Honey's Farm (20 page)

Her voice trembled. ‘That Eline was no match for him, not her, with milk and water in her veins instead of red blood.'

She looked at Gwyneth sharply then. ‘So you've taken Will Davies away from Eline, have you? Funny we should both have pinched her man from under her nose, isn't it?' But Nina wasn't laughing.

Gwyneth sighed. ‘I don't know if I've got him or not yet, Mam. I'm not counting any chickens, mind.'

‘He'll marry you,' Nina said positively. ‘He's a man with a conscience, you'll see. When are you going to tell him?'

‘I'll go up to Cardiff in a few days' time, if you can lend me some money,' Gwyneth said. ‘I think he should know as soon as possible, don't you, Mam?'

‘Aye, best get it over, girl.' Nina paused. ‘I hope he does right by you and makes the wedding before the baby begins to show. You can always tell folks it's a premature birth.' She smiled. ‘Not that they'll believe you, mind, but it saves face a bit, see?'

Gwyneth shook her head, half in apprehension and half in anticipation. ‘Imagine me, Gwyneth Parks, strutting about the streets of Cardiff with a wedding band on my finger. Wouldn't it be wonderful?'

‘Aye, if it comes to pass, it will be wonderful – a damn miracle,' Nina said dourly.

‘Mrs William Davies.' Gwyneth spoke the name softly. ‘It has a fine ring to it, doesn't it?'

‘Aye, it does that, girl, but don't go making plans that might not come to anything. He could always walk away, mind.'

‘But you said he had a conscience, that he'd marry me,' Gwyneth protested.

‘I know I did, and I think he will, too, but it don't do to believe in good things happening to folk like us. Remember that, girl. These menfolk are strange creatures; there's no way of telling how they'll turn, and shouldn't I know that better than most?'

Nina looked thoughtful. ‘I know when he had a second chance, Joe stood by me, like; but not the first time he didn't. I might as well tell you now, I'd have staked my life on it that Joe would marry me when I fell pregnant for our Tom, all those years ago, when Joe and me were both free as air. I thought he loved me, see. And so he did, in his way, but he ran a mile.'

She paused as if the memory was painful. ‘Once he knew about the baby coming, I didn't see him for dust.'

Nina looked at her daughter and her face softened. ‘But I think you got a good one in Mr Davies, don't think he's the sort to run, but then he's a mite older than Joe was and more educated, like. You'll be all right.'

‘I hope so, Mam,' Gwyneth said, and she drew her shawl around her shoulders, feeling suddenly chilly. ‘I do hope so, because if he lets me down, I don't know what I'm going to do.'

‘We'd manage. Come on, don't be down in the mouth,' Nina said cheerfully. ‘Haven't we Parks women always got by?'

‘But how, Mam?' Gwyneth asked, feeling suddenly lost and alone in a strange and alien world. What if she had a baby, and no father to help support it?

‘I'd mind the babbie and you'd take a job, work the oysters like always,' Nina said practically.

The prospect was a daunting one, and Gwyneth thought with horror of the long months waiting for the child to arrive, months when she would be talked about, an outcast in the village – a true Parks, people would say.

More practically, how would she and Mam survive those months, months when there would be little money coming in? She squared her shoulders and forced herself to look on the bright side. Will was too good a man to leave her to face her problems alone. He knew he was the first with her; he had taken her virginity, he would stand by her.

Nina seemed to sense her feelings, and with a rare show of emotion, she leaned forward and touched her daughter's hand. ‘It will be all right,
merchi
,' she said softly. ‘You'll see, it will be all right.'

‘Will it, Mam?' Gwyneth wanted reassurance; she wanted Mam to make things right as she'd done when Gwyneth was a child. But this was the world of grown-up emotions and grown-up repercussions. Not even Nina, with her redoubtable strength of character, could help her now. It would take the good intentions of Will Davies to do that.

She loved Will so much; she had given him her trust as well as her passion. Surely he must feel something for her too, otherwise he wouldn't have taken her to his bed.

But as Gwyneth lay awake that night, staring up at the ceiling, hands resting lightly on her still flat stomach, she realized that she had led Will on,
she
had seduced him. Her body had cried out for him; she had thirsted for his love.

In return, he had given her his manhood; his urgent needs had been assuaged by her love. He was a man, a red-blooded man, and who could blame him for not turning such a willing slave away?

Gwyneth stared up at the ceiling and thought with trepidation of the journey she must make to Cardiff to face Will. She tried to think of the words that would break the news to him gently, for, in all fairness to him, he hadn't meant to put her in this position.

The moon spread a soft light across the room, washing everything in silver; even the quilted bedcover seemed to lack colour. It was a strange, unreal world, a world where Gwyneth Parks suddenly felt very much alone.

Fon sat in the kitchen and stared around her. It was clean now, the cushions mended and floors swept, the chaos she and Jamie had found on their return from the fair restored to order. But the memory of that night remained with Fon in the days that had followed, and often she lay awake at night, thinking she heard sounds from downstairs.

Of Mike the Spud nothing had been seen or heard; it was as though he had disappeared from the face of the earth. Dewi, in his cottage with his wife and children, had heard nothing of the intruder, and Fon could not in all conscience blame him; the cottage was quite a distance from the farmhouse.

Apart from which, Fon felt it in her bones that somehow Mike the Spud and Bob Smale were connected, and between them they had thought up this act of revenge against her and Jamie.

She said nothing of her fears. Jamie was so toweringly angry at the violation of his home that she hesitated to raise the subject, for fear of upsetting him even more.

At the time, Jamie had questioned both Dewi and Gary closely, his longing to find the men he believed were responsible for the outrage burning within him; but the shepherd, like Dewi, had heard nothing. Indeed, he had slept soundly until woken by Jamie.

When he'd entered the devastated kitchen on the night of the damage, Gary had shaken his grey head and narrowed his eyes, and though he grumbled continuously as he helped Jamie and Fon clear up the chaos in the farmhouse, he nevertheless worked well.

‘You got an enemy, boss,' he'd said to Jamie. ‘Thought at first the Black Devil might have got out, but no beast made this mess, not even a bull scenting a heifer.'

Gary coughed noisily. ‘I never trusted that Mike, mind. I didn't like the look of ‘im, from the start; not our sort, he weren't.'

After he had passed on his opinions, Gary remained silent, his supply of conversation seemingly used up for the time being.

Fon sighed, staring round at the now neat room, trying to shake off the memory of that awful night. She moved across the kitchen and stared down at Patrick, who was asleep on the sofa, and frowned in concern as she realized the boy had been asleep for longer than was usual.

The small boy was flushed; his cheeks, once so plump, were now thinner than they should be. It was clear he was not well.

Fon glanced out of the window. She should be helping the men in the fields. It was harvest-time; the corn, ripening late, was being gathered in, and Jamie had been able to employ only one casual to help him. And yet he had insisted that Patrick must remain indoors and Fon with him.

There had been talk of the scarlet fever over at Greenhill in Swansea, and Fon feared that Patrick might have caught the sickness one day when she and Jamie had taken him into Swansea to do some shopping. He'd not been himself since then: nothing she could put her finger on, but the normally placid Patrick had been fretful. He'd refused to eat and had fallen asleep at odd moments of the day. Now he had developed a red, angry rash, and Fon was certain he had the fever.

According to her herbal recipe book, the fever should be treated with the roots of bugloss, made into a syrup, but so far she'd used the remedy on Patrick without success.

At dinner-time the men came in from the fields, and Fon, glancing anxiously at Jamie, saw that he was bone tired. She knew he would work twice as hard as any help he hired; that was his way.

The labourer was little more than a youth, thin, with fair hair flopping over his forehead; he looked more suited to poring over books than working the fields. In this assessment Fon turned out to be right.

‘Sit down, Eddie,' she said politely. ‘I'll put your dinner out in a minute.'

She liked Eddie; from the minute she'd set eyes on him, Fon had instinctively trusted him, but he was no farmer. Still, in these busy days, any help was better than none at all.

She served Jamie with a huge plate of meat pie, hot from the oven, and pushed the dish of vegetables towards him.

‘Eat up, love,' she said softly. ‘You look as though you need it.'

He met her gaze, and even though he was tired, he had a light in his eyes that stirred her senses. A wash of warmth filled her, she loved him so much. Since her marriage, Jamie had filled her whole world; she couldn't imagine now ever being without him.

She concentrated on serving the meal, and Eddie thanked her nicely as she handed him his plate of pie.

‘How's Patrick this morning?' Jamie asked, glancing towards the front room.

‘He's sleeping,' Fon said. ‘I'm hoping the remedy I've given him will start to work soon.'

Jamie pushed aside his plate and left the table, disappearing into the other room.

Eddie looked up from his plate. ‘What's wrong?' he asked, and it was the first time he'd spoken two words together.

‘I'm afraid he's caught the scarlet fever,' Fon said quietly. ‘I should have the doctor to him, but money's so tight, just now.' She shrugged. ‘I don't know what to do for the best.'

‘Will you allow me to have a look at him?' Eddie said.

Fon stared at him in surprise. ‘Do you know anything about the sickness, then?' she asked.

Eddie shook back his lock of fair hair. ‘My father was a doctor,' he said. ‘I began my training, supposedly to follow in his footsteps, but' – he shrugged – ‘it wasn't to be.'

‘What do you mean?' Fon asked, and immediately apologized. ‘Oh, excuse me, it's none of my business, is it?'

Eddie smiled. ‘I don't mind telling you what happened,' he said, rising to his feet. ‘My father died, quite suddenly. His heart gave out, I fear. I found then that we were heavily in debt; the house had to be sold, and there was no money for me to continue with my training.'

He smiled, and his thin face looked quite handsome. ‘So I took to the hills, literally.'

He pointed in the direction of the parlour. ‘May I?'

Fon nodded, eager for another opinion, and followed him from the kitchen into the other room. She drew Jamie back from the bed, holding on to his hand, watching as Eddie gently lifted the blanket and exposed Patrick's small frame.

‘What the . . . ?' Jamie began.

Fon looked up at him, shaking her head. ‘It's all right. Eddie was going for a doctor,' she explained quickly, ‘but when his dad died there was no money for it. Let him look at Patrick. It can do no harm.'

‘His chest,' Eddie said, with a sudden, unexpected air of authority. ‘It's congested. We need a poultice and some hot flannels, and perhaps we could have a kettle boiling on the fire. The steam will help him a little.'

‘Well, I'll be damned,' Jamie said softly, but he brought the kettle and poked up the flames beneath it.

‘Can you make a poultice?' Eddie looked at Fon, and she nodded willingly.

‘I'll do it straightaway.' She moved quickly, knowing that what Eddie wanted would do nothing but good. She was only sorry she hadn't thought of it herself.

Afterwards, when Patrick was sleeping more easily, Fon returned to the kitchen. ‘Eat your dinner,' she said to the menfolk, and at once Eddie was the quiescent labourer again, meekly obeying her commands. She smiled. How strange it was, the way a man would obey a woman when it came to childhood habits, like eating up his dinner or changing wet clothes, and yet could be so assertive out there in the harsh world.

That night Fon was seated at the table with the books spread open before her. The figures swam before her tired eyes, but she saw with alarming clarity that the stock of fodder for the animals was much lower than it should be; and that wasn't the only problem. New seed was needed, and the money was fast running out. If Jamie didn't get the corn cut and most of it sold in the next few weeks, the farm would be in real trouble.

The egg yield from her hens was still good, but the money from that enterprise brought in scarcely enough to put food on the table. In addition, the cows were a liability; with some of them in calf, and the rest still dry, they were a drain on resources rather than an asset.

The rams had been sold weeks ago, but the money from the sale had dwindled away alarmingly. Fon shivered; it seemed that ruin was facing them, in spite of all Jamie's efforts to make the farm a success.

But no, she would not let that happen, she told herself. Matters would improve when the beasts were productive once again. The milk was always a good source of revenue. And when the corn was cut and sold, the farm would be in funds once more. In the meantime she would have to see to it that they cut back on everything except bare necessities.

Even so, she wondered uneasily, would the little money that was left last long enough to sustain the farm until things improved?