Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  She walked down the mountainside into Aberowen and made her way to Wellington Row. The door of her parents’ house was unlocked, as always. She went inside. The main room, the kitchen, was smaller than the Vase Room at Tŷ Gwyn, used only for arranging flowers.

  Mam was kneading dough for bread, but when she saw the suitcase she stopped and said: “What’s gone wrong?”

  “I’ve come home,” Ethel said. She put down the case and sat at the square kitchen table. She felt too ashamed to say what had happened.

  However, Mam guessed. “You’ve been sacked!”

  Ethel could not look at her mother. “Aye. I’m sorry, Mam.”

  Mam wiped her hands on a rag. “What have you done?” she said angrily. “Out with it, now!”

  Ethel sighed. Why was she holding back? “I fell for a baby,” she said.

  “Oh, no—you wicked girl!”

  Ethel fought back tears. She had hoped for sympathy, not condemnation. “I am a wicked girl,” she said. She took off her hat, trying to keep her composure.

  “It have all gone to your head—working at the big house, and meeting the king and queen. It have made you forget how you were raised.”

  “I expect you’re right.”

  “It will kill your father.”

  “He doesn’t have to give birth,” Ethel said sarcastically. “I expect he’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t be cheeky. It’s going to break his heart.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone to another strike meeting. Think of his position in the town: elder of the chapel, miners’ agent, secretary of the Independent Labour Party—how will he hold up his head at meetings, with everyone thinking his daughter’s a slut?”

  Ethel’s control failed. “I’m very sorry to cause him shame,” she said, and she began to cry.

  Mam’s expression changed. “Oh, well,” she said. “It’s the oldest story in the world.” She came around the table and pressed Ethel’s head to her breast. “Never mind, never mind,” she said, just as she had when Ethel was a child and grazed her knees.

  After a while, Ethel’s sobs eased.

  Mam released her and said: “We’d better have a cup of tea.” There was a kettle kept permanently on the hob. She put tea leaves into a pot and poured boiling water in, then stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. “When’s the baby due?”

  “February.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Mam turned from the fire to look at Ethel. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

  They both laughed. Mam set out cups and poured the tea. Ethel drank some and felt better. “Did you have easy births, or difficult?” she asked.

  “There are no easy births, but mine were better than most, my mother said. I’ve had a bad back ever since Billy, all the same.”

  Billy came downstairs, saying: “Who’s talking about me?” He could sleep late, Ethel realized, because he was on strike. Every time she saw him he seemed taller and broader. “Hello, Eth,” he said, and kissed her with a bristly mustache. “Why the suitcase?” He sat down, and Mam poured him tea.

  “I’ve done something stupid, Billy,” said Ethel. “I’m having a baby.”

  He stared at her, too shocked to speak. Then he blushed, no doubt thinking of what she had done to get pregnant. He looked down, embarrassed. Then he drank some tea. At last he said: “Who’s the father?”

  “No one you know.” She had thought about this and worked out a story of sorts. “He was a valet who came to Tŷ Gwyn with one of the guests, but he’s gone in the army now.”

  “But he’ll stand by you.”

  “I don’t even know where he is.”

  “I’ll find the beggar.”

  Ethel put a hand on his arm. “Don’t get angry, my lovely. If I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”

  Billy evidently did not know what to say. Threatening revenge was clearly no good, but he had no other response. He looked bewildered. He was still only sixteen.

  Ethel remembered him as a baby. She had been only five years old when he arrived, but she had been completely fascinated by him, his perfection and his vulnerability. Soon I’ll have a beautiful, helpless infant, she thought; and she did not know whether to feel happy or terrified.

  Billy said: “Da’s going to have something to say about it, I expect.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” said Ethel. “I wish there was something I could do to make it right for him.”

  Gramper came down. “Sacked, is it?” he said when he saw the suitcase. “Too cheeky, were you?”

  Mam said: “Don’t be cruel, now, Papa. She’s expecting a baby.”

  “Oh, jowch,” he said. “One of the toffs up there at the big house, was it? The earl himself, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Don’t talk daft, Gramper,” said Ethel, dismayed that he had guessed the truth so quickly.

  Billy said: “It was a valet who came with a houseguest. Gone in the army now, he is. She doesn’t want us to go after him.”

  “Oh, aye?” said Gramper. Ethel could tell he was not convinced, but he did not persist. Instead he said: “It’s the Italian in you, my girl. Your grandmother was hot-blooded. She would have got into trouble if I hadn’t married her. As it was she didn’t want to wait for the wedding. In fact—”

  Mam interrupted: “Papa! Not in front of the children.”

  “What’s going to shock them, after this?” he said. “I’m too old for fairy tales. Young women want to lie with young men, and they want it so badly they’ll do it, married or not. Anyone who pretends otherwise is a fool—and that includes your husband, Cara my girl.”

  “You be careful what you say,” Mam said.

  “Aye, all right,” said Gramper, and he subsided into silence and drank his tea.

  A minute later Da came in. Mam looked at him in surprise. “You’re back early!” she said.

  He heard the displeasure in her voice. “You make it sound as if I’m not welcome.”

  She got up from the table, making a space for him. “I’ll brew a fresh pot of tea.”

  Da did not sit down. “The meeting was canceled.” His eye fell on Ethel’s suitcase. “What’s this?”

  They all looked at Ethel. She saw fear on Mam’s face, defiance on Billy’s, and a kind of resignation on Gramper’s. It was up to her to answer the question. “I’ve got something to tell you, Da,” she said. “You’re going to be cross about it, and all I can say is that I’m sorry.”

  His face darkened. “What have you done?”

  “I’ve left my job at Tŷ Gwyn.”

  “That’s nothing to be sorry for. I never liked you bowing and scraping to those parasites.”

  “I left for a reason.”

  He moved closer and stood over her. “Good or bad?”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  He looked thunderous. “I hope you don’t mean what girls sometimes mean when they say that.”

  She stared down at the table and nodded.

  “Have you—” He paused, searching for appropriate words. “Have you been overtaken in moral transgression?”

  “Aye.”

  “You wicked girl!”

  It was what Mam had said. Ethel cringed away from him, although she did not really expect him to strike her.

  “Look at me!” he said.

  She looked up at him through a blur of tears.

  “So you are telling me you have committed the sin of fornication.”

  “I’m sorry, Da.”

  “Who with?” he shouted.

  “A valet.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Teddy.” It came out before she could think.

  “Teddy what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter? What on earth do you mean?”

  “He came to the house on a visit with his master. By the time I found out my condition, he’d gone in the army. I’ve lost touch with him.”

  “On a visit? Lost touch?” Da’s voice rose
to an enraged roar. “You mean you’re not even engaged to him? You committed this sin . . . ” He spluttered, hardly able to get the disgusting words out. “You committed this foul sin casually?”

  Mam said: “Don’t get angry, now, Da.”

  “Don’t get angry? When else should a man get angry?”

  Gramper tried to calm him. “Take it easy, now, Dai boy. It does no good to shout.”

  “I’m sorry to have to remind you, Gramper, that this is my house, and I will be the judge of what does no good.”

  “Aye, all right,” said Gramper pacifically. “Have it your way.”

  Mam was not ready to give in. “Don’t say anything you might regret, now, Da.”

  These attempts to calm Da’s wrath were only making him angrier. “I will not be ruled by women or old men!” he shouted. He pointed his finger at Ethel. “And I will not have a fornicator in my house! Get out!”

  Mam began to cry. “No, please don’t say that!”

  “Out!” he shouted. “And never come back!”

  Mam said: “But your grandchild!”

  Billy spoke. “Will you be ruled by the Word of God, Da? Jesus said: ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ Gospel of Luke, chapter five, verse thirty-two.”

  Da rounded on him. “Let me tell you something, you ignorant boy. My grandparents were never married. No one knows who my grandfather was. My grandmother sank as low as a woman can go.”

  Mam gasped. Ethel was shocked, and she could see that Billy was flabbergasted. Gramper seemed as if he already knew.

  “Oh, yes,” Da said, lowering his voice. “My father was brought up in a house of ill fame, if you know what that is; a place where sailors went, down the docks in Cardiff. Then one day, when his mother was in a drunken stupor, God led his childish footsteps into a chapel Sunday school, where he met Jesus. In the same place he learned to read and write and, eventually, to bring up his own children in the paths of righteousness.”

  Mam said softly: “You never told me this, David.” She seldom called him by his Christian name.

  “I hoped never to think of it again.” Da’s face was twisted into a mask of shame and rage. He leaned on the table and stared Ethel in the eye, and his voice sank to a whisper. “When I courted your mother, we held hands, and I kissed her cheek every evening until the wedding day.” He banged his fist on the table, making the cups shake. “By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, my family dragged itself up out of the stinking gutter.” His voice rose again to a shout. “We are not going back there! Never! Never! Never!”

  There was a long moment of stunned silence.

  Da looked at Mam. “Get Ethel out of here,” he said.

  Ethel stood up. “My case is packed and I’ve got some money. I’ll get the train to London.” She looked hard at her father. “I won’t drag the family into the gutter.”

  Billy picked up her suitcase.

  Da said: “Where are you going to, boy?”

  “I’ll walk her to the station,” Billy said, looking frightened.

  “Let her carry her own case.”

  Billy stooped to put it down, then changed his mind. An obstinate look came over his face. “I’ll walk her to the station,” he repeated.

  “You’ll do what you’re told!” Da shouted.

  Billy still looked scared, but now he was defiant too. “What are you going to do, Da—throw me out of the house and all?”

  “I’ll put you across my knee and thrash you,” Da said. “You’re not too old.”

  Billy was white-faced, but he looked Da in the eye. “Yes, I am,” he said. “I am too old.” He shifted the case to his left hand and clenched his right fist.

  Da took a step forward. “I’ll teach you to make a fist at me, boy.”

  “No!” Mam screamed. She stood between them and pushed at Da’s chest. “That’s enough! I will not have a fight in my kitchen.” She pointed her finger at Da’s face. “David Williams, you keep your hands to yourself. Remember that you’re an elder of Bethesda Chapel. What would people think?”

  That calmed him.

  Mam turned to Ethel. “You’d better go. Billy will go with you. Quick, now.”

  Da sat down at the table.

  Ethel kissed her mother. “Good-bye, Mam.”

  “Write me a letter,” Mam said.

  Da said: “Don’t you dare write to anyone in this house! The letters will be burned unopened!”

  Mam turned away, weeping. Ethel went out and Billy followed.

  They walked down the steep streets to the town center. Ethel kept her eyes on the ground, not wanting to speak to people she knew and be asked where she was off to.

  At the station she bought a ticket to Paddington.

  “Well,” said Billy, as they stood on the platform, “two shocks in one day. First you, then Da.”

  “He have kept that bottled up inside him all these years,” Ethel said. “No wonder he’s so strict. I can almost forgive him for throwing me out.”

  “I can’t,” said Billy. “Our faith is about redemption and mercy, not about bottling things up and punishing people.”

  A train from Cardiff came in, and Ethel saw Walter von Ulrich get off. He touched his hat to her, which was nice of him: gentlemen did not do that to servants, normally. Lady Maud had said she had thrown him over. Perhaps he had come to win her back. She silently wished him luck.

  “Do you want me to buy you a newspaper?” Billy said.

  “No, thank you, my lovely,” she said. “I don’t think I could concentrate on it.”

  Waiting for her train she said: “Do you remember our code?” In childhood they had devised a simple way to write notes that their parents could not understand.

  For a moment Billy looked puzzled, then his face cleared. “Oh, aye.”

  “I’ll write to you in code, so Da can’t read it.”

  “Right,” he said. “And send the letter via Tommy Griffiths.”

  The train puffed into the station in clouds of steam. Billy hugged Ethel. She could see he was trying not to cry.

  “Look after yourself,” she said. “And take care of our mam.”

  “Aye,” he said, and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “We’ll be all right. You be careful up there in London, now.”

  “I will.”

  Ethel boarded the train and sat by the window. A minute later it pulled out. As it picked up speed, she watched the pithead winding gear recede into the distance, and wondered if she would ever see Aberowen again.

  { V }

  Maud had breakfast late with Princess Bea in the small dining room at Tŷ Gwyn. The princess was in high spirits. Normally she complained a lot about living in Britain—although Maud recalled, from her time as a child in the British embassy, that life in Russia was much more uncomfortable: the houses cold, the people surly, services unreliable, and government disorganized. But Bea had no complaints today. She was happy that she had at last conceived.

  She even spoke generously of Fitz. “He saved my family, you know,” she said to Maud. “He paid off the mortgages on our estate. But until now there has been no one to inherit it—my brother has no children. It would seem such a tragedy if all Andrei’s land and Fitz’s went to some distant cousin.”

  Maud could not see this as a tragedy. The distant cousin in question might well be a son of hers. But she had never expected to inherit a fortune and she gave little thought to such things.

  Maud was not good company this morning, she realized as she drank coffee and toyed with toast. In fact she was miserable. She felt oppressed by the wallpaper, a Victorian riot of foliage that covered the ceiling as well as the walls, even though she had lived with it all her life.

  She had not told her family about her romance with Walter, so now she could not tell them that it was over, and that meant she had no one to sympathize with her. Only the sparky little housekeeper, Williams, knew the story, and she seemed to have disappeared.

  Maud read The Times’s report of Ll
oyd George’s speech last night at the Mansion House dinner. He had been optimistic about the Balkan crisis, saying it could be resolved peacefully. She hoped he was right. Even though she had given Walter up, she was still horrified by the thought that he might have to put on a uniform and be killed or maimed in a war.

  She read a short report in The Times datelined Vienna and headed THE SERVIAN SCARE. She asked Bea if Russia would defend Serbia against the Austrians. “I hope not!” Bea said, alarmed. “I don’t want my brother to go to war.”

  They were in the small dining room. Maud could remember having breakfast here with Fitz and Walter in the school holidays, when she was twelve and they were seventeen. The boys had had enormous appetites, she recalled, consuming eggs and sausages and great piles of buttered toast every morning before going off to ride horses or swim in the lake. Walter had been such a glamorous figure, handsome and foreign. He had treated her as courteously as if she were his age, which was flattering to a young girl—and, she could now see, a subtle way of flirting.

  While she was reminiscing the butler, Peel, came in and shocked her by saying to Bea: “Herr von Ulrich is here, Your Highness.”

  Walter could not possibly be here, Maud thought bewilderedly. Could it be Robert? Equally unlikely.

  A moment later, Walter walked in.

  Maud was too stupefied to speak. Bea said: “What a pleasant surprise, Herr von Ulrich.”

  Walter was wearing a lightweight summer suit of pale blue-gray tweed. His blue satin tie was the same color as his eyes. Maud wished she had put on something other than the plain cream-colored peg-top dress that had seemed perfectly adequate for breakfast with her sister-in-law.