Sinners and Shadows (23 page)

In the space of a few short minutes her entire world had fallen apart. And she was on her own with absolutely no one to turn to.

Cook opened the kitchen door and looked into the back yard. ‘Where can that girl have got to?'

‘If they didn't have any Madeira cake in Rodney's she could have gone to another shop. You know what the queues can be like in James Cole's and the Maypole.' Mrs Williams's excuse was weak and she knew it. She checked the clock for the tenth time in as many minutes. Rhian was always so reliable, but she had left the house at a quarter past one and it was half past two. She had taken an hour and a quarter for what should have been a forty-five-minute errand.

In another quarter of an hour, the mistress would have to be woken, and an hour after that the tea trolley would have to be taken upstairs. Everything had been prepared except the sweet sandwiches and she knew that if Rhian didn't turn up in the next five minutes, Cook, who could be difficult at the best of times, would refuse to make them on principle. And if she made them, Cook would create an almighty fuss and tell the mistress that she was trying to take her job.

‘Bronwen, make a pot of tea and wake the mistress with a cup at a quarter to three.' Mrs Williams joined Cook in the opened doorway.

‘Yes, Mrs Williams.'

‘Here she comes now,' Cook sighed impatiently when they heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel on the lower part of the drive.

‘That's not a her it's a him.' Mrs Williams squinted into the sunlight when a figure walked around the side of the house. ‘What are you doing here at this time of day, Joey Evans?' she barked.

‘I need to see Rhian.'

‘She's not here,' Cook snapped. ‘She went into town over an hour ago and she's not come back.'

‘That wouldn't have anything to do with you, now would it?' Mrs Williams demanded suspiciously.

It choked Joey to admit it. ‘Yes.'

‘And?' Mrs Williams glared at him when he didn't elaborate.

‘I've looked for her everywhere I can think of in the last hour,' he pleaded. ‘I've been from one end of Tonypandy to the other and there's no sign of her in any of the streets or on the mountain. No one's seen her anywhere. Please, Mrs Williams, if she is here, let me see her,' he begged. ‘There's been a dreadful misunderstanding.'

‘Knowing you, Joey Evans, one involving another girl.' When Joey didn't contradict her, Mrs Williams set her mouth in a grim line. ‘You may as well tell me what's happened so I'll be prepared for the worse.'

‘She saw me with Tonia.'

‘Your cousin?'

‘It wasn't what it looked like,' Joey protested earnestly. ‘Tonia was upset, she was crying on my shoulder.'

‘And what was Tonia upset about?'

‘I can't say.' Joey had never been so reluctant to keep a secret.

‘I see. And what happened after Rhian saw your cousin crying on your shoulder?' Mrs Williams turned bright red, a sure sign to those who knew her that she was having trouble keeping her temper.

‘She ran off.'

‘When was this?' Cook asked.

‘About an hour ago.'

‘Then the mistress can kiss her Madeira cake goodbye.' Cook sounded almost triumphant but, Mrs Williams reflected sourly, she wasn't the one who'd be facing Mrs Larch's temper.

Joey recollected Rhian dropping her basket in his office and him slipping on something that had fallen out of it afterwards.

‘I've taken the mistress her tea, Mrs Williams. She wants to see you.' Bronwen lifted her lace ‘afternoon' apron and cap from the peg where she'd hung them earlier.

‘And I have some news for her.' Mrs Williams glared at Joey. ‘Don't you have a job to go to?'

‘You'll tell Rhian –'

‘I'll tell Rhian nothing, young man. I warned her what you were like before she walked out with you. We all did, but would she listen? No, not her. Well, it looks like she's found out the hard way what you are. And if she has any sense she'll stay away from you.'

‘You'll tell her I called,' Joey pleaded, looking over the housekeeper's shoulder to Bronwen and Cook.

‘Clear off, we're busy.'

Joey walked slowly down the drive, looking behind every bush and shrub as he went. If only he had insisted that Tonia leave the door open as he had asked her to. If only he had felt her unbuttoning his flies. If only he'd had the sense to walk away from her when she'd started crying instead of offering her sympathy. If only he had caught up with Rhian when she had run off. And the biggest ‘if only' of all – if only Rhian would listen to him when he finally did find her. But he had a numbing, blood-chilling feeling that she wouldn't.

Chapter Twelve

‘Tonia, if you won't tell me what's happened, I can't help you,' Connie said irritably. An impatient mother on the infrequent occasions when everything was going smoothly between her and Tonia, she wasn't sure whether she should hug or slap her daughter out of her hysteria.

She and her live-in assistant Annie had been serving in the shop when they'd heard Tonia thundering up the side staircase that led to their living quarters. Assuming that her daughter had been taken ill in work, she'd left Annie in charge of the shop, and rushed upstairs to find Tonia sprawled on her bed, howling like a toddler locked into a tantrum. And she had continued to respond to all her questions with incoherent sobs since.

‘Tonia, please …'

Tonia shrugged off her mother's restraining hand and crawled under the bedclothes. Fighting Connie's efforts to expose her head, she crouched on her hands and knees, covered herself completely with the bedspread and pinned it firmly to the mattress beneath her.

‘You haven't played at being a tortoise in a shell or a caterpillar in a cocoon since you were a child, Tonia,' Connie shouted in exasperation. ‘Don't you think you're being absurd?'

‘Connie, the Cadbury rep is here,' Annie shouted up the stairs. ‘Do you want to order in extra for miners' fortnight?'

‘I'll be there in a minute,' Connie yelled back. She slapped the lump on her daughter's bed. ‘Sooner or later you are going to have to come out from under there, Antonia, and tell me what you've done to get yourself into this state.'

Tonia heard her mother leave the room and slam the door but she didn't move. When she had thought through what she was going to do on the train journey up from Pontypridd, it had seemed so simple. Excite Joey the way she did Geraint, allow him to make love to her and then, afterwards, if he refused to marry her, threaten to tell her mother and his father what he had done. She knew her mother and Uncle Billy would march him up the aisle, at knifepoint if necessary.

Joey might not have the same finesse or education as Geraint, but he was a husband worth having. Good-looking and with a well-paid job. She'd be envied, but more importantly, Joey was one of the only men in the Rhondda who couldn't throw her indiscretions with Geraint back at her, because he'd done worse himself.

She'd scarcely given a thought to Rhian when she'd made her plans, other than to recall that she disliked her for attracting Joey at a time when she'd wanted Joey to notice her.

She'd grown up with Joey, and knew him so well she was confident she'd make him a better wife than a maid from Llan House. But the expression on Rhian's face when she had seen her and Joey together had terrified her. She had never seen such naked pain in another person's eyes. And far from marrying her as she'd intended, Joey had looked as though he could have killed her there and then in his office.

If anything happened to Rhian … if she did something silly… she pushed the unpalatable thought from her mind. Rhian would be all right. She simply had to be, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

‘Joey, I don't know what else we can do or where else we can look.' Lloyd returned to their table in the back bar of the White Hart after telephoning Sali.

Joey pushed one of the two pints of beer he had bought across the table towards his brother. ‘Sali hasn't seen her?'

Lloyd shook his head. ‘She telephoned Llan House again half an hour ago. Edward Larch isn't home but she spoke to Mrs Williams. The housekeeper said they've searched everywhere around the house, including the outbuildings and garden.'

‘That's it,' Joey said excitedly. ‘The outbuildings around Victor and Megan's farm.'

‘Didn't you hear Victor's farmhand tell him no one was in them? And if Rhian had gone there we would have seen her walking on the mountain, either on our way to, or back from the farm. Besides, it's like I said before we went. Given our relationship, I don't think Rhian would put Sali or Megan in the embarrassing position of having to take sides in this stupid situation you've got yourself into, by appealing to either of them for help.'

‘She doesn't know anyone else.' Joey stared wretchedly into his beer. As a last resort before going to the pub, they'd called into the police station to report Rhian missing, only to be treated in a cavalier fashion by the duty constable who'd already been given an embellished version of the afternoon's events in the store. He told them that young girls were always running off, especially from service, and if Rhian was still missing in two weeks he might, ‘just might', consider filing a missing person's report. But he hadn't been able to resist a final jibe: ‘Who could blame a girl for running away from her fiancé after she'd caught him making love to another woman less than three weeks before their supposed wedding?'

‘I can't just sit here doing nothing.' Joey pushed his half-finished pint away and rose to his feet.

‘Tell me where we can look, and I'll take you there,' Lloyd said evenly.

Joey closed his eyes for a moment then sat back down. He had searched everywhere he could think of, and asked just about everyone he knew if they had seen Rhian, before catching a train to Pontypridd and soliciting Lloyd's help. If Rhian had left Tonypandy by either train or tram, she had done so without any railway official, tram driver or conductor seeing her. No assistant or manager in any of the shops in Dunraven Street had seen her, and he had offended Connie by point-blank refusing to discuss what had happened between him and Tonia to make Rhian run off.

‘Do you know she only had fourpence in her pocket?' Joey muttered.

‘So Mrs Williams told Sali when she telephoned Llan House,' Lloyd reminded him patiently.

‘If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself.'

‘Is it too much to ask, even at this late stage, why you and Tonia were in your office with the blinds drawn and your flies undone?' Lloyd asked.

‘I've told you.'

‘And I told you that I don't believe a word of it. Tonia would never set you up that way.'

‘There's something you don't know about our charming little cousin.' Joey scraped his chair over the flagstones. ‘I'm going to check the streets again.'

Lloyd glanced at the clock behind the bar. ‘Want me to come with you?'

Joey shook his head. ‘You go home.' Sensing that Lloyd was about to insist on accompanying him, he added, ‘I'd rather be on my own.'

‘You'll telephone Ynysangharad House if you find her or hear anything?'

‘I will.' Joey walked through the blue, smoky atmosphere of the pub to the door. He opened it and left.

Edward Larch had come to the end of an overly long, unpleasant and tiresome day. He had spent the morning in Pontypridd, met with Lloyd and Sali Evans who had offered him their sympathy and, despite their guarded comments, confirmed his worse suspicions about Geraint Watkin Jones's character and motives for eloping with Julia.

He had returned to his office and combed through all the papers relating to Julia's trust fund, in what he knew from the outset to be a futile exercise. There was no legal way that he could safeguard his daughter's inheritance from her unscrupulous and conniving future, if not actual, husband.

And then, to top it all, he had received a telephone call from Mrs Williams, distraught for the first time since he had known her, to inform him that the prettiest and most reliable maid in his household had disappeared, apparently after an argument with the feckless and unfaithful fiancé she had been due to marry in less than three weeks.

And when he had finished speaking to the housekeeper, Mabel had come on the line demanding that he dine at home that evening to silence rumours that had reached the inner sanctum of the Ladies' Circle. Talk that suggested he had set up a separate establishment for himself in the house next door to his office. He was angry with Mabel, but even more furious with himself for not being more careful.

Mabel had then gone on to demand he dismiss all the indoor servants, including Cook and Mrs Williams, because they had made a mockery of the tea party she had given for the Ladies' Circle. The mention of the tea party, which he regarded as trivial in comparison to everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, was the final straw.

He told her he'd return for supper at ten-thirty and she could have half an hour and not a minute more of his time then. Ignoring the work piled on his desk and the ringing telephone, he had locked himself in the sitting room next door to his office for what remained of the afternoon and the evening. He felt odd. Tired yet curiously restless, he couldn't settle to anything, including the meal he asked Mrs Ball to order in from the White Hart.

Not wanting to walk home, or run the risk of getting Mabel on the line again by ringing Llan House and asking that Harris bring the carriage down to his office, he told Mrs Ball to order him a brake, one of the carriages that had been built specifically to cope with the steep hills of the Rhondda Valleys. It was due to pick him up outside at a quarter past ten but she knocked on his door a full ten minutes earlier.

‘If that's the brake, tell the driver to wait, Mrs Ball.' He couldn't bear the thought of exchanging the luxury of solitude for his wife's company a moment before he was forced to.

‘It's not the brake, sir. I heard a noise out the back. I thought it might be a stray dog, but it was a young girl. She's huddled against the wall of the yard and refusing to move. Shall I call the police?'

He left his chair. ‘No, Mrs Ball. There's no need to call the police. I'll go down and see to her myself.'

‘And, as you have formally declared in front of these two witnesses your intention to live as man and wife from this day forward, I formally declare you as such in law. Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Geraint Watkin Jones.' The ‘anvil priest', hired by the landlord of the hotel Geraint had booked himself and Julia into that afternoon, kissed Julia's cheek and shook Geraint's hand.

‘Don't we get a certificate?' Julia asked in confusion. Since they had left the sleeper that morning, first to change at Crewe then Carlisle to take the slow local train to Gretna Green, she had been in a daze. Geraint had taken charge of everything, including the money, bank and chequebook she had brought. He'd insisted they stop and outfit themselves with new clothes and luggage in Carlisle before lunching in a grand and expensive hotel.

When they'd reached Gretna Green he had asked the stationmaster to recommend the best hotel in the town and left her to rest in the suite he'd booked, while he arranged their wedding with the hotel manager.

‘Of course you get a certificate, Mrs Watkin Jones.' The ‘anvil priest' handed Geraint a sheet of paper. ‘Take that along to the register office tomorrow morning, the receptionist will tell you where it is, and you can formally register your marriage, although as I just said, you are already man and wife in law.'

The landlord and his wife who had stood witness applauded briefly. Geraint kissed Julia's cheek and she glanced at their reflections in the mirror above the fireplace. Geraint stood next to her, handsome and resplendent in a pale-grey suit, high-collared white linen shirt and grey silk tie. In unflattering contrast she resembled a photograph of the elderly Queen Victoria stuffed into a vast and shapeless crinoline. Only where the old Queen's gowns had always been black, hers was white, covered in frills and topped by a hat the size of a small umbrella. The only good thing that could be said about it was that it hid her hair, which she'd never been able to manage without Rhian's help.

‘Mrs Watkin Jones.' Geraint held out his arm and she realized that she had done what she had set out to do. She had bought herself a presentable and good-looking husband.

‘Dinner is being served in the dining room, Mr Watkin Jones, but if you and your wife would prefer to eat in your suite I could arrange to have it brought up to you.'

‘No, thank you, Mr Hamilton.' Geraint answered without referring to Julia. He led her into the dining room where half-a-dozen inquisitive couples glanced at them. The other ladies were elegantly – and comparatively plainly – dressed in summer lawns and linens, making Julia wish that she hadn't given in to Geraint's persuasion to buy the white lace outfit in Carlisle.

Geraint studied the menu while the waiter pulled out Julia's chair and settled a napkin on her lap.

‘Shall I order for you, Julia?'

‘No, thank you, Geraint.' Julia felt that if she didn't make a stand, she'd never make another decision for herself in her married life.

‘If I might make a suggestion, sir, madam, we have some fine fresh salmon cutlets and fillets of beef.' The waiter stood next to Julia's chair, pencil in hand.

Geraint continued to study the menu. ‘I'll start with the olive croutons, followed by the salmon cutlets with mayonnaise sauce, the ham soufflé, roast duck, with four vegetables and strawberry cream. And to drink …' He studied the wine list. ‘A bottle of champagne. Do you have Moet et Chandon?'

‘But of course, sir.'

‘We'll have a bottle with the entrée, but we'll start with hock.'

‘Very good, sir.' The waiter noted his order. ‘Madam?'

Tired out by her disturbed night and confused day, Julia wasn't hungry. She picked out the two lightest dishes she could see on the menu. ‘I'll have the sole in aspic followed by fruit salad, please.'

‘I am sorry, you must be feeling tired, I didn't think. Perhaps we should have eaten in our suite after all.'

She found Geraint's concern irritating as well as tardy. ‘It would have been nice to have been consulted.'

‘We have only just ordered. I am sure that they will take our meals upstairs if we ask them.'

‘There's no need to put anyone to any bother.'