disaster. People might think us indifferent.”
Fitz guessed there was a clash between the king and his staff. They probably wanted to cancel the visit, imagining that was the least risky course; whereas the king felt the need to make some gesture.
There was a silence while Perceval considered the question. When he spoke, he said only: “It’s a difficult choice.”
Ethel Williams said: “May I make a suggestion?”
Peel was aghast. “Williams!” he hissed. “Speak only when spoken to!”
Fitz was startled by her impertinence in the presence of the king. He tried to keep his voice calm as he said: “Perhaps later, Williams.”
But the king smiled. To Fitz’s relief, he seemed quite taken with Ethel. “We might as well hear what this young person has to propose,” he said.
That was all Ethel needed. Without further ado she said: “You and the queen should visit the bereaved families. No parade, just one carriage with black horses. It would mean a lot to them. And everybody would think you were wonderful.” She bit her lip and subsided into silence.
That last sentence was a breach of etiquette, Fitz thought anxiously; the king did not need to make people think he was wonderful.
Sir Alan was horrified. “Never been done before,” he said in alarm.
But the king seemed intrigued by the idea. “Visit the bereaved…,” he said musingly. He turned to his equerry. “By Jove, I think that’s capital, Alan. Commiserate with my people in their suffering. No cavalcade, just one carriage.” He turned back to the maid. “Very good, Williams,” he said. “Thank you for speaking up.”
Fitz breathed a sigh of relief.
In the end there was more than one carriage, of course. The king and queen went in the first with Sir Alan and a lady-in-waiting; Fitz and Bea followed in a second with the bishop; and a pony-and-trap with assorted servants brought up the rear. Perceval Jones had wanted to be one of the party, but Fitz had squashed that idea. As Ethel had pointed out, the bereaved might have tried to take him by the throat.
It was a windy day, and a cold rain lashed the horses as they trotted down the long drive of Ty Gwyn. Ethel was in the third vehicle. Because of her father’s job she was familiar with every mining family in Aberowen. She was the only person at Ty Gwyn who knew the names of all the dead and injured. She had given directions to the drivers, and it would be her job to remind the equerry who was who. She had her fingers crossed. This was her idea, and if it went wrong she would be blamed.
As they drove out of the grand iron gates she was struck, as always, by the sudden transition. Inside the grounds all was order, charm, and beauty; outside was the ugliness of the real world. A row of agricultural laborers’ cottages stood beside the road, tiny houses of two rooms, with odd bits of lumber and junk in front and a couple of dirty children playing in the ditch. Soon afterward the miners’ terraces began, superior to the farm cottages but still ungainly and monotonous to an eye such as Ethel’s, spoiled by the perfect proportions of Ty Gwyn’s windows and doorways and roofs. The people out here had cheap clothes that quickly became shapeless and worn, and were colored with dyes that faded, so that all the men were in grayish suits and all the women brownish dresses. Ethel’s maid’s outfit was envied for its warm wool skirt and crisp cotton blouse, for all that some of the girls liked to say they would never lower themselves to be servants. But the biggest difference was in the people themselves. Out here they had blemished skin, dirty hair, and black fingernails. The men coughed, the women sniffed, and the children all had runny noses. The poor shambled and limped along roads where the rich strode confidently.
The carriages drove down the mountainside to Mafeking Terrace. Most of the inhabitants were lining the pavements, waiting, but there were no flags, and they did not cheer, just bowed and curtsied, as the cavalcade pulled up outside no. 19.
Ethel jumped down and spoke quietly to Sir Alan. “Sian Evans, five children, lost her husband, David Evans, an underground horse wrangler.” David Evans, known as Dai Ponies, had been familiar to Ethel as an elder of the Bethesda Chapel.
Sir Alan nodded, and Ethel stepped smartly back while he murmured in the ear of the king. Ethel caught Fitz’s eye, and he gave her a nod of approval. She felt a glow. She was assisting the king-and the earl was pleased with her.
The king and queen went to the front door. Its paint was peeling, but the step was polished. I never thought I’d see this, Ethel thought; the king knocking on the door of a collier’s house. The king wore a tailcoat and a tall black hat: Ethel had strongly advised Sir Alan that the people of Aberowen would not wish to see their monarch in the kind of tweed suit that they themselves might wear.
The door was opened by the widow in her Sunday best, complete with hat. Fitz had suggested that the king should surprise people, but Ethel had argued against that, and Sir Alan had agreed with her. On a surprise visit to a distraught family the royal couple might have been confronted with drunken men, half-naked women, and fighting children. Better to forewarn everyone.
“Good morning, I’m the king,” said the king, raising his hat politely. “Are you Mrs. David Evans?”
She looked blank for a moment. She was more used to being called Mrs. Dai Ponies.
“I have come to say how very sorry I am about your husband, David,” said the king.
Mrs. Dai Ponies seemed too nervous to feel any emotion. “Thank you very much,” she said stiffly.
It was too formal, Ethel saw. The king was as uncomfortable as the widow. Neither was able to say how they really felt.
Then the queen touched Mrs. Dai’s arm. “It must be very hard for you, my dear,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” said the widow in a whisper, and then she burst into tears.
Ethel wiped a tear from her own cheek.
The king was embarrassed, but to his credit, he stood his ground, murmuring: “Very sad, very sad.”
Mrs. Evans sobbed uncontrollably, but she seemed rooted to the spot, and did not turn her face away. There was nothing gracious about grief, Ethel saw: Mrs. Dai’s face was blotched red, her open mouth showed that she had lost half her teeth, and her sobs were hoarse with desperation.
“There, there,” said the queen. She pressed her handkerchief into Mrs. Dai’s hand. “Take this.”
Mrs. Dai was not yet thirty, but her big hands were knotted and lumpy with arthritis like an old woman’s. She wiped her face with the queen’s handkerchief. Her sobs subsided. “He was a good man, ma’am,” she said. “Never raised a hand to me.”
The queen did not know what to say about a man whose virtue was that he did not beat his wife.
“He was even kind to his ponies,” Mrs. Dai added.
“I’m sure he was,” said the queen, back on familiar ground.
A toddler emerged from the depths of the house and clung to its mother’s skirt. The king tried again. “I believe you have five children,” he said.
“Oh, sir, what are they going to do with no da?”
“It’s very sad,” the king repeated.
Sir Alan coughed, and the king said: “We’re going on to see some other people in the same sad position as yourself.”
“Oh, sir, it was kind of you to come. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Thank you, thank you.”
The king turned away.
The queen said: “I will pray for you tonight, Mrs. Evans.” Then she followed the king.
As they were getting into their carriage, Fitz gave Mrs. Dai an envelope. Inside, Ethel knew, were five gold sovereigns and a note, handwritten on blue crested Ty Gwyn paper, saying: “Earl Fitzherbert wishes you to have this token of his deep sympathy.”
That, too, had been Ethel’s idea.
One week after the explosion Billy went to chapel with his da, mam, and gramper.
The Bethesda Chapel was a square whitewashed room with no pictures on the walls. The chairs were arranged
