The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy)

by Lizzie Church

  Now that he was feeling somewhat better Kathryn was amused to find how thoroughly and unaffectedly her unexpected visitor was making himself at home at Sandsford House. He played endlessly with a delighted Bob, he flirted with a flattered Sally and, as the week went on, he even assisted a surprised but grateful Tom with some of the lighter work around the farm. On the fourth afternoon, with Bob safely eating his bread and meat in the kitchen, and Mr Berkeley himself having been supplied with some further clothing and footwear by the obliging Tom, he suggested that Kathryn might be kind enough to take a break from her labours for a while and accompany him on a stroll. He was keen to walk down to Sandsford Cottages so that he might pass on his personal thanks to the three gentlemen (and diverse children) who had so unselfishly provided for his immediate needs, and to assure Mr Arthur of the safe return of his best set of clothing just as soon as he was in a position to do so. When they got there they found that Mr Arthur had hung what remained of Mr Berkeley’s clothing to dry outside the cottage. This was kind, although unfortunately it had become so cut through by the actions of the rocks, and so misshapen by the effects of the sea that although Mr Arthur offered it respectfully to its rightful owner Mr Berkeley declined it with a rueful laugh, and suggested that he might like to use the sorry remains for rags in the cottage instead.

  The errand completed, and the afternoon being a fair one, he then suggested that he and Kathryn might continue their stroll by making their way together down towards the water’s edge.

  ‘For despite the somewhat violent demands it made upon me the other day I still feel a great affinity with the sea,’ he assured her, offering her his arm as they stepped carefully across the hummocky grass to the rocky edge. ‘I was trained as a landscape engineer in the Netherlands – or, as Monsieur Bonaparte now insists it call itself, the Batavian Republic – and became most interested in the draining of the polders there. It is because of my love for the sea that I ended up here, on your beach. I had arrived in England on the northern coast and taken the mail as far as London before I bethought myself to visit an old friend in Southampton on the way home. So I stopped off there for a couple of days and fell in with an old acquaintance of mine in one of the public houses on the quay – the master of a small merchantman - who soon persuaded me that a short sail to Weymouth would be just the way to complete my journey home. Had we not met up again I daresay I should have caught the coach instead. Luckily my main luggage remained with the coach – there was not room for it on the boat – so I am in great expectation of finding it safe at Belvoir as soon as I get myself home. I must admit I shall be pleased to see it. Mr Arthur’s clothing is as fine as it can be, I daresay, but not to be compared in comfort and fit with my favourite tailcoat and boots.’

  Kathryn could appreciate his point and allowed herself to wonder, a little guiltily, what Mr Berkeley might look like in his favourite tailcoat and boots.

  They had reached the rocks by now and were standing quietly together, looking out over the shining grey water. Like her companion, Kathryn had always felt a great affinity with the sea. It drew her to it like a siren, in all weathers and at all times of the day. She stared at it now. Raucous seabirds screamed noisily overhead. She could taste the salt on her lips and smell the seaweed in the air. Sometimes exciting, sometimes overwhelming, and at other times softly peaceful as it lapped gently to the shore, it was always different, always mesmerising. That afternoon it was quiet and still, the very slight, rhythmic swooshing of wavelets breaking onto the rocky foreshore making her feel relaxed and very, very contented. They stood there together in silence for a while, looking out at the great expanse of shimmering water, almost feeling the peacefulness. And then Kathryn realised, with a jolt, that she still held Mr Berkeley’s arm, and that it felt most natural and comfortable to be doing so. She withdrew it quickly, bending down instead to pick up a seashell to fill the void. It was a most pretty one and as she examined it Mr Berkeley bent his head close to hers to have a look at it too. She felt very aware of him and knew that she absolutely should not. So she handed the shell over to him with a start and wandered a few yards further along the grassy edge to admire the view from a slightly different perspective instead.

  ‘You obviously love the sea as much as I do, Mrs Miller,’ he remarked to her, offering his arm again as a prelude to going back. Kathryn looked out towards the shining buildings of Weymouth, tiny as little models across the bay, in an attempt to convince him that she had not seen it, and walked on independently instead. ‘Have you always lived in Preston?’

  ‘Almost always, Mr Berkeley. I went to school in Dorchester but came home each weekend – Sandsford was my father’s property so I grew up in this very spot. As soon as I left school my father required me to marry a neighbour of ours – the local vicar – I know not why. Perhaps he just wanted some security for me – papa was quite elderly after all and I had an older brother at the time who was set to inherit everything, so there was no other guarantee of my getting anything of my own. Anyway, not knowing any different, I married this vicar on my sixteenth birthday and went to live in the vicarage for a while. George was a very good man – a kind, worthy man and I am sure that he felt some affection for me, but I was only sixteen and he was over thirty when we married. Fifteen years is a very great gap for a young lady who has hardly finished her schooling and I am afraid that I found him very stuffy and dry. I wanted to be going out, to assemblies or the theatre – anywhere for a little diversion - and all he wanted to do was to stay at home and work. I did not realise quite what a marriage entailed, I fear, and I was totally ill prepared for it. But then he died. He was a conscientious parson and always insisted on tending to the sick. It was his undoing in the end. He caught a fever from one of his parishioners and died of it the following week. That was in the May – we had been married scarcely more than a year, as my birthday is in April. Bob was born three months later. He was born at Sandsford, so it has always been his home as well.’

  ‘And how did you end up here with your current husband?’

  ‘My brother passed away shortly after George, so my father changed his will to enable me to inherit. There was no-one else with any near relationship except for my father’s sister, my aunt, who also lived with us at the time. My mother had died when I was still a baby and my aunt had helped to bring me up. My father died in the October after my twenty first birthday so I was able to inherit the house and land straight away. The house is as you already know it. I daresay at one time it would have been thought quite grand, though it is in sore need of some improvement now. As you will have noticed, the kitchen lacks all the modern conveniences, and had we been anything like great entertainers we should have felt the lack of a dining room most severely. I had been saving up for some renovations before I met Giles, but when he arrived he considered it perfectly adequate as it was and decided not to go ahead with them. Luckily it meets our more modest needs well enough, and of course it is my home after all. The land, though, is quite extensive. We own several cottages in the area as well as having a few animals of our own, although being so wild and open to the elements it offers a poor enough existence. Anyway, I was invited to spend that first Christmas with a school friend over in Dorchester. I was still in mourning for my father, of course, but she’d invited several other friends and relations and I had to mix with them to some extent. One of them was Giles. I regret to say that he swept me off my feet. Just six months after my father died he asked me for my hand, and by the end of June – on his birthday – I found myself saying ‘I do’ with him at the altar of Preston church. Giles had very little of his own and as I already owned Sandsford House it seemed the natural thing for us to live together here. Of course, as soon as I married him the property became his anyway. As a married woman I am apparently not deemed fit to manage a property, despite having done so before. He is – well – he is quite a determined gentleman, Mr Berkeley. He soon took exception to my aunt living alongside us – I regret that she felt obliged to int
ervene on my behalf on several occasions – so he forbad her the use of the house. She has taken lodgings in Weymouth – essentially just a single room, I am sorry to say - and takes in plain sewing and mending from the guest houses to enable herself to live from hand to mouth. I pay the rent from my allowance. It leaves precious little else, but I feel it is the least that I can do. After all, it is quite my fault that she lost her lifelong home. I feel very bad about it and I should not have blamed her for one moment had she refused to know me after that. Unaccountably she remains quite fond of me, however. I am very grateful for it. She is the only remaining relative that I have – other, of course, than my son.’

  Mr Berkeley was paying her the respect of listening intently to her story and perhaps it was this that had encouraged Kathryn to say so much. The circumstance of their meeting – the intimacy necessarily and almost instantly acquired as a result of this – and the comfort provided by the gentle lapping of the sea behind them had perhaps lulled her into articulating what should, had the situation been a more usual one, most definitely have remained unsaid. Perhaps they both realised this, for instead of asking further questions regarding her obvious regrets about her marriages, Mr Berkeley decided to return to safer ground and pick up on the issue of her birthday instead.

  ‘So you say your birthday is in April? My sister, Jane’s, birthday is in April as well – on the 27th. She will, if my memory serves me correctly, be three and twenty this time – she is a little less than seven years my junior.’

  ‘How strange – then we are not too far apart. Mine is on the 24th, and we must have been born in the self same year, for I shall be three and twenty this time as well. It must have been a good year for babies, Mr Berkeley – and certainly a lot better than the one a few years previous to it – the one in which you yourself were born!’

  ‘I am mortified that you should even think such a thing, Mrs Miller – let alone suggest it. May I tell you that 1775 was a particularly good year for babies – particularly male ones - and most particularly for those born in the Weymouth area. You shall have to ask my sister, when you meet her. I am sure she would endorse my view, if you were only to press her hard enough.’

  It was perhaps this conversation which finally suggested to Mr Berkeley that it might be advisable to contact his sister to assure her of his safe arrival at Preston. That this had not occurred to him before was apparently due to the fact that his own plans for returning to Belvoir had remained quite uncertain, so that his sister was unaware of the exact date on which she should expect him. But scarcely had they returned to the house than he made his request for materials and asked, most politely, whether perhaps Tom might be prevailed upon to deliver a letter to High Street – a letter in which he requested her to arrange a carriage and pair from Belvoir, together with a selection of the clothing that she should find there awaiting his return, in order to fetch him home the following week. This the obliging Tom instantly agreed to do the following day (particularly as this was a Saturday and his errand would provide the perfect excuse to part with some of his money in the company of many of the locals in his favourite Black Dog hotel).

  At one time Friday evenings had traditionally been celebrated by music and dancing in the kitchen at Sandsford House. This tradition had fallen by the wayside since Giles’ arrival there as he was not especially fond of music or dancing and preferred to keep Kathryn to himself in the parlour rather than sit in the kitchen with Sally, Tom and Bob. But now that Giles was safely up in Town Kathryn felt able to indulge in one of her favourite past-times once again. So, his letter now written, she somewhat diffidently suggested that Mr Berkeley might like to join them in the kitchen to hear Tom upon his flageolet – a suggestion to which Mr Berkeley acceded with some alacrity.

  Kathryn’s intention had been merely to listen to Tom and maybe sing along to the music for a while. However, it quickly became apparent that Mr Berkeley and Sally had other ideas, for no sooner had Tom launched into an enthusiastic (if not altogether technically correct) rendition of his favourite country dances than they were up on their feet and dancing together around the broad kitchen table. After this it proved impossible to keep Bob quietly upon his stool. Up he rose, too, dragging his not totally unwilling mama to her feet and requiring her to join in the fun. Round and round the table they danced, all four of them, joining hands and falling over stools and chairs as they grew increasingly flushed and giddy. And then, somehow, they separated again and now Sally was dancing with Bob, Mr Berkeley with Kathryn, holding hands and spinning each other round until they were all quite dizzy and entirely out of breath. Laughing and panting, Mr Berkeley eventually had to admit defeat and stumble in a somewhat disorientated manner to the settle. Kathryn decided to sit there with him and there they stayed, giggling together like children, as Bob finally succumbed to the whirling of the room and collapsed in a riotous heap on the colourful clippy rug by the fire. Sally came over to join them on the settle, swaying in a disorderly fashion and breathing heavily. Mr Berkeley squashed closer to Kathryn and offered her a seat at his side. And there they remained, Bob still lying on the rug, chortling gleefully, with Sally and Kathryn squeezed together with Mr Berkeley on the settle, his arms around their shoulders, all tapping their feet and rocking in unison as Tom’s fingers flew quicker and quicker up and down the ancient wooden pipe.

  Finally, however, the entertainment had to stop. Tom took his flageolet away, Sally began stacking up the fire for the night and Kathryn had the task of getting a most reluctant little boy into his bed.

  At first he was distinctly inclined to argue with her. He was not at all tired. It was still quite early. It was stupid to have to go to bed when one was wide awake. But then Mr Berkeley took him to one side and whispered something into his ear. The little boy’s look transformed instantly from one of mulish obstinacy to one of total compliance. Puzzled but pleased, Kathryn took his hand and led him up the stairs.

  ‘What did Mr Berkeley say to you, Bob?’ she asked him as she took off his things and tucked him under the blanket, with a kiss. ‘You appeared quite naughty for a moment but have suddenly turned into a very good boy for me indeed.’

  ‘Mr Berkeley said that if I was a very good boy and went to bed without complaining he would come up later and tell me a story,’ he said, eagerly. ‘Have I been a very good boy, mama? I have tried to be. Will you tell him that I have been a good boy so that he will tell me a story and cuddle me good night?’

  Kathryn smiled down fondly at her little boy and nodded.

  ‘How kind of Mr Berkeley to offer to do that,’ she said. ‘And yes, of course I will tell him. I somehow get the impression that it will be just as much a treat for him as it is for you.’

  Kathryn stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched as Mr Berkeley sat on Bob’s bed, his arm around him gently, telling him some story about a young gentleman who had single-handedly rescued a young lady’s cat from the hands of ruffians, with no thought to his own safety, and then run off with both of them to escape the clutches of the fiendish warlock who resided nearby. She listened to his rich, deep tones as the story progressed. She looked at the way his face moved as the candle illuminated it. She returned his smile when he noticed her standing there. She stood there for a long time, very still, watching and listening, absorbing the scene. But though she stood watching and listening for a very long time it is also true to say that she should later have been quite unable to relate anything of what the story was about, or anything about how it had ended, even were her life to depend upon it.

  Considering the nature of his personal engagement at the inn it was perhaps a little fortunate that Tom was able to ride Giles’ horse back from its extended stay in the stables at the Weymouth Crown the next day, rather than having to stumble back along the rutted and somewhat treacherous road to Preston on foot. It was even more fortunate that he remembered to deliver Mrs Wright’s response into her brother’s hands when he got back, in which she assured him of her very great pleasure
in his safe arrival (though perhaps a little puzzlement about the exact mechanism by which he had ended up at Sandsford House) and confirmed that she should be more than happy to pick him up on the Monday afternoon, having collected a carriage (and clothing) from Belvoir House in order to do so.

  Mr Berkeley felt well enough on the Sunday to accompany Sally, Tom, Kathryn and Bob on their weekly ramble up the trackway to Preston Church and back. Tom took his place in the village band in readiness for the hymns whilst the others took their seats in the pews. Bob, certainly, was less reluctant to attend than was usual – perhaps bribed somewhat by the gentleman’s promise of a game of ducks and drakes on the beach after the service. To be sure, Mr Berkeley did look a little incongruous and not a little self conscious, sitting next to Kathryn in Mr Arthur’s smock and breeches, and the ever-obliging Tom’s old coat and boots, but it was his very presence, rather than the odd state of his attire, which excited the greatest interest in the somewhat embarrassingly small congregation then assembled in the pretty little church. Indeed, the stares of Mrs Page, the farmer’s wife, resplendent in her best Sunday outfit (which, rather unfortunately, originated in the depths of the previous century and really required a powdered wig in order to set it off as it was intended) were so constant that Mr Berkeley felt obliged to bow and smile at her like an old acquaintance. This Mrs Page found most disconcerting until she learned at the lych gate after the service of the gentleman’s recent appearance from abroad. The odd garb, the odder manners and the entirely intriguing situation resolved in an instant, in Mr Berkeley being a foreigner, she went happily on her way to share the news and a dish of tea with her friends and relations back at Sutton Farm.