CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The journey from London had been pleasant enough, to begin with.

The many coachmen who conveyed him made easy and timely progress – the roads were good, the weather altogether fine, and on their approach to the Welsh border the landscape began to take on a new face. Henry Talbot watched as rugged mountains rose in the distance, as previously flat fields started to slope gently upward, chequered black and white with grazing sheep and cattle. Even the air – though the journey by that time had been almost exclusively along open roads and the towns were miles behind – smelt different: fresher, sweeter, with hints of flora and sharp fir. For a brief moment Henry had let himself feel something akin to optimism instead of the bitterness that has dogged him since leaving the capital, but then his progression across the border and thence into the valleys took a decidedly downward turn; the temperature dropped as the horses ambled into dense woodland, the roads within them tight and winding, the chaise rocking from side to side almost continually for twenty miles. At the mountain he heard called Dinas, Henry was required to exchange the luxury of that enclosed vehicle for a pony and cart led by a gruff driver who did not seem to speak any English. By the time they had ascended an incomprehensibly steep hill to then descend along a very bad and stony dirt track (at which point heavy rainfall made itself most keenly known) Henry’s mood was sober, the experience having dampened any pleasure he might have taken from the scenery of this wild and desolate country he must now call home.

Until that moment there had been in Henry a sense of denial, as if he were merely playing out a part; until that moment he let himself believe that his journey was a temporary one, to be considered an excursion only, from which he would return in due course. But as the cart’s wheels clattered over those uneven roads littered with slate shards and jagged pebbles there was no denying it any longer: his old life is over. His new one must begin.

With a sigh Henry turns up his collar. The sun has finally made its appearance but the lateness of the day has tempered the May air with a touch of cold. Still, this next stage of the journey is picturesque; the vale they travel through now is watered by what Henry assumes is the estuary which widens as the cart advances, its sides bounded by hills and lush woodland. On the curve of another tree-lined bend he catches the scent of brine.

At length they reach the outskirts of a town called Abermaw where the driver stops at the bottom of a sharp incline of shale-rock. Two labourers climb aboard, settle themselves down in the straw next to Henry’s trunk strapped into the back of the cart. He looks over his shoulder, doffs his hat, proffers a smile.

‘Good afternoon.’

Both men stare stonily back. Henry’s smile slips. His tone had been friendly; there was no need at all for them to look at him like that and turn so pointedly away. A discord of whispers begins between the two men, and in confusion Henry twists back to face front.

The cart rumbles on. The road angles itself on an unsteady turn; a gull cries high in the arch of a sharp breeze. As the sea hoves into view – an undulating sheet of iron-grey shot with jade – Henry grips the handles of his portmanteau even tighter, takes a grudging kind of pleasure from the sound of waves, the quaint fishing boats bobbing along the horizon.

It is the first time he has ever seen the sea.

Further down at the harbour stand much larger boats, all at various stages of construction. Fascinated, Henry watches as they pass what looks to be the beginnings of a brigantine with its wooden skeleton only half complete, three men at its belly with hammer and nail. Further down the quay he spies a line of smaller boats being loaded with crates, an empty wagon waiting on the sand, and Henry turns to the driver with interest.

‘What do you export? Slate? I heard there were mines nearby.’

Henry’s driver – an older man with a heavily lined face beneath a coarse hay-coloured beard – glances at him. He sniffs, says nothing. Henry reaches into his coat, extracts the Welsh dictionary he was obliged to purchase in an obscure bookshop on the fringes of Piccadilly a week before his departure, and thumbs through the pages. ‘ Llechen? ’ he tries, tripping over the word for slate, but still the Welshman does not answer. Behind them one of the labourers snorts, and the cart trundles by – the moment with it. They emerge once more onto open road, leave Abermaw behind them. Henry returns the dictionary to his pocket with a sigh.

He has pored over that dictionary, felt duty-bound to attempt to at least try to accept what fate has dealt him. He knows he will be at a loss in this rugged land without speaking the language, but it is damnably difficult; he does not understand the clauses or the grammar, and to his ear the sounds are guttural, hard to adapt to. Henry suspects too that he is mispronouncing everything, applying the incorrect word to the situation, and it angers him, this weakness. He, who was respected for his intellect in London by his colleagues at Guy’s and Bow Street alike. He, who could speak to a room full of medical students with eloquence and finesse! Henry sought positions in other places of course, both in London and beyond, but without recommendation no one would deign grant him an interview.

Instead, he has had to come here.

Henry thinks of the letter nestled at the bottom of his trunk, folded and refolded so many times it has grown limp. My dear sir (it started), it has come to my attention that you are without position under circumstances most unfortunate. To ease such misfortune, it would be my greatest pleasure to offer you the vacant post of physician in Penhelyg, Meirionydd .

It was signed, I am, he looks up, spies the silhouette of an owl soaring high on the hunt.

Dusk has settled now, the sun lost in a cradle of mauve. Henry looks about him, tries to discern anything more than the strange shadows of country, but the dirt track is steadily darkening like ink spilt upon the soil. In the distance there is the low chattering of birds, the eerie hush of trees, of nocturne come to draw the evening slowly in. Henry swallows. He is used to flame-lit streets and noisy tavern din, not this strange almost-quiet, and he is just about to ask again when they might expect to reach his destination when the woodland parts and the driver instructs the pony to slow.

They stop outside a long line of narrow stone houses. The wheels of the cart have scarce ceased the last turn on their spokes when the two labourers – who have not stopped their pointed muttering since leaving Abermaw – jump down.

‘Penhelyg,’ the driver announces.

Henry stares.

So … small. So meagre! He looks at the cramped unlit cottages, their doors daubed strangely with a stripe of flaking white paint, each and every one. The only thing that softens their harsh facade is a bank of willow trees set behind them, lithe branches bending gently over the slate roofs. Is he truly to live here in this barren backwater? Has he really left London for this ?

‘Which is mine?’ Henry asks, weak at the thought of it, but the driver cocks his head in the direction of the trees.

‘Further on,’ that man says, ‘up in the woods. But you’re not going there yet.’

Henry looks at the driver in surprise. ‘I’m not?’

‘ Nag wyt . Tresilian’s orders.’

As they were speaking, the two labourers had opened the door to the furthest cottage. Now at the entryway they turn, peer unfriendly-like at Henry before slamming the door. The noise echoes dully into the growing night, and Henry frowns deeply at the strip of ungainly white paint.

‘Have I offended them?’

There comes no answer, only a grunt, a flick of leather on flank.

‘ Ymlaen a chdi .’

The pony walks on, takes the cart up onto a path that disappears between crowding trees; Henry must press the soles of his feet into the cart’s foothold to brace himself against the incline, squints into the dark. Another owl (or perhaps the same one) utters a bleak cry to the cooling air, and Henry shifts uncomfortably on the hard bench. His back has begun to stiffen with cold, a painful clamp at his spine. He smells dank earth, rotting fungi, and tiredly he presses the portmanteau to his chest. How much further? His eyes have adjusted to the darkness now, but it has made little difference; the further up the cart goes the deeper that darkness stretches, the trees an impenetrable blanket, tar-black. Somewhere, far back into the woodland, there is the sound of running water. At one point they pass a sharp fork in the road but the cart does not slow its course until, finally, a dim light appears through the spindled branches of the trees. The driver flicks the reins again, clears his throat.

‘That’s Plas Helyg,’ he says, and Henry peers into the gloom.

Ahead is a towering set of gates, the wrought-iron metalwork twisted into an obscure pattern of which Henry cannot make out the details; beyond them, down a wide gravel drive, there stands an imposing stone house. On their approach someone pulls open the gates, and as the pony ambles through them Henry has the uncanny notion that their ancient bars appear to sigh. He cranes his neck, stares upward. Too dark to see it properly, he can deduce only that this house called Plas Helyg is large. Monstrous large. Nothing at all like what he was used to in London.

Why on earth has he been brought here?

It is just as the cart draws up to the grand front doors that they swing open. A tall figure stands on the threshold, supported by a cane. His body is turned to silhouette against the candlelight within, and presently two more shadows join him – the squat form of a woman, a broad-shouldered man – but Henry, unable to concentrate fully now the cart has stopped, feels his head spin and presses his fingers to his temples. What a relief it is to be still!

‘Dr Henry Talbot?’

The voice that calls his name is deep and eloquent. English. Perfect English, no trace of a Welsh accent at all, and the shock of it makes Henry look sharply at the man who spoke. There is a dull crunch of gravel against heel as he steps closer.

‘My dear boy,’ the man says. He takes another step forward, right hand clasped tightly on the silver head of his stick. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’