Finders and Keepers (15 page)

‘I'll open the car.' Harry ran outside and wrenched open the back door. The Gladstone bag and umbrella still lay, forgotten, on the floor of the car. When he returned to the castle, Diana was in the porch holding Martha, who was swathed in blankets. He took the girl from her and swiftly deposited her on the back seat. She looked up at him in confusion when he settled her. ‘Are you comfortable?' he whispered.

She nodded, and he closed the door. He walked around the front passenger side and opened the door for Diana Adams.

She knew he was waiting for her, yet she double-checked her reflection in the hall mirror, adjusted the collar on her light-grey mackintosh, and pulled on her leather gloves and black cloche hat, all the while watching him grow steadily wetter as he stood, hatless and coatless in the downpour. After she'd dressed, she put up her umbrella, walked out of the castle and climbed into the tourer.

He slammed the passenger door behind her, and squelched his way to the driving seat.

‘I'll try not drip on you,' he said caustically, when she shrank away from him.

‘That would be difficult, Mr Evans. You've already soaked my stockings. Turn right at the gate, I'll point out the house when we get there.'

Although the rain was even heavier than when Harry had driven up the mountain earlier, the mist had cleared and he was able to see the hills rolling upwards on their right. But he found it impossible to gauge their height as the summits were shrouded in low cloud. Just as he'd suspected, on the left a slope slid precariously down to the floor of the valley.

Drenched, bedraggled sheep huddled in clusters alongside the road. Terrified of hitting one of them and nervous after the accident, Harry drove more slowly than usual. The silence between him and Diana Adams grew more oppressive with every passing mile. Even more so every time she turned around to check on Martha, who was lying silently in the back with her eyes closed.

‘Is this the house?' he asked, when he saw an isolated building after what seemed closer to ten than five miles. It was a typically Welsh, stone-built square cottage, with a slate roof, windows either side of a central door and three windows set above.

‘If you look more closely you'll see that it's boarded up, Mr Evans,' she informed him curtly.

‘So it is. I didn't notice.'

‘It's a sign of the times. Rural depopulation. Unemployment is up, wages are down, the price of food has dropped, but not enough to allow people to buy anything beyond the bare essentials. As a result, tenant farmers can no longer afford to pay the rent demanded by the landowners, so they are evicted. And while their family homes are boarded up, they and their families are admitted to the workhouse.'

Sick with worry about Martha, and resenting Diana's preaching, Harry retorted, ‘You missed your vocation, Miss Adams. You should have become a lecturer. And I do understand basic economics as they apply to the present situation in this country.'

Diana glanced at him. ‘Martha's house is up ahead,' she said in a softer voice. ‘You can see the side of it from here. It's behind that copse.'

‘That's her house!' Harry stared at the massive building built on an exposed bluff on the left-hand side of the road.

‘That's the side wall of the house and the farm buildings behind it. The house itself fronts the road.'

‘It looks enormous.'

‘It is.'

He lowered his voice. ‘How can you possibly say that Martha's family need the money she earns?'

‘The Ellis Estate and outbuildings may have been built by her family centuries ago, but they are tenants there now.'

Harry slowed his car to a crawl. The house was even larger than it looked from the side. A slate-roofed arch bridged two buildings, joining them on the second storey. Both were double the size of the cottage down the road and either would have been considered a substantial dwelling in its own right. The arch tunnelled through the house, and opened into a sloping farmyard the size of four tennis courts, enclosed by the house at the front and outbuildings on the other three sides.

‘Drive through and park in the farmyard,' Diana advised. ‘Martha's family live in the kitchen and we will have to carry her in through the back door. Like most farmers around here they only use the front door for weddings and funerals.'

Harry inched the car through the narrow archway, expecting to see dogs and chickens. But the only ones in evidence were sheltering behind the open door of a barn. The dogs started barking but fell silent when Diana wound down the window and shouted at them. He glanced around the cobbled yard. The buildings were all solidly built of stone and roofed with slate, but their wooden doors had been inexpertly patched with rough-cut timber and six-inch nails. Two or three hung drunkenly on broken hinges, seemingly on the point of collapse.

‘The design is more Roman country villa than Welsh farm.'

‘You've been to Italy, Mr Evans?'

Loath to admit it after their argument about poverty, Harry conceded an abrupt ‘Yes.'

‘Beautiful, isn't it?' she said drily. ‘And the Ellis Estate is old, but I doubt it's two thousand years old, Mr Evans.' Without waiting for him to help her out of the car, Diana opened the door. ‘But then, the Romans did reach Brecon, and there are the remains of a Roman road and fort not too far away, so you may be right about the foundations.' She stepped out carefully, avoiding the piles of cow dung and chicken manure that littered the cobbles lest she stain her pale-grey cross-bar leather shoes. After unfurling her umbrella, she opened the back of the car. Startled, Martha looked around in confusion.

‘It's all right, Martha, you're home,' Diana soothed.

‘Let me take her.'

‘I'm not sure that's wise, Mr Evans.'

‘You know where we're going, I don't, and it's too wet to argue. Here, she was carrying this.' Harry lifted out the Gladstone and handed it to Diana. He covered Martha with his travelling rug to protect her and the blanket she was wrapped in from the rain.

Diana went to a door set in the centre of the left-hand building. It was badly in need of a coat of paint. She knocked once and opened it. ‘Mary?'

A thin girl of middle height with an abundance of black curly hair tied back with string, and eyes so dark they appeared almost as black as her pupils, ran to meet her. She was dressed in an old-fashioned, ankle-length black skirt, plain black cotton blouse and men's working boots which were several sizes too large for her feet.

‘Miss Adams.' She instinctively wiped her hands on her apron, and pushed her hair from her eyes. ‘Martha's late. David and Matthew have gone to look for her …' She looked past Diana and saw Harry lift Martha out of the car. ‘Martha! Oh my God, why are you carrying her? What's happened to her? Martha …' Oblivious to the rain, she ran out and folded the rug back from her sister's face.

Diana followed and pulled her back. ‘She's had an accident, Mary, but my father and I have examined her and she will be fine after a few days' rest. Come on, let's go into the kitchen and get out of this rain.' Diana held the door open for Harry.

‘I just banged my head, Mary,' Martha slurred.

Harry looked around for somewhere to put the girl. The kitchen was larger than any he'd seen in a private house. It was also immaculately clean, but he'd seen better-furnished church halls. The flagstones on the floor had been scrubbed white. If the walls had ever been plastered, they were bare stone now. A log fire burned in the open range, and a baby lay asleep on a rag rug in front of it. A wooden crate stacked high with logs was pushed against the wall to the side of the hearth; a rickety table stood within a few feet of the fire, two benches set either side of it. That was it. There was no dresser, no easy chairs, only a few pieces of crockery and half-a-dozen pots and pans neatly arranged on wooden shelves in a niche next to the range.

Mary grabbed her sister and tore her from Harry's arms.

‘She really will be all right, Mary,' Diana assured her, seeing the panic in her eyes.

‘Put me down.' Martha began to struggle, and Mary set her next to one of the benches. Martha sank on to it and slumped, head in hands, over the table.

‘You said the boys are out looking for Martha?' Diana reminded. ‘If you know which way they've gone, we'll try to find them. The weather's wild out there.'

‘They've gone down the mountain track.'

‘Where's that?' Harry asked, hoping to be of use.

‘It's a lane that cuts down the mountain on the left-hand side of the road as you head back the way we came.' Diana laid her hand on Martha's forehead.

‘I'll see if I can find them.' He went to the door.

‘Who are you?' Mary eyed Harry suspiciously.

‘I'm sorry, I should have introduced you, Mary.' Diana stood between them as though she were effecting a formal introduction at an afternoon tea party. ‘Miss Mary Ellis, Martha's elder sister – Mr Harry Evans. He's a relative of one of our patients, Mary. He drove me and your sister here.'

Harry extended his hand. ‘I'm terribly sorry, Miss Ellis. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. I caused your sister's accident. There was a mist. I didn't see her until she was in front of my car -'

‘You knocked my sister down in a motor car!'

‘I'm afraid I did. But as I said, I didn't see her -'

Mary didn't give him the opportunity to explain further. She flew at him and grabbed him by his collar. Yanking him towards her, she lashed out, tearing his skin with her nails.

‘Mary!'

Harry heard Diana shout, but he didn't attempt to defend himself. One of the principles Lloyd had instilled in him, especially after the births of his sisters, was that no man ever hit a woman, regardless of the situation. Too terrified to try to keep Mary at bay in case he inadvertently hurt her, and too choked to cry out, he stood and took the punishment she meted out.

‘Mary, it was an accident. Mr Evans didn't mean to hurt Martha and she is going to make a full recovery.' Diana closed her fingers around Mary's wrist, but the girl dug her nails even deeper into Harry's neck, throttling him.

The room dimmed, Harry's lungs burned along with his throat. Grey shadows crept upwards from the floor.

‘Mary, if you hurt Mr Evans, you'll be prosecuted. Think about your brothers and sister. What will they do without you to look after them?'

The baby opened his eyes and wailed.

Harry never knew whether it was Diana's threat or the cry of the child that permeated Mary's rage. But, to his relief, she loosened her hold and Diana Adams managed to prise her fingers from his throat. He fell back against the wall, gulping in air. Something warm and wet trickled down his cheek and neck. He lifted his hand to it then saw his palm was covered in blood.

‘Are you all right, Mr Evans?'

Diana Adams was looking at him. Too choked to speak, he nodded.

Mary went to her sister and stroked her head. ‘I can feel a lump, and Martha doesn't look all right to me.' She glared accusingly at Harry.

Diana lifted the baby from the rug. His body was unnaturally warm, his cheeks flushed. On the premise that the girl was less likely to attack Harry again if she was holding the child, she thrust the baby into Mary's arms. ‘Luke needs you, Mary. And Martha needs to rest. Why don't I help you to put her to bed while Mr Evans goes out to look for David and Matthew? And after we've seen to Martha, I'll examine Luke. He seems feverish.' She signalled to Harry with her eyes but he didn't need the hint; he was already backing towards the door.

‘Luke's cutting more teeth. He'll be fine when they come through. He always is.' Mary lifted the baby on to her shoulder and patted his back.

‘It is just as Mr Evans said,' Diana added. ‘There was a mist. He didn't see Martha until she was in front of his car. And he couldn't have been driving very fast. If he had been, Martha's injuries would have been much worse. After a day or two's rest she'll be back to normal.'

Harry was grateful for Diana's support, especially after the heated words they had exchanged earlier. ‘I'm sorry,' he croaked, his throat so sore he could hardly make himself heard. ‘It was an accident. I really didn't see her.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. ‘Obviously I'll pay for Martha's treatment and cover her wages while she's ill.' He removed a five-pound note and held it out to Mary.

‘Keep your filthy blood money.' She knocked the note from Harry's hand. ‘And get out of my kitchen! Now!'

Diana retrieved the money from the floor and handed it back to Harry. ‘I won't be long,' she whispered.

Harry went outside. Glad to be alone, he latched the door behind him and leaned against it. His sisters could be boisterous when the mood took them, especially Edyth – he uttered another silent prayer that she would recover – and they had gone through a phase of emulating Douglas Fairbanks's sword fights after visits to the picture houses. But none of them had ever attacked him as violently as Mary Ellis.

Rain gusted over him on a cold blast of wind. The cuts and scratches on his face and neck throbbed painfully to life. He dabbed at them with his handkerchief, took a deep breath to steady himself and headed for his car. When he reached it, two boys walked through the archway. One was shorter than Martha, the other taller, but it was difficult to ascertain their ages as they were wrapped in grey blankets that covered their backs and most of their heads.

The taller yelled a command. A sheepdog ran up to Harry and sank its teeth into his ankle.

Crippled by the pain, Harry struggled to free himself. He shouted, ‘Please, call your dog off.'

‘Hold, Merlyn! If you don't move the dog won't hurt you.' The boy tossed his blanket aside and walked up to Harry. ‘This your car?' He was as dark-haired and wild-eyed as Mary, and looked even more aggressive. Harry knew that he had found the girls' missing brothers without even looking.