Beggars and Choosers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘None of your sloppiness now, Miss Sali.’ Mari pushed her away and closed the hotplates. ‘And your Aunt Edyth is right. You mustn’t let anything get in the way of you marrying Mr James in June.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  Mari tapped her nose. ‘We servants know more than we let on. Another thing, don’t close your uncle’s bedroom door when you take him that tea. If you need me for anything, shout. I won’t be far.’

  ‘Your tea, Mother.’ Sali topped up the cup of hot water with tea, spooned in three sugars, stirred it and carried it from the tray she had set on her mother’s dressing table to the bedside cabinet.

  ‘I hope you haven’t made it too strong.’ Gwyneth struggled to sit up.

  ‘I haven’t.’ Sali plumped her mother’s pillows and set them at an angle behind her back.

  ‘It is in the drawer.’

  Sali didn’t have to ask what was in the drawer. She opened her mother’s bedside cabinet. The top drawer was crammed with an assortment of patent medicines. Bottles of Hughes’ Blood Pills, Thompson’s Burdock Pills, Jones’s Red Drops, Hayman’s Balsam and Deakin’s Lung Healer vied for space with small porcelain and glass jars of smelling salts, but in pride of place in the corner nearest to the bed and within easy reach of her mother was a green bottle that contained laudanum. Sali lifted it out, along with an eyedropper. Taking the glass from the top of the carafe of water on her mother’s cabinet, she poured in an inch of water. Then she pulled the cork from the bottle and inserted the dropper, squeezing the rubber bulb until liquid was sucked into the glass tube. Lifting it from the bottle, she held the dropper over the glass and depressed the rubber bulb four times.

  ‘Six more drops.’

  ‘When I was home at Christmas, Doctor Evans told Father no more than four, and then only if you were very upset.’

  ‘That was before your father was killed. Morgan talked to Dr Evans, told him how bad my nerves were and he increased the dose.’

  Sali depressed the rubber bulb six more times, took her mother’s teacup and handed her the glass. Gwyneth made a face as she drained it. Sali took the glass from her, returned her teacup and waited until she finished her tea.

  ‘See to the pillows.’ Gwyneth settled down and Sali rearranged the bed. Her mother’s eyes were closing as she replaced the cup on the tray. ‘Make sure Llinos doesn’t disturb me again.’

  ‘Uncle Morgan has warned her to be quiet. Goodnight, Mother.’

  Gwyneth didn’t reply. She was already asleep.

  ‘Set the tray on the table by the window,’ Morgan ordered, as Sali walked into the room that had been her father’s. She was shocked, both by the distasteful intimacy of seeing her uncle in bed and the changes he had wrought in her father’s room in a single day.

  The brown and beige floral wallpaper was marked with darker squares where family portraits and her father’s favourite paintings had hung until that morning. The furniture had been moved and the head of the bed placed against the left-hand wall instead of opposite the window where her father had set it so he could watch the sun rise in the morning. The tallboy and chest of drawers had exchanged places and the nightstand no longer stood beside the bed but next to the wardrobe. The new positions neither suited convenience, nor the size of the furniture and Sali couldn’t help feeling that her uncle had ordered the servants to make the changes simply to announce to the household that he had taken possession of the master bedroom, just as he had the house.

  ‘Pour the tea and set it on the bedside cabinet.’

  Sali sensed her uncle watching her as she did as he asked.

  ‘Two sugars.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.’ Feeling uneasy, she moved to the door.

  ‘Sali?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Morgan?’ She turned and looked back at him.

  ‘Close the door quietly behind you and on no account are you to return to Llinos’s room tonight.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.’

  ‘And tomorrow I want you to bring all of your and Llinos’s jewellery to me in my study before breakfast.’

  My study. Sali burned at his presumption.

  ‘Did you hear me, Sali?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.’

  ‘It is inappropriate for females to wear jewellery while in mourning. I will take it together with your mother’s to the bank for safekeeping.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Morgan.’

  ‘Goodnight, Sali.’

  ‘Goodnight, Uncle Morgan.’ Sali closed the door behind her, and returned to her own room. She stared at the lock as she shut the door and, for the first time in her life, turned the key.

  ‘I know I keep saying it, but it’s not right, Miss Sali. A young girl of your station in life shouldn’t be treated like a servant, or ordered about the way your uncle orders you,’ Mari admonished, as she and Sali packed away the family’s overcoats and winter blankets in camphor chests for the summer.

  ‘It’s either this or read to Mother, and she never notices whether I’m sitting with her or not these days.’ Sali checked the pockets of the cashmere coat Geraint had left behind after the Easter holidays and pulled out a handkerchief and an empty cigarette packet. Llinos’s pile of clothes were the largest and Sali recalled the tears they had both shed when her sister had been sent away along with the boys after Easter.

  ‘And we all know whose fault that is.’ Mari pursed her lips disapprovingly.

  ‘Ssh ...’

  ‘Your uncle can’t hear us. He’s in the library with Mr Richards and Mr Evans ...’ Mari fell silent as Lloyd Evans’s voice thundered from the library and rang out into the hall.

  ‘I won’t do it!’

  Sali left the walk-in linen cupboard, looked down the stairs and exchanged nervous glances with Tomas who was polishing the lamps.

  ‘Then you are no longer in employment with the Watkin Jones Colliery.’ Morgan Davies’s voice was equally loud, but steadier.

  ‘I’d rather be sacked than cut men’s wages below the breadline.’

  ‘You do as I order you, or you get out of this house and the Watkin Jones Colliery.’

  ‘Mr Evans, please ...’ Mr Richards faltered as the library door banged open and Lloyd emerged into the hall.

  ‘Walk out now, Evans, and I’ll see that you never work in another colliery in Pontypridd again. You’ll get no reference or severance pay from me.’ Red-faced and furious, Morgan followed Lloyd. Seeing Tomas, he lowered his voice. ‘You are dismissed.’

  ‘Gentlemen, please.’ Mr Richards ran out of the library and stood between the two men as Tomas retreated. ‘We should be holding the interests of the Watkin Jones Colliery paramount.’

  ‘I am.’ Lloyd faced Morgan head on. ‘The interests of the workers as well as the owners.’

  ‘The Collieries Company pay their workers less than I’m offering ...’

  ‘They pay their workers a shameful pittance,’ Lloyd interrupted. ‘And I’ll not advise the men to take your offer and that’s my final word.’

  ‘Tomas,’ Morgan shouted.

  ‘Sir.’ The butler emerged from the servants’ passage.

  ‘Show Evans the door.’

  ‘It’s all right, Tomas.’ Lloyd took the coat Tomas handed him. ‘I’m leaving.’ He shrugged it on and took his hat, gloves and muffler from the butler before turning back to Morgan. ‘Cut the men’s wages and you’ll have a strike on your hands,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t have to cut them now that you are leaving. The Collieries Company will do it for me.’

  ‘That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?’ Lloyd challenged. ‘An excuse to sell the Watkin Jones Colliery.’

  ‘We will get a greater return if it is sold and the money reinvested in the Collieries Company.’

  ‘And your return will be soaked in miners’ blood. Enjoy it!’ Lloyd turned his back to Morgan and saw Sali standing at the top of the staircase. He tipped his hat to her, walked to the front door and opened it before Tomas could reach it.

&n
bsp; ‘You can’t sell Father’s colliery!’ Sali ran down the stairs and confronted her uncle and Mr Richards.

  ‘Without Mr Evans to run it, we have little option, Miss Watkin Jones,’ Mr Richards murmured apologetically.

  ‘Uncle Morgan?’ she appealed.

  ‘Women have no right to interfere in things that are beyond their comprehension.’

  ‘Father spent his whole life building up that business for Geraint.’

  ‘Enough!’ Morgan bellowed. ‘The subject is closed. And as you are intent on going out gallivanting this morning, see to your duties and your mother. And don’t you dare discuss this matter with her. The decision to sell has been made and it is irreversible.’ He returned to the library and slammed the door.

  ‘What was all the shouting about?’ Gwyneth carped, as Sali carried her mid-morning tea tray into her bedroom.

  Mindful of her uncle’s warning, she answered, ‘Uncle Morgan discussing business with Mr Richards and Mr Evans.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gwyneth murmured disinterestedly, as Sali poured her tea and set it on her bedside cabinet.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to ask Mari or the maid to sit with you, Mother?’

  Sali glanced at the clock on her mother’s bedside cabinet. The hands pointed to ten. Aunt Edyth had arranged to bring her carriage around at ten-thirty so they could spend the day shopping for wedding clothes. Although she had told her mother of her plans a week ago and mentioned the trip every day since, her mother categorically refused to recognise that she had made an engagement that would take her out of the house. And her uncle had referred to her plans as ‘gallivanting’ ever since Edyth had mentioned them to him.

  From the moment Morgan Davies had moved in four months ago, he had encouraged her mother to commandeer every minute of her time that he hadn’t earmarked for her ‘household duties’. Whenever he caught her trying to sneak into the library, or her bedroom in the hope of stealing half an hour to herself, he marched her to her mother’s room and subjected her to a sermon on ‘a daughter’s duty’. As a result, her mother now considered her constant attendance an entitlement and her absence a deliberate attempt to annoy.

  ‘I am sure,’ Gwyneth snapped. Sali plumped up her pillows and helped her into a sitting position. ‘The servants have work to do and I can hardly disrupt the entire household simply because my own daughter can’t spare the time to sit with me.’

  ‘This is the first time I have been out in a month and my wedding –’

  ‘Your wedding.’ Gwyneth sighed theatrically. Sali handed her the tea. ‘That is all you can talk about. As if I need to be reminded that you can’t wait to be rid of this house and me. Am I that tiresome?’ she questioned plaintively.

  ‘Of course not, Mother.’

  ‘Then why this rush to marry Mansel James before your father is cold in his grave?’

  ‘Father died over four months ago.’

  ‘As if I needed reminding.’ Gwyneth lifted her handkerchief to her eyes.

  ‘It is not as if I am moving away from Pontypridd.’ Sali tidied the rows of glass bottles and jars of smelling salts on her mother’s bedside cabinet. ‘And as soon as Mansel and I return from honeymoon, I will visit you every day.’

  ‘And if I die while you immerse yourself in wedding preparations with your Aunt Edyth? Or during the ceremony? Or when you are away on honeymoon, what then?’ Gwyneth demanded. ‘I suppose it will be too much to expect you to delay your pleasure to observe any more mourning for me than you have done for your father.’

  Tears formed in Sali’s eyes. ‘You know how much I miss Father.’

  ‘From the way you behave, I know no such thing,’ Gwyneth broke in acidly.

  ‘Father was pleased when I accepted Mansel’s proposal of marriage.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have wanted you to marry Mansel James at the expense of what little health that remains to me.’

  ‘I spoke to the doctor. He assured me that you are in no immediate danger.’

  ‘And what would he know of my suffering?’ Gwyneth settled back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling. ‘Lying here, hour after hour, with no one to see to my medicines, and no one to read to me.’

  ‘Mari has offered.’

  ‘She has such a coarse voice. I can’t bear her reading and you know how dreadfully my eyes and head ache whenever I try to read myself.’

  ‘Perhaps we should consider the suggestion Geraint made at Easter and look for a paid companion for you,’ Sali ventured. ‘The last time Aunt Edyth visited, she mentioned she knows a highly suitable lady. A curate’s widow.’

  ‘That is just the sort of low person your Aunt Edyth would be acquainted with,’ Gwyneth replied.

  ‘Aunt Edyth assured me that she is a lady in every way but her circumstances, Mother.’ Sali poured an inch of water into a glass and picked up the laudanum bottle.

  ‘And as a curate’s widow she would be an Anglican. Your uncle would never allow her in the house.’

  ‘Would you like me to ask Aunt Edyth if she knows any respectable Methodist widows?’ Sali measured out her mother’s medication and dripped it, bead by bead, into the water.

  ‘Only if you are also prepared to ask if Aunt Edyth will pay her salary. Morgan has informed me that our budget won’t run to the expense of a paid companion.’ Gwyneth drank the laudanum and water.

  Sali fought an impulse to answer back. Since her Uncle Morgan had taken control of the household accounts, he behaved as if the family were one step away from the workhouse, which was ridiculous given the size of the estate her father had left. But despite Mr Richards’s pleadings, Morgan had refused to hand over a penny of her dowry before her marriage certificate was signed and had halved allowances. A measure that would have caused Geraint, Gareth and Llinos considerable embarrassment at their schools if Aunt Edyth hadn’t privately made up the deficit. Morgan had also cut Mari’s housekeeping to the point where she was implementing economy measures usually only seen in the poorest households in Pontypridd.

  ‘You’ll be sorry when you marry Mansel,’ Gwyneth hissed suddenly, with a venom that shook Sali’s equanimity.

  Sali took her mother’s glass and strove to compose herself. ‘I love Mansel, Mother, and he loves me.’

  ‘And you think I didn’t love your father when I married him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And look at me now. I can barely drag myself out of this bed to lie on my chaise.’ Gwyneth lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Men are beasts and it was your father’s demands and the rigours of childbirth that brought me to this. It may be all perfume, poetry and flowers between you and Mansel now, but it won’t remain that way. He’ll use and degrade you just as your father used, degraded and broke me.’

  It wasn’t the first time her mother had spoken to her about the physical side of marriage and Sali couldn’t bear to listen to any more. ‘That was the front doorbell, Mother. If there’s nothing else, I’d like to go.’

  ‘Then go, and ignore me and my advice, as you always do.’

  ‘I am neither ignoring you nor your advice, Mother, but it would be impolite to keep Aunt Edyth waiting.’

  ‘I’ll die here alone in this bed and no one will care.’

  ‘I’ll call Mari.’

  ‘If you must.’

  As Sali moved to the door, Gwyneth asked, ‘Are you sure you gave me the full ten drops?’

  ‘I am sure, Mother,’ Sali answered, although if she hadn’t measured her mother’s laudanum herself, she might have wondered. A minute or two after a dose of ‘medication’, her mother usually sank into a stupor for three to four hours, but she seemed oddly agitated and nervous. ‘Do you feel unwell?’

  ‘Unwell!’ her mother exclaimed scornfully. ‘You know that I am always unwell.’

  ‘Would you like me to send for the doctor?’

  ‘How can he examine me without you here?’

  ‘Mari –’

  ‘Please, spare me the embarrassment of a medical examina
tion in front of a paid servant.’

  ‘Would you like me to ask him to call?’ Sali reiterated.

  ‘No,’ her mother said in a martyred tone. ‘But you can give me some more medication.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be dangerous to exceed the dose?’

  ‘Now you are a doctor.’

  ‘I don’t think you should increase the dose without his permission. Shall I ask him to call tomorrow when I am at home?’

  ‘Who knows how I’ll be tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll ask Mari to call him if you feel any worse. Goodbye, Mother.’ Sali closed the door and retreated to her own room before her mother could conjure another excuse to delay her.

  ‘My coachman will drive Sali home after dinner this evening,’ Edyth informed Morgan briskly, as she accepted his offer to join him in the morning room.

  ‘I assumed Sali would return home this afternoon so she could sit with her mother.’ Morgan refrained from making a more forceful protest. During the months that had elapsed since his brother-in-law’s funeral, Edyth had become adept at anticipating his disapproval and countering the objections he made to her plans for Sali.

  ‘Surely the maid can sit with Gwyneth for one afternoon.’

  ‘As Sali is so insistent on going ahead with her wedding, my sister is anxious to spend as much time with her as possible while she is still at home.’

  ‘I would have thought that as Sali will be leaving in six weeks it would be better for Gwyneth to become accustomed to another companion,’ Edyth advised tartly. She lowered herself into a chair without waiting for an invitation. ‘I have invited Mr Richards to dine with Mansel, Sali and me this evening. He has prepared some papers that require Mansel and Sali’s signatures. Business – you do understand?’ She met Morgan’s steely glare.

  ‘I would be derelict in my guardian’s duty if I allowed Sali to remain out so late unchaperoned.’ Morgan stood between the hearth and Edyth’s chair, effectively preventing the warmth of the fire from reaching her.

  ‘Mr Richards has accepted the use of my carriage, so he will chaperone her. As Harry appointed him Sali’s joint guardian, he is eminently suited to the responsibility. Wouldn’t you agree?’