The Oyster Catchers (43 page)

He moved to the staircase. ‘Then perhaps you should learn to give them a little consideration.’ He spoke slowly, seeming to relent a little.

‘Carys, Mrs Morgan, she’s not well,’ he said quietly, ‘in fact, she is so thin that you wouldn’t recognize her. Things are bad all round in the village, very bad, people are losing their livelihood, the oysters are scarcer than
gold now. But then, I suppose you are too busy with your own ambitions to notice such things.’

He placed one foot on the bottom stair; he was so tall, so handsome, so very dear, that Eline almost moved to put her arms around him. She wanted to tell him he was right, she should be noticing what was happening around her. Then he spoke again.

‘I shan’t be any bother, I’ll get my belongings and then you’ll have another room free so that you can advance your career without hindrance.’ The sarcasm in his tone made Eline go cold. She lifted her chin, too proud to show him that she was near to tears.

‘That suits me,’ she said stiffly. Eline heard Will moving about upstairs and fought the instinct to run after him. He had made it quite plain that he had no time for her; she’d asked for his friendship and he had turned on her, as though blaming her for the state of the village. She swallowed hard, trying to force back the tears.

‘Let yourself out,’ she called up the stairs. ‘I have an important client to see.’ She walked from the house and down towards the beach, forcing back the tears. For a long time, she sat on the sands staring at the boats out in the bay without really seeing them. Was her career going to be enough for her for it seemed that’s all she would have?

She would make it enough, she told herself sternly, she didn’t need anyone, she would do it all alone. And yet her brave words rang hollow even to herself.

Loneliness rose like a spectre before her as she realized she had no one in the world who really cared about her. But self-pity would get her nowhere. She rose to her feet and dusting the fine sand from her skirts, Eline turned back to the road and squaring her shoulders returned to the boarding house.

There was no sign of Will or of his possessions, he was gone from her life for good. Sitting on the bed, because she had no other furniture as yet, Eline stared
down at the bare wooden floorboards and suddenly the future reared up before her full of doubts and uncertainties, and slowly, she gave way to the hot, insistent tears.

It took Eline almost a month to get the gallery functioning and by then she had a steady stream of callers from Swansea and the surrounding areas. Sometimes a dealer from London would come down and Eline found that she was beginning to make the business work.

‘Eline.’ With a mop and bucket in her hand, Carys was standing in the back kitchen, the floor glistening beneath her feet. ‘Can I talk to you?’

Eline smiled at her, happy in the knowledge that she was doing something practical for Carys by giving her a job in the gallery. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on and we’ll have a nice cup of tea, you deserve a break.’

Carys had been working for Eline for about two weeks. She had jumped at the idea when Eline had suggested it to her and Eline had made sure that the work wasn’t too gruelling for Carys, as Will had said, had become thin and wan, her once plump cheeks hollow and pale.

Carys had been glad of work, glad of some money in her pocket but now, she came to Eline, a rueful look on her face.

‘I got to give up my job here,’ Carys said awkwardly. ‘Sam thinks he can get work in the quarry, taking on some more men they are now, see, and there’ll be nobody to mind the baby.’ She avoided Eline’s eyes, her thin face flushed with embarrassment.

‘Come on,’ Eline said quietly, ‘what’s the real reason, Carys? There is no work in the quarry, I know that. I won’t be angry or offended, but I’d rather you tell me the truth.’

‘Well, the baby’s right bad, see, grizzling all the time he is and Sam can’t manage him.’ Carys looked up and
faced Eline. ‘And Sam, he don’t like me working here, see, people are talking.’

‘What do you mean, talking?’ Eline said, her mouth dry.

‘Against you, they are,’ Carys said, slowly. ‘You know you’ve never really fitted in here, lovie.’

‘I know that but what makes them all so angry now?’ Eline asked in bewilderment. ‘What am I doing wrong?’

‘You are getting rich,’ Carys said simply, ‘between your fame with the shoes and then you are bringing strangers, posh strangers into the village.’ Carys looked down at her roughened hands.

‘Ashamed we are of our poverty and us not wanting the whole world to see it. You forget, Eline, we are proud of our heritage, proud of the oyster fishing.’ She took a ragged Breath. ‘The strangers know nothing, they are blaming us for the lack of oysters in the beds, saying it’s our greed that’s destroyed the oysters. “Over fishing,” they call it.’ She sighed heavily. ‘The oysters are the only way we know how to earn our keep and we have to eat, don’t we?’

‘But, Carys, you need this job,’ Eline protested, ‘you need the money to buy food for you and your child, it’s foolishness to give it up because of a bit of gossip.’

Carys nodded. ‘I know but I got to listen to Sam, see. In any case, I’m getting black looks from my neighbours, they are not earning any money and they think I’m a traitor by working for you.’ She gave a wry smile.

‘That Nina Parks is loudest of all, you can just imagine it, can’t you? Never liked you, not been the dearest of friends, like, have you?’ Carys moved to the door.

‘Still, she’s as hungry as the next one, I suppose. She’s got her cottage that Joe left her but nothing else. No work on the beds, nothing but what her daughters can spare her, by the look of it.’

‘I suppose Gwyneth Parks has enough to say, too?’ Eline asked and Carys smiled her old cheerful smile.

‘Oh aye, mouthy is Gwyneth just like her mam. She’s busy telling folks how you threw that nice Mr Davies out of his lodgings without so much as a day’s notice and him the darling of the village for letting people have boots on tick.’

Eline felt herself grow cold. ‘That isn’t true,’ she said and Carys nodded.

‘I know but Mr Davies is staying, along with old Mrs Marsh whose boarding house you took, in the house Nina used to rent and Gwyneth has moved in with her mam. Gives people food for thought, that sort of thing, mind.’

Carys touched Eline’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, mind, not to be working for you any longer and grateful, too, for what you tried to do for me but I can’t stay.’

‘Wait, just a minute,’ Eline said and from a drawer brought Carys some money. ‘Take it,’ she said, ‘it’s not much but you are entitled to your wages and it will help tide you over for a few days, anyway.’

Carys turned away quickly to hide the glint of tears in her eyes. ‘You always was kind, Eline, and for what it’s worth, I think the villagers are wrong to treat you like an outcast.’

She hurried away, her thin shoulders hunched. Eline went inside and closed the door, leaning against it, her thoughts racing.

So Will was living in Nina’s old home, was he and Gwyneth moving out to accommodate him? That suggested that they were very close, very close indeed. The thought pained Eline although she knew it was foolish of her; if she and Will had ever shared anything, any tender feelings of love, it was now over.

She moved slowly through the rooms of the gallery; later, the customers would come in greater numbers, mostly from Swansea and the surrounding areas, to look and sometimes to buy and they would not notice the poverty that was slowly gripping Oystermouth.

She sat on one of the elegant chairs with which she’d furnished the main gallery and suddenly, all her achievements seemed to mock her, her life was full of ambition and although she’d felt satisfaction at her success, now she knew that without someone to love, her life was nothing but a barren waste.

Fon was busy in the kitchen, her hair dishevelled, her apron rumpled as she took the meat pie out of the hot oven. The table was laid for the evening meal, the red and white checked cloth, crisp and clean, hung in neat folds, the floor gleamed with washing and the old furniture shone with polishing.

Sighing with relief, Fan took the potatoes from the fire and set them on the black leaded hob. Everything was ready for Jamie’s return.

She took off her apron and crept up stairs to check on Patrick; she’d given him his supper some time ago and had washed him and put him down for the night.

She stood, her face softening as she looked down at him curled up in his bed, his hair plastered to his forehead, his lashes fanning out on his plump cheeks. She resisted the urge to kiss him, he was so dear to her, so very dear. She held her hands together in an attitude of prayer. ‘Thank you, God, and thank you, Katherine, for giving me all this,’ she whispered.

She heard the sound of the pump in the yard gushing water and with a lifting of her heart, she knew that Jamie was home from the fields. She pressed her fingers to her lips and blew the sleeping child a kiss and then retraced her steps to the kitchen.

She was putting out the pie when Jamie came in, his dark hair curling on his forehead; he looked just like his son, Fon thought tenderly. Beads of water bejewelled Jamie’s hair and his face was ruddy, having rubbed it with a towel. There was a scent of soap about him
mingled with the sweet smell of grass and Fon loved him so much that she ached.

He looked at her and she became aware of her tangled hair and her flushed cheeks. ‘I must look terrible,’ she said self-consciously.

Suddenly, he looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. ‘No,’ he said thickly, ‘you look beautiful.’

Rich colour suffused her skin from her throat to the roots of her hair. Fon stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say as Jamie came slowly towards her.

He took her nervous fingers in his strong hands and rubbed the back of her wrist with his thumb. ‘Fon,’ he spoke haltingly, ‘it’s taken me a long time to say this but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.’ He drew her closer so that he was holding her now in the circle of his arms.

‘Fon, I love you.’ The words were simple but they were the finest words she had ever heard.

Fon rested her head against his broad chest, her eyes closed in delight. ‘And I love you, Jamie,’ she said, ‘I think I’ve always loved you.’

She felt his big hand smooth her hair and as she tipped her face up for his kiss, she knew that she had found happiness, at last.

Sarah sat up in bed with a gasp, the contractions had started, she was sure of it. She clutched the silken spread close to her swollen body and looked wildly around her.

‘Geoffrey!’ She called his name sharply and, after a moment, he appeared in her doorway, tying the cord of his dressing gown firmly around him. ‘Geoffrey, my pains have started, the baby’s coming early.’

He moved at once, calling for a servant to fetch the doctor; he was efficient, she would give him that. Sarah eased herself back against the pillows, she mustn’t panic, she must take deep breaths, keep calm, she would do her child no good by getting hysterical.

She mentally counted the months, her baby would be a month premature. She put her fingers to her mouth in fear, all the old midwives said that it was worse to have an eight-month rather than a seven-month baby.

One of the maids entered the room with a hot drink balancing precariously on a tray. It was obvious that she had dressed hastily, her cap was at an untidy angle on her head and her apron was bunched to one side. But Sarah, who normally would have upbraided the girl for her sloppy appearance, looked at her gratefully.

‘Thank you, Cassie,’ she said, taking the cup with trembling fingers, ‘how did you manage to make me a drink so quickly?’

‘I hadn’t gorn to bed very long and the fire was still alight, madam,’ the girl answered shyly, unused to displays of gratitude from her mistress. ‘I managed to catch it and make it burn up again.’

‘Perhaps you can see to my fire?’ Sarah asked humbly. ‘I feel a bit cold and shivery.’

Cassie bobbed and obediently moved over to the small grate, placing coals with care on the dying embers. Sarah watched her, she had done the same sort of task herself as a young girl, both in the homes of the rich where she’d worked and earlier in her father’s house.

But now, both her father and she herself were better placed; John, the respected husband of Emily, who was once a Grenfell and she, Sarah, the wife of Geoffrey Frogmore. How things changed, she thought ironically.

And yet, was she any happier? she asked herself with rare introspection. What did she have? A husband who preferred his friend and a life of loneliness ahead of her.

The pain came again, tightening her body into a spasm, twisting her face as she attempted to suppress the moans that were forcing themselves between her lips.

The timid Cassie was at her side at once, her small face anxious. ‘You’ll be all right now, madam,’ she said in an attempt to be reassuring, ‘the master has sent for the doctor.’

Where was Geoffrey? Sarah looked towards the door, feeling that for all that their relationship could not be, his duty, as the father, was to be at her side.

As if answering an unspoken call, Geoffrey came into the room, neatly dressed now, with his hair combed. Looking at him objectively, Sarah saw that he could be quite good looking, especially without his spectacles. She held out her hand to him.

‘Be with me, Geoffrey, please?’ she said quietly. He took her hand reluctantly and she drew him towards her. ‘I need you at my side right now, you
are
my husband after all.’

Geoffrey, as always alive to possible gossip, glanced at the maid. ‘Of course I’ll stay with you, dear,’ he said, so long as I’m not in the way.’

The pains became stronger and Sarah clung to
Geoffrey’s hand, wishing quite suddenly that theirs was a real marriage built on love. Perhaps, she thought, when all this was over, they could try to make a go of it.

The doctor came at last and with him the midwife, her stiffly starched apron crackling as she walked. It was she who took charge while the doctor stood and talked to Geoffrey.

‘Out!’ the midwife ordered and Geoffrey went gladly, along with Cassie who threw Sarah a sympathetic glance before closing the door behind her.