Longing (21 page)

It had been a mistake to summon the man to the castle, Alex realized now. Parry, he felt, was his implacable enemy. It was a shame. Undoubtedly he was looked up to by the other men. He was a leader.

Alex wished matters could move faster. In the weeks since his coming to Cwmbran he had uncovered a whole host of facts that disturbed him. If he had his way, a great deal would have been changed by now. The lives of his workers and their families would have improved beyond recognition. But it was no easy matter to accomplish. Barnes balked on every issue, and on each he had a reasonable argument for delay or even abandonment. The most powerful
argument was that things were done the same at all the works. Nothing could be changed unilaterally or chaos would result.

Then there must be a meeting for all the owners, Alex had said at last in exasperation. He would put his ideas to everyone. Surely everyone would want to bring about changes when they knew the facts. Sometimes being in one place for years was a disadvantage. It could make one unaware of what was going on under one's very nose. He would be able to contribute his fresh insight to the group.

Barnes was organizing a meeting to take place at Glanrhyd Castle next week. Then things would change, Alex thought. Then men like Owen Parry would realize that he was not after all the enemy. Then the people of Cwmbran would lose interest in the Chartist movement, which was apparently moving into a new and potentially threatening phase. His sources had informed Alex that leaders all over the country were now trying to organize mass riots. And one rumor had it that it was South Wales that had been chosen to lead the way.

But this was not the day to worry about such matters. This was a day to be enjoyed. And he was enjoying it, he thought, strolling back along the top as everyone began the descent, their rest period over. Despite everything, he was growing fond of this isolated and lovely part of the world.

He was enjoying himself despite the fact that Siân Jones's hand was in Owen Parry's and Parry bent his head to kiss her briefly. Alex pursed his lips. He would swear that the kiss was for his benefit. Parry was putting the stamp of his possession on Verity's governess.

*   *   *

Although
Emrys Rhys was thirty-five years old, he was still a handsome man. His straight dark hair was still untainted with gray and was still as thick as it had ever been. He was still lean and hard-muscled. He still drew admiring glances from the women of the other valleys and soon had one of them clinging to his arm and laughing and chatting with him.

Angharad felt a pang of regret that she could not somehow
combine his best qualities with those of Josiah Barnes—Emrys's good looks and virile strength and Mr. Barnes's power and money and house.

Angharad wanted to scratch the eyes out of the other woman, who was not even pretty in her estimation. She could not understand what Emrys saw in her.

And yet she did not care either, she told herself. Pretty soon now Mr. Barnes was going to realize just how comfortable she made his home. And he was going to realize that it would be far more pleasant to have her in his bed all night every night than for just brief snatches of time in the afternoons.

Let Emrys have his woman, whoever she was. Angharad did not care.

And yet in the pavilion, when all the Cwmbran people were seating themselves in a block together, the better to cheer their own, Angharad took the empty chair beside Emrys quite by accident—she was looking the other way as she did so, waving enthusiastically to some imaginary friend.

“Oh,” she said, turning her head when she was seated, “it is you, is it?”

“Hello, Angharad,” he said. “You are looking very pretty today.”

His eyes had a way of looking her over from head to toe so that she felt warmed and caressed. She had forgotten it.

“Oh,” she said tartly, “I am surprised you have noticed, Emrys Rhys. You seemed to have eyes only for the woman who was hanging on your arm outside.”

He smiled at her. “Jealous, are you, Angharad?” he asked.

“Jealous?” She tossed her head. “You can have two women on each arm and it will not matter to me. I have my own interests.”

“Yes.” The teasing smile faded from his face and he looked toward the stage, where the first competition was about to begin. “Yes, and so you do, Angharad. We had better be quiet or we will be frowned on by Cwmbran and hissed at by everyone else.”

“I have nothing to say to you anyway, I am sure,” Angharad said.

She sat silently at his side, stealing glances at his hands—strong,
capable hands, their backs dotted with dark hairs, the square, short fingernails kept clean despite his job. And she remembered that whenever he had made love to her up on the mountain, he had always kissed her and whispered love nonsense to her while doing it and had always taken his time over it so that she could enjoy what everyone knew was really meant only for a man's pleasure. The only other two men she had known—her husband and Josiah Barnes—had always gone at it hard and fast.

Sometimes she longed for some of Emrys's tenderness again.

But she wanted more out of life than Emrys could offer. Mr. Barnes was her ticket to a better life.

After the first competition, when everyone got up to stretch and move about, Emrys found a different place to sit.

Angharad wiped away a tear with one knuckle. She did not care.

*   *   *

The
soprano section of the solo competitions came last. Siân could have wished it was first so that she might have enjoyed the other three sections. And by the time her turn came the weight of responsibility was heavy on her shoulders. Cwmbran had taken second in both the tenor and baritone solos and an ignominious fourth in the contralto solo because Dilys Jenkins folded under the pressure of competition and breathed in all the wrong places.

Siân, cold and clammy and sick with dread, lost her fear as she usually did once she was standing on the stage looking down at the audience and once she heard the familiar opening bars of “
Llwyn On
” on Glenys's harp. She forgot everything except responding with her voice to the beauty of the music and the poignancy of the words.

Always the most wonderful moment came at the end when the large audience applauded politely and the Cwmbran segment of the pavilion erupted in cheers and whistles and stampings. Siân always knew that it was for themselves and their own pride that they cheered more than for her individual performance, but that was the very fact that was precious about it. She never felt more a part of the community than she did at such a moment.

And this year that sense of belonging was to be multiplied tenfold. For the first time the judges placed her first and the Cwmbran part of the pavilion went wild. Before they had all spilled outside while the stage was being set up for the next competition, Siân marveled that she had an unbroken bone left in her body. She had been hugged and kissed by almost everyone she knew and even by a few that she hardly knew at all. She had, it seemed, done Cwmbran proud.

Owen swept her up outside the pavilion and twirled her about before kissing her hard. And then Emrys and Huw and Iestyn and several other men she knew from the mine converged on her and lifted her up bodily until she was riding, laughing and clinging, on the shoulders of two of them.

“There is proud I am of you,
fach
,” Emrys said when her feet were finally on the ground again. He held her in a bear hug for a few moments and kissed her loudly on one cheek. “I am going all around now, bragging that my niece is the winner of the soprano solo.”

“Siân”—Iestyn smiled at her and hugged her—“you sang like an angel.”

Huw kissed her heartily on the lips. “Gwyn would be proud of you today, Siân,” he said. “I am proud of you, girl.”

And then it was Mari's turn and Siân's grandparents'. Her grandmother had tears in her eyes.

“Siân,” she said, hugging her granddaughter, “you came by it honestly,
fach
. Marged had a lovely voice. It did my heart good to hear you in there.”

It would be hard to remember a happier moment, Siân thought.

“Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones.” Someone was tugging at her skirt. “I knew you would win. I just knew it. I told you, didn't I? The other ladies didn't sing nearly as well as you. I am going to tell everyone that you are my teacher.”

Siân bent down to hug Verity. “Thank you,” she said. “I am so very happy.”

“Mrs. Jones. Many congratulations. It was a well-deserved win.”

She smiled radiantly at the Marquess of Craille as he took both
her hands in his, squeezed them tightly, and raised them one at a time to his lips.

“Thank you.” She swayed toward him and lifted her face to his as she had done to a few dozen people before him—both men and women.

He kissed her. Briefly and fully on the lips.

It felt rather like being doused with water. Or more appropriately, perhaps, with fire. She realized what she had done, what she had invited, what she had forced him into, only when it was a few seconds too late to do differently. And having realized it, it was too late also to proceed in the only way that might have given the incident its least significance. She gripped his hands convulsively, felt herself blush from her toenails to the roots of her hair, and let her smile fall away to oblivion.

And then he released his hands from her hold and turned away.

Fortunately, there were a few other people crowding up to hug her and congratulate her.

*   *   *

The
male voice choir competition as usual was both the climax and the highlight of the day. And as usual Cwmbran defeated their closest and bitterest rival by a few points—won by their tenor soloist in “
Hiraeth
,” the adjudicator explained. And so it was the tenor who was hoisted to shoulders and borne in triumph out of town and to the foot of the mountain on the way home in the late twilight. Three firsts for Cwmbran—Siân Jones, little Lloyd Pritchard in the children's recitation, and the male voice choir. It had been a happy day, a day to make one proud.

Darkness fell as they toiled up the mountain, the children far more subdued than they had been that morning—a few of them rode their fathers' shoulders. But it was not a deep darkness, the sky being clear and star-studded. The moon would be up before they reached the top, someone predicted.

“Well,
fach
.” Owen's arm was about Siân's waist. “I get to escort the heroine of the day, do I?”

She laughed. “Your choir won too, Owen,” she said. “I felt goose bumps when you sang.”

“I am glad you won,” he said. “You should have won last year too.”

“It did feel good, I must admit,” she said. “Everyone was very kind afterward.”

He was silent for a while. “Craille is lucky I did not ram his teeth down his throat,” he said. “Could you not have avoided that grand display he made, Siân?”

She had hoped that by some miracle Owen had not been watching. “His congratulations?” she said. “But everyone was congratulating me, Owen, and hugging and kissing me.”

“On both hands and the lips?” he said. “People will be talking, Siân. I don't like it. You are my woman and pretty soon I am going to have to start using my fists to stop the gossiping. But you are not doing much to help.”

“Don't spoil the day,” she said. But it was already spoiled. “No one is talking. There is nothing to talk about. He was happy for me. Everyone was happy for me. I think there can be scarcely a man in Cwmbran who did not kiss me after the winner was announced. And what do you mean by saying I am not doing much to help?”

“I am beginning to look like a fool,” he said, “who cannot control my own woman.”

“Don't,” she said again, distress turning to annoyance. “I don't like it when you talk tough, Owen. I don't like being talked about as if I am a possession to be controlled, as you put it, by my owner.”

“I think perhaps,” he said, “Gwyn was too soft with you, Siân. Perhaps because you are Fowler's daughter and were educated in an English school and everybody thinks you are something a little bit special. You won't find me so easy to rule. You had better learn that now.”

“What exactly am I meant to learn?” She could hear her voice shaking.

“That you are mine,” he said. “That you will not shame me by giving anyone even the whisper of a chance to link your name with any other man's. That you will learn to toe the line if you know what is good for you.”

“I think you had better complete that thought,” she said, “so that
you can be quite sure that I understand you, Owen. If I know what is good for me. What would not be good for me? What if I do not—toe the line?”

“I don't want to quarrel,” he said. “Let's leave it at that, Siân. We should be enjoying our triumph now, not going at each other's throats. We haven't quarreled before, have we? I didn't mean to spoil the day for you,
fach
.”

“What would happen,” she asked, “if I did not toe what you perceived to be the line, Owen?”

He tutted. “A stubborn woman you are, Siân Jones,” he said. “I am going to have my hands full with you, aren't I,
fach
? I will not put my hand to you unless you force me to it. There. Are you satisfied now? I am not a drinking man, Siân, or one given to sudden rages. And you are right. Everyone was kissing you and I did not think to object until he did it. He makes my blood boil if the truth were known. At least we know where we stand with Barnes. This man is pretending to be our friend just so that he can keep us beneath his broad thumb without our even realizing we are there. I hate that kind of hypocrisy.”

I think he does care.
Siân was about to say the words aloud, but she kept her mouth closed. She did not want to discuss the Marquess of Craille with Owen. He would not agree with her opinion anyway and perhaps he would twist the facts to distort her own image. He would accuse the marquess of slyness or oppression, for example, in stopping Blodwyn Williams from going to work while she was pregnant and in paying Blodwyn's husband compensation for the injury he had got at work—something no other owner had ever done.