Pitcher saw him running towards him and raised a bottle ready to throw. But when Barrass called out in obvious alarm and ignored the threatening missile, he lowered it and listened.
‘The house has fallen abroad like paper in the rain! Quick, she’s inside. Mrs Powell’s buried under her house!’
Without waiting to see if Pitcher was following, Barrass ran back up the hill. People were already standing looking at the devastated building, none apparently aware of it being occupied.
Arthur was close behind him as he reached the road where the spread of fallen rocks began, some rolling towards them down the steep hill like a game of skittles. With the dog barking in excitement, they began to climb over the shifting rubble. Once they started to remove the stones and broken timber, others joined in until there was a tunnel of sorts through which Barrass crawled. Ivor Baker called for him to stop.
‘No sense you killing yourself,’ he said gruffly as Barrass’s heels disappeared and more stones fell to hide his passing. ‘Take the end of this rope at least,’ he shouted, ‘then we’ll be able to find you if…’ More stones fell and he stopped, convinced the boy would never be seen alive again.
‘Old she is,’ he said to the crowd who stood around, spuriously anxious looks barely hiding their excitement. ‘Old and ready to meet her maker! Barrass, fool that he is, is but a boy.’
Arthur had taken the rope Ivor offered, and attempted to follow his friend under the rubble, but he had no luck, the passageway that had opened to allow Barrass through had been blocked.
‘Shout to me, Barrass,’ the boy called, tears running through the dust on his face. He listened and then his gaunt face brightened, the eyes widening as he heard sounds below him. With Ivor and Pitcher assisting, and others forming a chain to take the stones he moved, Arthur cleared an area until they could see below the collapsed roof timbers to where a tent-like space was formed.
Mrs Powell was crouched with Barrass leaning over her protecting her from the occasionally falling debris.
‘Move everything slowly,’ he called to the dirt-streaked, upside-down face that stared, wide-eyed, at them. ‘As soon as you’ve made a space, we’ll get her out.’
‘Someone’s gone to fetch Doctor Percy,’ the face reported, coughing and spluttering in the dust before withdrawing into the outside air.
It took all day for the old woman to be brought safely out of the house. As darkness became complete, the house breathed a last sigh and with a groan of distorting wood, the roof timbers surrendered and fell, filling in the space where she and Barrass had been sheltering.
Doctor Percy examined Mrs Powell and after casually assuring her that there was not even a broken bone, he went off leaving others to decide how she was to be cared for.
‘You could share my shelter,’ Barrass said, ‘but I doubt you’d be able to get there.’ He stopped as he was about to explain where it was, afraid that once again it would be found and destroyed by those who wanted him gone.
Spider and Mary had arrived and they promised to give a home to the old lady until a better one could be found.
Gradually the crowd dispersed until there was only Pitcher, Arthur, the dog – who had changed from white to dirty grey in a matter of hours – and Barrass. Barrass looked at Pitcher uneasily, wondering how the man would react now the danger was safely passed.
‘Best you come home-along-a-me and get yourself cleaned up,’ he said gruffly.
‘Thank you.’ Barrass sighed with relief – perhaps he would be saved yet another night in that cave.
‘Best you stay out of sight of Mistress Palmer, mind,’ Pitcher warned.
He slept in the cellar with Arthur and the dog, who smelt of soot and old mortar. He was stiff and tired from his efforts in the ruins of Mrs Powell’s house, but content, with a roof over his head, some company and a stomach filled with a thick lamb stew left from the family’s meal. In the morning, long before it was light, he was hauled out of his warm bed by Pitcher and told to go.
* * *
It was a Wednesday and he was sitting on a wall outside the alehouse in the darkness, pretending indifference to the harsh coldness that rimmed everything with white, when Kenneth passed on his way to collect the letters from Swansea.
‘Can I come with you, Kenneth?’ he asked.
‘Can’t trust you, boy,’ Kenneth said sadly, his breath forming a cloud around his face.
‘But why? What am I supposed to have done?’ Barrass shouted. Above him a window opened, and Emma threw a bowl of water out.
‘Making more noise than the cats, you are!’ The window slammed shut and curtains swung across obliterating Emma from his sight. The figure of Kenneth disappeared more slowly, steam from the horse’s nostrils blending with the mist of the winter morning. Barrass stood up and stamped his frozen feet. So, he was on his own, what was odd about that? He made his way slowly up the cliff path to see if Mary would give him some breakfast.
* * *
Dorothy Ddole was tormented by dreams of children. She had lost three children of her own to infant mortality, but it was not their tiny faces she saw in the darkness of the night. Knowing she was approaching death made her remember with regret all the things she had done that had caused distress to others. There were so many, although the unkind acts towards adults were not responsible for keeping her awake. Only the children.
There was the boy or girl, she knew not which, whom she had chased on horseback only recently as it climbed down from a tree and ran across her path. She had not pulled the horse back but encouraged it onward, used the child as sport, and even laughed as the terrified face screamed out before falling backwards through the hedge and into the stream away from her fearsome, snorting steed.
Another occasion was the night of the snowstorm. She had settled herself comfortably before the fire of one of the cottagers, who dare not deny her. She had eaten their food, made sure they had stabled her horse, and then pointed to the small child who was about to settle into his truckle bed beside the one used by his parents, and insisted they sent him to let her daughter know she was safe.
The snow had looked like a lace curtain of unbelievable beauty when he had opened the door, the surface silently rising and already higher than his hips. She had ignored the pleading eyes of his mother, and told the child to hurry, pulling the blanket the woman had given her closer about her and glaring with disapproval at the open door.
When she had been told that he had died, buried in the snow before walking more than twenty yards, she had felt no remorse, not until the nightmares had begun.
She knew it was knowledge of her own approaching death that made her feel guilt. It was only a labourer’s child and they had plenty more. Everyone knew they did not feel things the way people like she felt them, didn’t they? But she could not forget the haunted look in the eyes of the child who fell away from her into that stream, wide-eyed in terror, or the sight of that small figure pushing his way out into the snow.
The nights were long, and weakening muscles prevented her from spending too many hours sitting up and reading to pass the lonely hours. Bethan sat in a chair near her for a part of each evening now, but, dozy as her name, the girl slept as soon as she settled in the big, comfortable chair and would not be roused without being hit with a stick and even then she would quickly return to slumber.
Tomorrow William would be home, and perhaps John Maddern with him. She momentarily forgot the way she had caused the death of the cottager’s child and piously asked God to allow her to live long enough to see her own daughter betrothed.
* * *
Arthur was finding work at the alehouse very hard. He hinted to Pitcher that they needed an extra pair of hands, but Pitcher refused.
‘I’ll work-along-a-you for the whole morning, boy, and we’ll get the work done, somehow.’
Pitcher wanted Barrass back, finding in the boy the fulfillment of his long-felt desire for a son. But although he had pleaded with both Emma, who burst into tears ever
y time the boy’s name was mentioned, and with the village council, neither would change their mind about him.
‘We couldn’t rest easy knowing he was about the place gathering information,’ Ivor had insisted. ‘Until we can be sure that he is one of us, then he stays an outcast.’
‘Best that he goes right away, then we won’t have him driving the girls and their mothers to tears of pity and much else besides,’ another added.
‘I think we should ask the vicar to repeat his warnings about the weakness of the flesh,’ came the voice of Carter Phillips’ old grandfather whose age no one knew. ‘The boy’s a danger to young and old.’
So Pitcher deliberately made work difficult and refused to continue with the untidy mess that was to have been Emma’s new drawing room, in the hope that eventually Barrass would be allowed to return.
* * *
Olwen couldn’t find Barrass. She searched frantically during the few spare hours she had, but no one had seen him. Arthur had told her that Pitcher had allowed him to stay for one night, but since then there had been no sign. Florrie told her not to worry about him.
‘Found himself a safe place for sure. He’s been looking after himself since a baby, that one,’ she said in her sharp voice.
The days were short and very cold as Christmas approached, and Olwen was kept busy with preparations. Dragging herself home after hours scrubbing floors, washing shelves or standing at the many tasks Florrie found for her, she would force herself to go to the cave, or to some of the cottagers, asking if there was news of Barrass, but for three days there was none.
On Sunday afternoon, when she was allowed a few precious free hours she went to see Enyd. She was invited inside the house on the earthen bank by Enyd, and was surprised to see her brother in the living room.
‘Anything wrong at home?’ He stood up immediately.
‘Come from work I have, not to fetch you,’ Olwen explained. ‘I wondered if Kenneth has seen anything of Barrass.’
‘Dadda won’t talk to him, not now,’ Enyd said firmly, glancing at her mother. ‘What with one thing and another, no one will spare him a thought.’
‘Well I will!’ Olwen said aggressively. ‘Disappeared he has, and I’m thinking about him for sure! It’s never been so cold as this week, and him with nowhere to sleep. Searched for Mistress Ddole all through the night of the snowstorm, and saved old Mrs Powell from her house, then sent off as if he were a scabby old dog!’ She took the seat her brother offered, but continued to glare at both him and Enyd.
Ceinwen offered the girl a cup of tea and a Welsh-cake, still but from the girdle. She was red-faced from the heat, and her eyes reflected red from the flames.
‘Don’t fuss yourself, girl,’ she said. ‘He’ll have found a place, that one. Never been without a bed and a feed yet. Someone’ll take pity on him.’
‘He doesn’t want anyone to “take pity"?’ Olwen sighed as she sank her teeth into the hot, flat, spicy fruit-cake. ‘He’s a part of this village and should have a place, not be depending on handouts from anyone who feels pity!’
She left after a while, with Dan promising to wait until Kenneth returned from his rounds.
‘I’ll ask for news, there’s no one more able to tell you where he is, even if he doesn’t talk to the boy,’ Dan said. ‘Hears everything, Kenneth does.’
Olwen went next to the alehouse. It was closed and dark apart from a flickering light from a back room. She banged loudly on the door and window until Pitcher came complaining that the glass would be smashed and him with enough to pay for already.
‘No, I haven’t seen him since Wednesday,’ he said. ‘And thank you for not banging on the glass when it’s nothing more urgent you have to say.’ He closed the door on her as from upstairs he could hear Emma shouting, demanding to know who was calling.
He stood behind the closed door for a moment, ashamed of the way he had turned the girl away, ashamed too that the village was ignoring a homeless person in this weather. Repaying his kindness by fathering a child on his daughter was inexcusable, but the boy did not deserve to die out in the frosts like a sick old fox.
Emma’s voice was becoming a wail, and he reached for a cloak hanging behind the door. With an irritable shout to explain his intention, he ran after Olwen, to see her safely home. Spite couldn’t include little Olwen no matter how loyal she was to the boy.
* * *
Olwen heard Mistress Powell’s gentle snores coming from below her, and imagined the old woman sitting in the chair near the fire, so much a part of their home now, she was hardly noticed. There was an occasional crack as a stick was fed to the flames, and the shuffling of falling coals. Small sounds, familiar and soothing. Then she heard Dan returning from Enyd’s and, hoping for news of Barrass, she hurried down the ladder in her nightgown and a woollen hat – and screamed with delight to see Barrass standing beside Dan, both glowing from their walk up the cliff path.
Her eyes were huge with sleep, her smiling face small yet perfectly formed, framed by the hat which covered her ears yet allowed her hair to cascade down her back in disarray. She was startled by a look of surprise and admiration on Barrass’s face, and blushed in the wonder of it. Unrecognizable sensations suffused her body, starting deep within her and spreading until even the tips of her toes were warmed by them.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she whispered, her voice sounding as strange as the feelings his eyes had stimulated.
‘I’ve been sleeping in a barn so near you I could have called and you would have heard me,’ he smiled. ‘At Ddole House, with the connivance of Florrie and David.’
She thought she would hear if he called from a hundred miles away.
‘If Mistress Ddole found out…’ she said, wishing that the look had not already faded from his dark eyes.
‘I’m gone long before the family is up.’
‘I thought you might be off on some trip to find your father,’ she said, as Mary prepared a drink and food for them.
‘William Ddole is back now, delayed he was with the ice and snow. I can’t sleep there any longer,’ Barrass told them. ‘I’m off to the cave, but don’t tell anyone where I am, will you?’
‘In more trouble? Been fathering more babies?’ Olwen whispered to him, and he laughed.
In the corner, Mistress Powell opened rheumy eyes and winked at the tall, dark young man as if with a shared secret.
‘You shouldn’t know about such things, Olwen, you’re only a child,’ Barrass whispered back, deliciously close to her ear so his breath filtered through the woollen hat.
‘Mamma, Dadda, we can’t let him go to the cave at this time of night, now can we?’ she said firmly, willing her words to be heeded by her stony-faced father and her gentle, concerned mother.
‘Spider?’ Mary said, looking at her husband.
‘All right, but not a word to anyone or I’ll have some explaining to do,’ Spider said gruffly. He did not like leaving Barrass to fend for himself, but was afraid of disobeying the council. ‘Cwtch up on the seat near the fire and out you go before anyone is about in the morning. Right?’
Olwen went to bed to dream of that look returning to Barrass’s face, warmed by the memory of it, and the knowledge that he was sleeping near her.
Barrass stayed awake for a long time thinking of Olwen, and to his surprise his first thought in the morning was of her, wearing that childish hat with the fastenings tied under her chin, that had made her look so unbelievably beautiful.
Mary and Olwen watched as Barrass set off to re-inhabit his cave. Mary had given him some extra clothes and some old, rather worn blankets made years before from the sheep’s wool she had collected from the hedgerows. Spider walked with him to carry the gifts which included food.
As they reached the place where the path lay dangerously near the edge and gave them their first view of the sea, Barrass stopped and pointed. Below them, washed this way and that by the waves were planks of wood and other debris. Spider looked at the boy and
, deciding to trust him, said slowly,
‘It’s the boats that were lost on the night of the snowstorm, boy. They didn’t read the signs of the approaching storm – took many of us by surprise, it did. They should have turned back, or at least stayed well clear of land with visibility practically nil.’
‘It was a cargo from France, was it?’ Barrass asked. When Spider nodded, they climbed down to search the beach for bodies.
There were none to be found. Of the cargo they saw only a spoilt bale of silk, a solitary barrel, which they dragged above the tide line and hid among pebbles and rocks, and a few empty and broken boxes. Sadly, thinking of the lives probably lost, Barrass and Spider went on their way to the cave.
‘I’ll go later and tell them at Ddole House,’ Spider said.
‘I’ll go if you wish,’ Barrass said, hoping that if he was trusted with such a message by Spider, others might reconsider their treatment of him. Spider shook his head again.
‘Best for you and me if you don’t mention this,’ he said and Barrass sadly agreed.
Spider waited until Barrass had lit a fire and made the place as comfortable as possible. ‘Sorry I am, boy,’ he said, ‘but until the council change their mind about you, I can’t do more.’
‘It’s work I need,’ Barrass said, ‘I’m not asking for charity, just a chance to earn my bread. But I don’t want to leave the village to find it. No one wants me but I still feel this is where I belong.’
‘You won’t get work near people with young daughters,’ Spider warned him grimly. ‘Made a big mistake getting tangled up with half a dozen girls, and not wanting to marry any one of them.’
Summer’s Last Retreat Page 25