by Alis Hawkins
* * *
Whatever I said about going over to Eglwyswrw on Sunday, I had a pretty good idea that Harry’d want to go back earlier than that. But when we got home, Lydia Howell had news that put a stop to any thought of doing inquest business on Saturday.
We’d just finished telling her everything we’d discovered, and Harry’d announced that he was going to go and change for dinner, when Lydia said, ‘Before you go, I’ve written to Mr and Mrs Saunders-James accepting their invitation to lunch on Saturday. I sent Twm over with the letter this morning and he brought a reply extending the invitation to John as well.’
Harry didn’t reply straight away. If he was waiting for the words ‘I hope that’s all right?’ he was going to have a long wait. Lydia Howell had done as she saw fit.
‘I’m in the middle of an inquest, Lydia! I’ve only come back today so that I can attend Matthew Thomas’s funeral tomorrow.’
‘From what you’ve just told me, there’s very little to be done before the inquest. There’s no need for you to go back. Whereas given that Mr Saunders-James has explicitly invited the three of us because there’s somebody he wants us to meet, I felt we risked offending him if we postponed our visit a second time.’
Harry’s reaction was written all over his face. He wasn’t pleased. But if he argued with her, he knew he’d just sound childish.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I just hope that whoever he wants to introduce us to proves worth the sacrifice.’
As it happened, it turned out to be well worth the sacrifice. Because without that lunch, we might never have discovered the truth behind Lizzie Rees’s death.
Harry
Had I been given the choice as to my occupation on the day after Matthew Thomas’s funeral, I would not have chosen to take lunch with strangers. I felt that I had been quite sufficiently stared at and judged outside Treforgan chapel by the scores of mourners who had accompanied the old farmer on his final journey.
But just as my presence at the funeral had been a necessary act of atonement, so my attendance at the Plas Blaengwyn luncheon party was essential to my finding a tolerable place for myself in local society. Besides, I must confess to being just a little curious as to who it was that Anthony Saunders-James was so keen that I should meet, and why he had now invited John, too. Land agents, many of whom also practised as solicitors, were considered to be part of Teifi Valley society but Ormiston’s resignation was not yet common knowledge; therefore, to society at large, John was still my under-steward and coroner’s assistant.
So it was with a certain anticipation that on Saturday morning we bowled up to Plas Blaengwyn in the estate’s workaday trap. Glanteifi’s carriage was not only embarrassingly ancient, but uncomfortable; besides, after rain at Matthew Thomas’s funeral, the weather today was fine, and the last days of summer were better enjoyed in the open air than from the dead-springed interior of a musty, brittle-curtained carriage.
Local opinion had taken an intense interest in recent developments at Plas Blaengwyn, and it was common knowledge that the interior had undergone a good deal of modernisation since Anthony Saunders had married Eleanor James and moved her widowed father into the dower house. I had not, however, been prepared for the magnitude of the transformation.
From the moment of our reception into the entrance hall, where panelling and portraits had been replaced by towering plants and a vertiginous wallpaper in green, black and gold, the house felt more like a wealthy London home than a Teifi Valley mansion.
The footman bore our coats away, but instead of leading us to the drawing room, Saunders-James (who must have been watching for our arrival like a swooning girl awaiting her lover, so quickly had he arrived to greet us) ushered us into the cloakroom, in the corner of which stood a newly painted door.
‘Not too many of these locally,’ he said, opening the door to reveal a water closet. Stepping in, he pulled a chain that caused water to rush loudly from an overhead cistern into the lavatory bowl below.
‘No, indeed,’ I said, somewhat surprised that he would begin the tour of his improvements before allowing his wife to welcome us as mistress of Plas Blaengwyn. However, there was more to come, and before we were escorted to the drawing room where she awaited us, we were treated to a tour of the kitchen, the billiard room and the music room – each with its own innovations as to wall covering, amenities and internal communications (gone was the hall boy, and in his place a series of bells).
Saunders-James seemed most pleased with the kitchen, which now boasted a huge modern range, a sink with taps for both hot and cold water, which he insisted on demonstrating, and, in the centre of the room, in place of the ‘unhygienic’ table on which the James’ family’s meals had undoubtedly been prepared for at least a hundred years, a long marble-topped item that would not have looked out of place supporting a reclining Roman statue. I wondered where the servants now ate.
Upstairs, more wallpaper obtruded itself upon our notice and plants seemed to stand sentinel at every turn. Fortunately, Saunders-James restrained himself from showing us the alterations he had made to the bedrooms, though I had been reliably informed that there was now a hip bath, commode and bidet in every dressing room, which must have left very little room for actually getting dressed.
In the drawing room, under a three-tiered crystal chandelier – imported, Saunders-James told us with an entirely unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance, from Venice – we were finally presented to his wife. Eleanor Saunders-James, who I remembered from my pre-Oxford days as a quiet and undistinguished young woman ideally suited to spinsterhood, seemed somewhat timid to be a lady in charge of her own household, though perhaps she simply lacked sparkle when set alongside her ebullient husband. Hoping to bolster her confidence, I thanked her fulsomely for our invitation before being presented to Mr Jeremiah Harborne and his engineer, a taciturn figure who, when introduced as Amos Bowen, simply bowed in our direction.
As there were no other guests, Harborne must be the person to whom Saunders-James was so keen to introduce me.
Lydia, perhaps taking pity on Mrs Saunders-James’s hesitation as to how precisely a private secretary should be entertained, expressed a desire to know the names of the exotic plants that were ranged about the room, and the two of them moved off together.
‘Now then,’ Saunders-James said, ‘I believe you, Mr Davies, have an interest in speaking to Mr Bowen about a potential engineer in our midst?’
I knew that John would be pleased to have the chance to advocate on behalf of Phoebe Gwatkyn’s protégé, and I hoped that he would not, therefore, feel that he and Mr Bowen had been deliberately excluded from whatever exchange Anthony Saunders-James wished to broker between me and Jeremiah Harborne.
‘Always excellent to be able to introduce men who may be of assistance to each other,’ Saunders-James said as John and the engineer moved to one side. ‘And I hope I may render you an equal service, Probert-Lloyd.’
He led us to a small table on which glasses had been set out.
‘May I interest you in a cocktail, gentlemen?’
I sipped the sweetened sherry and wondered whether Saunders-James would succeed in changing the Teifi Valley’s long-standing preference for punch.
‘John tells me that your engineer only arrived this week, Mr Harborne,’ I said. ‘I must confess, I was surprised. I imagined that he would have been needed at a much earlier stage.’
Harborne put down his cocktail on the table. ‘Oh, he was. All the drawings were completed more than a year ago and the machines are ready and waiting. They need only to be shipped. Even the waterwheel is almost done – the frame is being made at one of the Cardigan foundries and the wooden elements will be added on site. Amos has been working elsewhere for the last year.’
In my peripheral vision, I could see John and the engineer standing on the other side of the room; from what I could make out from his slender frame and dark hair, Amos Bowen was a young man.
‘Has Mr Bowen done much of this
kind of work before?’ I asked.
‘We worked for the same company in Newtown. He was apprenticed to one of the engineers there, but there was soon not much the man could teach him. Amos is something of a genius when it comes to machines.’
‘Jeremiah is fortunate to have found an engineer who can adapt what’s done elsewhere to the very specific situation in the Teifi Valley – converting steam-powered machines to run on water power and so forth,’ Saunders-James said.
I wondered why he felt the need to act as Harborne’s mouthpiece; John’s account of the man had suggested that he would have no need of an advocate.
‘Jeremiah has great plans for his factory,’ Saunders-James went on, ‘and indeed for the whole of the lower Teifi Valley.’
Harborne took this as his cue and leaned forward in his seat. ‘This is the ideal time to develop the woollen industry here,’ he assured me. ‘It’s going to make our fortune as iron and coal are making the fortune of Merthyr and Monmouthshire.’ He pulled his chair closer to me, as if an increased physical proximity might make his words more persuasive.
‘You see, it’s all about getting our cloth from mill to market. I’m building my factory here – on Anthony’s land – because of the plans afoot to improve transport links. But it’s a race!’ Now I heard in his voice the fervour that John had described. ‘I assume you already know that a group of Manchester businessmen are planning a railway to Milford Haven – it’s further west than Liverpool, so it would have a real advantage in transatlantic shipping. Their plan would be to make Milford Haven into a deep-water harbour.’
Though this was evidently old news to Saunders-James, who just made a sound of affirmation, I had heard nothing about a Manchester-to-Milford railway. It made me feel distressingly ill-informed.
‘But,’ Harborne went on, ‘I’m investing here, not in Pembrokeshire, because there’s an alternative proposal – one that the Admiralty already favours.’ He paused, and I wondered how carefully he was watching my reaction. ‘A deep-water harbour and port of refuge at Cardigan.’
I nodded. I had heard nothing about this plan, but I could see the logic behind it. In the whole sweep of Cardigan Bay – frequently battered by storms – there was no refuge for ships sailing from Liverpool to Bristol. Wrecks were common and the consequent loss of lives and cargo was diligently detailed in the press.
‘The High Sheriff of Cardiganshire is behind the scheme,’ Harborne went on, ‘and he’s being encouraged to stand for Parliament so he can present a bill to that effect.’
‘Are you involved in any way, Mr Harborne?’ To be such an advocate, surely he must have a stake in it.
‘No, Mr Probert-Lloyd, all my energies are required here. But I make it my business to know what’s in the offing so that I can plan accordingly.’
Lifting his cocktail to his lips, he sat back and crossed his legs, seemingly at ease, though his foot bounced restlessly up and down. ‘If those promoting the railway line between Carmarthen and Cardigan can get it built in time to coincide with the opening of the new harbour, Cardiganshire will have a port capable of welcoming deep-draught ships and the means of getting goods there quickly and cheaply.’ He spread his hands like a market trader protesting that he was giving his wares away at the price he was offering. ‘In five years’ time, my cloth will be steaming across the Atlantic and down to the coalfields in its thousands of yards, Mr Probert-Lloyd. There’ll be stations all along the route from Cardigan to Carmarthen and on to the coalfields. Think of it – stations at Newcastle Emlyn, Llandysul, Pencader—’
‘Isn’t five years a little optimistic? It takes a long time to get a railway built.’
‘On the contrary. The actual building progresses swiftly. It’s getting all the estate owners to agree to sell the necessary land that takes the time.’
Was that why I had been invited? Was I to bolster the credibility of the parvenu Saunders-James in an attempt to persuade our fellow landowners to embrace Cardiganshire’s own industrial revolution?
‘Speaking of selling land, Probert-Lloyd,’ Saunders-James slid back into the conversation, ‘I wonder if we might talk about the land you own on the other side of the river – up on the hills?’
‘Now?’ I asked, my astonishment that he would introduce such a topic on our very first meeting doing battle with a slightly humiliating eagerness at the prospect of realising some much-needed capital.
‘No, no, obviously not. I was just thinking we might make an appointment if you were amenable to discussing the matter.’ It was neatly managed, but I could tell from his bluster that he had indeed been proposing that we discuss it now.
I knew the land he was referring to: two fairly extensive hill farms in an area separate from the rest of the estate. On a long-ago visit with my father, I had asked him why we had land up on the hills. ‘It came into Glanteifi hands three generations ago in settlement of a gambling debt,’ he had told me, his tone inviting no further conversation. My father had abhorred gambling. He would not even play whist for pennies in the evening, insisting that games should be played for their own sake. Perhaps that was why he had never seen investment in new companies as a viable way to shore up Glanteifi’s fortunes.
‘I’m happy to meet to discuss possibilities,’ I said, trying to sound as if I had no views on the matter one way or the other, ‘but what’s your interest?’ The farms under discussion had not been much improved over the years and contributed little to the estate’s bank balance, nor did they seem likely to in future.
‘As you’ll know, I have land over there’ – I winced inwardly at Saunders-James’s use of the first person. In the Teifi Valley, squires did not own land, estates did – ‘which I want to run as sporting ground. But at the moment, there’s too little to make it worthwhile. If I could add yours to it, it might make a very worthwhile shoot.’
‘I see.’
Evidently Anthony Saunders-James did not see himself as a farming squire. Unlike my father and the like-minded landowners he had persuaded to join him in forming the local agricultural society, Blaengwyn’s new owner was not looking to improve his holdings, but simply to use them to entertain his business acquaintances. It was not a plan I imagined his father-in-law, Piers James, falling in with, but following the marriage that had united Anthony Saunders and Eleanor James as Mr and Mrs Saunders-James, presumably the old man had been forced to cede control. It was, after all, common knowledge that on their nuptials, Blaengwyn’s extensive debts had all been settled.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Let’s meet in the next week or two, shall we?’
‘Excellent. Perhaps we should include Harborne here in the meeting. I know he’s looking for investors for his factory, and you’ll be flush once you’ve sold the land to me.’
The habits of mind inculcated by one’s youth are hard to break, and despite my years in London, I still found it distasteful to hear a man speak so openly about the acquisition of money. ‘I’m not sure—’ I began, intending to say that perhaps now wasn’t quite the moment to discuss such things, but Harborne interrupted.
‘If you’re worried about investing in somebody with no track record,’ he said, ‘it might interest you to know that your London acquaintance Mr George Gelyot has taken a quarter-stake in the factory.’
The sudden introduction of somebody from my London life into the conversation threw me to such an extent that I could only ask, feebly, ‘How do you know Mr Gelyot?’
‘John Davies introduced us.’
John had not mentioned doing so to me. ‘I see.’
‘Mr Gelyot is a very forward-looking man. He can see that with plans as they are for the west coast, the mills of the Teifi Valley may begin to outstrip his in the north. And a canny businessman is always looking for the next new thing, Mr Probert-Lloyd. There’s no standing still in business.’
I could hear Gus’s father saying the same thing, and I must confess, the fact that Mr Gelyot felt confident enough in Harborne’s venture to back him did pique
my interest. Harborne obviously saw that and began outlining his plans for a series of factories that would in the fullness of time take raw wool and send it through each of the processes necessary to turn shorn fleeces into woollen cloth. And the more he talked, the more I began to see that, maladroit though Saunders-James’s introduction of the topic might have been, Harborne’s factories might be just the investment Glanteifi needed.
John
I was grateful that Jem Harborne’s factory gave Harry something to talk about on the way home. I’d heard enough before we went over to Plas Blaengwyn about how we had to get back to Eglwyswrw as soon as possible in the morning. But when he mentioned Mr Gelyot senior’s investment in the project, I felt as if somebody’d stuck a knife in my guts.
‘Harborne tells me Gus’s father has taken a quarter-share in the business,’ he said. ‘Your introduction made all the difference, apparently.’
‘I didn’t exactly introduce them. I just told the Gelyots about meeting him at the Exhibition. Mr Gelyot senior was interested, so I gave him Harborne’s card.’
Of course, Mr Gelyot’s investment made the whole factory proposal look a lot more attractive to Harry, and he spent the next mile or so giving me and Lydia all the details Jem had made him listen to. I hardly heard a word. I was too busy panicking at the thought of what people would say if they discovered that I’d been responsible for finding Harborne’s biggest investor for him. How would the Glanteifi tenants who depended on weaving to make ends meet feel if they knew it was my fault Harborne was producing the cheap cloth that was undercutting them?