Sinners and Shadows by Catrin Collier

you have and there’s more shape to a collier’s cloth cap than that hat you’re wearing. You never put on as much as a dab of perfume …’
    Julia recalled the pressure Mr Watkin Jones had exerted on her fingers when he had helped her into the carriage, the warmth of his smile when he stood watching them drive away and his final words: Hope to see you again, and very soon, Mrs Larch. Miss Larch. It was a pleasure, as always, to wait on you.
    â€˜â€¦Â Of course, he’s heard that you’ve inherited an absolute fortune from your mother.’
    â€˜Who?’ Confused, Julia looked across at her stepmother.
    â€˜Mr Geraint Watkin Jones. You don’t think he is that attentive to all the customers, do you? He knows you’re wealthy and practically on the shelf. And he’s astute enough to realize that a girl with your looks hasn’t been overwhelmed with suitors.’
    â€˜No one with a brain in their head could think that.’ Julia didn’t quite succeed in keeping the bitterness from her voice.
    â€˜Mr Watkin Jones may as well pin an advertisement on his back: “Rich wife wanted for gentleman who has fallen on hard times.” Mrs Hadley was only telling me last week in the Ladies’ Circle that she had to ask her husband to speak to him after he started bothering her daughter, Elizabeth.’
    â€˜Elizabeth Hadley has a tongue in her head. Couldn’t she tell Mr Watkin Jones to stop bothering her, herself?’
    The irony was lost on Mabel. ‘Geraint Watkin Jones ignored the Hadleys when he had Danygraig House and his fortune. Yet, six months ago, when Elizabeth Hadley celebrated her twenty-first birthday and it was all round the town that she’d inherited her grandfather’s farm and coach-building business, Mr Watkin Jones became exceedingly attentive. He changed pews in St Catherine’s so he could sit behind her in church. He wrote his name against every one of the waltzes on Elizabeth’s dance card at the Christmas Charity Ball. He even had the gall to invite her to the moving pictures, and when Mr Hadley told him that he wouldn’t allow his daughter to step out with a young man she wasn’t acquainted with, Mr Watkin Jones invited the entire Hadley family to dine with him and his mother in the annex of Ynysangharad House. Everyone knows that before she died, his mother hadn’t left her bed in years, and his sister and her family lived entirely separate from them, so it effectively meant that he’d be their host. I ask you, a shop assistant, inviting the Hadleys to dine.’
    â€˜But he does live in Ynysangharad House,’ Julia said in Geraint’s defence.
    â€˜Not for much longer, according to Mrs Hadley. His sister and the trustees of her son’s estate are anxious to shut up the wing that he and his mother occupied. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s obvious that they were living on his sister’s or rather nephew’s charity and now the mother’s gone, there’s no earthly reason why he should continue to reside there. Lodgings are good enough for a shop assistant. Mrs Hadley said that the family has gone to the dogs since their uncle lost their money. The eldest girl married to that miner –’
    â€˜Mr Evans is an engineer and he does business with Father.’
    â€˜Unfortunately, business dictates that your father has to deal with all sorts of unsuitable people.’
    â€˜Father’s solicitors’ practice makes most of its money from colliery business.’ Julia suppressed the temptation to remind her stepmother that colliery business had paid for the gowns she had just purchased.
    â€˜Your father has made many sacrifices for you and your brother. And I think it’s high time you both contributed more to the household expenses now that you have taken possession of your mother’s fortune –’
    Julia stopped listening as her