New, this Mari, as tempered by fire, commanding. I stared up at her.
“I have had too much,” she said, her voice dying. “I have been hit too hard by you Mortymers, the people I love. I have a son to consider now, and Morfydd’s boy now she has gone. It is a load. And the fight of the Mortymers is in these boys, I know it, but I will drive it out. I will teach them peace, not war; to love and not to hate; to make light of the injustices that is the lot of the poor and triumph over them with the help of God – Church or Chapel, makes no difference – God just the same.” She knelt then, smiling in tears, and bowed her head, her fingers smoothing the knuckles of my hands. Skinned and swollen, these hands. I drew them away, and she raised her eyes to mine.
“The soldier is dead, Jethro,” she said. “Do you remember?”
The sweat sprang to my face and I rose, turning from her.
“You?” she whispered, instantly beside me.
Cool the glass of the window on my forehead. I bowed my head.
“My God,” she said, and wrung her hands. “This is the end of it, then – murder.”
I had lost her. The knowledge was enough to silence me, obliterating remorse. I could hear her pacing the floor behind me. Her steps ended.
“And you killed him in cold blood.”
“Him or me,” I said, flat. “It was a fair fight. I did not seek it. He must have rolled and drowned in the brook after I left. I did not kill him.”
“And do you expect them to believe that?” She caught my arm and swung me round. “They will search the county. They will never give up. When they learn you did not die with Morfydd they will come back. O, what are we doing talking, wasting time. Quick, you must get away!”
Agitation gripped her again. Her face was stark white. “Quick, now – how much the fare for the ship at Saundersfoot?”
“Five pounds.”
“You shall have twenty-five – half what is in the box.”
This turned me. “It is one way of getting me out of your sight, isn’t it? Give me five and you will have back every penny.”
“O, God,” she said, empty. “It has come to that? O, Jethro, can’t you see that I love you? It is not the dirty old money – you can have all fifty. It is because I love you that I could not bear you to be taken.”
“But you will not come with me?”
She lowered her hands as if slapped in the face. Eyes closed, she stood.
“And after I am gone – what then?” I said.
She emptied her hands at me.
“Back to Nanty with Tomos, is it, and labour in bloody coal?”
She opened large, rebellious eyes at me. “Do not swear at me,” she said. Beautiful, she looked.
“Humping and heaving fourteen hours a day, ending the same way as Morfydd, and you shout to me about gentry,” I said.
“Did it once before, Jethro,” she replied. “Two children now, and I can do it again.”
“So you will not come with me?”
“Not to America, not anywhere, to start the same fighting all over again.”
“Because of the soldier, isn’t it?”
“Because I want peace – nothing to do with the soldier!”
“Mari, I beg of you,” I said.
“Jethro, for God’s sake go.”
“Better to stay and be taken. I have loved you for years, and yet but once. What kind of a life with three thousand miles between us?” Cold her lips when I kissed her, with no response, as if I had drained her of youth and fire. Strange the excitement seizing me at her nearness, the sudden torrent of my breathing drowning the chance of footsteps, the knock. So I held her, unable to leave her, unable to go.
“O, that Tomos was here!” she said as a whisper.
Just sweated and held her, ears tingling, fearful to move.
“Ask Tomos,” I said, gripping her. “Tomos will know what to do. You are of me now, Mari, I am of you. Ask Tomos!”
She held me away, smiling sad. “Jethro, Iestyn – both the same. Loved them both the same. Queer, isn’t it, they cannot do without me. He brought me home in rags, clothed and fed me, and left me for you. And while you hold me here I am dying inside, until you go.”
“But you will speak to Tomos? Mari, I beg you!”
She said softly, her eyes closed: “I will tell him that I am afraid. And I will tell of the soldier, because you have killed. I have my God, Jethro, you have yours – that is the difference. Now you will swear to me that you did not leave him dead?”
“I swear it,” I said.
“Now go. Wait at the ship. I do not promise to come, but if it is his wish Tomos will bring me, for Tomos and me have the same God. We will leave it to Him, is it?” She turned from my arms and set her back to me. “Do not kiss me again, Jethro. I could not bear it. Just go.”
I stood there, hands clenched, hearing the rustle of her dress as she went past me to the stairs, catching the scent of her. Barren of her, I died in seconds at the click of the door; listened to the creak of the stairs.
Empty that room in the dim light of the lamp. I stood looking at it, at my mother’s empty chair by the
