‘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. T
hey 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.’
Every safety deposit box was labelled. At Geraint’s request the first one the manager opened was marked ‘Cash’. It was empty. ‘Family Jewellery’ contained bills of sale. The atmosphere in the windowless vault buzzed tense and nerve-racking, as the manager lifted the other boxes on to the table. ‘Stocks’, ‘Shares’ and ‘Bonds’ held bundles of neatly tied certificates. ‘Property deeds’ contained sheaves of papers and ‘Bank Books’ a dozen books and a few important looking documents.
‘If you would like to use my office, Mr Richards, Mr Watkin Jones, you would be most welcome.’ The manager took two of the boxes and led the way.
‘What’s going to happen to us now, Miss Sali?’ Mari asked as she carried bed linen into the room Sali had ordered to be prepared for her sister.
‘I honestly don’t know, Mari. It depends on Geraint. I know he is looking for another house and although I haven’t had time to discuss it with him, I presume he intends to stay on in Pontypridd. Mother, Llinos and Gareth have to live somewhere, they will need a housekeeper and I’m sure that you will be the first person they think of employing.’
‘Mr Geraint asked how I’d feel about taking the position of nursemaid to Master Harry.’ Mari revealed diffidently.
‘When did he ask you?’
‘This morning before breakfast.’
Sali was furious. She was grateful to Mari for her loyal service to her family over so many years, and especially for the care she had shown her Aunt Edyth and her mother. And given that Mari had spent practically the whole of her life in their employ, their old housekeeper had every right to expect to remain with them. But she felt that Geraint had no right whatsoever to discuss or offer Mari the post of nursemaid to her son without consulting her first.
‘I’m sure he meant to talk to you about it, Miss Sali.’
Tight-lipped, Sali muttered, ‘I’ll discuss it with him when he returns.’
‘When I think of your uncle selling Danygraig House –’
‘It’s done, Mari,’ Sali interrupted, not wanting to talk about something that couldn’t be changed.
‘Are you and Master Harry going to live with Mr Geraint, Miss Sali?’ Mari shook a bolster into a case.
‘I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be living or what I’ll be doing a week from now, Mari. At the moment, it’s as much as I can do to look as far ahead as tomorrow. There’s the funeral tea to arrange, the flowers to order, and after we’ve done this bedroom, we have to prepare one for Gareth.’
‘Miss Sali.’ Jenkins knocked the door. ‘Sergeant Davies is here. He asked if he could speak to you. I have shown him into the drawing room. Would you like to be served tea?’
‘Please, Jenkins.’ Policemen always seemed to be able to drink tea at any time of day. ‘Serve it right away and tell him I’ll be with him shortly.’
‘I’ll start on Master Gareth’s room as soon as I’ve finished here, Miss Sali.’ Mari set the bolster on top of the tallboy and picked up a pillow.
‘Harry?’ Sali looked at her son who was sitting quietly on the floor in the corner looking at a picture book. ‘Will you stay with Mari while I talk to a policeman?’
‘Of course he will,’ Mari answered for him. ‘And as soon as this bed is made up, we’ll go down to the kitchen and see if we can find a glass of milk and one or two of the Jumbles I saw the cook making this morning.’
‘I’ll only be in the drawing room, Harry,’ Sali reassured, ‘and as soon as the policeman has gone I’ll come and look for you.’
‘You haven’t done anything naughty?’ Harry asked gravely.
‘Bless you,’ Mari laughed. ‘Your mother couldn’t do anything naughty if she tried.’
‘I won’t leave the house without you, Harry.’ Sali couldn’t help contrasting Harry’s present insecurity with the confidence he had displayed only the day before when he had been almost too preoccupied with choosing a book for Mr Evans to read to him, to wave goodbye to her.
‘Well?’ Geraint asked impatiently after Mr Richards had glanced at all the documents in the deed box and opened one bank book after another, piling them neatly on to the bank manager’s desk.
‘Payments out of the trust fund set up by your father require two signatures, mine, and after your mother’s abdication of her guardianship in favour of her brother, Morgan Davies’s. But withdrawals have been made on representation of cheques that I never signed. Also, stocks, bonds and shares have been sold without my knowledge.’ He left the desk and opened the door. The manager was standing outside, talking to a clerk. ‘Could I see all the cheques that have been drawn from all of the Watkin Jones accounts, starting with the trust fund accou
nt.’
‘Certainly, Mr Richards.’ The manager looked at the clerk who immediately charged off. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘A serious one.’ Mr Richards returned to his chair behind the desk. ‘The trust fund set up by Mr Harry Watkin Jones is empty.’
‘But of course it is.’
‘You knew about this?’ Mr Richards was astounded.
‘For the past six months Mr Davies has been making arrangements to transfer everything into Mr Geraint Watkin Jones’s name in an account in Cardiff. He told us that Mr Watkin Jones was setting up home there and wanted to make banking arrangements in the city.’ The clerk knocked on the door and brought in the boxes.
Mr Richards opened the box file and lifted out a sheaf of cheques. The manager walked behind the desk and looked over his shoulder.
‘All of those cheques drawn on the trust fund account bear two signatures, just as they should, Mr Richards.’
‘The only problem is, neither signature is mine,’ Mr Richards stated categorically.
Chapter Twenty-six
Mr Richards, the manager and Geraint sat together for over three hours. During that time they examined all the transactions carried out in the last four and a half years in every account that bore the Watkin Jones name. All were empty, their contents transferred into a Cardiff bank account opened in Geraint’s name. There was even a specimen of Geraint’s signature the Cardiff manager had accepted at face value. But the account held the princely sum of ten shillings, the minimum required to keep it open.
Mr Richards and the manager grew increasingly sombre as they examined the stock, share and bond certificates. Instead of the gilt-edged, national companies Harry Watkin Jones had invested in, all the certificates bore the title ‘the Conversion of Savages and Pagans Missionary Fund’.
On paper, the new investments Morgan Davies had made on behalf of his nephew and the family trust fund were worth the same as those made by Harry Watkin Jones. But when the solicitor and manager fell gravely silent, Geraint realised something was terribly wrong.
‘What is this “Conversion of Savages and Pagans Missionary Fund”?’ he asked, with an escalating sense of dread.
Beggars and Choosers Page 45
