How Green Was My Valley (36 page)

Only the cold, and the torches going out and no more to be had, and nothing much to
eat and drink sent the people home.

“For all that has happened, Heavenly Father,” my father said when he came in, and
went to his knees with my mother beside him, “for the mercies, and the guidance to-day,
I do give thanks from my heart. Yesterday I gave thanks, and to-day, thanks again,
and to-morrow I will give thanks again, from the heart. In the Name of Jesus the Son.”

“Amen,” said we all.

“Gwilym,” my mother said. “Bed, you.”

“Will I have a bit to eat first, then?” my father said. “Starving we are.”

“Wash and bed,” said my mother, as though from far away. “You have always starved
in this house. I know you have had a long way to come, but, of course, there is nothing
in the house for you.”

“Well, Beth,” my father said, trying to find his way into her good books again, “not
that I meant, only saying, I was, girl.”

“Have you got a nose?” my mother asked, cold still.

“If not screwed off by that old ice on the mountain,” my father said, and holding
the tip with his finger and thumb.

My mother looked at him while we laughed. Her face was straight and her eyes cold,
to let him see how insulted she was that he should think to come home and find nothing
for his comfort. But Mama could never keep straight her face when Dada was funny,
and now you could see the smile coming to her eyes and then she put her hand to his
face.

“Oh, Gwil, my little one,” she said, “there is tired you are looking. Wash, and to
bed, and when you are warm, I will bring what there is.”

“What, then?” my father asked, and trying to put his arm round her, but she pretended
she was still cross, and pushed him away, but not hard.

“Hot water, boy,” she said, and impatient.

“I will wash in that,” said my father. “With soap. Is that all I am to have? Hot old
water?”

“Smell, boy, smell,” my mother said, right out of patience.

My father had a sniff, but he was too cold.

“If I was going to have what I can smell,” he said, “there is no need for a pot to
be washed in the house.”

“O, dammo,” my mother said, and took him by the shoulders to put him in his chair
to undo his boots. “Hot water you are having, with an old chicken from the farm, and
a bit of old beef and lamb, and old rubbish with it. What, now?”

“Beth,” my father said, “I will give thanks till I die that I married you. Brandy
broth, I will bet you. Let me go to bed.”

“I have got a good mind to pour it down the drain,” my mother said.

“Bring a bowl of it upstairs,” said my father, “and a spoon, and you shall pour it
to your heart’s content. Is the bed warm?”

My mother smacked his foot, so angry she pretended to be.

“No, boy,” she shouted. “Have I got the sense to warm your old bed? Angharad and Bronwen
and me have been running up and down stairs all night with blocks of ice, melt one,
put the other. Now then, for you.”

“Good,” said my father, and winking at us, “I do love a good block of ice in bed,
indeed.”

“Hisht,” said my mother, and turned on us. “You are standing there grinning like a
lot of monkeys in the circus. Are you washed?”

“Yes, Mama,” we said.

“Come to the table,” said Mama. “And no more nonsense from you or your father. Gwilym?”

“Yes, my sweet love?” said my father, straight in the face, with gems in his eyes.

“Bed,” said my mother.

“Yes, Beth,” said my father, and went to the door, and turned round. “Will I have
a block of ice, Mrs. Morgan?” he said, in a little boy’s voice.

And he flew up the stairs with my mother behind him with the shovel, and us laughing
the paint from the ceiling.

Chapter Twenty-One

I
WENT FROM THE HOUSE
next morning before the men went to work, for with the snow it took longer to get
to school, and I had missed two days, so I had to be early.

Wide, white, and beautiful was the Valley from the mountain-top, so clean and smooth
and crisp, and my bootmarks going like little shadows all the way down. Even the slag
was covered in snow, and only the pithead gear and winding wheel stuck out black,
down there. All the village, except in a couple of places where the snow had fallen
off the roofs, was inches under snow, and I could see all the marks Ellis and Mari
had made going right along the street. The river was frozen, and grey in places, where
the ice showed through the snow, but birds were still busy about it, though what for
I could never tell.

School was cold as cold, and we kept all our clothes on inside and out, but even so
we were cold, and we had clapping for minutes on end during the day to have our hands
warm enough to hold the pens.

Mr. Motshill sent for me in the afternoon, and I went in his study and found him in
his greatcoat before the little fire.

“Morgan,” he said, with a cold in his head, “I have been looking through your homework
and comparing it with your school books. There is a difference which I shall merely
hint at if I allude to it as startling. Why?”

His eyes were kind, and his nose was red, and even his side-whiskers looked cold and
flat to his head.

“Answer me, Morgan,” he said, still very kind. “To look in your school books is to
find a dolt, and worse, a lazy dolt. I find that three of your brothers had brilliant
records in local schools. What is the matter with yours? Or should I say, half of
yours? For your homework is the work of quite another fellow. Why?”

There are some times in your life when you are asked a question and you know the answer
well, but you cannot find the words to fit. They do sound so dull and silly, you feel
shame.

“I had great hope of entering you for a University College Scholarship, Morgan,” said
Mr. Motshill, and still, for all the trying of his patience, kind in the eyes and
voice. “There is nothing I would like better than to see your name in gold out on
a special board in the hall. Think how proud your school-fellows would be, and what
an example you would be to future scholars here. Think, too, of your father and mother.
I am sure they would be most pleased?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, glad to have the words to agree.

“Then let us start from that point,” said Mr. Motshill, and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Why is your school work so immeasurably inferior to the work you do at home? Are
you unhappy here?”

“I would like to learn with Mr. Tyser, sir,” I said.

“Oh,” said Mr. Motshill, and a smile, yet not a smile, just behind his glasses that
made his eyes small. “I thought so. Yes, I feared so. Thank you, Morgan. You Welshmen
are a funny crew. Back to your classroom, please.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Remember this, Morgan,” said Mr. Motshill, when I got as far as the door, “the man
who goes to the top is the man who has something to say and says it when circumstances
warrant. Men who keep silent under duress are moral cowards. You understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Take it to heart,” he said.

Back I went to the classroom, certain sure to work with the best for Mr. Motshill
and no matter about Mr. Jonas or anybody else. I went to my desk with my teeth tight
shut in firmness. I looked through my writing books and I was filled with bitterness
to see the rubbish I had written, and the untidiness, and blots, and scratchings,
and the geometry that was a disgrace to man and beast, and no need for any of it.

I had a feeling that something was wrong in the air about me, and though I still looked
through the book, my mind was not in it, but outside. Mr. Jonas had stopped talking.
He was not in front of the class. Then I felt his smile just behind me. His hand came
over my shoulder to take the book away, and as he turned the pages I heard him laughing
to himself.

“Come outside, Master Morgan,” he said. “I shall have the pleasure to introduce an
emeritus professor.”

“I shall sit here,” I said.

He took me by the ear and pulled me to my feet.

Ceinwen turned and I saw the animals leaping in her eyes. Her mouth stretched and
her hands went to grip the front of her dress, and with a nod of the head she told
me to fight.

But that was in my mind long before, for I was cold with rage that he should put his
hands on me. I was waiting till we got to the front of the class where there was room.
Out we went, and I pushing him, and as soon as we reached the space I hit from the
waist and caught him in the wind and tore my knuckles on his chain.

Down he went to shake the school, with the blackboard falling and chalk flying. Then
the girls started to scream again.

“Run, Huw,” Ceinwen was shouting, “run, boy.”

But Mr. Jonas was getting up, and as he came his fingers flew at me. I waited till
he was on his feet. There is a feeling that comes to you when you long to see blood,
and it was strong inside me, now. Not for nothing I had been going up the mountain
with Dai and Cyfartha.

A left to the chin, and O, the joy to feel your fist bounce solidly on flesh you hate,
and the look of startled pain in hated eyes, a right to the wind, and a left and right
to the head put him down again, just as Mr. Motshill came through the door. Strange
how in one minute you will be hot to fight and certain of the justness of your wrong,
and the next, sick, and ready to fall in the dust with shame.

So I felt as Mr. Motshill came in, and stood looking.

“Morgan,” he said, in a voice with a knotted lash, “your hat, and your books, and
go home immediately. Do not attend any more this week. I shall see you on Monday next.
Mr. Jonas, my study, be so good.”

So off I went, and Ceinwen laughing at the ceiling with her hands together.

How to go home and tell my mother I had been sent from school for hitting a master
was a problem to me. The more I thought of it the worse looked my part of it. I ran
in snowdrifts, and went down the mountain the hardest way to take longer and have
more difficulty, as though that might be a bit of salve for sore conscience, but instead
of better I felt worse nearer home.

I went in Bron’s, but she was busy upstairs, and though she called down, I went out
without answering. I was afraid then that my mother would come out and find me, and
I threw my books through the window of our back and ran down to Mr. Gruffydd. He was
moving from old Mrs. Rowlands for she was going to live with her daughter, and he
was having the little house by the Chapel, a dear little house with big windows, and
a door with little pillars and a sea-shell porch outside.

I went in the front door to the darkness of the passage and picked my way across boxes,
and planks of wood, and paint-pots, to the door of his study, and stopped there. Mr.
Gruffydd was in shirt sleeves and very hot, even though it was cold outside and ice
was on the windows. A teapot from our house was on a table, and our plates with bread
and meat and green stuff beside it. And beside it again, Angharad, standing against
a tallboy, with her arms on the top shelf, and facing it, with her head leaning on
her arms, looking sideways at Mr. Gruffydd, with her hair hanging down across her
cloak. Mr. Gruffydd had been making too much noise dragging a box to hear me come
in, and before I could say anything he looked at Angharad and took out a handkerchief
to wipe his head.

“I have thought and thought,” he said, “but still it seems wrong.”

“Not wrong,” said Angharad, but not angry, only gently impatient. “I am not tied to
Iestyn. Only a friend he is.”

“But courting you for months,” Mr. Gruffydd said. “Your mother is always saying how
happy she is to know you will have plenty all your days.”

“Not plenty I want,” Angharad said, and there was my mother in her so plain I could
have laughed. “There is more than plenty to be had.”

“Still it seems wrong for your sake,” Mr. Gruffydd said, with weariness.

“Care a little more for your own business,” said Angharad, “and less for my sake.
If I wanted him I could have him. I would rather have you.”

“Angharad,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “you are shameless.”

“Good,” said Angharad, “but only to shame the devil with the truth.”

“No,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “I am sure it is wrong.”

“You are afraid what people will say,” Angharad said, standing now, and collecting
the pots. “Afraid of people’s tongues.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “I am afraid that you will go threadbare
all your life. That you and me will have to depend upon the charity of others for
most of our good meals, and on my living for enough to exist. Do you think I want
to see the white come into your hair twenty years before its time? Shall we see our
children growing up in the cast-off clothing of others? Shall we thank God for parenthood
in a house full of bits, and presents that had outlived their use to the givers? No,
Angharad. I am a man. I can bear with such a life for the sake of my work. But I think
I would start to kill if I saw it having an effect on you.”

“Why?” Angharad said, going to him, and beautiful in the eyes, with her fingers spread
wide but held soft, to look helpless.

“Because there is no need for it,” Mr. Gruffydd said, and very sad. “Poverty is not
a virtue, any more than poverty of the spirit. Life is good, and full of goodness.
Let them be enjoyed by all men.”

“But why would you kill if you saw an effect in me?” asked Angharad.

“Because,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and looking for words, and looking everywhere except
down at Angharad, “well, only because. Let me go to work now, again.”

And he turned from her to pull the cords of a box and drag it away from her. She looked
at her hands for a moment and I saw the frown and hopeless shake of her head, and
while she turned her back to put the pots in the basket I tiptoed down the passage
and went up to Bron’s.

“Bron,” I said, “I have been sent from school for hitting old Jonas.”