Band of Angel Read Online Free PDF

Whatever was happening?
    “Mother,” said Catherine, cold with horror. “What is it?”
    Mother gave her a distant wave as though saying good-bye to an acquaintance.
    “Go away, please,” she said. “I want Mair.”
    “She’s not here.”
    Mother, remembering, started to moan about the market and a green dress before she doubled up with pain.
    “Oh Mama!” Catherine was crying with fear. “What shall I do?”
    “Catherine,” Mama’s hands were wet to hold as she sat up and tried to smile. “Don’t be frightened, darling, but a silly and awkward thing has happened: the baby has come early. You must”—Mother’s calm voice turned into a sharp yelp of pain—“help me!”
    Her hand pulled back the sheet. Her dress, her drawers, the sheet were part of a widening circle of crimson.
    Weak and giddy with panic, the girl ran at first from one window to another. She could see her father, a stick figure in the yard, feeding calves, with their two laborers, Alun and Twm. She struggled with the window, but the frame was soft and old and the catch sunk into the wood.
    “Wait for me,” she gasped. She ran downstairs and through the yard until she found him. He was standing near to Juno, half-harnessed for the ride to Sarn. Alun was polishing the governess cart and telling Father they didn’t make them like that anymore.
    “Well, good oh, Alun,” Father was saying, “and now I’d better get my women to the fair else I won’t be very popular will I. Not a bit popular eh?” Father’s shyness often took the form of an awkward heartiness, particularly when he talked to other men about his women.
    “Father,” Catherine started to say, “we can’t go anywhere.”
    He took her arm suddenly and pulled her roughly away from Alun and into a nearby feed room.
    “Don’t talk about it in front of him,” he hissed. “It’s our business.”
    “Father,” she said, her mouth so stiff with fear it was difficultto make words. “The baby is coming and I don’t know what to do. Help me for God’s sake.”
    “I can’t help her,” he said. All the red had gone out of his face and he looked shrunken and papery. “Do as I say and listen. I can’t help her, it would kill her.”
    “Shall I put the cart on now, sir?” Alun was asking through the crack in the door.
    “Not for now thank you, Alun,” said Father in a flat calm voice, “go home and have your breakfast until I send for you.”
    “Right, sir.” Alun sounded surprised.
    His footsteps receded. Father thought for a moment and then said to Catherine, with some echo of his old authority, “I’ll go into Sarn and find Ceris Davies. You stay here and try not to worry. There are often false alarms. That’s why it is better the men stay out of it, I’ll not be long.” He tried to take her hand. “You’re a good girl. It’s better I go and get help.”
    She looked at him in appalled disbelief. He was a coward, and he seemed to be pleading with her to understand.
    “It’s better I go.” He repeated stubbornly.
    “Why is it better?” For the first time in her life she was shouting at him. “You have done lambing.”
    “Don’t you shout at me, else you will weep for it,” he’d shouted back, turning red again. “You go back into that house. Boil some water, tear up some sheets. I’ll get Ceris Davies.”
    Catherine grabbed him by both sleeves of his smock and shook him. “But I don’t know what to do. Even Alun would know more,” she cried, still shouting.
    He’d raised his hand to smack her face then thumped her on the arm. “Stop that and get inside,” he shouted back. “You’ll soon understand.”

Chapter 4

    Catherine stood outside the front door and watched her father leave. Fear made her feel numb and slow, as though she were wading against a strong tide, and it seemed a great effort to turn and go back into the house, which, with her father gone, seemed charged with menace. In the kitchen, the clock ticked, the breakfast things