Chapter Ten
Invalid chair parked in her favourite spot at the end of the rough track on the south side of Constant Bay, Prudence Ainsley waited patiently under the overcast sky as she watched David and Ruby, boots, socks and stockings discarded, splashing about at the water’s edge.
Her grandchildren were the one real joy in her life. A sob caught in her throat. If it were not for them, she would have laid herself to rest years ago, shedding the indignity of age, the aching joints, the shortness of breath, the dependence on her son and his wife.
Unexpectedly, the thick cloud parted, allowing the sun to shine through. But the sun’s rays were suddenly blocked by a figure standing in front of her.
‘Afternoon, Mrs Ainsley.’
Prudence flicked a cool look at Ben Corbett. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing in particular, missus. Just out walking, enjoying the sights.’
‘Then I suggest you keep walking and enjoy more of the sights,’ Prudence snapped, irritated at the coarse fellow intruding on one of her few pleasures.
‘You’ve not lost any of your charm, then, missus.’
‘Let’s not waste our time on false pleasantries. We have no common ground,’ she said as he turned to walk off.
He swung around. ‘Ah! That’s where you’re wrong. What about your daughter-in-law, who would’ve been married to me if that uppity son of yours hadn’t come sticky-beaking into our lives?’
Amused by his foolish claim, Prudence cackled. ‘Nonsense. Poppy would never have married an oaf like you: never for one moment consider she would have.’
Ben’s throat tightened with rage. The old bitch! From the moment she’d first set eyes on him she’d treated him with scorn and contempt. He’d never forget the way she’d looked at him, as if he were some sort of filthy oozing slime. She’d been as determined as her damned son to come between him and Poppy, even going so far as to accuse him publicly of burning down her precious son’s house and surgery, when she’d known all along he couldn’t possibly have done it. He’d been thrown in jail because of her vicious accusations. If he hadn’t managed to escape, and have his name cleared after he’d left the country, he could still have been rotting there for all she’d have cared.
Resentment and loathing erupted inside him. He’d show the old witch: he’d give her the fright of her life. Leaning over her, he placed his hands on the sides of her invalid chair.
Prudence caught her breath, averting her face as Ben’s furious features loomed only inches from her own. He shook her chair so hard, her teeth jolted together.
‘Where’s your clever words now?’
‘Leave me alone or I shall scream,’ Prudence said, but her voice was a parched whisper, and she had no time even to gasp as Ben clamped a hand over her mouth, filling her nostrils with the sickly smell of sweat and tobacco.
‘Nobody’d hear you if you did. Look …’ He gestured towards the people going about their business down on the shore, and patrons of the hotels in Constant Quay coming and going, so far away they appeared no larger than toy soldiers.
Taking short, panicky breaths through her nose, Prudence trembled, her eyes fixed on the golden flowering spikes of some nearby cabbage trees, their brightness a contrast to her terror.
‘C … can’t …’ Her words were muffled against his palm.
‘What’s that? I can’t hear you. Thought you uppity buggers spoke proper English.’ Grinning at her discomfort, Corbett suddenly lifted his hand off her face, enabling Prudence to take a deep, racking breath. Her heart thudded, skipping a beat as he grasped her jaw and thrust her head back. She struggled to cry out, but her futile efforts seemed to amuse Corbett and he squeezed her jaw harder. The man was mad — quite, quite mad! Desperately she prayed for the children to return so the brute would be forced to leave.
‘Look there, missus.’ Twisting her head around, he nodded to where the land dropped away to the sea. ‘See?’ He slackened his grip on her jaw. ‘If I pushed that chair of yours over there and shoved you into the sea, who would ever know?’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Prudence said, but her heart stopped for a moment as she saw the feverish glint in his eyes.
‘Dare? Dare, missus? What’s to dare about it?’ He shrugged. ‘I just push you in. Simple.’ He released the brake on the invalid chair. ‘Off we go, then.’
Jolting the chair over the bumpy ground, he headed for the entrance to the bay. Fear clutched Prudence’s heart. Only a madman could have moved the bulky contraption over the rough terrain at such speed.
Ben stopped just inches from the edge of the rocks. Sea spray dampened her face as waves crashed onto the rocks below.
‘You’d better make peace with your maker, missus.’
Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself for death. She prayed for him to be quick about it, to end her terror. Then she whimpered as the invalid chair was roughly pulled around. Opening her eyes, she found she was facing back towards the town. For a moment she felt the luxury of relief, then pain sliced through her head and her world lit up in a dazzling array of stars. Moving to clutch her head, she was horrified to discover that she could use only one arm — her left — and she was unable to speak.
‘Thought you’d had it, didn’t you?’ Corbett sneered, bodily lifting the invalid chair over a jutting rock, pushing her back the way they’d come. ‘Where’s your cocky arrogance now? You might pay some mind to being a little more pleasant in future,’ he said, his tone as chatty as if he’d been commenting on the weather and not threatening to kill her mere seconds ago.
‘Bit bloody quiet on it. Filled your drawers, have you?’ He bent over her, his mouth twisting with disgust. ‘Aagh, you feeble old woman, you’re running off with the dribble.’
In the distance Prudence saw the twins running towards her, but it seemed as if the very essence of life had slowed, and every one of their steps took infinitely longer than normal. Opening her mouth to call to them, she despaired at her unintelligible slurring. Her eyes filled with tears, turning the twins into undulating blurs.
Mai gave the table knife a final brush against the buff-board, then removed the roasting pan from the oven and basted the huge joint of mutton. Straining under the weight of the heavy cast-iron pan, she bent to put it back in the oven, starting as Henry walked up behind her.
‘Here, steady, Mai. You’ll have that hot fat all over yourself if you’re not careful,’ he said, grabbing a spare ovencloth and taking the pan from her. ‘Do you want it back in the oven?’
‘Yes, please,’ Mai said gratefully, flexing her fingers, tender from the friction of the buff-board.
‘Here, you haven’t splashed fat over your hands, have you?’
‘No. You fuss too much, Mr Bramwell. None of the fat spilled on me.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ Taking hold of her hands, Henry turned them over and examined them thoroughly.
‘See? No burns. My fingers are just tender from buffing the silver.’
Henry seemed reluctant to let go of her hands and Mai was surprised at the pleasure that gave her.
‘You look fair beggared,’ he said at last. ‘Come and sit in the garden for a while.’ He nodded at the freshly polished cutlery laid in neat lines on the table. ‘I’ll help you put those away.’
‘Be careful, Mr Bramwell, don’t mark them,’ Mai warned as he went to pick up a knife by the blade. She wasn’t about to have all her hard work ruined by smeary fingerprints. ‘You put the buff-board on the sideboard, and I’ll see to the cutlery.’
‘I shall do so at once, Miss Fong,’ Henry said, his tone mock serious as he obediently put the buff-board away. ‘But do you not think it might be easier to call me Henry as everyone else does?’
‘It would be discourteous to do so,’ Mai replied, a little shocked at his suggestion. ‘I am merely a servant here.’
‘As I am,’ Henry replied. ‘I, too, have to work for my supper.’
‘It’s not the same. You are Mrs Ainsley’s brother.’
‘And earning wages from Cam the same as you, so let’s be having no more of this nonsense.’
Though not altogether happy, Mai nodded, carefully placing the knives in their felt-lined wooden containers so there would be no dull fingerprints marring their lustre. Henry watched impatiently. ‘We’ll have no time for sitting in the garden if you’re too much longer with those. I have to be off to the bay soon to pick up Mrs Ainsley senior and the twins.’
Eager to escape the cloying heat of the kitchen for a few minutes and to enjoy the serenity of the garden, Mai hastily put away the rest of the cutlery and followed Henry out of the kitchen.
They sat breathing in the sweet scent of cloves drifting from the thickly planted stocks, and smiled at the antics of a fat parsonbird on a nearby kowhai tree. Henry took her hand in his, and it seemed so natural, as if it belonged, that she was tempted to leave it there. But it was best not to encourage any foolishness. Firmly, she removed her hand from his grip, jumping as the parson-bird screeched indignantly and took to its wings.
A few seconds later their reverie was broken.
‘We’ve got the doctor’s mother here — she needs attention,’ a voice called from the street.
Ben Corbett leapt down from a dray that had stopped by the front gate. Charles Craddock passed him down a slumped bundle, barely recognisable as Prudence Ainsley. Jumping down, Craddock then lifted the old woman’s invalid chair from the back of the dray.
Ruby and David ran up the path, followed by Ben Corbett, pushing Prudence in her chair.
‘She’s ill! Fetch the doctor,’ Ben shouted, veering the chair off the path, where its wheels determinedly sank into the crushed shells.
Henry took off into the house.
Prudence huddled in her chair, mouth twisted, saliva oozing down her chin.
‘Found her like this down at the bay,’ Ben gasped, standing aside.
Mai grasped the old woman’s hands, but Prudence tugged one hand free. Grunting, she pointed to Ben. Mai’s heart wrenched at her incomprehensible attempt at speech, her utter helplessness.
‘Hush, you’ll only upset yourself more,’ she said. ‘Henry is fetching the doctor. He will know what to do.’
Hearing a broken-hearted wail, Mai turned to see David, white-faced, his bottom lip trembling, placing an arm around Ruby, who sobbed loudly. They looked frightened and bewildered and Mai could have cried for them. She broke away from Prudence and gathered the children to her, hugging them briefly before ushering them up the path. ‘Inside, you two. Tell your mama to come if Henry hasn’t already found her.’
Glad of an excuse to escape, the twins ran into the house.
Mai turned back to Ben. ‘She was so lucky you came along.’
The old woman’s eyes flashed; she gestured wildly at Ben.
‘Of course!’ Mai exclaimed. ‘You want to thank Ben for helping you, don’t you? But I am sure he knows how grateful you are.’
Prudence’s grotesque gesticulating increased, until she began choking. Mai swiftly undid the buttons at the back of the old woman’s dress, relieved as the violent spasm ceased and she became still. All the same, it seemed like an age before Cam raced to his mother’s side.
With a professional calm, the doctor placed his fingers on his mother’s neck, removing them after a minute. ‘I can do nothing for Mama,’ he said, grey-faced.
‘You mean …’ Ben Corbett stared at Prudence, slowly shaking his head. ‘I didn’t … I never …’ He looked blankly at Cam. ‘It was just …’
‘You did all you could to help her,’ Mai said, touched at Ben’s distress.
‘Oh, I helped her all right, helped her to …’ Husky-voiced, Ben wiped an arm across his eyes. Then he spun on his heel and strode off.
‘Corbett! I owe you a debt of thanks,’ Cam called after him, jolting himself out of his shock.
Corbett did not even pause to look back.
Poppy and Henry hurried down the path from the house.
‘Oh, dear heaven. Cam … is she …?’ Poppy gazed at the still figure slumped in the invalid chair.
Henry gawped at Prudence. ‘Here! She’s never dead?’
Mai looked at Cam and Poppy for guidance, but they appeared more dazed than she, and when Henry held out his arms to her, she gratefully huddled against his solid bulk. Then just as quickly she pulled away, realising that the peace she felt was more than just the sudden warmth of Henry’s body. Her feelings for him were becoming confused …