Finders and Keepers (45 page)

‘Because I tend to picture Frank about this time every day. I think it's association. Evening of day – evening of life. I imagine him lying out on the balcony of his room, looking at the garden and thinking of all the paintings he will never create.'

‘Why not concentrate on all the paintings he has completed that have given so much pleasure to so many people and will continue to do so for hundreds of years?'

‘You're right; I should dwell on his achievements, not the might-have-beens. Did you know that your grandfather used to talk to him when he was still strong enough to leave his room?'

‘Yes, he told me.'

‘They – I mean, their situation – makes you think seriously about life, doesn't it? Frank is only eight years older than me, yet he's dying. And even seeing him every day hasn't woken me up to the fact of my own mortality. I carry on as if I am going to live for ever.'

‘According to my grandfather, that's the only way.'

‘You're right, I should console myself with the thought that Frank has achieved his ambitions and left a legacy that will last as long as there are people who appreciate art.'

‘As will you,' Harry said. ‘The illustrations in
Le Morte d'Arthur
are as much yours as Frank's.'

‘They are Frank's swansong, the culmination of years of study that will put him up there with the greatest painters of his generation. I'm dreading the completion of this book because Frank won't have anything left to live for and I'll be left to find my own commissions.' He glanced across at Harry. ‘I'm terrified at the prospect. What if no one gives me any?'

‘Come on, Toby, that's false modesty. I've seen what you can do.'

‘As a draughtsman. The actual painting and execution of an illustration is the easy part, Frank taught me that much. It's the putting together and the creation of a scene that carries the truth and essence of a book and stays with the reader long after they've looked at it that's the difficult part.'

‘The publishers know how much you've put into this project.'

‘The publishers are Frank's publishers, and I couldn't bear to think that I only received a commission from them because I'm Frank's nephew. I need to make it on my own, Harry. I need to know that I am my own person, with my own talent. That I have something to give to life, and – the woman I love.'

‘Please, tell me you're not thinking of Bella?'

‘I promise I'll wait until she's old enough before I tell her how I feel about her.'

‘What do you call old enough?'

‘Younger than twenty-one.'

‘I was afraid you'd say that.'

Toby looked up at the hills and, from the faraway look in his eyes, Harry could see that he was either imagining a painting or picturing his sister.

His thoughts turned to his own future and the embryonic plans he had made and discarded. What did he have to give a woman except his money? Money he hadn't even earned. And what would he leave behind when he died? Not superb illustrations for classical books, or a legacy of union work like his grandfather who had changed so many colliers' lives for the better. Billy Evans had won a place in history as a fighter for workers' rights. Maybe, in the vast scale of the world, it wasn't as big a place as he deserved but he would be remembered fondly by hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the Rhondda and Wales. He wondered if he would even be remembered by anyone when he died, and if so, what for.

Toby's voice broke in on his thoughts. ‘There's a lot of activity around the farmhouse.'

Harry looked ahead. ‘I've never seen so many vehicles parked on this road.'

‘Perhaps the Ellises are having a party,' Toby suggested flippantly.

Harry made out a police car, half-a-dozen farm and livestock carts, a closed, high-sided black van with ‘Brecon Workhouse' on the side painted in large white letters – and a trap. Although he couldn't be absolutely certain it was the one he'd seen in the archway in the early hours of the morning, it looked suspiciously like it.

‘What's the matter, Harry? You've gone the exact shade of white I painted my ghost lady.'

Harry didn't answer. He stopped the car behind the trap, pulled on the handbrake, switched off the ignition, jumped out and started running.

Chapter Nineteen

Harry dodged a bruiser with the height and build of a heavyweight boxer, and bolted into the farmyard in time to see David Ellis break free from a policeman.

‘Let go of my sister!' David hurled himself at two men who were dragging Mary through the door of the farmhouse. Kicking one on the shins, he hit the other in the chest with his fist. ‘Let go of her, you swine -'

‘I told you he was out of control.'

Harry recognized the voice from the night in the stable. The owner, a square-shouldered, middle-aged man running to fat, lashed out and slapped David across the head. Harry flinched when he heard the blow. The boy reeled and Harry dived forward, catching him before he hit the cobbles.

Knowing that losing his temper would achieve absolutely nothing with a figure of authority, Harry looked to Mary as he helped David to his feet. ‘What's going on?'

The two men flanking her tightened their grip on her arms and she winced. Her dark eyes glittered, dry and enormous, in her pale, thin face. Harry had seen a similar expression when, against his better judgement, he had joined a stag hunt at a friend's house. Mary looked just as the animal had done when it realized it was cornered and had nowhere to run.

‘Let go of her. You're hurting her.' Harry stepped forward but the men pulled her back, away from him.

‘Who are you?' the constable demanded.

The man who had hit David answered the officer before Harry could. ‘I don't know his name, but I can tell you that he's the same thug who attacked me last night. He did this.' He pointed to a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his head.

‘Is that right?' the policeman asked Harry.

Harry glared at his accuser. ‘You're the agent, Robert Pritchard?'

‘What's it to you who I am?'

Fighting the impulse to thump him as soundly as he had hit David, Harry clenched his fists. It took all the powers of restraint that he had been taught as a child to remain calm. Forcing himself to think only of Mary and the Ellis family, he said, ‘If you are the agent, then yes, I hit you. But it was in self-defence. It was you who attacked me.'

‘A likely story, when I complained about the attack first,' the agent snorted.

‘It's the truth, Constable.' Harry appealed directly to the officer.

‘Then where are the bruises where I hit you?' Bob Pritchard demanded.

‘On my chin, chest and elbow.'

Bob Pritchard turned to the constable. ‘If they're there, they're not the result of anything I did.'

‘That will be for the court to decide, that's if you want to take it that far, sir,' the officer murmured deferentially.

‘I want to, and you will,' the agent snapped, as if he were the constable's superior.

‘Your name?' The policeman removed his notebook from his top pocket.

‘Harry Evans.' Harry saw Toby fighting to get into the yard.

‘I'm a friend of Harry Evans and the Ellises,' Toby shouted. ‘These idiots tried to stop me from following you, Harry.' He looked around. Two men were working in the barn, busily crating all the live poultry. Another was walking around the pigsties, scribbling numbers in a book. A third was stacking the utensils in the dairy. ‘What's going on here? Who are all these people?'

‘That's what I'm trying to find out.' Harry looked to the constable but it was the agent who answered him.

‘This family is being evicted for non-payment of rent. Their goods are forfeit to the landlord, not that they'll cover a fraction of their debts, and the constable is here to see that everything is done according to the law.'

‘Whatever the arrears, I'll pay them,' Harry offered impetuously.

‘They owe hundreds of pounds,' the constable replied. ‘You couldn't possibly pay them.'

‘I have money.' Harry knew he'd said the worst thing that he could have once the words were out of his mouth.

‘Enough to buy yourself a whore,' Bob Pritchard mocked. ‘I saw your car parked outside here last night. It's just like I told you, master,' he called across to a man in a black three-piece suit and a bowler hat who was standing in the doorway of the house. ‘The girl is a moral degenerate. This,' he gave Harry a disparaging look, ‘is one of her customers.'

Screams filled the air and a man in a khaki work jacket hauled Martha and Matthew out of the house. Both were yelling at the top of their voices. They saw Mary and tried to run to her but he held them firmly by their wrists. Martha struggled and fell to her knees.

‘Please, don't hurt them, they're children,' Harry said.

A cry, shriller and more anguished than Matthew and Martha's, cut Harry short. A woman wearing a grey hospital uniform followed the man. She was having difficulty holding Luke. He was red-faced, and hysterical, and stretched his small arms out to Mary as soon as he saw her.

Mary tried to lift her hands but the men pinned them to her sides.

The workhouse master waved to one of the men standing in the archway. ‘Bring the van.'

‘No … I won't go … I won't go … not to no workhouse …' David wriggled free from Harry's grip only to be floored by the agent who lifted him unceremoniously from the ground by his hair before handing him back to the constable.

‘I warned you he'd be too much for the workhouse, master. He may be fourteen but you'd be better off sending him to a house of correction, or a prison first as last,' the agent said coldly.

‘David,' Mary appealed to her brother, ‘go quietly with the little ones, they need someone to look out for them.'

‘And you?' David fought back his tears.

‘I'll be all right as long as I know that you will be caring for the others.'

‘You can't just take this family to the workhouse!' Harry exclaimed. ‘It's inhuman when they have friends.'

‘What friends?' The agent stepped even closer to Harry. ‘You?' he mocked. ‘It's like I said to the police sergeant this morning. Mary Ellis is under-age and in need of moral guidance. The only place for a girl with that failing is the workhouse. And the children will be better off in the orphanage wing where they'll be kept away from her.'

‘How can you sleep at night?' Harry asked in disgust.

‘With a clear conscience. The same conscience that led me to call in the authorities. I gave Mary Ellis every chance to take over the rent book on this farm, but rather than work she turned the house into a brothel. I came here last night to find you,' he jabbed his forefinger into Harry's chest, ‘alone with her in the stable doing things that as a Christian man I'd rather not mention. And the younger children left alone in the farmhouse. Anything could have happened. A fire could have broken out, they could have burned to death in their beds.'

‘You're a liar, Mr Pritchard.' There was no emotion in Mary's voice. Her worst nightmare had been realized and she felt oddly detached, almost as though the proceedings were happening to another family, not hers. ‘You raped my mother, me, and all the women around here who couldn't pay their rent. Mr Evans only tried to help us.'

‘She is telling the truth,' Harry said strongly, aware that two men had moved in behind him.

‘You don't want to go making any more accusations like that, either of you,' the constable warned. ‘Perjury is a serious crime. You could both find yourself in gaol for that. And a women's prison is worse than the workhouse, Miss Ellis.'

‘I know what really happened,' she asserted, staring at the agent, ‘and so does Mr Pritchard.'

The constable poised his pencil over his notebook. ‘I'm asking you formally, Harry Evans. Did you attack Mr Pritchard last night?'

‘In self-defence,' Harry replied.

‘I'm making notes that could be used as evidence against you.'

‘Are you charging me with a crime?' Harry demanded.

One of the bailiffs opened an upstairs window. ‘Mr Pritchard, sir.'

‘What is it, Fred?'

‘We'll be able to get all the saleable furniture into two carts; there are only the beds, bedding, kitchen table, and pots and pans. It's not worth taking the benches in the kitchen unless you're short of firewood.'

‘Tell them to bring the carts into the yard,' the agent called to the man who was standing next to Toby in the archway.

‘And find out what the hold-up is with the workhouse van,' the constable added. ‘The sooner we get these children out of here the sooner we can hear ourselves think.' He glared at Martha, Matthew and Luke, who were still sobbing.

‘I can take the children with me,' Harry offered when three carts rumbled through the archway into the cobbled yard.

‘You a married man, sir?' the constable asked.

‘No.'

‘You have a house.'

‘In Pontypridd.'

‘A likely story. The man can't stop lying,' Bob sneered. ‘I told you, he's one of her,' he pointed at Mary, ‘fancy men.'

‘I can't hand these children over to someone I know nothing about who lives out of the area. It's for the magistrates to decide what will happen to them,' the constable declared.

‘I'm lodging at the inn in Abercrave. My landlady would vouch for me and help me to find suitable accommodation for them,' Harry pleaded.

‘You think a public house a suitable place for children?' the workhouse master enquired coldly.

‘Plenty of children grow up with parents who run public houses,' Harry retorted.

‘And we all know what happens to those who are brought up in a dissolute, licentious atmosphere.'