Fall of Giants

Before he went she persuaded him to feed the children of the striking miners. “Not the parents, because you can’t be seen to take sides,” she said. “Just the little boys and girls. The strike has been on for two weeks now, and they’re on starvation rations. It wouldn’t cost you much. There would be about five hundred of them, I’d guess. They’d love you for it, Teddy.”

“We could put up a marquee on the lawn,” he said, lying on the bed in the Gardenia Suite with his trousers unbuttoned and his head in her lap.

“And we can make the food here in the kitchens,” Ethel said enthusiastically. “A stew with meat and potatoes in it, and all the bread they can eat.”

“And a suet pudding with currants in it, eh?”

Did he love her? she wondered. At that moment, she felt he would have done anything she asked: given her jewels, taken her to Paris, bought her parents a nice house. She did not want any of those things-but what did she want? She did not know, and she refused to let her happiness be blighted by unanswerable questions about the future.

A few days later she stood on the East Lawn at midday on a Saturday, watching the children of Aberowen tuck into their first free dinner. Fitz did not know that this was better food than they got when their fathers were working. Suet pudding with currants, indeed! The parents were not allowed in, but most of the mothers stood outside the gates, watching their lucky offspring. Glancing that way, she saw someone waving at her, and she walked down the drive.

The group at the gate was mostly women: men did not look after children, even during a strike. They gathered around Ethel, looking agitated.

“What’s happened?” she said.

Mrs. Dai Ponies answered her. “Everyone have been evicted!”

“Everyone?” Ethel said, not understanding. “Who?”

“All the miners who rent their houses from Celtic Minerals.”

“Good grief!” Ethel was horrified. “God save us all.” Shock was followed by puzzlement. “But why? How does that help the company? They’ll have no miners left.”

“These men,” said Mrs. Dai. “Once they get into a fight, all they care about is winning. They won’t give in, whatever the cost. They’re all the same. Not that I wouldn’t have my Dai back, if I could.”

“This is awful.” How could the company find enough blacklegs to keep the pit going? she wondered. If they closed the mine, the town would die. There would be no customers left for the shops, no children to go to the schools, no patients for the doctors… Her father, too, would have no work. No one had expected Perceval Jones to be so obstinate.

Mrs. Dai said: “I wonder what the king would say, if he knew.”

Ethel wondered, too. The king had seemed to show real compassion. But he probably did not know the widows had been evicted.

And then she was struck by a thought. “Perhaps you should tell him,” she said.

Mrs. Dai laughed. “I will, next time I sees him.”

“You could write him a letter.”

“Don’t talk daft, now, Eth.”

“I mean it. You should do it.” She looked around the group. “A letter signed by widows the king visited, telling him you are being thrown out of your homes and the town is on strike. He’d have to take notice, surely?”

Mrs. Dai looked scared. “I wouldn’t like to get into trouble.”

Mrs. Minnie Ponti, a thin blond woman of strong opinions, said to her: “You have no husband and no home and nowhere to go-how much more trouble could you be in?”

“That’s true enough. But I wouldn’t know what to say. Do you put ‘Dear King,’ or ‘Dear George the Fifth,’ or what?”

Ethel said: “You put: ‘Sir, with my humble duty.’ I know all that rubbish, from working here. Let’s do it now. Come into the servants’ hall.”

“Will it be all right?”

“I’m the housekeeper now, Mrs. Dai. I’m the one who says what’s all right.”

The women followed her up the drive and around the back of the house to the kitchen. They sat around the servants’ dining table, and the cook made a pot of tea. Ethel had a stock of plain writing paper that she used for correspondence with tradesmen.

“‘Sir, with our humble duty,’” she said, writing. “What next?”

Mrs. Dai Ponies said: “‘Forgive our cheek in writing to Your Majesty.’”

“No,” Ethel said decisively. “Don’t apologize. He’s our king, we’re entitled to petition him. Let’s say: ‘We are the widows Your Majesty visited in Aberowen after the pit explosion.’”

“Very good,” said Mrs. Ponti.

Ethel went on: “‘We were honored by your visit and comforted by your kind condolences, and the gracious sympathy of Her Majesty the queen.’”

Mrs. Dai said: “You’ve got the gift for this, like your father.”

Mrs. Ponti said: “That’s enough soft soap, though.”

“All right. Now then. ‘We are asking for your help as our king. Because our husbands are dead, we are being evicted from our homes.’”

“By Celtic Minerals,” put in Mrs. Ponti.

“‘By Celtic Minerals. The whole pit have gone on strike for us but now they are being evicted too.’”

“Don’t make it too long,” said Mrs. Dai. “He might be too busy to read it.”