Doctor Roberts sighed, stepping into the cabin. ‘If you persist, I must tell you, before you ask, the child didn’t suffer—’
‘Arglwydd mawr!’
Rhys bent, retching onto the deck. A girl, the child was a girl, perfect, apart from the back of her head, which was open at the back—a ruddy gore of tissue bulging out.
The room whirled. Rhys retched again.
A curse? From Siân’s birth. Why else would his child be so horribly malformed? No! This was his fault, all of it. He’d kept Siân away from the hospital, allowed her to fall, and now … He’d killed their tiny, perfect baby daughter.
Doctor Roberts coughed, his manicured hands reaching down for the baby.
‘No! Leave her. She’s mine.’
‘Come now. You can see for yourself the child is dead.’
‘I said leave her! I’ll wrap her myself.’
Rhys stooped, picked up the baby and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. He spread the sheet out on the bed. Placed his daughter at the centre, rewound the swaddling and placed her alongside Siân.
‘Right. I will step outside while you say goodbye to your wife. Call me once you’re finished. I’ll take over from there.’
‘I’d not leave a dog in your care, Doctor Wilson.’
‘I’d watch my step if I were you, Welshman.’
‘No need. You’ve taken all that I value.’
‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re implying. The girl started to bleed long before you brought her to my attention. A fall, the Bowles girl tells me, though for some reason you didn’t seek medical assistance. No prizes for guessing why, are there, Welshman?’
Rhys didn’t know how long he sat there, listening to Siân’s slow rattling breath. The bells resumed their half-hourly toll, but he didn’t keep track. Once, twice he heard laughter, plates clanking on the table. Mostly he sat numb, silent, with nothing but the slow spat of Siân’s blood to mark time’s passing. He heard the latch lift, Alf’s hesitant tread behind him.
‘Rhys, lad. Do you want someone to sit with you?’
Rhys shook his head, tears blurring his vision.
‘I’ll be outside if you need me.’
Some time later, Pam popped her head around the door. She had Siân’s stone in her hand.
‘I thought this might help. Tom didn’t want me to bother you, but I couldn’t sit there doing nothing. Here.’ She thrust the stone at him. ‘It’ll give her strength.’
Rhys nodded as Pam backed out of the cabin. He weighed the stone in his palm, considered dashing it against the cabin wall. No, that would only bring people running. He’d send it to the bottom of the sea later. But not with Siân. She would not be meeting her maker with the evidence of a curse in her hand.
Crist! He’d have to watch her sink to the bottom of the sea, the ship moving, ever moving, even as her body hit the waves. She’d lie alone, unmarked, fish would nibble her face.
‘Siân, can you hear me? I should have stood up to Tad. Not made you emigrate. Duw, the cost. I’d no idea of the cost. Can you hear me?’ He choked on a sob. ‘We’ll go back home, Siân. I’ll find a way to make it happen. Save every penny.’ He grasped her hands, rubbed, chafed. ‘Please, my lovely girl. Stay with me.’
Rhys heard the ship’s bells chime; another round of mess duties. How could that be? How could the commonplace still be happening? Here, now, when his lovely Siân was leaving him? Never again to press her cheek to his, or whisper love words in his ear. No more songs, or laughter. Her silvery voice gone. Forever. Silent.
He kissed her lips, her face, the soft pale place where her hair met the nape of her neck. Her eyelids fluttered. He waited, hardly daring to breathe. Then, like a butterfly’s wings, they opened. She was there in the room with him.
‘Rhys.’
‘I’m here, cariad. Don’t try to speak. I know you’re hurting, all that time in the storm and me too selfish to realise. But I’m here now, holding your hand. Can you feel it, Siân? I’m holding you tight.’
He heard the sloughing of her breath. Saw tight lines of pain about her mouth. Felt a shudder work its way through her body. Her breath caught. Held. Her eyes widened, fixed on something beyond him. Then she was gone—her warmth, her love, her laughter, all gone from him.
Rhys laid his head on her chest and wept.
Chapter 30
I’ll not have her buried in English!’
Alf pushed open the hospital door, saw Rhys’s swaying body blocking Doctor Roberts’ path.
‘You don’t have a choice. Reverend Cummings doesn’t speak your tongue.’
‘I’ll bury her then, read the service myself.’
‘That is clearly ridiculous.’
Rhys trembled, though with fatigue or fury, Alf couldn’t tell. There was a fragility about him that was new and alarming.
‘I have said it once and I will say it again. We must commit your wife and child to the deep.’
‘I am not disputing the need for a committal, Doctor Roberts. Only its manner and timing.’
‘It doesn’t matter, man. None of it. Your wife is dead.’
Alf winced at the malice in Doctor Roberts’ voice. There was an undercurrent to this conversation he didn’t understand—something dark and savage. What had Rhys said? I know things about Doctor Roberts. Alf had no idea what those things were. He had no desire to find out. But even a fool could see Doctor Roberts resented the knowledge.
Alf glanced from Doctor Roberts’ hate chiselled face to Rhys’s wild, darting eyes. The Welsh lad looked dangerously close to coming unhinged. And who could blame him? He’d lost his wife and child within days of reaching their destination. Alf couldn’t begin to imagine the despair he was facing.
‘Tell him, Bustle. Tell him his wife and child must be buried.’
‘Rhys, son, we have to go through with this.’
‘Not now, Mr Bustle. And not in English. The last sound she hears must be Welsh.’
‘But … can you not see? Reverence Cummings doesn’t speak your tongue.’
Rhys shivered, pressing a hand to his face. ‘I’ve done so much harm, Mr Bustle. So much harm … and this is the last thing I can do for her. These burial customs are important to me.’
‘A funeral is for the living, Welshman. Not the dead.’
Rhys spun round, his eyes a blaze of hate. ‘I am the living, Doctor Roberts. My wife and child are dead.’
That was the crux of the matter. Rhys had lost everything, his wife, his child, his very reason for emigrating, and the manner of their committal was significant to him. So significant, if Rhys’s pale face, crazed eyes, and twitching limbs were any indication, the Welsh lad stood in danger of losing his wits.
Alf glanced at Doctor Roberts, surprised at how loathsome he now appeared. To think he’d spent the entire voyage trying to impress this man, only to find it wasn’t worth the effort. It never had been. For some reason, the knowledge steeled him.
‘I know it’s a strange request. But I think, perhaps, we should let him read the burial service.’
‘Bustle! Have you taken leave of your senses? He can’t bury his own wife and child.’
‘Not on his own. In cooperation with Reverend Cummings.’
‘It’s ridiculous. I won’t allow it.’
Alf shuffled, looking down at his feet. ‘I think … if you don’t mind me saying so, Doctor Roberts. This is a matter of respect.’
‘Respect? To override the responsibilities of an ordained man?’
‘Not for Reverend Cummings.’ Alf spoke slowly as if to a dim-witted child. ‘Respect for Rhys and his dead.’
‘Good God,’ Doctor Roberts spluttered. ‘Have you forgotten yourself? All you stand to gain in the colony? It won’t look good to have sided with a troublemaker, Bustle.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir.’
‘Sorry! Is that all you have to say? After all I’ve done for you?’
‘You left my wife without assistanc
e.’
‘Ah, so that’s what all this is about. Spite. Because I failed to single you out. Poor old Bustle, thought he was the surgeon’s favourite. No one will attend. You know that, don’t you? Not to some burial service in a God forsaken language.’
‘I disagree.’
‘Oh, disagree, do you? Since when did you learn to think? Not under my tutelage. I hired a cleaner, not an esteemed advisor. Someone who would pay me respect and carry out my wishes. I thought you were the man, seriously, Bustle. Considered backing you in the colony.’
‘I’ve supported you, sir, to the best of my abilities, and carried out your wishes.’
‘But you don’t respect me, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Respect must be earned, Doctor Roberts.’
‘And if Reverend Cummings doesn’t agree? Have you thought about that, Bustle?’
‘Reverend Cummings is a kindly man. He knows Rhys and Siân from the deck school. He saw them helping my daughter, advised me to take comfort in the friendship. I didn’t. I regret that now.’
‘Oh, please! Spare me the confessions.’
‘Reverend Cummings may still be feeling bilious,’ Alf pressed on, undaunted. ‘Which means we don’t have to act immediately. But once his stomach settles, perhaps we could ask him to join us?’ He turned to Rhys. ‘Reverend Cummings may not like it, son. But I think he’ll give you a fair hearing. Then, we’ll help you send Siân off properly. You have my word on that score.’
Chapter 31
Bridie had no idea what was happening in the hospital. Only that Siân was gone. Dead. Through a judder of sobs, she heard raised voices from within the hospital. Saw the door fly open, a tight-lipped Doctor Roberts stalk along the deck. He didn’t return. Hours later, Reverend Cummings appeared. There was no shouting after he entered the hospital. Only a murmur of voices to interrupt their hushed supper preparations, the occasional rasp of Rhys’s anguish.
After supper, the carpenter climbed down the ladder with the burial board. He didn’t turn down the lamps as he had every other evening. He helped lift Siân and the baby’s bodies onto the board. They were sewn into a white shroud. The bier was lifted shoulder high. Rhys and a group of men began to walk the bodies along the deck, their pace solemn, measured, as all steerage rose for their passing.
Bridie hadn’t seen Rhys since Siân’s death. The first word that sprang to mind was haunted, followed by smudge-eyed and hollow-cheeked. He was determined not to let Siân down, Bridie saw that too—in the rigid set of his jaw, the taut, upright lines of his body, step after determined step as he walked her along the deck. All through the night, he walked in that strange, silent procession. Up one side of the deck, down the other, neither resting by turns, nor taking a break, as the other men did. His rhythmic tread was punctuated only by the high, keening wails of the Scots and the Irish.
Morning dawned grey and bleak, the very elements suffused with grief. Breakfast was served at the usual time but Bridie couldn’t eat. She sat in bleary-eyed silence, her throat raw from a night of endless sobbing. Siân, gone. Even now she couldn’t believe it. Her melodic voice forever silent. Never again to touch a hand to Bridie’s cheek. Or call out from the base of the main mast, eyes ashine. Yet it must be true. For there was Rhys, walking her body along the deck.
‘It’s to keep her company,’ Alf broke the gloomy silence, ‘and to chase away evil. That’s why the men walk. Women don’t usually attend burials in Wales. Rhys is making an exception on this occasion.’
‘As if we’d let her go without a farewell.’ Pam gave an indignant toss of her head.
‘You’d have had to, Pam, if he’d forbidden it.’
‘No, Tom, I wouldn’t.’
Bridie agreed with Pam. It would have been impossible to stay away from the burial service. Only a thin layer of wood separated steerage from the main deck. No doubt, Rhys had reached the same conclusion. Though, this morning, with his gaunt face and haunted eyes, he didn’t look capable of reason.
At eight bells, Reverend Cummings climbed down the ladder. After a short prayer, he managed to prise Rhys’s hands from the bier. Alf stood at the back-hatch with a dish of salt to ward against further evil. After taking a pinch, Rhys and Reverend Cummings climbed the ladder. One by one, the line of mourners followed them, jostling into a horseshoe formation on the main deck.
Siân’s bier passed up through the hatchway.
Rhys stepped forward, his slender body swaying in the buffeting wind. With trembling hands, he took the prayer book from Reverend Cummings. He opened it to the marked page and nodded. A hush fell on the assembled crowd.
‘Dysgu i ni felly gyfrif ein dyddiau fel y dygom ein calon i ddoethineb.’
‘So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom,’ Reverend Cummings translated.
‘Dychwelyd, Arglwydd, pa hŷd ac edifarhâ o ran dy weision. Diwalla ni yn fore â ’th drugaredd. Fel y gorfoleddom ac y llawenychom dros ein holl dyddiau.
‘Turn thee again, O Lord, at the last and be gracious unto thy servant. O satisfy us early with thy mercy. So shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our days.’
Rhys stood rigid in his determination. Though anyone could see he faced a mountain of grief and, after a long night between decks, the effort of reading the burial service was costing him.
Not long now. Bridie closed her eyes, lending him strength. Once they’d said the words of the committal, Rhys’s torture would end. It would be dreadful, of course, and final. She’d seen it often enough during the typhus epidemic to know how final. It would also bring release.
‘Gan hynny yr ŷm ni Rhoddi ei gorph ef i’r dyfnder, i’w droi i lygrediageth,’ Rhys continued. ‘Gan ddisgwyl am sdgyfodai y corph, pan roddo’r Môri fynu ei feirw.’
‘We therefore commit this body to the deep, to be turned into corruption. Looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up its dead.’
Hang on. Something was wrong. Those were the words of the committal, but the bier wasn’t lifting. Rhys fumbled, passing the prayer book back to Reverend Cummings. The clergyman placed a hand on his arm. Rhys shook it off. Oh, God, no. A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Rhys was going to sing.
He closed his eyes, gathering strength, as Bridie had seen him do so many times. Jaw clenched, his throat corded with emotion. But as he raised his arms, an energy seemed to pulse through him.
‘Unwaith carais i forwyn lledrith,
Once I loved a fairy maiden,
Ar hyd y nos,
All through the night,
Gwallt hir tywyll, sgidiau flamgoch,
Long dark tresses, sandals scarlet,
Ar hyd y nos.’
All through the night.’
The Fairy Woman’s story, set to the haunting strains of ‘Ar Hyd y Nos’. Siân’s favourite. A natural choice. Though not easy words to sing. Bridie didn’t understand the Welsh but her mind produced the English lyrics Rhys had taught the choir.
‘Ger a llyn ei cherais hi a’i,
On the lake shore I did woo her,
A’i charu hi yn gywir addawis,
Promised e’r to love her truly,
Mor ofalus tad amheus,
Mindful of her father’s promise,
Ar hyd y nos.
All through the night.’
It was a lovely gesture, bold and extravagant, so typical of Rhys. It was also a punishment. As if he somehow blamed himself for Siân’s death. Maybe he did. Maybe that was why he’d chosen the Fairy Woman’s song.
The wind gusted, bringing a fresh spray of rain. The deck heaved beneath Bridie’s feet. On and on, Rhys sang, through the excruciating lines of the next verse. Men wept openly now. Women clung to each other, sobbing. The Irish women had resumed their high-pitched, keening wail.
‘Trwy’r blyneddoedd fi’n esgelus,
O’er the years did I grow careless,
Ar hyd y nos,
All through the night,
; Tan cyrhaeddon mawr ergydion,
’Til the blows had reached their zenith,
Ar hyd y nos,
All through the night.’
It was a torment—nothing like Rhys’s lovely tenor voice. His white lips forced the words out with the concentration of a habitual stutterer. His voice began to falter. Bridie saw Alf’s wince of pity, Reverend Cummings’ eyes soft with sympathy. Heard Annie’s long, thin wail of grief. Bridie clung to the older girl, her chest heaving.
‘Ohonf aeth ei hud bŵerau,
Gone from me her fairy powers,
Plymiodd hi od dan y dyroedd,
Plunging down beneath the waters,
Nawr rwyn crwydro’r bryniau unig,
Now, I roam these lonely mountains,
Ar hyd y nos.
All through the night.’
At the end of the second verse, the men began to lift the bier. Reverend Cummings edged close, a hand beneath Rhys’s elbow, girdering. It didn’t help. Tears coursed Rhys’s cheeks. He’d come so far, but he wasn’t going any further. The will, the courage, the strength, were all leaving him. The men tipping the bier halted, faces uncertain. Tom Griggs stepped forward. His work-roughened hand grasped Rhys’s shoulder.
‘Enough, Welshman. I’ll take it from here.’
Eyes closed, Rhys shook his head. Bridie feared he might try to continue. But as Tom’s deep, bass voice rang out, Rhys’s shoulders slumped. He pressed trembling hands to his face.
‘One day soon she’ll come to find me,
All through the night.
Offering her healing powers,
All through the night.
Bound in leather, filled with longing,
Then will I find peace and courage,
’Til at length I forfeit sorrow,
All through the night.’
Chapter 32
Bridie couldn’t find Rhys after the funeral. He’d probably ducked behind the horse box. If so, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed. The bleak windy conditions drove everyone else between decks. As they sat in gloomy silence waiting for the dinner bell to ring, Ma emerged from the hospital.
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