Beggars and Choosers (14 page)

‘Not for long.' Morgan snapped. ‘The fruit of her sin will soon be evident for the world to see. I'll see you out, Doctor.'

Mari strained her ears as the two men left the room and walked down the stairs. She caught snatches of conversation and picked out individual words, among them the one that struck terror into every young girl and woman in the town – ‘workhouse'. A bastard child brought shame and internment for a working-class woman. For a girl of Sali's class it meant ostracism, disgrace, and at the very least, exile from her family and friends.

Not for the first time since Mansel's disappearance Mari felt a murderous rage towards the young man of whom she had once been so fond, who had brought ruin and disgrace to her young mistress.

‘You understand, Mari?' Morgan eyed the housekeeper over his reading glasses.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And you are to do what exactly?'

‘Not to say a word about the doctor's visit to anyone. If any person should enquire about Miss Sali's health, I am to tell them that Miss Sali has succumbed to brain fever as the result of Mr Mansel's disappearance. Miss Sali is to be kept in her room at all times and no one is to visit her except me. And I am to visit her only to take her meals and see to her needs.'

‘Breathe a word of what the doctor said to anyone, Mari, and I will dismiss you, instantly and without a character.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘You may go.'

‘Sir,' she threw all caution to the wind, ‘how long will Miss Sali be kept in her room?'

‘Until I make arrangements for her to leave it, Mari.' He opened his Bible on the desk in front of him. ‘You are dismissed.'

‘Sir.' She bobbed a curtsy and left. Morgan Davies had made his threats but this was one situation where she needed help and there was one person she could trust. Not only with her own life, but that of her late master's family.

‘There has to be something we can do, Tomas,' she begged, looking to the butler to solve the young mistress' problems as she sipped a glass of the forbidden sherry he hid in the depths of his butler's pantry.

‘What, Mari?' He lowered his voice, although his pantry was at the end of a long flagstoned corridor and they would have heard anyone approach long before they reached the door.

‘Miss Sali has friends ...'

‘Plenty,' he agreed, ‘but can you see any of them helping her in this situation, particularly the parents of girls her own age? If Mrs James were well, I would visit her, but I met Mr Jenkins this morning at the Post Office when I sent off Mr Davies's mail and he told me that the doctor thinks it unlikely that Mrs James will make even a partial recovery. No one knows where Mr Mansel is ...'

‘There is Mr Richards,' Mari interrupted eagerly. ‘He is Miss Sali's joint guardian.'

‘And a solicitor, and for all his education and learning, employed by the family, which places him on the same footing as us. You go to Mr Richards with this, Mari, and you'll put him in an impossible situation. He can do nothing for Miss Sali without the consent of her other guardian.'

‘She is of age. She can live where she likes. He can take her in and give her a roof over her head.'

‘He could, and being a bachelor, he would set the entire town talking.' Tomas held up the sherry bottle. Mari shook her head, emptied the dregs from her glass and pulled a tiny bottle of essence of peppermint from her pocket. She poured water into her glass, added a few drops from the bottle, filled her mouth and swished the water around to remove all taint of the sherry.

Much as she hated to admit it, Tomas was right. With Mrs James ill and Mr Mansel God only knew where, there was no one in the town they could turn to for help. ‘We'll just have to help her ourselves, Tomas.' She left her chair and went to the door.

‘How?' he enquired bleakly.

‘I don't know, yet,' she qualified, ‘but there has to be something that we can do. There is no way that Miss Sali is going into the workhouse, that's all I can say. Not while I have breath in my body.'

Chapter Eight

‘Miss Sali, if you don't start eating soon, you will make yourself seriously ill,' Mari reprimanded, deliberately and consciously breaking Morgan Davies's rule that she was to visit Sali only to take her meals and see to her needs. The supper tray she had carried upstairs an hour before remained untouched. The lentil soup, cold and congealing, the spoon she'd laid next to it spotless, and the slices of bread and butter, triangle of cheese and slices of tomato, exactly as she had arranged them on the plate.

‘I am not hungry,' Sali murmured distantly, without turning her head from the window that overlooked the garden.

‘You haven't eaten a thing in a week. And it's not just you. You have to think of your baby.' Mari braced herself as she broached a topic they had yet to discuss.

‘The bastard.' Sali finally looked at Mari.

‘It wouldn't have been anything of the kind if Mr Mansel hadn't gone and disappeared,' Mari stated briskly, in an attempt to break through the daze Sali had sunk into since her uncle had confined her to her room.

The door opened and Morgan strode in without knocking. ‘Leave us,' he ordered Mari.

Mari picked up the tray and bobbed a curtsy. Morgan had hardly spoken to her or any of the servants during the last week and she was afraid that he might take it into his head to forbid her to talk to Sali, or even worse, ban her from Sali's room.

Morgan closed the door. ‘You will be dressed and ready to leave this house first thing tomorrow morning.'

‘Where am I going?' Sali asked tremulously.

‘You have a choice. You can go to the workhouse, or,' his eyes glittered, ‘you can marry Councillor Bull.'

The room spun around her and she grabbed the arms of her chair for support.

‘He is aware of your condition and prepared to give you and your bastard a home and his name in return for your dowry.'

She shuddered at the thought of sharing a bed with Owen Bull, of undressing in front of him, of allowing him to touch her the way Mansel had.

‘What is it to be?' Morgan demanded.

‘I can't marry Councillor Bull, Uncle Morgan. Please ...'

‘A marriage to Councillor Bull would give you respectability and enable your mother, brothers and sister to hold their heads high again in this town. But I see that you are determined to be selfish to the last. There is no need to pack. No workhouse inmate is allowed to keep any personal possessions, not even clothes.'

The degradation of the workhouse was nothing in comparison to the thought of Geraint, Gareth and Llinos being tainted by her disgrace. ‘Please ...'

‘You have reconsidered?' he said harshly, when her voice failed her.

‘Yes.'

‘Pack everything you want to take with you tonight. You will not be returning. I will clear the servants from the landing stairs and hall at five o'clock in the morning. You will not leave this room before then.'

‘Mother –'

‘Do you think I would allow you to say goodbye to your mother after the shame you have brought on this house?'

Mortified, Sali bowed her head.

He left and Sali heard the key turn in her lock. Even if there had been somewhere or someone she could go to, she was trapped. She rose from her chair and looked around. She didn't doubt for one minute that it would be her last night at home, at least until Geraint came of age and, even then, her brother would probably be too mindful of Llinos's reputation to allow her to return.

She lifted the valise her father had bought for her when she had been accepted into Swansea Training College out of her wardrobe. Made of sturdy leather, it seemed twice as heavy as she remembered. Opening it, she set it on the bed and began to transfer the contents of her wardrobe and chest of drawers. Leaving out one of her black suits and a black blouse for the morning, she packed as many clothes as she could fold into it, before taking a second case from the top of her wardrobe. Her carved wooden jewellery box, a birthday present from her father was empty, all her jewellery apart from a plain silver bracelet watch, still in the bank where her uncle had deposited it, but she packed the box anyway. She ran her fingers along the shelves of her bookcase. Every volume had been carefully chosen and she regarded them as old friends, but she had only two cases and she hadn't room for more than three or four books. She read the titles over and over again, choosing and discarding each in turn only to change her mind. Eventually she settled on an album of family photographs, a copy of
Children of the New Forest
because it was the first book she could recall her father reading to her,
Pride and Prejudice
and the collected works of Lord Byron, which Mansel had bought.

Holding out her hand she gazed at her engagement ring. She remembered the day Mansel had given it to her, the day they had made love for the first time, and tears blurred her vision. If only she had fought him off, asked him to wait until they were married, would he have still disappeared? Why had he left her?

Her mind buzzing with unanswerable questions, she tried to concentrate on practical matters. If she left the ring, she would never see it again and no man, let alone a chapel deacon like Owen Bull, would allow his wife to wear another man's ring.

She opened her manicure set and removed her nail scissors. Unpicking the waistband of her skirt, she cut the thread of the button. Slipping the ring into the band, she sewed the button in the centre of it and stitched back the waistband. She couldn't bear to be parted from the ring but she knew that from tomorrow, she would never be able to wear it openly again.

Sali woke to the unmistakeable sound of the key being turned in the lock outside her door. Panic stricken, she sat up. Her uncle had told her to be ready at five ... she looked around confused. It was still dark and dawn broke at four o'clock in August. She couldn't have slept late ...

‘Who is there?' she cried out, fumbling with the candlestick and matches on her bedside cabinet. A floorboard creaked as someone walked into the room. Freezing in terror, she dropped the matches.

She held her breath listening intently as the door whispered shut and the key turned in her lock a second time.

The mattress sank as someone sat beside her and a hand closed over her mouth. She clenched her hands into fists and tried to thrust whoever it was from her. A sharp blow to the side of her head stunned her. She clutched the bedclothes to her chest but they were torn from her hands. A second punch to her bruised temple sent her reeling backwards. Red lights flared like sparks from mountain beacons across her eyes.

A hand, damp, fumbling, scrabbled at the neck of her nightgown. She dug her nails in, stripping skin from the fingers that pawed at her lace collar. The hand moved downwards, snapping the lace, wrenching open her bodice and sending pearl buttons flying. One landed on her neck, bruising her.

A cry strangled in her throat as she fought with every ounce of strength she could muster to dislodge the hand from her mouth, but her jaws were prised apart and the hand plunged between her teeth. She gagged at the salt taste of sweat on her lips, reeled at the acrid stench of oily pomade as a face loomed over hers in the darkness.

A sharp crack rent the air and a cool draught blew across her naked body as her nightgown was torn from waist to hem. Slowly, inexorably, she was forced on to her back. Her assailant heaved himself on top of her and wedged his knees between hers. She gasped as he allowed his full weight to drop on her, expelling the breath from her lungs. He pinched her nipples before his fingers travelled downwards, prodding and poking at her tensed body. She made one last effort to push him from her, and received a third blow to the head. Then it was too late.

Desperately trying to divorce herself from what was happening, she closed her eyes and tried to conjure an image of Mansel ... Mansel walking along the river, the sunlight glittering on his blond hair ... Mansel asking her to marry him ... Mansel kissing her ... Mansel dancing with her in a warm, perfumed ballroom ... Mansel lying beside her in his bed in the rooms above the store ...

The images barely formed in her mind before they shattered in the sickening reality of what was being done to her.

She gagged again as he rolled off her and if there had been anything in her stomach she would have vomited. He'd finished using her. She could wash away the sweat, the smell ... hands closed around her neck, encircling and tightening until she could no longer breathe. There was nothing she could do but grit her teeth and bear it. She could bear it! Bear it ...

That was her last coherent thought before she sank deeper into the mattress and the bleak respite of nothingness.

When she wavered back to consciousness, she sensed she was alone. She tried to move. Her neck was sore and stiff. Her head and every part of her body ached but the pain was nothing in comparison to the shame and degradation she felt at allowing herself to be raped.

Sali was sitting, waiting, dressed in her plain black suit, her cases packed and set at the foot of her bed when her uncle unlocked her bedroom door. The clock in the hall struck the first chime of five o'clock. She rose as he entered.

He turned to the window, but not before she saw the scratches on his face and fingers, and an unmistakable bite mark on his left hand. Refusing to meet her gaze, he went to the wardrobe and opened it to check that she had emptied it. Carefully, methodically, he searched her dressing table, chest of drawers, washstand and bedside cabinet. She had stripped her bed and folded the linen into one pile, the blankets and bedspread into another and with all the cupboard and wardrobe doors open and drawers pulled out, the room already had a forlorn, abandoned air.

‘Leave your cases and follow me.'

The familiar morning sounds of the house echoed from the kitchens and family rooms as she walked down the stairs behind him. The clatter of irons as fires were laid and hearths swept in the dining, morning and drawing rooms, Tomos's footsteps resounding over wooden floors as he opened drapes, the soft murmurs of conversation accompanied by the banging of pots and pans emanating from the kitchen as the cook and maid prepared breakfast.

‘Put on your coat and hat.'

Sali took her coat from the hall cupboard, slipped it on and lifted her hat from the rack. She turned to the mirror and was shocked by the apparition that stared back at her. If Mansel were to walk through the door, she doubted he would recognise his fiancée in the old woman she had become in the space of a few weeks. She had lost so much weight, her clothes hung loose on her wraithlike frame. Her face was drawn, pale and so thin her bloodshot eyes glowed unnaturally large, like those of a terrified animal. And her throat and the left-side of her face were black with bruises.

Her uncle opened the front door. Standing behind him, she dropped a letter to the floor addressed to Mari that enclosed another for her brothers and sisters. She put her head down and stepped outside. He closed the door and walked so quickly towards the centre of town that she had to run at his heels to keep up with him. By the time they reached the gates of Penuel Chapel she was breathless.

Four people had gathered outside the chapel railings. Councillor Owen Bull, another deacon she knew by sight, Iestyn the gravedigger and a man formally attired in a bowler hat and an overcoat that was too heavy for the time of year. Morgan nodded to them before producing a key and unlocking the padlock that fastened the gates. Walking up the short flight of stone steps that led to the door, he unlocked the chapel and stood back to allow them to enter. When they were inside, he looked to where Sali stood waiting.

Faint and dizzy, she grabbed the stone pillar at the foot of the steps for support.

He looked away from her.

Forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, she climbed the short flight of stone steps and walked into the chapel.

‘I now pronounce you man and wife.'

There were no smiles or congratulations after Morgan had spoken the words that concluded the marriage ceremony. Owen Bull walked over to the table where the Registrar was sitting and signed the marriage certificate. The Registrar took the pen from Owen and held it out to Sali. ‘Mrs Bull.'

Sali reeled as the enormity of what she'd done sank into her mind. Seeing her hesitate, Owen took the pen and handed it to her. She signed her name in the spot the Registrar indicated.

‘Witnesses.'

Iestyn gave Sali a shy smile as he stumbled after the deacon to sign his name. The Registrar handed Owen a copy of the certificate, which he folded and placed in the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘I will send your cases to your new home with the coachman this morning, Sali. Councillor Bull, Mr Phillips, we have a deacons' meeting at seven o'clock this evening.' Morgan strode into the vestry and closed the door behind him.

Owen looked to Iestyn, not Sali. ‘Take Mrs Bull home, Iestyn. Tell Rhian I'll expect dinner on the table at one o'clock sharp as usual.'

‘It's nice to get married in the morning. You have the whole day in front of you,' Iestyn chattered as he lurched down the aisle of the chapel alongside Sali. ‘We had a night burial a few weeks ago. Owen says it makes for more free time in the day. And it will be nice to have you living with us. We have plenty of room above the shop in Mill Street. There's a parlour, three bedrooms and a kitchen. I sit in the kitchen when I've finished my work for the day. It's warm in there. Rhian sits with me and if she's in a good mood she reads to me. It's nicer when someone reads to you than when you read to yourself. Don't you think?'

Her senses deadened by the devastating events of the night and the surreal ones of the morning, it was as much as Sali could do to nod.

‘Rhian was ever so pleased when Owen told us that he was getting married last week.'

‘Last week,' she murmured, realising that a wedding, even a hole-in-the-corner one at half past five in the morning, would have taken a certain amount of planning, including an application for a special licence.