A Small Country (14 page)

ELEVEN

The hay had been safely gathered in, and in record time, and the work of Hendre Ddu continued at a more leisurely pace.

In the second week of July the annual picnic was held in Garth Isa, the elm-fringed meadow by the river, but it was Catrin and Miss Rees who presided over the lavish tea for the workmen and their wives and children, Mrs Evans still being too weak to venture from the house.

Tom had hoped that Edward would be back for the picnic; the previous summer his presence had made it enjoyable for the first time for several years. But the letter he had sent reminding him of the date had remained unanswered; Tom had heard nothing from him since his hurried return to London almost a month earlier. Tom had had to organize the children’s races instead of his father, take part in the tug-of-war and give the impression that he was enjoying himself. Life and picnics had to go on.

‘If only I could see an improvement in Mrs Evans,’ Miss Rees said, several times every day to anyone who would listen, ‘I wouldn’t worry about anything else.
’

Tom envied the old woman her whole-hearted loyalty. He seemed to have many worries, large and small.

One of the things on his mind was the debts he had managed to run up over the last academic year, not enormous ones, but large enough to cause him anxiety. The previous summer he had been able to settle his, admittedly smaller, debts from the money his father had given him for his holiday. ‘How much will you be wanting?’ his father had asked, and though his eyes had widened when Tom had named a sum sufficient to clear his debts as well as cover the week in London, he had handed it over without a word.

‘You see, I owe a bit, here and there,’ Tom had explained. ‘Well, you have to stand your friends a lunch now and then, don’t you? You can’t stop them dropping in to your rooms for drinks, can you?’

He knew he couldn’t begin to explain his debts to his mother. She thought his allowance very generous and would be hurt, even horrified, to know that he had over-spent it and without asking her permission.

A hundred, a hundred and fifty, was nothing, he told himself, compared to what several of his friends owed to various tradesmen. He was already twenty-one, and since he was going to remain home to run the farm he would be able to insist on a decent allowance and would be able to get everything sorted out before too long.

But whenever he managed to console himself, he remembered his father’s letter; how he had seemed so concerned about a twenty pounds he had taken from the bank before leaving home, his promise to repay it before Michaelmas.

Before he could approach his mother for money for himself, he knew that he must tackle the matter of his father’s loan; he couldn’t bear to think that he might he harassed by such a trivial sum. What did they know of the stresses and strains of his new life?

By the Sunday evening following the picnic he had become so worried and depressed that he knew he had to talk to his mother. She had had a relatively good day, had been to morning service for the first time for weeks and had got up again after her afternoon rest.

He went for a walk by the river after tea, rehearsing what he was going to say; he had never before interfered with anything which wasn’t, strictly speaking, his concern. When he got back, he found her alone in the drawing-room reading her Bible.

The drawing-room was an ugly, over-furnished room, not much used. There were dark oil paintings of his grandfather and great-grandfather and other members of the Morgan family all around on the dark, maroon and brown wallpaper, and old sepia photographs in heavily decorated frames on every available surface. Most rooms in the farmhouse had retained a Georgian simplicity, but the drawing-room was Victorian; plush and velvet and mahogany. Only Christmas ever managed to lighten its gloom; in high summer it seemed particularly depressing.

Tom sat at the window so that he could look out at the trees and the sky, and waited for a sign that his mother was ready to talk to him. She went on reading her Bible as though unaware of his presence. It was only his determination to get at least one matter off his chest that kept him seated; he felt more uncomfortable by the minute.

‘Tom,’ she said at last, closing her Bible and taking off her glasses.

‘I’ve been thinking about that letter Father sent,’ Tom said, speaking hurriedly and rather too loudly in his embarrassment. ‘He said he’d taken some money from the bank and intended paying it back as soon as he could.’

He faltered as she turned her large, down-drooping eyes on him. She seems to have cried away all the colour from her eyes, he thought, sadly; they used to be such a pretty blue.

‘Have you given it any thought?’ he continued lamely.

‘How can I think about money at a time like this? Haven’t I got enough on my mind?’

‘Of course you have. Might it be better if I wrote to him – I’ve got his address – and told him he needn’t pay it back? Tell him you said so.’

‘Why? Is he in trouble?’

‘I don’t think so. Not as far as I know. But poor enough, I should think. Twenty pounds would make a lot of difference to him, I should think.’

Mrs Evans closed her eyes. Her hands were resting on the Family Bible which was on the circular table in front of her. Tom wondered if she was praying, asking for guidance. He felt near it himself.

‘I can’t let you do that,’ she said at last. ‘How can I, Tom? I would be condoning his sin if I provided money for him. I’m trying to keep my feelings out of the situation, imagining him a man married to a woman I don’t even know. However desperate his plight, I couldn’t condone his breaking his marriage vows.’

‘You can’t keep yourself out of it,’ Tom said. ‘How can you? No one can be objective about something so close to them. But I can’t see that letting him keep that paltry sum of money is condoning anything. And legally I’m not even certain that he isn’t entitled to keep it.’

His mother spun round to face him. ‘Of course he’s legally entitled to keep it,’ she said angrily. ‘I’m not interested in the legal position, you should know that. He drew whatever he wanted from my bank account and no questions asked, the money was as much his as mine, it was he that managed it, you know that very well. But he knows that he is not morally entitled to take money to ... to ... well, for sinful purposes, and if he hasn’t lost all his moral values he will pay it back, and it’s right that he should. It’s a matter of conscience. Don’t you understand?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Tom spoke wearily, his sympathy for his mother worn very thin.

Suddenly, though, her tone changed completely.

‘Tom, write to your father, you say you have his address, and ask him to come back. Tell him that if he comes home, I will provide generously, most generously, for the child. He can’t think I would deny an innocent child. Oh Tom, if he understood that, and understood how I feel towards him, he would come home, I’m sure of it. I think he will come home, Tom, and so does Nano.’

Tom came over from the window, knelt by his mother and stroked her knees. He couldn’t bear to look at her. He knew she was crying. And he couldn’t bear to see her in tears, her face red and shapeless. He stayed where he was, his head on her knees, till she seemed to grow calmer.

‘I’ll try to be a good son to you,’ he said. He felt uncomfortable at having to say such trite words. His being a good son was as inevitable as his being a good farmer, but he knew that she appreciated the expression of even the most obvious truths.

‘I know you will.’ She seemed relatively composed. But as he tried to rise from his knees, she suddenly grasped him about the shoulders again in a grip which hurt. ‘Oh Tom, I want him back. I want you to get him back. I suppose you think I should have some pride, but I haven’t any, Tom, none at all.’

He had to use some force to get away from her. She thought it was his sympathy for her which made him rush out of the room, and indeed he did feel a tearing, humiliating pity. But his strongest feeling was anger. He was angry with both his parents.

He went up to his bedroom at the back of the house, shut the door and leaned against it. He could hear the cows lowing gently as they were turned out of the milking-sheds. After a few moments he went over to the window and raised it as high as it would go. He could hear Davy shouting as the cows loitered under the low branches of the elder trees in the lane that led to Cae Gwyn. He could smell the heavy sweetness of the elder flower. There was thunder in the air.

‘Confound everything,’ he said. He was amazed at the whirlwind of anger and self-pity in his head; he always thought of himself as calm and reasonable. He remained staring out of the window until the sky darkened and the first rain came.

‘Could you let me have twenty pounds?’ he asked Miss Rees the next morning. He had convinced himself that it was of the utmost importance to let his father have the money he owed his mother as soon as possible.

‘I could,’ Miss Rees said, ‘but I know that if it was money you ought to have, you’d ask your mother for it, so I won’t.’

‘You’re a hard woman, Nano. I’ll have to go to a money-lender, and he’ll probably ruin me.’

‘Have your breakfast first.’

She thought he was teasing her, and in a way he was. He hadn’t expected money from Miss Rees, would probably not have accepted it had it been offered. He wanted her sympathy, he supposed; wanted to interest her in his financial problems. But she wasn’t having any of it. She sailed across the room with his bacon and eggs, quite above money matters.

‘You’re the only one in the world I love, Nano,’ he said, seizing her large, rough hands in his.

‘I don’t want any of that nonsense, Mr Tom,’ she said severely, pulling away from him. ‘For shame. A grown man.’

Catrin came in to the morning-room and Miss Rees left her to pour out Tom’s second cup of tea.

‘What a storm last night,’ Catrin said. ‘Did you sleep? I was up with Mother. She’s terrified of thunder. We were awake half the night. She’s asleep now, though, I think.’

Tom stared at Catrin. ‘You’re very patient with her,’ he said. ‘You’re much better to her than I am.’

Catrin drank a cup of tea and stared back at Tom as though not recognising him.

I fell in love with Edward because he was there, she told herself. Because I needed to be in love, not because it was fated or because he was anyone special. I wanted to feel. I wanted to suffer. I was in waiting. I needed him. As the earth needs rain, I needed him so that my awakened senses could root and leaf. I love him. I love him.

‘Do you want marmalade?’ she asked Tom. ‘Or gooseberry jam? Lowri made this from the first little berries. The young fruit sets without needing too much sugar. Isn’t the colour lovely? Goosegog green. Like little frogs.’

She held the glass dish up to the window.

‘It’s too sour for me,’ Tom said. ‘I tried some yesterday.’

‘Lowri got a prize for it in the Henblas Fruit and Vegetable Show. One pound of gooseberry preserve. I’ll tell Nano you don’t like it. She
will
be pleased.’

She got up, fetched a tray and started to load it.

‘I don’t understand you,’ Tom said as she was leaving the room. ‘You seem light-headed.’

‘Isn’t it the limit, though,’ he said to Miss Rees later on. ‘She’s nagged about going to Art School ever since she left school and the moment Mother and I agree to her going she seems to have got cold feet.’

‘Better to change her mind now than go all the way to London and change afterwards. It’s seeing a bit of sense she is, if you ask me.’

‘Is it because Mother isn’t very well?’

‘It may be that, it may not.’

Miss Rees was the only one who had guessed about Edward Turncliffe’s part in Catrin’s change of heart.

‘Isn’t Mr Turncliffe supposed to be coming back for the harvest? Has he said when he’s coming?’

‘No, he hasn’t given a definite date. Why?’

‘He’s a pleasant young man, Mr Turncliffe. Is he rich, say?’

I don’t think so. Not Lady Harris rich.’

‘Does a lawyer get more money than a doctor?’

‘You can’t generalize. Are you match-making, Nano, by any chance? Because if you are, I think you ought to know...’

But as Tom was about to tell Nano about Rose Fletcher, Edward’s fiancée, Catrin came back, a little breathlessly, to ask whether the postman had been.

‘Yes, he’s been,’ Nano said. ‘Nothing for you, though. Nor for Mr Tom either. Nothing but a parcel of linen for Mrs Evans.’

Catrin went out again without another word.

‘What’s the matter with her?’ Tom asked. ‘Has she got a sweetheart? Or is she expecting a letter from Father?’

‘Why don’t you ask her, Mr Tom? Why don’t you
talk
to her? She’s worried about something, that I do know, she’s eating almost as little as Mrs Evans; we could keep both of them on a preacher’s salary. Why don’t you take the two of them to Tenby for a few days, now that the hay is in? Miss Owen, Bodlondeb, would be so pleased to see you again. And wasn’t there a bit of courting going on there last year? Not that old Nano expects to know anything except from hearsay and guessing.’

‘There was nothing, Nano, nothing at all. If there was, you’d be the first to hear of it, I promise you. Yes, all right, there was a young lady staying at Bodlondeb last year, a Miss Bevan-Walters who was the daughter of some big coal owner and so of a certain interest to my mother. She wasn’t ugly or crippled apart from that I remember nothing about her very clearly except for the extraordinary way she ate grapes; she made a little tunnel of her hand and shot the pips out through it on to her plate. Very fancy.’