He would not sing himself. Could not sing, though he held a hymnbook open in his hands. Nostalgia, bitterly sweet, making his throat and his chest ache with unshed tears, was washing over him.
But I miss the hills. . . .
Oh, God, oh Duw, I have missed Wales. I have missed home.
It seemed to Marged that she had felt nothing but bitter hatred for a week—since last Sunday when Glenys had brought the news from Tegfan that the Earl of Wyvern was home. She pulsed with hatred now and felt all the unhappy incongruity of such an emotion while she sat in chapel and tried to concentrate her soul on the love of God.
But she could not feel God. And her body was overpowering her soul. What she could feel was the heat of Geraint down her left arm and side. When they had sat down after the first hymn, Mrs. Griffiths on her other side had sat closer, forcing Marged to sit closer to him. She had to be very careful to keep her arm pressed to her side so that she would not touch him. But there was the heat of him. And the smell of him, that same expensive smell she had noticed at Ty-Gwyn. A musky smell. She had not known any man who wore any sort of cologne. But he did. And yet it was not a strong perfume and it was definitely not effeminate. It seemed a part of him and of his undeniable masculinity.
He had been at Tegfan for a week. For a week he had established his lordship over them all, visiting them dressed in clothes so splendid that their own shabby garments appeared mere rags in contrast, treating them to his own brand of coldness and arrogance that quite put the old earl in the shade. Yesterday his bailiff and a few of his hefty servants had called at Glyn Bevan’s farm and confiscated one of his horses and some of his cows because Glyn had not paid his tithes. How was Glyn to plant his crops without enough horses? And how was his wife to prepare sufficient butter and cheese for market without enough cows?
And yet he had dared to come to chapel this morning, to spoil the one day of the week when they could all come together to worship and relax and enjoy a friendly chat afterward. And he had dared to sit beside her and ignore her. And ignore everyone else. He had nodded in acknowledgment of her father’s greeting from the pulpit, but he had looked neither to left nor to right. He had not joined in the singing. Probably he had forgotten every word of Welsh he had ever known. And yet the whole service was conducted in Welsh—except for that brief greeting to the Earl of Wyvern.
Why had he come? To make them all uncomfortable? He had succeeded.
She noticed, without looking directly at them, that his hands were well cared for, that his fingernails were well manicured. His fingers were long. She could remember telling him as a child that he should be a harpist or a pianist. There had been a great deal of music in him.
And unwillingly she remembered Geraint as he had been, a bold little urchin, always up to mischief either for its own sake or out of necessity. He had explored Tegfan land for the sheer excitement of avoiding the mantraps the gamekeepers set and of evading capture. But he had done it too in order to snare rabbits and catch salmon from the salmon weirs—so that he and his mother would not starve. He had climbed trees and scrambled over fences and bounded across streams and raced up and down hills with energy and a certain wild grace. He had been thin and ragged and frequently hungry and yet had talked ceaselessly and laughed and sung as if he had not had a care in the world. The hungrier he had been, the merrier he had laughed. He had been good at disguising his feelings, at avoiding being pitied.
She had pitied him and admired him and followed him and scolded him and fed him—he had always taken half home to his mother.
She had loved him. She had worshiped and loved him. With the love of one child for another.
He had been taken from a life of indescribable poverty to one of unimagined wealth. He had been taken from her. She had rejoiced for him and wept