For a moment he did not know what to say. He realized he was staring at his wife and his mistress. The thought of how intimate he had been with both these women was unsettling. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” he muttered, and he sat down at a writing desk with his back to them.
The two women carried on with their conversation. It was indeed about pillowcases: how long they lasted, how worn ones could be patched and used by servants, and whether it was best to buy them embroidered or get plain ones and have the housemaids do the embroidery. But Fitz was still shaken. The little tableau, mistress and servant in quiet conversation, reminded him of how terrifyingly easy it would be for Ethel to tell Bea the truth. This could not go on. He had to take action.
He took a sheet of blue crested writing paper from the drawer, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and wrote: “Meet me after lunch.” He blotted the note and slipped it into a matching envelope.
After a couple of minutes, Bea dismissed Ethel. As she was leaving, Fitz spoke without turning his head. “Come here, please, Williams.”
She came to his side. He noticed the light fragrance of scented soap-she had admitted stealing it from Bea. Despite his anger, he was uncomfortably aware of the closeness of her slim, strong thighs under the black silk of the housekeeper’s dress. Without looking at her he handed her the envelope. “Send someone to the veterinary surgery in town to get a bottle of these dog pills. They’re for kennel cough.”
“Very good, my lord.” She went out.
He would resolve the situation in a couple of hours’ time.
He poured his sherry. He offered a glass to Bea but she declined. The wine warmed his stomach and eased his tension. He sat next to his wife, and she gave him a friendly smile. “How do you feel?” he said.
“Revolting, in the mornings,” she said. “But that passes. I’m fine now.”
His thoughts quickly returned to Ethel. She had him over a barrel. She had said nothing, but implicitly she was threatening to tell Bea everything. It was surprisingly crafty of her. He fretted impotently. He would have liked to settle the matter even sooner than this afternoon.
They had lunch in the small dining room, sitting at a square-legged oak table that might have come from a medieval monastery. Bea told him she had discovered there were some Russians in Aberowen. “More than a hundred, Nina tells me.”
With an effort, Fitz put Ethel from his mind. “They will be among the strikebreakers brought in by Perceval Jones.”
“Apparently they are being ostracized. They can’t get service in the shops and cafes.”
“I must get Reverend Jenkins to preach a sermon on loving your neighbor, even if he is a strikebreaker.”
“Can’t you just order the shopkeepers to serve them?”
Fitz smiled. “No, my dear, not in this country.”
“Well, I feel sorry for them and I would like to do something for them.”
He was pleased. “That’s a kindly impulse. What do you have in mind?”
“I believe there is a Russian Orthodox church in Cardiff. I will get a priest up here to perform a service for them one Sunday.”
Fitz frowned. Bea had converted to the Church of England when they married, but he knew that she hankered for the church of her childhood, and he saw it as a sign that she was unhappy in her adopted country. But he did not want to cross her. “Very well,” he said.
“Then we could give them dinner in the servants’ hall.”
“It’s a nice thought, my dear, but they might be a rough crowd.”
“We’ll feed only those who come to the service. That way we will exclude the Jews and the worst of the troublemakers.”
“Shrewd. Of course, the townspeople may not like you for it.”
“But that is of no concern to me or you.”
He nodded. “Very well. Jones has been complaining that I am supporting the strike by feeding the children. If you entertain the strikebreakers, at least no one can say that we’re taking sides.”
“Thank you,” she said.
The pregnancy had already improved their relationship, Fitz thought.
He had two glasses of hock with his lunch, but his anxiety came back when he left the dining room and made his way to the Gardenia Suite. Ethel held his fate in her hands. She had all of a woman’s soft, emotional nature, but nevertheless she would not be told what to do. He could not control her, and that scared him.
But she was not there. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past two. He had said “after lunch.” Ethel would have known when coffee had been served and she should have been waiting for him. He had not specified the location, but surely she could work that out.
He began to feel apprehensive.
After five minutes he was tempted to leave. No one kept him waiting like this. But he did not want to leave the issue unresolved for another day, or even another hour, so he stayed.
She came in at half past two.
He said angrily: “What are you trying to do to me?”
She ignored the question. “What the hell were you thinking of, to make me talk to a lawyer from London?”
“I thought it would be less emotional.”
“Don’t be bloody daft.” Fitz was shocked. No one had talked to him like this since he was a schoolboy. She went on: “I’m having your baby. How can it be unemotional?”
She was right, he had been foolish, and her words stung, but at the same time he could not help loving the music of her accent-the word “unemotional” having a different note for each of its five syllables, so that it sounded like a melody. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll pay you double-”
“Don’t make it worse, Teddy,” she said, but her tone was softer. “Don’t bargain with me, as if this was a matter of the right price.”
He pointed an accusing finger. “You are not to speak to my wife, do you hear me? I won’t have it!”
“Don’t give me orders, Teddy. I’ve got no reason to obey you.”
“How dare you speak to me like that?”
“Shut up and listen, and I’ll tell you.”
He was infuriated by her tone, but he remembered that he could not afford to antagonize her. “Go on, then,” he said.
“You’ve behaved to me in a very unloving way.”
He knew that was true, and he felt a stab of guilt. He was wretchedly sorry to have hurt her. But he tried not to show it.
She went on: “I still love you too much to want to spoil your happiness.”
He felt even worse.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. She swallowed and turned away, and he saw tears in her eyes. He began to speak, but she held up her hand to silence him. “You are asking me to leave my job and my home, so you must help me start a new life.”
“Of course,” he said. “If that’s what you wish.” Talking in more practical terms helped them both suppress their feelings.
“I’m going to London.”
“Good idea.” He could not help being pleased: no one in Aberowen would know she had a baby, let alone whose it was.
“You’re going to buy me a little house. Nothing fancy-a working-class neighborhood will suit me very well. But I want six rooms, so that I can live on the ground floor and take in a lodger. The rent will pay for repairs and maintenance. I will still have to work.”
“You’ve thought about this carefully.”
“You’re wondering how much it will cost, I expect, but you don’t want to ask me, because a gentleman doesn’t like to ask the price of things.”
It was true.
“I looked in the newspaper,” she said. “A house like that is about three hundred pounds. Probably cheaper than paying me two pounds a month for the rest of my life.”
Three hundred pounds was nothing to Fitz. Bea could spend that much on clothes in one afternoon at the
