Rosa's Island (19 page)

‘You're blackmailing me.' Drew's voice was muffled.

‘Yes,' Seamus agreed. ‘It could be construed as that. But we would prefer it if it was just called a little business between old friends.' His voice was soft and smooth. ‘We just want to make up for wasted years. John here is particularly bitter about that. He feels very badly done by. I wouldn't like to think what he might do if he was thwarted again.'

‘I told you,' Drew raised his head. ‘It wasn't my fault. I don't know where Carlos went.'

‘Would your son know?' John Byrne asked. ‘Jim?'

There was fear in Drew's eyes. ‘No. No, don't ask him. He was onny a lad, he wouldn't remember.'

‘I was only a lad too, Mr Drew.' John Byrne's voice was cold. ‘And I remember very well. I shan't ever forget. I shan't forget being dragged off the ship, nor being thrown into an English jail, nor breaking up great lumps of stone. How did Jim spend the rest of his youth, eh? Being out in the fields, listening to the songbirds, sowing corn and reaping its harvest? A bit different from mine.'

‘Just this once, you say?' Drew muttered in a defeated voice. ‘There'll be no more after that?'

‘Can't make any promises,' Seamus said. ‘It'll depend on how much we make. And if it's easy we might want to do one more run.'

‘But nothing will be said? Not to my wife or anyone? My wife is very sick,' he said, as if he might elicit some sympathy from them.

‘Sick, is she?' Seamus Byrne now looked at him as coldly as his brother had done. ‘And no loving husband at home to take care of her?'

‘My sons are there and the girl – Rosa.'

‘Rosa?' John Byrne breathed. ‘Lovely name. Sounds foreign. Is she very pretty? I'd like to meet her.'

‘She's very pretty. You remember, John, I told you I had met her. Yes,' Seamus agreed. ‘It would be nice for you to meet our old friend's daughter.'

‘She knows nothing of her father,' Drew interrupted. ‘Except what her mother told her when she was a child. She always believed he would return and filled 'child up with nonsense of him coming back for them – in a ship with golden sails!'

‘How charming!' John Byrne's voice was cold.

The two brothers got up from their seats. ‘We'll see you in a week or two, Mr Drew,' Seamus said. ‘We'll get work on the embankments until the ship arrives. You'll let us know about Stone Creek and who might be willing to help us? Oh, yes,' he said, as if he had just thought of it. ‘And we'll need a barn to store the crates.'

‘Not at Home Farm,' Drew objected. ‘They would be seen.'

‘Where then?' John Byrne frowned.

‘Marsh Farm,' Drew said reluctantly. ‘It belongs to me now. No-one goes there, only me and Jim.'

They nodded and moved towards the door, but Drew called them back. ‘You haven't said what I'll get out of this. What's my cut?'

They both stared at him, then John Byrne started to laugh. The laughter was without any humour. ‘Your cut? You've forgotten already, Mr Drew? Your cut is silence! Remember?'

‘I should have summat,' Drew muttered. ‘I'm risking everything.'

‘Brandy then.' Seamus grinned and conceded. ‘An anker of brandy.'

Drew sat on in the small room after they had gone, staring into the ashes of the fire. Brandy! He was risking his livelihood for an anker of brandy. He could go to jail for such a trifle. He had, as the Byrnes suspected, conveniently pushed to the back of his mind the real reason why he was in this predicament. But an unwanted image kept reappearing in his head and though he tried to banish it, it was persistent. An image of Henry lying on the top of the dyke, all life gone from him and the distinctive smell of brandy mingling with the river water which lingered on his cold dead lips.

MATTHEW RODE OFF
to Hedon early the next day to ask Maggie to come, and then travelled across country towards the coastal village of Hornsea to see Delia and ask her to come home as soon as possible. He arrived in the afternoon and was perturbed to see the shabbiness of the inn where she worked. It stank of stale ale and the flagged floor in the entrance was in much need of a scouring brush. He was also dismayed at the manner of the woman who ran the house, when he asked to speak to Delia.

‘She's not in.' She stood behind the wooden counter dipping pewter tankards into grey and greasy water, then drying them on a thin cloth. She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What is it you want?'

He was reluctant to give her the bad news. ‘I'm Delia's brother. Could I wait?'

She shook her head. ‘It's her afternoon off, she'll not be in till late.'

‘Do you know where she's gone? I could perhaps look for her.'

The woman humphed disparagingly. ‘She
could be anywhere. I don't know. I'm not given to asking questions about my staff, they're entitled to their privacy.'

He sighed. He'd go and look, there were not so many places she could be in this village. ‘If I miss her, could you ask her to come home as soon as possible. Her mother is ill.'

‘It'll be another month before she has time off,' she interrupted sharply, ‘or else I'll have to dock her wages.'

He nodded. ‘It's urgent,' he emphasized. ‘You'll be sure to tell her?'

‘I'm not in 'habit of forgetting messages.' She was curt and offhand. ‘I'll tell her.'

He walked away but on reaching the door turned and asked, ‘What kind of work does Delia do here?'

She gave a short laugh. ‘Anything! Cleaning. Making beds. Serving customers. Whatever needs doing.'

‘In here?' he asked, looking around the low-ceilinged smoky room where men were sitting at tables or on benches near the fire.

‘Course in here!' she said. ‘Where else?'

‘I just wondered, that's all. She didn't say.'

‘Well, no!' She raised her eyebrows. ‘It's not 'sort of job that you'd boast about. But then, when young lasses come without a reference they have to take what they can get.'

He wished her good day and left. No reference! That meant that Delia had been dismissed from her previous employment. But why? What misdemeanour had she committed? It was a respectable house that she had been at, one
of the best in Hornsea, owned by a gentleman and his family.

He rode down the quiet streets towards the sea. Perhaps she was walking on the sands. It had been a lovely day, sunny and bright, though now there was a sharp wind blowing. He would look along there first and if he couldn't find her he would ride to the Mere, the lake close to the village with its pleasant walks around the perimeter, before setting off on the long ride home, and trust that the innkeeper would give Delia his message.

He saw her down on the sands. She was alone and pacing up and down as if thinking or pondering on something. Her head was lowered and her arms clutched around herself. He called to her and she looked up, startled.

She ran towards him.

‘Matthew? What is it? What you doing here?' Her face was pale and blotchy as if the wind had scoured it, or as if she had been crying.

‘I've come to fetch you home,' he said. ‘Ma is ill.'

‘I'll lose my job,' she complained. ‘Mrs Groves won't let me have any more time off.'

‘I'll speak to her,' he said. ‘If I explain?'

She shrugged. ‘You can try.'

The innkeeper said, when asked, that if Delia returned the next evening, she would take her back, but that she would lose a day's wages.

‘That's all right,' Matthew accepted. ‘I'll bring her back, unless,' he glanced at his sister. ‘Unless – our mother is worse. Is there a stable nearby? Can I hire a horse?'

The woman nodded. ‘Just up 'street. 'Farrier has horses for hire.' He thanked her and wondered how Delia could bear to work for such a disagreeable woman. He said as much to her and she replied that it was better than the other place and that Mrs Groves was better for knowing.

‘Why did you leave your other employment?'

‘Didn't like it,' she said briefly, and as they approached the farrier's yard, she said, ‘You know I don't like horses, can't we hire a trap?'

He gave a sigh. Delia could be so awkward and he wanted to get home as soon as possible. ‘I'll ask, but we really mustn't delay,' and he realized that she hadn't asked one single question about their mother's state of health.

Matthew hitched his horse to the hired trap and they drove in silence out of Hornsea. Then he said, ‘Ma's very poorly, Delia, I don't think she'll recover from this.'

‘What is it she's got?'

‘I don't know!' he said uncomfortably. ‘I think it's a woman's thing and I don't like to ask.'

‘She's had it a long time then,' she submitted, and lapsed into silence. After a while she said, ‘I suppose I'll have to come home! Maggie can't now that she's married, Flo won't and 'twins'll be getting wed soon.'

‘You've forgotten Rosa,' he said quietly.

‘No I haven't.' She stared straight ahead. ‘She can't stay if anything happens to Ma.'

‘Why can't she?' He looked at her in astonishment. ‘She's family.'

‘No she's not! She's no relation. And she's
same age as me so she can't stay with you and Da and Jim. It wouldn't be right. Folks would talk.'

He gave a short humourless gasp. ‘I don't believe what you're saying! Folks! What folks? Have you taken leave of your senses?'

She turned to look at him with cynicism written all over her face. ‘You allus was sweet on her. She can do no wrong, can she?'

He refused to be drawn on the subject and simply said, ‘You wouldn't want to come home after enjoying your freedom and independence. You've forgotten what it's like under Da's thumb.'

‘I haven't forgotten,' she said, ‘and I might decide to come home.' She paused, and there was a note of uncertainty in her voice when she spoke next. ‘Or I might not. I'll let you know when I've decided.'

The next morning Rosa got up early and left Mrs Drew to the ministrations of her daughters and set off to walk to Patrington to see her grandmother. She would, she knew, miss having Flo there to help her with Aunt Bella. As she crossed the bridge over the channel she looked back towards her former home, Marsh Farm, and wondered why Mr Drew had been so eager to have it. The house is wasted, she thought, echoing Matthew's former words to his father. Jim is never there, and I can't think why he wanted such a small parcel of land.

Her grandmother was struggling to dress Aunt Bella when she arrived, but it was an impossible task, for each time Mrs Jennings put an item of clothing on her, such as a shoe or a stocking, the
old lady took off the other one. She refused to have her hair brushed nor would she wear her cotton cap.

‘Flo manages her so well.' Mrs Jennings sighed. ‘I can't do anything with her!'

‘Why not leave her in her night robe, Gran?' Rosa suggested. ‘It doesn't matter for once and she's quite comfortable and respectable. Then perhaps later she'll let me brush her hair.' Aunt Bella's fine white hair was standing on end. ‘Why don't you make us a nice pot of tea and I'll sit with her.' She guessed rightly that her grandmother would be glad of a few moments of peace pottering in the kitchen.

She picked up the fire tongs and put another piece of coal on the fire, then draped a shawl around Aunt Bella's shoulders and tucked a blanket around her knees. The old lady said something unintelligible to her and Rosa nodded and smiled back.

‘Gran,' she said, when Mrs Jennings brought in the tray of tea and scones. ‘Why do you think that Mr Drew wanted our farm after Grandda died?'

‘Now you're asking me summat! I never could fathom it out,' her grandmother answered. ‘But he was forever hovering about looking over it, even afore your grandda was took ill.'

‘You mean – when Ma was still alive?'

‘Bless you yes, when she was carrying you, and your da had disappeared. Why, he even searched our land himself when a search party was sent out.'

‘You mean a search party went out to look for
my father?' Rosa remembered a search party looking for her mother. ‘I didn't know.'

‘Well of course you wouldn't. You hadn't been born then! But your ma was so distraught when he didn't come back that she made every farmer and cow keeper search their land and barns and sheds, and Mr Drew insisted on helping your grandda in looking over ours.'

‘My da could have drowned,' Rosa said thoughtfully, thinking of Henry. ‘He wouldn't have known 'layout of land. He could have fallen into a dyke.'

‘They'd have found him then, wouldn't they? But they looked along 'dykes,' her grandmother said. ‘Even on new embankments. He'd just disappeared.'

‘I found some papers with his name on them,' Rosa murmured. ‘They were in that old chest that you gave me.'

‘Did you?' Mrs Jennings was astonished. ‘What sort of papers?'

‘Foreign,' she said. ‘Fred, Maggie's husband, has taken them into Hull. He knows a lawyer who might be able to read them.'

‘Well, well.' Mrs Jennings clicked her tongue. ‘Fancy that. They must have been with your ma's things, were they? Cos I don't remember seeing them.'

Rosa said that they were. ‘His name was Miguel, did you know that?'

Her grandmother nodded and looked wistful. ‘Aye,' she said. ‘I did. Decimus Miguel Carlos. That was his full name. Michael, the tenth child. That's what he told us it meant.'

‘The tenth child?' Rosa exclaimed, her voice rising. ‘He had nine brothers or sisters! That means then – that means that I have aunts and uncles, maybe cousins even, in another land!'

‘Aye, I suppose it does!' Her grandmother was startled and gazed at her. ‘I never thought of it afore!'