Eliza wanted nothing more from life than to be a farmer’s wife and to have as many healthy children as possible. Eliza, dear Eliza, so gentle and blond and lovable, performed these tasks with a grave absorption that sometimes wrung Catherine’s heart. In the mornings, she and Mother and Eliza helped Mair in the kitchen with household tasks: they made butter, washed dishes, waxed, bottled, and cooked. “I’ll draw the curtains we can have tea by the fire.”Īnd so their lives took on a new routine. “Well, it is done now and I don’t want to think about it.” Catherine tried to sound cheerful. You could not live in a place and ignore its language-or you could, but you could expect to be, as Mother had been, lonely.
“The sounds are awful, like a cat about to be sick.” Father had been humorless about it, but he was right. “It is too difficult,” Mother would protest, after her teacher, the small and bossy Miss Davies, had left the house. Usually it made her laugh, for Father was very solemn about them learning Welsh and it was deliciously sacrilegious, but today, at this precise moment, the memory of Mother halfheartedly toying with her Welsh lessons like a child forced to eat its greens annoyed Catherine. “Oh Weddy Bloodstairs!” Weddy Bloodstairs was Mother’s all-purpose Welsh swear word.
“She can’t read in English,” said Catherine forlornly, “so there is no point.” “Did you say how extremely grateful we have all been, how highly we esteem them as neighbors. “I should have gone and explained myself.” “I am glad you are so much better and we will have fun.” She looked over the newspaper for Catherine’s reaction. I’m also determined on you and Eliza having a new dress each,” she prattled on gaily, “something in satin I fancy-Father’s hay crop was so good he will not object-you are old enough now for puff sleeves, at least I think you are.” We really could swim and eat ice creams and walk along the beach and be back on the following day. It leaves at seven o’clock in the morning. Sea bathing! We can take the coach from Caernarfon at”-she peered at the advertisement-“at the Uxbridge Arms. Her face, pretty and flushed, had taken on the rose and amber colors of the lamp beads. “I’ve been making a list of all the things we can do now I’m feeling better,” she said. She had the Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald on her lap. A fire crackled in the grate, the beaded lamp was lit.
She had left the door to the parlor slightly ajar so that she could hear her coming. Poor Mother looked excited when Catherine got home.
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