by Ken Follett
"Apparently they are being ostracized. They can't get service in the shops and cafes."
"I must get Reverend Jenkins to preach a sermon on loving your neighbor, even if he is a strikebreaker."
"Can't you just order the shopkeepers to serve them?"
Fitz smiled. "No, my dear, not in this country."
"Well, I feel sorry for them and I would like to do something for them."
He was pleased. "That's a kindly impulse. What do you have in mind?"
"I believe there is a Russian Orthodox church in Cardiff. I will get a priest up here to perform a service for them one Sunday."
Fitz frowned. Bea had converted to the Church of England when they married, but he knew that she hankered for the church of her childhood, and he saw it as a sign that she was unhappy in her adopted country. But he did not want to cross her. "Very well," he said.
"Then we could give them dinner in the servants' hall."
"It's a nice thought, my dear, but they might be a rough crowd."
"We'll feed only those who come to the service. That way we will exclude the Jews and the worst of the troublemakers."
"Shrewd. Of course, the townspeople may not like you for it."
"But that is of no concern to me or you."
He nodded. "Very well. Jones has been complaining that I am supporting the strike by feeding the children. If you entertain the strikebreakers, at least no one can say that we're taking sides."
"Thank you," she said.
The pregnancy had already improved their relationship, Fitz thought.
He had two glasses of hock with his lunch, but his anxiety came back when he left the dining room and made his way to the Gardenia Suite. Ethel held his fate in her hands. She had all of a woman's soft, emotional nature, but nevertheless she would not be told what to do. He could not control her, and that scared him.
But she was not there. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past two. He had said "after lunch." Ethel would have known when coffee had been served and she should have been waiting for him. He had not specified the location, but surely she could work that out.
He began to feel apprehensive.
After five minutes he was tempted to leave. No one kept him waiting like this. But he did not want to leave the issue unresolved for another day, or even another hour, so he stayed.
She came in at half past two.
He said angrily: "What are you trying to do to me?"
She ignored the question. "What the hell were you thinking of, to make me talk to a lawyer from London?"
"I thought it would be less emotional."
"Don't be bloody daft." Fitz was shocked. No one had talked to him like this since he was a schoolboy. She went on: "I'm having your baby. How can it be unemotional?"
She was right, he had been foolish, and her words stung, but at the same time he could not help loving the music of her accent--the word "unemotional" having a different note for each of its five syllables, so that it sounded like a melody. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'll pay you double--"
"Don't make it worse, Teddy," she said, but her tone was softer. "Don't bargain with me, as if this was a matter of the right price."
He pointed an accusing finger. "You are not to speak to my wife, do you hear me? I won't have it!"
"Don't give me orders, Teddy. I've got no reason to obey you."
"How dare you speak to me like that?"
"Shut up and listen, and I'll tell you."
He was infuriated by her tone, but he remembered that he could not afford to antagonize her. "Go on, then," he said.
"You've behaved to me in a very unloving way."
He knew that was true, and he felt a stab of guilt. He was wretchedly sorry to have hurt her. But he tried not to show it.
She went on: "I still love you too much to want to spoil your happiness."
He felt even worse.
"I don't want to hurt you," she said. She swallowed and turned away, and he saw tears in her eyes. He began to speak, but she held up her hand to silence him. "You are asking me to leave my job and my home, so you must help me start a new life."
"Of course," he said. "If that's what you wish." Talking in more practical terms helped them both suppress their feelings.
"I'm going to London."
"Good idea." He could not help being pleased: no one in Aberowen would know she had a baby, let alone whose it was.
"You're going to buy me a little house. Nothing fancy--a working-class neighborhood will suit me very well. But I want six rooms, so that I can live on the ground floor and take in a lodger. The rent will pay for repairs and maintenance. I will still have to work."
"You've thought about this carefully."
"You're wondering how much it will cost, I expect, but you don't want to ask me, because a gentleman doesn't like to ask the price of things."
It was true.
"I looked in the newspaper," she said. "A house like that is about three hundred pounds. Probably cheaper than paying me two pounds a month for the rest of my life."
Three hundred pounds was nothing to Fitz. Bea could spend that much on clothes in one afternoon at the Maison Paquin in Paris. He said: "But you would promise to keep the secret?"
"And I promise to love and care for your child, and raise her--or him--to be happy and healthy and well-educated, even though you don't show any sign of being concerned about that."
He felt indignant, but she was right. He had hardly given a thought to the child. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm too worried about Bea."
"I know," she said, her tone softening as it always did when he allowed his anxiety to show.
"When will you leave?"
"Tomorrow morning. I'm in just as much of a hurry as you. I'll get the train to London, and start looking for a house right away. When I've found the right place, I'll write to Solman."
"You'll have to stay in lodgings while you look for a house." He took his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed her two white five-pound notes.
She smiled. "You have no idea how much things cost, do you, Teddy?" She gave back one of the notes. "Five pounds is plenty."
He looked offended. "I don't want you to feel that I'm short-changing you."
Her manner changed, and he caught a glimpse of underlying rage. "Oh, you are, Teddy, you are," she said sourly. "But not in money."
"We both did it," he said defensively, glancing at the bed.
"But only one of us is going to have a baby."
"Well, let's not argue. I'll tell Solman to do what you have suggested."
She held out her hand. "Good-bye, Teddy. I know you'll keep your word." Her voice was even, but he could tell that she was struggling to maintain her composure.
He shook hands, even though it seemed odd for two people who had made passionate love. "I will," he said.
"Please leave now, quickly," she said, and she turned aside.
He hesitated a moment longer, then left the room.
As he walked away, he was surprised and ashamed to feel unmanly tears come to his eyes. "Good-bye, Ethel," he whispered to the empty corridor. "May God bless and keep you."
{ IV }
She went to the luggage store in the attic and stole a small suitcase, old and battered. No one would ever miss it. It had belonged to Fitz's father, and had his crest stamped in the leather: the gilding had worn off long ago, but the impression could still be made out. She packed stockings and underwear and some of the princess's scented soap.
Lying in bed that night, she decided she did not want to go to London after all. She was too frightened to go through this alone. She wanted to be with her family. She needed to ask her mother questions about pregnancy. She should be in a familiar place when the baby came. Her child would need its grandparents and its uncle Billy.
In the morning she put on her own clothing, left her housekeeper's dress hanging from its nail, and crept out of Ty Gwyn early. At the end of the drive she looked back at the house, its sto
nes black with coal dust, its long rows of windows reflecting the rising sun, and she thought how much she had learned since she first came here to work as a thirteen-year-old fresh from school. Now she knew how the elite lived. They had strange food, prepared in complicated ways, and they wasted more than they ate. They all spoke with the same strangled accent, even some of the foreigners. She had handled rich women's beautiful underwear, fine cotton and slippery silk, hand-sewn and embroidered and trimmed with lace, twelve of everything piled in their chests of drawers. She could look at a sideboard and tell at a glance in what century it had been made. Most of all, she thought bitterly, she had learned that love is not to be trusted.
She walked down the mountainside into Aberowen and made her way to Wellington Row. The door of her parents' house was unlocked, as always. She went inside. The main room, the kitchen, was smaller than the Vase Room at Ty Gwyn, used only for arranging flowers.
Mam was kneading dough for bread, but when she saw the suitcase she stopped and said: "What's gone wrong?"
"I've come home," Ethel said. She put down the case and sat at the square kitchen table. She felt too ashamed to say what had happened.
However, Mam guessed. "You've been sacked!"
Ethel could not look at her mother. "Aye. I'm sorry, Mam."
Mam wiped her hands on a rag. "What have you done?" she said angrily. "Out with it, now!"
Ethel sighed. Why was she holding back? "I fell for a baby," she said.
"Oh, no--you wicked girl!"
Ethel fought back tears. She had hoped for sympathy, not condemnation. "I am a wicked girl," she said. She took off her hat, trying to keep her composure.
"It have all gone to your head--working at the big house, and meeting the king and queen. It have made you forget how you were raised."
"I expect you're right."
"It will kill your father."
"He doesn't have to give birth," Ethel said sarcastically. "I expect he'll be all right."
"Don't be cheeky. It's going to break his heart."
"Where is he?"
"Gone to another strike meeting. Think of his position in the town: elder of the chapel, miners' agent, secretary of the Independent Labour Party--how will he hold up his head at meetings, with everyone thinking his daughter's a slut?"
Ethel's control failed. "I'm very sorry to cause him shame," she said, and she began to cry.
Mam's expression changed. "Oh, well," she said. "It's the oldest story in the world." She came around the table and pressed Ethel's head to her breast. "Never mind, never mind," she said, just as she had when Ethel was a child and grazed her knees.
After a while, Ethel's sobs eased.
Mam released her and said: "We'd better have a cup of tea." There was a kettle kept permanently on the hob. She put tea leaves into a pot and poured boiling water in, then stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon. "When's the baby due?"
"February."
"Oh, my goodness." Mam turned from the fire to look at Ethel. "I'm going to be a grandmother!"
They both laughed. Mam set out cups and poured the tea. Ethel drank some and felt better. "Did you have easy births, or difficult?" she asked.
"There are no easy births, but mine were better than most, my mother said. I've had a bad back ever since Billy, all the same."
Billy came downstairs, saying: "Who's talking about me?" He could sleep late, Ethel realized, because he was on strike. Every time she saw him he seemed taller and broader. "Hello, Eth," he said, and kissed her with a bristly mustache. "Why the suitcase?" He sat down, and Mam poured him tea.
"I've done something stupid, Billy," said Ethel. "I'm having a baby."
He stared at her, too shocked to speak. Then he blushed, no doubt thinking of what she had done to get pregnant. He looked down, embarrassed. Then he drank some tea. At last he said: "Who's the father?"
"No one you know." She had thought about this and worked out a story of sorts. "He was a valet who came to Ty Gwyn with one of the guests, but he's gone in the army now."
"But he'll stand by you."
"I don't even know where he is."
"I'll find the beggar."
Ethel put a hand on his arm. "Don't get angry, my lovely. If I need your help, I'll ask for it."
Billy evidently did not know what to say. Threatening revenge was clearly no good, but he had no other response. He looked bewildered. He was still only sixteen.
Ethel remembered him as a baby. She had been only five years old when he arrived, but she had been completely fascinated by him, his perfection and his vulnerability. Soon I'll have a beautiful, helpless infant, she thought; and she did not know whether to feel happy or terrified.
Billy said: "Da's going to have something to say about it, I expect."
"That's what I'm worried about," said Ethel. "I wish there was something I could do to make it right for him."
Gramper came down. "Sacked, is it?" he said when he saw the suitcase. "Too cheeky, were you?"
Mam said: "Don't be cruel, now, Papa. She's expecting a baby."
"Oh, jowch," he said. "One of the toffs up there at the big house, was it? The earl himself, I wouldn't be surprised."
"Don't talk daft, Gramper," said Ethel, dismayed that he had guessed the truth so quickly.
Billy said: "It was a valet who came with a houseguest. Gone in the army now, he is. She doesn't want us to go after him."
"Oh, aye?" said Gramper. Ethel could tell he was not convinced, but he did not persist. Instead he said: "It's the Italian in you, my girl. Your grandmother was hot-blooded. She would have got into trouble if I hadn't married her. As it was she didn't want to wait for the wedding. In fact--"
Mam interrupted: "Papa! Not in front of the children."
"What's going to shock them, after this?" he said. "I'm too old for fairy tales. Young women want to lie with young men, and they want it so badly they'll do it, married or not. Anyone who pretends otherwise is a fool--and that includes your husband, Cara my girl."
"You be careful what you say," Mam said.
"Aye, all right," said Gramper, and he subsided into silence and drank his tea.
A minute later Da came in. Mam looked at him in surprise. "You're back early!" she said.
He heard the displeasure in her voice. "You make it sound as if I'm not welcome."
She got up from the table, making a space for him. "I'll brew a fresh pot of tea."
Da did not sit down. "The meeting was canceled." His eye fell on Ethel's suitcase. "What's this?"
They all looked at Ethel. She saw fear on Mam's face, defiance on Billy's, and a kind of resignation on Gramper's. It was up to her to answer the question. "I've got something to tell you, Da," she said. "You're going to be cross about it, and all I can say is that I'm sorry."
His face darkened. "What have you done?"
"I've left my job at Ty Gwyn."
"That's nothing to be sorry for. I never liked you bowing and scraping to those parasites."
"I left for a reason."
He moved closer and stood over her. "Good or bad?"
"I'm in trouble."
He looked thunderous. "I hope you don't mean what girls sometimes mean when they say that."
She stared down at the table and nodded.
"Have you--" He paused, searching for appropriate words. "Have you been overtaken in moral transgression?"
"Aye."
"You wicked girl!"
It was what Mam had said. Ethel cringed away from him, although she did not really expect him to strike her.
"Look at me!" he said.
She looked up at him through a blur of tears.
"So you are telling me you have committed the sin of fornication."
"I'm sorry, Da."
"Who with?" he shouted.
"A valet."
"What's his name?"
"Teddy." It came out before she could think.
"Teddy what?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't mat
ter? What on earth do you mean?"
"He came to the house on a visit with his master. By the time I found out my condition, he'd gone in the army. I've lost touch with him."
"On a visit? Lost touch?" Da's voice rose to an enraged roar. "You mean you're not even engaged to him? You committed this sin . . . " He spluttered, hardly able to get the disgusting words out. "You committed this foul sin casually?"
Mam said: "Don't get angry, now, Da."
"Don't get angry? When else should a man get angry?"
Gramper tried to calm him. "Take it easy, now, Dai boy. It does no good to shout."
"I'm sorry to have to remind you, Gramper, that this is my house, and I will be the judge of what does no good."
"Aye, all right," said Gramper pacifically. "Have it your way."
Mam was not ready to give in. "Don't say anything you might regret, now, Da."
These attempts to calm Da's wrath were only making him angrier. "I will not be ruled by women or old men!" he shouted. He pointed his finger at Ethel. "And I will not have a fornicator in my house! Get out!"
Mam began to cry. "No, please don't say that!"
"Out!" he shouted. "And never come back!"
Mam said: "But your grandchild!"
Billy spoke. "Will you be ruled by the Word of God, Da? Jesus said: 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' Gospel of Luke, chapter five, verse thirty-two."
Da rounded on him. "Let me tell you something, you ignorant boy. My grandparents were never married. No one knows who my grandfather was. My grandmother sank as low as a woman can go."
Mam gasped. Ethel was shocked, and she could see that Billy was flabbergasted. Gramper seemed as if he already knew.
"Oh, yes," Da said, lowering his voice. "My father was brought up in a house of ill fame, if you know what that is; a place where sailors went, down the docks in Cardiff. Then one day, when his mother was in a drunken stupor, God led his childish footsteps into a chapel Sunday school, where he met Jesus. In the same place he learned to read and write and, eventually, to bring up his own children in the paths of righteousness."
Mam said softly: "You never told me this, David." She seldom called him by his Christian name.
"I hoped never to think of it again." Da's face was twisted into a mask of shame and rage. He leaned on the table and stared Ethel in the eye, and his voice sank to a whisper. "When I courted your mother, we held hands, and I kissed her cheek every evening until the wedding day." He banged his fist on the table, making the cups shake. "By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, my family dragged itself up out of the stinking gutter." His voice rose again to a shout. "We are not going back there! Never! Never! Never!"
