‘Daddy, you came home!’
‘I promised I would, tiger.’ Lloyd ruffled Harry’s hair and caught Bella by the waist when she hurtled towards him.
‘You are not to do a thing,’ Sali cautioned Rhian. ‘You have been up every night with that baby for the past two weeks and now he’s finally sleeping, you should get some rest yourself.’
‘Nothing?’ Rhian asked innocently.
‘Nothing,’ Sali reiterated sternly.
‘Not even put a few presents under the tree?’ Rhian glanced slyly at Harry who had managed to excite Bella to the same pitch of Christmas anticipation as himself.
‘Not a thing. Mari,’ Sali turned to the housekeeper, ‘after you have put Edyth down for her afternoon nap, you and Rhian are to sit in the drawing room and open a bottle of sherry.’
‘And sing drunken ditties to the babies?’ Mari questioned in amusement.
‘If you like.’
‘I’ve already promised the two new maids that I’ll show them how to make Christmas biscuits.’
‘Yummy,’ shouted Harry who loved Mari’s Christmas biscuits.
‘We have all the food we need and more,’ Lloyd commented.
‘But the maids’ families might like some biscuits,’ Sali guessed. Unable to compete with the wages being paid in the munitions factories, they had lost Robert and three maids in the last two months. Mari was running the house with only their elderly cook, even more elderly butler and two thirteen-year-old girls. And although she and Rhian did what they could to help, and they had shut off half the rooms in the house, Lloyd was already talking about asking the trustees to sell the house or rent it out, so they could look for a smaller, more easily run place.
‘Enjoy yourselves.’ Rhian ushered Bella to the door.
‘You really will take it easy?’ Sali asked.
‘I found a copy of Our Mutual Friend in the library. It’s the only one of Dickens’s books that I haven’t read and I will have a great time until Eddie’s next feed is due.’
Lloyd helped Sali on with her new loose coat that did little to conceal her burgeoning figure. The new baby was expected in the spring and she and Lloyd had resumed their usual argument as to whether it would be a boy or a girl, but like everyone in the house, Rhian thought that Sali had resigned herself to having another girl.
She gave Harry a last wave, closed the door and returned to the drawing room where the baby was sleeping in his day cot.
She looked down at him, tucked the blanket over his tiny shoulders and dropped a kiss on the woollen bonnet Julia had knitted. She loved Eddie and not only for his mother and grandfather’s sake. She remembered Edward’s request that she call him Eddie and she used the name more than Edward because it was more suited to such a small bundle of humanity.
A few times she had even caught herself speaking about him as if he really were her son and she had felt guilty, and disloyal, although Lloyd and Sali kept telling her that the best tribute she could pay to Julia was to take care of her child as if he were her own.
She pulled the easy chair close enough to the cot for her to be able to look into it without moving, curled up and opened her book. She hadn’t read more than a couple of pages when the doorbell rang. She went out into the hall, but Mr Jenkins had opened it. Joey was on the doorstep, in a pristine uniform.
He took off his cap. ‘Hello, Mr Jenkins.’ He looked past the butler to where Rhian was standing.
‘Joey.’ Mari came down the stairs. ‘I’m glad to see you’re cleaner than when you turned up here on your last leave. Do you have any little friends under that spotless tunic?’
‘I managed to abandon them in France this time.’
‘Good. I suppose you’re hungry?’ she enquired.
He heard the frost in her voice and knew that Julia had been wrong. Mari’s sister hadn’t entirely kept all her suspicions to herself. ‘I can wait until mealtime.’
‘I’ve just cleared lunch but I dare say I can find some bacon and bread if you fancy a sandwich.’
‘That would be much appreciated, Mari, thank you.’ He took off his greatcoat and cap and handed them to Mr Jenkins.
‘I’ll get the maid to bring it to you in the drawing room. Would you like tea, Rhian?’
‘No, thank you, Mari.’ Rhian stood back and allowed Joey to walk into the room ahead of her. ‘Sali and Lloyd have just taken the children to the pantomime.’
‘I saw them. Lloyd stopped the car at the gates. Sali wanted to come back but I told them I was tired.’
Rhian stood next to the cot. ‘Would you like to see your son?’
‘You got the letters I sent you?’
‘Yes.’
Unable to meet her steady gaze, he looked down at the child. ‘Can I pick him up?’
‘You don’t know much about babies.’
‘Not at this age. Harry was two when Sali moved in with us, and I’ve only made fleeting visits to Bella, Jack, Tom and Edyth since.’
‘The first thing you should know is that you never, never wake a sleeping baby, because you have no idea when you’ll get your next five minutes’ peace.’
‘He’s beautiful.’
‘He has your colouring, black curly hair, dark eyes and unfortunately a very strong pair of lungs. When he screams, he screams.’
He continued to look down at the baby. ‘I rehearsed so many speeches on the journey here. Thought out what I was going to say to you a hundred times, but now I’m actually here I can’t remember one of them.’ He passed his hand in front of his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, excuse me. If I’m going to eat, I have to wash my hands.’
Rhian sat in the chair, gazed into the cot and thought back to last Christmas when Edward had been alive, and they had spent the day together.
So much had happened in two short years: she had lost her first real home, her fiancé, her lover, her friends Jinny and Meriel – and Julia.
If she had learned anything, it was that life was transient and uncertain, and the slightest chance of love had to be seized and cherished because it was the most precious treasure anyone could give or be given.
Joey returned with a tray of sandwiches and tea that he set on the sofa table.
‘It’s Christmas – we could have sherry,’ she suggested.
‘Or brandy.’ He went to the drinks tray and poured two brandies.
‘How long are you home for?’
‘Two weeks.’
She smiled. ‘That’s wonderful. Your father and brothers and the children will be so pleased.’
‘And you?’
‘And me,’ she echoed, holding his steady gaze.
‘It’s embarkation leave.’
‘But you’re already at the Front.’
‘There are other fronts besides France.’
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ she asked apprehensively.
‘Yes,’ he said shortly.
‘But you can’t say.’
‘I am not supposed to tell anyone, but bearing in mind that you could have me shot if you divulge my future whereabouts, I trust you to keep them secret. I’ll be sailing for India.’
She smiled in relief. ‘Then you’ll be out of the war.’
‘Not quite.’ He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had ‘bought’ his leave by taking a commission in a regiment detailed to relieve the siege at Kut al Amara in Iraq. A conflict that was proving to be more bloody and costly in terms of lives than even the Western Front. But he had wanted to see her so much; it had seemed a small price to pay when it had been offered to him. ‘Rhian, about the baby …’
‘Edward Gerald Larch. Julia named him after her father and brother. You might think his name is a permanent reminder of my indiscretion, just as the fact of his being here is a reminder of yours.’
‘What can I say, except sorry?’
‘When you made love to Julia, I was sleeping in Edward’s bed.’
‘I meant what I said in that letter I wrote to you. My feelings towards you ha
ve never changed.’
‘Mine towards you have, but then I have done a lot of growing up this last year. There is one bit in that letter you wrote to Julia that I have to know if you meant.’
‘“Perhaps a desire to live every moment of life to the full would be closest to the truth of last night”,’ he quoted from memory.
‘No. “I love Rhian. And even though she no longer wants me I will never love anyone the way I love her.”’
‘You know that is true.’
‘Yes.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I do now. And I have discovered that the people we love have to be taken the way they are. The mistakes that were made were more mine than yours. I tried to take refuge from my feelings for you and my fear of being hurt by you, by running to Edward.’
‘I’d ask you to marry me, but I’m going halfway round the world and I have no idea when or even if I’ll come back. I –’
She placed her finger over his lips. ‘Let’s just take this next hour and day and week and fortnight.’
‘And afterwards?’
She kissed him. ‘For us, this is the afterwards, Joey. The present and the future rolled into one because I refuse to think any further. And we’ll make it last for ever and ever.’
An excerpt from
FINDERS & KEEPERS
Book Four in the Brothers & Lovers series
by
CATRIN COLLIER
Chapter One
Harry braced himself for the inevitable judder when the train drew into Pontypridd station. He adjusted his cream felt derby to a jaunty angle, picked up the overnight case and suitcase he had moved from the carriage into the corridor, opened the door and stepped down to be deafened by a scream.
‘There he is! Bella, Mam, over here! Harry!’ His fourteen-year-old sister, Edyth, hurtled towards him.
‘Ow!’ He dropped his bags and reeled back when the plaster cast on her left arm caught his cheek.
‘Gosh, I’m sorry, Harry. Did I hurt you? Did you have a good journey? Mam and Bella wanted to pick you up by themselves, but I insisted on coming. They said there wouldn’t be room for me and your luggage in the car – I told them that they could jolly well get a taxi to take your trunk to the new house. You don’t have to bother about it, Mam’s arranging for a porter to take it off the train now. Was the summer ball as gorgeous as it sounds? I can’t wait until it’s my turn to go to grown-up parties. Are you very sad not to be going back to Oxford? No of course you’re not, because you’re off to Paris on Saturday. Dad – well, not just Dad, everyone’s ever so proud of you for getting a First. Oh look, I’ve got chocolate on your white suit. I didn’t realize it was that soft. Do you want a piece?’ She opened her hand to reveal four half-melted squares of Five Boys. ‘Here, let me get it off.’ She pulled a grubby handkerchief from her sleeve with her clean hand, spat on it and dabbed at his lapel, smudging the stain.
‘Edyth, don’t; you’re making it worse. Please, I’ll see to it –’
‘No, let me,’ she interrupted. ‘Boys haven’t a clue when it comes to getting out stains. Guess what –’
‘Edyth, stop gabbling like an auctioneer and let Harry get his breath,’ sixteen-year-old Bella drawled from behind her.
Both sisters were dressed in fashionable, calf-length, dropped-waist, silk afternoon frocks. To Harry’s astonishment Bella looked suddenly and amazingly grown up, in cool, sophisticated cream, with matching accessories and stockings, and amber-coloured cloche hat and gloves. Whereas Edyth – in navy blue, with snagged stockings, her shoes covered in dust – could have just left a hockey field.
Instead of giving him her usual bear hug, Bella offered her cheek. Taken aback, Harry kissed her, then, seeing their mother, ran up the platform and once more dropped his bags. Sali had no compunction about embracing him in public. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight for a moment before pushing him back and studying him.
‘You look tired.’
‘I’m fine,’ he reassured her.
‘There are shadows beneath your eyes. Too many graduation celebrations?’ she said shrewdly.
‘I’ve enjoyed one or two,’ he conceded. Like the girls, his mother was dressed in silk. The smart beige outfit she’d worn to his graduation ceremony was complemented by a brown hat, gloves and shoes. ‘And talking of celebrations, you three look as though you’re going to a party.’
‘We are,’ Edyth blurted tactlessly.
‘Well done, Edyth, for letting the cat out of the bag,’ Bella said.
‘Harry would have found out soon enough.’ Sali frowned at the burgeoning red mark on Harry’s cheek. ‘Is that a bruise?’
‘If it is, it’s down to Edyth’s cast. And what have you done this time, Miss Courts Disaster Wherever She Goes?’ Harry picked up his bag and case again.
‘Fell out of the apple tree in the old house,’ Edyth answered cheerfully. ‘We were flying kites. Glyn’s got caught in the branches. He was crying and no one else would climb up to get it –’
‘We had more sense,’ Bella interrupted.
Edyth stuck her tongue out at her sister ‘The doctor said it’s a clean break and should heal well.’
‘And a trip to the hospital was just what your father and I needed on the day we moved. Your trunk is being sent on to the new house, Harry.’ Sali shepherded the three of them towards the ticket collector, who was sitting in his booth at the top of the flight of steps that led down into the station yard.
‘You brought my car,’ Harry quickened his pace when he looked down and saw the open-topped, five-seater Crossley tourer, which the trustees of his estate had presented to him on his twenty-first birthday.
‘I thought you’d enjoy driving it to the old house one last time.’ Sali handed him the keys.
‘But you’ve already moved.’ A year ago Harry had reluctantly given the trustees of the estate bequeathed to him by his mother’s great-aunt permission to sell the mansion that was part of his inheritance. It had been a hard decision to make as they had lived in it for fifteen years, but the spiralling costs of repairs coupled with the size of the place had made it uneconomical to run as a private house.
‘The council took possession of the grounds months ago,’ Sali confirmed, ‘but they don’t take over the house until tomorrow.’
‘So we thought we’d have one last “do” there. Your welcome home from Oxford and bon voyage to Paris, and our farewell-to-Ynysangharad-House party. It’s great for dancing because all the furniture’s been cleared out,’ Edyth chattered as she ran down the steps alongside Harry. ‘I wish I were going to Paris. Uncle Joey says the girls dance the cancan there. And they eat frogs’ legs and snails. Can you imagine that? Are you going to eat frogs’ legs and snails when you get there?’ Edyth charged up to Harry’s car, hurdled over the back door and landed on the bench seat in the back.
‘I hope you realize that the whole of Tumble Square saw your knickers then, Edyth.’ Bella waited until Harry had opened the passenger door for her mother so he could open the back door for her.
‘Miss Prissy Bossy Boots,’ Edyth chanted the nickname she and their three younger sisters had invented for Bella. She stuck her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers.
‘Very pretty, Edyth.’ Bella settled her handbag squarely on her lap.
Harry listened to his sisters squabbling while he stowed his luggage in the boot of his car. ‘You two make me feel as though I’ve well and truly arrived home.’ He climbed into the driving seat beside his mother and pressed the ignition. The engine roared into life. ‘How is Dad?’
‘Working too hard organizing the miners’ strike as well as seeing to his parliamentary duties. I wish he’d take it easy,’ Sali answered.
‘He wouldn’t be Dad if he did.’
‘You’re right.’ Sali had married Lloyd Evans when Harry was four years old. Harry had adored Lloyd then, and they had grown even closer after the five girls had been born, sticking together as the ‘men’ in the family.
&nbs
p; ‘Mind you, I never thought the miners would hold out alone for so long after the General Strike was called off in May.’ Harry stopped the car so a cart could cross from Taff Street into Market Square in front of them.
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in seventeen years of marriage to an Evans, it’s that the miners will carry on every fight until the absolute bitter end.’ Sali waved to the doorman of Gwilym James as they passed the Taff Street entrance of the store.
Harry heard a slap, and suspected that Bella had finally lost her temper and lashed out at Edyth. He leaned back towards the rear seat, and asked, ‘So who is going to be at this party?’
‘Everyone.’ Edyth draped her arms around Sali’s neck and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. ‘All the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, heaps of friends. But you’ll be sorry to hear that Bella invited Alice Reynolds –’
‘She’s a friend,’ Bella interrupted.
‘Some friend. She only talks to us because she’s stuck on Harry. She clung to him like a slug on lettuce at our Christmas party. All slime and simpering smiles –’
‘Really, Edyth, I don’t know where you get your ideas from. Slugs are disgusting creatures,’ Bella said.
‘So is Alice Reynolds, and you’re beginning to sound more like a schoolmarm every day. I bet you’re going to die a dried-up old spinster, Belle.’
‘Edyth, enough!’ Sali reverted to the ‘special’ voice she used to silence her children whenever their bickering turned ugly.
‘You don’t have to worry about me and Alice Reynolds, Edyth, she’s a baby.’ Harry steered the car through the main gates of the private drive to Ynysangharad House.
‘She’s the same age as me,’ Bella bristled.
‘Sorry, Belle, but she’s nowhere near as mature as you.’ Hoping he’d mollified his sister with the compliment, Harry winked at his mother and slowed the car to a walking pace. The afternoon was warm, the garden perfumed with the scent of roses. ‘That music doesn’t sound as though it’s coming from a gramophone.’
‘Striking miners.’ Sali straightened her scarf and eased a wrinkle from one of her kid gloves. ‘A few of them formed a jazz band using instruments donated by the union. Your father asked them to play for us today.’
Sinners and Shadows Page 45
