This happy venture passed the time too, and gave me strength to walk about again and read the advertisements. It was daylight when my next train came in, and as it was nearly empty I had no fellow passengers to consult, so determined to watch for Shrewsbury all the way, in case I passed it. But I fell fast asleep, only to wake as we were gliding into another big station. Shrewsbury! Hurrah! Food was my one thought, and it was not till I had fallen upon a pork pie and hot coffee that I asked about the next train for Aberdovey. There was to be one about 10, and that was convenient, since it was then only 8. But when I found on further inquiries that it was to arrive at Aberdovey at 2, I changed my mind. To face new people is bad enough at any hour, but at 2 o’clock in the afternoon it is hideous. I pictured a lunch just cleared away, and either a dreadful attempt to warm some up for me, or else a long stretch of being polite before tea would be possible. No. Finding that the next train would not start till 2, I actually decided to spend the six hours in Shrewsbury to wait for it, little knowing that the Cambrian railway could have been relied on to be an hour late, if I had chosen the earlier train. The station people must have thought me a suspicious character, or suffering from some nervous complaint, for I kept returning to its purlieus after each little prowl round the town. My chief interest was Tom’s school. But I found that the old building of his day had been turned into a public library or something equally impersonal, and that the new buildings were away on the other side of the town by the river. I went to see them and they looked all beautiful, but had no associations with my brother, so I returned to the old building, and tried to pick out which window might have been that of his old prep-room. For this had been the scene of two of his schoolboy pranks that had specially delighted me as a child. One was the putting of an alarm-clock in the master’s desk, arranged to go off during the deep quiet of prep-time, and the other was the simultaneous tearing of brown paper at the third stroke of 7 by all the boys in study.
After this I merely wandered about the town, enjoying the little up-and-down streets with funny names (such as Wyle Cop and Dogpole), the old timbered houses, and the country women in their poke-bonnets and plaid shawls. Then I fell back on the Londoner’s unfailing source of amusement—looking at the shop windows. Returning to my base, the station waiting-room, I wrote a letter to mother, and went out again to find the post office to buy a stamp. After this I had another determined go at Wuthering Heights. But the characters seemed to have become more complicated and even less exhilarating than the night before, so I went to the book-stall to look for something professedly comic. But Ally Sloper proved more depressing than Emily Brontë, and I returned to her with positive relief.
Half-past twelve at last! This was the hour I had fixed as the earliest possible for my midday meal, and I intended that it should consume as much time as possible. The first thing was to capture it. This was before the days when shops offered attractive lunches, and I was far too shy and inexperienced to walk into an hotel. So I bought apples in one shop, buns at another, some chocolate at another, returning with each purchase to the waiting-room, much to the amusement of the attendant, to whom I had confided my folly in waiting so long, and who took a kindly interest in the situation.
At 1.30 I felt it would be quite respectable to appear on the platform and look as if I had just arrived. The train ‘for the coast’ soon came along, and settling down in an empty carriage I regarded my troubles as over. How jolly! We were actually off! But after going a few hundred yards we stopped. Here there were good views of the town, but I had really seen enough of it for the time. Everything was so quiet that I feared my carriage had been sent aside for repairs. I leaned out and saw a man waving his arms, and guessed that we must be only shunting. We were soon back in the station, to rest a little before starting for the coast.
The journey was scheduled for about four hours, and, as I surmised from the many stops and general leisureliness, it would be actually longer. But I didn’t care how long it was, so excited was I at my new surroundings. I had never seen mountains before, and there was the train plodding along right amongst them, now breathing hard up a steep incline and now cluttering down the other side. Every bend brought a fresh view of the great masses in all shades of grey. It was a sunny afternoon, and wispy clouds were throwing shadows on purple hill-sides, and valley after valley led away to goodness knew where. I kept hovering from one end of the carriage to the other, and lost all my fatigue in the delight of the new experience. When we went down into the Dovey valley I exclaimed some words that Arthur had taught me—‘a dwfn yw tonau Dyfi’ (Deep are the waters of Dovey). I surrendered then, admitting at last that Wales could produce finer scenery than Cornwall.
Light relief was afforded by the names of the stations and my attempts to pronounce them. Machynlleth beat me, but I learnt how to spell it, for the train lingered there for ages with shuntings and shoutings. Was I all right for Aberdovey, I asked, and was told that I must change at the Junction for the Coast. One more junction seemed a trifle, but I did not then know my Glandovey. The pull-up here was as decided and as seemingly final as at Euston. Not that there was any town to go to, for the junction lay in the middle of marshy flats, without even a road to connect it with any busy hum. But in itself it was certainly a busy hum, being the nerve centre between North and South Wales, just where the dividing river Dovey spread out into an estuary. The train in which I sat was bound for Aberystwyth and the south, so I gathered that Aberdovey must lie to the north. The extreme congestion on the platform was due to the fact that everybody, no matter his destination, got out. The motive appeared to be social rather than utilitarian. Little knots of farmers, commercial travellers, English holiday-makers, and so on, were chatting as if no thought of continuing their journey were troubling them. But a number of determined-looking women, laden with bundles of things they had bought or were going to sell—eggs, live poultry, fruit and vegetables—were preparing to take by storm an inferior looking train that was just appearing round the hills to the north. Obviously it was going the wrong way for me, and yet I saw no other. It all seemed to me like the game of croquet in Alice. The only porter in sight was too engrossed with luggage to be appealed to. Seeing a nice young English tourist gazing at the scene with amusement, I asked him if he had any idea where I could get the train for Aberdovey.
‘It’s that one that has just come in; you see it turns back here. Let me take your bag and I’ll find you a seat, but I’m afraid this coast train is pretty bad, even worse than our Aberystwyth one.’
‘Oh, don’t let me keep you, your train may be off.’
‘There’s no fear of that,’ he laughed, ‘we have ample warning before she starts.’
And indeed we had. ‘Take your seats, take your seats,’ was shouted at intervals by the porter, in the vain hope that he would get more room to move the luggage about. It was evident that his request had no connexion with the starting of the train.
My pleasant young man found me a seat at last, with apologies for ‘the best he could do’, amidst the market women. The carriage astounded me, for I thought this kind of thing had long ago been turned into tool-sheds for London suburban gardens. It had wooden seats, minute windows, and was open throughout.
‘It won’t be for long,’ were his parting words, ‘Aberdovey is the next station.’
And now I was met by one of the surprises of my life. These women, delivered from the anxieties of getting themselves and their bundles into the train, began to talk. And it was all in a foreign language. The bits of Welsh that my father and Arthur had taught me I had thought to be quaint survivals, and had no idea that people talked like that all day. Meanwhile I clutched my bag, all ready to jump out at the ‘next station’. On we rolled through the meadows by the side of the broadening Dovey, dotted with black cows and little white sheep. We plunged in total darkness through several tunnels where the mountains came down to the riverside. I knew that Aberdovey meant the mouth of the Dovey, so we must be very near. Still no sign
of human habitation except a few isolated farms. On and on. At last, as we emerged from one of the tunnels, I saw roofs, another tunnel, then more roofs, and yes, a church tower. Here we are, thought I. Another tunnel, into the station, doubtless. No, into the open country again, and well away, with no symptom of slowing down! I was in despair, for evidently we had passed the place and were in some kind of express. I ventured to ask the woman next me, but she let loose such a flood of Welsh on me that I could only smile pleasantly and bring out one of the few Welsh expressions I knew—‘diolch fawr’.
Then, with apparently no reason, the train began to slow down among the fields. I looked out and saw a wooden platform, and a board with ‘Aberdovey’ on it. And there, too, was Arthur looking anxiously up and down the train. With him was a large clergyman, overflowing with boisterous greetings, as I got out.
‘We shall have to walk up, I fear,’ said Arthur, ‘there’s no cab to be had.’ As we left the station he pointed to a black box on wheels, drawn by an unbelievably old horse, driven by an unbelievably old man. ‘That is the Aberdovey omnibus, “plying between station and town”. You tell old Rushell where you want to be put down, climb in, bang the door as a sign that you are safe, and in time he starts. Luggage goes on a trolley, driven by a one-armed man who stands up in the middle. We shall see him presently on the road; it’s about all the traffic we have.’
It was a goodish walk from the station, for the town straggled along between the hills and the estuary, including on its way a real port with a bright-funnelled little steamer tied up at the quay. I was amused with the walk and glad to stretch my legs after being cooped up so long. The vicar accompanied us the whole way, not from parochial duty, as I at first imagined, but (as I learned later) because he had nothing else to do, and my arrival was a bit of an event, a trifle to add to the gossip. I was amazed at the way in which both he and Arthur turned on Welsh, as though from a tap, whenever they met an acquaintance, which was about every hundred yards.
At last the vicar said goodbye. He was very stout and didn’t want to do our final climb. The tiny house that Arthur had captured for his mother was at the end of a tiny row, lodged precariously on a tiny ledge of the hillside. We could reach Brynhyfryd only by a rough and very steep path. At the open door stood Mrs. Hughes, with a ‘Well, well, well, and here you are at last!’ It is curious how a mere tone of voice can make you feel at home at once. A meal was all ready, and as I fell upon it heartily I was able to amuse Arthur and his mother with the story of my twenty-six-hour journey in seven trains; he, poor fellow, had been at the station since 2 o’clock, off and on.
I was pleased to find that Mrs. Hughes herself was English, and even with her long married life in Wales had picked up only enough Welsh to talk to the servant and the tradesmen. All her friends were like Arthur, bi-lingual. It had been like an earthquake for her to leave her old home among the mountains, but she was beginning to find pleasure in her little house at Aberdovey, which was high enough to give her a view of the estuary and the southern hills and the sea beyond the harbour. As she was showing me every corner and every limitation of the house on the following day, as though I were already her daughter, she confessed that she had been in some alarm about me. I was curious to know why. ‘Well, you see, dear, the name “Molly” sounded so frivolous.’
The idea of my being frivolous was still funnier than my being considered modern, and Mrs. Hughes soon saw the absurdity of it when I entered with zest into all her household perplexities. Catering was the supreme problem. We could get a leg of superb Welsh mutton every Saturday, from a little lock-up shop. Superb in quality, not in size. This had to be, in some form or other, the main dish for the week. I began to understand the origin of the Friday fast, for vegetables were definitely predominating in the stew by that day. There was generally ‘some ham in the house’. Butter and eggs could be obtained at uncertain intervals from a woman coming with a basket from a farm up among the hills. So uncertain were her visits that the butter had to be salted down in order to keep. There was no fruit to be had, no cake, and most astonishing to me for Wales, no cheese. There was no cool larder, and the heat was often so great that we could have frizzled bacon on the slate flags by the front door. Poultry was too dear to be considered. Bread was made at home by the servant, two vast loaves at a time, and carried down to a bake-house in the village. As it grew very stale I asked her how often she baked.
‘Now you are here,’ she said with pride, ‘we bake once a week, but usually once a fortnight.’
This little servant was quite useless at cooking outside the sphere of bread and potato-peeling and mint-chopping, so I asked Mrs. Hughes if I could help a bit in this direction. The response was ready.
‘Well, dear, to tell the truth, I should be really grateful if you would undertake the suppers. My sight is getting rather bad for cooking at night.’
Therein she showed great acumen. I believe it wasn’t so much her poor sight as the difficulty of making a variety of pleasant meals of the lesser kind, with no resources. Ex nihilo fiat aliquid. For the actual cooking there was nothing but one of those open fire-places that break the heart. There was an oven, but it flatly refused to do anything quickly, so that any dish with pastry was ruled out. A frying-pan could be poised on the fire, and with that I managed bacon and eggs in all their combinations and permutations. Tinned things were not to be had in those days—not in Aberdovey.
The rumour of a catch of mackerel was sheer glory. Arthur would rush down to the water-side and capture half a dozen great glittering beauties for as many pence. Their colours were so beautiful that I was quite sorry to cook them. Having no experience or guidance as to how they should be ‘dressed’, I had to go by the light of nature, and my very first venture was a great success. I cleaned them and laid them in a tin, put flour and butter on the top, a little vinegar and water under them, made up the fire as fiercely as I could, put the tin in the oven, and awaited results. With coffee and home-made marmalade we had a meal fit for a king.
In the village of course there were shops, and I soon knew the character and contents of each. The butcher’s shed was opened only on Saturday, when old Rowland would sit and flick the flies off his mutton. The draper’s was a gloomy, dusty spot where a melancholy woman would do her best to supply some dire necessity of clothing; I always wondered how she made a living. These were the only two distinctive shops; all the others seemed to sell everything. The liveliest centre of trade was called ‘Garibaldi’s’, because Mr. Jones liked to be known as an Italian warehouseman. Here we could buy oil, tea, bacon, tobacco, sweets, and on Friday the great attraction for Arthur, The Cambrian News. I think his name was Jones, but he was always known as ‘old Garibaldi’. Sometimes a rumour would reach us that there was some cheese ‘in’, or some plums, and Mrs. Hughes and I would immediately go ‘shopping’. ‘Which shop shall we try?’ was my natural question, but her routine was invariable. ‘I like to patronize them all,’ she would say, ‘because there are little jealousies.’ And how I enjoyed our morning’s work to get a bit of cheese. At each shop there was a minute purchase of bacon or tea, or a reel of cotton, after a full discussion of the weather or a recent death. Finally, we would get some tobacco for Arthur at Garibaldi’s and then be surprised to hear, ‘Inteet there is some cheese today.’
So it was not so much the lack of money as the lack of things to buy that caused us to be underfed in the Aberdovey of the eighties.
§ 2
One day, however, we were forcibly fed. An invitation came to spend the day at Machynlleth with some old friends of the family. When Arthur pulled a face at the idea, I naturally said, ‘Then why go?’ But it was almost of the type of a royal command, for they knew we had nothing to do, and any trumped-up excuse would have wounded their feelings. ‘Well, let’s just go to tea,’ I suggested. Again Arthur shook his head, ‘Mother would think that a shocking waste of railway-fare.’
A distance from door to door, that a car could comfortably manage in
half an hour today, consumed over two hours on the railway, even when things went reasonably well. The trains were few, and not invariably late. An hour was the usual time for them to be behind schedule, and if this could have been relied on we could have fallen comfortably in with the plan. But sometimes they would be punctual! Now in order to be in time for lunch at Machynlleth, our feast of obligation, we had to get the 8 o’clock train from Aberdovey. This meant breakfast at 7, because Mrs. Hughes liked to start at 7.30, so as to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, Arthur stayed behind to enjoy his pipe.
Mrs. Hughes and I sat on the platform and amused ourselves as best we could, and were quite cheered to see some kind of odd train doddering in from Towyn—a goods or something. To our dismay we discovered that it was our own train, actually up to time. And of course no sign of Arthur.
‘There! What have I always said? I knew he would be late, running it so close. We must go without him, that’s all,’ said Mrs. Hughes as she climbed into a carriage. I wanted to wait for the next train, but she said the people at Machynlleth would be at the station to meet us, and it wouldn’t do to disappoint them. Reluctantly I got in too, and hoped that there would be the usual delay in departure. I hung out of the window to see if Arthur were in sight. Yes, there he was far back along the road, running hard, for he had evidently seen the train. Then the wretched thing started. All I could do was to wave regrets to Arthur, but he was otherwise occupied. To my alarm I saw him turn from the road, vault the fence, run on to the line and wave his arms in front of the engine. We stopped, and in another minute he was scrambling into the carriage.
There was never any hurry, because there was bound to be a long wait at the junction before the train from Aberystwyth came in. Just as we were lumbering over the river-bridge into Glandovey Junction we went suddenly soft—ominously soft. Arthur’s head was out at once.
A London Girl of the Eighties Page 20