by Charles Todd
“That makes sense. Still, you’d have thought the local people would have tried to salvage it long ago. Soon after the wreck.”
“I’m not sure they could. If it’s out that far.”
“There’s no boat here,” I agreed. “And I don’t think anyone here would trust someone else to go looking. There’s something else.” I described the two soldiers who had quietly been buried.
“For heaven’s sake, Bess,” Simon commented, starting to pace. “Your mother will have a fit if you tell her all this. She was worried enough when Matron sent that telegram. I’m to bring you home as soon as I find you. Her instructions. She said she would deal with Matron.”
Knowing the Colonel’s Lady, I had no difficulty believing who would come out of that meeting with colors flying.
“Well, yes, I see that. But you must understand. It’s going to be difficult for me to go.”
“I don’t see why. I’ve got my motorcar by the campsite—well hidden at the moment but easily accessible. If you leave in the night, we can walk there before dawn and be well on our way before your absence is discovered.”
“But there are watchers. You saw one of them. It’s not as easy as just walking away.”
“I’ll deal with them. That’s not a problem.”
I took a deep breath. “The problem is, I can’t leave Rachel and Captain Williams to face their neighbors when I’m discovered missing. I don’t know what they’ll do. And someone has already attacked the Captain. He won’t say who. But I suspect it’s someone who wanted to marry Rachel, after her husband was killed in the war. He was the Captain’s brother, you see, and that’s why he’s come to help her cope. And that’s why she could reject the suitor’s proposal.”
He shook his head. “You’re expected at the clinic, and your mother has already told me she’ll be waiting in Bristol to drive the rest of the way with us.”
“I know. I know.” I changed the subject. “Why did you waylay me at the shed?” I asked, curious.
“What Morgan told me worried me. I decided to reconnoiter before driving up to the door. I didn’t know then that you had no way of getting back to Swansea. I was afraid you were in trouble. I’d just come up from exploring as far as the strand when I saw someone watching the house, late as it was. I stepped into the shadows by the shed, and just then the woman—Rachel?—came out and found the ewe missing. That gave me the opportunity to speak to you.”
I warned him then about Mr. Griffith. “He sees everything. I don’t think he sleeps well at night. I’ve seen him smoking outside his door.”
“All the more reason to get out of here. Bess, can you open your bedroom window?”
“I think so.”
“You have only to toss your kit down to me, then leave a note for Mrs. Williams and the Captain. They can’t be held accountable, if you slip away in the night. Besides, their neighbors will be too busy searching for you, thinking you’ve left on foot. And we’ll be in Swansea by that time, well out of their reach. They won’t be counting on a motorcar.”
“It’s not as simple as that. Rachel took me in, Simon, and they have been kind to me. I can’t leave, not knowing what will happen to them. If something does, I’d feel responsible.”
“The villagers can hardly murder them in their beds.”
“No, but they could kill Rachel’s beloved sheep, or burn down the house—who knows what they’re capable of? That silver has been the lifeblood of this peninsula for so long that any threat to it would be taken seriously. And they aren’t going to accept any promises of keeping my mouth shut. They’re far too suspicious.”
“I can’t believe the authorities haven’t found out about those coins years ago.”
“I don’t think they knew just where the ship had gone down. And the local people swore they hadn’t seen it. There must be dozens of places where it might have got into trouble. Hugh—the Captain—thinks they melt the silver down so that it won’t arouse suspicion.” I remembered that those men had let Ellen Marshall and Oliver leave. They trusted her. But why would they trust him? “The people out here depend on that income, and they are terrified of losing it.”
He stopped pacing and went to stand by the window. “You must go back, or someone will start looking for you. And I don’t want to be seen. Are you certain your friends are in as much danger as you claim they are?”
“You didn’t see Oliver’s face. Or what was done to Hugh Williams. He won’t talk about it, and Oliver didn’t know his attacker—it was the first time he’d been here, but he was helping Ellen take her house apart, looking for where her grandfather had hidden his own hoard. They didn’t find it. Her neighbors could have taken it over the years—they felt free to hide the soldier’s body in her house. Which reminds me. That might be a safer place to meet. Do you know where it is? Just below here.”
“Yes, I found it. I didn’t know if it was empty or occupied. Someone has been tearing up the walls.”
“Ellen herself, I think. All right, when shall I look for you again?”
“If all is well, another day won’t matter. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. You won’t see me until I’m sure you weren’t followed. Be patient. Look for my signal tonight. I’ll try to find out if there’s a pattern of watchers. It was the rector last night. I followed him home.”
“Be careful,” I said unnecessarily. Simon always was. But I knew these villagers and he might well discount his danger here.
Then he said, “Bess. If you’re in trouble, meanwhile, how will I know?”
“I’ll be all right,” I replied, putting as much certainty into my voice as I could. “As long as I don’t try to leave—or let anyone think I’m about to try.”
But he wasn’t reassured.
“Please, Simon. I’ll be safe enough.” But the longer he stayed out here, the more likely one of us would be found out. “Let me talk to Captain Williams and Rachel. Not”—I added hastily—“telling them about you. Not yet. But asking them what they think the risks are if I left.”
“All right.” But he wasn’t happy about it. “Go on, before someone comes. But be careful. And if you can leave here, the sooner the better.”
A reflection of what I myself had been thinking.
He went to a window and scanned the area behind the station. “I think it’s safe. But I’ll watch from another window, before I leave. To be sure.”
“Mind Rachel’s dogs, Simon. There are two of them.” With a nod to him, I slipped out the door and heard it click shut behind me. I didn’t walk back the way I’d come but circled the building until I came out at the other end. Then I made my way to the road and started up it.
As far as I could tell, there was no one about. I didn’t turn to look back at the station for fear of giving Simon away. Instead, although my mind was whirling with possibilities, I dawdled on my way, pausing at the overlook for several minutes.
When I turned to walk on, Mr. Griffith was on his way toward me.
“What’s so fascinating about yon coast guard station?” he asked.
“I’m not interested in the station,” I said shortly. “For one thing I’m bored. For another, I just need to get away for a while, where I’m not watched every minute. It’s a relief.”
He grinned. But there was no humor in it. “Bothers you to be watched, does it? You don’t know the half of it.”
And with that he turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come.
But ten yards from me he stopped and looked straight at me, as if he could read my thoughts. “Don’t tell me you’ve found Ellen’s missing hoard? Hiding it at the station, are you? Clever boots, aren’t you?”
I was cross with him, and I let it show. “What hoard? Don’t any of you people out here think about anything but what your neighbors are up to? Go search the station if you want to. Search the cottage. I don’t really care what you do.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“All right then,” I said, pointing to the station. “Let�
�s walk back there. Or to the cottage. Go on, you made the accusation. Let’s go and see what I was up to. I don’t have anything to hide. The question is, do you?”
He glared at me, that last taunt hitting its mark, and I wondered if he’d been busy searching Ellen’s cottage on his own, and that was why he was afraid I’d found what he’d missed. Who would have seen him go and come in the middle of the night?
But he didn’t answer me at first. Then he said, “To the devil with you, then.” And he walked on, shoulders hunched.
I stayed where I was until he’d gone into his cottage and shut the door.
And then I walked the rest of the way back to the house.
For the rest of the day, while Rachel was sowing seeds in her garden and Hugh was keeping an eye on the sheep, with the dogs for his companions, I debated with myself what to say to them about leaving. How to approach it in such a way that they told me the truth and not what they thought I’d want to hear. Because I had a feeling they wouldn’t keep me here by bringing up what might happen to them.
When they came in to tea, it was nearly five, and I waited until we had settled to our meal before broaching the subject.
“If I walked away in the middle of the night, would they try to stop me? The men who are watching me?” I asked as casually as I could.
Rachel put down her cup and stared at me. “Are you telling me you intend to try? I don’t know that it’s wise, Bess. You can’t get far on foot.”
“Far enough that perhaps I can find someone to take me the rest of the way.”
Hugh said, “It’s a risk. Rachel is right.”
“But what could they possibly do to me? They aren’t likely to hurt me, are they? They’d only bring me back here.”
Hugh said, “I don’t know what they might do.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “Would they blame you if I left?”
They exchanged glances. Hugh said, “That’s not your worry.”
“I think it must be. I can’t leave here with that on my conscience.”
Rachel said practically, “No one here wants to drive us away. What would be the point?”
There was some truth to that. If I left with Simon—appeared simply to vanish one night—and nothing more came of my departure, no police, no trouble—it might all blow over.
I felt my spirits lift. But was that simply wishful thinking?
When we went up to bed that night, I stood by my window for some time, staring out into the darkness. But Simon didn’t appear, didn’t send me a message. After a while, I went to bed.
I woke in the night from a dream about being at home in Somerset, helping my mother and our housekeeper, Iris, dry apples for the winter, slicing and setting them out in the sun under thin sheets of cheesecloth, to protect them from insects and birds.
I lay there for a moment before I realized that the birds chirping in the trees just above the trays of apple slices had actually been something else—for that sound came again. A rattling of small pebbles against the shutters outside my window. I got up at once and walked over to it.
There was only blackness out there toward the coast guard station. It occurred to me that I ought to light my lamp, then snuff it out again, to show Simon that I was here and awake.
Doing just that, I took the opportunity to look at my little watch. It was nearly five.
I let the lamp burn for a minute or two, then turned down the wick, plunging my room into darkness that slowly lightened as my eyes adjusted. When I went back to the window, I didn’t see anyone below on the grass, or any sign of a light down by the coast guard station. Then it occurred to me that if Simon had come to my window to wake me, it would take him a while to reach that back terrace of the station.
I waited patiently. And then the first flash came.
The word, repeated in case I had missed it the first time, was Treacle. I tried to recall what that meant. Hold your position. Then Piccadilly. Trouble. Buckingham. By the river.
There was no river out here on the peninsula. I frowned. Did he mean by the bay? He must. There had been no sea, no bay in the Northwest Frontier provinces.
I found my shoes and silently made my way down the stairs, keeping to the sides of the treads where they creaked less. I heard the dogs stir restlessly in the kitchen, but when I didn’t come that way, they settled again.
But I couldn’t see the water from the downstairs windows. And no one was stirring in the village. I crept back up the stairs and into my room. There was nothing more from Simon.
When, soon after the sun broke through on the horizon, its light casting bright rays across the peninsula, I heard Hugh stirring in the room next to mine, I hastily dressed.
By the time I came down, he had filled the kettle and set it on the stove.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, and I could see the dark circles under his eyes. Phantom pain?
I said, “Is there anything I can do?”
He hesitated, then said, “How long can Rachel continue to live out here?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I have worth out here,” he answered after a moment. “In a city, there’s not much I can do.”
I followed his thinking. If for some reason—my departure, the growing violence out here, anything—Rachel returned to Swansea or Cardiff, she had a skill that would bring her an income. While Hugh also had skills, he was an amputee and might not find work at all. There were barriers for him in the workplace that Rachel wouldn’t even notice because she had both limbs.
“I shouldn’t worry,” I said slowly. “I think Rachel has come to depend on you.”
“I have my pride,” he said stiffly.
“And rightly so,” I replied. “But pride can be stubborn, and get in the way of change.”
He smiled. “You put me in my place very easily.”
“No,” I told him truthfully. “I tried to show you that there are other things that matter besides pride.”
He was about to answer when we heard Rachel on the stairs. The dogs bounded down the passage to greet her, and she stopped to pet them.
I said quietly, for his ears only, “Those two will have to face changes as well. She won’t leave them behind.”
But before Rachel could walk on down the passage, she must have gone into the front room because her voice was muffled as she called, “Hugh? What’s happening out there?”
He got up and made his way to where she was standing by the front windows. I was just behind him, feeling a sense of dread. Was this what Simon had prepared me for?
There were half a dozen villagers hurrying toward the hedge and the path down to the bay. Men, their faces grim, and Mr. Wilson among them.
We watched them disappear down the path, and Mr. Griffith came out of his house a moment later to stand by the hedge, looking after them.
Hugh said, “Stay here,” and went out to walk over to where Mr. Griffith was standing.
Rachel and I watched as the two men conferred, and then Hugh disappeared down the road. A moment later and he was back again, saying something more to Mr. Griffith.
I moved uneasily. “There isn’t another soldier washed ashore? Or a boat in desperate straits?”
“I hope not,” she said fervently. “But there may be something else down there.”
More silver coins to fight over?
We waited. And then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went up for my coat and then out the back door, ignoring Rachel calling my name, telling me to wait.
I was out of sight of the two men by the hedge. As I rounded the house, I cut across the sheep fields and went on to where the road started down the incline toward the overlook. When I got there, instead of standing in the open where I had the best view, I tried to stay behind some of the scrub trees and grasses that had grown up at the cliff’s edge, hoping to be less conspicuous if someone on the strand looked this way.
The water was smooth as silk, the frothy waves breaking gently—the tide hadn’t t
urned yet. Overhead, gulls caught shafts of sunlight, flashing white and calling raucously as they watched whatever was happening at the water’s edge. And there was no sign of a boat in trouble.
Peering down through a cluster of bare branches, I wished I’d thought to bring Hugh’s field glasses. For there must have been a dozen men gathered on the strand and I was hard-pressed to see what it was they were looking at.
And then they parted, and three of them started up the path.
I saw finally what they had concealed.
There was a body lying on the strand, just above the high-water mark. A man’s body, and I needn’t go down there to feel for a pulse to know that he was quite dead. It was there in the way his knees were drawn up, arms bent toward his chest, his face down. If he’d been alive, the men would have already carried him up the path, out of the wind and away from the water.
Even at this distance I could see that he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
But who was he? And where had he come from?
Poised to hurry back toward the house if they showed any signs of climbing all the way to the top, I watched three of the men—one of them Mr. Wilson—walk up the path. But they turned down one of the lower paths, moving steadily toward a house not far from where little Jenny lived. They made their way to the door, then stood there, as if undecided what to do. And then one of them walked up to the door, raised his hand, and knocked. I thought it must be Mr. Wilson, for even at this distance, he still resembled a crow.
I couldn’t hear the knock. But the cry of a woman I couldn’t see, for she was inside the house, reached me clearly, high-pitched and in denial as Mr. Wilson told her what they had discovered. After a moment they went inside.
I turned my attention back to the men gathered on the beach. As the gulls swung high above them, their cries echoing over the water, one of the men knelt by the body, as if examining it. As he got to his feet, the others leaned forward for a better look as the first man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands.
