel, man,” James said.

“No,” said my father. “Ask them to have the goodness to come to me. I am at work.”

“Right, you,” said James, and out he went, leaving behind him the sharp smell of bees-wax
and turpentine.

I was holding up the candles for my father to fit in when he was done with hammering.
He finished nailing the last one in, and took the candles from me, but standing up
on the top step again, he looked over at the door and almost fell from the ladder.
A look as though witches had come to dance came to his face and the candles dropped
from his hand, missing Bron by a hair, plump into the bucket to make a splash and
puddle the floor, and Owen and Gwil were running to us, laughing, with their arms
wide.

“Owen,” my father shouted. “Gwilym, my little one. O, my sons.”

Down the ladder he came with such a run that it fell from under him, but he jumped
and landed and ran forward to meet them.

“Dada,” Owen said, “there is good.”

“How is Mama?” Gwilym said. “Bron, there is good you are looking, girl.”

“Huw,” said Owen, with smiles, “you have grown a good four inches.”

“Long trews I am having,” I said. “To-morrow.”

“We have finished here,” said my father. “Come, my sons. Home to your mother. She
has waited long for this moment. Huw, see you all is well before to leave.”

“Yes, Dada,” I said.

So I helped Bron to do all that was wanted, and lock up, and went up the Hill to have
a cup of tea with her, for we had missed tea to work, and half-way up we met Mr. Gruffydd
coming down, walking slowly, with his hat tipped over his eyes, and his hands deep
in the pockets of his short coat.

“Owen and Gwil are back, excuse me, sir,” I said, when we came together.

“Back?” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Who?”

“Owen and Gwil,” I said. “Now just.”

“Good,” he said. “A happy night for your good mother. I will be glad to meet them
to-morrow. Good night, Mrs. Morgan. Good night, my son.”

“Come to the house, Mr. Gruffydd,” Bron said, and looking up at him, “I have got shoulder
of lamb.”

“I have got work,” said Mr. Gruffydd and smiling. “I must finish the furniture, eh,
Huw? So excuse me. Good night, now.”

“Eh, dear, dear,” Bronwen said, when we had gone up a little way. “Poor Mr. Gruffydd,
indeed.”

“Why, then?” I asked her.

“O,” Bronwen said, and took the stone from the door and pushed it shut, for the night
was cold. By the time I had lit the lamps the kettle was jumping, but Bron was still
quiet.

“Why ‘O,’ Bron?” I asked her. “Is something the matter with Mr. Gruffydd?”

“If I was single again,” Bron said, “I think I would try to marry him, shame to me
or not.”