The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy)

by Lizzie Church

  Once she was downstairs both brother and sister appeared to see it as their personal mission to ensure that Kathryn was always entertained and never on her own. Jane turned out to be a competent pianist and spent many a long hour in the drawing room, playing for her and providing her with tuition. Andrew walked with them down to the quay, watching the activity there, and took them out for rides in his carriage. They took her into the orangery and marvelled with her at the peaches, apricots, cucumbers and melons that had appeared, as if by magic, from their somewhat unpromising beginnings back in the spring. They scrambled down to the rocky cove and hunted for shellfish in the rock pools there. They read the newspapers together in the sunny saloon and discussed the stories over chocolate. He told her about the land reclamation and how, when all the work was done, it would give the town a completely new pier to separate the harbour from the sea.

  Yes, Kathryn was always entertained and never on her own during the day time. But late at night, as she lay awake in her beautiful chamber, listening to the sound of the waves on the cliffs, thinking about her life as it was just then – her miserable existence with Giles, the impending marriage of Andrew to a woman who would never deserve him, the agony of the loss of her son – late at night as she thought of all these things she felt very, very alone. It was then that she allowed her spirits to fail her and the tears to course down her cheeks. It was then that she questioned why God appeared to have deserted her. It was then that she wondered why ever she would wish to go on.

  As is often the case after a wet summer, September had turned out balmy and calm, with misty sunshine breaking through a watercolour sky - just the sort of weather to tempt an invalid out into the fresh sea air. Mrs Wright being called away to attend to some business at home, Andrew suggested that Kathryn might like to take a short turn about the grounds with him – a suggestion with which she immediately concurred. It felt as though a whole lifetime had passed since her previous visit there. The world itself appeared to have changed – appeared to have aged from a promising, young, exuberant spring to a sedate and melancholy autumn. Nothing could take away the aching pain that Bob’s death had left her with. It was with her every minute of the day, gnawing at her like the toothache. But at least, for now, she had Andrew by her side. Andrew was the only person in the whole of the world who could have had any hope of making her at least tolerably contented, and Andrew seemed to feel exactly the same way about her.

  They sat close together on the little wooden bench overlooking the sea, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves below and smelling the salty air. Andrew put his arm around her protectively and Kathryn did not object. She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring their closeness, and rested her head on his shoulder. She knew that it couldn’t last, but even so she clung on desperately to the sensation of being at one with him for perhaps the final time.

  ‘It feels so natural, Kathy, does it not, for us to be together like this?’ he murmured, holding her tight. ‘We have shared so much these past few months – so much laughter and so much pain. Our lives have come to depend so much upon each other. It just seems so right for us to be together for the rest of our lives.’

  It did. She could not deny it. But try as she might, neither could she deny that this healing time of respite would have to come to an end. Andrew had admitted to her, when pressed, that his wedding date had been set for only a couple of weeks’ hence and she knew that it would be impossible for her to remain at Belvoir after that time. In spite of her intense dislike of Miss Brewer she had enough sympathy with her to know that the presence of a woman who absorbed her new husband’s attention every minute of every day would scarcely be a welcome one, and although Andrew had shown little enough interest in going across to see his young fiancée during her stay she thought it only fair that he be encouraged, and given the chance, to do so if he wished.

  She therefore gathered the resolution to give him notice that she must soon be released back to her home, and to provide him with a hint that perhaps his married life would begin on a much better footing were he to show his affianced wife a little more attention than he had been showing her of late. Indeed, Andrew appeared little enough interested in his future happiness and even suggested, a little hopefully, that he should try to release himself from his promise. But, much as they might wish it otherwise, they both realised that this simply would not do. Andrew had requested Sophie’s hand of his own free will (if his totally foxed state at the time could be at all equated with ‘will’). Unless the lady herself were to change her mind (which Andrew fervently prayed for every hour of every day) they both knew that he was honour bound to stand by his engagement.

  The fateful day of separation came at last. Andrew, indeed, would much have preferred to her agreeing to stay another week with him at least but Kathryn knew that she had to go – she had to return to face a normality which from now on would take the miserable form of a solitary existence, devoid of purpose and devoid of love. Mrs Wright gave her a kind farewell and made her promise to visit her at least once a week in High Street. Andrew agreed to send a message to Scrivens and the Royal, apologising for her non-appearance that week and assuring them of her immediate attention at the start of the next. Then his curricle was with them, the horses pawing and tossing their heads, eager to get underway, and Andrew was handing her up and driving her sedately over the town bridge and back to Preston and to the heartache that was all that was left of Sandsford House.

  Sally and Tom greeted her kindly at the door and took her straight inside. Close to tears himself, Andrew decided that it might not be wise to go in with her, much as he might like to do so. So with a wave of his whip he was off again, racing this time, giving the horses their heads, galloping wildly back to Weymouth down the slope of Preston Hill.

  His thoughts now began to turn to his wedding, which was becoming imminent. Sorrowfully and reluctantly he realised that perhaps it was time for him to make his peace with Miss Brewer (and her mama) and, as there was no time like the present, he determined on calling on them on his way back in to town. Gloster Row was quickly reached. Flinging the reins to his tiger he ran up the steps two at a time and rang the clanging bell. A frightened-looking maid answered it. No, Miss Brewer was not at home. There were measles in the household – Master Ignacious was sick in bed with them at that very moment – and Miss Brewer and the rest of the children had just that morning been whisked away to their grandmama’s house in the country in order to evade the infection.

  Somewhat cheered that he should at least be spared an awkward interview, Andrew returned to Belvoir and looked about his rooms. Somehow they all seemed less appealing than before. He went up to the room that Kathryn had been using. There she had sat – just there, looking out of the window. Here she had brushed her hair. Here she had slept. The sense of her was all about him. He sat on the bed and buried his head in her pillow. He could just smell the scent of her hair upon it. He kissed it softly and then burst into tears.

  Kathryn, in her turn, was doing the self same thing at Sandsford, but she was suffering double the misery. Sally had thoughtfully left everything in Bob’s room, and in Andrew’s room, exactly as they had left them and as she wandered in and out of each Kathryn could sense their presence in just the same way that Andrew had sensed her own. She looked at all her son’s little treasures, lying on the floor. She smiled wanly. She had never managed to get him to tidy up. She was glad that she hadn’t nagged him too much to do so, now. There was his blackboard, with a few of his bold round letters written upon it together with an indeterminate picture which could have been a horse. There was a motley collection of shells and pebbles, gathered, no doubt, on some productive visit to the beach. There was his toy boat, taking pride of place on the window ledge. She picked it up and sighed over it. Then she put it down and walked resolutely out of the room.

  Finding that memories and regrets were not the most satisfactory companions just now, before another day was over Kathryn had decided that consta
nt employment was probably the best – if not the only – way in which she could even try to come to terms with the constraints of her new existence. No Bob. No Andrew. Only herself. So she immediately threw herself into a whirlwind of activity – visits to Weymouth to undertake her commissions, house cleaning, rug beating (most therapeutic), gardening, baking, cooking, washing. She even practised her new skills on the spinet. She visited Mrs Wright in High Street. She watched the bathers on Weymouth beach and the soldiers on parade. She stood on the town bridge, staring at the busy boats in the harbour – ferry boats at rest, fishing boats unloading their wriggling, gleaming catches on the quay, cutters and square riggers with young boys climbing the rigging like monkeys, singing as they worked. All this she saw. And yet, standing there on her own, garbed in black, little basket in hand, she felt as far removed from it all as she would have done had she been watching from the moon.

  Kathryn normally averted her eyes whenever she walked past the Brewers’ house on her way into town but one morning – it was the first of October, misty and calm – she couldn’t help but notice some unusual activity in the doorway, and the drawing down of the blinds at the front of the house. In a second of blind panic she wondered whether she had mistaken the day and that Miss Brewer would emerge at any moment in her wedding clothes. But no. Andrew’s wedding date was etched deeply and clearly on her mind. She had another three days before he would be lost to her for ever.

  She was still a little curious, however, so after she had finished her work at the Royal she decided to pay a quick visit to her friend, Mrs Wright. After all, Mrs Wright knew all there was to know about the comings and goings in Weymouth and she would certainly know what was happening in a family which was so soon to be allied to her own. But Mrs Wright was not at home and the little servant, Becky, was not at all sure when she’d be back.

  ‘Oh, well, not to worry. It has nothing to do with me, that’s for sure.’

  But in an odd sort of a way it did have something to do with her, indirectly at least. For just as she was about to turn off the main road onto the trackway to Preston she was accosted by a distant voice and the sight of Andrew on his horse, waving at her from the top of the hill. She felt a sudden surge of joy at the sight of him and only managed to prevent herself from running into his arms with great difficulty. Restrain herself she did, however, and she waited for him patiently at the side of the road instead. He jumped from the horse and squeezed her hand gently before walking alongside her on her way back to the house.

  ‘I have just been to Sandsford,’ he said. ‘Sally said you were in town. I’m so pleased to have caught up with you.’

  ‘I have been desperate for news from you,’ she replied. ‘Is everything...as it should be?’

  ‘Not entirely. There is some sad news from the Brewers’. Their children have all gone down with the measles – every one of them has taken their turn – and this morning the eldest boy, Ignacious, has died. Everyone is devastated, as you will imagine. Mrs Brewer can hardly be consoled.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness. No, indeed, I am sure she cannot. What a horrible illness. And she has lost her son? Poor lady. She will doubtless be distraught. And all the children have caught it? Are they all equally as bad?’

  They both looked a little conscious.

  ‘They have all caught it, although it appears that poor Ignacious was the only one in any real danger. Miss...Miss Brewer is currently at its peak, I understand. She is in bed at her grandmama’s. She went down with it last week. We were due to – well, you know what was due to happen on Friday. It will not happen for the moment. The wedding will have to be rearranged.’

  Neither of them spoke the words that each knew the other was thinking.

  ‘I see,’ said Kathryn. ‘She will be much disappointed, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew. ‘And now they are in mourning for Ignacious it is likely to be several months, at least.’

  They exchanged a glance which needed no words. Kathryn uttered a silent prayer of thanks. Several months. Why, anything could happen in several months.

  ‘I am not even allowed to go to visit her,’ he added, sounding rather less despondent about this enforced separation than perhaps he should have done, given the nature of the event which would otherwise have been taking place at the end of that same week. ‘Given that I’ve never been exposed to the measles before, the doctor has advised that I refrain from a visit until there is no further risk of infection.’

  Andrew walked on back to the house with her and shared her dinner. They went out together into the garden to pick apples and lay them out in the shed. He helped her to wind a skein of wool in the kitchen and toast their supper on the fire. Then they walked up to the church and stood together by Bob’s grave, the light fading around them, holding eachother close, almost sensing the little boy’s joy in seeing them together again. And then Andrew mounted his horse and took off down the road, waving. She watched him until she could watch him no more. Then she watched the road where he had just ridden. They both felt happier than they had felt for weeks.

  Chapter 21

  Like it or not, it seemed that the Brewer household had been preordained to impact on Kathryn’s tranquility whenever she least expected it. Indeed, everything had been quiet for a good few weeks before the next intervention – but when it came it was as devastating in its own way as anything that had come from there before.

  For, early in November, just as Kathryn and Sally were mangling the washing in the little wash-house outside the kitchen, the sound of a carriage crunching on the gravel pull-in caused them both to stop and look at each other in surprise. Visitors with carriages were few and far between in the vicinity of Sandsford House and the carriage had sounded like neither of Mr Berkeley’s. Kathryn hurriedly removed her pinafore and let down her sleeves and made her way through the house to open her front door. To her very great surprise she was confronted by the sight of Mr Brewer, in the company of a strange gentleman with a large book in his hand, newly clambered down from a very smart and showy new barouche.

  ‘Mr Brewer.’ Kathryn bobbed him a slight curtsy. ‘I am sorry but my husband is not at home. He has been gone these several weeks, you must know. I have no idea when he might be back.’

  Mr Brewer gave her a slightly uncomfortable smile.

  ‘No matter, Mrs Miller. I daresay we can get along quite happily without him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The inventory, Mrs Miller. I have brought my colleague along to do the inventory.’

  Kathryn went white.

  ‘The inventory?’

  ‘Yes...you did know that you are moving out on Saturday, did you not?’

  ‘On Saturday? This Saturday?’

  ‘Yes. The six months is up on Saturday.’

  ‘What six months?’

  ‘The six months’ notice. You husband has had the date since we agreed it. He agreed to pay the rent for six months while he sorted something out. I only did that as a favour to him. I should normally have moved you out immediately.’

  ‘But...but...I am so sorry, Mr Brewer. I am afraid that my husband did not tell me. And he is away, as you know. I have...I have done nothing to prepare for moving out. I had not expected it, to be sure.’

  Now though Mr Brewer was a business man he was not entirely hard hearted. He had long felt some sympathy for the very pretty woman who now stood before him, white as a sheet, whom her husband had callously cheated out of everything she owned. She reminded him of his daughter.

  ‘Well, perhaps we can come to some arrangement, Mrs Miller. I can see that this has come as a complete surprise to you. What with all the tumult in our household at the moment I daresay we will not make much use of the property for another few weeks or so. What if I give you a little more time in which to sort something out? Your husband can pay me the usual rent for it. Now we are here we will take the inventory as planned but if you need a bit more time there is no need for you to move out until –
shall we say – Monday two weeks hence? That should suit Mrs Brewer just as well. She is planning to entertain everyone here for Christmas, you understand, and that should still give us time to get it decorated up.’

  Stunned as she was, Kathryn still found herself having to express her gratitude to the man who was throwing her out of the house and off the land that been in her family for generations. She stood aside to allow the surveyor to begin his work. Everything in the house, apart from Kathryn and Giles’ immediate personal possessions, was included in the sale. Even the china. Even the linen. Everything went on the list.

  Kathryn followed the surveyor mechanically as he systematically worked his way through every room. He started with the bedrooms – Sally’s little attic, then Kathryn’s room, then Giles’, then Bob’s. Even Bob’s little boat went on the list. She saw him write it down. Mr Brewer made himself at home while he waited. Sally, much disturbed by the presence of a stranger whom she strongly suspected of bringing yet more bad luck to the household, offered him some ale, which he accepted with a nod and took into the parlour to enjoy. Tom, having had a word with the coachman as he waited at the front, learned all the news in an instant. He cursed softly to himself before slipping round to the back of the house and telling Sally to be quick and give him a few pots and pans that he could hide in the compost at the back of the shed.

  The inventory took almost the whole of the morning. Once the house had been catalogued the surveyor and Mr Brewer took themselves off to examine the grounds and the state of the cottages that formed the bulk of the estate. There were four pairs of them altogether, dotted around the land. He already knew from Giles what income they provided. He looked at them closely. With a few minor repairs he could easily increase their rent. They should more than cover the investment he had made in buying Sandsford House.