For Better
by
At the time it was said of him “There’s a boy that gets on he is,” Enoch Harries was given Gwen the daughter of the builder Dan Thomas. On the first Sunday after her marriage the people of Kingsend Welsh Tabernacle crowded about Gwen, asking her: “How like you the bed, Messes Harries fach?” “Enoch has opened a shop butcher then?” “Any signs of a baban bach yet?” “Managed to get up quickly you did the day?” Gwen answered in the manner the questions were asked, seriously or jestingly. She considered these sayings, and the cause of her uneasiness was not a puzzle to her; and she got to despise the man whom she had married, and whose skin was like parched leather, and to repel his impotent embraces.
Withal she gave Enoch pleasure. She clothed herself with costly garments, adorned her person with rings and ornaments, and she modeled her hair in the way of a bob-wig. Enoch gave in to her in all things; he took her among Welsh master builders, drapers, grocers, dairymen, into their homes and such places as they assembled in; and his pride in his wife was nearly as great as his pride in the twenty plate-glass windows of his shop.
In her vanity Gwen exalted her estate.
“I hate living over the shop,” she said. “It’s so common. Let’s take a house away from here.”
“Good that I am on the premizes,” Enoch replied in Welsh. “Hap go wrong will affairs if I leave.”
“We can’t ask any one decent here. Only commercials,” Gwen said. With a show of care for her husband’s welfare, she added: “Working too hard is my boy bach. And very splendid you should be.”
Her design was fulfilled, and she and Enoch came to dwell in Thornton East, in a house near Richmond Park, and on the gate before the house, and on the door of the house, she put the name Windsor. From that hour she valued herself high. She had the words Mrs. G. Enos-Harries printed on cards, and she did not speak of Enoch’s trade in the hearing of anybody. She gave over conversing in Welsh, and would give no answer when spoken to in that tongue. She devised means continually to lift herself in the esteem of her neighbors, acting as she thought they acted: she had a man-servant and four maid-servants, and she instructed them to address her as the madam and Enoch as the master; she had a gong struck before meals and a bell rung during meals; the furniture in her rooms was as numerous as that in the windows of a shop; she went to the parish church on Sundays; she made feasts. But her life was bitter: tradespeople ate at her table and her neighbors disregarded her.
Enoch mollified her moaning with: “Never mind. I could buy the whole street up. I’ll have you a motor-car. Fine it will be with an advert on the front engine.”
Still slighted, Gwen smoothed her misery with deeds. She declared she was a Liberal, and she frequented Thornton Vale English Congregational Chapel. She gave ten guineas to the rebuilding fund, put a carpet on the floor of the pastor’s parlor, sang at brotherhood gatherings, and entertained the pastor and his wife.
Wherefore her charity was discoursed thus: “Now when Peter spoke of a light that shines–shines, mark you–he was thinking of such ladies as Mrs. G. Enos-Harries. Not forgetting Mr. G. Enos-Harries.”
“I’m going to build you a vestry,” Gwen said to the pastor. “I’ll organize a sale of work to begin with.”
The vestry was set up, and Gwen bethought of one who should be charged with the opening ceremony of it, and to her mind came Ben Lloyd, whose repute was great among the London Welsh, and to whose house in Twickenham she rode in her car. Ben’s wife answered her sharply: “He’s awfully busy. And I know he won’t see visitors.”