Rosa's Island (16 page)

‘How is your son – Jim, isn't it?' John Byrne continued. ‘We were about the same age if I remember. We had some good larks together, him and me, and—'

‘He's all right,' Drew interrupted. ‘We're busy on 'farm. No time for larks now.'

‘I met your other son, Henry, a few years back,' Seamus said casually. ‘I was working on the riverbank and saw him with a little black-haired colleen.' He rubbed his hand over his beard. ‘Bonny child she was, put me in mind of somebody but I can't think who!'

‘Henry's dead,' James Drew muttered. ‘Drowned just afore Christmas. I must go,' he pronounced. ‘I have things to do.'

Seamus expressed his shock and gave his condolences. ‘He was a fine-looking fellow. You won't remember Henry, John.' He turned to his brother. ‘And neither did he remember me, for he was only a little lad in school when I first saw him. But of course we remember Jim. He was a great help to you, wasn't he, Mr Drew? Your right-hand man wouldn't you say, just as John was to me.'

Drew agreed that he was and again tried for departure, but Seamus Byrne delayed him by
saying, ‘Is there any chance of doing business again, Mr Drew? We know of a good ship with an English master.'

‘No, I don't think so.' Drew looked warily from one brother to another. ‘I only deal in corn.'

‘That's a pity, Mr Drew,' John Byrne said softly. ‘We'd dearly like to make up for our losses.'

‘I can't help you, I'm afraid. It was unfortunate, but we all lost money when—'

‘When our friend disappeared?' Seamus asked. ‘And his ship was confiscated with John and me on board.'

‘It was nothing to do with me,' Drew said hastily. ‘He set off to warn you, but he just disappeared into thin air. Nobody saw him again. Not his wife. Nobody.'

‘And how is his pretty wife?' John asked with a sneer in his voice. ‘Playing the grieving widow, or did she join Carlos in Spain, like he always said she would?'

‘She's dead,' Drew said hoarsely. ‘She waited years for him to come back.' His voice shook. ‘Her mind went in the end. She drowned herself off Spurn peninsula some years ago.'

Seamus crossed himself, but his brother still glowered at James Drew and scoffed, ‘But they never found him? How do we know that he didn't escape across to Holland on another ship?'

‘We don't know,' muttered James Drew, aware that he was sinking further into a deep pit of deception. ‘There were plenty of ships going out from Stone Creek and Patrington Haven, foreign ships too. He could have hidden on board.'

‘I'd have trusted him with my life,' Seamus said softly.

‘I'd trust nobody.' His brother's voice was harsh. ‘I've met enough villains in my life to know that.'

‘Such a young man to be so bitter, isn't he, Mr Drew?' Seamus locked his gaze into Drew's. ‘Would your own son be so bitter if he had had a life of adversity?'

James Drew thought of Jim, so dour and lifeless, and knew that he would be so.

‘You see, John was arrested as I was when the ship was taken by the Customs. I managed to escape and live a life on the run. But John here has spent most of the last eighteen years in and out of English jails. Not a good place to be if you're an Irishman, Mr Drew. You take the blame for everything that goes wrong and not a man to speak up for you.'

‘I'm sorry. I must go,' Drew said again. ‘I hope things go better for you in 'future.'

‘You may see us again, Mr Drew.' Seamus gave a half-smile which made Drew shudder. ‘There's always work for an Irishman on Sunk Island. Give us a pickaxe or a spade and we're happy. They're still draining and embanking I expect?'

‘Yes,' Drew said reluctantly. ‘Yes, of course.'

‘Then we look forward to meeting again soon,' Seamus once more put out his hand to shake it. ‘May God go with you.'

‘And the Devil be not far behind.' John Byrne had no smile on his face as he muttered the words and turned away.

‘A spot of business, eh, John!' Seamus said as they walked down the street.

‘He was lying. He was coming from the wrong direction if he'd been to the Corn Exchange,' his brother replied sourly. ‘The Corn Exchange is in the High Street. I don't trust the man.'

‘Ah! He's had an assignation!' Seamus laughed. ‘Did you not see the flush on his face? He's been treating some little wench to a few favours.'

‘And using our money!'

‘Or a dead man's?'

‘We don't know that,' John Byrne griped. ‘Why should he be dead? More likely he escaped when he heard the Customs were looking for him.' He clenched and cracked his knuckles. ‘I'll find out,' he said grimly. ‘One way or another, I'll find out what happened to him. 'Tis a pity his wife is dead.'

‘Sure it is,' Seamus agreed. ‘And that's why I think he's dead too. If ever a man was besotted with a woman, he was. If he'd gone away he'd have taken her with him.'

‘There's still the daughter,' John Byrne murmured. ‘Maybe we'll have a little talk with her.'

‘She wasn't born when he disappeared,' Seamus objected. ‘She'll know nothing!'

His brother gave a thin smile which creased his mouth but his eyes were cold. ‘We'll talk to her all the same.'

MATTHEW WAS OUT
in the fields when he saw the trap with Maggie and Fred approaching. The land was so flat and the roads so long that it wasn't possible for anyone to arrive without them being seen from a great distance.

He waved and walked towards them. ‘No work to do, Fred?' he joked. ‘Taking 'day off?'

‘Just that.' Fred grinned. ‘What's 'use of having a fine wife and not enjoying her company? Besides, she wanted to see her ma.'

‘How is she, Matthew?' Maggie asked anxiously. ‘She's been on my mind for a week or two.'

‘She's all right,' Matthew assured her. ‘She doesn't complain anyway. Da's gone into Hull,' he added. ‘Says he wants a new grain merchant.'

‘Why? What's wrong with 'one we've got?'

Matthew shrugged. ‘He's just taken it into his head to go, that's all. You know how he is. Can't budge him once he's made his mind up. He went off in a hurry anyway, first thing this morning.' He moved off. ‘I'll be up for my dinner afore long. Put 'kettle on when you get home,' he called.

‘Is Rosa home?' Maggie called back.

‘Aye, she is. She's singing.' He laughed. ‘And playing her squeeze box.'

Rosa had stoked up the fire, made porridge for Matthew's breakfast and for Jim when he arrived, and taken Mrs Drew her breakfast in bed. Before she sat down for her own breakfast she ran upstairs again and brought down the old squeeze box. She put her thumbs through the leather loops at each side and squeezed it in and out. ‘I wish I knew how to play it,' she'd murmured.

‘Well, just practise with it,' Matthew had suggested. ‘Then maybe you'll get 'hang of it. Onny do it after I've gone!' he added jokingly.

He'd looked at her from across the table. We're alone and she doesn't think of me any differently from the way she does of Jim or did of Henry, he thought. Yet I never think of her as my sister, even though we have lived in the same house for over ten years. He watched the way her dark lashes touched her cheekbones as she looked down, the way her mouth softly smiled as she concentrated on finding a note on the instrument. It's hopeless, he reflected dismally. She told Da that she couldn't marry any one of us, as she thought of us as her brothers.

She'd looked up and given him a brilliant smile as she found a right note, then gave a small frown. ‘What is it? You look sad!'

‘It's nowt,' he sighed and got up from the table.

She touched his bare forearm and it was as if he had been given a powerful magnetic shock.
For a moment neither of them spoke, then she said huskily, ‘It's 'first time there's been any kind of music since Maggie's wedding. You're thinking of Henry, aren't you?' she said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry,' he'd said quietly. ‘Henry wouldn't want us to mope and he liked a bit of music anyway.' As he went out of the door, he said, ‘I'll see you at dinner time,' and had reflected that Henry was the last person on his mind and the only one who filled his thoughts day after day, hour after hour, was Rosa herself.

‘I'll show you how to play it.' Fred took the squeeze box from the side table after they had had their midday meal. Mrs Drew had joined them and was very cheerful now that Maggie had come, and wanted to know all that was happening in the town of Hedon.

‘Don't tell Da, will you, Ma? But Fred and me went to a dance.' Maggie's face lit up with delight. ‘Fred bought me a new dress, pale grey muslin with sprigs of flowers on it. Mrs Winter, who lives just a few houses down from us, made it up for me.'

Mrs Drew gave a deep sigh. ‘Oh how lovely, Maggie! And where did you buy 'material? Not in Hedon?'

Maggie leaned forward towards her mother. ‘No. In Hull! I went with Mrs Winter by carrier and we did some shopping, and she helped me choose 'fabric, and then we caught 'carrier back.' Maggie's face was bright as she described her shopping trip and her mother exclaimed on her exciting life since she had married Fred.

‘Maggie!' Fred was bent over the instrument
and showing Rosa how to finger it. ‘It don't matter whether your fayther knows or not about us going to a dance. You're my wife now and if we want to dance, or sing in 'market square we can do! We don't have to ask anybody's permission.'

He looked across at her and smiled, yet he was perfectly serious.

‘I know,' she said fervently. ‘It's just that—'

‘Old habits,' Rosa murmured. ‘Maggie can't help it, Fred. She's always been an obedient daughter.'

Fred laughed aloud. ‘Not like you, eh, Rosa? You wouldn't be playing this forbidden instrument if you were obedient, would you?'

‘It's different for me,' she objected. ‘I'm not Mr Drew's daughter.'

‘Yet you wouldn't disobey Ma, would you?' Matthew interrupted.

Rosa shook her head and turned to smile at Mrs Drew, who was watching her with a calm expression on her face. ‘No, but then Aunt Ellen has been like a mother to me. She probably understands me better than my own mother did,' she added. ‘And she doesn't hold me back but gives me my freedom.'

Mrs Drew smiled gently. ‘You would have flown from us long ago, Rosa, if I hadn't. You're like a wild bird that flies in for shelter and food.'

Rosa came across the room and bent and kissed her cheek. ‘And love,' she whispered, so that no-one else could hear. ‘I come for that too.'

Mrs Drew stroked Rosa's face with her thin
fingers. ‘I know,' she said softly. ‘I know. That's why I wanted you here.'

‘We're going into Hull next week,' Fred announced. ‘I'm going to see a lawyer. Now that I'm a married man,' he winked at Maggie, ‘I've got to see my wife's provided for if owt happens to me.'

‘There's a lawyer in Hedon that Da uses,' Matthew said. ‘You don't need to go into Hull.'

‘Aye, but this one in Hull, Somerville, he looked after my affairs when I was working away, so I'll use him again. So,' he looked around him, ‘if there's owt anybody wants while we're there?'

Rosa put her fingers to her mouth and contemplated. ‘Is he a learned man, this Somerville? I mean – would he know languages, do you think?'

Fred considered. ‘Don't know. Mebbe. Aye.' He shook a finger. ‘He mebbe does when I think about it. He's got a bit of Latin up on a wall in his room at any rate. I noticed it last time I was there. Why?'

Rosa looked enquiringly at Matthew and wondered if he remembered the foreign papers they had found in her box. He frowned for a moment as he caught her eye, then his face cleared and he nodded. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Why not!'

‘I've got some foreign papers in my box up in the loft,' she said, in answer to Fred. ‘I don't know what they are.' She looked towards the door as it opened and Jim came in. He was wet and muddy and late for his dinner. ‘Jim!' she said. ‘We'd given you up. I've kept your dinner hot.'

‘No hurry.' He leant against the back of a chair and nodded towards his sister and Fred. ‘I need to get this muck off me first.'

Rosa turned again to Fred. ‘I think they might have belonged to my father. His name was on them anyway.'

Jim straightened up. ‘Your da? His name on what?' His eyes flashed piercingly between Rosa and Fred.

Rosa blinked and thought what an odd question when Jim had only caught the tail end of a conversation.

‘Some papers I found,' she said briefly. ‘They had my father's name on them.'

‘Oh!' Jim ran his hand over his whiskery chin. ‘I see. I'll just go and get cleaned up,' he muttered, and went out of the room.

‘What's 'matter with him?' Maggie began. ‘He allus looks as if he's just lost a shilling!'

‘Shall we bring the chest down from 'loft and put it in your room?' Matthew interrupted to ask Rosa. ‘Seeing as Fred and Jim are both here.'

Rosa looked at him, remembering that they were going to ask Henry to help them bring it down, and merely nodded as she realized that Matthew's thoughts were elsewhere and not on his dead brother.

‘By heck, but it's heavy. What's in it?' Jim stood halfway up the ladder with his back to the trap door whilst Matthew eased it down from the loft space onto Jim's back, with Fred waiting with arms at the ready to balance it and take some of the weight.

‘Only linen and china,' Rosa said from the bottom of the ladder. ‘My gran packed it, she said she'd put in things I might need one day.'

Jim grunted. ‘She put in 'stone sink by 'weight of it, and her smoothing iron.'