Through Welsh Doorways Part 10

"Did ye learn tattooin', dear?"

"Aye, the marks ye've seen on my arms an old salt taught me to do. The sailors were clever with the needle, sketchin' as well as sewin'."

"Do ye think ye could sketch a star now, Ariel, or have ye forgotten?"

Ariel laughed, partly with pleasure at this talk by the fire, partly from joy in the companionship.

"Aye, I'm thinkin' I could, little lamb."

He drew his chair closer to hers and saw her face brighten; it rested her to have him near her, and her thoughts sped back through all the years of loneliness and hunger for the things she could not have; she had a new consciousness of life and of being useful; it was not merely Ariel, it was the house, too, and what she could do to make it--Well, the word escaped her; anyway it was the house as well as Ariel, and it was lovely to think of what she could do for it while he made poetry and sold things in the shop.

"An', Ariel, could ye sketch me an anchor an' a bit of rope?"

"Aye, dearie, I could; ye know I could anyway, for I had drawin' at the school in Carnarvon while I was an apprentice there."

"Drawin'?"

"Aye, it was mam's idea."

Janny's eyes grew large.

"Ariel, do ye--do ye--think ye could draw me a--a cat?"

Ariel took one look at Janny and burst into laughter; shop, poetry, everything was forgotten in his amus.e.m.e.nt at her childlike eagerness.

Suddenly he stopped, for Janny's face was quivering. Aye, he had forgotten, too, that this was no peasant-woman; his laughter seemed brutal.

"Janny, little lamb," he said softly, drawing her head to him, "I could, dear, I'll sketch all the cats ye want."

Janny sighed comfortably, her head still upon his shoulder, the weariness easing away from her heart. She could do it now; it would make the greatest difference; Betto Griffiths and others should see that she was something more than a bit of porcelain in Ariel's home, that she could do something more than merely oversee house-cleaning. Besides, it really was something more,--it was having an idea of her own, and that until Ariel rescued her she had never been allowed to have. She reached up and patted his face; even her gestures were incomprehensibly childlike. What she lacked in the pa.s.sion of a woman she seemed to make up in the perfect trust of a child. Ariel, selfish with the selfishness of a man who has lived by himself and who had lived much in his own mind, thought now with a pang how lonely Janny must have been ever since she came to him; the appeal of her confidence touched the best that was in him, the protection that was his to give her, and some potential sense of fatherhood. Aye, he knew how tired she was after the life that lay behind her, and he gathered her into his arms, holding her there quietly while he talked.

"What shall it be, Janny? A star, an anchor, a bit of rope, an' a cat, did ye say, dear?"

"Aye, a star, Ariel, please. I don't think I want the anchor. The bit of rope would be nice, dear. An' I'd like the cat."

"An' what are ye goin' to do with these drawin's, Janny? Are ye goin' to hang them on the wall?"

"No, I'm not goin' to do that."

"Well, it's just as well, dearie, for Betto Griffiths, an' Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman, an' Mrs. Parry Winn the baker, would be hauntin' Ty Mawr. But what _are_ ye goin' to do with them, dearie?"

"Ariel, I couldn't say _now_." Janny stirred uneasily. "I _might_ be hangin' them in our bedroom, an'--an'--an' I might be puttin'--puttin'

them in the--Bible to press. They'd be useful."

"Aye, that's so. An' how large shall I draw them?"

Janny thought a minute.

"The cat, dear, I'd like about a foot long, that is from his tail to his whiskers--No, I'm thinkin' that's too narrow for the cat; from the tail to the whiskers I'd like him one foot an' a half, Ariel."

Janny's glance took a flight over Ariel's shoulder.

"An' the star?"

Janny thought again.

"Six inches from point to point, an' four stars--no--one star will do--I can cut--och?--Ariel, _one_ star, please."

"An' the rope?"

"It's the twisted kind I want, an' it must go all around the--Oh, dear!

Ariel, about an inch wide, please."

"Good! one cat, one star, one inch rope. Anything more, little lamb?"

"No-o-o, could ye do it now?"

"Aye, dearie, fetch me the ruler, the paper, an' a pencil."

So Janny watched Ariel's thin fingers work skilfully, swiftly with the pencil, the ruler measuring off star points and a cat's length as carefully as if the paper were Welsh flannel worth one-and-six a yard.

And the next night, after a day of unusual elation of feeling, Janny, when sleep had come to Ariel, stole noiselessly from the marital side, crept to the whitewashed wall of their bedroom pallid in moonshine, felt for the white paper cat and star and length of rope hanging there indiscernible, caught the edge of the paper with her fingers as she felt about, unpinned the pieces, and tiptoed out of the room and down the stairway. As she moved about the sitting-room in her night-gown, she looked pathetically little, the flush in her cheeks marking her eager helplessness. Much had slipped by her, and she had lost much in that sorry life before Ariel took her and brought her to live among strangers, whose motives and feelings she had no means of penetrating.

But the tenderness, the innocence, the expectancy of childhood had remained with her, as if making amends for her loss or awaiting the sunshine of maturing impulses. She set a candle beside the settle, lifted the cover, took out two long rolls of paper, closed the settle, and bore her parcels to the table. Then she untied them with trembling fingers, rolling out several feet of green and crimson paper and a small sheet of yellow. She placed weights on the corners of the lengths, pausing to run her fingers into her hair as she gazed with rapt eyes upon the coloured surfaces, commonplace enough to all appearances. She took the cat, laid it carefully on the crimson, pinned it down and pencilled around the edges. In the same fashion she drew the outlines for four yellow stars and some lengths of yellow rope. Finally, with a pair of shears she cut out all the outlined figures. She lifted the cat, freed now from the matrix of surrounding paper and enlivened with the lifelikeness of a new liberty, and held its foot and a half of length against the candle-light. The light shone through the crimson paper but dimly. Janny nodded, took a small cake of paraffin, melted it, and with a bit of cloth sponged the cat as it lay upon the table. This she did also to the four yellow stars, to the lengths of rope, and to a large piece of green paper upon which the original cat pattern had been appliqued. Once more she lifted the crimson animal to the light,--the candle-flame shone through clearly with a beautiful crimson flood of softer light. After this Janny broke a half-dozen eggs, separating the white from the yolk. Her fingers worked feverishly now, and her eyes kept measuring distances; in her nervous haste there were moments when she seemed hardly able to accomplish the next step forward in the task she saw already complete in her mind's eye. She stopped to listen for sounds and steps as she worked, and again and again she imagined that Ariel was looking down from the head of the staircase. But she finished the work uninterrupted, and with a sigh, half-sob of weariness, half-contentment, and with many a glance of admiration as she went, she tiptoed up the stairway. Ariel was sleeping, and as she crept into bed she put out a hand to touch his thick black hair, and then, curling into the cool white of her pillow, fell asleep as children sleep, one hand resting lightly on his arm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JANNY WATCHED ARIEL'S THIN FINGERS WORK SKILFULLY]

Ariel Jenkins awoke at the waking-time of all Glaslyn--the dawn; Janny lay beside him, still sleeping, her face heavily shadowed in her abundant hair. She seemed so wistfully childlike and her closed eyes so unforgettably weary. Perhaps it was merely the shadows of the early dawn and her hair, but the eyelids had a kind of veined transparency and her skin a transparent pallor, and the mouth drooped. Ariel's selfishness smote him consciously; he thought with a pang of Janny, and he made resolutions. With this awakening he transferred a little of his poetry from the bard to the man. Aye, he acknowledged to himself, this might well be called the Education of Ariel Jenkins, bard and merchant. And for the first time a thought that gripped his heart brought him no desire to turn it into rhyme. He recalled compa.s.sionately all her efforts to make improvements in the house, her evident inability to understand and cope with the shrewd Welsh women of their village; and he remembered with fear the prying curiosity and overt enmity these women had shown toward Janny. Then he wondered in a desultory way what she was planning to do with the stars and the cat and the bits of rope. And after she awakened and they were talking at breakfast, he reflected how easily his resolution won success, for Janny since he brought her to Glaslyn had not been as buoyant, almost animated, as she was this morning. Ariel thought, too, that he had not noticed before the way Janny had of looking at him, as if she expected him to discover some extraordinary joy; maybe she was merely looking to him for happiness, but certainly there was an air of antic.i.p.ation about her to-day.

Upon finishing breakfast Ariel pa.s.sed with a sense of secure well-being into his shop; so many problems were solving themselves, and on the whole the man made him happier than the bard. Even the flag sidewalk outside the shop seemed more than ordinarily lively and merry to-day. He saw neighbours pa.s.sing and heard them chatting, and once in a while there was a loud shout of laughter. Across the street, looking towards his shop he beheld a little knot of men,--Ivor Jones and Wil Penmorfa and Parry Wynn,--men who did not usually have time for mirth so early in the morning. They were talking and laughing, and Ariel saw one of them point towards Ty Mawr. Just then Mrs. Gomer Roberts the tinman came in.

She wanted some flannel for a blouse like the material she was wearing, and Mrs. Roberts threw back her long cloak to display the neat striped flannel. How was Mrs. Jenkins? Ariel thanked her: Janny was well.

"I'm comin' soon to have a good long visit with her," said Mrs.

Roberts.

"Aye, ye'll be welcome."

"Ye're makin' improvements, I see."

"Aye, a few," replied Ariel, using his yardstick deftly and wondering what improvements Mrs. Gomer Roberts could have had any opportunity to see.

"Glaslyn's no seen anything like it," continued Mrs. Roberts, straightening her beaver hat over the crisp white of her cap.

"No, I'm thinkin' not," answered Ariel vaguely, rolling up the bundle of flannel with precise neatness.

He was still wondering why women talked in riddles when in came Mrs.

Jeezer Morris the minister. She had torn her blue kirtle and wanted a new breadth. Ariel took down the cloth. Then were showered upon him in a compacter form, and one of greater authority, practically the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts: How was Mrs. Jenkins, she was coming to visit her, there were improvements she saw, the like of which Glaslyn had not seen before. Mrs. Morris the minister had scarcely finished her purchase when in came Mrs. Parry Wynn the baker; they had apparently met that morning and their greetings were purely conventional,--a smile, a look of inquiry, a nod of negation. Mrs. Parry Wynn wanted some new cotton cloth, but apparently she also wished to make the same remarks as those made by Mrs. Gomer Roberts and Mrs.

Jeezer Morris.

Then Ariel Jenkins's thoughts began the converging process, began to gather in towards some definite centre, to fix themselves upon some one thing which all these estimable women must have in mind. And when Mrs.

Parry Wynn left the shop, Ariel went to the door. Betto Griffiths walked by briskly, joining the women who had just made purchases and who were gathered in a little group opposite Ty Mawr. They were looking eagerly at the house and gesticulating. Betto Griffiths laughed harshly as she pointed at Ty Mawr, and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of the shop. Ariel's heart sank. What had Janny done to make the house such an object of attraction? He stepped out to the little group of customers and looked up.