Finders and Keepers (10 page)

It had been one of the finest white Leghorns they had bred. Martha had named it Bounty because it had been their best layer. She stared at its dull, lifeless eyes, fingered its clawed feet and began to cry – harsh, rasping sobs that startled the birds and set the dogs barking.

She had no memory of killing the bird. Was she going mad? What if she had attacked a person – Bob Pritchard, for instance? If she hurt him, he would take revenge on her family. Then she recalled his strength. She couldn't hurt him, but she was strong enough to hurt Luke, Matthew and Martha. And even David was a sound sleeper. What if she attacked him one night the way she had the chicken?

She sank her head on to the limp, feathered body and continued to weep. She had never felt so utterly alone. She had her sister and brothers, but she couldn't burden their childhoods by telling them what the agent was doing to her. Much as she loved them, there were times, like now, when she felt the responsibility of caring for them crushing down on her like an enormous weight that prevented her from breathing.

She had no idea how long she sat there cradling the bloody body of the hen amongst the wreckage. She only knew that she had to carry on as best she could. Chickens were too precious to be eaten by her or her family. Even the eggs were hoarded to be sold, and in winter they went without rather than send short measure to the sanatorium or the shop. Whenever she killed a chicken, duck, or goose, it was for market.

But would it be so awful for them to eat one of their own birds? Just this once. She looked down at the corpse and spoiled fruit and vegetables. She couldn't let food go to waste. But neither could she do anything else until she'd set her skirt to soak. Blood stained worse than anything else. She'd change, salvage what she could, pluck the chicken and put it in the stew – or, better still, roast it in the oven. She'd tell David that it had been wounded in a fight with another bird, which wasn't so very far from the truth.

She struggled to her feet. She couldn't wash her clothes until David returned with soap, but she could soak them in cold water and salt to bleach the stain. And after she'd changed, she'd prepare the meal. By then it would be time to drive the cows from the fields into the shed for milking. She hoped David would be back to help her. She was tired and what remained of the day stretched ahead, with more work to be done than there was time left to do it in. And all she really wanted to do was curl up in bed, close her eyes and sink into oblivion.

Life would be more bearable if she could see a time, no matter how far into the future, when things would be better. When her family would be able to hold their heads high again because they didn't owe anyone a penny and there'd be no agent to take everything they owned away from them – including her self-respect.

*……*……*

Harry wandered aimlessly around the gardens for over an hour before making his way back to the house. Taking a wrong turn, he was soon hopelessly lost in a maze of modern annexes and old servants' quarters. After ten minutes spent trying to orientate himself, he was relieved to see Diana Adams through the window of a very different ward to the ones they had visited.

It was filled with young women who were all sitting up in beds or on chairs, with cushions plumped behind their backs. Mask pulled down, Diana Adams smiled as she chatted and admired the embroidery and knitting they held up for her inspection. She glanced up and saw him through the window. Leaving the ward, she joined him.

‘You are lost, Mr Evans?'

He knew from the tone of her voice that she was annoyed he'd seen her. ‘I am.'

‘I'll take you back to the main entrance.' She went ahead of him.

‘Do those patients have tuberculosis?'

‘They did.'

‘They've recovered?'

‘The patients on that ward are undergoing weekly tests. When we are absolutely certain that they are no longer contagious, and consider them strong enough, we discharge them to their homes.'

‘Then they are cured?'

‘I told you my father is reluctant to use that word, Mr Evans. But yes, some of them will make up the twenty per cent of patients who walk out of Craig-y-Nos.'

‘How long have they been here?'

‘Some have been here since my father took over the management of the sanatorium five years ago, in nineteen twenty-one. Two of the girls have been with us for less than a year, but that is an unusually short stay.'

‘A year,' he said thoughtfully. ‘You must get to know your patients really well.'

‘My father discourages close relationships between staff and patients, Mr Evans.'

It was then Harry realized what should have been obvious from the outset. Diana Adams's offhand manner was a defence mechanism. No one could afford to get emotionally involved with so many terminally ill patients. It would be soul-destroying. But she could let her guard down with those in the recovery ward, because, thanks to her father's treatments and the care they had received in Craig-y-Nos, they still had their lives ahead of them.

‘Miss Adams,' he walked out into the covered yard alongside her, ‘would you be kind enough to take me to your father's clerk so I can make arrangements to have my grandfather admitted here tomorrow?'

‘Yes, Mr Evans.' For the first time since she had opened the front door to him he saw a hint of sympathy and commiseration in her dark blue eyes.

‘I would be grateful if you could recommend a place where I could rent a room tonight.'

‘The inn at Abercrave has rooms.'

‘The one four miles down the road?'

‘It's the only other building in the valley with a telephone, Mr Evans. And there are occasions when we need to get in touch with relatives of our patients urgently. Good day.'

‘I won't forget, Dad. You'll be arriving at Penwyllt station at eleven o'clock … Doctor Williams has asked Doctor Adams to send an ambulance …'I'll be there as well. I'm sorry there's no change in Edyth. How is Mam coping?'

The crackling on the telephone line drowned out the end of Lloyd's answer. Harry raised his voice in the hope that his stepfather could still hear him.

‘… Yes, the countryside around the sanatorium is beautiful, Dad. As to whether Granddad will be happy there I doubt it, because he'll be so far away from the family … I can't hear you, but I hope you can still hear me. Love to everyone.' The line went dead before Harry finished shouting the last sentence. Exasperated, he replaced the telephone and receiver on the rickety card table.

‘Did you get through all right, Mr Evans?' Mrs Edwards asked when he left the tiny room, no bigger than a broom cupboard, which she had grandly referred to as ‘the office'. There wasn't even a chair. All it contained besides the table and telephone was a rough set of shelves that housed haphazard bundles of invoices and bills held together by elastic bands.

‘Yes, I did, thank you, Mrs Edwards. Although I was cut off before I finished.'

‘When I booked the call with the exchange, I asked them to give you the full two and a half minutes.'

‘I would have liked five.'

‘The exchange gives priority to Craig-y-Nos. They don't like us tying up the line for any longer in case they have an emergency and need to contact relatives.' She lifted the account book she kept beneath the bar on to the counter. ‘I'll put the call on your bill, Mr Evans?'

‘I'll pay you now, Mrs Edwards.' Harry thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change.

‘When you leave will be fine. I'll add your bar bill to your board and lodge as well, if you like.'

‘That's good of you, Mrs Edwards. I'll have a pint of beer now, please.' After three years in Oxford when he'd had to pay for a full term's accommodation in advance, Harry found this attitude to money refreshingly trusting. Mrs Edwards had refused the five shillings he'd offered her for a night's food and accommodation when he'd arrived, on the grounds that she liked her customers ‘to be satisfied', adding that if he thought a meal ‘wasn't right' she wouldn't charge him for it. And he'd practically had to press the cost of the tyre repair on Alf, who'd insisted he could pay him ‘anytime' once he'd discovered that he'd booked into the inn.

‘Does the room Enfys showed you suit?' She pulled a dark-amber pint of ale with a creamy head, and pushed it over the counter towards him.

‘Enfys?' Harry asked blankly.

‘The maid.'

He recalled the red-faced, red-haired serving maid, who'd puffed and panted up the stairs ahead of him, and thrown a bedroom door open before walking on silently down the passage.

‘It's fine, thank you, Mrs Edwards.' The room was perfectly adequate but it wouldn't have met with Diana Adams's approval. There were far too many things in it that could harbour germs. The floorboards were covered with rag rugs, the bed was made with a quilt as well as Welsh flannel blankets and feather-filled pillows and bolster. And there was an upholstered easy chair and a writing table in addition to the pine bedroom suite. The furniture was solid and built for durability rather than beauty. Recalling Alf saying that the pieces he made ‘seemed to suit the farmers round here', Harry wondered if they were examples of his handiwork. To his amazement the room also had electric light.

‘Enfys will serve you supper in the dining parlour,' Mrs Edwards indicated a door in the corridor behind the bar. ‘It's steak and kidney pudding, boiled potatoes, peas and carrots tonight, with rhubarb and custard for afters. If you want more beer, there's no need to disturb yourself. Just bang the table or call out and Enfys will get it for you.'

‘Thank you, Mrs Edwards.'

‘I've only one other young man lodging here at present. He'll share the dining parlour with you.'

‘And here he is, Mrs Edwards.' A slim man, as dark as Harry was fair, walked down the narrow passageway towards them. ‘Good evening.' Juggling the knapsack, easel and folder he was carrying, he freed one hand so he could lift his hat to Mrs Edwards.

‘Been off painting again, Mr Ross?'

‘You know me so well, Mrs Edwards. A pint of your best, please. Painting's thirsty work.' He set down the easel and folder, turned to Harry and held out his hand. ‘Toby Ross.'

Harry shook it firmly. ‘Harry Evans.'

‘I hope the dressing-down Miss Adams gave me earlier hasn't coloured your opinion of me.' He picked up the pint of beer Mrs Edwards had pulled for him and downed half of it in one thirsty swallow.

‘Toby Ross – that was you behind the mask at the sanatorium?'

‘It was. Please, call me Toby. I'll dump these things in my room, wash my hands and I'll be with you.' To Harry's astonishment he finished his pint in a second gulp. ‘I'll have another with a whisky chaser when I come down, please, Mrs Edwards.'

‘He's an artist,' Mrs Edwards confided superfluously after Toby ran up the stairs. ‘So's his uncle. He's famous and paints pictures that get put in books. But by all accounts he's in a bad way. That's why Mr Ross spends all his time painting, trying to do as much of his work for him as he can.'

‘Frank Ross!' Harry exclaimed.

‘I think that's his name,' Mrs Edwards poured a measure of whisky into a glass.

‘To think that I met Frank Ross today, and didn't know who he was. He's been my idol for years. You should have seen his exhibition in London two years ago. The way he blended the colours -'

‘You met Mr Ross's uncle in the sanatorium! You were in the same room as him?' Mrs Edwards exclaimed in horror.

‘All visitors are gowned and masked,' Harry assured her.

‘Well,' Mrs Edwards set about refilling Toby's pint mug, ‘those precautions Mr Ross is always telling me about had better work, that's all I can say. It's a mystery to me why they had to go and put a lot of infectious people in Madame Patti's castle in the first place. Poor woman would turn in her grave if she could see what they've done to her home. It was lovely in her day, and I should know. The late Mr Edwards and me were up there often enough, serving stout and ale at the parties she gave the locals. If we get any more cases of TB in the valley than we had in her time, we'll know exactly where to lay the blame.'

‘The doctor in charge and his staff take every precaution not to spread the disease outside of the castle, Mrs Edwards.'

She sniffed loudly. ‘Is the gentlemen's supper ready?' she asked Enfys, who had emerged from the kitchen quarters at the back of the inn with a tray of crockery and cutlery.

Enfys nodded and disappeared into the dining parlour. Harry wondered if she were a mute or simply chose not to speak.

‘Thank you again for arranging the telephone call, Mrs Edwards.' He picked up his beer and followed Enfys into the parlour, which was furnished with an enormous oak dresser, long table and ten chairs. The walls were papered in a red stripe that wavered over every uneven bump and lump in the plaster.

Toby Ross joined him a few minutes later, carrying his beer and whisky. He took the chair at the head of the table. ‘Cheers.' he lifted his mug and sipped it.

‘Cheers.' Harry lifted his own glass.

‘So, what were you doing at the sanatorium in the company of the Snow Queen?'

Harry laughed. ‘Who christened Miss Adams that?'

‘My uncle. He finds it preferable to believe she's incapable of loving any man because her heart has been penetrated by an icicle than to accept her rejection of his advances.'

‘Even after hearing Miss Adams call you both Mr Ross and seeing your uncle sketching, I didn't realize your uncle was
the
Frank Ross. Mrs Edwards just told me.'

‘The one and only.' Toby sat back so Enfys could set a plate of steaming steak and kidney pudding and vegetables smothered in gravy in front of him. ‘At the risk of being thought rude and repeating myself, why
were
you at Craig-y-Nos?'