The Shoemaker's Daughter (10 page)

Emily stood up and stared at her reflection in the ornate mirror that hung over the fireplace. The emeralds must go, they would bring in enough money to pay some of the debtors sufficient to keep them quiet for a time.

She moved to the window and stared out towards the sea, the moon lit the bay with pure light, the craggy rocks of Mumbles stood out dark against the sky. It was a lovely night, a night for calling on all her courage and all her resources to pull herself and her father out of this crisis. And she would do it, Emily clenched her hands into fists, she would fight to the last breath to keep her heritage and to preserve the good name of the Grenfells.

In the morning, she rose early and dressed in her plainest clothes, flounces and frills had no place in business. She drew on sensible boots and a warm woollen cape and called for the carriage to be brought round to the front.

Sighing, she looked around the elegant hallway, drastic cuts would have to be made but she could manage with just a cook and a maid, the others would have to be paid off.

She climbed into the carriage knowing it would perhaps be for the last time; maintaining the horses and the grooms was a luxury she would have to forgo.

As the carriage rolled down the driveway, Emily looked straight ahead, holding herself erect, determined not to give in to the tears that threatened to overflow.

The large old building, with its sign over the door bearing the Grenfell name, stood silent and empty. Emily unlocked the front door and stepped inside. She moved up the stairs past the few skins that lay on a table and made her way into the office.

A man who was vaguely familiar was seated at the desk, his hair was grey and his eyes peered short-sightedly at the books before him.

‘Good morning,’ Emily said quietly, ‘I’m Emily Grenfell, I’ve come to find out what’s happening to my father’s business.’

He smiled at her and his kindly eyes almost hidden beneath straggling brows were sympathetic. ‘
Bore da
, Miss Emily, I’m Joey and I’ve worked for your father since I was a boy. If there’s anything to do to help, then I’m at your service.’

Emily took off her cape feeling she had found an ally. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I want to know anything you can tell me about the problem with the business, daddy is honest and straight, he has a good name and what’s more, he knows how to choose good leather, so what can have gone wrong?’

‘I wish I knew,’ Joey sighed. ‘What I suspect is that someone has deliberately caused delays in delivery of leather and has been undercutting your father’s prices.’

‘But who?’ Emily asked and the old man shook his head.

‘Perhaps you can find that out, go to the old customers, ask them face to face. They might well talk to a pretty lady when they would hesitate to confide in an old man like me.’

‘Right,’ Emily said firmly, ‘let me have a list of the best customers and a list of the people my father owes money to.’

She smiled, feeling suddenly alive and full of energy. ‘I am going to save the business, Joey, I don’t know how I’m going to do it but somehow I will.’

She took a seat and drew a piece of paper towards her and began to write, the Grenfells weren’t beaten yet, not by a long chalk.

7

The street was alive with the sound of ragged children playing noisy games. Girls with hair flying were being chased by shouting boys. It was holiday time for the Catholic children of Greenhill.

Hari knocked on the door of Cleg the Coal’s house, smiling as a small girl rushed past her, eyes wide with excitement. Cleg’s boots, a heavy weight in the basket over Hari’s arm, were mended at last.

After a moment, the door swung open and a woman stood staring with big eyes in a pale face, her apron unable to conceal the fact that she was heavily pregnant.

‘Morning, Beatie, there’s Cleg’s boots all mended and ready to wear.’

‘Come in, Hari, sure Cleg will be that glad to see you, he’s been wearing his brother’s boots to work in and them pinching him like the devil.’

The house was spotlessly clean though the furniture was sparse and the floor covered with sand. On the walls were hung religious pictures of Christ with a glowing heart.

In the kitchen at the back of the house, Cleg was eating his breakfast of thick brown bread and great hunks of cheese.

‘
Bore da
, Hari, there’s a good girl you are finishing my boots for me and you with your mam so recently passed away. So sorry to hear about Win Morgan I was, fine woman, your mam.’

He drew out a chair. ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea by here with us.’

Beatie crossed herself quickly at the mention of the dead, the young Irish woman was sometimes ashamed of her husband’s bluntness.

‘Don’t speak of death, Cleg,’ Beatie said, ‘not now with me in this condition.’

‘
Duw
, don’t take on so, woman, got to pay my respects, haven’t I? Too superstitious you are, that’s what comes of going to church so much, mind.’

Beatie put her hands on her full hips. ‘Don’t you pick holes in my religion, Cleg Jones, being Catholic is better than being a Welsh heathen like you.’

Hari sat down and put her basket on the floor, pushing back the white cloth, she was well used to the way Cleg and his wife carried on, it didn’t mean a thing.

‘See, I’ve put toecaps on for you, Cleg, make the boots last a bit longer they will.’

‘There’s a good girl, work better than any man you do and me glad to give you my trade.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘Though I’ve got to tell you there’s some gossip going around about the cousin you’ve got staying.’ He leaned forward, his great forearms bulging beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt.

He frowned. ‘None of my business, mind, but with your mam gone folk don’t think it proper. I don’t want you getting in bad with the ruffians who live around World’s End.’

Hari took the tea Beatie handed her and set it down quickly on the scrubbed wooden table. ‘There’s nothing I’ve done that I’m ashamed of, Cleg,’ she said softly, ‘my father brought me up to be respectable and that’s what I am.’

‘I know,’ Cleg’s big hand covered hers, ‘but, for your own sake, send your cousin packing or marry him out of the way, then no-one will have room to talk.’

Hari smiled ruefully at the thought of Craig marrying her and yet there was a sadness deep inside her, a longing that she knew would never be fulfilled.

‘You’re right, Cleg,’ Hari sipped the hot weak tea, enjoying every mouthful, the Jones family were one of the few families in Greenhill who could afford tea at all.

‘I suppose it’s time I asked my cousin to leave. It’s no good putting it off any longer though he’s been a great comfort to me, mind.’ The thought of being alone without Craig’s warm presence in the house made her want to weep.

She placed her empty cup on the table and rose to her feet. Cleg stood up too and put his hand into his pocket.

‘Here’s the money for the boots and my brother Dai wants you to repair some shoes. Can you call round to him? He lives down near the bottom of Wind Street, got a shop he has, a well-to-do sort of man, better off than me at any rate.’

Hari nodded, she was glad of the trade, orders had dropped off lately and now she no longer had the boots of Edward Morris to repair, she was finding work hard to come by.

‘I know your brother by sight, big built like you, Cleg, but with greying hair, lives at the end of one of the courts, doesn’t he?’

‘That’s him, strike while the iron’s hot,
cariad
, go see him straight away, Dai’s a generous man, he’ll pay you well.’

Cleg smiled. ‘Got four sons he has, they’ll all need shoes too, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Hari left Greenhill and made her way towards High Street. It was a pleasant walk down a gently sloping hill past the toll house. The spring sunshine was almost warm and a soft breeze was blowing in from the sea. Hari took a deep breath and tasted the tang of salt in the air, soon it would be summer but she would be facing it alone.

She had been much comforted by Craig’s presence in the house these past weeks, but in her heart she had known the situation was an explosive one and couldn’t last.

She stared ahead of her to where Wind Street met High Street but she didn’t see the portico of the inn she was passing or the ornate façades of the tall houses; she was acknowledging to herself that she was falling more and more in love with Craig Grenfell.

It was foolishness of course, nothing could ever come of her infatuation for a man from another world, a world of comfort and security. And a world, she reminded herself sharply, that at this moment had turned against him.

At last she found the shop belonging to Dai Jones, it was spread well back from the front door, a long dimly lit store that sold everything from flour and salt to patent medicines.

Behind the counter stood a young man who smiled broadly when he saw her.

‘
Bore da
, miss, what can I get you?’ he asked pleasantly and his blue eyes looked into hers with obvious admiration.

‘Cleg Jones advised me to come and see his brother, Dai is it?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Needs some boots mending, I believe.’

‘That’s my dad, I’m Ben Jones, youngest son and the most put upon.’ His cheerful smile belied his words and Hari found herself responding to his warmth.

‘Hello Ben, I’m Hari Morgan, shoemaker.’ She saw the lift of his eyebrows and she smiled. ‘I know, I’m only a woman but I can make and mend just as well as any man, if not better.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Ben said at once. He took her hand and madc a pretence of examining it and Hari drew her fingers away quickly.

‘Is your father at home?’ she asked and felt a sinking disappointment when Ben shook his head.

‘Not just now but tell me your address and I’ll be sure to bring you any boots that need working on, right?’

Hari smiled ruefully. ‘Right. I live just off Wassail Square, there’s a sign over the workshop with my father’s name and trade on it, Dewi Morgan, boot and shoemaker, you can’t miss it.’

‘I’ll make sure of that,’ Ben said smiling. A group of chattering women in torn dresses and faded shawls entered the shop and Hari moved quickly towards the door, she must not hamper Ben when he should be working.

Ben lifted his hand in farewell and Hari smiled politely before closing the door behind her.

All the way home, she practised the words she would speak to Craig Grenfell, she must tell him to leave, to find another place to stay but the feeling of emptiness that swept over her whenever she thought of saying goodbye to him brought tears brimming to her eyes.

When she entered the house, it was silent and empty. The fire was burning low in the grate and the kettle was cold on the hob.

Hari mended the fire and sat back on her heels, looking at her blackened fingers. Where was he, had he been taken by the constables? Was he even now locked up in some prison cell to become once again the unkempt figure he had been when she first set eyes on him?

Later, Hari forced herself to enter the workshop and get on with her repairs. She had enough work for several more days and then after that, she would need to tramp around the streets seeking new customers.

Where was Craig? Her hands fell idle in her lap and she stared around her at the bits of leather on the floor, at the row of wooden lasts along her bench, at the boots that needed new soles and heels and, with a sigh of despair, she dropped her knife and rose to her feet. It was no good, she could not concentrate on anything, not while her every nerve was alive with fear for Craig’s safety.

In the early evening, Hari restlessly drew on her shawl. She must get out of the house and breathe in some air that was free of the scent of leather. She set out for the cemetery where both her parents were buried. It was situated on a hill where the winds raced over the open ground and the sea below laved the shore with small, agitated waves. It seemed that here, there was never any spring, only wind and rain and the dull ache of loss.

She knelt on the tufted rebellious grass and closed her eyes. In her mind, she saw her mother, not dead but full of life with her eyes bright and a smile on her lips. It was a dream, it had been a long time since Hari had seen her mother smile for the death of her husband had knocked all the spirit out of Win Morgan.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up into the thin face of Edward Morris. She scrambled to her feet, the wind tugging at her hair.

‘Mister Morris, you’ve been set free then?’ Hari felt him take her arm and lead her beneath the overhanging trees.

‘It seems that I still have some friends in Swansea,’ Edward said softly, ‘no-one could convict me on such trumped-up evidence.’ He smiled. ‘And Craig proved my innocence all right.’

‘How did he do that?’ Hari asked, her mouth dry. Edward smiled down at her.

‘He sent a message to the governor explaining that the thefts continued to take place at a time when the firm had transferred me to England for a period of six months. As I had no access to the Swansea accounts during that time, it was clear I couldn’t have embezzled anything from the company.’ His expression became sober.

‘Unfortunately, in all the confusion of evidence, it seems to have come down to one brother’s word against the other.’

‘But the balance sheets that you gave Craig and the fact that the thefts went on while he was in prison, didn’t all that prove it was his brother’s fault?’

‘Those papers conveniently disappeared after they were presented to Spencer Grenfell and poor Emily couldn’t be blamed, she didn’t fully understand the situation.’

‘Where is Craig now?’ Hari asked softly and Edward looked down at her with a shrewdness that disconcerted her.

‘Don’t let your heart rule your head, Miss Morgan,’ he said, ‘Craig is a fine chap, a loyal friend but he has neglected the business and paid rather too much attention to the worldly pleasures instead, so be warned.’