Paradise Park (25 page)

‘Rhiannon, it's you.' He looked down into her flushed, rain-damp face with strange feelings running through him. Her eyes gleamed like dark gems and her hair curled in tendrils from under her bonnet. She had never looked more beautiful. ‘Come on,' he said, ‘I'll take you back inside and we can shelter from the rain for a while.'

He moved towards the fire, but his place had already been taken by an old man with a dog so Bull led the way to a corner seat. He lifted his hand to the landlord and asked for two hot toddies. When the drinks were put on the table, he risked a look in Rhiannon's direction. ‘What are you doing out in this weather, anyway?' he asked. Suddenly he felt the urge to kiss her moist lips. ‘You women will brave any weather to do a bit of shopping, won't you? My Katie was coming to town this morning but I hope she's stayed indoors.'

‘How is Katie? Is she keeping well?' Rhiannon asked. ‘I haven't been up to see her lately.'

‘She's loving every minute of being a mother, and I'd say she's very well indeed.' Bull spoke lightly. ‘But what are you doing in town?'

‘I just came to order some provisions for the hotel.' She was talking fast, and Bull knew that she was as affected as he was by their chance meeting. The mention of Katie's name had not eased the tension between them: rather, it had heightened it. ‘You've got a good position in the hotel, I understand, so why don't you send one of the servants to run the errands?' he said. ‘If you're in charge you should make other people do some of the hard work.'

Rhiannon smiled, and he thought again how beautiful she was.

They finished their drinks in silence and Bull put down his glass. ‘Well, I'd better be getting back home,' he said uneasily. ‘Which way are you going?'

‘To the Paradise Park.' Rhiannon was looking up at him through thick, dark lashes. ‘I suppose, as we're going in the same direction, we might as well walk along together – that's if you're not ashamed to be seen with me.'

Bull drew her to her feet and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Never say that to me again, Rhiannon.' His voice was stern. ‘I wasn't ashamed when I lived with you and I'm not ashamed now.'

‘I'm sorry,' Rhiannon said quickly. ‘It was wrong of me even to suggest it. You've never been a man to put on airs and graces and I'm sure married life and a grand job are not enough to change the real Bull Beynon.'

They walked in silence for a while, and Bull couldn't help but remember the days and nights they had spent together in the small hut at the side of the railway track. They had been happy times . . .

‘You're quiet, Bull,' Rhiannon said. ‘If you want to go on ahead, please don't feel you have to wait for me.'

‘I like walking with you.' He felt he owed her an explanation. He and Rhiannon had always been honest with each other. ‘It's just that I feel a bit guilty, a bit disloyal to Katie, because I still enjoy being with you.' He felt it was a clumsy explanation.

Rhiannon smiled up at him, with a sparkle in her dark eyes. ‘We still care a little for each other, Bull, because we were close, weren't we?'

He didn't know what to say. She was right, of course, but he didn't want her to look on his words as encouragement.

‘It's all right, Bull.' She had read him well. ‘We're friends and we'll always be friends. I know there's nothing else for me where you're concerned, and I don't hope for anything other than your liking and respect.'

He was relieved: he felt that he had cleared the air with Rhiannon and now he could afford to enjoy her company. ‘You always were a woman with a great deal of common sense,' he said, and touched her arm lightly.

‘Bull!' The soft, unmistakable voice of his wife drifted across the road towards him and Bull looked up, startled.

He saw Katie's happy face as she held their baby, wrapped in the Welsh shawl, firmly to her breast. Bull's face suffused with colour, and he felt guilt like a heavy weight on his shoulders.

Suddenly the road was filled with traffic, horses drawing vans, hansom cabs and, drawing ever nearer, the midday mail coach to London. He saw Seth Cullen hovering behind Katie. He seemed to be holding her back but then she stepped into the road, her eyes fixed on him. ‘Katie, watch out!' he called. It was too late. She stumbled and fell onto her knees, her face a blur as she stared at him. He met her eyes, then rushed towards her through the traffic.

The four horses drawing the mail coach were hurtling along the road. Bull cried out his wife's name, as if the power of his voice could hold the coach at bay. The horses, frightened by the noise, reared and their hoofs lashed the air.

‘Dear God, no!' Bull was unaware of hands holding him back, and watched in horror as Katie was struck down by flying hoofs. For a few seconds the coach jerked forward as the driver struggled to bring the animals under control and then the air seemed still as Bull stared at the limp body of his wife.

As he closed the distance between them, his legs felt as if lead weights were dragging him down. It seemed an eternity before he reached her, fell on his knees and took her in his arms. The baby was still and silent, wrapped against her lifeless body.

‘Katie, my love.' He looked down into her face and saw a trickle of blood run from between her lips and make a trail along her jaw. ‘Katie, speak to me.' He touched her lips with his, as if to breathe life into her, and then he became aware that hands were reaching out to him trying to draw him away. He shook them off.

‘Move aside, everyone, let the doctor in, for pity's sake.' It was Rhiannon's voice, but Bull only dimly recognized it. The doctor, young, fresh-faced, a man Bull had never seen before, knelt beside him.

‘I'm Dr Frost,' he said. ‘Let me see if I can help. Is this your wife, sir?' he asked Bull, who nodded. He couldn't speak.

The doctor lifted Katie's limp wrist, then tried to listen to her heart. After a moment he shook his head. He turned his attention to the baby, then rested his hand on Bull's shoulder. ‘I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for them. They are beyond human help.'

‘What do you mean?' Bull said dully. He knew what the doctor meant but he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

‘Your wife and child are both dead. Let these good people help you take them to the mortuary. There's nothing else you can do.'

‘No!' Bull said. ‘I'm taking them home. My wife and baby are not going to lie alone in a house of death.'

‘But you can't carry both corpses.'

‘Corpses?' Bull winced. He turned to look over his shoulder. ‘Rhiannon, carry my son to my house.'

She came at once, white-faced, with tears on her cheeks. She took the limp infant without a word and hugged him close to her breast. Bull picked up Katie in his arms to take her to their home, where she belonged.

As he walked away he did not see the crowds of onlookers or hear the excited talk about who had been at fault. No one had been at fault except him: he should have been with her, he should have kept her safe. He closed his eyes for a moment and then tears, salt and bitter, began to run down his cheeks splashing onto the face of his dead wife, his tears mingling with her blood. His love, his reason for living, was gone and it was all his fault.

SETH STOOD AT
the edge of the cemetery, watching as Katie Beynon and her baby were laid to rest side by side in the ground. ‘I tried to stop her running into the road,' Seth muttered. ‘I did, I tried my best.'

At his side, his cap in his hand, was his uncle Tom, his grey beard trembling in the cold wind blowing across the gravestones.

‘Poor little thing,' Seth said. ‘The poor child didn't deserve to die like that.' He leaned against a tree. ‘Damn this leg of mine! Sure the Blessed Virgin knows the pain I'm in from my poor stump but I deserve it for not saving Bull's wife and child. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be alive today.'

‘It wasn't your fault,' Tom said. ‘And haven't I tried to tell you that more times than I can count?' He clicked his tongue against his teeth in exasperation.

‘It don't help none telling me that. I was so close to her I should have been able to stop her. Well, it's too late now.' Seth took a last lingering look at the small group of people around Katie's grave. As he turned away there were tears on his cheeks.

Rhiannon stood a little distance from the grave. The mourners had gone and she was a solitary figure in the gloom of the cemetery. She saw the flowers at the foot of the wooden cross. ‘Poor Katie.' She bit her lip, knowing how Bull must be suffering at the loss of his wife and child.

She took one more look at the fresh grave, then left the cemetery. She must put Bull Beynon and his tragedy out of her mind, think of other things. But the scene haunted her. She felt again the heaviness of the dead baby against her breast, saw the haunted look in Bull's eyes as he carried Katie back to her home. ‘Stop it!' she said softly. ‘Just think of something else.' She focused her mind on the hotel: it was shaping up well, with the ground-floor work almost finished. But it was hard to get the tradesmen and their apprentices to move quickly.

She had kept on one of the navvies to do the labouring – Seth Cullen, with his bad leg, needed the work more than any of them, and he seemed to get along well with Sal; she often saw them talking together.

She was pleased that Mrs Paisley had let her take on both Sal and Mrs Jones: it was good to know she would have friends around her when the hotel opened for business.

‘
Duw
!' Mrs Paisley looked at Rhiannon as she came into the kitchen. ‘Where have you been till this time? I was getting a bit worried about you.'

‘I stopped to watch the funeral.' Rhiannon sank into a chair and unlaced her boots. ‘Lord, my feet are killing me.'

‘What funeral was that?'

‘Katie Beynon and her baby. You should have seen the little coffin, Mrs Paisley, tiny it was, made with good shiny wood and gleaming handles, just like the one Katie had, but so pitifully small. It's frightening to see how quickly two lives can be snuffed out.'

‘I never knew Bull Beynon or his wife,' Mrs Paisley said, ‘but, then, I've always kept myself to myself.'

Rhiannon kicked off her boots. ‘Aye, it was awfully sad – the funeral, I mean, and I was so sorry for Bull. Still, he's got his work. He's very well thought-of in railway circles. He even met the great Mr Brunel himself at the grand opening of the Swansea station.'

Mrs Paisley sniffed. ‘Noisy, smelly things, trains. I don't know why we can't manage with horse and carriage as we always did.'

‘But just think, Mrs Paisley,' Rhiannon said, ‘the trains will bring in more business to Swansea. Travelling men will need accommodation and we will be providing it for them.'

‘Aye, I suppose you're right. You got a good head on your shoulders, Rhiannon, I'll give you that.'

‘Well, I hope you'll be pleased when I tell you I've put an advertisement in the Cardiff and Bristol newspapers offering rooms on the middle floor. We should be getting bookings any day now.'

‘But we're not ready for customers yet! The place is in an awful mess!'

‘Well, I've offered a special price for now until the alterations are complete. I'm sure the men will put up with a bit of dust to get a good night's lodging with a hearty supper for less than other hotels are charging.'

‘But the rooms are not ready!'

‘They are. We've been working on them, me and Sal, and Mrs Jones has helped a bit too. The pair of them have chosen their rooms already. They've cleaned and painted until their fingers were raw. As for the letting rooms, the carpets are swept, there's freshly laundered sheets on the beds and, thank goodness, the kitchen is practically ready so Mrs Jones can do the cooking.'

Mrs Paisley sank into a chair and pushed her small glasses onto the bridge of her nose. ‘Well I never!' She looked at Rhiannon as though she'd grown two heads. ‘You're moving too fast for an old girl like me. And who, dare I ask, is paying for these advertisements?'

‘You are, Mrs Paisley,' Rhiannon said, ‘but I expect you to be well rewarded by all the trade they'll bring.'

‘Well, we'll see.' Mrs Paisley fanned her face. ‘I don't know about this advertising business. Word-of-mouth was always good enough for folk around here.'

‘That was when the Paradise Park was little more than a bawdy-house,' Rhiannon said gently. ‘We need to look beyond Swansea, at least for the time being. Once we're known to give good value for money the recommendations will see our rooms filled.'

‘You young people today seem to know a lot more than us old folk.'

Rhiannon looked at Mrs Paisley – really looked at her, perhaps for the first time. She saw an old lady, stoop-shouldered and walking with a slight limp. Yet when she talked about converting the Paradise Park into a first-class hotel her face lit up, giving her an aura of youth and enthusiasm that was undeniably charming.

‘Come on now, Mrs Paisley, stop talking as though you're in your dotage. There's a lot of ideas and enough hard work left in you to last quite a few years.' She smiled. ‘There'd better be – I can't manage this hotel on my own.'

Mrs Paisley looked at her shrewdly. ‘You could manage more than a hotel, if you ask me, girl, but if the good Lord spares me you won't have to.'

The front-door bell rang out stridently. ‘I wonder if we've got a customer already,' Rhiannon said hopefully.

She hurried to answer it, then stared in surprise at the man standing before her.

‘Bull!' He was ashen, his eyes were dull and his big shoulders were slumped. ‘Oh, Bull, my love, come in, you look awful.'

He stepped into the foyer. ‘Rhiannon, I need someone to talk to. I can't stand being on my own in that house a moment longer.'