A Safe Harbour (34 page)

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Authors: Benita Brown

Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Sagas, #Fisheries & Aquaculture, #Fiction

BOOK: A Safe Harbour
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‘Here you are.’ Mrs Harrison placed the bowl on the table and set about cutting a thick slice of bread. She put the bread on a clean plate and reached for a knife.
 
‘I like the jelly,’ Betsy said.
 
‘Do you, pet?’
 
Mrs Harrison broke the surface of the dripping and reached down to scoop up some of the rich brown jelly from the bottom of the bowl and spread it on top of the dripping. The child watched hungrily. I wonder if her mother bothers to feed her properly, Jane thought.
 
Betsy added some salt and pepper herself before beginning to eat. Mrs Harrison poured three cups of tea. ‘So why are you here so early, Betsy?’
 
‘I’m looking for Kate.’
 
‘So you said. But why did you think she was here?’
 
‘She isn’t at home.’
 
‘You mean the cottage?’ Mrs Harrison asked.
 
‘Yes.’
 
Jane’s mother glanced at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. ‘She’s probably on her way to the auction shed at Shields.’
 
‘But she wasn’t there last night – and the fire’s gone out.’
 
‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Harrison sighed. ‘Can you explain a little more clearly, child?’
 
Betsy looked at her long and hard before she began to speak. Jane realized it must have taken great effort for the girl to sort out the muddle that was in her mind but, slowly and clearly, she began to tell them the story of what had happened the night before. Her mother’s bad temper causing her to run from her own house to Kate’s, finding the door swinging in the wind, Mr Munro’s cats and Mr Adamson’s dog and, finally, how her grandmother had come for her and persuaded her that Kate was safe at the cobbler’s shop and Betsy must come home.
 
‘And Mr Adamson shut the door,’ she said. ‘But he left the window open a little for the cats.’
 
At this point Florence Harrison reached for the teapot and poured them all another cup of tea. Betsy stirred two teaspoonfuls of sugar into hers and drank it greedily. ‘I was thirsty,’ she said. ‘All that talking.’ For the first time since she had arrived there was a hint of a smile. ‘So are you going to help me?’ she asked.
 
‘Help you to do what?’ Jane said.
 
‘Find Kate.’
 
‘But, really, Betsy, I don’t think she’s lost,’ Jane told her. ‘As my mother said, she’ll have set off for Shields.’
 
The girl shook her head. ‘No. I telt you. I went in. The fire’s out and the cats are still there. And so’s her creel and her basket. She wouldn’t go to buy fish without her creel, would she?’
 
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ Jane said, and at last she began to feel a shiver of worry. ‘Did you go to her mother’s house?’
 
‘She won’t be there. She never goes home to her ma. Her ma comes to the cottage to see her.’
 
‘Well, nevertheless, I think you should go and see.’ Then Jane surprised herself by adding, ‘And I’ll come with you.’
 
‘You’ll miss the train,’ her mother said.
 
‘Well, I’ll just have to be late back for once.’ Jane finished her cup of tea and rose from the table.
 
‘Put your coat on.’ Mrs Harrison rose, too, and opened the under-stair cupboard that served as a cloakroom and general tidy hole.
 
‘Mother, I’m not a child. Of course I’ll put my coat on and I’ll take my umbrella too. And while you’re fussing like this why don’t you get that old coat of mine, the one that’s too small, and give it to Betsy? It’s raining harder that ever and that shawl of hers won’t provide much protection.’
 
‘Can I keep this?’ Betsy looked down at herself as she buttoned up the coat.
 
‘Yes, you may,’ Jane told her. ‘But now, let’s go and find out what’s happened to Kate.’
 
A little later, when Jane returned, without Betsy, her mother was still at the table enjoying a slice of toast. ‘Well?’ she asked.
 
Jane shook her head. ‘She’s not with her mother.’
 
‘You didn’t say anything to worry Nan, I hope.’
 
‘No. I’d thought about that. I told her that I’d wanted to see Kate before I went back to work and that I must have missed her – she must already have set off for the fish quay – but I’d called in the hope that she might be there.’
 
‘What did Nan say?’
 
‘She said she hoped Kate wasn’t thinking of working on a day like this and that she’d probably gone to Mr Munro’s house.’
 
‘The artist?’
 
‘Yes. He’s painting her picture. Well, Betsy insisted we go there, but we hadn’t got far when we met Joan Donkin. She was on her way to the Lawsons’ cottage; she’d been sent with a letter to Kate’s mother. It seems she’s at the Adamsons’ house. She’s been there all night.’
 
‘For goodness’ sake, why?’
 
‘Mr Adamson brought her home. He said he’d found her on the beach – in a bad way. They’ve sent for the doctor.’
 
‘Oh, poor lass,’ her mother said. ‘If only I hadn’t stopped you going round to the cottage last night. You would have seen there was something the matter with her and you could have brought her here.’
 
‘Don’t feel guilty, Mother. You wanted us to have some time together. It’s my fault – I’d have gone if I’d really wanted to go. But I was hoping that William would call by – and he did.’
 
Jane knew the guilt was hers alone. God forgive her, she had been too taken up with her own plans to give time to her dearest friend. William would have been only too happy to go with her to visit his sister but she had been content to allow her mother to persuade him to sit by the fire and eat the iced fancies and raisin cake she had baked for Jane’s visit home. And her father had laughed teasingly when William had expressed the hope that Jane was as good a cook as her mother.
 
And while they had spent the happiest of evenings her friend must have been in some kind of trouble. What on earth had Kate been doing on the beach late at night when the weather was so bad? And how strange that Mr Adamson should have been there, too, and that he should have been prepared to take troublemaker Thomas Lawson’s sister into his home no matter how sick she was.
 
Joan Donkin had made a point of telling her that, in her opinion, Kate was suffering from nothing more serious than a feverish cold. But if that was the case when had the cold started? And there was something else . . . something Kate’s mother had said that lingered uneasily in her mind. She brought those words to mind now, ‘
I hope Kate hasn’t gone to work on a day like this
,’ Kate’s mother had said, ‘
not in her con—I mean, she’ll get soaked to the skin, won’t she?
’
 
Nan had stumbled over her words and then hurried on to say that Kate was probably at the artist’s house. Then she told Jane not to be a stranger, and that William was down at the lifeboat station catching up with some necessary repairs, and would be sorry he’d missed her.
 
Jane had stopped her in full flow. She didn’t say that she already knew William’s whereabouts because he’d told her what he would do if the weather remained too bad for the fishing when he’d called round to her parents’ house the night before.
 
‘So where is Betsy?’ her mother asked now.
 
‘Goodness knows. As soon as she’d heard what Joan had to say she took off – without a word of thanks, by the way.’
 
‘Don’t think too badly of her, Jane. Apart from old Martha, nobody has a kind word for her except Kate. That’ll be why the poor bairn’s so agitated.’
 
‘Well, I’m surprised Kate has any patience with the girl. You know how quick-tempered she can be.’
 
‘I do. But she has a good heart, and she’d never lose her temper with someone like Betsy. You must realize that.’
 
Jane sighed. ‘I suppose I do. I wish I could go and see Kate, but I’ll have to rely on you for news now.’
 
Her mother smiled. ‘William will tell you, no doubt. Now here’s your bag. It’s time you went or you’ll miss the next train, too.’
 
Jane submitted to a hug and a kiss then went through to the shop to say goodbye to her father. He held the door for her, murmuring, ‘Watch where you’re treading, pet. I don’t want you ruining those good shoes.’
 
But the wind made it difficult to hang on to the umbrella and also watch out for the puddles, and Jane was soon out of breath. She arrived at the station with time to spare and was grateful for the fire burning in the waiting room. What a day, she thought. As she sat down for a moment and caught her breath, she allowed her mind to return to that moment at the Lawsons’ cottage door and what Kate’s mother had said – or rather had stopped herself from saying.
 
Sitting by the fire and toasting her toes Jane completed the sentence for her now. ‘
I hope Kate hasn’t gone to work on a day like this . . . not in her condition.
’
 
 
It was good of you to come at such short notice, Sam.’ ‘That’s all right, Mrs Adamson. Richard more or less insisted, you know.’
 
‘Hmm.’ Her tone was disapproving.
 
‘Er – he said you’d give me breakfast after I’d done my duty and examined the patient.’ Dr Phillips’s attempt to lighten the atmosphere was rewarded with a slight smile.
 
‘Of course. In fact I was hoping you would join me. Come along – we’ll go to the dining room at once.’
 
Grace Adamson had received her son’s friend in the grand first-floor sitting room overlooking the sea. A cheery fire crackled in the hearth and reflected light played along the highly polished brass fender. Although the sky was heavy with rain clouds, the room was not quite dark enough for the lamps to have been lit. This put Sam at a disadvantage because he could not quite make out the expression on Grace Adamson’s face.
 
Sam knew better than to offer to help his friend’s mother rise from her chair. She reached for her walking stick and he looked away, but not before he had seen the grimace of pain as she eased herself up. Grace Adamson did not like to admit that she was getting old and that in the mornings her joints were stiff and painful. Sam busied himself opening the door so that he would not witness her awkward progress across the room.
 
She would not even allow him to help her on the stairs as they went down to the formal dining room on the ground floor. As Richard had taken an early breakfast and left for the office several hours ago, Sam imagined Grace Adamson could have made life easier for herself by ordering a tray to be brought to her room. But it was clear that she was going to make no concessions to her age or her creaking bones.
 
Good for her, Sam thought. More than a few of his women patients much younger than Grace Adamson, some barely past forty, had taken to their beds, or the chaise longue, and passed their days as semi-invalids simply because they enjoyed being waited on hand and foot, either by servants or by some poor unmarried daughter or other dependent female relative.
 
After holding Grace’s chair for her and settling her at the table Sam glanced out of the window. The rain seemed to be hurling itself in from the sea and he could see the waves crashing over the breakwaters and cascading down into the bay. A day for the inhabitants of the village to stay at home, he thought, whether in the fishermen’s cottages or in the grand houses strung along the promenade. Only folk such as he, a man of medicine, would have to brave the elements in such weather in order to visit his patients; or determined men of business like his friend.
 
It had still been dark when Richard had telephoned him earlier this morning. He had told a garbled story of finding one of the village girls in a cave and bringing her home because he suspected she was ill. He had asked Sam to come along and have a look at her but he hadn’t told him why he was so concerned. And concerned Richard most certainly was, judging from his strained manner of speaking – although he hadn’t actually said anything particularly revealing.
 
‘Just make sure she’s all right,’ he’d told Sam. ‘If you don’t think she should be moved persuade her to stay here. You can telephone me at the office if you think there’s anything I ought to know.’
 
‘Such as?’ Sam had asked.
 
‘Whether she needs any pills – any medicine, you know.’
 
‘And if she does?’
 
‘Just prescribe them. Obviously, I’ll pay your bill.’
 
Now, as Sam took his breakfast plate to the sideboard where a delicious array of food lay waiting on hotplates, he wondered about the word ‘obviously’. Nothing had been obvious about this morning. He had known Richard since they were boys and he had learned long ago that his friend was not exactly secretive but was good at keeping his own counsel. There was a reserve about Richard Adamson that made you wary of questioning him. So Sam had decided to tend to the fish lass and then wait and see if Richard would explain any further.
 
Once she was seated Grace Adamson had directed him to the tasselled bell cord by the fireplace and asked him to pull it, and now a mature and homely serving woman appeared. Sam recognized her as Mrs McDonald, the cook-housekeeper. He must have shown his surprise that such a senior servant had answered the summons for she smiled at him.
 

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