Page 45 of The Shadow Key

‘You’re very welcome.’

He offered Henry his hand.

‘Name’s Ivor.’

‘Henry.’

‘Ie.’

Ivor’s gratitude loosened his tongue. Henry soon found that aside from acting as Penhelyg’s messenger and errand man, he also made his living as the village coachman, though his mode of transport does not suit the term; the open cart would do just as well for the transport of hay and livestock but Henry was grateful for the ride, tried to enjoy the journey down pebble-laden tracks and the boggy marshlands of Harlech (a small market town where an abandoned castle nestled on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Irish sea), the dirt roads which led to a small riverbank port named Twgwyn. Despite the best efforts of the ferryman it was a rocky, tumultuous ride across the estuary; as the barnacled oars sliced into the choppy sea Henry gripped the sides of the vessel so hard his palms became host to some nasty splinters. Now on terra firma again Henry swallows, runs a handkerchief across his forehead. As with horse riding, sea travel is a pastime to which he must adapt, and quickly.

Henry shields his eyes, looks upward to the town waiting for him on the hill. On a cliff to his right stands another castle (this one decidedly less put-together than the one at Harlech) and he watches as a gull lazily circles one of its fractured turrets. There is a commotion behind him, a loud offloading of wares, the boarding of a passenger for the return journey. Henry walks up the beach out of the way, pebbles crunching underfoot.

He must ask for directions, thumbs the Welsh dictionary until the pages tear. Having finally made himself understood he is pointed in the right direction and soon finds himself standing in front of a tall townhouse situated down a narrow road just off the main, the stone partition walls spilling fat roses the colour of lemons. He licks perspiration from his top lip. Secluded here there is no breath of sea air, no clouds provide cover. The air has within it a prickly heat and the sun beats down, unrelenting. Puffing into his collar Henry climbs the narrow stone steps, tugs on the bell-pull, and within moments a young maid opens the door.

‘Oes gennych chi apwyntiad?’

Henry repeats his rehearsed question.

‘Gweld Dr Beddoe? Dr Henry Talbot ydw i.’

The maid nods, opens the door wider, and Henry steps past her into a cool hallway. She indicates he take a seat before disappearing into a room off to the left, and as he sits down on a chair with eagle heads carved into the arms, he looks about him with interest.

Money has been spent in this house, more money than Henry expected a country doctor to have. An expensive and intricately patterned rug runs down the length of the hall, its seam meeting the solid base of an ornate grandfather clock. The wooden floor is polished to a high shine, the whitewashed walls crisp as if newly painted and lined with a still-life gallery of overly-bright fruit and gaudy flowers. He looks across from him to where a large mirror sits above a mahogany side table; on its waxed surface stands a bowl of those same lemon-yellow roses, spilling like taffeta from its glass brim.

Henry loosens his cravat, rests his battered medical bag on his lap, looks at the grandfather clock. Nearly midday. He left Plas Helyg promptly at half past seven. So, then, it took near four and a half hours to reach his destination. No earthly use at all if a patient needed him urgently. True, he has only been employed as physician to the residents of Penhelyg, the private aid of the Tresilian household. But what of the neighbouring towns and villages? Dr Beddoe surely cannot accommodate them all.

He scratches at his hand, tries to squeeze one of the splinters free. In winter, especially, travel will be near impossible. He has heard winters are harsh in the country but here this means a churning sea, perishing cold, muddy roads too dangerous to traverse. The nights would be long as well, the dark impenetrable.

The door opens. The maid beckons. Henry rises, follows the girl into a large and comfortably appointed room.

There is a similarity to the gatehouse study in its layout – a sizeable desk, a chair and recliner meant for a patient, what appears to be a well-stocked library, a large cupboard in the corner. Dr Beddoe is lucky. In London Henry’s ‘study’ had been one of the many surgeons’ slabs to be found at Guy’s, the confines of that hospital’s tightly packed operating theatre. Dr Beddoe himself sits in a large, richly upholstered armchair behind the desk. A thin, sallow-looking man wearing a full-bottomed white wig, he does not rise at Henry’s entrance, merely watches his approach over long steepled fingers. The maid shuts the door, leaving them alone.

‘Take a seat.’

He speaks English, Henry notes, but with no Welsh accent. It is a measured voice, one that denotes a watchful and critical mind, and Henry is reminded of his tyrannical schoolmaster at the Foundling who caned him once until his fingers bled.

The seat proffered is simple wooden fare, hard and uncomfortable as Henry discovers when he has taken it. No comfort, then, he thinks, for a patient.

‘So,’ the doctor says before offering a thin-lipped smile. ‘You are Henry Talbot. Your arrival has been long anticipated.’

Henry blinks.

‘Has it?’ he says, careful. ‘My understanding is that my presence in Penhelyg has not been taken with much enthusiasm.’

‘For the villagers, perhaps. But it saves me a great deal of time.’

‘I can imagine. I’ve been most intrigued at how you managed considering how busy you must be. Indeed, it took me quite a time to travel here myself.’

‘It was not so much trouble as you might expect,’ the older doctor replies. ‘My services were not required overmuch. Superficial ailments, hardly worth my time at all. Mere headaches, a shallow cut, an innocent cough which turned out to be the oncomings of a common cold. It helps, of course,’ he says with something of a scoff, ‘that the good Linette Tresilian paid me for the trouble of a weekly visit, else I’d have been inclined to leave them to their own devices.’

‘One of my new patients is not the subject of a superficial ailment,’ Henry counters. ‘If his condition had been left any longer I fear nothing could have recovered him.’

‘Oh?’ Beddoe sends him a lopsided smile. ‘And who was this person, so near to death’s door?’

He tells him of Tomas Morgan. The older doctor sits back in his seat, leather creaking.

‘While the early symptoms of pleurisy would have indeed demonstrated themselves as a cold,’ Henry adds, ‘I feel that perhaps a little more discernment on your part might have made all the difference.’

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