by Mary Balogh
Damn! Aled did not want the issues muddled. He could already feel conflict of interest weighing heavily on his shoulders.
Geraint was holding out his right hand again. "Agreed?" he said. "A week? Perhaps two? And then you can decide whether or not to sever your friendship with such a blackguard. Come on, man. You have not lost that fairness of mind that I always admired, have you?"
Damn! Aled took the offered hand and tightened his grip. "I really do have work to get back to," he said.
Geraint stood back and let him pass. But Aled heard him laugh as he strode off in the direction of the village, feeling all the hopelessness of the conflict between the pull of friendship and the pull of loyalty to the people he represented.
"Perhaps I will challenge you to a boxing match next time," Geraint called after him. "I have some small skill at the sport, I believe. I will relieve you of some blood via your nose, Aled."
Aled smiled despite himself but did not acknowledge the challenge.
Geraint became gradually aware that he was not alone. It was not that he heard anyone or saw anyone beyond the disappearing figure of Aled Rhoslyn. It was just a feeling he had, an instinct he had developed years and years ago and had been unaware until now that he still retained. There were trees not far away, ancient trees with huge trunks.
"You had better come out from there," he said conversationally in Welsh. "It would be more advisable than forcing me to come and get you."
He was not sure who or quite what he would be facing. For several moments there was continued silence. And then a rustling heralded the appearance of a small, thin, untidy, shabbily dressed lad perhaps eight or nine years old. Staring at him, Geraint felt strangely as if he were looking into a mirror down a long time tunnel. Except that the boy's hair was straight. He was standing on one leg, scratching it with the almost nonexistent side of the shabby boot he wore on the other foot.
"You had better come closer," Geraint said, clasping his hands formally behind his back. The boy shuffled a few feet forward. "Much closer. One inch beyond the tip of my fingers if I were to stretch my arm out in front of me."
The boy came to stand perhaps two feet beyond the indicated spot. He stood very still, his dark eyes fixed on Geraint's. Geraint knew exactly how the boy felt, just as if the boy were his mirror image and he was the real flesh-and-blood figure. The child's heart would be beating so painfully that it would be pounding in his ears and choking his throat. He would be considering escape. From the corners of his eyes, without betraying himself by letting them dart about, he would be scouting out escape routes. But he would know that there was no escape.
"Well?" Geraint asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I was playing," the child said in a piping voice. "I got lost."
Exactly the excuse he himself had given the only time he had been caught—fortunately by one of the gardeners and not by any of the gamekeepers. Even so, by the time he had been allowed to take his leave, his backside had been so sore that he had not been able to walk normally and he had still been unable to sit down by the time he had scrambled up to the moors and the hovel that was home.
"Got lost hunting rabbits?" Geraint asked.
The boy shrugged and shook his head.
"You know who I am?" Geraint asked.
The boy nodded and Geraint recognized the bold, fixed look in his eyes as one of unadulterated fear.
"And who are you?" he asked.
"Idris," the boy said.
"Idris? Just Idris?"
"Idris Parry."
"Idris Parry," Geraint said, "has no one taught you how to address adults?"
"Idris Parry, sir," the boy said.
"And where do you live, Idris Parry?" Geraint asked. He hoped the answer would not be the one he fully expected.
"With my mam and my dada," the child said, his voice less bold. "And my sisters."
"I asked where," the earl said.
The child pointed vaguely toward the hills. "Up there," he said while Geraint inwardly winced. "Are you going to send me away, sir?"
Transportation. For poaching. The child had learned young the risks he took, just as he himself had learned.
"Please, sir, will you beat me instead?" he asked quickly, and Geraint knew just what it had cost the boy to show such a sign of weakness. "I got lost. I was just playing."
"Well, Idris." Geraint reached into a pocket. "There used to be wicked mantraps here, traps that would hurt your leg like a thousand devils and hold you fast until someone came to let you out. I think it altogether possible that they are still here. You are going to have to be very careful about where you play, aren't you?"
The child nodded.
"Are you to be trusted?" Geraint asked. He had selected a coin neither too small to be useless nor too large to cause undue suspicion. He held it out to the boy. "Give this to your mam, Idris. And it would be wise to tell her that it was given to you somewhere else by someone else."
The child suspected a trap—as an earlier child had suspected one the first time Mr. Williams had offered him money. He suspected that the coin was a bait to draw him near enough to be grabbed. Geraint tossed it into the air, and the boy caught it deftly.
"Be off with you now," Geraint said. "And watch for traps."
"Yes, sir." The boy was on his way already. But he stopped dead in his tracks and looked back. "Thank you, sir."
Geraint nodded curtly. He was feeling sick to his stomach. What on earth was a family doing living up on those moors with a child so ragged that he seemed not to possess a single whole garment? But at least there was a family, if the boy had been speaking the truth. A mother and a father. At least they were not living there because they had been made outcast from the chapel and from the community. At least the child was not a bastard.
But he still felt sick at the reminder that there was such poverty in the world. It seemed so much more personal on Tegfan land than it ever appeared on the streets of London.
Staying away had been selfish, he thought. Deliberately keeping himself ignorant of Tegfan affairs had been an unpardonable self-indulgence. He hoped it had not lost him Aled's friendship or caused the permanent hostility of his people.
They were his people. He had realized that from the moment of his return, or perhaps even from the moment of that brief encounter on a London street.
They were his people.
Choir practice at the chapel was the one event of the week that regularly drew a large number of people together, except at the very busiest times of the year. Singing was the one passion and the one accomplishment that united most of the people of West Wales, or of any part of Wales for that matter.
Marged had conducted the choir since her girlhood in order to relieve her father of one of his many duties. Though perhaps it was misleading to describe her as the conductor, she often thought. A Welsh choir, unless it was competing at an eisteddfod, really did not need to have someone stand in front of it beating time or forcing changes of volume or tempo. A Welsh choir simply sang from the diaphragm and from the heart and sang as a choir. Welsh singers loved nothing better than to listen to one another's voices and the harmony of the other parts as they sang.
Marged conducted in the sense that she began the practice, putting an end to the noisy chatter as everyone exchanged news of all that had happened since Sunday, and choosing the hymns they would sing the following Sunday and the order in which they would sing them. When they sang she sat and sang with them while Miss Jenkins thumped away at the keyboard of the ancient pianoforte in the Sunday schoolroom.
They sang for an hour while Marged admitted to herself that they came together weekly not really to practice but to enjoy the singing and the company. After the hour was up, they would talk and gossip as avidly as they did after morning service on Sunday.
She was still angry. Perhaps angrier with him than she might have been because she was angry with herself. She had not been able to stop thinking of him since his visit. She had even dreamed of him
. And so all her thoughts of him had to be focused on her hatred of him and her deep resentment that he had come back to Tegfan. Why had he not done the decent thing and stayed away?
He was, of course, the main topic of conversation as soon as she had indicated that the practice was at an end. Almost all of them had seen him. Most of them had encountered him in one way or another. Several of them had had personal calls from him.
Everyone was agreed that he looked very grand, that he behaved like a gentleman born, that his speech was more English than the English spoke, that his manner was stiff and stern. A few ventured to suggest that he had been courteous during his visits and interested in seeing the farms. Perhaps there would be changes now that he had come in person and seen for himself. Most were suspicious and angered by his aloof manner and his neglecting to ask them about any problems or complaints they might have.
"He offered me sympathy on the death of Eurwyn," Marged said finally, unable to keep out of the conversation any longer. "And then he complimented me on the way I have run the farm alone. Almost as if he was telling me that Eurwyn was of no account, that I am better off without a criminal as a husband." She was so furious that her voice was shaking as well as her hands.
"Ah," Ifor Davies said, "that was not well done of him at all, fachr"
"And you may depend upon it, mind, that when he visited us on the farms he had his eyes about him to see who could be squeezed for more rent next year," Gwen Dirion said. "I am not sure we should trust him for all his fine manners."
"And he is, after all, only Geraint Penderyn," Eli Harris commented.
"I do not see why we should stand meekly by and allow the Earl of Wyvern to step into our farmyards and inside our homes whenever the mood takes him," Marged said, still angry. "I do not see why we should give him the right. Perhaps it is time we gave him a taste of his own medicine."
"Marged," Aled said, "perhaps we should wait and see. He does, after all, have the right to see what is his own."
She turned on him, her eyes flashing. "And you, Aled Rhoslyn," she said. "You are supposed to be our leader. You are supposed to be working with the committee to help us make an organized and effective protest against our owners. We have heard nothing yet about what exactly we are supposed to do."
"This is not the time or the place, Marged," he said.
"Then what is the time and where is the place?" she asked. "Tell us that, Aled. And what are we going to do? Pull down tollgates, as is happening elsewhere? It worked three years ago. It is the gates that are the final straw for most of us. And soon it will be time to haul the lime to fertilize our fields. How are we going to afford the tolls?"
"Oh, Marged." Ceris had got to her feet as if she was about to leave, but she sat down abruptly again. "Don't talk of violence, girl. Oh, please don't." She did not look at Aled.
"The committee is working on it," Aled said. "It is not easy. And we should not be talking about it openly here, either. We are having difficulty finding someone to lead such a movement. We need someone to take the part of Rebecca."
"How about you, Aled?" The challenge came from Morfydd Richards, the wife of a farmer three miles off in the hills.
But Aled shook his head, clearly uncomfortable. "I would follow such a movement if it was orderly and the decision of the committee," he said. "I could not lead it, Morfydd. I do not have the gift of authority. Rebecca would have to command a large number of men and that is not an easy thing to do."
"And women, Aled," Marged said. "She would have to command a large number of men and women. Is there no one with enough courage, then? Eurwyn would have done it." Her voice was bitter. "Well, I do not believe we should wait for the committee or for Rebecca. I believe we should show our displeasure now. Without any further delay."
"But how, Marged, fach?" Ifor asked.
"Oh, no violence, please." Ceris was clearly dismayed.
"One can show displeasure without violence," Marged said. "One can be a nuisance without being violent or unduly destructive. All the milk delivered to Tegfan one day could be sour. Or it could be spilled accidentally from the cart over the front steps and terrace as it is on its way to the kitchen. The stable doors could be left accidentally open one night long enough for all the horses to get out and wander away. A thousand and one things could happen if we had the imagination to dream them up."
There were a few titters of laughter and some open bellows of amusement. And then imaginations began to soar.
"The sheep could break out of the pasture at night and decide to graze on the flower beds."
"There could be spilled tea or pig swill or something by clumsy old us when he comes calling."
"There could be string across the driveway when he is riding down it and some sound to startle his horse to make it break into a gallop. Oh, Duw, I would like to see that one."
"Too violent, man, for God's sake. He might break a leg. And the man on his back might land with a thud on his backside."
There was general amusement over this exchange.
"Well?" Marged said. "Who is with me?"
A few people, most notably Ceris, were definitely not. A few were willing to give it a try provided no one's safety was put in jeopardy, including the Earl of Wyvern's. Most were enthusiastically in favor of showing their displeasure and their frustration—and their fear—in some active manner.
Marged, it seemed, was in charge.
Aled advised waiting. "Give it a week or two, Marged," he pleaded. "Perhaps he will change a few things now that he has seen for himself. And perhaps by that time someone will agree to be Rebecca and we can work on a larger scale in a far wider area."
But Marged was not willing to wait. "For more than two years, since Eurwyn's arrest, I have waited," she said quietly, the anger gone, grim determination having taken its place. "For several months, since the formation of the committee and your appointment to it, Aled, I have waited. For almost a week since Geraint Penderyn's return, since the Earl of Wyvern's return, I have waited. I have waited long enough."
There was a murmuring of assent from all about her.
"Well." Aled got to his feet. "You will do what you must do, Marged. I will wait to see what the committee decides. Will I walk you home, then, Ceris?"
"No, thank you, Aled." Ceris still did not look directly at him, though she spoke quite firmly. "I will not take you out of your way." She left the schoolroom hurriedly and alone and did not even look at Marged.
If it were not for Geraint Penderyn and his like, Marged thought bitterly, there would not be this unhappiness and this dissension among them. All any of them wanted was peace to live their own lives and to earn an honest and dignified living. But that right was fast being denied them, and she for one was going to see that they did not go under meekly.
It seemed childish to be thinking of tricks to play on the Earl of Wyvern. But they had precious few ways in which to protest.
Chapter 6
Matthew Harley knew that the chapel choir practiced on Thursday evenings. And he knew that Ceris Williams was a member of the choir. He had not arranged to meet her after practice, and he knew that very possibly she would leave with Marged Evans. But he hung about in the village street anyway, on the chance that she would come out alone and would allow him to walk her home.
He was surprised when his hopes were realized.
"Yes, thank you," she said after he had greeted her and offered to see her home.
She even took his arm when he offered it. It was something he had not done during their Sunday walk. These Welsh women, especially these chapel women, were funny. Straitlaced. Skittish.
But he needed a woman, possibly a wife. He did not believe that Ceris Williams, or any other woman on the estate, could be had without marriage, though he had considered Marged Evans. She had been a widow long enough to be restless and might be ripe for a few tumbles. But Marged Evans was not really his type. She was too spirited, too outspoken. Ceris was far more palatable. She was pretty, docile,
beddable. And he certainly needed a woman.
Ceris Williams had been the blacksmith's woman, though Harley did not doubt that she was still a virgin. But there had been a break in that courtship recently.
"I enjoyed tea on Sunday," he said, "and our walk."
''Yes." She smiled, though she did not look up at him. "So did I."
"I have hoped," he said, "that you will allow me to call on you again. Will you?"
She did not answer immediately. She was the right height for him, he thought. She made him feel tall. He wished he could take her walking in the hills and have his pleasure of her without having to consider marriage, but he doubted it was possible.
"Yes," she said. "Thank you."
Her unexpected acquiescence was a balm to his bruised feelings. He knew that he was generally disliked on the estate. It was to be expected. He had a job to do and he did it without flinching. Unpopularity had never bothered him. The feeling of power his job gave him had always been adequate compensation. But now he was being threatened. His employer had come from London after two years of showing no interest at all, and he was starting to ask questions, to intrude where he was not needed or wanted.
Harley found it irritating.
"The Earl of Wyvern has been visiting his tenants since his return home," he said. "Has he visited your father?"
"Yes," she said. "He drank tea with us."
"And how does everyone feel about his return?" he asked. He hoped everyone felt as badly about it as he did. Perhaps the earl would return to London if he felt no welcome at all.
But he asked the question idly. Really he was quite happy just to be walking with a woman. With this particular woman.
Geraint walked to church on Sunday morning despite the fact that he had had a great deal of exercise during the morning. Actually it was the chapel to which he walked. He was too late for the Anglican service, which started half an hour before the nonconformist one. He convinced himself that it was chasing sheep that had made him late, but if he was honest with himself he would have to admit that he had been looking for some excuse to go to the chapel instead of to the church. The sheep had merely provided the excuse.