The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred P - By Wendy Jones Page 0,2

her mouth then rushed along the landing corridor and back into her bedroom. She was no longer wearing her yellow dress, Wilfred noticed.

‘Doctor Reece is sitting in his surgery.’ Mrs Reece said. She rapped on the door. ‘Doctor Reece, Wilfred Price is here. He is requesting an audience with you,’ she called shrilly through the closed door. Grace’s father appeared and held out an arm, indicating that Wilfred was to enter the front room where his patients visited him. It was a dark room with peacock-blue wallpaper and a couch to one side.

‘Wilfred? Have a seat. Take this chair.’

Wilfred waited as Grace’s tall father walked behind his desk and settled down heavily in a high-backed chair, Wilfred sitting down a second or two afterwards as good manners dictated. Dr Reece slowly moved his stethoscope off his blotting pad and placed it next to the table telephone.

‘Now, Wilfred,’ he began austerely, ‘you have come about Grace.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilfred, quickly pulling down the cuffs of his shirt.

‘To ask for her hand in marriage,’ Dr Reece stated. ‘She has informed us of your proposal today.’

There were several mute moments. Dr Reece picked up the blue glass paperweight on his desk and turned it in his large hands. Wilfred watched. This was his opportunity. He would say what he’d practised saying on the beach earlier. He waited a moment longer. The grandfather clock ticked and marked time. He would just wait until Dr Reece finished knocking the papers on the desk to straighten them. And replace the paperweight. And then he’d tell him. Wilfred knew that in these moments, many things were held in the balance. Dr Reece patted the paperweight. What Wilfred earnestly felt, and thought would be simple to say, was proving more complex. He still didn’t want to marry Grace, but the execution of his sentiments was more formidable than he had imagined.

Eventually Dr Reece looked up. ‘There are’, he boomed confidently, ‘one or two matters on which you will understand I require clarity. It is your own funeral business, is it not?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘May I be so bold as to ask the state of the business’s affairs?’

‘I get by, sir.’

‘You don’t go without? You earn sufficient living from the funeral trade?’

‘I do, sir.’ Then added, ‘Just about.’

‘No debts in the company? We wouldn’t want that, would we now, Wilfred? Perhaps from the purchase of the hearse?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It isn’t something one imagines one’s daughter marrying into, mind. But you say that it’s a solid business, which is important what with all this unemployment. And there will always be custom for an undertaker, mercifully less so now than during the Great War.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is it what you would call a family business?’

Wilfred nodded. He looked down at his shoes, scuffed by the sand, and took a deep breath, ready to speak.

‘So any children,’ Dr Reece continued, running his hand across his beard, ‘well … that’s getting ahead of ourselves. And you intend to do well by Grace?’

Wilfred hesitated. ‘Sir …’ He would speak out. ‘Sir, I …’ He moved forward in his chair and the waxed floorboards underneath him squeaked.

There was a knock at the door. Grace’s brother Madoc poked his head round. ‘I’m popping off to the picture palace in Tenby with Sidney to watch The Thief of Baghdad. See you later, Father. Evening, Wilfred. Oh, and I’ve mended the lock on the suitcase.’

‘All right, Madoc,’ replied Dr Reece, smiling leniently. ‘Forgive me, Wilfred,’ he continued, stroking his thick grey beard, ‘these are most personal inquiries and are liable to stir one to great feeling. Because Grace is delicate, Wilfred, and she will need your solicitousness and patience, now and in the years to come. We need not dwell on it, only to say you must give Mrs Reece and I your absolute word of honour that you will be an upright husband to our daughter, Grace.’

‘Yes,’ Wilfred said quietly.

Grace lifted the roof of the hive then broke the honey seal. Her hands moved clumsily as she pulled out the first frame. She was wearing her brother’s white apiary suit, and the gloves, certainly, were too large for her but Mother thought it highly imprudent to purchase a suit especially for Grace when Madoc’s just about did. Nurse bees were crawling over the honeycomb busy caring for the larvae, feeding them nectar and pollen. Grace cautiously turned the cedar frame over – there was more honey than she expected. She stroked the bees away before uncapping the wax-topped hexagons and watched a