Tiger Bay Blues (9 page)

‘Engaged!’ she exclaimed in astonishment. ‘I thought you were going to suggest that we didn’t see so much of another.’

‘Surely you must have realised how fond I have become of you.’

‘I …’ She was completely taken aback. Then she realised that, although she had fallen head over heels in love with him, he hadn’t attempted to kiss her, or mentioned love once. Not that she’d minded too much. After fighting off Charlie Moore, and a few other boys who’d tried to ‘take liberties’ she hadn’t been prepared to give, she’d found his gentlemanly conduct refreshing – at first. But he had said ‘fond’ – and fondness was a long way from love. She was fond of the family’s cat.

‘If I’ve misunderstood our friendship, please tell me now, before I say anything more that will embarrass us both.’

‘No, you haven’t misunderstood me,’ she said quickly, setting aside her thoughts until later.

‘I dared to hope that you felt the same way about me that I do about you. And, I realise that to someone of your warmth and spontaneity, “fond” might seem a cold word. But, as you know, my father died when I was young and I had to assume responsibility for my mother’s affairs as well as my own. I have always been wary of rushing into anything. And we have only known one another a month, although it seems longer. In fact,’ he smiled broadly, ‘I can’t imagine life without you now.’

‘That’s a beautiful thing to say.’ She was still reeling at his suggestion. If that wasn’t rash after an acquaintance of only a month and not one single kiss, she didn’t know what was.

‘I could tell you I love and adore you and it would be the truth, Edyth,’ he said earnestly. ‘How could any man not love and adore someone as attractive and lively as you. But you are young –’

‘A fault time will correct,’ she interrupted, her spirits soaring. He did love her.
He loved her!

‘And there is the practical side to consider. My father left me a small annuity, which is a welcome addition to my income as a curate, but combined they’re barely enough for one person to live on. And the Church lodges married curates in rooms, hardly the best place for any couple to start married life. We couldn’t even consider marrying until after I am given my own parish.’

‘Have you forgotten that I’ve promised my father I’ll go to college in September?’

‘No, and I know you won’t qualify for three years,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Edyth, have you any idea what I’m asking you to give up? If you became a teacher you would earn an excellent salary, be able to keep yourself in comfort and, in time, even buy your own house. If you marry me, I couldn’t possibly hope to offer you the same standard of living. Vicars’ stipends have never been generous. They have to pay rent to the Church and can only live in their vicarage as long as they are able to carry out their duties. My salary will provide for our needs but few if any luxuries.’

‘You’re warning me that we will be poor?’

‘We certainly won’t be rich,’ he said decisively, ‘even after I get my own parish. Not if we remain in Wales.’

‘With my family here, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’ Edyth meant it. She had never considered moving away from her parents.

‘You know Reverend and Mrs Price. You’ve seen how hard she works for St Catherine’s.’

‘She sits on as many charitable committees as my mother and father combined,’ she agreed. ‘And that’s without running the jumble sales, Mothers’ Union and Young Wives, organising the Sunday school and its annual outings, and overseeing all the parish’s Christmas activities. You know her nickname in the town is Mother Jesus.’

‘That’s very Welsh – and disrespectful.’

‘It’s not meant to be,’ she explained. ‘People are very
fond
of her.’ She couldn’t resist repeating the word he’d used, but if he saw the joke he didn’t smile or comment on it.

‘Some people say it’s unfair of the Church to expect vicars’ wives to act as unpaid secretaries and helpers to their husbands, but that’s simply the way it is. I can’t see things changing. I’m asking you to sacrifice a great deal, Edyth. Your own career and social life in favour of mine,’ he continued soberly.

‘I know that, Peter.’

‘Do you, really?’ he asked seriously.

‘Yes.’

‘And you still want to continue seeing me?’

‘More than anything else in the world.’ She lifted her face in the hope that he’d finally kiss her. But he simply began to walk on again.

‘This last month, working alongside you with the parish children and in the drama group has been wonderful. I would have spoken sooner if I hadn’t been concerned that I was asking you to give up too much.’

‘Nothing is too much to ask of the person you love,’ she said softly.

‘Then I have your permission to ask your father if I can call on you?’

‘Yes, although I warn you, I don’t know what he’ll make of your request after the rather obvious way Toby chased Bella.’

‘Toby didn’t ask your father’s permission to court Bella?’

‘To get engaged and marry her, yes. But court her?’ She laughed. ‘No. Toby didn’t need to. He followed Bella around with a hangdog expression on his face from the very first moment he saw her – or so my mother and father say.’

‘I can’t believe that you love me.’

‘I do.’ She laughed again, when she realised that she had unwittingly repeated the vow from the wedding service.

‘If we don’t hurry we’ll be late.’

He quickened his pace and she fell into step alongside him. A curtain moved in one of the bay windows when they passed a terrace of houses. The Reverend Price was right; she and Peter had attracted gossip and she realised that meant Peter would never risk kissing her in public. But if he stayed for supper after he had spoken to her father, and she walked him to the gate when he left, anything could happen under cover of darkness.

She recalled the confidences Bella had entrusted to her, glanced at Peter and wondered what he would look like naked. She blushed when she caught him looking back at her. It was only then she considered her parents. She had no idea how either of them would react to Peter’s proposal that he ‘court her with a view to becoming engaged’.

She consoled herself with the thought that it wasn’t as though she was asking their permission to forgo college for marriage, only courtship. A courtship she was a hundred per cent certain would lead to a perfect and wonderful new life with the man she loved.

As for college – how could she bear to leave Peter in Pontypridd and go to Swansea? Forty miles and an hour and a half away by train had never seemed so distant.

Chapter Five

Judy Hamilton tied the laces on her tap shoes, straightened her shorts and blouse, and joined the two dozen girls vying for position in front of the long mirror fixed to the wall of the dressing room. Before she had a chance to catch more than a glimpse of her reflection, a brisk, business-like woman, dressed in a black skirt and white blouse, shouted, ‘Numbers eighteen through twenty-three, inclusive. Follow me to rehearsal room nine.’

Judy knew her number was twenty-one, but she checked the card she’d been given before joining the other girls rushing out of the door.

Rehearsal room nine was a large hall at the end of a long corridor. Three walls were covered in mirrors with practice barres screwed in front of them. Two men sat on chairs close to the door. Both were holding pencils and notepads. An enormously fat woman flowed over a stool in front of an upright piano that had been pushed into a corner. She ground out the cigarette she’d been puffing when the girls clacked, taps ringing, into the room.

‘You’re all third recalls, right?’ one of the men asked. He waited for the girls to answer.

‘We’re doing “What France Needs”, chorus and King. You’ve all had the score and practised the dance steps?’

Judy nodded earnestly along with the others.

‘King?’ the man shouted.

A middle-aged man wearing thick theatrical greasepaint, which made him look positively geriatric, walked in front of the line of girls.

‘And piano … go!’

Judy sang, danced and acted for all she was worth. She tried to practise all the maxims her dance teacher had taught her, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t in the mission hall of Old Angelina Street now, and the stern-faced producers were very different from kindly Mrs Rossiter who had taught her and the other Bay girls basic ballet and tap.

She could hear Mrs Rossiter’s voice in her head: ‘Head up, chest out’; ‘Shine, but not so much that they mark you as an individual, or they won’t want you in the chorus’; ‘Smile as though you’re having the time of your life - so what if your feet are killing you? So are everyone else’s’; ‘Acting is reacting to everyone else on stage’; ‘Sing for the man in the back row of the gods.’

The piano player hit the last note, the ‘King’ walked off without glancing at the girls. The two men conferred. After five minutes the younger of the two shouted.

‘In a straight line. Numbers at waist height.’

Most of the girls, Judy included, were still gasping for breath after the energetic dance, and she found it an effort to hold her number steady. But she was determined not to show any sign of nervousness.

The two men carried on whispering and making notes. Judy saw them looking at her several times. Once she even thought that they were going to comment on her performance, but they merely carried on pointing and scribbling.

‘Thank you, girls, you can go and change. But don’t leave yet. Miss Hedley, we’ll have the next- half-dozen in.’

Miss Hedley led the way back to the dressing room and the girls trooped after her. Judy held her head high and tried not to look dejected. She was the only coloured girl there, although there had been three at the first audition. But, she reminded herself, it was a call-back. And no theatrical impresario ever invited a performer to a call-back unless he was seriously considering that person for a role.

She slipped off her blouse, buttoned her dress over her chemise and pulled off her shorts under cover of the skirt. She was untying her tap shoes when she saw the make-up artist working on one of the first half-dozen girls who’d been called in.

The girl was white with black curly hair and the makeup girl was blacking her face. Judy sat back and waited, watching the artist turn the girl into a black minstrel figure. Half an hour later Miss Hedley called her into the corridor.

‘Mr Lyme and Mr Purgis want you to know that they think you’re very talented, Miss Hamilton.’

‘But?’ Judy knew there had to be a ‘but’ when a sentence began that way.

‘It’s nothing personal, and no reflection on your suitability for the chorus, but we’ll be travelling for twenty-six weeks, staying in digs, bed and breakfasts, and small hotels. You being what you are,’ Miss Hedley coughed in embarrassment, ‘could make it difficult for us all. Some landladies won’t take coloured people. On behalf of myself and the company, I’m sorry. Good luck with your career.’

‘Thank you for being honest.’

Too ashamed to reply, Miss Hedley returned to the dressing room. Judy picked up the bag she’d left by the door and walked down the stairs. The sky was blue, the sun shone, and all she could think about was the unfairness of life. Where aptitude and hard work counted for nothing and the best she could hope for was a job as a skivvy. But not living in. For the first time she understood why Mrs Protheroe hadn’t offered her that option. A coloured daily maid was one thing. It was quite another to have one sleeping under the same roof as an employer.

‘Good evening, Mrs Evans, ladies.’ Peter greeted Sali, Maggie, Beth and Susie when he and Edyth joined them in the family’s drawing room at half past nine.

‘Peter, how nice of you to bring Edyth home again.’ Sali set aside the matinee jacket she was knitting for Mary and Harry’s new baby. ‘Maggie, switch off the radio, please.’

Maggie made a face but she did reach out and turn the knob. The click silenced a chorus from Gilbert and Sullivan’s
Pirates of Penzance.

‘Won’t you sit down, Peter? Supper will be ready soon,’ Sali invited.

‘Peter wants to talk to Dad, Mam.’ Edyth unpinned her hat.

‘He’s in his study.’

‘Is he busy?’ Edyth ignored her mother’s suspicious frown.

‘When have you known him not to be?’ Sali turned to Peter. ‘Like every Member of Parliament, Lloyd always has more constituency business to attend to than anyone man can fit into a working lifetime.’

‘I’ll knock on his door.’ Edyth walked down the hall to Lloyd’s study at the back of the house. She emerged a few minutes later, called to Peter and showed him in before returning to the drawing room.

‘What’s happening?’ Maggie asked Edyth,

‘Private business between Peter and Dad.’ Edyth tried to check her irritation with her sister.

‘Maggie says the curate is sweet on you, Edie.’ Susie dropped the book she had been reading.

Edyth picked up a magazine that was littering the sofa and returned it to the rack. ‘We are friends.’ She knew her mother was watching her but she couldn’t look her in the eye.

‘Help Mari lay the table, darlings, and warn her Peter is staying for supper, so we’ll need a few extra dishes on the table. Tell her to put out the cold ham as well as the beef and pork pie.’

‘And the lemon cake I made for tomorrow’s tea,’ Edyth added.

‘You want to show him how well you can cook?’ Maggie mocked when she passed Edyth’s chair. She spoke quietly, but not quietly enough.

‘I heard that, Maggie, and I gave you something to do,’ Sali reproved.

‘Yes, Mam.’ Rebuked, Maggie followed her sisters.

‘Well?’ Sali asked Edyth after Maggie closed the door.

‘Peter’s asking Dad if he can call on me.’

‘“Call on you”?’ Sali had difficulty concealing her amusement. ‘That’s a quaint phrase. Especially when I consider the amount of time you two have been spending together lately.’

‘He said a vicar can’t be too careful when it comes to avoiding gossip. He wants to court me with a view to getting engaged,’ Edyth divulged uneasily. It was a relief to repeat what Peter had said.

‘Engaged! Edyth, darling, you know you won’t be allowed to go to college if you’re engaged.’

‘We both know that, Mam. It’s just that he wants to court me with a view to getting engaged  …’ Edyth fell silent when she realised how foolish that sounded. Wasn’t every courtship the process of getting to know someone you were attracted to before taking the relationship one step further?

‘It seems to me that Peter Slater is living in another age, darling. You know your father and I believe that all young people should have a good time. Courting someone should be about fun and enjoyment. A courtship “with a view to getting engaged” sounds so serious. Tell me,’ she caught Edyth’s hands in her own. ‘do you love Peter?’

‘I think I fell in love with him the first time I saw him at Bella’s wedding,’ Edyth replied truthfully.

‘You think?’ Sali repeated. ‘Thinking you’re in love is not the same as being in love. You are very young  …’

‘I’m two years older than Bella was when she met Toby,’ Edyth pointed out defensively.

‘But your father and I still insisted that Bella go out and meet other boys.’

‘It didn’t do any good. Bella persuaded you to allow her to get engaged to Toby on her eighteenth birthday.’

‘Only because we could see how much in love they both were. And don’t forget, they had known one another for two years by then, not one month.’ Sali stroked her hand. ‘Darling, the last thing I want you to do is to rush into anything that you may regret later.’

‘I won’t,’ Edyth said firmly.

‘But a courtship does sound as though Peter is more serious about you than you are about him.’

‘No, Mam,’ Edyth said soberly. ‘I promise you, I do love him. More than any other man I’ve ever met or could hope to meet.’

‘If that really is the case then, even if we wanted to, and I’m not saying we do, your father and I couldn’t stop this courtship “with a view to getting engaged” of yours, could we?’

Edyth thought of Peter and smiled. ‘No, Mam, much as I love you and Dad, I don’t believe you could.’

The ten minutes Peter spent closeted with her father were the longest in Edyth’s life. She glanced up nervously when the door opened. Peter walked in first but Lloyd followed close on his heels. He closed the door behind him. ‘You know what’s going on, Sali?’

‘Edyth’s just told me.’

‘I’ve warned Peter that he and Edyth cannot get engaged while she is in college.’

‘I am aware of that, sir.’ Peter hovered close to the door.

‘Please, sit down, Peter.’ Sali indicated the chair opposite her own.

‘Thank you.’ He perched on the edge of the seat of an easy chair and stared at the hearth. The grate had been filled with a pretty arrangement of dried flowers, but it wasn’t striking enough to warrant the attention he was bestowing on it.

‘So, let me understand you – both of you.’ Lloyd remained standing and looked from Peter to Edyth. ‘You are asking my permission to start “courting formally” whatever that means, with a view to an engagement that will not take place until Edyth leaves college in three years’ time?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Peter avoided meeting Lloyd’s eye.

‘A formal courtship you intend to inform Reverend Price and your superiors in the Church about?’ Lloyd guessed perceptively.

‘Yes, sir.’ Peter squirmed uneasily.

‘Few men in this day and age would bother to tell their employers that they are about to start courting a girl,’ Lloyd continued flatly.

‘With all due respect, Mr Evans, the Church is no normal employer.’

Lloyd sighed and Edyth knew he was struggling to contain his annoyance. ‘I am aware of that, which is why I am so concerned about your relationship with my daughter. Would it be fair of me to say, Peter, that the Church prefers married to unmarried clergy?’

‘I am aware of the saying that the Church prefers married vicars because it gives them four working hands for the price of two. But a vicar’s wife is second only to the vicar when it comes to parish business. She is highly regarded and respected –’

‘But not in her own right,’ Lloyd interrupted. ‘Only in her husband’s shadow. And she will live her entire life that way. Also, two for the price of one isn’t the only reason why the Church prefers married clergy, is it?’

‘No, sir.’ Peter’s cheeks flamed bright red. ‘The Church demands the highest morality from all the clergy.’

‘And this, I take it, is where the formal courtship comes in?’

‘To be blunt, yes, sir. I try to be open and honest in all my dealings.’

‘Have you considered how you’d react if Edyth changes her mind in six months or a year from now?’

‘I rather hope she won’t, sir,’ Peter replied.

‘You are very quiet, Edyth.’ Lloyd locked his hands behind his back and looked to his daughter. ‘Do you want to continue seeing Peter?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ she answered decisively.

‘And if I give my consent …’ A bemused expression crossed Lloyd’s face. ‘I’m not entirely sure what I’m giving my consent to, other than a courtship. Will you promise me that you won’t put your college career at risk by getting engaged to Peter before you qualify as a teacher?’

‘I promised you that I would go to college if I matriculated, Dad, and I will.’ Her voice didn’t waver, but her resolve was already crumbling. It was simply too cruel to expect her and Peter to live in separate towns for three years while they were getting to know one another.

‘You know she gained high honours, Peter,’ Lloyd said proudly.

‘Dad …’ Edyth protested, acutely embarrassed whenever either of her parents mentioned her success.  Sali was shaking her head at Lloyd and Edyth knew her mother was warning her father not to continue lecturing her.

‘All right,’ Lloyd said softly. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that it’s futile to try to stop two people from seeing one another if they believe themselves in love. I won’t even try. You do love one another?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yes, Dad,’ Edyth replied swiftly.

‘I would never have asked your permission to court Edyth if I didn’t love her, sir,’ Peter answered.

‘I won’t pretend to be glad at your association. You know my views on organised religion, Peter?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘And yet still you want to court – and eventually marry – my daughter?’

‘Edyth has been confirmed as a member of the congregation of St Catherine’s.’

‘That was none of my doing’ Lloyd hesitated. ‘I had hoped that all my daughters would wait until they had finished their education and gained some experience of the world before embarking on romance. Perhaps it was optimistic of me, but whatever else, I am not at all certain that you are suited to the life of a vicar’s wife, Edyth.’