Finders and Keepers (31 page)

‘Granddad keeps telling me that he doesn't want any of us fussing over him,' Harry said quietly.

‘You're sure about staying, Harry? Joey asked.

‘As I'm the only one with a change of clothes here, I'm the obvious choice,' Harry joked badly. ‘Hopefully, Doctor Adams received the message that I'm still at the inn. But like you said, Uncle Joey, there's nothing I can do except wait near a telephone and go to the sanatorium and ask after Granddad tomorrow. I doubt Doctor Adams will let me see him, even if he recovers, but at least I'll get any news first-hand. I'm only sorry I can't drive you home as we arranged.'

‘You'll telephone if there's any change?' Victor asked.

‘At once, I promise. Come on Belle.' Harry slipped his fingers beneath his sister's chin. ‘You know how upset Granddad would be if he could see you crying.'

‘I know. I'm sorry …' She left Victor and buried her face in Harry's shoulder.

‘You heard Toby. His uncle has had four haemorrhages and recovered from all of them,' Harry consoled.

They were all glad when the train finally drew in. Joey walked along the carriages and looked in the windows.

‘There's an empty one here, Victor, Belle.'

‘Give my love to everyone?' Harry walked Bella to the door.

Too upset to answer, Bella nodded. Victor and Joey shook Harry's hand and helped her into the train.

‘You will try to see Granddad, won't you, Harry?' Bella opened the window and leaned out.

‘Of course.'

‘And you'll give him my special love?'

‘He knows he has it. Take care of yourself and Mam, Dad and the others, Belle.'

The station master slammed the few open doors and blew his whistle. The train began to steam gently down the track.

Toby, who'd been hanging back so Harry could say his goodbyes in private, stepped forward and blew a kiss to Bella.

‘I saw that,' Harry commented, smiling in spite of his misery.

‘How …' Toby noticed his reflection mirrored in a glass-fronted poster advertising Nestlé's Cocoa and didn't bother to finish the sentence. ‘Your sister is wonderful. The most -'

‘Before you say another word, she is too young and my father is
very
protective of her, as he is of all his daughters.' Harry gave a last wave before the train rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

‘I don't blame him. If I had a sweet, innocent daughter like Bella I'd want to keep her away from all men.' Toby led the way out of the station.

‘So you know how he'd feel if he could hear you gushing over her.' Devastated by his grandfather's setback, Harry was intensely grateful for Toby's company.

His friend's attempts at consolation might be bluff, over-hearty and ham-fisted, but it helped that Toby knew exactly what he was going through.

‘I only want to paint her so she can be captured for posterity.'

‘So she can go down in history as the evil Morgan le Fay, not Bella Evans.' Harry pulled his car keys from his pocket.

‘Morgan wasn't evil, just misunderstood.'

‘If I remember my
Morte D'Arthur,
she tricked her half-brother Arthur into sleeping with her, which was incest. She stole Excalibur's scabbard, which also makes her a thief -'

‘My Morgan will be young and innocent before any of that happened,' Toby interrupted. ‘And the way I'll paint it, all the guilt for the incest will be Arthur's. Do you think your father will allow Bella – why did I never realize what a glorious name that was before now? – to come again next Saturday so I can paint her?'

‘You heard Bella.
If
she decides that she wants to sit for you and
if
my mother and father visit my grandfather – heaven only knows how he'll be next week – she'll come. And possibly all the others will too, in which case you may have an audience of my other four sisters. And her full name is not Bella, it is Isabella.' Harry opened his car and sat in the driving seat.

‘Isabella.' Toby rolled it off his tongue as if he were a monk intoning a holy word. ‘Oh, the agonies of other people's indecisions. I can't bear the thought that she'll say no. Or – heaven forbid – that I will never see her again.' He leaned against the car door and gazed glassy-eyed into the distance.

Harry started the car. ‘You sound as though you have fallen in love with her.'

‘I have,' Toby murmured.

‘On a couple of hours' acquaintance?' Harry mocked.

‘You're being even more of an ass than usual.'

‘People do fall in love -'

‘Bella is only sixteen -'

‘Juliet was fourteen.'

‘Bella's not Juliet, and my father would never accept that as an argument. He might be the wrong side of forty but he is still strong. And you've seen his two brothers but not when they're angry – or me either, if it comes to that.' Harry spoke lightly, but he wasn't entirely joking.

‘Just saying goodbye to her makes me want to write poetry. I have never seen such dark eyes, luscious black hair, or so beautiful and sweet a smile. “She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies/ And all that's best of dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes -”'

Harry interrupted him mid-quote. ‘That, you idiot, is Byron.'

‘You can't expect me to put it better than the poet of love at short notice.'

‘At any notice.'

‘And you can't blame me for falling in love.'

‘I can, when the object of your affections is my sister. She isn't used to dealing with Byron-spouting lunatics.'

‘I'm serious, Harry. I feel as though I have only just begun to draw breath and live. Please, give me credit for being honest. Face the fact I love your sister. What are you going to do about it? Shoot me?' Toby jumped over the car door and slid down into the passenger seat.

‘I will if you scuff my car.'

‘I couldn't possibly damage it any more than you did by playing farmer yesterday,' Toby retorted.

‘I was not playing farmer and you are changing the subject!'

‘There's no need to get angry. I assure you, my intentions towards Bella are strictly honourable.'

‘They had better be, not that you should have any intentions towards her at all, given her age.' Harry drove away from the station. ‘And for your information, boys are the last thing on Bella's mind. She has two more years of school and when she finishes my parents intend to send her to university.'

‘She told me she wants to become a teacher. But don't you see that she is much too pretty for a classroom? I will teach her to paint and we will travel the world together after we marry,' he added swiftly, forestalling another eruption from Harry. ‘Think of all the books we could illustrate.
The Jungle Book
in India,
Moby Dick
when we sail the Atlantic,
Treasure Island
almost anywhere tropical, and there's a whole host that we could do if we holidayed in America.
The Last of the Mohicans -'

‘If my father could hear you, he'd ban you from seeing her again and send Bella to university with a nun as a chaperone.' Harry slammed the gear stick up a notch.

‘You won't tell him I'm in love with her, will you?' Toby asked anxiously.

‘I most certainly will tell him that you're idiot enough to believe that you're in love with her.'

‘You do and I'll never get to paint her as Morgan. If she does come down next Saturday, you'll be with us the whole time, and I'll behave impeccably. Like the perfect gentleman I was this afternoon. Come on, Harry, I didn't say a wrong word, did I?'

‘I don't know. I was taught that it's ill-mannered to listen in on other people's conversations.' Harry turned on to the main road and headed down the valley towards the inn. ‘But that's not to say that I won't listen in on anything you say to Bella from now on.'

‘I wish I hadn't told you how I feel about her.'

‘So do I.' Harry's agreement was heartfelt. ‘But even if you hadn't, it wouldn't have made any difference. That sick-calf look on your face when you sent kisses flying through the air at the station said it all for you.'

‘Do you think Bella knows I adore her?'

‘She'd have to be stupid not to, and Bella is not stupid.'

‘Do you think she likes me, even a little bit?'

‘She may be young but you're not the first admirer she's had. In fact, there's a boy in Pontypridd who follows her around like a puppy.'

‘How dare he?' Toby exclaimed indignantly.

‘He dares because Bella encourages him to moon after her.'

‘I hate him already, and I've never hated a man I haven't met before.' Toby opened a packet of cigarettes.

‘Perhaps I can put you off Bella by cataloguing her faults.' Harry filched one of the two cigarettes Toby had lit and pushed it into his mouth.

‘I don't believe she has a single one.'

‘From the day she was born she was a bossy boots. Before she could talk, she knew exactly how to cry to get her own way. If people don't do what she wants them to, she flies off the handle. And when Bella gets angry, the only thing to do is duck.'

‘A saint would get angry with you.'

‘Why?'

‘Let's start with your smug, self-satisfying ambition to make the world a better place.'

‘Smug? Self-satisfying?' Harry was outraged.

‘Look at the way you behave with the Ellises. Giving them money, taking them to chapel, ruining your car by turning it into a tractor, and all for no reward beyond what you'll receive from the saints in the hereafter. It's the overwhelming need to feel good about yourself.'

‘Are you suggesting that I shouldn't try to help them?' Harry demanded, his temper escalating.

‘Frank told me that all do-gooders have ulterior motives they might not even understand or recognize themselves. And that their meddling inevitably ends in disaster for all concerned.'

‘All I've done is give the Ellises some money to compensate for the loss of Martha's wages -'

‘Come on, Harry. This is me you're talking to. You gave them more money than Martha earns in six months. Money they probably spent on luxuries they could never have afforded to buy for themselves otherwise, and will hanker for evermore. If they'd never had them, they wouldn't miss them, and they'd be more contented people.'

‘For your information, they used it to pay a vet's bill.'

‘I bet they told you that in the hope that you'd give them more.'

‘They didn't. They won't take any more from me.'

‘Then you offered,' Toby crowed. ‘I warned you … God! How did we get on to this? The last thing I want to do is annoy my future brother-in-law.'

‘In your dreams and my nightmares. Bella has better taste.' Harry turned right into the yard of the inn.

‘Mr Evans, I thought I heard your car.' Alf walked up them covered in sawdust and carrying a chisel. ‘Mrs Davies, the cleaner up at the castle, dropped this in for you ten minutes ago. I was about to take it into the inn, but I knew you weren't there and I was halfway through a job.'

Harry's hand shook as he took the white envelope. He turned it over. It was addressed to him in a firm, educated hand.

‘It won't be bad news, they'd telephone,' Toby said soberly, all trace of banter gone.

Harry tore the flap open and removed the single sheet of paper it contained.

Dear Mr Evans

We received the message that you have decided to stay at the inn. Your grandfather is resting. It is too soon to make a prognosis but he is breathing more easily and is comfortable and free from pain.

If you'd care to join me, there's a cold supper and white wine waiting. Unlike last week I'm not expecting any emergencies. Eight o'clock?

Yours

Diana Adams

Harry smiled and returned the letter to the envelope. ‘Do you know where I can buy a bottle of champagne, or good wine, and a bunch of flowers, Alf?'

‘There's champagne and wine in the cellar left over from Madame Patti's day. She kept her own cellar but sometimes her guests would stop off here on their way to or from the castle. Flowers are something else. There's not much call for them around here, but Mrs Parsons next door to the Post Office is a keen gardener and she sells bunches from time to time. But she knows how to charge. As much as two shillings for a bridal bouquet or so I've been told.'

‘Thanks, Alf.'

‘Good news, I take it?' Toby asked when they walked into the inn.

‘It's not bad.' Harry tapped his nose.

‘Mysterious isn't your style, Harry.'

‘How do you know what my style is?'

‘I'd say the Snow Queen is about to find out.'

‘Do you think Mr Evans will come for tea again today, Mary?' Martha asked when her sister cut the bread.

‘Mr Evans is busy. He has his own affairs to tend to.' Mary concealed her own disappointment at Harry's absence beneath a veneer of briskness.

‘He said he'd be here -'

‘No, he didn't,' Mary contradicted. ‘He didn't answer David when he asked him if he was coming today.'

‘I like him. He's nice.' Martha set the plates Mary gave her in front of the bench seats.

‘He was kind to you because he felt guilty about knocking you down but that's all. He's a stranger with his own family and concerns.' The door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it. She looked up in alarm when David stormed in. ‘What's the matter?'

‘Agent's come with his men to pick up the fleeces. He's counting them now as the men load them on to the lorry. When he saw me working on the pen in the top field he shouted to me to get you.'

‘You didn't tell him about the fleeces in the little barn?' Mary asked nervously.