The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy)

by Lizzie Church

She had hardly been gone above fifteen minutes when three gentlemen emerged from the Royal Hotel, seemingly a trifle above par. Giles had reached the bank just in time to meet up with Mr Brewer and Mr Berkeley as they emerged from the offices, and been greeted like an old friend by both (although neither had met him above once before in their lives). They had been on their way out for a couple of bevvies before continuing to Brewer’s for their dinner. Would Mr Miller care to join them? Of course Mr Miller had cared to join them. Instantly forgetting the reason for his meeting with Mr Brewer, he joined in with them without question. And after an hour and a half in the gentlemen’s bar in the Royal they had staggered their way up the Esplanade and into one of the town houses just a few doors down the road, in a smart new terrace by the name of Gloster Row.

  Chapter 11

  Giles reappeared the next afternoon. Kathryn was reading with Bob in the kitchen and was just announcing the end of lessons for the day when she heard her husband coming into the hall.

  She went to meet him, and managed a smile. Giles seemed to notice that she had donned her mourning outfit. He failed to say anything about it.

  ‘Have you sorted everything, Giles?’ she asked.

  Giles took her in his arms and gave her a big hug.

  ‘We’ll be all right, Kitty, don’t you fret.’

  Kathryn felt that she would be far less likely to fret if she were to know exactly how things stood but she could see that her husband was determined to give nothing away.

  ‘I met up with your friend’s brother – Berkeley, is it? – at the bank,’ he said, carelessly, taking off his coat. ‘He and Brewer were off for a bevvy so I went alongside. Invited me for dinner so I had to stay. Brewer’s eldest daughter was there – Sophie he called her. Gad, what a girl. Just sixteen and straight from school. Ripe for the plucking. Dainty as a fairy – a bit in your style, Kitty, but twice the woman. She won’t be hanging around for long, that’s for sure. Berkeley couldn’t take his eyes off her.’

  It was perhaps fortunate that Giles had slung his coat onto the floor, as it gave Kathryn the opportunity of turning away to pick it up again, and hence hiding the effects of his news from sight. She had never thought of Mr Berkeley taking an interest in other women, she knew not why. She did not like the idea at all, though she knew that she had no right to think it. After all, it was perfectly natural for him to do so.

  ‘So did you stay with Mr Brewer?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Didn’t get out of there until after midnight so there was nothing for it but to put up at the Royal.’

  ‘But I thought you were short of money.’

  ‘So – what else would you have had me do? I couldn’t walk back here in the dark, could I? I might have killed myself falling down the cliffs. None of the lodging houses would’ve taken me in at that time of night. I was lucky enough to get in at the Royal.’

  Kathryn couldn’t help but reflect on the money she had just given to the landlady to cover her poor aunt’s funeral. It had been all that she’d had left until the end of June, yet it was probably a quarter of the amount that Giles had just expended upon himself for his single night at the Royal.

  ‘Well, I’m glad that everything has got sorted anyway,’ she said. ‘I daresay that everything will work out in the end.’

  On the first of May Kathryn took Bob up to the village green for the annual celebrations and watched as he romped joyously around the maypole with the rest of the village children, sorry that she had to drag him home instead of treating him to the rather delicious-smelling hog roast that enticed them to the fire. The next day she returned to her aunt’s apartment, as promised, and sorted out the pathetically few belongings that had not come as part of the furnishings. There was nothing of any real value, apart from a little silver ring that Kathryn knew had belonged to her aunt’s mama – Kathryn’s own grandmama – and a couple of guinea coins wrapped round with a note. For Kathryn the note was by far the most valuable of the three. She kissed it gently as she read it. It told Kathryn to spend the guineas on herself and Bob and not on any account to give them to Giles. It told her that, what ever she did, she must always keep her trust that God would look after her. It told her that she was very much loved, and always would be, and that she should ever be true to herself.

  Kathryn took a deep breath and immediately resolved to squirrel the precious note away, and to keep the money and the ring with it as little Bob’s inheritance. But where could she put it? No area in the house could be guaranteed off limits from Giles – even Tom’s shed, or Sally’s attic. No, the three precious items – the coins, the ring and the note – would not be safe at Sandsford House. Perhaps Mrs Wright might be prepared to keep them for her?

  Kathryn could think of no better plan, so as soon as she had finished at the apartment she made her way over the bridge and across to High Street. She had to wait for a moment while the bridge swung closed after some boats sailed through it towards the sea, providing a welcome moment of respite. Mrs Wright was sitting at her window, sewing, and waved at Kathryn as she appeared before it. She rose to greet her and invited her inside.

  ‘I am so pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘It feels an age since you were here, though it is scarcely a week since our day out, isn’t it?’

  Was it scarcely a week? Kathryn supposed that it must be, though it felt an absolute lifetime.

  ‘My husband is now returned from London, Mrs Wright, and what with that and the sad death of my aunt at the weekend I fear I have scarcely had a moment to myself. But what a lovely day out we had. I was most impressed by your brother’s ability to plan everything. I cannot imagine Giles ever having the gumption to plan the half of it.’

  ‘No. I know that gentlemen as a whole are not too good at that sort of thing, though I must say that John is quite the planner as well. He has to be, as a navy man. He should not know where he was going, or how to get there, were he not.’

  Kathryn smiled. She realised, with a start, that life here in High Street was quite normal whilst her own life since Giles’ sudden return had been far from normal. Yet, oddly, it was normality that was just then feeling strange.

  ‘I am sorry to hear about your aunt, Mrs Miller. I think you have mentioned her to me before.’

  ‘Yes. She was my last remaining relative – apart from little Bob, of course. My father’s sister. We had both expected that she should see out her days at Sandsford House but – well, unfortunately it didn’t prove possible so she rented an apartment here in town instead. She used to make and repair the linen for the hotels hereabouts – bed linen, curtains, altering and mending visitors’ clothing and the like. It is surprising just how much rough treatment some of it receives. I am thinking of taking over some of the work myself – it will give me some...give me something to do. She has left me a couple of items which she expressly requested that I keep. In fact,’ Kathryn gulped a little, ‘it is about my aunt’s things that I particularly came to talk to you. I was not sure where else to turn. I wonder whether I could ask a great favour of you, Mrs Wright? I am hoping that you might retain them for me in order to keep them safe.’

  Mrs Wright looked at her curiously for a moment – a look that Kathryn felt quite unable to return. She was not quite sure why Mrs Miller might consider the little house here in High Street to be any more secure than her larger one in Preston, and she was certainly not sure why she felt in need of any further employment. She would like to have asked her a little more about it but it was obvious that Kathryn was embarrassed and upset so she simply acceded to the request instead, went off in search of a suitable tin in which to deposit the treasured items, and told her that she should have free access to it at any time she wished and that it would be secreted away in her dressing table where no-one bar herself would ever go.

  Kathryn’s final task in Weymouth was to visit her aunt’s regular customers and impart the sad news of her death to them. She explained that she would be maintaining the business by herself but that, being based as s
he was in Preston, she would need to undertake the work on the customers’ premises rather than taking it away. This arrangement was not thought feasible by most of them, but two – the Royal Hotel and Scrivens’ boarding house – were large enough to be able to supply her with a workroom and she was able to come to a satisfactory arrangement with them for some regular employment there every couple of weeks.

  Chapter 12

  Towards the middle of May Giles received a letter which, when he detected the direction, caused him to start, and blanch. He took it with him into the parlour and kicked the door shut. Kathryn and Sally, who were both in the kitchen, baking, looked at each other in silence, and then got on with their work.

  A few minutes later Kathryn heard him shouting to Tom to get the horse saddled for a trip into town. She heard him banging about in the hall. Then he was gone. A moment later Bob appeared in the kitchen, clutching the letter. Papa had dropped it on his way out, he told her, and he had found it on the ground.

  Kathryn looked at it as warily as if it were a cobra ready to strike. Sally looked at it, too.

  ‘Leave it there, Bob, thank you,’ said his mama. ‘Perhaps I will put it back where you found it, later. Will you go and fetch your blackboard? I want to see some perfect letters from you today.’

  Bob went to fetch his work, somewhat reluctantly. Kathryn stared at the folded paper on the table. She hardly dare touch it. She looked at Sally, torn.

  ‘I think you should, Mrs M,’ said Sally, firmly. ‘After all, you have a right to know what’s going on and I doubt that he will tell you. Would you like me to go out for a minute so as I don’t know what you’ve done?’

  Kathryn nodded and Sally slipped into the garden to pick some herbs.

  Kathryn edged up to the letter and flicked it open very slightly. She still hardly dare touch it. She could see that it came from a London address. She flicked it open a little more. As she had suspected, it was a dunning letter. It was a dunning letter demanding the sum of four thousand pounds, the outcome of a single disastrous bet. Four thousand pounds. Kathryn was horrified. Four thousand pounds? Why, there was no way in which Giles would be able to raise that sort of money. Their annual income was scarcely a twentieth of that and she doubted that the house, even with its land, could be mortgaged for anything like that sum. And even then, what ever would there be left for them to live upon? She looked at the letter again. Perhaps she had misread the sum. Perhaps she had been mistaken? No. How ever many times she read them, how ever little she wanted to read them, the words came out exactly the same. The letter was expecting four thousand pounds, and the whole was expected by return.

  She was still standing by the table when Sally reappeared with the herbs.

  ‘How much is it for, Mrs M?’ she asked.

  ‘Four thousand, Sally. It is for four thousand pounds.’

  ‘Well I wish that the devil would carry him away.’

  ‘So do I, Sally, So do I. Whatever shall we do?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs M. Really, I really do not know.’

  ‘I think that you and Tom will need to find some other work, Sally. There will be nothing to pay you with.’

  ‘Well, Tom may go off if he chooses. As for me, I’d liefer stay with you if I can – aye, and work for you for nothing, too. But didn’t master say that he’d sorted it out? Perhaps he’s simply gone to town to hurry it up a little?’

  Deep down Kathryn knew that this was about as likely as Bob becoming King of the Union but she chose to be cheered by the thought. She asked Sally to replace the letter in the front porch – a place where it might reasonably have lain undiscovered by anyone in the household, but from whence it was unlikely to get blown onto the hills. She shouted up the stairs to a reluctant Bob to hurry up and bring his schoolwork down. Then she checked the baking, cleared the table, and settled down to work with her son.

  Neither Kathryn nor Giles said any more about the letter after this. Indeed, Giles appeared so normal on his return from Weymouth late that same evening that Kathryn almost began to wonder whether she had made the whole thing up. The following week she walked into Weymouth with her sewing bag in order to fulfil her engagement with her two customers there. She went to the Scrivens’ first. Kathryn was a quick, neat seamstress and, besides, had assisted her aunt on so many occasions that she was able to progress the work quite well. She finished there, accepted her shilling gratefully, and then went on to the Royal. She went the back way in. For one thing, she was no better than a servant here. For another, she wanted to keep away from any prying eyes that might possibly be about.

  It was a little unfortunate, therefore, that in spite of these precautions she should still bump into somebody she knew. That somebody was Mr Berkeley, who had chosen the self same moment to renew his acquaintance with the French chef (with whom he was able to hold the most satisfactory conversations in that gentleman’s native language) in the kitchens at the rear of the building.

  That he and Kathryn were surprised to see each other is perhaps an understatement. That he and Kathryn were pleased to see each other is similarly the case. Mr Berkeley, in particular, was quite unable to conceal his delight and it so consumed him that for a few seconds he forgot how unusual it must be for both of them to find each other in the rear of premises in which they should more normally be found at the front. Kathryn’s feelings, to be fair, were a little more mixed. That she was overjoyed to see him was undeniable. But then she felt extremely annoyed. She had tried so hard to prevent an accidental meeting such as this one, and she had tried even harder to extinguish the love and attraction she felt for him – a love and attraction which, though entirely unbidden, she knew full well was absolutely wrong. And yet, as soon as she saw him she realised in an instant that she felt exactly the same love and attraction towards him as she had done all along. Almost as bad, she also felt totally embarrassed. He would realise, in a moment, that he should not have expected to find her there. And then this would lead to awkward questions, to which she really did not want to provide him with an answer.

  His questions came at last. She could not evade them. There was absolutely no point in trying to evade them. She would not lie to him and she did not see why she should.

  ‘Will you come with me to my work room, Mr Berkeley?’ she asked him, at length. ‘I need to get on, you see, and I shall answer your questions whilst I work.’

  Mr Berkeley was more than happy to accompany her, though a little nonplussed by the very constrained and smelly environment in which he found himself in the cupboard-like room that she had been shown to by the steward, right next to the horses in the yard. Still a little mystified by what it was that she was doing here, but finding that she was expecting to do something with the somewhat forbidding looking pile of linens that confronted them, he perched himself on the one corner of the table which remained clear of anything, and awaited her response.

  As usual, he listened to her respectfully, and without interruption, whilst she told him her tale. And as usual, the very fact that she had an audience whom she knew to have her every interest totally at heart caused her to say much more, and in so much more detail, than she had really wanted or intended to. Her story was starting to make sense to him. It was filling in some of the details which had puzzled him – about Giles’ visit to Mr Brewer, about what his sister had said about a little tin box in her cupboard, and about why Giles had appeared so keen to join in a gambling circle of which he and Mr Brewer had hitherto formed the main members. But it was when Kathryn mentioned the dunning letter to him, and the enormous sum involved in it, that Mr Berkeley’s eyes really began to narrow. He knew, probably better than Kathryn herself, how much Sandsford House was really worth and he knew full well that Mr Brewer was not the man to give Giles a mortgage so far above that sum as to be absolutely unthinkable. But he could see that Kathryn had convinced herself that it must be so, that Giles had sorted things out satisfactorily, and he was the last person on earth to want to disabuse her of her quiet op
timism.

  ‘And so here you are, trying to earn yourself a living while your husband tries to ruin you. I must say I admire your pluck, Mrs Miller. There are not many young ladies of my acquaintance who would even consider doing what you have done, let alone have the enterprise to sort things out so well. I need not tell you how very sorry I am that your husband should have reduced you to this. You will know that already. And as for your future – well...humph – well, perhaps you may be able to save a little of what you earn in the meantime to tide you over for a while? Please – I hope you will not mind, Mrs Miller – I know that you have told me before, quite rightly, to remember our relative positions. But I feel that I must – I have to provide you with a little word of advice. Do not tell your husband how much you are earning. And if you do manage to save anything, please, please deposit it with my sister in your little tin box. You – and Bob – deserve that, at the very least. I know you consider it disloyal. I know that you consider that everything of yours is there for your husband to have and I honour your loyalty to him. But you have your responsibilities to your family as well. Your husband should be more than capable of looking after himself – aye, and you as well – but Bob – well, Bob is reliant on his mama to do the best she can for him. It is not his fault that his papa is the devil incarnate. And if that best means putting her own earnings into a little box for him out of the thieving cove’s reach – then in my book, Mrs Miller, in my book then that is what she should do.’

  Kathryn’s lip trembled, and her eyes filled so much that she was completely unable to see her stitching. She half thought that he might take her in his arms to comfort her, and, to be perfectly honest, and despite every resolution to the contrary, she more than half hoped that he would. But though for a moment it looked as if he would do just that he was far too respectful of what she had said to him to do so. So she made do by wiping her eyes on her sleeve and bowing her head over her stitching again. There was a lot to do and she needed to press on with it.