Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  ‘Really, Jack Shillabeer, if you idn’t the limit,’ declared Joan, amidst the laughter. ‘Would it be too much to let this child be christened and his poor mother churched afore you talks about having any more?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Lew gravely. ‘I’d be happy to have another soon as you please. There idn’t naught to this child-producing as far as I can see… If he meant to say any more he did not get the chance, for he was immediately belaboured with good-humoured energy by both his stepmother and mother-in-law.

  ‘Now us’ll have to start looking for a husband for our Maddy,’ puffed Joan, out of breath after the attack.

  ‘You needn’t bother, thank you,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m happy as I am.’

  ‘You can’t mean to look after a shop for the rest of your life,’ Joan protested.

  ‘Why not? There’s more than enough to keep me occupied, believe me.’

  Maddy meant it too. All her energy these days was going into running the cider shop. Sadly, however, although the summer trade had been excellent, with the coming of the cooler days, customers became fewer. Despite her efforts, business did not improve. By the time Christmas came and went, the takings were hardly enough to cover Maddy’s wages, let alone Nan’s and the upkeep of the shop.

  ‘I had such hopes,’ said Cal, shaking his head as he looked at the last month’s accounts. ‘It was a good idea that does not seem to be working out.’

  ‘It’s early days,’ Maddy said, trying to sound optimistic. ‘If we can just last out until the warmer weather.’

  ‘That’s a big “if”.’ Cal continued to frown at the figures in front of him. ‘We can’t afford to make a profit in summer simply to exist in winter.’

  ‘What do you propose doing?’

  ‘Cutting my losses.’

  ‘You aren’t thinking of closing the shop, surely?’ asked Maddy in alarm.

  ‘What other solution is there?’

  ‘I don’t know, but there must be one.’ She hated to think that she had failed, and after only a few months, too. ‘What have I been doing wrong? If I could discover that, it might make all the difference.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. It was a good idea, as I said, but one that has not succeeded. The trouble is that there are too many cider shops in Totnes already. I should have taken that into account before I dashed off and leased the shop.’

  ‘If there are others managing to make a living, why can’t we?’ Maddy was determined not to give up. ‘We must make the Oakwood shop stand out in some way, that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to have something to draw people in.’

  ‘It’s no good.’ Cal, too, was determined. ‘I can’t afford to keep running the shop at a loss. Nan will have to be dismissed, I’m afraid. Don’t worry about your own position, I’ll find something for you somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t want something found for me somewhere, thank you,’ Maddy retorted, her pride stung. ‘You did that before, if you recall. I’ll be employed on my merits or not at all.’

  Cal sighed. ‘Now you are annoyed, which doesn’t help matters. I’m sorry if you aren’t pleased, but my mind is made up. The shop closes at the end of the week.’

  Maddy was horrified. ‘So soon? Can’t you give me a bit longer? Enough time to think of something? Cider is chilly comfort on its own in this weather. Could we perhaps serve it mulled—?’

  ‘There’s no point in going on about it,’ declared Cal with increasing firmness. ‘My mind is made up. We close in—’

  ‘Pasties!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Pasties! They’re what we need! The perfect accompaniment to cider. Hot, freshly-baked pasties.’

  ‘We close at the end of the week,’ he persisted, trying not to hear her, but Maddy refused to be ignored.

  ‘Think about it,’ she begged. ‘Hot, savoury pasties baked on the premises - we’ve that old range in the back room. Imagine what a draw the smell alone would be on a cold day.’

  ‘I’m a cider-maker, for pity’s sake! What do I know about cooking pasties?’

  ‘You don’t have to know anything about cooking them. If needs be, I’ll make them, but it would be better to get someone in to be solely responsible for the baking.’

  ‘I thought it might be going to cost me more money somewhere.’

  ‘It would be well worth it. And while we are about it, we could make the place a bit more welcoming for folks who want to consume their cider and pasties on the premises. Bare tables and such are all very well on a hot summer’s day, but in the depths of winter folk need a bit more comfort.’

  ‘Upholstered armchairs, perhaps? Turkish carpets on the floor?’

  ‘You don’t need to be sarcastic. All I was thinking of was a bit of extra cheer.’ The more Maddy considered the new idea, the more enthusiastic she became. She knew her arguments were sound, but she had to persist with them for a long time before Cal finally relented.

  ‘Very well, you can have more money for this latest scheme of yours. I will give you three months to make the business profitable, and not one day longer. I simply can’t afford it.’

  Three months was not long, but Maddy was filled with enthusiasm and she refused to consider failure. Acquiring a good pasty-maker was unexpectedly easy. A word with Joan produced an aunt – or was it a second cousin? – of one of her stepmother’s numerous daughters-in-law who was a fine cook and in need of employment. The relationship might have been confused, but there was no doubt about Mrs Collins’ lightness of hand where pastry was concerned.

  ‘And I likes to have a proper filling, with a decent bit of meat in un,’ she insisted, offering Maddy a sample of her wares. ‘I can’t abide a pasty as is all tiddy.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ agreed Maddy, as well as she could with her mouth full. ‘When can you start?’

  ‘Soon as I’ve got every speck of rust off that there range and given the back room a really decent scrub out,’ stated Mrs Collins.

  Maddy hid her smile. The new cook was clearly a perfectionist, and that was a good thing. Much of the success of the new venture was going to depend on her.

  While Mrs Collins, aided by Nan, sanded and scrubbed, Maddy made a few changes to the shop. American cloth in a cheerful red check added a touch of colour to the tables, a humble length of coconut matting took the bareness off the floorboards, and brass lamps instead of the utilitarian hurricane variety gave the place a welcoming air without making it look too feminine. With the stove in the comer burning cheerily, and the appetising smell of freshly-cooked pasties wafting on the air, the Oakwood Cider Shop suddenly became very attractive to passers-by.

  The first customers were the crew off one of the foreign ships. They looked tired and cold, and Maddy guessed they had come upriver on the overnight tide. While six of them made a beeline for the stove to warm themselves, the seventh, presumably the captain, came up to the counter. ‘Food!’ he said, holding up seven fingers. ‘Drink!’ And he held up seven fingers again. That seemed to be just about the sum total of his English but he had made himself perfectly clear.

  The pasties and the cider disappeared faster than Maddy had thought possible. ‘Good!’ said the captain. ‘More!’

  ‘Cider,’ said Maddy very clearly, refilling the mugs held out to her. ‘Pasties,’ she said in the same tone, as Nan set more on the table.

  ‘Cider,’ repeated the captain. ‘Pasties.’ His weather-beaten face broke into a smile. ‘Speak English. Good.’

  The foreign sailors, the crew of the Haarlem, proved to be faithful customers during their stay. They were in two or three times a day for the short time their boat was tied up alongside the quay.

  ‘I reckon they comes ’cos cider and pasties be just about the only English words they knows,’ said Nan.

  ‘They won’t starve, then,’ smiled Maddy. ‘And they won’t get anything more wholesome.’ She was sorry when they came in for the last time.

  ‘Go home,’ said the captain, with an expression of exa
ggerated sadness. Then he stretched his face into a beaming smile and said, ‘Come back. More pasties. More cider.’

  Cal happened to enter the shop just as the Haarlem’s crew were leaving. ‘Who were they?’ he asked. ‘They seemed a lively lot.’

  ‘Just high spirits,’ said Maddy. ‘They’re off one of the Dutch boats, and very good customers they’ve been. They’ve also developed a taste for Devon cider while they were here, they’ve just been buying some to take home.’

  ‘Maybe I should set up an export business… I’m only joking,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘I hope so. There’s enough to do running this one.’ Maddy looked through the steamy window after the departing Dutchmen. ‘It’s a pity they had to go, they were a nice lot, although they barely had a dozen words of English among them. They proved that the taste for pasties and cider is international. If the Dutch enjoyed them, then folks from other countries will.’ .

  ‘In that case I had better seriously consider exporting,’ said Cal.

  On this occasion Maddy was not sure whether he was joking or not.

  ‘Lots of time to think of that in the future,’ she said firmly. ‘At present we’ve got plenty of good local customers to rely on.’

  ‘We are getting plenty, are we?’

  ‘Yes!’ Her reply was definite, yet secretly she was anxious. Their trade had been building up nicely since the introduction of the pasties, but what if their current success was based entirely upon being something new in town or the chance arrival of a foreign boat? She shook off her doubts. The cider shop would never face failure again. She would not let it, supposing she had to drag folk in off the street and pour the cider down them.

  Fortunately Maddy did not have to resort to such extreme measures. When the first flush of novelty died down, trade remained good and steady, enough for Mrs Collins to demand – and get – a girl to help her. The customers were mainly local and regular, exactly the sort Maddy had hoped for. Some came to eat and drink in the shop, but many more took their cider and pasties away with them. Every midday, errand boys came in, a selection of small empty firkins slotted on ropes across their shoulders ready to be filled with Regular or Rough, and baskets on their arms to be piled high with pasties, to be taken off to the timber yards, the riverside wharfs, or places of work throughout the town. More foreign vessels followed the Haarlem to the quayside, and their crews soon found the Oakwood Cider Shop simply by following their noses. As many of these vessels returned regularly to the Dart, Maddy found that the shop soon also had a faithful international clientele.

  The three months allotted by Cal to prove the shop a success came to an end.

  ‘Will we have to close now?’ asked Maddy.

  Cal regarded the accounts for the previous twelve weeks gravely. ‘I think we’ll give it another month or two, to see how things go,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ cried Maddy indignantly. Then she saw that he was grinning.

  ‘You didn’t really think I would close the shop, did you?’ said Cal. ‘Not with these profits?’

  ‘I was prepared to argue again,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not necessary, believe me. I’m extremely pleased with what you’ve done; it is entirely your work, make no mistake.’ He was not one to give praise readily and Maddy felt absurdly pleased at his words. Her pleasure was somewhat blunted when he continued, ‘The shop has improved our sales of cider considerably, now we must consider ways of increasing them even more.’

  ‘More? Are you never satisfied?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ was his blunt reply.

  Maddy shook her head in disbelief. ‘What else can be done to sell more cider?’ she asked.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t know,’ said Cal. ‘I’m relying on you for some good ideas.’

  Maddy’s response was an indignant splutter. ‘I fear you’ll have to wait a long time,’ she said.

  Any anxieties she might have had about the continuing success of the shop faded as time went by and a stop ‘up to Oakwood’s’ became a regular habit for both land and river folk.

  A group of wherrymen had gathered in the shop one afternoon, lounging comfortably at a table in the window. They had finished eating and drinking, and were preparing to leave when one of their number arrived belatedly. Maddy recognised him as a Dartmouth man, one who daily made the trip upriver with goods and passengers.

  ‘What time do you call this, Bill?’ one of the other wherrymen greeted him cheerily. ‘Us’d given you up good and proper. You’m going to have to get up earlier of a morning, boy, and no mistake.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about getting up early,’ complained Bill. ‘Save my life, Maddy, my handsome, and fetch me a pasty and a pint of Rough fast as you can.’

  ‘You sounds weary,’ said another of the men.

  ‘Weary? So would you be if you’d near enough missed the tide. Coming up Home Reach there I thought us wadn’t going to make un, with the current pulling back at us. Talk about a struggle.’

  ‘Tidn’t like you to be behindhand. What happened? A last-minute cargo?’

  ‘No, there was a bit of bother as us set out. Nasty business. Fellow got drownded just as us was getting under way. Had to lend a hand, of course, us being close by. Twas only Christian.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘That be hard to say, though I saw un go. Out in a rowing boat, he were. Lord knows why, for he were about as handy in a boat as the widow’s cow. He leaned over the gunwale as if trying to get something, and next thing us knows, over he went, boat and all. Gawd, did he holler! Two or three of us tried to get to un, but there was a stiffish breeze blowing, and going about wadn’t easy. Us was too late. Fished un out, right enough, but he were dead.’

  ‘Local man, was he?’ asked a wherryman. ‘Anyone us knows?’

  ‘No, and that be another mystery. He were a musician fellow, by all accounts, as had lived upriver some time back – Galmpton, Stoke Gabriel way. Left in a hurry, the rumour goes. Got up to summat he shouldn’t, I dare say.’ Bill took an appreciative gulp of his cider. ‘Still, the river have got its heart for this year, and early on too. Tis tragic for that young fellow, but it means the rest of us can sail easy for a long spell.’

  ‘Indeed it do.’ The other men nodded solemnly.

  Maddy heard all this. She could not help it. There were no names, no description, but it was Patrick, of course. Who else? Patrick, who had only gone as far away as Dartmouth, and who was now dead.

  Nan, standing beside her, had overheard too. ‘You comes from Stoke Gabriel, Miss Shillabeer. It might be someone you knows.’

  It might,’ said Maddy numbly.

  Nan looked at her curiously. ‘Yer, you’m gone dead white,’ she said. ‘’Tis this talk of drownings and such. It have proper turned you up, I dare say. I can’t abide un, neither. You go and have a sit down in the kitchen. I can manage yer.’ And she gave Maddy a gentle push towards the door.

  Mrs Collins took one look at her and thrust a chair in her direction. ‘Make a cup of tea, maid,’ she instructed the girl who helped her. ‘Miss Shillabeer idn’t well.’ Turning to Maddy, she said with concern, ‘Is there aught else I can get you? A drop of sal volatile maybe?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Maddy managed a wan smile. ‘The tea will do fine. If I sit quietly for a while I’ll soon be all right.’

  Mrs Collins nodded and, taking her at her word, went back to her duties, leaving Maddy in peace.

  Patrick was dead. She thought of him as she had last seen him, with laughter glinting in his eyes, a smile making his face even more handsome. It had been a false smile, a perfidious smile, but somehow that did not matter any more. It had been wiped away for ever, never again to charm, to enchant – or to hurt. Patrick was dead, drowned in the treacherous Dart. To Maddy’s stunned mind, it seemed like the quenching of a bright star.

  What on earth had he been doing in a boat, he who feared water more than anything? She would probably never know. Not that it mattered. Knowing would never d
rive away the tortured images in her mind as she pictured his terror as he sank below the cold waves. But she had to try to blot out theand stir herself, for she had duties to perform and the shop to run.

  ‘You’m sure you’m all right, Miss Shillabeer?’ asked Nan with concern when she re-entered the shop. ‘You’m still looking terrible wisht.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ declared Maddy. ‘What I need is a bit of work.’

  ‘If you says so.’ Nan looked doubtful, as well she might, for Maddy was far from convinced herself. If only she could stop her limbs from shaking.

  How she would have fared during the rest of the afternoon there was no knowing, but soon afterwards the door opened and in came Cal. ‘I thought you might like to finish early today,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the gig outside.’

  ‘But we don’t close for hours yet,’ Maddy protested.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Nan can cope, she’s very efficient. Where’s your cape?’

  He did not listen to her objections, but slipped her cape about her shoulders and propelled her firmly towards the waiting trap.

  ‘You’ve heard the news,’ he said. ‘I can see it in your face.’

  Maddy nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘So am I.’

  What an understatement! She had thought herself past having any feelings for Patrick. That was not true. He had hurt her badly, but he had been like a comet that had crossed her path and altered her life for ever. Patrick was dead, but she realised, with much distress, that the embers of her love for him were far from extinguished.

  * * *

  News of Patrick’s death spread round the village in no time. Many people declared it was just payment for the trouble he had caused. The more charitable decided that it was a harsh end for such a young man, no matter what he had done. As for Maddy, she kept her own counsel, avoiding the subject.

  Of Victoria there was no sign. Strangely enough, although Mr Fitzherbert had travelled as far as London and beyond in search of his daughter, he seemed unwilling to ride the few miles to Dartmouth for news of her. ‘I knew the rogue would abandon her one way or another!’ he was heard to exclaim. ‘I’ve done everything I can. She’s likely got herself into a mess: let her get herself out of it!’