had never felt this dread as a child. Children were so very adaptable, he thought, especially when they had known nothing else. It had not seemed abnormal or even very terrible to him as a child to live here in such poverty that it was amazing they had survived. It was only in retrospect that it had become a place of horror, a subject for his nightmares.
And yet he had known love here. The only love of his life. His mother. Perhaps that was why it had become a dreaded place, suppressed from his memory and surfacing only in his nightmares. Perhaps it was not so much the poverty and the bleakness that haunted him but the love— the total, unconditional love he had received here. Perhaps this was the place where the riches of his life had been. For sixteen years he had had everything in his life except love.
He had dreaded coming back because something deep in him had known that doing so would reveal his present poverty to him.
He moved to one side of the hovel, to the side still standing, and rested his arm along the dirty thatch of the roof. And his head sank onto his hands. If only they had let him write to her, even once.
He wept.
She did not waste any time. She made a quick explanation to her mother-in-law and then threw a shawl about her shoulders and made her way up to the moors with long, mannish strides.
She wanted to share her exuberance and her good fortune.
She had to go carefully, of course. She was not sure if the Parrys would reject the offer if they knew the truth. Perhaps not, but even so it was probably as well if as few people as possible knew about the coffers of Rebecca.
So she told Waldo Parry that she had set aside a little money and had now decided to use it to hire help, certainly for the summer and perhaps permanently. She hoped he was available and would be willing to help her. She hoped some other farmer had not beaten her to it. She knew how much his services were coveted.
He had had a few offers, he told her. Nothing that he fancied until now. He would enjoy working for her, though, and he knew how much she and her in-laws needed a man about the place. Mrs. Parry smiled and nodded and looked suspiciously bright-eyed. The little girls sat and gazed from their father to the visitor and back again as each spoke. Idris stood in the doorway, darting glances all about and drawing attention with strategic shuffles to his new boots until Marged complimented him on them.
It looked as if Rebecca had already partly taken care of the Parrys. The little girls, Marged noticed, were wearing new dresses. How did Rebecca know of them? she wondered. Through Aled? Doubtless he had someone in each community reporting to him. Or perhaps it was the committee itself, acting in the name of Rebecca, which was helping where there was need.
But it was Rebecca himself who had decided to help her. She did not doubt it. She hugged the thought to herself as she left the Parrys to their pride and their newfound joy— which, of course, they had not shown in full measure while she was there with them. But she did not feel like returning home just yet. She wanted to be alone to feel the full extent of her own joy.
Nothing really had changed. He had still warned her quite clearly that he wanted no permanent connection with her, that if he was forced to marry her it would not be a good situation. But the point was that he would marry her if her condition made it necessary for her to ask and that he did care. Perhaps he would never look at her or speak with her again. Perhaps she would never ride with him again. Or make love with him again. And it would be painful. She had no doubt about that. But she would hug those facts to herself and she would remember for the rest of her life her brief and glorious fling with romantic love.
She strode across the top of the hill, letting the wind take her unconfined hair, and relived that night of love. She relived every kiss, every touch. She relived their union and the unexpected passion of it. She had not known it could be like that. Not that she