The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy) (3 page)

By now the morning was well advanced and Kathryn, as well as her three hosts, was becoming distinctly edgy. She had left the house for a walk before Bob had woken up and she had not expected
to be out for as long as she had
. He would be wondering where she had got to. The menfolk, too, were anxious to get going.
Animals did not look after
themselves and the
morning
was
already
slipping by. They all four of them looked
down
at the man on the rug. He was unconscious again but looked a little more the thing and Kathryn decided that he was probably only
a
sleep.

‘I
think he
’
ll be all right for a while,’ she said, decidedly. ‘We have done all we can for the moment, I think. You get on with what you need to do, gentlemen, and I will return home and fetch the doctor for him.
Thank you for your help today. I am sure the gentleman will show you his own appreciation as soon as he is in a position to do so.’

Somewhat cheered by this
assurance
, the
one very young and
two
very
old men
got up to attend to their task
s. Kathryn lingered for another few moments, looking
steadily
at the man at her feet, before picking up her skirts, letting herself out
of the cottage
, and running swiftly the remaining distance
up
to Sandsford, and her son.

The doctor, examining his patient at the cottage later that afternoon, pronounced that other than ingesting a good deal of seawater, wearing himself out in his attempts to reach the shore, and a good many painful bumps, bruises and gashes about the whole of his body, the gentleman was in surprisingly good condition.

‘He is well enough to move to your own house, Mrs Miller,’ he said, putting his equipment back in
to
a little leather bag. ‘I advise complete rest for a couple of days, good food and warmth, and I expect he will be righter than rain by the weekend.’

The gentleman, indeed, was already so much better as to require the assistance only of the doctor to enable him to stumble (albeit unsteadily) into the waiting gig and deposit himself on the somewhat firm bench which formed its only seat. There being insufficient room for Kathryn as well she followed on behind, on foot. She reached Sandsford House just in time to see the doctor relinquishing his patient into the care of Sally, Kathryn’s maid of all work, and turning back to reclaim his vehicle and return home
in
to town.

‘So you found the gentleman on the beach, Mrs Miller?’ he said, hauling his somewhat rotund figure back into the gig. ‘I have not heard of a ship going down last night, thoug
h it was so stormy. The gentlema
n remains a little incoherent. I will make enquiries in Weymouth and if I find anythi
ng out I’
ll get a message to you.’

It turned out, however, that the doctor’s enquiries were unnecessary. The gentleman himself, perhaps revived by the short drive in the fresh air, was feeling so much more the thing that, had it not been for his somewhat rough and ready country attire, which gave him an almost comical look and which he, himself, was eyeing rather ruefully as he sat by Kathryn’s fire in the dark little parlou
r, one could
have
be
en
forgiven for assum
ing
that he was
just a normal afternoon caller. Sally had bustled away to make a pot of tea and Bob had crept into a corner of the parlour to take a look at the strange gentleman who had
so
suddenly materialised in their midst. Kathryn took some sewing to the heavy wooden se
at
opposite her visitor and regarded him thoughtfully between her stitches. She judged him to be still quite young – perhaps eight- or nine-and-twenty. He was well built and powerful-looking, with large feet and hands, but she could see from the
clean and
well-kept nails that he was most obviously quite unused to manual labour. He had, even as he sat, a most elegant deportment. His short fair hair was a mass of curls, and the slight curve of his mouth and just the hint of some crows
’
feet by his eyes, suggested a strong sense of appreciation of the absurdities of life. He had been looking at the fire but when he turned some piercing blue eyes upon Kathryn
he caught her gaze as she studi
ed him and
returned it with a similar, somewhat twinkling, appraisal of his own.

‘Andrew Berkeley at your service, madam,’ he said, seemingly amu
sed by the intensity of her gaz
e, and bowing his head slightly in recognition o
f it. ‘And I understand that I’
m to
hold myself
for ever in your debt. My good friend the doctor kindly in
formed me of your great service
to me this morning when you found me on the beach. I regret that I was not in a position to appreciate it at the time – but let me assure you that I am most grateful for it. I understand that
if you
had not discovered me when you did I should have gone to meet my maker by now.’

Mr Andrew Berkeley’s speaking voice w
as most arresting. It was deep and
powerful
,
the words
articulated
impeccably
. Kathryn felt almost abashed by her own Dorset accents.

‘I am only pleased to have stumbled upon you in time, Mr Berkeley,’ she managed to say. ‘It is not every day that a lady is enabled to undertake a good deed, even in these parts where, sadly, the wrecking of ships is only too frequent an occurrence.’

Sally brought the tea things in and laid them upon the small table that lay
before the fire
. She lingered for a moment. She was obviously keen to take a better look at the stranger herself.

‘Perhaps I could introduce you, Mr Berkeley. This is Sally, my maid of all work, while the imp you see in the corner over there is my little boy, Bob. Bob – come and say hello
to Mr Berkeley. Don’t worry. I’
m sure that he
’
ll not bite you. Bob is my son from my first marriage, Mr Berkeley. His father died before he was even born and he is a little unused to male company. I married my second husband, Mr Miller, only a few months ago and Bob has still not quite come to terms with the change, I’m afraid.’

Mr Berkeley inclined his head most kindly at Sally
as she left the room
,
and then turned to look at the little boy who was hesitating, apparently torn between shyness and politeness, in the space behind the chair.

‘Most pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Bob,’ said Mr Berkeley, as softly as his powerful voice would allow. ‘I have a great affinity with small boys. I used to be one myself, you know.’

Kathryn smiled and Bob inched forward a little.

‘But let me hazard a guess that you have a somewhat longer name than Bob,’ went on the visitor. ‘Now, what could that possibly be? Richard, perhaps, or maybe something even grander – Bartholomew
– or even – I have it – Nathanie
l John?’

These ridiculous guesses were far too much for a clever young lad like Bob to ignore. He approached the stranger a little more closely, jumping up and down, excited that here was something that he knew, and the stranger was obviously far too stupid to work out for himself.

‘You’re wrong,’ he shouted, delightedly. ‘You’re right that I have a longer name but you haven’t guessed it at all. Have another try.’

‘But I should have to go through all the names in the alphabet,’ protested Mr Berkeley. ‘It could take a lifetime. I would guess that you are not an Andrew, like me. You
are far too superior a person
to share my humble name. But perhaps you may be a George, or a William? They, at least, have the advantage of being regal names.’

‘No,’ asserted Bob, now getting so close to Mr Berkeley that he was able to put his hand on the gentleman’s knee. ‘You are wrong again, though you are nearly right with George. My papa’s name was George and George is one of my middle names. I have three middle names, you know. George is only one of them.’

Mr Berkeley threw
back
his head and laughed a little. His two front teeth were slightly angled into each other, giving them a crooked appearance. In anyone else this would have been a blemish. In Mr Berkeley, quite absurdly, it simply added to a character which Kathryn could t
ell, even then, was most definitely
larger than life.

‘Three middle names?’ he repeated, sounding incredulous. ‘Why, the minute I saw you I knew that you must be a gentleman of substance. There are not many fellows that I know who possess as many as three middle names. So one is your father’s – and the others your grandfathers’, perhaps?’

Bob was on less certain ground with this question so his mama was obliged to affirm the veracity of this assumption.

‘Yes, Bob – do you not remember? You were named George after your papa, Francis after grandpapa Adams and Adolphus after grandpapa Shepherd – Robert George Francis Adolphus Adams – or simply Bob for short.’

‘Ha,’ roared Mr Berkeley, ‘your mama has given the game away, Robert George Francis Adolphus Adams. So your real name is Robert. I would not have guessed it had I thought about it all night.’

‘I bet you cannot guess how old I am,’ suggested Bob, emboldened, perhaps, by the success of his first skirmish with Mr Berkeley. ‘I am quite a grown up man already, you know.’

Mr Berkeley confessed himself to be totally flummoxed as to the young gentleman’s age and demanded immediately to know what it was.

‘Why, I am more than five,’ was the solemn reply. ‘In fact, I am more than five and a half. I am almost five and three-quarters, am I not, mama? And then I shall be a very big boy indeed.’

‘To be sure, the three quarters make all the difference,’ agreed Mr Berkeley, quite seriously. ‘I regret that I am of so great an age that I have given up
all pretence to
quarters entirely, though I still remember the time when they were of great consequence to me even now. I wager you cannot imagine just how many quarters make up my great age, can you,
young master Bob?’

Being somewhat uncertain as to the exact nature of quarters Bob decided to turn the focus of the conversa
tion elsewhere
, and directed his attention towards rearranging the blanket which was loosely covering Mr Berkeley’s broad shoulders instead. Concerned that their visitor might tire himself out, Kathryn applied herself to the tea and provided her son with a small cake, bidding him to take himself off with it to the kitchen to plague the long suffering Sally for a while. Now that she had assured herself that Mr Berkeley was, indeed, a gentleman she was keen to find out a little more about him and, in particular, how ever he had ended up prostrate and almost lifeless amongst the pebbles and rocks of Preston beach. The afternoon was now well on and the sky, having been overcast all day, was darkening rapidly. Kathryn
lit a candle and
drew the heavy woollen curtains (which were a little the worse for moth damage and a lot less bright than in their younger days, but remained serviceable for all that) against the gloomy day and, stoking the fire,
returned to
her sewing as Mr Berkeley finished his tea. The steady tick-ticking of the grandfather clock gave the dark room, with its old-fashioned wooden panelling, its plain, heavy furnishings and the blazing fire in the grate, a sense of safety and security which the perils
of the darkening night
were quite unable to breach.

‘I was wondering how you ended up on Preston beach, Mr Berkeley,’ she said, after a while, finding that her visitor seemed more inclined to watch her than to speak. ‘After all, the doctor had heard nothing of a wreck. It seems a little singular to go for a swim in the teeth of a gale, in March.’

Mr Berkeley smiled
across at her.

‘It was not by choice that I went for a swim,’ he assured her, ‘although I have long known of the beneficial effects of Weymouth water on the body and the s
oul
. No, I was foolish enough to attempt the rescue of a small dog from the deck of the boat – a fellow passenger had brought him on board at Southampton and, unluckily, he had decided on a marked preference for the shore. The lady was so distraught at the thought that the little fellow should jump from the boat and drown that I felt it incumbent
up
on me to retrieve him. I almost had him in my grasp when, much to my grave misfortune, a great wave suddenly appeared from nowhere and swept me off my feet and straight overboard. I have a lasting impression of the wretched animal leaping from my arms and scuttling down below decks as I flew – most elegantly, I hope – into the water and to what I truly expected was a certain death. I am a strong swimmer, having spent many of my holidays by the sea, but the storm was raging so vehemently that I had no real expectations of making it to land and there was no way in which the boat could stop to pick me up. I am not quite sure exactly how I ended up on your beach. What I do know is that I am eternally grateful that I did so. And Preston, I know, is not so far from Weymouth, where I was heading, so hopefully I shall be able to repay at least a little of the enormous debt which I am most sensible of owing you. I will be living there from now on, you see,’ he went on, helpfully, as Kathryn looked a little mystified. ‘I have recently inherited Belvoir House from my brother. I was on my way to secure my new home when the accident happened.’