None So Blind

by Alis Hawkins

  ‘This inquest,’ my father began. ‘It’s important that you understand the conditions under which I am allowing it to take place.’

  ‘Conditions?’ I kept my tone even but a small spark of something – perhaps resentment, perhaps anger – had burst into life.

  ‘Whilst I understand your desire to see justice done, I can neither approve nor applaud a public airing of your association with this young woman. I will not see this family’s name publicly pilloried, Harry. Therefore, I am stipulating that you do not give evidence at the inquest.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ There was no doubt now, the emotion was anger and it propelled me back on to my feet.

  My father remained seated. ‘I want you to give me your word that you will not interfere with proceedings. I have discussed it with Bowen and he has agreed that there will be no need to call you as a witness as long as I can satisfy him on two points.’ He put down his brandy glass. ‘Firstly, that you do not know who committed this crime and, secondly, that you are not the father of the unborn child.’

  His tone told me how much it had cost him even to ask the question.

  Despite my outrage, I could not deny him an answer. ‘No. I did not father Margaret’s child. And neither do I know who killed her. God help me, until three days ago, I wasn’t even sure she was dead. But, if I am not allowed to testify—’

  I saw him hold up a hand. ‘There is no “if”. You will not testify. If I do not have your word that you will keep silent during proceedings, there will be no inquest. Do I make myself clear?’

  There was nothing I could do but acquiesce.

  John

  An inquest. Everybody in Newcastle Emlyn was talking about it. And the plwyfwas – the parish functionary as Mr Schofield would’ve called him – was out trying to find a jury.

  I was glad it wasn’t my job. The men who usually filled the jury bench like pigs in the sun weren’t going to want to touch this one. Not with Beca’s name being muttered over the inquest like a curse. It’s one thing to let people know you’re well off enough to pay somebody else to carry on your business while you suck your teeth at a dead body and sit listening to the coroner’s witnesses. It’s another thing altogether to defy Rebecca.

  I knew, better than anybody, what the Lady would do to protect her own.

  Old Schofield didn’t know what to think about this inquest. The lawyer in him wanted to see the law upheld and the law said that murderers should be hanged by the neck till they were dead. But the pragmatist in him – and pragmatist was one of his favourite words – thought Probert-Lloyd the magistrate should’ve left well alone.

  ‘It’ll be the son who’s behind this,’ he told me. ‘You watch and see if I’m not right.’

  ‘The son?’ I knew I wouldn’t have to work too hard to find out what he was talking about. Old Schofield was bursting to flaunt his familiarity with the crachach. The gentry.

  ‘Yes. Young Henry. George Probert’s son. Probert-Lloyd, I should say.’ Mr Schofield tapped the end of his pen on his writing board. Going to start teaching me, he was. He always tapped his pen when he was going to impart knowledge. ‘Mr Justice Probert-Lloyd was just plain George Young when he came here to be married, did you know that?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Yes. Had to take the Probert name as a condition of the match.

  His wife was the only heir to the Glanteifi estate and her father didn’t want the name dying out.’ Mr Schofield pursed his mouth like a cat’s arse and I thought he’d stop there. But, no, on he went. ‘George was a second or third son of some big family in England – Worcestershire, I think. The Proberts wanted the prestige of the association and, obviously, young George,’ he sniggered at his own weak little pun, ‘wanted the fortune. An inheritance for a name, not a bad bargain.’

  I took advantage of his confiding mood. ‘If she was Probert and he was Young,’ I asked, ‘where did Lloyd come from?’

  He gave me the beady eye. So sharp you’ll cut yourself. ‘That was his second wife. He didn’t need money once he had the estate so they say he married Jemima Lloyd for love.’ His face got a pinched, mean look, then. ‘Well, what man of nearly fifty wouldn’t love a girl of twenty-one?’

  He wasn’t looking for a reply.

  ‘Miss Lloyd married him, produced an heir, and was dead. All within a year.’ He snapped his mouth shut, as if there was more but he wasn’t going to tell me.

  ‘Didn’t he have any children from his first wife?’

  Schofield sucked a breath in through his thin nostrils. ‘I forget how young you are. Mr Probert-Lloyd did have a son from his first marriage – George, after his father – but he was killed. In a hunting accident. Before he came of age.’ He did some more lip-arsing as if he was shutting himself up.

  ‘So Mr Probert-Lloyd married again because he needed an heir?’

  Old Schofield gave me a single nod, as if somebody’d pushed his head forward against his will. ‘Took her name when they married, just like he had the first time. Of course, it was his choice, on that occasion, rather than her family’s. Not that he would ever say as much, naturally.’

  Always careful not to misattribute, Mr Schofield. You’d think the world was holding its breath, waiting for an excuse to sue him.

  ‘Mr Henry Probert-Lloyd.’ He looked over my shoulder, as if the man himself might walk in through the door. ‘His mother died giving birth to him. And, now, here he is, insisting on an inquest for a young woman who’s been dead the best part of a decade. A dairymaid.’

  I let the silence reel out. I knew he’d have to tell me.

  ‘The boy always had the common touch. Worked in the fields with his father’s men. Went hare-coursing with stable boys.’ Mr Schofield checked to see if I was suitably agog. ‘And took a fancy to this girl. The one he’s called the coroner for. If it is her.’

  ‘Henry Probert-Lloyd was courting the dead girl?’ I couldn’t believe I’d asked the question. Mind, it was even more unbelievable when I got an answer instead of a thick ear.

  ‘Yes. Well. Not courting exactly, I dare say. But, whatever it was, it was sufficient to make his father send him away.’

  ‘Probert-Lloyd the magistrate won’t let all that come out at the inquest.’

  Mr Schofield turned and looked at me as if he’d just remembered who I was. ‘I don’t think it’s your place, John Davies, to speculate on what Mr Probert-Lloyd will or will not do.’

  ‘No. Of course. I’m sorry, Mr Schofield.’ I looked at the floor, all repentant.

  Peter’d been following all this from the other clerk’s desk, mouth open like a dead trout. Saw his chance to suck up, now. ‘Will you be going to the inquest, Mr Schofield?’

  Old Schofield went over to the window and I hung my tongue out at Peter. Arse-licker.

  ‘We’ll all go,’ Mr Schofield pulled his waistcoat down like he always did when he wanted to be definite. ‘You and John and I. We’ll all go.’

  I sat and stared down at my work.

  I couldn’t go to that inquest. No. I couldn’t.

  How could I sit there, watching, as if it was just a spectacle? I couldn’t go.

  The trouble was, I knew I’d have to.

  Part 2: Defiance

  Harry

  The inquest was held at the Salutation Hotel. It was the only establishment in Newcastle Emlyn with an assembly room large enough to accommodate the anticipated level of public interest.

  ‘Now that an inquest is decided upon, there is nothing to be gained by attempting to hide what we are about,’ Coroner Bowen had declared when my father queried his choice of venue. ‘This is a suspicious death. A death, moreover, in which your family is not uninterested and which occurred at a time of notorious disturbance. Any attempt to hide the inquest away in a public house that struggles to hold twenty souls would generate gossip, if not outright speculation. We must not allow the populace to claim that they were prevented from hearing the evidence.’

  I was encouraged by Bowe
n’s attitude. Given that he had questioned the value of an inquest, I had assumed that he agreed with my father and would cede all decisions to him. But, possessed of the necessary authority to act, Bowen was evidently his own man.

  On the assumption that the hotel’s stables would quickly fill up, we were driven to Newcastle Emlyn in my father’s carriage. I found it an uncomfortable journey. Though I knew that Gus would not dream of pointing out such a thing, I was acutely aware that, in contrast with his own father’s carriage, ours was lumbering, dark and aged. Like shuffleboard, it placed us in a bygone era and I hoped that the conduct of the inquest would not further convince Gus that Cardiganshire was stuck somewhere in the reign of the first King George.

  Still, at least the carriage kept off the rain and we arrived at the inquest a good deal drier than most of the people stamping mud off their boots as they filed in.

  Alive with chatter, the air in the ballroom was a fug of damp wool, tobacco smoke and the sharp smell of beer which was being sold to spectators as they came in.

  Knots of people moved aside for us and, as we walked through the crowd, I became aware of a silence spreading on either side. Though I would like to have interpreted it as nothing more than an indication of respect, I feared that the sudden breaking off of animated conversations meant that my presence was not simply being noticed but appraised for what it might mean.

  My suspicions were soon confirmed. A voice, evidently confident that I would not understand if it spoke in Welsh, muttered, ‘I don’t know how he can show his hypocritical face. If he gets up there and tells the truth about what he did I’ll eat a toad.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to retort, but I could not. I did not doubt for a second that my father would make good his threat if I uttered a word that he had not already approved.

  I kept moving. ‘Is everybody staring at me?’ I asked Gus in an undertone, hoping that at least a few of those who had gathered for the inquest might be indifferent to my appearance.

  ‘Not everybody, no. But some, I must admit, are agog.’ He did not append the codicil which, knowing him as well as I did, I could hear in his voice: What on earth have you done, P-L, to excite such disapprobation from the citizenry?

  Head held unwisely high, I strode forwards. I risked missing my step for the boards underfoot were already slick with tramped-in filth but I was damned if I was going to appear cowed. To distract myself from the glances I could not see and the murmured words I could not quite hear, I tried to calculate how much the magistrates might be obliged to pay the Salutation’s owner to compensate him for ruining his dancing-floor. Doubtless he would double the actual cost, knowing full well that they would never pay what he asked.

  Gus took my elbow, briefly. ‘Over here.’

  We wove our way through the ranks of benches to the chairs waiting at the front of the room for the favoured amongst us. Latecomers of whatever station would be obliged to lean, damply, against the walls.

  Gus and I took our seats with my father and sundry other magistrates. I felt sweat trickling down my back. Blind to the general gaze, I imagined every eye in the place on me, judging me, finding me wanting.

  ‘Where’s Bowen?’ Gus asked. I looked up; even I could see that the table set up before us for the coroner was, as yet, unoccupied.

  ‘He’ll be instructing the jury on their duties during the inquest,’ my father said. ‘I gather half of them have never sat before.’

  ‘Chief of those duties,’ Gus murmured in my ear, ‘will be not running away if they hear the name “Rebecca” mentioned.’

  I put a grin on my face, grateful for his attempt at humour, but it was hardly a laughing matter. The inquest had been postponed twice while sufficient men willing to serve on the jury were sought.

  ‘Are the men of the parish always so miserly with their time?’ Bowen had asked after a frustrating conference with the parish officer responsible for assisting him in the conduct of the inquest. But, as murmurs of a possible connection between Rebecca and Margaret’s death became ever louder, I knew that it was not meanness that was keeping men from doing their duty but the fear of what they might hear, what they might be called upon to decide. And I began to fear that my blithe assumption that the truth would present itself once an inquest was convened had been naïve.

  Eventually, a jury of fourteen men had been assembled and Bowen had gathered its members at the workhouse earlier that morning, for the obligatory viewing of the remains.

  Gus put a hand on my arm. ‘Here they come.’

  Once he had alerted me to the movement, I was able to make out figures filing in through the service door at the end of the long room. Silence was called for in Welsh and then, more politely, in English.

  After a moment or two of increased noise as folk commented on the coroner’s appearance – so thin and grey, I heard behind us – the hubbub quieted and I felt some of the tension go out of me, glad that I had been replaced as the focus of interest.

  Bowen formally opened proceedings and began his introduction, his dry voice pitched to carry clearly to the corners of the crowded room.

  ‘Though I dislike being obliged to begin on a note of doubt, it is not clear, as matters stand, whether this is an inquest to determine the identity and manner of death of one person or of two.’ A susurration passed lightly around the room as people wondered what he meant but Bowen carried on as if the silence had not been disturbed. ‘The jury has recently viewed two sets of remains in the mortuary of the Emlyn Union workhouse. One is that of an adult, the other of an infant child.’

  This time, the crowd’s stirring could not be ignored as those whose English was better than their neighbours’ leaned mouth-to-ear to translate Bowen’s words. Were accusatory glances being darted at me, eyebrows raised as heads were cocked in my direction? Agonising as it would have been to see people’s censure, it was almost worse to be forced to imagine it.

  ‘It is yet to be determined,’ Bowen raised his voice, ‘whether the child was born or unborn at the time of its mother’s death. It is my hope that this will be clarified during the course of these proceedings.’

  He fell silent as the noise of the crowd increased, and Ianto Harris was called as the first witness.

  ‘Poor man looks terrified,’ Gus muttered as Ianto moved to the chair indicated by the coroner’s officer.

  Having heard the interpreter confirm his name, Bowen asked the labourer to explain how he had come upon the remains and the room listened to the same details that Ianto had given me on the Glanteifi doorstep.

  ‘Mr Harris,’ Bowen said, ‘did Mr Williams instruct you to pull the roots of the fallen tree from the bank?’

  Ianto had made the mistake of gabbling revealing details to me. If I was not to be allowed to give evidence then I was going to make damn’ sure that Bowen had all the information I could give him as to the discovery of Margaret’s remains. Williams had given specific instructions to the labourers not to dig up the roots and I wanted the inquest to notice that fact. I did not, in all conscience, think that Williams had killed Margaret but I was quite sure that he bore as much responsibility for her death as I did.

  ‘No, sir,’ Ianto admitted, ‘he didn’t. He told us to cut it off at the roots and leave them in the bank.’

  ‘But you thought you could take the roots for yourselves – you and David Davies, for firewood?’ Bowen was parroting my own guess; I could see no other reason why Ianto and Dai would have disobeyed an explicit instruction.

  Once Ianto had admitted as much, Bowen paused. ‘You were asked to dig the bones out and take them to the workhouse mortuary, were you not?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Probert-Lloyd – the son, that is, Mr Henry – said we must dig till the spade came up ten times with no bones in so we could be sure of having them all.’

  Again, I felt the discomfort of scores of invisible eyes on me. Had people been unaware, until now, that it was I who had overseen the recovery of Margaret’s bones? No. This was simple prurience
; I would be stared at every time my name was mentioned or my involvement implied.

  ‘I see. Mr Harris, did you see whether the bones of the child were lying within the skeleton of the woman?’ Bowen asked.

  Once Bowen’s question had been translated, Ianto’s response was immediate and I imagined him shaking his head for good measure. ‘No, sir. The bones were all mixed up. I didn’t even know there was a baby till I came here today and that’s the truth, sir.’

  Bowen then asked about the objects found with the bones but Ianto said he had not noticed any of them. He and David Davies had just done what they were told – they had dug up all the bones and he had taken them to the workhouse in the box cart and that’s all he knew.

  ‘And,’ Gus murmured, ‘quite evidently, all he wants to know.’

  Dai Penlan was called next but, when his testimony simply confirmed Ianto’s, the crowd began to get restive.

  ‘The next witness,’ the inquest’s officer raised his voice to silence the conversations that had sprung up all over the room, ‘is Rachel Ellis.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ Gus asked as I heard a woman’s hesitant footsteps coming through the crowd. I shook my head, but, as soon as Rachel Ellis spoke to confirm her name, I knew her. A hare lip and cleft palate meant that her speech was difficult to understand and, in order to make herself more readily understood, she pinched her nostrils with the fingers of one hand as she spoke.

  ‘She worked with Margaret at Williams’s place,’ I told Gus as Mrs Ellis was invited to sit. I had known her as Rachel Evans; she had obviously found a husband in the intervening years.