A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees Read Free Page B

look at her. ‘Sit down, woman. You’ll drown the lot of us.’
    â€˜We’ll die if we go there.’ Her voice is high and hoarse, and her eyes are staring unblinkingly at the shore. ‘Those birds – it’s a sign. There is something wrong. Something evil.’
    Silas wants to go to her, but all he can do is reach out with his hand. ‘Sit still, cariad . The children are frightened. We’ll soon be there.’
    He needs to hold her, whisper to her that everything will be all right, but she is pulling away from him and trying to stand again. ‘No. I can’t. We have to go back...’ Her voice ends in a sob.
    â€˜Please, Megan, sit.’ He presses her down and she collapses onto the seat, but she is still staring ahead. ‘Can’t you see? Blackness, death... we mustn’t land...’
    As the boat grinds against the sand she wails. ‘Too late, oh sweet Lord, help us.’
    â€˜Megan!’
    She looks back at the Mimosa . Soon it will be gone. Soon they will be left here, and there will be no way back. ‘I can’t leave him, don’t you see? My poor baby. He’ll be searching, calling. I can’t leave him.’
    Silas reaches over, grips both her arms and stares into her face. ‘ Cariad , cariad . He’s in the Lord’s arms now.’
    She shakes her head, tries to shake his arms from her. ‘No!’
    The hard thick skin breaking, the hurt coming out. If only he could draw her to him, but the boat rocks whenever he shifts. Already their feet are wet.
    â€˜Come now. We have to go on.’
    She shakes her head. ‘No, no, not without Richard… oh cariad bach , I can’t leave you out there.’
    Silas can feel Myfanwy’s face on his, the whiteness of it, as it turns and looks at her mother. ‘Hush, hush. You can do nothing for him now. He’s at peace… in God’s arms.’
    â€˜NO!’ A pure sound. Loud. It seems to sear the air.
    The men hauling trunks and boxes up the beach stop and look. Silas stands, then heaves himself over the side so he is thigh-deep in water. It is too cold to hurt. He pulls at the boat until it is in shallow water, then lifts Myfanwy onto the sand. ‘Sit here,’ he tells her, ‘make a lap for your sister.’ The little girl sits quickly, her serious eyes never leaving him. She crosses her legs in front of her and smoothes out her skirt. Then he removes the shawl containing Gwyneth from around Megan’s neck and places the child in her sister’s arms.
    â€˜Come,’ he says to his wife, and with the first mate’s help he pulls her from the boat. She is shaking now, sobbing loudly, but that is good he thinks – better to let the poison out, better to make the wound clean. He clutches her to him on the beach, smoothes back her hair then holds her face between his hands.
    â€˜He’s gone, hasn’t he?’
    â€˜Yes, cariad , he’s gone.’ The dark shadows of memories creep out from where they have been hiding. Richard.

    Richard. He remembers the first time he saw him. Black hair caking his head like a well-fitting cap. Eyes the colour of indigo. Pink skin well filled with flesh. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been this. Most of the babies he’d seen were thin, weakly-looking with tired eyes. Richard’s eyes stared at you right away, looked at you with something close to defiance. Who are you? What do you want? What am I doing here?

    They’d still been in Rhoslyn then, tenant farmers on a smallholding. He was a tailor by training but gradually he’d swapped his needle for a spade – a couple of years of decent harvests had meant that he was better off digging than sewing. Gradually they had acquired a bad-tempered but productive sow, some good egg-laying chickens and a few cows which were generous with their milk. Each market day he came back feeling more