Hearts of Gold Read Free Page B

the small reception that his wife Hetty had dutifully arranged in the vestry.
    He saw himself as a plain speaking man, but even Hetty, who was used to his harsh, God-fearing ways, cringed when he pointed a long thin finger at Elizabeth, glowered at her darkly and bellowed that he was glad, really glad, that his dead brother and sister-in-law were not alive to see their daughter sink so low.
    Elizabeth recalled his words every day of her married life. They came to here even now as she looked around her kitchen and saw her daughter in a state of undress, the unhealthy colour rising in the lodger’s cheeks as he surreptitiously ogled the curves outlined beneath the thin cloth of Bethan’s dressing gown, her son and husband sitting at the table, boots off, not even wearing collars with their shirts.
    She felt that not only herself but her children had sunk to the lowest level of the working-class life she’d been forced to live and had learned to despise with every fibre of her being.
    ‘I’ll draw the water for you, Beth.’ Haydn smiled cheerfully at his sister as he pushed the last piece of bread and jam from his plate into his mouth.
    ‘Thank you.’ Bethan walked past the pantry and unlatched the planked door that led into the wash house. Switching on the light she sidestepped between the huge, round gas wash boiler and massive stone sink that served the only tap in the house. Opening the outside door, she caught her breath in the face of the cold wind that greeted her, placed her foot in the yard and slid precariously across the four feet of iced paving stones that separated the house and garden ways, grazing her hands painfully in the process.
    She gripped the wall desperately trying to maintain her balanced while she regained her breath. The drains had obviously overflowed before the frost had struck, and the whole of the back yard was covered by a sheet of black ice.
    ‘Sorry, Sis, I would have warned you, but you came out a bit fast.’
    She squinted into the darkness, and saw her youngest brother Eddie brushing his boots on the steps that led to the shed and the square of fenced in dirt where her father kept his lurcher.
    ‘I bet you would have,’ she replied caustically. Rubbing the sting out of her hands she inched her way along the wall until she reached the narrow alley in the back right-hand corner of the yard that led to the ty bach or “little house” that hid the WC.
    Protected from the weather on three sides by the house, high garden wall and the communal outhouse wall they shared with next door, it wasn’t quite as cold as the yard and thanks to the rags that her father had wrapped around the pipes and high cistern, the plumbing worked in spite of the frost.
    The heat blasted welcomingly into her stiff and frozen face when she returned to the kitchen. Haydn was sitting on the kerb of the hearth filling her mother’s enamel kitchen jug from the brass tap of the boiler set into the range.
    ‘Mind you top that water level up before you go.’ Elizabeth carped at Haydn. ‘I’ve no time to do it, and if the level falls low the boiler will blow.
    ‘I’ll do it now:’ Haydn winked at Bethan as he handed the steaming jug across the table. Six feet tall with blond hair and deep blue eyes that could melt the most granite-like heart, Haydn was the family charmer. His looks contributed only in part to that charm. His regular features were set attractively in his long face, and his full mouth was frequently curved into a beguiling smile, but it was his manner that won him most friends. At nineteen, he possessed a tact, diplomacy and an apparent sincerity that was the envy of every clergyman, Baptist as well as Anglican, on the Graig.
    ‘You won’t be topping up anything unless you hurry,’ Elizabeth complained sourly. ‘It’s a quarter-past five now.’
    ‘The wagons won’t be leaving the brewery yard until seven. I’ve plenty of time to get there, persuade the foreman to give me a morning’s