by Issy Brookw
“I, too, am helping out,” Mogg put in.
“Hmm.” She then pointed at Davies. “And you, sir—”
“One of my men had to go and fetch my cart,” he said, crossly. “I had lent that to you in good faith, I had. You just left it behind.”
“And I thank you for the loan and you might consider yourself and your aid instrumental in bringing a successful conclusion to this case.”
“So what else would you have me do?”
She scanned the whole council. “It is time that public offices such as the one of Scavenger are opened to more scrutiny. There is one in this town, a philanthropist, who can make that position a worthy one that can bring prosperity to many families rather than just fattening one corrupt man.”
Davies cocked his head back. “You mean that Twm Sion Cati?” He laughed.
But no one else did. The Mayor murmured something to the man next to him, who nodded. The Mayor then said, “Yes. We do feel that would be more fitting.”
While Davies spluttered and complained, she continued to speak, raising her voice above his moans. “This town is a beautiful town.”
That stopped the chatter.
“I mean it,” she said. “And I am sure that the railway will soon come, and with it will come many pleasure-seekers, with money to spend and time in which to spend it. They will walk along the seafront and they will admire the hills and they will buy food and places to stay, and they will bring a new energy to this place. A new future!”
“Here, here,” shouted one man that she did not know. He banged his fist on the table.
“And when I return to London, I shall be sure to spread the word that this town is a jewel in the heart of Wales, and that the people are honest, and upright, and welcoming to visitors.” She shot that last part to Davies, who flared his nostrils to her. But it was the truth. Save for Davies, every person in Aberystwyth had been warm and friendly.
There was more knocking on the table, and a few hearty cheers.
“And the people here are true pioneers of justice!” she cried, thinking, I have probably gone too far with that. But it did not seem to matter. The Mayor got to his feet, and she nodded politely, and began to withdraw.
She had pushed things as far as she could, and for that, she had to be grateful. Geoffrey came to her side again, and escorted her out of the hall.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Well, I must say, your visit has been a joy and a delight,” said Mrs Jones, and she enfolded Cordelia in an impulsive and inappropriate bear-hug. They were right out in the open, standing in the street outside the inn, and Cordelia was just about to step up into the hired travelling chariot. She let herself relax, briefly, in spite of the impropriety.
Mrs Jones released her before she had to demand to be let go.
“A joy and a delight?” said Cordelia somewhat wryly as she smoothed down her travelling dress. “I do not think that everyone would agree with you.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs Jones said. “You have sorted us all out, well and good. Now, then, my dear, I have had a hamper made up for you…”
“We are only going twelve miles today!” Cordelia said with a laugh. “We should be four hours, no more. But I thank you. I must commend you on your hostelry and your skill in the kitchen. You keep a good house here, and I shall recommend you to my friends.”
Mrs Jones beamed. “I am sure it won’t be long before we have the railway here, like they are doing to Holyhead, and then the visitors will simply pour in!” She clapped her hands. “Now, do you have everything you need?”
“Not quite,” said Cordelia. “My boy has gone on ahead; my coachman is itching to be gone, but I seem to have mislaid my maid.”
“There she is.”
Cordelia’s gaze followed Mrs Jones’s outstretched hand. At the end of the street, she saw Ruby and George Price in earnest conversation. Eventually they embraced, and then Ruby pulled away from him and began to run down the road towards Cordelia.
Cordelia put up her hand. “Stop, girl. Ruby. Stop. Go back to him.”
Ruby was not crying. Everything about her — from her reddened cheeks, to her staring too-open eyes — was declaring “I will not cry.” She shook her head and pushed past Cordelia, rather rudely, putting more distance between her and the young man.
George paused for a few seconds, then he turned and walked briskly out of sight.
“Ruby!” Cordelia said, quite sharply. “Perhaps he can take on the shop now that Lloyd is in custody. That would be a good living for you. Go back to him! Did you not say this was your only chance at happiness?”
“His family will not allow it,” she said, huskily. “And his family is important to him, as mine is to me.” Her voice broke. “Let us go.”
Ruby had no family that Cordelia knew of. She allowed the maid to help her into the carriage, and Geoffrey slammed the door shut behind them. Cordelia spent a few minutes organising herself for the journey as the coach began its slow progress through the town. She thought that Ruby probably needed some time to compose herself, too.
Eventually the maid spoke, though she perched on the edge of the padded seat and looked out through the small window in the centrally-placed door. “He has a place here,” she said, quietly. “His family have taken him back, and he wants to stay here. I could stay here, but my place is not here.”
“But—”
“My lady, you tried very hard to hold your tongue and let me have my will when I wanted to leave,” Ruby said. “And I appreciate your forbearance very much. Now that I have changed my mind, which is a difficult thing to do and to admit to do, I would beg of you that same indulgence to let me follow my own will again.”
“You’ve prepared that speech. But it was pretty.”
“Of course I prepared it. I have thought of a thousand ways to tell you I was going, and another thousand to beg for my place back again.”
“Have I not always said that you have a place here, always?”
“You have said, yes.” Ruby sniffed, her face still hidden. “And now I believe it. So. Mrs Jones has packed a hamper, has she?”
“She has. Will you examine it for alcohol, please? I have a fancy to toast our successes. Let us celebrate what we have achieved here.”
“What you have achieved, certainly.”
“Now, then!” Cordelia said, taking the bottle of wine from Ruby’s hands. “This was very much a joint effort. You knew the weak points of Lloyd, because of your talks with George. You and Stanley — why, you did me proud!”
“And he is to hang for it, I assume?”
“He is,” Cordelia said. “And soon, too. He has as good as admitted his guilt.” Cordelia popped the cork from the bottle and held it steady as she hunted around for some drinking vessels.
“Oh,” said Ruby, as Cordelia poured wine into a glass with a pewter stem. “For me? Thank you.”
“Naturally for you,” Cordelia said, and they chinked their glasses together. She had filled them only half-full but it was still a test to keep the wine from spilling as the chariot rumbled along the road. “And here is to the future, and more mysteries to solve!”
“Where to next, then?” Ruby asked, already beginning to smile. A light was returning to her eyes, and it gladdened Cordelia’s heart.
“Home, I think, for a little while,” Cordelia said. “I have neglected Clarfields somewhat, and I need to make some changes in how things are run, now I am settling to my role as sole mistress, at last. There have been memories in that place which had dogged my dreams, but I feel I am strong enough to face them, now.”
Ruby sipped at the wine, and her eyebrows moved in a quizzical manner.
Cordelia shook her head. “Oh, do not worry. I am not about to descend into a fashionable insanity, roaming the hills and wailing about the past. But I am mistress, not the ghost of my dead husband, and it is time I expunged the last taint of that man from the place.”
“I suspect you are speaking of more than simply washing th
e floors?”
“Indeed I am,” Cordelia said, and downed her wine in a sudden uncouth movement. “There are some members of staff who know a lot, and others who think they know something and they know nothing, and those ones are the most problematic to me. And I shall no longer stand for it.”
With that, she sat back, and poured another half-glass for herself. She passed it to Ruby to hold while she lodged the cork awkwardly back into the neck of the bottle, but it kept popping out.
Eventually she gave up.
“Constable Evans was very keen on signs, was he not?” Cordelia said.
“He was.”
“Then I suppose this is the sign that we must drink the whole bottle,” Cordelia said. “And there is a leather flask in there, which I judge contains some foul concoction not intended for me at all. Geoffrey and Stanley will have a merry night, I think.”
“Not Stanley. He is never merry at all,” Ruby said.
Cordelia topped up Ruby’s glass, then carefully wedged the bottle between her knees. “But he is steadfast, serious, honest and true,” she said. “And there are far worse things to be.”
Ruby looked out of the window again.
“You never did ever manage to say the word ‘Aberystwyth’, you know,” Ruby said.
Cordelia sipped at her wine, and smiled.
The End
Historical notes
The sanatorium: There was a reference in an 1874 newspaper to “THE ABERYSTWYTH SANATORIUM AND PUBLIC BATHS, UNDER the personal superintendence of the LJ Proprietor, C. RICE WILLIAMS, ESQ., M.D., To whom all letters of enquiry relative to Terms for Residence, &c., may be addressed. HOT AND COLD SEA WATER BATHS. SHOWER AND MEDICATED BATHS.”
There is no pub called the Ship Inn and this bears no relation to the current Ship and Castle. The Gogerddan Arms still exists, and the court leet would often repair to the Lion Hotel.
1846 brought a heatwave across all of Britain and led to floods just as described, including the two men killed at Talsarn.
Around 80% of the population of Aberystwyth spoke Welsh at the time.
The railway came in the 1860s in the end, and brought a new heyday of Victorian tourism, including the building of the cliff railway and the camera obscura at the top of the hill which is now commonly called Constitution Hill (or “Consti”) but properly is called Craig-lais.
The Ladies of Llangollen were Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, two Irish aristocratic ladies who lived together near Llangollen from 1780 until Eleanor died in 1829. Their manner of dress and their interests scandalised the nation — and also drew them many admirers. They received many visitors including Lord Byron, and Queen Charlotte persuaded King George III to grant them a pension. It was exceedingly common for two women to share a bed, and to speak to one another using romantic language, without there being any sexual connotations; there has been much speculation as to the nature of the Ladies’ relationship, and many revisionist histories will rewrite it as a gay partnership. Perhaps it was, or maybe it was a “Boston Marriage” (of convenience). There is not any solid evidence, whereas there is for others such as Anne Lister whose diaries leave the reader in no doubt whatsoever!
As for the court leet, it really was the way the town was run until 1835. The house of correction (two cells and two constables!) was on Great Darkgate Street. And the crachach? Well, now…
THANK YOU FOR READING!
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Look out for more adventures involving Cordelia and her retinue – coming throughout 2017.
Also available: contemporary light cozy mysteries set in Lincolnshire. The Some Very English Murders series is available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019U21S7C
