by Mary Balogh
There was a knock on the door and Siân jumped to her feet, smiling. Owen let himself in and greeted her grandmother, who was mending one of Emrys’s shirts.
“Ready for choir, are you then, Siân?” he asked. “Sharpened your voice, have you?”
“I hope not too much,” she said, wrapping her shawl about her shoulders. She took his arm as they stepped outside. She was feeling almost lighthearted again after several days of anxiety. Everyone at home had approved her refusal of the job she had been offered last night—though treacherously she sometimes found herself wishing that she had given herself a little longer to make up her mind. The Marquess of Craille, though he knew Owen’s identity, was not going to do anything about the meeting he had observed—not yet anyway. She chose to ignore the suggestion of a threat in those last words. Mari had accepted with tearful gratitude the half of her wage pack that Gran had given back to Siân, though she had sworn that Huw would kill her if he found out. There had been no reaction at work today to the reduction of wages except for a few sullen murmurings. Perhaps there would be no serious talk of a strike after all. And during the day Siân had convinced herself that no harm would come to Iestyn. He was just a boy, and he had signed the Charter after all. The Scotch Cattle had just been flexing their muscles, letting everyone know that they were still around.
“I love choir evening,” she said. “It will be lovely just to sing and sing.”
Owen smiled at her. “Stay for male voice practice, will you, then?” he asked. “And I will walk you home afterward?”
“I’ll stay for a while,” she said. “Maybe not to the end, though, Owen. Sometimes it goes late if the Reverend Llewellyn is not satisfied.”
“A perfectionist he is,” Owen said.
“I know.” The warmth of the summer air was acting like a tonic on her tired body. It had been unnaturally warm and dry for a few weeks. “Owen, I was called up to the castle last evening. The Marquess of Craille offered me a job teaching his young daughter.”
He looked at her in some amazement. “Going up in the world again, Siân, are you?” he said. “I should bow to you and kiss your hand?”
“Silly.” She laughed. “He had heard about my going to school in England. But he also wants his daughter to learn Welsh.”
“Queer,” he said. “What did you say?”
“No, of course,” she said.
She expected him to react as her family had reacted. They had assured her that she had done the right thing. Uncle Emrys had echoed her grandmother’s fears. The Marquess of Craille could have only one reason for wanting to lure her to his castle, he had said. She expected Owen to be even more protective of her.
“Perhaps you should have gone,” he said. “It would have got you out of the mine, Siân. I hate the thought of you working down there. It is not right.”
She was touched. “But other women have to,” she said. “I am no different from them, Owen.”
“But you are,” he said. “You are brave and stubborn to a fault, Siân Jones, but you are ten times the lady any of them are.”
“You know that I don’t want to be,” she said. “You know that I want more than anything to belong, Owen.” Perhaps it was a hopeless dream. Although she did not think herself better than anyone else in Cwmbran, she did know that she was different. That somehow, in some ways, she did not quite fit in. Although most people were perfectly friendly toward her, she had no particular friend or friends, apart from Owen and Iestyn. No women friends except perhaps Angharad Lewis, with whom a bond had been created when their husbands had died together. But even that friendship had cooled since Angharad and Emrys had stopped seeing each other. Most of the other women treated Siân as if she was a little above their level. “You think I ought to have taken the job, then?”
Owen shrugged. “Well, it is too late now if you have already said no,” he said. “But you could have kept your ears open there, Siân. It is always useful to know something about the movements of the owners and what they are saying and thinking.”
Siân frowned. “You mean that you would want me to act as a kind of spy?” she asked. “What a horrid idea.”
“You think Barnes does not have his spies among us?” he asked. “Why should Craille be shut up in his castle like a god when we have to be looking over our shoulders all the time? It amazes me that Barnes did not get wind of the Chartist meeting the other night. He usually finds out somehow.”
The subject had been switched slightly. Siân did not return it to the unpleasant suggestion that she take a post in the marquess’s home in order to spy on him and report back to Owen.
“The Scotch Cattle gave Iestyn a warning the night before last,” she said. “Did you know?”
“Him and two others,” he said. “You have some influence with him, Siân. Advise him to pay his penny and be done with it.”
“He will not,” she said. “He listened to the Reverend Llewellyn and he agrees with him. Iestyn can be stubborn when he believes in something.”
“Advise him,” he said. “It is not worth taking a beating up on the mountain for the sake of a penny.”
“It is not just the penny,” she said. She was growing frightened again suddenly. “They would not really hurt him, would they, Owen? He is just a boy. And he went to the meeting and signed. He is not against the Charter.”
“It is not enough just not to be against something,” Owen said. “Sometimes you have to be for something, fach. Especially when your whole way of life and your dignity as a man are at stake. And the freedom of your people.”
“That sounds almost revolutionary,” she said. “What is the purpose of the Association, anyway? If the Charter is rejected by Parliament, there is nothing else to be done, is there?” She was very much afraid that there was a great deal more to be done. She remembered learning all about the French Revolution at school. And that had happened not so very long ago.
“We will not let the matter drop,” he said.
They were approaching the chapel. There were several other of their acquaintances making their way along the pavements toward it.
“Owen,” she said quickly and quietly, “don’t let them do anything to Iestyn. Do you know who they are? Do you know any of them?”
“No one knows who Scotch Cattle are, fach,” he said.
“Someone must,” she said. “I thought you might. You are one of the leaders of the men. The main leader, in fact.”
He smiled and returned the greeting of one of his friends.
“There must be something you can do,” Siân said. “Someone you can contact. Please, Owen? He is just a boy acting out of conscience. He is a threat to no one. Please do something. Please see to it that he is not punished. Not beaten, anyway.” The thought of anyone being dragged up the mountain and whipped horrified her. To picture Iestyn . . . “Owen, please try to do something. For my sake?”
He covered her hand with his and patted it. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But I don’t know Scotch Cattle, Siân, or have any influence with them at all. Just get him to pay his penny. It is the easiest solution.”
Siân sighed as they stepped inside the chapel. It was not the easiest solution when one was up against a boy with strong convictions and religious faith. But she was not going to get herself all upset again. Deep down she was convinced that no harm would come to Iestyn. Just the warning and the fear it engendered were punishment enough to a young boy who had not totally defied his leaders.
She stepped past two women in one of the pews and took her usual seat between Mrs. Beynon and Ceris Pritchard in the soprano section. Owen made his way to join the baritones.
“I am in the mood for singing,” Mrs. Beynon announced. “We will raise the roof off between us, will we, Siân Jones?”
“At least one foot straight up in the air,” Siân agreed, laughing.
The Reverend Llewellyn, standing in the
high pulpit, rapped on it with his baton to call for silence. Like chapel on Sundays, choir was never late starting. It was more likely to begin two minutes early.
* * *
Despite the overall warmth of the evening, there was a chilly breeze that would quite likely feel downright cold up on the hills. Or so Verity’s nurse said when her charge begged Alex to take her there for an evening walk again. They would stroll through the town instead, he suggested, not to ruffle Nurse’s feathers. Nevertheless his daughter was bundled inside a cloak and bonnet before she was allowed over the doorstep. Nurses were of a tyrannical breed, Alex thought, remembering his own.
A few children were playing on the streets and stopped to stare at them as they passed. But both were used to such a reaction at home. Apart from the children, the town seemed almost deserted.
Alex did not make conversation with his daughter. He had something of a headache and was feeling irritable. It was the unaccustomed feeling of lack of power, he supposed. And the helpless frustration of not knowing or understanding what he should know and understand.
He did not know anything about the ironmaking and coal-mining industries or even about business in general. He knew nothing about industrial workers. He knew nothing about Wales or the Welsh. He had almost made up his mind in the course of the afternoon to have his trunks packed and to return forthwith to his familiar estate in England, never to return. But he was too stubborn to give in so soon. He would be damned before he would run away.
He had studied the company books carefully during the morning. He had glanced at them before, but without real consideration. He was appalled at the wages his workers were receiving, especially when he remembered that this week they were to be lowered by ten percent. But then he was ashamed to admit that he did not know much about prices. Was it possible to live comfortably on such wages, as Barnes and Fowler claimed? Perhaps it was.
His curiosity had taken him to the company shop, called the truck shop. His arrival there had caused something of a sensation, he had felt. Certainly the three women who were shopping there when he went in went scurrying out with such haste that it seemed they must have thought he brought the plague with him.
Prices had seemed high to him. Not that he was in the habit of shopping for groceries. Really he knew nothing about such matters. Two other women came in while he was there. Both looked at him saucer-eyed and did not react to his affable nod, but neither retreated. One made her purchases, paid for them, and left. The other whispered to the shopkeeper in Welsh, flushing as she did so. The shopkeeper pursed his lips, drew a ledger from a shelf, and wrote in it. The woman made a few purchases, did not pay for them, and hurried away, her head down.
The woman had asked for and been given an advance on next week’s wages, the shopkeeper had explained.
“The day after payday?” Alex had asked, frowning.
The shopkeeper had shrugged. “She had a large advance last week,” he had said. “There was very little in the wage pack last night. Her man drank it up as usual. There are four little ones at home.”
On further inquiry Alex had discovered two disturbing facts. One was that a large number of women would be taking up advances on their husband’s wages before the week was out. The other was that wages were paid at the Three Lions Inn, which apparently he owned, and that the men, naturally enough, often sat down for a drink or two before taking their pay home. A few had more than one or two drinks.
Alex had not been pleased and had explained his concerns to Barnes after luncheon. Perhaps, he had said, wages should not be lowered after all. It appeared to him that his workers were not living in any great comfort and could ill afford to be paid ten percent less than they had last week. His examination of the books had shown that the company profits were handsome enough to take the slight loss that the current lower demand for iron would entail. And he himself was a wealthy man even apart from the Cwmbran works.
Barnes had been aghast. The wages paid out were the main expense of operating the works and mine, he had explained. When profits fell, expenses had to be cut. It was good business sense. Otherwise the business collapsed. Wages were the only expense that could realistically be cut.
But there were people behind those wages, Alex had pointed out. It was not an impersonal expense about which they spoke. But Barnes had repeated what he had said before, that the workers were comfortably well off and fully expected to be paid less in tough times. He had added something that had silenced the arguments Alex was still prepared to make. What would happen to the workers, Barnes had asked, if the business collapsed and the works had to be closed? Sometimes what might seem to be cruelty was in fact kindness. Wages must be reduced for the workers’ own good.
Company profits looked healthy enough to Alex. But what did he know? There was that frustration again of not knowing. That realization that he must trust the experience of his agent, even when it went quite against the grain to do so. Being at Cwmbran was a humbling experience, Alex was finding.
Besides—Barnes had not finished and again he had had a telling argument, one against which Alex had no defense at all—there were coal mines and ironworks all across the valleys, and people and news traveled. The owners had to work together so that what one did they all did. Only so could chaos be averted. If wages were lowered in all works except one, there would be mass discontent and strikes and untold suffering. The master who had thought to be unrealistically generous to his workers would make all the others suffer.
All the other owners and agents, Alex had learned, had been living and working in the valleys for years and knew how the industry was to be kept profitable—for the sake of both workers and owners. He had been there for only a few days and had had no previous experience whatsoever with industry. How could he come here now and change things and perhaps destroy what he did not understand? He could not do so. And so his workers must live on ten percent less this week than last. The same cut had been made right across the valleys.
The lowering of demand was likely to continue for some time, Barnes had told him. It was part of the cycle of business and not to be worried about. Things would swing upward again eventually. But in the meanwhile it was possible that in a few weeks’ time wages would have to be reduced a further ten percent.
Alex had said nothing. But he had decided there and then that he would fight against such madness. He would meet personally with all the other owners if he must and argue the point. But he would not jump the gun. Perhaps it would not happen. Or perhaps by the time it did he would know more, understand more. But he was feeling sick at heart and troubled at his own inability to act from personal conscience as he usually did.
“I can hear music, Papa.”
Alex came back to the present and his surroundings with a start. He felt instantly guilty. He had been away from Verity all day again and now was ignoring her. He had spoken scarcely a dozen words to her since leaving home.
“Music?” He listened carefully, tightening his hold on Verity’s hand and drawing her to a stop in the middle of the pavement. She was quite right.
“It is people singing, Papa,” she said. “In that building at the end of the street.” She pointed ahead. “Is it a church? It looks funny.”
“A chapel,” he said. “Not quite the same as the church we go to. Most Welsh people go to chapels. It’s a choir singing. Let’s walk a little closer, shall we?”
It was a male voice choir. A large one judging by the volume and richness of sound. Mellow basses, sweet tenors—the balance was perfect. He had heard about Welsh song, Alex thought as they drew closer and could hear the music just as clearly as if they were inside the building. This must be a particularly fine example of it. By unspoken consent he and Verity stopped walking again to listen. The choir was singing in Welsh.
“Ah,” Verity said regretfully when the song came to an end, “is it finished? Are they not going to sing any more, Papa?”
>
“I don’t know,” he said, watching a group of women leave the chapel, but no men. “But we had better walk on. Nurse was right. That breeze really is chilly when we stand still. I don’t want you catching a cold.”
But they had taken no more than two or three steps when the music began again and they stopped once more by mutual but unspoken consent. The choir sang without words and without accompaniment, producing a harmonious sound that made Alex think of wind on a lonely mountain or foamless waves on a full tide. It was achingly sweet. And then a single voice—a single tenor—sang a haunting melody above the choir’s accompaniment. His voice was as clear as a bell, but he sang in Welsh, so that the words, though heard, had no meaning to the two listeners.
Alex closed his eyes. It was so sweet that it was almost unbearable. His chest ached with unshed tears. And that feeling washed over him again with almost overpowering force—that feeling he had had first up in the hills. He opened his eyes when he sensed that the song was nearing its end and felt himself an outsider again. The music and the choir were inside the chapel and he was outside on the pavement. It was not a conscious thought. Merely a feeling.
And then the song was over.
“Ahh!” Verity sighed with contentment. “I wonder who that was singing, Papa.”
But before he could reply, the chapel door opened and another woman—this one alone—stepped out. She closed the door quietly behind her. She was dressed the same way as the evening before—and the same as on two other occasions when he had seen her. She was not a woman with a large wardrobe, it seemed. But she too must have felt the chill of the breeze. She lifted one fold of her shawl over her head before crossing the ends beneath her chin and tossing them over her shoulders. She turned and hurried toward Alex and Verity. But she suddenly became aware of them standing there and looked up. And stopped.
He touched the brim of his hat to her. “Good evening, Mrs. Jones,” he said.
“Good evening,” she said. Her eyes turned to Verity and then she moved again and would have hurried past them.