The Weston Girls

by Grace Thompson

  When Jack came in pushing Victoria gently before him, Sian was coming out of the kitchen with a tray of teas.

  “Jack? Is something wrong?” she asked at once. “Your grandmother?” Then she saw his smile, and relaxed.

  “Grandmother is fine, and we’re here to start our celebrations, Mum. Victoria and I are going to be married.”

  Sian had heard a whispered rumour, but it was still a shock to see her son looking so happy with her mother’s servant. She managed to hide her first reaction as she looked away and put down the tray, then she turned, kissed them both and offered her congratulations to her son.

  “How lucky you are, Jack, to have found such a lovely bride. Welcome to the family, Victoria.”

  The hubbub of conversations had died down but was revived and Gwennie hurriedly finished her soup and hurried off to begin spreading the news. At the doorway she stopped and called back.

  “Oh, by the way, Sian. Will you be seeing your Sally? If you do, tell her Megan’s been to see me and I’ve offered her a job, helping me in the gown shop.”

  This startling piece of news seemed unimportant after her son’s announcement and it was almost an hour later before she remembered and telephoned her sister then her mother.

  * * *

  Barry was waiting for Rhiannon when she got back and at once she began to explain her late return.

  “No matter,” he said. “I just want to talk to you. It’s about Caroline and me.”

  “You want to stay married to her.”

  He went into long and detailed explanation but she heard none of it, she just wanted him gone so she could allow the fact to penetrate. It was a freedom of a sort. Better to be free than tied to someone who no longer loved her.

  Barry and Caroline married for real, and a wedding to come, when Jack married Victoria. What a surprise. Jack and Victoria. She wondered if Viv knew. She hoped not. It was fun being able to tell news like that.

  She felt the usual excitement at the thought of a wedding, but amid the joy was the shadow of her own hollow life. It was time she was settled, and with Barry gone from her life she stared into an empty future.

  * * *

  That evening as she was closing, Rhiannon watched with extra care to see who came in and who paused near the doorway from where they could reach into the window. Gwyn came as usual with Barry’s evening paper and he stopped to talk.

  “Our dad’ll be home soon,” he said.

  “I’m pleased for you, Gwyn,” Rhiannon said, replacing the jar of Midget Gems on the shelf after selling two ounces. “Let’s hope he gets a job and stays out of trouble this time, eh?”

  “He will. He promised in his letter that he won’t leave me again.”

  Charlie Bevan had been caught and imprisoned after robbing Temptations, and at the time, Rhiannon had been gratified to know the thief was being punished. But now, listening to Gwyn, who had been deprived of his father for months, she felt unexpected guilt.

  The guilty were never the only ones to suffer. A thief had been caught and locked up, but his innocent family were poor and without friends, because of something they had neither done nor condoned.

  Maggie Wilpin had been sitting outside her door waiting for Charlie’s return, lonely and trying to care for the boy. Gwyn himself had been like a lost soul, wandering the streets long after his friends had been safely settled in their homes, also waiting for the father he obviously loved and of whom he had been deprived. She gave Gwyn a sweet from the jar of pear drops and silently hoped that Charlie would survive without being tempted back to crime. For Gwyn’s sake, and poor old Maggie’s.

  She closed up fifteen minutes later, after a late rush of customers. In the commotion of serving she hadn’t noticed anyone hesitate at the door, but another chocolate bar was missing.

  She no longer wanted to catch the thief and be responsible for making another family suffer. Better she asked Barry to fix a board across to make the small window harder to reach.

  A few days later she did catch her thief. Coming down the stairs from the flat, where she had been to get some hot water, she was in time to see Gwyn Bevan’s arm reach into the window and grab a tin of old fashioned humbugs left over from Christmas.

  With a growl of anger, she grabbed him by the arm, swung him around and whacked him hard on the backside. Gwyn was almost thirteen but he was small and looked more like a ten-year-old. His voice lacked nothing because of his size and the yell he gave startled her and, more angry because of it she hit him again.

  “Here! What’s going on?” A man burst through the door and grabbed Gwyn then stood protectively between him and the glaring Rhiannon.

  “That’s what’s wrong! Look at that!” She pointed to Gwyn’s hand which still held the decorative tin. The boy uncurled his fingers and the tin dropped and rolled along the floor.

  “I’ll see to this,” Rhiannon said. “There’s no need for you to involve yourself.” She did not want this interfering stranger to go for the police.

  It was only then that Gwyn turned and looked at the man who still held him. “Dad!” he shouted. “You’re back!”

  “And not before time, either,” Charlie Bevan said grimly.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Charlie Bevan came to apologise. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. What you did, giving Gwyn a slap and a fright wasn’t wrong. He deserved it. I’m home now and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “I’m not going to the police, if that’s why you’re here,” Rhiannon said. “I wouldn’t. Not after being responsible for you being sent away last time. He’s been so lonely and lost. I’m sorry,” she said and was surprised to hear him laugh.

  “Bless you, Miss Lewis. I’m glad you did. It was the last straw, see, and someone I met in there made me face up to what I am, and ask myself if I want to go on like I am for the rest of my life. I don’t. And unless I’m very unlucky, I won’t see the inside of a prison ever again.”

  “I’m still sorry I deprived Gwyn of his father. Maggie’s done her best but—” Charlie appeared not to hear her.

  “This man I met,” he went on, “he made me look hard at some of the old men in there, men who’ve spent more than half their lives in prison, not seeing their kids grow up, not being an example to them, only someone used as a threat. ‘You’ll grow up like you father if you don’t watch out’.” He shook his head. “I don’t want that.” He stared at her, his blue eyes dark in the artificial light, his hair cropped and shining golden on his head. He was tall, almost as tall as Barry, and he looked strong and determined.

  “You’ve punished Gwyn?”

  “No, but I made him talk about it. He was stealing the sweets old Maggie liked, and taking money when he had the chance, to buy food to coax her to eat, or so he says.”

  “That’s all over now you’re home.”

  “If I can get a job.”

  She looked again at his tall, straight figure, the clear confident expression in his eyes. “Somehow I think you will.”

  * * *

  Gladys was settling the last of the party payments and as she totalled the final cost she thought what a waste of money it had been. Neither Megan nor Joan had met anyone they had since bothered to meet. Only Jack of the three had found his future spouse and she had been here all the time, a servant in her house. And one who used to complain about Jack patting her bottom!

  It had seemed so simple, give a party, and all her problems would be solved. The romantic setting would encourage the young people to find someone they could learn to love, and soon her grandchildren would begin their courtships with attractive and wealthy young people. After all, it was at a dance that she and Arfon had met. It was where most people found their partners. Not her grandchildren of course! They had to be different! She moaned silently. Jack choosing a servant. Joan and Megan choosing no one at all!

  As she licked and sealed the last envelope with its account and money inside, she heard the door and the voices of Joan and Meg
an. She rang the bell for Victoria, gave a very mild curse remembering she was no longer there, and went herself to the hall to greet them.

  “Darlings,” she said hugging them. “Come into the kitchen and we’ll make some tea. What d’you think of Jack’s news?”

  “It’s a bit embarrassing,” Joan said, “it will be difficult for us to remember not to ask her to fetch and carry for us.”

  “Joan dear, you mustn’t!”

  “We won’t Grandmother,” Megan laughed. “We like Victoria and she’ll be good for Jack. That’s what counts.”

  “Yes, dear.” Gladys sounded unconvinced.

  They discussed the little they knew about Victoria and Jack’s wedding plans for a while: the determination of Jack to have a quiet affair, bouncing against Gladys’s determination to have a splendid, show-em-how-it’s-done occasion.

  “I was hoping you two would meet someone at the party and start to make plans of your own,” Gladys said sadly, “but you didn’t seem to see anyone who took your fancy.”

  “Oh I did,” Joan said with a far-away look in her eyes. “I danced with the man I intend to marry.”

  “You did?” Gladys brightened up considerably.

  “No one new, someone I’ve known a very long time but only just realised I want to marry.”

  “Tell me, dear. We’ll invite him here for Sunday tea.”

  “He doesn’t know yet, but I intend to marry Viv,” Joan said, looking at her grandmother with a rebellious spark in her eye. “Viv Lewis.”

  Gladys smiled through her tears.

  * * *

  Rhiannon was closing for the evening when Maggie Wilpin came across to talk to her.

  “That grandson of mine. Was he stealing from you?” she asked.

  “No, it was a misunderstanding, Maggie,” Rhiannon said at once. “He was looking, that’s all. He’d picked up a tin to look at the picture and I went at him, thinking he was taking it. Other stuff had been taken, you see. Your Gwyn was looking. Only looking he was.”

  “Humbugs wasn’t it? He knows I like ’em,” Maggie said sadly.

  “Gwyn’s dad came and we sorted it all. Nothing to worry about.”

  Maggie nodded doubtfully. “I don’t want him to grow up making the same mistakes his father did.”

  “No. Neither does Charlie,” Rhiannon assured her.

  “You think the boy’ll be all right, now Charlie’s home, do you?”

  “Sure of it, Maggie.”

  Gertie walked across from her grocers’ shop on the opposite corner and called to Rhiannon, “Give a hand carrying the veg in for me, there’s a good, lovely girl.” Then she saw Maggie.

  “That Charlie Bevan’s home at last then, Maggie.”

  “Thank goodness,” Maggie replied. “He’ll watch the boy from now on. I can rest at last. There’s glad I’ll be to hand over to Charlie and take things easy. I’m awful tired, Gertie.”

  * * *

  Later that evening, when Rhiannon ran down to post a letter for Dora, there was a mist that hid icy patches on the ground and she walked carefully for fear of slipping. As least Maggie would be inside now Charlie was home to look after her she thought. Then she saw a shape in the doorway of number eight which she guessed was Maggie. What was the matter with Charlie that he’d let her stay out there in the bitter cold? He owed it to her to care for her proper after all the months she had looked after Gwyn.

  She went across and saw that there were two people sitting there. Charlie was hugging Maggie and he was crying. Sitting in the seat where she had spent so many lonely hours, Maggie had relaxed in the knowledge that Gwyn would now be safe, and had quietly died.

  * * *

  Dora was looking through her post one morning while she ate breakfast with Rhiannon and Viv.

  “Barry’s moving out of the flat above the shop, Mam,” Rhiannon said as casually as she was able. “He and Caroline are going to make their marriage a real one. I’m not upset, I’ve seen it coming for a long time.”

  “Looking down at the town from above it must look like a game of draughts!” Dora snapped as she handed Viv a letter from Lewis. “Your father’s going to live in Chestnut Road with that Nia Martin in February. No shame they’ve got, them two! Your Barry’s moving from the flat above Temptations to live in the flat your father was renting, with Caroline and Joseph. And, to cap it all, Jack is asking Nia if she will rent the flat above the shop. to him and Victoria!”

  “There’s more, Mam,” Viv said, taking a deep breath before saying. “Last night Joan and I decided we will marry towards the end of the year.”

  “You and that—” Dora quickly adjusted her reaction after a dig from her daughter and instead said, “Sudden like, isn’t it, Viv? I thought you and the Weston Girls were more like enemies.”

  “Blaming them for the death of our Lewis-boy helped me cope with his death for a while,” Viv said. “But we’ve worked together more and more and I’ve seen the real Joan. We’re perfect partners. I didn’t think she’d ever think of me as more than the man who runs her grandfather’s business, mind, but last night, well, we talked openly and honestly about how we felt and… There you go, another move in the giant game of draughts. I’ll be looking for a flat where we can start our married life.”

  “Good on you,” Dora said. “I wish you joy. Both of you.” She stood up and hugged her son and added, “I really do, my boy. I really do.”

  “And me, Viv, but I won’t half miss you,” Rhiannon added as she too hugged him.

  * * *

  Gladys and Arfon sat watching the television news and thinking about their own.

  “I can’t pretend to be thrilled, Arfon,” Gladys said. “Victoria Jones and Viv Lewis as relations. It will be hard to live down.”

  “Once the Town Cats get to hear of it, you mean? Just make sure you get your version in first, make it known how thrilled we are, my dear. The best form of defence is attack, so they say.”

  “We’ve been the main subject of gossip in the town this past year or so, haven’t we? When will it end? I had such dreams, Arfon. Good marriages for my lovely Weston Girls and a gentle well-brought-up girl for dear Jack.”

  “I think Victoria will surprise you, Gladys. She has the makings of a fine wife. And as for the rest, well, Ryan and Islwyn have let us down, but the Weston Women have dragged us out of the mess we were in. With Viv’s leadership of course. We mustn’t forget how much we owe him.”

  Gladys nodded and smiled. “They have been remarkable, haven’t they? Megan going out all on her own and getting herself an apprenticeship with Gwennie Woodlas of all people. Joan learning the family business and working beside Viv. Sally running her home as a rather high-class guest house and Sian working beside Dora Lewis and making a success of the Rose Tree Café.”

  “And you, my dear,” Arfon said touching her hand affectionately. “You were so right to hang on to this house, our home. There were many times when I wanted to sell up, give up, accept defeat, but you wouldn’t let me. Your determination kept us all going, helped us through. The Weston Women are a remarkable bunch and you the most remarkable of them all.”

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  First published in the United Kingdom in 1996 by Severn House Publishers Ltd

  This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © 1996 by Grace Thompson

  The moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includi
ng photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781910859544

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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