Guardian Angel Read online

  GUARDIAN ANGEL

  Part Six

  of the

  Angel Mountain Saga

  Brian John

  Greencroft Books

  2013

  First Impression 2007

  Kindle Edition 2013

  Copyright © Brian S John

  Published by Greencroft Books

  Trefelin, Cilgwyn, Newport,

  Pembrokeshire SA42 0QN

  Tel 01239-820470

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.books-wales.co.uk

  ISBN 978-0-905559-97-1

  To all those who love the mountain

  Table of Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  Prelude: Pickersniff, Jebson and the Woman in Black

  THE MANUSCRIPT

  1. A Crime Against the Truth

  2. Deeper and Deeper

  3. The Boy Merlin

  4. Loose Ends

  5. Tactical Retreat

  6. A Tightening Net

  7. The Celestial Empire

  8. Palace of Treasures

  9. A Glimmer of Light

  10. Salvation

  11. Transfiguration

  12. Moment of Truth

  13. Bolt from the Blue

  14. Council of War

  15. Atonement

  16. Confrontation

  17. Reconciliation

  18. Finale

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgements

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  The Group of Twenty-five

  Betsi and Ioan Rhys, Daisy and George Havard, Bessie Walter, Will Owen, Brendan and Mary O’Connell, Rose and Henry Evans, Wilmot and Delilah Gwynne, Patty and Jake Nicholas, Skiff and Maria Abraham, Shemi and Sian Jenkins, Abel and Susan Rhys, Myfanwy Owen, Blodwen Bebb, Gerallt Owen, Gomer and Gwenno Jenkins

  The men who loved Martha

  David Morgan, b 1777. Married Martha 1796. Murdered by enemies 1805.

  Moses Lloyd of Cwmgloyn, b 1773. Killed by Martha in self-defence 1797.

  Ceredig ap Tomos of New Moat, b 1769. Betrothed to Martha 1822. Committed suicide after cancelled wedding.

  Iestyn Price, b 1771, army officer (presumed dead) 1807, actually died 1822.

  Joseph Harries of Werndew, b 1761, wizard, herbalist, doctor, and sleuth. Died after accident 1826. Martha’s friend and mentor.

  Owain Laugharne, b 1780, squire of Llannerch 1802. Missing for 15 years. Betrothed to Martha but never married. Died 1825.

  Amos Jones (Jones Minor Prophet) b 1785, itinerant preacher. The last love of Martha’s life. Murdered 1855.

  The Morgan Family in 1855

  Martha, b 12 May 1778 at Brawdy. Married to David 21 August 1796. Date of death recorded as 27 February 1855, aged 76.

  Nansi, aged widow of Martha’s brother Morys.

  Elen, Martha’s sister, b 1773. Illegitimate son Brynach b 1807. Emigrated to USA, m Tom Bradshaw 1810. Two other children.

  Catrin, Martha’s sister b 1776, m James Bowen 1800. Sons John and Mark.

  Betsi, daughter b, 1798, m Ioan Rhys 1818. Sons Benjamin, Joshua, Abel, and Owain.

  Daisy, daughter b 1801. Went to London 1821 and returned 1844. M George Havard 1846. Illegitimate children Amy, John, William.

  Brynach, adopted son, b 1807. Wife Anne d 1837. Daughter Rose, son David. Inherited Llanychaer estate from George Price in 1832.

  Other Key Characters

  Skiff Abraham, b 1782. M Maria 1812, children, Rhiannon, Josie, and Annie. One-time petty criminal, now a wealthy merchant .

  Henry Evans, b 1826, m Rose Morgan 1849. Son Levi, b 1852.

  Lady Charlotte Guest, b 1812, wife of Josiah John Guest. Philanthropist, translator of the Mabinogion, and on her husband’s death head of the Dowlais Iron Works.

  Wilmot Gwynne, b 1895, from Swansea, squire of Llanychaer and Plas Ingli 1845. M Delilah 1820. Children Samson, Joshua, Maria.

  Jonas Harry, b 1890, from Plas Glas, Mumbles. Industrialist and financier.

  George Havard Medical, b 1790, doctor from 1822. M Daisy 1846.

  Merlin Ifans, b 1845, orphan from Cardigan. Destined to take over from Shemi as wizard.

  Shemi Jenkins of Werndew, wizard, b 1782. Servant at the Plas from 1797. M 1810 to Sian. Left to be a wizard 1836.

  Sir Mervyn Lloyd, Lord Marcher 1845 - 1876. Lived in Cardiganshire (Bronwydd estate) by preference.

  Patty Nicholas, ex-prostitute and close friend of Martha, b 1776. M Jake 1807. Children Mary, Jack, Hubert, Amy.

  Brendan O’Connell, b 1801. Wife Mary and 6 children. Fled from the Potato Famine 1848. Settled at Garfeth.

  Donal O’Connell, b 1815, from County Cork in Ireland. Related to Brendan. Special investigator.

  Will Owen, b 1780, head man at the Plas from 1836. Children, Gerallt, Myfanwy, Bronwen.

  Silas Reynolds, b 1828, from Gowerton, one of Harry’s henchmen.

  Bessie Walter, b 1776. Servant at the Plas 1795-1855. Martha’s oldest friend.

  Iago Woodward, b 1826, from Swansea, one of Harry’s henchmen.

  John Wylde, b 1818. Emperor of China, and his lady Mags Williams. Head criminal of the gangs inhabiting Pont-storehouse, Merthyr Tydfil.

  Prelude: Pickersniff, Jebson and the Woman in Black

  “Pickersniff and Jebson?” I asked. “Never heard of them. They sound like a pair of Dickensian attorneys -- correct?”

  “Not far off. They were London publishers at the time of Queen Victoria. They published penny dreadfuls and truly terrible Gothic melodramas -- but also some obscure works by Mrs Gaskell and others including Charlotte Bronte, under one of her pseudonyms.”

  “Indeed? That’s very good to know -- but I don’t see why this should be of particular interest to me down here in West Wales.”

  The young lady, who had already introduced herself over the phone as Carol Wise from Hyde Park Publishers, picked up from my voice that my brow was furrowed. She laughed. “If you have a moment to spare,” she said, “I’ll explain.” And she did.

  She said that her publishing house, one of the biggest and most successful in the world, was involved in that mysterious process called rationalization, and was disposing of various premises in London. One such office, originally belonging to Pickersniff and Jebson Ltd of Gabriel Lane, SW1, had been taken over in 1859 in order to save that company from bankruptcy and to acquire the publishing rights to three authors who later became best-sellers. For almost 150 years the old office had been used by proof-readers and as a repository for company records, unpublished manuscripts and so forth -- but now the decision had been made that the site was too valuable to remain effectively unused in central London. It was on the market, valued at £6 million, and the publishing records were all being moved out to new offices in Basingstoke. Carol, who was a junior editor with one of the Hyde Park imprints, had been seconded from her duties for six months and told to decide what should be kept and what should be thrown away. On going through the old papers she had come across some 1858 correspondence between Samuel Pickersniff and James Jebson in which mention was made several times of an unpublished memoir called The Ghost of Inglestone by an unknown writer called Mrs Susanna Ravenhill. Carol said that there were mentions of Wales in the letters.

  “I thought of you,” she explained, “since this correspondence is about a memoir, not a novel. Many writers at that time used pseudonyms. I love the published diaries of your famous Mistress Martha Morgan, and I just thought............”

  I stopped her in her tracks. “But Carol,” I said reprovingly, “Martha died in 1855. She wrote diaries all her life, but I have never had any indication that she wrote memoirs or novels. She was a competent wordsmith, but seems to have had absolutely no pretensions as an author.”

  “But what about her
sisters, or her daughters or grand-daughters? Couldn’t one of them have had a story to tell, either on their own account, or maybe relating to Martha herself? There may have been episodes in her life that haven’t as yet been recorded, and which moved somebody to put pen to paper after her death. Are you OK with that?”

  “Yes, that’s possible,” I conceded. “Any one of Martha’s female descendants might have had a story to tell, and the inclination to do it. But this is still a very long shot. Have we nothing more to go on?”

  “Not much, I admit. There’s no book with the right title on Pickersniff and Jebson’s list of published works, and no author with the right name either in their catalogue or in their ledgers. Unfortunately there’s no sign of a manuscript...........”

  “So what’s the date on the correspondence?” I asked.

  Carol shuffled through her papers for a moment, and then said: “All in the month of June 1858.“

  “That’s too late to have had anything to do with Mistress Martha personally, unless she left something behind her relating to one of the “mystery periods” in her life. There were certainly some gaps in her diaries, the longest of which lasted for ten years. I suppose something from one or more of those intervals might have come to light after her death, and might then have been brought forward by one of her family with a view to publication. But Mrs Susanna Ravenhill? I’ve never come across anybody with that name in all my researches of the gentry families of North Pembrokeshire. Ravenhill has to be an English name, but it has a nice ring about it as a pseudonym.”

  Even as I spoke, I was tuning in to the fact that both the name of the “memoir” and the name of the author indicated a connection with Carningli. I assumed, without knowing, that there could be various places called Inglestone in England or Scotland. On the other hand “carn” in Welsh means a stony or rocky summit, so “Inglestone” could also be a frivolous play on the Welsh name of the mountain so beloved of Martha and her family, with “ingli” turned into “ingle”. “Ravenhill” could also be a fanciful name for the mountain, since it was and is a hill inhabited and indeed protected by ravens. Martha -- and probably her daughters too -- saw these great black birds as the guardian angels of a special, sacred place.

  I pulled myself up short, and realized, not for the first time in my life, that my mind was racing ahead in a manner that was quite unjustified by the quality of the information on the table. I laughed. “Hold on a moment, Carol,” I said. “We’re getting somewhat ahead of ourselves here. With all due respect, why should you be interested in this missing memoir? What’s so special about the title or the writer?”

  “Nothing, but I have an intuition. We women have intuitions......... ”

  “Yes, yes, I had noticed.”

  “....... and sometimes they are well founded. Some of the letters say the tale is set in Wales.”

  “But Carol, Wales is a big place -- the story could be set anywhere.”

  “So it could. But there are mentions of Carningli and Newport in the correspondence about the book!”

  “Well, that is more interesting, I suppose. But they’re both romantic and picturesque places -- and atmospheric too. I wouldn’t be surprised if some budding author used them as settings for a ghost story.”

  I was still sceptical, and said so. But the young lady in the dusty London office was not in the least bit discouraged. She said that she had thus far currently only found James Jebson’s folder of “correspondence received”, but promised to search for other information. I encouraged her to delve deeper, since it would have been churlish to dampen her enthusiasm.

  Two weeks passed. It was mid June, a time of mellow days and short nights. One day, shortly after I returned from a bracing walk on the mountain, Carol rang back, and there was excitement in her voice. She said that she had found Samuel Pickersniff’s folder as well, and was now able to recreate the sequence of letters passing between the two men. “This begins to look exciting!” she enthused. “Much more interesting than packing piles of dusty old first editions into cardboard boxes and working out what else should go into the skip at the back entrance.”

  “So what is it that makes you so excited?”

  “I think you should read these letters for yourself. There are a few pages relating to Mrs Susanna Ravenhill and her strange memoir -- OK if I pop copies into an envelope and send them through to you?”

  “Are you sure you are allowed to do that?”

  “Good God, yes! Not a problem! I’ve got absolute discretion in getting this place sorted. If you aren’t interested the letters will go into the skip or the shredder anyway. Please look at them. You’ll be intrigued!”

  So it was that three days later a package arrived from Carol, with a brief covering note and photocopies of some touching correspondence between Samuel Pickersniff and James Jebson. These are some of the crucial extracts:

  Bow Street

  Friday the 4th day of June in the year of our Lord 1858

  My dear Pickersniff

  I trust that this finds you in better health than you displayed at the time of our recent conference. No doubt your good lady has kept you under appropriate restraint and has resisted all your pleadings to sally forth and put the world to rights. A deep chill upon the chest is not a trifling matter, and if I may make so bold I heartily recommend five spoons a day of Dr Abraham’s Patent Lemon and Balsam Medicament which I found to be wonderfully efficacious on the occasion of my last unfortunate indisposition.

  My dear fellow, I hesitate to inform you, when you have quite enough upon your chest as it is, that the wolves are still at the door, not simply howling but seeking to batter it down. I have had yet another note from that wretched fellow Gobbings who is supposed to be printing our ill-fated “Mystery of the Flaming Galleon”, complaining that he will not print part fifteen of the story until we have paid for the printing of part six. I was sure that we had paid him up to and including part eight, but perhaps I am mistaken in that, since the ledger is, I think, at home with you and under your bed. Perhaps, if it is not too much of an exertion, you will be good enough to reach down and fetch it forth, and to let me know the extent of our indebtedness in this matter. Gobbings requires at least £100 from us, but there is less than £23 in the cash box in the office.

  Then that rough fellow from South Wales who sold us 10 cwt of coal in January came and demanded his money, and I had to explain to him that the fearsome winter weather which followed in February had not only caught us unawares and had necessitated a continuous use of our fireplaces in Gabriel Lane, but had also had a dismal effect upon the profitability of our enterprise since it had been all but impossible for us to receive deliveries from our printers or to pack off books and journals to the far-flung corners of the land. “Your problem, not mine, Master Jebson,” said he. “It always snows in February, and I like nothing better than a fireplace going like a blast-furnace around the clock. If I do not get my money next week, I fear that I shall have to pay you a little visit with two of my sturdy friends for company. They are as soft as kittens, but they are not at all lovable when they meet gentlemen who upset me. Do you take my meaning, sir?” I threw him out, of course. But he will be back, with his friends, and I suppose I shall have to conjure a few shillings or pounds from somewhere if I am to avoid unpleasantness.

  There have been others seeking pecuniary satisfaction as well, my dear fellow, but this is not the time to upset you with the sordid trivia of commerce. It is June, after all, and truly all is well with the world! This very day I counted no less than six blackbirds in full voice on my walk from my house to the office. Was that not a splendid thing?

  I fear that I have failed in my attempts to encourage that fellow Dickens to join our happy band of authors, and my communications (which I thought remarkably diplomatic) to Master Collins and Master Thackeray have sadly elicited no response. They are no doubt too busy writing like men possessed, and lining the pockets of others. Mrs Gaskell promises that we will have something new fro
m her, in due course, but I think it a racing certainty that she has not even started work yet and that she is in any case fully occupied on her latest popular fiction. Rumour has it that it will be serialized by Mr Dickens in “Household Words”.

  We must remain optimistic, even in the face of straightened circumstances. My dear fellow, it is too early yet to be sure about matters, but I fancy that I might have found the author who will transform our fortunes! I must relate for you a singular occurrence. This very morning, within five minutes of my turning up at the office, an elderly lady came in off the street and asked young Martin in my hearing if she might meet “the proprietor” on a matter of some urgency. Indeed she might, said I directly, and so in she came. She was dressed in full mourning clothes, and had her veil over her face for the duration of our interview, but I would guess from her voice that she might be more than sixty years of age. A good clear voice she has, with a touch of a Welsh lilt. Medium height, and a good upright posture. Every inch a lady, I would say. She would not give her name, but said she was acting for a friend. She said she was charged with finding a publisher for a memoir entitled “The Ghost of Inglestone” and would be keen -- on behalf of this friend -- to find out how much I might offer for the serial and book rights.

  I said that that would depend upon the quality of the authorship, and offered to read it and come to a view as to what its value might be. She nodded, and I asked her if I might have a glance at said work. She said it was presently locked away, but that she would bring it in for inspection some time next week. “Perfectly acceptable, Madam,” said I. “It is our pleasure, as old-established publishers of high-class literature, to serve both new and established authors to the best of our ability, and to ensure the highest possible remuneration and the greatest possible readership for worthy works.”