The clerk lifted a key from a row of numbered hooks on the board and smirked at the porter. ‘Bags to be carried up to eighteen, Davies. Mrs Slater, Reverend, rest assured we will do everything in our power to ensure that you have a pleasant stay with us.’
‘Thank you,’ Edyth replied when she realised that Peter had no intention of answering the man.
‘Eighteen,’ the boy repeated. He stared at Edyth, but turned aside when he saw her looking back at him.
Peter’s Aunt Alice had not only made the booking and arranged to pay their hotel bill as a wedding present, but also given them a generous cheque on the understanding that ‘it was to be spent on nothing sensible’. After meeting Alice Beynon, and witnessing the staff’s reaction to their arrival, Edyth didn’t doubt that Peter’s aunt had also informed the hotel staff that they were honeymooners.
‘Breakfast is served from seven to nine, luncheon from twelve to two, and dinner from eight until nine-thirty in the evening, sir, madam. All meals are taken in the dining room, unless, that is, you’d prefer to eat in the privacy of your room.’ His smile turned to a leer.
‘No, thank you. We’ll eat in the dining room.’ Peter answered without consulting Edyth.
‘Would you like an early-morning call, sir, madam?’
Peter looked enquiringly at Edyth.
‘I’ve packed my alarm clock.’
‘No, thank you,’ Peter said.
‘Should there be anything – anything at all – that we can do to make your stay with us more comfortable, please don’t hesitate to ask.’
‘We will.’ Peter offered Edyth his arm, and they followed the porter up the stairs. They passed two maids in the corridor. Both dived into a walk-in linen cupboard the moment they saw them. Edyth heard giggling and suspected their odd behaviour wasn’t anything to do with a directive about cleaning staff not being seen by guests, and everything to do with knowing that she and Peter were honeymooners.
She noticed the back of Peter’s neck had turned bright pink above his collar, and she was surprised that he was more embarrassed by the overdose of innuendo in their welcome than she was.
‘Your room, madam, sir.’ The boy opened the door, carried their cases inside and lifted them on to a pair of canvas webbed trestles set at the foot of the double bed. ‘Shall I send for a maid to unpack for you, sir, madam?’
‘No, thank you.’
Edyth wondered if that was how Peter intended to respond to every enquiry the staff made of them during the week. He tipped the boy sixpence and closed the door before going to the window and opening it wide.
Edyth joined him and they gazed down the hill to Caswell Bay cove. The tide was in, lapping at the rocks and pebbles high on the foreshore. The sea was shimmering, gleaming, cold pewter in the clear October air. The moon had already risen although the sun hadn’t set, and it hung, a pale silver crescent in the greying sky.
‘What a wonderful view,’ Edyth cried enthusiastically. ‘I’ve always loved Caswell Bay. It’s one of the best – after Langland and Oxwich – for bathing.’
‘I keep forgetting that you’ve holidayed in Swansea and on the Gower.’ Peter pushed aside the curtains and a fresh, chill breeze blew into the room. ‘I was hoping to introduce you to my favourite places, but it seems you’re as well acquainted with them as I am.’
‘We’ve seen them through different eyes.’
‘That’s a tactful statement if ever I heard one. Did you holiday on the Gower every year?’
‘Every year I can remember when I was growing up. First in my great-aunt’s cottage in Port Eynon then, after she died, mostly, but not always, in a house at Horton that belonged to a friend of hers. The last two years we’ve stayed at the Mermaid in Mumbles. Mam wouldn’t allow Dad to book us in there until Glyn reached what she called “a civilised age”. She says hotels and small children don’t mix.’
‘She’s probably right.’ Peter sat on the window sill. ‘Which is your favourite Gower bay?’
‘That’s a hard one.’ She sat on the opposite end of the sill to his and leaned against the window recess behind the curtains. ‘Rhossili is the most impressive.’ She had chosen the bay at the end of the Gower Peninsula. Below its treacherously high and steep cliffs lay miles of clear sandy beach.
‘Beautiful, but a long walk down to the sea,’ he observed.
‘Does that mean you’re too lazy to want to visit there this week?’
‘We’ll see.’ His hand shook when he loosened his tie.
‘It’s strange to think that all the time I holidayed here as a girl with my family you were living in Mumbles. We could have passed one another in the village, or on a clifftop walk. We could have even swum off the same beach, fished in the same rock pool or bought ice-creams from the same cart.’
‘I went to boarding school when I was fourteen and you were four.’ He turned away from her and studied the view.
‘But you returned here for the holidays.’
‘True,’ he granted, ‘but I rarely ventured very far down the Gower after Mother and I moved in with Aunt Alice. Her chauffeur always seemed strangely reluctant to drive us further than Mumbles and Langland. Possibly because he had sisters living in both villages and could be assured of a cup of tea after he dropped us off.’
‘Aunt Alice is nice. And not just because she’s paying for all this,’ she added, lest he think her mercenary.
‘Nicer than my mother?’
‘What a peculiar question.’ She was taken aback.
‘Aunt Alice is very different from my mother.’
‘It’s hard to believe they are sisters,’ she conceded.
‘You may not have noticed in the short time you were in their company, but they don’t get on.’
‘They are certainly opposites,’ she agreed tactfully.
‘Aunt Alice means well and she’s very generous with her money and hospitality, but Mother is more of a thinker and Aunt Alice, well, she’s more of a …’
‘Doer who likes a good time,’ Edyth suggested when words failed him.
‘You noticed that much on a brief acquaintance?’
‘Your aunt seemed determined to enjoy our wedding.’
‘Mother told me that although Aunt Alice is older than her, she has always been adolescent in her attitude towards life. As a young girl she never thought further than the next ball, party, picnic or good time, and she didn’t change when she married or, I’m afraid to say, when she lost her husband.’
‘Perhaps her determination to make the best of things is a reaction to losing her husband at such a young age,’ Edyth suggested. ‘Many widows adopt the philosophy of enjoying every moment to the full, while they still have them. It doesn’t mean that they loved their husbands any less than the widows who observe strict mourning.’ Edyth surprised herself when she sprang to Alice Beynon’s defence. But she had taken a liking to her warmth and spontaneity, if only because it proved, after the cool reception Peter’s mother had given her, that someone in her husband’s family was prepared to like her.
‘Which is all well and good if you subscribe to the philosophy that this life is all there is.’
‘Please don’t let’s quarrel about my father’s beliefs, not on our honeymoon, Peter,’ she pleaded.
He gave her one of his winsome smiles. ‘I wasn’t thinking of your father but Mother and Aunt Alice. Mother takes life far more seriously than her sister. She sees it as an opportunity for spiritual preparation for the hereafter.’
‘I see.’ Edyth did. She suddenly understood Peter’s mother perfectly. Her interpretation of religion was the one her father had railed against all his life. Florence Slater equated godliness with a grim Victorian solemnity bordering on misery and, from what little she’d seen of her at the wedding breakfast, probably regarded anything enjoyable as the devil’s work. But she was also her mother-in-law. Much as she didn’t relish the task, it was up to her to make the best of the situation because she had a feeling that Florence Slater woul
dn’t be making any allowances for her. Time and patience would hopefully win her around. Perhaps when she and Peter had children …
She pictured Mary lying in bed with tiny Will at her side and imagined herself in the same situation, with Peter sitting on the bed beside her, a small bundle between them …
‘Edyth?’
She focused on her husband. ‘Sorry, Peter, I was miles away. Did you say something?’
‘I was talking about Aunt Alice and Mother but it can wait. It’s half past seven. We have time for a short walk before dinner or a longer walk afterwards. Which would you prefer?’
Edyth knew exactly what she would have preferred; a quiet romantic dinner in their room with a bottle of champagne. And afterwards making love with the curtains and window open so they could see the night sky and hear the sea …
‘Edyth?’ he prompted again.
‘You choose.’
‘You’re proving to be a very accommodating wife.’ He left the window sill and kissed her forehead.
She debated whether or not to wrap her arms around his neck and encourage him to kiss a whole lot more of her but he moved away while she was still wondering how he’d react. ‘I promise you, Peter; I’ll try to be just that, always.’
‘I love you, Edyth Slater,’ he said huskily. ‘Never forget it.’
‘I love you, too, Reverend Slater.’
He opened his suitcase and removed a linen suit bag. ‘I think we should change for dinner now and go for a walk afterwards. It’s always best to exercise before bed. I’ll go to the bathroom and change.’
‘I’ll unpack,’ she said brightly, forcing the disappointment from her voice. ‘Would you like me to unpack for you?’
‘No.’ His reply was too sharp, too finite, and he realised it. ‘I’m a bit of fusspot when it comes to my clothes and personal things. I’ll put them away myself when you change. Did you see a bathroom when we came up the stairs?’
‘There’s one next door.’
‘Then Aunt Alice probably asked for us to be put in this room. You can always trust her to think of the practical things and comforts of life.’ He took a leather toilet bag from the top of his case.
‘That’s a very good characteristic for an aunt to have.’ She lifted her feet on to the sill and rested her head on her knees.
‘You’re determined to like her.’
‘I’m determined to love, not like, your aunt and your mother, Peter.’
‘I won’t be long.’
Edyth continued to sit on the window sill looking out at the Bay for a few minutes after Peter left. The tide was receding. Gradually the strip of sand below the pebbles widened, but she saw neither the sand, sea, gulls, old men preparing to dig for lugworm, nor the boy and girl walking a pair of red setters. She had imagined the moment when she and Peter would finally be alone together in a bedroom ever since he’d asked if he could ‘court her with a view to an engagement’. She’d assumed that he would take her in his arms … kiss her … undress her …
But Peter was a vicar. That set him apart from most men. And he’d warned her, when he’d asked her to court him, that he was cautious by nature and experience. Different men loved in different ways. Bella’s Toby was passionate and demonstrative – Peter wasn’t. And, after meeting his mother, she could understand why he found it difficult to express his feelings.
She recalled the first time he had told her he loved her. What he lacked in passion he compensated for in dedication. She had always wanted the kind of relationship her parents had: a love that would last through bad as well as good times. And, in Peter she would find that, if only she could quell the tiny niggling doubts.
She climbed down from the sill, reached into her pocket for her keys, unlocked her suitcase and began to unpack, setting aside one of the most expensive gowns in her trousseau; a long-sleeved, russet satin evening frock that brought out the highlights in her hair. And when she placed piles of stockings and underclothes in the dressing table drawers, she tried not to anticipate what was going to happen in that room that night. Because she was beginning to discover that too much anticipation led to a sense of anti-climax.
It was her over-active imagination that had led to – not disappointment exactly, she could never be disappointed with Peter – more like the end of expectation. But hadn’t that been the case with almost everything in her life so far? Looking forward to an event was often so much more enjoyable than the actual occasion.
David said goodnight to Harry’s family, and goodbye to Lloyd’s brothers and their wives and children, who were leaving, and climbed the stairs to Bella’s old room. His two younger brothers, five-year-old Luke and ten-year-old Matthew, were already asleep, worn out by the excitement of the wedding and the impromptu party in Lloyd and Sali’s house that had followed Will’s birth and the departure of the newlyweds.
Luke was curled in a tight ball in the truckle bed beneath the window, in contrast to Matthew who was sprawled out, arms and legs extended, in the centre of the double bed.
Avoiding Matthew, David sank down on the side of the bed, lifted his ankle on to his knee and began to unlace his shoe. An image of Edyth came to mind. She was undressing, slowly, tantalisingly, in a luxuriously furnished hotel bedroom that gleamed with all the satin and silk drapes he’d seen in the Hollywood films Harry had taken him to see in Pontardawe. Peter was sitting in an easy chair, glass of brandy in hand, his shirt collar hanging loose by one stud as he watched her – and smiled. She returned his smile and moved closer … set her hand on his shoulder …
David shuddered and blinked hard, but the picture remained, searing agonisingly and unbearably on to his consciousness.
How could Edyth – his Edyth, as he had thought of her until that day – reject him and marry a wet fish of a vicar like Peter? If he had lived nearer to her, or at least within riding or driving distance, he could have visited her, if not every day then a few evenings a week.
He would have courted her, persuaded her that he really loved her and then she would have married him not the stupid vicar. If only he lived anywhere but the farm. A girl like Edyth wanted to see life, not be buried in the middle of nowhere where the most exciting event of the day was the appearance of the lorry that picked up the milk churns from their stand at the side of the road.
Restless, he left the bed and walked out on to the landing. He could hear the new baby mewling and Harry and Mary whispering behind the door of their bedroom. For the first time in his life, he felt a pang of jealousy for his sister’s happiness.
He went downstairs. The maids were talking in the kitchen. But the rest of the house was quiet. Taking his hat and coat from the stand, he unlocked the front door as quietly as he could and stepped outside.
The sky was clear. A sliver of new moon shone down amongst a bevy of glittering stars and he remembered his long-dead father telling him always to start a new enterprise on a waxing moon. Had Edyth heard that saying and fixed her wedding date accordingly? Or was it simply luck that she and Peter had picked that day? Either way, it was Peter Slater, not him, who had won both Edyth and the luck that came with a new moon. And the girl he loved was as lost to him in her vicarage in Cardiff as if she had moved to the other side of the world.
Wanting to get as far away from the house, and everyone and everything connected to Edyth, as he could, he started walking, neither knowing, nor caring in what direction he was headed.
‘So if you take over the temperance society and the youth club –’
‘Peter?’ Edyth interrupted, allowing her exasperation to show for the first time that evening.
‘What?’ He unlocked the door and stood back so she could precede him into their room.
They were returning after an excellent dinner accompanied by a bottle of the vintage champagne that Alice Beynon had ordered to be sent to their table, not only on their first night at the hotel, but every night of their stay. They had finished with coffee and brandy and a walk on the terrace, which Edyth could hav
e quite cheerfully forgone but Peter had insisted on taking. Apart from complimenting her on her gown and hair, he hadn’t said one single word of romance all evening.
‘It’s our wedding night,’ she reminded him tersely. ‘And all you’ve talked about is your plans for the parish. I know it’s important to you – to both of us,’ she amended diplomatically, ‘but the whole point of a honeymoon is to get to know one another away from everyday work and domesticity.’
‘Sorry, Edyth.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘I suppose I have talked rather a lot about parish business tonight.’
‘Only all through dinner, the walk in the garden and up the stairs.’ She made a poor attempt to turn her complaint into a joke.
‘Sorry. It’s just that I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘It will be there next Saturday and so will we.’
‘I know.’ He moved a chair in front of the window.
‘You want to sit up?’
‘I thought I would read while you get ready for bed.’ He took a book from a stack he had set on a desk in the corner of the room. She read the title: The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written Sermons in Nineteenth Century Britain.
‘Isn’t that a little old-fashioned for the modern church?’
‘In places,’ he conceded, ‘but the Victorians had some sound theological ideas.’ He sat down. ‘How would you like to go to service in St Paul’s in Sketty tomorrow? My mother and aunt always attend morning service and we can visit them afterwards. Perhaps even stay for lunch.’
Ideally Edyth would have liked to have spent the first day of married life lying in bed until the last possible moment before the hotel stopped serving breakfast, or even better, eating it in their room so they wouldn’t have to dress. Then, a stroll on the beach or cliff path, depending on whether the tide was in or not, before lunch and an afternoon nap with the door locked, followed by an early dinner and a romantic stroll on the beach in the moonlight. But then Peter was a vicar. He could hardly miss church, and if they had to attend a service anyway … and she wanted to see his aunt’s house.
‘If you’d like to,’ she acquiesced.
Tiger Bay Blues Page 27
