All That Glitters, page 31
‘We’re going to marry the minute we find somewhere to live.’
Jenny pulled Eddie close to her; the movement jerked his arm and a little of the sherry slopped over the edge of his glass on to the carpet. Mrs Griffiths noticed and stared pointedly at the mess he’d made.
‘I only hope you’re going to get enough together to start off within your own four walls. In my opinion it’s always a mistake for couples to begin in someone else’s home.’
‘Your sister started off with your mother,’ Harry commented, feeling the need to assert himself.
‘Yes,’ his wife conceded. ‘But it was far from ideal.’
‘We’ll find somewhere of our own,’ Eddie said, drawing strength from Jenny’s proximity, ‘when the times comes.’
‘Well then, let us drink to that time.’ Harry raised his glass again.
Jenny looked from Eddie’s apprehensive face to her mother’s disapproving one. Only her father had succeeded in raising a smile. She looked back at Eddie. He squeezed her hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to respond. If only he had been Haydn she would have been sure that she was doing the right thing.
‘Doesn’t look like Hitler will pull out of Poland,’ Trevor said to Andrew.
‘Not now. I think the content of the Prime Minister’s broadcast is inevitable.’
‘This is my birthday,’ Bethan reminded them, as Andrew opened half a dozen bottles of beer and distributed them among the men. ‘And I won’t have any talk of war.’
‘But if it comes, Beth, it’s going to affect us all,’ William protested. ‘We’ll all get called up.’
‘Not today,’ Bethan said firmly.
‘But next week …’
‘She’s right,’ Andrew handed William a bottle and a glass. ‘Today the only important thing is Bethan’s birthday, and if the ladies all have their sherry and the gentlemen their beer, I’d like to propose a toast to my wife’s health.’
Jane sat nervously clutching her sherry on the sofa next to Haydn. She’d never been in such lavishly appointed surroundings, she’d never drunk anything alcoholic, and she’d never felt quite so overawed. This was one situation when she knew that the bluff and bravado she had come to rely on to get her through life was useless. Watching Diana, Laura, Alma and Phyllis, she copied them and raised her glass towards Bethan.
‘To Bethan, the best wife a man could have,’ Andrew said gravely.
‘To Bethan.’
‘That’s the door.’
‘Our Eddie. Late as usual.’ Evan was furious with Eddie for disappearing early that morning just as the family were about to walk up the hill to Penycoedcae. Neither Diana nor Phyllis knew where he’d gone, and although Haydn and William had their suspicions they hadn’t voiced them.
The maid’s heels clipped across the tiled floor of the hall, the door opened and Eddie’s voice, accompanied by the low murmurs of a woman’s voice, floated in. Suspecting who the woman might be Bethan eyed Haydn, but he appeared to be in deep conversation with Jane. The maid opened the door to the drawing room and Eddie and Jenny stood side by side.
‘Sorry I’m late, sis.’ Eddie handed her a package. ‘This is from both of us.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
She lifted the lid on the small, flat cardboard box. A fine white lace handkerchief was pinned to a square of deep, blue paper. In the centre, fastened by a tiny, dark blue velvet bow gleamed a miniature sapphire bottle of Evening in Paris perfume.
‘That’s very kind of you, Eddie, Jenny, thank you. It’s beautiful.’
‘I’ll put it with the others.’ Andrew relieved her of the package and laid it on the side table that held her presents. ‘Beer, Eddie? Sherry, Jenny?’
‘Thank you.’ Jenny looked around. The room was beautifully proportioned, high ceilinged and grand enough to hold four sofas, three armchairs and an assortment of side tables and cupboards without appearing crowded. Which was just as well, considering the number of people present. Dr Trevor Lewis and his wife Laura were sitting on a small sofa next to the French windows that opened out on to the front lawn, bringing a taste of the glorious summer morning to the assembly. Eddie’s father Evan, Brian and Phyllis had claimed the sofa next to them. Alma and Charlie were opposite. Haydn, Jane, William and Diana were piled on the largest couch, and Bethan and Andrew in chairs either side of the magnificent white marble fireplace.
‘Jenny and I have a small announcement to make.’ Eddie cleared his throat and deliberately avoided his brother’s eye as he lifted Jenny’s hand. ‘We got engaged this morning.’
Andrew was the first to regain his composure. He stepped forward with their drinks. ‘Congratulations.’ He dumped the glasses on the table that held Bethan’s presents, and shook Eddie’s hand before kissing Jenny on the cheek. ‘Now we have an excuse for another toast.’
‘To the happy couple.’
‘The refrain echoed raggedly around the room. Haydn fixed his gaze on Jenny, but she refused to meet it, looking determinedly and adoringly at Eddie as she sipped delicately at her drink. Bethan looked from one brother to the other in confusion. Then she remembered Haydn’s unexpected breakfast visit. Was this what had been on his mind? Her heart went out to him. He had been so much in love with Jenny a year ago.
The door opened and the maid crept to Bethan’s side. ‘Cook sent me to ask if you’d like lunch laid in the drawing room or outside in the garden.’
‘It’s such a glorious day, we thought it would be nice to eat outside,’ Andrew explained. ‘We set up a trestle under the chestnut tree, but if anyone objects, say so now.’
‘Sounds wonderful to me,’ Laura enthused.
‘Then the garden it is.’
Trevor slapped Eddie soundly across the back as the maid left.
‘Good on you, Eddie.’
His gesture galvanised the others. Evan and Phyllis stepped forward to give their congratulations, and soon Eddie was in the centre of a crowd. Diana hugged Jenny to welcome her into the family. Only Haydn took advantage of the confusion to slip out through the French windows into the garden. He walked over to the trestles, already covered with snowy, white damask linen, that had been set up in the shade of an enormous tree.
‘You all right, Haydn?’
He looked down. Jane was beside him, her small face furrowed with concern. She reminded him of an anxious mouse. He smiled, then as her frown cut deeper into her forehead, he laughed. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
Jenny heard the laugh, and looked through the window. She saw no further than that he was happy and with Jane. And she hated him, and Jane – plain and insignificant as she was – for it. If he had shouted at her or Eddie, created the scene she’d secretly hoped for, she would have handed Eddie back his ring without a qualm. As it was, Haydn’s reaction only served to make her all the more determined to marry Eddie.
‘That was some party in the Town Hall last night,’ Trevor said to Haydn as he joined him in the garden.
‘If you think that was good, wait until we get to the last night of the Summer Variety.’
‘Starts tomorrow?’
‘If we can remember the routines.’
‘I’m sure it will be wonderful,’ Bethan said as she left the house.
‘Wish I had your confidence.’
‘Have you seen any of the rehearsals, Jane?’
‘No,’ she answered shyly as Haydn pulled a wickerwork garden chair out for her. The rehearsals have all been in the morning when I haven’t been working.’
‘I suggest Haydn gives us a song from it so we can judge for ourselves.’ Andrew sank down in the chair next to Bethan’s.
‘You going to play the piano for him?’
‘Why not? I’m not that dreadful.’
‘I think Haydn’s repertoire is slightly more extensive than “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”.’
‘You have a piano?’ Evan asked.
‘Andrew bought me one for my birthday. He hoped I’d learn.’
‘It was the only thing I could think of that she’d have to sit down to do.’ Andrew refilled Laura and Diana’s sherry glasses.
‘He wouldn’t listen to me when I told him I was tone deaf.’
‘But I believe you now, darling.’
‘And rather than send the piano back, he’s decided to try and learn himself.’
‘As my teacher gave up on me when I was eight years old that will give you some idea of the standard I’ve achieved. But, my “Twinkle twinkle little star” has to be heard to be believed.’
‘I think it would be better for everyone present if we took you at your word.’
‘Laura can play,’ Trevor volunteered.
‘Would you like a piano?’ Bethan asked. ‘I know of an almost new one, hardly played, going cheap.’
‘I’d love one, but I have no time to practise. Between running the new restaurant for the family, and cooking this one’s -’ she pointed at Trevor – ‘meals and doing his mending. And cleaning up after …’
‘Truce!’ Andrew called.
‘Music would be nice.’ Bethan smiled at Haydn.
‘I’ll do my best if Laura plays.’ Haydn was aware of Jenny watching him. Of an old, familiar look in her eye, which dispelled the final vestiges of hope he’d nurtured, that her threats had been idle ones.
‘I love summer,’ Diana said as she sat on the grass and leaned back against the tree trunk.
‘Don’t we all.’
‘Make the most of it,’ William said flatly. ‘It could be the last for a while.’
‘Summer will come even during a war.’
‘It did in the last one,’ Evan murmured. ‘Although it didn’t always feel like it when the casualty lists came in.’
‘Perhaps Hitler will see sense. Even now at this late stage. After what happened to them last time, I can’t believe the Germans are any more eager to fight than we are.’
This time Bethan didn’t stop Trevor from talking. The mere mention of war – and there seemed to have been nothing but talk of it during the past few weeks – was enough to close a fist of icy dread around her heart. She couldn’t bear the thought of her brothers and Andrew leaving. Possibly for ever, as William and Diana’s father had done the last time. Trevor’s optimistic declaration that it might not come to that was one straw in the wind that she wanted to grasp.
‘I’d like to think you’re right.’ Andrew squeezed Bethan’s hand as he gave up his chair to Phyllis and sat at his wife’s feet. ‘But if Hitler was going to move his troops out of Poland, I think he would have done so by now.’
‘The Fascists have been asking for it for a long time,’ Evan said, picking up his beer.
‘They didn’t learn, not even when you tried to punch them on the nose, eh Dad.’
Everyone laughed at Eddie’s joke, as much from relief as at any trace of humour it contained.
‘Come on, Haydn,’ Laura took his hand. ‘Let’s go and find this piano of Andrew’s and give it a bashing.’
She led him through a second set of French windows into the dining room and soon afterwards the melodious strains of ‘Where are the Songs we Sung’ drifted out into the garden. The maid came out with a tray loaded with condiments and napkin wrapped cutlery and started to lay the table. Andrew went into the drawing room and emerged with more beer and another bottle of sherry.
‘All the latest songs,’ Alma smiled as Laura switched to ‘Dearest Love’.
‘Of course,’ Andrew agreed, ‘I do know what sheet music to buy, even if I haven’t progressed from nursery rhymes.’
‘Haydn can really sing,’ Charlie observed.
‘Can’t he just.’ Bethan passed Phyllis’s glass to Andrew. ‘I often wonder where he got it from. Or you, your boxing ability, Eddie. Dad told me how well you did on Friday, and we heard that you’ve been picked out by a top promoter. Congratulations.’
‘We’re hoping it will give us enough money to marry.’ Eddie laid his arm protectively around Jenny’s shoulders.
‘You thinking of setting the date soon?’ Diana asked.
‘As soon as we find a place to live,’ he answered with a defiant look towards the dining room, where Laura’s voice had now joined Haydn’s.
‘It’ll be nice to have a wedding to celebrate in the family.’
‘How about some dancing?’ Andrew suggested. ‘There’s only one rug in the dining room. If you give me a hand to shift the furniture back, Trevor, we’ll have plenty of room.’
Evan pulled out the pocket watch that had been his father’s.
‘Ten minutes to go before the Prime Minister’s broadcast.’
‘I’ll put the radio on.’ Andrew rose to his feet. ‘If I turn the volume up, we’ll be able to hear it from here.
The only sounds that disturbed Chamberlain’s voice were the singing of the birds, and the drone of a motorcycle and side-car as it chugged slowly along the lane past the garden. As the broadcast continued, the silence closed in, blanketing, suffocating. Afterwards Bethan felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She fumbled blindly for her husband’s hand, looking down at her lap lest anyone see her tears.
‘There’ll be a shortage of miners.’ Evan looked to his two older sons, and his nephew. ‘Like last time, they’ll probably make it a protected occupation.’
‘I’d feel a coward if I didn’t take my chances along with everyone else.’
‘I had no idea you wanted to go, Eddie.’ The shock in Jenny’s voice was genuine.
‘I don’t think many men our age will be given the option of whether they want to fight, or not.’ Haydn glanced at Will, who nodded agreement.
‘All you can do is wait and see what will be wanted.’ Evan said curtly.
‘Men.’ Charlie pronounced dully. ‘That’s what will be wanted. Sheep to the slaughter, just like 1914. Fodder for the Generals, the trenches and the mass graves.’
There was a grim knowledge and finality in the Russian’s voice that none of them dared contradict, not even Alma whose love for her husband had never been so plainly etched in her eyes.
‘I don’t want to go through another day like this one, ever again,’ Bethan said to Andrew as they leaned over their front gate and waved goodbye to the last of their visitors. Evan and Phyllis had been the first to go, driven down the hill in Trevor’s car, little Brian’s head lolling sleepily against his mother’s shoulder. Charlie and Alma, Jenny and Eddie had been next. William, Diana, Haydn and Jane stayed until dusk, making the most of the peace of the garden and Andrew’s generous hospitality.
‘I’m sorry. To have a birthday on the day war is declared is bad enough, but then to go and have Eddie announce his engagement to Haydn’s ex-girlfriend is possibly even worse.’
‘There’s always been a certain amount of friction between them.’
‘Something tells me there’ll be more now.’
‘Did you have any idea?’
‘About Eddie and Jenny?’
She nodded. The war news was too immense, too great. She didn’t want to think about that now. Eddie’s involvement with Jenny was easier to cope with.
‘I saw the way he was looking at her last night.’
‘You never said anything.’
‘I thought you’d notice. After all, aren’t women supposed to be the intuitive ones?’
‘Poor Haydn.’
‘Haydn will get over it,’ he said unthinkingly, ‘but I’m not so sure Eddie will.’
‘What do you mean?’
He turned the question on her. ‘Do you think Jenny really loves Eddie?’
‘She must do. Why else would she get engaged to him?’
‘Well, you know women better than I do, I hope you’re right.’
‘You think she’s trying to get back at Haydn in some way, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But if she is, someone should tell Eddie …’
‘Tell Eddie what? That we’re all paranoid?’
‘Concerned for his happiness.’
‘Beth, Haydn and Eddie are grown men. They’re not going to thank you for interfering in their lives. All you can do is congratulate, smile sweetly and let them both know that you’re here for them if ever they should need you.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘You know I’m right. Now,’ he kissed her gently on the lips, ‘let’s leave your family where they are, and celebrate your birthday the way I’d like to. In bed.’ He led her away from the gate and across the lawn. The moon shone down, silvering the leaves and the burgeoning fruit on the cherry and apple trees, glinting above the gables of the enormous house she had come to love in the one short season she and Andrew had lived within its walls. She breathed in the scents of the night, and summer. The fragrance of flowers, slowly released into the atmosphere after the heat of the day. Hay drying in the fields, and Andrew’s cologne mixed with cigar smoke as he walked beside her.
‘It’s all going to change, isn’t it?’
He stopped and gathered her into his arms. Her eyes shone feverishly, her face was unnaturally pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. He wanted to shield her from everything unpleasant that the world had to offer, but all he could do was love her. He had never felt the emotion quite so futile and inadequate before.
‘The war will alter everything, especially our lives, but never my love for you.’
She had known what his answer would be, but like a child obstinately willing otherwise, she had wanted him to contradict her.
‘It’s inevitable, Beth. I’d be lying if I told you otherwise.’
‘And you’ll go away to fight?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘You’ll have no choice. They’ll need doctors even more than they’ll need soldiers.’
He buried his lips in her hair, breathing in the sweet, fresh fragrance he would always associate with her. ‘Someone will have to stay in Pontypridd. The town can’t be left without a doctor.’
‘There’s your father and old Dr Evans.’
‘Whatever happens, you must know that the last thing I’d want to do is leave you and the baby.’
