by Charles Todd
Simon glanced toward the sky. “This could be a bad storm. We need to hurry.”
We picked up our pace, and after a while I could just see the glimmer of the sea ahead. “We’ve crossed the peninsula,” I said. “Is this where you’ve camped?”
“No. I had to leave that place when I was followed. I was looking for another cave when I found what I want to show you.”
At last we came to the water’s edge, and the sky behind us was black now.
“There are any number of caves along the coastline,” he said then. “Some of them are closer to the waterline, and I was looking for something drier. Be careful, the rocks are treacherous here if they’re wet. Give me your hand.”
I did, and he led me down a rocky incline that was easy enough to descend if you knew where you were going. I didn’t, but I trusted Simon and let him guide me down to an opening—dark now—just above the water’s edge.
“Don’t worry, it’s not difficult.”
And he was right, it was amazingly simple to reach the cave mouth and walk down the slight incline to a surprisingly dry space some twenty yards from the entrance.
He’d picked up a torch that he’d left at the mouth, and shone the beam ahead of us to where I could see a bundle of what appeared to be blankets. Simon’s bed, on the cold cave floor? I shivered.
Then the bundle of blankets moved, and I couldn’t suppress a gasp of surprise.
Simon went ahead of me, knelt by the blankets, and said, “He’s asleep—or unconscious. It’s hard to be sure. See for yourself.”
I reached his side and knelt by him. He pulled the blankets away.
I don’t know what I’d expected. Certainly not to see Ellen’s friend Oliver, gaunt and bearded, lying there, his face so feverish that I could feel the warmth as I moved closer to him, even before I put a hand to his forehead.
“Oliver?” It was the only name I knew.
He didn’t respond, but Simon asked, “You know him, then?”
“Yes, he’s Ellen Marshall’s friend, the one I told you about.”
“I wasn’t sure whether it was he, or if he was a new victim of whoever is attacking people.”
“But how did he get here?” I asked. “She was taking him to Swansea to find someone to see to these wounds.” I looked around me. The cave was dark, chill, and God alone knew if there were bats nesting in here, or any other creature, prehistoric or present day.
“Oliver?” I said his name quietly, trying to rouse him, but he was too deeply unconscious. I didn’t like that.
“Did you find him like this?”
“No. He was lying on the bare stone of the cave. I found the blankets airing on a line, and took them. He was shivering, and that worried me.”
“He needs medical care,” I said. “And soon. Where’s your motorcar?”
“Not far from here,” he said.
“You must take him to Swansea. There must be a good hospital in the town. He needs a doctor. I’m afraid he’ll die if he doesn’t get help and soon.”
“Yes. That’s why it was worth the risk to come to the house. It was important for you to tell me if you knew him before I took him away.” A flash of lightning brightened the mouth of the cave. But the thunder was slow in following. “If I’m to reach Swansea before the worst of the storm comes in, I must go now. Come with me, Bess. I don’t like the idea of leaving you behind.”
“I can’t. Not yet. Hurry, bring the motorcar as close as you can. Then I’ll help you get him in it.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, then rose and walked swiftly to the cave’s mouth. He was gone for only a matter of minutes. And between us we managed to get Oliver to his feet. Then we half carried, half dragged him as far as the cave mouth. There, getting him up the incline to ground level was the problem, and in the end, Simon lifted him and carried him to the waiting motorcar.
We got him inside just before the first large drops of rain began to hit the ground around us. Simon gestured to the passenger’s seat. “You can’t walk back now. It’s too far, and you’ll be in trouble halfway there. I’ll drive toward Swansea, and set you down above the village. Will that do?”
The rain was hitting the motorcar with such intensity that I could hardly hear him. But I nodded, because that was just what I’d hoped he would suggest.
It wasn’t an easy journey. We bounced and juddered over the rough ground, and I was worried that Oliver would be hurt. I finally got Simon to stop while I climbed into the rear of the motorcar and braced his head and shoulders as best I could. But we finally reached the drovers’ road, and while it felt just as rough, the rain was already softening the ruts. We began to slither where we’d bounced before.
Simon drew to a halt. “If you walk back from here, no one will know where you’ve been. I’d rather you changed your mind and stayed with me.” He gestured toward the storm. “This will be worse before it’s better.”
I shook my head. Then, hesitating, I looked again at Oliver. I didn’t think he could hear me. “Simon. She couldn’t have attacked him. Ellen Marshall, I mean. And she couldn’t have attacked the others. Still. She’s the only person who could have left this poor man in a cave. I can’t understand why, not as concerned as she was about his condition. But there’s no other explanation, is there? Watch yourself. The police will be asking questions.” Reaching for my umbrella, which was in the front seat, I said, “Just hurry back. Please.”
“I will. Do you still have your pistol?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t hesitate to use it if you have to.”
I opened the rear door and got down, raising my umbrella as quickly as I could. “Just drive carefully. I don’t know the state of his ribs. And he could very well be on the verge of pneumonia.”
As deadly in its own way as influenza, it could kill quickly.
“Don’t worry. He’ll survive. I’ll see to that. I want to find out who’s behind this.”
And I was gone, walking quickly back toward the village—and into the teeth of the storm. I didn’t look back as Simon went on his way again. I’d gone no more than a hundred paces when my umbrella blew inside out in spite of all I could do to prevent it. But in another fifty paces, I could see the church and the houses just above it. Simon had taken a grave risk, bringing me this close.
I reached Rachel’s door and was more or less blown in by the wind, in a blast of rain. I stood there, dripping. I could smell dinner, and feel the warmth of the cooker.
Rachel and Hugh came hurrying out of the kitchen, calling to me, asking me where on earth I’d been.
Hugh said, worry translating to anger in his voice, “Surely you couldn’t have decided to walk to Swansea with this storm coming? Bess, it was madness.”
Rachel was taking my umbrella from me and setting it in the porcelain stand by the door, then helping me out of my coat and hat. “You’ll take your death,” she said, in the voice of a mother chiding a difficult child. “Come to the kitchen.”
The dogs had followed Hugh, and they were sniffing my wet skirts and my shoes. I wondered if they could smell Oliver or if it was the scent of a stranger they didn’t recognize that interested them. I removed my shoes, and in my stocking feet let them lead me to the kitchen.
The warmth was almost too much, cold as I was, and I knew my hair must be hanging down in wet strands. I tried to brush it back, but Rachel was pouring a cup of tea and handing it to me, and I took it gratefully.
But what was I to tell them?
What excuse could I offer? Without telling them about Simon as well?
“I went for a walk,” I said finally. “And came out above the village when I tried to find my way back.”
“You are looking for a way to leave,” Rachel said accusingly. She’d found a towel and handed it to me to dry my hair.
“I was exploring. That’s all. I’m used to being busy, tending patients, working with doctors. Hugh can tell you. I need more exercise than I’ve been getting.”
“Bu
t surely you saw the storm coming.” Hugh was considering me. “And there’s blood on your coat.”
I turned quickly—more quickly than I should have done—to look to where he was pointing. Oliver’s blood on my shoulder, where one of his cuts must have opened. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to betray me.
Ignoring the towel, instead wrapping my cold wet fingers around the teacup, I realized I couldn’t lie to them any longer.
“There’s something I ought to tell you,” I said finally as they watched me with uncertainty in their gaze. “A family friend has found me. When I didn’t return to the clinic on time, my mother sent him after me. My father is away, and so Simon undertook the search. He tracked me here. Never mind how, but he’s ex-Army, and he knows how to find people.”
“That’s where you went last night,” Rachel said, frowning. “You went out to meet him.”
“Yes. He’d set up a base camp on the other side of the peninsula while he was trying to find me. For reasons of his own he moved to a different cave after we talked. And there he discovered Ellen Marshall’s friend, Oliver. Lying on the floor of the cave and unconscious. If Simon hadn’t found him, he’d have died. He’s feverish and very ill. His head wound appeared to be infected. That must be the blood you saw on my shoulder.”
“But what’s he doing in a cave?” Rachel demanded, as if she thought I’d made up the whole story.
Hugh said, “Ellen was on the way to Swansea with him. To take him to hospital.”
“So she told me. I don’t know what happened. But who else could have put him there? If he was safely in hospital? It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. She knew how serious his wounds were.”
“Do you think she attacked him?” Hugh was asking. “That would explain why she left him in one of the caves to die. She’d have known about them. And she might have been afraid he’d talk.”
I shook my head, and then remembered my wet hair as dripping strands stuck to my face. I picked up the towel and vigorously began to rub it dry. As always when it was wet, it began to curl as it dried. “No, he would have said something after she’d gone home that evening. When she brought him here, she was really afraid for him. Besides, he’s bigger than Ellen. He could have stopped her.”
“Not if she used something heavy, a board or tool, to knock him down.”
I remembered the boards pulled from the walls in the cottage, and up from the floors. “No. It was not Ellen. I’m almost convinced it couldn’t have been.”
Rachel had been standing across the table from me. She sat down heavily.
“This is awful.” And then it dawned on her. What I’d been so careful not to mention. “He’s coming back for you, isn’t he? This man Simon. And he’ll bring the police back with him. They’ll want to know who attacked Oliver.” The realization horrified her. “Oh, Bess, see what you’ve done.”
“I’ve done nothing,” I told her. “But Simon couldn’t have left Oliver there to die. Blame Ellen Marshall, if you like. Or whoever it is who savagely beat him. It’s their actions that you must question, not mine.”
“But Simon is here because of you.”
“And if he hadn’t come here for me, Oliver would have died in that cave, and someone would have found his bones and wondered who he was. And you’d have been none the wiser.” It was harsh, but I had to make her see the truth. In the end, she might have blamed Hugh as well, for being the reason I’d come here in the first place.
She had the grace to flush. “No, of course, not—I didn’t mean that.”
But she had, in a way.
Hugh said, “That’s rather severe, Bess.”
“Yet it’s true. Everyone here has turned a blind eye to men washed up by the sea, to others being beaten to death, to the use of silver that was never theirs to begin with. Even you’ve come round to believing it was best to stay out of it.” I could speak my mind because Simon would be returning. I would be leaving with him. And yet I owed it to both Rachel and Hugh to point out their own complicity in what was happening out here. The complicity of silence. Because if the police came, they too would be drawn into the questioning, and secrets would come out, like it or not. I didn’t want to see them suffer.
“They will say that it’s your friend Simon who has been attacking people. That he was looking for you and didn’t care how many other people he hurt as long as he found you.” Rachel’s voice was cold. These were her people, in spite of everything. And she’d benefited from the silver, just like everyone else.
I answered gently. “He didn’t bury those two men who washed ashore. He didn’t spend silver that should have gone to the Crown. And he had no reason to attack anyone. He knew where I was. Mr. Morgan told him.”
She toyed with the congealing food on her plate. “I’m sorry, Bess. It’s just that it’s my world that will be turned upside down. Not yours.”
“That’s true, and I’m sorry. But even if I’d never set foot out here in this peninsula, sooner or later it would all come out. Mrs. Stephenson is very angry. She nearly shot someone just the other night. She might even decide to call in the police to find her husband’s killer. And it’s only a matter of time before there’s a next victim.”
But Rachel, for all her time spent in Swansea and Cardiff, was not convinced. Rising, she took a plate from the dresser and began to fill it with my dinner. They had more questions, of course. I tried to answer them as truthfully as I could.
“Ellen Marshall was married to a wealthy merchant,” Rachel pointed out. “I don’t understand why she should leave her friend in a cave to die. Not unless she’d caused his injuries and was afraid he’d tell the police.”
Why had she come to this village and torn her grandfather’s house apart—almost literally—if she was wealthy? But I kept that to myself. She dressed expensively, she owned a large motorcar. Perhaps his money had run out and she had hoped to find her grandfather’s silver from the coach he’d stopped years before.
That reminded me that he was also suspected of murdering the coach’s owner. Did murder-for-silver run in that family?
I was very tired and excused myself to finish dealing with my wet clothes. Rachel helped me spread out my coat over a chair close by the cooker, where it would dry more easily, and then I went up to my room and tried to do something about my rebellious hair. Looking in the mirror, I wondered where the Sister with her prim cap and hair twisted into a tidy knot had gone.
When I came down to fetch my hot water bottle, I could hear the loom before I stepped into the kitchen. The dogs were asleep, undisturbed by the wind pushing sheets of rain against the house and howling down the chimneys. Hugh was still there, his head in his hands. He looked up at me as I entered, his face drawn.
“You did the right thing, Bess,” he said. “You couldn’t have left Oliver, or whatever his name actually is, to die in that cave. But I’m afraid the repercussions will destroy all of us.”
I knew what he was thinking. That if Rachel had to leave this house until the furor died down—after all, she’d taken me in, she would very likely be blamed for that—where would he go? He’d found sanctuary here, and it had helped him heal. But I knew he was afraid that there would be no work for him, despite his training. And he would have to go back to the valley. He couldn’t live with Rachel when there was nothing for him to do to earn his keep, though I didn’t think she would let him go. I knew she cared too much. But he might let his pride stand in the way, and refuse to be dependent on her.
I said, “We mustn’t borrow trouble that hasn’t arrived. This village has survived for over five hundred years. It will survive a hundred more, surely. Your lifetime and mine.”
Hugh’s expression was bleak. “God knows.” He rose and pulled his crutches to him. “I think I’ll go up too.”
“Then I’ll fill your bottle as well,” I told him, and carried it up the stairs for him.
He paused on the landing, his expression thoughtful. “You’re an amazing woman, Bess. I understand wh
y your mother sent someone to find you. I’ve never had anyone care that much for me, except perhaps Tom, and so I envy that. I’m glad you’ll be going back to your own world. You changed mine. And I am grateful. Whatever happens here.”
“I think Rachel has had more to do with your world than anything I’ve done.”
“She’s my brother’s widow. I won’t step into his shoes.” His expression was wry.
I opened his door and set the hot water bottle on his bed. “Is she to live the rest of her life alone, grieving for the past? I hardly think your brother would wish that for her.”
“Tom had both his legs.”
“And you are any less for having lost one? I think not.” I crossed the room to where he was standing just outside his door. Rising on tiptoe, I kissed him lightly on the cheek. Matron, I thought in a distant part of my mind, would have an apoplexy if she’d seen me. But she was not here. Hugh was. And from what I’d seen of his sister, I could guess she would never give him the confidence he so desperately needed. Smiling, I said, “The woman who marries you will be very lucky. But you must give her a chance.”
Then I walked away, into my own room, and shut the door before he could recover and answer me.
There was no word from Simon all the next day. That was worrying. Either the severity of Oliver’s condition was keeping him in Swansea, or the police were. I tried to tell myself it was the weather and the state of the road that held him up, because the storm didn’t abate until after nine that morning.
Careful as I was, someone—my first guess would have been Mr. Griffith—had seen me walking back through the village in the rain last night, and remarks were made to Rachel when she went to check on the ewes and their lambs just after ten. Apparently she gave whoever it was short shrift, for the rector came calling just after noon.
He was uncomfortable in his role as chief warder. I was in the house alone at the time, and he followed me into the front room but declined my invitation to sit down.
“We were worried about you last evening,” he began. “It won’t do if you bring pneumonia upon yourself. Mrs. Williams has so little time for nursing the ill.”
