by Alis Hawkins
The glare he gave me then told me he’d happily punch me in the face. Fair play, nobody likes Hobson’s choice.
‘David Daniels,’ he said, jaw stiff. ‘But I’m telling you, I’ll say nothing that’ll get me in trouble with Mr Philips.’
While I waited, I made a plan. Mind you, Mrs Parry and Mr Philips weren’t in any hurry and, by the time the door to the office opened, I’d talked myself out of my plan and back in to it at least twice. I jumped like a startled kitten when the latch clicked up, then straightened up away from the wall.
‘Morning, Mrs Parry.’
She looked into my face. ‘John Davies. What’s your business here?’
I swallowed. I couldn’t get used to the way she always behaved like a man. Left me feeling flat-footed for the right response.
‘I’d appreciate a word with you and Mr Philips. Together, if you’d be so good.’
‘Mr Probert-Lloyd too busy with more important people, is he?’
‘Not at all. I know he wanted to speak to you himself. But he’s been called home by an urgent family matter.’
Her eyes met mine. There should have been a clang. ‘What kind of urgent family matter?’
Would Harry want his father’s condition spread about? Probably not. But I knew it was important not to let these two feel slighted. ‘His father’s been struck with an apoplexy.’
She gazed at me steadily, as if she was weighing up my honesty. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Please pass on my sympathy to Mr Probert-Lloyd.’ Then she turned and pushed the door open again. ‘James? Seems we need to give an account of ourselves.’
Harry
I took the road through Llangoedmor. Though more up-hill and down-dale, it was a couple of miles shorter than the valley road through Llechryd. Sara was fresh and responded eagerly to my encouragement, breaking into a fast canter.
I was both desperate to get to Glanteifi and dreading my arrival. What condition would I find my father in? Would he even still be alive?
To my shame, I found myself transfixed by the thought that, if my father were to die, it was inconceivable that I should continue as acting coroner.
But what if he survived in a state of incapacity? Would I be expected to be at his side night and day?
The road was quiet. I kept what sight I possessed on the middle distance lest I needed to avoid cart or carriage and gave Sara her head. She knew she was going home and needed little guidance.
Home.
Glanteifi.
Seat of the Proberts, a family whose name I bore but whose blood I did not. On marrying into the estate, my father had been obliged to relinquish his own family name so that Glanteifi would continue to be owned by Proberts. He had added Lloyd, my mother’s maiden name, on his marriage to her, an act which had always struck me as violently out of character.
That daily reminder that Welsh blood ran through my veins might have been enough, on its own, to awaken egalitarian sympathies within me; but fate had conspired to make me a thoroughgoing Radical. Following my mother’s death, a concatenation of circumstances had ensured that I was brought up by a nurserymaid who, for reasons of her own, had taught me to consider myself no better than Glanteifi’s servants. Consequently, as I grew from boy to man, I had come to feel that the ownership of such acreages as my father and his kind possessed was immoral; that natural justice was in no way served by an economic system in which a tiny few owned so much whilst the many owned so little.
Now, however, given that such possession was about to become my lot, I was faced with a stark question: did I have the courage to overthrow the accepted order?
The tenantry would not thank me for it; I knew perfectly well that they were likely to be as scandalised as the local squires by any suggestion that leaseholders might buy the freehold of the acres they farmed.
This – this damned decision – was why I had fled to London, trained as a barrister, lived as if I had nothing further to do with Cardiganshire. And, had blindness not forced my hand, I might have continued to do so. Ormiston, my father’s steward, could have been left in charge while I made my living at the bar, taking not a penny from the estate’s revenues.
But that path was no longer open to me; I was now dependent, one way or another, on Glanteifi for my living.
I arrived in an unusually muted stableyard, and an unexpected feeling of dread filled me. Had my father died as I made my way home?
‘Is there news?’ I asked as I swung myself down from Sara’s back. ‘Is Dr Prendergast still here?’
‘Yes, Mr Harry.’ Michael, the head groom. ‘We’re all very sorry about what’s come upon your father.’
Mr Harry. He was still alive, then; I knew the servants would insist on calling me Mr Probert-Lloyd the moment my father died.
As I walked towards the house, I heard my name called. Mrs Griffiths’s small, upright figure, dark in her usual sober clothes, was easily visible against the pale stucco of the walls.
‘You’re here quicker than I thought,’ she said. ‘I was worried Twm might have to wait all day for you.’
‘If I hadn’t remembered an errand at the Black Lion, he would have. I was about to ride up to Tresaith.’
‘Well, thank God he caught you in time.’
A chill hand wrapped its fingers around my heart. ‘Is it that bad?’
‘Dr Prendergast says that today and tonight will be critical.’
‘Is he able to speak – conscious, even?’
‘Barely. He seems aware that people are there, some of the time. But he can’t speak – only make sounds.’ Her voice wavered to a stop.
I hesitated. ‘Shall I go up and see him?’ Though I had ridden home post-haste to do exactly that, now I was here, I was afraid of what I would find. And afraid of my own reaction.
Perhaps Mrs Griffiths could see my wavering, for she was mercifully direct. ‘Yes. Go up now, don’t bother about your muddy things. Dr Prendergast wants to speak to you.’
Despite her injunction, I took the time to scrape my boots carefully before entering the house. Making my way through the subdued servants’ quarters and out into the front hall, I stopped on the black-and-white tiles and drew in a long breath.
Then, more gingerly even than I had become used to doing, I set my feet to the shallow, curving staircase. With each step, I heard the heaviness of my own footfall and was reminded of the way I had bounded up the stairs as a boy, taking three at a time, my toes hardly touching the treads. Now, the staircase had never seemed so long. With every step, I dreaded what I would find in the bedroom at the end of the landing.
At the top of the stairs, I stopped to gather my thoughts and master them. Then, face set to greet whatever news Dr Prendergast had for me, I walked along the landing and opened the door.
For some reason, I had been expecting a darkened room but the curtains stood open to the low winter sun.
‘Henry.’ The doctor strode quietly across the room and clasped my hand. It was an unexpectedly intimate gesture and I had to prevent myself from pulling back.
‘How is he?’ I asked.
‘The initial attack would have killed a lesser man.’ He turned to look at my father’s bed. ‘However, at the moment he is unable to swallow, and if he does not regain the ability to drink and take nourishment…’
He did not need to complete the sentence.
‘Do patients normally recover the ability to swallow?’
Prendergast turned back to me and I made out what I could of his face. He wore long side-whiskers, iron-grey like his hair.
Unbidden, Reckitt came to mind. His hair was brown, still that of a young man. Did Prendergast see him as a rival, or was Reckitt’s oddness enough to ensure that nobody of any consequence would prefer him?
What strange thoughts spring to mind in dire circumstances.
‘With a stroke as severe as this, I’m afraid there is always the possibility that no recovery will occur.’ The doctor’s voice was soft, regretful. Was it from professional courtes
y or genuine feeling? I knew that he and my father had been acquainted for many years but whether they were friends I could not say.
‘I’m sure it’s a comfort to him to be attended by somebody whom he has known for so many years,’ I said.
‘Any service I can render allows me to repay a longstanding debt,’ the doctor replied. ‘When I first came into the district, your father was a good friend to me. He introduced me to the people who could make my career here a success. He understood what it is to have to make one’s way in a place where one is unknown.’
I nodded, uncomfortable. It had not occurred to me to think of my father’s early, friendless years in Cardiganshire in that way. In truth, I had seldom, if ever, thought about his youth at all.
Warily, I moved towards the bed. ‘Will he hear me if I speak to him?’
‘He seems aware of people’s presence but that’s all I can say.’
I stood where I hoped my father would be able to see me and leaned towards him.
‘Father? It’s me, Harry.’ I felt foolish, as if I was speaking into a void. I could see him lying there but I could not see his face in any detail, could not tell whether it was twisted. Then, suddenly, I thought his eyes opened.
‘Father? I’m here.’ I did not know what else to say.
I saw his mouth open wide, like a baby bird searching for a beakful of food, and my sudden unease bloomed into full-blown fear when he produced a harsh, effortful sound that seemed to have been forced out of him rather than being uttered in the normal way.
Without thinking, I put out a hand, as you would to a wounded animal. ‘It’s all right, Father, I’m here.’
His hand clutched at mine, gripping with unexpected force. Again, that sound, more urgent this time, as he tried to raise himself from the bed.
‘I think perhaps he’s trying to say your name,’ Prendergast said.
As if in confirmation, the sound came again and again as my father struggled and gripped my hand.
‘I’m here,’ I repeated, stupidly, wishing to God that I knew words that would calm him, stop him making that terrible noise.
Suddenly, the pressure on my hand loosened and my father sank back on the bed with a gasp. Now a different sound came from him. A thin, panting sound, broken up as if to form unintelligible words. Then it stopped. His hand gripped at mine again and I saw Prendergast moving quickly around to the other side of the bed. He bent over my father.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I fear he may be having another attack.’
I backed away from the bed. Was this my doing? Had my presence agitated my father unduly?
The last time we had spoken, I had as good as accused him of being more concerned with maintaining his own position than with seeing justice done. I had meant to go and see him the next day, to apologise and smooth things over between us but he had left the house before I had finished dressing. Had he been dwelling, ever since, on my opinion of him? And if he had, if my solipsism had contributed in some way to the apoplexy that had struck him, was it now too late to hope that I could put things right between us?
John
James Philips’s office was exactly what you’d’ve expected from the state of the rest of the building. It had one small window, bare floorboards and exactly three pieces of furniture. A desk, which looked as if it had been manhandled from cart to destination more times than was good for it. A carver chair with a cushion on the seat for the user of the desk. And another chair, without arms or cushion, in front of the desk. No paintings on the walls, just shelves stacked with ledgers and small boxes.
No desks for clerks, either. David Daniels and those like him worked their fingers to the bone elsewhere.
Mrs Parry moved the armless chair to the other side of the desk and sat down. Mr Philips shot her a look and sank back into his carver.
Taking the chairs was meant to show me my place, but standing or sitting made no difference to me. I wasn’t just a clerk, here, I was the coroner’s assistant. And that gave me the coroner’s authority.
I started putting my plan into action straight away. No niceties. Be civil but take them off their guard.
‘The body of a man we believe to be Mr Jenkyn Hughes has been found, stripped naked and facially disfigured, on the beach at Tresaith,’ I began. I was pleased with ‘facially disfigured’. Mr Schofield would approve. No sensational penny-blood talk about a ‘man with no face’.
‘I understand that you were both in business with him as part of what people call the American Scheme.’
Eyes on me, they waited. I’d picked up the spade and they were going to wait and see what sort of hole I’d dig myself into.
‘Is that information correct?’
‘It’s properly called the Cardigan-Ohio Emigration Company,’ Philips said.
No wonder people called it the American Scheme. Who’d want to come out with that mouthful every time?
‘Thank you.’ I wrote it down in my notebook. Taking my time over making notes was part of the plan. I hoped it’d put them on edge.
‘What makes you think it’s Jenkyn Hughes?’ Philips asked.
I’d had a long time to think about this while I was waiting outside his office and I didn’t want to get scoffed at for identifying a body by a handful of coins. So, instead of answering the question, I asked one of my own. ‘When did you last see Mr Hughes?’
It didn’t work. Philips just tapped the desk with a hard finger. ‘I asked you a question. What makes the coroner think that the dead man is Jenkyn Hughes?’
My knees began to shake, but I put as much confidence into my voice as I could. Thank God I’d practised all this in my head.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, Mr Philips. When the inquest is re-convened, all the evidence will be laid out. Meanwhile, I’ve been asked to speak to people who might be called as witnesses in order to discover as much as possible about the circumstances of Mr Hughes’s death.’
Neither of them said anything. I flipped a couple of pages back and pretended to read. I had to work to keep my voice steady, my fingers were jerking with every heartbeat. ‘Mrs Parry, you last saw Mr Hughes a couple of days before you left Tresaith on business a fortnight or so ago, is that right?’
Mrs Parry stared at me, face blank, eyes shrewd. I was pretty sure she knew I hadn’t just read those words. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s right.’
I sucked in a breath as I turned to Philips. ‘And you, sir?’
I hadn’t called anybody sir since I left Mr Davies’s school in Adpar. Mr Schofield had been clear on the matter. I am your employer, not your master,and you will both address me and refer to me when speaking to clients, as Mr Schofield. I was banking on James Philips being the kind of man who liked to be called sir.
His face was as expressionless as Mrs Parry’s but his eyes weren’t half as shrewd. He struck me as the sort of man who’s generally pretty pleased with himself. His hair and beard were snipped close and neat, as if they were barbered every week, and his coat looked new and expensive. Its seams lay very flat and it was fitted snug to his body, as if it’d been made for him very recently.
‘I can’t exactly remember,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have as much to do with him as Mrs Parry did.’
‘But you were equal partners in the Cardigan-Ohio Emigration Company?’
He blinked. Did he think I was too stupid to remember the American scheme’s proper name? Arrogant pizzle.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But each of us had different areas of responsibility.’ I waited. It was a trick I’d got from Harry – give most people a silence and they can’t help filling it up. Mind, I knew I wouldn’t get away with that trick with Mrs Parry.
‘I’d put in my share up front, to start getting the ship built. My part of the scheme involves import and export. I had no reason to see Hughes.’
Hughes. Not Jenkyn or Jenkyn Hughes or even Mr Hughes. Just Hughes. It was cold. No love lost there. I made a note of what he’
d said. Slowly. The information tied in with what David Daniels had said about not seeing the American here much.
I finished writing and looked up at James Philips. ‘So you only knew Mr Hughes as a business partner, sir? You didn’t associate with him for any other reason?’
‘Such as?’ He was wary.
‘Socially?’
‘No.’
I was pretty sure he was lying. The answer had been too quick, too definite.
‘Can you tell me a bit more about Mr Hughes’ part in the scheme?’ I wanted to give him every opportunity to let something slip.
But he wasn’t having any of it. ‘I think Mrs Parry’d be better placed to tell you about that.’
So I turned my attention back to her. The difference between the two of them was striking. Him in his expensive coat, a silk necktie around his shirt collar and a watchchain draped just so from his waistcoat pocket. Her in her man’s cloak over a working woman’s betgwn and apron, a squat hat on her head that had nothing to do with looks and everything to do with keeping her warm on the drive down from Tresaith.
‘Our friend Jenkyn liked to see himself as a sharp businessman.’ Matter-of-fact, just a suggestion of an indulgent smile. No coldness towards Hughes from her. But then, maybe she was canny enough to know that a bit of warmth would look less suspicious. ‘The money for his third of the business comes from the fees the emigrants pay him,’ she said. ‘But he had something else on the go, as well. To make a bit of seed-corn money for his next venture.’
‘Did he have another business venture in mind?’ I asked.