The Shoemaker's Daughter (4 page)

When Will had disappeared from sight, Hari set to work on the slippers once more, they must be just so because Emily Grenfell was a good customer if a very exacting one.

She was easing her back with her hands, happy with the shoes near to completion, when young Will returned. He stood in the doorway, his nose bloody, his face marked with tears. Hari felt a chill fall over her.

‘What’s wrong, Will?’ she asked apprehensively and at the sound of her voice, he burst into tears.

‘I couldn’t ’elp it, misses,’ he sobbed, ‘bigger than me he was, this boy set about me and when I was on the floor he kicked me and took the boots away from me. I tried to fight, honest I did, but he were too strong and my head was hurting and . . .’ Unable to continue, Will put his hands over his eyes and the tears flowed through his small thin fingers.

Hari felt cold panic wash over her, she had done the unforgivable, she had lost a customer’s boots. It was something that had never happened before and she stood for a moment trying to control the thoughts that raced through her head.

‘It’s all right, Will,’ she said at last, ‘come on, be a man now, no more crying.’ She drew a shawl around her shoulders. ‘You must show me where the boy went after he took the boots, we’ll get them back, don’t worry.’

William looked up at her, hope shining through his tears. ‘Will we, misses?’ he asked and his air of total belief in her banished the last of Hari’s uncertainty.

She followed Will along the mean cobbled streets until he paused alongside a narrow alley. A woman was leaning against the door of one of the houses, her gaudily painted face revealing her trade.

‘He ran down there,’ Will said. ‘There’s the one, down the alley, look!’

The boy was ragged and dirty and for a moment he stood transfixed staring at Hari and Will as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then suddenly, he vanished into the doorway where the woman had stood and Hari lifted her skirts and ran after him, her hair flying behind her.

The door was shut fast but Hari hammered on it, anger lending her strength. She tried the handle but the door had obviously been bolted from the inside. Nothing daunted, Hari moved to the side of the house and saw that a small window was open. ‘Will,’ she said quietly, ‘if I help you to get in, can you open the door for me?’

His face was pale with fear but he nodded willingly. Hari half lifted half pushed him through the window and then she waited breathlessly for any sounds that would indicate that Will had been discovered, but when there was nothing, she moved to the door and to her relief, she saw it swing open.

‘Good boy!’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Now get out of sight until you see me come back. If I’m not out in ten minutes fetch a constable.’

Hari moved along the dark passageway and from the kitchen at the back of the house she heard the sound of voices. She knocked loudly on the kitchen door and waited for a moment, aware of the total silence from within the room. She was lifting her hand to knock again when the door was flung open and she was confronted by the woman she’d seen outside who stared at her defiantly, her painted face incongruous against the fall of grimy hair over her shoulders.

‘
Daro!
What do you think you’re doing coming in here without so much as by your leave?’

Hari looked over the woman’s shoulder and the first thing she saw was the leather boots standing on the table. Of the boy who had taken them there was no sign. Hari pushed past the woman and picked up the boots hugging them to her in a rush of relief.

‘These boots do not belong to you,’ Hari said fiercely, and as the woman moved menacingly towards her, she held up her hand.

‘The constable is on his way so don’t do anything foolish, will you?’

The woman paused and stared at her suspiciously. ‘If the constable is coming anyway what have I to lose by giving you a good pasting and throwing the boots in the canal?’

‘A great deal,’ Hari spoke with more confidence than she felt, indeed, she was trembling inside and she could only hope her nervousness didn’t show. ‘If I go now I’ll meet the constable on the way and tell him it was all a misunderstanding.’

The woman rubbed a dirty bare foot into the sawdust on the floor. ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth? How would the constable know where to come?’

‘I had help getting in here,’ Hari said quickly, ‘I didn’t get in through a bolted door on my own now, did I?’

The woman thought about this and after a moment looked up at Hari with venom in her eyes.

‘My name is Maria Payton, remember it well,’ she said. ‘See this gob,’ she pointed to her painted mouth, ‘it can talk a lot and these peepers can see a lot, they’ll remember you, mind, and if there’s anything I can do to hurt you any time then I will.’

Hari moved past the woman and as she negotiated the narrow passageway, her legs would hardly carry her.

Outside, she took a deep breath and, after a moment, Will appeared and stood silently at her side.

‘Come on,’ Hari said quickly, ‘let’s get out of here.’

She sighed with relief when the seedy, rundown houses were left behind. ‘Go on home, Will,’ she said, ‘I’ll take the boots to the customer.’ She saw a look of disappointment cross the young boy’s face. ‘Oh, and on the way,’ she added quickly, ‘don’t forget to pick up that bowl of
cawl
, all right?’

He sped away, his bare feet barely touching the cold stone of the roadway and, with a sigh, Hari turned towards Chapel Street.

The houses here were of the same structure as the mean buildings where Hari lived but the properties were well maintained, the outsides freshly painted, the windows gleaming with cleanliness and hung with rich drapes. Here the houses would be occupied by one family and not by a dozen or more assorted tenants.

But at the end of the road was the big white house where Edward Morris lived, a gracious house standing out from the others because it sported white railings which guarded the small, well-kept garden.

Hari knocked on the door and it was quickly opened by a young maidservant who looked her over in disdain. Hari became suddenly aware that her hair was flying loose over her shoulders and the hem of her dress was stained with mud.

‘Please to go round the back,’ the maid said and, without another word, closed the door in Hari’s face. With a sigh, Hari moved to the back entrance and knocked again. She waited what seemed an interminably long time before the same young maid again confronted her.

‘What is your business?’ The maid looked at a point above Hari’s head.

‘I have a delivery for Mr Morris,’ Hari said shortly, ‘I should have thought that much was obvious even to you.’

‘Step inside.’ The girl didn’t deign to rise to the bait. ‘I’ll see if Mr Morris will speak with you.’

After a time, the girl returned and, with obvious reluctance, led Hari into the sitting-room. It was a high-ceilinged, gracious room with thick carpet under-foot and rich curtains over the windows.

A visitor sat in a chair near the elegant grate where a huge fire burned, he glanced up at her and his eyes narrowed. He had dark eyes, thickly lashed and they regarded her steadily almost as if he knew her. And strangely enough she felt that she knew him but that was absurd, she had never seen him before.

The silence was broken by the entrance of Edward Morris, he smiled at her warmly and she returned his smile for this was a generous customer, a rare being who had paid her in advance for her work. And she had almost lost him by the attempted theft of his best boots.

‘I want to be measured for some more boots,’ Edward said, ‘but you look a little shaken so I’m sure it can wait until another day.’

‘I’m sorry I look such a state.’ Hari decided to be truthful. ‘Your boots were stolen from young Will as he was delivering them.’ She smiled, ‘But I made sure I got them back again, mind.’

Edward took the boots and glanced at the man sitting in the chair. ‘Isn’t she a remarkable girl, Craig?’ he said, ‘Not only does she repair shoes as good as any man, but she fights for her rights, too.’ He smiled at Hari, ‘I admire your spirit young lady.’

Hari felt her colour rising. ‘It’s nothing, I was only doing my job.’

The man in the chair spoke for the first time. ‘Who taught you the trade?’ His voice was cultured, he spoke with a more cosmopolitan accent than Edward Morris who though obviously educated and quite well to do had a marked Welsh accent.

‘My father, Dewi Morgan taught me shoemaking from the time I was a little girl,’ she said quickly, almost resentfully, ‘and I’m better at the work than many men.’

‘I see.’ The man smiled at her and though she didn’t understand why, she felt he was laughing at her.

Hari moved to the door. ‘If that’s all then, I’ll be getting back home.’ She bobbed a curtsy and put her hand on the gleaming brass door knob. ‘I’ll come and do some measuring in the morning if that suits,’ she said. Edward Morris smiled and nodded but it was the stranger who spoke.

‘
I’ll
definitely keep you in mind,’ he said and as his dark eyes met hers he seemed again to be laughing at her.

Hari hurried back along the street anxious to get home, it was turning colder and the night was closing in. She ran through the last few streets and saw with relief the familiar tall building rising against the night sky.

She let herself into the kitchen and sank into a chair before the fire that urgently needed mending. Hari rubbed her hand over her eyes, it had been a strange day, an eventful one in which she had quite clearly made an enemy but perhaps she had also made a friend of Edward Morris.

And yet it was not the face of her customer that she saw in her mind, but the strong lean jaw and the dark unfathomable eyes of a stranger.

3

Craig Grenfell stared moodily through the window of his friend’s house in Chapel Street, his hands were thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders were slumped. He was remembering the bitterness of his arrest and the ignominy of being imprisoned behind the grim walls of Swansea Prison. He looked out into the roadway without seeing the rain beating mercilessly against the cobbled surface or the leaves of the trees dripping constantly as they shivered in the breeze, he was seeing the four walls of his cell and remembering his feeling of helplessness as the door slammed shut behind him.

Craig glanced down at the sheaf of papers lying on the small table beside him, brought to him earlier in the day by Edward Morris, papers that proved Craig’s innocence. But at what cost?

Craig rubbed at his forehead in a mingling of anger and despair. To clear himself he would have to implicate his young brother in the embezzlement of a large amount of money from the family business, it would break his mother’s heart.

Spencer had always been the favoured one, beloved by mother since his difficult birth made it impossible for her to have any more children. Spencer had been spoiled, treated for far too long as a baby and he had grown up knowing how to twist his mother around his little finger.

Spencer had always appeared to conform, he wore neat clothes and acted the gentleman. He was the sort of son that Sophie Grenfell had always wanted, the pity of it all, from his mother’s point of view, was that he was the younger son.

Edward entered the room and stood before the fire. ‘Well, Craig, what conclusions do you draw from the pages I managed to “borrow” from the firm’s accounting books?’

‘The same conclusion as you I imagine. My brother is a very cunning young man.’ Craig lifted one of the pages. ‘The accounts have obviously been falsified.’ Craig pointed to a duplicate sheet. ‘Here, figures as they should read.’ He glanced up at his friend.

‘Spencer has been taking money from customers and only entering a part of the amounts in the books. He must have embezzled thousands of pounds over the years.’

Craig looked at Edward curiously. ‘As accountant for the firm, did you never question the validity of the books?’

Edward shrugged. ‘I doubted the figures, yes, the drop in profits was apparent but without the both sets of accounts, there was no hard evidence of any malpractice. Markets do fluctuate, you know.’

Craig moved restlessly from the window. ‘The stupid young fool!’ he said angrily. ‘Why jeopardize what he had going for him by getting greedy? If he’d been moderate in his thieving he would never have been caught.’

‘They are all caught sooner or later,’ Edward said sagely and Craig stared at him.

‘Perhaps you’re right but there are not many who would shift the blame on to a brother’s shoulders. Spencer was very clever, putting money into my account and hiding banknotes in my room. I wouldn’t have thought even he could have been so calculating.’

Edward shook his head. ‘Some folk will do anything for money, money makes many a man into a fool or a villain.’ He poured a brandy and handed it to Craig before helping himself to a good measure. ‘The question is, what are you going to do about it now?’

Craig lifted his glass admiring the slant of light through the brandy. ‘I have to think about it. One thing I do know, I’m not going back to that God-awful prison whatever happens.’

He sank back into his chair. ‘I’ve a great deal to thank you for, Edward,’ he said, ‘not many would have helped me the way you did or taken me in the way I looked that night.’

He smiled wryly. ‘I’ll never forget, playing sick to get out of my cell and then the waiting for the bread van to come and pick me up. You must have given the driver some bribe, Edward, I don’t know how he managed to help me at all, he was terrified of being caught.’

Craig looked into his glass. ‘The whole thing seems unreal now except perhaps the look on the face of the shoemaker’s daughter when I pushed my way into her house. She must have been very frightened. I must say I admired her spirit.’

‘And she yours,’ Edward said drolly. ‘Hari Morgan didn’t give you away, did she? The old Grenfell charm must have been working even under all that hair not to mention the scruffy beard.’