by Alis Hawkins
By rights, Harry shouldn’t have taken me on as under-steward. The estate couldn’t afford another employee. But we’d got around it. I lived in at the mansion so I only cost the food I ate, and I’d agreed to work for my keep for a year while I learned the stewarding trade and took my solicitor’s exams, at Harry’s expense, as insurance. So everything was found for me, right down to the clothes I was wearing. I’d never in my life had more than one decent suit of clothes at a time before but, here I was, in a suit made just for riding about in. I had other clothes for wearing when I wasn’t on a horse, and I understood, now, why gentlemen changed for dinner. The ladies they sat down with didn’t want to smell saddle oil and horse sweat while they ate their dinner, did they?
Not that there had been any ladies at Glanteifi for a long time. But we’d soon be lighting a fire in one of the damp, neglected bedrooms and it’d be aired for Lydia Howell.
Going to be a nine days’ wonder, Lydia’s arrival was. The people of Newcastle Emlyn wouldn’t know what to think.
Harry Glanteifi’s employed a woman as his private secretary!
And not just any woman. The sister of Nathaniel Howell, minister and rabble-rouser, who’d run away when the rabble he’d roused during the Rebecca Riots had turned nasty.
We pulled up at the top of a hill to let the mares catch their breath. It was midday. The sun was warm and the primroses on the bank beside us turned their pale little faces up to it as if it had drawn them out of the ground. Which, in a way, I suppose it had.
I glanced over at Harry. I could see that something was worrying him and I had a pretty shrewd idea what it was. Silas Emmanuel. He’d be well within his rights to refuse to discuss Nicholas Rowland’s will with us, wouldn’t he? Then we would’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it and nothing to tell Jonas Minnever when he wanted to know why Harry hadn’t come back to Tregaron.
The sooner this damned election was over the better. Then we could just get on with our jobs without people nagging us.
Only trouble was, if Harry didn’t pay any attention to the voters, we’d both have one fewer job to do.
When we stood in front of the premises of Emmanuel, Pask and Williams, I was even more convinced that we’d get nothing from Silas Emmanuel. The building was on the same street as the entrance to St David’s College and it was a lot grander than I’d been expecting. A tall, modern affair with big windows and a little paved area in front, separated from the street by black-painted railings. Looked as if Emmanuel, Pask and Williams’d made sure that their office was ready for the important people who were part of Lampeter life now. People much more important than a cowshed schoolteacher.
But, as it turned out, Mr Silas Emmanuel was not the owner of the name on the plaque outside and he was nothing like as impressive as the premises he worked in. A son recently come into the business and doing his best, if I was any judge. The thought that he must’ve managed the solicitors’ exams made me think I’d be all right. Not what you’d call an impressive intellect, Mr Silas.
We sat in his stuffy little box of an office and I watched the expressions come and go on his round, moon-ish face while Harry explained about Rowland’s death and our inquiry. We’d made Silas’s day – I could see that. Details of a will he’d drafted might lead us to a murderer! Harry didn’t put it like that, of course, but you could tell that’s what Silas thought. You could almost see his eyes lighting up. Motive! Murder most foul! I’d have laid good money on him having a pile of well-thumbed penny bloods somewhere in his house, trained legal man or not.
Mind, once he’d given us the substance of Rowland’s will, you could see why he was so excited. There was only one main provision and it might as well have had ‘motive’ scrawled across it in capital letters.
Without all the legal ifs, thens and hereinafters, the will said this: if anybody was willing to take up Rowland’s idea of the collegiate school in Llanddewi Brefi (subject to adherence to founding charter, appended) they were to be given access, via trustees, to all Rowland’s money, worldly goods, etcetera.
‘You say “all Rowland’s financial resources”,’ Harry said. ‘We found a large sum hidden in his living quarters – was there other money?’
‘There was a bank account – set up in the name of the trustees of the collegiate school.’
‘Might I ask who the trustees were?’
Silas Emmanuel looked a bit uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t sure he should say.
‘They were obviously people he trusted,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they’d want to help in any way they could…’ I didn’t say ‘to catch his killer’. I most definitely did not.
‘Of course,’ he said, still looking uncomfortable. ‘I was one…’ I waited. Harry didn’t interfere. This was what I was here for – seeing reactions he couldn’t and making sure I didn’t waste a single chance to get information. ‘The others were Miss Phoebe Gwatkyn of Alltybela and Mr Daniel Owens, the Unitarian minister.’
There was more. Rowland had been nobody’s fool and he’d made sure that the money wouldn’t just sit there if anything happened to him. According to Silas Emmanuel, the will said that if, after the period of a year, nobody’d come forward to take over the collegiate school idea, his money, worldly goods, etcetera, were to be shared equally between Miss Anne Walters of the Three Horseshoes public house, Llanddewi Brefi, and Miss Ruth Eynon of Pantglas Farm in the same parish. In the hope that this will enable them, Emmanuel quoted from memory, as if it was a marvel, in the absence of the said collegiate school, to fulfil their common wish to devote their lives to education.
Well, well, well.
Harry
The following morning we rose early once more and, by eight o’clock, we were in Llanddewi Brefi where we had arranged to meet Miss Gwatkyn. It was another pleasant day but, despite the weather, my spirits were not buoyant. The previous evening, in the Talbot’s taproom, I had been introduced by Minnever to what felt like the entire male population of the parish, an experience that had been as disturbing as it was exhausting.
I had, of necessity, become accustomed to weighing people up by means other than watching their faces but the strain of paying close attention to tone of voice, such subtleties of body posture as remained visible to me, and what might be called the animal nuances of an encounter, represented an outlay of energy unknown to the fully-sighted. And, even deploying all these means, it was impossible to gain more than the most fleeting impression of the men to whom I was introduced in an almost continuous stream.
Minnever would greet them all with variations on a theme. My dear sir, you are sure to be a voter in the forthcoming election for coroner? Allow me to introduce Mr Henry Probert-Lloyd, acting coroner for the Teifi Valley.
And, as instructed, at each salutation I thrust out my hand to be wrung, gripped, shaken or limply held as the mood or fervour took the recipient. I was quite certain that I had shaken more hands in the space of the two hours before dinner than I had in the whole of my life before.
Accustomed to living with the grime and soot of London, I would not have described myself as a fastidious man but, by the end of my public exhibition, I had been gripped by an almost violent need to wash my hands, filthy as they were with second-hand beer, the dirty metallic taint of other people’s coinage, and the evil-smelling consequences of a day spent slapping rumps, holding up tails, opening mouths to inspect teeth and brushing marketplace ordure from trouser legs.
Despite being almost entirely at ease when examining the bodies of the dead, I found myself queasy at over-proximity with the living and excruciatingly exposed by Minnever’s constant invitations to all and sundry, which included exhortations not to ‘mind Mr Probert-Lloyd’s gaze – he has lost some of his sight, that’s all’. If there was a more uncomfortable social interaction than being scrutinised and judged by those one was unable to see, then I considered myself fortunate not to have encountered it.
Miss Gwatkyn, perhaps sensing my mood, initially confined herself t
o social pleasantries and to describing the route we would take to Aberaeron. We had just turned off the road that would have taken us down the eastern bank of the Teifi towards Lampeter – the route I, knowing no better, would have taken – and struck westwards across country when, tiring of the small talk to which my own self-absorption had confined us, I introduced the subject of our visit to Lampeter the previous day.
‘I hope Mr Emmanuel was helpful?’ Miss Gwatkyn asked.
‘He was, thank you. Without going so far as to let us see Mr Rowland’s will, he gave us ample information as to its contents.’
I hesitated, casting about for the right words with which to broach the subject at hand. ‘Miss Gwatkyn, I understand your reluctance to think that Mr Rowland’s death might have been anything other than accidental, but it seems to John and me that perhaps his will constitutes a motive—’
‘For somebody to push him to his death and take over the establishment of the new school? I hardly think so. Nobody knew of the provisions of his will apart from the collegiate school’s trustees.’
I nodded, not wanting to disagree too openly. ‘I don’t wish to be indelicate, but were there not other, more explicit beneficiaries? As I understand it, Mr Rowland’s assistants stand to inherit a good deal of money if nobody takes up the founder’s mantle.’
I had the impression that Miss Gwatkyn turned her face momentarily towards me before looking back at the road ahead. ‘I advise you to put any such notion completely out of your mind, Mr Probert-Lloyd. Quite apart from the fact that I don’t suppose, for a moment, that Nicholas had shared the provisions of his will with them, those young women had their hearts absolutely set on being involved with the new school. The last thing they would have wished was for any harm to come to him. And, ambition aside, they worshipped the very ground Nicholas walked on.’ She sounded matter-of-fact, speaking whereof she knew.
‘Do you know Anne Walters and Ruth Eynon well?’ I asked.
‘Nan Walters. Nobody calls her Anne. Yes, reasonably well. Nicholas initially asked if I could lend him some books for them. Then, when I showed an interest in their progress, he asked whether I might give them some tuition in history and Latin.’
‘Oh. I’d understood that he was tutoring them himself.’
‘He was. But he had other calls on his time and felt that they needed more than he alone could provide. Besides,’ she paused fractionally, as if to signal that she was being humorous, ‘my Latin was better than his.’
I did not doubt it. Phoebe Gwatkyn struck me as the kind of person who, were she to take anything up, would ensure that she did it to the best of her considerable ability. I wondered whether her pupils were cut from the same cloth. ‘Were they apt students?’
‘Extremely. Though in different ways. Nan is the more outgoing and enquiring of the two. Ruth is quieter – more reserved – but also more studious. She takes pains to commit lessons to memory while her friend is still asking questions.’ Her tone changed slightly and I imagined a small smile. ‘I think Nicholas was somewhat surprised to have found such suitable assistants here in the wilds.’
‘Mattie Hughes told me that Nan’s father sent her to a school in Lampeter,’ John said. ‘Did Ruth Eynon go there, too?’
Miss Gwatkyn turned and answered him as readily as she would me. ‘No. Her father wouldn’t dream of it. Pay boarding fees for a girl so she could learn to have ideas above her station?’ She made a sound which conveyed her contempt for Mr Eynon’s illiberal attitude. ‘No, I believe one of her Sunday school teachers took an interest in Ruth. Lent her books. After all, literacy is the sole requirement of the autodidact.’
However, it was not the assistant teachers’ reading habits that concerned me, so much as their writing. ‘Mrs Walters mentioned that her daughter and Ruth Eynon acted as Mr Rowland’s amanuenses on occasion?’
‘They did. Nicholas couldn’t manage a pen, so having Nan and Ruth to write his letters for him was a boon. And they appreciated being able to do something for him, I think. He would never take a penny for the tuition he gave them.’
‘Will you allow Nan and Ruth to take over the cowshed academy, Miss Gwatkyn?’ John asked. I was impressed at his having remembered the affectionate term Miss Gwatkyn herself had used for the schoolroom.
‘For as long as they wish, certainly. Though whether others will allow them to run the school themselves I couldn’t say.’
‘Others?’ I asked.
‘Ruth’s father may prove unwilling. He’s a difficult man. In truth, I was surprised when he agreed to Ruth’s working for Nicholas. But times are hard and I suspect that the family may be in need of the money.’
The vague sense of anxiety I had been nursing about not having spoken to Ruth Eynon’s parents eased with her words. It seemed that Mr Eynon, like the entrepreneurial Morgan Walters, had a vested interest in Nicholas Rowland’s continued existence and employment of his daughter.
We soon came to the point where we had to cross the Teifi and, as we trotted towards the bridge, Miss Gwatkyn announced, with as much pride as if she had engineered it herself, ‘This is Pont Gogoyan.’ It was a low, shallow-arched structure, quite unlike the bridges that towered above the river further downstream at Newcastle Emlyn and Cenarth, and was rather sinuous in line, tracing a graceful path across the peacefully-flowing river.
‘I came across Nicholas here, one day,’ Miss Gwatkyn said. ‘I was going up to the site of the Roman encampment at Loventium and there he was, just standing on the bridge, watching the river flow.’ She paused and I wondered whether she was remembering the conversation they had had. ‘He was a great walker. Always out and about in the high summer months when the children were needed in the fields and the school was closed. Thought nothing of walking twenty miles in a day.’
‘Did he share your interest in history?’ John asked.
‘No, not really. He was polite, of course, but Nicholas was far more interested in the future and what he could do to shape it.’
We cantered along on the sunlit valley bottom, past fields bright with the vivid gold of celandines. Cottage doors stood open to the first real warmth of the year and the people we passed at the side of the road greeted Miss Gwatkyn by name.
‘Everybody seems to know you,’ John said.
‘I come this way often. Usually to Loventium. And, don’t forget, Mr Davies, my family’s been here for centuries.’
‘You mentioned the Romans,’ John said. ‘What were they doing here?’
‘What they came to Britannia to do – mine for metal ore. Gold in the Cothi Valley, lead in north Cardiganshire. And, to do it, they drove roads from the south coast up through Cardiganshire and the Beacons, all the way to the Conway estuary. Those roads have all been known by the same name since time out of mind. Sarn Helen. One of them runs just north of here.’
I smiled. Miss Gwatkyn’s unrestrained pedagogical instincts and authoritative manner reminded me of Lydia Howell and my spirits lifted at the thought of Lydia’s imminent arrival at Glanteifi.
I make no promises, she had written in a recent letter, as I cannot foresee how much instruction and reassurance the new governess will require but, as she arrives tomorrow, I have some hopes of being able to begin my journey to Cardiganshire at the week’s end.
And, if she had set out from Ipswich on Saturday – or even on Monday – she might already have installed herself at Glanteifi and set out from there to Tregaron.
What would Mr Thomas, owner of the Talbot Inn, think of her when she arrived, a lone lady traveller? He would, no doubt, look over her shoulder for a protector or companion.
The small knot of concern that had settled somewhere below my diaphragm pulled a little tighter at the thought. I must not allow myself to be too concerned with the reactions of others to Lydia. If I were to prove unable, in person, to grant her the freedom that I had encouraged in our correspondence, her stay at Glanteifi would be short; that much had become abundantly clear when she had paid her unexpected visi
t, in January, to propose that she become my private secretary.
Despite the weeks of correspondence we had enjoyed before her visit, I am ashamed to say that, left to myself, it would not have occurred to me to offer Lydia employment. But she had arrived, uninvited and unexpected, into the muddle of my assuming responsibility for the estate, with the idea fully formed in her mind.
My father had still been alive at the time, but I had not consulted him. I had known perfectly well what he would say, if his apoplexy-ravaged brain proved able to marshall the necessary, outraged syllables. Instead, I had simply agreed to Lydia’s proposal that I employ her for a trial period of six months.
Though his death might have spared me the need to deal with his disapproval, I knew that my father’s reaction would be shared by the gentry of the lower Teifi Valley. They already thought me an odd fellow, but employing Lydia would cast me in the role of dangerous eccentric; it might even exclude me from certain houses.
The knot of tension drew tighter still as I contemplated the implications for Lydia – could she hope to enjoy any kind of society from her position at Glanteifi?
I wondered whether it might be possible to introduce her at Alltybela. Whilst not precisely a servant, she would be in paid employment, a status that rendered drawing-room introductions problematic. But Phoebe Gwatkyn was not like other Teifi Valley matrons. Indeed, had Lydia been coming to West Wales as Miss Gwatkyn’s private secretary, few eyebrows would have been raised. Inevitably, some of the older generation would have considered it somewhat modern to employ a woman, but they would have smiled indulgently over their teacups and agreed amongst themselves that Miss Gwatkyn was a character.
