Broken Rainbows Read Free

Mrs Llewellyn-Jones visited, she visited. She’d be lucky to get rid of the woman in under two hours, and she’d been looking forward to spending the time before her favourite programme playing, bathing and reading to her two children.
    Gathering her coat, nurse’s bag and handbag from the back seat, she left the car. Maisie, the unmarried mother she’d taken out of the workhouse to keep house and help with the children, was waiting at the front door.
    â€˜Mrs Llewellyn-Jones …’
    Bethan nodded as she hung her cape on the beechwood stand. ‘I saw her car.’
    â€˜Mr Williams is with her. They insisted on seeing Liza and her sisters. I don’t know what they said to them but the girls have been crying ever since. They won’t talk to me. They’ve shut themselves in their bedroom and …’
    â€˜Whatever it is, I’ll sort it out, Maisie. You’ve put our visitors in the drawing room?’
    â€˜And taken them tea and cake.’
    â€˜Thank you. Tell the children to keep the noise down in the kitchen. They can play in the drawing room after Mrs Llewellyn-Jones and Mr Williams have gone. And as soon Rachel and Eddie have finished their tea send them in to me please.’
    â€˜Even if Mrs Llewellyn-Jones is still with you?’
    â€˜Even if the king and queen decide to join us. They are my children and I want to spend every minute I can with them.’ Bethan gave her a reassuring smile as she crossed the hall. For all of her housekeeper’s domestic capabilities she couldn’t help thinking of her as a young girl, although they had been in the same class in primary school.
    Steeling herself for a dose of Mrs Llewellyn-Jones’s imperious superiority, she opened the door and walked into the spacious drawing room that her husband, Andrew, had spent a great deal of time, money and care in furnishing when they had moved into the house. Before taking in evacuees she had packed his beloved blond wood, art deco furniture and ornaments into the stables. Now, the wallpaper and paintwork were as shabby as the second-hand pieces she had acquired to replace them. Despite Maisie and Liza Clark’s eagle-eyed supervision, six evacuee children plus her own two, and Maisie’s little girl had wreaked havoc, not only on the drawing room, but the entire house.
    â€˜Mrs Llewellyn-Jones, this is an unexpected visit.’ Bethan glanced at the tray Maisie had set out with an embroidered linen tray cloth, the best china and a plate of home-made dripping cakes. She hoped Maisie hadn’t been over-generous. Rationing and wartime shortages meant there were never enough cakes and biscuits for the children, whereas Mr Llewellyn-Jones’s position as bank manager brought him into contact with enough black-marketeers to ensure that neither his wife nor his daughter went short of luxuries.
    â€˜Bethan.’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones inclined her double chin but made no attempt to leave the battered but comfortable chair she’d sunk her bulk into. Rhodri Williams compensated for her lack of courtesy by leaving his seat and offering his hand.
    â€˜I believe you know Mr Williams?’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones crumbled the cake on her plate with pudgy, beringed fingers.
    â€˜We’re old acquaintances.’ Bethan shook his hand. ‘How is your wife?’
    â€˜Fine, thanks to you and Nurse Evans, Nurse John. You did a magnificent job of caring for her after that nasty fall. She still can’t walk without a stick, but she is moving a lot easier.’
    â€˜And she’ll continue to mend as long as she doesn’t go dusting the tops of any more blackout curtains.’
    â€˜The trouble with blackout material is that it shows every speck of grey dust and spider’s web.’ Mrs Llewellyn-Jones stared pointedly at the curtains draped around the rails of the twin bay windows.
    â€˜Doesn’t it?’ Bethan agreed, straining to keep her