[Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

Delia trotted dutifully through the darkened village, passing the almshouse and heading up the overgrown path. It became very dim, overshadowed by an archway of overhanging trees. Ben was imagining what it had been like all those years ago: stagecoaches laden with passengers and mail, carriages bearing merchants and gentry, carts laden with produce. All of them fearful to be traveling such a lonely and shaded path, where highwaymen and thieves might lurk. The strange boy glimpsed the crescent moon, struggling to cast its light through the leafy canopy. Unwittingly his mind wandered back to the Flying Dutchman, Vanderdecken, and his villainous crew—they would probably have reveled in the highwayman’s trade.

Amy bumped against him as the gig lurched to a stop. “Don’t go to sleep, Ben, I think we’ve arrived at the place!”

Three lanterns had been brought, the seaman lit them and gave one to each of his young friends. “Here y’are, mates. You’re in charge of lightin’ and the maps. Stay close to ’em, Mr. Mackay. Me an’ Will can do the digging. Where is Will?”

Eileen had unharnessed Delia from the shafts, allowing her to rest and crop the grass. She pointed. “Over yonder, t’other side o’ the path, with Hetty.” She raised her voice. “You found it yet, Will?”

The dairyman called back to his wife. “No, not yet, my dear. Ouch!”

The maidservant Hetty could be heard giggling. “You found it now, Will. Tripped straight over it. Like as not sprained your ankle again!”

Will was thankful the darkness hid his furious blushes. “No harm done. Bring some light over here, you young ’uns!”

A massive ancient oak tree overshadowed the path at that point. Beneath the shade of its outstretched limbs a half-buried milestone had been standing for centuries. Ben held his lamp close to the stone. “This is it! Look. ‘Chapelvale One Mile.’ See, beneath the letter M of Mile, there’s the arrow pointing downward!”

The Labrador passed him an observant thought. “Or is it supposed to point outward, like the one on the tree at the ruined smithy?”

Ben looked up at the lawyer. “What d’you think, sir, do we dig down, or is the arrow meant to point outward to another spot?”

Adjusting the glasses on his nose, the solicitor peered at the stone. “D’you know, I’m not too sure. What’s your opinion, Jon?”

The old seaman put down the spades and pickax he had brought from the gig. “Who’s to say, sir. There ain’t no clues tellin’ us what number o’ paces we should tread if we were to dig in another place.”

Hetty settled the argument by taking a penny from her apron pocket. “Trust to luck, sez I. Toss a coin. Tails, we digs down, ’eads, we digs somewheres outward from the arrow.” She spun the coin, Alex held the lantern over where it fell. “It’s tails!”

44

MORNING SUNLIGHT FILTERED INTO the bedroom as Maud Bowe sat at the bedroom mirror, inserting a last clip into her elaborate hairdo. The Smithers household had grown peaceful and quiet since that young horror Wilfred had departed for boarding school, accompanied by his mother. Mrs. Smithers would take up lodgings close to the school, until her dear Wilfred was settled in, as she put it.

Maud smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Today was the last day she would have to spend in Chapelvale, dreadful rural backwater!

“Hetty! Hetty! Where the blazes are you, I want my breakfast!”

Arriving downstairs, Maud found Mr. Smithers red-faced and irate. “Ah, Miss Bowe, have you seen the maid, is she dusting upstairs?”

Maud swished by him on her way to the kitchen. “No, she’s not, though if she’d been anywhere within a mile of the house, she’d have heard you bellowing, sir!”

Smithers followed her out, watching as she put the kettle on and buttered a slice of brown bread. “What’re you doing, miss?”

Cutting the bread into triangles, she placed it on a plate. “Making my breakfast, obviously. It must be clear, even to you, that Hetty can’t come for some reason.”

Smithers waved his hands uselessly. “But the table isn’t laid, my dress clothes haven’t been brought out of the wardrobe. Nothing’s been done—wineglasses, sherry decanters, side trays, and clean linen. Where are they? I’m supposed to be holding a reception this afternoon for the county planners, a magistrate, business associates arriving from all over to begin our plans!”

Maud spooned tea leaves into the pot. “Then you’ll just have to change your arrangements. I’m not your maid of all work.”

Smithers wiped sweat from his reddening brow. “Piece o’ bread ’n’ butter an’ a cup of tea is no breakfast for a man to start a full day on, eh?” He blinked under Maud’s frosty stare.

“Then cook something for yourself—this is my breakfast!”

Having made tea, Maud put it on a tray with the bread and butter and retired to the garden with it. A few moments passed before Smithers emerged, eating a thick slice of bread with strawberry jam slathered on it and holding a beer tankard filled with milk. He plunked himself moodily down next to her at the wrought-iron table.