Hosts of Rebecca

out between her white teeth, one missing; with Dai Alltwen Preacher beating time and the tenors soaring and basses grovelling. Deep and beautiful was Mam’s voice in the descant, and Morfydd with her elbow in my ribs.
“‘All hail the power of Jesu’s name …!’” Tenor, me, threatening to crack, hanging on to Mam’s contralto. Double bass now, with the crack turning heads and bringing me out into a sweat. And the hymn of Shrubsole flooded over us in glory and Dai Preacher lifted his eyes to the vaults of Heaven.
“‘Crown Him, Crown Him, Crown Him …!’” Top E, and me hitting soprano.
“For God’s sake!” whispered Morfydd as I hung on the note.
“Leave him be,” said Mam with her soft, sad smile.
“I will be doing some crowning when I get you back home,” and I get the elbow.
“Mam,” I said, “look at this Morfydd!”
“Hush!”
Aye, good it was, those spring Sundays, with the smell of Sunday clothes and lavender about us, and peacock feathers waving and watch chains drooping over stomachs begging for Sunday dinner, and the farmers had twenty quart ones in this county. There is Hettie Winetree in front of me done up in white silk and black stockings, all peeps and wriggles around her little black hymn book – second prize for missing a Sunday School attendance, presented by Tom the Faith – fancies herself, does Hettie Winetree. Behind me sits Dilly Morgan, tall, cool, and fair for Welsh, her tonic-solfa beating hot on my neck. Down comes Meg Benyon’s little fat behind as she thumps the keyboard for the Amen and Dai Alltwen Preacher is up in the pulpit before you can say Carmarthen, leaping around the mahogany, working up his hwyl, handing hell to sinners from Genesis to Jonah. Motionless, we Mortymers, though other eyes may roam and other throats may clear. For a speck of dust do show like a whitewash stain on strangers wearing the black, says Mam.
Sunlit were those mornings after Chapel and the fields were alight with greenness and river-flash from the estuary where the Tywi ran. This was the time for talking, and the women lost no chance, giving birth to some, burying others while the men, in funeral black, talked bass about ploughing and harvest. Waldo Bailiff was always to the front, the devil, handsome and bearded, little hands folded on his silver-topped cane and his nose a dewdrop. Very sanctimonious was Waldo, loving his neighbour, and a hit over the backside for anyone breathing near Squire’s salmon steps, never mind poaching. A big fish in a little puddle, said Morfydd, and when his dewdrop falls Waldo will fall like the leaning tree of Carmarthen. I never got the hang of how that dewdrop stayed with him; stitched on, I reckon, for when a gale took every other dewdrop in the county Waldo’s was still present. But Welsh to his fingertips, give him credit, as Welsh as Owain Glyndwr but no credit to Wales, and more Sunday quarts died in Waldo than Glyndwr could boast dead English. But he drew me as a magnet because of Tessa, the daughter of Squire Lloyd Parry.
A lonely half hour, this, waiting for Sunday dinner, and grown-ups chattering. Lean against the chapel gate and watch them. Crows are shouting in the tops of the elms for you, half boy, half man. Yellow beaks gape in the scarecrowed pattern of branches. And you think of the lichened bark of Tessa’s tree as being velvet to the touch, and the cowslip path to the river that is crumpled gold. There we would stand in my dreams, me and Tessa Lloyd Parry, watching the river, eyes drooping to brightness while the reed music of spring flooded over us.
“You dreaming, Jethro Mortymer?”
Do you see her framed by leaves, wide-eyed, restless always – as leaf-movement and the foaming roar of the river under wind; never still was Tessa – all life and quickness with words, snatching at every precious second. Small and dark was she, with the face of a child and the body of a woman, and often I would dream of kissing her. A week next Sunday if I plucked up courage. But Tessa flies in the movement of men. Waldo wipes his whiskers in expectation of a quart in Black Boar tavern. The men drift away, the women chatter on.
Here comes Polly Scandal now, black beads and crepe, donkey ears wagging in her fluffy tufts of hair. Straighten now, hands from pockets. Buzzing around the women, she is, getting a word from here, a word from there, and saving it up for weekdays. She will have them over the county by Monday with a death before the croak and a pain before conception. My turn now. Flouncing, hips swaying, she comes to the gate; three sets of teeth.
“Good morning, Jethro Mortymer.”
Nod.
“Very happy you are looking, if I may say. Courting, is it?”
“No.”
“Tessa Lloyd Parry, eh? And her the daughter of Squire! There is gentry you are now, boy.”
“O, aye?”
“Aye, good grief! Marrying you will be before long, I vow. Whee, terrible, you new Mortymers, and such beautiful women! True your big sister Morfydd’s moonlighting with Osian Hughes Bayleaves?”
“First I’ve heard of it,” I answered, rumbling for dinner.
“Couldn’t do better, mind. Prospects has Osian Hughes with fifty acres in the family and his dada starting death rattles. Eh, close you are, but Polly do know, mind – can’t deceive Polly. And that mam of yours too pretty for singles, too. Waldo Bailiff off his ale because of her and Tom the Faith laying a shilling to nothing he has her altared before summer. You heard?” Up with her skirts then. “Eh, got to go. Goodbye, Jethro Mortymer, give my love to Tessa.”
And here comes Hettie Winetree with her little black hymn book, brown hair drooping, a hole in each heel of her mam’s black stockings.
“Good morning, Jethro Mortymer,” flushing to a strawberry.
The trees wave in perpendicular light, the wind sighs.
“Enjoy the service, Mr Mortymer?” Screwing the back from