Hosts of Rebecca

by Alexander Cordell

  “O, look, Mam,” said she. “Tell him to behave.”

  “Leave him be,” said Mari. “He is enjoying it.”

  “I will not have beastly eating,” said Mam, her fork up. “There’s plenty of room for that in sties. Jethro!”

  Another bit of bread, with your eye on Morfydd’s gravy, she being finished and glaring. Couldn’t get enough those days – eat her, too, if she slipped on the plate.

  “O, God,” says she, disgusted.

  “Stop it this minute!” shouted Mam, hitting the table and bouncing forks.

  “You have raised it, woman,” said Grandfer. “It is you who should stop it.”

  Eyes cast down at this.

  “More?” whispers Mari from the top of the table.

  “There now, you can start again,” says Mam. “And knife and fork like the rest of us, no need for piglets.”

  So I gave the thing to Morfydd to pass up.

  “I am off,” says she. “I can get this in barnyards, no point in coming to table.”

  “You stay till the rest of us are finished, Morfydd!”

  Grandfer at the top, whiskers drooping, getting well into it, and everyone else pretty busy, so I gave Morfydd one with the hobnails as she passed the plate down with looks to kill at me.

  “Eh, you bloody little devil!”

  “Morfydd!” Mam now, pale and shocked, glancing at Grandfer who didn’t bat an eyelid.

  Everything in the county from bishops to lay preachers, cassocks flying, up and rushing.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Mam.

  “Mam, he booted me.”

  “Never touched her,” I said. “Hell and Damnation she will have for that, mind, straight to Hell’s sulphur.”

  “And hush you, too!” Mam shouting now, flushed and ashamed, for a bloody or two could be mortal sin on a Sunday, never mind Christmas Day. I gave Morfydd a glance in the pinging silence, for even Grandfer had raised his head now. In disgrace, poor soul. Head low she sat, face pale, sending me threats from the corners of her eyes.

  “And where did you learn such language, pray?” asked Mam, solid ice. “Not in this house, I vow. Thirty years old, is it? Old enough to give an example, especially to the children. You will keep a clean mouth, do you understand?”

  “Bloody, bloody, bloody,” cried Richard, hitting his plate.

  “Do you hear that?” asked Mam, and Mari clouted Richard and he opened his mouth and howled.

  “Go to your room this minute,” said Mam. “Christmas dinner or not I will make an example of you.”

  No reply from Morfydd and I was into the gravy again.

  “Do you hear me! Stop eating this minute, Jethro – leave the table!”

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Away this minute, and do not come down till I tell you.”

  “She did the swearing, mind.”

  “And you the booting to make her swear. Up this instant or I will take a stick to you, big as you are.”

  “Go quick, Jethro,” whispered Mari, agitated.

  Left the plate with half an inch of gravy, and Morfydd jerking her thumb at me under cover of the tablecloth. Could have killed her. One word from me about her and Willie O’Hara and Mam would have roped her for razors. I got up and went to the door.

  “Now you,” said Mam, and Morfydd rose, which sent me a bit faster for the lock on my bedroom door. Twelve months back she got into me and I wasn’t having it again, for she swung and hooked like a man and I couldn’t hit back because of the chest.

  “I apologize for my children,” said Mam sorrowful as I climbed the stairs with Morfydd following. “God knows I have done my best to bring them up decent. A grown woman, but she acts like a child, and the other. Well …”

  Into the bedroom now, swing the key, and the handle goes round as Morfydd tries it. Nothing but the black of her dress the other side of the keyhole.

  Silence, then:

  “Jethro,” she croons.

  “Aye, girl?”

  “I will have you, mind. If I wait six months I will have you for that.”

  But I know she will not because of Willie O’Hara.

  CHAPTER 5

  CHRISTMAS NIGHT!

  The family circle now, all trespasses forgiven, sitting round the fire with the lamp turned low, the windows rimed with frost and the snow falling vertically as big as rose petals against the white dresses of the mountain. All was silent save for Mari’s voice as she shivered us to the marrow with ghost stories from way back in history, then a bit of a prayer for the Christmas dinner and a Reading from Grandfer, all very holy. Must have been nine o’clock, for Richard and Jonathon were abed, I remember, and I was thinking of Tessa and spring when the tap on the door brought us all upright.

  “For Heaven’s sake,” said Mam. “This time of night?”

  And then it began!

  Sanctus. Full harmony from the back. In glorious song came the old Welsh hymn flung by soaring sopranos, blasted by bass, with the tenors doing a descant over the top, and the sudden glory of the sound froze us into wonder and we got to our feet as with cramp and stared at the back door.

  ‘Round the Lord in glory seated, Cherubim and Seraphim Filled His temple, and repeated each to each the alternate hymn …!

  Lord, Thy glory fills the heaven, earth is with its fullness stored;

  Unto Thee be glory given, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord!’

  And my mother cried out in joy and flung open the door to the great choir of neighbours and we formed up before them and joined in the hymn that breathes of my country. Last verse now, with my mother’s rich contralto in my ears, Grandfer’s squeaky tenor and Mari and Morfydd going like angels. O, good it was to be accepted by neighbours at last with this, their seal of friendship. Biddy Flannigan front rank with her son Abel a foot above her; Tom the Faith grunting and growling and Dilly Morgan and Hettie Winetree holding hands and singing to the stars. Pleased to see Dilly there for she was heading for a haystack midsummer though she didn’t know it. Osian Hughes and his mam back row; Toby Benyon and missus, Dai Alltwen Preacher, Adam Funeral, gaunt and black, come for measuring up; Willie O’Hara, his eye on Morfydd; Justin Slaughterer with his eye on Mari, and I hated him. Thick and strong and handsome, this one – cutting throats spare time to labouring and enjoying every minute, and he’d had his peeps on Mari from the second we’d come to Cae White. Cut a throat or two myself if this continued: waylaying her from Chapel and happy I am to know you, girl – Mari first name, isn’t it? Justin be mine. Permission to call would be very tidy, Mari Mortymer, me being friends with Grandfer. Thank God she sent him about his business, her a decent married woman. He could even sing well, the swine, booming bass, and I closed my hand as he winked at her now. Last chord to strip the whitewash, and the crowd suddenly parted, cowering back in mock horror, for the terrifying Mari Lwyd was shoving a path through them. Now it stood on the threshold, its lower jaw champing, glass eyes flashing. This, the horrifying Mari Lwyd – a man clad in a white bedsheet wearing the skeleton of a horse’s head where his own head should be.

  “God save us,” whispered Mam.

  Glass eyeballs on this one, its skeleton head covered with gay rosettes, and its coloured rein streamers were flying in the wind. Jawbone champing like the bell of doom, it surveyed us, gaze sweeping right and left – fixing on Morfydd now, bringing her hands to her face. Then, in a shrill falsetto, the horse began to sing, though I knew it was Waldo Bailiff by the size of its boots. Enough to frighten decent folk to death.

  “O, Mari Lwyd so jolly has come all the way from Kidwelly,” sang he. “So will you invite us to sing, good people. And if we are not welcome then please let us know with your singing,” and he flung up his skeleton head and neighed like a soul in torment. “O, please let us know with some singing.”

  Dead silence.

  “For God’s sake give it a penny and shift it,” whispered Morfydd, but Grandfer, grinning, faced the apparition, flung his arms wide to it and replied in his squeaky te
nor:

  “O, Mari Lwyd so jolly, come all the way from Kidwelly to visit friendly neighbours. If you are friendly too, then welcome to this house.”

  “Friends and neighbours indeed!” bawled the Mari Lwyd, tossing and neighing. “And we beg entry mam – is it in or out?”

  And Grandfer bowed low and touched Mam’s arm, leaving it to her. Would have died scalded for Grandfer at that moment.

  “Open to friends and neighbours!” cried Mam, going damp, and she flung her arms wide. “Come in, people, do not starve to death in the cold!”

  A hell of a thing it is to be accepted, mind.

  And in they came, the Mari Lwyd leading, snapping and snarling left and right at the men and bowing to the women. Waldo Bailiff in his element, holding the stage, and Mari and Morfydd were dashing round shouting for cups and plates and digging out the larder for the Christmas cake which was damned near finished. But they need not have worried for the neighbours brought things with them, specially cooked for the surprise, they said, and soon the table was groaning.

  “Greetings to the Mortymers!” cried Waldo through bared teeth. “Welcome to the county, I say – the prettiest women in Wales, not counting fat little Biddy Flannigan by here!”

  “O, go on with you, Waldo,” said Biddy, all creases and blushes. “There’s terrible he is, now, and in front of strangers.”

  “Strangers no more!” roared Abel her brawny son. “For I have a little barrel of good stuff from Betsi Ramrod’s place but I am needing a woman to roll it in, doing the custom. Any volunteers?”

  “I will go,” said Morfydd, rolling her sleeves, and the look she gave Abel Flannigan sent up my blood, never mind his.

  “A kiss from the beer-roller, remember,” called Mari. “Mind what you are taking on, Morfydd!”

  “Dark out there!” I cried, while everyone roared.

  “Darker the better,” shouted Morfydd. “Bring him back in one piece, is it?”

  “Morfydd, behave!” called Mam, looking worried. Cheers and shrieks as Morfydd rolled the little barrel in and Abel came staggering after her on rubber legs, and I saw Osian Hughes Bayleaves send Abel a filthy look from his corner where he sat with his mam. Ring-dancing now, singing and laughing, back-slapping and a bit of spare kissing going on, with the young men rushing round with jugs of the foaming ale and Mari dashed past me for the boys who were bellowing upstairs. Caught the eye of Dilly Morgan through the surge of the crowd.

  “Phist!” I said.

  Ambitions for this one, me, for Tessa was up at Squire’s Reach and every woman has a separate appeal.

  “Me?” she mouthed back, eyebrows up, thumbing herself.

  I jerked my head and went through the door of the back and I heard the rustle of her behind me.

  “What you want, Jethro Mortymer?” Knew damned well what I wanted.

  “Plenty of old kissing going on, Dilly Morgan,” I said. “You fancy kissing me?”

  “And me fourteen? Eh, there’s indecent!”

  “Got to start some time,” I said. “Look up by there, girl – you seen Venus?” and I got my arm around her waist.

  “Don’t you start tricks, now. I have heard about you, Jethro Mortymer. Sixpenny Jane down at Betsi’s place do say you’re a grown man the way you’re behaving. Loose me this moment.”

  But I had her, though she was thrusting, and her lips were as wine in the frosted air. Pushed me off and caught me square, the bitch. “Tell my mam, I will,” said she, and up with her skirts and away through the door.

  Not much doing when you are fourteen, but I waited a bit for I knew Hettie would come. Beggars are women when they think they are missing something. Pretty she looked, though, in the light from the door, skirt held up between fingers and thumbs, and she bowed with a nod.

  “Happy Christmas,” said she. “Didn’t expect to find you out here, Jethro Mortymer,” and she nearly fainted for the shame of it.

  “Same to you,” I said. “You come for kissing?”

  “Just passing,” said she. “Looking for Dilly.”

  No slaps from this one. Soft were her lips, unprotesting; been at it all her life on this performance. Got a future, Hettie, but I’d much rather had Dilly. Just getting her set up again and the door came open and Morfydd peered.

  “What is happening out there?” she asked.

  “Looking at Venus,” I said.

  “O, aye? You can see it through glass, then. Want your head read sharing darkness with that thing of a brother, Hettie Winetree. In, in!” And she whirled behind us and brushed us in with her skirts. Probably for the good for I was coming a little hot with me, and I saw a few guests give us the eye as we came into the light. Betsi Ramrod followed us in, five-feet-ten of ramrod mourning, and Gipsy May her assistant from Black Boar tavern followed her rolling a barrel, and I heard Dai Alltwen Preacher give them a sigh, for their tavern had a name in the county. Waldo up on a barrel now, hoofs beating time to a roar of singing, and then, quite suddenly, the bedlam died. People were turning towards the door, and Mari shrieked in joy.

  Black-frocked, enormous, he stood in the doorway, hands clasped on his stomach, beaming down. As a sentinel of Fate Tomos Traherne stood there, smiling around the room; full twenty stone of him, spade beard snowflecked, his broad felt hat under his arm. And my mother turned from the table and saw him.

  “Tomos!” And she ran straight into his arms.

  There’s awkward.

  Half a dozen possible suitors in here already and in comes a stranger and she greets him like a lover; a fine one for examples, said Morfydd after.

  But it was better than that, though the locals did not know it.

  Everyone going formal now, backing to the wall, trying to look uninterested – very interested in boots, nudging their neighbours, and when Mam’s handkerchief came out the women started whispering. Didn’t blame them. Couldn’t expect them to understand.

  For this was our Tomos from back home in Monmouthshire; the giant of the Faith; fearful to the iniquitous, the persecutor of harlots, but a broth of a man when it came to the hungry. Fat, ungainly, his belly belt was worn bright on the backsides of children late for Sunday School, and he could hit wickedness from South Wales to North in a single swipe. Friend of my dead father, this; the protector of my mother in the agony of her grief. Mari at him now, hanging on to the other arm. A foot the taller, he stood quite still, then turned to face the room. A bit of sniffing from my mother, and then she spoke.

  “Dai Alltwen and friends,” said she, taking local preacher first. “This is our friend, my husband’s beloved friend, come down from Monmouthshire Top Towns to visit us. I ask all here to give him a welcome.”

  This didn’t do Dai Alltwen much good but he bowed proper and the man-mountain bowed back, catching my eye and winking as he came upright.

  “Any news of Iestyn, Tomos?” asked Mari, and I saw the pain fly into her face as he pressed her hand for answer. Round he went in the circle now, bowing to the women, breaking the hands of the men, until he came to Morfydd. With her illegitimate son held against her she faced him and her voice was cold and clear.

  “Good evening, Mr Traherne.”

  History here. Cast out from Chapel by Tomos when she brought forth Richard.

  But not as easy as that, for Tomos bent and kissed her face, and then her son, and took him from her arms and carried him round the circle, and Morfydd lowered her arms, her eyes cast down. But nobody really noticed Morfydd for all eyes were on the gigantic minister. The introductions completed he raised his hand and roars and cheers as it hit the ceiling, and his voice as thunder boomed around the room.

  “Good people, God’s people,” said he, double bass. “You of this county are as the Welsh of my county – faithful in labour, generous to neighbours – true Welsh, I see, by all the saints! As a Welshman I greet you and bring you God’s blessing. As the adopted father of this beloved family I give you thanks from the bottom of my heart that you should show them such kindness. And here I
vow …!” and he raised his fist, “that whatever trust you put in them they will not be found wanting. Look the world over and you will find no better neighbours with whom to share this Christmas. And may the good Lord, Whose eternal Spirit guides the hearts and minds of decent men and women, cover you with the mantle of His blessing, and keep you pure and free from harm. Amen.”

  And we stood in respectful silence, conscious of his greatness, trembling to his hwyl. Vibrant, fervent, his voice rolled on:

  “And listen! Do not mistake the kiss of this lady, for she has kissed me often when her man was alive, and he never raised an eye! Shall I tell you of this family, of its father who stood for the things that are good and clean in life? Shall I tell you of the son who languishes in far off Van Diemen’s Land because he fought, prepared to die, for the things that are decent – against the tyranny of foreign masters in a revolt against the State? Let there be no sin in opposing evil wherever it is found. And Richard Bennet, Morfydd’s man, do you know that he died in this fight and left her alone to raise her son? I can see that you do not know these things, for the Mortymers were never ones for speeches, so I tell you now with pride. Let there be no secrets between such neighbours as you. Let it be known that the Mortymers, too, have their place among you, that they have earned the respect you pay them, with their lives.”