One Dragon's Dream

by Catrin Collier

  ‘I’m not surprised. He’s used to living in hotels where people splash their money around like water and no one does a good turn for nothing. Spend it on yourself, Anna; you deserve it, the hours you put in here.’

  ‘Thank you, Auntie Betty, but if it’s all the same to you I’ll give it to Mam. We need every penny the way the boys are growing out of their clothes. Can I take your washing down for Mam now? It will save her walking up to get it in the morning.’

  ‘’Course you can, Anna. Sure it won’t be too much for you with the basket?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  Betty went into the outhouse and helped Anna pile the pub’s dirty laundry into the centre of a large sheet. When all the linen bins had been emptied she knotted the ends together to make a bundle. ‘I could ask one of the boys to carry this home for you.’

  Knowing none of them would do it without being paid a halfpenny Anna shook her head. ‘I can do it, thank you, Mrs Edwards.’

  The cook left the table where the kitchen staff ate and handed Anna her basket. Betty opened the door. She watched Anna struggle around the corner, lifting the bundle high, taking care to hold the washing above the dirty pavement.

  ‘I feel sorry for Anna.’ Betty closed the door. ‘A full shift here, and then home to all that washing. I’ve heard she does most of it these days because Mary’s not up to the job.’

  ‘Anna’s a godsend to her mother. I wish my Kate was half as helpful.’ The cook settled in front of the range and poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

  ‘Anna has an old head on her shoulders. She’s as much of a mother to those boys as Mary. Comes of losing her father at a young age, I suppose.’ Betty untied her apron and hung it on the back on the door. ‘If anyone wants me I’ll be upstairs.’

  ‘Given how long Mr Edwards has been gone, we won’t be disturbing you unless the place catches fire.’ The cook winked.

  Betty glared but refrained from speaking her mind lest the woman take offence. Good cooks were hard to come by and harder to hold on to. Those who wanted an easy life worked for the managers in private houses catering for just one family. The better ones who weren’t afraid of hard work were fought over by every cook shop owner, publican, and innkeeper in the town.

  The cook knew she’d annoyed Betty but persisted. ‘Must be like a second honeymoon every time he comes home.’

  ‘I remember our first honeymoon well enough, thank you.’ Betty slammed the door as she left the kitchen.

  Betty entered the private sitting room on the second floor. For the first time in years she looked at it critically. A dirty, dusty, neglected room, papered in a small blue flowered print that was peeling at the corners and ceiling where it was stained by damp. The navy satin drapes had faded to grey where sunlight had bleached the cloth. The furniture was deal, hand-me-downs that should have been consigned to the firewood bin years ago, Strange she hadn’t noticed until now, when she was on the point of leaving the Inn.

  The tray Anna had brought up lay on the table. Glyn had eaten barely half his dinner and the remains were covered by a congealing skim of fat. A pile of empty envelopes lay next to his plate. She noticed he’d taken his letters.

  She wondered who’d written to him at the pub. Had he intended to return home early and made arrangements for the New Russia Company to redirect his mail to Merthyr? Even when he was home he didn’t discuss his business, or his life away from her.

  She found Glyn stretched out on the bed in his trousers, shirt, and braces. His shoes had been neatly placed side by side next to the washstand, his jacket, waistcoat, collar, and tie hung on the back of a chair. The first thing she’d learned about Glyn after marrying him was he was tidy. Since then his orderly ways had almost reached the point of obsession. She assumed he’d become even more organized during his travels with Mr Hughes because he had to fend for himself.

  ‘There’s room on the bed if you’d like to join me.’ His eyes were closed.

  She’d thought he was asleep. ‘I have to go back downstairs. The evening rush will be starting in an hour.’

  ‘Can’t your father manage by himself for once?’ He patted the bed beside him but didn’t open his eyes.

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair on him.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you in over five months, Betty.’

  She felt suddenly – and considering the length of time they’d been married – ridiculously shy. ‘I’ll make us up a tea tray.’

  ‘I’ve just eaten.’

  ‘You didn’t manage much of your dinner. Tea is always good after a meal and there’s a tray of fresh bread pudding …’

  He opened his eyes. ‘I’d rather you came to bed.’

  ‘It’s three o’clock in the afternoon?’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

  ‘Glyn … I couldn’t … It’s Sunday …’

  ‘I’m aware of that too.’

  ‘Now you’re being sarcastic.’

  ‘No, I’m not, Betty,’ he protested.

  ‘I’ll get that tea.’ She left the room.

  He closed his eyes.

  Ten years was a long time. Too long for any man and women to keep a flicker of the romance that had brought them together, alive. He’d been a fool to hope it could be otherwise.

  Basement house in a court off John Street

  Georgetown, Merthyr, June 1870

  ‘You’re dressing early for chapel, Richard.’ Mary Parry didn’t look up from the dishes she was washing in a tin bucket.

  ‘Mr Edwards always arrives half an hour before the service. I help him get the place ready and set out the hymnals. It’s the least I can do after everything he’s done for us.’ Richard finished cleaning his shoes and replaced the rags he’d used in the wooden box next to the hearth.

  Mary eyed her eldest son suspiciously. He’d galloped into manhood and she resented the loss of the boy she’d loved. Only just seventeen, he was already over six feet tall. He’d inherited his father’s good looks, deep blue eyes, black curly hair, and easy charm and she was terrified he’d meet a conniving girl who’d entice him away from her and his younger brothers and sister. Life was difficult enough with Richard’s wages; without them it would be impossible.

  She pursed her lips, which all her children knew was a sign of disapproval. ‘As long as it is Mr Edwards you’re going to see.’

  ‘Who else would I be seeing in High Street chapel other than Mr Edwards and the minister?’ Richard queried.

  ‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking. I wish you’d come to Evensong in our chapel with Anna, me, and the boys. It was good enough for you when you were growing up.’

  ‘It’s good enough for me now, Mam.’ He kissed her cheek in an attempt to mollify her. ‘But we owe Mr Edwards. If he wasn’t my Overman I’d be on boy’s wages, not working as a collier, and if he hadn’t put a word in with Management our Morgan wouldn’t be an apprentice coal cutter or Owen a trapper. Have you any idea how many try to get their young ones the ventilator jobs in the tunnel mines?’

  ‘None of your wheedling, now. You’ll get soapy water over your Sunday best.’ She elbowed him away. ‘I don’t need reminding how good Mr Edwards has been to us. I’ll grant you the mines are better than the ironworks. No one with a brain in their head wants their children working close to the furnaces. It’s just that …’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Anxious to avoid further argument, Richard didn’t press her. He stooped so he could see his reflection in the broken mirror he’d balanced between two nails he’d driven into the wall.

  ‘I know who you’re going to see,’ ten-year-old Morgan chanted from the outside steps, where he and eight-year-old Owen were playing ‘toss and pick up’ with sticks and stones they’d scavenged.

  ‘You know nothing, squirt.’ Richard left the mirror and cuffed his brother none too gently on the head before wiping his face in the flannel he’d wrung out in a cold tap in the shared yard.

  ‘I do so. Judy Callaghan said she saw you with a girl
on the mountain last Sunday.’

  ‘Judy Callaghan’s stupid and can’t see for looking.’ Richard pretended he hadn’t noticed Morgan follow him inside, or his hand rise for a farthing bribe.

  ‘She’s clever enough to know you when she sees you.’ After checking their mother’s back was still turned, Morgan lifted his hand even higher.

  ‘You can tell Judy Callaghan from me, she’s an interfering gossiping bitch.’

  ‘Language! That’s no way to talk about a girl, Richard, and no way to talk on a Sunday.’ Anna struggled down the steps with the enormous bundle and her basket.

  ‘Judy Callaghan’s not a girl. She’s a poisonous cleckerbox. Here, let me, sis.’ Richard took the bundle from her and swung it into a corner. ‘If you’d sent word I would have come up to the Boot to carry this down for you.’

  ‘I managed. It’s tomorrow’s washing from Auntie Betty, Mam. She said I could bring it to save you making the trip to the Boot tomorrow.’ Anna set the three silver joeys Betty had given her and the sixpence next to the bowl.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mary wiped her hands in her apron and pushed her straggling grey hair from her eyes. She’d once been regarded as handsome, but double widowhood, nine pregnancies, and the deaths of five of her children in the cholera epidemic that had decimated the population of Merthyr had exacted a heavy toll. Now she only glanced in the mirror to check her hair was tied back and her face clean, because she couldn’t bear the sight of the old woman who looked back at her.

  ‘Threepence extra from Auntie Betty because I cleaned the vegetables as well as washed the pots. We were rushed off our feet. Auntie Betty had orders for seventy-two bachelors’ dinners and Jinny Gibbs didn’t come in. The cook and Auntie Betty said they couldn’t have coped without me.’

  ‘Jinny ill again?’ Mary asked in concern.

  ‘So her brother said. Auntie Betty asked if I could do Jinny’s job as well as my own until Jinny recovers. It’ll mean me working an extra four hours a day.’

  ‘I hope you said yes.’

  ‘Of course I did, Mam.’

  ‘That girl’s fading fast. Once lung disease gets hold of someone Jinny’s build there’s no stopping it. I’m sorry for her but the extra money will come in useful. And the sixpence?’ Mary picked up all four coins.

  ‘Mr Glyn Edwards is back from London. I took him his dinner and he gave me sixpence.’

  ‘Just for bringing him his dinner?’ Richard was amazed.

  ‘Auntie Betty said he was used to living in hotels. I suppose you have to pay people to wait on you in those places.’

  ‘Something the likes of you and me will never find out, sis.’ Richard made a face at his reflection.

  Mary dropped the coins in the cracked jug where she kept the money she and Anna earned day to day. Richard, Morgan, and Owen were paid by the company every three months. She counted herself lucky if their wages covered the ‘draw’ the family made against them for food, boots, and clothes in the company shop. The washing she took in and Anna helped with when she wasn’t working in the pub, coupled with what Anna earned, covered the rent most weeks. When it didn’t, they took money from the draw instead of food and lived on bread, tea, and margarine.

  Richard turned from his reflection. ‘Did Auntie Betty give you anything besides her dirty washing?’

  ‘Nothing I’m in the mood to share with a foul-mouthed brother.’ Anna lifted a cloth from the top of her basket and removed a plate wrapped in a second clean tea towel. She unfolded it. Morgan and Owen ran over.

  ‘Bread pudding,’ Owen gasped.

  ‘With currants, sultanas, and sugar on top.’ Morgan raised his hand intending to break off a piece. Anna knocked him away. ‘Good boys with clean hands and faces can have a slice after they’ve eaten the mutton sandwiches Auntie Betty gave me. But no one gets anything until I’ve made Mam and me a cup of tea.’

  ‘Is there enough for us all to have big slices, Anna?’ Owen begged.

  ‘Very big ones. Now go and play, so Mam and I can sit down in peace. I’ve been on my feet since five o’clock.’

  ‘The agreement was that sandwiches are part of your wages. Nothing was said about extras. Did Betty give you the bread pudding out of charity?’ Mary enquired.

  ‘There was a load of bread going to waste. Auntie Betty told the cook to make a couple of trays. She gave me a plateful because she said it would be hard by tomorrow and she can’t sell it when it’s stale. I’ll put the kettle on. Anyone else want a cuppa?’

  ‘Not me, I’m out of the door.’ Richard had returned to the mirror and was trying to flatten his hair with a finger of grease he’d scooped from his mother’s lard pot.

  ‘Me, please, Anna,’ Morgan and Owen shouted in unison.

  ‘Move, boys, so Mam can sit out on the step and get some fresh air. I’ll bring the tea to you when it’s ready, Mam.’ Anna picked up the kettle and carried it to the cold tap in the yard.

  When Richard Parry senior had been killed in the Taff Vale Ironworks in Treforest, Pontypridd nine years ago, the Parrys had lost their tied cottage as well as their breadwinner. Destitute and pregnant, Mary had gratefully accepted her one-time brother-in-law, Edward Edwards’ offer to find jobs for three of her eight children in the drift mine he managed in her home town of Merthyr. She sold most of her furniture to the new occupants of her company cottage to finance the nine-mile journey from Pontypridd to Merthyr and rented a one-up-one-down basement house because it was the cheapest on offer.

  Built below street level it was cold and damp in summer, freezing and soaking wet in winter. The front door was reached by a short flight of steps that opened directly into the kitchen. As the only window downstairs was small and high level the door was never closed in fine weather so the place could benefit from natural light and what Mary termed ‘a good drying out and airing’. But the open door made little difference. Summer and winter, water seeped up from the floor and ran down the walls, even high on the bedroom “shelf” that had a slightly larger window than the downstairs area.

  ‘See you later, Mam.’ Richard kissed her cheek.’ Keep me a sandwich and a slice of pudding please, sis.’

  ‘I’ll think about it, but it won’t be the biggest slice of pudding.’

  ‘Medium will do.’

  Anna smiled. She could never be angry with Richard for long and he knew it.

  ‘And you two,’ Richard ruffled Owen and Morgan’s hair. ‘No more listening to Judy Callaghan or spreading stories about me.’

  Before Morgan could think of a retort, Richard was away, striding across the yard.

  Chapter Five

  Oakleigh, Dr Peter Edwards’ rented house

  High Street, Merthyr, June 1870

  ‘Here, wife, I want you.’ Peter locked his hands around Sarah’s waist.

  She dropped the pile of woollen long johns she’d been stowing in a trunk. ‘Don’t, Peter, it’s too hot.’

  ‘And about to get warmer.’

  ‘There’s too much to do.’ She giggled when he tickled her.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere for a week.’

  ‘Our trunks are. They’re being picked up first thing tomorrow. Remember?’

  ‘I’ll help you pack later.’

  ‘You pack? Later when? Your brother and his wife are coming for supper. Edward will give us an hour-long lecture if he catches either of us doing anything he regards as “work” on a Sunday.’

  ‘Edward won’t be poking his nose upstairs.’

  ‘I hope not.’ She looked at the piles of clothes that littered every surface. ‘If he does, he’ll think I’m the most appalling housekeeper.’

  ‘So you are.’

  ‘Peter!’

  ‘I didn’t marry you for your housekeeping abilities. I married you because I want to spend the rest of my life looking into your beautiful brown eyes and running my hands though your beautiful long brown hair and stroking your beautiful, smooth, preferably naked skin.’ He lowered her on to the bed, pulled the pin
s from her chignon and climbed up beside her. Catching the heel of his slippers with his toes, he kicked them off and kissed her.

  ‘Your brother,’ she murmured when he allowed her to draw breath.

  ‘Won’t be here for hours. I want to celebrate our eight-month anniversary by making love to you, Mrs Dr Peter Edwards.’ He loosened the knot on his tie.

  She pushed his hands aside and untied it for him ‘What’s “I love you” in Russian?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ He tossed his jacket and tie on top of a pile of shirts.

  ‘We’ll have to learn the language if we have Russian as well as Welsh patients.’

  ‘More like we’ll teach the Russians English.’

  ‘Or Welsh.’

  ‘Given your limited knowledge of my native tongue that isn’t a good idea, sweetheart.’ He slipped the loops from the pearls that fastened her muslin blouse and pulled at the lace on her bust shaper. ‘Why do women wear so many clothes? It’s summer.’

  ‘Dare I suggest protection from their husbands’ sweaty hands?’

  ‘My hands aren’t sweaty.’

  ‘Yet.’ She left the bed, slipped off her blouse, and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. She undressed slowly, deliberately tantalizing him. Her cotton bust shaper and muslin skirt followed. She swished them through the air before dropping them on top of the blouse. Peter undressed swiftly and lay naked on top of the bed.

  ‘Three petticoats?’ He watched her step out of two, only to start on the waist ribbons of a third.

  ‘This muslin is thin. I don’t want to scandalize Edward. His wife wears flannel even in summer.’

  ‘She would.’

  ‘That’s enough! Judith is kind.’

  ‘A man needs more than kindness in a woman to inspire him.’

  She raised an eyebrow at his erection. ‘Some would say you’re inspired enough.’

  ‘Only by you, my sweet.’

  She unlaced her corset but it remained stuck to her skin. She eased it from her body.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t wear stays. Whalebone leaves such ugly marks.’ He left the bed and massaged the angry red weal that encircled her waist.