Finders and Keepers (21 page)

‘On my trusty penknife.'

Toby sat next to Harry. ‘You know the major and most serious problem with the poor is that when you put baksheesh into their hand, they come to expect it on a regular basis.'

‘That a proverb or did you just come up with it?' Harry pulled a handful of green salad from a tin box lined with greaseproof paper, and sprinkled it on to his plate, before handing the box over to Toby.

‘I came up with it. And it's born of bitter experience. You start giving those children handouts, they'll come to rely on them, and before you know it, you'll either be keeping them or they'll be in the workhouse. And if they're incarcerated, you'll be racked with guilt even though you are not responsible for them. It wouldn't surprise me if that grasping little beggar asks you for another ten pounds next week – and should you be idiotic enough to give it to him, another tenner the week after that.'

‘If he does, he'll get short shrift.'

‘You say that now, but what will you do if he tells you that Martha is worse?'

‘I'll ask to see her.'

‘And if she is?' Toby pressed.

‘Diana Adams says she'll make a full recovery and I believe her.' Harry demolished a cheese straw in two bites. ‘From the way you're talking, it sounds as though you've doled out charity once too often yourself.'

‘I did, with a young model in Paris. It was the closest I've ever come to a serious disagreement with Frank. And much as I hate to admit it, he was right and I was wrong. He said it would end in disaster, it did, and I'd rather not talk about it. So,' Toby dusted the crumbs from his hands and looked enquiringly at Harry, ‘let's see that sketchbook I gave you.'

Harry handed it over.

Toby opened it. ‘Not bad, not bad at all.'

‘Really?' Harry would never have admitted that he was looking for a compliment. He only hoped that Toby wasn't being sarcastic.

Toby pulled a pencil from his knapsack. ‘If you extend this line, shorten this one and add a bit more detail here …' A few seconds and pencil strokes later, he had completely transformed Harry's sketch.

‘One minute's work and you've made it come alive,' Harry said despondently.

‘Don't forget it took four years of hard graft at the Slade to learn those tricks, and make no mistake, they are tricks.' Toby handed the book back to Harry and picked up his ham sandwich.

‘I'd like to say it was just a doodle, but I really thought I was making headway,' Harry complained.

‘You were.' Toby consoled. ‘And I know just how you feel. There have been times when Frank has taken my efforts apart in the name of constructive criticism and left me thinking that I'd never produce any work worth a penny damn.'

Harry set the book aside and spread mustard over his slice of pie. ‘Can I see what you've done?'

‘Later, when I'm past the taking notes stage and know exactly how my lady's arm is going to look coming out of the lake – when I find it. The arm, I mean. The lake is perfect, as are the surrounding hills. I can just see Arthur and Merlin riding over the crest of that hill on their trusty white steeds, draped in red tapestry stitched by the adoring court ladies, and looking down on this wild and lonely place – I'd have to paint out the farmhouse, of course.'

‘Of course,' Harry agreed drily.

‘I told you all the ideas are Frank's, but that's not to say I won't run this one past him.' Toby finished his sandwich, lay back, crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at the sky. ‘This really is glorious. I wish …'

‘What?' Harry prompted when Toby remained silent.

‘That this moment would last for ever. That nothing would ever change.' He sat up suddenly, and pulled the sandwich box towards him. ‘The weather, you, me, eating like kings in this peaceful place with nothing to do but try to produce art – whatever that word means. That publishers who demand at least two illustrations every Monday morning be content with what they have, without nagging me to hurry up and send more.'

Harry wasn't fooled by Toby's mention of publishers. He knew that he was thinking of Frank and looking ahead to a time when his uncle would exist only in memory.

He imagined his grandfather and sister lying in strange rooms, in strange beds surrounded by people who, for all their professional expertise and well-meaning attempts to care for them, were still strangers.

And he resolved to demand that he be allowed to see his grandfather first thing the following morning, whatever Dr Adams said.

Chapter Nine

‘If you wanted the hamper to weigh less, you should have eaten more.' Toby grabbed the second handle and helped Harry haul it up the last fifty yards of hill that stretched between them and the main road.

‘After that walk my stomach tells me I should have eaten less, not more.' Harry left the hamper with Toby and opened the boot of his car. ‘Here, put it in.'

Toby heaved it next to a pair of rubber galoshes and a mackintosh. ‘I see you're well prepared.'

‘I wish I'd had the foresight to unpack them from my bag and put them in the boot yesterday.'

‘Leave them there, and we're guaranteed to have great weather for the next week or two.' He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Half past four; we're in good time to get back to the inn and have a drink before we change for evensong. You coming with me?'

‘To have a drink? Do you have to ask?'

‘To evensong, you idiot.'

‘My face is a mess and I have letters to write,' Harry prevaricated. After being forced to attend religious assembly every morning, and church three times every Sunday at his boarding school, he had come to resent the waste of time spent in communal worship. He would much rather have used it to read or listen to music on his gramophone. He'd been happier with his mother's more relaxed attitude in the school holidays. He'd occasionally attended services in St Catherine's with her and his sisters, but she had never criticized him when he had preferred to stay home and play chess with Lloyd. As a Marxist, his stepfather only attended religious services on family state occasions and then under duress.

‘Letters – what letters?' Toby challenged.

‘The usual letters, to family and friends,' Harry answered.

‘And you can't write them later this evening, or tomorrow?'

‘Be honest, would you even think of going to evensong if you didn't want to paint the vestry?'

‘That's below the belt.' Toby looked across the road at the arched entrance to the farm. Mary Ellis, wearing a black varnished straw hat, an unseasonably thick shawl thrown around her threadbare cotton skirt and blouse, walked through, carrying a baby dressed in a white knitted suit. He lifted his hat to her.

Harry followed suit. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Ellis.'

‘Mr Evans.' She glanced behind her at her brothers. David and Matthew's wild curls had been slicked down with water and flat caps, and they were both wearing shiny, darned and threadbare suits. David's was too large for him, Matthew's too small. White-faced and shaky, Martha walked between them.

‘How are you feeling, Martha?' Harry asked in concern.

‘Better, thank you, sir,' she slurred.

‘Not by much,' David growled.

Mary risked annoying her brother by adding, ‘We all enjoyed the strawberries and raspberries you gave Martha, Mr Evans.'

‘Are you going somewhere?' He closed the boot of the car.

‘Chapel.'

‘Isn't it a little early?' Toby suggested.

‘Our horse is lame so we have to walk there.' David made it sound as though Toby was responsible for the horse's injury.

‘Please, let me give you a lift.' Harry opened the back door of the car, took Toby's portfolio and their knapsacks from the seats and carried them around to the boot. He stowed them away carefully before slamming it shut a second time. He looked across the road. None of the Ellises had made a move towards the car, and all five were standing, watching him.

‘I am driving down to Abercrave. You are going that way?'

‘Yes,' Mary answered diffidently.

‘Then please, get in. You really won't be putting me to any trouble.'

He couldn't have sworn with any certainty that David Ellis said it, but he thought he heard him hiss, ‘Pity' as he pushed past him and climbed into his car.

Harry ran out of conversation while he could still see the Ellis Estate in his rear-view mirror. Toby wasn't so easily deterred. He made several attempts to instigate a discussion, starting with the change in the weather, and when that elicited monosyllabic responses, he tried talking about livestock. But as the only thing Toby knew about cows, pigs and sheep were their shapes from a painter's point of view, and as the Ellises weren't prepared to tell him more, he eventually gave up. It was left to Matthew to break the ice when they were speeding down the hill.

‘This car can go faster than Dolly.'

‘Is Dolly your horse?' Harry was glad he had a question to ask.

‘Yes, but she was slow even before she went lame. Why did you poke me, David?' he said with the artful innocence of a child.

‘I didn't. Don't make up stories,' David snarled.

‘Stop it, you two,' Mary cut in sharply.

‘David's still poking me, and I've done nothing,' Matthew whinged.

‘Do you like cars?' Harry smiled at the boy in the mirror. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know your name.'

‘I'm Matthew.'

‘Do you like cars, Matthew?'

‘I like to look at them, but this is the first time I've ever been in one.'

‘And we're going to cause a right stir, turning up in the village in this, especially with his face all painted with iodine,' David muttered sourly.

‘I wouldn't think so,' Harry contradicted. ‘It's common for drivers to give people lifts where I come from.'

‘That's where you come from,' David said. ‘It's not common around here.'

‘Only because not many people have cars,' Mary said quietly. ‘Miss Adams always stops to give Martha and me a ride if she is travelling our way.'

‘And all the carters stop when they see someone walking on the road,' Matthew added. ‘A car is a sort of cart, isn't it?'

‘A rich man's cart,' David muttered darkly.

Harry adjusted his rear-view mirror and saw Martha sitting very still with her eyes closed. ‘As you're going to be early for chapel, why don't you come to the inn with us?' he suggested, earning himself a peculiar look from Toby. ‘Mrs Edwards serves very good lemonade; we could all have a glass. She may even have some cake or biscuits.'

‘You going to chapel?' David asked belligerently.

‘Church.' Toby rolled his eyes upwards when he saw Harry looking at him.

‘I might have known you two would be church,' David observed, determined to find fault with everything Harry and Toby did.

‘There's not a great deal of difference between church and chapel.' Toby felt in his pockets for his cigarettes. ‘The people who worship in them all pray to the same God.'

‘You ever been in a chapel, mister?' David demanded.

‘Yes,' Toby answered.

‘To a service?'

‘No, but -'

‘Then how would you know there's not much difference between them?' David crowed.

‘Because they look roughly the same. And you're wrong about Harry. Only I am going to church,' Toby informed him. ‘Harry is -'

‘Chapel,' Harry broke in to Toby's amusement. Martha looked as though she had fainted, and he couldn't bear the thought of the girl walking five miles back to the farm after the service. ‘I would be grateful if you would show me where it is. And afterwards I could drive you home, if you like. I want to make a sketch of the reservoir in the fading light.'

‘You're painting an evening landscape?' Toby slipped his tongue into his cheek.

‘Yes,' Harry countered.

‘Just as long as you remember the advice I gave you about getting too involved with your subject, Harry.' Toby found his cigarettes and opened the packet. ‘Do you smoke – David, isn't it?'

Harry knew he'd been wrong and David had been right when every head in the congregation turned as he walked into chapel with the Ellises ten minutes before the service was due to start. There was an escalation of whispering among the women sitting in the pews, but the most piercing glares at his scarred face and the most condemnatory comments came from the seats at the front of the chapel reserved for the deacons.

He stood back and allowed Mary and her family to file into the Ellis pew ahead of him, first Mary carrying Luke, then Matthew, Martha, who looked as though she should be in bed, and finally David.

Although his mother was a churchgoer and both his uncles' families Catholic, he had visited chapels for the christenings, weddings and funerals of his family's friends, so he knew roughly what to expect from the service. Irritated by the continued murmurs and stares in their direction, and longing for a cigarette, he turned his attention to the building. But after examining the plain whitewashed walls, unadorned dark-wood pulpit and hymnal notice with its removable numbers, he was bored. The beaded eyes of the vivid blue bird perched on the hat of the woman in front of them were more interesting. Whichever way he turned, they appeared to be eyeing him, and he wondered if it were a real stuffed bird, or one created by a milliner out of odd feathers she'd found lying around.

The service began. The singing, like most in Welsh chapels, was impressive, as was the organist's playing. The minister, a tiny, wizened man who looked as though he could be blown over by a gust of fresh air, had an uncommonly loud voice that he used to full advantage when he delivered an interminable and tedious sermon on the desirability of the tithe system in relation to chapel income.