I WENT DOWN THE HILL with Ianto next morning before eight o’clock to start school again with Mrs. Tom Jenkins. A big morning it was for me. More than two years had gone by since I was last in the little front room, but nothing had changed, not even the curtains, though they had been washed, of course.
Eunice and Eiluned had grown nearly big enough to wear their mother’s dresses without cutting, but they still went about the house in bare feet to save their shoes and stockings for going out. The blackboard was still cracked across at the top, and with all the lessons chalked on and rubbed off into the minds of the boys and girls since, greyer still than I remembered it, so that the alphabet, which Mrs. Tom always wrote at night for us to copy first thing in the morning, was barely to be seen.
Even the smell was the same, of frying bacon, baking bread, sage in a bunch, the herbs she burnt for Mr. Tom Jenkins’ comfort, and chalk, old books, airing washing and mice. It was not the smell of our house, and I was always a stranger to it for it reminded me of the purple head of Mr. Tom Jenkins and his noises.
When Mrs. Tom came in we had prayers, and then a prayer for sending me back to school nothing worse except for thin legs, and then we sang “Let my life be all thanksgiving.”
But when we started lessons I had a shock, for there was nothing Mrs. Tom could teach me. All the days I had been in bed I had either read books or listened to Bron or my father and brothers, and hour after hour I had talked with Mr. Gruffydd.
Mrs. Tom tried me with the names of the kings, starting from Canute, but I could go back hundreds of years and tell her of British kings who ruled before Rome became nasty with us. Oceans, seas, continents, islands, countries, rivers, towns, and industries, I knew all of them she asked me, and at last she put down the pointer.
“I had better see your father, Huw,” she said. “You are wasting time coming here. Only your sums want a bit of help from me, and I can give you that every night after tea. Go to your dinner now, and stay home.”
So back we all went up the Hill, and the boys and girls looking at me as though I knew everything.
Ianto was in the house when I got there and looking very straight. Owen was in the back doing a bit of filing and putting my mother’s teeth in brine, and Angharad was peeling apples in the wash-house. When I got a wink from her I knew there was trouble to come, so I went in with Owen.
“O,” he said. “You, is it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you want help?”
“Give this bolt head a scrape,” he said. “Can you?”
“Give me the file,” I said.
While I filed, Owen was fitting together a lot of parts all new and shining and looking beautiful indeed, when they were fast and whole.
“What is this, Owen?” I asked him.
“An engine,” he said, “to drive people instead of a horse and trap. But say nothing.”
“No, no,” I said. “Why is Ianto looking at the wall in by there?”
“To rest his eyes from the faces of fools,” Owen said. “Why are you home so early?”
Then I told him what Mrs. Tom Jenkins had said, and he laughed.
“Right, you,” he said. “You shall go to a proper school. It is time, too. No man ever learnt anything from a woman.”
“Mrs. Tom has taught me a lot,” I said.
“She passed information to you,” Owen said. “Figures and names and facts. You have learnt nothing very much. But you have a splendid memory. It will help you when you start to learn.”
When my mother called us in the house for dinner, I told her about Mrs. Tom. She was so surprised that she stopped with her spoon in the sprouts and a leaf sticking to the thumb on the plate.
“Eh,” she said, with round eyes. “Another worry, now then. School for Huw. Where, then?”
“Technical school,” said Davy.
“Boarding school,” Owen said.
“All he will learn in that kind of place,” Davy said, “is how to look down on his father and mother.”
“His Dada shall say,” my mother said. “Perhaps Mr. Gruffydd will say a word about it, too.”
“Perhaps,” Davy said, “this family will do something without the help of Mr. Gruffydd. Not yet, mind. But one day in the future.”
“Eat your plateful,” my mother said, pointing her fork at Davy. “If we have a friend, Mr. Gruffydd is his name. Not a word about him in this house from anybody.”
“He is a good man,” Ianto said, “but I wish he was out of the Chapel.”
“Did you get a slicing this morning, then?” Davy asked him.
“No,” Ianto said. “But I found out how much I have to learn.”
“About what?” asked Owen.
“Men,” said Ianto, “and the way we live, and treat each other.”
“O,” said Davy, “that should be interesting. What are Mr. Gruffydd’s views?”
“The Sermon on the Mount,” said Ianto. “Brought up to date, and given out with a fist on the end of each arm, and a good voice.”
“When is he starting?” asked Davy. “I will be there to hear him.”
“He started on me at eight o’clock this morning,” Ianto said, “and there will be a meeting again on Saturday afternoon.”
“Did he have you on the floor?” Davy said, and laughing, though not unkindly.
“Yes,” said Ianto. “We disagreed on nothing, except method. I said to start now. He said to wait. The time is not yet.”
“I have heard those words before, at any rate,” Owen said. “When will it be time? Shall we know? Will it be given for a sign? Did you ask him?”
“No,” said Ianto. “I listened. I have a good mind to join the Chapel.”
“But, Ianto,” my mother said, while we all looked at him, “you are in the Chapel now, boy. Since you were born.”
“I mean as a minister, Mama,” Ianto said, and put down his knife and fork, and excused himself, and left the house.
“Dear God,” my mother whispered, with his boots still on the cobbles. “There is beautiful.”
“It would be more beautiful if there were sense and purpose in what he wanted to do,” Davy said, and put his knife and fork together, though his dinner was steaming.
“There is plenty to be done outside the pulpit,” Owen said, and stopped eating, too.
“If Ianto thinks he can do more from the pulpit,” my mother said, “he shall try, and I will help. We can do with a few more like Mr. Gruffydd.”
“Mr. Gruyffdd. Mr. Gruffydd. Mr. Gruffydd,” Davy said, and pushed back his chair to stand. “I am tired of his name. There are men in the Valley without food in their bellies or boots to their feet. There are children without houses and mothers without hope. What has Mr. Gruffydd to give them? The Sermon on the Mount? God’s holy will?”
“For shame, David Morgan,” my mother said. “Mr. Gruffydd has collected more for them than a dozen of you. Not another word, now. If you have left the table, go from here.”
“I am sorry to leave your pudding, Mama,” Owen said, and followed Davy out.
“I suppose I am to look to you for a few words, now?” my mother said to me.
“I will say them after I have had my dinner, Mama,” I said.
“O?” said my mother. “Well, let me warn you. One word from you and you shall have a good couple round the ears. Now then.”
“Mama,” Angharad said, “Mrs. Beynon is having her baby in the old shed down by the ironworks.”
“Which baby?” my mother asked.
“The new one she was going to have before they put her from the house,” Angharad said, and put gravy over her potatoes.
“Eh,” my mother said. “How do you know?”
“Tegwen told me now just,” said Angharad eating fast. “I gave her a sheet for tearing and the two old red blankets.”
My mother put down her knife and fork and looked at Angharad with her eyes in slits and her lips together and puffed up.
“Do you mean to sit there,” she said, very slowly, “with that sheet in pieces and two good blankets gone from the house, without a word from me?”
“They had nothing, Mama,” Angharad said, and no sign of fear. “The landlord’s men put her from the house with nothing. Not a stick or stitch. And the new baby is coming to-day. Only straw she has to lie on. And the seven other children.”
“Hisht, now,” my mother said, “I know how many. I will see to it. But no more sheets and blankets behind my back. I am mistress in this house.”
“Yes, Mama,” Angharad said, and we had a wink together.
“I suppose,” my mother said, as though her mind were over the mountain, “nothing else went with the sheets and blankets? It would be too much to expect of Miss Angharad Morgan, of course?”
“Well, Mama,” Angharad said, and so pretty your mouth would run, “there were some old pots and pans out in the back.”
“Go on,” Mama said. “Pots and pans.”
“And some of the boys’ old clothes,” Angharad counted on her fingers, “and some of Dada’s.”
“And some of mine,” said Mama, in a voice you could barely hear.
“Yes, Mama,” said Angharad, “and some of mine. And my cloak.”
“Your best cloak, of course,” said Mama, in the same voice, and cold in the face.
“Yes, Mama,” said Angharad. “I only wear it on Sundays and winter has gone. And they are cold down there with only old straw under them and holes in the roof.”
“Just put your eyes round the house,” said Mama, in her ordinary voice, “because I am sorry to say there are a few things of ours Mrs. Beynon has missed. But perhaps if we have a cart up here we can put it right. Is it?”
“O, Mama,” Angharad said, and her eyes that were so big were bigger now with tears, “poor Tegwen Beynon only had on a dress. Nothing else. And no breakfast this morning. And her poor face so white with her.”
“Angharad, my little one,” my mother said, and went to put her arms about her, for she had pushed away her dinner and her face was flat upon the table. “Hisht, now. I was angry because I was not asked. Ask in future. Is it?”
“Yes, Mama,” Angharad said, and reached out for my handkerchief. “What shall we do for the new baby?”
“Go you and ask Bron for some of little Gareth’s baby clothes,” my mother said. “I will have a basket of food now in a minute. Huw, go you up and down the Hill with a basket and ask for anything to eat they can spare.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
Well, if you could have seen the collection.
The clothes would have covered a shift in the pit. The food was enough for the village. And by the time the furniture was all together, two houses would not have held it.
Well, there it was, and no lack of hands to take it down to the old shed at the ironworks, either.
I went down there first with the first basket of food, and indeed it was a poor place.
Mrs. Beynon was lying on one of our old red blankets and another one hanging over her to keep out the water coming in from the roof. Evan Beynon had broken a plank to make a fire, and an old bucket was heating water. Rusty iron wheels, and broken rods of iron were red among the growing grass and dandelions. Puddles were plenty and a rill ran right through to the river. Cold and damp, too.
The three youngest children were sleeping by Mrs. Beynon’s feet, and two more little ones were playing shop with stones at the window. Tegwen and her smaller brother were putting straw in sacks to make beds for the night.
“Hulloa, Teg,” I said, and stopped by the door, though there was no door.
“Hulloa, Huw,” she said, and looked shame. “Putting straw in sacks, we are. The straw do go from under you if you turn in your sleep,” she said, trying to make fun.
“Yes, yes,” I said, as though I slept on straw every night of my life. “Here is a pie in by here.”
“Good,” she said. “Mama will be glad of the taste.”
“And tea,” I said.
“Tea?” said Tegwen. “O, God. Let me have it in the kettle, quick.”
“How is Mrs. Beynon?” I asked her, for as far as I could see, she was in pain with her, and mumbling, with froth on her mouth, and red in the face, with sweat binding her hair.
“Mrs. Price will be down now just,” Tegwen said, and blowing the fire. “Then she will be better.”
“What has Mrs. Price got to do with it?” I asked her.
“Then the new baby will come, boy,” Tegwen said, laughing. “That is why Angharad gave me the sheet.”
“Does Mrs. Price bring the baby, then?” I asked her, and surprised I was, see.
Tegwen sat down laughing out loud, and then put a hand over her mouth and looked at her mother.
“There is dull you are, boy,” she whispered, with lights in her eyes. “The new baby is with Mama, see. But Mrs. Price do know how to have it from her. Bring cups, quick.”
The only cups I could find I would not have drunk from, but Mrs. Beynon drank and drank though with no sign she knew where she was, or what it was she was drinking.
“Where is the new baby, then?” I asked Tegwen, for I could see no signs.
“Are you going to sit fat by there and say you know nothing about new babies?” Tegwen asked me, and looking as though she thought I was a fool.
“No,” I said, “we have had new babies at our house and Bron’s, but I thought Dr. Richards brought them in his bag.”
“Who told you?” Tegwen asked.
“My mother and Bron,” I said.
“Lies,” Tegwen said.
“How do you know?” I said. “You are only twelve, so you can still do with a lesson or two.”
“Lies,” Tegwen said. “Wait, you, and you shall see.”
“How, then?” I said.
“When Mrs. Price comes, she will send us from here,” Tegwen said, “so we will go round the back and look through that hole up by there.”
I looked up where she was pointing and saw a piece of wood hanging down from rot. There was darkness at the back.
“Right, you,” I said.
Then everybody started to come in with the collections, and all the women were saying O and Eh and clicking their tongues, and taking off their coats to tidy the place, and chop grass, and move iron. Then the men started coming in and knotting ropes to put up canvas over the bad places, and boards over the open window and doorways. Indeed, in a couple of minutes it looked so good I could have lived in there myself.
Mr. Beynon came in and looked for a moment and went outside to cry, and then Mrs. Price came in with a bundle and an elegant bag with patterns on it, made from carpet.
“Now then,” she said, with her foot barely inside the door. “Let us be having a couple of you outside, please. All the children, this minute, for a start.”
“Come you,” Tegwen whispered to me, and off we went, out in the yard, up the steps of the works and inside where the bats were thick in the roof, and flying like angry whispers.
We went close to the hole and looked in.
Mrs. Price had put the smallest children in the bedstead at the side, and the other woman with her was pulling their clothes off. Mrs. Beynon was crying, not quietly, but out loud, like a boy who had fallen and hurt his knee. She was kicking at the clothes and her face was swollen, with veins.
“Poor Mama,” Tegwen said, below a breath, “she always has this for a new baby.”
It was in my mind to ask why, but it was no business of mine. There was something ugly and cruel in it that I could feel but not describe. Mrs. Beynon was a big, fat woman, always very cheerful, but to see her like that was like being in a dream. I found myself getting hot and having trouble to breathe.
There was a strange smell coming up to us, too. I have often smelt it about the house where a baby has just come. It is a deep smell, an early smell, with the secrets of blood and milk in it, with tenderness and terror.
Mrs. Price went to the fire and brought back the bucket to the bedside. Mrs. Penry had finished the children and had come to stand at Mrs. Beynon’s head. Mrs. Price pulled off the blankets as Mrs. Beynon started to scream, and Mrs. Penry was guiding her hands to the wooden rail above the head of the bed. The children awoke and began crying, but nobody took notice of them. Mrs. Beynon’s legs were like white stalks, and they made little kicks, and her toes curled in, and her heels dug in the bed. Her mouth was open with shouting and her eyes wide, and wild, and terrible to see upside down as she was to me. Mrs. Price and Mrs. Penry were doing something to her, but what I was not sure, for I could see only their backs beneath there, and the bats were all round us, pulled from sleep by the crying and wailing and sobbing and shrieks, and flying at us as though we were something to do with it.
“There,” Tegwen said, in my ear, pulling my arm to be closer to the hole. “There you are, see. The new baby.”
But I looked only enough to see a redness in the deepening light, and stained cloths in Mrs. Price’s wringing hands above the bucket and Mrs. Beynon’s toes set at peace. And I turned away in shame and sickness for I felt I had been where only fools do tread.
“Let me go from here,” I said.
“Wait, you,” Tegwen said. “There is plenty more to be seen.”
“I am going from here this minute,” I said, and went on hands and knees to the doorway.
“Do you believe now?” Tegwen said, with laugh in her voice.
“Yes,” I said, sick, and looking down the dark steps.
“Tell nobody, mind,” Tegwen said. “Else there will be trouble, sure.”
“Well, good-bye, now,” I said, and went through the yard smart as I could. Savage glad I was to be in the air and feel it freezing me. I felt I deserved more than freezing. I felt I should throw myself over a pit mouth or go under the wheels of a hay wain or get tangled up in the cables of the big winding wheel, so low I did feel.
But instead I went inside Bron’s, and sat down in the usual chair. Bron was ironing, and sprinkling water on the stiff white clothes, and spitting on the iron and hitting the table hard to rub a clean shine into the plain parts, and smooth frills in the embroideries.
“Well,” she said, “and how is the old man to-night?”
“I have just seen a new baby come to Mrs. Beynon,” I said.
Bronwen went on ironing as though she had heard nothing, but her face was flushed, and her eyes were wrinkling as though the heat of the iron was too much.
“How did that happen?” she asked, but quietly and still looking at the washing.
“I was looking through a plank,” I said.
“And now you are satisfied?” Bronwen said, and looked up at me.
“Is it true, Bron?” I asked her, and hoping she would say no.
“If you saw what you saw,” Bronwen said, “then it must be true.”
“Will I get in trouble for knowing it?” I asked her.
“The only trouble you will have is thinking about it and having it on your conscience,” Bronwen said. “People who go where they are not wanted will always have trouble. So will those who poke their noses.”
“Are you angry with me, Bron?” I asked her.
“Not angry,” Bron said. “Only surprised. I thought you were growing up to be a gentleman. But gentlemen never poke their noses. And if they do by accident, they keep it to themselves.”
“I wish I had shut my mouth, now,” I said. “But I had to say something to somebody. There is terrible it is, Bron.”
“Hisht, now,” she said. “Have to eat. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Right, you,” she said. “Lay the table. I am just going to Mama’s for my meat dish.”
But I knew she had gone to our house to tell my mother.
There is a funny feeling you will have in you when you know trouble is being made and waiting for you, in a little time to come. It is as though you had an open window below there, and all the fears putting their hands in carelessly, not to hurt, but to make discomfort.
“Mama wants to see you,” Bronwen said, when she came back, and without the meat dish.
“You told on me,” I said.
“Yes,” Bronwen said, “your Mama should know. You came to me but you should have gone to her, first.”
“I never thought you would have me in trouble, Bron,” I said. “I would never tell on you.”
“Go on with you, boy,” Bronwen said, half a smile and half a frown. “Nobody has told on you. There is too much weight on that brain of yours and there is nothing I can do to lighten it. Your mother is the one. Have something, and then go home, is it?”
“No,” I said. “If there is to be trouble, let me have it now.”
So out I went without saying good night, and walked straight in our house and found my mother by herself in the kitchen, darning socks.
“Well,” she said, busy, careful to pull a thread.
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
The light was in her grey eyes when she looked up at me above the shining needle. There was nothing there to frighten me, yet I was trembling. Nothing to be heard in the house but the clock, and sometimes the resting fire.
“I hear you have been somewhere,” my mother said.
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
“And you saw something,” my mother said.
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
“Why?” my mother asked, with ice.
There are some questions that cannot be answered at all, so I looked at her slippers, and hours went by me.
“Do you feel well?” my mother asked me, with a little tremble in her voice that made me feel worse.
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
“Dada will have to speak to you,” my mother said. “Go to bed, now.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said, and she held her cheek for me to kiss, and I went to my bed in the back room, thankful to be in the cold darkness. I cannot tell how long I had been asleep when I woke up and found my father looking down at me with the lamp.
“I am sorry I woke you, my son,” he said. “I hear you had a bit of trouble to-night?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said. “Will I take off my shirt?”
“Stay where you are, boy,” my father said, with a smile well on the way. “Not strapping you, I am. Only talking. Are you awake and clear?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“Right, then,” my father said. “Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women.”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“And another thing let it do,” my father said. “There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is no room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw to-day, so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“God bless you, my son,” he said. “Sleep in peace.”
I did, indeed.