Sweet Rosie by Iris Gower

cough to rack her body and no pain. And she was ready to go.
    The funeral of Maura Dundee took place a week later. It was Watt who paid for the coffin maker and the gravedigger. The day was absurdly sunny, the sky above the cemetery cloudless even though the ground was covered in frost.
    Watt looked down into the darkness of the earth and knew his life would never be the same again. The only other mourners were Eynon Morton-Edwards and Llinos Mainwaring. A few onlookers stood far enough away not to risk catching anything from the people at the graveside.
    If Watt had raised his head, he would have seen that they were not the only ones burying their dead that day. One family carried nothing but a battered wooden door with a cloth-covered body on it. The coffin maker had been excessively busy and, in any case, good wooden caskets cost more money than most people could spare especially when there was likely to be more than one death in the family.
    Eventually, the ordeal was over. Watt felt Llinos take his arm and draw him away from the fresh mound of earth. He looked beyond the grave, wanting everything to go away, wanting Maura to be alive.
    ‘I’m alone.’ He was not aware he had spoken the words out loud. Llinos hugged his arm to her side.
    ‘No, you’re not alone, Watt, you will always have me at your side.’ She spoke with confidence, as though she knew the sickness could not reach her. He straightened his shoulders and walked with the small group away from the grave and away from the woman he had loved with all his heart.
    It was several weeks later when Watt remembered Maura’s dying request. He sat in his room, vacated now because Eira had made a complete recovery. For an instant, he longed to damn Eira to hell. Why should Maura die and Eira live? It just was not fair. He drew pen and paper towards him, he needed to couch his letter very carefully; Maura had made it plain that she wanted no trouble for Binnie.
    He thought long and hard and in the end penned a short note telling Binnie that he, Watt, had lost the only woman he had ever really loved. That Maura was now laid in the cemetery up on the hill above Swansea. As he sealed it down, he knew that for Binnie this would be good news: he was a free man. As for Watt, he felt as though he was in prison and that he would never be free, ever again.
    It was early one morning when Llinos heard the rumble of carriage wheels in the drive. She ran to the window, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. Joe had come home.
    She watched him alight from the carriage with tears in her eyes. He was even more bronzed now; his golden skin tanned a deeper gold by the hot American sun. She saw the worried look on his face; he knew, as he always knew, that there was trouble at home.
    Llinos flung open the door and rushed out to meet him. He held her tenderly in his arms, careless of apprentices watching open-mouthed.
    ‘Swansea is silent,’ he said, ‘the streets deserted. Is it the plague?’ He held his arm around her as they walked together into the house.
    ‘It’s the whooping cough.’ Llinos looked up at him, he was here, Joe was actually at her side, he was safe and he was home.
    ‘Llioyd, is he well?’
    Llinos smiled, though worry etched lines around her eyes.
    ‘He’s safe and well; so is Charlotte. Come inside, Joe, it’s so cold out here.’
    She rang for the maid; she wanted Joe to see his son, to see how Lloyd had grown in the time his father had been away.
    Joe’s face lit up when Lloyd ran into his arms, clinging to him as though he would never let him go.
    ‘Rosie, fetch Mrs Marks, she’s resting in her room, tell her that her brother is home.’ She held onto Joe’s arm. ‘Now you are here everything will be all right, I just know it,’ Llinos said softly. She was reluctant to move from her husband’s side. All she wanted to do was to stay in Joe’s arms for ever.
    Charlotte cried out in delight when she saw Joe. She sat next to him on the deep