Finders and Keepers (4 page)

‘I'm going to get help, Granddad.'

Billy nodded weakly and leaned against the window pane.

Harry ran on to the landing. The band had stopped playing. A crowd had gathered around Edyth, who was lying face down at the foot of the stairs. His mother and Lloyd were crouching over her.

‘Dad?' Harry had to call three times before his stepfather looked up. ‘We need an ambulance.'

Lloyd was hoarse with shock. ‘The phone's disconnected. Joey's gone to fetch the doctor in his car.'

Harry's voice rose precariously. ‘It's Granddad. We need an ambulance for Granddad as well.'

Chapter Two

David Ellis set his back to the majestic sweep of the Brecon Beacons, shaded his eyes and studied the stretch of road that ran in front of his family's isolated farmhouse. It wound from the market town of Brecon, through miles of hills and valleys that were the lonely domain of shepherds, sheep and predatory wildlife; past remote farms, smallholdings and tiny hamlets down through the Swansea Valley to the coast.

A trap was moving along the road at a smart pace. Its varnished panels glittered in the sunlight and the white pony trotting between the shafts was a highly-bred hayburner. And, as if that weren't enough, the driver was wearing a frock coat and top hat. David knew few men who could afford to dress like that on a Sunday, let alone a weekday, and only one who could afford to buy an expensive new rig. He wasn't a farmer.

David kneed the last lamb that his dog, Merlyn, had rounded up into the dry-stone pen. He fastened the rough gate with a wooden peg, pulled the grubby cap that had been his father's from his pocket, threw it on his head, whistled to the dog and raced across the fields.

He found his eldest sister, Mary, in the yard behind their house. Their six-year-old brother, Matthew, was glaring resentfully at her from a perch on the wall of the pigsty that she was cleaning, their one-year-old brother, Luke, on his lap. Matthew considered himself old and strong enough for farm work, yet Mary invariably set him to watch Luke who had just begun to walk and was into everything he shouldn't be. On the farm that was most things.

‘Agent's on his way,' David gasped.

Mary straightened her back and leaned on the broom she was using to sweep out the muck. ‘How many lambs do we have ready for market?'

‘I've shut a hundred and forty in the pen.'

‘Then, there must be close on a hundred left in the hills,' she said anxiously.

‘None you can see from the road.'

‘If he finds out that we've set them aside -'

‘We need at least sixty to replace the ones we lost last winter. And if he takes the rest, we'll starve,' David argued forcefully.

David was only fourteen but he had grown up quickly since their parents had died. Desperate to pay off their father's debts and rent arrears, Mary had no choice but to allow the agent to take and sell off everything of value on the farm and in the house. The only thing she kept that might bring in a pound or two was their mother's wedding ring, and she stubbornly refused to let that go.

She picked up a bucket of water and tipped it over the stone floor of the sty. ‘Another couple of these and this will be as clean as I can get it. Then I can move on to the others.'

‘Are the sows and their litters in the field?' David asked.

‘The sows and thirty piglets.'

‘Where have you put the others?'

‘I locked them in the tack room behind the stable,' Matthew crowed proudly.

‘Let's just hope he doesn't hear them squealing.' Mary saw the trap turn through the arched entrance that cut a tunnel through the house and led into the yard. ‘Remember,' she whispered fiercely to her brothers, ‘not one word from either of you. Leave the talking to me.'

Desperately wanting to be with Edyth, unwilling to leave his grandfather, Harry was locked in a nightmare dilemma. He had lost count of the number of times his father and Uncle Victor – an ex-colliery first-aider, the closest they had to a medical expert – ran up and down the stairs, dividing their time between Edyth and Billy. Fighting to draw air into his damaged lungs, his grandfather coughed up more blood than Harry would have credited a body could hold.

Mari brought up white linen tablecloths that she had stripped from the trestles, and helped him mop the blood that poured from his grandfather's nose and mouth. But even in his panicked state Harry sensed that she was as torn as he was. Frantic, he murmured meaningless reassurances.

‘You'll be fine, Granddad, you and Edyth, you'll be fine, just you see, you'll -'

‘Lloyd, she's having a fit!' Sali shouted up the stairs.

‘Stay with him!' Lloyd ran back downstairs, Mari at his heels.

‘Whatever you do, keep his head up,' Victor ordered before following them out of the door.

Harry continued to support Billy. A few minutes later, his grandfather lost consciousness. He turned his wrist so he could see his watch. Twenty minutes had passed since he'd heard Edyth scream as she'd fallen downstairs.

Bella's voice, high-pitched and hysterical, shrieked, ‘Uncle Joey's back. He's brought an ambulance!'

Harry heard the bell ringing. Music had never sounded as sweet, and he weakened in relief. But his waiting wasn't over. Victor came charging upstairs and checked Billy's pulse.

‘He fainted some time ago,' Harry whispered.

‘The doctor will be up as soon as soon as they've loaded Edyth into the ambulance.'

‘She's -'

‘Breathing, but unconscious,' Victor interrupted, concern making him terse.

‘She'll be all right.' It was more of a plea than a question.

‘I hope so,' Victor breathed fervently.

The doctor entered, dropped his bag and crouched over Billy. ‘I didn't dare risk delaying the ambulance. We'll need another.'

‘I'll send Joey to the Maltsters', they have a telephone there.' Victor released his father's wrist.

‘Tell them it's a stretcher case for the isolation ward in the Graig.'

‘It's TB, isn't it?' Victor looked to the doctor for confirmation.

The doctor nodded as he took a syringe and a phial of morphine from his bag.

Victor left. Lloyd entered, and stood behind the doctor and Harry. All three silently watched Billy slip into a deeper unconsciousness. Ten minutes later Joey came upstairs with an ambulance driver and his mate.

‘Can one of us go with him?' Joey pleaded.

The doctor shook his head. ‘Straight to the isolation ward,' he ordered the driver before finally looking Lloyd and his brothers in the eye. ‘I'm sorry, you can't go into isolation but you can go to the main desk in the infirmary and ask after Edyth. But there's no point in you going there for an hour or two. I won't know anything until she has been X-rayed. I'll meet you there.'

Harry stood back helplessly as the men carried his grandfather out. A few minutes later he heard the sound of a bell again when the second ambulance drove away from the house. He looked around the room. So many happy memories had been overshadowed by this one traumatic incident.

He gathered the blood-stained tablecloths and trailed miserably down the stairs behind his father and uncles.

‘I counted thirty-five piglets the last time I called. There's only thirty in the field.' Bob Pritchard, agent for the largest absentee landowner in Breconshire, and universally known as ‘Bob the Gob' because his word was law to the tenants from whom he collected rent, glared at Mary.

She wound a strand of black curly hair around her finger. ‘The sow rolled on three and crushed them to death.'

‘And the carcasses?'

‘We fed them to the dogs. They were so broken and bloody they weren't fit for anything else.' Mary slipped one hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. Her father had told her that a lie wasn't a lie if you made the sign of the cross when you told it.

‘And the other two?'

She intertwined her fingers until they hurt. ‘Were runts. We tried to save them but couldn't.'

Bob pulled a notebook from his suit pocket. ‘How many lambs have you ready for market?'

‘A hundred and forty, they're in the lower pens in the fields next to the road.' David earned himself a glare from Mary for speaking out.

‘A hundred and forty. You've over four hundred ewes.'

‘We lost sixty ewes and over a hundred lambs last winter. It was hard -'

‘You don't have to tell me how hard last winter was, boy,' Bob snapped. ‘I see it every day in the diminishing return on my employer's investments.'

‘We should be replacing the ewes but you always take all the lambs.'

‘I take all the lambs, Mary, because you have rent arrears of over one hundred and twenty pounds,' he interrupted brusquely. ‘I warn you, the landlord won't stand for much more. I've tried to argue your case with E&G Estates, but I've had strict orders from above that the moment your arrears reach one hundred and fifty pounds, I'm to call in the bailiffs and put you, your brothers and sister out on that road in the clothes you stand up in. They wanted me to put the lot of you out when your father topped himself and your mother died, rather than take a chance on a nineteen-year-old girl trying to run a place this size. If I'd had any sense I would done just that, instead of asking them to give you some leeway. But I've always been too soft for my own good. Not that you appreciate what I've done for you. You've given me nothing but trouble since the day you took over the lease on the Ellis Estate.'

‘I know the law. If you put us out you'd have to give us the tools of our trade as well as our clothes.' David jutted out his chin with a boldness that was pure bravado.

‘What tools?' Bob sneered.

‘My dog, the farm tools -'

‘The dog is livestock,' Bob contradicted.

‘Please, David,' Mary begged. ‘If we carry on working hard and paying what we owe, Mr Pritchard won't put us out. Will you, sir?'

‘That depends on what else you have to send to market when the carts come round tomorrow morning,' Bob replied harshly. ‘What do you have besides the lambs and piglets?'

‘Must you take all the piglets?' Mary asked. ‘They'll only fetch half a crown apiece now. If we fatten them until autumn we'll get at least five shillings.'

‘It's not me who makes the decisions. I have to answer to E&G Estates, and they've warned me that my job's on the line. If I don't get the arrears on all the farms I oversee down to a manageable level in the next six months, I'll be out on my ear. The way you're going, most of what you pay is swallowed up by interest and there was one quarter last year when you didn't even cover that.' Bob scribbled a note in his book. ‘That's one hundred and forty lambs, thirty piglets. Chickens?' He looked up enquiringly.

‘I have twenty plucked, trussed and ready for the butcher, and fifty live.'

‘Geese?'

‘Ten for the butcher and twenty live goslings.'

‘Cattle?'

‘Fifteen bullocks and ten milk calves.'

‘That the lot?' He gazed at her over the edge of his book.

‘It is.'

Bob finished writing his list of figures and looked heavenwards as if he were seeking inspiration before totalling them. ‘Going by the prices at last week's market that should fetch forty pounds or thereabouts. And seeing as how it's you, I'll take a chance on the market remaining stable and knock forty pounds off your rent right now.'

‘That lot is worth at least double, and you know it,' David remonstrated.

‘Prices have halved since last year.' Bob pushed his face close to David's and breathed tobacco and ale fumes at him. ‘Haven't you heard there's a depression on, boy? We're all having to tighten our belts.'

‘Some more than others.' David stood his ground and parried the agent's glare.

‘It's not my fault that your father was a useless waster.'

The boy went white. ‘You -'

‘David, do you want to see us evicted?' Mary hissed.

Bob turned to her. ‘Forty pounds, and that's my final offer. As it is I'm forgoing my agent's commission. I try to help you and all I get is sauce from this one.' He clipped David across the ear. The blow stung and David drew blood when he bit his lip but he remained immobile and defiant.

‘Say sorry to Mr Pritchard, David.' Mary slipped her arm around her brother's shoulders.

‘I'm damned if I will.'

‘Swearing too?' Bob mocked. ‘Well, David Ellis, you may soon find yourself learning manners along with your Bible in the workhouse. I hear they are expert at beating the arrogance out of heathens like you.'

‘Say sorry to Mr Pritchard, David,' Mary pleaded.

‘Sorry,' David muttered mutinously.

‘Sorry,
sir,'
Bob Pritchard corrected.

‘Sorry,
sir.'
David mimicked the agent's voice and inflection perfectly, but his eyes gleamed with undisguised loathing.

Bob made another note in his book and Mary pushed David, willing him to move out of the agent's reach. She was terrified that Bob Pritchard would strike her brother a second time and David would fight back. But Bob snapped his book shut. He looked her up and down. ‘I trust you wash yourself occasionally as well as the pigsties, Mary?'

Mortified, she muttered, ‘I do.'

‘Forty pounds. Take it, or vacate the farm.'

‘We'll take it.'

‘That will bring your arrears down to one hundred and ten pounds after this quarter's interest is paid. You'd better start looking around for something else that you can sell to make inroads on the rest.'

‘We've sold all we can. If you left us more livestock -'

‘I've done all I can for you today. But I tell you what I will do.' He gave her a cold, insincere smile. ‘I'll take a good look at the books tonight and do some thinking. I'll be back this way mid-morning tomorrow. We can have a chat about your situation then. You'll be here?'