Chapter 17 - One Last Spring

For the next ten days, Gwen didn’t leave the house. Mair and Bronwen alternated days, coming to sit with Aunty Jane for a few hours each morning so Gwen could catch up on some sleep. Just as she’d promised, Mair made sure Gwen ate at least once every day, leaving her something for supper in the kitchen whenever she came over.

One day Gwen discovered two fat slices of bara brith wrapped in wax paper sitting on the kitchen table. It truly was the best bara brith she’d ever tasted, but she couldn’t eat it without thinking of Lewis, and for some reason, that left her feeling sad. Despite his lack of contact while she was in Llanfyllin, she’d hoped that now that she was back home, he would come by the house to see her. But he hadn’t come, and neither Mair nor Bronwen had spoken of him.

Dr. Edwards made two official visits to the house and seemed gratified by Aunty Jane’s progress. Her aunt was now awake for several hours each day, and her speech, although still laboriously slow, was becoming easier to understand. The fact that Aunty Jane’s mental faculties seemed virtually undamaged was a huge relief to everyone—except perhaps Aunty Jane herself. With her sharp mind, she found it extremely frustrating that she had to struggle so much to form words and that both her left leg and left arm were too weak to be of much use to her.

The doctor expressed confidence that all these symptoms would improve with time, but Aunty Jane was not the most patient person, and Gwen was rapidly learning that she wasn’t either. Occasionally, when Gwen was downstairs in the kitchen, she would hear a loud clang from her aunt’s bedroom above. Nine times out of ten it was her aunt taking out her frustrations by using her stronger right arm to hurl an inanimate object, such as a hairbrush or book, against the wall. There were times when Gwen wished she could hurl something too, but then she would remember how close she’d come to losing her aunt, and it put the more temporary aggravations in perspective.

The days and nights all blurred into one great whole. Gwen lost track of what day of the week it was, and her sleep came in small snatches. She checked on her aunt throughout the night and tried to rest when one of the other ladies was in the house. Her entire focus was on her aunt’s recuperation, and she’d given almost no thought to anything else. And so it came as rather a shock when Owen came over almost a fortnight after she’d arrived back in Llanwddyn and asked if he could speak with her.

Gwen hadn’t entered the more formal sitting room since she’d arrived back, and she didn’t think it worth the effort to light a fire in that drafty room, so she invited him into the kitchen, where she made a cup of tea and they sat down on opposite sides of the old wooden table.

“Mair says you’ve been marvelous with your aunt,” Owen said.

Gwen gave a tired smile. “I don’t think I could have done it without her and Mrs. Richards.”

Owen nodded his agreement. “They’re good women.” He stared into his teacup for a moment. Then, looking as though he was about to grasp a stinging nettle, he said, “I hate to bring this up when you’ve had so much on your plate, but it’s like this, Gwen. The village has been without a post office going on two weeks now. Don’t get me wrong; we managed fine without regular post when the pass was closed, but with your aunt laid up like she is, people are wondering if we should bring in another postmaster.” He looked at her as though trying to gauge her reaction. “I didn’t think we should do anything until I knew your feelings on the matter.”

Gwen looked at him in horror. There’d been no functioning post office for two weeks!

“Oh, Mr. Morgan, I didn’t even think . . . how could I have forgotten about something so important?” She put an unsteady hand to her head. “What should I do?”

“Well now,” he said, his voice steady and kind. “It seems to me there are a few choices. We can contact someone at the General Post Office and ask them to send us a new, permanent postmaster, or we can explain what’s happened and see if they can’t send a temporary postmaster until your aunt’s on her feet again.

“I know you spent a good deal of time at the post office before going off to school, so the other possibility is that you take it on until your aunt’s feeling up to it. The benefit to that is that we wouldn’t have to wait for anyone else to get here, and your aunt could maybe ease back into it by working with you for a while.”

It was a good thing Gwen already had her hand on her head because it was starting to spin. Was she capable of managing the post office on her own for an undetermined length of time? Owen was right; she knew how virtually everything was done, but being in charge of something so important was different from merely helping. She felt as though she’d failed the village for almost a fortnight already, and she wasn’t sure she could live with herself if she did nothing and her friends and neighbors had to wait even longer for postal service.

“I’ll be there tomorrow morning, first thing,” she said, sounding far more confident than she felt.

A look of concern crossed Owen’s face. “I don’t want you to feel pressured, bach,” he said. “Why don’t you sleep on it and let me know after you’ve had time to think it through?”

“No.” Gwen shook her head. “Everyone’s been patient enough. I may not be as efficient as my aunt, but I can make a start. There must be a terrible backlog of letters already.”

“Ed the Post is due here tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll do all he can to help. And Mair said to tell you she’ll come and stay at the house for as long as you need.”

Gwen was already starting to think through how she could make this work. “Do you think it would be all right if the post office was only open in the morning for the first week or so? That way I won’t be gone from home quite as long and won’t impose on Mrs. Morgan or Mrs. Richards quite so much.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea,” Owen said.

Relief washed over Gwen. And something else. Something that felt remarkably like excitement. For the first time in what felt like forever, she would be doing something productive, something that got her out of the house and interacting with other people, and something that hinted at a return to normalcy.

“Will you get word out for me, Mr. Morgan?” she asked. “The post office will be open first thing tomorrow until noon. And tell your wife how much I appreciate her willingness to help with Aunty Jane while I’m gone.”

“I’d be happy to,” he said, coming to his feet. “Thank you for taking this on so readily.”

Owen picked up his hat from the kitchen table and put it on, then followed Gwen to the front door.

“Lewis was sorry to have missed you on Sunday,” he said.

Gwen stumbled to a halt. “On Sunday?”

“Yes. He didn’t know about your aunt.” Owen looked a little uncomfortable. “We hadn’t been able to get a letter to him, see.”

“A letter to him?” The spinning sensation was starting again. “Why would you need to get a letter to him?”

It was Owen’s turn to look confused. “Why, because he’s in Pen-y-Bont Fawr, of course.”

“I . . . I didn’t know.” Gwen’s thoughts were racing. What was Lewis doing in the village of Pen-y-Bont Fawr? How long had he been there? And why had no one told her?

“Well, I never!” Owen said. “I thought for sure someone would have said something to you. He’s been gone the best part of a month now.”

“But he was here on Sunday?” Gwen was still trying to come to grips with this new information.

“That’s right. He’s staying with my brother, Griffith, and his family. Griff’s the blacksmith in Pen-y-Bont Fawr.” He gave a good-humored shrug. “I suppose that’s all we Morgans know.”

“Anyway, right after Christmas, Griff fell on ice and broke his arm. He doesn’t have any boys and needed someone to help him keep the smithy going. It made sense for Lewis to go. He’s been apprenticing with me long enough to be a good help to Griff, and with Rowland turning sixteen this week, he can take Lewis’s place here.”

“So he’ll be gone for a while, then,” Gwen said.

“It looks that way. Not that I’m glad Griff broke his arm, mind, but it has worked out quite nicely. Griff needed the help, and I needed to start training Rowland.”

Gwen wasn’t sure she agreed. In fact, the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. No wonder Lewis hadn’t been to see her; he wasn’t even here anymore.

“Will he come back for another visit soon?” she asked.

“That I can’t tell you, bach. He’s working at the smithy six days a week, pretty well on his own until Griff’s arm heals, and as you know, it’s a good three-hour walk over the hills from Pen-y-Bont Fawr. With the short winter days and the miserable weather we’ve had recently, it makes it hard to go very far.

“He did the journey last Saturday night to be here for his brother’s birthday. But he arrived in the early hours of the morning and only had time for Sunday services and dinner with the family before he had to head back. He did stop by here after chapel when we told him you were home, but he said no one answered the door.”

“I must have been upstairs with Aunty Jane and didn’t hear him knock,” Gwen said.

“That was probably it,” Owen said. “Never mind. I daresay he’ll try again next time he’s here.”

Whenever that was. Gwen was so disappointed she wanted to cry. Oblivious to the impact his news had had on Gwen, Owen wished her a pleasant evening and set off down the road toward his own home.

Gwen stood at the doorway and watched him go. She knew every bump in the road, every chink in the gray stone wall, and every depression in the grass verge along his route. The colors of the doors and the patterns on the curtains hanging at the windows of the short row of houses between here and Pont Cedig would always be indelibly imprinted in her mind.

There had been nights when she’d lain in bed in Llanfyllin visualizing this familiar scene, aching to be back. Now, for the first time since she’d returned, she had a chance to stop and soak it in, but the sense of deep contentment she’d always associated with this memory was missing, and Gwen had to admit that much of her longing for home had been tied to her desire to be with Lewis again. She sighed. It appeared that she had yet another change to make. Lewis was gone, and even though it felt as though something vital was missing, she would have to adjust to life in the village without him.