Unanswered Prayers

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Title:     Unanswered Prayers
Author: Caradoc Evans [More Titles by Evans]

When Winnie Davies was let out of prison, shame pressed heavily on her feelings; and though her mother Martha and her father Tim prayed almost without ceasing, she did not come home. It was so that one night Martha watched for her at a window and Tim prayed for her at the door of the Tabernacle, and a bomb fell upon the ground that was between them, and they were both destroyed.

All the days of their life, Tim and Martha were poor and meek and religious; they were cheaper than the value set on them by their cheapeners. As a reward for their pious humility, they were appointed keepers of the Welsh Tabernacle, which is at Kingsend. At that they took their belongings into the three rooms that are below the chapel; and their spirits were lifted up marvelously that the Reverend Eylwin Jones and the deacons of the Tabernacle had given to them the way of life.

In this fashion did Tim declare his blessedness: "Charitable are Welsh to Welsh. Little Big Man, boys tidy are boys Capel Tabernacle."

"What if we were old atheists?" cried Martha.

"Wife fach, don't you send me in a fright," Tim said.

They two applied themselves to their tasks: the woman washed the linen and cleaned the doorsteps and the houses of her neighbors, the man put posters on hoardings, trimmed gardens, stood at the doors of Welsh gatherings. By night they mustered, sweeping the floor of the chapel, polishing the wood and brass that were therein, and beating the cushions and hassocks which were in the pews of the most honored of the congregation. Sunday mornings Tim put a white india-rubber collar under the Adam's apple in his throat, and Martha covered her long, thin body in black garments, and drew her few hairs tightly from her forehead.

Though they clad and comported themselves soberly Enoch Harries, who, at this day, was the treasurer and head deacon of the chapel, spoke up against them to Eylwin Jones. This is his complaint: "Careless was Tim in the dispatch department, delivering the parcel always to the wrong customers and for why he was sacked. Good was I to get him the capel. Careless he is now also. By twilight, dark, and thick blackness, light electric burns in Tabernacle. Waste that is. Sound will I my think. Why cannot the work be done in the day I don't know."

"You cannot say less," said Eylwin Jones. "Pay they ought for this, the irreligious couple. As the English proverb--'There's no gratitude in the poor.'"

"Another serious piece of picking have I," continued Harries. "I saw Tim sticking on hoarding. 'What, dear me,' I mumbled between the teeth--I don't speech to myself, man, as usual. The Apostles did, now. They wrote their minds. Benefit for many if I put down my religious thinks for a second New Testament. What say you, Eylwin Jones? Lots of says very clever I can give you--'is he sticking?' A biggish paper was the black pasting about Walham Green Music Hall. What do you mean for that? And the posters for my between season's sale were waiting to go out."

Rebuked, Tim and Martha left over sinning: and Tim put Enoch Harries' posters in places where they should not have been put, wherefore Enoch smiled upon him.

"Try will I some further," said Tim by and by.

"Don't you crave too much," advised Martha. "The Bad Man craved the pulpit of the Big Man."

"Shut your backhead. Out of school will Winnie be very near now."

"Speak clear."

"Ask Enoch Harries will I to make her his servant."

"Be modest in your manner," Martha warned her husband. "Man grand is Enoch."

"Needing servants hap he does."

"Perhaps, iss; perhaps, no."

"Cute is Winnie," said Tim; "and quick. Sense she has."

Tim addressed Enoch, and Enoch answered: "Blabber you do to me, why for? Send your old female to Mishtress Harries. Order you her to go quite respectable."

Curtsying before Mrs. Harries, Martha said: "I am Tim Dafis' wife."

"Oh, really. The person that is in charge of that funny little Welsh chapel." Mrs. Harries sat at a table. "Give me your girl's name, age, and names of previous employers for references." Having written all that Martha said, she remarked: "We are moving next week to a large establishment in Thornton East. I am going to call it Windsor. Of course the husband and I will go to the English church. I thought I could take your girl with me to Windsor."

"The titcher give her an excellent character."

"I'll find that out for myself. Well, as you are so poor, I'll give her a trial. I'll pay her five pounds a year and her keep. I do hope she is ladylike."

Martha told Tim that which Mrs. Harries had said, and Tim observed: "I will rejoice in a bit of prayer."

"Iss," Martha agreed. "In the parlor of the preacher. They go up quicker."

God was requested by Tim to heap money upon Mrs. Harries, and to give Winnie the wisdom, understanding, and obedience which enable one to serve faithfully those who sit in the first pews in the chapel.

Now Winnie found favor in the sight of her mistress, whose personal maid she was made and whose habits she copied. She painted her cheeks and dyed her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes; and she frequented Thornton Vale English Congregational Chapel, where now worshiped Enoch and his wife. Some of the men who came to Windsor ogled her impudently, but she did not give herself to any man. These ogles Mrs. Harries interpreted truthfully and she whipped up her jealous rage.

"You're too fast," she chided Winnie. "Look at your blouse. You might be undressed. You are a shame to your sex. One would say you are a Piccadilly street-walker and they wouldn't be far wrong. I won't have you making faces at my visitors. Understand that."

Winnie said: "I don't."

"You must change, miss," Mrs. Harries went on. "Or you can pack your box and go on the streets. Must not think because you are Welsh you can do as you like here."

On a sudden Winnie spoke and charged her mistress with a want of virtue.

"Is that the kind of miss you are!" Mrs. Harries shouted. "Where did you get those shoes from?"

"You yourself gave them to me."

"You thief! You know I didn't. They are far too small for your big feet. Come along--let's see what you've got upstairs."

That hour Mrs. Harries summoned a policeman, and in due time Winnie was put in prison.

Tim and Martha did not speak to any one of this that had been done to their daughter.

"Punished must a thief be," said Tim. "Bad is the wench."

"Bad is our little daughter," answered Martha.

Sabbath morning came and she wept.

"Showing your lament you are, old fool," cried Tim.

"For sure, no. But the mother am I."

Tim said: "My inside shivers oddly. Girl fach too young to be in jail."

A fire was set in the preacher's parlor and the doors of the Tabernacle were opened. Tim, the Bible in his hands, stepped up to the pulpit, his eyes closed in prayer, and as he passed up he stumbled.

Eylwin Jones heard the noise of his fall and ran into the chapel.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "Comic you look on your stomach. Great one am I for to see jokes."

"An old rod did catch my toe," Tim explained.

Eylwin changed the cast of his countenance. "Awful you are," he reproved Tim. "Suppose that was me. Examine you the stairs. Now indeed forget a handkerchief have I for to wipe the flow of the nose. Order Winnie to give me one of Enoch Harries. Handkerchiefs white and smelly he has."

"Ill is Winnie fach," said Martha.

"Gone she has for brief weeks to Wales," Tim added.

In the morning Eylwin came to the Tabernacle.

"Not healthy am I," he said. "Shock I had yesterday. Fancy I do a rabbit from Wales for the goiter."

"Tasty are rabbits," Tim uttered.

"Clap up, indeed," said Martha. "Too young they are to eat and are they not breeding?"

"Rabbits very young don't breed," remarked Eylwin.

"They do," Martha avowed. "Sometimes, iss; sometimes, no. Poison they are when they breed."

"Not talking properly you are," said Eylwin. "Why for you palaver about breeding to the preacher? Cross I will be."

"Be you quiet now, Martha," said Tim. "Lock your tongue."

"Send a letter to Winnie for a rabbit; two rabbits if she is small," ordered Eylwin. "And not see your faults will I."

Tim and Martha were perplexed and communed with each other; and Tim walked to Wimbledon where he was not known and so have his errand guessed. He bought a rabbit and carried it to the door of the minister's house. "A rabbit from Winnie fach in Wales," he said.

"Eat her I will before I judge her," replied Eylwin; and after he had eaten it he said: "Quite fair was the animal. Serious dirty is the capel. As I flap my hand on the cushion Bible in my eloquence, like chimney smoke is the dust. Clean you at once. For are not the anniversary meetings on the sixth Sabbath? All the rich Welsh will be there, and Enoch Harries and the wife of him."

He came often to view Tim and Martha at their labor.

"Fortunate is your wench to have holiday," he said one day. "Hard have preachers to do in the vineyard."

"Hear we did this morning," Tim began to speak.

"In a hurry am I," Eylwin interrupted. "Fancy I do butter from Wales with one pinch of salt in him. Tell Winnie to send butter that is salted."

Martha bought two pounds of butter.

"Mean is his size," Tim grieved.

"Much is his cost," Martha whined.

"Get you one pound of marsherin and make him one and put him on a wetted cabbage leaf."

The fifth Sunday dawned.

"Next to-morrow," said Martha, "the daughter will be home. Go you to the jail and fetch her, and take you for her a big hat for old jailers cut the hair very short."

"No-no," Tim replied. "Better she returns and speak nothing. With no questions shall we question her."

Monday opened and closed.

"Mistake is in your count," Martha hinted.

"Slow scolar am I," said Tim. "Count will I once more."

"Don't you, boy bach," Martha hastened to say. "Come she will."

At the dusk of Friday Eylwin Jones, his goitered chin shivering, ran furiously and angrily into the Tabernacle. "Ho-ho," he cried. "In jail is Winnie. A scampess is she and a whore. Here's scandal. Mother and father of a thief in the house of the capel bach of Jesus Christ. Robbed Mistress Harries she did. Broke is the health of the woman nice as a consequent. She will not be at the anniversary meetings because the place is contaminated by you pair. And her husband won't. Five shillings each they give to the collection. The capel wants the half soferen. Out you go. Now at once."

Tim and Martha were sorely troubled that Winnie would come to the Chapel House and not finding them, would go away.

"Loiter will I near by," said Tim.

"Say we rent a room and peer for her," said Martha.

Thereon from dusk to day either Tim or Martha sat at the window of their room and watched. The year died and spring and summer declined into autumn, when on a moon-lit night men flew in machines over London and loosened bombs upon the people thereof.

"Feared am I," said Martha, "that our daughter is not in the shelter." She screamed: "Don't stand there like a mule. Pray, Tim man."

Remembering how that he had prayed, Tim answered: "Try a prayer will I near the capel."

So Martha watched at her window and Tim prayed at the door of the Tabernacle.

[The end]
Caradoc Evans's short story: Unanswered Prayers

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