How Green Was My Valley (45 page)

“Glad I am they are all strangers out there,” James Rowlands said to me when he came
in and bolted the door. “If they belonged to our Valley I would be ready to go to
my grave for disgrace. Such conduct indeed, while two are being joined in sight of
God.”

“How long, now, Mr. Rowlands?” I asked him.

“Not long, my little one,” he said. “They were beyond better or worse when I came
from there. Two better couples I have never seen. Me and your poor father have not
stopped to cry. Beautiful, indeed.”

So up and down I went again, and very good it is to be with yourself in an empty room,
to walk as you want, and say as you want, with no thought for what others may say
or think.

The singing of the last hymn came through the noise outside and the crowd heard and
joined in. The doors were opened in Chapel, and people began to come out, pushing
everybody from the porch to let Davy and Wyn, and Blethyn and Ceridwen through. I
was on a chair looking out of the window to watch them go, and indeed I will swear
there were differences in our Davy and Ceridwen even in so short a while. It was in
the smile they had, in the way they waved, in the way they stood and even in their
walking. It was as though they had lost something, but found something better, and
yet still ready to worry for what they had lost if only they could find out what it
was.

Thomas the Carrier took them up the Hill in carriages with flowers and ribbons, and
all the people in front pulling them with ropes, or crowding about and behind them,
throwing flowers, singing different songs in any key to hand, shouting, and jumping
up to try and catch a look from Davy, and people leaning far out of bedroom windows
to shout, and wave, and throw more flowers, and fling toffees at the crowds under
them, and the sun beginning to think of bed and his light going, and a fine dust rising
from the road and powdering overhead.

“Well,” Bron said, “where were you in Chapel, then?”

“I did the candles and set the fires in by there,” I said. “Dada was angry with me,
so I stayed in the quiet.”

“Where is that old sow of a girl, with you?” she asked me, and taking off her cloak.
“Have nothing to do with her, Huw. One look and I was finished.”

“She is doing dishes up at the house,” I said. “She was asked because she said she
liked Mama’s cooking.”

“Then let her stay up by there till it is time to go,” Bron said, “and you stay down
here. Is it?”

“Yes,” I said, “if I am with you.”

“Plates,” said Bron, “and in plenty, over by the cakes. And small spoons in the box
by the cups and saucers, or they will drive us mad for a spoon, again.”

“Why have you come from the house, Bron?” I asked her. “I thought you were going to
have wedding tea with them.”

“Mr. Gruffydd came up,” Bron said. “And I saw him looking. The house was shouting
full of Angharad, so I put my cloak on and said I had a headache.”

So we went to work on the food and drink for the Eisteddfod, and when the other helpers
began coming in they found there was little to do but sit down and eat again. But
it was only a few minutes after that, and the choirs began to come in to take whole
rows for themselves, and people putting hats and coats and pieces of paper on chairs,
and others trying to push them off and put their own down on the sly, with words coming
high and faces going red, and deacons pushing through the crowd with frowns to find
the cause of the trouble and put all at peace again.

I had saved good places for my mother and the boys in the middle of the front row,
so when they came I was proud to show them in. But I had forgotten Ceinwen and Mervyn
and Mr. Phillips, and my mother said she would go back home rather than sit, with
guests left standing. So Gwilym gave his seat to Mr. Phillips, and Mervyn sat on a
couple of coats on the floor between his father and Owen, and my mother told me to
take Ceinwen behind the tables to Bron and do a bit of helping.

So there I was with Ceinwen again, and as soon as we were out of the crowd and away
from eyes, round in the back where we boiled the water, she put her hand in mine and
put her arm round my neck.

“Go from me, girl,” I said, and pushed her off.

“Be sweethearts, Huw,” she said with pity, and soft. “Your brother and sister are
married, see, and everybody happy excepting only us two. Nobody we have got, only
an old father and mother, and brothers. Be sweethearts, Huw. Then we will have somebody.
There is lovely.”

“No,” I said. “Soft, that is.”

“Huw,” she said, and put her arm round my neck again, and kissed me.

My mother kissed with dryness, a touching upon the cheek or forehead, an assurance
that we were her own. Bron kissed softer, with more of crispness, and with a little
sound in it, but always upon the cheek. My aunts kissed as hens take bits from the
ground.

But Ceinwen kissed.

The softness of her mouth was a glory of surprise, and cool, not even warm, with an
easiness of moisture, and the tip of her tongue making play in idle strolling, lazily,
and yet full of life, and her weight lying heavily upon me, her hair falling about
our faces, shutting out the light, and all other smells save that of her, that was
the perfume of the broad, sweet lands of the living flesh, that rose from her, and
covered her about and followed her as she walked.

Then my mouth was cold, empty, and she was looking down at me.

“How many girls have you kissed before?” she asked me, as she would ask to pass lettuce.

“None,” I said, and going cold to go from her.

“Go on, boy,” she said, and giving me a push. “There is an old liar you are.”

“The water is boiling,” I said, and pulling off the pots from the grids, and glad
of plenty to do. “Go and tell Bron to have the tea ready.”

“Are we sweethearts, Huw?” she asked me, in a high little voice, and her hands busy
with ribbons on the front of her dress.

“No,” I said. “Go from here.”

“I will come for you again,” she said, and meant, and went.

All through the evening and into the late of night, the singing went on, with children
first, then boys and girls, then the men and women, and after the choirs. And all
the time we were working to make tea and serve food, until it seemed that all the
world had come to eat, and drink, and sing.

Only when the candles began to go, and the lamps had to be trimmed, did people begin
to put on coats, and nod to one another, and look for children, and send somebody
to harness the horse, and start to shake hands with everybody.

Of course, my mother and father were in the middle of a crowd, then, and another hour
for saying good-bye, even though everybody knew they would see them in Chapel next
morning. But thanks had to be said, though they might wait till morning, with still
twenty miles to go behind the horse.

I went up to the field for Mr. Phillips’ mare, breathing deep of the cold darkness,
glad to be free of the noise, and closeness, and heat, of people. But when I undid
the shackle and started to lead her away, I heard Ceinwen calling me from the bottom
of the field, and stopped, hoping she would miss me in the darkness and go away. But
she came slowly toward me, not calling now, but singing, softly, David of the White
Rock, in contralto, deep, clear, and the wind bringing it to me as though he liked
it and wanted me to hear.

“Huw,” she said, only a little way off, and stopping, with no more of the song.

“Your father is waiting,” I said, and went on down. She came on my other side and
put an arm about my neck, leaning upon me, and pulling me to walk slower.

“Put your arm about me, Huw,” she said, into my ear.

“Go on, girl,” I said. “There is soft you are. Put my arm, indeed. Like a couple of
fools.”

I wonder what is it, that makes us speak so foolishly, and with so much hurt to those
who would confer an honour or do us a pleasure if, perhaps, we think such honour or
pleasure will cause the censure of others, or disturb that shifty creature called
Conscience.

Yet Conscience is a nobleman, the best in us, and a friend.

I knew I wanted to put an arm about Ceinwen, and I knew that I was in heats to kiss
her again, but the stupid spirit was in me to deny both, and in the denial, to hurt
her, as though that hurt would do some good to me, and precious Conscience.

I was kept from telling the truth, and putting my arm about her with pleasure and
a smile, and kissing her with willingness to enjoy, even though we were on a mountain
side, in darkness, and as good as from by there to the moon away with all created
tongues and eyes, and the acid of one, and the pricks of the other, and the malice
and ignorance of both.

But the knowledge of them and their hurts made for fear and made me a liar, in truth,
in spirit, and in feeling, and I was dumb as a lout.

“O, Huw,” Ceinwen said, and pulled me to stop, and stamped her foot, “I like to kiss.
I want to kiss.”

“Shut up, girl,” I said, in discomfort, knowing well how I felt, and envious of her
truthfulness, and shamed because of it, but still unwilling to come to the front in
case she poked fun, and in case we were late and my father asked questions, but mostly
because I wanted to feel better, with less on the conscience, than she.

We looked at one another for a minute, both of us in black shadow, able to see nothing
only a black shape. Then she put an arm about me and held tight, and pulled me to
her and kissed me, but this time her teeth bit through both my lips, and the pain
made me struggle, trying to shout, but only a sound from the throat, and blood running
warm and smooth and salt into my mouth.

“Now,” she said, breathless, and putting me away, “next time, kiss. And no nonsense.
Good night, now.”

So I watched her run, and sucked at my lips, and climbed on the mare’s back and rode
down, laughing all the way, though for what, I cannot tell.

Funny it was to see her coolness when she said good night to us in the Square, and
her straight back, and empty eyes, and the smile, and the folded hands, and the bend
of head when her father cracked the whip and they started for home. She even made
a little frown to Mervyn because he shouted to me.

Eh, dear, women.

But we help. Yes, indeed, we help. We only say we cannot understand them when we cannot
understand our craven selves, cannot release ourselves from fear that ours is the
first blame, cannot assume and hold our position as men, and must for shame, load
them with the onus of the prime move in order that we may partake of the sin, and
to hell with that word, too, and to assuage our delicate moral sense with nonsense
about temptation, and Eve, and the frailness of mortal man. The truth is not in us,
neither do we look for it, and we are cowards and not men. In the day of King Arthur,
a man would fight to the death in honour of a woman, but in these days, those who
will call themselves men will cower, even in their thoughts, at the prospect of having
to reckon with the eyes and tongues of those warty bawds and pussy sluts who peddle
oral filth.

Gossip.

Hear it all.

Gossip. Hear the sound of it.

Many a better noise has come from the back.

May all such end their days soonest, with cancers of the misused tongue and all the
vitals, and perish with the special torments of the damned, and pass without hurry
into Hell, and lie upon the hottest grid through all eternity, with water only an
inch beyond reach and the green pastures of Paradise always clear in their sight.

I have no love for gossips.

It was gossip that sent Mr. Gruffydd from us, and gave me his gold watch, though I
have never been able to look at it without thinking of the nagging evil that piles
lies on lies with every second it marks.

Davy had shouldered his son, and Ceridwen had taught her twins to walk before Angharad
came home again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

T
HERE HAD BEEN TROUBLE
down at the Evans Colliery for months on end, but it was always settled by the manager
and a man from Town, and then breaking out again, until everybody in the village was
tired of it, and nobody would listen.

At first, Mr. Gruffydd did most of the talking for the men, for they trusted him.
But sometimes they would doubt even him, and then they got worse in their doubts,
and started employing a lawyer to put their case. Then another lawyer was called in,
with the men having the hat round to pay the expenses and then more lawyers. But all
of them together never did as much as Mr. Gruffydd did for nothing, but only the men’s
wives had the sense to see it, and one night they all went to Mr. Gruffydd after Chapel
and asked him to see what he could do.

“What, then?” Mr. Gruffydd asked my father. “They want so much for the stone they
are cutting to come at the coal, so much for water on the levels, so much for putting
props, and a ballot for the best places. What am I to say?”

“We are having the same fight,” my father said. “That is why the Union is growing
and sliding scale going from favour.”

“What are you doing?” Mr. Gruffydd asked. “Then I shall know how to talk to the manager.”

“I am in favour of a man from each colliery in all the valleys meeting the managers
of all the collieries, and their owners,” said my father. “Table the complaints, listen
to the difficulties on the other side, and giving a bit and taking a bit, with fairness
and fair play to all.”

“Good,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “I will try that.”

But it was no good. The meeting was refused, the terms were refused, and the men struck
work. Then they went back again. Then out again. Then nobody cared if they were in
or out, and most of the best men got jobs in other collieries, and strangers came
to the Valley and worked for the money that our men refused to take.

And Iestyn had his life threatened, and my mother wrote to Angharad, in London, to
stop him from coming down. Even we got a bit of blame from some of the men just because
Iestyn had married into our family.