Beggars and Choosers

by Catrin Collier

  I am so sorry to hurt you in the same way that Mansel did.

  Your own Sali

  She folded the paper into the envelope, sealed it, stuck on the stamp, and addressed it to her aunt. She posted it as she walked back to the station. When the ticket office was empty, she bought a third-class, one-way ticket to Tonypandy. All she could think about was her son. And before the end of the day she might be with him, if she could find the house where Mari’s sister worked.

  Sali left the train at the newly built Tonypandy and Trealaw Station and followed her fellow passengers into Dunraven Street. She had never visited Tonypandy and had expected to find a village with a few small shops, not a busy, bustling, small town. Wares from a furniture shop and ironmonger’s spilled out on to the pavement. A haberdasher had hung coats from hooks suspended above his window. The appetising smell of roasting coffee beans vied with the pungent odours of cheese and the acidic tangs of fruit in the entrance to a provision shop as large as anything that Pontypridd had to offer. Hungry, she was tempted to go in and see if they sold bread rolls. As she stepped up to the door she saw a notice in the window.

  Housekeeper wanted. Keep plus fifteen shillings a week. Apply within.

  The paper was yellow from exposure to sunlight. The post might be already filled, but if it wasn’t? The one thing she did know about after running Owen Bull’s house for over three years was housekeeping. She opened the shop door and with the bell clanging overhead walked inside.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’

  The woman who addressed Sali in a lilting Irish brogue could have been anything between thirty and forty-five years of age. Tall, thin, angular, she had green eyes and red hair. No one could have called her beautiful, or even pretty, but she was striking.

  ‘I’d like to apply for the housekeeper’s position, please, if it’s not taken.’

  ‘It’s not taken,’ the woman answered, ‘and even when it is, it’s not for long. Look after things here for me, Dewi.’

  A young boy with a spotty face took her place at the counter and gazed curiously at Sali while the assistant disappeared through a door set in the back wall of the shop. She returned a few minutes later.

  ‘Mrs Rodney will see you now.’ She lifted the counter and opened a half-door set beneath it. ‘If you’d come this way, Miss ...’

  ‘Mrs Jones, Mrs Sali Jones.’ Sali crossed her fingers in her coat pocket in the hope that Mrs Rodney wouldn’t object to employing a housekeeper with a child.

  ‘I’m Annie O’Leary.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss O’Leary.’ Encouraged by the woman’s smile, Sali ventured, ‘What did you mean just now, Miss O’Leary, when you said the job is never taken for long?’

  ‘Mrs Rodney is best placed to answer that.’ She led Sali down a short corridor and opened a door marked ‘Office’. ‘This is the applicant for the position of housekeeper, Mrs Rodney.’ She showed Sali into a large, square room lit by a high window and carpeted with a red and blue Persian rug. A functional desk, fitted with drawers both sides, stood in front of the window. On it were arranged a typewriter, an enamel tray of four ink bottles with blue, black, green and red labels, a pen set with a rack of spare nibs of various sizes, a large blotter, and a wooden rack containing sheets of paper, billheads, pencils, rulers and rubbers. The iron grate was stoked with a blazing fire, the tiled hearth held a set of fire irons and brass coal and wood buckets. A bureau bookcase was shelved with neat rows of ledgers. Two comfortable armchairs and an enormous sofa that could have easily doubled as a bed completed the furniture.

  It was warm and welcoming, as much living room as office. Silver-framed photographs of an elderly couple and a beautiful young girl were arranged either side of a silver carriage clock on the mantelpiece. A landscape of sea fringed by palm trees hung on the wall and Berlin wool-work cushions and colourfully crocheted blankets littered the chairs and sofa.

  A handsome, well-dressed, middle-aged woman, with strong, classically beautiful features and dark eyes, looked up from the desk. ‘Please, sit down.’ She turned her chair to face Sali. If she was shocked by the scars and bruises on Sali’s face she didn’t show it. ‘My assistant tells me that you want to apply for the position of housekeeper.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sali felt positively shabby in her old-fashioned, ill-fitting black suit. Mrs Rodney’s thick, glossy, blueblack hair was swept up in a style she had never seen before, but guessed was highly fashionable. Her bottlegreen, fine wool dress was close-fitting, the neck, sleeves and hem trimmed with froths of hand-worked ecru lace. Even her jewellery was understated and elegant. Her ears were pierced by small gold hoops and a dark blue cameo was pinned into the lace at her throat.

  Sali breathed in Mrs Rodney’s exotic, floral perfume and dropped her valise next to her chair. She realised that she’d look even shabbier if she removed the hat she had put on when she had left the train and revealed her cropped hair. ‘I am a hard worker,’ she began eagerly, too eagerly, she realised when she saw the expression on Mrs Rodney’s face harden.

  ‘I am not the one looking for a housekeeper, Miss –’

  ‘Mrs ... Mrs Sali Jones,’ Sali removed her gloves and offered her calloused right hand deliberately exposing the wedding ring she had been given by the pawnbroker on her left.

  ‘You are married?’

  ‘Widowed.’ Sali’s conscience pricked as one lie followed another.

  ‘You appear to have been in an accident.’

  ‘I was knocked down by a cart in Cardiff. I was in the infirmary for so long I lost my home.’ That at least wasn’t a complete lie.

  ‘When did you leave the infirmary?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Cardiff Infirmary?’

  Sali hesitated for the barest fraction of a second before answering, ‘Yes.’

  Mrs Rodney sat back in her chair and pressed the top of her pen thoughtfully to her lips. ‘Mrs Jones, the position is housekeeper to four miners. It will be hard work –’

  ‘I am not afraid of hard work.’

  ‘But you are not in the best of health.’

  ‘I soon will be,’ Sali crossed her fingers again. She had to get this job. She had to.

  ‘Have you a character?’

  Sali’s face fell. She had no references and in her present position she could hardly ask anyone for them, not without revealing her whereabouts. ‘No, but I studied for two and half years at Swansea Training College.’

  ‘You didn’t complete your training?’

  ‘My father died and I was needed at home. Shortly afterwards I married.’

  ‘You are not needed at home any longer?’

  ‘There is no one left to need me.’

  ‘You look like a decent woman, Mrs Jones, but without a character it would be remiss of me to employ you on behalf of my relatives. With all due respect, you could have come from anywhere. Even prison.’ Mrs Rodney turned her chair back to her desk.

  ‘I give you my solemn word that I have done nothing ...’ Sali almost said ‘wrong’, then substituted, ‘illegal’, at the last moment.

  ‘But all you can give me is your word that you are a respectable woman. I am afraid that is not enough, Mrs Jones.’

  ‘I need to build a life for myself, Mrs Rodney. If you give me a chance, I will work without pay for two weeks. If, at the end of that time your relatives do not want me, I will leave.’

  Mrs Rodney turned back to Sali. ‘You are so desperate that you will work for nothing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sali answered in a small voice.

  ‘I will write to the Training College.’

  ‘If you do, could you please ask them not to let anyone know where I am?’ Sali sensed she’d ruined what little chance she had of getting the position as soon as she’d voiced her request.

  ‘Has anything you’ve told me been the truth, Mrs Jones?’ Mrs Rodney enquired caustically.

  ‘My maiden name was Jones. My husband isn’t dead. But I do desperately need to find work.’r />
  ‘Your husband won’t support you?’ When Sali didn’t answer, Mrs Rodney said, ‘He put you in the infirmary.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Sick to the pit of her stomach, Sali whispered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are not from Tonypandy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does anyone know where you are?’

  ‘No. I posted a letter to the one relative I have who does care for me, from Cardiff. I hope that if she does look for me, she’ll look there. Please, I really need ...’

  Mrs Rodney left her seat and reached for a dark blue cape that hung on a hook at the back of the door. ‘I will be honest with you, Mrs Jones, you may not suit but I am inclined to give you a week’s trial.’

  ‘You’ll give me the job?’ Sali stared incredulously at the woman.

  ‘Please listen attentively. I am inclined to give you a trial for one week, a paid trial,’ she added so there would not be any mistake. ‘However, it will not be me, but Mr William Evans who will be your employer and he will have no compunction in asking you to pack your bags if you don’t suit him. I take it from the valise that you are able to start right away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Follow me. I’ll show you the house.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sali walked behind Mrs Rodney up Dunraven Street. At the end of the street they turned left up a steep hill. After a few minutes they turned left again into a narrow street of eleven houses, six one side, five the other. Mrs Rodney stopped at the door of a house that bordered an open patch of mountainside. A large key protruded from the lock; she turned it and stepped inside.

  ‘Mr Evans and his three sons work the day shift in the colliery. Six until two.’ She glanced at her bracelet watch. ‘They will be in at half past two, you have four hours, so perhaps you could start by cooking their dinner. Like most men, none of them have the faintest idea how to prepare food and the meals in the public house aren’t exactly what you’d call good home cooking. Leave your bag there,’ she pointed to a spot at the foot of the stairs, ‘and I’ll show you around.’

  Mrs Rodney opened a door on their left. ‘This was the parlour.’ Sali looked in and saw a brass-framed double bed, chest of drawers, washstand and chaise longue. A thick layer of dust greyed the slate mantelpiece and dulled the bright colours of a pair of Staffordshire china dogs. ‘Mr Evans’s wife died of cancer six weeks ago. He can’t bring himself to return to the bedroom upstairs and, as this is the room she died in, he has been sleeping here since. He is a broken man, Mrs Jones, although you wouldn’t think it to look at him. Grief has made him short-tempered and difficult to live with. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This middle room now contains the parlour furniture.’ Sali saw an even dustier room crammed with a horsehair sofa, two high-backed chairs and a full-sized dining table, sideboard and six upright chairs. Bookshelves lined the walls, every shelf filled to capacity with the overflow piled on top of the cases. The mantelpiece and sideboard held good quality china and porcelain ornaments. Photographs covered the walls, mostly of young boys and men, although there were a few of a beautiful young woman who closely resembled Mrs Rodney. A copy of Bellini’s Madonna of the Meadow hung over the fireplace. When Mrs Rodney saw Sali looking at it, she explained, ‘The late Mrs Evans was my father’s sister and like him born a Spaniard. We are Catholic. Is that going to be a problem for you?’

  Sali shook her head. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘I was chapel, but I haven’t been to a service in over three years.’

  ‘Then you may fit in here after all,’ Mrs Rodney said wryly. ‘The sixth housekeeper I engaged for my uncle left ten days ago. She only lasted two days and point blank refused to work for heathens a moment longer. When I said we were Catholic, Mrs Jones, I may have given you the wrong impression. Mr Evans’s two younger sons are Catholic. Mr Evans and his eldest son are Marxists and atheists. Do you object to Marxists or atheists, Mrs Jones?’

  ‘No. My father was interested in Marxism,’ Sali replied cautiously. Her father had read Marx, but as an ardent Capitalist, only for the purpose of finding flaws in his arguments.

  ‘Another right answer, Mrs Jones. As long as your idea of Marxism coincides with my uncle’s. This,’ she opened a door directly in front of them, ‘is the upstairs kitchen. There are two,’ she clarified in response to Sali’s bemused expression. ‘One in the basement and one here. Both have ranges. The one in the basement is larger and used for washing clothes and bathing.’

  ‘A pump and sink,’ Sali went to a large Belfast sink set below a window that looked out over the town to the valley, the collieries and the mountain beyond.

  ‘There is a tap in the basement as well.’

  ‘What is this?’ Sali indicated a wide copper pipe topped with a funnel that rose from the floor to waist height in the corner next to the range.

  ‘One of Victor’s inventions. He is the colliery blacksmith and the most practical of my three cousins. He was constantly searching for ways to lessen his mother’s workload. The pipe leads directly down into the basement. Before they came home from the colliery, my aunt would heat water for their baths on the range here and downstairs in the basement. Unlike most families, my uncle and his sons don’t share a bath, and given their combined coal ration they don’t have to, which is why they keep the two ranges going every day except Sunday. My aunt would drag one of the baths below the pipe, pour the water down it and fill the bath. It saved carrying buckets of boiling water up and downstairs.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful,’ Sali smiled.

  ‘You’ve obviously carried water.’ She turned to the dresser, which was fronted by wooden doors a shade lighter than the frame, opened a door and revealed shelves of blue Delphware. ‘My aunt liked good china and used it every day. Victor made the doors and put them on last winter to save her from dusting the shelves. Cutlery,’ she indicated a drawer in the table, ‘cooking utensils and saucepans in the cupboard next to the range. And here is the larder,’ She opened a door and walked into a long, narrow room that held marble slabs for cheese, butter, eggs, lard and milk. A wooden rack was filled with potatoes and a meat safe, set on a shelf apart, held a large piece of beef.

  ‘I intended to put that in the oven earlier but forgot. Cook it any way you want. I have been sending up one of the assistants from the shop at two o’clock to start the meal and set water on to boil for the baths. You’ll need to boil eight buckets and put two buckets of boiling water in each. The men will put in their own cold when they are ready. My uncle has an account in the shop and since my aunt’s death I have been sending the errand boy up every day with bread and whatever meat I’ve chosen. But from tomorrow you can take over . You can either bring your order to the shop or send it down with the boy. He will deliver it. As you see, my aunt was meticulous.’ Mrs Rodney pointed to enamelware bins of various sizes, marked flour, sugar, rice, oatmeal, tea and coffee. ‘The biscuit and cake tins are all empty,’ Mrs Rodney said, as Sali lifted the lid of one.

  ‘This pantry is well stocked,’ Sali commented. Owen would have expected the store in the larder to have kept the four of them in Mill Street for a month.

  ‘Never sit on either of my aunt’s chairs.’ Mrs Rodney pointed to the easy chair set to the left of the hearth, and the chair at the end of the table closest to the range. ‘Housekeeper number two was sacked for that. Also, you may clean my uncle’s bedroom but you may not touch any of my aunt’s things except to dust them. Housekeeper number one went when he caught her trying on one of my aunt’s shawls.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning.’

  ‘That,’ she pointed to a door set in the back right-hand corner of the kitchen, ‘leads to the stairs to the basement. These,’ she opened the cupboards built in either side of the range, ‘hold more books. This house is overrun with them. There are four bedrooms.’ She returned to the front of the house, walked up the stairs ahead of Sali and opened the doo
r that faced them on the landing. ‘This was my uncle and aunt’s room.’ A brass bedstead had been dismantled and leaned together with a blanket-shrouded mattress against the wall. The wardrobe door was closed, but Sali detected the scent of rose water in the air. The dressing table held tortoiseshell backed hairbrushes and mirrors and a carved jewellery box. The washstand was furnished with a Royal Doulton toiletware set.

  Mrs Rodney opened yet another cupboard. ‘This is the household linen. Given the number of housekeepers who have been in and out of here, and the short duration of their stays, I think you will find all the beds need changing. ‘And this is your bedroom. For as long as you last,’ she added deprecatingly.

  It was a box room, no more than five by six feet, but it held a single, iron-framed bedstead, the mattress folded double on top of iron springs, and a travelling washstand, with a tin jug set below a tin washbasin, and a chamber pot, discreetly hidden in a box at the base.

  ‘There’s a chest of drawers and hooks and hangers on the back of the door.’

  ‘It will be fine,’ Sali said earnestly.

  ‘Really, Mrs Jones?’ Mrs Rodney answered sceptically. ‘Well, you are not easily daunted; I’ll give you that. The ty bach, coalhouse and vegetable garden are out the back; the easiest way to get to them is through the basement. You’ll find a wash tub, mangle and dolly there.’

  Sali sensed a hesitation and realised Mrs Rodney was loathe to leave a stranger in charge of a fully and comfortably furnished house.

  ‘If you are worried about leaving me on my own, Mrs Rodney, I could pay you a five pound-bond,’ she offered, holding the rest of her money back for her son, when she found him.

  ‘Five pounds! But you said you were desperate.’

  ‘I am. I pawned the only thing I owned of any value to get here and I intend to redeem it.’ Sali pulled off her glove and began to count off five pounds.

  ‘None of the other housekeepers paid a bond,’ Mrs Rodney said doubtfully.

  ‘But they all had references.’