A Forgotten Place

by Charles Todd

  “Who could dislike you enough to cause so much trouble?” I asked. “For it must be you. The Captain hasn’t been here long enough to make enemies, has he?” I couldn’t really believe that being a stranger could make Hugh a target of animosity.

  She took a deep breath, her hands dropping the eggs into a pan of cold water, but her mind on her problems, not our breakfast.

  “There’s a neighbor—well, he lives out on the Down. That’s beyond the cottage where Mr. Morgan stayed the night. Those houses are part of the village too. His wife died in the influenza epidemic last year. She’d been in poor health, and she wasn’t able to put up much of a fight. At Christmas this year—before Hugh arrived—Barry Dunhill suggested it might be easier for both of us if we married. He could help me with the sheep and I could keep house for him and his daughter. I liked his wife and the little girl, Anna. But I’ve never really thought of him as a husband. He’s nothing like Tom, I don’t know that I could have come to care for him even if we’d tried. And so I just said it was too soon to think about the future. He wasn’t very happy when Hugh came. Still, I hardly think he’d start such rumors. It’s not as if he and I had been close.”

  In other parts of England, it would have taken longer for Rachel to feel she could confide in someone who must seem to be a perfect stranger to her. But who else could she discuss Hugh with, out here? Or the rumors? Or even Anna’s father?

  And yet, talking to me seemed to be a relief. As if it had all been pent up too long.

  “How old is Mr. Dunhill’s daughter?”

  “She’s twelve. Just the age where she needs her mother most. I can understand why he thought we might marry, for Anna’s sake. And she knows me, it wouldn’t have been like bringing a stranger into the family.” She smiled wryly. “I had love once. I know what love feels like.”

  She turned to put the eggs onto the stove as the kettle boiled.

  I heard the outer door open just then, banging against the entry wall, and then two very wet dogs came bounding into the kitchen.

  Rachel smiled. “They always know when I’m cooking eggs.”

  The door had been slammed shut against the wind, and after a moment I heard the thump of crutches as Hugh came down the passage. He was carrying a dripping coat and hat, and I took them to drape over the backs of two chairs. “All’s well,” he told her, then greeted me. There was a wariness in his face as he turned toward me.

  I thought he might be feeling a little embarrassed about my coming, although in truth he’d more or less sent for me. But by the time I’d reached him, his circumstances had changed . . .

  Rachel said, “Did you tell Mr. Morgan to come straight over? The tea is steeping, and the eggs are nearly done. I’ve only to toast the bread.”

  He was silent. She looked up at him, waiting for his answer, the bread knife in her hands, poised over a dish of butter.

  “He’s not there,” the Captain said slowly, his eyes on her face.

  “Not there?” I asked, rising from where I’d gone to sit out of the way.

  “He left in the night. Griffith didn’t hear him go, but when he looked out this morning, he noticed that the motorcar wasn’t there. He went back to the room where Morgan had slept, and it appeared that he’d left in some haste.”

  “But I hadn’t paid him the rest of his fee for bringing me here. And there was also what he’d earn, taking me back to Swansea.” I stood there, stunned.

  How was I to get back to Swansea, much less Cardiff and Bristol?

  There was silence in the small kitchen, except for the sound of one of the dogs lapping water from its bowl.

  Into the silence, I asked, “Is there anyone else out here on the headland who could drive me to Swansea?”

  “No.” The Captain was still looking at Rachel. “There’s no one with a motorcar. And the horse carts aren’t up to such a journey. We’re isolated out here.”

  “Then what am I to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, turning to me. “Of course you can stay here. As long as you like. That’s not a problem.”

  “That’s very kind,” I answered, “but I’m expected back at the clinic. And I’d hoped to spend a few days with my parents before that. Surely someone must go out for supplies? Or there’s a van that brings things to sell?”

  It was Rachel who answered. “We make do as much as we can. And then we send for supplies.” She turned to lift the eggs off the stove. “The tea will be cold, if we don’t sit down. And the eggs are ready.”

  “I can’t understand why Mr. Morgan would simply drive away and leave me here,” I said, still striving to comprehend why I had been abandoned like this. “It makes no sense.”

  “He might have been worried about the storm,” Rachel said doubtfully, putting the eggs in a dish and setting it on the table.

  “He had only to come across the road and knock at the door. The dogs would have heard him, even if we hadn’t, and started to bark.”

  “You didn’t give him the impression that you might wish to stay?” the Captain asked.

  “Of course I didn’t. You were here in the kitchen when we said good night, and Rachel told him that she would make breakfast for the two of us.”

  “That’s true,” Hugh said, setting his crutches aside and sitting down. “I agree, something’s wrong.”

  I poured a cup of tea, then passed it to him and filled two more for Rachel and myself. “If he was suddenly taken ill, he could have asked me to drive him to Swansea. Coming down, I remember telling him that I could drive.” Of course he might not have believed it . . .

  A thought struck me. “Did either of you mention those rumors about Tom?” I couldn’t imagine that they would bring it up. But I had to ask. Mr. Morgan hadn’t struck me as a man who could be frightened off by gossip, but then I’d only known him for the better part of a day. Still, if he had been concerned, he could have refused to stay the night.

  “It was the last thing on my mind,” Rachel said, for she had given him his tea in the kitchen. “It’s not the sort of thing I’d dream of telling a stranger.”

  But Hugh had told me, last night. Had it been necessary? I tried to remember how that conversation between us in the parlor had gone. It isn’t safe . . .

  “What about Mr. Griffith? Would he do such a thing? He hadn’t wanted to take Mr. Morgan in.” That still didn’t explain my driver leaving in the middle of the night rather than marching straight back across the road and telling us he wasn’t staying here after all. “What else did Mr. Griffith tell you?”

  “That was all of it. He seemed to be upset about Morgan’s departure as well. He kept saying, ‘I don’t know what could have got into the man.’ I expect he was afraid you’d ask him to return the money you’d paid him.”

  “If he frightened Mr. Morgan away on purpose, I really ought to do just that,” I replied in exasperation.

  But what if Mr. Morgan had come to the door looking for me? And because of the wind, no one had heard him? I looked at the waiting dogs. They would have heard him, even if we hadn’t.

  Hugh understood my uncertainty. He said, “Griffith is an odd sort. But I’ve never heard anything against him. He keeps to himself and doesn’t appear to have much in common with the other villagers.”

  “His wife was a Morton, the cottage belonged to her family,” Rachel added. “They were very close. I expect that’s why he stayed in the cottage after she died.”

  We ate our breakfast in silence, while the dogs shared the extra eggs that would have been served to my driver, wagging their tails all the while. I know, because I could feel them sweeping back and forth across the rungs of my chair.

  Finishing my tea and the last bit of my toast, I said, “You’ve been so kind, but I can’t stay until someone happens along who would be willing to carry me to Swansea. Or even to another village, where I might find someone else to take me the rest of the way. How do you send for supplies?”

  “Someone takes a list to one of the villages abov
e us, and it’s passed on to the next village as soon as may be. Then a van brings it out from Bishopton.” Rachel smiled. “In my parents’ day, there was a peddler who appeared from time to time, carrying whatever he thought he might sell out here. Flour, sugar, nails, seeds for the garden. Vegetables and potatoes and bacon. Tins. Packets of tea. I bought ribbons from him once, and Mama bought embroidery threads. A pair of gray horses with large yellow teeth pulled his caravan, and they would nip if we got too close.”

  I looked at the window, where the rain was still coming down in sheets. I couldn’t very well ask Hugh or Rachel to go anywhere in such weather—or try to go anywhere myself.

  “Is there a post box here in the village?” I could send a letter to the firm where I’d hired Mr. Morgan, asking them to send another driver for me.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said apologetically. “When there’s post for us, someone brings it down from the next village but one. And if we have a letter, it waits until there’s someone to post it for us.”

  I was beginning to realize just how isolated this village was. Such a far cry from my home in Somerset, where we took the post and shops and carriages for granted—where traveling twenty-five miles was nothing.

  “Then I’ll write to the firm in Swansea, and ask them for another driver. We can post it at the next opportunity.” I remembered. “Except that I don’t have any stamps with me.”

  “Rachel must have stamps,” the Captain said. “I’m so sorry. Bess.”

  I smiled. “You couldn’t possibly know that Mr. Morgan was going to desert me. But it does look as if I’ll be staying with you for a few more days.”

  “I’ll be glad of the company,” Rachel said, making an effort for my sake, which was very kind of her. “You can tell me about the new fashions in London.”

  She’d changed the subject, hoping to relieve my worry, and I tried to act as if being stranded on a rain-swept headland was a commonplace thing. As we cleared away, we talked about London, and all the while in the back of my mind was that letter I’d written to Simon. I’d intended to mail it in Swansea before I took the next train to Cardiff. It was still here, in my kit. And no one in Somerset knew I’d left the clinic . . .

  I tried to tell myself it was just as well I hadn’t posted it. I wouldn’t have been on that train into Bristol. Either Simon or my mother or both would have been there, on the platform, waiting. When I didn’t appear, they’d meet the next train, thinking I might have missed the earlier one. Then they would begin to worry.

  At least they’d have had a starting point for the cavalry, although even the cavalry would still have a hard time finding me. I smiled to myself at the image of the Army scouring Wales for me, the Colonel Sahib directing the operation.

  The smile vanished as the thought underscored just how isolated we were out here. The cavalry would have to find the right valley, and then the house of Captain Williams’s sister. Would Matron think to tell them about the Welsh soldiers? She believed I was on my way to Somerset. And from the clinic I’d taken the train to London, not Wales. Mrs. Hennessey had no idea where I’d gone when I left her house. She too probably believed I was on my way to Somerset.

  My mood was as bleak as the morning outside the kitchen windows.

  When we’d finished with the washing up, Hugh and Rachel went out again to look at the sheep. The rain hadn’t let up, coming down with almost tropical force, reminding me of the monsoons in India.

  I went to the parlor, where I’d been taken last night, and tried to look out. Through the curtains of rain, I could just see the Down where Anna and her father lived. The bay was out of sight, but even so it was obvious how the land dropped off just beyond the Griffith cottage across the road. To my far right was the village church, stonework dark with rain, and that odd square tower on the west front, looking as if it hadn’t quite been finished enough even to call a tower. Beyond were other cottages, whose roof lines I could just make out. There wasn’t a soul in sight, everyone keeping in and dry.

  I considered going across to Mr. Griffith’s cottage to see if I could find out anything more about Mr. Morgan’s departure in the middle of the night. But he probably wouldn’t come to the door, for fear I was there to ask for my money.

  And so began what was going to be a very long day.

  Chapter 5

  Rachel and Hugh had been gone for nearly three-quarters of an hour when there came a loud knock at the door.

  I’d been sitting in the kitchen, staring out at the storm, wondering how long it might last and what I could do about my circumstances as soon as it moved on. My first thought was that Rachel had come back with a lamb that was in trouble from the weather and couldn’t manage the door.

  And so I hurried down the passage to open it for her.

  But it wasn’t Rachel on the doorstep. It was a man I’d not seen before.

  “There’s a small boat in trouble off the—” He broke off as he realized that I wasn’t Rachel.

  “So it’s true,” he said, frowning. “They told me there was a Sister come to Rachel’s house.”

  “I was in charge of Captain Williams’s care after he was wounded,” I replied coolly. “I’m afraid Mrs. Williams and the Captain have gone to look for her sheep.”

  I opened the door wider, expecting him to step inside out of the cold wind, but he stayed where he was, wet to the skin, his hair plastered to his scalp.

  Gesturing over his shoulder, he said, “There’s a small boat in trouble off the bay. We can’t get out to her, but I’ve come to borrow the Captain’s field glasses, to see how many are aboard.”

  “I have no way of knowing where he keeps them. But I’ll have a look.”

  I glanced in the parlor, but there was no sign of the field glasses. Turning, I went upstairs to the Captain’s room. It was very old-fashioned, and I thought it must have belonged to Rachel’s parents. The wallpaper was a pale blue with white and darker blue morning glory vines, and the coverlet on the brass-framed bed was the same darker shade, while the curtains at the windows and the chintz covering the chair were white trimmed in the darker shade. There was a framed photograph on the wall, but I made a point of not looking closely at it.

  I spotted the field glasses on the windowsill, caught them up, and hurried back down the stairs to the man waiting there. The damp chill from outside had spread into the entry, and rain was puddling on the floor just over the threshold.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then hesitated. “Did you know the Captain’s brother? Thomas?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I said.

  “A pity,” he answered, and was gone, head down against the rain. I got the door shut, and went into the kitchen to find something to wipe up the puddle the man had left.

  His question lingered in the air, and I wondered why—with an emergency on the doorstep, so to speak—he’d asked about Thomas. It indicated how pervasive the rumors were. Did he think I might know something? Or did he wonder if I’d come all this way to find out what had become of Tom Williams?

  Ten minutes later, the kitchen door opened, and Rachel came in, dripping madly. “It’s terrible out there,” she said, “but the ewes are huddled in the shelter of the stone wall around the pen. They look rather wretched, but they’re all right.” She began to remove her wet things.

  “That’s good news, indeed,” I said, handing her a dry towel. “But before you take off your Wellingtons, you had a visitor just now. He came to borrow the Captain’s field glasses. There’s a small boat in trouble in the bay.”

  She stared at me. “Oh, dear God. There’s no hope of reaching it in this storm. It would be unsafe to try even if we had a lifeboat.” She hesitated, looking out the window just beside her, as if judging the wisdom of going out again to see for herself. And then she began to button up her coat and put the heavy man’s rain gear back on her head. “I expect I ought to go have a look. The last time a body came ashore, they blamed us for it. Have you seen Hugh?”

  “No, I expect
he’s still out.”

  She nodded and was gone. I went up the stairs again, but from my window I couldn’t see the bay, much less a boat in trouble out there.

  Finally, I caught up my own coat, and my woolen hat in place of my QAIMNS cap, and went out myself.

  After I’d crossed the road, head down against the wind, and walked on to where the hedge marked the path to the Down and the bay beyond, I stopped short at the sight before me, in spite of the wind almost taking my breath away as I turned into it.

  The bay curved in, a long crescent of seething water just now, covering the strand and clawing greedily for the land itself. I could see the waves breaking high in the air, and then beyond them, to one side of the wide mouth of the bay, a boat caught in the currents there, some pushing it in, others sucking it out, as if deciding the fate of the little craft, spinning it back and forth like a game of shuttlecock. It had a single mast, but the sail hung from it too battered to be of any use. I couldn’t tell if the craft was empty or if there was someone on board.

  Half a dozen men and women had collected near where the waves were crashing in, and one of them was trying to use the Captain’s field glasses. But the boat wouldn’t stay still long enough for the man to focus on it well, for I saw him try several times.

  The others were shouting at him over the racket the incoming waves were making—I could hear the sound of voices in spite of the wind, but not a word of what they were saying.

  Half a dozen more people were hurrying from the scattered cottages out there. Rachel had said these were still part of the village, but they looked forlorn and vulnerable on the high Down.

  And then I glimpsed Rachel coming out from the edge of the embankment where the track to the other houses and to the strand ran on to the sea. She was hurrying too, head down, anxious. I watched as she reached the cluster of people, and wasn’t surprised to see them ignore her.

  Behind me I heard someone swear, and turning quickly I saw the Captain had come quietly up beside me, the dripping dogs at his heel.