It was after three thirty and as dark as night when Carter Phillips came with the worrying news that Arthur and Barrass had been helping with the search and had found a body.
‘They told me to hurry on ahead of them and warn you,’ he told the Keeper of the Peace. ‘Don’t tell Miss Penelope yet, mind! It’s by no means certain that it’s Mistress Ddole. Just starting to dig it out they were, like, after tripping over it on the path above the sea.’
‘Is it my mother?’ Penelope whispered, her face a mask of pain.
Carter looked shocked, seeing her for the first time.
‘Miss Penelope! I didn’t recognize you sitting by there or I wouldn’t have broken the news so baldly. I didn’t wait until they – until they learnt who it was. Told me to hurry so the household is prepared, like,’ he said, gulping in his embarrassment. ‘Could be a vagrant!’ he added brightly. ‘Plenty of them about. Yes, that’s most likely, for sure.’ He took the mulled ale Florrie handed him and sank his face into it before his tongue could add any more to Penelope’s distress.
The kitchen was almost as cold as the air outside, as Penelope constantly asked either Bethan or Florrie to open the door and listen for the approach of the searchers. Daniels had left Florrie’s side and was standing just outside the door, watching for someone to appear out of the whiteness. His trousers and cloak were sodden, his feet and hands a dull ache, the centre of his back a river of ice, but the discomfort was preferable to seeing Penelope’s stricken young face as she watched the door for news of her mother.
The body was that of Henry Harris. Stiff with cold or rigor mortis, Daniels could not know. He would have to leave that for the doctor to decide. Sufficient for now that it was not Mistress Ddole.
Olwen left Penelope briefly and went to hug Barrass and Arthur. Oh how she missed them, stuck away here in a house filled with strangers, with rules of behaviour that were even stranger. The possible death of her mistress and the certain death of the secretary could not dull the joy she felt on seeing her two friends walk through the door out of the storm.
‘Best you take him to the barn,’ Daniels said, pushing the girl away from her frantic welcome of them.
‘Come on, Miss Penelope,’ Olwen said, as Barrass and Arthur went out again. ‘I think you ought to go to bed.’
‘Olwen,’ Florrie scolded. ‘It isn’t your place to tell—’
‘It’s all right, Florrie,’ Penelope said. ‘I want to stay here anyway.’
She smiled at the returning Barrass and Arthur who were red-faced with their struggle through the snow, and soaked from bare heads to their poorly shod feet. ‘Get these two something to eat and a drink to warm them, fresh clothes to wear while their own are dried. What are you thinking of that you forget our hospitality?’
Florrie glanced at Daniels and whispered, ‘Seems she’s taking her mother’s place already!’
Barrass sat beside Olwen, near to Penelope, and stayed silent while Florrie went to find clothes.
Even though he had helped find and carry home the body of the secretary, he expected any moment to be told to leave to find himself a place to spend the night as well as he could in the now several feet of snow. Olwen sensed his need to be quiet and she held her tongue from the thousand questions she wanted to ask.
Daniels seemed unable to find a way to help. It seemed pointless to go out and wander around in the hope of finding out something. Best he stayed here and kept Florrie company. The company of Florrie with her sharp tongue, kindly heart and delicious food, was something he was enjoying more and more.
* * *
The night passed with nothing more heard of the search. No one had returned with any news of where they had looked, and Olwen suspected that most had gone home to sleep with the intention of beginning the hunt for the missing woman again after daybreak. She was content, with Barrass dozing beside her, his warmth touching her with unbelievable joy, and she did not want the night to end. It was as if his isolation were nothing more than a bad dream. Surely no one would want to send him away again, after he had helped through most of the dangerous night to find Mistress Ddole?
As morning dawned, the snow began to retreat. As suddenly as it had fallen, it started to melt. Dripping was heard like an army of tiny feet from every corner of the house, the snow trampled on the paths changed from white to a moist blue, and people began to appear from every side.
The first to arrive was a boy from one of the cottages, who was crying for someone to come and help his brother. Daniels went, with Barrass and Arthur following, and found the body of a boy of about five years, lying near the gate to the drive.
‘It was Mistress Ddole who sent him out,’ the boy sobbed. ‘Sent him to tell Miss Penelope she was safe. No matter about my brother!’
‘Mistress Ddole is safe?’ Daniels asked, turning the boy away from the sight of Barrass and Arthur forcing the body out of the snow that seemed unwilling to release it.
‘Came past on that horse of hers and demanded that we shelter her and stable her horse and then she sent my brother through the storm to tell them she was safe. He was only five.’
Between them, Barrass and Arthur carried the small body to the barn and placed it beside that of Henry Harris, then went back to Ddole House.
Daniels did not tell Penelope about the death of the small boy, only that her mother was safe, being cared for by one of the cottagers. Bethan took her up to bed to rest, and Olwen asked Florrie,
‘Can I go home for a while, Cook? My mam would be glad to know that I am safe too.’
Olwen walked joyfully between Barrass and Arthur, pushing through the snow that was a wonderland of brilliant whiteness in the shamefaced sun. Every colour of the rainbow shone in the melting snow and its softness was an excuse for them to slide and slither and throw sloppy snowballs at each other, so, when they arrived at the house on the cliffs where an anxious Mary and Spider were watching for them, they looked like drowned rats.
Even Barrass’s tight curls had become a straggling mat of moisture-beaded strands around his face, and Olwen’s golden hair was a dark fringe of rat tails. Arthur’s sparse hair was flattened to his head so he looked as if someone had scalped him. His face seemed even thinner than usual, the adam’s apple a huge knot in the sinews of his scrawny neck.
Forgetting their intention of treating Barrass like an outcast, Mary and Spider welcomed them all and began drying them off as they shared news of what was so far known of the deaths in the snow.
Chapter Thirteen
The snow did not completely melt that day. The deceptive sun faded before the afternoon, and as darkness fell the ground froze, leaving the snow hard and treacherously slippery. The air was still, there was not the slightest wind, but the chill seemed to rise up, spreading through his body and reminding him of the dangers of sleeping outside. The cave was not a cheerful prospect and he turned his back on it and went to the brightly lit house of William Ddole.
As he approached the door, he glanced in through the slightly steamy window, hearing the busy sounds of Florrie and her assistants as they prepared an evening meal for Penelope and her mother. So many people to look after so few family. He sighed. All he wanted was a barn and some bread to fill the ache in his stomach.
He moved closer to the window. Vague shapes passed to and fro, dark colours and some, even with the misted windows, clearly seen to be a bright and startling white. Voices came to him and he moved closer to listen, the vicarious companionship a comfort.
He was lost in wistful imaginings of belonging to a household such as this, so that the hands suddenly gripping roughly on his arms, pinning them close to his body, made him shout in alarm. As he struggled to be free, he turned his head to see one of the stable boys holding him, glaring at him.
‘What are you doing here? Spying on us, maybe?’
David was ten years older than Barrass and powerfully built. With ease, Barrass was pushed in through the back door, where Olwen ran to him and begged Florrie to let him
at least sit a while before the fire.
‘Frozen he’ll be if he stays out there with so few clothes on,’ she said. ‘You don’t want another death laid at the door of Ddole House, do you?’ she added as doubt showed in Florrie’s face.
‘What is happening here?’ Penelope came into the busy kitchen, where food and the preparation of it was spread across the large table and dishes and pots were stacked against the small table and the sink. ‘Barrass?’ she looked questioningly at the shivering boy, and at the hands still holding him. ‘What is going on?’ She looked at Florrie for an explanation.
‘Snooping he was, Miss Penelope,’ Florrie said.
‘Were you?’ Penelope asked Barrass.
‘I’m cold and I have nowhere to sleep. I was drawn to the window for the sight of people and the food and warmth I lack,’ he told her.
‘Nowhere to sleep, on a night such as this?’
‘No, Miss Penelope.’
Penelope gestured irritably for the stable boy to release him and said firmly, ‘No one should be turned away on such a night. See that he finds a warm place with the horses, David.’
The stable boy nodded. With a jerk of his head, signalling for Barrass to follow him, he went towards the door.
‘Can we find him some food as well, Miss Penelope?’ Olwen asked, although from the look Florrie gave her she knew she was chancing another slap for impertinence.
‘When you have all eaten, you may send something out to him,’ Penelope said, and with a half apologetic glance towards the boy who had spent most of the previous night searching for her mother, she left the room.
Penelope pressed both hands to her burning face. She refused to admit that the cause of her excitement was seeing the orphan, as her mother called Barrass. What was it about him that made her forget who she was? She had only to hear his name to find herself longing to catch a sight of him. On the rare moments when she was in his company she warmed to him as if he were an equal. In moments of wild fancy, she imagined that his father would be discovered to have been a wealthy man, that he had rich blood in his veins. She impatiently pushed away the threads of where that idea might take her. Really she was no better than a servant who harboured impossible longings of a marriage to her master!
She hurried along the passageway and up the stairs to her mother’s room. She must forget silly fancies and concentrate on someone who might make her his wife, like John Maddern. But the thought of John, who was at that moment on his way from London with her father, did not even make her aware of her beating heart. The sight of Barrass, in his once-smart clothes now wrinkled with damp, and his dark soulful eyes, made her heart threaten to jump from her body.
* * *
Olwen stayed at Ddole House that night. Florrie had insisted that the weather was too bad for the girl to run home at a late hour. She shared a bed with Bethan who, even in the bitter cold, seemed to take for ever to undress and slip between the icy linen sheets.
She tried to talk to the girl, find out more of the way the Ddole family lived. All she knew after her weeks there were the times and contents of their meals. But before her first question was formed and uttered, Bethan was asleep.
Olwen lay awake for a long time, the coldness of her bed, without a fire below adding warmth to the room as it did at home, the strangeness of the attic and her uncommunicative companion all held back sleep, as did the thought of Barrass sleeping in a nearby barn.
A tear slipped from her eye as she wondered if he would ever have a home and the luxury of friends again. If only Mam would let him stay with them. She would willingly give up her bed – or share it with him. Then he would do to her all the things he did with others, like Violet, Carrie and the fat Blodwen, and, she suspected, what he wanted to do with Penelope. She had seen the expression in both their eyes when they had looked at each other down in the kitchen.
She growled like a puppy. Why couldn’t he forget about girls just for a little longer? There was no sense in him, she decided. None at all! A deep frown settled on her face as she finally slept.
* * *
Barrass woke from a dreamless sleep, warm and comfortable and with crease marks on his face and arms from the hay as evidence of his luxurious accommodation. He was undecided whether to stay or leave. He might be accused of scrounging if he stayed but the thought of some of the bread he could smell baking in the kitchen decided him. He would go when he was told to go, and not before.
It was David who came with food. Bread still hot from the oven and a hunk of cheese, still on the knife. There was an apple, wrinkled from storage, and a mug of ale with which to wash it down. Barrass had never felt so comfortable in his life. If only he could stay. He boldly decided to ask for Miss Penelope and see if she would find him work to pay for his keep.
He knocked on the door, and it was Olwen who opened it, her face lighting up in delight. He handed her his metal breakfast plate and said,
‘Will you ask if I can see Miss Penelope, Olwen? I have a hope that she will let me stay, for a while at least.’
Olwen’s smile was wiped away by a look of irritation.
‘So you want to get around her with your big eyes and your look of a whipped dog, do you?’ she whispered, bending forwards in her favoured position for scolding him, small hands on her sacking-covered hips. ‘Well I’ll warn you, she isn’t the sort to be taken in by the likes of you!’
‘Who is it, Olwen?’ Florrie demanded and, when told that Barrass wanted to see Penelope, she told him to come back later, as it was ‘far too early to bother decent people hardly risen from their beds!’
* * *
It was too cold to stand and wait, and he didn’t want to risk criticism by re-entering the barn without permission, so he went to the small steep woodland leading down to the beach, and spent the morning gathering fallen branches which he intended to sell. Mary allowed him to use Spider’s tools again, and he soon had six sacks filled with logs and kindling.
He sold them all within a few hours of starting out, one at a time on his back, and when he had earned sixpence, went with it to the house at the top of the hill and knocked on Mrs Powell’s door.
‘I’ve come to pay the last sixpence, and to thank you for waiting,’ he said, handing her the coins.
‘Selling wood, are you?’ she asked.
He thought of the remnants of his day’s activities and shook his head. ‘Not to you. I have enough small pieces to fill a sack and I’ll bring it to you without cost,’ he smiled.
When he returned with the sack of wood, he was about to leave it at her door, but knocked and waited. He looked up at the end wall of the house and was alarmed to see how much more weakened it had become. The recent frosts had widened the cracks and made the structure more unstable.
‘Best you get Ivor-the-Builder to look at this house,’ he said, pointing out the huge cracks. ‘Or ask William Ddole to get it fixed, he takes your rent and should make sure it’s safe to live in. Dangerous it is, with water in the cracks and the winter frosts hardening and thawing to make the cracks wider.’
‘He won’t do anything,’ the old lady sighed. ‘Asked I have, time and again.’
He accepted her thanks for the wood and looking back at the precarious house wall, went up through the fields and on to Ddole House. He felt that he was safer in a barn than some people were in houses, and he determined to mention the woman’s plight should he manage to talk to Penelope.
* * *
‘She won’t see you! Too busy for a ragamuffin like you she is!’ was Olwen’s gloating greeting.
‘Oh, then I have nowhere to stay tonight,’ he sighed, glancing at Florrie, who was in the act of handing a cup of tea to the Keeper of the Peace.
‘She says you can stay, but only for a few nights while you find yourself somewhere else,’ Florrie said.
‘Thank her for me, will you?’ Barrass said, his eyes shining in relief. The barn had been so cosy, he would have hated to return to the cave.
He spent the n
ext three days carting wood and stones to the cliffs above the cave and, throwing them down, used them to make a shelter within the cave. At least here, he thought, no one will destroy it, unless Ivor decides to pay me another visit! He shuddered at the thought that Ivor’s temper might be less easily controlled when they next met.
He found a few items of clothing amid the strewn rubble of his last home, stiff with new frost, and he put them to dry around a small fire. Content with what he had achieved, he set out to find himself some work. A safe shelter was the first consideration, but money for food was a close second. He could not go on depending on Olwen and Arthur. He went into the village to beg.
Pitcher threw a volley of bottles at him. Ivor threw an axe. Spider told him it was more than he dare do, to defy the rest of the village on his account, and at Ddole House he was not even seen by Dorothy or her daughter, but told to go away and stay away, by Florrie on their instructions.
On his way back to the cave, he gathered more wood for his store, but on passing the house of old Mrs Powell, went to her door to leave it as an extra gift. If things were difficult for him, then they must be worse for an old lady like her.
As he raised his hand to knock on the door, dust was spreading through the air, and he closed his eyes at the discomfort of it. He became aware of a sound, a slow trickling sound and he waited, listening curiously. Then a few stones fell, some landing near him, and as the sound increased to a roar, he ran away just in time to avoid being covered. The house collapsed with an unbelievably loud noise that went on and on, becoming a part of his existence, filling his head with painful reverberations that he thought would burst his ears.
When he opened his eyes the dwelling place was a pile of screaming rocks and rending wood. All he could see was dust rising like smoke from a giant fire, the house vanished within it. The noise lessened but still echoed within his head for an age. He stared, momentarily dazed by his narrow escape, then realization hit him and he ran towards the moving pile and called with increasing alarm for Mrs Powell.
Summer’s Last Retreat Page 24