The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy) (17 page)

Bob went to fetch his work, somewhat reluctantly. Kathryn stared at the folded paper on the table. She hardly dare touch it. She looked at Sally, torn.

‘I think you should, Mrs M,’ said Sally, firmly. ‘After all, you have a right to know what’s going on and I doubt that he will tell you. Would you like me to go out for a minute so as I don’t know what you’ve done?’

Kathryn nodded and Sally slipped into the garden to pick some herbs.

Kathryn edged up to the letter and flicked it open very slightly. She still hardly dare touch it. She could see that it came from a London address. She flicked it open a little more. As she had suspected, it was a dunning letter. It was a dunning letter demanding the sum of four thousand pounds, the outcome of a single disastrous bet. Four thousand pounds. Kathryn was horrified. Four thousand pounds? Why, there was no way in which Giles would be able to raise that sort of money. Their annual income was scarcely a twentieth of that and she doubted that the house, even with its land, could be mortgaged for anything like that sum. And even then, what ever would there be left for them to live upon? She looked at the letter again. Perhaps she had misread the sum. Perhaps she had been mistaken? No
. How ever many times she read
t
hem
,
how ever little she wanted to read them,
the words came out
exactly
the same. The letter was expecting four thousand pounds, and the whole was expected by return.

She was still standing by the table when Sally reappeared with the herbs.

‘How much is it for, Mrs M?’ she asked.

‘Four thousand, Sally. It is for four thousand pounds.’

‘Well I wish that the devil would carry him away.’

‘So do I, Sally, So do I. Whatever shall we do?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs M. Really, I really do not know.’

‘I think that you and Tom will need to find some other work, Sally. There will be nothing to pay you with.’

‘Well, Tom may go off if he chooses. As for me, I’d liefer stay with you if I can – aye, and work for you for nothing, too. But didn’t master say that he’d sorted it out? Perhaps he
’
s simply gone to town to hurry it up a little?’

Deep down Kathryn knew that this was
about
as likely as Bob becoming King of the Union but she chose to be cheered by the thought. She asked Sally to replace the letter in the front porch – a place where it might reasonably have lain undiscovered by anyone in the household, but from whence it was unlikely to get blown onto the hills. She shouted up the stairs to a reluctant Bob to hurry up and bring his schoolwork down. Then she checked the baking, cleared the table, and settled down to work with her son.

Neither Kathryn nor Giles said any more about the letter after this. Indeed, Giles appeared so normal on his return from Weymouth late that same evening that Kathryn almost began to wonder whether she had made the whole thing up. The following week she walked into Weymouth with her sewing bag in order to fulfil her engagement with her two customers there. She went to the Scrivens’ first. Kathryn was a quick, neat seamstress and, besides, had assisted her aunt on so many occasions that she was able to progress the work quite well. She finished there, accepted her shilling gratefully, and then went on to the Royal. She went the back way in. For one thing, she was no better than a servant here. For another, she wanted to keep away from any prying eyes that might possibly be about.

It was a little unfortunate, therefore, that
in spite
of these precautions she should still bump into somebody she knew. That somebody was Mr Berkeley, who had chosen the self same moment to renew his acquaintance with the French chef (with whom he was able to hold the most satisfactory conversations in that gentleman’s native language) in the kitchens at the rear of the building.

That he and Kathryn were surprised to see each other is perhaps an understatement. That he and Kathryn were pleased to see each other is similarly the case. Mr Berkeley, in particular, was quite unable to conceal his delight and it so consumed him that for a few seconds he forgot how unusual it must be for both of them to find each other in the rear of premises
in
wh
ich
they
should
more
normally be
found at the front. Kathryn’s feelings, to be fair, were a little more mixed. That she was overjoyed to see him was undeniable. But
then
she
felt
extremely
annoyed
. She had tried so hard to prevent an accidental meeting such as this one, and she had tried even harder to extinguish the love and attraction she felt for him – a love and attraction which, though entirely unbidden, she
knew full well
was absolutely wrong. And yet, as soon as she saw him she realised in an instant that she felt exactly the same love and attraction towards him as she had done all along. Almost as bad, she
also felt
totally embarrassed. He would realise, in a moment, that he should not have expected to find her there. And then this would lead to awkward questions, to which she
really
did not want to provide him with an answer.

His questions came at last. She could not evade them. There was absolutely no point in trying to evade them. She would not lie to him and she did not see why she should.

‘Will you come with me to my work room, Mr Berkeley?’ she asked him, at length. ‘I need to get on, you see, and I shall answer your questions whilst I work.’

Mr Berkeley was more than happy to accompany her, though a little nonplussed by the very constrained and smelly environment in which he found himself in the cupboard-like room that she had been shown to by the steward, right next to the horses in the yard. Still a little mystified by what it was that she was doing here, but finding that she was expecting to do something with the somewhat forbidding looking pile of linens that confronted them, he perched himself on the one corner of the table which remained clear of anything, and awaited her response.

As usual, he listened to her respectfully, and without interruption, whilst she told him her tale. And as usual, the very fact that she had an audience whom she knew to have her every interest totally at heart caused her to say much more, and in so much more detail, than she had really wanted or intended to. Her story was starting to make sense to him. It was filling in some of the details which had puzzled him – about Giles’ visit to Mr Brewer, about what his sister had said about a little tin box in her cupboard, and about why Giles had appeared so keen to join in a gambling circle of which he and Mr Brewer had hith
erto formed the main memb
er
s. But it was when Kathryn mentioned the dunning letter to him, and the enormous sum involved in it, that Mr Berkeley’s eyes really began to narrow. He knew, probably better than Kathryn herself, how much Sandsford House was really worth and he knew full well that Mr Brewer was not the man to give Giles a mortgage so far above that sum as to be absolutely unthinkable. But he could see that Kathryn had convinced herself that it must be so, that Giles had sorted things out satisfactorily, and he was the last person on earth to want to disabuse her
of her quiet optimism
.

‘And so here you are, trying to earn yourself a living while your husband tries to ruin you. I must say I admire your pluck, Mrs Miller. There are not many young ladies of my acquaintance who would even consider doing what you have done, let alone have the enterprise to sort things out so well. I need not tell you how very sorry I am that your husband should have reduced you to this. You will know that already. And as for your future – well...humph – well, perhaps you may be able to save a little of what you earn in the meantime to tide you over for a while? Please – I hope you will not mind, Mrs Miller – I know that you have told me before, quite rightly, to remember our relative positions. But I feel that I must – I have to provide you with a little word of advice. Do not tell your husband how much you are earning. And if you do manage to save anything, please, please deposit it with my sister in your little tin box. You – and Bob – deserve that, at the very least. I know you consider it disloyal. I know that you consider that everything of yours is there for your husband to have and I honour your loyalty to him. But you have your responsibilities to your family as well. Your husband should be more than capable of looking after himself – aye, and you as well – but Bob – well, Bob is reliant on his mama to do the best she can for him. It is not his fault that his papa is the devil incarnate. And if that best means putting her own earnings into a little box for him out of the thieving cove’s reach – then in my book, Mrs Miller, in my book then that is what she should do.’

Kathryn’s lip trembled, and her eyes filled so much that she was completely unable to see her stitching. She half thought that he might take her in his arms to comfort her, and, to be perfectly honest,
and despite every resolution to the contrary,
she more than half hoped that he
would
. But though for a moment it looked as if he would do just that he was far too respectful of what she had said to him to do so. So she made do by wiping her eyes on her sleeve and bowing her head over her stitching again. There was a lot to do and she needed to press on with it.

Mr Berkeley watched her, musingly, for a moment. Then he slipped out, returning almost immediately with a tray of tea and pastries from his friend Monsieur Almond. What a strange little tea party they had, Mr Berkeley perched somewhat precariously on the table edge, Kathryn trying desperately not to get the sticky jam on her linen as she sewed, and both of them becoming increasingly happy and light hearted as the afternoon progressed. They laughed together about the rather generous sizing of some of her customers’ clothing which – sorry to say – Mr Berkeley held up against himself and declared there to be plenty room for her inside as well as he. They giggled at a rather vacant old gentleman who, apparently mistaking the route up to his room, tried manfully to persuade them to vacate his property at once until Andrew was obliged to show him the way to go. They even picked up on a song which was drifting its way through to them from the public bar nearby and sang it themselves, Kathryn’s gentle soprano blending with Andrew’s rich baritone in perfect harmony together. It is probably fair to say that had either of them been given the chance to have their tea in luxury in the lounge upstairs, but apart, they would not have swapped their funny little cupboard
together
for anything.

It so happened that when Kathryn next had cause to make her way to the Royal the steward led her, not to the little cupboard as expected, but into a more comfortable meeting room with a larger window and a padded arm chair
upstairs
. The cupboard was required for something else, he explained. From now on she was to have the use of the better room instead. Similarly, after an hour or so of work, he reappeared with a little tray of tea and pastries – less sticky ones this time – which he insisted were part of their deal. Kathryn had her suspicions but she did not voice them. Instead, finding that she had earned a few pennies more than she had expected, she slipped over to
High Street
and handed them over to Mrs Wright, who instantly knew what they were for.

Giles was so far busy with his own concerns – centring mainly around socialising at the ‘Smugglers’ or regular trips into town – that he never noticed Kathryn’s own pattern of visits in the Weymouth direction. Every so often he would regale her with stories of his own achievements – it appeared that he had a regular card appointment at
‘
The Ship Inn
’
on Weymouth quay at which, very occasionally, he was able to
win enough to cover his losses – luckily the stakes were never very high -
and every so often he would enthuse about Miss Brewer and swear what a damned lucky cove old Berkeley was to get her attentions so entirely to himself. From what he told her it was apparent to Kathryn that Mr Brewer was generous in his invitations to dinner at his house, which appeared to provide a little needed opportunity for a group of men to finish an afternoon of drinking and gambling at
‘
The Ship
’
with an evening of drinking and gambling in his front study, and that of this group her husband, Mr Berkeley and Mr Cutlass Chard appeared to be the
lead
ing
participant
s.

Towards the middle of June Giles received a visit at Sandsford from his good friend and business partner, Mr Cutlass Chard. Since the debacle with the Revenue men the good Mr Chard – in common with Giles himself and, doubtless, several other of their acquaintance – had b
een particularly quiet in terms of
evening activities but from his unexpected appearance in Preston it was apparent that he had a new scheme up his sleeve.

Kathryn, of course, was left entirely in the dark about the nature of Mr Chard’s business dealings with her husband but she was soon appraised of at least some part of the deal by the sudden appearance of a little rowing boat hauled up on the rocks at Preston beach. The rowing boat, it transpired, was for Giles’ use and what ever the advantages expected from its official purpose, it also served to occupy Giles in a marginally more useful activity than was his wont by encouraging him onto the water most days, fishing rod in hand.