He was greeted by Markus with irritation and scant hospitality.
‘Money, for Mistress Ddole? How would I remember what it was for? A horse probably. Now if you don’t mind, I have a book being read to me and it seems a more interesting way to spend a dark evening than talking to you. Good day to you.’ Daniels was ushered into the kitchen where he was offered an ale and a bite to eat, which he refused. Sadly, he reflected that he might just as well have stayed with Florrie and her excellent cooking.
* * *
Barrass was still worried about the package Kenneth had asked him to deliver, and between jobs at the alehouse, he ran up over the cliff to Olwen’s home. The day was cold, the sun fitful, but Olwen and Mary were outside dyeing skeins of sheep’s wool and draping it to dry on bushes nearby. Olwen’s hands were stained purple with the blackberry dye. Mary smiled a welcome and went into the cottage.
‘Barrass.’ Olwen ran to greet him, her hands held clear of his new jacket. ‘There’s smart you are!’ She admired his new clothes with a smile hiding a feeling of dread. Now the girls will be chasing after him even more, she thought miserably. ‘Will you stay for a bite of fish?’ She nodded to the oven where loaves were cooling and fish already prepared for baking. ‘I’ve made the loaves today and prepared the fish. I’ve stuffed them with herbs and leeks and they’ll be very good. You’d be surprised what a good cook I am.’
‘Yes, Barrass, stay and eat with us.’ Mary came out of the cottage with Dic in her arms. She put the baby down in his wicker cot and sighed. ‘Do you know he’s already too long for his cradle, Barrass. Another long-legs like his father for sure.’
‘Pity help me,’ Olwen sighed, ‘he’ll catch me up in no time. Mam, why was I so small when all the rest are so tall?’
Barrass caught Mary’s eye and shared a smile over Olwen’s constant lament.
‘I’ll still look seven when I’m seventeen,’ she went on, ‘and children will want me to play games and young men will pat my head and call me a good little girl when I’m twenty-seven!’
Barrass laughed out loud and she reached for a skein of wool and began swinging it threateningly.
‘Now, Olwen,’ Mary warned, ‘not with him looking so smart in his new clothes!’ and Olwen placed the intended weapon back on the branches of a blackthorn bush to dry.
‘Mary, I’m worried about a package Kenneth asked me to deliver to Ddole yesterday,’ Barrass explained. ‘It contained money and there was nothing to say who sent it. Daniels saw it and if it’s stolen or something…’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Mary smiled. ‘We had a bag of coins too, they look after their own to make sure the men don’t talk and involve others.’
Barrass was reminded that although he had lived in the village for nearly all of his life, he was still an outsider, uninvolved in the day-to-day lives of those he called his friends. His concern for Mary and his small efforts to help her were superfluous. The villagers all looked after their own.
‘Come on, Olwen,’ he said then, ‘get those fish in the oven and let’s go and catch some more.’
‘Tide’s wrong, silly,’ she said, rinsing out some more of the dark-purple wool. ‘Besides, I have to finish this job first or Mam’ll shout.‘
‘Tomorrow then?’
‘All right, come back and eat supper with us and we’ll make plans to go in the morning, right?’
* * *
Barrass wanted to see Penelope again. He knew that there was no possibility of her ever looking at him with more than kindness, but he wanted to thank her properly for the clothes and show her he was not just a homeless beggar, dependent on handouts. He walked tall and strode out confidently. His knock on the kitchen door was loud and authoritative. He did not really know why he felt the need to impress them except that arriving as he had with soaked and ill-fitting clothes he had looked his worst, and recently, events had told him that he was less often dismissed without a second glance. He asked to see Mistress Ddole, thinking that if luck was with him, he would also see Penelope.
He was discomfited when he saw that the Keeper of the Peace was there again, sitting in the large wooden chair near the fire and drinking a mug of ale. He stretched himself up and stared at the man boldly, and hoped that the quaking he felt in his knees did not show. Then he saw that the table was set, that the solemn-faced man was free of his coat and hat and was sitting relaxed and obviously not on duty.
It was Penelope who waited for him when he was shown into the parlour. It was hard then for him to retain the slightly haughty expression he wore, but the new clothes helped. He knew that the transformation they had made was having an effect. Penelope raised her fine eyebrows in surprise.
‘Barrass?’
‘I’ve come to thank you most kindly for the clothes, Miss Ddole, and to tell you that I will take great care of them, I value your generosity so much.’ He had been practising what he would say all through the walk but the words came out in a less orderly way then he had hoped. But she seemed well pleased.
‘Thank you, Barrass. I think they have made quite a difference. If there are any more, I will send them to you.’ She looked away and asked, ‘Where do you live, Barrass?’
‘Nowhere, as yet,’ he said. ‘I sleep at the alehouse.’ He couldn’t tell her that he slept on old sacks under an archway. ‘I am looking for a suitable place to make comfortable. I did have an old barn,’ he added, ‘but it was burnt down and all my possessions with it.’
‘Thank you for calling. I will bear in mind your need for a home.’ Penelope watched as he walked out, then sat for a long time thinking about him.
* * *
That night he stayed for a while in the archway, still nursing the vain hope that Violet would come, but when the cold became too much he joined Arthur in the cellar and dreamed about Penelope and Violet, both girls looking at him with that unmistakable speculativeness that tells a man his advances would not be rejected.
On the following morning he woke with his thoughts still on Violet and Penelope and completely forgot his promise to help Olwen take her boat out.
Olwen waited in the darkness with the wind giving occasional gusts to match her own sighs of impatience. Under her warm shawl her hands were on her hips as she stood watching for Barrass’s arrival and her spirits sank lower and lower as time passed.
‘It’s those clothes,’ she muttered angrily. ‘Thinks he’s above helping me with the fish now he’s got new clothes. Afraid of getting them messy and the girls complaining of the smell, no doubt!’
Mary called to her softly, her silhouette touched with light from the oil lamp behind her.
‘You don’t go on your own, mind, not until the light is strong. Dangerous it is for you to be out on your own in the day, but you must not go out in the dark.’
‘No, Mam. Oh! I think this is him now.’ She hurriedly kissed her mother goodbye, and talking to the empty path, pretended to greet Barrass. She wasn’t going to stay here and wait for him a moment longer. Still pretending for her mother’s benefit that he had arrived, she ran towards the beach, the wind clutching at her clothes, chilling her thin body and pulling her hair free of its scarf.
It was colder once she was out of the shelter of the bushes and trees around the house, the wind was keen and blowing with sudden force that made her crouch and spread her arms preparing to grab at the grasses at her side if the gusts were strong enough to dislodge her from the path.
She raised her head occasionally hoping to see Barrass approaching. If he arrived after she had left Mam would give her a clout for disobedience. Still, they needed to bring in a good catch and if she waited for Barrass until it was too late for the tide, she would waste a day. Besides, she took pleasure in the anticipation of telling him how she had gone out without him, making him feel guilty for his neglect.
All the way down the path she rehearsed their quarrel. Her pert face wore an expression of offended dignity as she imagined wringing every last drop of his guilt from the situation
. How could he just forget? Surely there weren’t any girls about at this time of day to distract him?
At the bottom she pulled her shawl closer around her and waited a while, her eyes piercing the darkness, and hearing only the creaking of the boats on pebbles and the slapping of ropes against masts. She was so intent upon watching for Barrass she ignored the signs of an approaching storm.
Several of the boats were already out on the choppy water with their nets being hauled across the bay, their owners hoping to be back within the safety of the headland before the storm hit.
Olwen threw the box of bait into the boat and launched it. It rode the white-tipped waves with ease, the wind behind helping, even though she was not using a sail. She did not intend to go outside the bay, where though the water was shallow there was a chance of a reasonable catch and, waking up suddenly to the impatient pushing of sea and wind, she cautiously shipped the oars and let the boat ride while she threw the anchor overboard.
For a while she concentrated on the nets, but when the boat began to corkscrew she decided that common sense was best obeyed and she lifted the anchor and tried to pull herself back to the shore. It was then she felt the stirrings of fear. The boat did not respond. As soon as it was free, it jerked towards the open sea and no matter how she tried to persuade it, she was taken on past the headland and out to where the wind was suddenly wild and threatening.
She was no longer in control but small and defenceless, at the mercy of the mighty strength of an angry sea. She had only the sturdy, carvel-built wooden boat between her and death under the swells that tipped the boat first one way and then another. She could not row, and even attempting to lift the sail to ride with the storm would send it over the side in a moment – and her with it for a certainty.
The tide turning saved her. The wind slightly eased its ferocious game, the centre of the storm passed over her and allowed her to master the oars again. Crying in her despair and helplessness, sobbing her remorse at her stupid prideful disobedience, she struggled to pull herself back to the shore with arms weak and aching with fatigue. Her teeth were pressed over her bottom lip in an effort to hold back the tears flowing down her white face.
Where was Barrass? Why had he let her down? In her predicament she blamed him. Blamed the fancy clothes those at Ddole House had given him, blamed his fleas for deserting him and allowing others to see, as she had always seen, how beautiful he was.
The morning did not really break, the storm clouds overhead held back the dawn, and sea and sky were one purply blackness in which she was the only living thing. She had nothing on which to judge her position, the coast was lost in the haze. Her crying increased in volume and was not even heard by a seagull.
The whole sea was empty, there was only her stupid self in the whole world. Her voice wailed her misery as she allowed the boat to take her where it chose, her arms no longer able to pull on the oars, even if she were able to judge which direction she should take.
She sat there, the uneasy motion of the boat making sickness a possibility, the final humiliation. Dejected and afraid, she waited, saving her strength for the moment when she would sight the shore. Whatever piece of coast she saw, she would not try to guess where it was, but would pull herself in and get off the frighteningly undulating water. She began to bale out the water that had settled at her feet, discarding the fish she had caught and wondering if she would ever dare step into a boat alone again.
Thunder rumbled around her, distant but adding to her fear. The clouds moved, but without a sign of breaking – black, ominous and low enough to almost blanket the sea. Then, there was a thin sliver of brightness on the horizon, and she watched, afraid to blink for fear of it disappearing, dreading that it was her imagination playing tricks. But it grew and showed up the scene. First the sea, which changed colours like the palette of an insane artist, then the cliffs – unfamiliar but surprisingly and thankfully close, white foam dashing against them and rising high.
Rowing in was difficult, as she had to watch for rock hidden in the unknown waters, choppy with the threads of the dying storm. Lightning still flashed to startle her as she stared out across the wildness of the white, boiling surf searching for a place to land.
As she came close under the towering cliffs she saw a small sandy beach and cried with relief as she managed to point the bow towards it and allow the waves to push her in. The tumult seemed to stop with a suddenness that made her think her ears had been affected as she reached the shallow water. The boat glided with unbelievable orderliness onto the beach’s gentle slope. She climbed out and pulled as hard as her weakened muscles would allow, trying to get the boat well up on the sand. Then she fell onto the shore a few yards above it and cried herself to sleep.
She was woken by the touch of the waves on her feet and she sat up immediately, to see the boat bobbing in the surf far out where she had no hope of reaching it. In front of her the sea, still showing its fury, and behind her steep, jagged rocks rising to the now blue sky. From the marks on the rocks she saw with horror that the tide would cover the small beach. She had to move, but where was there to go? Above the gusting wind, she shouted,
‘Barrass!’
Chapter Eight
The coast near the Village was largely mudflats, with shifting dunes partly covered with marram grass, sea poppies, sea spinach and rock roses. The area from which the boats sailed was shingle, with rocks rolled about by the wild tides, an ever-changing situation. From where the moorage ended, and the beach changed from small pebbles to large rocky formations, the surface beyond the beach changed dramatically from low accessible ground to steep cliffs.
It was some miles away that Olwen spent the night huddled at the lip of a cave, which in its dark interior promised shelter but repulsed her by its secretiveness. She did not sleep, but dozed and woke with fright at the thought that she had read the signs wrong and the tide would swoop into the cave, breaking her against the cruel rocks or dragging her into the relentless rock-bound sea.
Far above her, unseen and unheard, men and women searched through the night, calling her name, crying in their despair. As morning broke in shining splendour as if to compensate for the sullenness of the previous day, she rose, shivering, hungry and afraid. In front of her the water was swollen and frightening in its bulging rise and fall, bloated with the storm. Behind her she could see no way up the cliff.
There was only one thing to do and that was wait, in the certain knowledge that everyone would be searching. All she had to do was wait. Waiting, she decided after only an hour, was the most difficult pastime of all. She began to gather winkles, and thought that if no one found her, she could at least eat them raw. Then she put aside the thought of food, it was making her digestive juices run and remind her of the hours that she had passed since she had eaten. A thin trickle of water seeped through the rocks nearby and she slaked her thirst thankfully. After a while she slept.
* * *
Barrass had spent the night running across the cliffs from Thistleboon to the sea, his feet making a close pattern of zig-zag lines in the wet grass. All the time, he called her name, his pleas unheard, the roaring wind snatching it from his mouth whistling its laughter at the weakness of his voice. Thunder growled and lightning flashed and it was as if the whole world was against him finding her.
In the morning he met others and demanded to know where they had been, how diligently they had examined every bush and hollow. Then, wailing in anguish, he went on with his search.
Exhaustion made him rest at Mary’s house and take a hot drink, not caring for once that the tea she offered him was from the boats.
‘There are plenty on the cliffs, more have come since daybreak. I think I’ll go down and look along the dunes and where she set off from.’ He could not be still even long enough to finish the tea. ‘Perhaps the boat only went out a few yards and was beaten back by the winds. She’s so small, her little arms could hardly have made much headway. Oh, why did I forget her?’ he groaned.
>
Mary listened to him, her face frozen with anxiety, her gentle eyes wide and staring, as if Olwen would materialize in front of her if she believed it strongly enough.
‘Yes, Barrass, try the beach,’ she whispered. Dic began to cry and she sat rocking him, not aware of Barrass’s leaving.
* * *
Barrass ran down the path from Mary’s cottage to the village and on to the end of the small beach. The gale had caught some of the boats and they lay drunkenly leaning, half filled with water, many with their boards split. One had an enormous boulder inside it as if dropped casually in by a giant hand in the rage of the storm. It seemed unlikely, he thought vaguely, that it could ever be removed. Boulders too littered the path along the edge of the water, and he thought he saw a figure lying amongst them and ran with a cry, to find only seaweed-draped rock.
The sea was apparently quiet, the surface not breaking, but it was rising and falling with ominous strength. The threat was there and he knew that further out, the movement of a small boat would be violent. He looked out to sea and with the good visibility that sometimes comes before or after a storm, saw an emptiness that renewed his fear for Olwen’s safety.
Then a sound came on the air that puzzled him and he looked around for the source. Surely it was men singing? He climbed onto the highest dune and shaded his eyes, looking first at the sea, then along the path leading down from the inland track which led to Swansea and Gower. The sound became stronger, the voices raised in thanks-giving, the words of the hymn swelling as the singers turned towards him. They had found her!
Summer’s Last Retreat Page 14