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Josi was taken aback. Lowri had obviously imbibed more than good housekeeping from Nano. Though Nano, of course, would only have praised the Good Lord, would never, Heaven forbid, have doubted Him. He felt the need to steer the subject in a safer direction. ‘I never quite understood that parable,’ he said at last, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘And I had a very good Sunday School teacher too. Old Ifor Davies, the farrier. I suppose you’re too young to remember Ifor Davies? Father of Arnold and Dai?

But there was no answer. Lowri was asleep.

One morning Maudie turned up for work a sorry sight. Her pretty face was swollen and she had two black eyes. ‘What happened?’ Tom asked her. ‘Now please don’t tell me that you bumped into a door. I am your friend, I want to look after you, I want you to tell me the truth.’

‘John Charles has a terrible temper and last night I wouldn’t do what he asked me.’ She burst into tears.

‘Do you mind, Maud, if I go to speak to your father?’

‘No, Mr Tom. I’d appreciate it. He and my mother are very worried about me.’

Tom drove the short distance to their small cottage, he was too impatient to walk.

‘She mustn’t get married Mr Williams. She mustn’t get married to a bully. If he’s like this even before they’re wed, what will he be like afterwards?’

‘But he wants to do the right thing, he offered to marry her, we didn’t have to put any pressure on him.’

‘I don’t like the lad and I don’t think you should accept his offer. We’d be very pleased if she remained with us, we can give her her own room so that she can keep the child as well.’

‘Would you really do that for her, Mister Tom?’

‘We’d be glad to. She’s a good girl. And she shouldn’t have to suffer for one mistake. We all know how our feelings can get the better of us sometimes and how persuasive a young man can be. She’s too good a girl to marry an oaf. If he decides to change, to make himself worthy of her, then we might consider his offer at some future time. But I’d prefer it if she found someone else, some decent lad.’

‘We could have her back here with us, Mister Tom.’

‘No, I think you’re a bit crowded here as it is. I’m not so sure that you wouldn’t do better to live in Prosser’s old house if I got it mended for you. It’s got three bedrooms, though two are quite small.’

‘That would be wonderful. Old Jack Garnant our landlord won’t do a thing and won’t buy us any materials so that we could try to make some repairs ourselves.’

‘Right. You can come and see it tomorrow but you’ll have to wait for at least a couple of weeks before it will be ready for you. I’ve got a couple of men working on it.’

‘And can I lend a hand, like? I’ve done a fair bit of bricklaying and some carpentry. Can I see what I can do in the evenings?’

‘Splendid. Come to look over the place tomorrow and if you like it, two of my men will bring the horse and cart to help you with the move.’

‘Right,’ Tom told Maudie when he arrived back. ‘You are staying on here. Lottie shall have her own little room so that you can have the baby in with you and your parents are coming to live in Prosser’s old house so that you’ll have plenty of helpers with the baby. How’s that?’

Maudie couldn’t answer, but the look she gave Tom seemed thanks enough.

‘I’m only worried that you seem to be rewarding immoral behaviour,’ Mr Isaacs the minister told Tom on Sunday morning. ‘I know the chapel has been too hard in the past, but all the same there is a happy mean.’

‘I understand what you’re saying, Mr Isaacs,
’
Tom said, ‘but Maudie is a good girl who got into the clutches of a bully. They were immoral and I don’t condone that, but you see they were about to wed, and anyway I won’t have her beaten up by anyone. I don’t think she’ll make the same mistake again. You may come to talk to her tomorrow afternoon if you’d like to. When you see her poor face you won’t think we’ve been too lenient. She’s a good girl, Mr Isaacs, and a very good worker.’

Josi thought that Tom would have finished with war drawings but he hadn’t. He was still hard at it most days as though they were something he needed to work through. An occasional one would be much less harsh, would show men at work burying the dead, with pity and grief clearly shown in their faces. It was as though he were trying to say that the horrors of war, the frequency of death, are never acceptable, but that, all the same, it brings out a great deal of pity and tenderness in the soldiers.

One of his drawings showed the prelude to the football match which had taken place in the first Christmas of the war. Tom had not been present of course, and what he tried to show was not the actual game but the preparation for it, the rather uneasy faces of the Germans and the English who had respect and pity for one another. He wondered whether a poem had been written about that event. For him it showed the worst aspect of war, how men were having to kill other men whom they felt friendly towards and pitied.

During his short talk with Sassoon, the poet, looking rather embarrassed, had pressed into his hands a book of his poetry,
Counter-Attack
; it had a vivid scarlet and mustard-yellow dust jacket, and Tom already had many of the poems by heart. He had never before appreciated poetry, even considered it effeminate, but these pieces were rough and raw, spectacular as the dust jacket.

He stirred shifting his body; then the pain

Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore

His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs

They did, in fact, express what his pictures were trying to express; the horror of war. It was a counter-attack to the idea of war as heroic and noble.

At this time Tom felt he was two people; the Tom who was real seemed to be the one who took decisions about the farm and looked forward to his marriage in the near future, but there was another Tom who was an artist, who read and appreciated poetry and even tried to write it. He didn’t really believe in this second Tom, it seemed like someone he’d dreamed up and not his real self at all. And yet he went on with his drawings, finding different scenes, some from memory some from dreams, and accepted that they were good.

The wedding day dawned clear and cold. The family went to London on the early train, Catrin, Lowri and Mari Elen taking their dresses with them to change into at May’s house. They were all very excited. Tom could hardly believe
that only seventy or eighty miles away in France the war was still raging, the battles as unrelenting and bloody as ever. He
remembered the time when people had honestly thought it would be all over on that first Christmas but five Christ­mases had already passed and very little seemed resolved.

The wedding breakfast was quite meagre, the first time that the Hendre Ddu folk had come across the scarcities and hardships that city people were used to. May’s relatives seemed bemused by the step May was taking in leaving her father to live in the wilds o
f
Wales, they seemed bemused by Josi who was trying to put them at their ease but not succeeding, as a wedding party they seemed altogether too sedate and quiet. Even the church service had seemed very short and quiet, the joyful wedding hymns sung without joy.

Tom and May were spending a week in Dorset and May’s father and the half-a-dozen guests from Wales went to the station at Paddington to see them off. There were many haunted-looking soldiers at the station, either coming home or returning from the Front. ‘O my brave, brown companions,
’
Tom thought, Sassoon’s words never far from his mind.

In April Maudie’s little son was born, a handsome boy, seven pounds in weight with a fine mop of black hair. She called him Ianto after her favourite sheepdog and he became a firm favourite, spending much of his time with May and Tom.

May hoped that she would also become pregnant, but as the months went by she started to fear that she might be barren. ‘Just don’t think about it,’ Catrin said. ‘Graham says he’s known of several couples who fail to conceive at first, but when they give it up and stop trying, the woman finds herself pregnant almost immediately.’

It wasn’t easy not to think about it. As summer came with still no sign of a baby, May became more and more attached to little Ianto so that Maudie became worried. I know she wants to adopt the boy, Maudie told herself, but I won’t let her do that, he’s mine.

Maudie’s mother begged her to consider the lad’s future.

‘If they can’t have a baby but adopt Ianto, he’d become the heir of Hendre Ddu. What could you hope to give him? I’m not saying it would be easy, but I think it’s what you ought to do,’ she said.

By this time, there was another young man, Harry Hughes, a teacher in the boys’ school in town who’d become interested in Maudie. He knew about Ianto but her mother thought he’d be more likely to propose to her if there was no child. Harry lived with his mother, a very respectable retired teacher, and Maudie’s mother felt that she also would be less likely to object to the marriage if there was no child.

‘You should think of your chances, Maudie. You may never get another young man interested in you.’

‘Nonsense,’ her father said. ‘She’s the prettiest and most hard-working woman in the neighbourhood. Men will always beat a path to her door. I hear what you say about being the heir of Hendre Ddu, but in my opinion a child should stay with its mother. Would you give any of our children up for adoption? There you are then, no more talk about such a thing. Ianto is ours and we’re proud of him.’

Tom could do no wrong in the art world. He’d now begun to paint portraits, one of May sitting in the window of the drawing room, one of Catrin with her little daughter, one of Maudie when she was heavily pregnant, her body overflowing but her face still slim and fine. He named it ‘Juno’ and when it was sold it made more money that any other painting. He was pleased that it had been sold to the museum in Cardiff so that it would be seen and admired by many people for many years.

One day he asked Maudie whether she would like to come with him and May to see the picture in Cardiff. Ianto was left with his grandmother and they set off in the car shortly after breakfast.

Tom was very moved to see his painting in such a prominent position in the museum but Maudie seemed rather embarrassed, the more so because she’d overheard a man telling another, ‘That must be his wife, I suppose. It certainly looks as though he cherishes her and quite right too.’ She hoped May hadn’t heard him.

They had lunch out in a smart restaurant and afterwards Tom bought them a blouse each in Howells Store. It was the first time Maudie had been to a large town or seen such splendid shops. ‘And London is even bigger than Cardiff?’ She could hardly believe it.

Mari Elen was annoyed that she hadn’t been invited to Cardiff. ‘If I let you paint a picture of me, will you take me with you to see it?’

‘I will, certainly, but you’re never willing to sit still for more than about three minutes. If I paint you, you’d have to sit for hours over several days.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll wait until I’m older.’

Mari Elen was dismayed that Lowri wouldn’t let her wear her long bridesmaid dress to the Easter concert at school. It seemed that everyone else was going to be smarter than she was.

‘You’ll have occasion to wear it again very soon,’ Josi said. ‘Lowri’s mother has let us know that she’s getting married if you please, in just three weeks’ time. Yes, she’s decided that being Arthur Williams’ housekeeper is not enough. She says he’s a few years younger than she is, but that he’s a good chapel-going man and she wants to be his wife.’

‘She’s almost sixty years old,’ Lowri said, ‘but never mind, I thought Arthur was a lovely man; he was so upset over poor Sali’s death.’

The wedding was to be very quiet with only Lowri, Josi and Mari Elen invited.

Mari Elen looked lovely on the wedding day. They went to Tenby by train and then, because it was raining, Josi ordered a taxi to take them to the chapel. At one point in the journey they were in full view of the sea and it had a traumatic effect on Mari Elen. She became rigid with fear and screamed as though she were being tortured. ‘I don’t want to go in Tenby,’ she cried. ‘I want to go home. I’m not going anywhere but home.’

By the time they’d got to the chapel she was white and trembling and refused to go in. For a long time they sat in the car, waiting for her to calm down, but she remained in a sorry state. They could hear the minister beginning the wedding service. ‘You go in,’ Josi told Lowri at last. ‘I’ll bring her in as soon as I can. It’s not right to force her against her will.’

Lowri hurried into the chapel and Josi paid the taxi. Then, taking Mari Elen in his arms, he turned towards the sea. He felt that his small daughter should meet her demons. In a way he thought it was a good thing that her fears had surfaced. The child had been dragged into the water by a person who swore she was her mother. No wonder she was in a panic. ‘What did poor Sali say to you?’ he asked very quietly and calmly. ‘You know she lied about being your mother. What else did she say?’

It was a long time before Mari Elen could stop crying, the jerk and tear of her great sobs shaking her little body. Josi’s shirt front was wet with tears and mucus. He suddenly said, ‘What about having one of those big ice creams in a café?’

No, not even a treat of that magnitude could comfort the little girl. When she finally stopped crying, only the occasional huge sob shaking her chest, she said, ‘Tell me about my mother. Did you love her? When did she die? I didn’t want Sali to be my mother because she wanted us both to drown. That’s why I turned away from her and ran out of the sea. The sea was horrible, so rough and cold. I wanted her to come with me but she wouldn’t. I called and called “Sali, Sali”. But if I couldn’t be her little girl, she would drown herself that’s what she kept saying.’