The Oyster Catchers (26 page)

Eline looked at Mrs Miller with admiration, no wonder she was a success, she was brave and would not shirk any task however delicate or dangerous.

‘When will we go?’ Eline asked, suddenly excited at the prospect of visiting the greatest boot and shoe maker in the country.

‘Within the next few days,’ Mrs Miller said rising to her feet, ‘I think you will enjoy the experience, Eline, and I’m sure you will benefit greatly from the visit.’

When she was alone, Eline dropped her pencil. She couldn’t concentrate, excitement filled her mingled with a feeling of regret, regret that her love pact with Will would have to be postponed.

She felt a surge of love and desire for him and bit her lip. Why postpone what she wanted above all else? What was to prevent her from going to him in Oystermouth?

She stared down at her hands, thinking of Joe, cosily ensconced with Nina Parks in the home that had once been Eline’s. Surely she didn’t owe them any consideration?

Eline bit her lip as she admitted to herself that she was more than a little worried that she hadn’t seen Will for some days. Had he regretted his words of love?

She rose and picked up her coat and fastened the buttons with a feeling of determination. At least she could talk to Will and even if they had no time or opportunity to be alone, she could tell him she was going away for a few days.

She caught the Mumbles train at the terminus and as she climbed aboard, she felt the breeze from the sea lift her hair from her face. Eline settled herself on the top deck of the coach and stared out to sea, anticipating her meeting with Will, scarcely feeling the jolt as the horses moved forward between the tracks. She tingled with excitement, soon she would be with him, she would see his dear face, touch his crisp hair, feel his mouth on hers.

The rich colour came to her cheeks at the daring thoughts and she caught her breath sharply. Doubts assailed her; was she doing the right thing? Would Will think her a fast woman for coming to find him?

The coach jolted onward, past Black Pill and round the curve of the bay to face Mumbles Head. The scene was one of breathtaking beauty, the sea and sky merged on the horizon and closer to land, the waves were white tipped, rushing shoreward and retreating on the chatter of shells dragged by the ebb.

On the hard, skiffs were lying drunkenly, white-limed along the bottoms to keep the boards from opening during the enforced rest. But soon the season would start again and the rich harvest of the oysters would be ready for dredging.

For a moment, Eline felt a nostalgia for the simplicity of her life as she’d lived it in Oystermouth. She had spent her days cleaning the little house, washing the grey slate floors, scrubbing the wooden table until it gleamed, blackleading the grate and using ash and water to clean the brass fenders.

She straightened her shoulders, knowing that she could never go back to that life now; she had moved on, she had become a window dresser for Emily Miller, she had spent days working with the great Hari Grenfell learning at her feet like a disciple of old. It was easy to remember the uncomplicated existence she once had with rose-coloured thoughts, but she did not wish for it again.

She knew that she was considered odd by the people of Oystermouth Village. Always an outsider, she was now a woman who had left her husband’s hearth and bed, a poor, betrayed, rejected figure, an unwanted wife. The only one who would bother with her was Carys and now she was busy with her own family life.

Eline alighted at the end of the line and stared around her, breathing in the familiar air of Oystermouth. It was a lovely place, a place of serenity and beauty and quiet lives, and she had no place in it.

Will Davies’s Boot and Shoe Store was open for business as usual and for a moment, Eline hesitated on the threshold, wondering what she would say to Will. Now that the moment had come, she felt weak and uncertain of her feelings and her mouth was dry as she went into the dimness of the interior.

‘Yes, can I help you? Oh, it’s you, Eline Harries, what do you want?’

Gwyneth Parks stood before her, nicely gowned in a dark dress with long sleeves and an elegantly nipped waist. She looked very different from the girl who had hauled oysters into a sack and carried them to market.

‘I would like to speak with Mr Davies. Is he here?’ Eline forced herself to speak politely though she felt like running from the shop and returning to Swansea on the next train.

‘No, he’s not here, you can see that for yourself, can’t you?’ Gwyneth’s tone was insolent and Eline was suddenly angry.

‘How is your mother getting along in
my
home and with
my
husband?’ She spoke loudly just as two well-dressed ladies entered the shop. Gwyneth looked around in embarrassment and spoke more politely.

‘Mr Davies is at home, he’s not been feeling very well and I don’t think he wants any visitors.’

‘What you think is of no interest to me,’ Eline said flatly. She turned on her heel and left the shop and once out in the brightness of the day, she released her breath.

Why had she come here? She should have known that it would be upsetting. She clenched her hands into fists and stared across the bay longing to be back in Swansea, safe in her rooms, respected and valued for herself alone.

Then she thought anxiously of Will; what was wrong with him, might it be something serious? Eline walked the hundred yards or so to Mrs Marsh’s lodging house and, taking her courage in both hands, she knocked on the door.

The young girl who helped Mrs Marsh in the house stood in the small hallway and stared at Eline curiously. ‘Mrs Marsh isn’t here,’ she said, ‘and if it’s a room you want, I think we’re full up.’

‘No, I don’t want a room,’ Eline said, ‘I would like to see Mr Davies. I’m a friend and I understand he hasn’t been very well.’

The girl stepped aside at once. ‘Come in, miss, he’s
had a right nasty fever, real bad he was for a day or two, but over the worst now, so the doctor says. Wait by here, I’ll ask him can he see you.’

Eline looked round the hallway, at the leafy green plant in the large pot and the well-polished tiles on the floor, at least Will would have been well cared for but she could not help feeling that she should have come sooner.

Suddenly a voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘I don’t think Will is up to seeing you today.’ Sarah Miller was coming down the stairs behind the young maid and she was smiling in a superior way that made Eline suddenly go cold.

‘Is it up to you to make that decision?’ she asked acidly, staring at Sarah with a hostility she was unable to conceal.

‘Yes, I would say so,’ Sarah retorted, smiling, her teeth showing like those of a cat about to pounce on a helpless prey.

‘I think not.’ Eline made to move past her but Sarah blocked her way, catching her arm in a none-too-gentle hold. ‘I have every right to speak for Will,’ she said quietly, ‘after all, he and I were lovers before I left Swansea.’

‘Liar!’ The word was wrenched from between Eline’s numb lips, something in Sarah’s eyes, in the triumphant line of her neck, told Eline she was speaking the truth.

‘You mean you didn’t know that Will was the father of my child, the child that my dear step-mother Emily is rearing?’ Sarah’s tone was mocking. ‘And now I’m back, Will and I will have to sort things out, settle our future and that of our daughter.’

‘I don’t believe what you are saying about Will and in any case you were walking out with Tom Parks.’ Eline was clutching at straws and she knew it. What did a small matter like walking out with one man while bearing a child by another mean to a woman like Sarah Miller?

Sarah seemed to read something of her thoughts. ‘In any case,’ she said spitefully, ‘from what I hear, you are a married woman, I should think that to Will you were just a convenience. Who misses a bite out of a bruised apple?’

Eline felt herself flush with anger, she opened her mouth to protest, but how could she? It was true that she and Will had never been lovers but the intention was there and after all, she
was
at married woman.

She turned to leave and then heard from the landing above Will’s voice calling to her, ‘Eline!’ The urgency in his tone held her still as he hurried down the stairs and came to her side.

‘Eline, why were you going to leave without seeing me?’ he asked, his eyes bright as though he still had a fever. Eline looked into his dear face and longed to cling to him.

‘I’ve been telling Eline about us,’ Sarah said sweetly. ‘I think she should know how we almost renewed our acquaintance in the most intimate of ways. Don’t you think she had the right to know?’

Will looked at Eline. ‘I’m denying nothing, everything that happened was before I met you, you can’t hold it against me.’

‘But Will,’ Sarah interrupted, ‘what about the other night when we were alone together we almost gave in to temptation, didn’t we?’ She rushed on without waiting for a reply. ‘And there’s our child. We haven’t discussed her future, have we?’

Will glanced back at Sarah in exasperation and Sarah met his gaze challengingly.

‘Will,’ Eline spoke softly, ‘is the child yours?’

Will shook his head. ‘Sarah has told so many lies I can deny nothing.
I
don’t even know whose child Sarah gave birth to.’

Eline felt as though a stone was hanging heavily in her breast. Without a word, she moved out into the freshness
of the air, breathing deeply, trying to calm herself. In the space of a few minutes everything seemed to have changed; Will was not the free man she had believed him to be, he had loved Sarah once and might be the father of her child.

Eline became aware that Will had followed her. ‘I’m going to Somerset for a few days,’ she said softly as Will closed the door on Sarah’s prying eyes. ‘When I come back we will talk again.’

‘Eline,’ Will said softly, ‘I have never held your marriage against you, please don’t hold the words of a spiteful girl against me.’

Eline put her hand on his arm. ‘Go back indoors, Will, you still look a little feverish. We’ll talk again when I get back, really we will, I’ll have had time to think things out then.’

‘Eline, I nearly had you, so nearly.’ Will traced the outline of her cheek with his finger. ‘Never have I wanted anyone the way I want you.’

‘Goodbye, Will.’ Eline almost ran along the road, her eyes were filled with tears and there was a heaviness that weighed her down so that her footsteps seemed to drag. She longed to be alone in her own rooms where she could fling herself on the bed and let the hot angry tears that ached in her throat have full release.

She thought of Will and how he might have been in Sarah’s arms and then she thought of Joe, her husband who had vowed to love only her. Were all men faithless, driven only by their own needs?

She climbed aboard the Mumbles train and huddled in a seat in the warmth of the lower deck. She didn’t want to look out at the passing beauty of the sea, or of the darkening skies over Mumbles Head. She was so low in spirits that nothing seemed to matter any more. She felt beaten, rejected and betrayed and all she wanted now was the sanctuary of her own room.

Somerset was a sweet, red-earthed country with late roses flowering around thatch-roofed country cottages and Eline felt at home there from the first day she had set foot in the place. Mrs Miller had booked them both into a small inn on the outskirts of Street and from the window beneath the sloping roof of her room, Eline could see along the main roadway of the town.

Eline had never been used to luxury before she had her own suite of rooms above Emily’s emporium and so she accepted the small bedroom with its varnished wooden floor and the sagging bed covered in a patchwork quilt with equanimity. She was filled with anticipation as she stood now at the small-paned window, staring out at the soft countryside, glad to be far away from Swansea and from Will. She could not help but wonder what he would be doing now; could he be wrapped in the arms of Sarah Miller, putting Eline completely out of his thoughts?

It troubled Eline how nearly she had betrayed all her instincts and gone to Will’s bed, it was foolishness, she saw that now, no good could come of being unfaithful to her marriage vows. Two wrongs didn’t make a right and it was about time she realized that.

Eline forced her thoughts to return to the business in hand, the visiting of Clark’s Boot and Shoe Emporium. The visit was mainly social, Emily Miller had made that clear, but Eline guessed that a foretaste of what the famous Clark’s factory was planning would be of enormous help in the progress of Emily’s own business.

When she had passed the Clark’s factory on her
arrival, Eline had been surprised at the remoteness of the buildings. The factory could have been a large private dwelling, turretted, with many windows, that stared out into pleasant tree-lined grounds. Somerset was unlike Swansea through its purity of air and the undamaged richness of the countryside.

Swansea had the copper smoke from the Hafod and the White Rose factories as well as the coal dust from small mines to contend with and yet Swansea was dear to Eline, the ugliness mitigated by the golden curve of the bay and by the slopes of the soft hills rising above the town.

Eline heard Emily Miller’s voice outside on the landing, so she drew on her coat and did up the buttons, ready and waiting to visit the Clark factory.

‘Ah, there you are, Eline, punctual I’m happy to see.’ Emily was pulling on her soft kids gloves. ‘We have a cab waiting outside, what a pity it’s begun to rain.’

The roadway outside the inn was quickly turning to mud, the wheels of a passing cart churning channels into the softness sending up a flurry of damp earth in all directions.

Mrs Miller clicked her tongue in annoyance as a few spots clung to the hem of her skirt and her back was as straight as a poker as she climbed into the cab.

Eline followed her and sank into the creaking seat, shivering a little at the coldness of the leather upholstery.

‘Not a very pleasant day, is it?’ Mrs Miller remarked looking through the window and Eline agreed dutifully.

She still felt a little in awe of Mrs Miller who wore an air of remoteness, her tone of voice, when she spoke, always brisk and businesslike. She had been more than kind to Eline and yet there seemed no warmth in Mrs Miller. Except, Eline conceded, when her husband was around.