The Digger's Rest (25 page)

“
Yes, do you think we could have an
early seating, maybe in about forty-five minutes or an hour. As you
can see, we’ve been out digging and could use a good clean up
first,” Mitch said with a knowing smirk.

“
Not a problem, Doctor. I’ll take care
of everything,” Jed said, having trouble keeping his eyes from
wandering past Mitch and Lady Madeline to the girl behind them and
so painfully obvious to Mitch and Lady Madeline that he was going
out of his way to deepen his voice and straighten his
posture.

When they came down to dinner an hour later
Jed was waiting for them in a crisp fresh black shirt and black
jeans. His dark hair had been freshly redone as well. “Good
evening, Doctor, your Ladyship…” He smiled at Simon and made a
small bow. “Good evening to you, Simon…and to you, Miss Boucher,”
he said giving her a small bow as well. “I have your booth ready
for you over here. I thought you might like a bit more privacy than
you would have at a table,” he said to Mitch as he led them to the
booth in the farthest corner.

“
Thanks, Jed. That’ll be perfect,”
Mitch said following him across the room and making a subtle but
thorough scan of the room to see who else might be in attendance.
He couldn’t help but immediately notice the long, wavy red hair
with gold highlights behind the bar.

Simon slid into the booth first and Lady
Cotswold entered from the other side, then Mitch after Simon. “If I
may say so, Miss Boucher, you look lovely tonight,” Jed said to
Sandrine as he took her hand to help her slide into the booth next
to Lady Madeline.

“
Thank you, Mr. Farthing,” she said,
smiling with natural coquettishness as she allowed him to help her
into the booth. All settled, Jed went over to the podium and came
back with four menus bound in old leather. “I’ll come back in a few
moments, after you’ve had a chance to look things over,” he said
and bowed slightly again before walking away.

“
He’s a very handsome young man,
beautiful eyes. Long lashes on a man have always caught my
attention,” Lady Madeline said as nonchalantly as if she was
commenting on the weather, but inside breathing a sigh of relief.
In the four years that Sandrine had been with her, she’d never once
shown any interest outside of the manor or her work, and Lady
Madeline was beginning to wonder if maybe she didn’t like boys. Not
that it would have made any difference to her.

“
Yes, he is, Lady Madeline, and he
does,” Sandrine said, smiling to herself.

“
Just make sure he’s of the right sort
before you encourage him, dear. Find out who his people are. He’s
obviously Australian, but it’s important to find out what they do
there.”

Trying to remove himself from the girl talk
going on at the table, Mitch opened up his menu to peruse the
offered fare. Deciding the best way of handling it was the same way
he did in London, Mitch decided on steak and mushroom pie for
himself and chicken and ham pie for Simon with green side salads
for both of them along with the extra plates so they could share.
Ears still attuned, he heard Lady Madeline say quietly to Sandrine,
“And you absolutely must not sleep with him until we’ve finished
the dig.” It was Sandrine’s turn to blush then. Mitch jumped in,
trying to come to poor Sandrine’s rescue.

“
Uh, we’re here, too, ladies,” he said,
feeling his ego a little pinched at being completely
ignored.

“
Yes, yes, Mitchell. You teach your boy
in your way and I’ll teach my girl in mine. I’m sure you’ve
discovered somewhere in your life that boys and girls are different
and need to approach life differently,” Lady Madeline said with a
secret smile as she continued to survey the menu.

Just then Jed came back to the table with a
clean white apron tied snuggly around his waist.

“
Can I take your drink order now?” he
said smiling a big, white boyish smile. Mitch knew then that he’d
somehow arranged to switch with one of the waitresses to take care
of them himself.
Very clever,
Mitch thought to himself and looked at Lady Madeline. The
notion wasn’t lost on her either.

“
I’ll have a merlot,” Lady Madeline
said and looked to Sandrine to order next.

“
I’ll have the same, please,” she said,
mildly embarrassed at knowing exactly what Lady Madeline and the
men were thinking.

“
A pint of Butcomb for me please, Jed,”
Mitch said and looked to Simon.

“
I’ll have the same, please,” Simon
said sounding unsure. Mitch winked at him, nodding his
approval.

“
I’ll be back in a moment with your
drinks and to take your dinner order,” Jed said smiling widely
again and bowing as he backed away.
Man!
This guy has got it bad,
Mitch thought to himself, and
gave Lady Madeline a sly wink to silently say that he thought the
boy was probably alright, but all the while never letting himself
forget that the redhead at the bar was most decidedly not alright,
because as he looked around the room every few seconds, he noticed
that she never once looked in their direction, less than twenty
feet away.

After more bowing and smiling in what Mitch
guessed to be a youthful mating dance, they finished dinner. He was
tired from not having slept well the night before, so after his
third beer he decided to retire to his room to do some preliminary
sketches and diagrams of the site to send back to Jack. Lady
Madeline agreed with him saying she wanted to do the same to send
to Lord Cotswold. In the end they decided that they would both do
theirs from her room so they could work together and be on the same
page, as it were. That left Simon and Sandrine to fend for
themselves.

At Lady Madeline’s suggestion, it was agreed
that, being the young people that they were, they might stay out
and enjoy the evening in the pub. It made Simon a little nervous,
but picking up on it, Mitch heard Lady Madeline lean into him and
say, “Sandrine is a very smart, good girl, and good company. Make
friends with her. It’s always good to make friends in the
business.”

Simon looked to Mitch for what to do and felt
better when he saw Mitch give him a confident nod.

Mitch and Lady Madeline then headed back to
the cottage and Simon and Sandrine headed to the bar. As soon as
Simon saw that there were two seats open at the very end, he went
over and got them. If he had to be among strangers, he preferred it
to be someplace where he could keep his back to the wall. It made
him feel better, safer, knowing that no one could come up and hurt
him from behind.

It surprised no one that when it came time to
order their drinks, Jed was behind the bar and Ivy had gone out to
work the floor, giving Jed and Sandrine some time to make eyes at
each other when he wasn’t rushing back and forth between customers.
The interim gave Simon and Sandrine time to get to know each other
as well. Two beers later, Simon began to feel more comfortable in
his surroundings.

The beer he was drinking didn’t seem to be as
strong as the beer he’d had in London and he’d actually come to
like the taste, so when Jed was there flirting with Sandrine, he
took the opportunity to relax and survey the room, which by then
had filled with locals who’d come in for their after-dinner drinks.
Three people in particular caught his eye. The first was a man
about Mitch’s age or a little older with a dog and a white cane,
leaning against the bar smoking a cigar. The next was a tall,
black-haired woman wearing a white, open-collared blouse with a
thick choker made of strands of jet black beads, a black leather
skirt and spiky-heeled black leather boots that came up to her
knees. Over in the corner he saw a little old man in tattered and
frayed old clothes wearing a worn knit cap.

The old man was staring at him, making him
feel uncomfortable. He averted his eyes and gave his attention to
Jed who was waiting to see if he wanted another beer. “Yes,
please,” Simon said, beginning to feel like he could drink that
beer all night and still not get drunk.

After Jed brought his fresh beer, Sandrine
turned to him and told him that she needed to visit the lady’s room
and asked if he would be alright until she came back. By then, it
seemed it wasn’t only Mitch but also Lady Cotswold and Sandrine
who’d developed a fond proprietary interest in him. He liked them,
too.

Simon said he would be okay until she got
back and went about gazing around the room. When his eyes got to
the corner of the room again, he noticed that the old man was gone.
Relieved, he took a sip of his beer and turned to look over towards
where the younger men were playing darts against the far wall on
the other side of the room. There he was, the old man, standing
next to him.

Before Simon could move or look away, the old
man waved his hand in front of Simon’s face while at the same time
waving his other hand over Simon’s beer. Simon froze. The old man
pointed to the beer in Simon’s hand. Simon’s hand began to move,
involuntarily following the movement of the old man’s finger as it
pointed to his mouth. Simon raised the glass and drank. He had no
choice.

The old man spoke to him, his lips
moving to form words in a language Simon couldn’t understand, but
in his mind seeming to hear it in modern English.
“Thou art the boy called Holly. Are thee
not?”
the old man asked. Simon nodded.
“Thou hast spilled thy blood this day. Hast ye
not?”
Simon nodded again.

Without warning, the old man waved his hand
in front of Simon’s face again. Simon blinked and when he opened
his eyes again the old man was gone. When he came back to himself,
he looked around the bar, then over to the corner where he first
saw the old man. There he was, sitting in the corner drinking his
beer, looking out the window in front of him.

Simon looked around for Sandrine. Instead he
saw the tall black-haired woman with the black beads. She was
smiling at him and nodding. The next thing he knew Sandrine was
beside him again and Jed was asking him if he wanted another
beer.

“
What does Dr. Bramson drink when he’s
down here?” Simon asked Jed.

“
He’s been having brandy with his
beer,” Jed said, smiling at Simon, then looked gooey-eyed at
Sandrine.

“
I’ll have one of those, please,” Simon
said, wiping his damp forehead with his shirt sleeve.

***

After Mitch had finished working with Lady
Cotswold on the diagrams and sketches, he went back to his room.
He’d no sooner closed the door and taken off his boots when he
heard a knock at the door. Thinking it was Simon, he opened it,
surprised to see that it wasn’t Simon at all, but the blind man
with the dog, Sean Donnelly.

“
Dr. Bramson, may I come in?” he said,
staring straight ahead.

Mitch moved aside. “Yes, of course, Sean.
Please come in,” he said hesitantly.

Sean Donnelly walked through the door,
feeling his way around with his white cane; Yale flowing closely at
his heel.

“
I’m sorry to bother you like this,
Doctor,” he said as Mitch closed the door behind them. “…but I
wanted to speak to you privately, to apologize for my behavior last
night.”

“
There’s nothing to apologize for Sean.
You were tipsy. I was more than tipsy. We were both drunk. No harm,
no foul,” Mitch said good-naturedly.

But there is. I shouldn’t have burdened a
stranger with my problems,” Sean said, hanging his head, real
remorse in his voice. “I must have sounded like a madman.”

“
We all go a little mad sometimes,”
Mitch said, trying to ease Sean’s discomfort.
Losing his sight so young with so much to look forward to must
have been tough to take, even for a cop.
“Please sit
down.”

Sean felt around with his cane, found the
nearest chair and sat, Yale immediately lay down in front of him,
and Sean started to rub his hand over his mouth nervously. Mitch
sat down on the bed. He could tell that the man wanted to say
something to him, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

“
What can I do for you, Sean?” Mitch
said patiently, breaking the ice in the best way he knew how. Sean
rubbed his hand over his mouth again then spoke.

“
Take me with you,” he blurted out. “I
know I’m blind and can’t be of any help to you in that way, but I’m
strong and I can lift and carry. There are things I can still do,
and…I need this, Dr. Bramson.”

Dumbfounded, Mitch didn’t know what to say
and he fumbled. “I don’t know, Sean. That’s probably not the best
idea after all you’ve been though.”

“
Please, Dr. Bramson. I need to go
back, to find out if I really am mad. Please take me with you,”
Donnelly begged then broke down, sobbing into his hands. “I can’t
go on this way, not knowing.”

Mitch stood and went over to the table by the
window, poured a glass of water from the pitcher and took it over
to the distraught man, putting his hand on Sean’s heaving back.

“
Here, drink this,” he said, struggling
to think what else he could do for Sean.

Sean took the glass and drank, wiping his
eyes on his sleeve and taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” Sean
said, having gotten control of himself again for the moment.

Mitch didn’t know what to do. Sean
didn’t fit the lunatic persona, and everyone downstairs treated him
with a great deal of respect and sympathy. He got no sense from
them that they were simply humoring Sean. Then he heard his little
voice, the one that sounded like his mother in the back of his
mind,
You cannot let him suffer,
it said. He thought maybe if he could find something for Sean
to do, even if it wasn’t much, it might be enough to help him make
peace with what had happened to him.