Longing by Mary Balogh Page A

Cwmbran works.
    Barnes had been aghast. The wages paid out were the main expense of operating the works and mine, he had explained. When profits fell, expenses had to be cut. It was good business sense. Otherwise the business collapsed. Wages were the only expense that could realistically be cut.
    But there were people behind those wages, Alex had pointed out. It was not an impersonal expense about which they spoke. But Barnes had repeated what he had said before, that the workers were comfortably well off and fully expected to be paid less in tough times. He had added something that had silenced the arguments Alex was still prepared to make. What would happen to the workers, Barnes had asked, if the business collapsed and the works had to be closed? Sometimes what might seem to be cruelty was in fact kindness. Wages must be reduced for the workers’ own good.
    Company profits looked healthy enough to Alex. But what did he know? There was that frustration again of not knowing. That realization that he must trust the experience of his agent, even when it went quite against the grain to do so. Being at Cwmbran was a humbling experience, Alex was finding.
    Besides—Barnes had not finished and again he had had a telling argument, one against which Alex had no defense at all—there werecoal mines and ironworks all across the valleys, and people and news traveled. The owners had to work together so that what one did they all did. Only so could chaos be averted. If wages were lowered in all works except one, there would be mass discontent and strikes and untold suffering. The master who had thought to be unrealistically generous to his workers would make all the others suffer.
    All the other owners and agents, Alex had learned, had been living and working in the valleys for years and knew how the industry was to be kept profitable—for the sake of both workers and owners. He had been there for only a few days and had had no previous experience whatsoever with industry. How could he come here now and change things and perhaps destroy what he did not understand? He could not do so. And so his workers must live on ten percent less this week than last. The same cut had been made right across the valleys.
    The lowering of demand was likely to continue for some time, Barnes had told him. It was part of the cycle of business and not to be worried about. Things would swing upward again eventually. But in the meanwhile it was possible that in a few weeks’ time wages would have to be reduced a further ten percent.
    Alex had said nothing. But he had decided there and then that he would fight against such madness. He would meet personally with all the other owners if he must and argue the point. But he would not jump the gun. Perhaps it would not happen. Or perhaps by the time it did he would know more, understand more. But he was feeling sick at heart and troubled at his own inability to act from personal conscience as he usually did.
    â€œI can hear music, Papa.”
    Alex came back to the present and his surroundings with a start. He felt instantly guilty. He had been away from Verity all day again and now was ignoring her. He had spoken scarcely a dozen words to her since leaving home.
    â€œMusic?” He listened carefully, tightening his hold on Verity’s hand and drawing her to a stop in the middle of the pavement. She was quite right.
    â€œIt is people singing, Papa,” she said. “In that building at the end of the street.” She pointed ahead. “Is it a church? It looks funny.”
    â€œA chapel,” he said. “Not quite the same as the church we go to. Most Welsh people go to chapels. It’s a choir singing. Let’s walk a little closer, shall we?”
    It was a male voice choir. A large one judging by the volume and richness of sound. Mellow basses, sweet tenors—the balance was perfect. He had heard about Welsh song, Alex thought as they drew closer and could hear