Finders and Keepers (29 page)

Mary knocked his hand away after she set the teapot on the table. ‘Where are your manners, David?' She replaced the bread he'd taken on the board. ‘The guest is always offered first choice of food.'

‘Why?' he demanded, his anger flaring. ‘It's not as if one slice of bread is any better than another. Besides, the food is there; he can help himself, can't he?'

‘It's not a question of helping himself, it's a question of manners, and yours are appalling, David Ellis.'

‘If they are, it's down to them who brought me up,' he bit back savagely.

Ignoring David, Mary took the bread board and held it in front of Harry. ‘Bread, Mr Evans?'

‘Thank you.' He took a slice.

David snatched a piece before Mary returned the board to the table. ‘What's the matter with you, Harry?'

‘In what sense?' Harry asked, wary of getting embroiled in an argument between brother and sister.

‘You so idle you'd prefer to see my sister hand you a slice of bread than stretch across the table to get it yourself?'

Harry didn't quite suppress a smile, but he knew it was the wrong reaction when Mary glowered at both of them. ‘I'm merely observing good manners, as Miss Ellis said.'

‘Mr Evans must think we're a load of savages.' Mary held out her hand. ‘Tea, Mr Evans?'

‘Please.' Harry gave her his cup.

She filled it and passed it back to him before walking around the table and filling her brothers' and sister's cups. ‘Help yourself to cheese and butter, Mr Evans.'

‘He can take his own butter and cheese and not bread,' David mocked.

‘I think your sister is trying to make me feel at home, David.' Harry took a scraping of butter and the smallest segment of cheese.

‘Why, when it's not his home?' David asked Mary.

‘Mr Evans is our invited guest. And I don't have to tell you what he did for us this afternoon. Have you even said thank you to him?'

‘Thank you for your help, Harry.' David had the grace to look slightly ashamed but Harry found it even more difficult to keep a straight face when the boy was being uncharacteristically contrite.

‘It was my pleasure, David.'

‘You can't call what we did pleasure.'

‘Let's just say I enjoyed your company and doing a worthwhile job in the open air.'

Mary finished pouring the tea. She covered the pot with a knitted cosy and set it on the table. Taking the smallest cup from the shelf of crockery, she filled it with milk, placed it before her own plate and took Luke from Martha before sitting next to Harry.

‘Did you hear what I said about getting the fleeces down to Pontardawe, Mary?' David took two slices of cheese.

‘Yes.' Mary settled Luke before tipping the small pieces of bread Martha had buttered for him on to her own plate. ‘But it's pointless worrying about getting them down there before we have to. Dolly might be better by Wednesday.'

‘Our pigs have more chance of growing wings and flying out of their sty,' David pronounced dourly.

‘The wound in her hoof is healing. I dressed it two hours ago when you were out at the pen and it definitely looked better,' Mary countered defiantly.

‘It's deep; walk her down as far as Pontardawe the way she is and she'll never walk back. They'll have to shoot her there,' David said.

‘David mentioned that you have cheeses, eggs and poultry ready to take down to the Colonial Stores in Pontardawe, Miss Ellis,' Harry put one spoonful of sugar into his tea instead of his usual two.

‘He did?' The revelation earned David another glare.

‘I could take them down in the car for you. I have to go down to the shops next week and Wednesday is as good a day as any.'

‘The produce won't bring in as much as the fleeces.' David finished the food on his plate and took another piece of bread.

‘I don't know anything about produce prices, but we both agreed that there is no way that I can take the fleeces down to Pontardawe in my car.'

‘If Dolly isn't fit to cart them, we've no choice but to offer them to the agent.' Mary held the cup in front of Luke. She kept a tight hold of the bottom while he lifted it to his mouth and drank.

‘Bob the Gob won't offer us any more for that extra pen of fleeces than he will for the three we've left for him to pick up. But he will ask where we got them from, because they're proof that we've a damned sight more fleeces than we've admitted to having sheep.'

‘David -'

‘I'm sorry I swore,' he cut in irritably. ‘But there's no need to give me another lecture. Just the thought of that man makes me curse.'

‘Can't you sell your fleeces anywhere other than Pontardawe?' Harry laid the cheese on top of the bread he'd buttered and cut it into four triangles. It was only after he'd done it that he noticed the others had cut their bread into squares.

‘Like where?' David snapped.

‘I don't know, there must be other markets beside Pontardawe.'

‘There are,' Mary said. ‘Swansea, Brecon, Ammanford – but we'd have the same problem of getting our fleeces there.'

‘There are no farmers nearby who would cart them for you?'

‘They're all in the same …' David looked away from Mary, ‘position as us. Every farm within two miles of this place is owned by our landlord and their rents collected by Bob the Gob. He's taken every horse capable of pulling a cart except Dolly.'

‘And you can't hire a horse for a day?' Harry asked, trying to be helpful.

‘With what?' David questioned acidly.

Harry recalled the ten pounds he'd given Mary but said nothing.

‘We don't have any money to hire a horse, Mr Evans,' Mary spoke quietly. ‘The ten pounds you gave us went to pay an old vet's bill,' she explained, as if she'd read his thoughts. ‘It's been owed since last winter and he warned us no matter how much we needed him, he wouldn't come here again until we paid it.'

‘I could lend you -'

‘We couldn't possibly pay you back or take anything else from you.' She looked fiercely at David, daring him to contradict her.

‘Was the ten pounds enough to pay the bill?'

‘No, we had to put two pounds we couldn't afford towards it.' David bit into his bread and cheese as if he were punishing it.

‘I was hoping that the money we'd get for the fleeces would see us through until the autumn stock sales. We've always managed to sell a few calves and pigs that we've kept from the agent. But the problem is ours, not yours, Mr Evans,' she said firmly. ‘And thank you for helping David get the fleeces into the little barn. We couldn't have managed without you.'

‘You would have, it just would have taken you longer.' Wanting to help, but feeling as though Mary had closed off every avenue, Harry changed the subject. ‘This cheese is good. The best I've ever eaten, Miss Ellis.'

‘It's from an old family recipe.' Mary turned her attention to Luke, who was alternately sucking a piece of bread and a stick of cheese.

Harry glanced around the table. The room might be bare, but it was as spotlessly clean as when he had first visited the farmhouse. And Mary Ellis and the children may be living hand to mouth on the slimmest of budgets and the simplest of food, but the cheese really was excellent. And although coarse, the bread was light. Their clothes left a great deal to be desired, but so did his after only one day of working on the farm.

It would be so easy for him to solve their problems by going to the bank in Pontardawe, drawing some money out of his account and buying them another horse. But his grandfather was right; it wasn't easy to help people. The Ellises might be poverty-stricken but they were also proud, and the last thing he wanted to do was take away the one thing they had left beside the Ellis Estate – their self-respect. It would destroy Mary Ellis to accept any more ‘charity' from him. And if David was right, his gesture would be pointless anyway, because the agent would only commandeer the animal the minute he saw it, as further payment against their rent arrears.

‘More bread and cheese, Mr Evans?' Mary offered him the board a second time.

‘No thank you. I won't be able to eat the supper Mrs Edwards has prepared for me if I …' Panic-stricken, he reached for his watch. The hands pointed to half past eight and he had agreed to meet Diana Adams down by the river at eight.

‘Is something the matter, Harry?' David glanced at Mary as he used Harry's name again.

‘I've just remembered that I should have been somewhere half an hour ago.' Harry tried to finish the tea in his cup as he rose to his feet. ‘Thank you so much for the tea, Miss Ellis, David, Martha, Matthew. I'm sorry I have to leave in such a hurry.' He ran to the door.

The hands on his gold wristwatch pointed to a quarter to nine when Harry parked his car outside the gates of Craig-y-Nos. It wasn't until he climbed out that he noticed the back seat. His waterproofs were caked in dirt and when he peeled them away he saw that they had done little to protect the leather covering against the fleeces. The hide was scuffed and stained, and he suspected that, like him, the whole car stank of sheep, but after only a few hours he was so used to the smell he could no longer recognize it.

He bundled the waterproofs into the boot and glanced at his boater. Picking it up, he decided he would look ludicrous if he wore it with his ravaged suit. He left it in the car and ran headlong down to the river. Diana was walking along the bank, close to the spot where they had made love the day before.

‘I am so sorry -'

Her peals of laughter cut his apology short. ‘Don't tell me any more, let me guess. You were kidnapped by ruffians who rolled you down the mountain? Or possibly, judging by the smell, imprisoned you in a sheep pen?'

‘I saw David and Mary Ellis trying to cart fleeces in barrows. I offered to help them and -'

‘Evidently forgot all about time,' she finished for him.

‘Yes. Will you forgive me?'

‘Happily. I'll even throw in a few words of admiration for your charitable spirit – as long as you don't come near me.' She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

‘I really am sorry, I was so looking forward to this evening,' he murmured disconsolately.

‘There'll be others.' Her smile broadened. ‘And this one isn't entirely wasted. We can talk while you escort me back to the road, on condition that you stay at least six feet away from me – and downwind.'

Harry and Toby were eating breakfast in the dining room of the inn the following morning when there was a knock at the door.

Toby shouted, ‘Come in.'

Alf opened it just enough to stick his head inside. ‘Mr Evans.'

‘Please call me Harry,' Harry pleaded.

‘Wouldn't be proper, not with you staying at the inn, sir.' He leaned over and dropped Harry's car keys next to his plate. ‘It took me two hours to clean it this morning, sir, but it's still not how it should be. If you'll forgive me for saying so, Crossley tourers weren't built for farm work, no more than they were built for moving livestock.'

‘I didn't carry livestock in it.' Harry felt that he had to say something in his own defence. ‘Only a few fleeces.'

‘Whatever you did, sir, those seats have taken heavy punishment. I've done what I can but they need several good coats of leather polish, and even that won't take away all the marks on them.'

‘Could you fit that in some time today, Alf?' Harry asked hopefully.

‘It wouldn't be fair to promise anything, sir. I'm booked up all this week between the carpentry and Doctor Adams's ambulance coming in for a service. But if you want to do it yourself, I can let you have a couple of tins of polish.'

Harry realized that was Alf's way of showing his disapproval. ‘I'll pay you for what you've done now, and for a couple of tins of polish.'

‘No need, sir, I'll get my mother to put it on the bill.'

Alf left, and Toby raised his eyebrows. ‘I believe you should consider yourself told off.'

‘I do,' Harry said irritably.

Toby paused with a piece of toast halfway to his mouth and burst out laughing. ‘I wish I'd been there to see it.'

‘Where?'

‘The farm. You moving fleeces in the sad, tattered remains of your cream flannels.'

‘Very funny.'

‘I was sympathetic towards you last night, wasn't I?'

‘So sympathetic I have the head this morning to prove it.' Harry dropped his cutlery on top of his uneaten breakfast and rose to his feet.

‘Can't eat?' Toby forked a slice of fried potato on to a piece of bacon.

‘Not hungry, and I have to pick up my uncles at the station in an hour. I have time to drop you off at the sanatorium first,' he offered.

‘Can I come with you to the station? I'd like to meet them.'

‘My uncles?' Harry asked in surprise.

‘It would save you a detour. I'll bring my painting gear and walk on up to the lake from the castle.'

‘I'm sure my uncles wouldn't mind a short run up the mountain after they've been to Craig-y-Nos.'

‘And after you've dropped me off you can move them both into the front seat so you can cart more fleeces?' Toby arched his eyebrows.

‘Full of jokes this morning, aren't you?' Harry lifted his jacket from the back of his chair and slipped it on.

‘Don't you want to remodel your remaining suit?' Toby finished the food on his plate.

‘It's a lovely morning, Toby. Let's leave it that way.'

‘Look on the bright side, Harry.' Toby followed him out into the yard. ‘You might see the Snow Queen at Craig-y-Nos. And who knows? She may even feel like taking a short walk with you when your uncles are with your grandfather.'

To Harry's surprise, Bella walked off the train behind his uncles. The instant she saw him, she ran up the platform, flung her arms around his neck and hugged him so tight he could barely breathe.