The White Dove

Peter had also recently fought and won a by-election as the Conservative candidate. He had proposed to Isabel the day after taking his seat in Parliament. He was poised for rapid advancement, and he had chosen Isabel Lovell as the utterly correct wife to help him on his way.

Amy crossed the room to him. He was talking to one of Gerald’s ancient, deaf cousins.

‘What? What?’

‘I said there will certainly have to be a General Election by the end of the year. We can win it, on the National coalition ticket if you like, and then there’s nothing standing in the way of tariff reform. Which is the thing the economy needs, as we all know. Hello, hello, little sister. What a pretty frock. Everything ready for the big day, is it?’

‘Hello, Peter. GOOD EVENING, Uncle Edward.’

The evening was perfectly orchestrated, perfectly predictable and completely dull. Gerald sat at the head of the massive, polished dinner table, separated from his wife by twenty people. Peter Jaspert dutifully made sure that he spoke to every one of the guests who had been invited to meet him. Amy smiled long and hard and reassured a succession of aunts that yes, Isabel was blissfully happy and yes, they did seem to be very much in love.

Richard didn’t put in an appearance at all.

Gerald’s face betrayed a flicker of cold fury when they went through to dinner and he saw that Glass had discreetly rearranged the places, but that was all.

It was past midnight when Glass finally saw the last guests into their cars. He left the huge double doors firmly closed, but not locked, and then he walked silently back across the marble floor where the exquisite arrangements of arum lilies stood ready for tomorrow.

Up in her drawing room Adeline sighed. ‘Well, that was rather a trial. Isabel must be asleep by now, so I won’t disturb her. Good night Gerald, Amy. Let’s pray for not a wisp of fog tomorrow, shall we?’

After she had gone Gerald poured himself a last glass of whisky from the decanter and looked across at Amy.

‘You’ll miss your sister, won’t you?’

She nodded, surprised.

‘Mn. Yes. You’ve been close, the three of you. Things being … as they are.’

Amy waited, wondering if he was going to say anything else. If he was going to ask her where Richard was, even mention him at all. Dimly, she felt that he wanted to but couldn’t begin, and she was clumsily unable to help him. But Gerald turned away, saying irritably, ‘Well. It’ll be your turn next, marrying some damn fool who can’t even wear proper evening clothes like a gentleman.’

‘Everyone wears dinner jackets these days,’ Amy said mildly. ‘Peter’s hardly in the shocking forefront there.’ She felt disappointed, as if something important had almost happened and then been interrupted.

‘Good night,’ Gerald said.

She went to him and kissed his cheek, and felt as she touched him that he was suddenly quite old.

Amy went slowly up the stairs to her room. Her jaw felt cracked with smiling and her head ached. It was a familiar feeling at the end of an evening. She even brought it home with her from debutante dances, when she was supposed to be dancing, and enjoying herself, and falling in love. As Isabel had done, presumably. But Amy doubted that it would ever work for her. Amy had begun her first Season, two years ago now, with all the zest and enthusiasm that she brought to anything new. The dances had seemed amazingly glamorous after the strictures of Miss Abbott’s school, and the men she met had all struck her as sophisticated and witty. But then, so quickly that she was ashamed, the idea of another dance with the same band, and the same food, and the same faces, preceded by the same sort of dinner with a new identical partner whose name was the only thing that distinguished him from the last, had become dull instead of exciting. Amy was puzzled to find that most of the young men bored her, whether they were soldiers, or City men, or just young men who went to dances all the time. The few who didn’t bore her made her shy, and tongue-tied, and they soon drifted on to the vivacious girls whom Amy envied because they always looked as if they were enjoying themselves so much. Isabel had been one of them. She had the ability to look happy and interested, wherever she was, and she had been one of the most popular girls of her year. Peter Jaspert was lucky to have her.

Amy shivered a little and sat down at her writing desk again. She pulled her big, black leather-covered journal towards her. She tried to write something every day, even though the aridity of the last months was more of a reproach than a pleasure. Desultorily, before starting to write, she flicked back through the pages. Here were the early days, full of schoolroom passions and rivalries, and long accounts of hunting at Chance. Two years ago came the explosion of her coming out, with minute descriptions of every dress and every conversation. Here was the night when a subaltern had kissed her in a taxi, and she had felt his collarstud digging into her and the shaved-off prickle of hair at the nape of his neck. She had thought sadly of Luis, and politely let the boy go on kissing her until they reached their destination.

Amy turned to the day of her presentation at Court. At three o’clock in the afternoon she had dressed in a long white satin dress with a train, tight snow-white gloves that came up over her elbows, and Lady Lovell’s maid had secured two white Prince of Wales’ feathers in her hair.

A great day [she had written]. Why was I so nervous? The Mall was one long line of cars to the Palace gates with white feathers nodding in each one. There were people all along the roadside to watch us arriving. Then all at once we were walking down the long red carpets past the flunkeys and there were seven girls in white dresses in front of me, then four, three, two and one, then I heard my name and all I could think was gather the train up, step forward, right foot behind left, head bowed and down, down, count to three and then up again. I didn’t fall over or drop my flowers. And then the King said something about Father at the Coronation …

Someone tapped at Amy’s door.

‘It’s me. Can I come in? I can’t sleep at all.’

Isabel came in wrapped in her old dressing-gown, and sat down on the bed.

‘Are you scared?’ Amy asked, and she shook her head.

‘Not exactly. Just thinking how … important it all is. How did Peter look?’

‘Very handsome,’ Amy said truthfully. ‘And he was wonderful with Uncle Edward and the colonel and all the rest of them.’

‘He is, isn’t he? I look at him sometimes when we’re with people and I feel so proud of him, and yet I feel that I don’t know him at all, and that he isn’t the private kind of man he is when we’re alone together.’

‘Do you know the private man, as you call it?’

Isabel blushed. ‘Not … not altogether physically, if you mean that. Neither of us felt that that was the right thing to do. But I think I do understand him. When he asked me to marry him, everything seemed suddenly simple, and clear, and I knew that I should accept.’

‘I’m glad,’ Amy said softy.

They were silent for a moment, and then Isabel asked in a lighter voice, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just writing in my diary. Or no, not even that. Looking back, instead of facing up to today. I was reading about the day I was presented. It seemed so important then, and so completely pointless now.’

Isabel laughed. ‘Oh dear, yes. I remember mine. I was directly behind Anne Lacy, who looked so beautiful no one could take their eyes off her. I could have been wearing trousers and a lampshade on my head and no one would have noticed.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. The Prince of Wales danced with you twice, the very same evening.’

‘Oh, do you remember? Mother thought our hour had come at last. Now you’ll have to marry him instead.’

‘Not a chance. I can never think of a word to say. Insipidity personified. I don’t know why Mother doesn’t try for him herself. She’s much more his type.’ They were still laughing, and Amy was thinking Is this the last time we’ll do this? when they heard quick, unsteady footsteps outside.

‘Is this a private party, my sisters, or can anyone join in?’

‘Richard.’

He was still wearing his school change coat, and his hair and trousers were soaked with rain.

‘I walked. From Soho, can you imagine? Tell me quickly, am I disinherited completely?’

‘Nothing was said. Father just gave us one of his white, silent looks when he realized you weren’t coming.’

‘Poor old tyrant. What about Mother?’

‘Worried about the table. You were promised to Lady Jaspert.’

‘Oh, dear God. Well, too late to worry now. And look, I’m not all bad. I’ve brought us this. The little man promised me that it was cold enough. Chilled further, I should think, by being hugged to my icy chest.’

From the recesses of his coat Richard produced a bottle of champagne. ‘Do you have any glasses in your boudoir, Amy, or shall I nip downstairs for some?’

‘You’ll have to go and get some. And change your clothes at the same time or you’ll get pneumonia.’

‘Well now, isn’t this snug?’ Richard reappeared in a thick tartan dressing-gown that made him look like a little boy again. He had rubbed his hair dry so that it stood up in fluffy peaks. He opened the champagne dexterously and poured it without spilling a drop.

‘Where have you been?’ Isabel asked. ‘It doesn’t matter about the party, and I’m glad you’ve turned up for the wedding itself, but you’re much too young to be wandering about in Soho, and drinking. Don’t pretend you haven’t been.’

‘I wouldn’t pretend to pretend,’ Richard said equably. He had developed the habit of looking out at the world under lowered eyelids that still didn’t disguise the quickness of his stare. He raised his glass to his sister. ‘Long life and happiness to you, Isabel. And I suppose that has to include Jaspert too. May his acres remain as broad as his beam and his fortunes in the pink like his face …’

‘Shut up, Richard,’ Amy ordered. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I came up on the four o’clock train like a good little boy. I was going to have tea with Tony Hardy at his publishing house and then come home to change. You remember Tony? As a matter of fact he’s coming to the wedding. I got Mother to ask him. D’you mind him being at your wedding, Bel?’

‘Not in the least.’

‘Good. It will be a help to me, you know, to have an ally amongst the ranks of duchesses. So, I went decorously to meet Tony at Randle & Cates and we talked about an idea I have. Then Tony suggested that we go across to the pub for a drink. Somehow one thing led to another, after that. We had dinner with a jazz singer and a woman who owns a nightclub, and about twenty others. It was a good deal more interesting than school supper and study hour, I can tell you. I lost Tony in the course of it all, and when I finally decided to extricate myself I realized that I had laid out my last farthing on your champagne and had to walk all the way back here in the rain. There you are. Nothing too culpable in that, is there?’

‘Tony Hardy should know better,’ Isabel said.

‘Unlike you, Tony knows that I can perfectly well take care of myself.’

‘I’m jealous,’ Amy told him. ‘I’ve never met a jazz singer in my life. Didn’t you look rather peculiar, a schoolboy amongst all those people?’

‘I was the object of some interest,’ Richard said with satisfaction, ‘but no one thought anything was peculiar. That’s the point, you see. Everything is acceptable, whatever it is.’

‘It’s not exactly the conventional way to behave.’ Isabel was frowning.

‘I’m not conventional. Surely you can’t condemn me for that? I don’t think Amy is, either. But you are, Isabel, and that’s why you’re going to marry Peter Jaspert tomorrow in the family lace and diamonds, in front of half the Royal Family and with your picture in all the dailies.’ Richard stood up and put his glass down with exaggerated care. Then he went and put his arms around his sister and hugged her. ‘I hope you’ll be so happy,’ he said seriously. ‘For ever and ever.’

Isabel smiled at him, her anxiety gone. ‘Thank you.’

They drank their champagne, and Amy made them laugh by recounting the excitements of her evening. ‘Every time Peter mentioned Ramsay MacDonald or the balance of payments or anything unconnected with horses or crops, Uncle Edward would shout “What? What? Can’t understand a thing the boy says.”’

At last Isabel stood up. ‘I’d better try and get some sleep. I think I’ll be able to, now I’ve had something to drink. Clever of you, Richard.’

‘Anything to help. I have to say one serious thing before you go.’

Isabel turned back again, alarm showing in her face.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a delicate point, but … well, someone ought to raise it. Just in case it’s been overlooked. Are you quite clear on the facts of life? Bees and birds and so forth? It’s just that Jaspert might seem to behave pretty oddly tomorrow night, and you should know why.’

‘Richard, you are horrible. I know everything I need to know, and a good deal more than you.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ he said quietly. ‘Good night, Isabel darling.’ All three of them hugged each other.

After Isabel had gone, Richard said, ‘Will it be all right for her, do you suppose?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Amy was heavy-hearted again.

‘You’ll still have me, you know,’ Richard reminded her.

‘I don’t think I will, by the sound of things. You’re already overtaking me.’

‘Poor Amy. It must be harder, being a girl. You should do something. Something other than getting measured for frocks and going to lunch, or whatever it is women do all day. The world’s full of girls out there doing things. I saw some in Tony’s offices today.’

‘I know,’ Amy said. ‘Of course I must do something. I don’t think I’m going to find a Peter Jaspert for myself, and I can’t sit about here or at Chance for ever. The question is, what could I do? I’m not any use for anything.’

‘That doesn’t sound very much like you,’ Richard said gently. ‘It’s your life to live, isn’t it? Not anyone else’s.’

Lady Lovell’s prayers had evidently been answered. The morning of Isabel’s wedding was bright, and frosty clear. When Bethan got up she went straight to the window. The pavements were shiny wet, but the sky was the translucent pearly white that would later turn to icy blue. The bare plane trees were motionless. There was no wind, either.

‘Let’s hope it’s the same there,’ Bethan murmured. She looked at the cheap alarm clock beside her bed and saw that there were a few minutes to spare. A quick note dashed off to Mam wouldn’t be quite the same thing as Bethan being there herself, but at least they would know that she was thinking of them.

All ready here, at last [she wrote]. The coming and going, you wouldn’t believe it. Thirty people here for dinner last night, and that just a small party of family to meet Mr Jaspert. Miss Isabel stayed in her room. She is as lovely and calm in the middle of it all as I would have expected her to be. My poor Amy is going to miss her, I know that much. I wish I could have been there with you, Mam, to see Nannon and Gwyn today, but I know you’ll all understand. They would have given me time if I’d asked, I’m sure of that, but with having had my two weeks and with Amy needing me, I felt I should stay here with them. But just the same I will be thinking of you at home.

How sad it is that the minister has gone from Nantlas. I would have liked to think of Nannon walking up to the Chapel in her white dress, on Dad’s arm, and everyone coming out on their steps to wave, like they used to. It’s not so easy to imagine the Ferndale registry.

I wonder what you’re doing this minute, Mam? Perhaps you’re sitting by the range with Nannon, brushing her hair. Or no, most likely you’re making the sandwiches. Is the Hall up at the Welfare all decorated with streamers, like they used to do it? At least you’ve got Dad there to help you. Did he understand about the money I sent? I don’t need it for anything here. I wish it could have been more, and of course Nannon should have a reception on her wedding day as fine as anyone in Nantlas. I know how hard it is when there isn’t the work. I’m sure that things will have to get better soon. Pits can’t stay closed for always, can they? I hope Nannon found the bit of money useful too. I’d have got her a present of course, but if she’s going to be living with Gwyn’s family for a bit perhaps she’d rather have it to spend on herself, instead of pots or blankets. Think of my little sister being married. How glad you must be that Gwyn’s in the Co-op and not down the pit. He may be a bit old for her, but he’s a good, kind man and I’m sure he’ll make Nannon happy. I’ll be thinking of you all day, you especially, Mam.

It’s fine and clear here, and I pray it is in Nantlas too.

God BLESS you all, your loving BETHAN.

Bethan folded her letter and put it into the envelope. There would be just enough time to run out to the post with it before going down to Amy.

Mari Penry sat back on her heels and stared at the sullen grate. They had let the fire in the range go out to save coal, and now she couldn’t get it going again with the dusty slack left in the bucket.

‘Are you cold, Dickon?’ she asked the child. He didn’t answer, nor did she expect him to, but she always made sure to include him in everything. Dickon was sitting in his usual place, close to the range in the little low chair that Nick had made for him. Mari pulled her own thin cardigan closer around her and went to feel his hands. The fingers were cold, but his stomach under the layers of woollens was warm enough.

‘Well then,’ she said, hugging him. ‘We’ll wait till your dad comes back, and then we’ll go up to the wedding party and leave the stupid old fire, shall we?’

Dickon looked up at her, and rewarded her with one of his rare smiles that broke his round, solemn face into sudden affection.

‘That’s my boy,’ Mari said. She went through into the front parlour to look out of the window for Nick. It was even colder in here, with a dampness that seemed to cling to the walls and the few pieces of furniture. Mari pulled the lace curtain at the window aside and peered out.

Half a dozen children were playing chasing games from one side of the road to the other, and at the corner a knot of men in scarves and collars turned up against the cold were talking together. There was no sign of Nick in either direction. Mari sighed and straightened the curtain again. She would have liked to make a pot of tea, but without the fire she couldn’t boil the kettle.

‘Mari? You there?’ The back kitchen door banged. Nick must have come the other way, down the back entry. She ran through into the kitchen. Nick had picked Dickon up out of his chair and was swinging him up and down. Dickon was chuckling and pulling at his father’s hair.

‘I thought you’d left home, you’ve been gone so long.’

Gently Nick lowered the boy back into his seat. Dickon’s eyes followed him as he moved around the room.

‘Left home? Hardly,’ Nick said, with the bitterness that rarely faded out of his voice nowadays. He looked around, frowning. ‘It’s too cold in here for Dickon.’

‘I couldn’t get the fire going again, with that.’ Mari pointed to the bucket. ‘He’s all right, under his clothes.’

‘I got half a sack of good stuff. I’ll have the place warm in ten minutes. And I called in at the Co-op. Gwyn Jones is off, of course, but they let me have a loaf and some other bits for now.’

Nick had been up at the shut-down No. 2 pit, picking over the slag heap for lumps of coal. Mr Peris didn’t allow scavenging, as he called it, around his pits but the managers often turned a blind eye. Half the men of Nantlas were out of work now that the second pit was closed, and for many of them it was the only way of keeping their families warm.

Mari watched him busying himself over the fire.

‘I thought we could leave it,’ she said. ‘As we’re going up to the Welfare later.’

Nick shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

‘You would forget, wouldn’t you? Anything nice that happens, for once? All you can remember is meetings, and committees, and the Federation. Why can’t you leave it? You aren’t even a miner any more, are you?’

Nick seemed not to hear her. He put a match to a tight coil of newspaper, and a yellow tongue of flame shot upwards. Dickon crooned with pleasure at the sight of it.

‘Nick? Please, Nick.’ Mari’s shoulders hunched up, and she didn’t even try to blink the tears out of her eyes. ‘What’s happened to everything?’

Carefully Nick smoothed a sheet of newspaper across the front of the grate and shut the oven doors on it to hold it in place. Behind it the fire flickered up and began to crackle cheerfully. Only when he was sure that it had caught properly did he turn round to Mari.

‘You know what’s happened,’ he said. ‘And you know why. There’s no work for me, or for most of the men in this valley. We’ve eighteen shillings a week to live on, after the rent. The only hope for change in this industry is the lads themselves. We’ve got to win worker control some day, Mari, and the only way to do that is to go on fighting, through all the meetings and committees, as you call them, or starve to death first.’

‘Starve to death, then,’ Mari said, ‘For all the good any of you are doing.’

Nick’s arm shot out and he pulled her around so quickly that her head jerked backwards. ‘Never say that. Never, do you hear?’ Then he saw the tracks of tears on her cheeks, and remembered how rosy her cheeks had been when they were first married. Instead of shaking her, as he had almost done, he pulled her roughly to him. Her head fitted gratefully into the hollow of his shoulder and he kissed her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I told you what it was going to be like, that first day down at Barry Island, didn’t I? Perhaps you shouldn’t have said yes. You could have married anyone you wanted. Kept your job up at the Lodge, instead of losing it because of me.’

‘I never wanted anyone else,’ Mari said. She rubbed her face against him, solacing herself with his familiarity. She knew all of him, the grim willpower and the stubborn pride just as well as his face and the set of his shoulders under the old coat, and she still loved him.

‘Mari,’ Nick whispered, ‘let’s go upstairs for half an hour. Dickon will be all right down here in the warm.’

She hesitated for a second, thinking longingly, and then she shook her head. ‘It’s too risky this time of the month. Next week, Nick, it’ll be all right then.’

‘I’ll be careful.’ He kissed her mouth, tracing the shape of it with his own.

She clung to him, his warmth warming her, but she said ‘No, Nick. It isn’t safe.’

I couldn’t go through Dickon again, she wanted to cry to him. Not the day he was born, nor the time after when we were finding out what was wrong. Not another baby. And if one did come, even if it wasn’t like Dickon, how could we care for it, on what we’ve got? There were too many families in Nantlas with hungry children. No more babies in this family. Not while the world was like this.

But Mari didn’t say any more. It was old, well-trodden ground between Nick and herself and she knew from experience that it was less hurtful to let the silence grow between them than to go round in the old, painful circles yet again. Nick let his arms drop to his sides.

‘Well. Put the kettle on, will you, my love? Let’s pretend that a nice pot of tea will do just as much good. And how could a pot of tea make you pregnant?’

Towards the end of the afternoon, when it was already dark in the valley bottom, the Penrys carefully damped down their fire and set off up the hill to the Miners’ Welfare. Dickon could walk almost as well as other children now, although it had taken him years of effort to learn, but he began to whimper with cold halfway up the street and Nick swung him up into his arms without breaking his stride. There were bright lights in the Welfare Hall and groups of people were coming towards it from all directions. Nick and Mari walked in silence, staring straight ahead of them. They quarrelled too often now, and it was growing harder to make up their differences as they would once have done, impulsively.