None So Blind

by Alis Hawkins

  ‘And why should I do this for you? Or for him?’

  ‘Because when Harry’s the squire of Glanteifi and I’m his lawyer, I shall employ you, Daniel James.’

  He raised a dubious eyebrow but I could tell he half-believed me.

  And I hoped that meant he’d get me the information I wanted.

  I needed to know what Harry wasn’t telling me about David Thomas.

  And why.

  Harry

  Despite a certain rapprochement occasioned by my father’s invitation to spend the night at Glanteifi rather than return to the Salutation in the dark, our earlier argument had left me feeling restless and frustrated. Lying in my own bed, I could not help but feel that part of me had marooned itself stubbornly in the past, forcing me to go over and over my association with Margaret, wondering how things might have turned out had I acted differently.

  It was not a pleasant experience; the sifting and weighing of my own youthful actions prompted a shame so profound that continuing to investigate the circumstances of Margaret’s death in spite of my father’s wishes seemed almost insufficient as a response. The journey to Ipswich would not, I knew, be long or arduous enough to represent any form of penance – Australia would scarcely have been far enough – but I hoped that it would furnish me with a modicum of clarity on whether it was possible that Margaret had become caught up in the rivalries of Nathaniel Howell’s Rebecca crusade.

  Nathaniel Howell. He had all but commanded me to go and see Margaret – to make amends – but I had resisted him, adamant that he should not order my affairs as my father did.

  And yet I had gone to see Margaret. Not at Howell’s instigation, but at Davy Thomas’s.

  Two or three days after Hannah Rees and her son had ridden to Waungilfach with me in my father’s carriage, Davy had been waiting for me as I led my little mare, Sara, to the stables on our return from church.

  ‘You’re in trouble, Harry.’

  I looked at him, apprehension blooming like a blush. ‘Why?’

  He waited until we were inside the stable, looking about lest we should be overheard. ‘The sermon Nathaniel Howell preached this morning was about you.’

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head, dismissing my horror. ‘He didn’t mention you by name, obviously – the man’s not a fool. But anybody who knows you were courting Margaret knows it was you he was talking about.’

  He watched my trembling fingers sliding stirrups up leathers and undoing Sara’s girth. ‘Want to know what he said?’

  I pulled the saddle towards me off the mare’s back. ‘No. Not at all. But you’d better tell me.’

  ‘Yes, I’d better. What’s that English phrase you used to like so much? Forewarned is forearmed.’

  The words sounded odd, coming from him. I could not recall him speaking English to me – even so short a phrase – since the days when I was teaching him to read. I dumped the saddle on its stand. ‘Go on then,’ I said, unbuckling the mud-spattered girth so as not to have to look at him.

  All the apprehension I would have felt had Howell himself been standing in front of me was coursing through my veins. I truly did not want to hear whatever humiliating things the minister had said about me. But Davy was right, I needed to be forewarned.

  He took a breath to tell the story and I steadied myself for whatever I was about to hear. I knew he would not summarise to spare my feelings; Davy was a raconteur and he revelled in the role.

  ‘Imagine,’he said, adopting something of the minister’s lighter tone as he quoted his words, ‘that there’s a rich man – Howell didn’t say “gentleman”, that’s not the language of the Bible, but everybody knew gentleman was what he meant – imagine there’s a rich man who falls in love with a poor girl – he didn’t say servant but he didn’t have to – and she falls in love with him, though she knows it’s a foolish thing to do. And he tells her he loves her and he wants to marry her. She knows it would be a disaster for him and she tells him so. She saves him from his own folly. But still he declares his love. His undying love. And then the rich man is sent away on a long journey. He’s away for a long time, with no word to the poor girl. Not a single word. She expects to see him back after a month or two but he stays away and stays away. And still no word.’

  Expressly prohibited from coming home at Christmas, I had spent a barely tolerable fortnight with a college-mate in Radnorshire, wallowing in my own self-pity. It was only now that I understood how Margaret must have looked for my arrival, day after day.

  I slipped off my coat, picked up a brush and began rubbing Sara down.

  Davy went on. ‘And so, the poor girl knows that he’s forgotten her. His was not an undying love at all, merely the lust of a young man. He is gone and she must forget him as he has forgotten her. And then it happens that the young woman finds herself with child. The man who’s got her so is unwilling to marry her—’

  ‘Is he?’ I asked, resolutely brushing at the sweaty, saddle-flattened hair on Sara’s back. ‘Is the father of Margaret’s child refusing to marry her?’

  Davy shrugged. ‘You’d have to ask her. But the Reverend Howell seemed to think that was the story. D’you want me to go on?’

  I nodded, unwilling to say yes or even to look at him.

  ‘So, Howell says, it comes to pass that the rich young man finally returns home. The poor girl, desperate by now, decides to go to him and ask for his help. Now, brothers and sisters – the rich man, seeing that she has been possessed by another, feels no love for her any more. His heart is hard. In his own mind, he has no responsibility here.’ Davy paused to let these words sink in. ‘But the gospels tell us differently, do they not? The words of our Lord are not “if somebody offends you, you may have nothing more to do with them,” the words of our Lord are, “even if somebody is your enemy you must love him”. The rich man may say he does not love the poor girl any more, but that is not the love our Lord meant. The rich young man is responsible for the poor girl. Not because he once fell in love with her. Not because he is the father of her child – for he is not. But because he led her to believe that she could trust him. The rich man has been given great wealth. And with great wealth comes great responsibility.’

  I stopped, the brush still on Sara’s back, and leaned against her. Her warm solidity was comforting. I had no doubt that Davy had rendered the story almost verbatim; though he had been no quick study when learning to read and write, he had an excellent memory for what he heard and a merciless ability as a mimic.

  ‘I thought you were going to see her?’ he challenged.

  I stepped back and moved around to Sara’s far side, putting her between Davy and me. ‘No. You told me I should go and see her. So did Howell. I never said I would.’ I heard my own petulance and felt a swell of self-loathing.

  ‘Harry, you don’t want to make an enemy of Howell. He could make things difficult for you.’

  I lifted Sara’s mane and began working on her neck. ‘What about the father of Margaret’s child? Is Howell pursuing him, as well?’

  ‘He doesn’t know who it is. Margaret hasn’t told him. That’s why Howell’s going for you. Everybody assumes it’s yours.’

  ‘Why hasn’t she told Howell who it is?’

  I glanced at him and saw an expression that I wasn’t sure how to read. Discomfort? Embarrassment? Unease?

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t know herself.’

  My hand stopped moving as if it had registered Davy’s words along with my ears. I stared at him, refusing to believe what he was implying, trying to force him to say something which would offer me an alternative explanation.

  ‘Harry.’ His voice was unusually soft, almost hesitant. ‘Everybody knew about you and her, you must know that. And everybody assumed you’d—’ He stopped, didn’t say had her. ‘I mean, I assumed you had. So you can imagine how men flocked about her after you’d gone. And, with you going like that, without a word – I don’t think she cared what people thought or what she did.’ He st
opped, eyes on me. ‘I’m sorry. I thought she was trying to father your bastard onto whoever she could but, if it isn’t yours—’ He stopped. ‘Perhaps she wanted them to think there was a baby, so they’d think they could get favours from you if they married her.’

  Bile rose up in my throat and I had to swallow hard to stop myself from throwing up all the hurt and rage I felt. ‘Were you one of them?’ I asked. He had always had an eye for the girls, and they for him.

  His eyes went dark, as if a light had been blown out behind them. ‘You think I’d do that?’

  Heartsick, I had no answer for him. I began to move the brush again, mechanically, over Sara’s shoulder, eyes fixed on what I was doing. But Davy had a point to push home. ‘Never mind you being my friend, I’d’ve been mad to get involved with her, wouldn’t I? I can’t run the risk of having to marry somebody like Margaret. I need a woman with more about her. You might’ve thought you could go against convention but I’ve always known I couldn’t. I have to behave myself if I want to get on, do the right thing. Margaret Jones is a pretty girl but she’d’ve been a disaster for my prospects.’

  I could not bring myself to speak but I knew that what he said was true.

  ‘And I’ve got bigger fish to fry, now, anyway.’ I looked up, surprised, and he shrugged. ‘You’d hear soon enough, I daresay. I’m courting Elias Jenkins’s daughter, Elizabeth. Halfway down the aisle, already.’

  ‘I see.’ I swallowed. I could not find it in me to congratulate him. He nodded, then returned to the business at hand. ‘Go and see her, Harry. Set her up in a cottage with a cow and a pig – it’s what she’d’ve been expecting when she set her cap at you, you know it is.’

  I let the hand holding the brush fall to my side. I felt weak, suddenly; inadequate. ‘It wasn’t her that set her cap at me.’ I forced myself to meet his eye, make him see the truth of what I was saying. ‘It was me that set mine at her.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s what women want you to think. They convince you that it’s your lust when, all the time, they’re leading you on.’

  He put a hand on Sara’s back and looked over at me. ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I know you were fond of her but you need to see what she’s really like. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll do something for her, and quickly. Before she has the child and Howell brings it to you.’

  Harry

  Over breakfast with John, the following morning, I told him about Vaughan’s visit to my father and the magistrate’s request that I give up my investigations.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked. Though he was too young to have taken part in the disturbances, he had grown up in the shadow of Rebecca and could be expected to know her covert power. On the other hand, he was a lawyer’s clerk who, according to Charles Schofield, cleaved to the law as if to his very salvation, my dear Mr Probert-Lloyd. I felt he had a right to know what the magistrates’ opinion was.

  He put his knife and fork down. ‘I’m sorry, Harry…’ I heard the slight hesitation before the use of my Christian name and experienced a mingled sense of irritation and, regrettably, gratification; clearly, some unsuspected, patrician part of me agreed that my inviting him to call me Harry was deserving of gratitude. ‘…are you asking me whether I agree with the magistrates – that we should give up our investigations?’

  I nodded and sipped at my breakfast tea. ‘Yes, I am. According to my father, if we go on, we risk turning everybody against us. Apparently, nobody wants Margaret’s murderer brought to justice. Sleeping dogs, it seems, are preferred.’

  There was a brief silence in which I could discern no movement from John. Then he spoke, paying his words out painstakingly, one after another.

  ‘But, if a dog runs mad and savages the sheep it’s supposed to guard, it’s not allowed to sleep, is it? It’s put down without a second’s thought.’

  I nodded. Encouraged, John leaned forwards. ‘If we give up, now, we’re no better than the jurors who brought in the accidental death verdict. Cowards.’

  Though I was gratified to hear him say it, I could not let him make a decision without a proper awareness of the possible consequences. ‘You do know that this could affect you, too – defying the magistrates?’ No immediate reply came, and I fought down a sudden fear. If John chose not to continue to work with me, then my investigation was at an end. Alone and blind I would be next to useless. As my assistant, he did more than simply compensate for my lack of sight; he gave my investigations a gravitas which I could never achieve by myself.

  But I need not have worried. I heard a smile in his voice when he spoke. ‘If the magistrates don’t like what I’m doing, I shall just have to blame you, shan’t I? After all, when the heir to the Glanteifi estate crooks his finger, what choice does a lowly clerk have but to do as he’s told?’

  John

  Harry couldn’t stop talking. Prattled on and on as we got the horses and rode out of Newcastle Emlyn. We were halfway to Aaron Ellis’s cottage before I realised he was babbling from relief. He’d been afraid I was going to tell him I didn’t want to carry on working with him. That I was too afraid of Beca. Too afraid of the magistrates. But I couldn’t have said that, even if I thought Mr Schofield would’ve let me get away with it.

  The dreams were waking me, night after night.

  Take this message to Mr Williams at Waungilfach.

  Rain, pattering down, running down the roots of the tree on to me.

  His relentless voice. This is your fault, Margaret – you’ve brought this on yourself… You said you’d do it. You said you had done it. But you were lying… Her hands, pulling at his; her body slumping.

  His voice as he chased me. I’ll find you boy! I’ll kill you! Would the dreams stop if Harry could uncover the truth? I had to believe they would.

  A good angel might’ve pointed out that Harry’d get to the truth a lot quicker if I told him what I knew. But, if I’d ever had a good angel, he’d been silent since that night. Silenced by fear.

  Fear obviously took Harry the other way. His tongue was running away with him.

  ‘The magistrates think they can bring me to heel by threatening to bar me from the bench. It doesn’t occur to them that I might not want to be part of their self-satisfied clique!’

  Be a squire and not a magistrate? He might as well try and be a dog and not bark.

  ‘They seem to think that the way they do things is indisputably the right way – the only possible way! I think they’ve forgotten that there’s been a revolution in France, that in America they’re forging an entirely new way of thinking of land ownership – that every man should own the land he works.’

  On and on. And then, suddenly, he stopped. We were coming down to the bridge over the little river Ceri, just before it joined the Teifi below his father’s house. Was he imagining his father’s eyes on him?

  ‘Thinking of home?’ I asked, feeling daring.

  ‘Just thinking that Glanteifi is about the right size of house for a man living on the home farm acreage,’ he said. ‘Not too big.’

  ‘Is that what you’d like to do?’ I asked. His nonsense about not being a magistrate was making me bold. ‘You’d like to live off the home farm?’

  ‘Yes, why not? That or make my living as a solicitor.’

  Was he speaking hypothetically, as Mr Schofield would say, or did he really think he could manage the job without being able to see? I soon found out.

  ‘I know it seems an oddity, a blind solicitor, but I believe that with the right kind of clerk it could be done.’

  The right kind of clerk.

  My thoughts began to race, then. I might leave Schofield’s and work with Harry. He might article me. I could be a solicitor in my own right one day. I could be someone.

  Did my silence make him realise what he’d said – what I might be thinking? I don’t know. But something brought him back from what my old schoolmaster, Mr Davies, used to call Utopia.

  ‘That gift we’ve brought for Rachel—’ he said.

&nb
sp; A visiting-gift for Rachel Ellis had been my idea. Either the gentry thought their neighbours were well-enough off without visiting-gifts or he just hadn’t thought of it because Mrs Ellis was a servant.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Should we give it to her straight away or at the end as a thank-you?’

  ‘Straight away. It’s not supposed to be a reward.’ Going ratting with stableboys and courting dairymaids hadn’t taught him much. ‘You just give it to her. Hello Mrs Ellis, nice to see you again, I brought a small thing for you. Like that.’

  Harry twisted his mouth, chewing the inside of his lip.

  ‘Everybody knows what we’re doing’ I told him. ‘The minute she opens the door and it’s you, she’ll know what you want. Bringing something can only help.’

  He nodded. ‘True. At least if I don’t come empty-handed that’s one thing she can’t hold against me.’

  What is she holding against you, then? I wanted to ask. What is there between you and the servant who was Rachel Evans?

  We found Rachel Ellis digging potatoes with her children. The cottage was right next to the road so they were easy to see on their little plot. Just as well to get the potatoes up. The weather hadn’t been bad but much more rain and they’d start to rot in the ground.