Sweet Rosie (34 page)

‘Because someone like me would have far too much sense to take you on!’ he replied crisply.

It was early evening when Alice returned home and it was to find Edward there before her. She handed her hat and coat to Rosie and the girl hurried upstairs to put them away. Alice thanked her lucky stars that she had found someone who did not need to be told every little thing.

‘You’re early, Edward,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you have much work today?’ She sank into a chair and watched as her husband closed the door and leaned against it.

‘Alice,’ he said, his voice full of doom, ‘you have to help me.’

‘Why, dearest, what’s wrong?’ Alice could afford to be magnanimous now that she had the promise of money from Eynon.

‘I’m in trouble with the bank,’ he said. ‘Deep trouble.’

Alice sighed, he really was a pathetic creature. ‘Do sit down, Edward. You worry too much. This very day my father has promised to pay off the mortgage for us. That’s where I’ve been now, Edward, sorting out our problems.’

He sank down in a chair, his hand over his eyes. ‘You don’t understand, the auditors have been called in and I’ve been taking money from customers’ accounts to fund your fancy lifestyle. I’m ruined Alice, ruined now, do you understand?’

For a moment she felt her stomach lurch with fright. ‘How did you let that happen, Edward?’ she said sharply.

She sank into a chair and thought carefully about the situation. Whatever happened to Edward, her own future would be secure, provided Eynon kept his word. She relaxed.

‘Don’t worry, Daddy won’t let anything dreadful happen,’ she said reassuringly. She sighed, wishing her husband would vanish into thin air. He was becoming a liability. In any case, she had always known she had married beneath her and this last little episode proved it.

‘You will get us out of this won’t you, Alice?’ He was like a child asking for reassurance. ‘Otherwise I could well end up in prison.’

‘Of course I’ll get us out of it,’ she said but her thoughts were already drifting. She was imagining a life without Edward and the prospect was such a pleasant one that she settled back in her chair and closed her eyes, effectively shutting Edward out of her sight. Yes, a husband in prison would arouse more sympathy than censure amongst the townspeople. The gossips would say how sad that poor Mrs Sparks married a man who betrayed the trust of his customers. All in all, matters were turning out very well, very well indeed.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Llinos sat in the carriage, staring out at the lovely Vale of Neath. The hills were verdant, the trees flourished everywhere along the river banks and the sun dappled the grass with gold. But her thoughts were not in tune with the brightness of the day. She felt a lump in her throat; Joe had chosen a beautiful place to bring his mistress.

She leaned back, feeling the cold of the leather seat through her thin coat. She shivered, wondering if she should turn back, go home; live for a little while longer in her dream world where one day Joe would come back to her and everything would be wonderful again.

She wished for a moment that she had asked Charlotte to go with her but her sister-in-law was getting old. In any case this was something she must face on her own. Llinos swayed as the driver turned the horses along a small track that led uphill towards the top of the valley. There, on the hill, stood the house where Joe lived with his mistress. It was an ugly house, squat and rambling, but it commanded a fine view of the valley and the river and the wild rolling countryside beyond.

‘Whoa there, lovely girls.’ Kenneth coaxed the horses to stop just short of the house as Llinos had instructed. She was scarcely aware of him helping her down onto the dusty path, her gaze was focused on the doorway which stood open, the sunlight spilling inside.

‘Wait here, I won’t be very long.’ She was surprised how normal her voice sounded. The driver touched his hat and mumbled into his beard.

‘I’ll take the girls to the soft ground over there, let them rest their feet for a bit.’ Another time, Llinos would have been amused at the way Kenneth treated the animals like human beings but now she was too tense to think of anything but what might lie ahead of her.

Her shoulders were erect, her head high as she walked towards the house but for a moment she hesitated, summoning all her courage, then she knocked on the old oak of the door and stood back, resisting the urge to run away.

A rosy-cheeked maid, her plump form wrapped in a spotless apron, came hurrying from the back of the house. She looked at Llinos in surprise.

‘Yes, miss?’ She brushed flour from her hands and stood waiting for Llinos to speak.

‘Mr Mainwaring, is he at home?’ Her voice was unbelievably pompous, her tone clipped, angry and the girl stepped back a pace. Perhaps she was aware that her master had a wife as well as a mistress.

‘No, miss, he’s not here just now, sorry.’ She looked behind her fearfully. ‘The lady of the house is here if you want to talk to her.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Llinos said. ‘I want to talk to her.’

Sho Ka was sitting in the garden at the rear of the house. She looked up as Llinos emerged from the back door and her eyes widened. The Indian girl was just as beautiful as she had been when Llinos first met her in America, long before she and Joe were married.

‘Yes, Sho Ka, it’s me, Joe’s wife.’ Llinos made an effort to keep her voice steady. ‘You look well.’

Sho Ka stood up; she was taller than Llinos by several inches and held herself like a queen. She looked more than well; she was beautiful in a sprigged muslin gown. The pale ivory shawl over her shoulders emphasized the golden colour of her skin and the dark sheen of her hair. Llinos felt her stomach contract. How could she blame Joe for wanting someone as lovely as Sho Ka?

‘Where is he?’

‘Joe?’

‘Of course.’ Llinos swallowed her anger. ‘Who else would I be asking for?’

‘He’s ridden over to one of the farms, he’s fetching us some butter and eggs.’ Sho Ka’s voice faded as Llinos winced. The ‘us’ had hurt, it confirmed that the two of them were a couple, that Joe and Sho Ka were lovers.

‘I’ll wait.’ Llinos looked round for somewhere to sit and finally chose a wooden bench standing in the shade of a huge oak. Sho Ka looked at her uneasily, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. Llinos remained silent. What she had to say she would say to her husband, not to the woman who was his concubine.

The little Welsh maid came to the back door. ‘Shall I fetch some tea, miss?’ she said in Welsh and Llinos was about to reply when she saw Sho Ka nodding.

‘Please do, Bronwen, and bring some of your
Teison Lap
cake as well.’

It was a double shock to Llinos to hear Sho Ka speak in the Welsh tongue and worse, to be speaking as mistress of the house.

‘I had forgotten that the Mandans had some Welsh,’ she said almost absently. She twisted her hands in her lap, staring at her fingers through a haze of tears. Every moment she sat with Sho Ka reinforced her belief that the Indian girl had usurped her position as Joe’s wife.

‘It comes in useful now I am in Wales,’ Sho Ka said. ‘Look, Llinos, things are not always what they seem.’

Llinos looked up challengingly. ‘So you are not sleeping with my husband then, is that what you mean?’

The colour swept into Sho Ka’s face and the last vestige of hope faded from Llinos’s heart.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sho Ka said. She paced around the small patch of lawn, walking silently, as Joe did. The shawl slipped from her shoulders and Llinos felt her stomach twist into knots.

‘Sho Ka, you’re pregnant!’ Llinos felt sick. For a moment she was blinded with jealousy. She wanted to hit the Indian girl, to hurt her as she had been hurt.

‘You have ruined my life!’ Llinos said. ‘You have stolen my husband from me. How can you face yourself in the mirror?’ She turned away blind with anger and walked through the kitchen past the startled maid.

Kenneth was waiting patiently, his hand smoothing the mane of the nearest horse. He looked up when he heard her footsteps. ‘All ready to go, Mrs Mainwaring?’ he asked.

‘Yes please, Kenneth, take me home.’ He helped her into the coach and she sat back against the hard leather, her hands covering her face. She felt diminished, defeated. She longed to scream out her anger, to confront Joe with a torrent of abuse. She closed her eyes, wondering if she would ever erase from her mind the sight of Sho Ka, beautiful with child.

By the time she reached home, Llinos felt as though all her senses had been blunted by pain. She went directly to her room and fell onto the bed, fully dressed. ‘Joe,’ she whispered into the pillows, ‘I hate you for what you have done to me.’ But she did not hate him, she loved him and if he came to her now and asked her forgiveness she would take him back without hesitation. But she was fooling herself, he was not coming back. She had lost Joe for ever.

‘So Binnie, you’re back.’ Dan McCabe looked heavy-eyed, his hair was whiter than Binnie remembered and he seemed to have lost weight. ‘I’m glad to have another man about the place and I don’t deny it.’ He sank down into the chair on the porch and waved to Binnie to join him.

‘I’ve lost one of my girls,’ he said, ‘and nothing in the world is going to bring her back but I still have my grandsons and that’s thanks to you, Binnie my boy.’

‘I’m sorry for all that’s happened,’ Binnie said. ‘I feel I’ve added to your worries.’

Dan waved his hand. ‘You did wrong not telling us all the truth right up front, but I can understand that. You had a wife, a wrong ’un for you as it turned out, and then you found my Hortense.’ He half smiled. ‘I think I’d have shut my mouth too, if I was in your place.’

‘I do love her, Dan,’ Binnie said. ‘I’d lay down my life for her if I had to.’

‘I know that, son.’ Dan touched his arm. ‘You’re not cut from the same cloth as that bastard Pendennis!’ He looked up, his brow furrowed. ‘You know he ran off with a bag full of my money, don’t you?’ He slapped his hand on the arm of his chair. ‘The low-down skunk caused a whirlwind of trouble in my family and then robbed me into the bargain. I hope he rots in hell!’

‘Where’s he gone?’ Binnie asked.

‘As far away from me as he could run,’ Dan said. ‘He knows I’d have a noose waiting over a tall tree for him if I ever came across him again.’

He fell silent as Josephine came out of the house. She was pale and subdued. The brightness, the laughter in her eyes that had been her charm had gone.

‘Hello, Binnie.’ She sank limply into the seat beside him. ‘Glad you’ve come home.’ A little warmth came into her face. ‘At least our Hortense is happy now.’

‘Jo,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He rubbed his hand through his hair. ‘I feel it’s my fault somehow, I brought John here.’

‘I knew he was no good from the moment I married him,’ Jo said softly. ‘I fooled myself into thinking everything would be all right when there was a baby on the way. Now,’ she spread her thin hands wide, ‘now I have nothing.’

‘Don’t say that, honey,’ Dan said. ‘You’ll meet someone else, you’re young yet.’

‘Sure I will, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Don’t you go worrying about me, now.’ She gave Binnie a swift look and he knew that Josephine was too damaged to ever trust a man again.

Mrs McCabe bustled out onto the porch with a maid behind her carrying a tray of cool drinks. ‘Welcome home, Binnie.’ She looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘I’m a plain-speaking woman and I don’t agree with what you did to my girl. You lied and you cheated and you made her unhappy. But I knowed you loved her from the first.’ She nodded, her chins trembling. ‘I’m prepared to forgive and forget but don’t you be doing anything else sneaky or I’ll take a gun to you myself, do you hear?’

‘I hear,’ Binnie said.

‘Now, we’ll say no more about it. Welcome back into the family, Binnie Dundee, you are the man of the house after my Dan and I know you’ll take the responsibility should you be called upon.’

As she sipped her drink, she looked grey and beaten and Binnie felt his heart contract with pity. What if his sons grew to manhood only to give pain to their mother? It did not bear thinking about.

He stayed a little while longer and then, with a sense of relief, took his leave of the McCabe family. They were good people, honest souls who did not deserve the treatment that both he and John had handed out to them.

As he rode back along the street towards his own home, Binnie thanked God in his heaven for allowing him a second chance. He would worship Hortense; he would never look at another woman so long as he lived.

As he neared his house, the light was fading and the gleam of lamplight in the windows welcomed him home. He found Hortense in the parlour and when she saw him her eyes lit with happiness.

‘Well, what did Mamma and Daddy have to say?’ She put down the shirt she was mending and came to him. ‘Have they forgiven you?’

‘They have.’ He kissed her. ‘Even your mother welcomed me back after giving me the sharp end of her tongue!’

‘Well,’ Hortense wound her arms around him and nestled her head against his chest, ‘if Mammy gave you the sharp end of her tongue, I’d say you were well and truly one of the family now.’ She kissed him and her eyes closed as he touched her breast. Binnie’s heart overflowed with happiness. ‘I want to take you to bed, my love,’ he whispered.

‘What’s stopping you, hon?’ she asked.

Binnie carried her upstairs and into the bedroom and, his heart beating with desire for his wife, he kicked the door shut.

Llinos sat alone in the drawing room staring unseeingly at the flicker of the candlelight. Sho Ka was having a child, Joe’s child. After they had lost their own little girl, how could Joe betray her in that way? She clenched her hands together in a burst of anger; she had adored Joe, she had never looked at another man. She had borne Joe a fine healthy son and none of it had been enough for him.