Summer’s Last Retreat

by Summer's Last Retreat (retail) (epub)

  Her scolding brought the laughter back into his eyes, barely seen in the poor light escaping from the house.

  ‘Teasing you I was,’ he admitted. ‘I thought I’d make you forget what you saw in feeling sorry for me.’

  ‘How can I forget, when there’s evidence of your “loneliness” all around me. Try to forget I do, every day I give it a real try. But the way you carry on with every girl in the village except me – ' she gave a huge sigh – ‘Barrass, it’s a-w-ful hard.’

  She took his hand and led him around the house, stumbling in the dark that was made more difficult by the occasional light spilling out from the house. He put the bundle of food inside his jacket and protected her with his arm as they manoeuvred the woodpile very close to the house, and skirted the edge of the barn from where the sounds of happy laughter came. Olwen wanted to walk slowly, she was warmed by his arm and the feel of him so close to her. On impulse she hugged him.

  ‘Always be my friend, Barrass,’ she sighed. ‘Whatever happens to us, stay my friend.’

  He touched her forehead with his lips and said, ‘My special, my most loyal friend. No matter what I do or what happens to me, you’re always loyal. Even when I was ridden with fleas you didn’t shun me. Worth more than anything that is, and I’ll never be less than a friend, I promise.’

  As they reached the kitchen door, something ran across their path.

  ‘A rat!’ Barrass said, and picking up a piece of wood he threw it after the scuttling animal. They chased it in the dark, its shadow sometimes looming large as it neared a lighted window, then thinning and disappearing again. His hand held hers tightly and she felt a part of him, knowing that he was enjoying the foolish game because she was sharing it with him. The rat was joined by two more and Olwen screamed with disappointment as they disappeared down a grating leading to the cellar. In the sudden excitement he dropped his bundle of food and Olwen kicked it aside, happily spilling the contents over the cobbled path.

  ‘Don’t worry, Barrass,’ she smiled, ‘I’ll do better than Penelope, I’ll see that you have plenty of good food. Don’t I look after you always?’ Leading him into the kitchen where the servants were wearily sorting out the chaos of the evening, she refilled his scarf with fresh food, smiling her satisfaction as she thought of the mined food given to him by Penelope.

  She glowed as she thought over the words he had spoken, long after the party was over and she had dragged her weary body up the stairs to the bed she was to share with Bethan. What did he mean, never be less than a friend, did he mean that one day, when her body finally decided to grow up, they would be more than friends? That he would kiss her like he kissed the others? She smiled as she slept, pursing her mouth occasionally as she imagined his lips softly pressing against hers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Penelope did not enjoy Christmas. She found John’s company boring and spent a lot of time sitting with her mother, imagining Barrass alone and uncomfortable in his cave near the sea. Her father and John pored over books and lines of figures in the study most mornings, and at some convenient time during the day John would invite her to walk a while with him in the chill of the garden to ‘Refresh themselves in the clean salty air’. These walks, which took place mostly in silence, interspersed with occasional empty flattery, became a burden.

  The bitter cold of November and early December had softened somewhat, and the ice had given way to rain. To walk in the garden meant having heavy boots on her feet, and the regulation half-hour walk that John insisted on meant coming back wet, cold and in need of a complete change of clothes and a warming drink.

  ‘You have to spend so much of your day in the sickroom,’ he explained, ‘that I fear for you getting ill yourself.’

  ‘Please don’t talk of my mother’s room as a sickroom, John,’ she asked. ‘She is much improved since the night of the party. I think the merry crowd did her more good than all Doctor Percy’s medicines.’

  ‘She had been downstairs more, I agree, and has even – against your father’s wishes – wandered over to the stables to look at her horses.’

  ‘You know she has bought two more?’ Penelope asked. ‘David has gone now to fetch them from the south of Gower. Two Welsh mountain ponies which she insists will be a joy to ride, so sturdy and patient.’

  ‘She will never ride again, you must know it?’ John said.

  ‘Perhaps believing that she will, gives her the strength to fight her illness.’

  ‘But she is sorely ill and indeed will not last the winter,’ John insisted, determined that Penelope should not deceive herself with false hopes. He did not understand her determination to cling to the belief that her mother’s sickness was temporary, that her death would be faced when it happened and not rehearsed over and again beforehand.

  Penelope walked a little ahead of him to hide her anger. How could he not see that for as long as her mother lived she would support her in her dreams? She refused to say out loud that her mother was dying. It would seem to be letting her down. She had tried to explain this to John, but his black and white approach to everything convinced him she was living in a dream, to which there was only one end, disappointment and sadness. He could only see the end and not understand the here and now.

  They walked in silence for a time, Penelope wishing that she could leave John and visit Barrass, knowing instinctively that he would understand the game of pretence that her mother was playing and recognize her need to share it. She glanced at John, seeing that once again she had annoyed him. He thought her a foolish female in need of the common-sense protection of a man. She saw him as an insensitive wife-seeker, who thought of a woman as an extension of his business requirements. She shivered, wondering how insistent her father would be that she married him.

  * * *

  That John was considered a good prospect she knew from previous conversations with her father. She also knew that her father, in his present difficulties, leaned on him and valued his advice. It was like a trap closing in on her.

  Since her father’s recent return from London with John, she had not been included in discussions on their financial situation. She had explained her fears, and had been told to leave it to them, order some new dresses and forget her anxieties. It irked her that she had been left to deal with the running of the house and her sick mother and all the day-to-day problems that occurred while they had been away, yet was now forbidden to ask the simplest question. After all, her future as well as her father’s was affected by their financial position. Unless she married John.

  Another glance at his stern expression dispirited her further and she turned back to the house.

  ‘I have had enough health-giving fresh air for today,’ she said firmly.

  He looked about to argue. It had been his intention that they should walk to where they could look down on the sea. There was a bay he wished to study, and having Penelope with him was an excellent excuse to stand and stare. But seeing the rare light of battle in her eyes, he smiled and took her arm, gently guiding her back.

  The sound of shrieking women and the lower rumble of men’s laughter greeted them as they reached the grounds of the house. Penelope looked at John, whose face was a mask of concentration. He was obviously unaware of the strange sounds.

  ‘John, can’t you hear?’ she said, picking up her skirts to run towards the house. ‘Something strange is happening.’

  Brought back to the present, he followed, catching her up and then insisting she waited until he had investigated.

  She stood at the wide gate to the drive and, on tiptoe, tried to see beyond his running figure to the source of the excitement. She saw him stop and talk briefly to Florrie, who was standing on top of an upturned barrel supported by the Keeper of the Peace. He did not come back to explain what was happening, and she began to step closer, hoping to overhear what was being said by the shrieking voices surrounding Florrie.

  The group near the kitchen door and at the side of the house all held sticks with which t
hey occasionally beat the ground to added shouts and screams. Then, when Penelope thought she would have to defy John and run to see for herself, a small figure detached itself from the rest and ran towards her, skirts held high above knees and bare feet.

  ‘Olwen! What is happening?’ she demanded as the flying figure reached her, blue eyes sparkling with fun, hair streaming back in the wind of her speed.

  ‘It’s Collins-the-Rats, Miss,’ Olwen said breathlessly. ‘It’s been such fun you’d never believe!’

  ‘Fun?’ Penelope laughed.

  ‘Oh yes, Miss. He’s chased them into his sack and so many have run past him that the house seems to be moving away from them instead of the other way about. Cook has sent all the furniture out into the garden, and the carpets, including the new one just arrived from the town, are all out having a beating as if the creatures are hiding in the weave.

  ‘Terrified they are, all of them. Daniels was sitting drinking an ale all peaceful like and suddenly there was one of the beady-eyed little brutes at the toe of his fine leather boot. Cook threw a saucepan at it and Daniels thought she had gone mad, like Gregory Pugh did, and suddenly there was nothing but uproar.’

  ‘Yes—’ Penelope failed to hide her smile ‘—It does sound like fun. What a pity I missed most of it.’

  ‘Come and stand up by me. There’s no danger of being bitten,’ Olwen promised. ‘Oh, I wish Barrass could see this! I’ve never seen Cook in such a tizzy!’

  Forgetting her place as she frequently did, Olwen took Penelope’s hand and, laughing, dragged her towards the house. Penelope saw that the doors leading to the cellars were open and beside them stood her father in angry discussion with Collins-the-Rats. She did not listen to what was said, but went past them to stand on a box where she could see all that went on. Olwen stood beside her, pointing out the rats that still darted for freedom through the screaming servants.

  John saw her and ran to help her down.

  ‘My dear, I’m so sorry you are frightened like this,’ he said, holding out his hands for her. Penelope brushed them away.

  ‘John, it’s the best fun we’ve had all through the festivities! Do go away, you are blocking our view. Oh look!’ She nudged the girl beside her. ‘There goes a pair of them.’

  ‘Look out, David, they looks mean!’ Olwen joined in, glancing at Penelope for her to share the mirth.

  Penelope ignored John’s impatient shrug and watched the stable boy aim his stick at the pair of rats scuttling towards him. He missed and disappeared into the barn in pursuit.

  ‘Please, Miss,’ Olwen dared to say when order had finally been restored, ‘can you ask for me to have a hour or two off so I can go and tell Barrass? He’d love to hear about it and it’s an a-w-ful long time since I saw him.’

  Penelope nodded. ‘I will tell my father I have fish to buy and we will go together.’

  Olwen thanked her, hiding her disappointment at not visiting Barrass alone in a final laugh as Florrie set about ordering the return of the furniture.

  ‘Best I go and help now.’ She jumped off the box and offered her thin arm to help Penelope down before running back to the kitchen and the much-delayed preparations for luncheon.

  John did not attempt to conceal his annoyance at Penelope’s unruly behaviour. Penelope had described the disastrous rat-catching episode to her mother who had livened up and regretted that she had not been called to witness it herself. Dorothy had felt well enough to join them in the dining room, but the obvious annoyance felt by John had both women subdued before the meal had begun.

  ‘I have annoyed you, John?’ Penelope said when Bethan brought the last of the courses. ‘I should not have shown such enjoyment?’

  ‘Not in front of the servants.’

  ‘But John, this isn’t London with your formal ways,’ Penelope protested. ‘Here we take every opportunity for laughter. If I had been fast enough, I would have let loose some of the hounds! Then we would have had some sport!’

  ‘I intend to live in London for most of the year,’ John said stiffly. ‘I would wish for a wife who knew how to behave in the social setting I enjoy there.’

  ‘Then London is the place to look for a wife, surely?’ Penelope ignored her father’s surprised look and went on daringly, ‘I wonder why you spend so much time here with the likes of us if we are not to your taste, sir.’

  ‘You are very much to my taste,’ John replied. He glanced at William, who nodded, then he went on, ‘It is my dearest wish that you become my wife, dear Penelope. I feel sure that you and I can have a happy life together, once we have sorted out a few small difficulties.’

  The fork dropped from Penelope’s hand. What manner of man was he that he asked her like this, with her parents listening, and the servants likely to wander in to gather more gossip for the kitchens? She stood up, colour suffusing her face, and walked to her mother’s chair.

  ‘Mother, I think it is time that you went back upstairs. Shall I call for someone to help us?’

  ‘I will take your mother to her room,’ William said firmly. ‘You stay and – entertain John.’

  As soon as the door closed behind her parents, Penelope stormed out and went to her room. Summoning a servant, she asked for her coat and boots, then went to the kitchen and told Florrie that the kitchen would have to do without Olwen that afternoon as she needed the girl to accompany her on an errand.

  Seeing how ill prepared Olwen was for a walk in the chill misty afternoon of early January, Penelope sent Bethan to her room for an extra cloak.

  They walked across the wet fields talking easily, forgetting the pretence that they were not friends, until they reached the edge of the cliffs. There, stepping as close to the edge as they dare, Olwen called for Barrass. He came almost immediately and his eyes lit up as he saw his visitors.

  ‘You are well come,’ he said, picking up Olwen and swinging her about him as if she were a child. He saw that Penelope had a basket filled, he guessed, with food, and he thanked her more solemnly, looking deeply into her eyes and seeing what he had come to recognize as the desire for more than friendship.

  ‘Will you visit?’ he asked, pointing down the ill-defined path to the sea.

  ‘Barrass!’ Olwen said disparagingly. ‘Miss Penelope doesn’t want to see your old cave, and besides she can’t manage the pathway.’

  ‘I’ll help her,’ Barrass promised, knowing Penelope would not refuse.

  ‘We cannot stay long,’ Penelope said, but allowed him to take her hand and lead her to the dangerous descent. ‘You go first, Olwen, and show me how it’s done.’

  Olwen scrambled down and, looking up, wondered at the unnecessary slowness of Penelope’s steps, and the way that Barrass held on to her waist for an interminably long time.

  ‘Hopeless she is, it isn’t that difficult,’ she muttered, pretending not to understand.

  Barrass had made the cave quite comfortable, with blankets both to sleep on and to act as a screen against the wind that came off the sea with almost every tide. A fire burned sluggishly, sending smoke out across the rocks in a blue haze. There were cooking pans, a supply of tapers and a few good thick candles with a flint beside them, a jar of water in a corner away from the fire, and a shelf on which lay a few crusts. He had most of what he needed, but Penelope grieved for the way he had to live. From what she had learnt from Olwen, Barrass had never lived in a true home for more than a few weeks at a time, and none of those occasions lately.

  They stayed a little while but Olwen was unhappy. She felt the air sparking as in a thunderstorm, something passing between Barrass and Penelope that isolated her and made her feel she was not needed. She slumped against the rocky wall, damp with the approach of evening, and looked down at the sullen sea, rising and falling against the rocks so close to her.

  ‘It will soon be dark,’ she said, urging Penelope to rise by standing up and taking hold of the empty basket.

  Barrass again helped Penelope to negotiate the steep and dangerous climb, d
ismissing Olwen’s puffing and panting with a casual request for her to ‘stop showing off’. She glared at him, daring him to touch Penelope’s hand as they said goodbye, her blue eyes buried in a frown.

  He stood at the top of the cliff for as long as they were in sight, waving whenever one of the heads turned to look back.

  ‘Why won’t people help him?’ Olwen asked. ‘They tried to make him go away.’

  ‘I learnt from my father, when I mistakenly invited him to the Christmas party, that he is not to be trusted,’ Penelope said.

  ‘Not with girls for sure.’ Olwen glanced at her companion, who seemed not to have heard.

  ‘The boats have been reported on several occasions, and until they find out who is spying they will continue to believe Barrass is responsible.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t!’

  ‘He complains loudly and adamantly that he does not approve of people cheating on the king’s taxes. How are they to believe this does not include helping catch the guilty ones?’

  ‘But my father is one of the “guilty ones”. Barrass wouldn’t risk harming him, or Dan. He wouldn’t!’

  ‘I believe that, but how do we convince the others?’

  They walked on silently as the mist of the closing day folded in around them. When they reached their first sight of Olwen’s home, they stopped. John Maddern and two other men were pacing the land on which Spider kept his pigs and grew his crops.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Olwen asked. ‘Why are they measuring out Dadda’s land?’

  ‘I – I can’t imagine,’ Penelope said, swiftly turning away. ‘Best we go around by the stream. I don’t want to explain to John Maddern where we’ve been.’

  * * *

  It was much later when Olwen discovered the reason for the activity around her home. Spider called at Ddole House while she was washing the huge cauldron in which Florrie had recently made a leek and chicken cawl. The thick soup had burned onto the cauldron and she was so busy trying to remove it she did not hear him arrive.