Summer’s Last Retreat Read online

  ‘You aren’t going to live here, are you?’ she said, hiding her surprise at its neatness and cleanliness.

  She continued to look around, intending to share a laugh with her friends over the boy’s attempts to make a proper place for himself. She nodded towards the bed on its platform near the fireplace.

  ‘Your filthy old bed and a few sticks of furniture in a hovel like this and you bring me to see it? I’d be too ashamed to show anyone if I lived in a place like this.’ She leaned away as she passed him and ran out of the door, her laughter coming back as she hurried down the steep wooded cliff.

  Olwen heard the last of the conversation and the derisive laughter, but seeing the hurt expression on Barrass’s face, decided it best not to show him she was there. She went slowly home to bed and lay wondering when he would tell her about his home, and why she had not been told of it before. Was he hoping to marry Blodwen? She sat upright in bed with the shock of the idea. In spite of her tiredness, the thought kept her awake for almost an hour. If only he would be patient and wait for her to grow up!

  * * *

  Arthur worked as a pot-boy at the alehouse for Pitcher and Emma Palmer, and whenever he was free he would look for Olwen. If there was no possibility of her being with Barrass, she would go with him and wander along the narrow and sometimes precarious paths on the cliffs above the village. They would talk, sharing confidences and just enjoying each other’s company. Arthur had a dog, which, as Pitcher would not allow it inside, slept in a barrel laid on its side in the yard behind the alehouse.

  One morning, when there was no work for her, Olwen went to the alehouse and, seeing the dog dozing in the barrel, guessed that Arthur would not be very far away. She stepped inside, where Blodwen’s mother, Winifred Baker, was scrubbing the slate-slabbed floor, and called him.

  ‘Give me a hand with the last of these jugs and I’ll be able to go out for a while,’ Arthur answered in his high, girlish voice that had not yet broken. ‘There’ll be some wild raspberries on the cliffs.’

  Stepping carefully over the wet surface, she went into the large, cool kitchen and began washing and drying the big jugs with which Pitcher served his ale and porter.

  ‘Barrass has built himself a house and he thinks I don’t know,’ she began. ‘Not a word, mind. I’ll take you there if you like.’

  By the time the pots were all clean and put back in their correct places in the bar-room, rain had begun. Taking a grain sack from the pile in a corner, they covered themselves against the wet and ran out. They ran through the scattered houses, climbed through the steep woodland and reached the top breathless but hardly damp.

  They went slowly as they approached the building, looking to see if there was anyone inside by peering through the open window-spaces. Everything looked the same as when she had been there before. They opened the make-shift door and stepped inside.

  ‘There’s clever he is to make this from a few old walls,’ Arthur gasped. ‘Who’d have thought to whiten the walls an’ all. Looks fit for someone like William Ddole it does, not Barrass. He hardly looks the part, does he, with no hair and pimples and God knows what else besides.’

  ‘Where is Barrass, I wonder,’ Olwen asked. ‘Best not to let him catch us here, not until he tells us about it himself.‘

  ‘Gone with Kenneth-the-Post. I saw them go this morning. Soaked he’ll be in all this rain with all the miles he’ll be walking just to keep little Kenneth company.’

  Olwen looked at the wood ready for burning near the roughly built hearth.

  ‘We could give him a surprise and light his fire for him. What if we lit it now, then come up later to add some fuel? That would please him.’

  ‘But first we’ll pick him some raspberries,’ Arthur said. ‘The rain won’t harm us, and it would all be such a surprise.’

  They gathered some of the luscious fruit into a wooden bowl they found on a windowsill and left it on the table. A flint and rag had been placed ready on the hearth and Arthur managed to strike a light and start the wood burning.

  For a while they sat beside the comforting glow and talked, then, as time drew near to the moment when Pitcher would begin shouting for his pot-boy, they added more fuel and left, well pleased with the surprise they had prepared.

  Some of the wood was well dried but the piece they had added from the pile Barrass had begun outside was still damp from the sea and it hissed a protest as flames began to lick around its edges, the fire burned unevenly, the dry logs on one side being reduced to ashes quickly while those on the other smouldered and resisted the heat.

  When Olwen walked up later to see if the fire needed more fuel, her eyes glowing with thoughts of Barrass’s appreciation of the welcome when he arrived cold and wet and tired from his long walk, she saw smoke filtering through the trees, held low by the damp air. There was a great deal, and it was coming from the barn.

  The truth hit her like a hammer blow. Somehow, she and Arthur had burnt down Barrass’s new home. What she did not know was that she had also relieved him of the source of his fleas by burning his most treasured possession, his mother’s feather mattress.

  Chapter Two

  The rain was heavy as Dan strode across the cliffs towards the house where Markus lived. He did not relish meeting with the surly blind man who was rarely seen but who, as an organizer of the smuggling that went on in the area, was feared by all. The lonely house on the edge of the cliff path was avoided by the locals, especially after dark, but today Dan sang as he walked, a pleasant, powerful tenor voice that seemed at odds with his thin frame. He sang songs of the battle against the sea that was always a part of his life, and some of his favourite hymns, apparently indifferent to the pouring rain, his long legs stretched at each step and his head held high.

  He wore a linen smock over trousers and a thick fisherman’s jumper. Gaiters on his lower legs protected him from the wet grasses and a large, wide-brimmed hat given to him by a French fisherman covered his head. The clothes were generously cut and hung loosely on him.

  He sang because he would meet Enyd, daughter of Kenneth-the-Post, that evening. Although they rarely met without some disagreement rising between them, he knew that eventually she would consent to be his wife. The thought quickened his already fast pace and he was glowing with exertion when he reached Markus’s.

  ‘Markus is from the house,’ the watchman said as Dan prepared to knock at the large, rambling farmhouse. ‘Gone this long time and no knowing when he’ll be back.’

  ‘Oh, then I must leave this message with you,’ Dan said hesitantly. ‘Mistress Dorothy Ddole asked me to deliver this invitation Kenneth will not be back this way for a day or so and she wished him to have it at once.’

  He handed the folded and sealed paper to the watchman, protecting it from the rain until the last moment by using his hat.

  ‘There’s a package here for your mother, young Dan,’ the old man said, and searching in the shelves in the porch-way, he gave Dan a small box. Dan thanked him, made him promise to deliver Mistress Ddole’s letter as soon as his master returned, then headed back home, still singing, clutching the box under his smock to protect it from wet. He guessed what it contained; tea, legal or otherwise, would not benefit from a soaking!

  He could barely see the sea as he walked back along the path, although the hiss of it and the slap of waves touching the rocks accompanied his singing. In the stretch below his home there was a tunnel in the half-submerged rocks; at high tide the waves thundered through it and burst out with a roar. Childlike, he stood and listened to it. The ill-tempered sound amused him and could be heard even when the tide was an amiable one like today when it was beaten down by the heavy rain.

  Still singing, he climbed the steep grassy slope, slithering on the wet grass, to call a greeting to his mother.

  ‘A gift, Mam, as we expected,’ he said as he stood at the open doorway. ‘Tea and something else which I will leave you to unpack.’

  ‘Wait while I see,’ she said, smilin
g as she took the package from his wet hands. She handed him a mug of hot cawl from the cauldron hanging by the fire and when he did not enter, said, ‘Going straight to see Kenneth, are you?’

  ‘So wet I am, it hardly seems worth warming myself. Besides I’d fill the house with steam and Dadda would find you disappeared.’

  Mary laughed. ‘I don’t think that makes sense, but I know what you mean!’

  She opened the carefully wrapped parcel to reveal a pound of tea and a small square of richly coloured silk, enough to make a shawl. She handed it to Dan.

  ‘Take it for Enyd,’ she said, ‘it’s too grand for me. She will enjoy wearing it for sure.’

  ‘Thank you, Mam! Enyd will love you for it.’ His eyes gleamed with the prospect of pleasing Enyd as he watched Mary fold the silk and pack it neatly back into its paper. ‘Is there anything for me to do before I go and call on her?’

  ‘Go you, and be sure to be back in time to get a change of clothes before you stiffen with the cold. July it is and there’s us chilled like it was winter.’ She bustled around the small, overfilled room and put the treasured tea in its place in a cupboard, smelling it in anticipation of the first brewing.

  The tea was part of his father’s reward for helping with the unloading of a few nights before. The rest of the payment, a small amount of brandy, would come at night, left in the hay-barn. Tea was easily scattered on the windy cliffs if there was any sign of the excise men, but brandy gave out an unmistakable smell, impossible to disguise. Extra precautions were made when that was shared out.

  As Dan walked down to the village, his hands found the statue he had made for Enyd. The wooden cross, with the body of Christ intricately carved, had taken him several days, between other work, to complete. He wanted to look at it before handing it to her, to make sure he could not improve it further, but the rain prevented him. He did not want it to be wet with rain as if he had been careless. It was not a casual gift from a boy to a girl, it was an act of love to have carved it and an act of his love for Enyd that he should give it to her.

  She opened the door to his knock but before she could greet him, he heard her mother’s voice call shrilly,

  ‘Hello Dan, go straight round to the chickens, will you? No sense treading through the house all that mud and rain for me to clear up.’

  Dan remembered with a smile that Ceinwen had recently bought an old carpet from Emma Parker at the alehouse and the care of it made her over-fussy about feet. He smiled ruefully at Enyd and walked around to the back yard.

  Enyd was a serious-looking girl, with a slight haughtiness about her that discouraged most of the young men who were at an age for courting. But Dan seemed to ignore the occasional rebuffs and continued to see her at every opportunity, unafraid to show how he loved her, determined to wear down resistance by perseverance. He loved the way her soft brown hair fell from the combs and ribbons with which she attempted to control it, and how it glinted with touches of gold in the sun, and her small neat figure that already hinted at the plumpness to come. He loved the occasional smile he managed to produce around her tightly closed lips, and dreamed of softening their harshness with his kisses. He knew that without her parents’ insistence that she found someone more worthy, she would have consented to be his wife months ago.

  Kenneth kept chickens – or at least he bought the eggs and set them beneath a broody hen, then left all the care and management to Ceinwen, insisting he had no time for such things. They had some young cockerels to be killed and this was the reason for Dan’s visit. Dorothy Ddole had a fancy to hold a small party for their friends, and needed a dozen roasting fowl and two dozen large plaice. Dan and Spider were supplying the fish, and Dan had been asked by Ceinwen to slaughter the fowl and take them to Ddole House.

  When the task was done he called for Enyd at the back door. She had been waiting in the outer kitchen, where a multitude of household jobs were done – everything from cleaning and polishing Kenneth’s bag and boots, to the care of sickly young animals and the preparation of food. He bent to kiss her but as usual, she turned her face away, allowing him only a touch of her baby-fine hair. She was always unwilling to kiss him when there was the possibility of her mother appearing. Away from her home she was different, although she was still held back by something she would not explain.

  ‘I have a present for you, Enyd,’ he whispered. ‘Two in fact, one I made and one from Mam. Now which will I give you first?’

  ‘Yours please,’ she said, and gave him just the hint of a smile.

  He handed her the statue and looked at her face, hoping anxiously that she was pleased with it. When she glanced up at him, her eyes were dark with emotion.

  ‘Dan, it’s beautiful, did you really make it? Oh thank you! It shall stand beside my bible and hear my prayers every night, and I’ll say one for you to keep you safe from the dangers of the sea. Oh, Dan, thank you.’ She touched his cheek lightly with her lips, pulling him down to reach, then released him and stepped back as if embarrassed by her show of feelings.

  ‘Glad you like it,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t show anyone I was making it. I wanted it to be completely yours and mine.’ He laughed nervously to hide his pleasure at the way his gift had been received, and said, ‘Want to see the other present now?’

  ‘Yes, please, but it can’t be as wonderful as this.’ She continued to stare at the small statue, whose face was perfectly sculpted to show the expression of joy that transcended pain and grief, then glanced at the tall figure beside her as if unable to believe that those huge, knobbly hands had carved a thing of such delicate perfection.

  She marvelled at the silk for the shawl and promised to make it ready to wear on the following Sunday. But her eyes drifted back to the statue, and she finally said,

  ‘Dan, if you can carve wood like this, couldn’t you make a living from carpentry instead of bringing in fish? I fear for you and would be far happier knowing you were safe on land.’

  Dan sighed. The moment of happiness was spoilt. Every chance she had, she brought up the subject of his leaving the sea. He looked at her face, seeing now only the spoilt expression, the slight pout that showed how much she wanted her own way. Nothing had been said about marriage, but he knew that she was telling him as plainly as she could, that unless he found some different way of earning money to keep her, then the answer to the as yet unspoken question was no.

  He walked back up the cliff path slowly, still ignoring the rain, but the joyful singing had ceased, and his steps no longer bounced with happiness. What sort of a wife would she be if she expected him to become someone different from the man he was? Couldn’t she understand that he had not known any life but that of a fisherman, and wanted no other?

  He wished briefly that he had not given her the statue. Henry Harris, secretary to William Ddole, who collected works of art, had surprised him by buying a previous carving from him, and had paid generously. It had been of one of the oyster boats that worked in the bay, complete with all the fittings: the sails, the dredge and winch and tiny members of the crew. Harris had asked to see any other models he made. He would surely have paid well for the cross.

  But no, he was acting like the spoilt child he was accusing Enyd of being. The statue had been made for Enyd and her being afraid of the sea was not sufficient reason to begrudge it. But he was silent and far from content when he reached the cottage on the cliff top.

  * * *

  As Olwen ran down from the burning barn to tell Arthur what had happened to the magnificent surprise they had planned for Barrass, she saw Enyd walking across to the alehouse, shrouded in a cloak and hood and lifting her skins high to avoid the mud. Olwen was fighting back tears and she did not want to talk to Enyd, but as they were both heading in the same direction she could not avoid waving and shouting a greeting. They met at the porch and as Olwen pushed at the door, Enyd stopped her. Aware of the girl’s distress, but not interested in the cause, she showed her the beautiful carving and said,

  ‘
Dan gave it to me. Such a clever one, your brother. In some other, more enlightened home, his talents would be encouraged. He wasn’t intended to waste his time gathering fish, a job anyone could do. Such a pity he didn’t have parents who could see that, don’t you agree? Not a word to Mary and Spider, mind, but you understand what I mean, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, I understand!’ Olwen forgot her manners in her distress at burning down Barrass’s new home and poured out her anger at the prim-sounding girl. ‘I understand that being a fisherman is not good enough for the likes of you. What is your father anyway?’

  ‘He’s a carrier of the King’s Mail! Meeting important people every day.’

  ‘He’s a messenger! Passing messages between his betters! That’s no great improvement over a family who brings food into the village whatever the cost. Fancy talk and fancy ideas you’ve got, Enyd, and far below what my brother deserves for a wife!’

  Tears flowed and Olwen ran to the back room where she knew she would find Arthur. Enyd stared after her, surprised at the outburst, wondering about the cause. It was not herself, she guessed that much. The girl had been white with shock before they had spoken.

  The sound of running feet and squeals of laughter made her look along the dismal street and when she saw the twin daughters of the alehouse keeper, she stepped out into the rain to greet them.

  ‘Pansy! Daisy! How fortunate. I might have missed you. I’ve called to show you what Dan has made for me.’

  ‘Enyd, how beautiful,’ Pansy said, shaking her head free of the hood that had protected her between the carriage which brought them home and the porch. ‘Come in, won’t you? Mamma would like to see it, I’m sure.’