The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy) (18 page)

Bob, learning of the boat’s existence by the simple means of coming across it on his occasional visits to the beach with his mama, was sufficiently able to overcome his dislike of his new papa to express a desire to have a trip out with him one day. His papa, however, glared at him from over the top of the newspaper that he was reading and told him that he would only get in his way.

Bob sighed.

‘I wish Uncle Andrew would come back,’ he said. ‘Uncle Andrew would always play with me. He was always so much fun.’

Kathryn and Sally, who were just then preparing some vegetables for their meal, stopped chopping in unison and stood there together, knives in the air. Giles flicked the newspaper away in annoyance.

‘And who the hell is this Uncle Andrew?’ he demanded.

Sally knocked the chopping board onto the floor and gave a little shriek which diverted Bob’s attention sufficiently to prevent him from supplying an answer.

‘Oh dear,’ cried Sally. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Miller. Bob – Bob, my dear – would you just nip out and see if you can find Tom for me. I need him to get some water while I pick these veges up.’

Bob slipped down off his stool and let himself out of the back door.

‘Bob seems to feel the lack of a real uncle quite deeply, Giles. He appears to have acquired a pretend one of his own,’ said Kathryn, crawling round with Sally to retrieve the peas and beans from their bolt holes on the floor. ‘He is always talking about what they do together.’

‘An imaginary friend, you mean? That boy is too much of a dreamer by far. You need to toughen him up a little.’

‘Oh, he’s all right, Giles – he is still only a baby really. I’m sure he
’
ll grow up quickly enough.’

She exchanged a look with Sally as they retrieved the last few beans from under Giles’ chair. She would have to warn Bob not to mention Mr Berkeley in front of his papa again. Papas did not like to hear about such things. It only made them cross.

The holiday season was beginning in earnest in Weymouth and Kathryn was confronted with such a mass of sewing when she next went in to town that she was fully occupied until much later in the afternoon than she had been used to. The little tea trays had continued to appear each visit, for which she was extremely grateful, varied occasionally by the appearance of a meat pie or piece of sweet cake, and on most occasions she had managed to earn so much that an extra few pennies had found their way into the little tin box at the house in
High Street
. The summer was proving to be an unusually wet one but today, for a change, the sun had shon
e
for most of the afternoon and Kathryn was carrying her shawl in her sewing bag as she made her way along the Esplanade at about half after seven that night. She was singing softly to herself as she looked out over the brilliant blue water. The gently lapping waves had deposited thin rows of seaweed in snake-like patterns on the beach and there were several cutters and square riggers in full sail heading slowly into port, pennants fluttering in the gentle breeze. They looked breathtakingly beautiful. She stopped
by a post
for a moment the better to admire them. Unbeknown to her, she had stopped right opposite Mr Brewer’s house in Gloster Row. Even more unbeknown to her, looking at her out of the front room window were Mr Brewer, Mr Chard, Mr Berkeley and Giles.

‘Pretty young mort that, eh?’ Mr Brewer was saying, appreciatively. ‘That thin dress – phaw – shows that figure of hers off to perfection.’

‘Hey – that’s your wife, ain’t it, Miller?’ put in Mr Chard, scrutinising her carefully. ‘What are you doing, letting her wander about Weymouth on her own at night?’

Giles slid open the window and shouted across the road.

‘Hey – Kathryn – come over here.’

Kathryn gave a start and looked around her. The unseen watchers gave out a laugh.

‘Over here – in Brewer’s house.’

Kathryn turned her attention to the row of houses behind her. She could see her husband standing at a window. This was not what she wanted to see at all but she had no choice but to go over to him and give a little curtsy to the shadowy figures that
she could see were standing beside
him.

‘Ask her in, Miller. Ask her in. I’m sure my wife will want to be introduced – and I certainly do.’

Giles, probably flattered that his wife should receive such approbation, turned back to the window.

‘Come up to the door,’ he shouted. ‘Brewer will let you in.’

Kathryn reluctantly mounted the steps and waited at the door. In a couple of seconds a large, balding gentleman of about five and forty opened it and invited her inside. Giles appeared behind him in the hallway.

‘Kathryn – meet Mr Brewer,’ he said. ‘Mr Brewer has been admiring you from across the road. He wants you to meet his wife.’

Kathryn was a little flummoxed by all the attention but she was quickly ushered up the stairs and into an elegant reception room on the first floor of the building which she found to be occupied by two grown up ladies – soon introduced as Mrs and Miss Brewer – and divers smaller boys and girls.

‘Thought Mrs Miller might like a cold drink before she gets on home,’ suggested her host, helpfully. ‘After all, it’s been a monstrous hot day and it’s a long way back to Preston.’

Mrs Brewer, to be sure, did not look at all pleased to have a strange young lady foisted on her without so much as a ‘by your leave’ but she directed her daughter – whom Kathryn quickly surmised to be the beautiful Sophie – albeit reluctantly, to ring the bell for some drinks. Kathryn looked at the girl surreptitiously. Giles had been right to say that she was something in Kathryn’s own style – slim but shapely, a little taller than Kathryn, and with a mass of dark curls, a little longer than hers, which cascaded down her neck and rested becomingly upon a flawless back.
Even worse, Sophie appeared to have a ready (if somewhat insincere) smile, in which she revealed a flawless set of pure white teeth, and pronounced her words with an ever-so slight little lisp, which Kathryn felt convinced would send a gentleman like Mr Berkeley into a state of
absolute
rapture.

Mrs Brewer asked Kathryn, a little coldly, how she had enjoyed the day’s sunshine. Kathryn gave her a suitable reply. Kathryn asked Sophie whether she was enjoying her new-found freedom away from school. Sophie responded by saying that she was finding Weymouth a perfectly odious place – the theatre boring, the library dull – and not on any account to be compared to the delights of London, or
even
Bath. One of the smaller children – a girl of about five or six – wandered over towards her. Kathryn invited her onto her knee. She told the child about her own little boy who was much of an age with her. The child replied that she was not at all fond of boys, and wriggled herself free once more. The old
est boy – a lad of about
twelve
or fourteen
– heard what she had said and asked whether she had any older children. No, she replied. No, only little Bob.

They all sat and looked at each other, somewhat at a loss. Kathryn could see that Miss Brewer was eyeing her up and down in a somewhat snide manner. She was probably totting up the value of her garments and comparing them to her own. The comparison was a happy one for Miss Brewer
. Kathryn’s gown was nothing at all like hers. Not only was hers brand new and
styled by a top modiste
in the first style of fashion, it had probably cost her papa ten times more than Kathryn’s whole
home-made
wardrobe put together and it did an even better job than Kathryn’s did of showing off her figure to perfection. N
ot perhaps realising
(or caring)
that Kathryn was looking right at her at the time,
Sophie
pulled a face at her mama as if to question why her papa had felt it necessary to bring so shabby an individual to their attention at all. Kathryn
was less than impressed. Having been given the benefit of some of the best schooling in the county, even such a young and thoughtless girl as Sophie should have been more
than capable of
behaving
politely
to a visitor
, irrespective of the garments
in which that visitor
might be garbed
.

Feeling more than a little out of place, Kathryn
wondered whether she might now decently make her escape or whether she was expected to wait for Giles. She decided that she should make up her own mind – and, her mind already being made up, she had just arisen to take her leave when Mr Brewer returned to the drawing room in the company of his three
companions
, and Kathryn was obliged to sit herself down once more.

Kathryn had noticed that there had been other people with Giles as he had stood at the window but she had not been able to see them clearly enough to identify them. She was therefore a little taken aback to find, not only Giles, but Cutlass Chard and Mr Berkeley accompanying their host into the drawing room. Unfortunately they all appeared
to be
a trifle above par. Mrs Brewer, apparently concerned for the moral welfare of her children, immediately got up to usher her brood up the stairs to bed, and took the opportunity to suggest that Sophie might like to give her a hand. Indeed, the lovely Sophie, apparently less concerned than her mama about the possibility of moral contagion from the gentlemen, seemed more than a little reluctant to oblige but it was obvious from the somewhat steely look in her mama’s eye that she had no option but to comply. So she rose elegantly from the sofa, directed what Kathryn could only describe as a coquettish little smile at Mr Berkeley, ignored Kathryn altogether and followed her siblings out of the room.

This left Kathryn in an even more in
v
idious situation, for instead of finding herself in a group of hostile women and children she now found herself amidst a group of somewhat bosky gentlemen who appeared intent on making her the prime focus of their entertainment for a while.

‘My friend Brewer thinks you a prime article, Kitty,’ swaggered Giles, flinging himsel
f down next to her on the sofa
and giving her a kiss. ‘He thinks you look very pretty in that thin little gown of yours. I wager he’d like to do what I’ve just done to you – aye, and a lot more, too. Wouldn’t you, Brewer? I bet you’d like to have my wife to yourself for half an hour, wouldn’t you?’

Giles kissed her again and belched noisily in her face. Kathryn, disgusted, reddened and turned away.

‘I bet you’d let me and all, Miller,’ replied the banker. ‘You’re a rum cove and no mistaking it.’

‘Well, you own everything else of mine, Brewer. You may as well have my wife as well.’

Mr Brewer looked half tempted by Giles’ proposition. Mr Berkeley was standing near to the door. He was looking exceedingly uncomfortable.

‘Come on now, Miller,’ he said. ‘Leave the poor woman alone.’

Giles shot him a cold look.

‘Since when have you had any say in what I do with my wife?’ he demanded. ‘I warrant you’d be in line for a strum with her and all. In fact, old Cutlass here was saying only the other day that he fancied a go with her on the beach at Osmington Mills. Why don’t you all have a go? Perhaps I should auction her off for the night?’

Mr Brewer looked as if he was more than open to such a suggestion.
Mr Chard
laughed, a little nervously. Mr Berkeley looked far from impressed.

‘But you’re ruining the game,’ he pointed out. ‘I thought you wanted the chance to recover your losses. You can’t stop playing just yet.’

He opened the door as wide as it would go and ushered Cutlass out. Mr Brewer, perhaps realising that his own front room, with his wife nearby, might not be the most suitable venue for an amorous adventure, soon followed suit. Giles, seeing that he was in imminent danger of being left behind, gave his wife a playful tweak o
n
the ear and followed his colleagues out of the room. Mr Berkeley exchanged a glance with her. ‘Run home now,’ he whispered, and then followed her husband down the stairs and back into the study, banging the door behind him as he did so.

The incident at Mr Brewer’s house appeared to settle Giles for the next few weeks. The miserable wet summer continued, with the occasional brighter day interspersing the rainy ones to awaken some hope of better things to come.

The first week in August was particularly pleasant, however, and Giles was in good spirits from having sold a few barrels of rum entirely under the noses of Mr Barnabus and his fellow revenue men. In fact, the presence of money in his pocket made him feel quite sunny again and on the Wednesday afternoon he
kiss
ed Kathryn
on the cheek
and suggested a jaunt into Weymouth.

‘And perhaps Bob might like to come with us as well,’ he suggested, rather unexpectedly. ‘I will take you to the camera obscura and buy you some tea at the Royal.’

Kathryn, in truth, would have preferred to save the money for the next rainy day (which she privately considered would most likely be not too many days away) but the thought of providing a much needed treat for her darling little boy was sufficient for her to acquiesce to her husband’s plan
without
any
protest
. Bob’s pleasure, though somewhat muted because his papa was involved,
nevertheless
was sufficient to make Giles throw him into the air and cat
ch him again, and by about two
o’clock they were rambling along the coast, enjoying the sunshine, apparently without a care in the world. The hillsides were replete with insects –
droning,
buzzing – making up for all the time they had lost whilst sheltering from the rain. Bob ran backwards and forwards, spotting a dancing butterfly here and an intriguing beetle there, bringing fossils and shells to show his mama, then meekly holding her hand once they reached the noise and traffic of Weymouth town itself. The town was particularly busy just now, as a Royal party had recently
arrived
, attended by a mass of hangers-on. Parades of troops were taking place in the gardens by the beach, resplendent in their red uniforms. German officers, brought over by the King, were wandering about, entertaining the public with their stirring music and odd language. Smart gigs, landaus, chaises and phaetons mingled unceremoniously with the more modest
equipages
of farmers and traders, which mingled again with innumerable people on foot.
There were Union flags and banners everywhere.
Kathryn, Giles and Bob stopped for a while to watch the pleasure craft sailing elegantly across the bay, and a smart naval sloop taking up anchor further out. The bathing machines stood empty and idle at the rear of the beach, their work apparently over for the day. Some children were building a sand castle at the water’s edge. Bob eyed them enviously.