Valley in Bloom

by Valley in Bloom (retail) (epub)

  Delina called at the cottage after morning church and when he saw the way Tad greeted her George knew that Victor’s beautiful daughter was the reason for Tad’s growing sociability.

  ‘Come on, Dawn, we’ll go and help Nelly with the cups of tea, shall we?’ he suggested, leading Dawn away from the couple near the gradually enlarging hole.

  ‘Dawn told me you were helping with the pond,’ Delina smiled. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘I have more than a suspicion that it’s Dawn’s pestering that made George want to start it now instead of the spring,’ Tad smiled. ‘Insistent my daughter, as well you know.’

  ‘I think this will be a fascination for many of the children, and if I know Nelly and George they’ll love the extra visitors it will bring.’

  It wasn’t only children who were interested in the progress of the pond. On Monday morning Phil-the-post called. He had no letters for Nelly but stayed for a cup of tea and a look at the work in progress.

  ‘Tad did most of it,’ Nelly told him as they looked at the neat hole ready for the concrete. ‘I don’t think George is all that well, and although he don’t complain, that not bein’ ’is way, I’m worried that he’ll try and do too much.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Johnny and Sidney,’ Phil promised. ‘They’ll make an excuse to come and give a hand.’

  ‘I’d better make some more cakes,’ Nelly said as Phil finished his fourth.

  * * *

  On a Saturday in early December George arrived home from the farm with Sidney Davies to begin the mixing of the concrete. George was at once given the position of foreman while Johnny, Sidney and Victor Honeyman set about the work. Phil was there too but, Nelly noticed with a chuckle, he avoided the heavy work with practiced ease. Dawn came with Tad and Delina called in on her way from town with her brother David. Oliver and Margaret were there and Nelly’s face was a constant smile as her garden and kitchen were filled with the noisy, good-natured crowd. The only worry was George, although he seemed less weary and he too was smiling happily amid the friendly jeering and the insults flying between the helpers.

  It was dark before they had finished and boards and sacks had been placed over the pond to protect its new surface. Nelly held her tilley lamp for them to see by for the last few minutes, its gentle hissing and circle of soft light adding a magic touch to the evening. With the close of day the voices of the men were lowered and their figures, moving in and out of the light as they cleaned their tools and made everything tidy, tempted Dawn to try her luck with some extra photographs. She took several of her father and Delina.

  Amy closed the shop and walked up, laden with some left-over food, to collect Margaret. The cottage was still full, with Nelly and George handing out beer, home-made lemonade and meat-paste sandwiches. Nelly was red-faced in the heat of the small room, laughing at the remarks of the men.

  ‘I don’t know what it is about you, Nelly,’ Amy laughed, ‘but everything you plan ends up as a party!’

  ‘Stay why don’t yer? There ain’t much beer left, but I ’spect Victor’ll give you a sip of ’is,’ Nelly laughed.

  Dawn was in her usual place with the dogs sitting beside her, their long legs a constant hazard to anyone foolish enough to try and move. She looked up and watched her father talking to Delina and her heart felt sad. The way they looked at each other excluded her. She knew that for her, life was going to take yet another change of direction. She frowned as she wondered how she would cope with having Delina for a mother. No, she realised with alarm, her step-mother. The connotations of the title deepened her frown.

  ‘What’s the matter, young Dawn?’ Nelly asked, and voices stopped and looked at the glum-faced girl.

  ‘I’ve finished the roll of film and I haven’t enough pocket money to have it developed,’ she extemporised. ‘I’ll be ever so glad when I’m grown up,’ she added with a deep sigh.

  Delina walked back with Dawn and Tad in the deepening darkness, and she found it difficult to see her way clearly with the torch beam giving its slender thread of light. It was Tad who held her arm to guide her. She felt herself stiffen at his touch, the shock making her want to move away from his protection, but she didn’t. With Dawn and David following behind and Tad gripping her arm and forcing her to feel his warmth, she walked slowly to Tad’s gate where they would part. But Tad walked on.

  ‘We’ll see you safely home tonight,’ he said. ‘It isn’t often that I can.’

  At the house where Delina lived Tad hesitated. ‘Will you come in?’ Delina asked. Silently Tad agreed. Behind them Dawn and David followed.

  Delina was at a loss. She wasn’t sure why Tad had come. Should she offer some supper? In her mind she rummaged through what she had in the house that would produce a meal for them all.

  ‘I just wanted to see you home,’ Tad smiled. ‘I’ll go now. I need a walk and to freshen up after all that messing about with cement.’

  ‘I’ll see you on Monday, then?’ Delina said to Dawn. ‘Oh, and this is for you, for helping David with his chores.’ She handed the girl a shilling. ‘Perhaps it will help to pay for your film to be developed.’ She turned to her brother. ‘David, haven’t you got something to say to Dawn?’

  ‘Thank you for cleaning out the rabbits.’

  The words came out in a surly staccato and Delina began to protest, but she changed her mind. Best not start an argument now, she would talk to him later.

  Dawn sensed the change in her father the moment Delina had closed the door. She had no idea what had caused his temper to return, but from the way he walked and the tightness of his lips as he hurried her back down the hill something had changed his mood from a happy one to the approach of ill-temper. She wanted to chatter, talk about the beginnings of the pond and how she had planned her series of pictures, but she held her tongue. Now wasn’t the time. She would tell Delina on the way to school on Monday.

  Tad’s anger had been caused by Delina giving Dawn a shilling. He was so short of money that although he longed to help Dawn with her hobby, he couldn’t. Seeing Delina rewarding his daughter for some imagined favour tightened the rage, frustration and dismay around his heart. When would he ever escape from the mess he was in? The fact that the mess was not of his making only made him feel worse. If there had been something in himself that needed changing he would do it. But caught as he had been by a war, losing his opportunity for a university place, and then losing his wife while Dawn was a baby, it seemed that the gods were heaping disaster after disaster on top of him. Now, with Delina coming into his life at a time when he had less than nothing to offer, it seemed that the fates were even more determined to torment him. Paying the rent and buying food and the occasional item of clothing was all he could manage.

  Why did he have to fall in love with Delina? If he had been able to remain detached and simply grateful for her help with Dawn things would have improved. He would have been free to study knowing Dawn was safely cared for and life would have become more tolerable. Delina had handled Dawn firmly yet with a genuine affection and the child had responded to her in a way that was quite amazing. His own response to Delina’s friendship was the problem now and there was nothing he could do about it.

  ‘Here you are, Dawn.’ He handed her half a crown. He would have to manage without a canteen meal for a day or two but that wouldn’t kill him. ‘Put it towards your photographs.’

  * * *

  Ethel’s house was flooded with drawings and plans for gardens and displays over the next few days as more and more people heard of the village gardening club and added their contributions. Her table was covered with lists of plants and orders for seeds and Fay called in often on her way home to add to it, showing copies of letters she had written and the replies. There was an air of excitement throughout the village that seemed to threaten the celebration of Christmas. Everyone was looking further ahead to the day when the judges would travel along the roads and lanes to see the results of their efforts.

  Nel
ly’s pond was laboriously emptied and refilled twice to get rid of the lime making it safe for any creature that decided to make its home there. Bert Roberts excelled himself.

  ‘Leave the emptying of the pond to me, George,’ he announced one day as he hurried down the cinder path and into the living room. ‘Look what I found up in the loft!’ It was a stirrup pump. ‘Left over from the war. Miracle it was still there. I’ll get it done in no time with this. The pump was a remnant of the time when every fire-watcher had one on hand in case of incendiary bombs. With one end in a bucket of water, the handle had to be pumped up and down to spray the fire.’

  With great enthusiasm Bert lowered the end of the hose into the water and pumped the handle up and down, while the water flowed away down the garden.

  ‘I’d better ’elp with me bucket or we’ll be all day squirtin’,’ Nelly said, bending to fill the bucket she had once used to carry her water down from the tap in the lane.

  Panting with the effort but smiling in delight at being able to use the forgotten tool, Bert admired the emptied pool, then set to help re-fill it. He left the pump at the side of the house for the final emptying a week or so later.

  ‘I want it back, mind, there’s no telling how valuable it’ll be with this garden competition coming off.’

  Nelly was tired with the bending and lifting and when she went inside she lay back in her chair and dozed. George came in from the farm an hour later and, without disturbing her, settled opposite her on the couch. Within minutes he, too, was sleeping and darkness crept into the corners of the room and the kettle sang on the side of the fire and it was the sighing of the hungry dogs that eventually woke them.

  * * *

  Delina went with Dawn to collect her photographs from the camera shop in town, but Dawn wouldn’t let her see them.

  ‘I want to show Dad first,’ she said, although she was dying to look at them herself.

  It was one of the evenings Tad went to school so Delina was there when he came home. Delina had allowed Dawn to wait up to show him the photographs when he came in. She watched him as he smiled over the ones taken around the pond, many of the characters revealing themselves to the sharp observations of his talented ten-year-old. The good humour of Johnny and Phil, Nelly leaning back and laughing over some stupid joke, then, his face changed and he hurriedly tucked one of the photographs under the pile. Curious, Delina asked to see it. It showed herself and Tad, and the way they were looking at each other left no doubt as to their feelings for each other.

  ‘She’s very clever, your Dawn,’ Delina said when Dawn had been settled into bed. ‘She has a rare ability to show what people are thinking.’

  ‘She’s just a child.’

  ‘We aren’t, Tad.’

  He looked at her then. She remained still, her lovely blue eyes looking into his own as he fought with his emotions. He turned away but she rose and came to stand beside him.

  Above them, Dawn had crept from her bed and sat listening, watching, from the landing.

  ‘It’s no use,’ Tad said. ‘What have I got to offer?’ His voice was barely heard.

  ‘Your love?’

  ‘It isn’t enough.’

  ‘How d’you know if you don’t ask?’ He still stood a little apart from her and she knew she dare not say any more. Perhaps she was wrong and his attraction to her was less than she believed. She had already said more than she intended. Tad was not a man to take kindly to pressure. Hardly daring to breathe she waited for him to say something or to move, either towards or away from her.

  He turned slowly and she was unable to read the expression on his face. Was it tight with anger? Embarrassment? Regret?

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ he said and the solemn expression was one of confusion and indecision.

  ‘You know I love you. It must be clear if Dawn can see it.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘Tad,’ she asked softly, ‘what d’you want to do?’

  ‘This.’ His arms were around her and he pressed her against him with a groan. Their lips met in a kiss so sweet that for them both it was as if they had been lost in a bewildering landscape and were at last safely home.

  Dawn watched them with a mixture of excitement, guilt and fear. What would happen to her now?

  Chapter Seven

  Delina walked home after a brief and hesitant talk with Tad. They loved each other but that wasn’t the end of anything. It was a beginning; a beginning of problems that seemed insuperable. She was responsible, whether she wanted it or not, for the day-to-day running of her father’s home and the care and support of her brothers. Tad had no money to support a wife and needed to study for his place in the world. And there was Dawn. Where, in all that, could they find level ground on which to build a marriage? Because marriage was what they both wanted. The first thing, she decided, was to talk to her father.

  She began to think about how she would broach the subject but when she got home and opened the door and saw Victor sitting beside the fire, she couldn’t discuss it. This revelation between herself and Tad was new and very fragile and for tonight, at least, she wanted to keep it safe and private, to hug it and allow it to simmer in her heart. It was something wonderful, this thing that was newly burst upon her, yet, she remembered with a stab of unease, not so many months ago she had been planning to marry Ethel Davies’ son, Maurice. Thinking of Maurice now gave her a strong feeling of relief that the wedding hadn’t happened. This love she had for Tad was different and so absolutely right. Maurice was handsome and had awoken her to womanhood, but it was Tad who had really made her realise the meaning of true love.

  ‘All right, Delina?’ Victor called as she closed the door. ‘A bit late aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Tad and I had something to discuss.’

  ‘Have you got time to discuss something with me?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, her spirits dropping. She wanted the privacy of her own room and her own thoughts tonight. ‘But I still have some preparation to do for school.’

  ‘I won’t keep you, it’s just that, well, how d’you think the boys would take it if Amy and I were to marry?’

  She wanted to reply: How would you all take it if I married? But she didn’t. She said, ‘I think that if it’s what you want, and if you know it’s really right for you, then you and Amy will work out any problems that crop up. Why, have you asked her?’

  ‘Many times, love, but sometimes it’s yes and other times it’s no. We’re convinced about wanting to be married, but afraid of what it will mean to the others involved. There’s you and David and Daniel, and Margaret and Freddy. There are so many reasons not to that I sometimes despair.’

  ‘It’s more likely to be because Mam had to die to make it possible,’ Delina spoke firmly and saw her father’s head jerk around, his eyes staring at her.

  ‘Don’t say that! I didn’t want your mother to leave me in that way.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. That’s what I’m saying. You and Amy must remind yourselves that what happened wasn’t what either of you wanted. You aren’t to blame. Wishing someone isn’t there won’t kill them. That’s a foolish superstition and needs weeding out by the roots.’

  ‘And what about you, Delina love? How do you feel about having Amy for a step-mother?’

  ‘I – I might have plans of my own before long, but whatever happens, I’d welcome her if she makes you happy.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Victor was so deeply immersed in thoughts of his own future he didn’t think of the implication of Delina’s words until much later.

  ‘Dad, d’you think it might be a good idea for us all to get together, you and Amy and Margaret, me and the boys?’ Victor smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t think I could face it, love. Not yet. I think Daniel will be amenable to anything we decide, but I think I’d better wait until David is less of a handful, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Delina said in her quiet yet firm way. ‘I think we ought to cle
ar the air a little and the sooner the better.’

  * * *

  Hilda Evans had startled her son, Pete, by coming home with a new hair-style and some smart clothes, but that was nothing to the surprise he had when, while he was queuing for the pictures one evening, he saw her arm in arm with a strange man. He left his pale lanky friend, Gerry Williams, and ran after the couple, hoping against hope that he had been mistaken and that the heavily made up woman was not his mam. It was.

  ‘Ma,’ he said, ‘where you going?’

  ‘Just for a drink with my friend, Pete.’ She turned a smiling face to her companion and said, ‘This is Pete, my son. Pete, this is—’

  ‘I don’t want to know who he is. I think you ought to remember where our Dad is!’

  He ran off and Gerry called after him as he ran past the waiting queue but he didn’t hear. He ran on, through the town to the lane where they had left the motorcycles. He kick-started his angrily. What a mess. Dad in prison waiting trial and Mam carrying on with God knows who, dressed like a tart.

  He rode around the town for more than an hour, then went back to the cinema queue. Gerry wasn’t there and when he went back to the place where they had left the motorcycles Gerry’s vehicle had gone. He rode off back to Hen Carw Parc, not to go home, but to ask Gerry’s mother if he could stay there. How could he go home and face his mother knowing she was ‘carrying on’? He returned to the house near the fish and chip shop briefly and left a note to tell his mother where he was then went to the council house where Gerry and his brothers lived with their parents.

  When he returned home after three days, fed up with the noisy household and the lack of decent food, he had another surprise. All the furniture had been changed. Hilda had spent most of the remainder of Griff’s money and had completely re-furnished her home.

  She smiled a welcome with her new and better fitting false teeth, didn’t bother to ask where he had been, and said cheerfully, ‘Tomorrow I’m having the locks changed. Your father isn’t coming back here again.’