Pontypridd 01 - Hearts of Gold

by Catrin Collier

  Mr Llewellyn-Jones was the manager of Barclays Bank. His wife, a large florid woman, was a well-known charity worker in the town. Bethan had seen her serving dinner to the paupers in the workhouse dining hall on Christmas Day. Their daughter Anthea was an attractive, pleasant girl in a petite, dark-eyed, dark-haired Welsh sort of way, but Bethan couldn’t suppress the spiteful thought that her attractions had been bolstered since birth by every advantage that money could buy.

  Anthea’s hair was expertly waved, back as well as sides. Her white silk dress was styled and tailored to emphasise the good features of her figure, and conceal those that were not so good. She smiled constantly, had a kind or flattering remark, albeit insincere, for everyone in the room, including Bethan. But no amount of kindness could make Bethan like her. From the moment Anthea Llewellyn-Jones walked into the drawing room she couldn’t help but compare the warmth of the welcome Anthea received with her own lukewarm reception. But more than that, she knew that someone like Anthea, with all the advantages of money, social position and background would, in Dr and Mrs Johns’ eyes, make a far more suitable wife for Andrew than a mere nobody like herself.

  A gong resounded outside the door.

  ‘Dinner, at last,’ Dr John beamed at the gathered assembly.

  They all left the drawing room for the gloom of the oak panelled dining room, furnished with the same type of heavy Victorian furniture as the hall. The enormous rectangular table was covered with a gleaming white cloth, on which nine covers of silverware and porcelain had been laid.

  ‘Mrs Llewellyn-Jones, there on the doctor’s right.’ Andrew’s mother began to arrange her guests with the same care she’d devoted to the table decorations. ‘Mr Llewellyn-Jones, here, next to me.’ She patted the place setting with a coy flirtatious glance at her male guest of honour. ‘Fiona darling, I suppose you’d better sit opposite your husband or youʼll mope. Bethan, perhaps you’d like to sit next to Alec, Andrew next to Miss Llewellyn-Jones.’ She surveyed her handiwork as they took their places. ‘Now isn’t this cosy?’ she beamed.

  Bethan sat rigidly on her high-backed chair. Every time she tried to relax the carvings bit painfully into her spine. Dr John senior said a short grace, hock was poured into one of the four glasses at each place, and a maid Bethan hadn’t seen before handed the hors d’oeuvres.

  Bethan looked for Mair and saw her hovering next to the sideboard; evidently she’d been regulated to a secondary serving position. Bethan turned her attention to the array of cutlery before her, and suffered a moment of blind panic before remembering the etiquette books that Laura had devoured during their first months of training in the hope that she’d be swept off her feet by a millionaire patient.

  “Start from the outside and work your way in” was sound advice, but “Watch others and do as they do” was sounder.

  She slowly unfolded and settled her linen napkin on her lap, using the time to study everyone’s behaviour before copying them, terrified lest she make a mistake, disgrace herself and embarrass Andrew.

  ‘These canapés are delicious, don’t you think?’ Alec said, as he helped himself to more from a glass plate that had been placed in front of them.

  ‘Yes, delicious,’ she echoed inanely, picking at one. She glanced at Andrew, seated further down the other side of the table and deeply engrossed in conversation with

  Miss Llewellyn-Jones. A moment later Anthea’s silvery laughter was joined by Andrew’s deeper, more robust tones.

  ‘What do you think, darling,’ Mrs John called down the table to her husband, ‘Andrew’s agreed to escort Anthea to the golf club garden party.’

  The doctor smiled and carried on talking to Mrs Llewellyn-Jones.

  A suffocating wave of jealousy rose in Bethan’s throat. She choked on a sliver of pastry, turned aside and spat it into her napkin, hoping no one would notice. She needn’t have concerned herself. They noticed, but were also too well-bred to comment.

  The hors-d’oeuvres plates were cleared away by Mair, and thick slices of broiled salmon were handed around with a boat of tartare sauce by the upper maid.

  ‘You always find such good fish, Mrs John,’ Mr Llewellyn Jones complimented. ‘This is a truly magnificent specimen.’

  ‘I chose it myself, and the recipe is one of Mother’s.’

  ‘My wife always superintends the preparation of the fish herself. Won’t trust the cook,’ Dr John laughed.

  ‘Most wise,’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones agreed. ‘You can’t get a good cook these days for love or money. They’re simply not bred to it like they used to be. When I was a girl Mother never had any servant problems and now …’

  The conversation ebbed and flowed while Bethan played with the salmon on her plate, skinning it, picking out the bones, occasionally ferrying a small forkful of the bland, glutinous flesh to her lips.

  ‘I haven’t seen you in town, Miss Powell. Are you from this area?’ Miss Llewellyn-Jones enquired politely in a sweet, clear voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Bethan replied shortly, colouring at the attention.

  ‘It’s strange I haven’t seen you before. But then you really should join the Ladies’ Guild. Absolutely everyone belongs to it,’ she gushed. ‘We meet every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon in one another’s homes and we do such super things. Don’t we,

  Andy?’ she appealed familiarly.

  ‘Bethan hasn’t time to join you frivolous lot,’ Andrew said, gallantly coming to her rescue, ‘She works.’

  ‘How marvellous,’ Anthea beamed. ‘Tell me, what do you do, Miss Powell?’

  ‘I’m a nurse.’ Bethan laid her knife and fork down on her plate, finally giving up on her fish.

  ‘How fascinating. I wish I’d done something as noble as that.’

  ‘You, my darling daughter, would never have stayed the course,’ Mr Llewellyn-Jones said dismissively, as he helped himself to a fistful of salted almonds from a bon-bon side dish. ‘You haven’t the patience to read a cookery book let alone tend to a patient.’

  ‘Mrs John, I appeal to you,’ Anthea pleaded. ‘I’m an excellent worker aren’t I?’

  ‘You most certainly are, my dear,’ Mrs John agreed decisively. ‘Anthea was a pillar of strength when we organised this year’s hospital ball. The committee simply couldn’t have managed without her.’

  Bethan thought of the tedious hours that she and the other nurses had been forced to put in, either before or after their long shifts, making decorations and garlanding the Coronation ballroom. But she said nothing.

  ‘Fiddling with frills and folderols is very different to nursing, even I know that much,’ Mr Llewellyn-Jones said boldly, overriding his wife’s and Mrs John’s objections.

  ‘Daddy!’ Anthea protested strongly. ‘Decorating the hall was anything but fiddling with frills and folderols. We used a lot of skills absolutely vital to nursing. Flower arranging for a start.’

  Bethan thought of the bare rooms and corridors of the Graig Hospital and wondered if Anthea had ever been there and taken a good look around.

  Mair stepped forward and cleared away the remains of the fish course; the first maid replaced the empty hock bottles with bottles of sparkling wine. Bethan hadn’t been slow in drinking the hock, but she managed to finish her first glass of wine before the entree was handed.

  Chaudfroid of pigeon. She’d never eaten pigeon before and felt sick when she realised what the plump, golden carcase on her plate was.

  ‘Have you ever thought of going to London to nurse?’ Alec asked kindly, realising that no one else was making an effort to talk to her.

  ‘No … I haven’t,’ she stammered, trying to hide most of the pigeon under her knife and fork.

  ‘Pay is extremely good, much better than here,’ he said heavily. ‘And the nursing is more interesting. If you decide on one of the larger hospitals like Charing Cross, where I happen to practise, you work with all kinds of specialists and learn to cope with diseases you never even knew existed.’

  ‘Now that’s an offer you
can’t possibly refuse,’ Andrew called down the table, cheering her with the thought that he was paying her some attention after all. ‘Bearing in mind that London’s a filthy place to live.’

  ‘It is not …’ his sister began warmly.

  ‘It’s cleaner than this valley, old boy,’ Alec interrupted, ‘and although I haven’t worked with this little lady I bet she’s a first-class nurse. And we’re jolly short of those. She’d really be appreciated on my wards. You wouldn’t believe some of the dross we’ve had to make up to sister level lately.’

  ‘Oh I would. I’ve only just left the Cross, remember.’

  ‘Stop encouraging him, Andrew, all he ever talks about these days is the lack of trained nurses, and it’s so boring,’ Fiona complained.

  Once again the conversation slipped past Bethan without giving her a real opportunity to join in.

  Mair cleared away the remains of the pigeons and the upper maid set a roast leg of lamb and carving knives before Dr John senior. Dishes containing boiled new potatoes, mint sauce and asparagus au gratin were placed in the centre of the table, and a pile of warm clean plates stacked next to the lamb.

  Bethan had never seen so much food laid before so few people. There were families of twelve and more on the Graig who didn’t consume this quantity, let alone quality, in a week. Dr John cut a choice slice of the lamb for her and she quietly stopped him from cutting more.

  The maid handed down her plate as Andrew made a joke that she didn’t understand, but she joined in the laughter anyway. She helped herself to small portions of asparagus and potatoes from the tureens that the maid handed, and tried to smile at everyone like Anthea Llewellyn-Jones.

  After her awkward beginnings it seemed scarcely possible that things could deteriorate, but as the meal progressed she felt increasingly isolated. Perhaps her father was right? The gulf between the Common and the Graig – Andrew and her – was too wide to bridge.

  She retreated deeper and deeper into her shell of silence, watching Andrew and Anthea, trying desperately to follow every word of their conversation. Studying the expressions on their faces, suffering agonies every time Anthea laughed and looked up at him with her adoring, deep brown eyes. On the few occasions when someone troubled to speak to her she said only what was necessary, as succinctly as manners would allow.

  She ate little and drank a great deal, as the repartee sparkled around the table. There was talk of the theatre. Plays that Alec and Fiona had seen in the West End. Magazines that she had never seen in the shops, let alone read. People she knew only as names in the columns of the Pontypridd Observer.

  By the time all vestiges of the lamb together with the hock and wine glasses had been cleared away and replaced by champagne and the final sweet and savoury courses of gooseberry fool, fresh cream and cheese ramekins, her head was swimming. Realising that she was rapidly becoming what Haydn called “sozzled” she made an effort, and managed to eat most of the gooseberry fool that the maid had heaped into her dessert bowl in the hope that it would sober her up. But before she finished the course her champagne glass had been refilled twice minimising any effects that the fool might have had.

  ‘I do so lo-ove champagne, don’t you?’ Alec whispered in slurred tones that told her his head was in no better condition than hers.

  ‘Right, brandy time I think, my dear, don’t you?’ Andrew’s father stood up and walked a little unsteadily to the sideboard. ‘Any ladies care to join the gentlemen in a spot of Napoleon?’

  ‘I think the ladies would prefer a liqueur with their coffee in the drawing room, darling,’ his wife said as she left the table.

  Bethan looked helplessly at Andrew who merely smiled at her before taking a fat cigar from the silver box that his brother-in-law handed him. She had no option but to follow the back of Anthea Llewellyn-Jones out through the door.

  A steaming silver coffee pot and an array of delicate porcelain cups had been laid out on a small table in front of the sofa in the drawing room. Andrew’s mother began to dispense coffee and sickly sweet cherry brandy liqueurs.

  ‘Nursing must be a fascinating profession,’ Anthea Llewellyn-Jones said to Bethan, making a studied, gracious effort to bring her into the conversation.

  ‘It is,’ Bethan agreed. ‘Particularly the nursing I’m doing now.’

  ‘The new ward and X-ray machine must be an absolute boon to everyone at the Cottage.’

  ‘The Cottage?’ Bethan looked at Anthea in confusion, before registering what she was talking about. ‘I don’t work in the Cottage Hospital.’

  ‘Really? Then where?’ Anthea asked blankly as if the Cottage was the only hospital in Pontypridd.

  ‘The Graig.’

  ‘The Graig.’ Anthea’s mother looked vaguely shocked. ‘I had no idea. There are so many wards there, and some dreadfully pathetic cases.’ She blushed crimson. ‘Particularly in the workhouse section,’ she added as a hasty afterthought.

  ‘I work on the maternity ward.’ Bethan suppressed a smile. She knew why Mrs Llewellyn-Jones had blushed. According to the nurses who worked on the venereal disease wards, a good two thirds of their patients belonged to the crache of the town. ‘I’m training to be a midwife.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ Fiona drawled. ‘Then you’ll actually be delivering babies.’

  ‘I do that now.’

  ‘How wonderful – do tell all about it.’ Anthea sipped delicately at her cherry brandy and sat, waiting expectantly. To be entertained by tales of the coarse working classes, Bethan thought contemptuously. She recalled the cold, bare rooms she worked in; the mothers worn down by inadequate food and poverty. The maternity ward in the Graig was as far removed from this over furnished, gilt edged drawing room as a shanty was from Buckingham Palace. She could no more discuss the blood sweat and toil of the labour ward in these surroundings than her father could have expounded his Marxist theories.

  ‘There’s not much to it,’ she answered, evasively. ‘We’re so short-staffed I not only deliver babies with only a student nurse to call on, I also fill in for the night sister whenever she’s absent.’

  ‘Andrew does speak very highly of your ability,’ Mrs John said gently.

  ‘I do no more than any of the other qualified nurses who work in the infirmary,’ Bethan said quickly, bristling at the patronising tone.

  ‘Well, things have certainly altered since my day,’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones commented. ‘Women had no thought of a career then. Outside of a husband and marriage, that is.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ Mrs John rose unexpectedly to Bethan’s defence. ‘My sisters worked as VAD’s during the war, and I myself would probably have done the same if I hadn’t had the children to look after.’

  ‘Ah, but war times were very different from now.’

  ‘Perhaps not so much for women of my class.’ Bethan finally reached a breaking point that wouldn’t have come without the cocktail, hock, champagne and liqueur. A deathly silence fell over the room for a moment.

  ‘It is good of Andrew to agree to escort me to the golf club garden party, Mrs John,’

  Anthea purred, setting her back to Bethan.

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve had such wonderful times together since you were children. It should be such fun …’

  Bethan felt as though someone were twisting a knife in her gut. She looked up at the open doorway. Andrew was standing framed in it. He winked at her.

  ‘Coffee, darling?’ his mother offered.

  ‘No, thank you, Mother. I’m going to whisk Bethan away if I may. Trevor and Laura are calling into my rooms to discuss their engagement plans. In fact,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘they should have been there as of ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Engaged. How wonderful,’ his mother said despondently with a sideways look at Bethan.

  ‘If you’ll excuse us, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones, Anthea, Fanny.’

  ‘You’ll pick me up half an hour before the party, Andy?’ Anthea asked.

  ‘We may both pick you up if I can persuade B
ethan to come.’

  ‘Lovely to meet all of you.’ Heart soaring at Andrew’s reply, Bethan showed the first signs of animation since she’d entered the house. Smiling at everyone she gathered her handbag and jacket from the arm of her chair. ‘And thank you very much for a lovely dinner, Mrs John. You’ll say goodbye to Dr John for me?’

  ‘Of course, dear.’

  ‘We’ll go out through the French doors so as not to disturb anyone. Bye, ladies.’ Andrew put his hand under Bethan’s elbow and pushed her into the garden. ‘You see,’ he said blithely as they crossed the lawn. ‘Not ogres at all.’

  ‘That,’ she replied, ‘depends entirely on your point of view.’

  A path led round the side of the black and white Tudor styled coach house to a door in the side wall. Andrew pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, and selecting one he fitted it into the lock.

  ‘Are Trevor and Laura really coming?’ She asked as he swung open the door.

  ‘His car’s already here,’ He pointed to a rather battered, shabby vehicle parked close to the gates. ‘He brings Laura here most nights when he’s not on call. They borrow my spare bedroom,’ He grinned at her blushes. ‘You’re not shocked are you? I assumed you knew all about it.’

  ‘Laura did mention something today,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Today!’ He stepped into a small, white-painted brick hallway, switched on a light, pulled her in and closed the door behind them. ‘It’s been going on for months,’ he called back as he ran up the stone stairs two at a time.

  ‘It can’t have been,’ she protested. ‘They only started going out with one another four months ago.’

  ‘Going out?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  He opened a door at the top of the stairs. ‘Come on slowcoach. The hall and stairs are not the best place to linger. They’re basic to say the least, but there didn’t seem much point in doing anything to bare brick. The interesting bit begins here.’ He held open the door for her and she walked straight into a living room. A beautiful room with a polished wood floor that was almost covered by a deep blue and cream Persian carpet.