Beggars and Choosers (49 page)

Lloyd went upstairs and walked into Sali's room. He lifted the valise down from the top of her wardrobe.

‘You packing everything of hers?' His father stood in the doorway, watching Lloyd clear her hairbrush and bottle of cologne from the dressing table.

‘Everything.'

‘You don't think she's going to come back here?'

‘No.'

‘Lloyd –'

‘She's returned to her own kind. That couldn't have been made clearer to me today.'

‘Not by her, I know.'

Lloyd placed the last of Sali's belongings into the valise and snapped the sides together. ‘Face it, would you be here by choice knowing what's coming to this valley?' When his father didn't reply, he said, ‘Ask Victor and Joey if they'll take Harry to Pontypridd.' He slipped his hand into his pocket and peeled a pound note off the roll he had withdrawn from the bank in the hope of bribing Owen into divorcing Sali. ‘And give them this to pay for the cab and the journey home. Tell them not to accept a penny from Geraint Watkin Jones.'

Realising Lloyd was adamant, his father took the money on the premise that any overpayment could be sorted out later. ‘You will say goodbye to the boy?' he asked, as Lloyd fastened the lock on the valise.

‘Of course.'

Billy glanced into the room. ‘I'm going to miss her.'

‘We all are.' Lloyd brushed past him and ran down the stairs.

Joey picked up Sali's valise and the case containing Harry's clothes from the floor of the cab, went to the door of Ynysangharad House and rang the bell. Victor left the cab and leaned back inside to lift out Harry, who had fallen asleep before they had left Tonypandy. He wrapped the blanket they had taken from Harry's bed closer around him as he carried him to the porch door. They stood in the darkness listening to the sound of bolts being thrown back on an inner door, followed by footsteps and locks opening on the outer door. A footman peered out at them.

‘We've brought Harry,' Joey whispered so as not to wake the boy. ‘Sali's son.'

The footman stepped back and spoke to someone in the hall. A man came to the door, his face bloody and bruised. Behind him was a short, stout, middle-aged woman who resembled the housekeeper of Llan House so closely, Joey retreated into the shadows.

‘I'll take him.' The man held out his arms.

‘It might be better if I carried him inside.' Victor sized up the situation and added, ‘sir', which his father and elder brother would never have said.

‘I think it best the housekeeper put him to bed right away.'

Harry woke, took one look at Geraint's bloody face and screamed.

‘It's all right, Harry.' Victor lifted the boy higher into his arms and Harry buried his head in his shoulder. ‘Your mam is here.'

‘She is too ill to come to the door,' Geraint said, ‘Mari, could you take the boy up to Sali's room?'

Her skills honed by years of experience with children, Mari unlocked Harry's arms from around Victor's neck within minutes. ‘Come on, darling, I'll take you to your mam.'

Joey waited until Harry and Mari were out of sight before setting the cases he had carried from the cab on to the porch floor. ‘These are Harry's and Sali's things.'

‘Don't forget Harry's toys, Joey.' Victor tensed, as Harry's screams escalated. Then suddenly they ceased.

‘Judging by the silence, my nephew is with my sister.' Geraint continued to block the doorway with his body.

‘How is Sali?' Joey returned with the brown paper and string carrier bags of toys.

‘As well as can be expected after being attacked, but she is expected to make a full recovery.'

‘Will you give her our,' Victor choked back the word love, ‘regards, and tell her that we are thinking of her.'

‘I will.' Geraint looked down at the cases and bags.

‘Take these up to Mrs Jones's room, Harris,' he ordered the footman. He looked at Joey and Victor. ‘If you would like something to eat, the kitchens are around the back.'

‘We are not hungry.' Joey stared coldly at Geraint.

‘You will need money for the cab.'

‘We don't need your money,' Joey snapped, losing his temper.

‘You will give our messages to Sali?' Victor reminded, taking Joey's arm before he did something they would both regret.

‘To Mrs Jones, yes.' Geraint closed the front door before Joey and Victor even reached the cab.

‘And what would Master Harry like for breakfast, Miss Sali?' Jenkins enquired, as Sali led Harry by the hand into the dining room.

‘What is on the menu, Jenkins?'

‘Mrs James's Monday autumn breakfast, Miss Sali – grilled kidneys and mushrooms, sardines, wholemeal scones and fruit.' He pulled out a chair for Harry next to the carver Geraint occupied.

‘Would it be a great deal of trouble for the cook to boil Harry an egg, Jenkins? He is used to simple food.'

‘Not at all, Miss Sali.'

‘You don't have to be so diffident with the servants, Sali,' Geraint reproached when Jenkins had left the room.

‘They are Aunt Edyth's servants, not ours.' Sali turned to her son. ‘This is your Uncle Geraint, Harry.'

Geraint held out his hand to Harry, who shook it only after Sali had prompted him. Sali lifted him on to his chair, took a banana from the bowl on the table, peeled it, placed it on Harry's plate and cut it into chunks before sitting beside him.

‘How are you feeling this morning?' she asked her brother.

‘How do I look?'

Conscious of Harry shrinking closer to her and realising he was terrified of the bloody bruises on Geraint's face, she wrapped her arm around his shoulders. ‘Like you've taken up boxing with professionals.'

‘That's about how I feel.' He studied Harry. ‘You're right, Sali, he does look like Mansel, But he's going to grow up into a right Mummy's boy if you insist on molly-coddling him the way you are now.'

‘He is in a strange place,' Sali reminded, ‘and he hates the sight of blood and bruises because he saw so many of them when we lived with Owen.'

Harry looked down at his plate, picked up a piece of banana and slipped it into his mouth.

‘You haven't taught him to say grace, Sali?' Geraint asked in surprise.

‘What's grace, Mam?' Harry asked.

‘Grace is thanking God for the food on the table, Harry,' Geraint answered.

‘Uncle Billy says that God doesn't put food on the table, only the sweat of men's labour.'

Geraint pushed his plate to one side and studied his nephew. ‘And who is Uncle Billy?'

‘Uncle Billy is Uncle Billy,' Harry answered with childish logic before taking a second piece of banana.

‘I think you've come back just in time, Sali. You've brought the boy up to be a positive heathen. The sooner he goes to a good school and learns discipline and civilised behaviour –'

‘Harry is three years old, Geraint.'

‘He needs an experienced nanny to drum some manners into him,' he said sharply.

‘A nanny! Geraint, have you no idea how I've been living?'

He pulled the napkin from his lap, crumpled it and tossed it over the debris on his plate. ‘Your hands say it all. I've seen kitchen maids with fewer calluses. But you're not living that life any longer and, the sooner you forget about it for your son's sake as well as your own, the better.'

‘I have very little money.'

‘You're forgetting that you are my sister.' He pushed his chair back from the table. ‘Danygraig House may have been sold, but I've already asked Mr Richards to look around for a suitable replacement. It's high time that Harry,' he looked from the boy to her, ‘and you, are taken in hand. I have arranged to meet Mr Richards in his office at nine. We will be spending the morning with Uncle Morgan. After the events of last night, I have given Jenkins orders only to admit close friends and relatives to the morning room to pay their respects to Aunt Edyth. There is no need for you to receive anyone.'

‘You assume that no one will want to see the wife of a murderer.'

‘I am trying to protect you, Sali.'

She looked her brother in the eye but he avoided her gaze. ‘You are ashamed of me?' she enquired bluntly.

‘Merely minimising gossip,' he countered. ‘I will ask Mr Richards to contact Llinos and Gareth at school, so they can return for Aunt Edyth's and Mansel's funeral. Don't delay lunch for me.'

‘Mr Davies left after chapel services yesterday evening, Mr Geraint, Mr Richards.' Tomas took their coats and hats.

‘But he doesn't believe in Sunday travelling.' Geraint froze as he recalled his uncle's aggressive response to the questions Mr Richards had put to him on Saturday before their interview had been interrupted by the news of the discovery of Mansel's body.

‘For where?' Mr Richards enquired, concealing his mounting alarm beneath a professional detachment he had practised for over half a century.

‘Mr Davies said it was an emergency. A fellow minister was dying in Cardiff and had asked to see him.'

‘He received a telegram?'

‘Not that I saw, Mr Richards. When I asked him about the arrangements for moving the household, he referred me to Mr Geraint.'

‘No doubt Mr Davies left letters in the study.' Mr Richards tried to sound optimistic for Geraint's sake. ‘We'll start there.'

‘Look, Harry, here's a whole cupboard full of toys.' Sali opened the walk-in toy store in the nursery and showed Harry shelves crammed with beautifully crafted, expensive toys. She could recall Mansel and her brothers playing with them. There was a far more elaborate and grander fort than the homemade one Joey had packed for Harry and with ten times the complement of lead soldiers outfitted in four painted regimental uniforms, two British, two Napoleonic. She lifted him up so he could see everything. ‘You can play with this fort, or this theatre, here's a box of puppets to go with it, and there are lots of wind-up tin toys. I remember those guns. Uncle Geraint and I used to play with them, they fire corks, and here's a farmyard with pigs, sheep, cows, chickens ... Don't you want to play with them, darling?' she asked, as he shook his head.

‘No.' He left the cupboard, walked past the enormous wooden rocking horse and picked up one of the carrier bags Joey had packed. ‘I want to play with Uncle Joey's fort.'

He sat cross-legged on the floor and unpacked.

The last time Sali had been in this room was the week before Mansel had disappeared. He was looking for his childhood copy of
Treasure Island,
because he remembered that he'd drawn a picture of her on a blank page at the back of the book. They had found it and laughed at his childish scrawl. But then the room had been dusty and unkempt with scuffed, varnished wallpaper, paint and furniture. Sometime between then and now, Edyth must have called in decorators. The new wallpaper was bright yellow with a teddy bear pattern, the child-scale furniture also new, beech wood ornamented with nursery rhyme figures, and the picture books on the shelves next to the bed looked suspiciously untouched.

She recalled her aunt's words –
He can grow up in his father's house, playing with his toys, reading his books ...

It was heartbreaking to think of Aunt Edyth making preparations and plans for them to join her in Ynysangharad House and dying before she saw Harry in Mansel's old nursery.

‘When are we going home, Mam?'

Startled, she looked down at Harry. ‘Home?' she repeated.

‘To Uncle Billy's house.'

‘I don't know, darling.' She knelt beside him as he set up the fort and battered tin soldiers the way Victor and Joey had showed him. ‘I have a lot of things to do here.'

‘But we will go home?' His bottom lip trembled as he looked up at her.

She picked up a photograph of her and Mansel that had been taken the Christmas before her father had died. ‘This room used to be your father's, Harry. This is a picture of us together.'

Harry looked at the photograph solemnly for a moment. ‘Is he with the angels like Uncle Iestyn?'

‘Yes, darling.'

‘Do I have to be sad?'

Sali couldn't ask Harry to grieve for a father and aunt he had never known. Not when he had known so much violence and misery in his short life. ‘No, darling.'

‘Then play soldiers with me,' he instructed practically. ‘I'll have the ones with crosses. They will be in the fort, yours will be outside it, and you have to try to take it from my men. We'll have one cannon each. Do you have any matchsticks?'

‘Nothing. No papers, no records, just sermons.' Mr Richards slammed the desk drawer.

‘There's nothing in Father's safe either.'

‘Your uncle gave you the key?' Mr Richards asked Geraint in surprise.

‘It was open.'

‘I think you and I had better get to the bank and check the safety deposit boxes.'

‘This is most irregular, Mr Richards,' the bank manager protested. ‘As joint guardian, you have access to the bank accounts, but the safety deposit boxes contain sensitive items personal to the family –'

‘Mr Watkin Jones and I have just come from Danygraig House,' Mr Richards explained impatiently. ‘There is nothing there. No records, nothing. Mr Watkin Jones attains his majority next week and as joint guardian it is my duty to ensure that the changeover is smooth.'

‘But Mr Davies –'

‘When was he last here?'

‘Saturday afternoon. We were closed, but he said it was an emergency and for a customer of his standing –'

‘Did he open the boxes?'

‘I left him alone with them as usual, Mr Richards.'

‘Mr Morgan Davies has been called away on urgent business. So urgent, he didn't even have time to leave a message.'

In the half a century the bank manager had known Mr Richards, he had never seen him panic before that moment. ‘I will unlock the boxes for you myself.'