Carla Kelly (32 page)

She waited until Clarence left to wake up Angharad, who yawned and then remembered where she was. “Da?”

“He's shoring timbers. You'll come home with me. Aunt Mabli is probably setting bread dough.”

They walked up the wagon road. Angharad's hand tightened in hers as they passed the Number One portal, lit now with lights rigged by the mechanics. She turned her face into Della's skirt as one of the women standing there started to wail.

Her heart in her throat, Della picked up the child, tucking her face tight against her chest to blot out the frightening sight of a bloody sheet on a stretcher. As she walked fast, the cars from Number One continued to dump coal in the tipple. The rumble drowned out the shrieks.

Can't it stop for death?
Della thought, aghast.
Is coal that important?

Mabli was looking out the kitchen window toward the Number One portal when Della entered, carrying Angharad. She took the child from her and held her close while Della removed her jacket. “Do you have room for her in your bed?”

Della nodded. “She's small. Owen said to leave your front door unlocked. Will he come and get her?”

“He'll try. I trust you to tell him to let her sleep so he can sleep. He's on day shift, you know.”

“No rest for him?”

Mabli shook her head. “They don't mine coal, they don't get paid. I'll be next door.”

It was a simple matter to help Angharad prepare for bed. “Let's do what your da does every night,” Della suggested.

Angharad nodded and knelt beside the bed, reaching for Della's hand. She twined her fingers through Della's, then picked up Della's other hand and placed it over her free hand, binding them together.

“That's what Da does. You go first, miss,” Angharad whispered. “Then it's my turn.”

Della bowed her head and prayed for her students, for the men in the mine, and for the dead miners and their families. She said amen and kissed Angharad's head. “Your turn.”

The child prayed in Welsh, the lilt soothing to Della's heart, even though none of the words were familiar. She recognized
Amen
, added her own, and then helped the child into bed.

“I like your dragons,” Angharad said, her eyes on the footboard. “I asked Da why he put them on the inside of the footboard. He told me they were your protectors.” She yawned. “Now you sing ‘Ar Hyd y Nos,’ like Da.”

“I don't know it,” Della said, chagrined to see disappointment in the little girl's eyes.

“You have to sing it or I'll never get to sleep,” she said firmly. “Everyone knows it.” She patted the space beside her. “You have to lie down too.”

“I can do that,” Della said, taking off her shoes. “Maybe you could sing to me this time.”

“It's not done that way,” Angharad insisted, then sighed. “Ah, well. I'll sing.”

Her voice was sweet and sleepy. After only a few bars, Della stopped her, relieved. “I
do
know that song, my dear. Would you mind if I sing it in English?”

“I thought you would know it,” Angharad said. “Teachers know everything.”

I know so little
, Della thought, touched. “Give me a note, like your father does.”

Angharad did. Della sang: “ ‘Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night. Soft the drowsy hours are sleeping, hill and vale in slumber sleeping, I my loving vigil keeping, all through the night.’ ”

She sang it again as Angharad joined her in Welsh. “Da will teach you,” she said when they finished. “Just ask.”

“Now what do I do?” Della asked.

Angharad pointed to her forehead and then each cheek. “You kiss me for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and then once on the lips like Da, and another for my mother.”

Della did as she was asked, tears in her eyes. “Do you want me to stay here until you sleep? What does your father do?”

“Da generally tells me to behave and then goes in the kitchen and starts carving.” She laughed, a low, sleepy sound. “Sometimes I peek around the corner and watch him. Sometimes he chases me back to bed, and sometimes he lets me sit on his lap.” And then she closed her eyes.

Della stood a long time in the doorway, keeping her vigil.

ella sat in the front room after Angharad slept, chilled to the bone to hear the shrieks of the women coming closer. She peeked out the window as a procession wound its way toward Finn Town, the dead man on a stretcher and women and miners behind. The unearthly keening sent goose bumps marching down her spine in ranks.

She put her hands over her ears, then went into her bedroom to watch Angharad, praying she was deep in sleep. The child slumbered, unaware.

Mabli let herself in quietly a little later, then sat with Della a few minutes. “Dafydd died in a cave-in,” she said and went into her own room.

Della sat up another hour. When the clock chimed twelve times, she gave up and joined Angharad in bed. She quickly grew accustomed to the child's even breathing and appreciated her warmth.

She woke hours later, not certain why, until she realized Owen was kneeling by the bed, saying her name softly. The room was completely dark. As she came awake, she wondered at first how he could see so well in the dark, then reminded herself he was a miner.

“I'm awake,” she whispered.

He went into the front room. She put on her robe and followed him.

“What time … ?” She peered toward the clock.

“After three,” he whispered.

“Have a seat,” she said, still groggy and wondering how to treat a guest at three in the morning.

“I'm too dirty.”

“Yes.” As her eyes became accustomed, she still had trouble seeing him, because he was black from cap to boots. “Just let her stay here tonight.”

“I was going to ask that,” he told her. “I'm going to wrap myself into a blanket I keep just for times like this, and sleep on the floor in my house. No point in washing and changing, because I'm on the day shift.”

“Won't Bishop Parmley let you stay home today, since you've worked half the night?”

“I don't mine, I don't get paid. I did the timber shoring on my own time.”

“Did you have a choice?”

“I could have refused, but more men might die. I'm the best timberman at Winter Quarters,” he told her.

“It's not fair!” she said, wide awake now. She saw him then because he smiled, and his teeth were so white.

“You sound like Angharad. Nothing's fair, Della.”

“You just spent six dangerous hours in a mine where men died.” She turned away. “Don't worry about Angharad. I'll get her to school just fine …”

“You're thinking of your father.”

She turned back, surprised. “No, I wasn't. I was thinking of you.” She rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. “Poor Matti Aho. His wife and Pekka were wailing and his brother Victor. I don't like this.”

“No one does, I assure you.”

He opened the door and just stood there. There was enough light for her to see sudden indecision on his face, and she went toward him to reassure him.

“I'll tell Angharad when she wakes up that you are fine.”

“That's not it. I hate to tell you this. The other miner who died was your Frenchman.”

Della gasped. Owen guided her to a chair. The room continued to spin, so he pushed her head down gently, using only two fingers on the back of her neck.

“I'm coal black,” he apologized. “It'll never show in your hair. I'm sorry, Della. I didn't want to tell you.” The pressure of his fingers increased when she tried to move. “Just stay that way a moment more. Sit up slowly now.”

She did as he said, taking easy breaths until the room held still. She thought of the courtly way her Frenchman from the boardinghouse and his German friend had of waiting for her each night she was in the library, adamant that she not walk home alone.

“He didn't speak much English,” she said finally. “His name was Remy Ducotel and he was from Alsace, where the coal mines are.” She looked at him, puzzled. “Why do miners do it?” She hadn't meant to ask that. “Those men are dead, and the women and children were wailing!”

“What else can we do?”

She knew it was not a question she could answer, but she tried. “Anything but mining. Those shrieks, those wails!”

“Men wail too, when their wives die,” he said, the words wrung out of him. “Death is not exclusive to a mine.”

The old Della would have stopped, but the new one couldn't, especially as Della remembered the look in Angharad's eyes when Bishop Parmley came to get her father in the library. “You're the only parent Angharad has.”

“And this is news to me?”

She stood up suddenly and staggered, but steadied herself. She clapped her hand hard against his shoulder, not caring about the coal dust, wanting to jerk him around and shake him, in her anxiety. “Now I
am
thinking about my father. Good night, Owen.”

He left without saying another word.

“Shame on me,” she said out loud. “Shame on me to remind him.”

Angharad came awake easily in the morning, when Della sat on the bed and touched her shoulder.

“Your father is fine,” she said first.

There it came, Angharad's little sigh of relief. Della's hand went automatically to the child's head. “He stopped by early this morning and didn't want to disturb you.” She leaned closer. “If you can hurry, I will have time to make you a French braid.”

Angharad dressed in record time and was soon sitting sideways on a chair in the kitchen. Della brushed the hair almost as dark as her own, trying to hear only the companionable chatter of the little girl and not think about the Frenchman and Pekka Aho's father, dead today, where yesterday it had only been another afternoon shift in the Number One mine. With a clarity that startled her, she relived the last morning of her father's life. He had kissed her as usual, reminded her to be a good girl in school, and promised they would have a picnic in the canyon on Sunday, since the leaves had turned and fallen, and there were few good days left before winter.

She braided Angharad's hair, expertly twining the strands of hair from one hand to the other, finding peace in the simple task. When she finished, she steered Angharad in front of her mirror.

Like every lady, young or old, since someone discovered mirrors, Angharad turned her head this way and that, pleased. She hugged Della around the waist and declared solemnly, “I am truly beautiful.”

“I agree! Should I do that to my hair too?”

“Aye, miss.” Angharad frowned. “Do you have time? Doesn't Mabli need you?”

“She does, but you could do my early-morning job and help Mabli. Then I'll have time.”

Angharad dashed out the back door. Della dressed quickly and took her turn before the mirror, wishing her hair was not so curly but straight like Angharad's. Since she already knew wishing never changed anything, Della soon had her hair subdued enough to twine it back and forth too and anchor it.

When she was hooking the elastic around her shoe, she heard the front door open.

“Angharad?” Owen stood in the doorway, his face and hands clean, still dressed in yesterday's clothes.