Hearts of Gold (38 page)

She laid the table, cut bread and carried the butter and jam in from the pantry. Punctually at five-thirty, Evan and the boys came down the stairs and Alun walked in from his room. They fought over the tap in the washhouse, ate the breakfast laid out on the table and left, Alun and Evan to the pit, the boys to the market. It was Haydn’s day to work for Wilf Horton and Eddie had decided to go down to Market Square with him in the hope of picking up some casual work.

Left once more in sole possession of her domain, Elizabeth cleared the dishes, stacked them in the washhouse and re-laid the table for Maud. She wondered what to do about Bethan. Perhaps she should take her breakfast up to her bedroom?

It was probably best to wait until Maud had left. Bethan had certainly looked ghastly last night when young Dr Lewis had brought her home.

But she hadn’t entirely believed his and Laura’s story that Bethan had slipped on the stairs in the Homes and fallen. However, Bethan herself hadn’t said much. Refusing even Maud’s offer of help, she’d put herself to bed. But young Dr Lewis must be worried about her to say he’d call again today.

She hoped the stupid girl hadn’t done herself a serious injury. Without Bethan’s contribution to the household budget she’d be hard put to buy food, let alone pay the mortgage next week.

She poured herself a cup of tea from the cold dregs in the teapot and looked at the clock. It was past seven, time to call Maud. She left the kitchen and shouted from the foot of the stairs. Then, and only then, did she lift the hotplate cover and put the kettle back on to boil. She only ever brewed fresh tea if someone else in the house wanted a cup, considering it a selfish extravagance to do so just for herself.

Ten minutes later, washed, dressed, hair neatly combed back and tied at the nape of her neck, Maud appeared. She sat at the table and ate the porridge Elizabeth put in front of her in silence. When she finished she carried the plate through to the washhouse, before returning to drink the tea that her mother had poured for her.

Bethan was well enough to go to work then?’ she asked innocently.

‘Not likely, young lady,’ Elizabeth said sharply. ‘Not after that fall she took last night.’

‘Then where is she?’ Maud asked, looking around the kitchen.

‘Where you’d expect her to be. In bed.’

‘She wasn’t there when I got up,’ Maud asserted.

‘Did you disturb her in the night?’

‘Not that I know of, Mam. She was sleeping when I went to bed.’

Elizabeth left the kitchen and ran upstairs. She crashed open Maud and Bethan’s bedroom door. The bed was turned back the curtains pulled, the sash window left open six inches at the top, just as she liked Maud to leave it.

She darted into the boys’ bedroom. She couldn’t imagine why, but she thought it might just be possible that Bethan had gone in there. The bed was rumpled, untidy; the wardrobe door left ajar, the window and curtains still closed. It was messy but empty.

In her own room the blankets were turned back and the window open, just as Evan had left it. She stepped across the landing to the box room and pushed open the door. It shuddered protesting across the bare floorboards. The cardboard boxes in which she’d stored the wooden bricks; fort and doll’s house that Evan had made for the children when they were small were piled neatly along the wall on the left-hand side of the room.

She looked behind the door. Her college text books were stacked, where she’d left them under a thick layer of dust. No one had been in there. Fear slimed sick and leprous from the base of her spine. If Bethan had left her bed to go to the toilet she would have seen her pass through the kitchen.

She remembered Andrew. His sudden departure from Pontypridd. It was as if Bethan’s disappearance had turned over a stone in her mind, uncovering a seething nest of fears she’d been terrified of for years. All she could think of was Hetty.

She almost fell down the stairs in her haste to return to the kitchen. On the way she opened the door to Alun’s room. The air was stale, musty. The single bed was made, the sash in the bay open a scant half inch at the top. But it was tidy, his clothes hung away on the rail Evan had hammered across the alcove.

She called out Bethan’s name, quietly at first, then louder not really knowing why she did so when it was plain to see that Bethan wasn’t in the room. She closed the door and entered the back kitchen, checking the pantry, the washhouse and the back yard while a bewildered Maud looked on.

She climbed the garden steps, looked in the coalhouse, the dog run; the shed where Evan kept his tools.

‘Beth’s all right, isn’t she, Mam?’ Maud demanded pathetically, seeking reassurance.

‘I don’t know,’ Elizabeth replied tersely.

She closed all the outside doors and ran back down the passage. Perhaps Bethan was in the street … she wrenched open the front door, looked up and down …

‘Nice morning Mrs Powell,’ Glan’s mother called from next door where she was scrubbing her doorstep. ‘How’s your Bethan? I heard she took a bad fall last night.’

‘She’s going to be fine, thank you, Mrs Richards.’ Elizabeth shut the door on the street.

The parlour … she tried to open the door and failed to move it more than a few inches. Something was behind it. She pushed with all the strength she could muster and stumbled over the body of her daughter.

Bethan, wearing only a nightdress, lay on the floor, an empty bottle of brandy in her hand. Her feet were in the bucket which had fallen on its side. The water it had held had flooded the linoleum, damming up against her rolled-up best hand-stitched tapestry rug.

Elizabeth knelt down and placed her hand on Bethan’s forehead. It was burning. She moved the bucket and Bethan’s feet fell out into the puddle of water. She thrust her hand into her mouth to prevent herself from crying out. The skin hung in long white threads from the red, raw mass of Bethan’s feet.

Someone screamed. It wasn’t until Maud called to her from the passage that she realised she was making the noise herself.

‘Mam …’

‘Stay there, Maud,’ Elizabeth commanded. Years of discipline paid off. Maud remained exactly where she was. Elizabeth thought rapidly. The bucket – the brandy bottle – she knew exactly what Bethan had done. She’d tried the same trick herself years ago. It hadn’t worked then, and judging by the spotless state of Bethan’s nightdress it hadn’t worked now.

If it had worked for her … if … she heaved the thought from her mind.

‘Bethan’s ill,’ she said quickly. She studied her daughter’s mutilated feet. She didn’t want to send for help, but this was way beyond her capabilities.

‘Run down the hill as fast as you can to Uncle John’s. Tell him … tell him that we need Dr Lewis quick. Tell him to send messages to the hospital and anywhere else he might be.’ She stared at Maud’s face, white, strained. ‘Do it,’ she shouted. ‘Now!’

Maud sprang to life. Not waiting to exchange her slippers for her boots she wrenched open the front door and fled down the steps.

Elizabeth put her arms around Bethan’s shoulders and lifted her out of the pool of water. She’d dreaded something like this since the day Bethan was born. Now that it had actually happened she didn’t feel any of the emotions she thought she would. She wasn’t angry. She didn’t want to punish Bethan … In fact one glance at Bethan’s feet told her that there’d been punishment enough and to excess. Instead of wanting to cast Bethan out, she held her close. Her heart reached for Bethan’s as it had never done before. This was one problem they would face together as mother and daughter.

Bethan’s eyes flickered open as Elizabeth stroked the hair away from her face.

‘It’s all right,’ Elizabeth murmured softly, laying Bethan’s head down on her lap. I’ve sent for Dr Lewis. He’ll know what to do. It’s going to be all right.’

Bethan looked down, plucked at her nightdress, checking the damp patches. Seeing only clean water she began to cry. She pressed her hand against her stomach.

‘Mam. I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I …’ She faltered. She had no apology. No defence to offer.

‘It’s all right. Try not to talk. You need to conserve your strength.’

‘Mam, please, don’t throw me out,’ she pleaded feverishly. ‘I have nowhere to

go, I …’

‘Bethan, it’s going to be all right,’ Elizabeth said in the strong voice Bethan hadn’t dared disobey from childhood. ‘I know you’re going to have a baby.’

Bethan stared at her mother, wide-eyed, disbelieving. Her mother knew what she’d done and she was caressing and petting her? She had no memory of her mother ever doing that before.

‘Don’t worry, Bethan. I won’t let you go on the streets or into the workhouse.’ Elizabeth voiced her own fears of twenty-one years before. ‘First we nurse you back to health, then we’ll sort out your problems.’ She looked hard at her daughter. ‘Just promise me one thing.’

‘Yes, Mam,’ Bethan murmured. At that moment she would have promised her mother anything.

‘No more tricks like this.’ Elizabeth threw the bottle into the bucket with a crash. ‘They don’t work. All you’ll succeed in doing is killing yourself. Now here, put your arms round my neck. Let’s see if we can lift you out of this puddle and on to the couch.’

In one single blinding, screaming moment Bethan’s feet came to life. She couldn’t have moved them to save herself from death. If anyone had offered to amputate, she would have allowed them to do so, and gladly. Clinging tightly to her mother she sobbed as she hadn’t done since childhood. Elizabeth’s tears mingled with her own as they fell into the puddles on the floor. For the first time in her life Bethan actually felt close to the woman who had born her.

‘Andy, Anthea, is that you?’ Fiona called out as she heard the maid open the front door.

‘It is.’ Andrew dropped his doctor’s bag on to the hall floor, divested Anthea of her coat and hat, and handed them to the maid.

‘Dwinkie?’ Fiona waved a cocktail glass in front of their noses as she peeped around the drawing room door.

‘Ta, love one,’ Anthea cooed.

‘What is it?’ Andrew demanded suspiciously, eyeing the peculiar colour of the liquid in her glass.

‘Champagne cocktail, with some of my added, my – ster – ious ingredients,’ Fiona purred.

‘I think I’d prefer a small whisky, thank you.’

‘You’re worse than Father.’ She made a face at him. ‘Be adventurous for once in your life.’

‘I value my stomach too much to take a chance.’ He followed Anthea into the drawing room, and slumped down in a chair next to the drinks tray. ‘Alec home, Fe?’ he asked.

‘Hours ago,’ she drawled. ‘He’s speaking to Daddy on the telephone.’

‘Daddy –’ He left his chair, ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

‘Daddy England, not Daddy Wales,’ Fiona said irritably. ‘There’s some men only thing on tonight, and they’re both going. I don’t suppose you two would like to take me out, would you? I hate staying in when Alec’s out having fun. We could go to the cinema, or a show?’

‘Fine,’ Andrew agreed enthusiastically, ignoring the tight-lipped expression of annoyance on Anthea’s face.

Anthea had written to Fiona soon after his arrival in London. Pleading boredom, an empty wardrobe and a desperate need for an urgent London shopping trip she’d asked Fiona if she could visit. Ever accommodating, and only too glad to have someone to stay to help amuse and lighten her lonely days, Fiona had welcomed her with open arms, but Andrew had seen the heavy hand of his mother’s interference in the scheme. And five days and nights spent under the same roof as Anthea had done nothing to dispel the unpleasant notion.

Anthea rose early so she could breakfast with him and, worse still, chatter about trivial nothings when all he wanted to do was eat, drink and read the paper in silence. She rooted out the small cafe where he and the doctor lunched when they could get away from the hospital, and turned up there with Fe in tow, feigning amazement at his presence.

She “happened” to be making her way back to Fe’s’ or “passing” in the evenings when he was returning to Fe’s after finishing work in the hospital for the day. A stroll he’d always regarded as a pleasant one until she joined him. And whenever they were alone together she prattled on about how wonderful life in London was, what a marvellous doctor’s wife his mother made, and how well she got on with his entire family.

Rather obvious topics that did nothing to endear her presence to him.

‘Right, where shall we go?’ Fiona asked as she handed Anthea a cocktail and Andrew a whisky.

‘Cinema,’ he suggested thinking that at least he wouldn’t have to talk to either of them while the film was on.

‘I’ll have a look at what’s showing,’ Anthea volunteered, cheering herself with the thought that Fe might go to bed early when they got back, leaving her alone with Andrew.

‘Thank you,’ Fiona smiled as she handed Anthea the paper. ‘You’ve no idea how much I was dreading this evening.’

Andrew sipped his whisky slowly. He could understand his sister’s reluctance to spend an evening by herself. He hadn’t been comfortable in his own company since he’d left Pontypridd. The problem was, he often felt lonelier, more solitary and miserable when he was with someone else. Particularly Anthea. Outings with her had, if anything, sharpened his longing for Bethan. He missed her with a pain that became more acute with each passing day.

‘Dinner won’t be long.’ Fiona freshened up his and Anthea’s glasses. ‘Oh, I forgot, there’s a letter for you, Andy.’ She picked up an envelope from the tray and waved it in front of his nose with a sly glance at Anthea. ‘It’s from Pontypridd.’ She lifted her eyebrows suggestively. ‘And it’s not from Daddy or Mummy.’ She sniffed the paper. ‘There’s no perfume. Your little nurse may belong to a den of thieves, but I’m afraid she isn’t in the least bit romantic, dear brother,’ she teased.

‘Give me that, Fanny,’ Andrew said irritably.

‘My, my, we are a crosspatch aren’t we? What’s the matter, Andy? Finding it difficult to get rid of her? Won’t she take no for an answer?’

‘Some women just don’t know when to let go,’ Anthea said, allowing her acid thoughts to reach her tongue for the first time in Andrew’s presence.