For Better

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Title:     For Better
Author: Caradoc Evans [More Titles by Evans]

At the time it was said of him "There's a boy that gets on he is," Enoch Harries was given Gwen the daughter of the builder Dan Thomas. On the first Sunday after her marriage the people of Kingsend Welsh Tabernacle crowded about Gwen, asking her: "How like you the bed, Messes Harries fach?" "Enoch has opened a shop butcher then?" "Any signs of a baban bach yet?" "Managed to get up quickly you did the day?" Gwen answered in the manner the questions were asked, seriously or jestingly. She considered these sayings, and the cause of her uneasiness was not a puzzle to her; and she got to despise the man whom she had married, and whose skin was like parched leather, and to repel his impotent embraces.

Withal she gave Enoch pleasure. She clothed herself with costly garments, adorned her person with rings and ornaments, and she modeled her hair in the way of a bob-wig. Enoch gave in to her in all things; he took her among Welsh master builders, drapers, grocers, dairymen, into their homes and such places as they assembled in; and his pride in his wife was nearly as great as his pride in the twenty plate-glass windows of his shop.

In her vanity Gwen exalted her estate.

"I hate living over the shop," she said. "It's so common. Let's take a house away from here."

"Good that I am on the premizes," Enoch replied in Welsh. "Hap go wrong will affairs if I leave."

"We can't ask any one decent here. Only commercials," Gwen said. With a show of care for her husband's welfare, she added: "Working too hard is my boy bach. And very splendid you should be."

Her design was fulfilled, and she and Enoch came to dwell in Thornton East, in a house near Richmond Park, and on the gate before the house, and on the door of the house, she put the name Windsor. From that hour she valued herself high. She had the words Mrs. G. Enos-Harries printed on cards, and she did not speak of Enoch's trade in the hearing of anybody. She gave over conversing in Welsh, and would give no answer when spoken to in that tongue. She devised means continually to lift herself in the esteem of her neighbors, acting as she thought they acted: she had a man-servant and four maid-servants, and she instructed them to address her as the madam and Enoch as the master; she had a gong struck before meals and a bell rung during meals; the furniture in her rooms was as numerous as that in the windows of a shop; she went to the parish church on Sundays; she made feasts. But her life was bitter: tradespeople ate at her table and her neighbors disregarded her.

Enoch mollified her moaning with: "Never mind. I could buy the whole street up. I'll have you a motor-car. Fine it will be with an advert on the front engine."

Still slighted, Gwen smoothed her misery with deeds. She declared she was a Liberal, and she frequented Thornton Vale English Congregational Chapel. She gave ten guineas to the rebuilding fund, put a carpet on the floor of the pastor's parlor, sang at brotherhood gatherings, and entertained the pastor and his wife.

Wherefore her charity was discoursed thus: "Now when Peter spoke of a light that shines--shines, mark you--he was thinking of such ladies as Mrs. G. Enos-Harries. Not forgetting Mr. G. Enos-Harries."

"I'm going to build you a vestry," Gwen said to the pastor. "I'll organize a sale of work to begin with."

The vestry was set up, and Gwen bethought of one who should be charged with the opening ceremony of it, and to her mind came Ben Lloyd, whose repute was great among the London Welsh, and to whose house in Twickenham she rode in her car. Ben's wife answered her sharply: "He's awfully busy. And I know he won't see visitors."

"But won't you tell him? It will do him such a lot of good. You know what a stronghold of Toryism this place is."

A voice from an inner room cried: "Who is to see me?"

"Come this way," said Mrs. Lloyd.

Ben, sitting at a table with writing paper and a Bible before him, rose.

"Messes Enos-Harries," he said, "long since I met you. No odds if I mouth Welsh? There's a language, dear me. This will not interest you in the least. Put your ambarelo in the cornel, Messes Enos-Harries, and your backhead in a chair. Making a lecture am I."

Gwen told him the errand upon which she was bent, and while they two drank tea, Ben said: "Sing you a song, Messes Enos-Harries. Not forgotten have I your singing in Queen's Hall on the Day of David the Saint. Inspire me wonderfully you did with the speech. I've been sad too, but you are a wedded female. Sing you now then. Push your cup and saucer under the chair."

"No-no, not in tone am I," Gwen feigned.

"How about a Welsh hymn? Come in will I at the repeats."

"Messes Lloyd will sing the piano?"

"Go must she about her duties. She's a handless poor dab."

Gwen played and sang.

"Solemn pretty hymns have we," said Ben. "Are we not large?" He moved and stood under a picture which hung on the wall--his knees touching and his feet apart--and the picture was that of Cromwell. "My friends say I am Cromwell and Milton rolled into one. The Great Father gave me a child and He took him back to the Palace. Religious am I. Want I do to live my life in the hills and valleys of Wales: listening to the anthem of creation, and searching for Him under the bark of the tree. And there I shall wait for the sound of the last trumpet."

"A poet you are." Gwen was astonished.

"You are a poetess, for sure me," Ben said. He leaned over her. "Sparkling are your eyes. Deep brown are they--brown as the nut in the paws of the squirrel. Be you a bard and write about boys Cymru. Tell how they succeed in big London."

"I will try," said Gwen.

"Like you are and me. Think you do as I think."

"Know you for long I would," said Gwen.

"For ever," cried Ben. "But wedded you are. Read you a bit of the lecture will I." Having ended his reading and having sobbed over and praised that which he had read, Ben uttered: "Certain you come again. Come you and eat supper when the wife is not at home."

Gwen quaked as she went to her car, and she sought a person who professed to tell fortunes, and whom she made to say: "A gentleman is in love with you. And he loves you for your brain. He is not your husband. He is more to you than your husband. I hear his silver voice holding spellbound hundreds of people; I see his majestic forehead and his auburn locks and the strands of his silken mustache."

Those words made Gwen very happy, and she deceived herself that they were true. She composed verses and gave them to Ben.

"Not right to Nature is this," said Ben. "The mother is wrong. How many children you have, Messes Enos-Harries?"

"Not one. The husband is weak and he is older much than I."

"The Father has kept His most beautiful gift from you. Pity that is." Tears gushed from Ben's eyes. "If the marriage-maker had brought us together, children we would have jeweled with your eyes and crowned with your hair."

"And your intellect," said Gwen. "You will be the greatest Welshman."

"Whisper will I now. A drag is the wife. Happy you are with the husband."

"Why for you speak like that?"

"And for why we are not married?" Ben took Gwen in his arms and he kissed her and drew her body nigh to him; and in a little while he opened the door sharply and rebuked his wife that she waited thereat.

Daily did Gwen praise and laud Ben to her husband. "There is no one in the world like him," she said. "He will get very far."

"Bring Mistar Lloyd to Windsor for me to know him quite well," said Enoch.

"I will ask him," Gwen replied without faltering.

"Benefit myself I will."

Early every Thursday afternoon Ben arrived at Windsor, and at the coming home from his shop of Enoch, Ben always said: "Messes Enos-Harries has been singing the piano. Like the trilling of God's feathered choir is her music."

Though Ben and Gwen were left at peace they could not satisfy nor crush their lust.

Before three years were over, Ben had obtained great fame. "He ought to be in Parliament and give up preaching entirely," some said; and Enoch and Gwen were partakers of his glory.

Then Gwen told him that she had conceived, whereof Ben counseled her to go into her husband's bed.

"That I have not the stomach to do," the woman complained.

"As you say, dear heart," said Ben. "Cancer has the wife. Perish soon she must. Ease our path and lie with your lout."

Presently Gwen bore a child; and Enoch her husband looked at it and said: "Going up is Ben Lloyd. Solid am I as the counter."

Gwen related her fears to Ben, who contrived to make Enoch a member of the London County Council. Enoch rejoiced: summoning the congregation of Thornton Vale to be witnesses of his gift of a Bible cushion to the chapel.

As joy came to him, so grief fell upon his wife. "After all," Ben wrote to her, "you belong to him. You have been joined together in the holiest and sacredest matrimony. Monumental responsibilities have been thrust on me by my people. I did not seek for them, but it is my duty to bear them. Pray that I shall use God's hoe with understanding and wisdom. There is a talk of putting me up for Parliament. Others will have a chanse of electing a real religious man. I must not be tempted by you again. Well, good-by, Gwen, may He keep you unspotted from the world. Ships that pass in the night."

Enoch was plagued, and he followed Ben to chapel meetings, eisteddfodau, Cymrodorion and St. David's Day gatherings, always speaking in this fashion: "Cast under is the girl fach you do not visit her. Improved has her singing."

Because Ben was careless of his call, his wrath heated and he said to him: "Growing is the baban."

"How's trade?" Ben remarked. "Do you estimate for Government contracts?"

"Not thought have I."

"Just hinted. A word I can put in."

"Red is the head of the baban."

"Two black heads make red," observed Ben.

"And his name is Benjamin."

"As you speak. Farewell for to-day. How would you like to put up for a Welsh constituency?"

"Not deserving am I of anything. Happy would I and the wife be to see you in the House."

But Ben's promise was fruitless; and Enoch bewailed: "A serpent flew into my house."

He ordered Gwen to go to Ben.

"Recall to him this and that," he said. "A very good advert an M.P. would be for the business. Be you dressed like a lady. Take a fur coat on appro from the shop."

Often thereafter he bade his wife to take such a message. But Gwen had overcome her distress and she strew abroad her charms; for no man could now suffice her. So she always departed to one of her lovers and came back with fables on her tongue.

"What can you expect of the Welsh?" cried Enoch in his wrath. "He hasn't paid for the goods he got on tick from the shop. County court him will I. He ate my food. The unrighteous ate the food of the righteous. And he was bad with you. Did I not watch? No good is the assistant that lets the customer go away with not a much obliged."

The portion of the Bible that Enoch read that night was this: "I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.... Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with love. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone on a long journey. He hath--"

"That's lovely," said Gwen.

"Tapestry from my shop," Enoch expounded. "And Irish linen. And busy was the draper in Kingsend."

Gwen pretended to be asleep.

"He is the father. That will learn him to keep his promise. The wicked man!"

Unknown to her husband Gwen stood before Ben; and at the sight of her Ben longed to wanton with her. Gwen stretched out her arms to be clear of him and to speak to him; her speech was stopped with kisses and her breasts swelled out. Again she found pleasure in Ben's strength.

Then she spoke of her husband's hatred.

"Like a Welshman every spit he is," said Ben. "And a black."

But his naughtiness oppressed him for many days and he intrigued; and it came to pass that Enoch was asked to contest a Welsh constituency, and Enoch immediately let fall his anger for Ben.

"Celebrate this we shall with a reception in the Town Hall," he announced. "You, Gwen fach, will wear the chikest Paris model we can find. Ben's kindness is more than I expected. Much that I have I owe to him."

"Even your son," said Gwen.

[The end]
Caradoc Evans's short story: For Better

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