“Oh, Marged.” Ceris looked up at her, tears in her eyes. “You have learned it from your dada, that way of talking you have. You make it sound like a glorious thing to fight against oppression. You make it sound cowardly to refuse to use violence. But violence does nothing but breed more of itself. Look what happened to Eurwyn. Ah, I am sorry. I ought not to have said that.”
“Eurwyn would rather be dead than alive and at home now, afraid to act on his convictions,” Marged said. “And I am proud of him even though I have been left alone without him. Yes, I am, though it was cruel. Ah, it was cruel, the way he died. And nothing from Geraint Penderyn, from the Earl of Wyvern, though I lowered myself to write him letters and remind him of a time when I had befriended him. Oh, yes, I could almost wish that Aled would go and burn him in his bed tonight.”
“No, you do not, Marged,” Ceris said.
“I did say almost.” Marged was tight-lipped and angry. They lapsed into silence.
She did not want him back at Tegfan, Marged thought. She had been hurt too deeply by him. When he was a child and smaller than she even though he was two years older, she had befriended him. She had championed him even though it was her father who, with the deacons, had driven his mother from chapel. She had continued to champion him throughout his boyhood after he had been sent away to England and never came back or wrote letters to any of his former friends. She had always been one for causes, she thought rather bitterly now.
Clouds were moving across the sky from the west, heavy clouds. It would rain later. She drew her hood up over her head and wished her cloak was not so old, so close to being threadbare. There was so little money for anything but the bare necessities. But then for some there was not even that much.
Even when he came back to Tegfan for his mother’s funeral, she had been prepared to take his part, even though he was silent and morose and arrogant in manner and spoke nothing but English—in a very cultured way. She had told herself and everyone else that he was merely shy, that he needed time. And she had been very eager at the age of sixteen to fall in love with his handsome face and figure. He had been unexpectedly tall and attractive—and attentive. Until he had made it very clear to her one day that he saw her as nothing better than one of his London whores. And the next day, when she had thought he came to the manse to apologize, he had talked exclusively with her father and had ignored her apart from one cold and insolent look.
It was the last time she had seen him, she realized now.
He had had his revenge for his slapped face and unrequited lust that afternoon. He had ignored her groveling pleas for Eurwyn. And Eurwyn had died.
Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern, had killed her husband.
“Oh, Marged.” Ceris fell back, panting. “I cannot keep up with your pace, girl. You will have to go on ahead.”
Marged slowed her pace again with a smile of apology. Ceris had always contended that the Earl of Wyvern had never received her letters. She herself would not excuse him so easily.
And now he was back. Oh, yes, if he dared to come near Ty-Gwyn, though it was his and she only paid rent on it, she would know how to welcome him. She could hardly wait. And yet for all that she wished he had not come. She wished he had been content to keep his person and his wealth and his consequence and his—oh, his Englishness—in London for the rest of his life.
“Do you really think there is going to be trouble?” Ceris sounded desperately in need of reassurance.
“I sincerely hope so,” Marged said. “It is high time. Other parts of West Wales have not been as slow and as cautious as we have. Perhaps the arrival of the Earl of Wyvern will have one positive result.”
“Rebecca?” Ceris asked unhappily.
“If someone brave enough will play her part,” Marged said. “I would do it myself except that no man would accept a woman as Rebecca. Ironic, isn’t it? I thought that perhaps Aled—”
“Oh, Duw, no!” Ceris wailed. “Not that he is anything to me, of course.”
“Perhaps now that Geraint Penderyn is here in person, people will be able to see that the enemy is very real,” Marged said. “Perhaps now someone will be goaded into leading the protest. There are enough of us, heaven knows, who are willing and eager to follow.”
“Us?” Ceris stopped walking, having reached the lane that led to her father’s farm. “Us, Marged? Surely you would not—”
“Oh, yes, I would,” Marged said fiercely. “I have to be the man at Ty-Gwyn, Ceris. I have to stand in place of Eurwyn for his mam and his gran. Well, then, I will stand in place of Eurwyn in other matters, too. I would like to see the man who will stop me.”
Ceris sighed. “Oh, Marged,” she said, “how wrong you are, girl. Home for dinner now, then, is it?”
“Yes.” Marged smiled. “Home for dinner. Home to wait and see what will happen. But not for long if I have anything to say in the matter.”
She turned to stride onward up the grassy hill track to the white longhouse that had been home since her marriage seven years before to Eurwyn Evans.
Ceris stood at the end of the lane, watching her go. Poor Marged. There was so much bitterness in her, so much hatred. And so much potential violence—as there was in so many people these days. Even Aled . . . Sometimes she wondered if she was the one who was wrong. But it seemed so clear to her that violent protest would only bring more suffering. And hatred had never mended any bridges.
But her thoughts were interrupted before she could turn in the direction of home. Someone hailed her from a short distance across the hill, and she waited for him to come up to her. He was neither a very tall nor a very robust man, but he was dressed smartly in a greatcoat and boots, and he was removing a top hat to reveal smooth fair hair. He was good-looking, Ceris thought, if not exactly handsome.
“Good morning, Mr. Harley,” she said in English.
“Good morning, Miss Williams,” he said. “And a fine morning it is too. I decided to take a walk after church.”
She smiled at him. He frequently took walks after the Anglican service, and their paths often crossed. Deliberately, she believed.
“I am not ready to go home yet,” he said. “I suppose you would not care to stroll with me for half an hour, Miss Williams?”
“I have to help my mother with dinner, Mr. Harley,” she said, making an excuse as she always did when he issued such invitations. But she was still feeling somewhat upset over the morning’s events. And she was twenty-five years old, she reminded herself, and would no longer allow herself to love Aled. Could she do better than Matthew Harley? He was English, which fact she must not hold against him. He was also the Earl of Wyvern’s steward, a man of some importance. A man who would be able to support a wife in some comfort—she shook off the thought as unworthy of her. He was a man who must not be blamed for being tough over rents and tithes and other matters. He was merely doing a job.
He had already bidden her a good morning and turned onto the downward path she had just walked with Marged.
“Mr. Harley,” she called impulsively, and when he turned back to her she had no choice but to continue. “Perhaps later this afternoon? Perhaps you would like to come to tea? Mam would be pleased. And we could take a walk afterward.”