A Small Country Page 3

  Once, long ago, his pony had died. Suddenly. No one knew why. He was eight or nine. ‘Dead?’ he had shouted and screamed, banging his fists against his father’s chest. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Do you remember when Blackbird died?’ he asked his mother.

  ‘You were very brave.’

  ‘Brave? I cried myself to sleep for weeks and weeks. Don’t you remember how I started wetting the bed?’

  ‘Wasn’t that when Grandfather died?’

  ‘No, I didn’t care a bit about that. You were so sure he’d gone to Heaven and it seemed such a good idea.’

  ‘He was a good man.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Go downstairs now. Edward will be here soon, surely. It must be half past ten.’

  ‘Shall I take the letter? Show it to Catrin?’

  ‘Isn’t she too young to see it?’

  ‘No. She knows things, it seems.’

  ‘Show it to her, then. Read it to Nano too.’

  ‘Right. You must take some beef tea, now, or she’s going to have Doctor Andrews along in the morning.’

  ‘Read it to her first, then. She’ll be kinder about the beef tea afterwards, I can’t keep anything down, Tom, I really can’t.

  Catrin read the letter, showing as little emotion as if it were a shopping list.

  ‘Never,’ she said at the end as if the total had been incorrectly reckoned.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tom asked

  ‘I’ll never forgive him,’ she said. ‘Will you? How I wish Edward would come, the lamb will be dry, everything will be spoiled. The girls are in bed, and Nano should be, too.’

  ‘I’ll send her off now,’ Tom said. ‘You can see to the meal, surely.’

  He went to the kitchen, the letter in his hand. Nano was sitting on the settle at the side of the range, her hands in her lap.

  ‘You can take her the beef tea now,’ Tom said. ‘And then you get along to bed.’ He found he wasn’t able to read the letter to her after all. ‘Father’s written to say he’s setting up house with Miss Lewis, the Rhydfelen school mistress. Baby, it seems. Take her the beef tea now, just a little. Spot of brandy in it, perhaps. Not so much that she’ll notice.’

  ‘Right,’ Nano said, putting the little saucepan back on the fire and touching her eyes with her apron. It was true then, what people said.

  ‘Why don’t you have a little basinful with her?’ Tom said. ‘Spot of brandy. Do you good, too.’

  ‘Right, right,’ Nano said, wanting to be rid of him. He left her stirring the beef tea on the fire; muttering to it.

  It was another hour before Edward arrived. By that time Tom and Catrin, too hungry to wait any longer, had had their supper. But so had he, he assured them, waving aside their apologies, so had he. While some good fellow at Llandre had mended his puncture, done an excellent job on it. And he’d had a wonderful trip; cloudless skies, memorable meals in roadside inns, the utmost courtesy from everyone. He couldn’t stop smiling.

  To Catrin, Edward seemed like a visitor from a distant, untroubled world. That’s what it is to be English, she thought. Assured, self-confident, never brash, never on the look-out for insult, never brooding on imagined slights; victorious somehow, blessèd.

  ‘I’ll get you a basin of soup, anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s a long way from Llandre. I’ll get you a basin of soup and then I’ll be off to bed.’

  Edward was so full of good cheer, so high-spirited, so triumphant to have cycled from London in only five days, that Tom felt obliged to show him his father’s letter. In a way he felt disloyal to be so fully exposing a family grief, but it was clearly going to be impossible to be with Edward without saying something, and saying everything seemed far less complicated.

  His friend read the letter without a word and then handed it back.

  ‘Right, then, soup,’ he said when Catrin returned. ‘That smells wonderful. Soup of the evening, beautiful soup. Thank you. We’ll talk in the morning. I’m sorry to have kept you up so late.’

  ‘Good night, Edward.’ They shook hands.

  Catrin was pleased, after all, that he had come. She’d almost forgotten the warmth of his presence. ‘And now, no more the frost candies the grass’, she said as she went upstairs.

  ‘She doesn’t seem to care a bit,’ Tom said when they were alone again. ‘Hard as nails, Catrin. Just as well, perhaps. My mother and the old girl are enough to put up with.’

  ‘Hard as nails!’ Edward said. ‘I’ve never seen a girl so altered, the shadow of a shadow. Last summer she was.... Now she looks.... She’s still beautiful, but.... Oh well, there’s no use expecting you to notice, I suppose. This soup’s wonderful. No one can make soup like Miss Rees. Tom, old chap, I’ll only be able to stay a week or so this time.’

  ‘That’s quite all right. Just as well, perhaps. Things will be pretty miserable here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s not that. Not that at all. I’d be glad to be with you through this business, very glad. lt’s not that at all. You see, it’s Rose.’

  Tom and Edward left the table and stretched out in a couple of armchairs with their pipes.

  Tom wasn’t really disposed to hear about Rose, who was Edward’s fiancée, an active suffragette, and in Tom’s opinion – he had met her half a dozen times – spoilt, headstrong, and altogether unsuitable for Edward who was easy-going and easily hurt.

  ‘She’s determined to be a martyr, old chap.’

  ‘Will you be able to stop her?’

  Edward took several puffs of the pipe which he had at last managed to light.

  ‘No,’ he said afterwards. ‘But all the same, I think I should be around.’

  Edward was two years older than Tom. He was fair-haired and tall, whereas Tom was dark and, though not short, several inches shorter than Edward. They had lodged together for two years. Neither had another close friend.

  ‘Remarkable man, your father,’ Edward said after a few moments’ silence.

  ‘Remarkable fool.’

  Tom unfolded the letter again and re-read it. To his embarrassment, his eyes were suddenly full of tears. He turned his head as though to get more light from the big lamp on the table and blinked once or twice. ‘Twenty-three years,’ he said, when he was sure of being able to speak steadily. ‘To throw it all away. A farm like this.’

  ‘It’s your mother’s farm.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it? When did she ever give any orders? Did you ever hear her give any orders? Say anything at all about running the farm?’

  ‘No no. Only she told me several times it was her father’s farm, her grandfather’s, great-great-grandfather’s. How many generations?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘That’s all I said old chap. It’s her farm. It’ll be your farm. But it wasn’t his.’

  ‘All right. All right. I take your point. But what’s he got now? What’s he got instead? He lived very well whether it was his farm or not. He never wanted for anything. My mother has always been stingy as hell towards me, but that’s because of her damned Puritanism. She’s so terrified that I’ll become a gambler or a drunkard, or both, instead of a respectable lawyer. But she was never mean towards him.’

  ‘But surely the fact that you can make that statement implies that the whole thing was on the wrong footing? “She was never mean towards him.” ’

  ‘You’re a fine one, you are,’ Tom said at last. ‘You’ve been preaching women’s rights to me for two years; almost had me converted. But the first time you come across it in real life you find it rather distasteful.’

  ‘I’m a mass of contradictions,’ Edward agreed.

  ‘My grandfather left his farm to his only daughter, entailed to me. What’s wrong with that? My mother was five or six years older than my father. If she had died first, he might have married again and left it to another son or sold it.’

  ‘I don’t think he would have.’

  ‘My grandfather probably wasn’t the psychologist that you are.’

&
nbsp; ‘Probably not.’

  Tom managed a small smile.

  ‘Things like this just don’t happen in this part of the world,’ he said, then.

  ‘Things like this happen everywhere, from time to time.’

  ‘I can’t think of another instance. Not around here, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it would help you that much if you could.’

  ‘Yes it would. One doesn’t like to feel a freak. The family is sacred in these parts.’

  ‘You make fun of the way your mother talks about Wales; no cases for the assize courts, “the land of white gloves”, and so on; now you’re as bad.’

  ‘I suppose I am. It’s shaken me, Edward, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Of course it has. It’s shaken me too. I feel more sorry than I can say.’

  For a time they sat in silence. Then realizing how late it was getting, Tom rose to his feet.

  ‘Are you mowing with me tomorrow?’

  ‘Rather. “Killing the hay”, as Miss Rees says.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call, then, at five, and we’ll start on the slaughter.’

  ‘I may not answer the call, old man. Not at five. The harvest is truly plentiful but the labourers are not all ready by five o’clock —I’ll probably get up at about seven and then have an hour with Catrin, collecting the eggs. That’s a job I’d leave home for, that is.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ned, leave the girl alone this time. Leave her alone, for God’s sake.’

  ‘You mean her mind, I take it. A quick kiss and a cuddle, you wouldn’t mind that?’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Ned. It’s your subversive talk I’m afraid of. You know that very well.’

  ‘We’re both idiots, then.... What’s the matter? I’m not serious.’

  ‘I know that. No I was simply thinking about all the talking we’ve done in the last couple of years; enough for a lifetime, wouldn’t you say? You know, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Oxford next year.’

  ‘We’ll think about that again, old man. You can’t make a decision like that after a long day in the hay-field. We’ll talk again.’

  Tom lit a small lamp for Edward and took him upstairs.

  When he came downstairs he re-read the letter several times.

  He had always idolized his father, had always felt such pride in his good looks and vitality, his unsought popularity everywhere; he was one of those people whose presence seemed to enliven any gathering; his laugh infectious.

  If there was any singing anywhere, he would soon be singing loudly as anyone, making up words if he didn’t know them; never at a loss.

  He could remember listening to him when he was a small boy tucked up in bed, the sad, old songs, the break in his voice. ’Twas I who watched the ripening wheat, another has the harvest. How desolate those words had made him, he’d had no idea that they referred to a woman, he was a farmer even then, it was the wheat he’d cared about, the precious harvest. But not his father, obviously.

  He tried to remember Miss Lewis, Rhydfelen School, he’d seen her often enough at local gatherings. Small and insignificant he’d always thought her. A delicate, oval face, to be fair, a pretty way of holding herself; she certainly didn’t look thirty.

  And his father thought he loved her and their child. Tom felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a physical pain in his chest, to think that his father had now, perhaps, another son who would trail about after him. Catrin had never counted.

  ‘Poor Mother,’ he said to himself, ‘if I can feel this.’

  FOUR

  Catrin found Edward still in the breakfast-room when she got down next morning. Miss Rees standing at the door keeping him company. It was a still, silvery morning, doves murmuring from the huge chestnut trees outside the windows.

  ‘How is your mother today?’

  There was a pause before Catrin replied. It was as though she was giving the question grave consideration. In fact she was savouring the moment; the smile, the friendliness, the June morning.

  ‘She doesn’t talk to me. It’s only Nano she wants.’

  ‘She thinks of you as a child, that’s all. She’s trying to protect you.’

  Catrin looked at him gratefully, wondering if he could be right. It was a thing she hadn’t considered.

  ‘When may I go up to see her?’

  Catrin looked towards Nano.

  ‘She’ll get up this afternoon,’ the old woman said. ‘Indeed I hope so.’ She looked from one to the other, smiled at them both and left them. She could talk English wonderfully well, but it usually took her some little time to get used to an Englishman’s English.

  ‘Shall I pour you a cup of tea?’ Edward asked.

  ‘How nice that sounds. I don’t think any other man has ever offered to pour me a cup of tea. It’s always, “Let’s have a cup of tea then, good girl”.’

  ‘Ah well, let’s say it’s my special privilege.’

  He poured her a cup of tea and passed it to her. ‘Shall I make you some toast? Boil you an egg? Clean your boots?’

  Catrin smiled. She took a piece of crusty bread from the crock on the table and sprinkled sugar on it.

  ‘How old are you?’ Edward asked her. She had so many child-like ways.

  ‘A year older than I was last summer.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad that things are progressing in that orderly manner. Some young girls are suddenly three or four years older between breakfast and dinner in these uncertain times.’

  ‘I’m eighteen since January. It’s true I feel much older, three or four years older than I did last summer.’

  ‘You mean, because of your father?’

  ‘Yes. Because of my father. I hate my father, Edward. I hate him.’

  ‘But he’s left home, so you should feel young and gay, Miss Catherine.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Of course not. I was being flippant just as you were being melodramatic.’

  ‘I wasn’t being melodramatic. I hate him. I’ve never idolized him the way Tom does; now I hate him. It’s as simple as that. Why don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Finish your cup of tea and I’ll come with you to collect the eggs.’

  ‘Won’t Tom be expecting you?’

  ‘Probably. Do you hate Tom too?’

  ‘No, I don’t hate Tom. I’d like you better as a brother, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you consider me an equal. For instance, you’d think it was right and proper for me to go away to Art School.’

  ‘Certainly I would. Doesn’t Tom?’

  They walked out, through the kitchen into the haze of early morning. Catrin put on her clogs and picked up the big oval basket from the bench outside the back door.

  ‘It’s going to be hot,’ she said, squinting up at the sky. ‘Oh no, Tom thinks I should stay at home.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘She doesn’t say much; for or against.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Tom.’

  ‘He won’t listen. Girls stay home. That’s how it’s always been.’

  As they walked across the farmyard to the hen-houses the cows were being turned out of the milking-shed and in single file were delicately picking their way towards the white gate which led to the water meadows. Edward stopped to watch them.

  ‘Come on,’ Catrin said. ‘Any minute now, you’ll be telling me how idyllic it all is.’

  ‘I like cows,’ Edward said, ‘and I’m not going to pretend I don’t because you’re in a bad mood. I like the way they walk; their dignity, the lovely way they swing from side to side.’

  ‘You can’t swing from side to side and be dignified.’

  ‘Cows can.’

  ‘Do you like hens?’ Catrin asked as they reached the hen-houses.

  ‘Not as much as cows. Buttercup and Violet and Meadowsweet – is there really a flower called Meadowsweet? It’s too good to be true – Fern and Primrose. I like cows, I really do.’

  Edward held the ba
sket while Catrin felt for the warm eggs, counting as she put them in.

  ‘How idyllic it all is,’ Edward said.

  ‘I want to come to London. Do you think Rose would invite me to stay with her?’ Catrin had turned and was looking at him so earnestly that he was forced to drop the bantering tone he usually adopted with her.

  ‘I’m sure she would. She liked you very much. But I don’t think Tom would want you to stay with Rose at the moment.’ He spoke gravely and gently.

  ‘He wouldn’t stop me going on holiday. I don’t mean now. I mean in September. After the harvest.’ Even in the half-darkness, he was aware of the pleading in her eyes.

  ‘Rose will probably be in prison by September.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I am, unfortunately. Her plans are very different now from what they were when you met her last year. Now that she’s twenty-one she’s volunteered for what they call disruptive work, and that means stone-throwing or arson or any of the other crazy things.’

  ‘Do you really mean “crazy things”?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. I suppose I approve of almost all they do. All the same, I can’t help wishing that Rose didn’t feel obliged to do them.’

  ‘I think she’s wonderful. I’d never do anything if there was the slightest risk of prison attached to it. They’re treated so badly there; I can’t bear to think about it. I’d be perfectly willing to address envelopes or stand at street corners with leaflets, but nothing more than that.’

  ‘That’s just how Rose felt when she started. I remember her saying much the same a couple of years back. Now, she doesn’t seem afraid of anything. The most terrifying thing is that she seems determined to suffer for the cause; she seems to long for a prison sentence as though it’s a form of initiation she has to pass through.’

  They’d collected all the eggs from the four hen-houses.

  ‘Now the ones from the stable,’ Edward said. He found he didn’t want to talk much more about Rose.

  ‘I haven’t got many hens in the stable now.’

  ‘What about Grace?’

  ‘Yes, she’s still there. Grace and one or two others.’

  They walked over to the stable, a modern white-washed building standing next to the cow shed.