Through Welsh Doorways

by Jeannette Augustus Marks

I

Keturah, leaning towards the open grate of coals in the cheerful kitchen of the Reverend Samson Jones, rubbed up and down, up and down her old shin; so rhythmical was the motion that she might have been sousing or rubbing clothes, except for a polyphonic “Ow! Ow!” to set off the rubbing. Keturah knew better than to quarrel with fate. But when the latch lifted she looked up eagerly, with that instinctive hunger for sympathy upon which most of the satisfaction of joy or the pleasure of pain depends. It was Deb, the widow Morgan’s servant, and Keturah groaned afresh with the joyous sense of having from all the world just the audience she would have chosen for her misery.

“Ow, ow!”

“Well, indeed, what is it?” asked Deb, subduing her voice, but unable to dim the two ripe, red cherries in her old red cheeks, or the snap in her old eyes.

“Ow, ’tis a pain—ow! a pain in me leg.”

“Och, well, ’t is too bad, but ’tis nothin’, ’tis nothin’ but the effect of old age,” said Deb comfortingly, “an’ old age is never comin’ alone.”

“Not comin’ alone?”

“Nay, nay, no more nor youth comes without love, nor middle age without comfort, nor——”

“Tut,” interrupted Keturah sharply, “indeed ye are makin’ a mistake; the pain has nothin’ to do with growin’ old. The other leg is quite as old whatever, but that one is well, aye, quite well.”

After an awkward silence Deb said lightly, “Is it? well, indeed!” then passed with feminine skill to another subject. “Have ye heard the news about Tudur Williams? No? Well, he went quite nasty with Cardo Parry for playin’ false with poor little Sally Edwards.”

“Did he so! Tudur is always fightin’, his pale face looks so fierce.”

“Aye, bleached. ’Tis hard rememberin’ he an’ the schoolmistress are brother and sister.”

“Aye, hard, but what did Cardo Parry do?”

The two women lowered their voices, and with that naïve liking old age often has for repulsive tales, they rolled this particular story as a sweet morsel under their tongues. Keturah forgot to rub her old shin, and the two women confronted each other in the candle-lighted room with bright eyes in which every skip of the flame from the coals over the shining brasses was reflected.

“Tudur Williams was right!” exclaimed Keturah.

“Aye, Tudur Williams is always right; but do you believe in it?”

“Aye, aye, I do indeed.”

“Tut, Keturah, believe that? I cannot. Ye’re that trustin’, ye’d believe the whale swallowed Jonah, indeed.”

“Aye, so I do,” fervently affirmed Keturah; “that blessed story I heard from the master’s father first, and I’ve heard it often from the master himself. ’Tis true as the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Pooh!” sniffed Deb, with the superiority of one indulging in the higher criticism; “if the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale ye’d believe that, too!”

“Aye, aye, indeed, iss, iss, if the Bible said so,” admitted Keturah simply; “but the Bible don’t.”

“Well,” Deb hastened to add, with a sense of having been on tottering exegetical foundations, “I dunno. But if I was to say the pastor would marry my mistress, would ye believe that, now would ye?”

Keturah considered; she had a helpless sense of tossing Jonah and the whale to and fro in an effort to understand the connection of Deb’s last remark. To this sober, long-nosed old woman, the pastor’s devoted servant, the mental processes of the widow’s cherry-cheeked Deb were often hard to understand. Keturah thought her distinctly light-minded, but without Deb the old woman would have been lost. In the last ten years, in which the Reverend Samson Jones had been, according to more lenient Wesleyan dispensation and the power of his own eloquence, returned twice to Gelligaer, Keturah had conceived a real love for and dependence on Deb.

“Marry the widow Jenkin Morgan?” she repeated.

“Aye, the mistress.”

“Are her parents ailin’?”

“Nay,” admitted Deb, crestfallen.

“Then what made ye say it?”

“I dunno,” replied Deb, “but I’ve a feelin’ here”—she patted her corsage with bright assurance—”that somethin’ is comin’, aye, somethin’ is comin’, now isn’t it?”

“How can I tell? I’m thinkin’ it will not be the widow whatever.”

“Tut, he loves her, now doesn’t he?”

“Aye, he does,” replied Keturah, taking again to rubbing her shin. “Aye, so he does, an’ it’s like to have ruined his life. A woman’s no right to hold out to stay with her parents, be they as old as Methuselah, when a man needs her to wife. Aye, he’s grown old with it all, an’ he the first man in Gelligaer! But I’m thinkin’ he’ll not marry her.”

“Not marry her!” exclaimed Deb, in real alarm. “Not marry her in the end?”

“Not marry her,” solemnly repeated Keturah. “Since he went to see his lady mother last he’s acted brisker, aye, he’s stepped firmer and swifter, an’—an’——”

“An’ what?” asked Deb breathlessly.

“An’ he’s been to see the schoolmistress three times since Sabbath once before last.”

Deb gasped, her eyes helplessly fixed on the erect Keturah. “The schoolmistress!” she exclaimed. “Tudur Williams’s sister?”

“Aye, the schoolmistress.”

“But she’s poor.”

“Aye, so she is, an’ your mistress is rich, but a minister cannot stay unmarried all his life, now can he, with all the women in the parish pursuin’ him. Jane Elin’s a handsome, capable young woman.”

“But does he love her?” persisted Deb.

“Love her? I dunno.”

“Aye, does he as he does the widow?”

“Well, indeed, I dunno. Nay,” admitted Keturah reflectively, “not as he loves the widow, I’m thinkin’.”

In his study the Reverend Samson Jones was conscientiously at work on his sermon; the will is a good horse, and if ever a man strove to ride it well it was Samson Jones, as he ran his fingers through his hair, looking now this way and now that, tipping back in his chair and muttering disconnectedly “planet shining in the night,” “morning star of a revival,” “brook in the desert,” “arid waste,” “Dan to Beersheba,” “the understanding and the conscience,” “the affections and the will.” The last word smote him and he pushed away the neatly written sheets of his sermon. Nothing any longer that he said or wrote seemed coherent or to have meaning. In years past when the Almighty had called on Samson Jones, Samson Jones had answered, with the result that Gelligaer had been listening to an eloquence unparalleled in the history of the village,—an eloquence that had brought men, women, and children from the outlying farms and hills into the Chapel, that had touched every nonconformist tradesman in the town, that had won the respect of the stricter Calvinists, and the friendly co-operation of the Church. But for two weeks no eloquent word had come to his lips; his speech had been like a spring checked at its source. To-morrow was the day he had set on which to display finally the power of his will, and to-morrow would be here in twelve hours; after that he might allow a few hours, until the proper interval came in Jane Elin’s school work, and then——!

Samson Jones covered his eyes and moaned aloud, with pagan reliance upon the helpfulness of an old saying, “Gwell pwyll nog aur [prudence is better than gold]; ond tan enw pwyll y daw twyll [but under the name of prudence deceit will come].” His head felt hot and as if every thought were a string stretched to the snapping-point; and his heart beat uncomfortably. He unlocked the drawer of his writing-table and took out a picture; it was the photograph of a charming face, of a woman evidently about thirty, but whose features were round and childlike, the deep fringed lashes, the coronal of hair and contour of chin giving the countenance the circular aspect and soft depth and delicate tinting of a pansy. Before it Samson Jones, who was of the same flesh and blood as other mortals, sat, tears filling his eyes, spilling over and rolling down his face, and the hand that held the picture shaking as it had not shaken since it held its first public sermon. Ah, he loved her so, and had loved her even before her marriage! After her husband had died unexpectedly, Samson Jones got himself recalled to Gelligaer, a feat that only he could have accomplished, and then had come this second trial.

With the unaccountable determination soft, gentle things sometimes display, Dolly Morgan had decided not to marry again so long as her old father and mother lived. She had admitted her love for Samson Jones, but assured him at the same time that he must wait. He had loved her now with the exclusive passion of a warm, dependent nature through six long years. The parents might live, however, for twenty years more. He had battled in vain against the resolution of Dolly, who, having experienced matrimony once, had no longer a maiden’s eagerness to rush into matrimony again, however desirable. He had urged upon her the especial responsibility of a minister’s life, the need he had for a wife to help him, the years that her parents were likely to live, the wish of his congregation that he should marry, and finally, again and again, his great love for her. But Dolly could be convinced of no immediate duty beyond that due to her parents. But there was no shadow of a doubt in her mind that the day would come inevitably when she would be Mrs. Samson Jones “the minister,” just as she had certainly been two years ago Mrs. Jenkin Morgan “the shop.” Her mind was full of untroubled axiomata media, and these two facts were of them, the one proved, the other unproved but not disproved.

In the meantime the pastor’s work suffered; he was pursued by marriageable women young and old; he had advice from experienced matrons forced upon him; from every conceivable point of view, utilitarian to ideal, his brothers of the cloth had taken up the subject of matrimony for a young minister; and at last had come his own conviction that he had not given himself over wholly to the good of his ministry. Finally, there had been a conversation with his wise old mother. Samson Jones saw afresh that Jane Elin had made herself indispensable to him in his work. She was useful in every organisation connected with the Chapel: the societies, the sessions, the prayer-meetings, the Cymanfas; and she was a leader in the Sunday school, which young and old attended. She was always effective, always busy, and always polite. Her equilibrium could no more have been disturbed than a buoy’s on the ocean, for whatever came, she was still in her element.

Jane Elin had learned her most important lessons under that best of teachers—adversity; from this unexceptionable preceptress she had grown wise in reflection, and from teacher and teaching she had won the sharp weapon of an excellent education. Consciously or unconsciously there were two decisive factors in the minister’s feeling that it was advisable to marry the schoolmistress now, since he could not have the widow. First, she worshipped him, as every one in Gelligaer knew; that was as near as Jane Elin had come thus far to an insurmountable difficulty. And, secondly, Samson Jones leaned on her; for if the world is divided into those who lift and those who lean, Samson Jones had learned to lean on Jane Elin.

The will is a good horse, but the Reverend Samson Jones sat his horse with difficulty, and only by steadying himself with the thought of his mother. He took the picture of Dolly, which he felt that he no longer had any right to keep, and tore it slowly in two, then once more in two, then in two again, then he dropped his head on the table with a sob. By the morrow he would have committed himself, and even his thoughts after that must be honourable to the schoolmistress.

It is easy to sleep in a perfect skin; when a man feels as Samson Jones did, the very thought of sleep is misery. But the cottage was quiet, Keturah had gone to her loft, and, habit being strong, he took his candle and stumbled upstairs to bed, wiping his eyes with his coat-sleeve. He took off his clothes with a sense that each garment stripped him of one more hope and joy. And as he slipped on to his knees by his bedside, there seemed nothing left for which to live. He had merely a dull sense of a nightly duty still to be performed. Before he knew what he was saying, he had repeated a childish rhyme not thought of since he was a boy. Horrified that it had come to him at such a moment, he rushed fervently into the petitions and acknowledgments of a conventional prayer. He sought to spread himself meekly before an inevitable will in this choice of a wife, then he paused a minute, groaned and ended with, “Lord, Lord, I long exceedingly for Dolly.”

Little Dilys sat with her doll in front of the schoolhouse by the stream. As the happy children had tumbled out of school, the bell rang its quick strokes from the bell-cot. That it would soon ring them in again did not much matter to Dilys, for despite the fact that she loved Lul, the doll, with a love warmer than platonic, there was another she loved still better. Both had pink cheeks, but Lul’s helplessness wore on Dilys and the schoolmistress was never helpless. The child liked the proprietary feeling she had in the helpful hands and nice warm arms of her schoolmistress foster-mother. At the moment she was provoked with Lul for looking so stuffed, just as if she had eaten too much, and she shook her till her eyes clappered in her head and her Welsh beaver tumbled off her fuzzy hair. Overcome by remorse at Lul’s dilapidated aspect, she called her all the endearing names she could muster: “white sugar,” “sugar and honey,” “hundred and a thousand,” “the world’s value,” “white love,” “the apple of her eye,” and “tidy baby” which she obviously was not. But not one of these superlative terms of endearment took away the pained, stuffed expression of Lul’s countenance.

The doll’s history had not been a happy one. Ever since she had been born in Gelligaer, the summer before, she had presented many grave questions, that had incessantly to be referred from Dilys to the schoolmistress, from the schoolmistress to the Reverend Samson Jones, and finally to the medical man. There was the question in the first place of how she got here—Dilys always sought for the sources of truth, as her sweet name might indicate; then, once admitting that Lul was here,—which she seemed to be,—why did she come without being properly provided with a fashionable bonnet? Dilys found herself obliged to take a great deal on faith.

When she saw the minister entering the school close, she dropped Lul and rushed upon Samson Jones. But the minister, putting her away gently, asked for the schoolmistress. Dilys led him in, never once aware that his thoughts clappered worse than Lul’s eyes had, and that he saw neither stick nor stone of the school close as he marched forward blindly to the completion of a last duty. Dilys found all grown-ups, except Jane Elin, unaccountable at seasons: sometimes they would talk too much, for example when Lul was saying her prayers or going to sleep; and sometimes, when any sensible mortal would be glad of conversation, they wouldn’t talk at all.

Half an hour later, when the minister came out, Dilys, who based a reasonable faith on the substance of things hoped for, ran trustingly to him again. And this time he did talk, and looked so brisk, and inquired about Lul and gave her,—oh, wonderful new joy!—a whole shilling with which to buy a stylish bonnet for Lul.

Dilys ran skipping and jumping in to her guardian, but Jane Elin, wiping her eyes and smiling at the same time, put Dilys away with a “Well, indeed, dear, ’tis grand, but ’tis very late now. Run tell Glyn to ring the bell.” While she wiped away the last tears, Glyn did ring the bell till it danced like mad in the bell-cot and the old people thought with a smile how boys must be boys with bell-ropes. To Jane Elin it seemed, as all the little valleys and hilltops tossed its clangour to and fro, the sweetest sound in all the world; for the joy of all joys, the great unaccountable joy, had come to her, after it had been resigned a score of times to another. Further than this thought the schoolmistress allowed herself no hysterical pause. Her character, like a firm sock, had been knit a stitch at a time, and stood the strain of the last half-hour with no sign of wear and tear.

Dilys tucked Lul under her bench, Lul was so dull, and looked lovingly at the shine on Jane Elin’s bright face and at her pretty bright hair. Dilys was certain there was no one in all Gelligaer or beyond its mountains like her own dear Jane Elin, and as the baton beat time for them to sing their closing song, Dilys opened her little mouth, red as a holly-berry, very wide indeed, and sang with all the lustiness of happy childhood:—

“My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,

And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above.”