Her husband continued to stare at her, dumbstruck.
Mr Richards rose from his seat. ‘I am Mr Richards and this is Mr Evans, the owner of E and G Estates.’ Mr Richards offered the woman his hand, and Harry followed suit.
She shook their hands and waited for her husband to effect the introductions. When he didn’t, she introduced herself. ‘I am Carys Pritchard, Robert’s wife.’ She blushed. ‘I am sorry, I should have liked to have met Robert’s employer before now, Mr Evans, but then you must know that Robert and I have only been married three weeks.’
‘I didn’t, Mrs Pritchard.’ Harry couldn’t bring himself to be hypocritical enough to offer the usual congratulations. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘I only wish we could have met under better circumstances, Mrs Pritchard,’ Mr Richards apologized.
‘Better circumstances?’ She looked from Mr Richards to Harry in alarm.
‘I think we should leave Mr Pritchard with his wife so he can explain matters to her in private, Mr Evans. We will wait for you in the hall, Mr Pritchard. Mr Evans has urgent family business in Pontypridd. I trust that you will drop the charge of assault against him as soon as the police arrive.’
Carys Pritchard, who had only heard her husband’s version of events, looked at Bob in amazement when he nodded agreement.
‘One more thing, Mr Pritchard.’ Harry avoided Carys Pritchard’s eye. ‘As of now, you are no longer E and G’s agent.’ He followed Mr Richards into the passageway and closed the door. A few seconds later they heard a woman cry.
*……*……*
Harry stepped off the Pontypridd train, handed his ticket to the collector in his box and ran down into Station Yard. His mother had parked her car close to the entrance so he wouldn’t miss her. Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw him.
‘Harry, your face!’
He glanced at the jacket of his suit that he’d folded over his arm to make sure that the bloodstains couldn’t be seen. ‘I’m fine, Mam, it looks worse than it is.’
She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. ‘Why are you in shirt-sleeves in the middle of town? You didn’t travel that way, I hope.’
‘I used my jacket to clean my face.’ Harry tried to smile and it hurt. ‘Towels and flannels appear to be in short supply in police stations.’
‘I should have given Lloyd some clothes for you.’
‘It doesn’t matter; I’ll have a bath and change as soon as I get home. How’s Edyth?’
Sali gave a small smile. ‘The doctors have said they’ll allow her home for Granddad’s funeral, provided she stays with the mourners in the house and takes life quietly for a month or two.’
‘So, you’re going to tie her to her bed?’
‘I’m considering it.’
‘Is Dad back yet?’
‘He telephoned from the Swansea Valley before I left to meet you. He and your uncles are staying at the inn overnight and won’t be home until tomorrow.’ She opened the car and stepped inside.
Harry closed the door for her and walked around to the passenger side. ‘Are they bringing Granddad home?’
‘Yes. Mari is clearing our small drawing room so we can place his coffin in there.’
‘A lot of people will want to pay their respects.’ Harry sat beside her.
‘Lloyd talked it over with Joey and Victor. It made more sense to bring him to our house, because Victor’s farm is a good half-hour walk from Tonypandy, and Joey and Rhian’s spare parlour can’t be shut off from the rest of the house as easily as ours.’ She drove out on to Tumble Square and turned left into Taff Street. ‘It will be different when the coffin is actually in the house but at the moment I can’t believe he’s gone. That I will never see him again.’ She fought back tears and concentrated on the road.
‘I know just how you feel.’
‘We’ve never really talked about our life before I married Lloyd, Harry. Do you remember much?’
‘Not a great deal. I can recall living in a horrible dirty house with a woman who beat me and had a son who was bigger and stronger than me and beat me even more. I remember you coming to get me and living with Dad, Granddad and the uncles, and from then on all I remember are good times, except for the strikes when there was a lot of fighting, in school as well as the streets, and never enough to eat. I don’t mean in our house, I mean the valley.’
‘Your grandfather treated me like a member of the family from the day I started work as his housekeeper.’ Sali slowed and drove past a charabanc full of elderly women on their way to chapel. ‘It’s hard to believe now, but I was too frightened to tell him that I had a child because I thought he wouldn’t allow me to stay in his house and then I wouldn’t have had the money to pay that vile woman who was supposed to be looking after you. The moment he found out you existed, he sent me and your uncles to get you and from then on he didn’t treat you any differently from the way he would have a grandson of his own. That meant a great deal to me because it was two years before I married Lloyd.’
‘These past few weeks have been dreadful and wonderful in turns. It was dreadful to watch his health deteriorate but wonderful to have the time to talk to him.’ The enormity of Billy’s death finally began to sink in, and Harry steeled himself to face his family’s grief as well as his own.
‘No regrets about giving up the Paris trip to go to the Swansea Valley?’
‘None. I only wish I had been with him at the end.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything if you had been. He died in his sleep,’ she consoled.
‘I know, Dad told me.’
They fell silent, each lost in their own memories.
Eventually Harry asked. ‘How are the girls?’
‘Broken-hearted like the rest of us. When Mr Richards telephoned and said that you were coming down on this train, I called Rhian and Megan and invited them and your cousins for the evening. Mari’s made a cold supper. I thought it might help if we all sat together to eat, drink and share our memories of Granddad.’
Harry laid his hands over his mother’s on the steering wheel. ‘I think a wake is a wonderful idea and the very best way to honour him.’
‘Please, Harry, don’t say any more. Not until we reach home. I can barely see the road for tears as it is.’
‘I remember the nineteen eleven strike.’ Megan looked at her four sons, ‘Your poor grandfather had terrible trouble keeping your Uncle Joey and your father under control.’
‘And Uncle Lloyd?’ Tom, one of her twins, asked.
‘Your Uncle Lloyd was the sensible one, even then. There was fighting practically every night in the square, and the police used to chase the strikers through the streets. Your Uncle Joey always used to run and hide under Aunty Betty’s parlour table.’ She smiled at the widow who had become Billy’s housekeeper after Sali and Lloyd had left to live in Ynysangharad House. Betty had moved up to Victor and Megan’s farm with Billy when he had decided to help run the farm, and had stayed on to give Megan a hand with the dairy and her children.
‘Your grandfather used to spend more time in the police station, trying to bailout his sons, than some of the policemen who worked there,’ Betty Morgan declared.
‘I remember Granddad giving me my first small glass of beer when I was six,’ Harry confided. ‘It was Christmas. We were all in Ynysangharad House, and he caught me trying to sneak whisky from a decanter. But instead of telling me off, as I expected him to, he gave me some of his beer and made me promise not to drink whisky until I was a man.’
‘He did the same thing with me,’ Tom shouted.
‘And me,’ Tom’s twin, Jack, chimed in.
‘And me last Christmas.’ Eddie, Joey’s eldest son, brushed aside a tear and pretended he hadn’t.
‘And all of you boys thought we women didn’t know what was going on.’ Rhian hugged Eddie, to his acute embarrassment.
Mari jumped up as the telephone rang in the hall. She returned a few minutes later. ‘Master Harry, it
’s for you. Mr Richards telephoning from Brecon.’
‘Trouble?’ Sali asked anxiously when Harry rose from his chair.
‘Not for me,’ Harry reassured her. ‘Mr Richards and I went to the police station after they arrested the agent, and he dropped all the charges he made against me. This must be something else. I gave Mr Richards a list as long as my arm of urgent things that need doing for the company. I would have done them myself, but I wanted to be here. No, that’s not right.’ He ruffled Glyn’s curls as he passed him and Bella, who were curled up in the same armchair, ‘I needed to be here.’ He went out into the hall and closed the door behind him, before picking up the receiver. ‘Mr Richards?’
‘Are you feeling any better, Harry?’
‘Much, Mr Richards. Do you have any news?’
‘I have made enquiries about removing the Ellis children from the workhouse. There are obstacles, Harry. They will only be released into the custody of a respectable married couple, widow or spinster.’
‘I am sure that my parents will help as soon as they can spare the time.’
‘And I doubt that your father will jeopardize his position as an MP,’ Mr Richards countered. ‘If he should decide to help the Ellis children, he will only do so by complying fully with the regulations laid down by the authorities. And that means more than paying lip service, Harry. To take on a family of five children with no means of support is a serious enterprise. Firstly, you need a guardian to take care of and assume responsibility for them on a daily basis; secondly, you have to find somewhere for them all to live; and thirdly, you have to train them for a vocation or profession so they can find work and support themselves. Your father has six children of his own besides you. It would be totally unreasonable of you to expect him to adopt the Ellises as well.’
‘You’re right.’ Harry realized that if he were to get the Ellis children out of the clutches of the parish he would have to make provision for all their futures, including Luke’s, and that meant planning for at least the next thirteen years until the boy could support himself.
‘Have you thought where they will live?’
‘The Ellis Estate. I intend to give it to them in recompense for everything the agent stole from them.’
‘A laudable ambition, Harry, but I warn you, your trustees will never agree. I believe they will vote against you to prevent you from giving away your assets before you even inherit them.’
‘Surely not when they hear the facts,’ Harry argued. ‘After what the agent did to the Ellises that property isn’t morally mine.’
‘The trustees were appointed to protect your estate until they can hand it over in its entirety on your thirtieth birthday. And they will do just that, Harry, even if it means protecting it against you. However, you can do what you like with it nine years from now. But before you make too many plans for the Ellis Estate, I spoke to one of the bailiffs who stripped what little there was from the house. He told me there is nothing left there, not a table, bed, bedding or, more importantly, livestock. No one can move in there until the farm is re-stocked and the house refurbished.’
‘Could you make arrangements to have the place furnished and stocked for me, please, Mr Richards?’
‘I have my own business to attend to in Pontypridd, Harry, and I have to return tomorrow. Besides, I think the next family who move in there should be the ones to furnish and stock the place.’
‘You are right again, Mr Richards.’ Harry realized that the Ellises were one problem he was not going to be able to pass on to someone else. ‘My grandfather’s funeral is on Saturday. I won’t be able to leave here until then. But I’ll telephone the inn and see if Mrs Edwards can find a cottage that I can rent for the Ellises until the house is ready for them.’
‘That’s if you manage to get them released, Harry.’
‘I will,’ Harry said with more confidence than he felt. ‘Thank you for making the enquiries Mr Richards.’
‘I will talk to the police again tomorrow before I leave Brecon. The evidence against Mr Pritchard is incontrovertible. As Mr Beatty has a thorough knowledge of E and G Estates and the company’s accounts, I have taken the liberty of giving him permission to stay in the town to assist the police with their enquiries and do what he can to redress the damage inflicted on the company and the tenants by Robert Pritchard. But the trustees will need to appoint another agent as soon as possible, and until matters are sorted, I believe he will need an assistant to help him resolve the situation.’
Harry made a swift decision. ‘I will call a meeting of the board as soon as possible so they can discuss it. Will you attend with me, Mr Richards?’
‘If you think I can be of help, Harry.’
‘I do. I can’t thank you enough, Mr Richards.’
‘You said that your grandfather’s funeral will be held on Saturday?’
‘Yes, in Trealaw Cemetery.’
‘Tell your mother that if there is anything – anything at all – that I can do to help with the arrangements, I will be back in Pontypridd tomorrow morning and I would consider it an honour. Oh, just one more thing. I have discovered the connection between Robert Pritchard and Ianto Williams. The Mrs Pritchard we met is the agent’s second wife. His first was Bronwen Williams, Ianto Williams’s daughter -’
‘And my Aunty Megan’s sister,’ Harry breathed, wondering just what kind of a husband Robert Pritchard had been to her.
‘She died in childbirth, two years ago.’
‘We know.’
‘Will you tell your aunt?’
‘Yes. We are having a family wake for my grandfather but I will tell her before she leaves at the end of the evening, Mr Richards. Thank you again for everything you have done for me and E and G. I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.’ Harry hung up the receiver.
‘You will tell who what before she leaves at the end of the evening?’ Sali was standing behind him.
‘I didn’t have much chance to talk to you about the agent who has been defrauding one of my companies.’
‘Mr Richards told me a little when he telephoned to say that you were coming home.’
‘The man who brought the charges against me, and who has been stealing from the tenants and the company, was married to Aunty Megan’s sister, the one who died. Unfortunately, I am fairly sure that her father is also involved in the fraud.’
‘Poor Megan,’ Sali said feelingly. ‘Would you like me to tell her?’
‘No, it’s my place to do that.’
‘If you go into the study I’ll send her in.’
‘Not until we’ve finished talking about Granddad.’ He slipped his arm around his mother’s waist. ‘I’ve discovered so much about him that I didn’t know this evening.’
‘I think we’re all going to find out a lot more about Billy Evans over the next few days. He touched a lot of people’s lives, and I’ve a feeling that there are tales that none of us know yet.’
Megan listened to Harry in silence then reached for her coat. ‘I must get the children home. The boy will need help with the milking in the morning.’
‘Aunty Megan, I’m sorry, I can’t let this man get away with what he’s done even though he’s your brother-in-law,’ he apologized. ‘And the same goes for your father. If my suspicions are correct and he is involved in, if not exactly stealing, then taking advantage of people’s misery to acquire their livestock at a knockdown price, I will charge him with fraud.’
‘I wouldn’t want or expect you to make allowances for either of them, Harry. Especially for my sake,’ she said in surprise. ‘I haven’t seen my father, brothers and sisters in over fifteen years. And, after spending the evening talking about your grandfather, I realize that I don’t even consider them as my family any more.’
‘Don’t you want to see your brothers or your one remaining sister?’
‘Perhaps, if I ever find out where they are. But the fact that they haven’t left their addresses with anyone in the valley suggests that they feel the same w
ay about my father as I do. I need to talk to your Uncle Victor about this. He always comes up with answers to all my problems.’
‘You don’t want to see your father?’ Harry had to be sure.
‘Frankly, I wish I could disown him the way some parents do their children. I knew what he was when I was growing up, and I doubt he’s changed. There are all sorts of questions I need to ask myself. Like what I would do if I discovered that my late sister played a part in her husband’s schemes, and was stealing from people who could least afford it. I’d like to think that she wasn’t, but as her widower and my father get along, it looks as though she married a man just like our father. Over the years it’s been easier not to think about him than face up to the terrible things he did to try and separate me and your Uncle Victor, and what he succeeded in doing to my mother and brothers.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Megan gave him a brittle smile. ‘You’re just one of many Evanses I count myself lucky to be related to, Harry. I need to think about what you’ve just told me, and I won’t be free to do that until after we have said goodbye to Dad.’
‘This week is going to be a long one.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She hugged him and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for being tactful and being you, Harry. And for taking care of Dad for us. He was so proud of you.’
*……*……*
Saturday morning dawned dry and warm without a cloud in the sky. Harry stood in front of the open window of his bedroom, buttoning his shirt and waistcoat, his black tie slung around his neck. The garden had only been planted in the spring, but already there were roses on the mature bushes his mother had insisted on moving from Ynysangharad House, and the lavender cuttings had taken well, filling the air with their heady, late-summer scent.
It promised to be a hot day, the kind his grandfather had loved, and Harry resented the weather for being perfect when Billy Evans could no longer see the sun or flowers. Rain would have been easier to bear. He pushed in his stud, fastened his collar and looked at himself in the mirror.
‘Harry?’ Lloyd knocked the door.
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