By Berwen Banks Part 39

"Caton pawb! wa.s.s it you, Cardo Wynne?" he said. "Well, I was swear to make you feel the weight of my fist; but if the news is true that Valmai is marry to you, I will shake hands instead."

Cardo wrung his hand.

"Yes, yes, man, she is my wife, safe and sound--but where is she? Tell me for heaven's sake where has she gone?"

"Well, indeed, that I donno--Essec Powell donno--an' n.o.body know. You look here now," said Shoni, "an' if you listen to me you will see everything quite plain. After you gone away Valmai wa.s.s go down to Fordsea to take care on her uncle, John Powell. He wa.s.s broke his leg, and when he c.u.m better Valmai c.u.m back to Dinas."

"Well," said Cardo, "what then? Tell me in Welsh, you'll get on quicker."

But Shoni indignantly declined to give up the language which he considered he had so completely mastered.

"What then!" he continued severely, "you know very well what then. It wa.s.s three or four months before she c.u.m back from Fordsea, and she wa.s.s look pale and thin and every day more like a spirit angel. Well, everybody see very soon what wa.s.s the matter with her, and at last somebody told Essec Powell. It was just the same time Captain Powell died, and when Essec Powell c.u.m home from the funeral and find out his brother leave all his money to Valmai he go to chapel and somebody tell him about Valmai--"

"What about Valmai?" said Cardo.

"That she was gone, like many another, over the side of the path."

"For heaven's sake, tell me what are you driving at?"

"I am telling you if you wa.s.s quiet and let me alone. That night Essec Powell c.u.m home from chapel in a devil of temper, and he call Valmai a thief to steal his brother's money from him, and worse names than that, an' he turn her out of the house that night, pwr thing, pwr thing!"

Cardo groaned and clenched his fists.

"Well! the wind wa.s.s blowing, and the snow wa.s.s fallin' shockin', and I could not let her carry her big bundle of clothes and she in the condition she wa.s.s--"

"Condition?" gasped Cardo, "what do you mean?"

Shoni looked at him with keen, searching eyes.

"Cardo Wynne," he said, "I wa.s.s ussed to think you an honest, straightforward man, though you wa.s.s a churchman, and are you mean to tell me now that you donno that Valmai Powell have a small child on the 30th June last year?"

"As G.o.d is my witness, Shoni, this is the first breath I have heard of such a thing; but she was my wife, why then should her uncle have turned her out?"

"But she nevare tell us that, see you, she nevare speak a word about that, and only now lately Betto have told that the Vicare wa.s.s tell her she was marry to you! and everybody is wonder why she didn't tell before, instead of bear the nasty looks and words of the women. Oh! I can tell you Gwen here look pretty flat when she hear the news she wa.s.s married, and I did laugh in the corner of my mouth, 'cos she bin so nasty to Valmai. Well! I went with her over the Rock Bridge, and we go to Nance's cottage, and she cry, and Nance cry, and there I leave them, and the next morning before the sun is thinking to get up, I take her box and the rest of her clothes over in a boat, and she and Nance kom out early to meet me--and for long time n.o.body knew she wa.s.s there--and there her small child wa.s.s born. Here, sit down, sir, on my wheelbarrow; this news is shake you very much, I see."

Cardo felt compelled to take the proffered seat on the wheelbarrow, so completely overcome was he by Shoni's information.

"Go on, Shoni," he said, "make haste."

"Well! she wa.s.s walk up and down the sh.o.r.e, and always looking out over the sea; the sailors wa.s.s often watch her. 'She may look and look,'

they say, 'but he will nevare kom back!' And at last her child die."

"Oh, G.o.d," said Cardo, "Valmai to suffer all this and I not with her!"

"Where wa.s.s you, then?" said Shoni, "and why you not kom back?"

"Because I was ill in hospital. I caught typhoid fever, and I had concussion of the brain, and I lay unconscious for many long weeks, nay, months. As soon as I came to myself, Shoni, I came home, and I often wished I had the wings of the birds which flew over the ship, and would reach land before us!"

"Well, well, well," said Shoni, "I dunno what wa.s.s that illness you had, but it must be very bad by the name of it; but whatever, my advice to you is, go to Nance, perhaps she will tell you something, though she won't tell n.o.body else."

"Yes, yes, I am going at once. Thank you, Shoni; you have been kind to her, and I can never forget it." And he jumped up and unceremoniously left his companion staring after him.

"Diwx anwl!" said Shoni, returning to his Welsh, "he goes like a greyhound; good thing I didn't offer to go with him!"

Cardo made short work of the green slopes which led down to the valley, and shorter still of the beach below. He jumped into a boat with a scant apology to Jack Harris, the owner, who with a delighted smile of recognition, and a polite tug at his cap, took the oar and sculled him across.

"I am looking for my wife, Jack, so don't expect me to talk."

"No, indeed, sir, I have heard the strange story, and I hope you will find her, and bring the pretty young lady back with you, sir; she was disappear from here like the sea mist."

Nance was perfectly bewildered when Cardo appealed to her for information, and her delight at his return to clear her darling's name knew no bounds. She brought out her best teacups, settled the little black teapot in the embers, and gradually drew her visitor into a calmer frame of mind.

His questions were endless. Every word that Valmai had said, every dress she had worn, every flower she had planted in the little garden were subjects of interest which he was never tired of discussing.

But of deeper interest than flowers or dresses was Nance's account of the tiny angel, who came for a short time to lighten the path of the weary girl, and to add to her difficulties.

"And she gave it up so meekly, so humbly, as if she could _see_ the beautiful angels who came to fetch it. It laid there on the settle in its little white nightgown, and she was sitting by it without crying, but just looking at it, sometimes kissing the little blue lips. Dr.

Francis was very kind, and did everything about the funeral for her.

It is buried up here in the rock churchyard, in the corner where they bury all the nameless ones, for we thought he had no father, you see, sir, and we knew it was unbaptised. She would not have it christened.

She was waiting for you to come home, for she would not tell its name, saying, 'Baby will do for him till his father comes home,' and 'Baby'

he was, pertws bach."

Cardo sat listening, with his hands shading his eyes.

"And now, here's the directions, sir," she said, as Peggi Bullet returned from the well. "Here you, Peggi fach, you are so nimble, you climb up the ladder and bring the old teapot down."

And the nimble woman of seventy soon laid before them the old cracked teapot, out of which Nance drew the same faded address which she had once shown to Valmai.

"It is horribly faint," said Cardo, a fresh tremor rising in his heart.

"Here it is now," said Nance, placing her shrivelled finger on the paper. "This is where she went from here, when all this trouble came upon her, and everybody pointed the finger of scorn at her; and when she had given up the hope that you would ever come back, sir, she turned to her sister, dear child!"

"I never knew she had a sister!"

"No, nor she didn't know much about her; but I knew, and I told her.

Born the same time they were, and a grand lady, who was lodging at Essec Powell's at the time, took the sister away with her, and brought her up as her own daughter, and we have never heard of her since. 'But I will find her, Nance,' she said. 'I _will_ find her! I know I will!'"

"But have you never heard from her?"

"Well, indeed, there was a letter," said Nance, "came soon after she left. Dr. Francis read it to me, and I think I put it in that teapot, but I am not sure; indeed, perhaps Peggie has thrown it away."

"And what did she say?"

"'Oh!' she said, 'I have found my sister, Nance, and you must not be unhappy about me, everybody is so kind to me. If anyone comes to ask for me, say I am here,' but she didn't say where!"

"But the address was at the top of the letter," said Cardo.

"Oh, anwl! I daresay it was. I never thought of that! There's a pity now; but try again to read that--she read it."