by Alis Hawkins
When I got back to my lodgings, my landlady was waiting for me. ‘Another letter,’ she said, holding it out. ‘I suppose you think you’re somebody now.’
I didn’t answer, just took it from her and climbed the stairs.
Dear John
As you will see, this hand is not mine. My father is kind enough to write forme as I do not have my apparatus to hand.
His father’s hand was cramped, barely easier to read than Harry’s uneven efforts.
I will be staying at Glanteifi tonight and will not be at the Salutation till later in the day tomorrow. Perhaps you would be so kind as to come and meet me in my rooms on Monday morning at eight o’clock?
H P-L
I smiled to myself. Probert-Lloyd the magistrate writing a letter to a solicitor’s clerk. But I had another reason to smile as well. With Harry at Glanteifi, I’d be able to catch Matt Tregorlais after church the following morning. I could try and find out what Beca plan Margaret Jones had been mixed up in without Harry wanting to know how I knew about it.
The following day, I stood outside Brongwyn church, waiting for the service to finish and watching dark clouds gathering over the tiny Gwenffrwd valley. It was only half an hour’s walk from Brongwyn back to town but you can get very wet in half an hour and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day drying my clothes in front of the tiny fire in my room.
Matt was one of the first to come out at the end of the service and he and a couple of other men went and stood out of the wind against the east-facing wall of the little whitewashed church. I walked straight up to them and didn’t wait for a gap in the conversation.
‘Hello, Matthew.’
He made a point of finishing what he was saying before turning to me. ‘John Davies.’
‘A word, if you please.’
He shook his head. ‘You can tell the magistrate’s son I don’t do parish business on the Sabbath.’
I stuffed my hands in my pockets. ‘I’m not here on Harry’s say-so. I’m here to bring greetings from a friend, as it happens. An old friend.’ I saw a quick flicker of concern when I said that. Good. He’d be wondering who I’d been talking to. I helped him out. ‘That friend of yours who went to live in Ipswich a few years ago. We had a very interesting chat.’
He plastered a look of surprise onto his face. ‘Oh, him!’ He looked about at his audience. ‘Old chapel friend, from before I was reformed, boys.’ He took me by the elbow. ‘Come on then, you can tell me how he’s getting on.’
The painful pressure of his fingers was a warning and I heeded it, said nothing more. He steered me to the edge of the sloping churchyard, far enough away from his cronies’ curious looks, then he let my arm go. ‘What do you want, John Davies?’
I moved off the wet grass and on to the path before my boots got soaked. ‘Harry and I know about Nathaniel Howell’s little secret. Her little secret.’ I glanced back towards his friends, making a point.
He couldn’t help looking in the same direction. Making sure they weren’t taking too much interest. ‘So?’ His voice was tight.
Two women walked towards the little gate near where we were standing. Both of us nodded politely and waited till they were gone. ‘So,’ I said, ‘it would be very embarrassing for the plwyfwas if people were to hear how he used to take orders from a woman. That he’d followed her out at night, broken the law for her, and all to help other women.’
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t threaten me, John Davies.’
‘Why?’ I took a step towards him. ‘What will you do?’
He didn’t back off. ‘You’d do well to remember,’ he said, voice low but every word as clear as print, ‘that the last person who knew about the Reverend Howell, ended up buried under a tree.’
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. If I’d been a dog I’d’ve bared my teeth, the way they do when their hackles go up and they’re trying to pretend they’re not frightened to death.
‘You’re saying Margaret Jones was murdered because she knew about Nathaniel Howell?’
‘I’m saying that when Margaret Jones disappeared, I was told it was a good thing. Because if she wasn’t here, she couldn’t be going around telling everybody what she knew.’
I shook my head. Lydia’d said nothing about Margaret guessing the truth about her. ‘Were you the father of Margaret Jones’s child?’ I asked, hoping to catch him off guard.
‘What?No!’ He’d forgotten to keep his voice down and people looked over at us. I didn’t make the same mistake.
‘You were overheard being warned that she’d father the child on to you.’
He turned so that his back was facing the church and only I could see his face. ‘She was trying to father it on anybody with a cock! She’d already been to see Howell to try and get him to make David Thomas marry her and she was going to try the same trick with me.’
‘Is that why your little anti-Howell Beca sect paid her a visit?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I told you. We’ve talked to Howell. We know about your group. Isaac Morgan was reporting back to Howell. He joined you to try and keep control of what you got up to.’
Nobody was watching us now. There was rain ready to fall and everybody was keen to get home. I moved to shelter under the old yew tree that stood on the southern wall of the churchyard. Matt followed, shaking his head. ‘Morgan wasn’t doing anything for Howell.’
I wasn’t taking any of Matt Tregorlais’s nonsense. ‘He was. We had it from Howell not three days ago.’
‘Well Howell was lying, then. Or Morgan was lying to him. Her,’ he corrected himself. ‘Isaac Morgan didn’t join us. He led us.’
If that was true, Morgan would’ve known about any plan involving Margaret Jones. Might’ve come up with it himself.
All you had to do was one thing. One simple thing.
‘I heard Beca had a plan that Margaret Jones was part of. What was that about?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t know where you got that. It’s rubbish.’
He thought it was the truth. I could tell. I took my spectacles off and wiped them. ‘Maybe they kept you out of it,’ I said.
‘Don’t talk nonsense, John Davies. You don’t know anything about it.’
But I did. I knew things he didn’t because I’d been there and he hadn’t.
After you saw Howell, you were going to go to Probert-Lloyd, weren’t you?
Specs back on and the world was sharp again. ‘What if she said she’d go to the magistrates?’ I asked.
He looked at me but didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Threatening to go to the magistrates would’ve been the most dangerous thing Margaret Jones could possibly have done.
‘Why are you doing this, John Davies?’
The question took me by surprise. ‘Harry Probert-Lloyd came to Mr Schofield’s asking for a clerk. What choice did I have?’
‘But why are you here? Now? Without him?’
‘He’s busy—’
‘I don’t believe you. Why are you here? What’s all this to you?’ He took a step towards me. ‘How are you involved, John Davies?’
My legs were suddenly shaking. ‘Need to stay in Harry’s good books, don’t I? Never know when I might need a job.’
I could tell he didn’t believe me. And I was afraid of who he’d take his suspicions to.
It wasn’t long before I found out. When I went back to my lodgings a few hours later, another letter was waiting for me. And, this time, it wasn’t from Harry.
Harry
When Moyle announced John and showed him into the library on Sunday afternoon, my first thought was that my letter had failed to reach him, but he assured me otherwise.
‘It arrived in good time, yesterday evening,’ he said, speaking English in deference to my father. ‘I wouldn’t have disturbed you but, since then, I’ve received another letter. One which concerns us both.’ A pause, then my father spoke. ‘Don’t distress yourself, Mr Davies. I have matters t
o attend to elsewhere.’
What had passed between him and John – an anxious look from the latter or something more substantial? Whatever it was, none of us broke the silence as my father made his way to the door. The library was not an over-large room but it might have been a hundred yards long, as far as I was concerned, and my father travelling at the pace of a centenarian.
Finally, the door closed behind him and John moved to my side. ‘It was waiting for me at my lodgings.’ He held it out to me. ‘I think it’s a Beca letter.’
‘Well, I can’t read it, can I?’ I despised my own tetchiness; for John to have forgotten himself so far as to offer me the letter, he must be profoundly disturbed.
He withdrew his hand without apology. ‘It’s written on the back of an auction notice,’ he said.
He was still speaking English as if being in my father’s house demanded it but I reverted to Welsh. ‘It’s Sunday,’ I reminded him. ‘Whoever wrote it obviously had no choice but to use what was to hand. Go on, read it to me.’
I heard him take a breath. ‘If you want to know what plans Beca had for Margaret Jones, come to the beginning of the path leading to Waungilfach through the Alltddu tomorrow evening at seven. Bring Henry Probert-Lloyd with you.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked. ‘No threats about what will happen if we don’t go?’
‘No. It’s not signed, either.’
So perhaps he was wrong in assuming the hand of Rebecca. As I recalled, the Lady had not been chary of putting her name to a summons. ‘Read it to me again, will you?’
John did so and a phrase struck me. ‘What does it mean “what plans Beca had for Margaret Jones”?’ I heard him take a breath, as if he was about to answer, but he said nothing. ‘John?’
‘I went to see Matt Tregorlais this morning. He talked about a Beca plan.’
I did not know whether to be more surprised by John’s acting on his own initiative or by the implication that Matthew Evans had volunteered information. ‘Do you mean he told you about it of his own accord?’
Again there was a hesitation before his answer came. ‘Not exactly. It came out by accident. More or less.’ He seemed unsure how to go on. ‘I just asked something like, So what was the plan with Margaret Jones? Meaning, how were they going to warn her off? But Matt misunderstood – started bleating about not knowing anything about the plan. That it was nothing to do with him. All that.’
I frowned. It sounded as if we had finally been granted a stroke of luck; which made John’s discomfort all the more baffling. Perhaps he felt he had failed to capitalise on it.
‘I take it you asked him what the plan was and he refused to give you any more information?’ I guessed.
‘Exactly. I tried to be crafty about it but he realised I didn’t know what he was talking about and shut up completely.’
But Matthew’s blurting out of Rebecca’s secret had obviously resulted in the letter now in John’s hand. Was John worried that, in stumbling upon this plan, he had put us in danger?
‘Do you think it’s too risky?’ I asked. I was not utterly naïve: this could be a Rebecca trap. The isolated location would allow us to be molested unobserved. However, anybody who had ridden with Rebecca and was now willing to disclose information would be putting himself at considerable risk; such a person would obviously not wish to be seen or overheard speaking to us.
‘For myself, I see no option but to go,’ I said when he did not reply. Whatever the risk, I knew I would find no peace if I stayed away.
I watched, sidelong, as John folded the letter in half, then half again and put it in his pocket.
‘I know I have no right to ask—’ I left the question unfinished, hoping that he would rush to tell me that of course he would come with me. But he did not. ‘I know it’s a risk,’ I began again, ‘but could I persuade you to come with me?’
After a silence too long to be called a hesitation he took an audible breath. I waited. ‘Can we go armed?’ he blurted, finally.
‘Only if you own a weapon. For obvious reasons, I’ve no use for firearms or blades.’
The enormity of what I was asking of him was not lost on me. My family name and connections might protect me from harm but the same was not true of John; he had far more to fear from Rebecca than I did.
‘However’ I said, a solution suggesting itself, ‘weapons aside, I believe I can find a way to keep us safe.’
Harry
When we met the following morning in the Salutation’s dining room, I detected a constraint in John that made me uneasy. Loath to spend the day waiting for him to tell me that he had changed his mind, I challenged him while we helped ourselves to breakfast from the sideboard.
‘Have you had second thoughts about meeting with Beca tonight?’
‘No. No.’ He manoeuvred something that I could not see onto his plate and shook his head but the denial was not altogether convincing. ‘I was just awake half the night thinking about it.’
I picked up my plate and sat down. I was already sufficiently interesting to the servants at the Salutation, if not to the guests, and I did not want our conversation overheard. ‘We need to find out what we can about this plan before tonight’ I murmured, once John was seated opposite me. ‘The more we know the less we can be hoodwinked.’
John picked up his cutlery and addressed himself to his breakfast. ‘What kind of plan do you think they’d’ve wanted Margaret Jones to help with?’ he asked.
It seemed likely that any Rebecca plan unknown to Lydia Howell had probably been conceived after the discovery of her true gender. ‘What if, after Margaret’d been to see Lydia and been told she could expect no help there, some of the Beca boys paid her a visit?’ I suggested. ‘Offered her a way to get back into Beca’s good books?’
My eyes on my plate, I saw John lift his head to look at me. ‘What kind of way?’
‘Something to do with Lydia? I don’t know. We should go and see Isaac Morgan – see if we can clear up this business of whether he was reporting back to her or not.’
John sawed vigorously at what was probably a chop. ‘If Matt Tregorlais was telling the truth and Morgan led the other group, he’s not going to tell us anything, is he? And another thing – if he is the leader, don’t you think Morgan might be the one who wrote the letter calling us to this meeting?’
‘Quite possibly, so it’s worth seeing him today while we’ve got the element of surprise. But, first, I think we need to talk to Rachel Ellis again. If anybody’d been to see Margaret, Rachel would’ve known.’
A figure passed by our table. ‘Morning to you, Mr Probert-Lloyd.’
I smiled. ‘Good morning.’ Who the devil had that been? No day allowed me to go long without another reminder of the extreme social disadvantage my blindness inflicted on me. Would it get easier as people became accustomed to it? Would they announce themselves to me or would they simply walk past, spared the obligation to be civil?
John broke into my unproductive thoughts. ‘I think, if you want to talk to Rachel, we should take William Williams with us. We need him to give her and Aaron permission to talk to us, otherwise it’ll be the same story as last time.’
I had not spoken to William Williams since our meeting at Glanteifi when he had tried to persuade me to give up my investigation, so it was with some unease that I approached Waungilfach to ask for his assistance.
‘Mr Williams,’ I began, once the maid had shown us into the soi-disant drawing room and the master of the house had been found, ‘I do apologise for disturbing the beginning of your week—’ I stopped, conscious that there was little point expressing regret for the disturbance if I did not intend to offer the slightest excuse for it.
Williams made no reply to my truncated apology but his wife, who had come bustling in on his coat-tails, was less reticent. She seemed unaware that her husband had asked me to desist from my enquiries.
‘Do you have news, Mr Probert-Lloyd?’
I turned towards her. She was attempting to
present a united front, sitting with Williams on the sofa, while John and I were in straight-backed chairs on either side of the empty fireplace. ‘We’re making progress, Mrs Williams.’ I leaned forward, confidingly. ‘It seems that Margaret Jones may have become involved in some Rebeccaite plan…’ I left the thought hanging, to see if either of them reached for it.
Mrs Williams obliged. ‘But why would she get involved in anything Rebecca was up to? She had no friend there, did she?’
‘My dear,’ Williams interrupted, ‘are you quite certain that the children can be trusted to get on with their lessons without you? Would it not be better for me to speak to Mr Probert-Lloyd while you attend to them?’
‘Excuse me, Mr Williams’ – though I was fairly sure his wife would disregard his suggestion, I wanted him to understand that I would not allow him to thwart me –‘may I just detain Mrs Williams for a moment longer?’ I turned without waiting for him to answer. ‘Mrs Williams, when you say Margaret had no friend in Rebecca, are you referring to a visit the Rebeccaites made to her, here, to warn her about her behaviour?’
‘Yes, I am.’ I imagined Mrs Williams looking defiantly at her husband and heard him drawing breath to silence her. Before he could speak, I slid a question into the gap. ‘Did you see the men who were here that night, Mrs Williams?’