She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
‘You’ve soaked my waistcoat, little miss. I think you bathed yourself as well as Will,’ he complained.
‘I’ll change her. Come to Auntie Bella, Ruthie.’
‘And I’ll take these soggy clothes down to Mari to wash.’ Edyth took the frock and vest Bella peeled off Ruth.
‘She’s only had them on five minutes.’ Mary rubbed a stain on the front of the bodice, smearing it. She sniffed it. ‘Chocolate?’ She looked from Harry to Ruth. ‘And who gave you chocolate?’
Ruth huddled close to Bella, stuck her thumb in her mouth and muttered, Can’t ’member.’
‘Can’t ’member indeed,’ Mary smiled. ‘It was Daddy, wasn’t it?’
Ruth giggled.
‘I’m innocent,’ Harry protested. ‘Try Glyn.’
‘Off with you.’ Mary pushed him to the door. ‘You’re cluttering up the place.’
‘See you at lunchtime, darling.’ Harry wrapped his arms around Mary, lifted her off her feet and kissed her long and lovingly.
‘What a sight, and before lunch, too,’ Bella teased.
‘Retaliation for the displays you and Toby subject us to. Mary and I may have been married for four years but we’re not past it – yet.’
Bella set Ruth on the bed. ‘Two minutes and I’ll be back with a clean frock, poppet.’
‘Pink one?’ Ruth asked hopefully.
‘If there’s one clean.’
Mary saw Harry to the door. Edyth waited with Ruth and Will until Mary returned, then she went out on the landing. Bella hadn’t got as far as Maggie’s room where Ruth’s cot had been placed the day Will had been born. She was standing in the doorway on tip-toe, her arms wrapped around Toby’s neck, her lips glued to his.
Edyth tried to creep past but Toby saw her. He lifted an eyebrow but made no attempt to release Bella, although he did stop kissing her.
‘Sorry, we’re behaving as if Bella and I are the honeymooners, not you and Peter, Edyth. Just so you know, we’re not trying to steal your thunder.’
‘You’re not,’ Edyth muttered in embarrassment.
‘You’ll be back for Edyth and Peter’s goodbye lunch?’ Bella asked Toby.
‘I will, Bopsy. But much as I’d like to stay and keep you company this morning, I have to go and work on the portrait of Mr Moore’s dog.’
Bella frowned. ‘I thought you were painting his granddaughter.’
‘I am,’ he grinned.
‘Just be careful someone other than Edyth doesn’t hear you calling her that. If they do, it might be the last commission you get from the Moores.’ The goodbye kiss she gave him escalated into another full embrace.
Edyth ran down the stairs and saw her father at the front door showing out Huw Davies.
‘Hello, Uncle Huw. I didn’t know you were here.’
‘And hello and goodbye, Edyth.’ He shook Lloyd’s hand. ‘You’ll remember what I said, Lloyd. There’s no truth in the rumour.’
‘I’ll remember, Huw.’
‘What rumour?’ Edyth asked her father as they watched Huw walk down the drive.
‘That his superiors told him he’d never be promoted for sticking to his story that David jumped into the river after a dog.’ He closed the door.
‘It’s not true?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid it is, my sweet,’ Lloyd said thoughtfully. ‘Huw Davies has sacrificed a great deal for this family.’
‘For his principles.’ Sali came out of the sitting room and took Lloyd’s arm. ‘Ruth’s clothes?’ she asked Edyth, looking at the bundle in her hand.
‘She helped Harry and Mary bath Will. I’m taking them to Mari.’ Edyth glanced back down the passage when she reached the kitchen door. Her father’s arms were locked around her mother’s waist and they were kissing just the way Bella and Toby had been.
Wondering if every man in the world was a romantic except for her husband, she flung the kitchen door open only to hit Peter, who was coming out, on the nose.
He grimaced in pain and wiped his nose with his handkerchief to check it wasn’t bleeding. ‘Is there a fire, Edyth?’
Edyth! He never called her anything except Edyth – not ‘sweetheart’ as her father did her mother, or ‘darling’ as Harry usually addressed Mary, or ‘Bopsy’ as Toby had nicknamed Bella – not that she would have particularly wanted to be called Bopsy, which reminded her of the dolls she and Belle had christened.
‘No, there isn’t. Sorry, I didn’t know you were behind the door.’ Feeling her temper rising for no good reason, she handed Ruth’s clothes to Mari. ‘Ruth helped to bath Will.’
‘So I see.’ Mari shook out the frock. ‘And she managed to spread that chocolate Harry gave her all over herself.’
‘Harry blamed Glyn.’
‘He gave it to both of them.’ Mari ran a sink full of cold water and plunged the clothes in it. ‘The parents make more work than the children in this house,’ she grumbled good-naturedly.
Peter held up a tin. ‘I’m taking one of the fruit cakes you made yesterday down to Reverend and Mrs Price.’
‘Good idea. A goodbye present and a thank you for their dinner last night, all in one.’ Edyth hadn’t eaten much of the dinner but Peter had out of politeness, and suffered for it afterwards with a severe case of indigestion.
He pecked her cheek. ‘See you at lunch, Edyth. I’ve finished my packing and locked my case.’
‘Wonders will never cease; a man who can fold his own shirts,’ Mari mused.
‘I’ve been a bachelor for so long, Mari, it’s nice to have a woman fussing over me.’ Peter winked at the elderly housekeeper, and Edyth felt suddenly, unaccountably, and ludicrously jealous. ‘You’ll remember to finish your packing, Edyth?’
‘I will, and I’ll be ready to catch the two-thirty train, Peter.’
‘Good, see you at lunch.’ He opened the door warily and walked down the passage.
‘You and Belle up in Mary’s room?’ Mari asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll bring up tea and some of my spice biscuits.’
‘That would be nice.’
‘What would be nice, Edie?’ Sali walked in.
‘Elevenses in Mary’s room,’ Edyth explained.
Sali slipped her arm around Edyth’s waist. ‘I was just saying to your father that I’m going to miss you girls when you go to Cardiff and Mary and Harry go back to the farm.’
‘Surely Harry and Mary won’t be leaving for a while? Will is only just a week old and David’s in hospital.’
‘Harry said they’ll stay for at least another week but it will soon pass. Lunch under control, Mari, as if I need to ask?’
‘All under control, Miss Sali, you can go to the shop with Harry with a clear conscience. It will be on the table at one sharp so the newlyweds can leave shortly after two.’
‘See you then, darling.’ Sali kissed Edyth and received a hug from her daughter in return. Sali frowned. Was it her imagination or was Edyth’s embrace more intense than usual?
Edyth saw her mother and Harry out then walked back upstairs. Ruth was giggling and pretending to run away from Bella, who was having no success in dressing her.
‘Mari is bringing up elevenses and spice biscuits,’ she announced, ‘but only for little girls who are dressed.’
Ruth ran to Bella and obediently held her arms up straight. As Mary was busy with the baby, Edyth returned to the window seat. As soon as Ruth was dressed she left Bella and climbed on Edyth’s lap.
‘There’s no use looking in my pocket,’ Edyth said to her niece, ‘I haven’t any hidden chocolate like your father.’
‘I knew Harry had given it to her.’ Mary tucked the nightdress around Will’s legs.
‘And Glyn apparently, but Mari said Harry waited until after breakfast.’
Bella sat in the nursing chair. ‘As Will’s fed and bathed, can I nurse him to sleep?’ she asked Mary.
‘Practising?’ Mary
handed him over.
‘I hope, although there’s no sign of any babies as yet.’
‘You’ve only been married two months.’ Edyth watched the raindrops beating down on the window pane. It was a grey, overcast, miserable day, and she couldn’t help thinking that it matched her mood.
‘Just as long as you don’t beat me to it, Edyth.’ Bella glanced across at her sister.
Edyth buried her face in Ruth’s hair so Mary and Bella wouldn’t see the expression on her face. Peter had behaved no differently in her parents’ house than he had in the hotel, insisting that he wanted to leave the beginning of their married life until they were in their own home. She was beginning to find his behaviour not only frustrating but infuriating.
‘You look very pensive for a bride, Edyth,’ Mary commented.
‘She’s thinking that as of today she’s going to be a vicar’s wife and she’s dreading it,’ Bella suggested.
‘Are you dreading it?’ Mary asked in concern.
‘Not at all,’ Edyth refuted. ‘From what Peter told me, the parishioners are all lovely people.’
‘There’s bound to be at least one old bat, like Mrs Hopkins, intent on making the new vicar’s wife hell just because she’s young.’ Bella stroked the baby’s cheek with her little finger. ‘But if you have any trouble, just let us know and Toby and I will come down and sort them out for you.’
‘And how would you do that?’ Edyth laughed.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Bella said darkly.
‘I think I would.’
‘Want to see Mari.’ Ruth climbed off Edyth’s lap and peered at her brother, who was already sleeping soundly in Bella’s arms, before going to the door.
‘No more chocolate, Ruthie,’ Mary warned.
Ruth shook her head.
‘Or more than one biscuit or you won’t eat your lunch.’
Ruth nodded solemnly; Edyth opened the door and let her out of the room.
‘Here, Edie, I’m being selfish.’ Bella left the chair and handed her the sleeping baby. ‘You can have a last cuddle. I’ll be able to nurse him tomorrow and the day after.’
‘Thank you.’ Edyth took the chair Bella had vacated.
‘So how is married life, Edyth?’ Bella took Edyth’s place on the window seat.
‘Don’t embarrass the poor girl.’ Mary was disconcerted at the way Harry’s sisters discussed the most personal and intimate aspects of their lives. ‘We all know what married life is like.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Bella smiled broadly. ‘I knew it was going to be good, but not this good. Sex on tap any time of the day or night – I’m sorry, Edie, I didn’t think. I can wander into Toby’s studio and interrupt him any time, but you can hardly do that if Peter is talking to his parishioners. Not unless you want to give them an eyeful, that is.’
‘I’m not sure what our life in the vicarage is going to be like – yet,’ Edyth murmured. The tone of her voice prompted Bella to change the subject.
‘Another month and we’ll be in our own house. Harry can have his back – that’s if you and he want to move in there. I’m sorry, Mary, that was tactless of me but I thought you might want to be near to David, that’s if they keep him in the Infirmary that long.’
‘I do want to be near him.’ Mary’s face fell. ‘I can’t wait to see him but the doctor won’t allow me to visit while I’m nursing Will for fear of picking up an infection in the ward, and, as there’s little likelihood of David coming out for a month, I suppose I’ll have to content myself with writing letters and sending messages via Harry.’
Realising she’d upset Mary, Bella changed the topic of conversation again. ‘So, Edyth, tell us: which side of the bed does Peter sleep on?’
‘The right.’
‘As you look at the bed or as you’re lying in it.’
‘Belle …’ Edyth didn’t bother to conceal her irritation.
‘Haven’t you thought that it’s just about the most important thing that’s happened to us and we’re not supposed to talk about it?’
‘Yes,’ Edyth said abruptly.
Mary’s cheeks flamed crimson.
Bella leaned back against the frame. ‘Just the way you feel about your husband, how you can’t wait to see him, to tear his clothes off …’
‘You tear Toby’s clothes off?’ Edyth wondered if she should try that approach with Peter, then remembered his sterile pecks on the cheek and decided she might not get the response she was looking for if she tried.
‘No, not really,’ Bella confessed, ‘he always takes them off before I can tear them off. Do you tear Harry’s clothes off, Mary?’
Mary turned a deeper shade of vermilion. ‘The evidence of Harry’s and my private life is downstairs cadging biscuits from Mari and lying in Edyth’s arms.’ She indicated Will.
Disturbed by Bella’s conversation, Edyth gazed pointedly at her watch. ‘Look at the time, I promised Peter I’d be packed so we can go to the station right after lunch.’
‘Please, put him down in the cot, Edyth,’ Mary asked when Mari bustled in with a tray. ‘If you don’t, he’s going to be spoiled, and I won’t be able to do any work at all when I get him home.’
‘In my opinion, you can’t spoil a baby with love, only with chocolate,’ Mari chipped in.
‘I heard what Harry did, Mari, I’m sorry about Ruth’s dress,’ Mary apologised.
‘Don’t give it another thought. That husband of yours has always kept a secret supply since he was a boy. Joey used to sneak it to him before he was old enough to buy his own.’ She looked at Edyth and frowned. ‘You all right, Miss Edyth?’
‘Fine, Mari,’ Edyth lied. ‘I just have to go and finish my packing.’
‘There’s no going back now, Edyth,’ Belle warned. ‘The honeymoon’s over, real life is about to begin.’
Edyth fled the room before Bella could see the apprehension in her eyes.
‘Well, Reverend Slater, Mrs Slater, you’ve had terrible weather for your honeymoon, if Swansea’s been anything like Cardiff.’ Mrs Mack stood in the porch of the vicarage to welcome Peter and Edyth when they arrived in the taxi Peter had hired at Cardiff station.
‘The weather wasn’t very good, Mrs Mack.’ Peter didn’t explain that they had spent most of the week in Pontypridd. He dropped their cases in the hall and darted back out in the rain to pay the driver.
‘I wasn’t expecting you until this evening, but I suppose I could make you some afternoon tea if you want it,’ the housekeeper conceded ungraciously.
Accustomed to Mari, who was used to catering for any number of friends and family at no notice, Edyth was stunned by their housekeeper’s off-hand attitude. Especially when she considered that Mrs Mack was employed by them.
‘We would like tea, please, Mrs Mack, and biscuits,’ she added, thinking of Peter’s sweet tooth.
‘I’m making a nice warming leek and potato soup and hotpot for dinner. I thought they wouldn’t spoil no matter what time you arrived.’
‘That’s fine – for dinner.’ Edyth looked around the hall and noted that the tiles were no cleaner than they’d been on her first visit. ‘But we would like tea now.’
‘You can have tea, but there are no biscuits in the house except plain. I suppose I could put some cheese on them.’
Edyth had never expected subservience from a housekeeper but she was shocked at Mrs Mack’s response. ‘If you would, Mrs Mack.’
‘Where do you want it?’
‘In the sitting room, please.’
‘It’ll be twenty minutes.’
Edyth wondered why it would take twenty minutes to make tea and a few cheese biscuits, but decided against demanding an explanation. She had a feeling that she and Mrs Mack were going to have words soon enough – and before Peter’s mother arrived. But they could wait until she’d looked around the house.
The upper wall in the hall had been papered in small patterned beige wallpaper, the dado varnished in brown to match the paintwork. It wasn’t what s
he would have chosen, but she could live with it. Aside from the tiled floor, the carpet-runner on the stairs, and even the newly painted stairs either side, could do with a good scrub. Slivers of gummed wallpaper dropped by the decorators had caught in the stair rods. She laid her hand on the banisters and discovered that even they were sticky with gummy residue.
She walked into the living room. The walls had been papered in cream, patterned with pale-blue roses. Reverend Richards’s furniture had been removed and replaced with Peter’s mother’s ‘Regency’ pieces: a walnut-framed uncomfortable-looking upright sofa and easy chairs, a walnut sofa table, a large bureau bookcase, and a set of matching shelves that had been filled to capacity with Peter’s books – leaving no room for hers. A hideous, and barely recognisable, oil painting of Mumbles Head hung over the fireplace. The fire was laid, however. She lit a spill from a box of matches on the mantelpiece and touched the flame to the newspaper rolled beneath the sticks.
‘Mrs Mack wouldn’t have thought to light the fire because she wasn’t expecting us until later.’ Peter had left his hat, coat and gloves in the hall. He rubbed his hands together to restore the circulation, before holding them out to the thin flames that licked upwards through the coals.
‘Hopefully the room will soon warm up.’ From the chill in the air Edyth knew she was being optimistic.
‘Do you like Mother’s furniture and the changes that have been made, Edyth?’
‘It’s an improvement,’ Edyth replied guardedly.
‘Wait until you see the dining room.’ He led her across the passage into an equally large and gloomy room, which also faced a high wall. The table and chairs were Regency – late Regency, judging by the ornate carved scrolls and curlicues. A silver bowl stood in the centre of the table and an array of heavily embossed antique silverware was set out on the sideboard.
She recalled the clean, elegant, and simple lines of the beautiful, modern pieces Bella and Toby had bought for them in Tiffany’s. Not only would they jar when set against these antiques, there wasn’t enough room left to display them, even if she’d wanted to.
Tiger Bay Blues Page 31