Hearts of Gold (50 page)
‘Yes please, Dr John,’ she murmured. ‘Shall we go?’
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An excerpt from
ONE BLUE MOON
Book Two in the
Hearts of Gold
series
by
CATRIN COLLIER
Chapter One
Most people, especially men, thought of Diana Powell as pretty. She was, in a fresh, youthful, plump kind of a way. Red, rosy cheeks highlighted flawless, creamy skin, her brown eyes sparkled with vitality, and as she travelled towards Pontypridd in the train with her cousin Maud, her lips were as perfect, pouting, expressive and red as Carole Lombard’s on the poster for her latest film
Lady by Choice.
A poster that had been plastered over every available inch of boarding heading out of Cardiff station, thus giving Diana ample time to study and imitate. Even the curls that escaped from beneath Diana’s market stall version of the current fashionable cloche hat bounced shining and wavy, despite the damp, heavy atmosphere.
Maud Powell didn’t resent her cousin Diana’s attractive looks. Envy had never been a part of Maud’s nature, and her naturally sunny disposition was the one constant that remained, even now, with her body weak and devastated by sickness. But occasionally she wished - and dreamed herself into health every bit as exuberant and vigorous as Diana’s. Slumped back against the grimy upholstery of the sagging railway carriage bench seat, she closed her eyes and indulged in what had rapidly become her favourite occupation - daydreaming.
She was in danger, terrible danger, but the peril wasn’t great enough to interfere with her grooming. A long, creamy satin gown clung to her figure, suddenly, miraculously transformed from scrawny to curvaceous in all the right places. Swirls of ostrich feathers swanned around her ankles in a fashion reminiscent of Ginger Rogers. White kid gloves clad her arms to the elbow, her blonde hair was immaculately waved and gleaming. Her face, no longer pale and haggard, was stunningly, heart-stoppingly beautiful. And every time she moved, the perfume of magnolia blossom wafted from her skin, scenting the atmosphere. (She didn’t have a clue what magnolia blossom smelt like, but she’d liked the sound of the name when Robert Taylor had praised it in one of his films.)
She was running - running along an upstairs corridor in a Hollywood version of the English country manor (the only version she’d ever seen) that was filled with acrid smoke. Flames ticked at her heels as she stood, alone and vulnerable at the top of a magnificent burning staircase. She cried out, and there walking towards her through the smoke and the fire, arms outstretched waiting to carry her away, was - was... this posed the most difficult question in any daydream. She hated having to choose between tall, elegant, aesthetic, poetic Leslie Howard, and robust, cynical, darkly handsome Clark Gable.
A coughing fit shook her thin frame, jolting her sharply back into the present. Lifting her sodden handkerchief to her stained lips, she looked around the railway carriage in bewilderment.
‘Off on a fancy again? With Robert Donat instead of that porter, I hope,’ Diana said caustically. ‘Here, you’re hopeless.’ Seeing the state of Maud’s handkerchief she pulled a crumpled white cotton square out of her coat pocket.
‘I can’t take yours. I’ll stain it, and it won’t wash out,’ Maud gasped breathlessly.
‘Then I’ll just have to bleach it before I put it in the wash, won’t I?’ Diana thrust the handkerchief impatiently into Maud’s hand. ‘Here. Yours is soaking.’ She rummaged in her coat pocket, found an empty triangular sweet bag and held it out.
‘Thanks.’ Maud dropped her bloodstained handkerchief into the bag as she turned to stare out of the rain-spattered window. All her carefully nurtured romantic images had fled. Unable to rekindle the sense of exoticism, she despised herself for her foolish fancies. Looking the way she did, a tramp wouldn’t waste time on a second glance, let alone Clark Gable.
As she closed her eyes again, another, darker image came to mind. A winter’s scene. Cold, dismal. Rain noisily spattering the bark and dead leaves of the skeletal trees that laced the grey skies above Glyntaff cemetery. On the ground, vibrant splashes of white and red flowers piled next to a mound of freshly dug earth - would they have to be wax flowers if it was winter? The headstone in the mason’s yard close to the gate, already chiselled and embossed with shiny new black Gothic lettering
Here
lies Maud Powell
Cut down in the full flush of youth
Aged
16 in 193-
Nineteen thirty what? Would it be this year’s date, or next? Would she live to see the New Year in? If she did there’d be Christmas to look forward to. Her father nearly always managed to get a chicken, and she could hang up her stocking...
‘Almost there,’ Diana observed briskly, shattering Maud’s lachrymose thoughts as moss-green hills crowned by precarious pyramids of black slag began to roll sedately past.
‘Unfortunately,’ Maud snapped with unintentional harshness as she was prised from the tragic scenario of her own funeral.
‘Well, it might not be the homecoming we dreamed of when we left for Cardiff, but at least it is a homecoming,’ Diana commented philosophically, buttoning the old red wool coat that she’d “turned” at the beginning of winter.
‘I’m dreading telling everyone that Matron asked me to leave.’
‘You won’t have to say a word,’ Diana reassured her bleakly.
‘One look at you will be enough. You’re in no fit state to be a patient in the Royal Infirmary, let alone a ward maid.’
‘If I get better, they will take me back, won’t they?’ Maud demanded, struggling for breath.
‘If you’ve any sense left, you won’t ask,’ Diana retorted. ‘No one with a brain in their head would want to work as a skivvy in that place.’
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Maud protested. ‘And they would have taken us on as trainee nurses when we were seventeen.’
‘You, perhaps, Miss Goody Two-Shoes, not me.’ Seeing despondency surface in Maud’s face yet again, Diana reached out and touched her cousin’s hand. ‘A couple of months’ rest at home, in the warm, in front of the fire, and you’ll be right as rain,’ she asserted boldly, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt. ‘Then if you really want to carry on scrubbing floors, emptying bedpans and cleaning lavatories for the rest of your life, I’m sure they’d welcome you back with open arms.’
‘I didn’t like that side of it any more than you did,’ Maud countered irritably. ‘But it was a way into nursing, and all I’ve wanted since Bethan passed her exams was to be a nurse like her.’
‘Little sister, big sister! Well thank God I’ve no one’s footsteps to follow in except dear brother William’s, and as he’s an absolute waster, that leaves the coast clear for me to do as I like.’ Diana deliberately chose not to mention her mother, Megan, who was in jail for handling stolen goods. ‘And before you go all noble, sacrificial and Florence Nightingale on me, remember, even Bethan got out of it as soon as she could.’
‘After she qualified, and only when she married,’ Maud remonstrated.
‘Aha! So that’s it. You want to marry a doctor. Well it beats me how Bethan managed to hook one. The nearest I ever got to the almighty breed was to scrub their dirty bootmarks off the floor after they’d passed by. A long time after they’d passed by,’ she qualified sourly.
‘I do hope Bethan’s taking care of herself,’ Maud murmured absently. ‘It’s bad enough having to live amongst strangers in London, but being pregnant as well must be horrible.’
‘She’s better off than most with a doctor for a husband.’ Diana rose to her feet and lifted down their shabby and threadbare gladstones from the knotted string rack above their heads. ‘He’ll bring home enough to keep her in the lap of luxury. Bet he even buys her roses and chocolates on pay night, which is more than you and me’ll ever have if we don’t pull our fingers out and start looking for something better than that porter you got mixed up with in the Infirmary,’ she added practically.
‘I wasn’t mixed up with him!’
‘No, you only held his hand every time you thought no one was looking.’
‘He was so far from home, and lonely.’
‘And you’re a sucker for a corny line.’
‘I am not!’ Maud gasped indignantly.
‘Jock Maitlin was a self-righteous, self-seeking, selfish clot, who wanted someone to wash his dirty socks, and you didn’t even wait for him to ask.’
‘Diana, everyone knows how helpless men are.’
‘And helpless they’ll remain while there are idiots like you willing to run after them. Look, we’re here.’ Diana turned away from Maud and gathered up her handbag.
Maud rose unsteadily to her feet, succumbed to yet another vicious coughing fit that lent unhealthy colour to her face, and sank weakly down on the seat again. Diana flung open the door, threw out their bags and looked back at her cousin.
‘Here, grab my arm!’ she commanded ungraciously. ‘The guard’s about to blow the whistle, and I’ve no intention of carrying on up to Trehafod.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Maud whispered hoarsely, as she clutched Diana’s sleeve and stumbled out on to the platform.
‘Oh God, what am I going to do with you?’ Diana griped as, ignoring their bags, she struggled to dump Maud on a bench set against the wall of the refreshment bar. Maud had no voice left to apologise a second time. She fell on to the grubby seat and continued to cough into Diana’s now bloody handkerchief.
‘Damn! There’s not a soul around we know,’ Diana cursed, as she scanned the crowds that were leaving the train and pushing their way past the ticket collector’s booth at the top of the wide, steep stone flight of stairs that led down into the station yard. ‘And it’s raining cats and dogs,’ she continued to moan, brushing away the raindrops that were falling on to her head from the high roof of the open platform. ‘Well you’ll just have to jolly well sit there while I carry the bags,’ she asserted forcefully, abandoning Maud and picking up their luggage. ‘I’ll leave them downstairs, and come back up for you.’
‘I’ll take your bags, Miss.’
Diana stared coolly at the young, scrawny, ginger-haired porter.
‘I haven’t any money to tip you,’ she said bluntly.
‘I’d settle for a kiss,’ he grinned cheekily.
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Diana retorted.
‘Visit to the pictures tonight, then? Dutch treat.’
‘I’d sooner go out with...’ The whistle blew and the sound of the steam engine drowned out the rest of Diana’s words, which was probably just as well.
‘Why don’t you stick to old ladies, Pugh, and leave the young ones to those experienced enough to deal with them?’ A squarebuilt, thickset porter elbowed Pugh aside and swept Diana’s bags from her hands.
‘Here, where do you think you’re going?’ she shouted furiously.
‘Station yard,’ he called back glibly, running smartly down the stone steps.
‘Men!’ Diana gripped her handbag firmly in her left hand, and offered her right to Maud.
‘I’m sorry for being such a trouble,’ Maud wheezed from behind the handkerchief she still clutched to her mouth.
‘For pity’s sake stop apologising,’ Diana snapped.
‘Diana... I...’ Black mists swirled upwards from Maud’s feet. The grey stone platform spotted with black coal smuts, the mass of ill-dressed women and damp, red-nosed children revolved headily around her. She slumped forward.
‘She’s in a bad way,’ the young porter observed tactlessly as he struggled to catch Maud’s head before it hit the flagstones. ‘Consumption, is it?’
‘Of course it’s bloody consumption,’ Diana raged as the anger she’d barely managed to hold in check all morning finally erupted. ‘Any fool can see that.’
‘She looks just like my older sister did before she went.’ For all of his slender build, the boy scooped Maud high into his arms. ‘She died last year,’ he added forlornly.
Diana heard what he said, but her temper had risen too high for her to think of commiserating on his loss.
‘Is there anyone meeting you?’ he asked, as he carried Maud down the steps.
‘No one,’ Diana said flatly. ‘Our family don’t even know we’re on our way home.’
‘There’s usually a taxi waiting in the yard.’
‘Do we look as though we’ve money to pay for a taxi?’ she demanded hotly.
‘Have you far to go?’
‘The top of the Graig hill.’
‘I could always carry her to the Graig hospital. It’s only around the corner.’
‘I
do
know where the Graig hospital is. I’ve lived here all my life, and I’m not putting her’ - she pointed at Maud- ‘in any TB ward. There’s only one way they come out of there, and that’s feet first, in a box.’
The boy turned white; Diana’s bluntness conjured up painful images of his sister’s death and funeral. Images that constantly hovered too close to consciousness for peace of mind.
‘She needs help,’ he emphasised bitterly. Turning left at the foot of the steps he walked swiftly through the rain into the shelter of the booking hall.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Pugh?’ the porter who’d carried Diana’s bags down demanded.
‘Young lady passed out cold.’
‘Yes well, that’s as may be. But now you’d better leave her to me and get back on to the platform before you’re missed. I’ll call you a taxi, Miss,’ he smirked at Diana.
‘You most certainly won’t,’ Diana said fiercely. She thought quickly. If her brother William’s friend Giacomo ‘Ronnie’ Ronconi was working in his family’s café on the Tumble, his Trojan van wouldn’t be far, and once he saw the state Maud was in he could hardly refuse to drive them up the hill. ‘Carry her across to Ronconi’s café,’ she ordered Pugh, as she picked up her bags from the older porter’s feet. ‘Ronnie’s a friend of ours. He’ll see us home.’
‘Pugh, you know you’re not allowed to leave station yard during working hours,’ the older porter lectured, ruffled by Diana’s offhand dismissal of his services.
‘That’s all right. I’ll take the lady from here.’ A tall thickset man with light brown curly hair, who for all of his size, weight and athletic build had a soft feminine look about him, lifted Maud from Pugh’s arms.
‘Wyn Rees!’ Forgetting her brother’s antipathy to Rees the sweetshop’s son, who was more commonly known in the town as ‘Rees the queer’, Diana hugged him out of sheer joy at seeing a familiar face. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘Saw the commotion as I was on my way back to the shop from the post office,’ Wyn explained. ‘Dear God, Maud’s lost weight!’ he exclaimed, shifting her to a more comfortable position. ‘What have you two been doing to yourselves in Cardiff?’
