Sweet Rosie (9 page)

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I’ve other friends to visit.’ He held out his hand but Eynon ignored it and pulled Martin close to him.

‘You keep yourself safe, do you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’ As Martin walked away, his shoulders were bent. He was a man still in his twenties but he seemed aged by the sickness that had rampaged its way through the town. Eynon stared around him at the grassy garden beyond the glass of the conservatory, at the trees in the garden and the clouds hanging low in the sky.

‘Dear God,’ he said, ‘if there is any justice you will bring Martin through this safe and well.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I’m getting as daft as Martin, what God is going to listen to a sinner like me?’

Maura’s eyes were bright with fever. She felt as though her head were filled with wool. She was aware that someone was bathing her face with tepid water, it felt good. She opened her eyes for a moment. Old Mother Peters was moving quietly about the room though it was clear that her limbs were gnarled with the bone ache. Her face was wizened but she was gentle, her ministrations welcome.

Maura was too tired to keep awake; she was finding it difficult to breathe. Mother Peters placed a hot cloth with some sort of paste over her chest and back. It eased the congestion a little but then Maura began to cough. She was racked, her body ached, her head was bursting. Folk were doing their best for her but Maura knew that nothing would stop the pain.

She heard the door open but she was too weary to look up. She felt a movement at the side of the bed and opened her eyes with an effort. Watt took her hand, looking down at her with such love that, if she had the energy, she would have cried.

‘Maura, you’re looking a little bit better today.’ He brushed his hand across her forehead. She tried to smile even though she knew he was fooling himself. Poor Watt, he had found love and now he was about to lose it again.

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. She wanted to tell him to go away, to keep himself safe but she could not find the energy to speak.

‘If only Joe was here,’ Watt was saying. ‘He is so wise, he would know how to cure this sickness.’

Perhaps, Maura thought, but then Joe was well out of it, away across the sea in America. America, she tried to imagine it, the place of sunshine and riches, so she had heard, the place where her lawful husband now lived unlawfully with another woman, calling her wife. What would Binnie Dundee think of Maura’s death? He would be happy of course, released from the marriage vows he had held so lightly. Strange, she no longer felt bitterness towards him. She had lost her husband but she had found Watt. Together they had loved more in their short time together than most people love in a lifetime.

She struggled to talk. ‘When I’m . . .’ She paused for breath. ‘Let Binnie know but don’t upset things for him.’ She began to cough. Watt held her upright as the coughing racked her. She felt as though her lungs were going to collapse but there were things she still needed to say.

‘Don’t talk,’ Watt said pitifully. ‘Please, Maura my love, save your strength.’

‘Just don’t spoil things for Binnie,’ she said. ‘You’ll know how to tell him.’ She sank back on the pillows; the room was growing dark. She reached for Watt’s hand.

‘Shall I fetch a priest, Maura?’ He was crying, and she wished she could comfort him but she had no strength. She nodded her head and Watt moved to the window.

He called to the children in the street to fetch one of the fathers from St Joseph’s. ‘I’ll give a six-pence to the one who can run the fastest,’ he called.

He returned to the bedside and touched her face with his fingertips. It was so gentle, like the touch of a butterfly’s wing.

‘I love you, Watt,’ she croaked. ‘I’ll love you always.’

She lapsed into unconsciousness and was awakened by the sound of the priest intoning the last rites. Her soul would go to God now; she would not rot in purgatory. She felt rather than heard the sound of the priest’s voice recede. She was being drawn into the light where there was no cough to rack her body and no pain. And she was ready to go.

The funeral of Maura Dundee took place a week later. It was Watt who paid for the coffin maker and the gravedigger. The day was absurdly sunny, the sky above the cemetery cloudless even though the ground was covered in frost.

Watt looked down into the darkness of the earth and knew his life would never be the same again. The only other mourners were Eynon Morton-Edwards and Llinos Mainwaring. A few onlookers stood far enough away not to risk catching anything from the people at the graveside.

If Watt had raised his head, he would have seen that they were not the only ones burying their dead that day. One family carried nothing but a battered wooden door with a cloth-covered body on it. The coffin maker had been excessively busy and, in any case, good wooden caskets cost more money than most people could spare especially when there was likely to be more than one death in the family.

Eventually, the ordeal was over. Watt felt Llinos take his arm and draw him away from the fresh mound of earth. He looked beyond the grave, wanting everything to go away, wanting Maura to be alive.

‘I’m alone.’ He was not aware he had spoken the words out loud. Llinos hugged his arm to her side.

‘No, you’re not alone, Watt, you will always have me at your side.’ She spoke with confidence, as though she knew the sickness could not reach her. He straightened his shoulders and walked with the small group away from the grave and away from the woman he had loved with all his heart.

It was several weeks later when Watt remembered Maura’s dying request. He sat in his room, vacated now because Eira had made a complete recovery. For an instant, he longed to damn Eira to hell. Why should Maura die and Eira live? It just was not fair. He drew pen and paper towards him, he needed to couch his letter very carefully; Maura had made it plain that she wanted no trouble for Binnie.

He thought long and hard and in the end penned a short note telling Binnie that he, Watt, had lost the only woman he had ever really loved. That Maura was now laid in the cemetery up on the hill above Swansea. As he sealed it down, he knew that for Binnie this would be good news: he was a free man. As for Watt, he felt as though he was in prison and that he would never be free, ever again.

It was early one morning when Llinos heard the rumble of carriage wheels in the drive. She ran to the window, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. Joe had come home.

She watched him alight from the carriage with tears in her eyes. He was even more bronzed now; his golden skin tanned a deeper gold by the hot American sun. She saw the worried look on his face; he knew, as he always knew, that there was trouble at home.

Llinos flung open the door and rushed out to meet him. He held her tenderly in his arms, careless of apprentices watching open-mouthed.

‘Swansea is silent,’ he said, ‘the streets deserted. Is it the plague?’ He held his arm around her as they walked together into the house.

‘It’s the whooping cough.’ Llinos looked up at him, he was here, Joe was actually at her side, he was safe and he was home.

‘Llioyd, is he well?’

Llinos smiled, though worry etched lines around her eyes.

‘He’s safe and well; so is Charlotte. Come inside, Joe, it’s so cold out here.’

She rang for the maid; she wanted Joe to see his son, to see how Lloyd had grown in the time his father had been away.

Joe’s face lit up when Lloyd ran into his arms, clinging to him as though he would never let him go.

‘Rosie, fetch Mrs Marks, she’s resting in her room, tell her that her brother is home.’ She held onto Joe’s arm. ‘Now you are here everything will be all right, I just know it,’ Llinos said softly. She was reluctant to move from her husband’s side. All she wanted to do was to stay in Joe’s arms for ever.

Charlotte cried out in delight when she saw Joe. She sat next to him on the deep sofa, her arm in his. ‘I was so sorry to hear about your mother, Joe. I understand Mint was a remarkable woman.’

Lloyd was sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching them both. ‘Grandmother Mint is dead. Are you sad, Daddy?’

‘Yes, I am sad, Lloyd.’ He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘I’m sad that you will never meet her.’

‘Well, there’s really no need to be too sad about that,’ Lloyd said sagely. ‘We still have Granny Charlotte. She’s old but she will love us forever, she said so.’

‘I expect she will.’ Joe made a wry face at Charlotte. ‘And she’s not that old, you know.’

‘And my other grandmother will look down from the clouds like a bright star to keep us safe, won’t she?’

Lloyd looked up, peering doubtfully through the window. The clouds were dark now, racing across the sky. Soon, the heavens would open and the rain would tumble down into the garden. Lloyd moved closer to the window and pressed his face against the glass. After a few moments, sure enough, the rain came.

He sometimes wondered how he knew such things. He knew when the cuckoo was coming to put her baby in another bird’s nest. He knew when the squirrels were going to come out in search of food.

‘Why do I know things, Daddy?’ he asked.

Joe did not need to ask what he meant; he answered as simply as he could.

‘Some of us are born with keen senses, son. We are tuned into nature in the way that some people have an ear for music.’

‘Doesn’t everyone have keen senses, then?’

Joe shook his head. ‘No, not everyone. We are gifted and very fortunate people and we must be kind to those less fortunate than we are.’

He turned to Llinos. ‘Lord, I sound so pompous!’ He caught her hand and kissed it. ‘Is that what fatherhood does to a young man, turn him into an old preacher before his time?’

Later, when Lloyd and finally Charlotte had gone to bed, Llinos pressed herself into Joe’s arms, her head against his heart. She listened to it beating, regular, strong.

After a moment, he held her away from him and crossed to the table to pour himself a glass of porter. Llinos frowned, wondering why he was not as eager as she was.

‘Maura?’ Joe said. ‘She died of the sickness?’

Llinos nodded. ‘She just faded away like a flower, Watt said. He would not let me go near her because of the danger but Watt and Eynon saw that everything was taken care of. Maura just could not fight the sickness.’

She moved closer to Joe. ‘I don’t know what to say to Watt. How can I comfort him when the woman he loved so much is gone from him forever?’

‘You can’t,’ Joe said. ‘He will have to come to terms with his loss in his own way. I’m going to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided to sleep in the dressing room just for a while.’ He refilled his glass. ‘I’ll take this with me.’

‘But, Joe, why?’ Llinos could not believe what she was hearing. Joe had been away for so long and now he did not want to share her bed. ‘Something is wrong, isn’t it?’

‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ Joe said and then the door was closing behind him, shutting Llinos out of his life.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lily had settled into a routine that she thought suited her very well. She did a bit of sewing for James Wesley and turned her hand to cooking meals more suitable for a man. She had learned to cook meat pies running with rich gravy and delicious stews made tasty with herbs from the garden. But now, somehow it all seemed too tame for her, she wanted more, she wanted James to notice her as a woman. She did not fail to see the irony of her thoughts: she was Lily, the girl who shied away from physical intimacy with a man, and here she was longing for attention. She must be losing her mind. Or was she falling in love?

‘Excuse me, miss.’ The maid stood in the doorway and Lily gestured for her to come forward. It never ceased to thrill her that she had a servant to do the menial work; no scrubbing floors or washing up dirty pans for Lily. It was James who paid the girl but, all the same, Lily enjoyed playing the lady of the house.

‘Yes, Betty, what is it?’

‘It’s the butcher, miss, he wants paying, he says his bill is overdue.’

‘Then tell Mr Wesley, he’ll pay the man.’ James seemed to be a man of means; he would soon sort the matter of a measly overdue bill.

‘I can’t miss, he’s gone out.’

Lily sighed. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ She hurried upstairs to her bedroom and took her bag out of the cupboard. She still had some money from her husband’s savings, money he had stored in an old tin. It was not much, it would not keep her in any sort of luxury and she begrudged paying the butcher out of her own little hoard.

She gave the maid some coins. ‘Tell him if that’s not enough, he’ll have to come back when Mr Wesley is in.’

The maid returned after a few moments, she seemed agitated. ‘He won’t go away, miss, he says there’s more money owing, much more.’

‘We’ll see.’ Lily marched to the door, her colour high. ‘Well, Stan Fellows, what’s this then, think I’m going to run away for a few joints of meat, do you?’

The man looked at her with a smug grin. ‘No, you can’t run away, can you?’ He laughed showing white, even teeth. He was a very handsome man but he was just not Lily’s type. Was any man her type? she wondered.

‘What do you mean I can’t run away? Do you think I’m a prisoner here then?’ she demanded. ‘This is my home, the home my husband brought me to as a bride.’

‘Ah but now you don’t have a husband and no money, do you? Living in sin, so folks say.’

‘Rubbish!’ Lily stared at him. ‘I am doing no such thing. Mr Wesley and I have separate rooms and we are well chaperoned by Betty.’ She wondered why she was bothering to explain this to an ignorant tradesman.

‘Aw, go on, pull the other one!’ Stan said. ‘But I’m broad-minded, see.’ He put his arm around her shoulder in a gesture of familiarity that offended her. He smelled of stale meat and Lily was repulsed. ‘If you give me a bit of what you gives him, I’ll forget the rest of the bill.’