Beggars and Choosers (7 page)

A floorboard creaked on the landing outside Llinos's door and a sharp rap was followed by, ‘Sali, are you in there?'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan,' Sali answered through gritted teeth.

‘It is after eleven o'clock.'

‘Llinos had a nightmare.'

‘That is no reason to wake your mother and set the entire house in uproar. Return to your room at once.'

‘You'll be all right now?' Sali whispered to Llinos.

Llinos nodded, before pulling the bedclothes over her head.

‘Sali!'

‘Coming, Uncle Morgan.' Sali turned Llinos's lamp down, picked up her own and dropped a kiss on the crown of her sister's head, all that could be seen above the sheet.

Morgan was standing on the galleried landing, lamp in hand, a striped flannel nightshirt flapping around his bony ankles, his feet encased in beaded, backless slippers. He had thrown a robe over his shirt but he hadn't fastened it, and his neck, with its prominent Adam's apple, rose, long, loose-skinned and scrawny, from his pasty chest, reminding Sali of a chicken's after it had been plucked. As he stared at her, she instinctively wrapped her robe even closer to her shivering body.

‘Your noise woke your mother and me.'

‘I am sorry, Uncle Morgan, but Llinos had a nightmare.'

‘That girl has been spoiled and pampered. She has learned how to get whatever she wants by shouting at all hours of the day and night. I'll have no more of it. I'll start looking for a school first thing on Monday. A school that places emphasis on self-control and discipline.'

‘Is anything the matter?' Geraint opened his door and joined them in his pyjamas.

‘The noise your sisters are making,' Morgan replied abruptly. ‘And that is no excuse for you to walk around half naked,' he rebuked, tightening the belt on his woollen dressing gown, which considering his profession, was an incongruous, cheerful crimson.

‘If that was Llinos crying, she has been having nightmares ever since Father was killed,' Geraint explained.

‘That still doesn't give her the right to wake the entire house. Geraint, return to your room. Sali, go down to the kitchens and make tea. A weak cup with plenty of sugar and milk for your mother, a stronger one for me.'

‘Let Miss Sali see to Miss Llinos, Mr Davies, sir. I will make the tea.' Mari, her long, grey hair plaited over one shoulder, a shawl thrown over her nightdress and robe, was standing in the arched doorway that connected the servants' passageways with the main house.

‘Llinos is to be left alone. Any more mollycoddling and she'll never learn to sleep through the night.' Morgan glared at the housekeeper. ‘And you, Mrs Williams, will not venture on to the family floor again except to check that the maid has done her work, or to clean the rooms yourself and
never
at night. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I will expect you alert and prepared to assume your duties at the usual hour.'

‘Sir.' Mari bobbed a curtsy and retreated along the landing, closing the connecting door behind her.

‘Tea, Sali,' Morgan reminded.

‘I'll get my slippers, it's cold in the kitchens.'

‘I am disappointed to see that you left your room in bare feet and risked picking up a splinter. If your foot becomes infected you will be absolutely no use to your mother. It is time you started thinking of others, girl.'

‘Llinos was crying.' Sali fought a tide of misery that threatened to engulf her. Her father had always been the first to leave his bed if any of them woke in the night. She recalled the smell of his cologne, the feel of his arms around her, warm, comforting and reassuring, as she sipped the cocoa Mari made whenever one of them had a nightmare, and the serious look on his face as he had listened to stories of bogey monsters that had disturbed their sleep. She remembered the grave attitude he had adopted when he searched their wardrobes and the spaces beneath their beds to make sure that the beasts had been well and truly chased away.

Her sister might be too old for bogey monsters, but she sensed Llinos's imagination, like her own, was all too adept at picturing the burial ground behind Penuel Chapel and the tomb where her father lay.

‘Are you being deliberately obdurate, girl?'

Sali set aside her memories. ‘No, Uncle. I'll get my slippers now.'

Chapter Four

The hotplate had been opened on the range and a milk pan and copper kettle were already gently steaming when Sali reached the kitchen.

‘Uncle Morgan told you not to come down, Mari.'

Mari held her finger to her lips. ‘Then we'd best whisper in case he followed you.'

‘He could sack you, and Llinos and I and the boys couldn't cope without you,' Sali pleaded.

‘I have been making tea for the mistress every time she's had one of her funny turns in the night for the last twenty-one years and I'm not about to stop now. If your uncle asks, he and the mistress are not the only ones who can't sleep, and as housekeeper I'm entitled to a cup of tea to help me rest.' Mari set an embroidered cloth on a japanned tray and laid out a Coalport porcelain breakfast set of teapot, cups, saucers, jug and sugar bowl. ‘I had a few minutes' start on you, so he won't be expecting you yet. Make the most of it.' She poured warm milk into a cup and stirred it. ‘Cocoa, just the way you like it.' She handed it to Sali together with a tin of Huntley and Palmer biscuits.

‘I am sorry about the maids, footmen and stable boys being given notice, especially Robert,' Sali added. ‘He must hate us. He's been with us since he was twelve years old.'

‘None of them blames you for it, Miss Sali. They know exactly what's going on in this house.'

‘Which is more than I do,' Sali mused gloomily. ‘My uncle only informs us of his decisions after he's made them.' Taking her cocoa, she sat in the rocking chair next to the hearth. As the kettle began to boil, she handed Mari a blue and gold tin tea caddy from the shelf next to her. It was battered and scratched and bore the words
Lipton – tea, coffee
&
cocoa planter. Tea merchant by special appointment to Her Majesty the Queen
although the Queen had been dead for four years. ‘We ought to replace this with a tin that says by special appointment to His Majesty the King.'

‘The way your uncle has tightened the purse strings we won't be replacing anything in this house for quite a while,' Mari observed abruptly. ‘There, I've half-filled your mother's cup with hot water, all you have to do is pour in the milk and top it up with tea until it's a sickly shade of pale mushroom. Then you can take the tray in to your uncle.'

‘Thank you, Mari.' Sali finished her cocoa, left her chair and kissed the housekeeper.

‘None of your sloppiness now, Miss Sali.' Mari pushed her away and closed the hotplates. ‘And your Aunt Edyth is right. You mustn't let anything get in the way of you marrying Mr James in June.'

‘How do you know about that?'

Mari tapped her nose. ‘We servants know more than we let on. Another thing, don't close your uncle's bedroom door when you take him that tea. If you need me for anything, shout. I won't be far.'

‘Your tea, Mother.' Sali topped up the cup of hot water with tea, spooned in three sugars, stirred it and carried it from the tray she had set on her mother's dressing table to the bedside cabinet.

‘I hope you haven't made it too strong.' Gwyneth struggled to sit up.

‘I haven't.' Sali plumped her mother's pillows and set them at an angle behind her back.

‘It is in the drawer.'

Sali didn't have to ask what was in the drawer. She opened her mother's bedside cabinet. The top drawer was crammed with an assortment of patent medicines. Bottles of Hughes' Blood Pills, Thompson's Burdock Pills, Jones's Red Drops, Hayman's Balsam and Deakin's Lung Healer vied for space with small porcelain and glass jars of smelling salts, but in pride of place in the corner nearest to the bed and within easy reach of her mother was a green bottle that contained laudanum. Sali lifted it out, along with an eyedropper. Taking the glass from the top of the carafe of water on her mother's cabinet, she poured in an inch of water. Then she pulled the cork from the bottle and inserted the dropper, squeezing the rubber bulb until liquid was sucked into the glass tube. Lifting it from the bottle, she held the dropper over the glass and depressed the rubber bulb four times.

‘Six more drops.'

‘When I was home at Christmas, Doctor Evans told Father no more than four, and then only if you were very upset.'

‘That was before your father was killed. Morgan talked to Dr Evans, told him how bad my nerves were and he increased the dose.'

Sali depressed the rubber bulb six more times, took her mother's teacup and handed her the glass. Gwyneth made a face as she drained it. Sali took the glass from her, returned her teacup and waited until she finished her tea.

‘See to the pillows.' Gwyneth settled down and Sali rearranged the bed. Her mother's eyes were closing as she replaced the cup on the tray. ‘Make sure Llinos doesn't disturb me again.'

‘Uncle Morgan has warned her to be quiet. Goodnight, Mother.'

Gwyneth didn't reply. She was already asleep.

‘Set the tray on the table by the window,' Morgan ordered, as Sali walked into the room that had been her father's. She was shocked, both by the distasteful intimacy of seeing her uncle in bed and the changes he had wrought in her father's room in a single day.

The brown and beige floral wallpaper was marked with darker squares where family portraits and her father's favourite paintings had hung until that morning. The furniture had been moved and the head of the bed placed against the left-hand wall instead of opposite the window where her father had set it so he could watch the sun rise in the morning. The tallboy and chest of drawers had exchanged places and the nightstand no longer stood beside the bed but next to the wardrobe. The new positions neither suited convenience, nor the size of the furniture and Sali couldn't help feeling that her uncle had ordered the servants to make the changes simply to announce to the household that he had taken possession of the master bedroom, just as he had the house.

‘Pour the tea and set it on the bedside cabinet.'

Sali sensed her uncle watching her as she did as he asked.

‘Two sugars.'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.' Feeling uneasy, she moved to the door.

‘Sali?'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan?' She turned and looked back at him.

‘Close the door quietly behind you and on no account are you to return to Llinos's room tonight.'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.'

‘And tomorrow I want you to bring all of your and Llinos's jewellery to me in my study before breakfast.'

My study.
Sali burned at his presumption.

‘Did you hear me, Sali?'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.'

‘It is inappropriate for females to wear jewellery while in mourning. I will take it together with your mother's to the bank for safekeeping.'

‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.'

‘Goodnight, Sali.'

‘Goodnight, Uncle Morgan.' Sali closed the door behind her, and returned to her own room. She stared at the lock as she shut the door and, for the first time in her life, turned the key.

‘I know I keep saying it, but it's not right, Miss Sali. A young girl of your station in life shouldn't be treated like a servant, or ordered about the way your uncle orders you,' Mari admonished, as she and Sali packed away the family's overcoats and winter blankets in camphor chests for the summer.

‘It's either this or read to Mother, and she never notices whether I'm sitting with her or not these days.' Sali checked the pockets of the cashmere coat Geraint had left behind after the Easter holidays and pulled out a handkerchief and an empty cigarette packet. Llinos's pile of clothes were the largest and Sali recalled the tears they had both shed when her sister had been sent away along with the boys after Easter.

‘And we all know whose fault that is.' Mari pursed her lips disapprovingly.

‘Ssh ...'

‘Your uncle can't hear us. He's in the library with Mr Richards and Mr Evans ...' Mari fell silent as Lloyd Evans's voice thundered from the library and rang out into the hall.

‘I won't do it!'

Sali left the walk-in linen cupboard, looked down the stairs and exchanged nervous glances with Tomas who was polishing the lamps.

‘Then you are no longer in employment with the Watkin Jones Colliery.' Morgan Davies's voice was equally loud, but steadier.

‘I'd rather be sacked than cut men's wages below the breadline.'

‘You do as I order you, or you get out of this house and the Watkin Jones Colliery.'

‘Mr Evans, please ...' Mr Richards faltered as the library door banged open and Lloyd emerged into the hall.

‘Walk out now, Evans, and I'll see that you never work in another colliery in Pontypridd again. You'll get no reference or severance pay from me.' Red-faced and furious, Morgan followed Lloyd. Seeing Tomas, he lowered his voice. ‘You are dismissed.'

‘Gentlemen, please.' Mr Richards ran out of the library and stood between the two men as Tomas retreated. ‘We should be holding the interests of the Watkin Jones Colliery paramount.'

‘I am.' Lloyd faced Morgan head on. ‘The interests of the workers as well as the owners.'

‘The Collieries Company pay their workers less than I'm offering ...'

‘They pay their workers a shameful pittance,' Lloyd interrupted. ‘And I'll not advise the men to take your offer and that's my final word.'

‘Tomas,' Morgan shouted.

‘Sir.' The butler emerged from the servants' passage.

‘Show Evans the door.'

‘It's all right, Tomas.' Lloyd took the coat Tomas handed him. ‘I'm leaving.' He shrugged it on and took his hat, gloves and muffler from the butler before turning back to Morgan. ‘Cut the men's wages and you'll have a strike on your hands,' he said.

‘I won't have to cut them now that you are leaving. The Collieries Company will do it for me.'

‘That's what you wanted all along, isn't it?' Lloyd challenged. ‘An excuse to sell the Watkin Jones Colliery.'

‘We will get a greater return if it is sold and the money reinvested in the Collieries Company.'

‘And your return will be soaked in miners' blood. Enjoy it!' Lloyd turned his back to Morgan and saw Sali standing at the top of the staircase. He tipped his hat to her, walked to the front door and opened it before Tomas could reach it.

‘You can't sell Father's colliery!' Sali ran down the stairs and confronted her uncle and Mr Richards.

‘Without Mr Evans to run it, we have little option, Miss Watkin Jones,' Mr Richards murmured apologetically.

‘Uncle Morgan?' she appealed.

‘Women have no right to interfere in things that are beyond their comprehension.'

‘Father spent his whole life building up that business for Geraint.'

‘Enough!' Morgan bellowed. ‘The subject is closed. And as you are intent on going out gallivanting this morning, see to your duties and your mother. And don't you dare discuss this matter with her. The decision to sell has been made and it is irreversible.' He returned to the library and slammed the door.

‘What was all the shouting about?' Gwyneth carped, as Sali carried her mid-morning tea tray into her bedroom.

Mindful of her uncle's warning, she answered, ‘Uncle Morgan discussing business with Mr Richards and Mr Evans.'

‘Oh,' Gwyneth murmured disinterestedly, as Sali poured her tea and set it on her bedside cabinet.

‘Are you sure you don't want me to ask Mari or the maid to sit with you, Mother?'

Sali glanced at the clock on her mother's bedside cabinet. The hands pointed to ten. Aunt Edyth had arranged to bring her carriage around at ten-thirty so they could spend the day shopping for wedding clothes. Although she had told her mother of her plans a week ago and mentioned the trip every day since, her mother categorically refused to recognise that she had made an engagement that would take her out of the house. And her uncle had referred to her plans as ‘gallivanting' ever since Edyth had mentioned them to him.

From the moment Morgan Davies had moved in four months ago, he had encouraged her mother to commandeer every minute of her time that he hadn't earmarked for her ‘household duties'. Whenever he caught her trying to sneak into the library, or her bedroom in the hope of stealing half an hour to herself, he marched her to her mother's room and subjected her to a sermon on ‘a daughter's duty'. As a result, her mother now considered her constant attendance an entitlement and her absence a deliberate attempt to annoy.

‘I am sure,' Gwyneth snapped. Sali plumped up her pillows and helped her into a sitting position. ‘The servants have work to do and I can hardly disrupt the entire household simply because my own daughter can't spare the time to sit with me.'

‘This is the first time I have been out in a month and my wedding –'

‘Your wedding.' Gwyneth sighed theatrically. Sali handed her the tea. ‘That is all you can talk about. As if I need to be reminded that you can't wait to be rid of this house and me. Am I that tiresome?' she questioned plaintively.

‘Of course not, Mother.'

‘Then why this rush to marry Mansel James before your father is cold in his grave?'

‘Father died over four months ago.'

‘As if I needed reminding.' Gwyneth lifted her handkerchief to her eyes.

‘It is not as if I am moving away from Pontypridd.' Sali tidied the rows of glass bottles and jars of smelling salts on her mother's bedside cabinet. ‘And as soon as Mansel and I return from honeymoon, I will visit you every day.'

‘And if I die while you immerse yourself in wedding preparations with your Aunt Edyth? Or during the ceremony? Or when you are away on honeymoon, what then?' Gwyneth demanded. ‘I suppose it will be too much to expect you to delay your pleasure to observe any more mourning for me than you have done for your father.'

Tears formed in Sali's eyes. ‘You know how much I miss Father.'