Chapter Fifteen

Harry was walking through the stables at Ynysangharad House. Toffee, the first horse he had helped raise from a foal, was kicking the back of his stall. Knock – knock. He felt in his pocket for a carrot or sugar lump, but he had none. He searched his other pockets … Knock – knock.

‘Mr Evans!’

He sat up with a start, hit his head on the headboard and a sheaf of papers fell from his bed. They scattered over the floorboards. Disorientated, he stared down at them.

‘Mr Evans!’

The second shout galvanized him. He lurched clumsily from the bed and wrenched open the door. Mrs Edwards was on the landing, a troubled frown creasing her wrinkled forehead.

‘Craig-y-Nos is on the telephone asking to speak to you, Mr Evans.’

Without waiting to put on his shoes, Harry hurtled past her down the creaking staircase and along the flag-stoned passage. He muttered a hurried ‘Sorry’ when he barged into Enfys, who emerged from the kitchen as he was about to enter the tiny ‘office’. The receiver was lying on the rickety table. He snatched it up. ‘Harry Evans.’

‘This is Craig-y-Nos sanatorium, Mr Evans.’

He recognized Diana Adams’s voice. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Your grandfather has made a temporary recovery. The haemorrhage appeared more serious than it actually was. My father believes that only the upper quarter of the right lung was affected.’

‘Can I see him?’ Harry pleaded.

‘Not until tomorrow morning, and then only if he is strong enough to receive visitors.’

‘Please -’

‘Mr Evans has been sedated, he is sleeping and we’re not expecting him to wake until tomorrow, but if he should, I will tell the ward sister to pass on your concern and best wishes, Mr Evans.’

The line went dead, and Harry realized that there must have been someone in the room with Diana. He hung up. After the sister had ordered him out of his grandfather’s room in the sanatorium that morning, he had tried to sit in the waiting room by the front door to wait for news. A nurse had followed him, and told him if anything happened they would telephone, so there was absolutely no point in him staying there.

He had driven Toby up to the reservoir, dropped him off, turned the car around and returned to the inn to wait for a telephone call he didn’t know whether to wish for or not.

‘Not bad news, I hope, Mr Evans?’ Mrs Edwards was hovering outside the door.

‘My grandfather has made a recovery – a temporary recovery, Mrs Edwards,’ he amended.

‘I am glad to hear it. You didn’t come down for lunch or tea, and I didn’t like to disturb you. Would you like a sandwich now?’

‘What is the time?’

‘Six o’clock, Mr Evans.’

Harry realized that he’d slept most of the day away. ‘A sandwich and tea would be most acceptable, Mrs Edwards, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘No trouble, Mr Evans.’ She wiped her hands in her apron. ‘Would you like Enfys to serve you in the dining room?’

‘The bar will be fine, Mrs Edwards, but I’ll go upstairs and wash and change first. I can’t believe I fell asleep in the middle of the day.’

‘You were very late last night, Mr Evans,’ she said reproachfully.

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ Harry apologized, embarrassed that others besides Toby had heard him arrive back at the inn in the early hours. He ran upstairs and gathered the papers that had fallen from the bed. Too tired after his sleepless night to attempt to draw or paint, and too restless after visiting his grandfather to settle to anything pleasurable, he had returned to his room with the intention of catching up on his correspondence and the monthly reports the trustees of his estate sent him.

He glanced at the topmost page when he stacked the papers and set them on the table. He could recall reading the first paragraph and no more. So much for ‘catching up’ on business. He could almost hear Lloyd lecturing him.

‘Wealth brings responsibilities, Harry. You owe it to the people dependent on the wages your companies pay to make sure that every business you own is run fairly and honestly. And the only way you can do that is by monitoring them. It is time you learned everything there is to know about them and the people who labour for your benefit.’

He set his leather writing case on top of the report so he wouldn’t have to look at it. Like all the others he had received since his eighteenth birthday, it was crushingly boring, and he wondered if he would ever find ‘business’ interesting. He stretched his arms above his head and glanced out of the window at the deserted road. He felt even more exhausted than when he had returned to his room that morning. But he was also unpleasantly warm, sticky and hungry. Taking his towel and soap from his washstand and a clean shirt from his wardrobe, he made his way down to the ground-floor scullery-cum-bathroom, ran a cold bath and plunged into it.

An hour later, refreshed, his appetite satisfied by two rounds of ham sandwiches and a pot of tea, he set out to fetch Toby. He had deliberately waited until the end of evensong when the chapels and churches would be closed in the hope of picking up the Ellises. After the scene with Ianto Williams the week before, he didn’t want to go to the chapel again.

He drove slowly up the valley and caught up with the Ellises on a lonely stretch of road half a mile up the valley from Craig-y-Nos. He stopped the car ahead of them and Martha ran up to him.

‘Mr Ross is painting the lake today. He gave Matthew and me some of his picnic, but we missed you.’

‘I’m sorry, Martha. My grandfather was ill and I wanted to be near a telephone.’ Harry left the driving seat, opened the back door and she climbed in. Matthew followed, but David and Mary, carrying Luke, were walking at a slower pace.

‘Mr Ross said your grandfather was taken ill this morning, Mr Evans. I hope he is better now,’ Mary said when she drew close. She wasn’t wearing her shawl, which he presumed was still wet, and her thin black cotton skirt and blouse made her look positively emaciated. There were also deep shadows beneath her eyes as if she hadn’t slept for days. David didn’t look much better.

‘My grandfather’s marginally better than he was, thank you.’ He braced himself. ‘Dolly?’ he ventured.

‘I walked her to the pit this morning and shot her.’ David sat in the front passenger seat.

‘I’m sorry, I knew how much she meant to you – to all of you,’ Harry sympathized. He waited until Mary settled herself in the back seat with Luke before closing the door. He returned to the driving seat, started the car and drove off.

Matthew leaned forward from the back. ‘The pit is where we burn our favourite animals, Mr Evans, so they don’t have to go to the knacker’s yard. Do you think they go to heaven from there? The minister doesn’t, because he said in one of his sermons that animals don’t have souls. But I think they do.’

‘You shouldn’t contradict the minister, Matthew,’ Martha said primly.

‘Why not? He’s only a person, same as us,’ David chipped in.

‘He’s an important, educated person,’ Martha countered.

‘Who wouldn’t let us bury Dad in the family grave, old -’

‘David.’ Mary’s voice was weak with exhaustion.

‘For what it’s worth, Matthew, I think animals do have souls.’ Harry was finally able to answer the boy’s question. ‘And when I get to heaven I hope to see the dogs, cats and horses my family has owned over the years.’

‘You’re not just saying that, Mr Evans, because David had to shoot Dolly?’ Martha pressed.

‘No, I really do believe that animals have souls. If they didn’t they’d all be the same, wouldn’t they? And each one I’ve met has its own personality.’

‘I’m glad you think the same as me, Mr Evans.’ Matthew settled back contentedly.

Martha shouted in Harry’s ear, ‘Miss Adams came up to see me this morning and she said that I can go back to work a week tomorrow.’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’ Harry glanced across at David, who was sitting, sunk in misery. He knew exactly how he felt. Lloyd had always insisted that any decisions that had to be made about ending an animal’s life because of accident or disease had to be made by its owner. The memory of one particular Labrador, Brutus, whose kidneys had failed after eight loyal years, still haunted him. ‘Do you still want me to take your produce down to Pontardawe on Wednesday, David?’

David said two words Harry had never expected to hear him utter. ‘Yes, please.’

Harry parked the car outside the farmhouse and walked through the yard to the back gate. Toby was standing in front of an easel he’d set up close to the reservoir on the floor of the valley. Harry shouted to him to attract his attention. Toby waved back and pointed to the canvas. Harry pointed to the house. The Ellises had already gone inside, he presumed, to change out of their ‘best’ chapel clothes.

He returned to his car, opened the boot and took out the cardboard box he had filled with newspapers, pencils, paper scissors and his spare sketchbook. Already he knew the family’s routine. As soon as they changed, Mary would most probably start making supper, David and Matthew would bring in the cows for milking, and Martha would be taking care of Luke. He couldn’t think of a better time to start teaching her to read.

When it grew too dark to see the newspapers Harry had spread out, Mary pushed a spill into the fire. She waited until it caught, then lit the wick on a homemade tallow candle and set it between Harry and Martha in the middle of the table. David came in from the yard after shutting the poultry into the barn for the night. He unlaced his working boots, set them in the corner behind the door, put on a pair of knitted slippers and sat alongside Martha, Luke and Matthew on the bench opposite Harry.

‘I didn’t know people could paint in the dark. That friend of yours down by the reservoir has just lit his lantern, Harry.’

‘Toby may have lit his lantern, but he won’t be painting. He’s probably doing what I was last night, studying the colour of the landscape in the moonlight and wondering how best to capture it in paint.’ Harry watched Matthew, who had stayed at the table after supper, to help Martha to cut out letters and words from the papers. Without any prompting from him, Matthew put the first and second letters of his name in order.

‘That’s the first letter over the door.’ David pulled a ‘D’ towards him with his forefinger.

‘That is the first letter of your name.’ Harry found the remainder of the letters that spelled out David and put them in front of the boy.

‘Then David Ellis is written above the door?’ He looked to Harry for confirmation.

‘David Ellis sixteen twenty-four,’ Harry echoed, suppressing a smile at the astonishment on the boy’s face.

‘I thought it was a story Dad made up.’

‘I told you it was your name, David.’ Mary finished sweeping the hearth, emptied the dustpan into the fire and sat next to Harry. ‘Dad told me that the eldest son of the family has always been called David Ellis.’

‘Then that means that your family and a David Ellis has lived in this house for three hundred and two years,’ Harry moved the ‘h’ Matthew had put into his name and pushed in a second ‘t’.

‘Three hundred and two years,’ Martha repeated in wonder. ‘Is that right, Mr Evans?’

Harry smiled. ‘Absolutely right, Martha. Now, look at these sheets of paper. I’ve written out the alphabet on them, and there’s space under each letter for a small picture. I thought you could draw something that starts with that letter under every one to remind you of the sound. Let’s see if we can think of things that you have on the farm.’ Conscious that although they were silent, David and Mary were also listening to him, Harry pointed to the ‘A’.

‘That’s the “A” from my name,’ said Martha.

‘It is, and what starts with an “A”?’

‘An apple?’

‘That’s good, Martha, and that is a perfect apple you’ve drawn,’ he complimented when she added a stalk to the top.

‘Can you see what we’re doing, Matthew?’ Harry asked after Martha had drawn a bee, cow, dog and egg. ‘Can you think of something that starts with “F”?’ He shook his head slightly at Martha who looked as though she were about to speak.

‘Fish?’ Matthew answered doubtfully.

‘We don’t see many of those round here. I can’t remember the last time we had fish for dinner,’ David complained.

‘A fork?’ Martha was already drawing a hay fork.

‘“G” …’

‘Gate,’ Matthew said with more confidence, and when Harry didn’t contradict him, Martha drew a gate.

‘Looking at those pictures, Martha, I think Mr Ross would be better off trying to teach you to paint instead of me,’ Harry complimented.

‘That’s an “H” like in Martha so it could be a -’

‘Hay.’ A tear rolled down Mary’s cheek.

‘J for jam,’ Harry continued briskly, assuming that she was thinking of Dolly. ‘Now we come to “K”.’

‘Kitchen,’ Matthew shrieked, carried away by the new game.

‘Excellent.’ Harry ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘But that will be hard for Martha to draw so let’s look at something else that is in the kitchen.’ He looked pointedly at the stove.

‘Kettle,’ Matthew and Martha called out simultaneously.

‘“L” for leek … mouse, nose, otter, patch …’

‘We’ve plenty of those,’ David quipped, and the others laughed.

‘Quill.’ Harry pulled a feather from his pocket that he’d picked up in the yard. ‘People used to dip the end in ink and write with these years ago.’

‘So that’s why there were so many in the old oak desk drawers. The agent threw them in the rubbish when he took the desk. Do you remember, Mary?’ David turned to his sister.

Mary looked so pale, drained and exhausted that Harry quickened the pace so he could finish the lesson. ‘Snail, rabbit, trap, udder, vicar, wagon, “X” – that’s a hard one. The word that’s most often used in the alphabet books for “X” is xylophone.’

‘What’s a xylophone, Mr Evans?’ Matthew asked.

‘A musical instrument. Let’s cheat, Martha, there’s an “X” at the end of fox, so you can draw one of those. And that leaves the last two letters – “Y” for yard and “Z” for zoo.’

‘What’s a zoo?’ Matthew looked to Harry again.

‘A place where they house animals from all over the world so people can go and see them.’

‘What kind of animals?’

‘All sorts.’ Harry listed the most exotic creatures he could think of. ‘Elephants, camels, zebras, lions, tigers, monkeys …’

‘We saw a monkey once, in Pontardawe, with an organ-grinder, didn’t we, Davy? He was only small but he could make a lot of noise.’

It was then that Harry realized the Ellises had probably never seen photographs of the other animals he’d mentioned. ‘There’s a wonderful zoo in Bristol. It’s not too far by train. You learn to read and write, Martha and Matthew, and I’ll take you there as a reward.’ He glanced at Mary and David. ‘And you two, of course, if you’d like to come.’

‘As if we can leave the farm,’ David growled, reverting to his customary sour humour.

There was a knock at the door. Mary blanched.

‘Who is it?’ David moved close to the box of logs next to the stove.

‘A weary painter,’ Toby answered.

Matthew ran to open it. ‘Come in and look at what we’re doing, Mr Ross. Mr Evans is teaching us to read.’

Toby glanced at the table. ‘So I see. I’m sorry to spoil your evening, but Harry and I will be in trouble with our landlady if we’re any later than this for our supper. Ready to go, Harry?’

‘Yes.’ Harry picked up his hat from the windowsill where he’d left it. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mary.’ He looked back. David was spelling his name with the cut-out letters just like Martha and Matthew. And he noticed that, like Martha, he hadn’t made a mistake in the order.

‘You will come again tomorrow, Mr Evans, and teach us some more?’ Martha pleaded.

‘If your brother and sister don’t mind, Martha,’ he answered cautiously.

‘You’d be welcome, Mr Evans,’ Mary murmured.

‘You know what time we have tea, Harry.’

As there was no anger, bitterness or sarcasm in David’s voice, Harry smiled and nodded. ‘Thank you, David, I’ll be here.’

‘So that’s what you did in your room last night. It’s not bad, Harry.’ Toby stood back and eyed the watercolour Harry had painted.

‘Not bad,’ Mrs Edwards said as she crossed the yard to Alf’s workshop. ‘It’s brilliant. That moonlight on the water looks real to me, Mr Evans.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Edwards. It’s the first painting I’ve done that I’m not ashamed of.’ Harry covered the canvas and lifted it into the back of the car.

‘You taking it to the sanatorium to show your grandfather?’ Toby asked.

‘I am.’ Harry looked at the shrouded canvas Toby was carrying. ‘Can I see yours?’

‘It’s not finished,’ Toby answered evasively.

‘I thought your lake only needed a lady’s arm holding a sword?’

‘I’d still rather you saw it when it’s ready for London.’

Harry stood back and crossed his arms across his chest. ‘It’s that much better than mine?’

Realizing that Harry wasn’t going to take no for an answer, Toby unveiled it.

Harry stared for a moment, then let out a low whistle. ‘Compared to that, mine’s dead. I feel as though I could dive into the water.’

Toby covered it up. ‘What you have to remember is I have had four years’ tuition at the Slade and a lifetime of watching Frank paint, as well as private tutoring from him.’

‘And if I had all that and more, I’d never be as good as you,’ Harry climbed into his car.

‘That’s where you’re wrong, Harry.’ Toby secured his painting in the back of the car alongside Harry’s. ‘If you are prepared to put in the work and the hours, you’ll improve. You certainly have the talent. Believe you me, the first landscape watercolour I did was nowhere near the standard of yours.’

‘And how old were you when you did it?’ Harry drove out of the yard on to the road.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Really?’ Harry questioned sceptically.

‘You have talent, Harry,’ Toby insisted. ‘I wouldn’t say so if you didn’t. What I don’t know is if you have the dedication and application to push yourself to the absolute limit of that talent and wring all you can out of it.’

Harry thought about what Toby had said. ‘You know something. I haven’t a clue if I have or not,’ he said seriously.

‘Talent is only half the battle,’ Toby mused. ‘There were students at the Slade who were fantastic, streets ahead of me. But …’

‘But?’ Harry prompted when Toby didn’t finish the sentence.

‘They preferred to do other things. Drink, womanize, make money. I couldn’t understand them then, and I understand them even less now. God knows what drives a man. I only know that I have to paint in the same way that I have to draw breath. And Frank feels just like that as well. Take away our art and you’d take away our lives. No one, and I mean no one, would have made me waste three years of my life studying English at Oxford.’

*……*……*

Billy Evans looked at Harry’s watercolour and nodded. ‘That’s very good, Harry. You certainly have talent, and you should be in Paris, not wasting your time here with me.’ He started to cough and saw Harry start nervously. ‘But you’d better keep it away from me or you won’t be allowed to carry it out of here. You haven’t told them at home what happened to me on Sunday morning?’

‘Against my better judgement, no, I haven’t.’ Harry shifted uneasily on the chair at the side of his grandfather’s bed on the balcony and moved the canvas behind Billy’s bed. ‘Dad telephoned the inn last night. Uncle Joey and Uncle Victor are coming down with him to visit you again this Saturday. They’re travelling down with Mam and Bella, who has decided to model for Toby.’

Billy’s eyes glittered feverishly and his voice was even feebler than it had been the day before. ‘Are the boys bringing Megan and Rhian?’

‘Yes, and hopefully they’ll all be allowed in to see you, but Dad’s already warned Bella that she will have to stay at the inn.’

The old man nodded. ‘Thank you. I’d hate to risk upsetting her again.’ He grimaced as he moved in the bed. ‘You making progress teaching that family to read?’

‘Yes.’ Harry saw the sister hovering in the doorway. Flouting regulations – again – he rested the canvas against the wall, blocked her view of the bed with his body and gripped his grandfather’s hand. ‘See you tomorrow morning.’

‘Good luck, Harry. You can tell me then about the progress your scholars are making. And thank you for showing me your painting and what the scenery around here is like.’

Harry glanced at the sister. ‘Take care, Granddad.’

‘I’m not planning on having another haemorrhage, if that’s what you mean.’ Billy winked at him and glared at the sister, who was now smoothing the cover on his bed. ‘You’ve done that three times already this morning, woman, haven’t you anything else to do besides fuss over me?’

‘No, Mr Evans, I haven’t.’

His voice grew marginally stronger. ‘Pity. If you did, I might get some peace.’

Harry smiled at the banter and walked to the lift. After seeing Toby’s watercolour he wondered if he should start on a second painting of the lake, or try to help David on the farm again.

He had spent all of Monday and Tuesday painting. But the day before, clouds had obscured the sun and muddied the light. Bored, he had walked up to the farm and found David in one of the outbuildings, chopping a pile of logs he had been given by a farmer who had cleared his woodland for grazing.

David had told him that Martha and Mary were out with Luke and Matthew repairing a wall in one of the fields. Harry had offered to help until they returned, and, to his amazement, David had accepted.

He’d taken off his jacket, rolled up his shirt-sleeves and chopped steadily while David had cleaned the pigsties and cowsheds. By the time the others returned, he had cut every log in the outbuilding into stove-sized pieces. He had drunk tea and eaten bread and jam with the Ellises, then given Martha and Matthew another lesson. Mary and David joined them, and although they said very little, he noticed that they took in everything he said.

He’d resolved that when he couldn’t paint he’d spend as much time as possible on the farm, deciding that if David couldn’t find him work to do, he’d ask if he’d allow him to make small repairs around the place. Any activity had to be better than sitting around thinking about his grandfather’s illness.

‘I saw that.’ Toby watched him rub an aching shoulder muscle as he left the sanatorium.

‘What?’ Harry returned his canvas to the back of his car.

‘You moving your shoulder as if you were a wooden puppet. That will teach you to chop wood.’

‘I enjoyed it.’

‘I bet.’ Toby sat beside him. ‘The good news is Frank’s reasonably well and approves – more or less, given a few improvements that need to be made – of what I’ve done so far. So I can start on another lake painting today. The background for the final scene. The wounded Arthur being rowed away by the mysterious ladies after his last battle. Frank’s already sketched the barge and ladies, so it will be just the background. I thought I’d paint the lake from the opposite side of the bank I used for the Lady of the Lake. After that, I’ll have to do some scouting for the last three illustrations.’

‘Only three more to go?’ Harry drove on to the main road.

‘Including my Morgan le Fay, which your sister will sit for. I told Frank about her and he agrees she’ll be perfect. I am going to paint her walking through a wood.’

‘I hope you didn’t tell Frank how you feel about her.’

‘Of course,’ Toby countered. ‘I’ve never kept any secrets from Frank.’

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your feelings to yourself when Bella’s around.’

‘The protective brother.’

‘Too true. She’s -’

‘Only sixteen,’ Toby finished for him. ‘I need a ruined castle, so I thought I’d take the train down to Swansea tomorrow and look at what’s left of Swansea Castle. Although my memory tells me that Oystermouth would make a better Camelot.’

‘It’s more impressive,’ Harry agreed.

‘You know it?’

‘We often holidayed there and on the Gower when I was younger. My grandfather’s sister and her husband had a farm there, and we used to rent a cottage from them at Port Eynon.’ Harry smiled at the memory. ‘We all used to go down, my uncles and their families as well as my grandfather and us. We had some great times.’

‘Your aunt isn’t there any more?’

‘Her sons were all killed in the Great War, and she and her husband died shortly afterwards. My grandfather always said they had nothing left to live for.’

Toby fell uncharacteristically serious. ‘I know what it feels like to lose the people you love the most. If it hadn’t been for Frank I wouldn’t have wanted to go on living after my parents drowned. This half-life of brief morning visits that we have now is no life really, but it’s better than none.’ He rested his elbow on the sill of the car and sank his chin in his hand. ‘I’m dreading losing him.’

‘As I am my grandfather,’ Harry said softly. ‘I can’t wait to see your finished book,’ he added in an effort to move the conversation on to a more positive level.

‘Morgan le Fay, Camelot and, for the final one, my meeting between Guinevere and Lancelot. So if you could have a word with the Snow Queen …’

‘No.’ Harry’s refusal was categorical.

‘Meanie.’

‘That’s me. You want the Snow Queen to be Guinevere, ask her yourself. Who are you going to get to model Lancelot?’

‘That’s easy.’ Toby flashed him one of his theatrical smiles. ‘As he was the handsomest man in the world, it has to be a self-portrait.’

‘You take the biscuit sometimes, Toby.’ Harry burst out laughing as he parked the car outside the farmhouse.

‘You joining me, or playing at farming today?’ Toby retrieved his artist’s materials from the back of the car.

‘Painting this morning and farming this afternoon. And I’m not playing.’ Harry opened the boot. ‘I picked up a few things from Alf. I thought I’d have a go at repairing some of the doors on the outbuildings.’

‘You what?’ Toby stared at him in amazement.

Harry showed him a tool box and an armful of planking he’d stashed in the boot. ‘I used to help my Uncle Victor around his farm in the school holidays. He taught me a bit of carpentry.’

‘You’re full of surprises, Harry. You’ll be telling me that you can kill pigs and milk cows next.’

‘I can milk a cow but I’ve never volunteered to kill a pig.’

‘When I’ve finished Le Morte d’Arthur I’ll paint you leaning against a gate, gazing lovingly at a bull and chewing a straw. I’ll enter it in the Academy, and call it Harry as Farmer Giles.’ Toby perched his boater on his head and set off down the hill, whistling.

‘Oi,’ Harry shouted after him. ‘Why am I always the one who carries the lunch basket?’

If Toby heard him, he ignored him. Harry took out the hamper, slammed the boot shut and followed him.

Late that afternoon, Mary left the house carrying two cups of tea. She offered one to Harry. He rose to his feet, rubbed the small of his back and took it from her.

‘It’s good of you to fix that door, Mr Evans. We used to keep the chickens in that building until the bottom half rotted away and the foxes got in.’

‘I enjoy small jobs like this one, and the door only needed patching; the top half is still sound.’ Harry sat on a mounting block next to her.

‘It’s a pity David is out haymaking. You could have shown him how to do the job properly. As you probably guessed,’ she looked ruefully at the roughly patched doors and windows in the yard, ‘he tried his hand at carpentry but because we never had any money for wood or nails, he had to use whatever he could scrounge around here.’

‘He did well, considering. And I haven’t bought anything,’ he assured her. ‘I’m only using the off-cuts from Alf Edwards’s furniture-making that he had earmarked for firewood.’

‘You’re sure you haven’t paid out any money?’ She glanced at him, saw him looking intently at her and lowered her gaze.

‘I’m sure.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie. Harry had told Alf to put everything he had taken from his workshop on to his bill at the inn. ‘Mr Ross is going into Swansea tomorrow, but I will be up to take your produce to market after I have visited my grandfather in the morning. Will you come into Pontardawe with David and me?’

‘No, someone has to stay at the farm.’

‘You don’t leave here very often.’

‘Only for chapel since Mam and Dad died,’ she admitted.

‘If David would take care of the farm, you could come to Bristol when I take Matthew and Martha to the zoo.’ He sensed her hesitating and added, ‘I need someone sensible to help me take care of them.’

‘I know you are trying to be kind, Mr Evans, but it wouldn’t do for you to get too friendly with us.’

‘Why ever not?’ he asked, looking into her eyes.

‘Because you will visit us only as long as it suits you while your grandfather remains in Craig-y-Nos. Someday you’ll leave here for good, and Martha and Matthew already like you –’

‘And I like them,’ he interrupted.

‘But you are from a different world, and when you go back there Martha and Matthew will miss you. Living here as we do, we don’t meet many people, so the people we do know tend to be far more important to us than we are to them. I don’t want Martha and Matthew to be disappointed.’

‘I promise you, they won’t be. And even after I move away I will continue to visit them.’

‘You say that now while you are here, and I have no doubt that you mean it – now. But when you go back to your family and your home you will forget about us.’

‘Mary, how can you think so little of people?’ he asked.

‘I may not have left the farm very often in the last two years, Mr Evans, but I did go to Swansea and down the valley before then. I’ve seen the houses people like you own, and the way you live.’ She finally met his steady gaze. ‘You may not mean to, but you will forget about us, Mr Evans.’

‘I won’t, Mary.’

‘Yes, you will.’

Not wanting to get caught up in a pantomime argument, he asked, ‘What do you mean, “people like me”?’

‘People who dress in Sunday clothes every day of the week, go shopping with no thought as to how much they spend, have servants to clean up after them and drive cars. You’re rich, we’re poor, and Dad always used to say that rich and poor are different breeds. Trying to mix them would be like trying to keep fighting dogs and preening cockerels in the same pen.’

‘Mary, you’re a person, I’m a person. You want your brothers and sisters to be happy, which is exactly what I want mine to be. You work to that end and …’ He recalled just how little work, other than the academic type, he had done in his life and fell silent.

‘You’re educated, Mr Evans. You know all there is to know about books and learning. All I know about is skivvying.’

‘That’s for now, Mary. You have to believe that better times are around the corner for you and your family,’ he persisted optimistically.

‘I saw my mam and dad working harder than anyone should have to, and all the while they waited, hoped and prayed for better times, Mr Evans. But no matter how they fought to improve themselves and this place,’ she looked around the farmyard, ‘things only became worse.’

‘That’s not to say the same will happen to you.’

‘It already has, Mr Evans.’

‘You still have the farm and one another.’

‘For the moment.’ She rose to her feet. ‘The milk churns need scouring.’ She held out her hand for his teacup. He gave it to her. She turned her back on him and walked into the farmhouse.