Beggars and Choosers

by Catrin Collier

  ‘Are you sure? I thought you were carrying it when you came in.’

  Lloyd looked at Mr Richards who was still standing in the doorway of his office. ‘I assure you I was not. Goodbye, Mr Richards.’

  Lloyd left the solicitor’s office and walked down the hill to Market Square. Every inch of space between the tarpaulin-covered stalls was crammed with shoppers, most of them hauling bags and baskets. As he forced his way through, he had difficulty standing his ground. Women jostled, pushed and pressed from all sides, fearful lest he grab a bargain before they had an opportunity to reject it; small children crawled beneath his feet and under the stalls looking for ‘pickings’. Older boys hung around, waiting for the stallholders to be distracted long enough for them to filch goods worth the risk of a few strokes of the birch. Vendors’ cries filled the air, along with the rich, meaty odour of faggots and peas, and the sharp, vinegary tang of cockles. Only the men seemed to slouch aimlessly along, hands in pockets as they searched the stalls for gifts for their wives and sweethearts.

  Buttoning his overcoat over his jacket, Lloyd kept a firm grip on the wallet in his pocket as he brushed past a quack selling ‘cure-all’ powders from a basket slung around his neck. The story of a man having his cigarette case lifted by a pickpocket at one end of the market and sold back to him at the other might be apocryphal, but like all tales about Pontypridd market, it held a grain of truth and, he didn’t want to lose Sali’s money – or his own.

  He fought his way through to the toy shop at the end of the arcade. Turning his back on the girls’ side of the window with its rag, wooden and porcelain dolls, and dolls’ houses and carriages, he looked to the boys’ side. He had promised his father and brothers that he would buy a present for Harry, but the last thing he wanted to do was present him with a toy that would upstage the horse and cart Sali had bought.

  As he gazed at the display of tin mechanical toys, spinning tops, iron-banded hoops, balls, stuffed toys, and lead soldiers and animals, he recalled the toys that had been consigned to the attic by his mother after Joey had finished playing with them. When Christmas was over he would go up, take stock and bring down one or two. Sali couldn’t object to them ‘loaning’ second-hand toys to her son, but that didn’t solve his immediate dilemma. Then he saw the perfect gift for Harry. The child was always scribbling and drawing in the margins of old newspapers and odd bits of paper that were left in the kitchen. He would buy him a book of plain sheets of paper, wax crayons and pencils.

  Carrying his parcel, he left the market, went to the pawnshop and joined the queue of women waiting to pledge their winter coats and wedding rings to buy extras for Christmas. When it was his turn, he handed a young boy the slip Sali had given him.

  ‘Redeeming?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  The boy passed the slip to a middle-aged man sitting at a desk. He looked up from the slip at Lloyd, then back to the slip. Leaving his chair, he signalled Lloyd to move along the counter. Opening a gate set at the end of the run, he beckoned him into a back room. Windowless, with three walls shelved from floor to ceiling and every one groaning with the weight of ticketed items, it was an Aladdin’s cave of everyday and bizarre goods.

  China ornaments, from cheap Staffordshire dogs to elegantly painted Royal Doulton lords and ladies, were ranged on the topmost shelves. Below them were layers of flat cutlery boxes stacked alongside piles of neatly folded damask and chenille tablecloths. Oil lamps, brass and wooden coal scuttles, sets of fire irons, brass, gilded and silver candlesticks, embroidered fire screens, framed oil paintings and prints of every description, stacks of wooden boxes that might have held anything, telescopes, books and expensive toys were heaped in separate compartments on the lower shelves. And on the floor were bins of umbrellas, and walking sticks.

  The old man pushed the door until it was almost closed. The dim light that filtered in from the passage lent the room an eerie, mausoleum-like atmosphere and Lloyd wondered how many people had pawned goods and died before they could redeem them. Hundreds, judging by the dust that lay thick and undisturbed over some of the items.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I take it you are Mr Goodman?’ Lloyd replied without revealing his name.

  ‘Who gave you this?’ Mr Goodman held up the slip.

  ‘A lady.’ Lloyd opened his wallet and extracted the roll of banknotes Sali had given him.

  ‘Did she give you any means of identification?’

  ‘Other than that receipt, no.’

  ‘Then how do I know you haven’t stolen the slip?’ Mr Goodman crossed his arms across his chest, leaned against the shelves and studied Lloyd.

  ‘She trusted me to come here and redeem her ring; she also trusted me enough to tell me that Mr Goodman was a friend of her father’s and that he returned her coat and valise without charge when she pawned the ring. She also said that he understood her situation enough not to tell anyone she had been in his shop.’ He held out the roll of banknotes but the pawnbroker made no attempt to take them.

  ‘I know you. I met you once in Danygraig House. Didn’t you work for her father?’

  ‘If I did, you’d know why I don’t want to answer that question.’

  Opening the door, Mr Goodman ushered Lloyd along a short passageway into an office set behind the storeroom. He unhooked an enormous bunch of keys from his belt and opened a safe. After poking through the boxes it contained, he found the envelope he wanted, removed the ring box and handed it to Lloyd.

  ‘Is that the ring?’

  ‘There’s no point in me opening the box, because I’ve never seen it,’ Lloyd answered. ‘And I will return it to her unopened; you have my word on it.’

  ‘Half hoop of matching diamonds.’ Mr Goodman took it from Lloyd, opened it and nodded. ‘Expensive ring that. Tell her it’s worth two thousand pounds to the right person and if she ever sells it, not to take a penny less than eighteen hundred.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Is she well?’

  Lloyd saw concern in the man’s face. ‘She is well and so is her son.’

  ‘I have an album of hers. I couldn’t bring myself to strip the photographs from it.’ He opened a cupboard, brought out a leather-bound photograph album and set it on a table. Lloyd ran his fingers over the ornately embossed cover.

  ‘That’s real quality.’ Mr Goodman turned the page to reveal a painted garland of ivy and pansies encircling the title Our Poets. Above it, in a firm upright hand Lloyd recognised as Harry Watkin Jones’s, was an inscription:

  ‘To darling Sali on her sixteenth birthday from her father, that this book may “List the legends of our happy home. Linked as they come with every tender tie. Memorials dear of youth and infancy.”’

  ‘The decorated pages have poetry written on them as well as portraits of poets and paintings of their birthplaces and flowers. There’s Byron, Dickens and Shakespeare as well as Walter Scott. That quote is one of his. It’s full of family portraits.’ Mr Goodman closed the book and kept his hand on the cover as if it would be sacrilege for either of them to look at the photographs.

  Lloyd realised that the old man must have studied the book in detail. ‘May I redeem it?’

  ‘No, but you can give it to her from me.’

  ‘Then it will be your Christmas present to her, Mr Goodman, not my family’s.’

  ‘There is something else.’ The pawnbroker turned back to the safe and lifted out a wooden box. ‘It was empty when it was brought in. But her initials are on it and when her silver bracelet watch came in, I put it inside.’

  Lloyd ran his fingers over the mahogany box inlaid with gold letters, SWJ.

  Like the album, it was beautifully crafted. He opened the box and looked at the watch. ‘May I buy the two please?’

  ‘That will be two pounds for the box and another two for the watch. Will you tell her the album is from me?’

  ‘I will, Mr Goodman.’

  ‘And there’s no charge for the ring. I forgot t
hat I owed her father twelve pounds when she came in to pawn it. As I can’t pay him, it’s only fair she collects his debt.’

  ‘She hates taking charity, Mr Goodman.’

  ‘You calling me a liar?’

  ‘No, Mr Goodman.’

  ‘She really is all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And her boy?’

  ‘They are both fine,’ Lloyd reassured him for the second time. ‘In good health, content and safe with people who care for them.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ He took the four pound notes Lloyd handed him. ‘I’ll wrap these for you. And you don’t have to worry, I won’t tell anyone about her or that you came and took these things away.’

  ‘You have nothing else of hers?’

  The old pawnbroker shook his head. ‘But if anything I recognise does come in, I’ll set it aside, you can count on that. I owed her father a great deal.’

  ‘So did I, Mr Goodman. And thank you.’

  Lloyd went from the pawnshop to the best goldsmith Pontypridd had to offer. Even if he hadn’t arranged to visit Mr Richards he would have found another pretext to travel to the town. It had become an annual pre-Christmas pilgrimage for him since the year he had first made love to Connie. If he had bought an expensive gift for a woman in a Tonypandy shop, it would have set the entire valley gossiping and speculating about the identity of the object of his affections. As he was a comparative stranger in Pontypridd, his personal life excited little interest.

  He spent a few moments looking at the goods on display in the wire-caged window. There was a pretty art nouveau gold brooch that she might like, or a collection of thin, silver bracelets, a pair of earrings set with moonstones ... Every year he bought Connie a piece of jewellery and every year she assiduously wore whatever it was until he replaced it with another. Then presumably she set the original aside in her jewellery box. It all seemed rather wasteful and pointless, just like the collection of gold and silver cufflinks and tiepins she had given him over the years.

  Then he saw it. There was no mistaking the message it carried, if he had the courage to give it to her. Deciding he did, he reached for his wallet and walked through the door.

  Lloyd checked his parcels and mentally ran through a list of his purchases as he left the jewellers. He had gifts for Connie, Harry and Sali. He had ordered three best quality linen shirts for his father and brothers in the haberdasher’s in Tonypandy. He had asked Connie to deliver extra tobacco, a luxury box of chocolates and an assortment of sugar mice and other novelties for the family, and to bill it to his private account. He had left her to choose the novelties because she knew better than him what his mother had ordered to make their Christmases so perfect and this year was going to be a hard one for all of them, but especially his father.

  Heading for the station, he made his way back through the town. He was just stepping through the entrance to the booking hall when someone called his name. He looked around and seeing no one he walked on.

  ‘Mr Evans.’ Mr Richards pulled down the window of a carriage. ‘If you wouldn’t mind catching a later train, there is someone who would like to talk to you.’

  ‘There is no use in you denying it, Mr Evans.’ Mr Richards gazed steadily at Lloyd, who was sitting opposite him in Mrs James’s carriage. ‘You were the only visitor to my office today. That is how I know it was you who left the parcel and letters from Mrs Bull.’

  ‘You know Mrs Bull’s present situation?’

  ‘I know she is afraid of her husband.’

  ‘Then you understand why she asked me to leave the parcel anonymously and not tell anyone in Pontypridd where she is.’ Lloyd off-loaded his purchases on to the leather-upholstered seat beside him.

  ‘Mrs James and I both understand why she does not wish to tell us where she is. But you have seen her. You must have,’ he continued when Lloyd didn’t answer, ‘for her to have given you the parcel.’

  ‘I have seen her,’ Lloyd conceded.

  ‘And if you have seen her, you must have also formed an impression as to how she is.’

  ‘She and her son are well, content, safe and looked after.’

  ‘All I am asking, Mr Evans, is that you ease an old lady’s mind. Mrs James worries constantly about Mrs Bull and the boy.’ He glanced out of the window as the driver negotiated the gates to the drive of Ynysangharad House. ‘Will you meet with her?’

  ‘I am on early shift tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll ask the driver to wait. The next train leaves in half an hour, that will give you ten minutes with Mrs James, enough time to set her mind at rest.’ Mr Richards played his trump card. ‘Mrs Bull is very fond of her aunt. She would not wish to see her worried.’

  Lloyd hadn’t needed Mr Richards to tell him that. The look on Sali’s face whenever she spoke about her aunt was enough.

  ‘May I help you with these parcels?’ Mr Richards picked up the jewellery casket and carried it into the house, where Jenkins relieved him and Lloyd of the shopping.

  ‘Mrs James is in the drawing room, Mr Richards. Tea has already been served.’ Jenkins opened the door and Mr Richards waited for Lloyd to precede him.

  Lloyd knew Mrs James by sight, and of her charitable deeds by reputation, as did everyone who had lived or worked in Pontypridd. Sali had told him about her stroke and he had expected her to be frailer. She sat up and smiled as he walked through the door.

  ‘It is good of you to visit me, Mr Evans. I appreciate that you young men have many calls on your time. Would you like tea?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs James, I cannot stay long.’

  ‘Won’t you at least sit down?’ She indicated the sofa and he sat close to her chair. ‘When Mr Richards brought me this earlier,’ she held up the photograph of Sali and Harry she had been studying when he had entered the room, ‘and said that you had left it in his office, I had to see you. How is she?’

  ‘Mrs Bull wrote to you, Mrs James,’ he answered guardedly.

  ‘A letter full of reassuring platitudes designed to set the mind of an old lady at rest. She says she is working, has a good job and earns enough to support her and Harry.’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Are they both happy?’

  ‘I will tell you what I told Mr Richards, Mrs James. Both she and her son are well, content, safe and looked after.’

  ‘Not happy?’

  ‘She was badly injured and very nervous when she entered her present home.’

  ‘I wanted to help her.’ Edyth looked to Mr Richards. ‘We all did, we tried but perhaps not hard enough ...’

  ‘Sali blames no one for what happened to her, Mrs James.’

  ‘She has told you about her marriage?’

  ‘Enough for me to realise that she is afraid of her husband, not only because of what he might do to her and the boy, but also to you and her brothers and sister.’

  ‘Are you and she –’

  ‘I am her friend, Mrs James,’ he stated firmly. ‘And that is all I am.’

  Edyth lifted an envelope from a table beside her chair. ‘I have written her a cheque. It is enough for her to begin a new life well away from Pontypridd and Owen Bull. You look an upright, honest young man and Mr Richards tells me that my nephew, Sali’s father, thought well of you. You will see that she gets it.’

  ‘I promise, but I can’t promise you that Sali will take it. She –’

  ‘She?’ Edyth looked expectantly at him as he hesitated.

  ‘She is very independent and I think she feels safe where she is for the present.’

  ‘You only think she feels safe, Mr Evans?’ Edyth said apprehensively.

  ‘She is safe. You have my word on that.’

  ‘And her son?’

  ‘Is learning to play and be happy.’ He left his seat and took the letter she handed him. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must leave.’

  ‘If I want to get in touch with my niece urgently, could I write to her through you and Mr Richards?’ Edyth asked.

  ‘You cou
ld, Mrs James, but I’ll be honest with you. Sali ... Mrs Bull doesn’t confide in me, but when I suggested she accompany me to Pontypridd to visit her family, she was too frightened to take me up on my offer. If in trying to contact her, you compromise her present position, I believe she will take Harry and move on. Now that she has made a new life for herself once, she will have no qualms about doing so again.’

  ‘I understand what you are saying, Mr Evans.’ Edyth held out her hand. ‘But if I can help Sali in any way, or if she needs anything, anything at all ...’

  ‘If I am ever in a position to advise her in such a situation, Mrs James, I will suggest that she turns to you.’

  ‘There is one more thing. I have a trunk full of her clothes. I won’t ask you where you are going but could you deliver it to her?’

  ‘I could, Mrs James.’

  ‘It was supposed to be her trousseau. It is such a pity to waste it.’

  ‘I believe Mr Evans is only obeying Mrs Bull’s wishes, Mrs James,’ Mr Richards advised when he returned to her drawing room after seeing Lloyd, his parcels and the trunk into her carriage.

  ‘Of course he is.’ Edyth stared down at the photograph of Sali and Harry. Both stood, smiling in front of a painted backdrop of a mountain. But she could see the scars on Sali’s face. Faint, but still there, along her cheekbone and jaw line. Her hair had grown just long enough to pin up. Harry was holding her hand and looking up at her with an expression so like Mansel’s she felt that her heart would break. ‘And I can understand why Sali is frightened. If Owen Bull ever got hold of her and the boy again ...’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘It is hard to live without them. My children, my husband, Mansel, and now ...’

  Mr Richards sat on the sofa and held Mrs James’s hand. He felt useless and ineffective, but whenever he doubted Mrs Bull’s need to conceal herself, he recalled his visit to Mill Street and Mrs James’s description of Mrs Bull’s injuries when she had visited her in the infirmary. ‘Times and circumstances change, Mrs James,’ he consoled clumsily. ‘Who knows what the future holds? Mrs Bull may be able to return to Pontypridd with the boy one day and perhaps even live here, in this house with you.’