“I know,” she repeated. “O, poor Jethro.”
I waited disbelieving, but knowing the truth of it in her eyes. And she looked past me towards the field, lips moving, then lowered her face.
“How did you learn, Jethro?”
“From Effie Downpillow three days back – come back from Monmouthshire, and told by a friend to bring me the news. But you …? Who told you?”
She clasped her hands, her face was in repose.
“Tomos Traherne,” she said. “When he called at Christmas years back.”
“Tomos?”
“Came special to break the news.”
“But Mam and Morfydd – do they know, too?”
“To tell you is my duty, said Tomos Traherne, let them live in the paradise of hope. So much can happen in a seven year transportation, people can die. And the wound comes shallow with the passing of time. No, Jethro, they do not know.”
“But Tomos’s duty was to them, too – to me, his brother!”
“Four years of your life you have not mourned him dead,” she replied. “Most of the men in the carts got seven years transportation – I will run your poor mother to six and a half, said Tomos – no point in taking all she has left.” She turned to me. “Who is the Effie woman?”
“A little iron-rag – been down here a week – saw her in Chapel last Sunday evening? She is living over at Osian Hughes Bayleaves.”
“O, aye,” she said, remembering. “Has Effie a tongue?”
“Two feet of it, and addled in the head.”
“But she called here with you alone?”
“Three days back while the rest of the family were out.”
“Addled, perhaps,” she replied, “but I doubt if she will talk – she was brainy enough to pick her time. Still, I will speak to her.”
“And you know how he died.”
“Yes, I know. And I am proud. Hitting it out in the carts for Monmouth, that is how he died, and best that way. For men like Iestyn were not born for the cage. No lash would drive him, no cruelties break him. Men like Iestyn are victors, not beggars – better he should stand in the light of the Father than scratch out a living in this pig of a place, as we. Can you imagine him landed with the troubles of Rebecca? ’Becca and her children, one to each village?” and she laughed deep in memory, her eyes alive. “He would rally them together for a march on London, and die there instead. No, Jethro, better this way.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Perhaps? I know it. Fighters are the Mortymers, and I am glad the blood is in my son. But it do not make for peace, Jethro. Remember it. It only breaks hearts. You stopping fighting one day?”
“Soon,” I said.
She sighed deep. “Well, I am not begging you like I begged of my Iestyn. God help your woman, that is all I say.” She walked to the end of the wall and leaned against it, her back towards me.
“Poor Jethro,” she said, and reached out her hand. “A little pig, I am, forgetting you. Is it sad with you to tears, now you have lost your brother?”
I did not reply. Later, ashamed, I remembered only that she was near to me, that she was free, that she could be mine. For the wind hit between us then in a sweep from the fields and my arms reached out and caught her against me and my lips sought her lips in the yard between us. Empty that yard, could have been miles.
“You love him still, don’t you, Mari,” I whispered.
“Yes, I love him,” and she turned to me again. “Still decent people about, isn’t it – with you loving me?”
“Aye, I love you. You guessed?”
“Years back, Jethro. Years. …” Her eyes moved over my face.
No heat in me, as for Jane at Black Boar; no longing that springs from the surge of manhood, no aches, no fires I felt. Just empty for her as a cask is emptied of wine. Desolate as I turned away to the wall. Eyes closed, not trusting myself, I thought she had gone, but I heard her breathing beside me.
“Jethro, not yet,” she said.
I kept the yard between us, because of her eyes, and she gripped my hand, smiled, and went from me, closing the kitchen door.
I do not know how long I stood there. The boys came scampering round the back and they gripped my legs, swinging themselves around me and Jonathon leaped against me till I lifted him, kissing his face, setting him quiet, for I had not kissed him before. A joy rose high in me when I should have been grieving, and I kissed him again. Great the strength in me as I reached down and hooked Richard up beside him, and stood there holding the pair of them, one in each arm to the wide-flung door.
“Jethro!” said Mari.
CHAPTER 22
TOMOS TRAHERNE came back to Cae White in June.
No Tom the Faith, this one, creeping in as a mouse. He came demanding, in a trap with a little brown pony, all polish and jingles, trotting down the road from Carmarthen, sending satans belly-sliding over the hedges at the sight of him sitting there with the reins in his hand and his big Bible beside him. Coffin black, enormous he sat, gowned and collared, his spade beard trembling in the fervour of his love, but not with the love of God. He came for the love of Mam.
“Tomos!”
Mam shoved pretty fast for the creaking joints of middle age – arms out, skirts billowing, thumping down the path to the trap and not even giving him time to get down. Up on the step she went and straight into his hug. And they sat, the pair of them, motionless in the clear summer air, and then he kissed her face.
“One less in the family or I’m mistaken,” said Morfydd. “And her bouncing me about Willie O’Hara.”
“God bless him for coming back,” whispered Mari.
“She has always loved him – even when
