A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees Read Online Free

wealthy and every night he went to sleep with plans in his head. In a few months he could ask permission to build another barn, try another crop, get a few more cows, he could even employ a servant – and he would send Richard to school. For the first time in his life he felt powerful. It was as if Richard had been the missing piece in the puzzle of his life. Once he was born it seemed that everything had fallen into place. ‘I have never been happier,’ he’d tell Megan as they tiptoed away from the sleeping child, and she would turn her head with that lazy smile of hers, then reach out to him and it would be like a door opening and he would feel enveloped in her warm comfortable world.

    Megan’s body had always been sumptuous. Even on this cold beach he is aware of his fingers sinking through the cloth of her sleeves and into her flesh. The warmth there makes the rest of him feel colder still. He hugs her close and feels his own body wake to her touch and smell. She is shivering, and the clattering of her teeth sets his jaw trembling too. The dip in the sea has chilled them both. He helps her up the beach and to the side of the fire someone has made in front of some unfinished huts.
    He finds Myfanwy at the shoreline with Gwyneth, watching the waves creep towards them. She is so young, so serious – everything she does is done with such determination. He picks them both up together; glad at the way the weight of their small bodies tests the strength of his arms. He tucks Myfanwy’s head beneath his chin but she complains and tries to squirm free.
    â€˜Be still, now. If you’re not, I’ll drop you.’
    â€˜But I want to walk!’
    He carefully lets her fall and she walks at his side, her hand clutching a piece of the cloth of his trousers then letting go. Independent. Always a fighter – from her very beginning.
    â€˜Silas!’ Sometimes the memories of voices seem so clear it is as if they are beside him still.
    â€˜Silas!’ Ah yes, his mother-in-law, Elinor, her voice sharper than usual – trying to cover her panic. Then, of course, his own heart quickening in response.
    â€˜It’s breech. You have to go get the doctor, now, ar frys !’
    Ar frys – oh yes he’d been quick. Ten minutes on Bessy to fetch the doctor, and then the man not hurrying enough – more concerned in tutting and protesting. ‘Breech? You should have called for me before now. You’re a fool, man. Why didn’t you call for me from the beginning?’
    Then, once the doctor had been pulled into their cottage and the door had been closed, the sound of the birds chirping: a couple of sparrows and then a blackbird on a tree. As if nothing was wrong.
    He closes his eyes. Remembers. His axe smashing through wood, and his words, bargaining with God: Don’t let her die. Spare her and I’ll never tell another lie. Let her live and I’ll never curse the fat old sow nor that cockerel in the morning. I’ll even listen to her old fool of a father.
    Then a scream. The memory stops him breathing even now. The only time he’d ever heard Megan scream. And then a door slamming and the doctor shouting orders and he’d flung down his axe and covered his ears. Don’t let her die.
    He touches Myfanwy’s head. Good girl. She looks up and smiles at him and he reaches out suddenly and draws her to him so he can feel her warm sweet breath on his face.
    It’s always the same. Once the memories come they loiter in his head. There’s Elinor’s shadow passing over him; her face too calm, too serious. Then that thought, that hideous idea. He tries to drive it away but it won’t go: Megan or the child? If he’d had to choose what would it be?
    He’d taken a breath, asked the question. ‘Is she all right?’
    Megan or the child? Which would he have chosen? Megan, he’d have said.
    He buries his face in Myfanwy’s hair.