by Iris Gower
‘And serve you right,’ Eline said. ‘You are far too charming for your own good.’
It was later, when Eline was leaving the gallery, that she came face to face with Nina Parks. Eline smiled in greeting; old scores were long forgotten. Or at least she’d thought they were, but Nina was looking at her with hostility in every line of her face.
‘What’s wrong?’ Eline said quickly.
Nina moved closer, keeping her voice low. ‘You don’t know that you are coming between my daughter and the man she loves?’ she asked.
Eline stepped back as though she’d been slapped. ‘I know they . . . went together once,’ she said hesitantly, ‘and I’m sorry for Gwyneth, I am; but there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?’
‘You can keep out of his life,’ Nina said, ‘give my girl a chance. She loves him; and, with you out of the way, he’d love her too, especially when he knows.’
Eline’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper, and suddenly Nina’s hostility vanished.
‘You poor, foolish girl,’ she said. ‘He’s deceived you just as he’s deceived my Gwyneth.’
Eline took her arm and drew her away from the gallery. ‘Tell me, Nina,’ she said humbly, ‘tell me, what it is you are trying to say?’
‘It wasn’t only the once that Will Davies slept with Gwyneth,’ Nina said. ‘Oh, damn these men!’
‘How can I believe you?’ Eline felt as though the ground was moving beneath her feet, that a gaping chasm was opening before her.
‘My girl is expecting Will Davies’s child,’ Nina said baldly. ‘Sorry, but there’s no other way of saying it.’
‘No!’ Eline said, the word dragged from dry lips. ‘I don’t believe you, it can’t be true.’
‘It’s true, all right,’ Nina said, ‘and what’s more, Gwyneth came up to that awful place where you and him were working. Going to tell him she was, then she saw you together in some posh tearooms.’
Nina’s face softened. ‘I’m sorry for you, girl, just as my Gwyneth was sorry for you. She saw how Will loved you, and how besotted you were with him, and she just came away without saying anything about the baby – going to face it all alone, she was, and I can’t allow that.’
Eline felt physically ill. She felt as though she was going to faint, and she put her hand on the wall to steady herself.
‘Come in by here with me,’ Nina was saying. ‘You need a cup of sweet tea; it’ll make you feel better.’
‘No, I’m all right,’ Eline protested. ‘I don’t need a cup of tea, I just want . . .’ What did she want? She wanted Nina to vanish, for her words to be unspoken; she wanted it to be yesterday, when she was with Will, happy in the belief that he loved her.
Nina drew her the few yards along the road to her house, and then Eline was seated in the kitchen, the familiar kitchen where once she had lived in matrimony with Joe Harries, the house that now belonged to Nina Parks, Joe’s mistress.
‘Why do you Parks women always want to wreck my life?’ Eline asked as Nina made the tea, swirling the water round the brown china pot.
‘I don’t know what the answer to that one is,’ Nina said, ‘but whoever is to blame, our paths keep crossing, that’s for sure, and it never brings any good, I’ll say that.’
She handed Eline the tea, laced with honey, and then poured herself a cup of the fragrant weak brew.
Eline looked round the kitchen. Little had changed; the same curtains hung at the windows and the same china stood on the dresser against the wall. She had left all this behind, moved on, made a new life for herself. But it was all emptiness, and Eline wished she had stayed on Honey’s Farm and never come to Oystermouth in the first place.
There was the sound of footsteps overhead, and with a sense of dread, Eline realized that Gwyneth was at home. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, but then Gwyneth was in the kitchen. If Eline had doubted the truth of Nina’s words, there were no doubts now: Gwyneth was pale and drawn, and there were lines of fatigue around her eyes. Gwyneth was with child all right.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said to Eline, and then without waiting for a reply turned to her mother. ‘Give us a cup of tea, Mam.’
Gwyneth sank down at the table, her elbows on the scrubbed surface, supporting her chin. She seemed to be sapped of all her fight, all her spirit. Strangely, Eline felt sorry for her.
‘You’ve told her, then, Mam?’ Gwyneth said. ‘There was no need. I’ve decided to go to Mrs Kenny.’
‘No!’ The word exploded from Nina’s lips. ‘I’ll have no murdering of innocent babies under my roof.’
‘What else can I do?’ Gwyneth said, and the hopelessness in her voice cut into Eline like a knife.
‘Tell him,’ Eline said softly. ‘You must talk to Will; your mother’s right.’
Eline had heard of Mrs Kenny, and it horrified her to think what a desperate way out of her problem Gwyneth was considering.
‘Let Will face up to his responsibilities. It’s the least he can do.’ She heard the bitterness in her own voice, but she couldn’t hide it.
Eline swallowed hard. She couldn’t yet come to terms with the shock of the situation. Gwyneth Parks, expecting Will’s child – it just wasn’t bearable.
She rose to her feet, and it was as though she was someone else, as though she was an outsider looking in on a tragedy happening to other people.
‘He’ll be coming to Swansea tomorrow to see Mrs Grenfell.’ She heard her own voice as though from far away. ‘Let him know about the . . . the baby.’
Gwyneth looked at her with a dawning of hope in her eyes. ‘But I thought you and him – I thought . . .’
‘We are nothing to each other,’ Eline said, ‘though I did think that at least we were friends. It seems even in that I was wrong.’
She moved to the door as though in a dream, and she didn’t hear Nina’s voice calling anxiously behind her. She left the house and walked across the road to where the bay curved inwards. A gentle sea was running, and Eline thought distractedly that it would have been more appropriate if there had been a storm, with thunder and lightning and huge waves crashing against the rocks.
She put up her hand and yanked the fragile chain from around her neck. It broke in two pieces, as weak as the promises Will had made her, thought Eline numbly.
She looked at the ring for a long moment. ‘Pearls for tears,’ she said softly, and then she raised her arm and threw the ring as far into the water as she could. It disappeared into the waves, scarcely rippling the surface.
It was an ending, Eline thought, an ending of all her hopes and all her dreams. She felt lost, like a child without its parents for the first time. She was filled with doubts and uncertainties about her ability to go on. She stared at the sea longingly; it would be good to surrender to the pain within her and sink beneath the waters into dark oblivion.
She turned and, almost stumblingly, made her way back to the gallery. Calvin was talking to a customer, but when he saw her face, he quietly and courteously ushered the man out and closed the door, putting the bolt into place.
Without speaking, he took her in his arms, and gratefully she was wrapping her arms around him. It felt strange; he was not Will, it was not Will’s heart beating against her cheek, but at least it was a loving heart, an honest heart. Eline looked up at him.
‘Calvin, did you mean it when you said you wanted me as your wife?’
‘I meant it,’ he said tenderly. ‘And I don’t know what devils have driven you into my arms, but I swear I’ll look after you. I’ll be worthy of you, and most of all I’ll love you until the day I die.’
Eline sighed heavily and closed her eyes; she was so tired, so drained of emotion, and Calvin’s arms were a haven.
‘You know I don’t love you,’ she said softly. ‘I’m not sure I know what love is any more, but I do think you are wonderful and, what’s more important, I trust you.’
‘I’ll settle for that, at
the moment,’ Calvin said. ‘Love will come; and until it does, I have enough love for both of us.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Fetch me my dinner, girl, and hurry up about it.’ Bob Smale’s voice held a harsh, imperious note, and his words were more than a little slurred.
‘And if there are any more strangers trespassing on our land, let me know at once, do you hear?’
Arian Smale moved quickly to the kitchen and served up her father’s meal of boiled potatoes and rabbit stew, trying to control the trembling of her hands. Her bruised face ached, and she knew that she would have a black eye by morning.
She sighed heavily. Her father didn’t set out to be cruel. Most times he was reasonable and treated her well enough. It was when the drink was in him and the dark shadows of the past came down on him that he lashed out in a frenzy at whoever stood in his way.
For some years the Cambrian newspaper had kept her father occupied; he had spent most of the time in town, living with his mistress. But once that affair had ended, Bob Smale had turned to the drink again. Now it seemed he was set on becoming involved with the land once more, and Arian sighed wearily. When her father talked about being involved, he usually meant he was obsessed with something.
Uncle Mike only helped encourage Bob Smale’s fantasy of being a rich land developer. Mike was there, egging him on; Mike must have been born under an evil cloud, he liked to hurt and wound. He did not hit out, as her father did, in frustration and anger; he was coldly calculating.
Arian had once seen him stare down at a rabbit in a trap, a gloating look in his narrowed eyes. She shuddered. It was wicked to hate anyone, but Uncle Mike made it difficult for her to feel anything but hatred and fear of him.
She took her father his dinner and set it before him. His eyes were clearer now; the drink was wearing off, and it would be late evening before he started on the bottle again. She let out a small sigh of relief.
He caught her arm and looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry, cariad,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to lose my temper, but you know how I feel about the land.’
She knew all right, for didn’t her father go on about it all the time since the idea of making a fast profit had been put into his head? She rested her hand on his shoulder.
‘It’s all right, Dad, I understand.’ And she did. Her grandparents had been well-to-do people; they had farmed wisely, selling off parts of the estate at just the right moment. They had left their eldest son an inheritance to be proud of, an inheritance Bob Smale had slowly frittered away on madcap schemes.
‘We had servants once, girl.’ It was as though her father had picked up on her thoughts, and, with a sigh of resignation, barely suppressed, Arian seated herself opposite him and waited for the inevitable diatribe to begin. He would play her the same old tune of how he could have been a rich man except for the vagaries of wicked fortune. But at least now her father was bordering on being sober; he would not strike out blindly as he sometimes did at anyone near him.
He waved his hand around the large dining-room, which had grown shabby now, the paint peeling from the wall, the wood of the windows rotting with lack of attention.
‘Wealthy, we were, respected round here, gentleman farmers, until that Irish itinerant O’Conner came here and set himself against me. Could have had that piece of land between the farms right here’ – he curled his big fingers – ‘right here in the palm of my hand. Trying to buy up all the land in sight, that bastard is, and it belongs to me.’
Though it was true that Jamie O’Conner had bought Honey’s Farm some time ago and now the piece of land adjoining it, it was hardly fair to say he was buying up all the land in sight. Arian looked at her father; it was useless to try to reason with him.
‘That upstart O’Conner raised his hand to me, and that I will not put up with from any man. Come from Irish tinker stock, him; why doesn’t he go back to the bogs where the man belongs?’
Arian felt pity for her father war with her impatience; he was so abusive, and to a man he hardly knew. In any case, her father had doubtless been given far more privileges than ever Jamie O’Conner had; he’d had a good education, his family had been respected members of the community. He still owned a good parcel of fertile land and a house that could with a little effort be restored to its former grandeur. Bob Smale would have had a brilliant future if it hadn’t been for the drink.
‘Haven’t you done enough to him now, Dad?’ she asked, her voice light and breathless; she didn’t think he’d be angry with her now that he was a little more sober, but you never knew, not with her father.
‘I won’t have done enough until I’ve driven him out of Swansea altogether,’ Bob said dourly. ‘I hate the man’s guts, don’t you realize that, girl?’
He paused to eat some of his dinner, then he looked up at his daughter again. ‘If there’s a road going through this land, the profits from it should be mine by right; we should be rich again, girl, the Smale family should be lords of the manor once again and that trash driven out from here.’
‘But his wife looks sweet enough,’ Arian said, in an effort to calm her father. ‘She’s very young, not much older than me.’
‘From peasant stock,’ Bob said flatly, ‘but pretty enough, I’ll grant you.’ A strange look came into his eyes. ‘She will be part of my revenge.’
Arian felt suddenly sorry for the young woman who had come to the perimeter of the Smale land, a determined look on her face and a gun clutched in her hand. She dreaded to think what fate her father had in store for Mrs O’Conner.
Arian thought too of the man who had been in company with Mrs O’Conner, a young, tall, handsome man. She had read the interest in his eyes, but she had turned away from it. Her place was with her father; he needed her, he would always need her, otherwise the drink would take him over completely.
She looked at him now, a man in his prime, some would say; his hair was still dark and waving, his eyes, when he was not filled with drink, were blue and clear. But there were heavy pouches beneath them and deep creases from nose to mouth. He had thrown away his youth, and it was so sad.
‘You are a good girl, Arian.’ Her father smiled and touched her silver hair. ‘Arian. You were given the Welsh name for silver, did you know that, girl?’
He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Your mother was a lovely, fine woman. She gave birth to you in the moonlight, and when she looked down on you, lying there in her arms, she saw that your hair was silver like the moon.’
Arian almost flinched away from his touch. She was more used to abuse from her father rather than affection.
‘Bring me some brandy, girl.’ Bob Smale’s mood switched abruptly. He pushed away his empty plate with some irritation. ‘I’ve got a thirst on me that even the sea wouldn’t quench.’
Arian’s heart sank. ‘But, Dad . . .’ She got no further. He banged his fist on the table.
‘No buts, I want a drink and I’ll have one!’ His anger subsided, and he half-smiled. ‘I need it, girl; it takes away the ghosts.’
Arian left the room without further comment. She would bring him his drink and then she would quietly slip out into the fields. When her father was in this awful mood of self-pity, there was no reasoning with him.
Arian touched the tender skin around her eye and it felt puffy beneath her fingers. She didn’t want another black eye, she decided wryly.
Eddie saw her before she saw him. Her hair looked silver in the moonlight, lifting away from her face as she walked. The slimness of her body was accentuated by the soft swell of her breasts. She leant against a tree, her head back, her eyes closed, and Eddie caught his breath, feeling as though he was intruding on a private moment. He moved slightly; a twig snapped beneath his feet, and she must have heard the sound, because suddenly she was alert, looking round her like a startled fawn.
‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ Eddie called softly. ‘I didn’t mean to trespass.’
He came out into the open, half-expecting her to run away; b
ut she stood her ground, her small chin defiantly lifted.
‘Trespassing again?’ she asked, and when Eddie heard the note of something like sadness in her voice, a feeling of pain dragged at him. He wanted to sweep her into his arms, to hold her against him to protect her.
‘I wanted to see you,’ he said simply. Even in the moonlight, he could see the look of surprise on her face.
‘Why?’ she asked, folding her hands across her body as if for protection, though he still kept his distance from her.
‘I find you attractive,’ he said, half-amused. ‘Is that so strange?’
‘You are not a farmer,’ she said, and it was a statement. ‘What are you doing here up on the hill, meddling in what doesn’t concern you?’
‘I work for Jamie O’Conner,’ Eddie replied, ‘and I don’t consider that trying to find out why one man wishes to ruin another is meddling.’
She began to walk away. ‘You and I have nothing to talk about, then,’ she said.
On an impulse, Eddie reached out and caught her hand. ‘Please, I want to know more about you; I can’t get you out of my mind. Give friendship a chance, can’t you?’
‘Look . . . ?’ She hesitated, and he stared down at her, seeing with concern the bruising to her face. He resisted the urge to take her into his arms, knowing he must tread carefully; he must do nothing to startle her into flight.
‘Edward is the name,’ he said softly, ‘though most people call me Eddie.’
‘Look, Edward,’ she said, ‘there’s no future in any friendship between us, my father wouldn’t allow it.’
‘Your father needn’t know,’ Eddie said. ‘I realize he has some grudge against Jamie, but that has nothing to do with you and me.’
‘While you work for Jamie O’Conner and take his side, it has everything to do with you and me.’ She shook his hand away. ‘Just go, Eddie, before you get hurt.’
He touched her eye lightly. ‘As you’ve been hurt?’ he asked, feeling his gut contract with anger at the barbarian who could put his hand on such a delicate creature.