How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  The hooter had just blown for noon at the pit when we heard the band down in the Valley, where the procession was meeting my father and Ianto and the boys.

  Well, there is excitement.

  My mother stopped putting butter on the bread and put down the knife to hold her chest.

  “There they are,” she said. “Ceridwen, help me with my dress. Angharad, finish the bread and butter. Bronwen, watch the pots.”

  Then everybody made haste to finish what they were doing so that when the band came up the Hill they would be outside watching.

  When Ifan Owen came round the corner at the bottom by the railings with his big silver stick and the cord round it, and the brass blazed up and the drums thumped and boomed, indeed my heart nearly stopped to beat. The band was not very big, only ten all told, but they played all together, and all of them by ear, and all very good, too.

  Up they came, and blowing to push down a house.

  After them a procession of our friends from all round the valleys, and from the pit, of course, and from the farms. Four choirs were there, all from the mountain, and our choir, and then the football clubs in their jerseys, and the women in their tall hats and red petticoats, and then everybody from the Chapel, and all the other chapels, with the preachers all walking together, then the children’s choir.

  And behind them, on Thomas the Carrier’s wain all dressed up with flowers and grasses and coloured cloth, my father was standing with his five good sons.

  I was standing in our front room at the open window but so great was the crowd that once the band was passed I could see nothing, except the heads of my father and my brothers, and when they got down, nothing except hats.

  So, knowing my brothers, I went through the kitchen and out in the back and met them coming down through the back lane, dodging the crowd, see.

  Ianto was even bigger than Ivor. And in good clothes, too, from London. There is strange you can tell London in a man’s suit. Why is London such a wonderful place that it will speak to you even in a piece of cloth?

  “Well,” he said, “there is a big boy you have grown, man. How old, now?”

  “Twelve,” I said, “and a birthday next week.”

  “Oh,” he said, “like that, is it? Birthday next week, so put your hand in your pocket?”

  “No, no,” I said, “only telling you, I was. If you want to give me a present, good. And if not, good.”

  “I brought you a coming-home present from London,” he said. “It is in my trunk. So if you have a chance, look inside the lid.”

  “There is one in my box for you, too, Huw,” said Davy.

  “And mine,” said Owen.

  “You will have mine on your birthday,” said Ivor.

  “And I will give you a sixpence now,” said Gwilym, “and I will see about your birthday when it is your birthday.”

  “How are you liking married life, Gwil?” asked Ianto.

  Gwilym’s eyes went once to Owen and down on the mat.

  “O, all right, you know,” he said. “How is your wife?”

  “Dead,” said Ianto.

  “Dead?” said Ivor. “We heard nothing of that.”

  “I chose to say nothing,” said Ianto, and put me on my feet very kindly.

  “O,” said Ivor. “Very long ago?”

  “Six months,” said Ianto. “She and the baby. But say nothing to Mama. I will tell her to-morrow. And keep close by me or she will be asking questions. Quiet, now.”

  The singing and shouting outside was something to marvel at, and now a press of people were all round the house, shouting for Ianto, and all the women were coming in to get the food and make the tea.

  The boys were dragged away by their friends and I was left standing in the corner to watch. But the room was so hot, and so many people were trying to get in and so many in already, that I climbed out through the window and went in the back shed out of the way.

  There was a little loft up in the back, a quiet little place full of the smells of soap, and oil, and coal, and wood, and potatoes, and apples, and onions, where my mother put the blankets and linen when she had no use for them. A little window let you look right up to the top of the mountain if you lay flat on your back on the blankets. Here I looked at my school lessons and read during the day when my mother had friends in, or wanted the kitchen so that she and the girls could bathe.

  So I was up there, in quiet, and resting, with the sound of the crowd a long way off, when Marged came in quietly and shut the door.

  I made no sound but turned my head to watch her going to the bench where Owen had worked while she had been in the house with us. Some of his tools were still in the racks, and the brace and bits and the vice were shining as though Owen had only just been in. I was at them every day with sandpaper.

  Marged sat on Owen’s little stool and put her hand on the vice and started to turn the screw, very slowly, as though she was thinking.

  And I knew she was crying.

  Even while I was wondering what to do, the door opened again and Owen was standing there looking at her. For a moment he stood with the door open wide and then, knowing that people were all over, he came in and shut it, and stood again, with his back to it, very still, and in his black suit almost hidden in the darkness.

  “Marged,” he said, in a whisper. “I saw you come in. I had to come.”

  “Owen,” she said, and the words were riding on her tears, “I have starved for you.”

  “Marged,” Owen said again, and went nearer. “Many and many a time I would cut my throat but I am a coward. My life is a curse to me. I loved you, Marged, my beautiful one, but I loved too much. I love you still.”

  “There is nothing to be done,” Marged said. “I am married. That is the end.”

  Owen was kneeling by her. She was still holding the vice.

  “Do you remember when you kissed me in here the first time?” she said, with smiles in her voice. “You pressed me against this old thing and my back was nearly cracked in pieces.”

  “Is Gwil good to you?” Owen said, with hunger.

  “None better, not even you,” said Marged. “And he is so like you sometimes it is like being married to you, indeed.”

  “Why were you crying just now?” Owen said.

  “Because the old ache was back,” said Marged. “I had it with me too long to forget it. Ache, ache, ache, for days and weeks and months. And only one voice, one kiss would have burnt it away. But it went on aching. Then it stopped.”

  Owen got up.

  “Stopped?” he said, and his voice was higher than hers.

  “Stopped,” said Marged, solid as a house. “One night I was in torments and going mad and shouting, and poor Gwil going mad, too, trying to soothe. And I prayed for strength to forget you.”

  “And you did?” asked Owen, with a full throat.

  “I will never forget Owen Morgan,” said Marged, and got up to settle her cloak, and I saw her waist that a man’s hand could span. “Owen, who kissed me, and said I was his before the times of the Pyramids. Never. I will love him with my soul till the day I die.”

  “And now?” said Owen.

  “And now I am Mrs. Gwilym Morgan,” said Marged, “and Owen Morgan has gone away and will never come back.”

  “But, Marged,” said Owen, “here I am, girl, look.”

  “You?” Marged said, and looked up at Owen, full in the face and shook her head. “No, you are not Owen Morgan. There is no man like Owen Morgan. He went away. He will never come back. And he gave me away to his brother.”

  “Oh, Marged,” said Owen, and turned his back.

  “Yes,” said Marged, “and I am living in that little house with him.”

  “Would you come away with me if it will make you happier?” said Owen.

  “Nothing will make me happy,” said Marged, “only Owen Morgan. And he will never come back.”

  “Have sense, Marged,” said Owen, and turned quickly to catch her by the shoulders and look down into her f
ace, as though to beg.

  But he spoke to himself and his words went to powder, and his eyes went wide and then tight shut. His hands fell from her, and quickly, with a cry, he went to the door, and threw himself against it.

  “Marged,” he was sobbing. “Oh, Marged, my beautiful one. What did I do to you, devil from Hell that I am? What did I do?”

  He went out and closed the door. Marged stood.

  Then boots ran across the cobbles and Gwilym threw open the door and stood to hold his breath. He went quietly to Marged and put his arm about her shoulders.

  “Come, my pretty one,” he said, and indeed I had never heard him in that voice before. “We will get in the trap and go home, is it? And I will bathe your head and nurse you to sleep, is it? Come you, my little heart, and have rest.”

  And talking like that, Gwilym took Marged quietly outside and shut the door.

  I was boiling with heat and dry for a cup of tea, so I climbed down and went into the house among the people. Most of them were out on the mountain, having their food in the open, with the women hiding under umbrellas afraid of the sun, and the air full of talk and laughing.

  In the kitchen my mother was looking white, and Angharad was crying in the corner, with Bronwen standing beside her patting her shoulder. My father and the boys were in the front room with Mr. Gruffydd and the other preachers.

  “Huw,” said my mother, standing quickly and holding out her hands to keep me from the front room, “take what you want and go out on the mountain like a good boy.”

  “Yes, Mama,” I said, and Bronwen came smiling to help me choose and pack.

  “No use,” my father said, in a voice above all the noise, that made my mother turn to hold her mouth. “No doctor can do her good, Mr. Gruffydd. We have spent much on them. The poor girl is mad, and I am worried from my life for my poor boy.”

  “Go you, now,” said Bronwen, whispering to me, in a hurry, “and be tidy for a couple of hours, will you?”

  So out I went, and down to the river to tickle a couple of trout, and eat and drink on a rock in the sun with the river all round me.

  Tidy, indeed.

  That night we had supper all over the house. The tables were not big enough for all to sit down at once. So we had to manage.

  I was in the kitchen with my father and mother and my brothers and Mr. Gruffydd and a couple of other preachers, and Mr. Evans the Colliery, Dr. Richards, Mr. Parry, Mr. Owen Madog, and a number of the deacons and elders.

  We were all with our elbows under the ribs of the next one, but there was plenty to eat and drink so nobody was troubling. Ianto was telling about London and what he had done up there. He was in the counting-house of Hopkin Jones, the draper, and then cleaning engines in the Great Western sheds, and then clerk of works on a road-building job, and goodness knows what, he said.

  “There is a jack of all trades for you,” said one of the preachers. “Why not one job?”

  “Because I was never in the right job,” said Ianto. “So I went on looking till I found it.”

  “Did you?” asked the preacher.

  “No,” said Ianto. “We were treated like dirt. In the clerking jobs we were supposed to dress like princes on the money of a maggot. And in the rough jobs we got more pay, but the conditions of living were worse than the animals out at the back here. So I left one for the other and kept on looking.”

  “But you never found it?” asked the same preacher, who was one of those men who enjoy making an ill-natured joke of all that goes against his understanding.

  “No,” said Ianto. “I never found it. And never likely to.”

  “So,” said the preacher, “you are going to be a rolling stone all your life? Not much credit to that, at all events.”

  “At all events,” said Ianto, with the lights in his big grey eyes set stone-still at Danger, “I am going to have credit for not squatting on my bottom like you, talking a lot of rubbish three times every Sunday, and mouthfuls in the week. Thank God I am not a limpet on society.”

  Down went everybody’s knife and fork, except mine and Davy’s, and Owen’s, and Ianto’s. I had known what was coming so I was ready.

  “I am not prepared,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “to sit here while my colleague is insulted. His observations might have been put in a happier manner, it is true.”

  “His observations,” said Ianto, “should never have been made. I would have punched his nose if he had been a man.”

  “Well, indeed,” said the preacher, and very distressed, “I am sorry to cause such trouble. If I have said anything, I am deeply sorry.”

  “Good,” said Ianto. “Now I am sorry. Have some more of my good mother’s blackberry.”

  After that, it was like trying to talk through a net. Words seemed to stick in the air. Nobody seemed willing to look at anybody else. And when somebody laughed, you could tell how hard they were trying.

  Mr. Gruffydd had been rolling little pieces of bread for minutes on end, looking straight at the butter. Many times my mother took up the butter to help people, but his eyes never moved. My father kept looking at him out of the side of his eyes, and trying to talk business with Mr. Parry.

  Presently Mr. Gruffydd blinked his eyes as though coming from sleep and cleared his throat, and at once the room was still. Angharad, coming through from the wash-house with more plates, first stood still, and then at a sign under the table from my mother, quickly went out backwards.

  “Ianto,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “at any other time, and in any other house, I would not start this discussion. But this matter to-night requires airing. Why am I a limpet on society?”

  “Because you are doing useless work,” said Ianto, quick as that.

  “Ianto,” said my father, across the table, and angry, with my mother’s hand on his arm. “Mr. Gruffydd healed Huw.”

  “Mr. Morgan,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “Huw healed himself. Ianto,” he said, “why is mine a useless work?”

  “Because,” Ianto said, with knife and fork idle, and his eyes on fire, “you make yourselves out to be shepherds of the flock and yet you allow your sheep to live in filth and poverty, and if you raise your voices, it is only to say it is the Will of God. Sheep, indeed. Man was made in the image of God. Is God a sheep? Because if He is, I understand why we are all so damned stupid.”

  “I cannot tolerate this,” said the preacher who had not yet spoken, a little man with glasses, who sniffed when he spoke and had a little cough with him that he used all the time.

  “True,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “Perhaps, Ianto, you would come down to my lodgings to-morrow and talk there. I am interested in your views.”

  “But, Mr. Gruffydd,” said the sniffing preacher, “your dignity surely will not allow you to talk with him.”

  “Go from the house,” Ianto said, looking knives at him, “before I will throw you, and your dignity. I will be with you at eight to-morrow morning, Mr. Gruffydd.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “And God bless all in this house this night.”

  “Amen,” we all said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I WENT DOWN THE HILL with Ianto next morning before eight o’clock to start school again with Mrs. Tom Jenkins. A big morning it was for me. More than two years had gone by since I was last in the little front room, but nothing had changed, not even the curtains, though they had been washed, of course.

  Eunice and Eiluned had grown nearly big enough to wear their mother’s dresses without cutting, but they still went about the house in bare feet to save their shoes and stockings for going out. The blackboard was still cracked across at the top, and with all the lessons chalked on and rubbed off into the minds of the boys and girls since, greyer still than I remembered it, so that the alphabet, which Mrs. Tom always wrote at night for us to copy first thing in the morning, was barely to be seen.

  Even the smell was the same, of frying bacon, baking bread, sage in a bunch, the herbs she burnt for Mr. Tom Jenkins’ comfort, and chalk, old books, airing washing
and mice. It was not the smell of our house, and I was always a stranger to it for it reminded me of the purple head of Mr. Tom Jenkins and his noises.

  When Mrs. Tom came in we had prayers, and then a prayer for sending me back to school nothing worse except for thin legs, and then we sang “Let my life be all thanksgiving.”

  But when we started lessons I had a shock, for there was nothing Mrs. Tom could teach me. All the days I had been in bed I had either read books or listened to Bron or my father and brothers, and hour after hour I had talked with Mr. Gruffydd.

  Mrs. Tom tried me with the names of the kings, starting from Canute, but I could go back hundreds of years and tell her of British kings who ruled before Rome became nasty with us. Oceans, seas, continents, islands, countries, rivers, towns, and industries, I knew all of them she asked me, and at last she put down the pointer.

  “I had better see your father, Huw,” she said. “You are wasting time coming here. Only your sums want a bit of help from me, and I can give you that every night after tea. Go to your dinner now, and stay home.”

  So back we all went up the Hill, and the boys and girls looking at me as though I knew everything.

  Ianto was in the house when I got there and looking very straight. Owen was in the back doing a bit of filing and putting my mother’s teeth in brine, and Angharad was peeling apples in the wash-house. When I got a wink from her I knew there was trouble to come, so I went in with Owen.

  “O,” he said. “You, is it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Do you want help?”

  “Give this bolt head a scrape,” he said. “Can you?”

  “Give me the file,” I said.

  While I filed, Owen was fitting together a lot of parts all new and shining and looking beautiful indeed, when they were fast and whole.

  “What is this, Owen?” I asked him.

  “An engine,” he said, “to drive people instead of a horse and trap. But say nothing.”

  “No, no,” I said. “Why is Ianto looking at the wall in by there?”

  “To rest his eyes from the faces of fools,” Owen said. “Why are you home so early?”