David's Little Lad

“You are going to leave it, at least for a time; you and mother are to live with Owen at Ffynon.”

Chapter Six

Gwen’s Dream

If I felt excited when starting for Hereford on the morning of that day, how much more feverishly did my heart beat when I returned home in the evening!

I was in that state of mind when the need of a confidante was sore and pressing.

In whom should I confide? I loved my brother David, I dearly loved my mother, but in neither of them would I now repose confidence. No, they knew too much already. Into fresh ears, but still into ears that communicated with a very affectionate and faithful heart, would I pour my tale – or rather that portion of my tale of which I wished to speak. David had given me, in the old Cathedral Close, two very distinct pieces of information – two pieces of information, either of which would have proved quite sufficient to keep my eyes wakeful for many nights, and my heart restless for many days. Mother and I were going to leave Tynycymmer! Owen was coming home! Round this last item of intelligence floated murky and shadowy words. Owen had sinned! Owen was not the spotless hero I had imagined him! With regard to this piece of news I wished to take no one into my confidence; by the sheer strength of a very strong will I pushed it into the background of my thoughts; I managed to give it a subordinate place where the full sharpness of its sting would not for the present be felt. By-and-by I would drag it to the light; by-and-by I would analyse this thing and pull it to pieces; by-and-by I would face this enemy and dare it to do its worst; by-and-by, defeated, baffled, I would writhe under its blows; but, as I said, for the present it lay in abeyance, and other thoughts pressed upon me.

How much a change, even a little change, does signify to us girls! I once met a man who told me calmly, and with easy nonchalance, that he was about to visit Australia. I observed his eye never brightening at the prospect of the gay sea voyage, and the sights to be witnessed in the tropical richness of the far-off land; he had seen many changes, he had visited many lands, to him change was a thing of every day, and he told me, when I pressed him to speak, that he was weary of it all, and that there was nothing new under the sun. But to me! What did not a change, even from one end of Glamorgan to another, mean to me? How very long it would take before I could be satiated with fresh places, or my eyes grow weary of new sights. So much did this one very small change mean to me, that I almost fancied, as we were whirled back in the train, that my fellow-passengers must know something of the uprooting about to take place, and some disquieting waves from the agitation which was surging round me, must be pulsing in their own hearts.

I, who had lived all my sixteen years at Tynycymmer, was going to make another place my home! It was on this item of David’s news that I longed so for a confidante.

When I got home, my eyes were bright and my cheeks flushed. Mother looked anxiously from David to me.

“She knows, mother,” said David, going over and kissing the stately and beautiful face, and looking down tenderly into the dark depths of the eyes, which were raised inquiringly to his.

Mother glanced at me; but I could not speak of it to her – not then. She knew all, and of all I would not speak. I pleaded hunger as a reason for my silence. After supper, I pleaded fatigue, and made a hasty retreat to my bedroom. On my way there, I passed through the nursery. Gwen was in the nursery, knitting a long grey stocking, by little David’s bedside.

“Gwen,” I said, “I want you – come into my room.”

When we got there, I locked the door, pushed Gwen down into an arm-chair, seated myself in her lap, put my arms round her neck, laid my head on her bosom, and burst into tears. These tears were my safety-valve, but they frightened Gwen.

“Now, Gwladys, my maid, what is it? What is wrong? Ah! dear, dear! she’s tired – the poor little maid.”

I wanted Gwen to soothe me. I meant her to stroke my cheek with her large, but soft hand. I meant her to pour, with her dear Welsh accent, some foolish nothings into my ear. Gwen’s soothing, joined to my own tears, were, as I said, my safety-valve. When enough of the steam of strong excitement was evaporated by these means, I started up, dried my eyes, and spoke.

“Gwen, we’re going away. Mother and I are not going to live at Tynycymmer any more. We’re going away to the black ugly coal country – to Ffynon.”

“Yes, Gwladys,” said Gwen; “my mistress told me to-day. She said you was to move quick, so as to have things ready for Owen. And, goodness me! Gwladys, what I says is, that little David and me should go too. What if little David was took with the croup, and me to lose my senses; and what could the Squire do? What I say is, that David and me should go – least for a year – till his h’eye teeth are down – and they do say as there’s holy wells out there, what works miracles on the sight, if you dips afore sunrise.”

It was plain that Gwen had her own troubles in the matter. She spoke vehemently.

“And who’s to brush h’out your yellow hair, my maid? and who’s to make things comfort for my mistress? Dear, dear Gwladys, ’tis worse nor folly me not going with you.”

“Well, where’s the use of making a fuss about nothing?” I said, finding that I had to listen to a complaint instead of making one. “Who says you are not to come!”

“My mistress, dear. She says the Squire wishes little David to stay at Tynycymmer. Dear heart! what store he do set by the little lad. Seems to me he loves the blessed lamb h’all the better for being blind.”

“Well, Gwen, that is all right. Of course David wishes to keep the baby – and I think,” I added virtuously, “that as he does wish it, it would be very selfish of us to take him away.”

“Dear, dear Gwladys,” said the penitent Gwen, “don’t think as I have no thought for the Squire. I don’t see why the house is to be broke up for – but there! Owen and David aren’t the same, Gwladys, and no one will make me think ’em the same. But if you and my mistress must go, I was only supposing what ’ud be best for the baby in case he was took with sickness. ’Tisn’t I as ’ud be the one to neglect the Squire, Gwladys. Course I’ll stay; though dear, dear, dear! I’ll be lonesome, but what of that?”

As Gwen spoke, I no longer found her arms comforting. I rose to my feet, went to the window, from where I could see the silver moon reflecting glorious light on the glistening waves.

“Good-night, Gwen,” I said, when she had done speaking. “I’m tired; don’t stay any longer – good-night.”

“But, Gwladys,” said Gwen, looking at me with astonishment.

“Good-night,” I repeated, in a gentle voice; but the voice was accompanied with a little haughty gesture; and Gwen, still with a look of surprise, went slowly out of the room.

I shut the door; but though I had told her I was tired, I did not go to bed.

I knelt down by the open window, placed my elbows on the window-sill, leant my cheeks on my hands, gazed steadfastly out at the silver-tipped waves, and now I called up David’s last item of news. I summoned my enemy to the forefront of the battle, and prepared to fight him to the death.

Owen had sinned!

I was a proud girl – proud with the concentrated pride of a proud race. Sin and disgrace were synonymous. I writhed under those three pregnant words —Owen had sinned. But for David, Owen would have been publicly disgraced. Had he been a cousin, had he been the most distantly connected member of our house, such a fact in connection with him could hardly have failed to make my cheeks burn with humiliation. But the one who brought me this agony, was not a stranger cousin, but a brother – the brother I loved, the brother I had dreamed of, the brother I had boasted of, the brother who had, hitherto, embodied to me every virtue under the sun. How well I remembered the graceful, athletic young form, the flashing, dark eyes, the ring of the clear voice, as he said to me —

“You – a Morgan! I would scorn to do a dirty action, if I were you.”

I was the culprit then. I had been discovered by Owen, surreptitiously hiding away for private consumption some stolen cherries. I was eight years old at the time, and the sharp words had wrung from me a wail of shame and woe. I flung the fruit away. I would not show my ashamed face for the rest of the evening. I was cured for ever of underhand dealings. The next day I begged Owen’s pardon – it was granted, and from that time his word was law to me. I was his slave. For the next four years, until I was twelve years old, I was Owen’s faithful and devoted slave. He was my king, and my king could do no wrong. His vacations were my times of blessing, his absence my time of mourning. He ordered me about a great deal, but his commands were my pleasure. He rather took advantage of my affection, to impose hard tasks on his little slave; but the slave loved her taskmaster, and work for him was light. I was a romantic, excitable, enthusiastic child, and Owen played with a skilful hand on these strong chords in my heart. He knew what words would excite my imagination, what stories would fire my enthusiasm; these stories and these words he gave, not always – sometimes, indeed, at rare intervals – but just when he saw I needed them, when I was weary and spent after a long day of waiting on my despotic young king – standing patient while he fished, or copying with my laboured, but neat hand, his blotted exercises; then my reward would come – a few, well-selected lines from Byron, a story from history, or a fairy tale told as only Owen could tell it. I would lie at his feet then, or better still, recline with my head on his breast, while he stretched himself under the trees. Then after an hour or two of this, would come in a soft, seductive whisper in my ear —

“Now, Gwlad, you will get up at six to-morrow, and have those exercises finished for me before breakfast.”

Of course I did what he asked, of course I was proud of the stealthy stealing away from Nurse Gwen, of course I enjoyed the cool of the study, the romance of copying verses, and making themes appear neat and fair for Owen; and if before the hour of release came, my back ached a trifle, and my face was slightly pale, were not the fatigue and the pain well worth while for Owen’s sake? For Owen, as I said, was my hero. How grandly he spoke of the noble deeds he would accomplish when he was a man – they were no idle words, they were felt through and through the graceful young frame, they came direct from the passionate heart. A thousand dreams he had of glory and ambition, and he meant them, meant them truly, as he lay in the long summer days under the great cool horse-chestnuts. Very goodly were the blossoms, and very fair to my inexperienced eyes the show of fruit, in that heart and nature.

In those days, it never occurred to me that while Owen spoke, David acted. David had so few words, David never alluded to the possibility of a grand future. Once he even said, almost roughly, that he had no time to dream. Oh! how inferior he seemed, how far beneath Owen!

This intercourse, and this instruction of heart and life, I had with Owen more or less from my eighth to my twelfth year; then suddenly it ceased. How little grown people remember of their own childhood! how very little most grown people understand children! There was I, twelve years old, slim, tall, awkward, gaily bright on the surface, intensely reserved within; there was I, the child of an imaginative race, great in ghost lore, great in dreams; there was I, come to an age when childhood and youth meet, when new perceptions awaken, and new thoughts arise, left to puzzle out a problem in which my own heart and life were engaged. How little the grown people guessed what thoughts were surging through my brain, what wondering ideas were taking possession of me! When mother and David told me, that for a reason they could not quite explain, Owen had gone for a time abroad, did it never occur to them that when I accepted the fact, I should also try to fathom the reason?

I don’t suppose it ever did. Their childhood was a thing of the past, they were pressed hard by a sorer trouble than any I could know. Could they have read my thoughts, could they have guessed my feelings, perhaps they would have smiled. And yet, I think not; for the pain of the child is a real pain: if the shadow that eclipses the sun is a little shadow, yet it falls upon little steps, and its chill presence keeps out the light of day, and the joy of hope, as effectually as the larger, darker shadow dooms the man to despair.

When Owen went away, this shadow fell on me. The shadow to me lay in the pain of his absence, in the fact that no long summer days, no joyous winter evenings, were bringing him back to me. I never connected disgrace and Owen; how could I? Was he not my hero, my darling?

When no reason was given for his lengthened absence, I formed a reason of my own. He had gone to win some of the glory he spoke of, to execute some of the brave deeds, the recital of which had so often caused both our eyes to sparkle, and both our hearts to glow.

I could hardly guess what Owen was to do, in those distant countries where he had gone so suddenly and mysteriously, but that some day he would return covered with fame – a knight who had nobly won his spurs, I felt quite sure of. This was the silver lining to the cloud, which Owen’s absence had cast upon my path, and this thought enabled me to bear the long years of his absence, with outward gaiety and inward patience.

And now, kneeling by my window, looking out at the fluctuating, shifting, restless tide, I told my heart that the long probation time was over, that at last, at last, Owen was coming home; but was the hero returning? was the laurel-crowned coming back with his long tale of glorious victories? Alas! Owen had sinned. This fact danced before me on the treacherous waves, floated in front of my weary eyes. Owen was no great man, gone away to perform noble deeds; Owen had gone because of his sin.

Oh! my gay castle in the air! Oh! my hero-worship, with my hero lying shattered at my feet. He, a Morgan, had brought disgrace on his race; he, a Morgan, had sinned; he, my brother, had sinned bitterly. And I thought him perfect.

The blow was crushing. I laid my head down on the window-sill, and sobbed bitterly. I was sobbing in this manner loudly and unrestrainedly, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, a firm cool hand that I knew too well to startle me even then.

“What is it? my maid; what’s the trouble?” said the tender voice of Gwen.

I had been deeply hurt with Gwen for the tone in which she had spoken of Owen half an hour before, but now I was too much broken down, and too much humbled, to feel angry with any one, and I turned to my old nurse with an eager longing to let her share some of the burden which had fallen upon me.

“Gwen, do you know about Owen?”

“Of course I do, my lamb. Dear, dear, praised be the Lord for His goodness!”

Gwen was a Methodist, and I was well accustomed to her expressions, but I could hardly see their force now, and raised my tear-dimmed eyes questioningly.

“And why not? Gwladys,” she said, in reply to my look. “Have we not cause to praise the Lord? have we not hope that the prayer that has gone up earnestly has been answered abundantly? Don’t you be foolish enough to suppose, in your poor weak little heart, that no one cared for Owen Morgan but you. Yes, my maid, others gave a thought to the lad in the far-away country, and many a strong prayer went up to the God of gods for him. Why, sweet Mistress Amy has told me how the Squire prayed, and I know she prayed, bless her dear heart! and I have had my prayers too, Gwladys, my dear, and now perhaps they’re being answered.”