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‘The man’s a silly fool.’

‘But that’s men for you, Mister Tom. Getting someone decent to love them and look after them is not what they’re after. What they want is someone beautiful like Maudie, someone like the girls in the movies, that’s what men want.’

Tom sighed. ‘Shall I tell her that you were asking after her?’ Lottie asked slyly.

‘Oh, yes. And tell her I wish her well, with all my heart.’

‘With all your heart. Yes, I’ll remember that bit. I’ll be writing to her on Sunday and I won’t forget that bit.’

One Monday morning when he hadn’t heard from May for over a week, he sent another brief letter to Maudie. ‘I’d love to come to see how you’re getting on. No, not that, I’d just love to see you. Would it be possible?’

He had a letter by return of post. He rose abruptly from the table, putting it in his pocket until he was on his own in his room. ‘It would be possible. I’d love to see you. But Lottie’s let me know that May is away and thought you might be feeling lonely. I don’t think anything has really altered for you. You are married, as you reminded me in your last letter. And if you came here you know – and I know – what would happen. I think it’s probably better that we remain each other’s secret love.’

He knew she was right. He learnt her letter by heart and then tore it into tiny fragments and burnt them feeling he was almost burning a part of himself. His father’s words came back to him. ‘May came here because of a whim of Nano’s and you married her because she was a pleasant girl and seemed suitable.’ He hadn’t waited for love because he had no idea that the many-splendoured thing existed outside poetry. How was he to know that a broken heart did seem the best way to describe what had happened to him; that something inside him really did seem to be broken and bleeding?

There was a gentle knock on his door. He didn’t want to speak to anyone but very unwillingly opened the door. It was Lowri. At the moment he felt she was the only one he could bear to speak to. ‘What is it, Lowri?’

‘That’s just what I wanted to ask you. What is it Tom? You rushed off as though there was a swarm of bees after you. Have you had some bad news? Don’t keep it to yourself, love. If I’m not the one you can confide in, please confide in your father. He will do everything he can to help you, I know that. Oh, and you left one of your letters on the table, here’s one from May, look.’

‘Thank you, Lowri. I have had some bad news, but it doesn’t seem so bad now that you’re here. I’ll come back and you can make me another cup of tea and I’ll try not to be so foolish.’

‘Is it money matters, Tom?’

‘I’ll be honest with you, Lowri. It’s not about money but about an affair of the heart that I have had to kill in the bud. Now, do you promise not to tell anyone, not even my father?’

‘I do, Tom. I promise faithfully. And I’m sure you’ll do right because we all trust you and look up to you. Catrin was telling me only yesterday that she wishes Graham was more like you. Graham will discuss things, she said, but he doesn’t know how to chat. A woman misses that, particularly when she’s pregnant.’

Tom followed her back to the breakfast room, the letter from May unopened in his hand.

‘When is Catrin coming back to live here?’

‘She’ll be here for the last two months and we’re nearly there now.’

‘Which one of you is due to have your baby first?’

‘We’re not too sure. We both had morning sickness at roughly the same time.’

Tom gave up all thoughts of work that morning. He stayed in the breakfast room while Lottie and Lowri cleared the table and dusted and was still there at dinner time. He found Lowri’s presence very comforting, like a cold hand on a hot brow.

‘And how is May?’ Josi asked him when he came in.

‘Her father’s been taken ill with bronchitis but she hopes she won’t have to stay there any longer than she’d planned. She’s bought a winter coat for herself and several items of baby clothes for Catrin and Lowri.’

‘It must be hard for her,’ Josi said, ‘but her turn will come, believe me.’

‘She doesn’t believe it. She’s given up on me. She seems quite certain that we won’t have a baby and that it’s her fault. Or mine.’

Chapter nineteen

May returned to Hendre Ddu at the beginning of December. Her father had had to spend some days in hospital and would be in a convalescent home over Christmas.

Tom wished he could think that she was happy to be back, but he couldn’t really believe it. Occasionally he thought they seemed like two strangers and that he had to try to get to know her again. He took her to view his new paintings and she cried out, ‘Oh Tom, it’s too violent’. She tried to counter her first reaction, to explain that it was the change in his style that had caused her distress, but Tom was disappointed, feeling that they’d grown further and further apart since she’d been away.

‘This is modern art, May,’ he said. ‘Think of Cezanne and Renoir.’

‘I prefer the old English Masters,’ she said, ‘Constable and Turner. They charm without blazing at you.’

It seemed to Tom that everyone realised that his marriage was unhappy and was ready to blame him. One evening he confided these thoughts to Lowri, but she took his arm and told him that marriage needed two people’s best endeavours. ‘You must try to tell May how much you love her,’ Lowri said. ‘It’s not enough to feel love, you must express it in words. Deeds without words are not enough. I can still remember the thrill I felt when your father first told me he loved me. Of course I realised he didn’t love me in the same way as he’d loved Miriam, but he loved me. Me. For days, for weeks I think, I was bathed in the glow of it.’

‘Lowri, you’re a wonderful woman,’ Tom said. ‘And I hope my father realises it. I think he does.’

‘How can I be happy?’ May said when he spoke lovingly to her later that evening. ‘I would never have married you if I’d have realised that I wasn’t to have children. I wanted at least three or four. I’d been an only child and I didn’t really want that, but by this time I’d feel more than happy to have only one. I’m thirty-two in February, Tom, almost seven years older than you are and a woman’s fertility drops at my age. I saw a consultant about it while I was in London and I could tell that he wasn’t optimistic about my chances. He could only recommend having sex in the morning when we wake up. Would you mind waiting until then, Tom?’

‘Of course not. Perhaps that will prove the remedy.’

But Tom failed to sleep, convinced of his inadequacy.

Christmas came and went. Everyone was aware of May’s preoccupation. She tried to pass off her unhappiness as worry about her father, but no one was convinced, especially the two women so happily pregnant. Everyone sympathised with her but her heavy mood continued.

It was soon New Year’s Day with the first farm lad arriving for Calennig soon after four in the morning. He received a sovereign for his efforts, the next, a half sovereign and then half crowns and florins until the last ones came round at about seven and were only offered sixpence, a cup of tea and a piece of Christmas cake. ‘You’re losers my lads,’ Josi told them quite kindly. ‘You’ve probably stopped for too much Christmas fare. Glyn Hopkins who was here before four wouldn’t even stop for a swig of tea. Now then, let’s have a song before you go and if you sing it with gusto it may earn you another sixpence each.’

First of all, as all the others had done, they recited a piece about their efforts. ‘Mi godais yn gynnar, Mi redais yn ffyrnig, I fferm Mr Ifans i mofyn calennig. Unwaith, dwywaith, tair.’ After that opening came a Christmas hymn. ‘Mae’r nos yn ddu a’r gwynt nid oes, Un seren sy’n y nen,’ sung in harmony by the five latecomers. It was a very good effort and suitably rewarded by Josi who felt nostalgic for the time when he was a boy taking part in the New Year’s Day race. And winning it too.

It was a few days after this that they heard the sickening news from Lorna Williams.

‘Oh Mister Tom. She’s dead, Mister Tom, our Maudie’s dead.’

Tom felt a dull thud in his head as though he’d been hit by a very heavy weight. ‘Sit down, Mrs Williams and tell us what happened.’ Everything seemed to be spinning round in his head.

‘She was home for Christmas, stayed the night and seemed very happy. And she told Harry Hughes who called while she was here, that he wasn’t to bother her again, I heard her say that and so did Ifor. But he went down to Brynyddol again the next day, Mister Tom, and out of some devilment, Hughes said, she insisted on driving his little car on her own. She’d never driven it before though he’d told her where the gears were and showed her how the brakes worked. But he should have gone with her that first time, he realises that now. Anyway, she drove the car through the village and crashed it into the wall of the Buckley Arms. And they sent for the doctor and did all they could, but she’s dead, Mister Tom, our Maudie’s dead. Our firstborn.’

Josi and Lowri were in the kitchen with Tom and heard the account. Josi poured them each a drop of brandy and they all sat down and let her tell her sad tale over and over again. The words seemed to be engraved in her mind because no syllable changed in its frequent re-telling. Tom felt he was seeing it all, the car veering off the road, hitting the wall of the pub and the dreadful result. And Maudie was dead, all her young beauty stopped as though by a bullet. He tried to pull himself together, but failed and went on sitting dumbly at the kitchen table. And Josi and Lowri stayed with him so that when May joined them it appeared to be a family tragedy, each one affected. May said over and over again how sorry she was.

‘I didn’t much like Maudie, I admit that, I thought she took liberties, was too ready to consider herself part of the family, but I’m truly sorry that she’s dead. Is there anything I can do?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Josi said at last. ‘We’ll have the funeral meal here, because she worked here from the time she was a young girl, just turned fourteen, so she was part of our family in a way, and you can help with that by all means. I don’t think anyone can do much at the moment. For today, I should imagine that poor Ifor and Lorna Williams and their family will want to mourn in peace. Tomorrow we’ll call on them to make arrangements.’

Maudie’s funeral was very different from Nano’s. Nano’s was a celebration of a long and active working life, where she’d made herself a vital part of the life of a family and their busy, productive farm and she had died full of years and loved and respected by everyone.

Maudie’s funeral was held in the same chapel but on this occasion the sad hymns were without comfort. Even the weather was bleak, the mourners huddling together. The many young people present all seemed stunned and in tears and unable to join in the singing, Maudie’s younger siblings and several young cousins and friends, including Mari Elen, sniffing and sobbing. Even the older people, who usually enjoyed a funeral sermon, finding hope and comfort in it, could hardly raise their voices that day. Grief for such a young person was more than anyone seemed able to deal with.

The funeral meal, too, failed to engender much spirit and was compared to the gatherings that had been held when one of the local boys had been killed in action. Lottie failed to hide her sorrow, her eyes were red and watery however much she attacked them with her father’s handkerchief. After everyone had eaten, Josi sang another slow, sad hymn to show that the occasion was over and he felt that everyone was relieved to get away.

When most people had taken their leave, Tom found himself confronted by poor Harry Hughes.

‘Thank you for arranging the funeral service. I thought it was very beautiful.’ For a moment the two men stood staring at each other, neither seeming able to break away. ‘She was getting on very well in the little shop, too,’ Harry said at last. ‘She was a lovely girl.’ There was a sob in his voice. Tom squeezed his hand. Poor Harry Hughes. At that moment he loved him. Perhaps he was suffering as much as he was himself.

By this time, Lottie had squeezed her handkerchief into a ball and was pushing it into her red-rimmed eyes to try to prevent herself from crying, but the tears still escaped and overflowed onto her cheeks. Dear Lottie. Tom realised that she knew all his secrets. He smiled wanly at her but she failed to respond.

‘I’m sure little Ianto will be a comfort to them all,’ Josi said the next day. ‘Three or four of the smaller ones were building him a snowman earlier on. I hardly recognised him in his new-for-Christmas red tam-o-shanter. He looks quite a tough little lad, what is he, almost two now I should think. I’m sure he’ll enjoy the rough and tumble of living in a big family.’

‘And if I know anything, May will be having him over here when they’re in school,’ Tom said. ‘You know how she adores him.’

He’d realised so much, but it was still a devastating shock when May told him, later that evening, that she’d been over to see Lorna Williams about adopting the boy. ‘You would be willing, wouldn’t you Tom?’ she asked, her eyes bright with tears. ‘I know you love him because I’ve seen you together so many times in the past. I know you love him and I know you realise what it would mean to me to be able to adopt him. And Mr and Mrs Williams seem quite willing. After all they still have seven children even though poor Maudie is gone and they said they wouldn’t be selfish enough to stand in Ianto’s way. Darling, we could give him so much. For a year now, I’ve been a bitter, disappointed woman and I know I haven’t been at all kind to you. But now I’m so happy I feel I could light up the world. I love you Tom, because you’re going to be with me in this. And I know you’re going to be a wonderful father, just as Josi was to you. Oh Tom, tell me you love him already.’