Nine
The yard erupted into a fusion of voices as everybody started shouting in Welsh and fussing around me. I brought a hand up to comfort my now reddening cheek and kept my eyes locked on the woman who’d hit me. Despite the obvious anger on her face, she looked like she might burst into a flood of tears at any moment but she remained resolved, jaw clenched and like she might strike out again.
Our staring match was only broken when Mair stepped forward and hooked the woman by the upper arm, yanking her away from me. With her focus now broken, she began to shout back at the crowd leaving me watching on and understanding next to nothing of what was happening.
Mrs Hopkin was the first to break into English, finally giving me some words I could cling to. “Hannah Mary Hopkin, you apologise to that boy this instant.”
The woman, now identified to me as the Hopkin’s third child and second daughter, otherwise known as Nan, took little notice of her mother and yelled back at her in Welsh causing the crowd to devolve into rows once more.
Gethin and Gwyn looked at each awkwardly and backed away from the mass towards the barn, neither wanting to get involved. Mair had no such hesitancy, though, and put herself between Nan and Me leaving us standing at the centre of a cluster of Hopkin’s.
“What the hell are you playing at, you stupid girl?” Mair shouted at her.
“I’ve been dismissed,” she screamed back, and the first tears inched their way down her cheek. “I’ve lost my post and it’s all because of him.”
Mrs Hopkin rushed to her daughter's side and wrapped a loving arm around her shoulder that seemed to soften her for a moment and she tucked her head against her mother’s neck as she wept. “What do you mean you’ve been dismissed?”
Nan pulled her head back and stared at her mother and Mrs Hopkin raised a sleeved hand to her face to wipe away the tears. The yard had fallen silent as they waited for her explanation and I searched around their faces feeling suddenly like an outsider again, hoping to find a look from someone that told me that I wasn’t somehow to blame. Avoiding the tension, Betty grabbed Howell and Sophia and dragged them into the house. I wanted to go with them.
“They came to my room this morning and told me to pack,” Nan blurted out. “No notice, no pay and no carriage home. I’ve had to walk all the way from the estate.”
“And how is that Tom’s fault?” Mair chimed in, her tone still snippy. She folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows to the girl and Nan scowled back. I got a distinct impression there may have already been an element of tension between the two women before today but it was no time to ask. “How do you know it wasn’t that mouth of yours getting you into trouble again?”
Nan pulled away from her mother and stepped up to Mair. If these women had been from my own time they’d almost certainly have been hair-pulling by this point but propriety kept them at arm's length and they battled with raised eyebrows and sneering lips instead.
“If you must know, Mair, though I don’t understand why you make it your business, they told me. They said that while he was living here there was no longer a place for me.”
“Nan, I’m so sorry,” I said. I extended a hand to her as though it might offer some comfort and show her how bad I felt but she just looked at it in disgust.
“I’m going up there,” Mr Hopkin said. He’d remained fairly quiet throughout, which was not unusual by any means, but he also liked a strict order and his non-interference as the yard fell into chaos was a source of confusion for me. Perhaps he didn’t want to get involved in what he saw as a ‘woman's matter’, or maybe he thought I deserved to be slapped, but I found it interesting that his ire was piqued only when his decision to have me stay at the farm was mentioned.
“John, don’t you go looking for trouble,” his wife called after him, but he ignored her pleas and set off across the field towards the gate.
“I’ll go with him,” Gethin said, edging across the cobbles towards us. “I’ll see to it that there’s no bother.” He kissed Nellie on the cheek and jogged off after his soon-to-be father-in-law.
“Let’s get you inside,” Mrs Hopkin said, and she guided her daughter towards the house. The rest of the family and Mair followed behind leaving me standing in the yard feeling guilty and stupid. When the last of them disappeared into the kitchen I turned towards the barn, storming past Gwyn and slamming my way through the doors.
My feelings quickly turned to frustration and I kicked a bucket of nails sending them scattering along the floor. With my fists clenched I let out a long low yell that echoed off the walls and I slumped down against a bale and threw my head into my hands.
I looked up when the door to the barn squeaked open again and Gwyn took a few steps toward me. “It’s not your fault, you know.” He leaned against the hay and eased himself to the floor beside me and I hid my head away again. He was only trying to be nice but I didn’t want to hear it. Every time something seemed like it was going well, something else came along to make me hate it there again.
“Tom.”
“What?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?” I snapped, thumping my fist down on the ground. He reached out to grab my hand but I snatched it away before we could connect, no longer in any mood for pleasantries. “I’m sick of it here. I’m sick of Arthur fucking Morgan. I want to go home.”
Gwyn looked despondent and let out a sigh and the guilt that made me feel just made me more annoyed. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said and he made to get up from the floor.
“Don’t go,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I didn’t mean to have a go at you. I just don’t understand what his problem is.”
“Arthur never came to school with the rest of us,” Gwyn said, turning his body towards me. “His family could afford tutors and he stayed at home so he didn’t have many friends. His family would bring him down to the village every so often but he was a spoiled little brat who never knew how to play well with others. Everything had to be his way and he would run to tell on us over the simplest of things. Eventually, nobody wanted to play with him and he stopped coming.
“A lot of the property in the village is owned by his parents. As he got older he would walk around the village as though he owned it all and whenever someone would upset him they’d get a knock at the door telling them that rents were going up or that new tenants had been found. Everyone became too scared to answer back and ‘no’ isn’t a word he hears very often, I’d imagine. He wanted you out of this house and didn’t get his way, so now he’s in a frenzy. He’s got no power over you and that makes him mad, so he’s taken it out on Nan, instead.
His words brought some sense to the situation and I felt a little easier. I’d met men like Arthur before, so sure of their own importance that they treated everyone else like dirt, but ultimately, they were always miserable underneath it all. Still, I had no sympathy for him. He’d brought all his misery on himself and he could wallow in it as far as I was concerned.