Sinners and Shadows (8 page)

‘We can go to the exhibition but a good time is out,' Rhian agreed.

‘I wouldn't like to say which one of you looks the most miserable.' Sali began to brush Rhian's hair from the bottom up, gently teasing out the tangles. ‘I've suspected for months that he loves you.'

‘Why didn't you say something?' Rhian picked up the hairpins she'd dropped on Sali's tray and made a neat row that she pushed between her fingers.

‘Would you have listened, or repeated that you were just friends?'

‘Probably repeated that we were just friends,' Rhian conceded miserably.

‘I know Joey. He wouldn't have asked you to marry him if he didn't love you. The question is: do you love him?' Sali twisted a strand of hair into a neat curl that she pinned at the nape of Rhian's neck.

Rhian hesitated before answering. Joey might be Sali's brother-in-law, but Sali knew his faults as well, if not better, than most of the women he'd gone out with. ‘Joey's had so many girlfriends. You have no idea what it's like being the latest in a long line. No matter where we go, a shop, a cafe, a hotel, Tonypandy, Pontypridd or Cardiff, it makes no difference; there's always at least one girl who knows him and from the snide remarks, better than she should.'

‘But you knew it would be like that before you agreed to go out with him.'

‘Yes, but –'

‘You're not sure that you can forgive him his past?'

‘Life's so unfair for women.' Rhian waited until Sali had finished pinning up her hair before turning on the stool and looking up at her. ‘On the one hand there's poor Jinny –'

‘Who is poor Jinny?' Sali interrupted.

‘One of Bronwen's sisters – the girl I share with in Llan House. She was a maid at the vicarage. She went out with the same boy for over a year, but the moment he found out that she was having his baby he cleared off. Her mistress threw her out, her father refused to allow her to come home, so she had no choice but to go to the workhouse. If she's lucky they'll find her a job after the baby's born but she'll have to leave it in the orphanage and no man will ever look at her the same way again. Overnight she's gone from being a “good” girl to a “bad” one. Yet boys like Joey can sleep with as many women as they like and no one thinks any the worse of them.'

‘I do,' Sali countered firmly. ‘And the same goes for Joey's father and brothers. Until he started going out with you they were always lecturing him about his behaviour.'

‘But it didn't do any good.'

‘It didn't until January. But you were the one who said “boys like Joey”. Fair or not, generally people don't think any the less of a boy for sowing his wild oats, which is why most of them behave so badly. I'm not making excuses for Joey. He's behaved worse than most and he's certainly been talked about more than any other boy in Tonypandy. If a girl tried to do a fraction of the things he's done, she'd be ostracized from decent society and sent to the workhouse for moral re-education.'

‘My point exactly.'

‘I agree with you, dual standards are unacceptable. It's appalling that girls are treated differently from boys when it comes to courting, marriage and a million and one other things, like education and jobs. That's why I've joined the suffragettes. But I'm not optimistic enough to think that the world is going to change overnight.'

‘You've joined the suffragettes?'

‘Yes, and we'll have a long talk about it some other time.' It was the last thing Sali wanted to discuss at that moment. ‘You knew about Joey's past before you went out with him. Why should it bother you now?'

‘Because it's now that he's asked me to marry him.'

‘And you're worried that if you do, he'll carry on the way he did when he was single?' she asked perceptively.

‘Yes.' Rhian left the stool and went to the window that overlooked the rose garden. The bushes were in leaf but the wind was giving them such a battering she wondered if they'd survive long enough to flower. ‘You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but did Lloyd have lots of girlfriends before you married him?'

‘He was twenty-eight,' Sali reminded her. ‘And I was hardly a virgin after having Harry. Lloyd forgave me my past and I forgave him his. No – forgave is not the right word,' she corrected. ‘Lloyd made me see that what happened before we married wasn't relevant to our life together.'

‘The women Lloyd walked out with. Do you know who they are?'

‘If you mean Lloyd's lovers,' Sali said bluntly, ‘yes. But when Lloyd and I fell in love he told them it was over. I never think about them and I am certain that he doesn't. But then Lloyd and I trust one another implicitly. If you don't mind me saying so, it's obvious that you don't trust Joey.'

‘I'd like to.'

‘Have you tried telling him how you feel?'

‘Yes.' Rhian left the window and walked back to the dressing table.

‘But Joey Evans's infamous and irrational temper got in the way.'

Rhian would have liked to agree with Sali but she felt that it would somehow be disloyal to Joey.

‘Try to talk to him again,' Sali counselled.

‘But that would make me sound like a nagging wife before we even marry.' She picked up her hairbrush and returned it to her bag.

‘That sounds to me like you're seriously considering his offer. And a wife should be able to talk about anything to her husband, even at the risk of being called a nag.' Sali glanced at the bedside clock. ‘If you're ready, we'll go and find Joey. Harry's probably dragged him off to the stables to see the colt that was born the day before yesterday. He spends so much time down there with Robert, I suspect we're going to have trouble getting him back to school when the summer term starts.'

‘Perhaps Harry could come with us to the show –'

‘Absolutely not,' Sali said. ‘For a start you haven't a ticket for him and he's seen it twice already. Lloyd and I took him and Bella, and then my solicitor, Mr Richards, turned up with tickets for himself and Harry. He insisted a client had given them to him but I think he bought them because he wanted to see the show and used Harry as an excuse.'

‘You can't blame him. I've heard that it's very good.' Rhian checked her hair in the mirror.

‘It is, but as it doesn't start for another hour, I suggest that you and Joey walk very slowly from here to the Malsters' Field.'

‘It's a ten-minute walk.'

‘It will take you the other fifty to sort out your differences.'

‘You think I should marry him, don't you?'

‘Oh no.' Sali smiled. ‘You don't put that one on me. Whether or not you should marry Joey, or any man come to that, is entirely your decision.'

‘But you would like me to marry him,' Rhian persisted.

Sali kissed Rhian's cheek then opened the door. ‘I am blissfully happy with Lloyd and the children but that doesn't mean I think marriage suits everyone. I have no idea if it will suit you, or Joey. All I want is for both of you to be happy. And the only advice I can give you is to think very carefully before you agree to marry him, or anyone.'

*……*……*

‘Julia, have you heard a single word I've said?' Mabel Larch demanded imperiously.

Julia looked up from her Palestine Soup. ‘You were telling me that you wished you'd bought the green silk evening gown as well as the blue velvet.'

‘The cut was perfect.' Mabel crumbled her bread roll into small pieces.

‘You did say that you disliked the colour,' Julia ventured.

‘I could have had it dyed. I really don't know why you bothered to come shopping with me, you're no company and you've bought hardly anything.'

Julia refrained from reminding Mabel that she'd only joined her at her insistence, and then in the hope that it would put her stepmother in a less aggressive mood, and consequently make her father's life a little easier. ‘I purchased everything I needed.'

‘A few sets of exceedingly ugly underwear,' Mabel said. ‘You should have bought some evening wear. You can't keep wearing that figured black velvet. It's positively drab, not to mention years out of date.'

‘The necks on all the gowns my size were too low.' Acutely aware of her lack of cleavage, Julia only wore high collars.

‘They were classic styles. I simply don't understand why you persist in covering yourself neck to toe like a nun. And in mourning! You're not getting any younger. The way you carry on, you'll be living with me and your father when you are in your dotage. No one likes an old maid, and that's what you will be in another year or two. Sometimes, when I look at the way you dress and behave I wonder if you are there already.'

Aware that her stepmother wanted both her and her brother out of the house, and wishing to avoid an argument on the subject, Julia refrained from biting back.

‘It's a woman's duty to dress well, and it's not as if you haven't the money. Just look at what you're wearing now. That black drains what little colour you have and there's more shape to a collier's cloth cap than that hat you're wearing. You never put on as much as a dab of perfume …'

Julia recalled the pressure Mr Watkin Jones had exerted on her fingers when he had helped her into the carriage, the warmth of his smile when he stood watching them drive away and his final words:
Hope to see you again, and very soon, Mrs Larch. Miss Larch. It was a pleasure, as always, to wait on you.

‘… Of course, he's heard that you've inherited an absolute fortune from your mother.'

‘Who?' Confused, Julia looked across at her stepmother.

‘Mr Geraint Watkin Jones. You don't think he is that attentive to all the customers, do you? He knows you're wealthy and practically on the shelf. And he's astute enough to realize that a girl with your looks hasn't been overwhelmed with suitors.'

‘No one with a brain in their head could think that.' Julia didn't quite succeed in keeping the bitterness from her voice.

‘Mr Watkin Jones may as well pin an advertisement on his back: “Rich wife wanted for gentleman who has fallen on hard times.” Mrs Hadley was only telling me last week in the Ladies' Circle that she had to ask her husband to speak to him after he started bothering her daughter, Elizabeth.'

‘Elizabeth Hadley has a tongue in her head. Couldn't she tell Mr Watkin Jones to stop bothering her, herself?'

The irony was lost on Mabel. ‘Geraint Watkin Jones ignored the Hadleys when he had Danygraig House and his fortune. Yet, six months ago, when Elizabeth Hadley celebrated her twenty-first birthday and it was all round the town that she'd inherited her grandfather's farm and coach-building business, Mr Watkin Jones became exceedingly attentive. He changed pews in St Catherine's so he could sit behind her in church. He wrote his name against every one of the waltzes on Elizabeth's dance card at the Christmas Charity Ball. He even had the gall to invite her to the moving pictures, and when Mr Hadley told him that he wouldn't allow his daughter to step out with a young man she wasn't acquainted with, Mr Watkin Jones invited the entire Hadley family to dine with him and his mother in the annex of Ynysangharad House. Everyone knows that before she died, his mother hadn't left her bed in years, and his sister and her family lived entirely separate from them, so it effectively meant that he'd be their host. I ask you, a shop assistant, inviting the Hadleys to dine.'

‘But he does live in Ynysangharad House,' Julia said in Geraint's defence.

‘Not for much longer, according to Mrs Hadley. His sister and the trustees of her son's estate are anxious to shut up the wing that he and his mother occupied. I can't say I'm surprised. It's obvious that they were living on his sister's or rather nephew's charity and now the mother's gone, there's no earthly reason why he should continue to reside there. Lodgings are good enough for a shop assistant. Mrs Hadley said that the family has gone to the dogs since their uncle lost their money. The eldest girl married to that miner –'

‘Mr Evans is an engineer and he does business with Father.'

‘Unfortunately, business dictates that your father has to deal with all sorts of unsuitable people.'

‘Father's solicitors' practice makes most of its money from colliery business.' Julia suppressed the temptation to remind her stepmother that colliery business had paid for the gowns she had just purchased.

‘Your father has made many sacrifices for you and your brother. And I think it's high time you both contributed more to the household expenses now that you have taken possession of your mother's fortune –'

Julia stopped listening as her stepmother continued to expound arguments that had become all too familiar. She hadn't needed Mabel's warning about Geraint Watkin Jones's intentions, any more than she'd needed to hear her disparaging judgement on her appearance.

She wondered if it would be so terrible to have a husband who'd only married her for her money? At least he would have cause to be grateful to her. Geraint Watkin Jones was tall, good-looking and had been brought up as a gentleman, even if he had come down in the world. The fortune she had inherited on her mother's death, which Mabel so bitterly resented, would enable them to buy a decent house anywhere they chose and fund a comfortable lifestyle. They could have carriages, servants, fine furniture and clothes, and possibly even a social life that included real friends.

Closing her ears to Mabel's prattling, she imagined herself walking into a ballroom with her arm resting on Geraint's, sitting next to him in a theatre box, travelling to a seaside resort in the summer – and lying next to him in bed. She knew about her father's problems with Mabel. Everyone in the house did, because there was no escaping their increasingly ugly rows. Could sharing a bed with a man possibly be as awful as Mabel said?