‘That’s wonderful news. Congratulations, Peter.’ Edyth turned to the Bishop. ‘But you still haven’t said where the parish is, Your Grace.’
‘I haven’t, have I?’ He reached for the cheese again. ‘It’s Butetown.’
‘Or, as it’s more commonly known, Tiger Bay. A tough one even for our talented Reverend Slater here.’ The Dean waited until the Bishop had taken another hefty lump of cheese before helping himself to a chunk of Stilton. ‘But whether Peter will be vicar there or not is entirely dependent on you, Miss Evans.’
‘Me?’ She looked at him in confusion. Then she noticed Peter was as red-faced and uneasy as he had been when he’d asked her father if he could formally court her.
‘The curacy is assured,’ Peter said quietly.
‘But not the post of vicar,’ the Dean added.
‘I don’t think Miss Evans understands the situation.’ Mrs Price made her first contribution to the conversation. ‘The Reverend Slater will only be appointed vicar of Butetown if he is a married man.’
‘The Church couldn’t place a bachelor in Tiger Bay,’ the Dean boomed. ‘Too many temptations down there for a single man, Miss Evans. Far too many. Even for someone as upright and moral as our Reverend Slater,’ he laughed, oblivious to the silence that had fallen over the table.
‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Evans. I trust the next time we see you there will be cause for celebration. As I said to Peter earlier, it would be a personal as well as professional pleasure to join two such dedicated Christians in Holy Matrimony.’ The Bishop shook Edyth’s hand. The Dean, their wives, and the Reverend Price followed suit, but Mrs Price kissed her cheek. Edyth noticed that the vicar’s wife looked drawn, tired and years older than her husband, although she knew from town gossip that Mrs Price was ten years younger.
‘Take care of yourself, my dear,’ Mrs Price whispered, when she walked Edyth to the front door.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening, Mrs Price, Reverend Price.’
‘It was our pleasure,’ the vicar answered.
The Reverend and his wife stood on the step to wave them off. Peter escorted her down the path in silence. When they reached the gate they turned and waved back. Edyth didn’t speak to Peter until she heard the door close behind them.
‘You didn’t tell me that promotion to the post of vicar would be dependent on you having a wife,’ she said.
‘But I did tell you that the Church prefers vicars to be married. Don’t you remember? It was when I asked you if I could speak to your father?’
‘You mentioned something about it but I didn’t think you meant it personally.’ She wondered why she hadn’t connected the conversation with his declaration that he loved her, when both had happened on the same day.
‘I didn’t know I was going to be offered a curacy in Butetown today with a view to taking over from the incumbent within six months. I didn’t even know the Reverend Richards’s wife had died before Christmas or that he was in failing health. You heard the Dean and the Bishop, it’s a challenge. It’s also a testament to their faith and confidence in me.’
‘Why shouldn’t they have faith in you? You’re talented, enthusiastic –’
‘As are a hundred other curates in South Wales, all of whom are older and more experienced than me,’ he broke in brusquely. ‘Please believe me, Edyth, I had absolutely no idea the Bishop was considering me for the curacy, let alone the post of vicar, until he arrived this evening. I know what you’re thinking –’
‘Do you?’ She slowed her step and looked at him.
‘You’re assuming my suggestion that we embark on a formal courtship was a selfish one, made in the hope of furthering my career. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. The moment I looked at you I knew you were the only woman for me.’
It was one of the most romantic things he had ever said to her. But she had to ask the question uppermost in her mind: ‘What happens to your career if you don’t get married?’
‘I can take the curacy, but if I’m still single when Reverend Richards retires, as the Bishop expects him to do within six months, the Church will look for someone else to take over the parish.’
‘That’s unfair,’ she cried out. ‘It’s you who will be appointed, not the woman you marry.’
‘It may be unfair, but the Bishop’s decision is final. He couldn’t have made it clearer when he spoke to me before you arrived tonight. No wife – no parish.’
‘It’s that important for you to be married?’
‘Edyth, I know you’ve led a sheltered and privileged life, but you must have some of idea what Tiger Bay is like.’
‘I went to Moore’s shipping offices in Bute Street with Toby and Bella to see some of his paintings. The offices, Port Authority, banks, and Exchange buildings are magnificent. As for the streets behind them, I saw working-class homes, no different from the Rhondda. Presumably the people in them work on the docks or aboard ships instead of in the pits,’ she replied.
‘Not all the sailors live in your working-class homes. A fair number of foreigners disembark with money in their pockets which they are looking to spend before their next voyage.’
‘Which means lots of pubs, drunks, houses of ill-repute, and women who make a living in ways that aren’t discussed in polite society. I haven’t led that sheltered a life, Peter,’ she retorted testily.
‘The Bishop – wrongly in my opinion, although I would never dare say it to his face – is convinced that the temptation of living in close proximity to that particular kind of sin would be too much for any bachelor.’
‘He thinks you would become a drunk or –’
‘You don’t need to spell it out, Edyth,’ he interrupted prudishly.
‘All I can say is that he doesn’t know you,’ she muttered, furious with the Bishop for insisting that Peter’s advancement depended on him being married. ‘No one, not even a Bishop, should have the right to tell anyone when they should marry. It is a private and personal decision that should only be made by the people concerned. ‘
‘It might be better if we talked about this tomorrow. It’s been a long evening, and I can see you’re angry.’
‘With the Bishop, not you,’ she snapped. ‘How dare he pressurise us? We promised my father we wouldn’t even consider marrying for three years, yet tonight I had the distinct impression that the Bishop and the Dean were planning to conduct our wedding service without even consulting me.’
‘If they were, they were only thinking of me.’ He grasped her gloved hand. ‘Consider the situation from their point of view, Edyth. Their first duty is to the Church. It’s their responsibility to train, place and advise the clergy, and use the people at their disposal to the best advantage. They aren’t thinking of themselves but the parishioners in Butetown, my advancement and – you.’
‘The last person they are thinking about is me,’ she said dismissively.
‘They know I love you, because I told them.’
‘What exactly did you say?’
‘What I just said to you. That I knew you were the one for me the first moment I set eyes on you at your sister’s wedding. They realise that it will only be a matter of time before we are man and wife. And they also realise that our future, comfort and standard of living depends on my position within the church.’
‘You told them that you wouldn’t marry me until you had your own parish?’
‘I didn’t need to tell them that. It’s Church policy to discourage curates from marrying. For one thing we’re always being moved about and for another our stipends are too small to support a family.’
‘And they thought they’d hurry things along for you.’
‘We discussed it at some length, Edyth, I told them that you had matriculated with honours and had a place waiting for you at Swansea teacher training college. I also told them that your father wanted you to take up that place. But as the Bishop said, “what purpose would it serve to delay our marriage for three years?’”
; ‘I hope you told him that it will give me time to qualify as a teacher,’ she retorted caustically, her anger with the Bishop momentarily demolishing her own doubts about attending college. ‘I think that’s purpose enough, even for a Bishop.’
‘Yes, you would have your certificate,’ he agreed, without answering her question. ‘But we intended to marry after you qualified, and as a married woman you would not be allowed to teach. So in effect that would be a waste of the next three years, not only of your life, but also mine. Years that we could both put to good use working together for the people of Butetown.’
She considered for a moment. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way,’ she conceded.
‘The Bishop made me see that we have a choice, Edyth. Either I spend the next three years as a curate, and you as a student being supported by your father. Or we could both be doing useful work, earning our living and making a home together. Just think of the difference you and I could make in an area like Cardiff docks. There are children there in even more desperate need to have their energies channelled into useful occupations than there are in Pontypridd. And if this Depression lasts or gets worse, as your father seems to think it will, more and more people will be turning to the Church: the poor for the basics they need to live, the unemployed for societies and voluntary work to keep themselves occupied until they can find work again, and the wealthy in the expectation that we will distribute their charitable donations where they are most needed.’
‘You really think we should get married right away?’ She tried to decipher his expression in the thickening twilight.
‘I think our future is more important than you acquiring a teaching certificate you will never use,’ he said resolutely. ‘And your father has already said that he has no objections to our marrying when you are of age. But if you don’t want to marry me just yet –’
‘I do,’ she broke in earnestly. ‘But I resent the Bishop ordering us to marry.’
‘He didn’t, Edyth. All he did was offer me the opportunity to run my own parish, which is the reason I joined the church. Butetown parish could be the realisation of all my ambitions.’
‘My father was dreadfully upset when Bella gave up her academic plans to marry Toby,’ she murmured, more to herself than Peter.
‘What is more important, Edyth,’ he asked baldly, ‘your father’s disappointment or our future?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘Yes, it is. This is the golden opportunity that I have been waiting for all my life. If we aren’t married, the Bishop will appoint someone else vicar of Butetown. And then it’s anyone guess as to how many more years I’ll remain a curate, doing someone else’s bidding. The Reverend Smith in Burry Port didn’t get his own parish until he was forty-five. I don’t want to wait that long, Edyth, because it would mean delaying our marriage as well as putting my career on hold. Please, I’m not asking you to disobey your father; all I’m asking you to do is think about it before I visit you tomorrow. Will you do that much for me?’ His eyes glittered in the moonlight.
‘I will.’
They reached her drive. He drew her back beneath the trees. ‘I’ll be here tomorrow at teatime after I have seen Mrs Hopkins. We’ll talk some more then?’
‘Yes.’
He kissed her, and that time she was left in no doubt that it was a real kiss and their first. ‘You know that I love you, Edyth?’
‘As I do you.’
‘Then trust me.’
Suddenly he was gone. She walked up to her front door, her mind a kaleidoscope of rotating images. The Dean smirking at her, gloating in his superior knowledge of Peter’s appointment to Butetown. The Bishop cutting ever larger pieces of cheese. Mrs Price finally speaking in her timid, tired voice.
‘I don’t think Miss Evans understands the situation. The Reverend Slater will only be appointed vicar of Butetown if he is a married man.’
Peter looking at her in the moonlight.
‘You know that I love you, Edyth?’
‘As I do you.’
He was right. She hadn’t really wanted to go to college anyway. It was her father’s ambition for her, not her own. Maggie, Beth and Susie were bright. They would go to college in her and Bella’s place. Her father would soon recover from any disappointment. Especially when he saw the work that she and Peter would be doing in Tiger Bay.
Chapter Seven
‘No! No! No! Absolutely not.’ Lloyd paced from the hearth to the bay window, turned on his heel and glared at Edyth and Peter, who were sitting side by side on the sofa. Edyth’s hand was beneath Peter’s and the sight infuriated him. It was as though she had already adopted the role of submissive, subservient wife. ‘I agreed that you two could “court formally” – not that I had the faintest idea what that meant. I did not agree that you,’ he pointed at Edyth, ‘could marry before you came of age. Or that you could give up your place at college.’
‘Sir, please, if you would listen, just for a moment –’
‘Not for one second!’ Lloyd rounded on Peter. ‘You give your word lightly, Slater. Even for a clergyman.’
The curate’s colour heightened, but Sali was too busy watching Lloyd to be concerned with Peter Slater’s feelings. She had seldom seen Lloyd angry and then only when he had been fighting the blind stubbornness that had affected men on both sides of the miners’ strikes. He had never lost his temper with her or one of their children. She knew he was thinking of Edyth and wanted the best for her. But she also realised that his exasperation would only serve to exacerbate the situation and make Edyth even more determined to follow her heart.
‘Lloyd, please sit down so we can discuss this properly,’ she begged, when he continued to stalk restlessly around the room.
‘There is absolutely nothing to discuss,’ he said flatly. ‘Edyth gave me her word that she would go to college if she matriculated. She has matriculated – with honours – and she will go.’
‘But, Dad, don’t you see that even if I go to college, I will never use the qualifications I gain.’ Edyth spoke softly, in the hope of defusing the tension that hung, tangibly in the air. ‘As soon as I am of age, I will marry Peter.’
‘Even if you are halfway through your final year?’ Lloyd challenged. When she didn’t answer his question, he said, ‘So, you won’t complete your course in college, no matter what. Is that what you are saying?’
‘No, Dad. But as a married woman, I wouldn’t be allowed to teach, so my going to college would be a complete waste of the next three years. Better that Peter and I spend that time working together for the people who live in Tiger Bay.’ She unconsciously reiterated Peter’s argument.
‘You are only eighteen,’ Lloyd reminded testily. ‘The law recognises that no one of that age knows their own mind.’
‘But I do,’ Edyth insisted earnestly. ‘Making Peter and I wait won’t change the way we feel about one another. But it will lose him this parish. Please, Dad, I love Peter and he loves me. It’s not as if we’re asking for anything besides your and Mam’s blessing. The Church will give us a house once Reverend Richards retires, and then we’ll have Peter’s salary as a vicar to live on. We’ll be able to work together –’
‘We?’ Lloyd interrupted her. ‘You’ve been ordained now?’
‘Being a vicar’s wife is a vocation just as much as teaching. And now that I’ve met the man I love, it’s what I want to do with my life.’ She lifted her chin defiantly.
‘I may not be able to support Edyth in luxury, sir, but I will be able to provide her with a reasonable standard of living.’ Peter found the courage to meet Lloyd’s disapproving eye.
‘But will you be able to give her a teaching certificate?’ Lloyd mocked.
‘You know I can’t do that, sir.’
Lloyd returned to the fireplace, leaned against the mantelpiece and gazed at Edyth. When he finally spoke, all trace of anger had left his voice. But Sali knew him too well. Lloyd’s temper was quick to flare and just as quick to cool. He
appeared calm and detached but she realised from the ice in his eyes that this time he had gone from fiery rage to iron frost. And there would be no thawing or talking him round. Not now.
‘Have you considered what kind of life Edyth will lead in Tiger Bay?’ Lloyd enquired conversationally of Peter.
‘As the wife of the vicar, she will be looked up to and respected by everyone in the community. She will help with the church groups, chair the Young Wives, act as secretary to the Mothers’ Union, run the Sunday school, Bible classes, temperance society, youth club and drama group –’
‘Temperance society?’ Lloyd ran his fingers through his greying hair. ‘Have you the slightest idea what kind of people live down the docks? Have you met the men and women she will be mixing with?’
‘We are all God’s people, sir.’
Knowing the effect the phrase would have on her father, Edyth winced.
‘God’s people?’ Lloyd raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘Office workers, port officials, dockers, seamen, and their families aside, have you considered the flotsam and jetsam that wash up in every port? The homeless, the drunks, the gamblers, the gangsters, the prostitutes –’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ Peter turned crimson at Lloyd’s mention of prostitutes, ‘I have heard the stories about Tiger Bay but I also know people exaggerate. Many decent families live in Butetown.’
‘I said office workers, officials and working classes aside. But I don’t believe they will need the services of a vicar as much as the unemployed and destitute. Do you intend to ignore them?’
Tiger Bay Blues Page 12
