Finders and Keepers (61 page)

‘And make me and my family live your way?'

Furious, he said the most vicious thing he could think of. ‘All you want is the Ellis Estate.'

She wanted to tell him that she didn't. Not any more. That she loved him and longed to spend the rest of her life with him, but she couldn't pay a price that she knew would crush and destroy her family. She wanted to tell him that she had made love to him because it was something she had burned to do ever since she realized how much she cared for him. She wanted to explain how much his declaration of love and lovemaking meant to her when she felt ugly and needed reassurance that she was still a woman – and desirable. But she simply couldn't find the words to express her feelings.

She placed her hand on the back of his neck, reached across and kissed him. He pulled her close and she clung to him.

‘I love you, Harry.'

The blood pounded headily in his veins. Another few moments and he knew he'd lose his head again. He pushed her away from him while he was still able to release her.

‘And I wish that I could believe that you love me. But I know you love the Ellis Estate more.'

‘Not the Estate, my family.'

‘You'll be fine with Mrs Morgan. She knows how to get in touch with me and she has enough money to buy everything you need. I'll get Alf to take you around the farms tomorrow. I hope David soon recovers, and until he does, I'll ask Mrs Edwards to find someone who can help you to run the farm.'

‘Harry, I'm sorry I can't be what you want me to be, or live the way you'd like me to.'

‘It's just as well that we found out now, before we married,' he said abruptly, turning on his heel and walking away from her while he still had the strength and the will to do so.

Chapter Twenty-six

‘So she turned you down. Hasn't a girl ever done that before?' Toby asked irritably, after listening to Harry complain about Mary's refusal to marry him for a solid hour.

‘No. How many girls have turned you down?' Harry snapped.

‘Just one,' Toby said easily, ‘but then, that's all it takes, doesn't it? We young men aren't built for rejection. Our egos are too large.' He reached for the bottle of whisky beside his chair, re-filled Harry's glass and then his own.

‘Will you ever tell me that story?' Harry offered Toby his cigarettes and, when he took one, removed his lighter from his pocket. ‘Is she the reason you tried to warn me not to get involved with the Ellises?'

‘Yes.' Toby pushed the cigarette into his mouth and leaned forward to light it when Harry flicked the flame.

‘And you're not going to tell me any more?'

‘Not to satisfy your idle curiosity. Besides it's the old story. It doesn't need embellishment. Boy found girl, boy loved girl, boy didn't have the sense to keep girl. It's the Ross tragedy. It happened to my uncle, it happened to me. Why do you think I'm so keen on not letting your sister out of my sight for the next five years, that's if your father is mean enough to make me wait that long. Finders keepers -'

‘Losers weepers.' Harry drew heavily on his cigarette.

‘I have a feeling that you'll be weeping a long time over Mary Ellis if you're stupid enough to let her go.'

‘What do you mean, let her go?' Harry demanded. ‘I let her do nothing. I told you she refused my proposal of marriage.'

‘Did she?'

‘Of course she did.' Harry insisted angrily. ‘I told you I asked her to marry me and she said no.'

‘I heard you say that she turned down your house, the life you offered her as the ornamental wife of a rich businessman in Pontypridd and the fancy educations you offered her brothers and sister.'

‘What do you think I should do, move into a farm with her? Take up mucking out cows, repairing sheep pens and helping David with the shearing? Sitting around the kitchen table in the evenings teaching Mary and the children to read and write? And on high days and holidays driving her and her family into Pontardawe for the highlight of the year, a magic lantern show in a church hall?'

‘Doesn't sound like a bad life, does it?' Toby said quietly. ‘Not when you have what you really want – the woman you love. Out of all the women in the world you've been fortunate to find the right one for you, Harry. But will you be doubly blessed and fortunate enough to keep her? I know if I had the chance, I'd hold on to my woman with both hands. But if you really can't bear the thought of living her life instead of the one of importance you imagined living in Pontypridd, then you've no choice but to walk away from her.' He held up the whisky bottle again. ‘Have you?'

Toby's words came back to haunt Harry several times during that night when sleep eluded him.
Out of all the women in the world you've been fortunate to find the right one for you, Harry. But will you be doubly blessed and fortunate enough to keep her?

When dawn broke, he slipped the letter he'd written Toby under his door and left the one containing a week's money for Mrs Edwards propped up against the telephone in her office. He carried the cases he'd packed to his car and dropped them into the boot before walking to the cottage. He looked up. A light burned in David's bedroom and he knew that Mary was still sitting up nursing him.

He pressed the latch lightly on the door and walked into the kitchen. Betty was in the easy chair next to the fire, a shawl thrown around her winceyette nightgown. She was staring into the flames, a forgotten cup of tea set in the hearth at her feet.

She looked up at him reproachfully. ‘That poor girl has been crying all night. Maybe she hasn't made much noise but then someone whose heart is breaking rarely does.'

Harry pulled a chair out from under the table and set it on the rug next to her. ‘You know?'

‘That you two are head over heels in love? It's as plain as the nose on your face,' she sniffed. ‘The only question is, without your grandfather here to order you to do the sensible thing, just what are you going to do about it?'

‘That's a big “what”, Betty.'

‘Dear God, you sounded just like Billy then.'

‘I am going to do something about it. But give me time.' He took his wallet from his inside pocket, opened it and removed all the notes it contained. ‘There's fifty pounds there.'

‘Fifty pounds! What do I need that kind of money for?' she said indignantly.

‘Expenses, doctor's bills – he'll be sending them to the inn.'

‘Where are you going?' she asked as he rose to his feet and went to the door.

‘Pontypridd. You know what my father's been telling me to do for years. Well, I'm about to do it, and take my responsibilities seriously for once.'

‘And that poor girl upstairs, what am I supposed to tell her?'

‘That I'll see her again just as soon as I can.'

Lloyd, Sali and Mr Richards listened in silence to Harry. When he stopped talking, Lloyd poured the after-dinner drinks and handed them around.

‘I'm not telling you how to live your life, Harry, but you know nothing about farming,' his stepfather warned.

‘That's why I want to see if the Ellises' stockman and his wife are still in the workhouse.'

‘And if they are?' Mr Richards asked.

‘I'll open up the two cottages. Bring the shepherd back as well and employ all the help I need to run the Ellis Estate. I'll have no trouble finding good people. Not given the number of farmers Pritchard evicted during the last few years. I accept that I know nothing about farming, but I'm a quick learner, and in the meantime David Ellis can tell me if the workers are making any mistakes.'

‘A fourteen-year-old boy?' Lloyd exclaimed.

‘Who has an old farming head on his shoulders.'

‘And what will you do, Harry?' Sali asked quietly.

‘Start learning all I can about farming and the businesses that I will inherit in nine years' time. I'll attend the trustees' meetings every month, and take whatever books I need to study the other company accounts. But I'll begin with E and G Estates. The Ellis Estate house is huge; I'll set up an office in one wing and put in a telephone.'

‘It will cost the earth,' Lloyd remonstrated.

‘Probably,' Harry said cheerfully, ‘but the company can stand it. I'll open a permanent office in Brecon as well. Mr Beatty can man it. We'll find good tenants for all the empty properties, hopefully the same ones who were evicted by Robert Pritchard, rent out everything on the books and, by judicial and fair management, see if we can turn our tax loss into a living for some of the displaced tenant farmers in Breconshire. I know it will only be a drop in the ocean and we're not going to turn the tide and save the countryside from depopulation, but at least I'll be able to sleep at night.'

‘And when you've put E and G Estates to rights?' Mr Richards enquired.

‘In nine years' time, Mary's younger brother David will be twenty-three and of an age to take over the Ellis Estate. Perhaps then I'll manage to talk Mary into at least giving life in Pontypridd a try for a month or two.'

Sali studied her son for a moment. ‘You are serious about this, aren't you, Harry?'

‘I've never been more serious about anything in my life.'

‘And you love this girl?'

‘I can't live without her,' he said simply.

‘And Paris and your art?' Lloyd asked.

‘I still might paint the odd watercolour, but after seeing Toby's work, I know I'll never make the grade as a professional. Not because I haven't the talent, but I haven't the dedication or will to work at it. On the other hand, I intend to become a reasonable amateur and every man needs a hobby.'

‘Sweetheart,' Lloyd took Sali's hand, ‘I don't think we could stop the boy from turning farmer even if we wanted to.'

‘Just one thing, Harry,' Sali cautioned. ‘Don't invite your brother and sisters to the Ellis Estate too often. I dread to think of the mischief Edyth could get up to in a farmyard.'

‘We've brought back all the original furniture we could track down, Mr Evans,' Albert Jones said to Harry as they walked from room to room in the Ellis Estate farmhouse.

‘And the stock?' Harry asked.

‘Master David's dog, Merlyn, was found running wild in the hills. A fair number of milking cows and the bull have been brought back from Ianto Williams's farm, along with a couple of pigs, but all the poultry will need replacing. Most of the sheep were never moved from the fields belonging to the Estate. So I'd say we have about a third of the livestock we need to bring the farm back to scratch. And of course, you'll need to buy horses.'

‘And a tractor,' Harry mused. ‘David will want to pick the stock and horses himself.'

‘That he will,' Mr Jones agreed.

Harry had furnished one room on the ground floor of the wing the Ellises had never used as an office for himself, and moved a few pieces of furniture that he had bought in Gwilym James into two others. One held a bedroom suite, table, chair, and washstand – which he would need until the bathroom and hot water system he had ordered was operational. The other was a sitting-room.

But he had expended far more care on the wing that the Ellises had occupied. He walked from the huge farmhouse kitchen, which was now dominated by an enormous dresser filled with antique china, and a solid pine table that could seat twelve, with chairs to match, and looked into the formal dining- and drawing-rooms. It was odd to be in rooms that he had had last seen bare and walk on the rugs that had been laid on the flagstoned floors. He ran his fingers over the carvings on the old oak cupboards, chairs and table before pointing to the set of gleaming brass fire-irons next to the hearth.

‘These are all original, Mrs Jones?' he asked the stockman's wife.

‘Yes, sir, I'd stake my life on it after spending five years cleaning the place for Mrs Ellis, God rest her soul. The bedroom suites upstairs are all original too. The carter said they all came from Mr Pritchard's house.'

‘Do me a favour please, Mrs Jones, never mention that man's name to me again.' Harry turned to the clerk who was following him. ‘Fine, Mr Beatty, you know what to do. Go down to the inn and bring the Ellises here.'

‘Yes, sir. And what am I to say if they ask me where you are?'

‘That I'm seeing to business in Brecon that might keep me there for the next few days. If they want anything, there's the telephone. Give Mrs Morgan Mr Richards' number and the number of the office in Brecon.'

‘Yes, sir.'

Harry drove back to Brecon and unlocked the door of the house that he and Anthony Beatty had moved into. Yet another empty property on the books of E&G Estates. The housekeeper he employed to take care of the place had left a cold ham and chicken pie and a bowl of potato salad. He poured himself a drink and took it into the living-room.

There was a small parcel on his desk. He opened it. It held the Victorian gold and blue-enamelled fob watch and the unusual antique gold locket he had seen Ianto Williams's wife wearing. There was also an old-fashioned heavy gold wedding ring that one of the bailiffs had handed to the police after admitting he had found it in Mary's bedroom.

He could have bought Mary any jewellery she wanted but he sensed she'd prefer these pieces. He read the accompanying note from the police, short and officious, as all their communications. ‘Voluntarily given up by Robert Pritchard and Ianto Williams.' He slipped them back into the cloth bag and went up to bed. His future would be settled one way or another in the next twenty-four hours and he wanted a good night's sleep.

‘Harry, you're quite the stranger round here,' Toby said when he walked into the inn late the following afternoon. ‘If you've come to see the Ellises, they moved out yesterday.'

‘I know.'

‘Dic came in. He told me they're back in the Ellis Estate,' Mrs Edward said artfully, hoping Harry would tell her more about his wealth and ownership of local farms than Dic had been able to. She took down a pint mug and held it up in front of him.