CHAPTER XIII. MAN PROPOSES.
Although, being warned by previous experience, William had stuffed his new pockets with bread before leaving home in the morning, he found that was a sorry substitute for a hearty dinner, and when he limped home in the waning light of the long summer evening, supper at the farm was over and cleared away. It was a doleful prospect, for there was an aching void in his interior that all the wonders of Caerphilly Castle had not served to fill.
He had left home jauntily enough in the morning, but give any lad of his years a ten-miles' walk on a hot summer day, on a rough road up hill and down dale, and add a couple more miles of scrambling over ruins, and I venture to say all the jauntiness would be taken out of him. He would look as dusty and limp and jaded as did William Edwards, and his secret enthusiasm would not prevent a wistful look at the table, bare of all save crumbs and milky rings where mugs had been.
Rhys had stood propping up the door-post as he ascended the stony lane, and entered the enclosure in front of the house by the stile.
'What do you mean by coming home at this time of night?' he cried sharply, catching his brother by the shoulder. 'Where have you been all day, you vagabond, wearing the shoes off your feet?'
'I've not been after Cate Griffith,' was flung back in retort, and, as if a stone had struck him, the grip of Rhys on the shoulder relaxed, to let the 'vagabond' pass in.
The empty table was not more expressive to him than was the averted countenance of his mother, who sat on the high-backed settle, her brow clouded, her unseeing eyes steadfastly gazing at the low hearth where the embers were smouldering into white ashes. Probably she did not see him as he dropped wearily down on a three-legged stool opposite.
Davy sat at the table, half asleep, his face hidden on his folded arms. Evan was busy in the farmyard. He could hear his wooden shoes clattering over the stones. Ales was going in and out.
Jonet, who had been watching for William's return, with her light-brown head and half her body stretched out of the bedroom window, came noiselessly across the wide kitchen. Her arm stole lovingly around his neck. 'You are tired, Willem; do you be hungry?'
He gave her hand a squeeze and nodded. Her bare feet were off towards the dairy.
There was a whispering in the passage. In a few minutes Ales brought in a mug of buttermilk and a great hunch of brown bread.
'Here,' she cried, 'eat that; though you don't deserve it, going off no one knows where.'
He thanked her for the unhoped-for supper, but he did not tell her where he had been, though he knew she had an old mother living somewhere in Caerphilly. Whereabouts he did not know, and, having no news of the poor rheumatic old woman, he munched his bread in silence.
His mother never raised her head. If she saw him she made no sign. Rhys had been away all the afternoon. That lay heavier on her heart than any wanderings of William, though he thought otherwise. There was no red-headed Cate lying in wait for her youngest born—no one seeking to steal his heart away from her. She was hesitating whether to take Rhys to task, or, as Ales suggested, to 'wait and let the waters pass.'
But Jane Edwards had not a passive nature. She was more inclined to be up and doing than to wait. 'Yes,' she communed with herself, 'the waters may pass, but they may carry my Rhys with them. I want no Cate ordering about here; the artful jade!'
As if the very thought had been a stimulus, she rose abruptly, and, passing out into the moonlight, joined her son, who was bending over the low stone wall, looking intently down the rugged slope.
'What are you looking for, Rhys?'
He gave a sudden start as she went on, 'Do you be watching the moonlight on the river, and thinking how different was the night that took your father from us?'
She put her arm within his as she spoke, and laid her head, in its white linen cap, against his shoulder.
'Ah, Rhys, that was a terrible time, a terrible time. But, thanks be to God, we won through it. And it made a man of you, my dear boy. Well do I remember how you came to comfort me, and promised always to be a good son, and do your duty by me, and by the children, and by the farm, in the sight of God. And you have always done it, Rhys, fach, always— And—and—it would be breaking my heart, Rhys, if—if—you should be caring more for some one else than for your promise—or for your mother—and—and for Jonet—and the others.' And there she paused, but he made no response, and she continued.
The latter half of the sentence was sobbed rather than spoken, and Rhys, who had a tender heart, notwithstanding his contempt for William's day-dreams, was deeply moved by her emotion.
For the moment, Cate and his own day-dreams were lost sight of.
'Mother, dear,' said he, not perhaps so truthfully as might have been, though he felt at the time that all he said was true. 'Mother, no one can ever come between us, or make me forget my old promise. What makes you be thinking so to-night? Have I not done my duty so far?' And now his strong arm went round her with more than the old protectorate.
'Yes, yes, indeed, Rhys, you have always been a good son; but—but—you have been something different of late—and—I thought, perhaps, Elain Lloyd—or—or—Cate Griffith might have been looking out for you, and for stealing your heart away from us all, look you.'
He began a fresh disclaimer at the mention of Elain Lloyd, but stopped short, and she could feel him wince and hold his breath when the name of Cate Griffith followed.
The denial died upon his lips. There was a pause. Early or precipitate marriages are not common in Wales. The consent of parents must first be obtained, and he had not yet spoken of marriage to Cate, but he knew the anticipation lurked in both their hearts, and there was a momentary struggle between two loves—two duties.
His mother's emotion had moved him as no angry words could have done, and so moved him that at the moment he would have given up Cate or any one to console her.
'Yes, yes, mother, fach; Cate is a nice girl—and we are very good friends, the best of friends; but you need not be afraid; I am not going to bring her, or any one else whatever, to disturb you, indeed no.'
If there was a mental reservation, 'at least not just yet,' the words were unspoken.
And so, with a kiss of peace between mother and son, the disturbing spirit was laid at rest.
At rest—that was, on the surface—and for the time being.
True to his promise, and with an unappreciated effort, Rhys confined his attentions to Cate to the walk home from church, and was apparently less desirous to loiter with her in the rear of her parents. With commendable self-repression—seeing that his own inclination ran counter to his filial bond—he found occupation on the farm when otherwise he might have had an errand that should take him across the shallow brook and past the weaver's cottage. Or, if he had really business that way, he showed less disposition to linger at open door or window.
Cate resented this with pettishness, and the transference of her winning smiles to Robert, the young brother of Elain Lloyd, until the coolness became coldness mingled with pique, and the two passed each other at church or on the road with affected indifference.
Had there been an absolute quarrel, it might have spent itself in reproaches, or been made up when the storm-cloud had passed, but this unexplained reserve went on for months and months, and the breach continued open.
Mrs. Edwards ought to have been satisfied with the result of her interference, and for a time she was. But somehow the temper of Rhys had not improved. His assertion of mastership became more pronounced. He and William came into frequent collision as the weeks and months rounded into years, and the harmony of the household was disturbed. Jonet appealed to her mother against his dictatorship, and even Davy roused from his passivity and objected 'to be ordered about like a hired labourer.'
There was no denying that Brookside Farm had materially improved under the new system of cropping and manuring Evan Evans had introduced, or that half the farmers in the parish had begun to plant potatoes since the root had proved so profitable there. Then there was land under cultivation that had formerly lain waste, and Mrs. Edwards was no longer in dread of the rent-day, or of Mr. Pryse, let him scowl as he would.
She was always ready to give Evan the credit, and to pay him well for his services. But her eldest son, having profited by the man's instructions through a succession of years, began to think himself wiser than his teacher, and either argued against or disapproved most of his suggestions, whether for the cultivation of the land or the treatment of the stock. Rhys had been a mere boy when Evan came upon the farm, and the others quite children. It was scarcely likely that he who had seen them grow up was to submit to the young fellow's rule as if their ages were reversed.
Night after night, when Evan and Ales sat up together courting after the rest were in bed, as was the old custom, he would talk over some fresh slight or indignity received from Rhys, and declare his intention to quit the farm and get married at the next yearly hirings.
''Deed, and it is not that I would like to be doing Mrs. Edwards an ill turn, in taking you away before Jonet is old enough to supply your place, in some sort, Ales, fach, or in going and leaving Rhys to do as he likes; but I am too old to be ordered about and taught my business by him, whatever. His good mother did never be doing it—and it's time we was be thinking of that little cottage at Castella, with the nice bit of land that would serve for a pig and a cow. We would soon be wanting another field and another cow, Ales, and we could have your mother over from Caerphilly to live with us—yes, indeed.'
'Yes, indeed, Evan; but I do be thinking Jonet do not be strong or tall enough to lift the dasher of the big churn, and it would come hard on Mrs. Edwards if she did be having to make the butter come. We do better be waiting a bit longer, or there's Rhys would be bringing Cate Griffith here to plague his mother's heart; yes, sure.'
And so from time to time it was proposed, and from time to time put off, Evan growing more and more dissatisfied at being thrust into the background, until, at length, when nearly three more years had spun their uneven thread, Ales consented to quit Brookside for the cottage at Castella, and Mrs. Edwards, weary of adjusting differences, endeavoured to persuade herself that now her sons and her daughter were growing up around her, they should be able to manage well without them, and, indeed, save something in food and wages.
At the first announcement of their decision, Rhys brisked up wonderfully. He shook Evan by the hand as if there had never been a difference between them, and congratulated him on his sensible choice, and on his prospect of happiness, with quite friendly interest.
William was the only one at all depressed by the proposed changes. Evan and Ales had frequently stood between him and overbearing Rhys; he had become attached to them, and felt he should lose two good friends when they married and went away. So there was a note of regret in his congratulations.
The thatched cottage at Castella was taken, duly whitewashed within and without, and the earthen floor relaid and left to harden. But Evan had promised Ales that she should have glass windows, and for these, and for his farming implements, he would have to make a journey to Cardiff. He had engaged a local carpenter to make a bed, a wooden settle, a table, and platter shelves. Ales herself had a pretty fair collection of useful articles in the shape of pots, bowls, and mugs, stowed away in the barn, having added to her store whenever the packman came his rounds. And she had, besides, a goodly pair of thick blankets, of which she was not a little proud, having spun the wool in spare hours when her other work was done, to say nothing of flannel and linsey-woolsey for wedding garments—under-linen was then and there of no account. Mrs. Edwards had promised Ales a new felt hat and a shawl for the auspicious occasion, and they bade fair to make a good start according to the ideas then prevailing. It would be thought little of nowadays, when art has found its way into the humblest abodes. But what had never been known or heard of could not be missed, and the absolute wants of nature are really very few.
As their yearly servitude happened to terminate alike at Martinmas, Mrs. Edwards kindly proposed their continuance on the farm whilst Ales completed some needful preparations, and Evan made his important journey to Cardiff. The wedding was to take place soon after his return, for the Rev. John Smith had been notified, and read out the banns, for the first time, on the last Sunday in September, the faithful pair looking down and blushing crimson as the eyes of the whole congregation turned towards them.
They left the church together, feeling half-married, nothing doubting that the ceremony would be completed three weeks later.
But they had calculated without Mr. Pryse.