Cadoc frowned into his glass before he tossed it back. “I don’t like seeing them hurt like that.”
“Neither do I, brother. But surely you realize it’s for the best. They have far more resources at their disposal and more opportunities that are theirs for the taking.”
“Do you think Mam would be appalled at the way we’ve all grown apart? She did everything she could to keep us together after Da died. That’s why she went into the pit.”
Caris took a hearty sip and thumped her head against the back of her chair. “I think she’d be disappointed that we didn’t convince Gwyn to stay. I think she’d be sad that Helen and Mary went to India and that Mary died there. I think she’d be sorry Ellen married a miner.”
“Do you think we’d be any different as a family if she and Griffin were here with us?”
“Ahh, brother. Whisky always makes you introspective.”
“That’s not true. Are you going to answer me or not?” Whisky always seemed to diminish the gap between now and then, and made him look at the choices he’d made with a jaundiced eye. It didn’t mean he was overcome with sentimentality.
Caris held out her glass for another dram. After he’d poured it and she took another swig, she whistled through her teeth. “I think you were always in Griffin’s shadow. He was so much older than the rest of us. I think if he’d lived, you never would haveovercome that. I don’t think we’d be here and I don’t know that you would’ve been compelled to start inventing things. Because I know you began working on the first lamp to prevent what happened to them from ever happening again.”
Cadoc smiled at the thought of their eldest brother. “‘Twas hard not to be in Griffin’s shadow. He always dominated whatever space he was in.” Griff had possessed a hearty laugh and a healthy dose of humor that permeated his surroundings. “There was always a jest on his mind or a bawdy song on the tip of his tongue, and he never exercised restraint in giving voice to either.”
“Remember when one of his mates dared him to compose an englyn and recite it at the eisteddfod?”
“How could I forget? He practiced day and night. Muttering under his breath no matter what he was doing. He nearly won too, even though he’d never written a poem in his life until then.”
Caris’s expression grew wistful. “Mam was so proud of him.”
“She was. We all were. The other drammers ribbed me constantly, but I knew they were secretly envious and impressed.”
“I can still see him standing on the dais with his hands folded behind his back and his legs braced apart. It took him so long to begin speaking, we worried he’d forgotten it.”
“And then the penfyr he’d been composing just rolled off his tongue and we were awestruck. Like the poetry had been lying dormant in his soul.Deep in the mine, scarce and slow the sunlight, that creeps with a glow and shines, a mirror to the divine.”As soon as he’d begun reciting, his sister’s voice entwined with his. The words echoed through the room, a solemn reminder of the bonds that had held them together when there was scant light in their lives.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful his poem was. How I couldn’t explain my tears after I heard it.”
“His nickname was Bard after that, because his words captured what we all felt when we climbed the shaft and felt the sun on our faces. It was always like seeing the face of God after you’d forgotten how the radiance of it could wipe everything away.”
“The mine took him too soon. Even as it was putting bread on our table, it took it away. It took so much away from us and the other families in the valley. I always wondered why you never made competing in the eisteddfod a tradition.”
Cadoc shook his head. “I was too much of a pragmatist. The way the metal and the cogs and gears felt in my hands, I knew that’s how I would change things. Griffin’s voice was the longing for something, and I was made to be the doing of it.”
The fire from the hearth made the room warm and cozy, lulling them both to contemplative silence.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on your face when you came to the cottage to tell us the news.” Caris’s voice was soft and full of pain. “You were shaking and could barely stand because you ran the whole two miles. And your eyes, Cadoc. I knew before you said the words that the terrible noise I’d heard meant sorrow for our family.”
“I had to get to you before anyone else. I had to be the one to tell you they were gone.”
Caris rose and knelt before him. His grip was white-knuckled on the arm of the chair, and he could feel the brutal press of the glass beneath his other palm. She peeled his fingers from both, set the glass on the floor and clasped his hands. “I know how hard it was, brother, to become Da and the both of them to us. You sacrificed so much that day, and you were never the same. I know you carry that burden with you, that guilt that you were replacing them instead of honoring them.”
Cadoc turned a red-rimmed gaze to her. “How could you possibly know that?” He gruffly asked.
Her smile was gentle. “Because I know you, brother. Because I see the parts of our past, the ones that made us who we are, that you try to hide. I think that’s why you’re pursuing the schoolmistress. She reminds you of something you thought you’d lost forever.”
He suddenly knew she was right, and it was like an anvil had lifted from his chest. In moments like this, his sister’s insight never failed to render him speechless. He blinked back the tears.
She patted his hand one last time and rose. In that moment, she looked so much like their mother he wanted to howl and thrash his fists and weep. “I’ll leave you to your whisky and your meandering thoughts, brother. Please think on what I’ve said and come to terms with why winning whatever wager you’ve made with Miss Wainwright is so important to you.”
After Caris had slipped from the room, Cadoc stared into the fire again. When he closed his eyes, he could relive that moment when he knew he’d never see their faces again and he would be the one to tell his sisters. The anvil was lifted now, but he could still feel the ghost of its crushing weight pinning him in place, like a bird shot down with an arrow through its wing. He ruefully acknowledged his sister’s wisdom.
Jess Wainwright lifted the weight of that anvil from his soul, and that’s why he was so hellbent on making her his. When he looked into her eyes, he saw the same shadows and old sorrows that cloaked him. Those shadows resonated with his own. Even if he achieved his ends dishonorably, and he didn’t make her his for longer than the next morning, he could no longer deny the irrefutable truth of what her surrender would mean.
Chapter Five
