A Small Country (7 page)

‘I was just coming up to call you, Mr Turncliffe,’ Miss Rees said as he opened the morning-room door. ‘There’s a telegram come for you, look.’ She held the yellow envelope a good distance from her stout, wholesome body as though fearing contamination from it.

‘And I hope it’s not bad news,’ she added, as he took it from her and opened it.

Please come home. Rose in trouble. Mother.

‘I have to return to London at once, Miss Rees.’

‘Not illness is it, I do hope?’

‘Not illness, no. Just some tedious family trouble.’

‘There’s a lot of that about this year, yes indeed. You’ll go by train I suppose, Mr Turncliffe?’

‘Yes, by train.’

‘That will be the ten-fifteen, then. I’ll cook your breakfast now and make you some sandwiches and Miss Catrin will take you to the station in the trap. What a pity Doctor Andrews isn’t coming this morning, he’d have you there in no time. Poor old Bella is past her prime now. I do hope Mr Tom will buy a big shiny motor-car soon, then we’ll all go to chapel in style, isn’t it. Will they take your bicycle on the train, say?’

‘They would, but I think I’ll leave it here for the time being.’

‘Well, that’s good. It’s a champion old bicycle. Glyn and Daniel ride it around the clos, I hope you don’t mind. Miss Catrin said you wouldn’t mind. We’re only young once, aren’t we. And not always once in these parts. “A man at eight”, my father used to say.’

‘I don’t mind in the least, Miss Rees. They’re welcome to borrow it. Is Miss Catrin out getting the eggs?’

‘Finished, Mr Turncliffe. She’s upstairs with Mrs Evans now but she’ll be down soon, I dare say. Miss Catrin is getting a very pretty girl, have you noticed it, now?’

‘I have indeed. Very beautiful.’

‘It’s a pity for a beautiful girl to go away to college, don’t you think so, Mr Turncliffe?’

‘No. It’ll be just the thing for her, I think.’

‘But don’t you think she’ll find herself a very good husband if she’s as beautiful as you say.’

‘There’s plenty of time for that.’

‘But is a college education necessary for being a good wife and mother?’

‘It’s not necessary, Miss Rees, not at all. It’s like that orange sauce you make with the baked ham, it’s not necessary because your ham is the best in the world without it. But it’s good all the same.’

Miss Rees was silent for a moment, standing with her arms folded demurely over her snowy white apron.

‘I’ve noticed that you think Miss Catrin is very beautiful.’

‘I haven’t made any secret of it.’

‘I’ve got nothing against secrets, mind, nothing at all. Anyway I like a man who appreciates his food, I will say that, and I don’t mind a bit of a secret now and again. You shall have some of my best fruit-cake after your ham and eggs this morning, the one I keep for Lady Harris, it will last you the day, that will. Mrs Evans will be very sorry to hear that you’re going back. She was worried that you weren’t sleeping so well last night; she heard you opening the window and walking about. But I said, Mrs Evans bach, he’s the age for sitting at the window in the moonlight and what harm will it do him, he’ll sleep the sweeter in the morning. Pity the old telegram had to come. Yes indeed.’

At last Miss Rees left him and he stood at the window alone, pressing his forehead on to the cool glass, listening to the sadness of the ring-doves in the trees encircling the house.

He wondered whether the telegram would affect the resolve he’d made the previous night. What sort of trouble was Rose in? Was she in prison, being denied bail? Had she been injured in a skirmish with the police? It was an effort to think of such things.

He’d always considered himself old for his years. An only child, he had spent most of his childhood in the company of adults. At fourteen he had had meningitis and had lost two years of school, which was the reason he was still at university at twenty-three. Yet, that morning, he felt very immature; much too young to be of any help to Rose – why did they ask it of him? When all he wanted was a summer of being eighteen with Catrin.

Tom came in for breakfast. He’d already heard the news from Miss Rees. Edward handed him the telegram and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I hope to get back before the end of summer,’ he said.

‘You’ll be very welcome,’ Tom said. ‘Write and let me know if there’s anything I can do. I wish you didn’t have to go.’

They sat down to breakfast. Catrin didn’t join them; as usual taking hers upstairs with her mother.

Immediately after breakfast, Edward went to his room to do his packing. He carried down his rucksack and the trunk which had been sent by train, left them in the hall, and went to the kitchen to find Miss Rees. He asked her whether he might go back upstairs to say goodbye to Mrs Evans; he dreaded that she should be feeling worse, so that Catrin wouldn’t be able to drive him to the station.

‘Mrs Evans is coming down now,’ Miss Rees said. ‘And I’ve packed you a dozen eggs and a pound of butter, look. For your mother. And you can tell her that you collected the eggs yourself.’

She pushed the brown paper parcel into his hands; her eyes were mischievous slits in her large, old face.

Rachel Evans and Catrin were already in the morning-room when he got back from the kitchen. Mrs Evans took his outstretched hand and motioned him to the chair at her side. ‘You’ll have to harness the pony, Catrin,’ she told her daughter. ‘Even Davy is out this morning.’

‘Mr Turncliffe,’ she said as Catrin left them, ‘you do my son a power of good and we all hope to see you again soon.’

Edward thanked her and said he would be back before the end of the summer.

‘Have you heard that Tom isn’t returning to Oxford?’

‘He mentioned it. I wasn’t sure that it was definite.’

‘I believe it is. Do you think he’s made the right decision?’

‘I’m sure he’ll give the matter plenty of thought and reach the right decision.’

‘If Tom remains at home, then I shall have no objection to Catrin going away to college. She tells me that Miss Fletcher, your fiancée, has offered to keep an eye on her if she should manage to get to that Chelsea College of Art she talks so much about.’

Edward was taken aback so that his only response was a slight bow. After a few seconds, though, he was able to say, ‘It’s an excellent school, I believe. One of the best in the country.’

Mrs Evans turned and looked full into his eyes. ‘Oh, Mr Turncliffe, I used to think London was a terrible place, a wicked place, but now I know that this place and every place is terrible and wicked too, so why should I try to keep her here.’

After the sudden outburst, she sat up straight again and drew a deep breath. Then she consulted the little gold watch she wore on a chain around her neck.

‘I mustn’t delay you,’ she said. ‘Come again if you can put up with us.’

Edward took her hand, pressed it, and left the room. He was surprised and also moved that she had so fully exposed the raw edges of her suffering.

Catrin was already sitting in the trap when he went out to the yard. He put his luggage in the back and went to join her on the seat at the front. She was wearing a cream, lacy blouse and a dark skirt. She looked different; older, more self-assured. Edward wished she was in one of her usual bright print dresses.

Miss Rees and the two maids were at the back door to wave them away.

They drove up the narrow, tree-lined drive into the tree-lined road.

‘You’re a ruthless one, and no mistake,’ Edward said at last, breaking the green silence of the morning. ‘What’s all this about Rose promising to keep an eye on you?’

‘I have to get away, Edward, I must. I don’t do my mother any good. It’s only Tom and Nano she wants. It’ll be worse than ever now that Father’s left home; we’ll live in a sort of half-mourning all our lives. I suppose I could escape by getting married, but I don’t want to be a little black wife here in the country. You don’t know what it’s like, you’ve only been here on holiday. Nobody does anything interesting. Nobody seems to want to do anything but go to chapel and the weekly chapel meetings. The singing festival and the local eisteddfod are the social highlights of the year. The ploughing contest is what we lose sleep over; they think I’m unnatural because I don’t get excited about it. Our minister was publicly reprimanded because he took his seven-year-old son to the circus; it’s the only thing I’ve ever respected him for, it’s not that I approve of circuses, but at least it’s better than taking a child to a prayer meeting. But what is there for
me
to do? I’m not living, I’m existing. I’ve got to break out, I’ve got to, or I’ll go mad.’

‘And yet you can’t forgive your father,’ Edward said, realizing even as he said it that he had made a monumental blunder.

And indeed Catrin stared at him unbelievingly for a second and then struck him hard on the cheek. She reined in the pony. ‘You can get out and walk,’ she said. ‘You’ll have time if you hurry. I’ll send the trunk after you.’

Edward had been so looking forward to the drive, and was so thrown by this turn of events, that he, too, lost control of himself. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her towards him and kissed her hard on the mouth. Only a moment she resisted, then her lips opened for his kiss and she was kissing him back. Their eyes were open and amazed as they went on kissing each other without a word. Soon his hands were opening the buttons which had so enchanted him and pulling aside skirt and petticoat.

‘Let’s go into the field,’ he said, his voice parched and rough.

‘No.’ She was crying now and re-arranging her clothes. ‘No.’

‘You must go,’ she said. ‘Take Bella and leave her outside the station with Mr Thomas. Say I felt faint. I do feel faint. I do. I’ll walk on later. Please go. Please.’

Edward, too, was horrified by what had happened. All he had dared hope for was to sit near her for the duration of the journey and to hold her hand and perhaps kiss her cheek at parting.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured over and over again. ‘Dearest, I’m sorry. Don’t make me go. Don’t make me leave you. Tell me you forgive me. Oh my dear, say you forgive me.’

‘We both need forgiveness,’ Catrin said at last. Suddenly she seemed calmer than he. She shook the reins and drove on letting the tears dry on her face.

‘I love you, Catrin, I’ve known it since the moment I arrived. I think I knew it last year. I shall break off my engagement to Rose. When you come to London, I shall visit you every weekend and take you to art galleries and museums. Will you be my sweetheart, Catrin? Oh, promise me that you will.’

His voice had taken on a hypnotic quality, pleading and tender, but somehow sure of success.

‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t know what will happen.’

They drove on in silence until they could see the little town spread out before them. The morning was cloudless.

Catrin turned into the narrow side road leading to the station. Edward took his watch from his pocket. ‘We’ve still got half an hour,’ he told her.

But Catrin refused to wait with him in spite of all his pleading. She gave him her hand for an instant, then turned and left him without a backward glance.

She let Bella choose her own speed on the journey home. It was very hot. ‘I don’t know what will happen,’ she kept repeating desolately.

Edward had almost reached Paddington before once thinking of Rose. He had dwelt only on the encounter with Catrin; his emotions gradually changing from shame to delight and excitement. Some of the time, he simply couldn’t believe what had happened, he had to reconstruct the whole scene, step by step, word by word, from their departure from the house to the point when she had turned blazing eyes on him and struck him.

He wrote her several letters, varying in tone from first to last.

I hope you can forget the inconsiderate way I behaved this morning. Believe me, nothing of the sort shall happen again to mar our courtship. Please write to me to tell me you forgive me.

My apologies and regrets were false. How can I regret the most beautiful moments of my life? I shall never forget how we looked at each other and strove for closer closeness. I shall never be able to stop thinking about what happened. Please write to me and tell me you love me as I love you.

Green-eyed Kate, half girl, half woman, tall and white-skinned under my hands, whose empty clogs I worship, whose skirts I touch in a fever of longing, grant me your peace.

He tore up all of them. None of them expressed the amazed joy and hope in his heart.

SIX

When Josi Evans was a boy, he was a prize-winning singer. He had tramped or cadged lifts to every eisteddfod in the four parishes, usually winning first prize, a half-crown in a gaily-coloured satin bag; once a ‘big’ crown. As a young man his voice had not been so predictable, though he still competed when it was, as he said, ‘steady’, winning twice or three times the half-guinea baritone solo and once the silver cup in the open class.

Since his marriage it was, of course, beneath his dignity to compete, though he went to several meetings throughout the year, often being asked to chair and always contributing handsomely to the funds.

To Josi’s disappointment, Tom had no sort of voice so that getting him to sing publicly was a lost cause; he was only a passenger in the chapel choir. But Catrin sang like a bird and her father was dismayed that Rachel was against her competing even in their local eisteddfod.