‘You’re worried about Martha?’ Mary shaped the bread dough she was kneading into a loaf.
‘No more than you.’ He sipped the hot tea slowly. ‘It will be impossible to see your hand in front of your face on the hill.’
‘That goes for you as well as her.’
‘Dolly could walk the road blindfolded, and if I go down in the cart Martha will be home in half the time. She should be leaving work in an hour or so,’ he guessed, using this inner clock. They had been forced to sell every timepiece in the house.
Mary glanced out of the window but she couldn’t see anything beyond raindrops sparkling against a background of grey mist. ‘It’s winter not summer weather.’
‘Let’s hope it will be brighter tomorrow.’ David set his empty cup on the table.
‘Can I come, Davy?’ Matthew asked plaintively from the corner nearest to the range where he was rolling spills from the old newspapers he and David had picked up in Pontardawe. Luke was asleep on a rag rug next to him, worn out after a disturbed night of teething and tears.
‘You’ll turn into a fish if you come out on the cart in this.’ David picked up his cap from the bar in front of the range, where he’d left it to dry.
‘If I will, why won’t you?’
‘Because I’m too big.’ David opened the door. ‘Don’t bring the cows in for milking until I’m back to help you, Mary.’
She set the loaf she’d made on the warming rack above the range to rise. ‘In that case, I’ll mix some dumplings for the soup and a jam sponge for afters.’
‘That’s worth coming back for.’ Knowing how much he had hurt her by suggesting that he might leave the farm for the army, he gave her a small smile by way of atonement.
Sick to the pit of his stomach, praying he’d hit a sheep for which he could compensate a farmer, Harry opened the car door. He was shaking so much he had difficulty standing upright, and it didn’t help that it felt as though he had stepped under a shower head. His hair was plastered to his head in an instant, dripping cold rivulets beneath his collar and into his eyes. And for all that his Craven-proofed coat was guaranteed watertight, his shirt and trousers were soaked before he reached the front of the car.
The body of a young girl was lying in the centre of the road. Her legs were sprawled beneath his car, her eyes closed despite the rain that streamed over her face. A Gladstone bag almost as large as her lay next to her.
Suppressing his initial instinct to scoop her into his arms, Harry crouched down and frantically tried to recall everything he had ever learned about first aid.
He lifted her wrist, weakening in relief when he felt a pulse. He hadn’t killed her – not yet anyway. He lifted the sodden hood of her cloak and ran his fingers lightly over her scalp; there was a lump on the back of her head but no blood. He checked her arms and black-stockinged legs.
He couldn’t be absolutely certain but apart from the bump on her head there didn’t appear to be any other damage. He struggled out of his suit jacket, laid it on the ground, slipped his hands beneath her and, carefully supporting her neck and head, lifted her as gently as he could on to it. It was only when he had laid her flat that he recognised her as the child who had carried Dr Adams’s tea tray into his office the day before. He recalled the doctor calling her Martha. He had thought her young then, but she was lighter, frailer and even smaller than he remembered.
Ignoring the rain that had trickled through his clothes to his skin, he carried her to his car, laid her on the back seat and covered her with the travelling rug he kept in the boot. Alarmed when she didn’t move or utter a sound, and lacking the knowledge to help her further, he retrieved the Gladstone bag and the umbrella she had been carrying, which had rolled down the hill, and set them on the floor of the car. Then he spent a few seconds checking the road before returning to the driving seat. It wasn’t as wide as he would have liked but, by negotiating a six-point turn, he managed to reverse the car. Moments later he was driving as fast as he dared back down the valley towards Craig-y-Nos.
Diana Adams was running across the courtyard of the sanatorium when Harry drove in. She opened the door, stepped inside and closed her umbrella before shaking the worst of the water from it out on to the steps.
‘Miss Adams!’ Harry left the car and darted towards her.
‘Mr Evans,’ she rebuked irritably. ‘My father made it perfectly clear to your father and uncles there was absolutely no way that you would be allowed to see your grandfather this evening, or indeed for the next week. He was so exhausted by the journey here that we sedated him in the hope that he’d have a good rest and a visit from you -’
‘I haven’t come to see my grandfather,’ Harry gasped, still faint and unsteady after the accident. ‘I knocked your maid down in my car. I didn’t know where else to bring her.’
‘My maid? I haven’t a maid.’
‘I think her name is Martha.’
She dropped her umbrella and it clattered to the floor of the porch. ‘Where is she?’
He ran back to the car and wrenched open the back door. Diana pushed him aside, leaned inside and checked the child’s pulse before running her hands gently over her body.
‘I felt her arms and legs – they don’t appear to be broken but she has a bump on the back of her head.’ Harry continued to stand in the pouring rain behind her, too traumatized to think of anything besides the child.
‘Didn’t you see her?’
‘Not until she was in front of my car and then it was too late. There was a thick mist. I couldn’t see further than the bonnet of the car …’ He bent forward when she lifted Martha from the back seat and took the child from her.
‘Take her into my father’s office. Put her on the examination couch.’ She ran ahead of him. ‘Fetch my father at once,’ she shouted to a passing nurse.
‘Please, can I wait? I have to know how she is,’ Harry asked after he had deposited Martha on the couch.
‘Go to the waiting room by the front door. I’ll send someone there when we’ve examined her.’
Dr Adams walked past Harry without a word or a look. Diana held the door open, and Harry left. The door slammed shut behind him. Dizzy and nauseous, he sank down on the top step of the small staircase in front of the office, buried his head in his hands and shuddered as the enormity of what he’d done sank in.
David returned to the kitchen of the farmhouse less than ten minutes after he had left. Mary took one look at him and knew something was seriously wrong.
‘Dolly’s lame,’ he announced baldly.
‘Is it serious?’ Her heart thundered erratically. It was the moment she had been dreading – and expecting. The loss of Dolly would mean the loss of their independence and livelihood. Without the horse the agent would take everything they produced in exchange for knocking ‘something’ off their rent arrears. There’d be no money to buy the essentials they couldn’t produce themselves and they wouldn’t be able to survive on Martha’s seven shillings a week and what little they could carry down to Craig-y-Nos and Pontardawe themselves.
‘I don’t know.’ David looked as devastated as she felt. ‘It’s too dark in the stable to take a good look. I came back for the lantern.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Mary wiped the flour from her hands in her apron, untied the strings and pulled it over her head. ‘Stay with Luke in case he wakes, Matthew,’ she ordered before running across the yard after David.
David had lit the lantern and tied on the leather apron he wore when he shoed the horses. ‘Hold her head fast.’
Mary wrapped both arms tightly around the mare’s head and rested her cheek against the horse’s neck. ‘Stay still, there’s a good girl,’ she whispered, looking to David who was at the back of the stall.
Her brother sank back on his haunches and lifted the hoof of Dolly’s back left leg between his knees. He scraped along the shoe with his penknife, and pus spurted out.
‘There’s something caught in here.’ He probed further. ‘Damne
d piece of metal. It looks like a nail. She must have picked it up when we went down to Pontardawe last week.’
‘Is it bad?’ Mary asked anxiously.
‘It’s not good,’ David replied acidly. ‘I’ll need hot water and soap to clean it out. And something to disinfect the wound.’
‘I’ll bring the iodine and make an oatmeal poultice to draw out the poison.’ Mary patted Dolly’s neck. ‘Good girl.’
David’s expression was grim in the shadowy light. ‘What will we do if we lose Dolly?’
‘We’re not going to,’ Mary snapped, avoiding his eyes.
‘But -’
‘We’re not going to, Davy,’ she reiterated forcefully. ‘The iodine and oatmeal will work.’
‘If it doesn’t, the vet won’t come out. Not when we owe him ten pounds from the time he treated the cows for fever.’
Ignoring him, she said, ‘I’ll be back as quick as I can with the hot water, soap, iodine and poultice. Do you need anything else?’
David almost added ‘A miracle’, then saw that his sister was close to tears. ‘No, Mary, hopefully that will be enough.’
*……*……*
The little natural light that filtered into the corridor through the skylights was as grey as the rain-filled atmosphere outside. The clock in the tower struck the half, quarter and full hour. Harry heard footsteps behind him as nurses and porters walked up and down the corridor, but although they slowed when they approached, no one spoke to him. Eventually the office door opened. He turned in time to see Dr Adams stride in the direction of the lift. Diana Adams came out and lifted her mackintosh from the hall stand. She started nervously when he rose to his feet.
‘Whatever were you doing sitting there in the shadows, Mr Evans?’ she demanded suspiciously.
‘Waiting.’ His voice sounded hoarse and peculiar. ‘How is Martha?’
‘She has concussion. But she has regained consciousness, and although her speech is slow, as far as we can tell there doesn’t appear to be any permanent damage. She will need to be kept under observation but we can’t admit her to any of the wards here because of the risk of infection. I will drive her home and visit her there for the next few days.’
‘I can drive both of you.’
‘I don’t think that’s wise, Mr Evans. I know her family and –’
Relief brought anger and Harry burst out, ‘For God’s sake, what kind of a family are they to allow a girl of that age to walk alone on that isolated road in this weather?’
‘Keep your voice down, Mr Evans,’ Diana said angrily. ‘Martha was walking home.’
‘Home? There’s nothing on that road!’
‘How would you know, when all you said you could see was mist? There are farms, cottages and even a couple of old coaching inns.’
‘How far away does the girl live?’
‘Five miles.’
‘Five miles?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘You employ a girl no more than seven or eight years of age as a maid, knowing that she has to walk ten miles a day, and expose her to all kinds of infection when she’s here?’
‘She doesn’t work on the wards, only in the kitchen, Mr Evans,’ Diana retorted. ‘And she is not eight years old. She is twelve.’
‘I have five sisters between the ages of sixteen and nine, and the youngest, Susie, is twice the size of Martha.’
‘I take it that your sisters are well fed, Mr Evans.’
‘I should hope so.’
‘Then they are more fortunate than Martha and her brothers and sister. Although they live on a farm they find it hard to make ends meet, a situation with which you are obviously unfamiliar.’
‘I know all about poverty -’
‘Really, Mr Evans?’
‘Yes, really.’ Incensed by her mocking tone, Harry lost his temper. ‘I lived in the Rhondda during the nineteen-eleven strike, and I worked as a volunteer during the General Strike in May.’
‘Ferrying goods to poverty-stricken households in your expensive car, Mr Evans?’ she said contemptuously. ‘There are households that don’t see as much money as it cost you to buy it in a lifetime.’
‘I don’t need to be reminded how privileged I am, or how little money some families have to live on.’
‘As you don’t see the need for Martha to work, I seriously doubt it, Mr Evans.’
‘All I said is that a girl that age shouldn’t be working in a sanatorium or walking that distance to get here.’
‘Would it surprise you to know that my father and I feel the same way? But we also know that Martha’s family couldn’t survive without the money we pay her. Now if you’ll excuse me,’ she slipped on her raincoat, ‘I have to get her home before her family send out a search party to find her.’
‘I’ll take you.’ Harry opened the door.
‘I told you, Mr Evans, the Ellises will not be pleased to see you. Besides, you need to get back to the inn and change out of those clothes. You’re soaked to the skin.’
‘I need to face her family and take full responsibility for what I’ve done,’ he insisted. ‘And I will drive up there whether you come with me or not.’
‘You’d never find the house on your own.’
‘There can’t be that many. I’ll simply knock on all the doors I come to, until I find the right one. They won’t all have small girls called Martha living in them who work here.’
‘You would do that?’
‘Yes.’ Harry parried her stony glare.
‘In that case I suppose I’d better let you drive us.’ Diana took her hat from the hall stand.
‘I’ll open the car.’ Harry ran outside and wrenched open the back door. The Gladstone bag and umbrella still lay, forgotten, on the floor of the car. When he returned to the castle, Diana was in the porch holding Martha, who was swathed in blankets. He took the girl from her and swiftly deposited her on the back seat. She looked up at him in confusion when he settled her. ‘Are you comfortable?’ he whispered.
She nodded, and he closed the door. He walked around the front passenger side and opened the door for Diana Adams.
She knew he was waiting for her, yet she double-checked her reflection in the hall mirror, adjusted the collar on her light-grey mackintosh, and pulled on her leather gloves and black cloche hat, all the while watching him grow steadily wetter as he stood, hatless and coatless in the downpour. After she’d dressed, she put up her umbrella, walked out of the castle and climbed into the tourer.
He slammed the passenger door behind her, and squelched his way to the driving seat.
‘I’ll try not drip on you,’ he said caustically, when she shrank away from him.
‘That would be difficult, Mr Evans. You’ve already soaked my stockings. Turn right at the gate, I’ll point out the house when we get there.’
Although the rain was even heavier than when Harry had driven up the mountain earlier, the mist had cleared and he was able to see the hills rolling upwards on their right. But he found it impossible to gauge their height as the summits were shrouded in low cloud. Just as he’d suspected, on the left a slope slid precariously down to the floor of the valley.
Drenched, bedraggled sheep huddled in clusters alongside the road. Terrified of hitting one of them and nervous after the accident, Harry drove more slowly than usual. The silence between him and Diana Adams grew more oppressive with every passing mile. Even more so every time she turned around to check on Martha, who was lying silently in the back with her eyes closed.
‘Is this the house?’ he asked, when he saw an isolated building after what seemed closer to ten than five miles. It was a typically Welsh, stone-built square cottage, with a slate roof, windows either side of a central door and three windows set above.
‘If you look more closely you’ll see that it’s boarded up, Mr Evans,’ she informed him curtly.
‘So it is. I didn’t notice.’
‘It’s a sign of the times. Rural depopulation. Unemployment is up, wages are down, the price of food has
dropped, but not enough to allow people to buy anything beyond the bare essentials. As a result, tenant farmers can no longer afford to pay the rent demanded by the landowners, so they are evicted. And while their family homes are boarded up, they and their families are admitted to the workhouse.’
Sick with worry about Martha, and resenting Diana’s preaching, Harry retorted, ‘You missed your vocation, Miss Adams. You should have become a lecturer. And I do understand basic economics as they apply to the present situation in this country.’
Diana glanced at him. ‘Martha’s house is up ahead,’ she said in a softer voice. ‘You can see the side of it from here. It’s behind that copse.’
‘That’s her house!’ Harry stared at the massive building built on an exposed bluff on the left-hand side of the road.
‘That’s the side wall of the house and the farm buildings behind it. The house itself fronts the road.’
‘It looks enormous.’
‘It is.’
He lowered his voice. ‘How can you possibly say that Martha’s family need the money she earns?’
‘The Ellis Estate and outbuildings may have been built by her family centuries ago, but they are tenants there now.’
Harry slowed his car to a crawl. The house was even larger than it looked from the side. A slate-roofed arch bridged two buildings, joining them on the second storey. Both were double the size of the cottage down the road and either would have been considered a substantial dwelling in its own right. The arch tunnelled through the house, and opened into a sloping farmyard the size of four tennis courts, enclosed by the house at the front and outbuildings on the other three sides.
‘Drive through and park in the farmyard,’ Diana advised. ‘Martha’s family live in the kitchen and we will have to carry her in through the back door. Like most farmers around here they only use the front door for weddings and funerals.’
Finders and Keepers Page 11