Winners and Losers (45 page)

‘Victor!' Lloyd pulled his brother back as he towered over Mr Walker.

‘I will find her, Mr Walker, and if she has been harmed or humiliated in any way, I will be back here to make you pay for what you did this morning.'

‘You heard him, constable, he's threatening me,' the minister squeaked. ‘His name is Victor Evans. He's a criminal -'

‘I will do a lot more than threaten you if you've hurt Megan.' Victor advanced on the minister.

Mr Walker retreated and crashed backwards into the wall of his house. ‘I'm injured, send for the doctor,' he cried, rubbing the crown of his head.

The constable put his hand on Victor's arm. ‘You'd better come with me.'

‘You're arresting him?' Lloyd looked from Mr Walker to the constable.

‘Threatening behaviour and bodily harm,' he confirmed.

‘Victor never touched Mr Walker,' Lloyd protested.

‘But he caused him injury. That's bodily harm.'

‘Take him away.' Mr Walker ran into his porch. ‘And if any of you Evanses come round here again, I'll send for the police. I'll see the lot of you in gaol for corrupting that girl.'

Lloyd ran his hands through his hair. ‘Dear God, Victor, I begged you to stay home.'

‘You can't keep me away from Victor forever. I love him and he loves me -'

‘Any more fuss from you, girl, and I'll put you in the workhouse and tell them to throw away the key,' Ianto Williams warned Megan, as they sat in a third-class carriage.

‘Where are you taking me?'

‘That's for me to know, and you to find out. But don't for one minute think that I didn't mean what I said about the workhouse. You're under twenty-one and I can do what I like with you.'

‘I haven't even a change of clothes.'

‘You won't need one where you're going,' her father interrupted ominously. ‘Now sit quiet. I can't think for all your jabbering.'

Any hopes Megan had of running away from her father faded when they reached Cardiff station. A woman and two men were waiting for them. The woman and a man moved either side of her, grabbing her arms and holding her tight. Her father and the other man went into the waiting room. They emerged a few minutes later. Her father walked away without a backward glance. She was hustled down the steps that led from the platform and up another flight. A train was waiting. The men pushed her into a carriage. The woman sat beside her, a whistle was blown and they moved off.

‘Gwyn Jenkins came up to the house. He told me that Victor is in court again tomorrow?' Mr Evans caught up with Lloyd outside the police station.

‘Unfortunately,' Lloyd confirmed.

‘This is one instance I can't send for Geoffrey Francis, unless he's prepared to defer payment until we start back in the pit.'

‘Given the amount of work our family has put his way lately, I'm sure he'd be happy to do that. Victor's going to need a good solicitor. He didn't hit Mr Walker, but he did threaten him, unfortunately in front of a constable, his wife and me, so even I could be called as witness for the prosecution. And he frightened Mr Walker into backing into a wall. Apparently, technically at least, that constitutes bodily harm.'

‘What about extenuating circumstances? He was looking for his fiancée.'

‘Who is under age and in the guardianship of her father,' Lloyd reminded.

‘So it's not looking good.'

‘That's putting it mildly. Look, there's Joey, I sent him down the station to see if he could find out where the brake took Megan and her father. Any luck?' Lloyd asked his younger brother.

‘They caught the Cardiff train, but as Phil station said, they could have got off anywhere on the way, Porth, Ponty, or even changed in Cardiff to get a train to Swansea. I heard about Victor, dull,' a constable passed them and Joey tempered his language, ‘idiot. Magistrates' court in the morning, I suppose.'

‘It's become a family tradition,' Billy Evans agreed sourly.

‘Sali must be worried sick. I'm going home.' Lloyd lifted his hat to a group of women who passed them.

‘I'll call in the County Club on the way; we're hoping to hear something from management today on when the pits will reopen. I'll see you back at the house later.'

‘If you like, I'll come up to the County Club with you, Dad.'

‘I'm seeing to union business. There's no money for drinking,' Mr Evans warned.

‘With Lloyd needing to spend more time with Sali, I thought I could take over some of his work,' Joey said.

‘You volunteering to help the union?' Billy said in amazement.

‘Yes.'

‘Never let it be said that I turned away a volunteer. Let's go and quickly, before you change your mind.'

‘I'll go down to Pontypridd tomorrow and see Mr Richards.' Sali dropped the last potato she'd peeled into a saucepan of water.

‘My father intends asking Geoffrey Francis if he'll take the case, so there's no need to involve Mr Richards.' Lloyd looked around the kitchen. ‘Where's Harry?'

‘Playing on the mountain with Dewi and a gang of small boys. They called after you left and informed me that they were off to discover a new world. I told them that I hoped it would be an improvement on this one, made them a couple of jam sandwiches, gave them a bottle of water and sent them on their way.'

‘I hope they succeed. This world is looking pretty miserable at the moment.' Lloyd sat on the easy chair.

‘I thought it might be worth asking Mr Richards if he could try to find out where Megan's father has taken her. I had a long talk with Annie after you left, went over everything she could remember and I have a feeling, from what the sergeant said about Megan needing moral guidance, they've put her into a workhouse.'

‘And I think her father is too fond of money to put her somewhere where she won't be earning any money, but even if he has put her in a workhouse, there's nothing we can do about it, sweetheart. Her father's her legal guardian.'

‘Housekeepers looking for staff go to workhouses to recruit girls.'

He gave her a small smile. ‘Housekeepers like Mari?'

‘Precisely, if we find out where Megan is.'

‘Clever girl.' He patted his lap. ‘Come here for five minutes.'

Sali looked down at her swollen body. ‘The two of us are too big for you.'

‘Rubbish.' He grabbed her hand and pulled her down as she tried to pass his chair. Wrapping his arms around her, he rested his hands lightly on her bump. The baby moved and he smiled. ‘Did you feel that?'

‘I'm pregnant not insensitive, Lloyd.'

‘She's going to be a dancer.'

‘Or a footballer.'

‘It will be a girl, you mark my words.'

She fell serious. ‘I only hope Megan will be around when he or she arrives in six weeks. I was counting on her to help.'

Chapter Twenty-three

Every muscle in Megan's body ached. She was in pain, completely exhausted but worst of all, she had absolutely no idea where she was. The men had pulled the blinds on their carriage windows so she hadn't been able to read the signs at the stations they'd passed through. And, as they hadn't left the train until after darkness had fallen and she had been hustled straight into a van, she hadn't been able to read any signs at their destination. They had driven for what seemed like hours, and now, as she stared up at the grey, forbidding mansion in front of her, she wanted to sink to the ground and cry.

There were bars at every window, and she counted four locks as well as bolts being drawn back when one of the men tugged at the bell pull on the front door. They stepped inside and the man who had admitted them proceeded to lock the door behind them.

‘The girl Mr Walker recommended?' A woman in a matron's uniform walked down the corridor to meet them.

Megan had to strain to hear her. The noise level was unbearable; high-pitched screams, cries and moans echoed into the high-ceilinged hall that was lit by a single inadequate gas lamp. She clapped her hands over her ears.

‘You'll get used to the noise.' The woman who had accompanied her finally broke her silence.

‘Where am I?' Megan ventured.

‘In an asylum.'

‘My father has had me committed to an asylum?'

‘You are not mad, are you?' the matron asked.

Megan shook her head.

‘Good, because you will be employed here as a maid.'

‘A maid.' Megan breathed a heady sigh of relief. She'd get days off, she would find out where she was and get a letter to Victor ...

‘We've paid your father in advance for your services. You will get time off but you will not be permitted to leave the building and the walled garden. There is no point.' The matron gave her a cold smile that failed to reach her eyes. ‘It is over twenty miles to the nearest farmhouse, thirty to the village.'

The following morning Victor appeared before Porth magistrates, who listened to Geoffrey Francis' pleas and released him on condition that he stay away from Mr Walker's house, and pay a bail of fifty pounds, which to his shame, Sali arranged to borrow from Mr Richards against the ring that the solicitor hadn't, as yet, managed to sell for her. He returned home from the court morose, silent and determined to travel to the Swansea Valley to ask Megan's father what he had done with her.

‘If someone doesn't go with Victor, he could end up on another charge of threatening behaviour, or creating a disturbance and assault,' Sali warned Lloyd, when Victor went upstairs to pack a spare shirt.

‘We don't have enough money to pay one train fare to the Swansea Valley, let alone two,' Lloyd pointed out. ‘And as Victor is determined to walk and get rides where he can, he's better off going alone.'

‘If I wasn't pregnant you'd be going with him.'

‘But you are pregnant, Sali,' Lloyd said logically.

‘Sali's right,' Billy Evans said flatly. ‘Victor can't be trusted to go alone.'

Although Lloyd was glad that his father was reasserting his authority and resuming his place as head and mentor of the family, he was concerned at the thought of leaving Sali. The baby wasn't due for weeks but the warm weather had taken a toll on her health. ‘I can't leave Sali, and you can't go with him because you're needed to finalize the arrangements for the reopening of the pits with management. There's no use in Joey going because he's even more headstrong than Victor,' he added, glad that Joey was delivering goods for Connie and wasn't there to argue with him.

Sali glanced at Victor when he returned to the kitchen carrying his haversack. ‘If you can wait until tomorrow morning, Victor, we'll use the carriage from Ynysangharad House to travel to the Swansea Valley.'

‘The carriage? Sali, are you mad?' Lloyd exclaimed. ‘It's fifty miles or more and even that depends on which part of the Swansea Valley Megan's father lives in.'

‘We'll go over the Bwlch.'

‘And where do you suggest we stay the night?' Lloyd enquired. ‘Inns cost money and even if we manage to stay awake, the horses will be tired.'

‘I'll borrow more money from Mr Richards. It is an emergency.'

Victor looked so miserable that for once Mr Evans decided to break the family's cardinal rule of not using Sali's money for the family. ‘Whatever you borrow from Mr Richards, Sali, we pay back.'

‘That won't be a problem when you are all working again, Mr Evans.'

‘Time you started calling me Dad. And what about Harry?' he added, without giving her time to absorb what he'd said.

‘He'll come with us –Dad,' Sali smiled. ‘We'll make it the holiday we didn't have last year or this. You'd like to ride in a carriage to the Swansea Valley with your father, Uncle Victor and me, wouldn't you, Harry?' Sali asked her son. ‘We'll see lots of things along the way. Farms, cows, horses, wagons, strange places we've never been to before.'

Harry knew something was very wrong with the way that his Auntie Megan had left the house. Since she'd gone, his Uncle Victor had been miserable and had stopped playing with him, but his mother was smiling for the first time since his auntie had left and that had to be good. ‘Yippee, a holiday.' He smiled at Victor, but his uncle wasn't looking at him.

‘Sali, I can't expect you to travel all the way to the Swansea Valley in the carriage in your condition. Lloyd can come with me,' Victor protested.

Billy studied Sali for a moment. ‘You never moan or complain like most women in your condition. Tell me, how is that granddaughter of mine?'

‘He's fine,' Sali teased.

‘He's not going to like being called Isabella,' Lloyd chipped in.

‘No more than I like being called Sebastian,' Victor complained.

‘Seeing as you only hear it whenever the police arrest you or in court, let's hope you won't hear it too often again,' his father said wryly. ‘Sali, if you're sure you're up to the journey, I think it's a good idea that you go with Lloyd and Victor. Joey couldn't go with you anyway because he has Connie's deliveries to see to in the morning.'

‘Thank you for agreeing with me,' Sali said sincerely. ‘A woman in my condition is bound to get more sympathy than either of you two.' She glanced from Victor to Lloyd. ‘And before you say another word, I have more tact and diplomacy in my little finger than you two have in your entire bodies. Lloyd, why don't you go down to Pontypridd tonight, see Mr Richards, tell him what we want to do, borrow the money we'll need and arrange for the carriage to be here at six o'clock tomorrow morning. That way we can get an early start.'

‘Here.' Victor put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a shilling. He gave it to Lloyd.

‘What's this?'

‘Train fare to Ponty.'

The next morning dawned, bright and clear, with a fine mist on the mountain tops that heralded a fine day. Lloyd had warned Sali that Mari was packing a picnic hamper, so she left what food there was in the house for Joey and Mr Evans. She secreted ten of the twenty sovereigns Mr Richards had insisted on loaning Lloyd, although he'd only asked for five, in her purse, checked the changes of clothes she had packed ‘in case' and was waiting impatiently when the coachman, Robert, brought the carriage to a standstill outside the house at five minutes to six.

‘We've a fine morning for our trip, Mrs Evans,' he greeted her as she left the house ahead of the others.

‘We have, Robert.'

‘It's a long time since the carriage has been further than Pontypridd so Mr Jenkins thought there should be two of us.' He pointed to the boy sitting alongside him on the box. ‘This is Simon.'

‘Pleased to have you with us, Simon,' Sali smiled.

Lloyd lifted Harry into the carriage, helped Sali in and took the seat beside her. Victor sat opposite them next to the window. He leaned back lest anyone recognize him, and rag him about riding in an expensive carriage drawn by thoroughbred horses. Harry had no such compunction. He pushed down the window and would have fallen out if Lloyd hadn't held on to him as they set off at a brisk trot.

It took them an hour and a half to negotiate the narrow roads of the Rhondda villages that led up to the steep mountain track road that wound up the Bwlch. Robert held the horses steady and when they reached the top, Sali insisted on stopping for a picnic. Robert lifted down the hamper Mari had packed for them and Sali spread out the cloth and set out plates of chicken and ham sandwiches, an enormous bowl of salad, one of Mari's veal and ham pies, and two apple tarts.

‘This is some breakfast. Even if we get lost we're not going to go hungry.' Lloyd took one of the thick, pressed-glass tumblers Sali had filled with Mari's homemade lemonade.

Robert and Simon accepted Sali's offer of food, but insisted on sitting apart from them to eat. Sali didn't argue with them, and she stopped Lloyd from forcing them to reconsider their decision.

‘You may believe in a classless society and equality, but they have to go back to Ynysangharad House.'

‘And your brother and mother.' Lloyd brushed the crumbs from his suit and called to Harry, who was watching rabbits play around the grazing sheep.

‘If we had the dogs, Uncle Victor, we could have rabbit pie.'

‘That's my boy.' Victor was more animated than he had been since they'd returned from the funeral to find Megan gone. Sali only hoped that their journey wasn't going to be as fruitless as she and Lloyd suspected it might well turn out to be.

‘Ladies to the left, boys to the right,' Lloyd said, when Sali began to pack up the remains of the food into the basket. ‘You all right, sweetheart? You look pale.'

‘Only under this sunshine. Time we left if we're going to get to the Swansea Valley before nightfall.'

They pulled into the yard of an inn at six o'clock. Lloyd went in to check the address Sali had found among Megan's papers. When he returned, he asked Robert and Simon to take the hamper and valise into the inn before they walked the horses around to the stables.

He opened the door, and lifted Harry down. ‘Apparently this is the nearest inn to Ianto Williams' farm.'

‘I bet they would have told you that even if it wasn't.' Victor was obviously on edge now they had almost reached their destination.

‘The landlord said it's only a mile up the road. I think that we should leave the carriage here and hire a trap from the inn. If Megan is at the farm they'd hide her as soon as they caught a glimpse of the carriage. Whereas the trap is at least local.'

‘I've already met Mr Williams so I think I should go up there alone.' Sali brushed the creases from her maternity suit. ‘He's always been antagonistic towards you, Victor, but he may talk to me.'

‘You can put that thought right out of your head, Sali Evans,' Lloyd declared firmly. ‘You're not going up there alone and that's final. And unlike Victor, I haven't met the man so he's just as likely to talk to me as you.'

‘A pregnant woman is less threatening.'

‘I can be nice.' Lloyd straightened his collar and tie.

‘If she's there ...' Victor's voice trailed at the thought that Megan might not be.

‘We'll try to spirit her away,' Sali promised, ‘and if she's not, I'll do my very best to find out where she is.'

Just as the landlord had said, Ianto Williams' hill farm could be seen from the road, a long, low, grey stone building nestling into the curve of a horseshoe-shaped hill. The mountain behind it and the long slope that led up to it were dotted with sheep. Lloyd slowed the pony and trap to walking pace when they left the road for the rough track in an attempt to avoid the ruts and potholes, but he wasn't always successful and he was very aware of Sali's condition when she gripped the side of the cart whenever they negotiated the worse bumps.

‘This isn't doing Isabella any good,' he commented after the wheel went over a particularly large stone only to sink straight afterwards into a rut.

‘She's enjoying the fresh air.'

‘Ah, you admit, she's a girl.'

‘Not at all.' Her eyes sparkled in the golden light of the setting sun. ‘Just tired of a futile argument. When Will arrives -'

‘Will?'

‘William Lloyd Joseph Victor Evans.'

‘Poor soul. I'm glad she's Isabella.' He reined in the horse as they entered the farmyard.

‘Let me do the talking.'

He saw two children standing in front of a chicken coop but it took him a few seconds to recognize them. ‘Try to have a word with Daisy and Sam first, and ask them not to call me Mr Evans. If Megan's father overhears them, it might put paid to any chance we have of getting her out of here before we even start.' He tied the reins together, jumped down and walked around to help Sali to the ground.

‘Mrs Jones.' Daisy ran towards her and Sali was appalled by the difference in the young girl. She'd grown since the last time she'd seen her but her dress was ragged and far too small for her. Sam's clothes weren't much better and full of holes. Both children looked thin, undernourished and filthy.

‘Daisy, it's lovely to see you.'

‘You come from our dad to get us?' Daisy questioned hopefully.

‘No, Daisy, I'm sorry. I haven't heard from your father.'

‘You lost?' A woman came out of the back door and Sali fought to keep her equanimity. She felt as though she were looking at Megan, but a Megan who had been worn down by half a century of hard living. She was painfully thin and her skin was heavily creased and worn, like the leather in an old pair of shoes. Her eyes were green like Megan's but they were dull and lifeless, and although her hair had threads of the same marvellous red-gold they were vastly outnumbered by the grey and white hairs.