Toby looked at him, then nodded. ‘Good idea.’
‘I knew the family must be here still when they weren’t found.’
Toby let out a sigh of pure relief. ‘Yes.’
‘Where have you got them?’
‘Up the back.’
‘They’ll not like it there.’
‘They do. Said they slept well, even that poor child.’
‘Too tired to notice, I expect.’
Toby stared at him. ‘Notice what?’
‘That the back part is haunted.’
‘I’ve never seen any ghosts.’
‘Neither have I. But I’ve
heard
’em and so have others.’
Toby shrugged.
‘Will that family be staying long?’
‘A few days. The little lass is bad.’
‘I’ll send across a sack of potatoes to help feed ’em.’ He clapped Toby on the shoulder again and went back to his pot of beer.
Which all surprised Toby greatly.
A week later he got out his cart, sure now that the inn wasn’t being watched, and drove down the hill at dusk to set the family well on their way. He’d done all he could for them and only hoped they’d get clean away.
After that incident he found Ross more friendly and the other folk in Calico took their lead from him. When Toby mentioned this to Phoebe, she just smiled and said, ‘I knew they’d take to you.’
Jethro rode up to Calico one day after Goddby’s visit, having decided that he might as well deal with the other matter that was preying on his mind while he was waiting for a decision from Sophia. He shouldn’t let the thought of his bastard brother irritate him like this, but it did. Calico wasn’t nearly far enough away from Backenshaw for him to feel comfortable.
It was a cold day but fine, and once he’d pushed the thought of his brother to the back of his mind, Jethro found himself enjoying the outing. He should ride out more often. He enjoyed the exercise and, unlike his father, didn’t intend to spend every minute of his life attending to business.
He took his groom with him, as he did every time he rode out any distance. Peter had been with him for several years and was a powerful man. Not that Jethro thought his bastard brother likely to attack him, no, but there were sometimes desperate men on the tramp and he preferred to be careful. Two men were less likely to be attacked than one.
Peter was as near to a friend as Jethro had, given the way his father had insisted they live. The man had been his mother’s groom till her death, and then Jethro’s own from when he was twelve. His father had always paid more attention to making money than to his only son, so it had sometimes been Peter who’d comforted the boy over things which troubled him, as they did most lads at times. And it was Peter more than anyone who had helped him understand the vagaries of the world in which he lived, usually while the pair of them were sitting on a bale of hay out in the stables.
The Packhorse looked as ramshackle and inhospitable as it had the previous time he’d visited and Jethro felt reluctant to enter it, as if to do so would change his life. Indeed, he almost turned back without going in, which was a strange fancy, most unlike him. Shrugging off the idea, he dismounted and handed the reins to Peter. ‘Walk him up and down. I shan’t be long. We’ll stop for refreshments elsewhere on the way back.’
As he was straightening his clothing he looked down the side of the building and saw Fletcher and another man, shouting and waving their hands around. They looked as if they were about to have a fight, but suddenly the man stepped backwards, clearly unwilling to take on such a well-built opponent. Fletcher spoke briefly then went back into the building, slamming the door behind him. The other turned on his heel and came stamping along to the front of the inn, stopping when he saw Jethro watching him. His scowl deepened. He muttered something and went striding down the road, turning off almost immediately on to a rough track.
Jethro watched him for a moment, wondering what that was about, then went inside.
Phoebe, who was wiping tables, clasped the wet cloth to her bosom in shock when she saw who had just come in, but to her enormous relief he didn’t seem to recognise her.
‘Fetch your master.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She ran to the middle part of the inn, heading for the sound of hammering. ‘It’s young Mr Greenhalgh. He wants to see you, Toby.’
‘Oh, does he!’ He slung down his hammer, sorry not to be able to work off his anger. Cully Dean had been asking yet again for credit to be extended so that he could continue drinking a few pots every day. Well, he could ask all he liked. Toby wasn’t giving credit to anyone, however much the regular drinkers disliked that. Hal had allowed his cronies to have their drinks chalked on the slate and they’d rarely paid off their debts, apparently, because every now and then, in a magnanimous drunken gesture, he had wiped the slate clean, literally, and then the heavy boozers had started building up their debts again. Toby had removed the piece of slate from the public room.
No wonder the place hadn’t been making the profits it should, he thought.
He didn’t want to see or serve his half-brother. He’d hoped Jethro wouldn’t bother to take advantage of the clause charging Toby to provide a free pot of beer every January because he’d reckoned it was simply an excuse for his half-brother to poke his nose into Toby’s affairs. He didn’t like the thought of that, not at all. The inn was his now, his to do what he wanted with. The lawyer had assured him of that. Muttering in irritation, he rubbed the sawdust off his hands and untied his leather apron.
‘I’d rather not go back into the public room until he’s left, if you don’t mind,’ Phoebe said in a voice which fluted with nervousness. ‘I don’t think he recognised me and I don’t want to jog his memory.’
‘He has no right to order you off
my
premises, Phoebe, so you’ve nothing to be feared of now. He’s not the King of England, after all.’
‘Rich folk can do anything they like, whether they’re kings or not. And the Greenhalghs are known for getting what they want by any means they can.’
But Jethro
had
recognised the widow and was feeling angry that she hadn’t obeyed his order to leave the district. After all, she might know more than she had claimed and he didn’t want her telling his family secrets to the bastard. He began pacing up and down the public room, wondering what was keeping Fletcher.
Footsteps approached, echoing on the wooden floor and not hurrying. Irritated, Jethro swung round to watch the fellow saunter in.
For a moment they stood there eyeing one another, so alike in appearance that no one could ever doubt they were brothers. Except that Toby was a couple of inches taller and more heavily built.
Damn him! Jethro thought. And damn his father too, for siring the fellow.
Toby moved towards the barrel of beer, taking the initiative. ‘You’ll have come for your free drink.’ Before Jethro could protest, he’d filled a fresh jug from the barrel and poured out two pots, waiting till his half-brother had picked one up before raising his own. ‘Here’s to good ale. There’s nowt like it.’
Jethro sipped then took a proper mouthful, surprised by the excellent quality of the beer. ‘Actually, I didn’t come for the beer, Fletcher, but to offer to buy this place back from you. I didn’t agree with my father letting it go out of the family so I’ll give you two hundred pounds for it.’
Toby stared at him, surprised but hoping he hadn’t shown it, then raised his pot for another sip to buy more thinking time – though he didn’t really need to consider his answer, so why pretend? ‘I don’t want to sell, and if you’re worried about keeping the place in the family, there’s no need. After all, I’m family myself, even if I was born on the wrong side of the blanket.’ He grinned at the look of outrage on the other man’s face.
‘Two hundred and fifty, and that’s my final offer.’
‘The money won’t change my mind because I
don’t
want to sell. I like it here. Nor I don’t see why you’d want the inn back anyway. A fine gentleman like you . . .’ he let the words hang in the air for a minute, then continued in the same mild tone ‘ . . . would be out of place serving in here.’
‘Damn you, fellow, I don’t want to run it, just to—’ Jethro broke off, annoyed with himself for having nearly betrayed his reasons.
Toby took a step forward. ‘And damn you,
brother
, I know exactly what you want. To get me and this,’ he pointed to his face, ‘out of the district. Well, I’m a fair distance from Backenshaw and have no need to go there for owt, so let it content you that I’ll stay away from there. That’ll suit me just fine because I’ve no desire to see
your
face, either. It reminds me of your –
our
– father, and how badly he treated my mother.’
Jethro choked back the rage that filled him at this impudence and slammed down the pot on the counter. ‘You’d better think about it more carefully. Selling could save you a lot of – shall we say –
unpleasantness
in the future.’
‘If that’s a threat, I’ll tell you to your face that it won’t make me budge an inch. I’m here and I’m staying. Remember that.’
Jethro glared at him. ‘Then just make sure you don’t come anywhere near Backenshaw and remind me of your existence. And tell that old woman to get out. I’ve warned her once and given her the money to get her back to wherever she comes from.’
‘She’s going nowhere. Let alone I need her here, this place has been her home for over twenty years and there’s no reason for her to leave it.’
For a minute their eyes met, glowing with anger and challenge. Then Jethro slammed down his pot, swung on his heel and stormed out.
Toby stood behind the bar with anger boiling up in him, all the stronger because he was still annoyed by his earlier encounter with Cully Dean. Who did Jethro Greenhalgh think he was to tell Phoebe to leave the place she loved? Dammit, what an arrogant sod the man was! Toby would rather be related to anyone else than him. Well, almost anyone else.
He couldn’t help wondering why Greenhalgh should want Phoebe out of the district. Frowning, he considered what this might mean. Did she know something about the Greenhalghs – or had her husband known something?
Toby’s rage soon faded because he was not one to dwell on problems. He smiled as he looked round. He loved the inn. Whatever the reason for its being given to him, it was his now and Greenhalgh had better not try to take it away from him or he’d find himself with a fight on his hands.
He went into the house place to see Phoebe standing at the foot of the stairs which led to their bedrooms. ‘You heard what he said?’
She nodded. ‘Toby, he was offering you a lot of money. Maybe it’d be more sensible to sell and—’
‘I’m
not
selling. I like it here.’
She still looked worried. But he had that stubborn expression on his face that she was beginning to recognise, so she didn’t try to reason with him. He was more of a Greenhalgh than he’d admit, though he had a kinder, gentler side to his nature which must come from his mother’s side and for that she thanked God every day. Without his kindness she was quite sure she’d have died of grief at leaving this place. It was her home, the only real one she’d ever known.
And Toby, dear Toby, was like the son she’d always wanted.
As Jethro rode away from the inn, still simmering with anger after his encounter with Fletcher, he saw a figure he recognised working in a field and reined in his horse to stare at the man. Surely that was the fellow who’d been arguing with his damned brother? He sat thinking for a minute watching the man slam the spade into the ground behind the house, anger in every line of his body. There was a small cottage at the far end of the field, and everything there looked ill-tended and untidy.
Jethro turned to his groom. ‘Go and tell that fellow I want a word.’
When Peter accosted him, the man left the spade standing in the ground, rubbed his hands down the sides of his breeches and followed Peter back to the drystone wall that bordered the road. The groom clambered over it; the man stayed on his own side, surly, suspicious.
‘Wait for us along the road a little,’ Jethro said softly, and paused until Peter was out of earshot before turning back. ‘What’s your name, fellow?’
Cully scowled at him and considered telling him it was no business of his, then remembered who this man was and thought better of it, giving his name reluctantly.
Jethro pulled a coin from his pocket and held it out. ‘Would you like to earn this?’
Cully moved forward because his eyesight wasn’t the best except close to something. When he saw what the coin was, he nodded eagerly.
‘Then climb over the wall and we’ll talk. I’m not standing up here in this cold wind much longer.’ He waited until Cully had clambered over the drystone wall then led his horse back down to the partial shelter of a dip in the road.
‘You’re interested?’
‘How would I have to earn it, sir?’
‘Am I right in thinking you bear no love towards Toby Fletcher?’
Cully spat on the ground to show his disdain. ‘He’s no right to come here changing things.’
‘I agree absolutely. In fact, I’m a bit worried about how Fletcher will manage the inn. I feel responsible for it since my father gifted it to the man. A village needs an inn. Where would you all be without it? What if it closed down?’
His companion looked alarmed at the mere thought of that, then folded his arms in the attitude of one prepared to listen while giving nothing away.
‘I’d be happy to pay for information on what Fletcher is doing – say, every month. My groom could meet you somewhere convenient.’
Cully wrinkled his brow. ‘What sort of information would that be?’
‘Just keep me informed of what the fellow’s doing, how business is at the inn – that sort of thing.’
‘That’s easy enough.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘If you’ll pay me for it.’ Cully grinned. ‘You don’t like Fletcher even though he’s your brother. Well, neither do I.’