Longing

by Mary Balogh

  “Look at me,” Angharad said, though she did not look at him. “I deserved every one of these bruises and the ones you cannot see. I am a whore and an informer.”

  “We all do stupid things sometimes,” he said. “You are still Angharad to me, fach.”

  She hung her head, but he could see the glisten of tears in her eyes.

  “I went back to chapel today for Owen’s funeral,” he said. “It wasn’t so bad. I would like to go back again—for a wedding.”

  Angharad sobbed and set the back of one hand against her mouth.

  “But I may not get the job,” he said. “I may not get a house of my own until next summer. Perhaps not even then.”

  “I would live with your mam and your dada and ten other people as well,” she said, “if you were in the house too, Emrys Rhys.”

  “Would you?” he said. “Will you come with me for that wedding, then, Angharad?”

  “Yes,” she said. “If you can forgive me.”

  He stood up and reached out a hand toward her. “Come and be kissed then, is it?” he said. “I’ll see if I can kiss you without hurting the poor lip.”

  “I don’t mind if you hurt it,” she said, hurrying into his arms. “I don’t mind. Emrys. Ah, Emrys, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Sh,” he said, “and let me kiss you. And then we will forget all about the past. After this kiss, fach.”

  He kissed her and gave them a long time in which to forget.

  Sir John Fowler had written to Siân three times during the week, but he had not yet heard from the Crowthers in Carmarthenshire. It was to be the cottage, then, until they did hear. Perhaps until after Christmas. He was coming for her tomorrow. Her bag was packed—she really had very few possessions—and most of the farewells had been said. Just Grandad and Emrys in the morning and Gran whenever her father arrived.

  Farewells were so difficult to say. Even Huw, when it had come his turn, had hugged her as if he was trying to break every bone in her body. And the Reverend Llewellyn had tried to crush every bone in her hand.

  Angharad was happy. Despite the severe beating she had suffered at the hands of Josiah Barnes, she was happy. She had been offered a maid’s job at Glanrhyd Castle, but she had found a better job than that. She was going to marry Emrys before Christmas. And Iestyn had a job at the castle too, as Alexander’s secretary. He was happier than Siân had ever seen him. And it was not just the happiness that the sweetness of his nature imposed on him, but the happiness of dreams beginning to come true. It shone out of him.

  And all because of Alexander.

  She could not think of Alexander.

  His meeting had taken place the night before. The Sunday School hall had been so full that the meeting had been moved to the chapel itself. Everyone had wanted to talk, Emrys had reported. And things were to happen—a school within a month, waterworks in the spring as soon as the cold weather was at an end, a minimum wage at the works and mine, a public library. The list went on and on.

  Almost all the things she had told him she would do if she had unlimited supplies of time and money, Siân thought. As if he were offering her one more gift.

  But she would not think of Alexander. Not yet. Not when she was still in danger of rushing off to him for one last good-bye.

  She had not seen him since Owen’s funeral.

  There was one more good-bye, though. And she would do it now in the afternoon, before the early winter dusk came down. She had to say good-bye to Cwmbran.

  She took the route she had taken so often with Owen, up onto the lower hills, reliving their evenings together. She stood still and looked down at the town, ignoring the November wind, which whipped at her cloak and made wild tangles of her loose hair.

  Glanrhyd Castle half hidden among the trees of the park. The works below it with smoke curling from the tall chimneys and a general look of grayness about buildings and yards. The houses in terraces rising above one another as the streets ascended from the valley floor. The coal tips and colliery wheel farther down the valley with greenness beyond. The river, looking clean from up here and soon to be clean indeed. The chapel. The footbridge across the river and the cemetery beyond.

  And the people. Her family, Gwyn’s family, the neighbors, her choir partners, Glenys Richards, who played the harp for her, Angharad, her friends from the mine, the Reverend Llewellyn, Verity, Alexander.

  Siân turned sharply suddenly and began to climb higher, away from the pain. But she took it with her. It was not easy to say good-bye even when it was to something as inanimate as a valley and hills and a town. Oh, it was not easy to say good-bye.

  She had never felt that she fully belonged. Because she had not grown up there, because she was half English and illegitimate, because her upbringing and education made her different from the other townspeople, she had always felt that she was not fully a part of Cwmbran. She had tried in so many ways to belong, to fit in. She had taken a job, even when that had meant working in the mine. She had married Gwyn, a fellow miner. She had joined the chapel and the choir. She had taught in the Sunday School. She had agreed to marry Owen. But she had always felt that she had somehow failed. She had never felt that she belonged.

  She had been wrong. She realized that now it was time to leave, now that she was saying good-bye. She belonged.

  She was climbing up toward the meeting place. But she paused in one hollow and crossed to a rock face. She laid one hand flat against it. He had set her back against it while he questioned her about the Chartist meeting. She had become suddenly frightened that he intended to rape her. She had threatened to scream. And he had kissed her. A blond, handsome English stranger.

  She continued on her way up to the meeting place and stood on the spot where she had twice hidden to observe a meeting. It was quiet and deserted now. And the town below was quiet and peaceful.

  Her town. Her valley. Her people.

  Belonging did not always mean being the same as everyone else. Belonging meant accepting and being accepted, loving and being loved. She remembered being hugged and kissed outside the eisteddfod pavilion by almost everyone from Cwmbran. She remembered being lifted to the shoulders of some of the men and carried in triumph. Not just her personal triumph, but theirs. Cwmbran’s.

  She was different. She would always be different. But people had come to accept her and even love her for what she was. She could see that now that it no longer mattered. This was good-bye. She felt a sharp stabbing of grief as she looked down at her valley. Her mother’s valley. Her people’s valley. Hers.

  She turned and toiled on upward, not looking back, not even knowing where she was going until she arrived there.

  One final good-bye. She stood looking down at the spot on which Alexander had first made love to her. It was a chilly day, though she was sheltered from the wind when she sat down. The ground was dry—there had been no rain since the day of the march to Newport.

  She sat hugging her knees and gazing downward. The end. Tomorrow would be a new beginning. She did not know what was ahead. She could not know. But today it did not matter. Today was an end. Good-bye to Cwmbran. Good-bye to her people. Good-bye to Alexander.

  Alexander. Alexander.

  She set her forehead against her knees and closed her eyes. And allowed herself to remember and to touch despair again.

  She sat thus for a long time.

  * * *

  The meeting had gone well. It had exceeded his most optimistic expectations, in fact, in both numbers and enthusiasm. The Reverend Llewellyn had begun it with a long prayer, beginning in English and switching to Welsh as the emotion grew. Ideas Alex had suggested were accepted with eagerness, but he had not had to suggest many. Soon the people had taken charge of the meeting, pleasing him with the good sense and practicality of their insights. Iestyn had recorded it all with meticulous thoroughness despite the fact that he had only o
ne workable arm.

  Committees had been formed to investigate some ideas and to make definite plans and proposals—the location and size and design of a schoolhouse, for example. But no one—including Alex—had been willing to fall into the trap of losing momentum and enthusiasm by waiting for committee reports. Much could be done without delay. The chapel and the Sunday School hall would serve as a school for the time being. A teacher was to be hired as soon as possible. Perhaps the school could be in operation by the new year.

  Siân’s name had been suggested.

  Alex had felt a wave of approval from his people, an acceptance that he had felt only on brief occasions before, like the day of the eisteddfod. He felt respect from his people, almost affection. In his prayer, before he had switched to Welsh, the Reverend Llewellyn had given thanks for an owner who cared enough for his workmen to follow after them to Newport and diligently to protect their lives and freedom there so that there had been only one casualty. The Lord would forgive him for the untruths he had felt compelled to tell in order to do so. There had been a chorus of fervent amens while Alex, with bowed head, had smiled.

  It had all been very wonderful. And yet now, the day after, he could not shake off a feeling of depression that was threatening to spoil it all. A general flatness of mood just at the time when he should be feeling most elated. Verity was gone for the day. Lady Fowler and Tess had invited her to spend it with them and had sent a carriage late in the morning.

  He felt lonely without Verity.

  He felt lonely.

  After a solitary luncheon he wandered about his study, watching Iestyn writing some letters and knowing that his idleness and his restlessness were making the boy self-conscious. He went out onto the hills so that he would be a burden to no one but himself.

  The wind was invigorating. It was a chilly day, but more because of the wind than anything else. There was none of the icy dampness in the air that was so characteristic of this part of the world.

  He wandered across the lower hills, pausing frequently to look down into the valley. It was all so familiar now. He could picture individual streets, and his eyes could alight on some individual houses and know who lived in them. The works were familiar and the mine. The chapel was familiar—focal point of the spiritual and social life of Cwmbran. Focal point of their wonderful music. Soon to be a temporary school.

  And the hills were familiar. They were a mere extension of the town below. He had wandered them frequently. He had first met Siân in the hills. He glanced up to the spot, close by, and strolled up to it. Just here. He set his palms against the rock and leaned toward it, his eyes closed. She had been frightened and courageous and defiant. He had kissed her.

  He pushed himself away from the rock.

  The hills were meeting place, playground, recreation area, courting place, and more. He remembered the whole town trekking over the mountain to the next valley for the eisteddfod, taking Glenys Richards’s harp with them. He remembered the wonderful, heartwarming absurdity of the gymanfa ganu on top of the mountain.

  It had been one of the happiest days of his life.

  He strolled on to the meeting place and looked down into the valley again. Perhaps after all he should leave, he thought. Perhaps he should go back to the life and the land that were familiar to him and appoint a competent and sensitive manager to look after developments here. Perhaps that would be best.

  Perhaps she would stay and teach in Cwmbran if he left. She should stay. This was where she belonged. Yet she was leaving tomorrow. Someone had mentioned that last night when she had been suggested as a teacher.

  She was leaving tomorrow. His depression was suddenly converted to a deep stabbing of despair.

  He was the one who should be leaving, not her. She was the one who belonged here. He did not. He belonged in England. He had roots there—memories and relatives and friends and an estate. It was his world. He should go back there.

  Yes, he was the one who should leave. He should have someone talk to Siân today, before it was too late, and persuade her to stay and take on the challenge of the new school. He would leave with Verity. They would go tomorrow. Anything that could not be packed in time could be sent on later.

  He was gazing sightlessly downward. His valley. His. It all belonged to him. His eyes focused again. But it was all a matter of wealth and property and inheritance. It belonged to him, but he did not belong to it.

  He stood very still as the now familiar feeling washed over him again, leaving him shaken and bereft. Hiraeth. The deep—the bone deep—longing for something beyond himself. The longing to be a part of the beauty and the struggle and the passion and the soul of this little part of Wales. The yearning for—he shook his head. There was no real word for it.

  He had stepped into the unknown in coming here. And he had continued to step forward, unwilling to accept facts and conditions that he had been told were essential to the prosperity of Cwmbran. He was breaking new ground now with all the plans he and his people were about to put into effect.

  Walking always forward into the excitement of the unknown. It was something he had never done before. He had always accepted his life for what it was and enjoyed what it had to offer while taking his responsibilities seriously. He had never thought of himself as a rebel or a radical or a stirrer of troubled waters.

  Was he to go back now and leave all the excitement behind? So that Siân could stay?

  Was she not his final step into the unknown? The woman he could not think of marrying because it was simply not done in his world to marry so beneath himself socially? The woman who could not be happy with him because he would be removing her from her world but would be unable to take her into his?

  The world was changing. And even if it were not, could not one man change? One man and one woman? He had no doubt that she was as miserable as he over the fact that they could not be together. Were the conventions, the rules, so much more important than they were?

  He did belong to Cwmbran, Alex thought, turning at last and beginning to plod upward. He had lived there for several months and he had loved it from the start. He loved its people. One did not have to live in a place from birth to belong there. One did not have to be the same as the other inhabitants to belong. One merely had to love—and be loved.

  It was his place. He had come home when he had come to Cwmbran, driven by the need for some solitude and peace after a broken engagement. Yes, it was not an utterly fanciful thought. He had come home.

  His head was down, watching the ground beneath his feet. But he glanced up eventually, realizing with a start where it was he was going.

  And he stopped.

  She was there before him.

  She was sitting on the level piece of ground where they had loved, her knees drawn up, her forehead resting against them.

  He stood quietly watching her for a while. Siân. His love. His world. His home. And then he continued on his way up.

  * * *

  She heard him when he was quite close and looked up sharply. She was almost not surprised. And she was not as upset as she might have expected to be to find that good-bye was to be said all over again. She could never feel distress or despair when he was with her, though she knew she would feel them even more intensely when he left. She could only feel rightness and peace with Alexander.

  He sat down beside her, his shoulder not quite touching hers, saying nothing. She looked back down into the valley.

  “I am saying good-bye to it all,” she said. “My father is coming for me tomorrow.”

  “It was mentioned at the meeting,” he said.

  “I heard it went well.” She smiled though she did not look at him. “I am glad, Alexander. I am glad you have been accepted here and that life is going to improve. I will always think of it as your gift to me, though I hope you would have done it anyway.”

  “There seemed to be common a
greement that you would make the best teacher for the new school,” he said.

  Oh. She closed her eyes briefly. “No,” she said.

  “You would,” he said. “You are a good teacher, and you are loved here. You belong here.”

  “No.” No, she did not want this turmoil. There was no decision to make. But oh, the sweet seductive thought.

  “Because I will be here?” he asked.

  “Yes.” He knew the full truth. She had never tried to hide it. She would not pretend now, then. “Yes, because of that, Alexander. But I am happy that you will be here. There are many good schoolmasters who will be only too happy to take the teaching job.”

  “It does not seem right,” he said, “that you not be here to see it all, Siân, when you were the one to dream it. Do you remember the afternoon when you told me your dreams—what you would do in Cwmbran if you could?”

  “Yes,” she said. She remembered and cherished every moment she had ever spent with him. She would always remember.

  “I want you to stay.” His arm came loosely about her shoulders. His hand clasped her upper arm.

  “No.” She knew what it would mean to stay. She knew the limits of her strength. No, she had to go. Tomorrow. She should have gone last week.

  “Siân,” he said, “I don’t know that I have the will to do it without you. I don’t want to contemplate life without you. I don’t think I can live it alone.”

  She had counted on his honor. Even though a part of her had hoped and even expected during their return from Newport that he would renew his offer, a firmer part of herself had trusted him to behave with honor. She had trusted him to let her go, her own personhood intact.

  “Don’t,” she said, sagging sideways against him despite herself and burrowing her head against his shoulder. “I could not do it, Alexander. I would give myself and you temporary happiness and ultimate misery. And I would become a pariah. Don’t ask me. I know now that I will not give in to the temptation, but I don’t want to remember you as a tempter. I want to remember you as a man of honor and integrity. I want to remember you as a man worthy of my love.”