Tiger Bay Blues (34 page)

‘The right.’

‘As you look at the bed or as you’re lying in it.’

‘Belle …’ Edyth didn’t bother to conceal her irritation.

‘Haven’t you thought that it’s just about the most important thing that’s happened to us and we’re not supposed to talk about it?’

‘Yes,’ Edyth said abruptly.

Mary’s cheeks flamed crimson.

Bella leaned back against the frame. ‘Just the way you feel about your husband, how you can’t wait to see him, to tear his clothes off …’

‘You tear Toby’s clothes off?’ Edyth wondered if she should try that approach with Peter, then remembered his sterile pecks on the cheek and decided she might not get the response she was looking for if she tried.

‘No, not really,’ Bella confessed, ‘he always takes them off before I can tear them off. Do you tear Harry’s clothes off, Mary?’

Mary turned a deeper shade of vermilion. ‘The evidence of Harry’s and my private life is downstairs cadging biscuits from Mari and lying in Edyth’s arms.’ She indicated Will.

Disturbed by Bella’s conversation, Edyth gazed pointedly at her watch. ‘Look at the time, I promised Peter I’d be packed so we can go to the station right after lunch.’

‘Please, put him down in the cot, Edyth,’ Mary asked when Mari bustled in with a tray. ‘If you don’t, he’s going to be spoiled, and I won’t be able to do any work at all when I get him home.’

‘In my opinion, you can’t spoil a baby with love, only with chocolate,’ Mari chipped in.

‘I heard what Harry did, Mari, I’m sorry about Ruth’s dress,’ Mary apologised.

‘Don’t give it another thought. That husband of yours has always kept a secret supply since he was a boy. Joey used to sneak it to him before he was old enough to buy his own.’ She looked at Edyth and frowned. ‘You all right, Miss Edyth?’

‘Fine, Mari,’ Edyth lied. ‘I just have to go and finish my packing.’

‘There’s no going back now, Edyth,’ Belle warned. ‘The honeymoon’s over, real life is about to begin.’

Edyth fled the room before Bella could see the apprehension in her eyes.

‘Well, Reverend Slater, Mrs Slater, you’ve had terrible weather for your honeymoon, if Swansea’s been anything like Cardiff.’ Mrs Mack stood in the porch of the vicarage to welcome Peter and Edyth when they arrived in the taxi Peter had hired at Cardiff station.

‘The weather wasn’t very good, Mrs Mack.’ Peter didn’t explain that they had spent most of the week in Pontypridd. He dropped their cases in the hall and darted back out in the rain to pay the driver.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until this evening, but I suppose I could make you some afternoon tea if you want it,’ the housekeeper conceded ungraciously.

Accustomed to Mari, who was used to catering for any number of friends and family at no notice, Edyth was stunned by their housekeeper’s off-hand attitude. Especially when she considered that Mrs Mack was employed by them.

‘We would like tea, please, Mrs Mack, and biscuits,’ she added, thinking of Peter’s sweet tooth.

‘I’m making a nice warming leek and potato soup and hotpot for dinner. I thought they wouldn’t spoil no matter what time you arrived.’

‘That’s fine – for dinner.’ Edyth looked around the hall and noted that the tiles were no cleaner than they’d been on her first visit. ‘But we would like tea now.’

‘You can have tea, but there are no biscuits in the house except plain. I suppose I could put some cheese on them.’

Edyth had never expected subservience from a housekeeper but she was shocked at Mrs Mack’s response. ‘If you would, Mrs Mack.’

‘Where do you want it?’

‘In the sitting room, please.’

‘It’ll be twenty minutes.’

Edyth wondered why it would take twenty minutes to make tea and a few cheese biscuits, but decided against demanding an explanation. She had a feeling that she and Mrs Mack were going to have words soon enough – and before Peter’s mother arrived. But they could wait until she’d looked around the house.

The upper wall in the hall had been papered in small patterned beige wallpaper, the dado varnished in brown to match the paintwork. It wasn’t what she would have chosen, but she could live with it. Aside from the tiled floor, the carpet-runner on the stairs, and even the newly painted stairs either side, could do with a good scrub. Slivers of gummed wallpaper dropped by the decorators had caught in the stair rods. She laid her hand on the banisters and discovered that even they were sticky with gummy residue.

She walked into the living room. The walls had been papered in cream, patterned with pale-blue roses. Reverend Richards’s furniture had been removed and replaced with Peter’s mother’s ‘Regency’ pieces: a walnut-framed uncomfortable-looking upright sofa and easy chairs, a walnut sofa table, a large bureau bookcase, and a set of matching shelves that had been filled to capacity with Peter’s books – leaving no room for hers. A hideous, and barely recognisable, oil painting of Mumbles Head hung over the fireplace. The fire was laid, however. She lit a spill from a box of matches on the mantelpiece and touched the flame to the newspaper rolled beneath the sticks.

‘Mrs Mack wouldn’t have thought to light the fire because she wasn’t expecting us until later.’ Peter had left his hat, coat and gloves in the hall. He rubbed his hands together to restore the circulation, before holding them out to the thin flames that licked upwards through the coals.

‘Hopefully the room will soon warm up.’ From the chill in the air Edyth knew she was being optimistic.

‘Do you like Mother’s furniture and the changes that have been made, Edyth?’

‘It’s an improvement,’ Edyth replied guardedly.

‘Wait until you see the dining room.’ He led her across the passage into an equally large and gloomy room, which also faced a high wall. The table and chairs were Regency – late Regency, judging by the ornate carved scrolls and curlicues. A silver bowl stood in the centre of the table and an array of heavily embossed antique silverware was set out on the sideboard.

She recalled the clean, elegant, and simple lines of the beautiful, modern pieces Bella and Toby had bought for them in Tiffany’s. Not only would they jar when set against these antiques, there wasn’t enough room left to display them, even if she’d wanted to.

She went to the sideboard and opened the door. Both cupboards had been filled with fussy, gilt-rimmed, rose-patterned china. The drawers were packed to the brim with hand-embroidered tablecloths and napkins.

‘Aren’t you glad now that I told you to wait before buying anything?’ Peter asked smugly.

‘I’m just wondering where we’re going to put our wedding presents.’

‘I expect you’ll find somewhere,’ he said airily. ‘Let’s have tea. The sooner I get started on that sermon, the sooner I’ll be free to enjoy our first evening in our new home.’

Mrs Mack must have heard them go into the sitting room because a few minutes later she wheeled in a trolley and set it next to where they sat huddled, as close to the fire as they could position the uncomfortable chairs.

‘Would you like me to pour the tea, Mrs Slater?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Mack.’ Edyth knew she was being irritable and unreasonable, but she couldn’t wait for the woman to leave the room.

‘Mrs Richards always liked me to pour, sugar and milk the tea, and serve it.’

‘I’ll pour, thank you, Mrs Mack,’ Edyth reiterated firmly, recalling what Aunt Alice had said about starting as she meant to go on, and deciding it could apply just as easily to the housekeeper as Peter’s mother.

‘In that case, if that’s everything for now, Mrs Slater, I’ll get on in the kitchen.’ The housekeeper made sure they knew that her feelings had been hurt.

‘It is. Thank you, Mrs Mack.’ Edyth poured the tea but her hand shook.

‘I’ve made up the beds in the back and front bedrooms, Reverend Slater. Shall I make up the bed in the master bedroom for Mrs Slater senior?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Mack, my mother won’t be arriving for a week.’

‘Then I’ll keep the sheets and blankets in the linen cupboard so they’ll get a good airing.’ She shuffled out of the room.

‘You told Mrs Mack that your mother was moving in with us?’

She helped me to arrange the furniture and put things away in the cupboards. I hope you don’t mind but I gave Mother the largest bedroom. Your parents have bought us that small modern suite and as Mother’s is so much bulkier; it made sense to give her more space. And she wanted her desk in there as well as her washstand. I tried telling her that we had a bathroom, but she insisted she couldn’t do without her washstand. Besides, the largest bedroom is at the back so it will be quieter for her. Mine is at the front but as I’ll be the one to get up when people call in the night, it won’t matter so much if I’m disturbed.’

‘Yours?’ She suddenly recalled Mrs Mack mentioning that she had made up two beds. One in the front bedroom and one in the back.

‘I’m used to sleeping alone.’

‘Peter …’

‘And I’ll more often than not work late at night and early in the morning. Apart from writing sermons, people will want to see me at all sorts of odd hours. Especially if they are working. Being a vicar is not a job one works nine until five, Edyth.’ Seeing her hand poised over the sugar bowl, he said, ‘I take two sugars and a splash of milk.’

‘After the number of times you’ve drunk tea in my parents’ house, I know. Peter, about the bedrooms –’

‘We’ll talk about them when we go upstairs to look at the arrangements I’ve made. If you don’t like them, we’ll change them.’ He took the tea she handed him and helped himself to a cracker and cheese. ‘Hardly a sumptuous repast for our first meal in our home,’ she said, ‘but at least Mrs Mack has promised us a hot meal for dinner.’

Peter took a bite and made a face. Edyth picked up a cracker and examined it.

‘Don’t eat it, Peter. The cracker’s so old it’s soggy.’ She poked at it, then sniffed it. ‘The butter’s rancid, the cheese too strong and,’ she sipped her tea, ‘the tea’s stewed.’

Peter shrugged his shoulders. ‘Mrs Mack’s catering, I’m afraid.’

‘And you told her she could keep her job!’ she exclaimed crossly.

‘She’s been here so long …’

Edyth was beginning to feel that it had been days not hours since they had entered the house. The place was dirty, cold, and unwelcoming for all that it had been freshly decorated. The food their housekeeper had served was stale and obviously of inferior quality even when it had been fresh, and to top it all, Peter had announced that he wanted separate bedrooms. Her temper finally snapped. As the housekeeper was the easiest target she chose to fire her first broadside at her. ‘Mrs Mack will either mend her ways or go.’

‘Edyth, please, I told you, she’s a friend of the Bishop’s cousin –’

‘Then the Bishop or his cousin can offer her a position in their house,’ she said flatly.

‘She’s been here for over forty years.’

‘No wonder. If she serves food like this she’ll see out any number of incumbents in this vicarage.’

‘If you don’t mind, I’ll go and work in my study.’ He left his chair.

‘You promised to show me the rest of the house.’

‘So I did. But first I need to put away the books I took to Swansea.’

Edyth almost asked why, then thought better of it. She had far more serious things to discuss with Peter than when he should or shouldn’t put his books away. ‘The door to your study is the one immediately left of the front door?’

‘It is.’

‘And the kitchen is at the end of the passage opposite the front door?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ll come and find you after I’ve spoken to Mrs Mack.’

‘Don’t upset her, Edyth.’

‘Why? We pay her wages to do a job, don’t we?’

‘Yes, of course, but –’

‘She needs taking in hand, Peter. It’s plain that she’s been doing exactly as she likes. She can’t serve food like this and expect to stay in our employment.’ She left her chair, and after resolving to dig out a thick sweater from the trunks she’d had sent from home, she placed the dishes and teapot back on the trolley and wheeled it down the freezing corridor.

Mrs Mack was sitting in one of two deep-cushioned comfortable chairs next to the brand-new range, a recipe book and a brown medicine bottle on her lap, and a faraway look in her eye. There was a strong smell of paint, and Edyth could see that the room had recently been refurbished. There were green and white painted cupboards, a large sink with a gas geyser for hot water above it, a scrubbed-down pine table and sturdy pine chairs, which she guessed had also belonged to Peter’s mother, and, to add insult to injury, the room was deliciously warm, in sharp contrast to the rest of the house.

Mrs Mack jumped up when Edyth wheeled in the trolley. She held up the medicine bottle. ‘I have a sore throat.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ The news didn’t make Edyth feel any more sympathetic towards the woman. Inedible food was unacceptable, whatever the condition of the person who’d prepared it.

Mrs Mack looked at the untouched trolley. ‘Is something wrong, madam?’

‘Mrs Slater will do, Mrs Mack. And yes, there is. The tea is stewed, the cheese and biscuits are stale, and the butter is rancid.’ Edyth went to the pantry.

‘Can I help you with something, Mrs Slater?’

‘I’m checking the stocks.’ Edyth opened the door. Lifting the cover from the milk churn on the marble slab next to the door, she sniffed the contents. Then she looked at the meat safe, and the rest of the shelves.

‘There is very little food here. None of it is fresh and all of it is poor quality.’

‘Mrs Richards never complained about my housekeeping or marketing, Mrs Slater,’ Mrs Mack protested in an injured voice. ‘I don’t know what you’re used to, but a vicar’s household is not a rich one. I have had to practise certain economies over the years.’

‘You need no longer concern yourself with marketing economies, Mrs Mack. I will buy all our groceries from now on.’ Edyth took a toasting fork from the rack of utensils. ‘Please fill the kettle and boil it, Mrs Mack, and make a fresh pot of tea. The one you served us is undrinkable. In the meantime, I’ll see if this cheese tastes any better toasted.’

Edyth balanced the tray on her knee and entered Peter’s study. ‘I’m not sure this is any better, Peter, but I’ve done the best I can with what’s in the larder. If there are shops open, I’ll go out –’