Spinner's Wharf

by Spinner's Wharf (retail) (epub)

  ‘Wait, I’ll come down to the station with you.’ Billy took a white silk scarf and hung it round his neck, opening the door without another word to Delmai.

  ‘God, there’s sorry I am about all this,’ he said, the harshness in his voice revealing the depths of his feelings. ‘I’m that mad with Delmai I could kill her – have it all out with her I will later. And I’m sick to my gut about Agnes.’ He rested his arm on Rhian’s shoulder. ‘Thank God you were there with her, otherwise she would have died alone.’

  ‘You couldn’t help it, Billy, it wasn’t your fault. You would have come home like a shot if you’d known.’

  Billy looked down at her steadily, his eyes meeting hers.

  ‘Try not to blame Delmai too much,’ he said softly. ‘She is a strange girl, full of uncertainties – not used to our way of life, see?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, Billy,’ Rhian said doubtfully. ‘You know your own business best.’

  He hardly heard her. ‘Duw, I wish I’d gone to see Agnes once in a while, I feel so bad about it all now.’ He sighed. ‘But to be in Sweyn’s Eye would bring back all the unpleasant memories I’ve tried so hard to forget.’

  Rhian deliberately changed the subject. ‘Anyway, you’ve got a lovely little girl. I think Cerianne is the sweetest little baby I’ve ever seen.’ She smiled. ‘I admit I’m biased, mind, being her auntie. Duw, there’s strange the word sounds!’ She pulled a long face and stared at Billy as though over the top of a pair of spectacles. ‘So no cheek from you, my man, I’m a respectable maiden aunt now.’

  Billy took her arm and tucked it through his own. ‘You don’t look like anybody’s maiden aunt, you’re far too beautiful for that.’ His eyes were warm. ‘And I mean it, Rhian, you’ve grown into a lovely young woman.’

  She flushed with pleasure. ‘Well, what’s come over you then, giving me compliments? Grown a silver tongue you have, Billy bach.’

  At the tiny station, Rhian kissed Billy’s cheek. ‘Go on home, make your peace with Delmai. I’ll be all right, I can see myself on to the train.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked and seeing doubts reflected in his eyes, Rhian nodded emphatically. ‘Of course I am. But before you get off home, I’d like you to know I’ve been walking out with Heath Jenkins, so don’t you go worrying your head about me.’

  Billy appeared relieved. ‘Well, that’s good news then, we’ll have one decent marriage in the family at least.’ Rhian hugged his arm to her side. ‘You sound bitter, Billy – you’re not happy, are you?’ She saw him frown and knew the truth in the darkening of his eyes.

  ‘She’s an outsider, like,’ he said at last. ‘However hard Delmai tries, she can’t fit in with the valley folk. They don’t take to her because of her snooty ways and it’s only Mrs Jones who bothers with her at all. And it must be lonely for her while I’m at work.’ He sighed. ‘She’ll leave me one day, I’m sure of it. She’ll take Cerianne and go home to Sweyn’s Eye, perhaps live with her father for all she says he was strict with her.’

  Rhian remained silent, unable to shatter her brother’s few remaining illusions about Delmai. And yet the knowledge that she was trying her best to get her husband to take her back rankled.

  ‘See that poster on the wall there?’ Billy said suddenly. ‘It’s an invitation to enlist in the Army. That’s where I’d go if Delmai left me; I wouldn’t put up with life at the coalface a moment longer if it wasn’t for her.’

  Fear washed over Rhian in waves as she stood on the draughty platform looking up at her brother. She hadn’t found him again just to lose him to the war, had she?

  ‘But Billy, people are saying it will all be over in a few months; Lord Kitchener has got such a big army that the Germans will be easily defeated.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not, but don’t you go worrying your head about it. Look, there’s your train coming and thank God for that. I’m dying for a pint of ale down at the Colliers’ Arms.’

  Rhian watched the steam from the train form patterns against the blue of the sky, she heard the clickety-clack of the wheels, almost felt the rhythm in her pulse and her heart was heavy.

  ‘See you soon, Billy.’ She kissed him hurriedly on the cheek and he smiled down at her cheerfully. ‘Too true, merchi, we’ve hardly talked about you and here I am wallowing in self-pity, there’s a brother to have. But I’ll make up for it, you’ll see!’

  As the train drew slowly out of the station, gradually gaining speed, Rhian sat in a corner staring out at the blackened hills that seemed to glide past the narrow windows. She felt saddened; Billy was far from happy and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Becoming aware of a young soldier seated opposite her, she smiled, sensing his pride in the stiff new uniform and guessing he was no more than sixteen years of age. He saw her look and leaned forward, eager to talk.

  ‘Going to war I am,’ he said proudly. ‘My mum said anything is better than the pit. My dad and my brother got killed in a fall last year, see, put her off coal mining it did.’

  ‘Do you think it will be over soon – the war, I mean?’ she asked and the boy’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm.

  ‘Duw, I hope not. I want to give those Huns a bashing, show them they can’t run roughshod over us Welsh.’

  Rhian was silent, wondering at the way the soldier treated going to war like a game.

  ‘Joined the Sweyn’s Eye battalion, me,’ he said, his young face alight with enthusiasm. ‘Got to do some training first and then I’ll be off to foreign parts. Can’t tell you where, because it’s to be kept a secret.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘To tell the truth, I don’t know where I’ll be posted, but they’ll tell me once I arrive at the barracks.’

  ‘Are you from Carreg Fach?’ Rhian asked and the boy nodded.

  ‘Yes, lived there all my life and my father and grandfather before me. Dai Jones, I am.’ He looked at her expectantly.

  ‘Rhian Gray,’ she said, feeling a hundred years older than the young soldier. ‘Are you related to Mrs Jones who lives in the pit cottages?’

  ‘Duw, course I am. Most everyone in the valley is related in one way or another.’

  Rhian was silent, wondering what the boy and his family made of Billy and Delmai. No doubt the couple stood out like a sore thumb.

  ‘Well, Dai, I wish you all the best of luck in your new career,’ Rhian said and there was a note of finality in her voice that brought the conversation to an end. To underline the point, she settled back in her corner and closed her eyes.

  Suddenly she remembered the other train journey when she had been travelling home from Yorkshire, and the image of Mansel Jack came vividly into her mind. She could picture him as clearly as if he stood before her now – tall and strong, with crisp dark hair that grew in unruly curls on to his collar. He had keen eyes and a sensitive mouth, yet there was a quality of steeliness about him that marked him as a powerful man with a great strength of will.

  His eyes used to grow warm when he looked at her, she mused. But perhaps she had only imagined that look, she told herself sharply. In any case, the sooner she put him out of her mind, the better. And yet the memory of him clung to her and though they had never even touched, she knew that there would never be another man on earth who would move her as did Mansel Jack.

  Chapter Five

  Slowly the town of Sweyn’s Eye was settling into the state of war, the citizens accepting with stoic pride the privations forced upon them. Even with stock running low, shops still opened their doors and were bent on making a living. Harries the Greengrocer self-consciously placed boxes of underripe fruit and sparse garden-grown vegetables on a trestle table outside his door, while Gwyn the Baker doled out the bread fair and square, disdaining favouritism.

  Davey the Boots was better placed, for he had plenty of stock in his dusty back rooms and had he not always said to his wife that the boots and shoes he kept in abundance didn’t eat anything? So it was with a sense of triumph that he continued to hang strings of leather footwe
ar along the outer edges of his coffin-shaped doorway and ignored Mrs Davey’s taunts that he was what the good book would call a wise virgin, filling his lamp with oil so to speak.

  But it was the reopening of Brandon Sutton’s steelworks that caused the biggest stir, for the American had decided not to enlist but to stay at home and make steel for shells that would destroy the Kaiser’s army.

  Mary Sutton sat in the conservatory and the scent of wild roses was fragrant, filling the summer air. ‘I don’t know why you are so unhappy, bach,’ she said softly. Her husband thrust his hands into his pockets, staring down at her, his eyes unreadable.

  ‘I just feel I’m not doing enough,’ he spoke impatiently. ‘My every instinct tells me to get out and fight. It seems I’m the only able-bodied man left in Sweyn’s Eye.’

  ‘Come and sit down by here and don’t talk so soft,’ Mary said gently. ‘There has to be steel and who will produce it if you don’t? And of course there will be other men left at home; you’re making a fuss about nothing, Brandon.’

  He gave her a quick look. ‘You’re a woman – you just don’t understand.’ He took her hand. ‘It’s freedom, that’s what the fight is all about,’ he said reasonably. ‘The Germans have invaded Belgian territory and if we let that pass, how long will it be before they send troops here?’

  Mary was out of her depth and she knew it. She leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder, breathing in the clean scent of him, loving him even more than when they had taken their marriage vows in the tiny chapel on top of the hill.

  Brandon moved away from her and stared out into the garden that stretched away into the distance. ‘At least I can make some sort of financial contribution,’ he said with a tinge of satisfaction in his voice. ‘For the wives of my men who have enlisted, I’ve decided to give an allowance of ten shillings, plus an extra shilling for every child under fourteen.’

  Mary felt a lump rise to her throat. ‘There’s generous of you, cariad.’ She spoke softly, her heart contracting in pain, for she had no child. There would be no continuation of the Sutton family name, for Mary feared that she was barren.

  She looked down at her clasped hands, her thoughts drifting to the problem that worried her like a bad tooth. Perhaps it was time she consulted Dr Thomas. It was true he was growing old now, but he inspired trust in her and she felt he would give her a sympathetic hearing – not like the new young man with his neat clipped moustache and slicked-down hair who had recently come into the practice.

  She had visited him once and Dr Soames had regarded her steadily, listening with attention to what she had to say, and then told her simply that there was in all probability nothing wrong with her except an overeagerness to become a mother.

  ‘But I am past thirty!’ she had protested. ‘If I don’t conceive soon it will be too late.’

  His reply had been brusque. ‘Nonsense, women ten years older than you are giving birth every day. Now go home and try to rest easy. Anxiety itself will make you infertile if you let it.’

  His views were strange and new and Mary felt that they did her no good at all. She did concede that she might be overanxious, for some nights when Brandon came to her bed she thought more of conceiving his child than of enjoying their union. And dimly, she realised her attitude was the wrong one, for she was slowly driving a wedge between herself and her husband.

  ‘I can see you are not with me.’ His voice drew her back to the present. ‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t important. I just said that I’m going back to the foundry and will see you later. By the way, isn’t it about time you opened your store? Most of the shopkeepers are trading again.’

  His words made Mary feel guilty. She had neglected the emporium for some time, leaving a great deal of the administration to Katie Murphy – which wasn’t fair, for the Irish girl had her own life to lead. Mary sighed; sitting here breathing in the scent of the roses was not going to solve anything. She rose to her feet and kissed Brandon’s cheek, walking arm in arm with him to the front of the house. Outside on the dusty driveway stood the gleaming new Austin car in all its splendour.

  ‘Take care driving that thing,’ Mary said, glaring at the shining machine with dislike. ‘I’d much prefer you used the pony and trap, Brandon.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, honey. Everyone has an automobile these days; you worry too much, I’m tired of telling you that.’

  There was a decided edge to Brandon’s voice and Mary stepped back from him, retreating as a snail glides back into its shell.

  ‘See you later, Mary – and think about getting back to work. It’s not good for you to be sitting around doing nothing all day.’

  When the sound of the car’s engine had died away, Mary returned to the house and stood looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair was swept up into a glossy bun at the back of her head and the style was becoming, fining out the slight roundness of her face. She didn’t look like an old woman, she thought ruefully. Her gown was of softest georgette in pastel blue edged with navy and a huge bow decorated the back which otherwise was plain, falling in soft blue folds to her feet.

  She moved restlessly into the drawing room, standing before the window, wondering once more if she should pluck up the courage to visit the old doctor. Yet the thought of facing his wife’s inquisitive eyes was not something she relished. Bryn Thomas was kind enough, but Marion was another matter; she needed only to catch a hint of Mary’s problem and she would be gossiping over the teacups from one end of Sweyn’s Eye to the other.

  But she could not bear to remain in the house alone and so she threw a light silk shawl around her shoulders and made her way slowly down the hill and towards the town.

  A breeze was drifting in from the sea that was lying calm in the basin of the harbour. The water seemed tinged with gold on an azure blue background, reflecting the sun’s rays. Ships rose and fell on the gentle waves as the tide washed into the docks and it seemed that Sweyn’s Eye had come to terms with the sword of war and was a bustling seaport town again.

  In the heart of Sweyn’s Eye, the streets were busy and Mary began to catch the fire of the old excitement. The challenge of running her store returned in full measure. Tomorrow, she decided, she would take up the reins again, for the housewives of the town needed cheap food and clothing more than ever now.

  She paused, her heart beating quickly as she found herself outside the doctors’ surgery. The building was dulled by the grime of years, the façade chipped and blackened with the smoke and cinders from the nearby railway.

  Her heart began to beat faster. Was she here by accident or design, she asked herself. Should she go inside on the off-chance that the old doctor would see her?

  As she stood hesitating, the door opened and to her chagrin Dr Soames stood facing her. She stepped back a pace, but it was obvious that she had intended to ring the brass bell.

  ‘Can I help you, Mrs Sutton?’ Dr Soames spoke civilly enough, so why did she have the feeling that he didn’t like her? She searched her mind for some excuse for her presence on the doorstep, but could find none.

  ‘I was hoping to see Dr Thomas,’ she said breathlessly, ‘and I see you have no time to spare if you’re going out. There’s nothing urgent, so perhaps another day?’ She would have left but his words stopped her.

  ‘Do come in, I can’t afford to turn patients away.’ There was a hint of laughter in his voice and Mary’s embarrassment grew.

  He left her alone for a moment in the surgery that smelled of old leather and wintergreen oil and Mary stared round her curiously, trying not to dwell on the forthcoming interview. High on a shelf were stacks of medical books and in one corner of the room a skeleton was hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Mary shivered. The new doctor didn’t believe in herbs and potions, as did Dr Thomas; indeed it was difficult to understand what he did believe in, for he sold hardly any elixirs or remedies.

  When Dr Soames returned, he was wearing a neat white coat over his dark suit and Mary, glancing up at him, saw that he
really was quite a handsome man.

  ‘Now, tell me what’s wrong with you?’ He leaned across the desk, not touching her and Mary was perplexed; Bryn Thomas always listened to her heart and lungs or took her pulse, establishing a pattern in an orderly manner and setting her at ease.

  ‘Well, that’s what I hoped you would tell me,’ Mary said quickly, wondering why she felt on the defensive. ‘I still haven’t…’ Her words trailed away and he stared at her, his dark eyes revealing amusement.

  ‘You haven’t conceived a child – don’t be afraid of the words, Mrs Sutton; I assure you I won’t be shocked by anything you say. Now, I’ll explain one or two things which might help you.’ He paused, watching her so intently that to her annoyance Mary felt her colour rising.

  ‘There is a pattern you experience each month, in common with most women, and it is at the middle of this cycle that you are at your most fertile. You do understand what I mean don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, I’m not an imbecile!’ Mary found herself retorting quickly. ‘And I’m not a rich pampered woman crying for the moon, as you seem to imagine. I am a wife who has passed her thirtieth birthday and is anxious to give her husband a child – is that so strange?’

  ‘On the contrary it is perfectly natural, but as I tried to explain before, the more worried you are about these things the more difficult you make it for yourself.’ He stood up and moved round the desk, righting a bony hand on the skeleton with a wry smile. ‘Why is it that no one believes a physician when he tells the truth? Would you be happier if I gave you some harmless pills and called them a miracle cure?’ He shook his head. ‘I think you are far too intelligent a woman for that, Mrs Sutton, so I will simply reiterate what I’ve said before: that you must give nature a chance. You have been married just short of two years and that isn’t very long you know.’ He paused, his eyes running over her. ‘And as regards to your age, I shouldn’t give that another thought, for nature is obviously being very kind to you.’