by Siân James
It was the beginning of August, another cloudless day, but there was no one on the narrow shingle beach. The pale sea frilled on to the grey and white stones, seagulls bobbed on the gentle waves like ducks on a pond, the only sound was the soft splash of the incoming tide. It was a new world. She let the breath and pulse of it comfort her for a few moments.
Then her restlessness returned; she turned away from the sea and walked to the cottage.
She tapped at the open door. The slate-roofed, four-roomed cottage was the type she knew very well; they were everywhere in West Wales, only the smooth white stones decorating the front garden instead of flowers were different, and the shells arranged and set in intricate patterns around the door. The smell was different, too; seaweed and tarred driftwood instead of the familiar smell of chickens and cows.
‘I’ve come about the accommodation,’ she said. An elderly woman was suddenly before her.
‘Come inside, please.’
She was shown into the kitchen which was bright and pretty; scarlet geraniums on the window-sill, a green chenille cloth on the table, a gleaming range, brass ornaments.
‘What a nice kitchen,’ she said.
‘What is it you’re wanting?’
‘Whatever you’ve got.’
‘Is it for a holiday?’
‘No, for longer than that. For some months at least.’
‘Just the two of you and the baby?’
‘I’m on my own. Just myself and the baby.’
‘What I usually have is people on holiday. I had a honeymoon couple last month. From the South. Merthyr.’
‘I could pay whatever you charge.’
‘It isn’t that exactly, is it?’
‘What is it, then?’
‘There’d be talk. A woman alone with a baby makes talk in these parts. Would your husband be coming now and then?’
‘I’m not married.’
‘Sit down there a minute.’
Miriam sat where she was told and looked at the woman; thin, bird-like, dressed in black with a black handkerchief over her hair, her expression neither kind or unkind.
‘Did he take advantage of you?’
Miriam realized that the woman wanted an excuse to take pity on her, but she wasn’t the type to ask or even allow favours.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Haven’t you a home?’
‘My mother’s dead. I did have a house of my own, but it was a school house and of course I had to leave as soon as I knew about the baby.’
‘You were a schoolmistress, were you?’
‘A very small school. Twenty-three children.’
‘Where was this?’
‘In Carmarthenshire. Rhydfelen, Carmarthenshire.’
The baby, who had been comforted to sleep during the walk, woke again and started to cry. Miriam tightened the shawl around her and stood up.
‘I’ll go, then,’ she said.
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll have to start telling lies, I suppose. Buy a wedding ring. Say I’m a widow.’
‘It’ll be easier to get lodgings in a town.’
‘I don’t like living in a town. Well, I may have to.’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘A girl.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Ten weeks.’
‘You’re welcome to sit and feed her.’
‘She doesn’t seem very well today. She doesn’t usually cry like this.’
Miriam sat again, feeling exhausted and dispirited. She took Mari-Elen out of the shawl and laid her across her lap. She could feel her little knees drawing up sharply, as though she was in pain.
‘They bring their love with them,’ the older woman said.
‘And their care.’
‘Yes.’
‘They say a woman is in her care when she’s carrying, but believe me, she’s in her care as long as they’re both alive.’
‘You have children, then?’
‘Three sons.’
‘Living nearby?’
‘No. In London. The eldest bought a dairy in St John’s Wood in London when his father died, and the others went up to join him. I never see them. Only the care I have now. I wonder if she’d take water from a spoon? There’s a drop in the kettle will soon cool.’
She brought Miriam some water, still slightly warm, and Miriam gave the baby a spoonful. She gulped and spluttered and then cried with even greater ferocity.
‘Let me have her.’
The woman took the baby and wrapped her very tightly in the shawl so that she couldn’t move her arms or legs. Then, tilting her slightly, she managed to get her to take a little of the water; three or four teaspoonfuls. Then she held her to her face and recited an old rhyme to her and then another. Soon the baby’s crying slackened and after a few minutes she was quiet,
‘Thank you,’ Miriam said. Once more she got up.
‘What you should do is get someone to foster her for you. Then you could get work.’
‘No, I won’t do that.’
‘I don’t mean have her adopted; she’d still be yours.’
‘I’d rather keep her with me.’
‘How will you live? Will her father send money?’
Miriam didn’t answer. She held out her arms for the baby.
‘You’d better stay here, I suppose,’ the woman said.
‘If it suits you.’
‘It will have to, I suppose. When do you want to come?’
‘Tomorrow evening.’
‘Five shillings a week, I charge.’
Miriam took out a sovereign from a purse in her pocket. She had five left; the last of the money she had managed to save while she was teaching. When that was finished she would really be a kept woman.
‘Would you like to see the bedroom and the parlour?’
‘No, thank you. I know it will suit me. Also, I won’t want to use the parlour unless you’d rather keep me out of the kitchen.’
‘Live as family, four and sixpence,’ the woman said.
She passed Miriam the baby, now fast asleep, and got her purse from the dresser drawer. She put the sovereign into it and handed Miriam a florin.
‘I’m Mrs Thomas,’ she said, ‘Lily Thomas. Widow.’
FOURTEEN
Catrin withdrew from the day-to-day life of the farm. Everyone thought she was busy with preparations for her departure to Cardiff; in fact she spent her time in her room, studying herself in the mirror for hours, doing absolutely nothing.
In making her decision to train as a nurse, she had thought she was taking a step which would radically change her life and was realizing that it had in no way changed her. She had expected immediate metamorphosis into a completely different being, selfless, whereas she was still, she knew it, the immature, over-emotional girl thwarted in her first love encounter. The big gesture seemed to have been in vain, even rather silly.
Doctor Andrews, because he was a little in love with her, had some idea of what she was going through, and on his daily visits to her mother never failed to spend five minutes with her, talking about the more exciting aspects of modern medicine; the advances being made in operation techniques, the newest theories about nervous diseases. Realizing that she was intent on sacrificing herself, he wanted her at least to consider the sacrifice worthwhile.
In the event, it wasn’t the doctor’s pep talks which strengthened her resolve, but something else entirely.
On 5 August, a few days before she was due to leave home, it was announced in the papers that England had declared war on Germany.
From her earliest schooldays, a war between the great powers, England, France and Germany, had been prophesied; the inevitable outcome of their increasing military strength and continual jockeying for position. Now that the war had come, it seemed the appropriate time for putting aside personal vanities like love affairs and painting and drawing, and for making a serious commitment. It wasn’t so much patriotism th
at moved her as a foreboding of difficult times ahead, a foreboding that life was earnest and might be grim. The outbreak of war enabled her to forget herself and really think of herself as a nurse.
It was the following day that Josi returned home. He walked about the farm in his old way, talking to everyone, taking it easy, so entirely master of the situation that there was little speculation about why he’d come back; he was there, that was enough. Everyone was pleased.
It was only with Rachel that his composure left him; she had changed so much in his absence, had lost such a great deal of weight; lost her hold on life, it seemed.
‘Rachel,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to see you so low.’
‘Did Tom ask you to come back? Was that why you came?’ She struggled to sit up, not noticing his shocked expression or his faltering tones.
‘That mostly. Other things as well.’
‘We’re man and wife, Josi,’ she said.
He took her hand. Her wedding ring was loose on her finger.
‘We are, Rachel.’
‘This is where you should be.’
‘It is.’
‘Don’t leave me again. There’s no need for it.’
‘I won’t leave you again. Believe me I won’t. I’m sorry to have caused you such distress. I’ll be here from now on.’
With that she had to be satisfied. She was satisfied. Rachel believed her husband had returned because he had received assurances of her forgiveness. Her heart grew large with forgiveness; it seemed the sweetest thing in the world.
She called Tom up to her room when Josi had gone downstairs and told him to arrange weekly payments for the baby until her sixteenth birthday. Tom promised to see the solicitor that afternoon.
‘I want the payments to continue, remember, even if I should die.’
‘Of course they shall, Mam, of course. I think you’re acting generously and properly.’
Tom bent and kissed his mother’s forehead. He was relieved that she hadn’t asked him any embarrassing questions; whether he had seen Miss Lewis and the baby, where they and his father had been living. He considered his mother a perfect lady.
‘Now that Father is home, I think I’ll apply for a commission with the Monmouthshire Regiment. I was in the Officers Training Corps at school, so I don’t think they’d turn me down. I feel I ought to go. It seems my duty. They say it will be all over by Christmas.’
‘Tom, but you’re needed here.’
‘Not now. Not now that Father is back.’
‘Tom. Oh Tom, I suppose you must do what you think is right.’
‘I think it’s right. Germany has marched into Belgium, a peaceful little country, not much bigger than Wales; that seems indefensible. The English and French armies will have to put a stop to that, it seems to me. Don’t you think so?’
‘So I’m going to lose you and Catrin?’
‘You won’t lose either of us. We’ll come back when it’s all over and you’ll be proud of us. I’m very pleased now that Catrin is going to be a nurse; it’s the very thing I’d want her to do. After her training, she can volunteer to nurse the wounded.’
‘But you said it would be over by Christmas.’
‘The newspapers could be wrong, I suppose.’
Josi read the accounts of war, but couldn’t concentrate on them. Things outside his control didn’t occupy his mind. Miriam occupied his mind. Was he right to have left her? Rachel was dying, that was obvious even to him, yet she seemed the stronger of the two women. It wasn’t that Miriam had wept or clung to him; quite the reverse. When he had got back to their little cottage a couple of days ago, she had seemed terribly and awfully composed, drawing away from him when he’d tried to touch her, as animals do when injured.
‘I’ve found lodgings for her and me, Jos, in that cottage I told you about. I know you won’t be able to visit us, I won’t expect it, but perhaps you’ll write a line or two now and again. Care of Mrs Thomas, Carreg Las, Morfa. I expect you’ll change, though, Josi, people change when someone is dying, death turns even the best people into hypocrites. You’ll become religious, you shall see; more religious, I mean. You’ll think of me as your fall from grace and you’ll pray for deliverance from the sins of the flesh. Yes, you will, Josi. Never mind, I won’t change. You can be sure of me.’
‘Don’t torture me, girl. You know how I love you. Don’t break my heart with your nonsense. I don’t know how I can bring myself to leave you, home is where you are, you know that, Miriam. Only a little month we’ve had together here, and we thought we’d never be parted again. What can I do to show you how much I love you?’
If Miriam had asked him to stay, he would have stayed, he knew it. But she didn’t. Only tormented him in the way she had, so that there was only one way of release, and that way, she denied him.
They had spent the entire night in feverish thrust and parry, she never relenting, always keeping him away, beating him with her hard little fists whenever he tried to touch her. And at dawn they were still awake. Still alone and separate, they heard the first bird piping up. Then another and another, thrushes and blackbirds, robins and linnets, reaching an urgent, tumultuous crescendo.
‘They really seem to think it’s wonderful, don’t they; being alive,’ Miriam said, her voice calm. ‘Listen to them straining their little throats. It’s only another day, you foolish creatures, it’s not the blessed resurrection.’
‘Let them be,’ Josi said. He put his hand out to touch her and found her small and quiet. She didn’t resist when he lifted her towards him.
‘You’re my new day, Josi,’ she said afterwards. In the faint light of dawn they clung together and kissed in absolute surrender. They half-slept, kissed as they slept, clung together in their despair.
That evening after dark, he took her and the baby to their new home in Morfa. Mrs Thomas came to the door at Miriam’s first tap. She seemed surprised to see a man with her, perhaps relieved, but didn’t ask him in. ‘Goodbye,’ Miriam said, touching his hand briefly and following Mrs Thomas into the lamp-lit kitchen. ‘Goodbye, my girl.’
The tearing pain of parting remained with him still. So many songs he had sung about heartache, but they were all inadequate. Words turned about and stuck in his throat. Only the wind on the moor and the rain and the eerie broken cry of the curlews seemed to express the pain he felt.
She had shed a radiance on his life, he had never understood it, only accepted it. She made him feel as previously he had never felt for a woman, had felt only for an occasional frosty night when the stars shone on the hard, bright snow, at a funeral when the choir of men’s voices seemed to touch the nerve at the centre of existence. She affected him like stars and music. How could he do without her? He walked about the farm feeling like the husk of the man he was.
*
Tom hadn’t told Catrin that their father was returning. She walked into the kitchen at midday and found him there talking to Miss Rees. For a moment she neither moved nor spoke, so great was her shock at seeing him; her heart pounded and her mouth was dry.
‘What’s up with you?’ Josi asked her, and to her surprise she found herself crying in his arms as she had done when she was a child, as though he was the only one who could help her. And he patted her back and waited for her to stop.
‘Have you heard about the war?’ she asked at last. She hoped her emotional outburst would be ascribed to that cause.
‘Yes, I’ve seen the papers. Yesterday’s and today’s.’
‘Have you heard that I’m going nursing?’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that, too.’
‘Will you be here while I’m away?’
‘Yes, I’ll be here.’
He was so calm and self-assured, seemed so strong and dependable. Yet, he had left her mother for another woman; Catrin realized that she shouldn’t be basking in the warmth of his presence. He couldn’t help himself, she thought, any more than I could help falling in love with Edward Turncliffe. Nothing – she knew it – could keep
her from Edward, neither family nor career nor the knowledge of hurting Rose whom she had liked and admired. She was no different. No better. Perhaps no one was. She had been too young and green to understand. She patted her father’s arm, forgiving him.
He thought her touch seemed like an appeal for help.
‘Don’t let them get you down,’ he said.
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Anybody.’
He thought of Isaac Lloyd, his boss for the last six weeks. How had the man become such a tyrant? How had it happened? What had twisted his nature? So that he had a need to antagonize every man and woman on his farm. Why? ‘The men will work twice as hard if you send them a good tea and give them time to eat it.’ ‘When I want advice from you I’ll ask for it.’ Every move Josi had made to try to humanize conditions had been countered by greater severity. When Josi had told him he was leaving, Lloyd had treated the statement with scorn. ‘You’ll leave when I kick you out.’ With no money and no reference, how could a workman leave? He was as tied as during the years of serfdom.
When Josi had told the farm lads of his departure, they had got up before dawn to help him load his furniture on to the wagon; partly, they liked him, mainly it was their delight that Isaac Lloyd was to be done down, to the best of their knowledge it was the first time such a thing had ever happened.
He wished he could warn Catrin about the Isaac Lloyds of the world, by all accounts there were plenty in the nursing profession. But she was young and resilient, and doubtless more charitable and understanding than he was.
‘Be happy,’ he said. ‘Try to be happy.’
‘I can’t be happy so I’ll have to be good, won’t I?’