by Val Wood
He gave her a quick smile. ‘And you’d defend me against him, would you?’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Of course I would.’
He looked at her tenderly. ‘If he’s out there, all the more reason why you should stay here with ’door locked.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ she determined. ‘I’ve made up my mind.’
‘Will you always come with me, Rosa?’ he asked. ‘Even if we have to leave Sunk Island?’
She was about to reply when they heard footsteps on the stairs and Delia came into the room looking tired and dejected. Matthew turned towards her. ‘Delia. I’m going across to Marsh Farm and Rosa’s coming to pick up Jim’s washing,’ he lied, harmlessly. ‘Will you lock ’door behind us and wait up ’till we get back?’
‘Now?’ she griped. ‘Why can’t Jim bring it in ’morning? I don’t like stopping on my own.’
‘You’ll not be on your own,’ Rosa said quickly, ‘your da’s upstairs, and Jim keeps forgetting to bring his dirty clothes across. You know I keep asking him.’
Delia shrugged. ‘Do as you like,’ she muttered. ‘I couldn’t care less what you do. It doesn’t make any difference what I say or think anyway. I’m a nobody in this house. Of no importance whatsoever.’
‘That’s not true, Delia,’ Matthew retaliated. ‘Look, I’ll talk to you when I get back.’
She didn’t answer and turned her back on them and sat down by the fire, only nodding when Matthew reminded her to lock the door.
‘Should we go for Jim?’ Rosa asked as they hurried along, and she pulled her shawl around her. A strong chill wind had sprung up, whistling about them.
‘No, he’d onny try to put me off going. There’s summat Jim isn’t telling me; some secret.’
Yes, Rosa agreed silently. There is, there always has been. For many years.
There was a full moon but it was hidden by dark buffeting clouds. Streaks of light appeared intermittently, giving the clouds a halo of silver but shedding no luminance on the land, and they had to take care where they put their feet. Matthew carried a lantern and also the axe which he had picked up from the woodstore. Rosa took hold of his elbow. ‘Watch your feet,’ she murmured. ‘That’s what my ma used to say whenever we went down to ’river bank.’
‘Do you still miss her?’ Matthew asked softly. ‘I still miss my ma.’
‘I can hardly remember her,’ she admitted, ‘but strangely I feel her presence, as if she hasn’t gone. And,’ she paused, ‘even though I didn’t know my father at all, I feel as if he is still here too. There have been so many sailors and fishermen washed up here on ’shore and yet his body was never found.’
‘Mebbe you like to feel that he’s still here?’ he said. ‘Mebbe you don’t want to think that he’s dead.’
‘Yes.’ She looked up at him. ‘Perhaps that’s it.’ Have I inherited this forlorn hope from my mother? she thought. Is that why I can’t commit myself to Matthew? ‘Fred hasn’t brought those papers back from the lawyer yet,’ she commented. ‘I hope they haven’t lost them.’
As they approached Marsh Farm, Rosa took the lantern from Matthew whilst he lifted the heavy iron latch and opened up the gate. They crossed the rectangular yard containing the pig pen and straw shelter, and approached the barn which was under the same roof as the house itself. The granary was built at the side of the barn but at a slightly lower level. ‘I’ll take a look in ’barn first,’ Matthew whispered. ‘Then up in hayloft. You stay here.’
He smashed the chain holding the padlock with one swoop of his axe and opened the door. He propped the axe against the wall and taking the lantern stepped inside the timber-framed barn. The last time he had been inside they had been threshing and were choked by the dust, even though the heavy wooden doors were propped open. There had been only a small corn harvest at Marsh Farm and he remembered that his father had insisted that the threshing was done immediately, rather than wait for the winter months as they usually did. Now each of the three bays was swept clean, a box waggon and a two-wheeled hay cart in one of them, some stacks of straw in another. The flails were hanging from hooks on the wall and the winnowing baskets stacked neatly in a corner.
There were no cattle or horses kept here since Mr Drew had taken over the farm, and no hens or ducks either as there had been in Mr Jennings’s time, and Matthew thought it strange that Jim hadn’t seen fit to keep any. He had some pigs, four sows in litter and a boar, but had said that he didn’t want to increase the stock and always sent off the young pigs to market as soon as they were ready. His heart isn’t in it, Matthew thought as he climbed the ladder to the hayloft, yet it was once a good holding.
He lifted his lantern and at a cursory glance there was nothing unusual to be seen, just rusty old tools that had once belonged to Rosa’s grandfather, scythes, sickles and hay forks. A pile of rope lay coiled up in a corner alongside some corn sacks and potato baskets. There was no winter bedding as there were no animals kept there, but a number of wooden crates were stacked side by side beneath the wooden rafters, half hidden by sacking.
Rosa waited inside the door of the barn. Though the surroundings were familiar to her, she felt uneasy. She wasn’t normally of a nervous disposition, but there were rattles and clatterings as the wind rushed around the yard, clanking the lids on iron buckets and blowing twigs and branches everywhere, and she could hear the creaking of the boards in the hayloft as Matthew moved about.
She kept her hand on the heavy door to stop it banging and looked up the ladder. She could just see the halo of light from the lantern, but everything else was in pitch darkness. She glanced over her shoulder: the moon was hidden again by thick cloud, and the air was heavy in spite of the wind. She gave a sudden gasp as a shadow loomed in the yard behind her. ‘Jim! Is that you?’
‘No, my darling.’ A soft voice answered her and her mouth was covered by a rough hand. ‘It’s not your precious Jim. It’s your old friend John Byrne.’
She tried to bite his hand as he picked her up with his other arm and carried her towards the granary, but he appeared not to feel the pain for he laughed softly and neither stumbled or panted as he took her through the open door.
‘Now, promise you won’t scream or shout and I’ll take my hand away,’ he murmured. ‘If you do, it’ll be the worse for that fine young fellow back there.’
She nodded. His face was close to hers and his hand was tight against her cheeks. Slowly he removed it, then gently smoothed her face. ‘What soft skin, Rosa! Soft and blooming like rose petals. Is that where you got your name, I wonder.’
She shook her head. She was trembling so much that she couldn’t speak.
‘Why, I could die happy if I could but kiss that unblemished skin.’ He whispered, yet his tone was menacing.
‘Please don’t,’ she begged. ‘I wouldn’t want you to.’
‘Ah!’ She felt his breath on her face as he spoke, and he still had his arm around her. ‘Not like Delia, then? She wanted me to.’ He ran his fingers around her waist. ‘Delia wanted me to do all kinds of things.’ Then he drew back and, as he did, the moon came from behind the clouds and shone a bright path into the granary. She saw that his red hair was matted and his face was grimy, and she shuddered. The thought of him touching her horrified her.
‘But you wouldn’t want that, would you, Rosa? You’d want to keep yourself pure for someone special?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I would.’
He nodded. ‘I respect that, Rosa, though I’d be disappointed that I wasn’t the one. Still,’ she saw his eyes gleam, ‘if that raw youth searching in the barn amongst my things decides to cause trouble, then I might think fit to take you along with me, and who knows what might happen if we were alone together?’ His voice was intimidating and she could feel her fear growing stronger. ‘Men are such weak creatures, it would be more than I could bear having such beauty beside me.’
He drew her towards the door and, putting both hands around her waist, said softly, ‘N
ow that we’ve had our little chat, I want you to shout to – Matthew, isn’t it? Listen,’ he cocked his head. ‘I can hear him. Tell him to come at once.’
‘You’ll not hurt him? Please don’t! He’s done nothing.’
‘He hasn’t, has he? Not like some people I know. But I want him to help me. He’s such a fine fellow I’m sure he’ll be glad to. Go on.’ His voice became rough. ‘Shout!’
Matthew stepped across to the crates and saw that they were sealed by wooden locks. He’d left his axe below and, looking around for something to open them, found a spanner lying on top of the sacks. He swung it against one of the locks and it cracked open. He lifted the lid. In the crate, packed in cotton cloth, were rolls of fabric. He rubbed his fingers against one of them. It was soft and fine and, holding up his lantern, he saw that it was a rich red. He pulled up a fold of another roll, a cream colour and thicker in texture.
Is it silk, I wonder? He opened another crate and the sweet rich aroma of tobacco came drifting out, as it did in the third crate. There were two more larger crates. He smashed open one which had an iron lock on it and took a deep breath as he saw that it too was filled with sacks of tobacco. ‘Oh, Da,’ he breathed. ‘What have you done?’
He called down the ladder to Rosa. ‘Rosa! You were right. It’s all up here.’
She didn’t reply so he called again. ‘Rosa!’ Still no answer and he wondered if she had been disturbed by Jim returning home from the Ship. I’ll have summat to say to him, he thought, as he ran easily down the ladder. The door was open but Rosa was not there beside it and he called again, more urgently, and held up the lantern as there was very little light coming in from the open door.
She wasn’t there. Nor was she in the yard. He walked towards the granary and saw that the door was ajar. His heart started to beat faster as he thought of John Byrne. ‘Rosa!’ He lifted his voice to a shout. ‘Where are you?’
‘Matthew! I’m here.’ Her voice sounded thin and frightened and came from behind the granary door. ‘Don’t come in!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE MOON SLID behind a cloud again and Matthew held the lantern high. Rosa stood in the doorway of the granary and John Byrne was behind her, one hand resting familiarly on her shoulder.
‘Let her go!’ Matthew’s voice was full of controlled anger. ‘What sort of a man are you to hide behind a woman?’
Byrne drew in a gasp of fury. ‘I know what kind of man I am, I’ve served a long apprenticeship. Not like you,’ he sneered, ‘just off his mammy’s breast.’ He put his free hand on Rosa’s other shoulder, holding her fast. ‘But you’re mistaken, I’m not hiding behind her. We’ve had a little chat, Rosa and me, and if I don’t get cooperation from you, then she’s agreed to come with me. Isn’t that so, Rosa?’
Matthew saw the fear in her face and said quickly, ‘What is it you want from us? Haven’t you done enough damage to this family already? Why don’t you just go? The law will catch up with you if you don’t.’
The moon slid out again and illuminated Byrne’s face. ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Done damage to your family! Sure you don’t know the history, do you, Matthew? Has your daddy not taken you on his knee and told you the tale of the Byrne brothers and Señor Carlos? No, I can see from your face that he hasn’t.’ He stroked Rosa’s hair and Matthew felt his hackles rise. He couldn’t endure seeing Byrne touch her.
‘Well,’ Byrne said softly. ‘Rosa’s father and the Byrne brothers and your father had a good little business going. But there was some double dealing going on and I’d swear on my mammy’s head that Carlos and the eminent Mr Drew, aided by young Jim, decided to go into business together and cut us out. The Customs swooped on the ship where my brother and I were waiting and Carlos conveniently disappeared.’ He gave a half smile. ‘You’ve not heard that story before, Matthew?’
‘No,’ Matthew said bluntly. ‘And I don’t believe it.’
‘Ah! It’s true enough,’ Byrne said pleasantly. ‘I could tell you so many stories about your father, Matthew, but I wouldn’t sully Rosa’s ears in the telling of them. Ask him sometime, man to man, about his trips into Hull to visit the ladies of the night. Oh,’ he said in mock anguish. ‘I really didn’t mean to tell.’
His voice hardened as he continued. ‘And if your conniving dissolute father thinks that because I’m on the run now, I’m going to leave all those goods behind for him, like last time, then he’s very much mistaken.’
‘What do you want from us?’ Matthew was shaken by what Byrne had said, but as he spoke he heard the sound of the gate creaking and hoped that it was Jim, home from the Ship. Byrne heard it too and pulled Rosa back into the granary.
‘Get inside,’ he spat at Matthew. ‘The girl will feel my hand round her throat if you don’t.’
Matthew believed him. He wished he’d picked up the axe instead of the lantern, but he came inside as he was bid. ‘It’s Jim,’ he urged. ‘Tell us what you want and be gone.’
‘I want a waggon to hold the goods and a couple of strong horses to pull it. I also need a driver, because,’ he smiled at Rosa, ‘I shall be under the covers, cuddling up to Rosa, making sure that we get into Hull safely.’
‘You want me to drive you into Hull?’ Matthew was incredulous at the gall of the man.
Byrne nodded and looked out through the door to where Jim could be seen crossing the yard. ‘Yes, or Jim,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘We know that Jim is a good fellow. Always does as he’s told.’
He leaned towards the doorway, still keeping hold of Rosa. ‘Jim,’ he called, and it came home to Matthew that John Byrne knew no fear, even though there would now be two men against him. Except that he still held Rosa fast for his own protection and surety.
Jim looked towards the granary. ‘Who’s there? Matthew? Is that you? ’Barn door’s open!’
Byrne kicked open the granary door. ‘Well, who in the name of heaven can have done that, for it wasn’t me!’
Jim stopped. ‘Byrne?’ he said warily. ‘I thought you’d gone from Sunk Island! They’re starting another search in ’morning.’
‘Is that so,’ Byrne answered cheerily. ‘Well, I’ll be long gone by then, me and Matthew and Rosa. Why don’t you come in,’ he persuaded. ‘We’re all here and telling a few tall stories. Reminiscing, you know. We’re having some real good crack.’
‘Matthew – Rosa! What’s going on?’
‘You tell me!’ Matthew was full of fury. Jim’s manner towards Byrne was so familiar that it seemed quite possible that he had known the Irishman before. ‘I’ve been hearing that you and Da and the Byrnes were running smuggled goods together.’
Jim was silent and Byrne broke in, ‘And then you double-crossed us, didn’t you, Jim? You and your da and Carlos.’
‘Not Carlos,’ Jim muttered. ‘He wanted to finish wi’ smuggling when he married Mary Jennings.’
‘What happened to him, Jim?’ Rosa’s voice was quiet. Matthew put the lantern down on the floor as the clouds scudded away, and he saw her pale face in the moonlight. He must take his chance when he could to overpower Byrne.
‘He’s dead.’ They could hardly hear what Jim said, his voice was so low.
‘Hah!’ Byrne was disbelieving. ‘That’s what you say. So what happened to his body?’
‘He’s dead and his body is buried.’
‘Jim!’ Rosa exclaimed. ‘Where? How do you know?’
‘Yes, young Jim.’ Byrne was cynical. ‘How do you know?’
Jim raised his head and looked at them. He was standing outside, close to the open door. He looked at Byrne, then his eyes turned to Matthew, but lingered longer on Rosa who was still held in Byrne’s grasp between him and Matthew.
‘I’m sorry, Rosa.’ His voice was thick with emotion.
‘Come on. Come on!’ Byrne shouted impatiently. ‘We don’t want to dig him up! Just tell us how you know.’
‘I know,’ Jim said slowly, ‘because I killed him.’
No-one spoke for a moment, then
Rosa, in a shaky voice, asked, ‘Why? How?’
‘It was an accident.’ Jim lowered his head. ‘’Gun went off. Killed him instantly.’
‘Why didn’t you tell anybody?’ Matthew said harshly. ‘Where’s he buried?’
Jim’s face was ashen and his voice strained. ‘I’d have been charged wi’ murder if we’d told,’ he muttered. ‘And nobody’ll find him now, he’s well buried. ’Customs had had a tip-off and were on ’lookout.’ He looked up and directly at Byrne. ‘He was riding into Hull to tell you, honest to God, he was! But then—’ He shook his head and his voice broke. He put his hand to his forehead and covered his eyes. ‘It was too late. I’m sorry, Rosa. So sorry.’
Rosa started to weep. ‘How could you keep this to yourself? Why couldn’t you have told me?’
‘All right,’ Byrne broke in. ‘That’s enough.’ He was agitated, as if disturbed by the revelation, and bit on his lip. ‘Leave it! Seamus always believed that Carlos was honest.’ Then he gave a short cynical laugh. ‘But don’t think it makes any difference, I still want that waggon and horses to pull it, so let’s get moving.’
‘We don’t keep any hosses here,’ Matthew said quickly. ‘One of us will have to go to Home Farm to fetch them. But there’s a waggon in ’barn, you can use that.’ He made up his mind to settle the situation.
‘Right,’ Byrne said. ‘Let’s get into the barn, and don’t try anything, either of you. I have the girl, and – ’ he thrust his right hand into his belt, ‘I also have a knife. I wouldn’t want to spoil her lovely face or that slender neck.’ He touched Rosa’s throat with the point of the gleaming blade and she flinched and swallowed.
They all moved into the barn and Jim and Matthew pulled the waggon out from one of the bays. Byrne nodded. ‘Good. Now get the casks out from behind the straw and start loading them into the waggon.’
Matthew looked at him uncomprehendingly, but Jim went across to where the straw was stacked in the other bay and, pulling over a couple of bales, revealed several casks lying beneath. Matthew gave his brother a hostile stare. Jim turned his face away from his glance and they both loaded the casks into the waggon.