by Alis Hawkins
Harry put a hand on her arm. ‘Mrs Abel,’ he said, gently, ‘your husband is worried about you.’
She pulled away. ‘No! If I’m not here he’ll come and take Lizzie. I know he will! He’s owed. He will!’
Her eyes were bloodshot. From crying or lack of sleep? Both, looking at the state of her. Before her child died, she’d probably been pretty. But now her fair hair was in tangles and her face was drawn back onto the bones.
‘No.’ Harry might’ve been speaking to an over-tired child. ‘Dr Reckitt is not going to come and take your daughter. I promise you.’
‘But he’s owed!’ Her voice was shrill, desperate. ‘He’ll have her, I know he will!’
‘No,’ Harry was kind but firm. ‘He won’t. I promise you.’
‘He will, he will, he will.’ She fell to sobbing, and tearing at her hair. ‘If we don’t pay him back, he’ll come for her,’ she sobbed. ‘He’ll cut her flesh and look into every crack and crevice of her! It’s unnatural. It’s wicked! I won’t let him have her! I won’t, I won’t!’
Harry grabbed her hands in his. ‘Mrs Abel, listen to me. My name is Henry Probert-Lloyd of Glanteifi. I am the coroner. I am responsible for the dead and I promise you that Dr Benton Reckitt will not interfere in any way with your daughter’s grave or her body. I give you my word.’
She pulled her hands away from him, but she didn’t start tearing her hair again. ‘I can’t leave her,’ she sobbed. ‘I mustn’t. Don’t take me away,’ she wailed. ‘Don’t take me away.’
I moved closer, pulling the horses behind me. Abel hadn’t been exaggerating. His wife was deranged with grief and fear. And she looked starved.
‘I can’t see any food or water here,’ I murmured into Harry’s ear. ‘We have to get her back to her husband before she dies, too.’
Harry nodded and took one of the woman’s hands to help her out of the manger. ‘Come with me, now, Mrs Abel.’
It was a tone of voice that would’ve worked ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred you’re not dealing with somebody who’s lost their wits. Margaret Abel pulled her hand away and shrank down into herself again. ‘No. No!’
Harry tried to pull her up but when somebody’s decided to resist, their weight seems to double and he couldn’t do it. I left the mares standing and leant a hand. Between us, we got Margaret upright. But I could see that she’d collapse in a sobbing heap if we let her go.
‘I’ll carry her,’ I said.
Thin as she was, it was like lifting a child. ‘If I can get up on the mounting block with her, I can put her in front of me on Seren.’
Harry didn’t need telling twice. By the time I walked out of the stable doors, he was getting the mare into position. I staggered a bit up the steps under the weight of Margaret Abel and, when I stepped off the mounting block I couldn’t see properly and almost overbalanced. There was a terrifying moment when I thought we’d both land on our heads on the mare’s other side, then I managed to pull us back onto Seren. Shaking, I shifted Margaret Abel into a position where she was more or less secure. The fight seemed to have gone out of her and, when I looked down to reassure her that I’d hold her safe, I saw why. She’d fainted clean away.
Back at Abel’s workshop, he was resigned.
‘She won’t stay, gentlemen. She’ll be back off there like a rabbit. She won’t live under the same roof as me.’
‘Mr Abel.’ Harry’s tone to him was a sight less gentle than it had been to Maggie. ‘Your wife is weak and ill. She needs food and water and care. I suggest that you close your workshop and ensure that she’s provided with those things.’
Abel looked as if he wanted to tell Harry to mind his own business. Didn’t dare say it, of course.
‘She’s in no fit state to run away, Mr Abel,’ I said as I put his senseless wife into his arms. ‘She’s as weak as a hatchling.’
Abel looked up from Maggie’s face to mine. ‘Was she awake when you found her?’
‘Yes. And spitting pins. But when it came to it, she didn’t have the strength left to fight us.’
He looked me in the eye. ‘You think you’ve done her a kindness, bringing her home,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘But you haven’t. Once she wakes up, she’ll be in such distress that it’ll kill her if she doesn’t go back and watch over Lizzie.’
‘Abel, she’s your wife. You must look after her.’
He turned to Harry. ‘No, Mr Probert-Lloyd. This isn’t my wife. This is a stranger. A mad stranger who hates me for what I did so that my child could die without pain and we could leave this place.’
‘Whether you leave is up to you,’ Harry said. ‘But I’ll see to it that you’re paid for the furniture you’ve made. There will be no need to sell your bond, I’ll make sure that Hughes’s estate covers its cost and the cost of the laudanum Dr Reckitt gave you.’
‘Make sure you tell her that when she wakes up,’ I chipped in, nodding at his wife. ‘Tell her that Dr Reckitt will be paid in full. I think she believes that he’s bought your daughter’s body and has a right to it.’
Abel nodded wearily. ‘What did you want to speak to her about?’ he asked.
I waited while Harry decided how to phrase his question.
‘In the days immediately before your daughter’s death,’ he said, ‘did Dr Reckitt come to your house more often than he’d done before?’
Abel lowered himself on to the settle we had sat on earlier, his wife’s head lolling off his shoulder as he sat. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He gently lifted Maggie’s head to rest against him. ‘He generally came every week, to give us more laudanum. I don’t think he ever came more often than that.’
‘And the dose of laudanum – was that the same?’ Harry asked.
‘If you mean, how often did we have to give it to her, it was just the same, Mr Probert-Lloyd. But if you’re asking was the laudanum stronger, I’ve got no way of knowing. Except…’
‘Except what?’
I looked at Harry. His blind eyes were narrowed and he looked sharp, suspicious.
‘Well, Maggie was taking it as well – from the same bottle. So if it was stronger, she’d have been bound to notice, wouldn’t she?’
‘Yes.’ Harry’s frown disappeared. ‘Thank you, Mr Abel.’
The cabinet maker hung his head for a moment, as if the effort of holding it up had suddenly got too much.
‘Dr Reckitt’s a good man,’ he said when he looked up at us again. ‘He explained to me how what he wanted to do would help other children. How other children might be saved by what he learned…’ Abel swallowed. ‘You know, from Lizzie.’ He looked up at us, lips pressed together, holding tears in. ‘How could I think of another father suffering like I did,’ he croaked, ‘if I could do something to prevent it?
‘The doctor could’ve just given us the laudanum,’ he went on, his voice strengthening. ‘He didn’t have to give us the bond as well. I didn’t ask him for so much. He’s a good man.’
‘What now?’ I asked when Abel’s apprentice had handed us the mares’ reins and shut the door to the workshop behind him.
Harry swung himself into the saddle. ‘Now, I need to go back to Glanteifi. On the way, we’ll go to the Lloyd and Philips offices and find Shoni Jones’s address in Moylegrove. They’re bound to have it if he’s claiming Jenkyn Hughes’s share of the business. We’ll go and see him tomorrow.’
I kicked Seren into a trot after him. ‘I can go out to Moylgrove. You’re needed at Glanteifi.’
Harry looked torn. I could see he wanted to be there, to hear how Shoni Jones justified taking possession of his cousin’s papers before anybody knew he was dead.
‘Let’s leave it like this,’ he said. ‘If I’m not at the Black Lion by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, go without me. I’ll come with you now, and we can check for messages and make sure they’ve got a room and supper for you.’
Supper at the Black Lion. No sarcastic remarks from my landlady. No thin gravy and tough meat. W
hat was left of the day was suddenly looking a lot brighter.
Harry
My spirits drooped as I trotted Sara up the drive to Glanteifi, and I scolded myself, shamed at how little thought I had spared my father while I had been out with John.
And yet, in my own defence, had his finger not stabbed at the door of his room? Work! He had made it quite clear that I was to get out and be useful, not hover about him. The thought evoked an unaccustomed sense of fellow-feeling with my father; on the rare occasions when I was ill, I, too, wanted nothing more than to be left alone.
Mrs Griffiths greeted me at the back door. ‘Harry, don’t take your boots off yet. Mr Schofield sent one of his clerks over, earlier, with a note requesting a meeting with you at your earliest convenience. I think that was the phrase.’ She withdrew what must be Schofield’s note from a pocket in her apron and checked. ‘Yes: at your earliest convenience.’
‘I see. And is it convenient? Can I be spared for another hour or so?’
‘Your father was asleep when I went up half an hour ago. Mr Arthur Philips has been with him most of the time you’ve been gone so he’s been well entertained. And his speech is better again today. More sentences.’
‘And the paralysis?’
‘A little bit more movement, I think. He can get on and off the bed by himself now. He’s out of bed and sitting in a chair by the fire.’
Progress indeed.
‘Very well, I’ll go and see Schofield then,’ I said. ‘I’ll be home before dark if I go straight away. What’s for dinner?’
I heard the boyishness of the question as soon as it was out of my mouth. I couldn’t help it; standing here with the smell of cooking coming from the kitchen, the years just seemed to fall away.
‘Cod. Nice and easy for your father to eat.’
‘I’m sure Dr Reckitt would approve. Speaking of whom, has he been here today?’
‘He has. And gone again. Expressed himself very satisfied with his patient.’
Since hearing the Abels’ story I had been wondering what to think about Benton Reckitt. Previously, I had felt I understood his autopsy obsession. But, in the case of Elizabeth Abel, had he not overstepped some moral mark, taken advantage of a father’s desperation? Had he not, as Mrs Abel obviously feared, effectively bought Lizzie Abel’s body to do with as he wished?
Sara was already being rubbed down, so I took my father’s usual mount, an elderly gelding. His official name was Major but, because of his docile nature, my father generally referred to him as Dobbin, and the grooms followed suit.
I managed to persuade the old horse into a decent trot down the drive and on to the road. It was a mild day and the oblique rays of the sinking sun set ivy leaves and holly bushes a-glitter in my peripheral vision.
Charles Schofield wanted to speak to me about John; there could be no other explanation for this requested meeting. I had estimated that I would need an assistant for a week, therefore, in the absence of any further communication from me, Schofield would have been expecting John back today. My failure to request his further assistance was discourteous, if excusable. Had my father not succumbed to his stroke, I would have ridden over on Saturday afternoon to speak to the solicitor and crave his indulgence for a further week. But apoplexy had struck and all consideration for Charles Schofield had gone by the board.
For John’s sake if not for my own, I needed to make amends.
Astonishingly, the news that my father was unwell had not reached Schofield’s office. Naturally, when I explained why I had not been to see him before this, he articulated all the conventional platitudes, but the question which followed rang with self-importance and told me how little genuine regard he felt for my father.
‘I trust that in all this unforeseen busy-ness my clerk has given satisfaction?’
Stifling the antipathy his question provoked, I gushed like a geyser on the subject of John’s excellence but to no avail. Schofield remained unmollified.
‘I am quite well aware of John Davies’s excellent qualities, thank you, Mr Probert-Lloyd. I have taken pains to train him and that is why I am sorely missing his presence in my office.’
‘Yes, of course. And, please, do not think me unappreciative. As I mentioned, I would have come before this had my father not been taken so very ill.’ I paused, delicately. ‘However, I wonder if you might indulge me for a few more days? I have relied on John very much since I have had to be at Glanteifi but, as I’m sure you’ll understand, there are things I cannot ask him to do alone and those have had to wait.’
In truth, John had done everything I would have done, entirely on his own initiative, but I could not afford to let his employer know that.
‘Exactly how much indulgence do you feel you will need, Mr Probert-Lloyd?’
Unable to see people’s faces, I was constantly having to guess at their expression in order to arrange my features into some complementary configuration; it was a wearying and probably futile process. Still, I gave Charles Schofield what I hoped was a look of realistic optimism. ‘I’m confident that my investigations will be concluded at a public meeting in Cardigan on Friday,’ I told him. ‘That will furnish me with various material witnesses to whom I do not otherwise have ready access.’
‘Friday?’ Given that I had just doubled the length of time for which I had requested John’s assistance, his tone was admirably non-committal.
‘Is that entirely unreasonable of me?’ I asked.
‘I must admit, Mr Probert-Lloyd, its reasonableness or otherwise is not my primary concern here.’
‘No?’
‘If you succeed in being elected to the post of coroner for the Teifi Valley, have you asked yourself how you will provide yourself with an assistant who can always be available to you at a moment’s notice?’
The question was both uncivil and indiscreet but, rather than bridle at it, I attempted to disarm him. ‘Yes, that is a question I have asked myself. And I have decided to employ a private secretary. Even if unsuccessful in the election,’ I added, ‘I will clearly need a secretary as I assume my duties at Glanteifi. I would anticipate that, as long as I am careful in my choice, that person would have an interest in assisting me as coroner.’
‘I see. And would that careful choice lead you to John Davies?’
‘I understand,’ I said, picking my words with care, ‘that John’s ambitions lie elsewhere.’
‘Indeed?’ The word was as sharp as a ruler over the knuckles. ‘John Davies is an excellent clerk but, as I’m sure you are aware, Mr Probert-Lloyd, he has neither family nor means. He is not an articled clerk. Therefore, I fail to see in which direction his ambitions might extend.’
So, I had been entirely wrong about Mr Schofield’s intentions; he was not preparing John to take his place.
‘Of course,’ I responded, ‘as you say, he is not presently articled. But if articles were to be contracted for on his behalf… Would you welcome such a thing?’
‘Is that John Davies’s own impression? That I would welcome him here as an articled clerk – a would-be lawyer in his own right?’
‘Not at all. He has given me no indication–’
‘Because, if that is the case, I must disabuse him – and you, Mr Probert-Lloyd – of any such notion. I have a nephew who will sit, this very year, the examinations which will qualify him to practise as a solicitor. When the time is right, it is he who will take over my practice. He and nobody else, Mr Probert-Lloyd. And I hope, when he does, that – given this office’s unstinting aid in endeavours that few others would have countenanced – he may count on your wholehearted support in the town?’
The intimidating effect of a verbal attack is far greater when you cannot see the person who is delivering it, and my body was tense with the atavistic fear of physical violence. ‘Of course,’ I replied, standing my ground though every nerve in my body was screaming at me to back away from danger. ‘I’ve been very grateful for your help, Mr Schofield.’
‘John Davies i
s undeniably an intelligent young man.’ Schofield articulated each word as if he wanted to be absolutely sure I heard it clearly. ‘But, if he wishes to take up articles, then he must do so elsewhere. This practice has room for only one solicitor and, as I have indicated, when I retire, that solicitor will be my nephew.’
I rode back to Glanteifi with the flaming oranges and purples of sunset ablaze in the western sky before me.
Neither Charles Schofield nor I had got what we wished from our interview. Schofield would have to do without John for another week and might, given our conversation, find him returned in a very different frame of mind from the one in which he had left. I, on the other hand, had seen my neat little plan dashed on the rocks of my own presumption. If John wanted to be articled, he would have to go elsewhere, which would inevitably take him out of my reach when I needed him. I could still do the right thing and find the necessary fees but, if I did so, it would be an entirely altruistic act.
Would John consider giving up the law and becoming my secretary? There was only one reliable way of finding out. But I would have to postpone that until after the inquest into Jenkyn Hughes’s death.
John
I waited till ten o’clock on the dot then I went out to the Black Lion’s stables. As I crossed the coachyard the clock down at St Mary’s struck the hour, so I didn’t have to worry that my watch was fast and I was leaving before time.