’Twas in the merry month of May
When green buds all were swelling
Sweet William on his death bed lay
For love of Barbara Allen.
And so on to its sad conclusion, the rose growing from William’s grave twining about the briar that grew from Barbara’s. Gwyneth pressed her hands to the strings to still the vibrations.
“It does not really matter that the story is rather unbelievable, does it?” she said. “Or do you simply want to give William a swift kick for allowing himself to die of unrequited love?”
She smiled. He did not.
He sat gazing at her until his eyes narrowed slightly. “The song relies for its effect upon the raw emotions we all feel from time to time,” he said. “Even the conviction that unfulfilled love might kill us. Or that itoughtto kill us because there seems no further point in living.”
“Yes,” she said. And she sang a Welsh folk song—in Welsh:
Y deryn pur a’r adain las,
bydd i mi’n was dibryder.
O brysur brysia at y ferch
Lle rhois i’m serch a’m hyder
O gentle dove with wings so blue,
fly quickly to my lady.
And take to her a message true,
while in her garden shady.
Another rather sad song. Why were so many folk songs heart wrenching? But so beautiful? She did not sing the English words aloud.
She looked up just as he was swallowing. And something had happened to his eyes, though whatever it was disappeared almost immediately. Ah, she thought, he was so full of darkness. And pain? There must be pain. Why else the darkness? She had the sudden conviction thatfeelinghad been suppressed in him for a long time. Perhaps since that harrowing visit he had paid here as he was leaving home more than six years ago. Now he could see emotion—love—only as chaos that threatened his control over his life. Ah, Devlin.
“Your competitors at the eisteddfods—isthat the plural?” he asked.
“Eisteffodau,” she said.
“Your competitors must resent you,” he said. “They have no chance against you.”
From almost any other man this statement would have made her suspect over-extravagant flattery. Not, somehow, from Devlin.
“I do not always win,” she told him.
Idris pushed the door open again at that moment. “Our coachman has just come walking back from the village,” he said. “There is some problem with one of the wheels on the carriage and Oscar Holland is mending it. Dad and Aled will wait for it, but Dad is afraid Mam might be embarrassed if she is stranded at Lady Hardington’s long after all the other ladies in the lace group have left. I am going to drop the coachman back off in Boscombe and then go fetch Mam home. I daresay Lady Hardington will insist that I stop for tea before we come, though. You will be all right on your own, Gwyn?”
Now, this was strange. Why not ask her to go with him? Or Devlin? Why not send a groom to the village with the coachman and then on to bring their mother home? And why had he abandoned Devlin here fifteen minutes or so ago, when he was Idris’s invited guest?
“Perfectly,” she said.
“I shall do myself the honor of remaining here with Gwyneth until you return,” Devlin said.
“It might be a while,” Idris warned him.
“I have a while to spare,” Devlin said.
