by Alis Hawkins
Lydia had been invited to accompany me to Plas Blaengwyn, a fact that was not as notable as it might have been three months ago. Much to my surprise, I had discovered that the social world of the Teifi Valley readily encompassed invitations for private secretaries, though I doubted whether the same would have been true had the secretary been male, and therefore of less interest.
The new Mrs Saunders-James – previously Eleanor James, heiress to the Blaengwyn estate – had, prior to her engagement, been in danger of being written off as an old maid, having reached the advanced age of twenty-nine unwed. Lydia, I knew, must be at least three years her senior, if not more, yet she had not felt like an old maid when I took her in my arms. Not at all.
Had she felt the same stirring when we danced, or had she simply been humouring me – her employer?
‘When will you hold the inquest?’
Having not seen the landlord return with the requested food, his sudden question startled me. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, putting down the beer mug whose contents had sloshed over my hand when I jumped, and shaking the beer from my fingers.
‘Just wondering how long he’ll be out there in the back room. It’s still warmish, and he’ll start to stink soon.’
I knew he was right. In the ordinary run of things, now that the jury had seen the body it would have been claimed by the family and buried. But as yet no family had been identified. ‘If it gets too bad, we’ll have to think of somewhere else to put him,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile, let’s hope Caleb Richards can find out who he is.’
As the landlord seemed inclined to linger at my side, I asked, ‘Been plwyfwas long, has he, Richards?’
‘’Bout five years, far as I can remember.’
‘Well liked?’
‘Does his job. Conscientious. Can’t be bribed or threatened.’
Which put him in a minority in my experience.
‘Then I have hopes that he’ll come back with a name for our corpse,’ I said.
‘Let’s hope so,’ came the morose reply.
In the event, however, it was Reckitt who brought news that identified our dead man.
But another death was to intervene before that.
John
When I got back to Glanteifi, I didn’t manage the quiet word I was hoping for with Mr Ormiston about what we could do for Matthew and Mair Thomas. As soon as I closed the door behind me, Wil-Sam came dashing over the black-and-white tiles of the hall towards me. ‘Mr Davies!’ He sounded agitated. ‘Is Mr Probert-Lloyd with you?’
I hung my coat up and looked around. No sign of Lydia. ‘No, he won’t be back till later – tomorrow, perhaps.’ Harry hadn’t been able to get down to Cilgerran fast enough this morning, so I didn’t suppose he’d be in a hurry to come back.
‘There’s somebody here to see him.’ Wil-Sam’s eyes were troubled, and he was shuffling from foot to foot as if he needed a piss.
‘Who?’
‘Owen Thomas. Matthew and Mair Nantyddwrgi’s son.’
My stomach gave a lurch. What was he doing here? Whatever it was, he was likely to be angry about his parents being turned out of house and home.
‘Have you told Mr Ormiston he’s here?’
‘He said to leave it to Mr Probert-Lloyd. Then he went home.’
Oh did he indeed? Harry didn’t want to be here, Ormiston didn’t want to take responsibility, which left me. I didn’t want to face Owen Thomas either, but I couldn’t have Wil-Sam thinking I’d dodge this the way Micah Ormiston had. ‘Come on, then. Let’s see if he’ll talk to me.’
Wil-Sam walked ahead of me from the hall to the passageway that led to the back of the house. The kitchen was warm with steam and the smell of baking, but nobody seemed to be working.
Isabel Griffiths came to my side. ‘Where’s Harry?’
She must be worried. Mrs Griffiths never usually called him Harry in front of me or the servants.
‘Still in Cilgerran,’ I said. ‘Trying to find out who the dead man is.’ Why was I making excuses for him? He should be here. Should’ve let Caleb Richards do the leg work; the man was willing enough. ‘Do we know what Owen Thomas wants?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘All he’ll say is he wants to see the squire.’
I walked towards the back door, which was standing open. My riding boots sounded loud on the flagstones and every eye in the kitchen was watching me.
Outside, there was a man sitting on the steps to the washhouse. He stood up but didn’t come over. ‘Where’s Mr Probert-Lloyd?’ he called.
I was getting sick of hearing the same question. ‘Not here. Not likely to be here till tomorrow. You’ll have to deal with me.’
‘And you are?’
‘Under-steward.’
He glared at me. ‘Your master refused to see me.’
I wasn’t going to get into an argument about who was and wasn’t my master, so I just eyeballed him back. He didn’t seem sure what he should do now he knew Harry wasn’t coming, so I nudged him along. ‘You’re Owen Thomas, I’m told. Matthew and Mair’s son.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you want to see Mr Probert-Lloyd about?’
That seemed to decide him, and he marched over. ‘I wanted to tell him, face to face. Tell him what he’d done.’
I waited. There was no point asking what he meant. He was blaming Harry for his parents losing their farm.
‘Yesterday Mr Ormiston gave my father and mother till the end of the month to leave their home. Harry Probert-Lloyd didn’t have the decency to tell them himself, like his father would have. Except his father would never’ve thrown them out, he’d’ve found a way to help them, because he cared about his tenants. Harry Probert-Lloyd doesn’t give a wet fart, does he? He’s too busy running around being coroner. Instead of talking to tenants man to man, he sends his steward to do his dirty work for him.’
It felt as if his words were sticking into me, tearing me like thorns. ‘Mr Thomas, Owen—’
‘My father was born on that farm! And so was his father and his grandfather. I was born there, too.’ He took a step towards me, within spitting distance. Punching distance. ‘And today, my father died there. He got up at dawn, he milked the cows, then he hanged himself in the cowshed. My mother found him when she went out to see what was keeping him.’
Owen Thomas stood there panting. I could hear the kitchen filling up with shock behind me.
‘That’s what I came to tell the squire,’ he spat. ‘But I’ve got a message for the coroner as well. He doesn’t need to bother himself to come to the farm, you can tell him – the police have been and they could see what’d happened clear enough.’ He took a final step forward. ‘But seeing as how he loves his inquests so much, I want an inquest. I want everyone to know who’s responsible for my father’s death. I want it to be clear as day that he died because Harry Probert-Lloyd was too busy being coroner to take any interest in the people who’ve made his family’s fortune.’
Fred and Ianto had come to stand on either side of me, but they didn’t need to lift a finger to Owen Thomas. He’d said his piece. Without another word, he walked away.
I watched him go, my heart pounding.
Too late. I’d left it too late to show proper concern for Mair and Matthew Thomas. I should’ve gone back over there yesterday and sorted something out for them, told them we’d find them somewhere. No. I should have done it before I left. Because I’d known what losing the farm would mean for them. I couldn’t blame Mr Ormiston; he was from another class. He’d never known the fear of the workhouse. But I had.
I stood there. Two minutes ago, the idea of moving Matthew and Mair into a cottage somewhere had seemed like the right thing to do. Now it felt like a cosy children’s story.
Isabel Griffiths took my arm and steered me to a tall stool by the table. I’d seen our cook, Mrs Elias, perching on it when she was working there sometimes. ‘Sit down.’
I did as I was told and she put a cup of tea in front of me, along with a good
chunk of sugar. I put it in the cup and stirred till I couldn’t hear it clunking any more. Around me, nobody was saying anything. They were all waiting for me to speak. But what was there to say?
The sweetness of the tea made my teeth sing, but it seemed to help. At least my heart wasn’t trying to batter its way out of my chest any more.
We’d’ve had to hold an inquest even if Owen Thomas hadn’t come to demand one. By rights, the constable who’d gone out to Nantyddwrgi should have given formal notice of Matthew Thomas’s death by now, and I was surprised that the constabulary’d let a chance to humiliate Harry slip past them. This inquest couldn’t help but shine a bad light on things at Glanteifi, could it? Then another thought came to me – what if they were going to ask another coroner to hold the inquest? Owen Thomas wouldn’t have held back from putting the blame on Harry, I was sure of that.
No. They wouldn’t do that. It was clear that Harry wasn’t directly involved. The constable was probably just following procedure, going back to check with his sergeant. The police had never asked us to hold an inquest, not once since Harry’d been elected in April, so I didn’t know how quickly they’d get round to it.
Is this what it’s going to be like now? Matthew Thomas had been talking about how the estate was run, but the words applied just as well to how things would be for me and Harry now that we’d have to wait for the police to inform us about sudden deaths.
I swallowed some more tea. No, I shouldn’t be thinking about deaths that hadn’t even happened yet. Matthew Thomas’s death was the only one I should be thinking about.
The old man’s face, yesterday in his kitchen, was clear in my mind. Tears running down his lined cheeks, his eyes staring at me and at a future where he could see no place for himself. Had he thought it’d be easier for his son to make room in his house for Mair if there was only her to take in?
I finished my tea down to the leaves and stood up. ‘I’d better go and see to getting a jury called.’ I was going to make sure this inquest was organised before Harry got back. Present him with it. Organised. Done.
‘Perhaps you should wait until Miss Howell’s back. Talk to her first,’ Mrs Griffiths said.
‘Why, where’s she gone?’
‘When Owen Thomas wouldn’t tell us why he wanted to speak to Mr Probert-Lloyd, she was worried, so she got Twm to drive her over in the trap.’
‘When you say over…?’
‘To Nantyddwrgi.’
* * *
While I waited for Lydia, I wrote the standard ‘the coroner requires your attendance at an inquest’ letters. What a waste of time it was writing those notes every time. I wondered how much it would cost to have them printed pro forma. Still, it gave me something to do.
I’d nearly finished when I heard the front door open and Wil-Sam scurry into the hall. I’d left the office door open, and as she came past, Lydia looked in. ‘Thank goodness you’re back.’
‘Just me. No Harry.’
‘No. Sarge said you’d come back by yourself.’ She looked at me steadily. ‘Owen Thomas has told you about his father, then?’
‘I’m writing jury calls now.’ I hesitated. ‘How’s Mair?’
She looked me in the eye. ‘If she survives the shock, it’ll be a miracle. She collapsed when she found him. I think she might have had an apoplexy. She can’t speak properly.’ Lydia drew a deep breath. ‘Are you going to ride back over and fetch Harry?’
‘I should get these out. I’ll ask Twm to go.’
‘I could deliver them. They’ll be less likely to want chapter and verse on the doorstep from me.’
And you’re in no fit state. I could see her thinking it.
‘He should’ve been here, Lydia.’ It shouldn’t’ve been me that had to hear the news.
Lydia came towards me. ‘Let me finish those notices and take them out. Just give me the list of addresses.’
I knew I should let her – it was the sensible thing to do. But the truth was I couldn’t face going to fetch Harry. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to bite my tongue and not accuse him of causing Matthew Nantyddwrgi’s death. ‘No. I’ll go to the jurors and send Twm over there.’
She sighed. ‘If you’re not going, I’ll take the trap and fetch him.’
Did she think I’d argue, change my mind? If she did, she was disappointed.
‘Tell him I’ve scheduled the inquest for eleven tomorrow, jurors to gather at Nantyddwrgi to see the body at half past nine. We know all the witnesses we need. Me. Mr Ormiston. Mair Thomas and her son. I’ll go to the police station and make sure the constable Owen called out comes to give evidence.’
I knew she was staring at me. I didn’t look up.
‘We’re supposed to be at Plas Blaengwyn tomorrow,’ she said, ‘eating lunch with the new Mr and Mrs Saunders-James.’
‘I know. But Harry puts inquests ahead of Glanteifi. He can put this one ahead of hobnobbing with the crachach.’
Harry
A suicide on a Glanteifi farm; I could not recall such a thing ever happening before, and the knowledge that I had been responsible made me feel physically sick.
I sat down at Reckitt’s cluttered table and swallowed hard. ‘Are they sure?’
Lydia’s silence was response enough.
‘Yes,’ I mumbled, ‘of course they are. I’m sorry.’
What, after all, was the alternative? That somebody had strung the old farmer up not twenty-four hours after he had received news that had effectively ended the life he had always known? That he had somehow lynched himself by accident? In truth, the latter was scarcely less improbable than the former.
* * *
‘I’m sorry that John had to bear the brunt of Owen Thomas’s anger,’ I said as we walked to the Pendre Inn, where Lydia had left the trap. ‘It isn’t his responsibility.’
At my side, Lydia’s stride did not falter. ‘You’ve made it his responsibility, Harry. That’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday. John knew that ending those tenancies was wrong. He came home today to try and rescue the situation, to find somewhere for Matthew and his wife to live—’
‘And I stayed here. You don’t have to say it.’
‘Harry, you must find a better way to carry out your duties as coroner without neglecting the estate.’
‘Believe me, Lydia, John made that point very forcefully this morning, even before he’d heard about…’ I did not know how to refer to Matthew Thomas’s suicide, so I simply plunged onwards. ‘There’s one obvious solution. When John is occupied on estate business, you might assist me—’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
Shocked by her vehemence, I turned to face her without thinking, and immediately she disappeared into the whirlpool. I looked away again. ‘You’re very certain, considering that you don’t know what I was going to suggest.’
‘Of course I know what you were going to suggest – that I act as coroner’s assistant. But think, Harry! Think for half a second about how John would see that!’
Her presuming to know John’s mind irked me. ‘John’s a reasonable man. He’d obviously see the need—’
‘I’m not disputing his reasonableness.’ Lydia did not raise her voice – she would not wish to attract attention – yet she left me in no doubt of the strength of her feeling on this matter. ‘But you’re at loggerheads at the moment, and any suggestion of my stepping into his shoes – whatever the reason – will make him feel he’s being punished because he dared to challenge you.’
‘That’s nonsense! John would never think that; he knows how essential he is to me – how irreplaceable!’
‘And yet still you took me on as your private secretary.’ Plain words, spoken without heat, but freighted with feeling. ‘I’m hardly overworked, Harry. If it wasn’t for the time John spends studying for his exams, he and Isabel Griffiths could easily manage everything I’ve done since I’ve been here – you must know that. John certainly does. And he must be asking himself why, then, you employ me. Sometimes I find
myself asking the same question.’
Her words recalled what she had said in the half-lit library. On what basis would I live here if not as your private secretary?
Was she thinking of leaving? Had her expectations of life at Glanteifi not been fulfilled?
What, I asked myself belatedly, had her expectations been?
That was the question I should have asked when she had arrived unannounced seven months before to enquire whether I would consider employing her. But starved of congenial company since my return from London, and delighted at the prospect of continuing our epistolary discussions in person, I had agreed immediately, never asking myself what the future might hold for Lydia were she to take such a step. With the mansion a mere five minutes’ walk from the chapel where she had previously held the pulpit, there was a significant possibility that at some point her previous identity might be suspected, but I had not allowed myself to contemplate the almighty scandal that would erupt were that to happen.
In my desperation for companionship, I had been too selfish to give any thought to what Lydia’s future might hold and wilfully blind to the effects the discovery of her previous identity might have on my local standing.
Unable to face riding home with her in the trap and continuing our acutely uncomfortable discussion, I took Sara and headed for Newcastle Emlyn.
I had to speak to Micah Ormiston.
John
When I’d finished delivering the jury notes, I went to talk to the police constable who’d been out to Nantyddwrgi to see Matthew Thomas’s body. I’d get his testimony at the inquest, but I needed to make sure that he knew when to turn up.
‘He’s in the back,’ the sergeant told me, ‘writing his report.’