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Sam thought a brisk walk would do him good and take his mind off the past. He’d go home by way of the cliff path. It would add a mile or so to his route, but he wanted to stretch his cramped muscles and fill his lungs with sea air. He’d been fortunate to come away from the Great War without a lungful of mustard gas, but, gas or no gas, he’d been coughing lately. There were those folks who said it was the cigarettes that made you cough. They said it was the cigarettes that had killed the King. Didn’t seem very likely to him, but nonetheless, it would do him good to breathe some good clean sea air.
The rain had reduced to a fine drizzle, although storm clouds were building again on the southern horizon. If he kept up a steady pace and gave his legs a good stretch, he could be back in his cottage before the next downpour. He made his way out through the back gate to the place where the Earl’s property ended abruptly at the cliff path and he could look down on the waves crashing onto the beach at Rose Hill Bay. The tide was high and the bay was deserted. He saw no boats on the horizon. Food was still in short supply, but no one needed it so desperately that they would take a fishing boat out on a day like this with whitecaps on the waves and a storm looming.
He lifted his eyes to the horizon, thinking of the night the invasion fleet had set sail for Normandy. He shivered inside his threadbare old raincoat. It had been June when the fleet had set sail, but the sea had been just as dark and rough as it was now. He stared out across the heaving waves, imagining that he could see the French coast, so close and now so accessible, but in those dark days, it had bristled with guns.
The sun made an unexpected appearance, sending a beam of watery light through a break in the clouds. The light played on the water, turning it from gray to green. Sam squinted and tried to focus on a dark object that rode the waves, rolling and tossing, occasionally disappearing and then reappearing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. He could see better now. The object was large and round, a metal ball with ... yes, spikes.
“Oh my God,” Sam said aloud.
He looked around. He needed someone to confirm his opinion. He needed someone to agree with him that he had seen what he had seen. A mine! A German mine, or maybe even a British mine, broken loose from the rusted chain that had once anchored it to the seabed. He stood for a moment staring at the distant object; five hundred pounds of explosives drifting at the whim of the tide and the waves.
The tide was high and on the turn. When it began to ebb, the mine would be carried out away from the beach, but when it turned again, the mine would be carried back inshore. The game might continue for several days, but eventually the mine would collide with something, a beach, a harbor wall, a boat, a pier, and the result would be deadly.
“Right,” said Sam, and he was speaking aloud again. “You know what it is and you need to report this, Sammy my boy. Let’s get a move on.”
He would have to phone the police, and the nearest telephone would be the one at Southwold Hall. He sighed and began to retrace his footsteps along the cliff path. The sun had disappeared again and the rain was increasing in intensity. He pulled his cap down low over his eyes and lowered his head as he battled the wind.
He entered the Hall by the back door and hurried through the kitchen and pantry. Normally he would stop to remove his boots before entering the main hall, but not today. He slammed open the green baize door separating the servant’s domain from the rest of the house and called out for help.
“I need to use the Earl’s phone,” he shouted.
No one answered him. No one came to remonstrate with him for sullying the marble floors with his muddy boots or for keeping his hat on indoors.
“Nell. Nell Pearson,” he called.
Women’s voices rose angrily from the drawing room. He took a step closer. He recognized Lady Sylvia’s voice, loud but still carefully controlled. He hesitated and then he heard Nell Pearson. Nell’s voice was pitched in a high scolding tone, and her ugly words spewed across the echoing cavern of the main hall.
“Nosy little bitch. Thieving little slut.”
Surely she wasn’t talking to Lady Sylvia. Not in his wildest dreams could Sam imagine Nell Pearson using such words to Her Ladyship. Perhaps he should just go into the Earl’s study and leave them alone. He turned away and then he heard another voice.
“I’m not. I’m not. I didn’t do nothing. I was dusting.”
Maisie!
Sam forgot about his urgent need to use the telephone. Nell Pearson was calling Maisie, his granddaughter, disgusting names. Maisie, who was just turning fifteen years old and as innocent as a newborn lamb, was being called a bitch and a slut by Nell Pearson, and Lady Sylvia seemed to be joining in.
He flung open the door of the dining room and stepped inside, careless of his muddy boots on the Persian rug. Maisie, in her gray maid’s dress and white apron, was standing between the two angry women with tears running down her face, and a feather duster grasped in her hand. “What do you think you’re doing?” Sam bellowed.
Nell Pearson turned toward him, her face twisted in rage. “You’ll stay out of this if you know what’s good for you!”
As Sam watched, Lady Sylvia seemed to recall who she was and where she was, and she looked away from the crying child as though the matter was of no interest to her.
Her voice was cold and impersonal. “The girl has been dismissed, Mr. Ruddle. You can take her home.”
“Dismissed! Why?”
“Theft.”
“I didn’t steal nothing,” Maisie protested.
“You were going to,” said Lady Sylvia. “She was going to steal money from my desk.”
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was dusting.”
Lady Sylvia raised her elegant eyebrows. “Enough. She’s dismissed without a reference. Take her away.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Sam protested.
“Boots!” said Nell Pearson suddenly. “What are you doing in here with your boots on? And take off your hat when you address Her Ladyship.”
Sam looked down at his boots and the great clods of mud clinging to them, and then he looked at his granddaughter. He looked Lady Sylvia in the eye.
“She’s no thief.”
“And I say that she is and I don’t want her in my house. If you’re not careful, Mr. Ruddle, I shall be forced to dismiss you as well.”
Sam stamped his feet, watching with satisfaction as a several large clumps of mud fell to the carpet.
“That’s what I think of you and your job,” he said. “That’s what I think of your whole family. Come on, Maisie.”
He put an arm around Maisie and led her to the door.
“She can’t take the uniform,” Nell Pearson said. “She has to take off the uniform.”
Sam could not think of an appropriate response. He had no words to express his outrage, so he stamped his feet again, depositing another clod of mud on the carpet. He took Maisie’s hand and led her out into the hallway. Instead of turning toward the kitchen, he steered her toward the carved oak front door.
“Grandad!”
“We’re going out the front door,” he said, “and we’re walking away with our heads held high.”
“I didn’t do it, Grandad. I heard them talking. I didn’t mean to. I was just doing the dusting.”
Sam accompanied his granddaughter down the front steps and turned to look back at the imposing portico and ivy-clad walls of the Hall.
“Secrets are valuable,” he said. “Now, why don’t you come home with me and tell me what you heard, then we’ll see what we can do with what we know.”