“Why?” my mother asked, with ice.
There are some questions that cannot be answered at all, so I looked at her slippers, and hours went by me.
“Do you feel well?” my mother asked me, with a little tremble in her voice that made me feel worse.
“Yes, Mama,” I said.
“Dada will have to speak to you,” my mother said. “Go to bed, now.”
“Yes, Mama,” I said, and she held her cheek for me to kiss, and I went to my bed in the back room, thankful to be in the cold darkness. I cannot tell how long I had been asleep when I woke up and found my father looking down at me with the lamp.
“I am sorry I woke you, my son,” he said. “I hear you had a bit of trouble to-night?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said. “Will I take off my shirt?”
“Stay where you are, boy,” my father said, with a smile well on the way. “Not strapping you, I am. Only talking. Are you awake and clear?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“Right, then,” my father said. “Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women.”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“And another thing let it do,” my father said. “There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is no room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw to-day, so come the Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it?”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“God bless you, my son,” he said. “Sleep in peace.”
I did, indeed.
Chapter Fourteen
THE AFFAIR of the white turkeys will always be clear in my mind because it was the start of the wickedness of old Elias the Shop against us as a family, and it happened when Mr. Gruffydd began the revival.
We kept good hens out in the back. Brown, and white, and some good layers that were black from my father’s sister’s. There is happy are hens. All day they peck for sweet bits in the ground, twice they come for corn, and in the mornings they shout the roof off to have you to come and see their eggs. And no trouble to anybody. I do like a little hen, indeed. A minder of her own business, always, and very dainty in her walk and ways.
Every year toward June, we had young turkeys from my mother’s brother, and these we made fat for Christmas. But instead of the usual turkeys this year, Uncle Maldwyn sent a new kind, white, and lovely fans in their tails, with pale yellow legs, and bright red combs. White turkeys we had never seen.
All the village came up to see them and for a few hours the back was like a fair, and for days farmers used to come up to see the White Ladies, they were calling them. After a little, of course, we took no notice of anyone in the back, and anybody could come up, and just take his time to look in, and go his way again.
That is how they went one night, without a sign or a sound.
The hens at any other time would have screeched to have your teeth out, but so many people had been to see the turkeys, that I suppose they thought it was usual, and made it no matter.
Angharad found out, for she always went for the eggs for breakfast.
She came in running, with her face red, and her eyes wide, and stood holding the door while my father looked up from strapping his trews.
“Dada,” she said, “the turkeys have gone.”
“Gone, girl?” my father said. “Where, then?”
“The door is broken,” Angharad said; “and there are feathers on the ground.”
“O,” said my father. “Well, let us have breakfast, first. Then we shall see.”
“Will I go for the police?” Davy asked.
“Police?” my father said. “Why should we invite police? I will be my own police while I have health and strength.”
At breakfast we were all quiet, for there was a look in my father’s face we all knew well. Indeed, I would rather have seen a hundred police than that look.
So we were all taking a good breath when Ivor called for him to go on the morning shift. It was getting light outside, so I went out with my brothers to see what could be seen.
There was nothing, only the broken door of the hutch and a couple of white turkey feathers. We stood about the hutch with our hands in our pockets, looking up at the mountain, watching the pheasants.
“Who could have taken them?” Davy said. “Nobody on the Hill, for sure. The best thing is for us to go to every farm in the Valley.”
While the boys were away on their long walk, I went down the Hill feeling like a man who has sold his business, for all I had to do was nod to the boys and girls who were on their way to school, and look for things to take my time till dinner.
I went in Tossall’s for some toffee, and sat on the bridge to watch Ellis come in with the Post. The river was running very slowly and I could see small trout down by the rocks, so I went down the bank to see if I could reach to tickle a few. Tossall’s back garden was on one side, with Dr. Richards’ next to it, and on the other side of the river was the public house, Three Bells, and next to that Elias the Shop.
I saw the men carrying the slops from the Three Bell, but Old Elias carried his own buckets, from his back door to the corner of the little lane on the river bank, and went back in, closing the door with a lot of noise because it was old and the bottom scraped on the ground.
This, I thought, was strange, because the men were always saying that Old Elias would never touch the buckets and they always had trouble to fetch them. I wondered why he should bring them out himself this morning, and I heard the men making a joke about it, too.
The fish were half dead when I got closer, and I was sorry enough for them to leave them to die in peace, if peace was to be found in that dirty water, among those stained rocks. So I went up over the bridge again and down the other bank by the side of the Three Bells, walking along till I reached the little lane that led to Old Elias’ back door.
On the ground, in the middle of the lane, was a little white feather that might have come from a hen. But the feathers of hens and turkeys are not the same, to those who know hens and turkeys.
This little feather belonged to a white turkey, from underneath his fantail.
The wall of the yard was too high for me to climb, and my legs were too weak to do it if it had been lower, so I went back to the road, and down to the shop of Old Elias. I had a penny.
The shop was big, with a square window each side, and a double door between that opened with a clashing of bells. The windows were packed full of men’s and boys’ suits, and boots, and underclothes, and soap, and tea, and pinafores, and women’s dresses, and hats, and red cabbage, and ham, and picks and shovels, and grain and chicken food, and cards of combs and boot-laces, with crinkly paper all round the frames, faded and torn, now, with years of hanging there.
In I went with the bells rattling overhead, and bringing Old Elias from behind the counter. He was tall, thin, and bent forward, with a beard all round his face, but no moustache, and hair watered down so that it was darker than the beard. His eyes were not blue or grey, but pale, and they would look to the side of you when he spoke.
He had on a coat that was polished like a grate down the front, and narrow trousers strapped upon his boots. One boot had a little round patch sewn very tidy where the big toenail had rubbed through the cap. Pink and blue were his hands, and the nails long and dug down deep with his pocket-knife, so that they looked like thick, squared claws, with a blackness along the tops.
“Well,” he said, looking right past me.
“A pennyworth of liquorice, Mr. Elias, please,” I said.
“I saw you chewing down by the bridge, now just,” he said. “Did you have toffee from Tossall?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And now you are go
ing to put your teeth in liquorice?” he said, still looking past me.
“Yes,” I said.
“I will see your father, first,” he said. “All this fuss about you is going to your head. Twopence in a morning for sweets is iniquity. Go from the shop this moment.”
“Will I have a pennyworth of liquorice first, Mr. Elias?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, and making a lot of it, with a frown, and a deep voice, and a fist on the counter. “Go from here, rascal that you are.”
“Thank you, Mr. Elias,” I said, and out I went.
Up the Hill I ran and into our house to my mother. The smell of thyme was gentle in the house, for she was stuffing a piece of lamb.
“Mama,” I said, “I know where our turkeys are.”
“O,” she said. “Where, then?”
“In Old Elias the Shop’s back,” I said.
“Go on with you,” she said, “there is silly you are, boy.”
So out came the feather from my pocket.
“I found this in his back lane,” I said, “and it came from under the tail of one of them, Mama.”
“The wind blew it,” she said, looking at the feather.
“There was a bit of turkey’s mess on his boot,” I said.
“How do you know?” said my mother.
“I went in the shop,” I said.
“What for?” my mother asked.
“Liquorice,” I said.
“Where did you have the money?” my mother asked, back at the lamb.
“From Ianto,” I said.
“Did you have the liquorice?” my mother asked, picking sage.
“No,” I said. “Old Elias said it was iniquity.”
“Right, too,” said my mother. “Put it in the box.”
So I climbed on the chair, and put the penny in the box, feeling very flat.
“We will put the feather in the vase for your Dada,” said my mother. “Now go you to the back and put tidy that old mess Owen has made with his tools and wheels. I will tell Ianto how to use his pennies, too. Go you, now. Since when has Old Elias started to save for others, I wonder?”
My brothers came back one by one, nothing gained from their walking round the Valley. I said nothing. I was out in the back with Owen when my father was bathing, and then Mama called us to supper.
“We are going to have a walk afterwards, Huw,” my father said to me, with the look on his face and in his voice.
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“Shall we come, too, Dada?” Davy asked him.
“Yes, my son,” said my father, “as many as you please.”
“Where are we going?” asked Ianto.
“Elias the Shop,” said my father, in such a way that we all stopped talking. Nobody spoke again until we were at the foot of the Hill.
“What are you going to see the old—” Davy stopped himself in time and made a face at Ianto, “Old Elias about, Dada?”
“My turkeys,” said my father.
“Turkeys?” Ianto said. “What has he got to do with them?”
“We shall see,” said my father. “Ianto and Davy round the back by the river in case there will be a leak through the back door. Owen, go you to the door round the side. Huw, with me to the front.”
Two oil lamps and a couple of candles lit the shop and gave Old Elias a new colour to his face. He seemed not surprised, but shaking glad to see my father, though of course he never looked once at him straight.
“O, Mr. Morgan,” he said, looking beautiful between me and my father, “the little matter of the penny this morning, is it? I do hope Master Huw have told truth, now. He was down by the bridge there, so happy as a squirrel swinging his poor little legs, and indeed my heart was melt with pity. Toffee he had with him, and I thought, good, he is having some of the sweets of life. Then a moment later, he put his little head in the door and he asks me for a penny stick of liquorice. Well, well, well, I said, Huw, my little one, you had toffee now just. Liquorice on the top? Sick you will be, my son. And your Mama will be angry for you to spend twopence in a day on sweets. Go you, now.”
All this came out like sour milk from a tipped jug, quick, and with splashing. His eyes were shining with a smile not a smile, and his mouth open to show small brown teeth spaced apart, pointed, and wet between them. Still he looked between us, but pointing at me.
“I have come about my turkeys,” my father said.
Old Elias took a step back and the smile that was not a smile went from his face as water goes into the earth, gently.
“Your turkeys, Mr. Morgan?” he said, with his voice going high and cracking.
“My turkeys,” my father said. “This feather was found in your back lane. There is turkey’s mess still dried on your boot, by there.”
Fair play, I can say that I did see Old Elias look straight at something for once in his life, and that was at his boot heel. Then he put the foot from sight behind the counter.
“Hens,” he said, looking above us, now.
“Then you will allow me to see your back yard, Mr. Elias,” said my father.
Old Elias slipped into the opening of the counter, and still looking up, pointed up.
“Nobody is to go by there,” he said, as a man says his prayers in Chapel, “only except me.”
“Make way,” said my father. “Huw, stay here.”
“Yes, Dada,” I said.
“I will have the English law on you,” said Old Elias, in a woman’s high voice, with tears in his eyes.
“To hell with the English law,” said my father, and took Old Elias by the front of his coat, and threw him into the apple barrel, and went through the back.
Old Elias kicked and struggled to be out, but he was stuck fast. He could not speak, his temper was so great and the effort he made to have his voice made his movements weak. The barrel was at an angle, resting on blocks, but with a bit of kicking and rolling from side to side, it slipped slowly, then faster, and Old Elias, with his bottom stuck fast in the mouth, turned, over and over again as it fell off its supports and rolled down the shop, with the apples rumbling inside, and some falling out over his shoulders and between his legs, while he cried like a wounded hare, and fell out down by the biscuit cask, sitting up untidy, with his fists clenched and beating his chest.
There is strange that you will detest a man in one moment, and then the next you will feel so sorry, you will go to him to help him, and ready to kiss him quiet.
So I felt for Old Elias, then.
But I had no chance to put my feelings in practice, for in a moment he was on his feet and making for the back, picking up an axe handle on his way. I skipped behind some bales of cloth until he had gone, and then went to the door to shout for Davy and Ianto. I heard them shout back, then I ran to see where my father was.
Through the back passage, full of boxes and sacks, into the back room, full of boxes and sacks and paper and bits of old furniture, and through the little glass-house full of boxes and sacks and broken flower-pots, out to the yard, and there was Old Elias holding his nose, and blood coming out between his fingers, and the axe handle in two pieces on the floor, and my father with a turkey back to front under each arm with his hands about their legs.
With the evening going to night, and a good blue sky, and candle light coming through the little side window to shine on them, the turkeys looked very white against my father’s black suit. But if his face was shadowed, I will swear I could see flame from my father’s eyes. For moments he looked at Old Elias, and no words came.
And Old Elias was too full to speak. To be found out in theft, and a deacon well respected, and to be rolled with his bottom in an apple barrel, and then a good hit on the nose, is enough to dry the words in any man. A lovely smell of candied peel and currants and sultanas and spice and mint, and earth from the greenhouse there was, there, too.
My brothers came running through the shop with enough noise to be heard in the next world, and came to stop still by me.
“We
ll, Mr. Elias,” my father said, “this is your last night in this Valley.”
Old Elias took his hands from his nose and beat them together and bloody drops flew about him.
“There will be a reckoning,” he said, with thickness. “There will be a reckoning. I took them from you for a punishment. Your heart was swollen with pride in owning them. You were coming to be a son of Satan. You would have had them back in proper season. Now there will be a reckoning.”
“The reckoning is paid on my side,” said my father, “but to-night is the last time you will open this shop. For if you open your doors to-morrow, I will burn it about you.”
“O,” said Old Elias, moving from one foot to the other, eyes shut and fists making little circles up by his shoulders. “O. O. O.”
“Come, my sons,” said my father, “another eyeful of him and I will be sick of my food for weeks to come.”
“I was going to my shop over the mountain,” Old Elias screamed, in a whisper to hurt the throat, turning quickly as my father moved. His face came in the light. Still his eyes, open wide, and wet with red rage, looked between us all, nose shiny in its new size, and his mouth spilling spit and bloody bubbles. “Over there I was going, or to my shop in the next valley, or the other in the valley beyond that, or the other in Town. I have got shops. I have got shops. Shops. I was going to the next valley. I was leaving this den of thieves, and robbers, and murderers. I was going over the mountain.”
“Go you,” said my father, a bit surprised at Old Elias, for such raging, and so quiet I have never seen in any man. Near to madness, it was, and discomforting. Rage can be a cleanser, but this one would make the most righteous feel in the wrong to be the cause of it, so inhuman and so unclean.
“And I will do as I promised,” Old Elias whispered in a scream, when we went through the back. “I will have the English law on you.”
“Well,” said my father, “you have had a bit of Welsh law to-night, for a change. I will be glad to see what will English law do in return. And remember. Closed doors tomorrow.”
We heard him hitting his fists against the thick back door as we went out through the shop and crying in the back of his throat.