Sinners and Shadows (36 page)

Dear Mr Larch,

I regret alarming you, but Gerald, along with five other senior boys from his house, left school sometime late last night and have not returned. The boys were present at final roll call before the doors were shut for the night, and found to be absent at breakfast this morning.

They left a note in one of their studies stating that they intended to enlist. Please be assured that we are doing all we can to trace them. The headmaster has forwarded their names and correct ages to the relevant authorities. However, as the local recruiting offices are not demanding to see birth certificates or proof of age, they could have volunteered under false names, so it may take us some time to find out if they have in fact enlisted, and if so, what regiment they have joined.

I repeat, we are doing everything in our power to find them. I trust that you will contact me immediately should you hear from Gerald. I will keep you informed of any new developments,

Yours faithfully,

Anthony Mayfield, Housemaster

Edward gazed at the photograph of Amelia, Julia and Gerald on his desk. Gerald had been fifteen when he had taken it. He compared the way Gerald looked there to when he had last seen him. He was tall and broad-shouldered; any recruiting sergeant anxious to boost his regiment's numbers would accept the boy without asking too many questions.

But that didn't alter the fact that Gerald wouldn't be seventeen until January. The fool! The damned stupid fool!

But how much was he to blame when his son's last holiday at home had been blighted by the strain between him and Mabel and embarrassment at Mabel's assault on Rhian. He couldn't even remember the last real conversation they'd had together. He tried to recall the content of the last letter he'd received from his son. It had been a thank you for sending him a cheque to cover his term's allowance, after the family Gerald had summered with in France had been forced to cut their holiday short because of the war.

He opened his desk drawer and rummaged through the small pile of personal correspondence he kept there. Notes from Amelia, the letter Julia had left on her pillow before she'd eloped. He found Gerald's letter and read it again.

Dear Father,

Thank you for the cash and the extra ten pounds, which I will put to good use. France was excellent and we were sorry to have to leave three weeks before we planned to, but we are now back in Windsor and Michael's mother and housekeeper are helping us pack for school. I am replacing everything that I have grown out of and the store has agreed to forward the bills to you. Hope that is agreeable.

See you at Christmas. Give Julia my love.

Your son,

Gerald

‘Mr Edwards, sir,' Miss Arnold tapped at his door. ‘Your wife is here.'

‘Have I any appointments?' he barked brusquely, concern for Gerald and anger at Mabel's spending making him abrupt.

‘Not until eleven-thirty, sir.'

‘Show her in, and make my apologies to the clients if we run late.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Mabel, take a seat.' He didn't rise when his wife entered his office.

Miss Arnold hesitated at the door. ‘Would you like tea, Mrs Larch?'

‘No, she wouldn't, Miss Arnold. Close the door behind you.' Edward studied his wife. She looked tired, her face was drawn and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. He felt that he should have a certain amount of sympathy for her after leaving her to live alone in Llan House, but after reading the letter from Gerald's housemaster all his compassion was for himself. ‘To what disaster do I owe this unexpected pleasure?' he enquired frostily.

‘I need to talk to you, Edward. You never come home, you never –'

‘I am well aware of my faults, Mabel. There is no need to catalogue them.'

She swallowed hard and straightened her back. ‘Bronwen and Cook gave me a month's notice this morning. I contacted the Labour Exchange but they said they have no suitable replacements. I need your permission to advertise.'

‘It's not worth advertising, you won't get any applicants.'

‘I pay the going rate –'

‘I pay the going rate, Mabel,' he corrected her heavily. ‘But you treat servants like slaves. Word gets around, especially in a place like Tonypandy. And with the employment situation the way it is, any intelligent, capable woman can earn twice as much in a month in a factory as I pay in a year.'

‘What factory?' she asked blankly.

‘I suggest you read a newspaper, Mabel. It might prove an enlightening experience.' He picked up a copy of
The Times
from his desk and tossed it towards her. ‘With so many men answering Kitchener's call there is an acute shortage of labour. Women are needed to take their place in factories, offices and shops and that's without the recruitment drive for munitions and land workers.'

‘What will I do if I can't get anyone?' She looked horrified at the prospect.

‘Return to Carmarthen,' he suggested.

‘I will not go back to my father's house.'

‘The only alternative is for you to do your own dirty work.'

‘Are you suggesting that I scrub floors, wash clothes and clean the house myself?'

‘Other women do it.' He thought of Rhian, walking upstairs to cook their meals and clean their rooms after putting in a full day's work in the shop. He had wanted Mrs Ball to do their cleaning, but Rhian had insisted she didn't mind doing it, and it gave them more privacy if she, not Mrs Ball, did most of it.

‘You can't expect me to –'

‘I don't expect you to do anything, Mabel,' he cut in ruthlessly. ‘I'd like you to return to Carmarthen but I have no desire to argue with you about it. And, as you're here, you've saved me a trip to Llan House. I gave you an allowance and I warned you to stick to it.' He removed the bills from his pocket. ‘On my rough calculations you have already exceeded it by fifty pounds this year.' He had pulled the figure from the air, but she didn't contradict him. ‘If you do not retrench over the coming months to pay back your overspend, I will place that newspaper advertisement I warned you about, and absolve myself of all liability for your debts.'

‘All I have done is a little entertaining. You want me to live like a nun?'

‘I thought you were.'

She blushed hotly. ‘I offered –'

‘Too little, too late, Mabel. And you have done a lot more than “a little entertaining”. You forget that I have seen the bills. And it is not only entertaining, you have also been shopping.' He threw the bundle of envelopes at her and they fell, scattering over his desk and the floor.

Her face contorted, ugly in rage and intensity. ‘I know all about Rhian,' she hissed. ‘An uneducated maid. A slip of a girl younger than your own daughter –'

‘As you are, Mabel.'

‘You're perverted, disgusting, dirty –'

‘If you force me to call for help to eject you from my office, that would give the Ladies' Circle something to talk about.'

‘You wouldn't dare!'

He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘Please leave, Mabel. Now.'

‘Christmas is in a couple of weeks. You have to come home then.'

‘I won't.'

‘Gerald –'

‘Has enlisted.'

‘He's not old enough.'

‘It's amazing what my children will do to get away from you, Mabel: Gerald enlisting, Julia eloping.' Tired of arguing with her, longing for the peace and quiet of his sitting room next door so he could think out what he should do about Gerald, he said, ‘My next appointment will be here any minute.'

‘You still haven't told me if I can advertise for replacement staff for the house.'

‘If you must, but as I said, you won't get any takers.' He watched her leave the chair. ‘Go back to your father for Christmas. Stay there and I'll clear your bills, Mabel.'

‘I can't go back because my parents are coming to spend Christmas in Llan House.'

‘Your father won't leave his parish.'

‘His curate is taking over. And I have invited the entire Ladies' Circle and their husbands, over fifty people, for supper on Boxing Day.'

‘How brave of you without a cook or housekeeper.'

‘I'll get them and I need a host, Edward. Let me down, and I'll see that your business suffers.'

‘I'll sell it before I spend another night under the same roof as you.'

She glared at him for a moment, then left, slamming the door behind her. Edward sat, staring at the door before picking up his pencil. He opened a notebook and wrote a heading across the top of the first page:
Last Will and Testament.

‘Come on, Rhian, come to Pembrey with us,' Bronwen coaxed. She and Cook had called into the tobacconist's unexpectedly at midday and persuaded Rhian to join them in the tea shop for a lunch of sandwiches, tea and cakes.

‘We're going to lodge in Mrs Williams's cousin's boarding house,' Cook added persuasively. ‘It will be all of us together, just like old times.'

‘Except we'll be earning decent money for the first time in our lives,' Bronwen crowed. ‘Jinny wrote and told me that she made two pounds seven shillings last week. And Mrs Williams only charges seventeen shillings and sixpence a week for full board, lodge and washing. Think of all the money we'll save.'

‘Your sister Jinny is working in the munitions factory in Pembrey?' Rhian asked.

‘Yes, she had her baby adopted.'

‘No, she didn't.' Cook contradicted. ‘She left it in the workhouse.'

‘It could be adopted by now,' Bronwen countered.

‘But the munitions factory just doesn't take on anyone,' Cook explained. ‘You have to be British born of British parents, physically fit and have good eyesight. Bronwen and I had physical examinations last week.'

‘And we both passed with flying colours. But then, if we weren't fit, we'd be dead the way the mistress works us,' Bronwen complained. ‘I swear she's got ten times worse since we've given in our notice. Old witch!'

‘And you have to supply four references,' Cook continued. ‘Mrs Williams and the doctor have given us two and I asked the minister and my old schoolteacher for the others.'

‘Not Mrs Larch?' Rhian poured herself another cup of tea from the pot on the table.

‘No fear.' Cook opened her ham sandwich and spread mustard over it. ‘We were frightened she'd give us a bad one in the hope they'd turn us down. She hasn't had a single application from anyone who wants to fill our posts.'

‘She'll be left all alone with Mair, that's if she stays.' Bronwen added another lump of sugar to her tea. ‘And there's no way that girl can run Llan House on her own.'

Rhian wondered if Edward knew what was happening in Llan House. He'd hardly mentioned the house or Mrs Larch in months but then he had been preoccupied with trying to find Gerald. Not that he or any of the masters at Gerald's school had succeeded in tracing any of the boys who'd enlisted.

‘Jinny said it's hard work. They have to work a full ten-hour day, starting at eight in the morning and grafting right through to half past six at night with only an hour for lunch and no other breaks at all. But they work two weeks on and one week off and get paid for the one off.'

‘She wrote and told Bronwen she'd turned yellow,' Cook laughed.

Wondering if Cook was joking, Rhian looked to Bronwen for confirmation.

‘It's something in the stuff they use to make the pellets or put in the shells. Gunpowder, or TNT or whatever it is, turns their skin yellow and their hair gold and apparently it doesn't wash off,' Bronwen corroborated. ‘It's even caused some of the girls to break out in a rash.'

‘If you worked there your hair would probably turn green, Rhian.' Cook finished her tea and stacked her cup on her empty plate. ‘Jinny said in her letter that the girls with fair or grey hair go that colour.'

‘If that's the case, then it might be as well I'm not going with you. I don't fancy green hair.' Rhian reached out impulsively and gripped Bronwen's hand. ‘I know I haven't seen much of you lately, but I'm going to miss you when you've gone.'

‘You did well to get out of Llan House when you did.' Cook earned herself a disapproving look from Bronwen. They had argued for some time about whether or not they should say goodbye to Rhian. Eventually, Bronwen had agreed they could go, but only on condition that Cook didn't mention Rhian's situation with Mr Larch.

‘You will write to me,' Rhian pleaded as they left the table.

‘Of course, and we'll call in the shop again before we leave town,' Bronwen promised. ‘But we have to get back to the house before Mrs Larch comes home from her shopping trip.'

‘Why?' Cook demanded mutinously. ‘The worse she can do is sack us, and I wouldn't mind going down to Pembrey a week early. I know it's freezing cold but Mrs William says there are lovely walks around there and you can see the sea from the windows of the house.'

‘You've lost weight, Cook,' Rhian said in surprise when her friend put on her coat.

‘The way Mrs Larch has cut down on our rations, we're all shadows of what we were.' Cook kissed Rhian's cheek. ‘And, as from the end of this week, I won't be Cook any more, just plain Meriel, munitions worker. I can't wait.'

Bronwen kissed Rhian's cheek. ‘Take care of yourself and if you want to do your bit for the war, you know where to come.'

‘You'll be the first one I'll write to.'

Rhian went to the coat rack and retrieved her coat. The tobacconist's was doing well and she and Edward had slipped into a comfortable domesticity. But much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, her life was beginning to pall. Apart from the customers, who were friendly enough but barely passing acquaintances, she never saw anyone to talk to other than Edward and Mrs Ball. Her days were: leave bed in the morning, bath, make breakfast and eat it with Edward, go from rooms to shop to serve customers until lunchtime when she and Edward ate together and, at the end of the day, shop to rooms to cook, clean and return to bed.