‘No thanks, Rhian. It’s going to take me the rest of the day to digest these faggots. I only hope I don’t burp at the mistress’s tea party. If I do I’ll never hear the end of it.’ Bronwen wiped her mouth on a napkin.
‘Never mind your own shopping, Rhian, off with you now, and be as quick as you can.’ The brief exchange with the mistress had made Mrs Williams short-tempered.
‘I’ll be back before you know it.’ Rhian grabbed her straw boater, stripped off her apron and secreted the coins Mair and Cook had given her deep in the pocket of her grey-and-white striped uniform dress. She opened the back door, stepped outside and her spirits soared.
It was a glorious day. The sun shone from a clear, cloudless, blue-washed sky. The trees were clothed in their full summer garb of leafy green and the scent of the enormous cream cabbage roses, the pride and joy of the part-time gardener, filled the air. She ran down the drive to the gate, arms and legs flying, not caring how she looked.
Only two and half more weeks and she’d be walking away from Llan House for good. And, although she’d miss Mrs Williams, Bronwen, Mair and Cook, she didn’t mind half as much now that Miss Julia had left. Six and a half more days and she’d spend her next day off with Joey. She smiled when she thought of what had happened between them the day before. Joey … her smile broadened as an image of him came to mind. Handsome, smiling, his dark eyes filled with love – and mischief.
If she hurried, she could walk to Dunraven Street and back in just over half an hour. Cook said she wanted the cake by half past two. If there wasn’t a queue in Rodney’s and she was served quickly, she could afford to steal ten not five minutes and pop into Gwilym James. She knew that more often than not Joey’s dinner was a sandwich at his desk.
Holding her boater on her head with one hand, she picked up her skirts with the other and quickened her pace.
Tonia was on her feet before the train stopped at Tonypandy station. Bracing herself for the judder when the driver hit the brakes, she stood impatiently in front of the door. Nausea, dizziness and shock had been superseded by a burning desire for revenge, not only on Geraint for rejecting and betraying her, but also on Joey for telling him that her mother didn’t own Rodney’s. If Joey hadn’t said anything, Geraint might never have looked at Julia Larch because the only possible reason he could have for marrying a woman as ugly as her was money.
Consumed by a rage that had been fuelled rather than assuaged by Miss Adams’s compassion and sympathy at her supposed ‘illness’, she was no longer capable of logical thought. She only knew that she wanted to wound both men as she had been wounded.
She jumped down from the train as soon as it stopped. Oblivious to the attention she was attracting, she ran, skirt and petticoats flying to her knees, all the way from the station to Dunraven Street. The sun burned and suffocated her, dressed as she was in her Gwilym James uniform of black twill skirt and high-necked, long-sleeved cotton blouse. She loosened the tie on her collar and unbuttoned her cuffs, earning herself a glare of disapproval from the vicar’s wife.
The street was packed with people. Children out from school for the summer holidays ran wild, dodging between trams, delivery carts, carriages and pedestrians as they played ‘chase and catch’. The landlord of the Dunraven Hotel was standing on his front doorstep in shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe and exchanging news with the local constable, who was keeping a watchful eye on a couple of young boys hanging around the back of the baker’s cart.
She stepped up on to the pavement and pushed past mothers carrying babies in shawls slung around both child and their own bodies as they walked slowly, measuring their steps to those of their toddlers. Two massive shire horses waited patiently in harness in front of a brewery dray parked outside the White Hart. The potman was assisting the draymen in rolling barrels down through the steel trapdoors set in the pavement that led to the public house’s cellars.
A crowd of small boys had clustered around the posters pasted in front of the Empire Theatre that advertised the current variety show playing there. An elegantly-dressed lady in a fine white lawn skirt and blouse was leaving Owen Jones’s milliner’s shop with three hatboxes and Tonia suddenly wished with all her heart that she could be that woman. Rich and idle enough to buy three hats at once in the middle of the working day, and pretty enough to attract attention and turn men’s heads. She would never have given herself to a man capable of betraying her by running off with another woman.
An overpowering smell of warm ham filled the air and she halted, her nose barely an inch away from a smoked pig carcass that hung outside the doorway of the New Market. Swerving to avoid it, she ducked into the empty doorway of the cobbler’s when she spotted her mother’s delivery boy ferrying boxed orders from the shop into the back of his cart.
Across the street, the front of Gwilym James was crowded with window shoppers trying to read the sale tickets that had appeared on the remaining summer stock. A tram rattled past at speed.
Pulling her hat down low over her eyes, she fastened the buttons she had loosened on her blouse and marched towards the front door.
‘Good afternoon.’ She acknowledged the doorman, who recognized her from the time she had worked in the store.
‘Good afternoon, Miss George.’
‘Is the manager in?’ Her voice sounded odd, high-pitched, and she took a deep breath to steady herself.
‘Mr Evans is in his office, Miss George. It is his lunch break. Would you like me to announce you?’
‘That won’t be necessary. My cousin is expecting me.’ Looking neither left nor right, Tonia made her way down to the back of the store and Joey’s office. The blinds had been closed on the window that overlooked the shop floor. The door had an opaque etched-glass panel that blocked out everything except the light. She stood before it and listened hard for a moment. Hearing only silence, she knocked.
‘Unless the store’s on fire, I’m not here.’
Recognizing Joey’s drawl, she opened the door. Joey was sitting alone in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his feet propped on his visitor’s chair, a cup of tea and a half-eaten cheese and tomato sandwich on the desk in front of him.
He frowned when she closed the door behind her.
‘I had to see you,’ she gasped, her resolve wavering now she was actually alone with him.
He kicked his feet from the chair, folded the copy of the Rhondda Leader he’d been reading and set it aside. ‘Leave the door open.’
‘So everyone in the store can hear what I have to say to you? Not likely.’ She dropped her handbag on to a chair and walked towards him. He rose to his feet and moved in front of his desk.
‘You have nothing to say to me that other people can’t hear.’ He tried to pass her but she blocked the narrow gangway, trapping him between his desk and the wall.
‘That’s what you think.’
He stared at her. She glared back at him. Hoping to avoid a scene, he sat on the edge of his desk, crossed his arms across his chest and faced her quietly. ‘What’s this about, Tonia?’
‘You and me.’
‘There is no you and me.’
‘You’ve forgotten what you said to Geraint Watkin Jones in the stockroom in Gwilym James in Pontypridd?’ she challenged.
‘Completely,’ he said flatly.
‘I bet you think it’s funny. Enjoying a good laugh at my expense?’ she hissed.
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ he protested.
‘You haven’t heard that Geraint’s run off with Julia Larch.’
‘Oh, that. It’s all over Tonypandy.’
‘So everyone knows.’ A tear fell from her eye and rolled down her left cheek. She didn’t attempt to wipe it away and he recalled all the times she had run to him and his brothers when they’d been children. Remembered the schoolyard battles he’d fought on her behalf and the times she’d sneaked chocolate from the shop to pay him back afterwards.
Feeling sorry for her, he opened his arms and she fell into
them. ‘I’m sorry, I really am, Tonnie.’ He reverted to her childhood nickname. He stroked her hair, she shuddered and her tears trickled hot and wet through his thin shirt on to his shoulder. ‘Geraint may be Sali’s brother but they’re chalk and cheese. I knew what he was like. I should have warned you before you left here to go to the Pontypridd store. If I had, you might never have got involved with him in the first place and saved yourself all this heartache.’
‘I thought he loved me,’ she sobbed.
‘I know,’ he consoled clumsily. ‘But he’s not worth crying over. There’s a right man out there for you, Tonnie, and you’ll find him.’
‘Whoever he is, he won’t want me now. Not after what I’ve done with Geraint,’ she wailed.
‘No one need know about that.’
‘You know. Geraint knows, and I do and I can’t forget it –’
‘Tonia, please, don’t upset yourself any more. Not over Geraint Watkin Jones. He isn’t worth a single one of your tears. I feel sorry for Julia Larch getting stuck with him. I bet she’ll soon start feeling sorry for herself too, when she finds out what he’s really like. Come on,’ he tried to hold her at arm’s length but she fought him. ‘Let me take you home.’
‘No!’ Her crying escalated to hysteria. ‘Not home, I don’t want my mother and Annie to see me like this.’
He glanced up at the clock. ‘I have to go back on the shop floor in ten minutes.’
‘Please, Joey, just hold me.’
He reached for his handkerchief and gave it to her. ‘Dry your eyes and sit down. I’ll ask Miss Robertson to bring you a cup of tea. Then you can stay here until you are fit to go home.’
She locked her arms around his neck and refused to let him go. ‘Just another minute, Joey, please.’
‘One minute, Tonia, and then I’ll fetch Miss Robertson to see to you.’
‘You’re lucky, Rhian, these are our last two Madeiras until tomorrow’s delivery. Will there be anything else?’ Annie O’Leary wrapped the cakes in brown paper bags and put them in the bottom of Rhian’s basket.
‘No, thank you, Annie.’ Rhian folded the cloth over them.
‘I’ll see you in church on the first of August.’
‘I’ll probably be in here again before then.’ Impatient to see Joey, Rhian was already at the door.
‘The way you lot from Llan House are bobbing in and out of here these days, you’re more than likely right,’ Annie shouted after her.
Clutching her basket, Rhian dashed across the road, narrowly missing a boogie cart, created imaginatively but not soundly from firewood and balanced on pram wheels. It hurtled past her, its small driver and three even smaller passengers screaming as they crashed into a lamp-post.
‘Any bones broken?’ Father Kelly lifted the most vociferous casualty from the wreckage.
‘Are they –’
‘They’re fine, Rhian,’ he reassured. ‘I’ve seen them do this a dozen times a day. When are you going to get yourself a boogie with brakes, Sean?’ he asked the driver. He’d noticed the direction Rhian was walking in and guessed from her uniform that she was stealing five minutes out of her working day to see Joey. ‘I can see you’re in a hurry, Rhian.’
‘I am, Father Kelly. Bye and thanks.’
The doorman lifted his hat to her. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Jones, Mr Evans is in his office.’
‘Thank you.’ Rhian saw that the blinds were drawn on Joey’s office window. Assuming he was still eating his lunch, she knocked once and opened the door. Then froze.
Joey was leaning with his back against his desk. Tonia was standing in front of him, her head resting on his shoulder, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other around his waist.
Rhian dropped her basket. It crashed to the floor. The Madeira cakes and teacloth rolled out on to the lino.
Joey saw the shock register in Rhian’s eyes, watched her hand fly to her mouth. ‘Rhian, this isn’t what it looks like –’
‘You promised!’ Rhian’s voice fractured with emotion. ‘You made me a solemn promise!’
‘Tonia was upset.’ He pushed his cousin away from him. ‘Tonia, tell her what happened.’
Tonia looked from him to Rhian. ‘Tell her what, Joey? That you and I are lovers and I’m having your baby?’
Rhian turned and fled blindly through the store. She was vaguely aware of crashing into display stands and knocking them over. Of barging into shoppers. Of people staring.
‘Mr Evans!’ Miss Robertson’s voice rang loud and high-pitched in shock. Rhian stopped and looked back through misted eyes. Joey was in his office doorway and she knew why the supervisor had shouted. His flies were unbuttoned, his shirt-tail poking out of his open trousers. Fumbling with his buttons, he charged after her, only to slip on one of the cakes. She didn’t wait to see any more. Picking up her skirts, she darted into the street.
A horse whinnied, a barrel crashed down the chute into the cellar of the White Hart. People shouted behind her but she didn’t stop. She dived up a side street and from there into a lane. She ran to the end. A garden gate was open. She went in, crouched behind it and gulped in great mouthfuls of air. She needed to get her breath before she went … to where?
Sali, she could go to Sali. Or could she? Sali was Joey’s sister-in-law. She couldn’t ask her to take sides. No more than she could Megan. It would split the family in two. They had all warned her against going out with Joey, his own brothers as well as Sali and Megan. Even his father had tried to tell her what he was like. But after that first wonderful day they had spent together, she had refused to listen to anyone except Joey. And now … now she knew that even when he had given her his mother’s ring he had lied to her. Her own voice echoed in her mind.
But it’s not the past that concerns me, Joey, it’s the future. Can’t you understand that?
I solemnly promise you, Rhian, that if you marry me, I will never do anything to hurt you.
Never?
Never.
She had wanted to believe him enough to allow him to deceive her, or had she simply deceived herself?
Handsome is as handsome does.
She knew exactly what handsome Joey Evans had done before he met her – and to dozens of girls. He hadn’t changed, and that knowledge hurt more than she would have believed possible.
She couldn’t return to Llan House to face Mrs Williams and the other girls and confirm that they’d been right to distrust Joey all along. She wouldn’t even be able to hide what had happened. Even if news didn’t reach them from the store right away, they only had to take one look at her to realize that something was very wrong. Besides, she didn’t even have the cakes …
Tonia and Joey! How could she have been so blind? She closed her eyes against the image of them embracing in front of his desk. Of Joey standing in the doorway of his office, Tonia behind him, his flies unbuttoned. A baby! Tonia said she was having his baby!
In the space of a few short minutes her entire world had fallen apart. And she was on her own with absolutely no one to turn to.
Cook opened the kitchen door and looked into the back yard. ‘Where can that girl have got to?’
‘If they didn’t have any Madeira cake in Rodney’s she could have gone to another shop. You know what the queues can be like in James Cole’s and the Maypole.’ Mrs Williams’s excuse was weak and she knew it. She checked the clock for the tenth time in as many minutes. Rhian was always so reliable, but she had left the house at a quarter past one and it was half past two. She had taken an hour and a quarter for what should have been a forty-five-minute errand.
In another quarter of an hour, the mistress would have to be woken, and an hour after that the tea trolley would have to be taken upstairs. Everything had been prepared except the sweet sandwiches and she knew that if Rhian didn’t turn up in the next five minutes, Cook, who could be difficult at the best of times, would refuse to make them on principle. And if she made them, Cook would create an almighty fuss and tell the mistress that she wa
s trying to take her job.
‘Bronwen, make a pot of tea and wake the mistress with a cup at a quarter to three.’ Mrs Williams joined Cook in the opened doorway.
‘Yes, Mrs Williams.’
‘Here she comes now,’ Cook sighed impatiently when they heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel on the lower part of the drive.
‘That’s not a her it’s a him.’ Mrs Williams squinted into the sunlight when a figure walked around the side of the house. ‘What are you doing here at this time of day, Joey Evans?’ she barked.
‘I need to see Rhian.’
‘She’s not here,’ Cook snapped. ‘She went into town over an hour ago and she’s not come back.’
‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with you, now would it?’ Mrs Williams demanded suspiciously.
It choked Joey to admit it. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’ Mrs Williams glared at him when he didn’t elaborate.
‘I’ve looked for her everywhere I can think of in the last hour,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve been from one end of Tonypandy to the other and there’s no sign of her in any of the streets or on the mountain. No one’s seen her anywhere. Please, Mrs Williams, if she is here, let me see her,’ he begged. ‘There’s been a dreadful misunderstanding.’
‘Knowing you, Joey Evans, one involving another girl.’ When Joey didn’t contradict her, Mrs Williams set her mouth in a grim line. ‘You may as well tell me what’s happened so I’ll be prepared for the worse.’
‘She saw me with Tonia.’
‘Your cousin?’
‘It wasn’t what it looked like,’ Joey protested earnestly. ‘Tonia was upset, she was crying on my shoulder.’
‘And what was Tonia upset about?’
‘I can’t say.’ Joey had never been so reluctant to keep a secret.
‘I see. And what happened after Rhian saw your cousin crying on your shoulder?’ Mrs Williams turned bright red, a sure sign to those who knew her that she was having trouble keeping her temper.
Sinners and Shadows Page 21
