Chapter 1 - One Last Spring

Llanwddyn, March 1884

Gwen Humphreys closed her sketchbook and placed it beside her on the large boulder. Pulling up her knees, she smoothed her long brown woolen skirt down to cover her ankles, then wrapped her arms around her legs. The sun was just beginning its descent, and the sky was streaked with shades of pink. Elongating shadows covered the valley below, and the sound of bleating ewes gathering their lambs filled the hillsides. Gwen took a deep breath. The morning rain had moved on a few hours before, but even now the air felt damp. She pulled her shawl up and tightened it around her shoulders. A few more weeks, perhaps, then it would be warm enough to come here without worrying about the cold.

The crack of a snapping twig startled her. Gwen swung around to see her brother, Robert, appear through the trees.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said, moving toward her with his long, loping stride.

Gwen lifted her sketchbook and moved a few inches to the left, making room for him to sit beside her. “I’m glad it’s only you,” she said.

“Only me? Well, that makes me feel important,” Robert teased.

“That’s not what I meant,” Gwen said, frowning.

Robert chuckled. “I know. I pity the poor navvy who stumbles upon your special spot. He may not make it back to the village alive.”

“That’s not true,” Gwen said. She gave him a sidelong glance. “I might discourage a navvy from coming back again though.”

Robert rolled his eyes, but Gwen turned away from him to look out over the valley. Beside her, Robert followed her gaze. Just below the village, a gray scar ran from the mountain on one side across the valley to the mountain on the other. Huge blocks of stone stacked six to seven rows deep marked the beginning of the Vyrnwy Dam construction. Five steam cranes, looking like giant grasshoppers from this distance, stood alongside the wall, and black railroad tracks cut through the dirt and rubble and across the green hillside, leading to the quarry on the other side of the mountain.

“Llanwddyn is changing, Robert.” Gwen finally broke the silence. She pointed at the view below. “The physical change is obvious enough. But it’s more than that. The building of the dam is changing the people too.”

Robert nodded his agreement.

“Do you remember when strangers passing through on their way to Bala were always sure to find lodging and a meal in Llanwddyn? The village was known far and wide for its hospitality. Now there’s not a spare bed, an empty room, or an unused old barn in the village. Even Bronwen Richards, who never lets anyone forget how much she’s set against the building of the dam, is making money putting up the very navvies who are building it.”

“You can’t blame them too much,” Robert said. “The villagers have never had the chance to bring in extra income like this. You know how hard it was for some families to put food on the table before.”

“It’s just so hard to watch,” she whispered. “I hate that our quiet Welsh village is overrun with English and Irish navvies whose language is hard on the ears and as coarse as their behavior. I hate that the way we’ve lived for generations is suddenly not good enough. We can’t sit around a peat fire at night and share traditional stories and old songs like we used to. Now Saturday entertainment means a cockfight or a fistfight—usually involving men who’ve spent too long drinking in the Powys Arms.”

“Take care that you don’t judge too harshly, Gwennie,” Robert said. “I’ll grant that things have changed with the coming of all these workmen from other places, but they’re not all bad men. Some of them are here because a few years working on the dam will take them out of penury and help their families. They’re so focused on saving every penny they earn that they barely buy enough food to stay alive. They certainly don’t waste it on alcohol or bets at the pub.”

“Well, I have yet to meet an Englishman or an Irishman like that,” Gwen said.

Robert sighed. “That may be, and I’m certainly not going to encourage my sixteen-year-old sister to be overly friendly with the navvies in the village, so you’ll have to take my word for it. But regardless of the men’s characters, surely you can see that the valley has benefited in other ways from the building of the dam.”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Gwen said, “but I daresay you’ll enlighten me.”

Robert was quite capable of being as stubborn as his sister. “Very well,” he said, coming to his feet and pacing over to a nearby ash tree before turning around to face her. “What about the fact that farmers’ wives from all over the county now sell their eggs and butter in Llanwddyn for four times as much money as they would receive in any other village? That’s a blessing.”

Gwen looked unconvinced, so Robert tried again. “With all the English workmen coming here, the people in the village are being forced to become bilingual. No one’s making us give up Welsh, but whether we like it or not, speaking English is going to be more and more important if we want to travel outside these valleys.”

He stepped back toward her. “Then there’s all the building the Liverpool Corporation is doing down the valley. The special leases that the Earl of Powys wrote for everyone after Owen Morgan and Rhys Jones went to talk to him means that everyone in the village is being compensated. Some are getting new houses. Not to mention the fact that they’re building a new chapel.”

Gwen looked away. “I like the old one better.”

“The old chapel with the leaky roof that drips water all over the pews when it rains?” Robert asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Gwen said, turning so her eyes met his again. “That’s where Mam and Dad got married, remember? I want to keep that chapel.”

Robert shook his head and groaned. Resuming his position on the boulder, he put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and pulled her toward him. “How is it,” he said, “that two people who look so alike and have the same parents and the same background can be so different?”

Gwen acknowledged the validity of his question. They both had chestnut-colored hair that looked brown on overcast days and shone red in sunshine. She knew his green eyes were identical to her own, and their matching smiles could only belong to siblings. But their personalities could hardly be less similar.

“You probably think I’m being silly and sentimental,” she said quietly.

“Perhaps a bit.” Robert squeezed her shoulders gently. “And I recognize that stubborn streak too. But although I don’t completely understand what you feel for this village, I know that you don’t like change. When we moved here to live with Aunty Jane after Mam and Dad died, it took you much longer than me to adjust to our new life. But once you did, you were happy. I adapted quickly, but . . . I don’t know; it’s almost as though there’s something in my blood that makes me restless. Unlike you, I need change. I feel trapped by these mountains. I want to travel, to see the world. Have new adventures in faraway places.”

“It’s not in your blood,” Gwen said with a small, sad smile. “You have the same bloodline I have. It must be in your head.”

“Or in my heart,” Robert responded. Removing his arm from her shoulders, he leaned forward and kicked a small rock lying at the base of the boulder. He watched it bounce away before continuing. “Wherever it’s coming from, I can’t ignore it anymore, Gwennie. It’s time for me to leave Llanwddyn.”

For a moment, Gwen could only stare at him. “What do you mean, it’s time for you to leave Llanwddyn?”

He turned to face her. “I’m going to sea. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for years. And I’ve waited long enough. I’m nineteen now, and I’ve saved enough money to make the journey to Liverpool with some left over to get me by until I find a ship’s captain willing to take me on.”

Like an iron claw, fear grasped Gwen’s chest. “But you’ve never even seen the sea! What do you really know about living or working on board a ship? How can you possibly—”

Robert reached out and grasped her arms tightly. “Gwennie, have you ever been married to someone who loves you the way Dad loved Mam? Have you ever held your own baby in your arms? Or watched your son take his first step?”

Gwen pulled back, the earnestness in her brother’s face completely at odds with his ridiculous questions. “Of course not,” she said. “Why are you—?”

“But you’ve dreamed of those things, haven’t you?” Robert challenged her. “You may not have seen them or experienced them yet, but you want to—badly enough that no matter what, the dream never really goes away.”

She suddenly understood where Robert was going with this reasoning, and it scared her. Memories of their childhood came flooding back. They’d filled their days with imaginary games of castles and dragons, jungles and tigers, mountains and trolls. And whether she’d been a mystical mermaid, a lost princess, or a magical fairy, Robert had always been a captain: the fearless captain of his own ship, traveling the world and saving others along the way.

He must have seen something—a glimmer of comprehension or remembrance—in her eyes because his grip on her arms lessened. “I’m not fool enough to think this is going to be easy. I have no doubt I’ll have to work harder than I’ve ever worked before. I’ll encounter rough characters and people who’ll look down on me just because I’m Welsh. I know it may take me awhile to find my sea legs and prove myself, but I also know I can do it.” He took a deep breath. “I have to do it.”

A single tear rolled down Gwen’s cheek, quickly followed by another. “Will you ever come back?” she said.

Robert pulled her into a tight embrace. “Of course, you daft thing. I have to come back to tell you about my ship and seeing real elephants and tasting bananas and the sounds and smells of other lands. Perhaps I’ll even bring you something special from a faraway place.”

Gwen forced herself to smile. “Have you told anyone else?” she asked.

“Lewis knows,” he said, referring to his best friend, Lewis Morgan, “but I haven’t told Aunty Jane yet.”

Gwen tried not to feel hurt that Lewis had known his plans before she had. He and Lewis had been virtually inseparable since she and Robert had moved to Llanwddyn. In fact, now that she thought about it, Lewis had usually been the first mate in all their imaginary games.

“What does Lewis think about it?”

Robert shrugged. “He’s like you. He’s content with village life and with working in the smithy with his dad and his brother. He may not understand why I’m going, but he’s known it was coming for a long time.” He took a deep breath. “Aunty Jane, however, is another story. Even though my bedroom is full of books about seafaring, and a model ship has pride of place on the dresser, I daresay my plans will be a shock to her.”

Gwen thought of their aunt, who had taken them in when they’d been orphaned by the measles epidemic that had devastated their village in North Wales. Their father had been the Methodist preacher in the area and had continued to minister to his flock despite the risks inherent in visiting contaminated homes.

Long hours of caring for others had finally taken its toll, and when he and their mother had succumbed to the disease, they’d both been stricken by the deadly pneumonia that was known to sometimes follow. Gwen and Robert had also caught the measles, but they’d not suffered from any side effects or secondary illnesses. Perhaps it was the resilience of youth. Perhaps, as their aunty Jane often told them, they still had a work to perform in this life. Whatever the reason, they had survived and had been forced to move away from all that was familiar, to live with their older, widowed aunt in Llanwddyn. It had been the most difficult thing Gwen had ever done in her ten-year-old life.

Even now, over six years later, she missed her parents every day. Sometimes she ached to feel her mother’s arms around her and to hear her father’s voice again. Her father’s ready laugh and sense of adventure had been a perfect match for her mother’s generosity and joyful outlook on life. Aunty Jane had done her duty without complaint, and she’d always treated them fairly, but she had a no-nonsense approach toward everything—from running the village post office to making a meal to parenting. Gwen had no doubt that Robert’s desire to go to sea would fall solidly within the nonsense category. Aunty Jane would not be pleased.

“Telling her won’t be easy,” Gwen said.

Robert looked down at her, and for a fleeting moment, Gwen thought she glimpsed sadness.

“Telling you was harder,” he said.