The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 06
The Mystery Of Macgregor's Cove by June Davies
« Previous Post- 3. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 03
- 4. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 04
- 5. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 05
- 6. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 06
- 7. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 07
- 8. The Mystery Of Macgregor’s Cove – Episode 08
It was a dismal November morning with a cutting wind when Kit called upon Elias at Haddonsell Grange.
Elias was delighted with the books Kit brought as a get-well gift, and was soon absorbed in the engineer’s surveys and diagrams of the Cut’s construction, which had advanced considerably since Elias had seen the initial specifications.
Around midday, a beaming Mrs Dorothy Whitlock brought in a luncheon tray, announcing that, as a rare treat, Elias was being allowed small helpings of his favourite foods.
Elias’s haggard features positively lit up at the sight of the dishes.
“This is luxury indeed, Chesterton,” he said when the two men were enjoying their meal. “I haven’t eaten such miserable fare since I was a boy, when victuals of any description were far and few between.”
He fell to reminiscing about his boyhood in the pit village and how, like many a penniless lad, he’d gone down to Liverpool in search of work and the means of making his way in the world.
In return, Kit found himself speaking of his own early years, and of his family in Jamaica.
“Jamaica?” Elias exclaimed, grinning broadly. “You’re from Jamaica, Kit?
“Why, when I was young and in the employ of a Liverpool potter, I sailed to Jamaica. Mr Standish had dealings with a merchant there who catered for rich folk’s tastes, and he sent me over with crates of luxury goods for the plantation mansions and suchlike.”
Elias sighed, those carefree, adventurous days bright and clear in his memory.
“Always planned to go back, y’know. Never did, though.”
* * * *
Mindful of the elderly man’s frail health, Kit was keen not to overtire Mr Whitlock and hadn’t intended a lengthy visit, but the companionable hours had slipped away unnoticed, until Kit bade Elias farewell and took his leave late in the afternoon.
He rode down the drive from the Grange and out between the gates, but instead of heading inland to his lodgings in Akenside, he veered westward.
Cantering away to the windswept coastline, he gave the piebald mare her head until they approached an inn on the cliff top.
Slowing to a walk, they passed the Bell Inn and followed the steep, curving sweep of Macgregor’s Cove.
Up here, the keen, salt-sharp sea wind gusted ice-cold against Kit’s face; the thump and surge of the incoming high tide pounded in his ears as he rode on beyond the cove.
He paused on high ground above a small boatyard which looked as if it had seen far better days.
A lone man was sawing timber. With the task completed, he straightened up, easing the stiffness from his back before hefting the timber and carrying it towards a shed.
Glancing up, he noticed Kit and raised an arm; two strangers exchanging a pleasant greeting before the grey-haired man let himself into the boatyard’s tiny cottage.
A moment later, a dim light flickered into life beyond the thick glass of a small, crooked window.
Sensible to the darkening November sky, Kit turned and started back the way he’d come.
Inexplicably, his thoughts were straying to Jamaica, to the bundle of faded love letters.
Drawing a measured breath, he stared out across miles of open sea to the brigs, schooners, clippers, barques and all manner of smaller vessels sailing with the tide and following wind for Liverpool Bay.
Almost directly below Kit was a two-masted yawl.
From his vantage point on the cliff-top, the craft resembled a child’s toy, tossed and deluged by wind and water as it rounded the crag and disappeared from view.
Riding at a canter now, for daylight was fast fading, he followed the deep curve of the cove and presently spied the glowing lamps of the Bell Inn.
Kit could make out three figures approaching the inn from the opposite direction.
A woman carrying a basket over her arm was holding the hand of a little girl and they were hurrying along from the quayside, heads bowed into the blustery offshore wind, their cloaks and skirts billowing.
Beside them scampered a small white dog, first running a little way ahead, then turning about and returning to the little girl, who each time stooped to pat and praise.
Suddenly the child spun around and cried out, tugging at the woman’s arm and pointing away into the dark, churning tide. Kit could not see whatever she saw, but the woman did.
Dropping the basket and hitching her skirts, she ran for all she was worth towards the inn, the little girl and dog at her heels.
Even as Kit was galloping up to the cove’s headland, he heard the splitting and tearing of timber; the cries and shouts of men and women in terror for their lives.
A mournful wailing rang out through the gathering dusk and Kit spun round from the cliff’s edge.
Amaryllis Macgregor was tolling the inn’s great brass bell, summoning help for those in peril on the sea.
