"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.