I clenched my hands.
“Be warned, Mortymer,” said he. “Grandfer has been watching. With Cae White as your Eden and your brother’s wife for a lover, the fingers of Cain shall reach up from the dust, and seek you. Be gone!”
Light chopped the hedge as I opened the door. The gables of Kidwelly were gaunt in the distance, a steeple a pine-needle of silver in moonlight. With Tara against me I walked back home. Sick, sick I felt, of life.
CHAPTER 11
September!
I AWOKE ON the Feast Day Sunday to a dazzling, jewel-blue morning, and the air through my window was sparkling and heady with its scents of coming autumn and the fields below me swam in vivid light, every bough tipped with hoar frost and dripping diamonds as the sun kicked Jack Frost out of it. Rebecca meetings, threats of action, notes to magistrates, but not a suggestion from Tom Rhayader that we should get down to the business of tollgates, and I was getting sick of it. To hell with Rebecca, I said, and to hell with Grandfer, too, including his gentry Bronwen.
To hell with farming, too, for this was the Feast Day.
Plenty of activity downstairs, with women up and rushing with pots and pans clattering, everyone singing and laughing in anticipation of the joys to come.
Up and doing, me – dashing down the stairs with the towel waving, gave Morfydd one with it as I skidded through the kitchen, and out to the water butt to plunge my head down. Splashing, ducking, I didn’t hear them come up behind me, and Mari got one leg and Morfydd the other and I was in head first and drowning till Mam ran out swiping with a dishcloth and hauling me out while the boys were leaping around as things possessed. O, great was the joy of that September morning, all cares forgotten, the house tinkling with laughter, and even Grandfer allowed himself a chuckle, his warnings washed away in the Black Boar jugs. Best clothes, me; smarming my hair down with Mari’s goose fat which she used for chests; getting the hair flat to the head; clean shirt, belted up to strangle; nip into Grandfer’s room for his funeral stock, and I stood before Morfydd’s mirror all shines and creases, a sight fit to turn the head of a countess. Downstairs to make an impression, for a man who is handsome and six feet is a fool not to make the best of it, but everyone seemed too busy to take notice, for Mam and Morfydd were dressed for prize bantams and Mari came down all ribbons and lace, slim and willowy in the new black dress she had made. Richard, too, very smart in the suit Mam had stitched for him, and Jonathon with an old one of Richard’s cut down. Eh, there’s handsome are little boys dressed for Feast Days, all curls and podges, their little faces alight with teary excitement.
“Precious baby!” cried Morfydd, throwing up Jonathon and kissing him and Richard climbed up me with Tara trying to nip him out of it, and in the middle of the commotion in comes Grandfer.
“Whee, there’s an old wacko!” cried Morfydd. “Look, Mam, look! O, love him!”
Funeral suit for Grandfer; bald head polished for glass; breeches and knee gaiters, frock coat and buttonholes either side and a gold-knobbed cane, proper gentry. And the women got him in a ring and danced around him shrieking and laughing, with Mam soothing and patting him, telling what a good boy he was not to let the family down, and Morfydd even kissed his cheek. No damned notice of me, anyone. Set the room tidy, a last brush of clothes, looking for stray hairs on the black dresses and Mam saying her stays were killing her, and then the form up. Hushing for quiet then, fingers to lips, behave to the children, and out of the front we went very sedate and along the road to Osian Hughes Bayleaves’ field where the Fair was set; Mam and Grandfer leading, Morfydd and Mari next, then the boys, and me at the behind to keep them in order. And my heart thumped with pride as we entered the field. Not a glance right or left, keeping our dignity, for there is nothing neighbours like better than a good impression, so we gave them proud Mortymers. Knew their places, too, for the women were dropping curtseys and the men thumbing their hats. Can’t beat the Welsh for politeness in the morning, mind, even if it comes to free fights at night. O, that Fair Day! We came a bit late, of course, which we thought proper, and hundreds were there lining the field, all green and sunshine and colour, with scarves waving and skirts swirling, and some of the couples pairing off already. Saw Sixpenny Jane as we walked in, very pretty, very swelling above the waist, thank God, and the look of adoration she gave me lasted a lifetime. Biddy Flannigan next, wheezing and panting, with Abel, her son, beside her, his brow dark with his plans for burnings.
“Good morning, Mam Mortymer and family. Good morning, Grandfer!”
“Good morning, Mrs Flannigan,” said Mam, inclining her hat, though any other time she’d have gone rings round Biddy. But stepping it out on Grandfer’s arm now – taking the obeisance like a French aristocrat. Saw Osian Hughes by the gate, too, fish face lighting up at the sight of Morfydd.
“A very handsome family, if I might say, Mrs Mortymer,” said Mrs Toby Maudlin scarecrowed in black, her stays creaking for ship’s timbers as she made her bow, hitting her Toby with an elbow till he lifted his hat. On, on, to the middle of the field, turning every head in the place, with the labourers pausing at the field ovens for eyefuls of Mari and Morfydd, easy the loveliest women in the place.
