‘What’s happened?’ Ceinwen said as she watched the couple approach. ‘What have you done?’
‘It wasn’t Dan, Mam,’ Enyd sobbed. ‘He saved my life, I think. It was Mistress Ddole and that wild horse of hers.’
‘Nearly ran us down, she did,’ Dan said, handing Enyd into her mother’s care.
‘Well, there’s not anything we can do about that, then, is there?’ Ceinwen said with low anger.
Dan agreed, but reliving the moment later that day, he saw again the face of Dorothy Ddole as she had pelted across their path, and knew the woman’s stricken face had been blinded with tears.
* * *
Barrass nervously approached the alehouse and handed Pitcher the sealed letter from Markus. The raised arm, palm ready to swipe him, made him explain his business quickly and leave without any delay, and he went slowly through the village street, kicking disconsolately at sticks and stones and the occasional dead rat. It was not apparent at first that those he met did not stop and talk to him. He was still too upset by the loss of Violet and his job at the alehouse to notice. But when three people actually turned away and refused to answer when he called a ‘good day’, he began to wonder.
He thought it strange, but decided that Violet’s disgrace must be public knowledge now, and the mood of anger against him would be a temporary thing. He spoke loudly to everyone he met after that, pretending not to notice the lack of a reply, but he began to feel more alone than when he had been a flea-ridden infant. At least then people spoke to him, even if they had kept their distance.
He spent a little while adding strength to his temporary home, then went down again to the village. Surely the whole population would not ignore him? But he began to feel real alarm when even Blodwen looked at him and looked away as if he were invisible.
On the dunes the next morning, he sat in a sheltered hollow and taking the lines and hooks he usually carried, began to prepare to catch fish from the rocky gulleys further along the coast. He was very hungry and bitterly cold, so his fingers slipped as he tried to tie a knot to hold a hook in place.
‘What are you doing, Barrass?’ asked a voice, and he gave a cry of relief when Olwen appeared.
‘Olwen!’
‘I shouldn’t be talking to you, mind,’ she said, appearing below him where the marram grass was thickest. ‘Mam and Dadda would be very angry with me if they knew.’
‘But why? Surely it isn’t because of Violet?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Of course I don’t know! I haven’t done anything except use an old barn to stop myself from freezing to death, and no one has told me I shouldn’t.’
‘They think you are a spy for the revenue men. Are you?’ she asked.
‘Of course not. How could you of all people think that! Didn’t I help to get the men out of prison?’
‘They believe you were on the beach that night to give the revenue men those tubs, and not because of Dadda and the rest. They won’t believe Arthur and me when we tell them different, because we’re your friends.’
She was panting slightly from her walk across the uneven sandy ground and looking up at him from her lower position on a slanting sandhill. Her brilliant blue eyes were slitted against the morning sun that was just clearing the top of the sand in dazzling brightness and giving touches of gold to her shining hair.
‘Why do they think that?’ He held out a hand and beckoned her to come up beside him. ‘I’ve never approved of the boats, you know that, I’ve never kept my disapproval a secret. But I helped that night. You know I did. I did it because you asked me to. Haven’t you told them that?’
‘They won’t believe me, Barrass. I’ve tried, really I have! Dadda asked me to tell you that he and Dan will pay the money for the boat, they can’t accept it as a present, not now.’ She looked sad, her head bent, her hair falling like a curtain in front of her so he couldn’t see her face. ‘I’m to tell you that, then I mustn’t talk to you any more. They think it’s best you go somewhere else to live. Oh, Barrass, how will I manage if I don’t see you?’
He pulled her up beside him and put his arms around her. Spider’s refusal to accept his gift was hurtful. The rest he could half understand – him being an outsider all his life – that for the slightest of reasons things continued the same, but to refuse the boat he was buying for them. That was near to being an insult. He determined that whatever they thought, he would earn the money somehow and pay Mistress Powell the rest of the money he owed. The boat was a gift and he would not allow Spider to refuse it. He realized with an aching heart that he faced loneliness and homelessness again, and hugged Olwen closer to him.
‘And how will I manage without my best and most loyal friend?’
‘Am I your best friend, Barrass?’ She slipped down so her head was on his shoulder. ‘Better than Violet and the others?’
‘They are different,’ he whispered against her golden head. ‘You are the one I can be my true self with.’
Olwen sighed with deep contentment. They sat for a while, Olwen delighting in the rare intimacy of the moment, and Barrass wondering how he would survive.
‘Have you eaten?’ Olwen asked when she felt him begin to stir and knew the magical moment was about to end.
‘No, but don’t you worry about me. I’ll catch some fish later.’
She pointed down the slope to where she had stood. ‘I’ve brought you some,’ she told him. ‘Five small dabs. And a fine hammering I’d get if Dadda knew I’d taken them from the cart.’
Barrass smiled his thanks. ‘Pity you can’t come and cook them for me,’ he grinned.
‘I don’t doubt you’ll find someone willing to cook your fish, and do whatever else you need,’ she snapped, back to her usual bantering manner.
‘I’m not so sure,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m not so sure. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.’ And he kissed her lightly on the forehead. He felt utterly lonely when she had disappeared from sight. Searching his pockets, he found one shilling and sevenpence. He collected the fish Olwen had brought and went up to pay Mrs Powell another one shilling and sixpence off the cost of the boat.
At the top of Fisher Cottages he stood a moment and looked at Mistress Powell’s bare front garden where the boat had scarred the tangle of weeds to a yellow paleness that still showed. The house was in a dangerous state. The walls had several wide cracks and the end wall bellied out like a giant saucer set on its edge. He knocked, desperate to find her in, needing someone to talk to more than ever before in his life. He took a deep breath as he heard footsteps approaching and smiled as the door opened a crack.
‘Good day to you, Mistress Powell,’ he said breezily, as if nothing was wrong, hoping that she at least had not been told to ignore him. He held out his hand with the coins. ‘I’ve called to bring you another payment for the boat. I think there is only sixpence left to pay, and you will have it very soon, I promise.’
The wrinkled old hand came out, claw-like, and took the offered money, and he glanced at her face waiting for some acknowledgement. She glared at him, then pulled in her shawl-draped arm and slammed the door.
‘Best not to do that too often, Mistress Powell,’ he shouted, hurt and dismay making his voice louder in defiance, ‘or you’ll have the lot about your ears!’
There was no reply, and with this new rejection raging in his heart, he sang loudly all the way down the hill and up through the wooded slope to his shelter, telling himself that he needed no one. But his throat was tight, and eating the fish Olwen had given him was a mite difficult.
Chapter Twelve
It was Olwen and Arthur who fed Barrass after he was shunned by the rest of the village. He woke each morning in his small shelter and there would be a few fish, some ale and, occasionally, some bread and cheese smuggled out of the alehouse by Arthur. He took their gifts gratefully and, when they met, greeted them with joy. He avoided the village and its disapproval, and spent most days wandering around the cliffs and shore, gather
ing wood to warm him through the winter.
Once or twice he went to church, childishly hoping that someone would heed the lessons monotonously intoned by the vicar about Christian forgiveness. But the frowns aimed his way by the women, who turned and unblinkingly showed their annoyance at his entering the House of God, made him give up. He listened instead to the old and young voices wavering out through the doorway, watching from behind the yew trees as the congregation came out. They all wore their best clothes, with hats beribboned and decorated according to their means and imaginations with feathers and flowers, bows and intricately fashioned corn dollies.
The men all showed their calling with freshly laundered smocks of finest linen, their dogs and shepherds’ crooks and even a carrier’s whip left in the porch while they entered into worship with their employers and their families.
Barrass watched with sad envy as the throng then separated to their homes. He suffered the pain of increasing loneliness, imagining how each one went back to a fire, company and comfort plus the prospect of a full belly on this special family day. As much of the daily work as possible was abandoned in favour of bible study and contemplation, as instructed by the vicar, but food and fire had been well prepared for on the previous day.
He saw Violet with her family as they came out of the ancient stone doorway and stopped to talk to the Ddoles. Violet showed no interest. She looked away from the animated conversation between her mother, and Penelope and her father. Is she thinking of me, he wondered, and if so, was it with regret for the loss of our loving? Her face showed nothing. A cloak trimmed with fur, with the hood up around her face, put her expression in shadow, and he was left to wonder if unhappiness showed and, if so, whether it was for the loss of Edwin, or himself.
It was on a Sunday afternoon when Arthur and Olwen arrived with some excitement, to call his name almost before they were in sight of his poor home.
‘Barrass,’ they chorused. ‘Barrass, hurry, we’ve got news for you!’
He stood up from the back of the shelter, where he had been skinning a seabird he had caught earlier.
‘Don’t tell me Pitcher has offered me my job back?’ He smiled as he greeted them and Olwen felt a rush of love for him. The sun shone on his face, still tanned from the summer, his teeth gleaming white, the hair he still refused to cut in long curls around his head.
‘Ivor Baker is coming to find you with a big stick,’ she said, sadness for the predicament she had come to report overwhelming her with dismay. ‘Blodwen’s waist is thickening and she says it’s your fault.’
Barrass frowned momentarily, then he started with surprise. ‘You mean there’s another baby on the way?’
‘And that’s beside the one Carrie is trying to hide! Thrown out of the Ddoles’ house she’s been. Barrass, why can’t you leave the girls alone?’
‘Best we hurry.’ Arthur looked back along the path anxiously, his adam’s apple jerking with agitation, his thin face a picture of trepidation. ‘Seen that Ivor Baker in a temper before, I have. Come on, Barrass, we’ve got to hide you where he won’t find you till he’s been soothed.‘
Voices came across the quiet fields, where the trees, skeletal now winter was upon them, gave few places to hide. Barrass recognized the bull-like roar of Ivor, and the quieter sound of those trying to calm him.
Olwen held out her hand, and with Arthur and his dog scooting behind, they ran, bent low over the rotting grass, to the furthest side of the field, through the hedge and on, across the bracken-patched hillside and down onto the rocks below the high land. They stopped when they thought they were safe from the searching eyes above them and stood, panting and red-faced, wondering what to do next. It was Olwen who made the decision.
‘Could you find the place where I landed when I was caught in that storm?’ she asked Barrass. ‘If we could get you down there, where the descent looks so impossible from above, no one will find you.’
‘But I can’t stay hidden in a cave for ever. I think I’ll have to do what everyone wants, and leave,’ Barrass said. He spoke casually but Olwen could see how afraid and hurt he was at the villagers’ rejection.
‘Not everyone, Barrass. I don’t want you to go,’ she said, squeezing his hand.
‘Nor me,’ Arthur said. He held the terrified dog under his arm, the creature’s eyes rolling as he tried not to look down at the foaming sea, or up, where somehow he knew he should be.
The sea was not fierce that day, settling into an almost gentle rhythm as if in respect for Sunday propriety, but its thrashing was sufficient to prevent them from hearing sounds from above.
‘I think you should leave me here and let me find my own way to the cave,’ Barrass said, looking up to the overhanging turf. If you meet Ivor, you’d best tell him you haven’t seen me.’
‘We’ll come each evening with food,’ Olwen said, accepting the sense in his decision. She climbed the easy route to stand once again on the firm grass above Barrass, and helped Arthur with the almost pop-eyed, struggling dog to join her. Without looking back, in case someone was watching them, they set off back to the village.
They saw no sign of Ivor or his followers, but when they reached the old barn they found evidence of their passing. Barrass’s crude shelter had been torn down, sections of it spread across the field and the few miserable contents broken. Even the newly skinned bird had been trodden into the earth and spoilt.
* * *
Barrass found the cave without much difficulty but there was nothing there, apart from the remnants of a fire, and he knew he would have to find some way of keeping warm. Driftwood was there in plenty, and to give himself some sense of purpose he gathered some, and sorted it into piles to dry above the waterline. From what he had seen before the light failed and what he had learnt from Olwen, he knew there was no permanent beach, that the tide came close to the edge of the cave entrance: the undisturbed ashes of the fire convinced him that at least it did not enter.
In the dark, stumbling awkwardly along the unfamiliar terrain, he went to his shelter intending to gather blankets and a few comforts. When he arrived he could not understand at first what his hands were finding. Then he knew that he had once again lost everything. He sat in the wet grass in the dark field and, with his arms around his knees, considered his dilemma.
Why had he succumbed to the charms of Violet and the others? Why did God give such a gift then insist they deny themselves its joys? Self-pity made him blame the girls momentarily for enticing him, but he was honest enough to admit that he needed no encouragement once he had tasted the delights of a woman’s body.
Becoming conscious of how uncomfortable he was, he stretched out on the grass, which felt like a frozen sheet of water but which he vaguely hoped would warm up with the heat from his body. Almost unaware of his discomfort he continued with his thoughts. He would have to leave. It was clear that by staying he risked a beating or worse, and even at best, he would be forced to marry and provide for one of the girls who carried his child. How could he provide for anyone? He had nothing, and at almost nineteen, no prospect of getting even the simplest shelter. With no one willing to give him work, what alternative had he? He must leave.
He was bitterly cold yet he didn’t care. The wet grass had seeped its frozen fingers insidiously through his thin clothes, and from head to foot he shivered. Perhaps, he thought with a burst of anger, I should stay here and die. Then they would feel some remorse. The idea of dying to cause uncaring people a momentary guilt was so ludicrous that he laughed aloud, stood up stiffly and began to exercise to warm himself. No matter what he decided, death was not one of the options.
The night was spent walking around the field, searching with hands in the dark and managing to find two of the three blankets Mary had given him. By the time dawn had broken, bringing with it a mist and drizzly rain, he had rescued the third and, feeling rich by comparison with the previous evening, he ran back to sleep in the cave.
Food arrived regularly from Arthur, and on Sunday
afternoon, when Olwen was free for a few hours from her duties at Ddole House, she called with her pockets filled with what she had managed to find for him.
What Barrass valued most was the company of his two friends. They would sit in the cave entrance and share their news, Barrass drinking in eagerly the happenings of the village.
‘Violet Palmer is getting married next Sunday,’ Olwen said on the second week of his banishment. ‘Seems that Edwin is willing to accept the baby as his own.’
‘Perhaps I’ll be able to come back soon, then?’ he said, trying to hide his pain at the thought of Violet sharing her body with Edwin.
‘Pitcher misses you. He still hasn’t finished that drawing room of Emma’s and says he never will without a good reliable worker like you,’ Arthur told him.
‘Tell him I’ll risk the anger of Ivor and Winifred if he’ll let me come back. I’ll work for sixpence and my keep. I owe some money, see, and hate not to pay it,’ Barrass said without looking at Olwen. He was thinking of the sixpence he still owed Mistress Powell for the boat, still smarting over the hurt of Spider’s refusal to accept the boat as a gift. He would pay the remainder of the money and show contempt for Spider’s attitude.
‘With Emma still calling you every name that’s allowed for a “lady” to use, I think that’s naught more than a dream,’ Arthur said sadly.
* * *
On the day of Violet’s wedding, Barrass rose early and set off to walk to the village. He planned to hide in the churchyard and see Violet in her wedding dress given by her father to Edwin Prince, and hoped the sight would drive the urgent need of her from his heart.
Summer’s Last Retreat Page 22