Sinners and Shadows (47 page)

An excerpt from

FINDERS & KEEPERS

Book Four in the
Brothers & Lovers
series

by

CATRIN COLLIER

Chapter One

Harry braced himself for the inevitable judder when the train drew into Pontypridd station. He adjusted his cream felt derby to a jaunty angle, picked up the overnight case and suitcase he had moved from the carriage into the corridor, opened the door and stepped down to be deafened by a scream.

‘There he is! Bella, Mam, over here! Harry!' His fourteen-year-old sister, Edyth, hurtled towards him.

‘Ow!' He dropped his bags and reeled back when the plaster cast on her left arm caught his cheek.

‘Gosh, I'm sorry, Harry. Did I hurt you? Did you have a good journey? Mam and Bella wanted to pick you up by themselves, but I insisted on coming. They said there wouldn't be room for me and your luggage in the car – I told them that they could jolly well get a taxi to take your trunk to the new house. You don't have to bother about it, Mam's arranging for a porter to take it off the train now. Was the summer ball as gorgeous as it sounds? I can't wait until it's my turn to go to grown-up parties. Are you very sad not to be going back to Oxford? No of course you're not, because you're off to Paris on Saturday. Dad – well, not just Dad, everyone's ever so proud of you for getting a First. Oh look, I've got chocolate on your white suit. I didn't realize it was that soft. Do you want a piece?' She opened her hand to reveal four half-melted squares of Five Boys. ‘Here, let me get it off.' She pulled a grubby handkerchief from her sleeve with her clean hand, spat on it and dabbed at his lapel, smudging the stain.

‘Edyth, don't; you're making it worse. Please, I'll see to it –'

‘No, let me,' she interrupted. ‘Boys haven't a clue when it comes to getting out stains. Guess what –'

‘Edyth, stop gabbling like an auctioneer and let Harry get his breath,' sixteen-year-old Bella drawled from behind her.

Both sisters were dressed in fashionable, calf-length, dropped-waist, silk afternoon frocks. To Harry's astonishment Bella looked suddenly and amazingly grown up, in cool, sophisticated cream, with matching accessories and stockings, and amber-coloured cloche hat and gloves. Whereas Edyth – in navy blue, with snagged stockings, her shoes covered in dust – could have just left a hockey field.

Instead of giving him her usual bear hug, Bella offered her cheek. Taken aback, Harry kissed her, then, seeing their mother, ran up the platform and once more dropped his bags. Sali had no compunction about embracing him in public. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight for a moment before pushing him back and studying him.

‘You look tired.'

‘I'm fine,' he reassured her.

‘There are shadows beneath your eyes. Too many graduation celebrations?' she said shrewdly.

‘I've enjoyed one or two,' he conceded. Like the girls, his mother was dressed in silk. The smart beige outfit she'd worn to his graduation ceremony was complemented by a brown hat, gloves and shoes. ‘And talking of celebrations, you three look as though you're going to a party.'

‘We are,' Edyth blurted tactlessly.

‘Well done, Edyth, for letting the cat out of the bag,' Bella said.

‘Harry would have found out soon enough.' Sali frowned at the burgeoning red mark on Harry's cheek. ‘Is that a bruise?'

‘If it is, it's down to Edyth's cast. And what have you done this time, Miss Courts Disaster Wherever She Goes?' Harry picked up his bag and case again.

‘Fell out of the apple tree in the old house,' Edyth answered cheerfully. ‘We were flying kites. Glyn's got caught in the branches. He was crying and no one else would climb up to get it –'

‘We had more sense,' Bella interrupted.

Edyth stuck her tongue out at her sister ‘The doctor said it's a clean break and should heal well.'

‘And a trip to the hospital was just what your father and I needed on the day we moved. Your trunk is being sent on to the new house, Harry.' Sali shepherded the three of them towards the ticket collector, who was sitting in his booth at the top of the flight of steps that led down into the station yard.

‘You brought my car,' Harry quickened his pace when he looked down and saw the open-topped, five-seater Crossley tourer, which the trustees of his estate had presented to him on his twenty-first birthday.

‘I thought you'd enjoy driving it to the old house one last time.' Sali handed him the keys.

‘But you've already moved.' A year ago Harry had reluctantly given the trustees of the estate bequeathed to him by his mother's great-aunt permission to sell the mansion that was part of his inheritance. It had been a hard decision to make as they had lived in it for fifteen years, but the spiralling costs of repairs coupled with the size of the place had made it uneconomical to run as a private house.

‘The council took possession of the grounds months ago,' Sali confirmed, ‘but they don't take over the house until tomorrow.'

‘So we thought we'd have one last “do” there. Your welcome home from Oxford and bon voyage to Paris, and our farewell-to-Ynysangharad-House party. It's great for dancing because all the furniture's been cleared out,' Edyth chattered as she ran down the steps alongside Harry. ‘I wish I were going to Paris. Uncle Joey says the girls dance the cancan there. And they eat frogs' legs and snails. Can you imagine that? Are you going to eat frogs' legs and snails when you get there?' Edyth charged up to Harry's car, hurdled over the back door and landed on the bench seat in the back.

‘I hope you realize that the whole of Tumble Square saw your knickers then, Edyth.' Bella waited until Harry had opened the passenger door for her mother so he could open the back door for her.

‘Miss Prissy Bossy Boots,' Edyth chanted the nickname she and their three younger sisters had invented for Bella. She stuck her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers.

‘Very pretty, Edyth.' Bella settled her handbag squarely on her lap.

Harry listened to his sisters squabbling while he stowed his luggage in the boot of his car. ‘You two make me feel as though I've well and truly arrived home.' He climbed into the driving seat beside his mother and pressed the ignition. The engine roared into life. ‘How is Dad?'

‘Working too hard organizing the miners' strike as well as seeing to his parliamentary duties. I wish he'd take it easy,' Sali answered.

‘He wouldn't be Dad if he did.'

‘You're right.' Sali had married Lloyd Evans when Harry was four years old. Harry had adored Lloyd then, and they had grown even closer after the five girls had been born, sticking together as the ‘men' in the family.

‘Mind you, I never thought the miners would hold out alone for so long after the General Strike was called off in May.' Harry stopped the car so a cart could cross from Taff Street into Market Square in front of them.

‘If there's one thing I've learned in seventeen years of marriage to an Evans, it's that the miners will carry on every fight until the absolute bitter end.' Sali waved to the doorman of Gwilym James as they passed the Taff Street entrance of the store.

Harry heard a slap, and suspected that Bella had finally lost her temper and lashed out at Edyth. He leaned back towards the rear seat, and asked, ‘So who is going to be at this party?'

‘Everyone.' Edyth draped her arms around Sali's neck and rested her head on her mother's shoulder. ‘All the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, heaps of friends. But you'll be sorry to hear that Bella invited Alice Reynolds –'

‘She's a friend,' Bella interrupted.

‘Some friend. She only talks to us because she's stuck on Harry. She clung to him like a slug on lettuce at our Christmas party. All slime and simpering smiles –'

‘Really, Edyth, I don't know where you get your ideas from. Slugs are disgusting creatures,' Bella said.

‘So is Alice Reynolds, and you're beginning to sound more like a schoolmarm every day. I bet you're going to die a dried-up old spinster, Belle.'

‘Edyth, enough!' Sali reverted to the ‘special' voice she used to silence her children whenever their bickering turned ugly.

‘You don't have to worry about me and Alice Reynolds, Edyth, she's a baby.' Harry steered the car through the main gates of the private drive to Ynysangharad House.

‘She's the same age as me,' Bella bristled.

‘Sorry, Belle, but she's nowhere near as mature as you.' Hoping he'd mollified his sister with the compliment, Harry winked at his mother and slowed the car to a walking pace. The afternoon was warm, the garden perfumed with the scent of roses. ‘That music doesn't sound as though it's coming from a gramophone.'

‘Striking miners.' Sali straightened her scarf and eased a wrinkle from one of her kid gloves. ‘A few of them formed a jazz band using instruments donated by the union. Your father asked them to play for us today.'

Harry stopped outside the front door and pulled on the handbrake. Seconds later a sea of family and friends poured out of the house and engulfed the car.

‘Surprise!' Nine-year-old Susie tugged open the driver's door, and his three younger sisters piled on to him.

‘Maggie, Beth, Susie.' He kissed each of them in turn.

‘I've learned the Charleston, Harry, so you have to dance with me.'

‘I'm older than you, Susie, so you have to dance with me first, Harry.'

‘And I'm older than both of you, Beth, so that means he'll dance with me first.'

‘Edyth and I are older than the three of you.' Bella took the hand of a boy about her own age, who opened the door for her and helped her out of the car.

Before Harry had a chance to ask Bella to introduce him to her friend, a shrill voice resounded above the chatter.

‘What about me?' Two-year-old Glyn, his only brother and the youngest member of the family, who Lloyd joked was Sali's ‘best ever afterthought', was struggling to escape their father's arms.

‘What about you, little man?' Harry took him from Lloyd, left the car and set him on his shoulders. He shook his father's hand, kissed his aunts and, surrounded by his cousins, went inside. The band had set up in the hall, so they could be heard throughout the house, and they broke into the strains of ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' as soon as Harry walked through the door. Harry stopped and, feeling slightly foolish, stood with Glyn on his shoulders until everyone finished singing.

Sensing his embarrassment, Sali guided him towards the French doors in the dining room. They made slow progress as people continually stopped him to offer their congratulations on his degree and wish him well in Paris. Trestle tables had been set up outside on the terrace, and they were covered with plates of savouries, sandwiches, cakes, jellies and blancmanges.

‘Mari's outdone herself.' Harry looked around for their housekeeper.

‘She has, but none of us have succeeded in getting her out of the kitchen.' Sali took Glyn from him and handed the toddler a fairy cake.

‘I've told the others that I'm first and that's all there is to it.' Harry's youngest sister, Susie, who had all the confidence of a girl twice her age, grabbed his hand and pulled him back towards the house when the band struck up ‘Yes, Sir, That's My Baby'.

‘What about Maggie and Beth?' Harry asked when they reached the middle of the drawing room where the dancers had congregated.

‘I told them Mari needed help in the kitchen.'

‘And did she?' Harry resolved to pay the housekeeper a visit as soon as he could get away.

Susie just grinned before waving her hands and kicking her legs in an imitation of the chorus girls at the Town Hall.

‘Sorry you have five sisters,' Lloyd commiserated when Harry managed to escape into the library five dances later to join the men who had laid claim to the room as a refuge and smoking parlour.

‘Sorry Edyth hasn't learned to be more careful with that cast.' He rubbed his arm. ‘I haven't been back in Pontypridd an hour and she's managed to thump me twice. Uncle Joey, thank you.' He took the cigarette his father's youngest brother offered him. ‘And thank you very much for the wallet you sent me when I graduated. I hope you and Aunty Rhian got my letter.'

‘We did.' Joey lit Harry's cigarette.

‘And thank you for the pen, Uncle Victor.' He shook his father's younger brother's hand. ‘It was much appreciated.'

‘First Oxford graduate in the Evans family – you deserve something special. But I don't deserve the thanks, Megan chose it. What would we do without our women?'

‘Have more money in our pockets to get drunk on every night?' Joey suggested. He had been strikingly good-looking before the war but the years in the trenches and serious wounds had taken a toll on his health.

‘It's just as well Rhian knows you don't mean a tenth of what you say.' Victor passed round a plate of sausage rolls he'd filched from one of the tables outside.

‘I won't be the last one in this family to graduate from Oxford. Not with the number of cousins I have.' Harry looked around the room. ‘Isn't Granddad here?'

‘He complained he couldn't breathe in here so he went outside.' Lloyd handed him an ashtray.

‘How is he?' Harry asked. Billy Evans had lost the lower part of one of his legs in a train accident fifteen years before. Forced to leave mining, he hadn't allowed his disability to stop him from moving in with Victor and Megan so he could help Victor out on his farm. But it wasn't only the loss of his leg that had affected his health. Like most miners who had spent twenty or more years underground he had succumbed to ‘miner's lung'.

‘You know Dad.' Victor swallowed a mouthful of sausage roll. ‘He's not one to complain. Even when he's in pain.'

‘You're a brave lady venturing into the men's lair,' Joey said archly to Alice Reynolds, who was standing on tip-toe in the doorway.