My First Colouring Book by Lloyd Jones Page B

just finished my A-levels and had a whole week in which to kick my heels, between the final exam and shearing day. Since we lived in the hills there was no town to paint red, nor did I have any tiles to spend the night on, except in the dairy, so I knuckled down to the task every evening, after the daily chores. As I did so a year in the late adolescence of a young girl came sketchily to life, but only after I’d sorted the paperwork into piles: letters, newspaper cuttings, certificates, postcards, and so on.
    The most striking clue to her story was a newspaper cutting about Sarah Jacob, known as ‘the Welsh fasting girl’. I’d never heard of her. There were many similar tales, apparently, about young girls who survived miraculously for long periods without eating. There were magical or religious connotations. Some of them developed stigmata, but the medical profession dismissed them as frauds or hysterics. Their symptoms included paralysis and staring fits. In Mary’s childhood, women were encouraged to nibble daintily on the rare occasions they ate in public, said the article. And to have a ‘clean’ body (inside and out) the fasting girls controlled their food intake rigorously to increase their ‘spirituality’.
    Sarah Jacob, who died on December 17, 1869, aged twelve years and seven months, convinced a vicar she was authentic. Her story became widely known and she was sent gifts and donations. But doctors were sceptical and she was sent to Guy’s Hospital to be monitored by nurses, who were told to give her food if she asked for it. Poor Sarah went into a steep decline, but her parents – convinced she was genuine – refused to halt the test, even when told their daughter was dying, as she duly did.
    When I started to excavate Mary’s past I tried to be methodical, but the piles of paper had an antic life of their own; finding a linear story seemed impossible. So I changed tack: I sifted though all the papers again, putting aside anything touching on the Sarah Jacob story, or on Mary’s illness. Eventually I was left with nine documents, not including her birth and death certificates. After fiddling about with them well into the depths of the night I seemed to have a plot, but I still couldn’t be sure. This is the sequence, as I established it:
    Document A: Mono postcard showing a view of Carno in Breconshire, date unintelligible, addressed to Margaret Jones (Mary’s mother).
    Sorry to hear about Mary, we are praying for you. Try a little bread and milk with sugar but no butter. See Mrs Henry Williams Hengae, her angelica works well with the stomach. Weather up and down, lost a field of hay last week. Gwynfor bad with his rheumatics.
    Yours, Ceridwen.
    Document B: Sheet of sun-yellowed paper, much-folded, many dirty fingerprints, with an embossed letterhead – Capel Hebron. Message (translated):
    The Deacons met on Sunday evening to consider your request. We cannot supplicate to the Lord on your daughter’s behalf, it is His will that she lies in bed afflicted, for she has been meeting William Evans the cobbler’s son at the mountain gate while pretending to go collecting bilberries. We are also informed, regrettably, that you have consulted Vicar Pritchard, and it is therefore our wish that neither you nor your family attend this chapel until the issue of your daughter’s passion and sickness is resolved.
    Yours truly, Edwin Williams, Deacon.
    Document C: Small card, in good condition though foxed, showing a mono etching of a church on its cover. Message:
    Further to our conversation, the Bishop informs me that Bell, Book and Candle is inappropriate in this case. I will intercede with the Lord on M’s behalf every day in my prayers, for I truly believe she has seen the Lord’s Shining Path. I beg of you not to rely on the ministrations of the woman they call Morfudd H e ^ n, and to trust in God, for He is Good. M’s exultation