Longing by Mary Balogh Page B

the music just as clearly as if they were inside the building. This must be a particularly fine example of it. By unspoken consent he and Verity stopped walking again to listen. The choir was singing in Welsh.
    â€œAh,” Verity said regretfully when the song came to an end, “is it finished? Are they not going to sing any more, Papa?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said, watching a group of women leave the chapel, but no men. “But we had better walk on. Nurse was right. That breeze really is chilly when we stand still. I don’t want you catching a cold.”
    But they had taken no more than two or three steps when the music began again and they stopped once more by mutual but unspoken consent. The choir sang without words and without accompaniment, producing a harmonious sound that made Alex think of wind on a lonely mountain or foamless waves on a full tide. It was achingly sweet. And then a single voice—a single tenor—sang a haunting melody above the choir’s accompaniment. His voice was as clear as a bell, but he sang in Welsh, so that the words, though heard, had no meaning to the two listeners.
    Alex closed his eyes. It was so sweet that it was almost unbearable. His chest ached with unshed tears. And that feeling washed over him again with almost overpowering force—that feeling he had had first up in the hills. He opened his eyes when he sensed that the song was nearing its end and felt himself an outsider again. The music and the choir were inside the chapel and he was outside on the pavement. It was not a conscious thought. Merely a feeling.
    And then the song was over.
    â€œAhh!” Verity sighed with contentment. “I wonder who that was singing, Papa.”
    But before he could reply, the chapel door opened and another woman—this one alone—stepped out. She closed the door quietly behind her. She was dressed the same way as the evening before—and the same as on two other occasions when he had seen her. She was not a woman with a large wardrobe, it seemed. But she too must have felt the chill of the breeze. She lifted one fold of her shawl over her head before crossing the ends beneath her chin and tossing them over her shoulders. She turned and hurried toward Alex and Verity. But she suddenly became aware of them standing there and looked up. And stopped.
    He touched the brim of his hat to her. “Good evening, Mrs. Jones,” he said.
    â€œGood evening,” she said. Her eyes turned to Verity and then she moved again and would have hurried past them.
    â€œWhat was that song?” he asked her.
    â€œâ€˜Hiraeth’?”
she said. “You mean the last one they sang?”
    He nodded. “Heer—?”
    â€œâ€˜Hiraeth,’”
she said. “It is an old Welsh song. It is one of my favorites. No, it
is
my favorite. It touches me here.” She pressed a hand to her left breast and flushed and removed the hand when she noticed his eyes following the gesture.
    â€œWhat is it about?” he asked.
    â€œ
‘Hiraeth’
means”—she sketched small circles with her hand for a moment—“it is difficult to translate. Longing. Yearning. It is the longing one feels for perfection, for the absolute. For God. That reaching beyond ourselves. The yearning that is never fully satisfied, except perhaps in heaven. I am not explaining it very well.”
    â€œOh, yes, I think you are,” he said. It was almost as if he had known. As if he had understood the Welsh words. Or perhaps some ideas conveyed themselves through music and emotion without the necessity of words.
    She looked at him rather uncertainly. “It is part of the Welsh soul,” she said. “
Hiraeth mawr
—the great longing. Maybe it comesfrom the wildness of nature. From the hills and the valleys. From the sea. Maybe— I am sorry. I am sounding foolish.” She glanced at Verity again.
    â€œMy daughter