Authors: Catrin Collier
‘I can’t tonight – unfortunately.’
‘Mari was making Cornish pasties and sausage rolls when I left,’ she tempted.
‘That remark, Edyth Evans, is torture to a starving man. But the answer still has to be no.’
‘Shall I ask her to save some for your tea tomorrow?’
‘Please.’ He smiled. ‘The surprise is that Reverend Price has asked me to give the sermon again on Sunday, but not in the morning. At Evensong.’
‘That’s wonderful. People must have told him how good your morning sermons have been.’ A frightening thought occurred to her. ‘Is the Bishop coming to dinner because he’s considering moving you from Pontypridd?’
‘I told you when we first met that the Bishop’s hobby is moving curates around the chequer board of parishes.’
She quelled a rising tide of panic. ‘Where’s the furthest parish from here and Swansea?’
‘I prefer not to think about it.’
‘Have you no idea where you might be going?’ she persisted.
‘Absolutely none. And, there’s no point in my asking Reverend Price to find out. The Bishop is notoriously tight-lipped about the movement of clergy. No one will know anything until he gives me my marching orders, or not, as the case may be. If he has made a decision about my future, the one thing I am certain of is that it’s known only to him, and God.’
‘Do you think that he might be considering giving you your own parish?’
‘If he is, he hasn’t discussed it with me, or Reverend Price.’
‘But it’s your career,’ she protested.
‘Which hopefully God is directing.’ He fell serious. ‘When I was ordained, I put my trust in Him. And He hasn’t let me down. He has brought us one another.’
‘What if they move you miles away? I may not see you for weeks on end. Months possibly … Peter, I couldn’t bear it …’
They reached her drive. He looked up and down the road; there was no one in sight when he led her inside the gate. Gripping her by the shoulders, he looked into her eyes. ‘One step at a time, Edyth. There’s no point in panicking until we know the situation.’
‘It’s bad enough having to wait three years to marry you without being separated as well.’
‘We haven’t been – yet. And who knows, if I go back to the vicarage and write a brilliant sermon of publishable standard and you bake extra-delicious cakes for the Bishop and Dean as well as Reverend Price, not to mention dazzling them with your charm, wit, conversation and eminent suitability to become a vicar’s wife, they may consider placing me closer to Swansea.’
She refused to be mollified. ‘You have an over-inflated opinion of me and my cooking.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Secure in the knowledge that the trees prevented them from being seen from the house or the road, he brushed his lips against hers, so lightly that afterwards she couldn’t be sure whether he’d actually kissed her for the first time or not.
The doctor rose from the chair Jed had carried in from the kitchen and set next to the parlour sofa. Pearl King was lying, stretched out and twitching uncontrollably on her ‘best’ sofa where Jed had tenderly laid her after lifting her from the kitchen floor. He’d considered the parlour to be the closest and most obvious place for his mother to await the arrival of the doctor, but Judy knew that if her gran could speak, she would have given her son a telling off for entering the most hallowed room in the house.
The doctor snapped his bag shut. ‘It’s a stroke, a severe one,’ he added superfluously. Judy and Jed had determined before he’d answered their call that Pearl had lost her speech, the use of both legs and become incontinent.
‘Can you do anything for her?’ Jed asked.
‘Very little. It’s a question of waiting to see if the body recovers. She should be kept quiet and given plenty of water and liquids. Solid food could choke her. Don’t move her more than you have to. It might be an idea to bring her bed down here and shift some of this furniture out. She’s going to need round-the-clock nursing and it’ll be easier if she’s downstairs.’
‘I’ll look after her,’ Judy volunteered. She thought of the money she had left. It wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to cover the cost of medicine and the doctor’s future visits. ‘Can we have your bill?’ she asked, needing to work out the weekly cost.
‘I’ll give it to you later, Judy. In the meantime,’ he scribbled a note on a pad, and tore off a sheet of paper, ‘get this tonic made up in the chemist’s. Feed her two spoonfuls three times a day.’
‘Is that the red or the green tonic?’ Jed asked. In his experience the doctor only prescribed two and neither worked. They certainly hadn’t helped his eldest son who’d succumbed to meningitis, or his sister who died of diphtheria shortly after she’d given birth to Judy.
‘The green. I wish there was more I could do, Jed. You could try the Chinaman. I don’t know what’s in half his medicines but some of them seem to work.’
‘For a stroke?’ Jed looked the doctor in the eye. After checking that Judy’s attention was fixed on Pearl, the doctor shook his head.
‘I’ll walk you to the door, Doctor.’ Jed waited until they were out of Judy’s earshot before saying, ‘My mother’s dying, isn’t she?’
Knowing Jed wouldn’t thank him for any platitudes or meaningless reassurances, the doctor said, ‘She is.’
‘How long does she have?’ Jed asked bluntly.
‘Considering she’s probably aware of the state she’s in, for her own and all your sakes, I hope the end will be soon. It’s what I’d want for my own mother if it had happened to her.’
‘Thank you,’ Jed said simply. ‘Don’t forget to give us your bill.’
‘I won’t. I’ll call again tomorrow. If you need me sooner, send for me.’
‘We will.’
The doctor held out his hand, Jed shook it and watched him walk to his car.
‘Reverend Price tells me your father is the Labour MP Lloyd Evans, Miss Evans.’ The Bishop leaned across the Prices’ table, cut into the cheese and helped himself to a sizeable portion.
‘He is,’ Edyth answered cautiously, wary of elaborating.
So far the conversation at dinner that had included the ladies had been general and innocuous. As Peter had predicted, the Bishop and the Dean had discussed cricket, apparently oblivious to the boredom of their wives and, she suspected, Peter and the Reverend Price, neither of whom had made a single observation on the match or its outcome.
Peter had finally managed to steer the discussion away from sport by describing their work with the church drama group and the children’s attempts to make a Goliath head. He had also praised her efforts to teach the local girls grooming and dress sense, and encouraged her to talk about the forays that she and Miss Williams had made into the local countryside with the Sunday school pupils in an effort to keep them occupied during the long summer holidays.
Superficially, the evening had been pleasant enough, but Edyth couldn’t help feeling there was an undercurrent beneath the small talk that she wasn’t privy to. She had turned her head more than once to see the Bishop studying her intently. His wife, a large, florid woman who favoured floral pastels, had spoken to her as if she and Peter were engaged and about to set the date. It was only consideration for Peter’s career that prevented her from correcting the woman. The Dean, however, stared openly at her for so long that he made her nervous, and she ended up dropping her knife and hitting her wine glass against her plate. Whenever her childhood clumsiness returned, it did so with a vengeance.
The meal had been as dreadful as Peter had predicted. Reverend Price reminded them frequently throughout the evening that his wife had only the assistance of a ‘tweenie’ – a rough maid of all work – and no cook, which was evident from the dishes the poorly trained girl brought to the table.
The first course of leek and potato soup was lumpy and principally flavoured with flour. The saddle of mutton was burned on the outside, raw and bloody on the inside, the roast potatoes were pale, soggy and greasy, the stuffing had come from a packet, the Yorkshire puddings would have been better served as pancakes, the gravy was as full of solids as the soup had been, and the cauliflower and string beans boiled for so long they had turned to mush.
Fortunately, Mrs Price had chosen to serve fresh strawberries and raspberries with clotted cream for dessert, but delicious as they were, they weren’t filling. Edyth wished she had the Bishop’s courage when he reached out a second time and helped himself to another quarter of a pound of cheese and fistful of crackers.
She laid the thin slice of Caerphilly cheese she had cut for herself on a digestive biscuit and bit into it.
‘So what do you think of our Reverend Slater’s new post, Miss Evans?’ the Dean enquired the moment her mouth was full. His voice had grown heartier over the course of the evening, which Edyth attributed to the liberal quantity of wine the Reverend Price had poured into his and the Bishop’s glasses.
‘I didn’t know that Peter – Reverend Slater – had been given a new post.’ Edyth looked apprehensively at Peter who was sitting opposite her.
‘Of course you wouldn’t.’ The Dean laughed loudly. ‘He only found out about it himself half an hour before dinner.’ He nodded sagely at Peter. ‘As His Grace said, it will be a challenge, my boy. A real challenge,’ he repeated. ‘But one I hope you will rise to. Do your duty, serve your flock as well as you have served the ministers and parishioners in all your postings, and I’ll lay a pound to a penny that you will be vicar of your own parish within six months.’
‘I hope you haven’t taken up gambling, Dean.’
Even Edyth could see that the Bishop was joking, but the Dean thought it necessary to reply.
‘Just an expression, Your Grace, just an expression.’
‘May I ask where the parish is?’ Edyth asked.
‘Certainly, my dear. After all, you will have as much interest in the place as Peter.’ The Bishop beamed at her, obviously extremely pleased with himself, and she had a feeling that it wasn’t only Peter they had been discussing earlier, which explained the looks he had been giving her throughout the evening. ‘Our Reverend Slater is such a dedicated clergyman we have decided to send him to a parish that has been sorely neglected of late by the failing health of the present incumbent, Reverend Richards. The place is ripe for Peter’s brand of enthusiasm. The present vicar will retire within six months, an interim period perfect for a curate to take over the onerous duties, while being eased into a position of complete responsibility. Show the same dedication to duty that you have over the past few years, my boy, and as the Dean said, six months from now you will be leading your own flock.’
‘That’s wonderful news. Congratulations, Peter.’ Edyth turned to the Bishop. ‘But you still haven’t said where the parish is, Your Grace.’
‘I haven’t, have I?’ He reached for the cheese again. ‘It’s Butetown.’
‘Or, as it’s more commonly known, Tiger Bay. A tough one even for our talented Reverend Slater here.’ The Dean waited until the Bishop had taken another hefty lump of cheese before helping himself to a chunk of Stilton. ‘But whether Peter will be vicar there or not is entirely dependent on you, Miss Evans.’
‘Me?’ She looked at him in confusion. Then she noticed Peter was as red-faced and uneasy as he had been when he’d asked her father if he could formally court her.
‘The curacy is assured,’ Peter said quietly.
‘But not the post of vicar,’ the Dean added.
‘I don’t think Miss Evans understands the situation.’ Mrs Price made her first contribution to the conversation. ‘The Reverend Slater will only be appointed vicar of Butetown if he is a married man.’
‘The Church couldn’t place a bachelor in Tiger Bay,’ the Dean boomed. ‘Too many temptations down there for a single man, Miss Evans. Far too many. Even for someone as upright and moral as our Reverend Slater,’ he laughed, oblivious to the silence that had fallen over the table.
‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Evans. I trust the next time we see you there will be cause for celebration. As I said to Peter earlier, it would be a personal as well as professional pleasure to join two such dedicated Christians in Holy Matrimony.’ The Bishop shook Edyth’s hand. The Dean, their wives, and the Reverend Price followed suit, but Mrs Price kissed her cheek. Edyth noticed that the vicar’s wife looked drawn, tired and years older than her husband, although she knew from town gossip that Mrs Price was ten years younger.
‘Take care of yourself, my dear,’ Mrs Price whispered, when she walked Edyth to the front door.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening, Mrs Price, Reverend Price.’
‘It was our pleasure,’ the vicar answered.
The Reverend and his wife stood on the step to wave them off. Peter escorted her down the path in silence. When they reached the gate they turned and waved back. Edyth didn’t speak to Peter until she heard the door close behind them.
‘You didn’t tell me that promotion to the post of vicar would be dependent on you having a wife,’ she said.
‘But I did tell you that the Church prefers vicars to be married. Don’t you remember? It was when I asked you if I could speak to your father?’
‘You mentioned something about it but I didn’t think you meant it personally.’ She wondered why she hadn’t connected the conversation with his declaration that he loved her, when both had happened on the same day.
‘I didn’t know I was going to be offered a curacy in Butetown today with a view to taking over from the incumbent within six months. I didn’t even know the Reverend Richards’s wife had died before Christmas or that he was in failing health. You heard the Dean and the Bishop, it’s a challenge. It’s also a testament to their faith and confidence in me.’
‘Why shouldn’t they have faith in you? You’re talented, enthusiastic –’
‘As are a hundred other curates in South Wales, all of whom are older and more experienced than me,’ he broke in brusquely. ‘Please believe me, Edyth, I had absolutely no idea the Bishop was considering me for the curacy, let alone the post of vicar, until he arrived this evening. I know what you’re thinking –’
‘Do you?’ She slowed her step and looked at him.
‘You’re assuming my suggestion that we embark on a formal courtship was a selfish one, made in the hope of furthering my career. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. The moment I looked at you I knew you were the only woman for me.’