Not One of Us

by Alis Hawkins

  They shook their heads and stared at me, eyes wide.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ I said. ‘Mr Probert-Lloyd left me a message to meet him here. Did he say when he’d be back?’

  More shaking of heads, mouths tight closed.

  ‘Not at chapel today?’ They weren’t in Sunday best.

  No answer to that either.

  ‘Is your mam or dada here?’

  They stared at me like two baby birds in a nest looking at a boy who’s climbed the tree to steal eggs. The one who looked to be the younger of them – maybe nine or ten years old – shook her sister. ‘You say.’ But the older girl kept her mouth clamped shut.

  I waited. I’d learned that from Harry. Don’t ask too many questions.

  ‘Dada’s gone to talk to the carpenter about a coffin for Lizzie,’ the younger one blurted. ‘And Mam’s gone to church to see about her burial money.’

  Sounded as if Lizzie Rees’s mother was part of one of these friendly societies where women saved money for a rainy day.

  ‘Has Mr Probert-Lloyd been here today?’ I asked.

  Both heads nodded. ‘And yesterday,’ the younger one said.

  ‘D’you know where he was going when he left here today?’

  Just then, Seren clopped up behind me, hooves muffled on the dusty path, and butted my back. She didn’t like me dropping her reins and leaving her. I took hold of them again and stroked her neck.

  The girls laughed, but thanks to the mare, they sounded less shrill now, more normal.

  ‘So do you?’ I asked again. ‘Know where he was going?’

  ‘To Dolbannon,’ the older one said.

  ‘To see Barti Ddu,’ said her sister.

  Barti Ddu. Must be quite a character to deserve a pirate’s nickname.

  ‘And what did Mr Probert-Lloyd want to see this Barti Ddu for?’

  The younger one jutted her chin and opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, her sister said, all in a rush, ‘It was him brought the news to us about Lizzie being dead. To Ffynone.’

  Their faces crumpled then. Just for a few moments, me arriving – and Seren’s antics – had made them forget that their big sister’d died. I felt sorry for them, the way their faces suddenly ran with tears.

  But they didn’t stop at tears. They started clutching at each other and sobbing fit to break their hearts. I didn’t know what to do.

  In the end, I couldn’t bear it any more and I cleared my throat before asking, ‘Has Dr Reckitt been here today?’

  The question seemed to remind them that I was there. They hiccuped and wiped their eyes with their fingers, and before long the crying’d stopped.

  ‘No,’ the older one said. ‘Only the coroner.’

  ‘Can you come a bit closer?’ I asked. They were cowering at the far end of the gable wall and I was afraid they’d suddenly disappear around the back of the house.

  They looked at each other and the older one nodded. She wasn’t much taller than her sister, but she was less of a little girl – maybe twelve or thirteen years old. The pair of them had the same thick golden-blonde hair, and even if they were a bit on the underfed side, their eyes were clear and they had some pink in their cheeks. I felt sorry for the older one because you could see that her little sister was going to be a beauty. Like Lizzie, by all accounts.

  I fixed my eyes on her. ‘Like I said, my name’s John Davies. What do they call you two?’

  ‘I’m Ann and she’s—’

  Her sister slapped her, wanting to speak for herself. ‘I’m Gwen.’

  Looking at the two of them, I reckoned I was still just about of an age where I could ask them the kind of questions Harry’d never get away with, especially as they’d landed in my lap while their parents were away and there was nobody to shush them.

  I took my specs off and pulled out a shirt tail to polish them. There was a neatly pressed handkerchief in my pocket, but using that would’ve made me look like a gentleman. ‘So, Dr Reckitt – what did you think of him? Bit like a bear in clothes, isn’t he?’

  The girls giggled but didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s a long way for your mam to go and fetch him, from Cilgerran.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Why d’you think she wanted to speak to him? The local doctor’d already said it was natural causes Lizzie died from, hadn’t he?’

  Ann stared at me. Her eyes were brown, I noticed. Unusual combination, golden hair and brown eyes. She didn’t say anything, just stared as if she was trying to send her thoughts straight into my head, like those mesmerists were supposed to be able to do.

  Then Gwen’s chin went up again. ‘It was because Lizzie stayed—’

  ‘Gwen, husht!’

  ‘Stayed where?’ I asked. Gwen’s eyes weren’t like her sister’s; they were blue – the colour of Willow pattern china.

  She shook Ann off and took half a step towards me. ‘Here.’

  ‘While you two and your mother were away working?’

  Ann stepped forward too. ‘Yes, Mam said she should come with us but Dada let her stay.’

  ‘Because she said she had a cold but sh—’

  Ann’s hand went over her sister’s mouth, shutting off whatever she’d been about to say, but it was too late. Gwen thought her sister’d been shamming this cold.

  I was about to ask why she’d do that, but before I could open my mouth, I heard a horse trotting up to the house and a man’s voice calling out, ‘Mr Rees, Mrs Rees?’

  The girls turned and fled.

  Benton Reckitt’s timing couldn’t have been worse.

  Harry

  Having left Barti to go off to church with his master, I rode over to Eglwyswrw, only to find that John had already left for Rhosdywarch.

  As Sara and I trotted back towards the Reeses’ smallholding, I wondered how frosty a reception I should expect from John. I knew that he would resent being summoned for what I still had no reason to suspect was anything other than a natural death, and I could only hope that Reckitt’s further examination of Lizzie’s body this afternoon might shed sufficient light on her father’s lies and evasions to justify my involvement.

  However, whether that justification would make John any less taciturn than he had been of late remained to be seen.

  Ever since he had begun working under Micah Ormiston, he had never seemed entirely at ease. Initially I had assumed that this was a young man’s impatience to be given more responsibility, but having seen him ride out on estate business unaccompanied by Ormiston, I had been forced to revise my opinion. Something else was clearly at the root of his discontent.

  As my father’s man, I recognised that Ormiston might be a little old-fashioned in his approach, and in truth, John had suggested that I become more actively involved in Glanteifi’s affairs, but I was reluctant to be seen to interfere in estate business when I had no experience to back up any opinions I might have.

  Ormiston had worked for my father, man and boy, and shared his encyclopaedic knowledge of tenants, land and future plans. Since my father’s death, whenever I might have interested myself in the estate’s management, I had found myself paralysed by an unwillingness to admit that my own knowledge was less thorough; that during the months before the series of apoplectic strokes that had killed my father, I had neither sought his advice nor allowed him to discuss estate business with me. My bitterness at being forced home from London had coloured all aspects of life at Glanteifi with a bilious resentment, and I had seized on the excuse offered by my alternative occupation as coroner to effectively dissociate myself from my inheritance.

  And now I was suffering the consequences. I knew John was right, that I should discuss matters with Ormiston, but I simply could not bring myself to allow my steward to see just how ignorant I was when it came to knowledge of my father’s methods and plans. Bad enough that I knew myself to have been a poor excuse for a son; I could not face the prospect of Ormiston knowing it too. Instead, I persuaded myself that it would be best
simply to allow him to get on with the job he was uniquely qualified to do, while I tried to do the same. So, having asked him to run the estate in the most profitable way he could, I made it my job to seek out investment opportunities.

  To that end, I had begun to reintroduce myself to Teifiside society. After spending almost a decade away from Cardiganshire, first at Oxford, then in London, I was scarcely on nodding acquaintance with those who should have been my friends and allies, and Lydia had been quick to point out that I must rectify this if I wished to make a success of my new life. Joining forces with my housekeeper, Mrs Griffiths, who had firm opinions about the social duties of the gentry, she had issued invitations on my behalf with a liberal hand, and with an alacrity due as much to curiosity about me and my novel household as to good manners, those invitations had been accepted. Subsequently, my person and my manners having obviously passed muster, reciprocal invitations began to arrive, and I found myself re-embraced by my Teifiside peers.

  Much to my relief, conversations at several mansions had revealed that I need not look far for a business venture worthy of my capital. Virtually every local gentleman with thruppence in the pound to spare had declared his intention of investing in the South Wales Railway’s proposed extension between Carmarthen and Cardigan, and again and again I had been encouraged to lay my hands on as much ready cash as I could in order to be ready to buy shares when they were issued. If Micah Ormiston succeeded in the task I had set him, returns on such an investment might yet save Glanteifi.

  * * *

  There were two horses standing in front of the Reeses’ cottage, and with them, two men. I knew John by his voice before I could get close enough to see his familiar figure, and the voice that answered him was equally recognisable. Reckitt.

  ‘Well met, gentlemen!’ I called, feeling a flutter of discomfort as I wondered what they had been discussing.

  John came towards me as I dismounted.

  ‘Thank you for coming straight away,’ I said, my voice pitched so only he would hear. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll smooth things over with Mr Ormiston.’

  ‘It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s all the work that won’t get done while I’m here. He left quite a bit for me to do.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the Crystal Palace?’

  John sighed. ‘It was… I don’t know. There was a lot to take in. Shall we talk about it later, when there isn’t a body to inspect?’

  ‘Reckitt’s already done his preliminary examination,’ I said. ‘There’s no need for you to see her.’

  Though he had become accustomed to the more grisly aspects of our work, I knew that John did not relish the viewing of the body, something he was obliged to do in my stead.

  ‘Why are you standing out here?’ I asked, including Reckitt in the question. ‘Family not back from chapel yet?’

  ‘Girls are here, parents aren’t,’ John summarised. ‘Mr Rees is arranging a coffin and I think Mrs Rees must’ve been putting money by for a rainy day with a local friendly society. She’s gone to get it to pay for the funeral.’

  ‘Or possibly to pay me,’ Reckitt said. ‘Are you going to allow—’

  ‘Where are the girls?’ I interrupted him.

  ‘Ran off when they heard the doctor arrive,’ John replied.

  ‘Did they say when their parents were likely to be back?’

  ‘No. But it could be a while. If their dada’s gone to speak to the carpenter, the business’ll probably get done in the pub after chapel.’

  ‘Right. Let’s not waste time here, then. You and I’ll go and see Dr Gwynne.’

  ‘I’ll come with—’

  ‘No, Reckitt. You wait here. When Mic and Esther Rees return, you can do whatever bits of your examination you weren’t able to do yesterday.’

  ‘And if Mrs Rees wants a full post-mortem?’

  I sighed. ‘That, I suppose, becomes a private matter between you and her if there is no reason to call an inquest.’ Keen to end the subject, I turned to John. ‘Do you know where Dr Gwynne lives?’

  ‘More or less, but can you give me a few minutes first?’ John asked. ‘I’d like to speak to the girls again. Dr Reckitt arrived just when they were about to tell me something.’

  I failed to see the urgency. ‘They’ll still be here when we get back.’

  ‘Yes, but their mother might be here by then and she’ll tell them not to gossip.’

  ‘Not if it’s official coroner’s business. I had no interference when I spoke to them yesterday.’

  ‘And did you get anything useful from them?’

  I had to admit that I had not. But still, that was no reason to delay. Given the discrepancies in timing between Mic Rees’s original statement and the information Barti had given me, I wanted to see whose testimony Dr Gwynne’s account tallied with. It was possible, of course, that Rees, distraught at the discovery of his daughter’s body, had become confused about the course of events, but still, it would be useful to have two independent witnesses to events when we confronted him.

  ‘We can speak to the girls when we get back,’ I said. ‘We need to see Gwynne now.’

  John

  I could see Harry wasn’t going to change his mind, so I backed down. I’d have to find a way of talking to Ann and Gwen by myself when we got back. I knew they’d tell me more than they’d told Harry. He was a squire and they’d be afraid of him.

  Dr Cadwgan Gwynne was famous enough for me to know he lived next to the old college in Felindre Farchog, so we pointed our mares’ noses in that direction and on the way Harry told me what he’d discovered so far.

  ‘Right, let me see if I’ve got it all,’ I said when he’d finished. ‘This Mic Rees says his daughter died in her bed, but she didn’t. He told his wife he didn’t change the girl’s clothes, but he did. Then he went over to – what was the name of the farm where the pirate works?’ If there was an inquest, I’d be writing all this up and I needed the details clear in my head.

  ‘Dolbannon.’

  ‘Right. Yes. And this Barti Ddu works for David Jones. All right then. Mic Rees rides over to Dolbannon after he’s had the doctor to his dead daughter and asks for a messenger to take the news to his wife at Ffynone.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Why didn’t he want to go and tell his wife himself?’

  Harry knew what I was getting at. ‘Presumably because he still had things to do at home before his wife got back.’

  ‘Exactly. And what things might those have been?’ Most likely he’d been catching up with little jobs that’d been left undone while his wife was away, but there was always the possibility that he’d had things to cover up.

  As we trotted along, we passed people dawdling home from chapel in the sunshine and a coach thundered past us on its way to Cardigan, forcing us almost into the ditch. It didn’t seem possible that I’d been on a coach myself yesterday. And the day before that, I’d been in London. Since I’d been back, it’d all started to seem like something from another time. The Crystal Palace. Soyer’s Symposium. Even Jem Harborne.

  My stomach knotted up at the thought of the wool man. He’d told me and Lleu that he’d be back in Llandyfriog this week. Maybe he was there already.

  ‘Harry, d’you know a man called Jem Harborne?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Who is he?’

  ‘I met him at the Exhibition. Says he’s building a wool factory in Llandyfriog.’

  ‘A wool factory?’

  ‘A weaving mill to begin with. Then the rest. Carding, spinning, fulling. The lot.’

  Harry turned to look at me, even though it meant he’d lose me behind the blind patch in front of his eyes. He couldn’t help himself – when he was really surprised, I think he forgot he was blind. ‘What, all under one roof?’

  ‘All on the same site, certainly.’ I was pretty sure that was what Harborne had said.

  Harry frowned. ‘And he’s starting with a power loom?’

  ‘Yes. Just like the ones in Yorkshire, according t
o him.’

  ‘Steam-powered?’

  ‘No. Water, like normal mills.’

  ‘Where’s he from? Not here, I assume?’

  Was he going by Harborne’s name, or the fact that nobody’d ever talked about mechanising weaving in the Teifi Valley? ‘He is, as it happens. From Llandysul, but he went to Newtown in Montgomeryshire to be apprenticed. Then Leeds. Bigger, better machines according to him.’

  ‘And now he wants to bring those machines here.’

  ‘Yes, to make pots of money shipping cloth down to the new towns in the coalfields. Reckons he can steal the market because of being on the doorstep. But never mind him for now.’ I slowed Seren to a walk. Felindre Farchog’s odd little college building was in sight ahead of us, so Gwynne’s house would be close by. ‘Stop a minute, Harry.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Just hold on.’ I pulled Seren up and Sara stopped alongside. ‘What do you know about Cadwgan Gwynne?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. Hadn’t heard his name till yesterday.’

  I’d thought as much. Harry might like to present himself as the local boy – he’d certainly played that card every chance he’d got during the election for the coronership back in April – but he’d been back in Cardiganshire less than a year. Before that, he’d spent the whole of his adult life somewhere else.

  ‘Dr Gwynne’s a wizard,’ I said. I could tell I’d shocked him, but he was trying not to show it. ‘He’d probably call himself something else – dyn hysbys or something.’ Good job we were speaking in Welsh because I wasn’t sure what the English for dyn hysbys would be. It meant something like ‘knowing man’. Not quite ‘wise man’, but somebody who knew things other people didn’t.

  ‘I heard that his name was in the medical register,’ Harry said. ‘For what that’s worth.’

  ‘I’m not saying he’s not medically qualified. Everybody knows his father sent him to London, to the university. But he came back to take over the practice when the old man died.’