It was mid-May when the battered fishing boat was washed up on rocks near Cayton Bay just below Scarborough. Deakin’s body and a rifle were trapped between the bench seat and the anchor which had held him down. A half-anker of brandy was rolling about, but it disappeared shortly after the discovery of the boat and before the police arrived. The coroner was informed and an inquest arranged when it was found that a bullet in his chest had killed him. The conclusion was drawn that he had probably been killed by fellow smugglers after a disagreement over payment for illicit goods. The deceased was known to the authorities, who had been hoping to make an arrest.
The Customs and Excise men descended on the cottage and burnt-out barn shortly afterwards, but expected to find nothing and were not disappointed. The trunks were empty and they agreed that there was a faint lingering odour of tobacco and brandy which must have gone up in the fire. In the inquest on Mrs Deakin no conclusion was reached except that she might have been complicit in the smuggling trade, although there was nothing in the cottage that implied she had benefited from it. It was believed she had been washed overboard during the fracas.
Three months later the lawyers ruled that the property rightly belonged to the next of kin, a daughter Miss Dorothy Deakin, and as she was apparently living elsewhere at present, documentation would be held in the lawyers’ vaults until she claimed it.
Although Delia had said she didn’t want anything to do with the proceeds of smuggling, immediately after she and Giles had returned to Hull following the Easter holiday Peggy, Aaron and Jack had done a systematic search of the property and the barn; in the cottage they had found the loose floorboard where Delia said it was and unearthed a tin box filled with paper money and cash in coins both silver and gold. On searching the barn and moving the trunks and other rubbish, they discovered a metal ring sealed in the ground and the small pit that had been dug beneath it. This too contained paper money and gold coins, some foreign.
Much to Peggy’s disquiet and at Aaron’s insistence, the tin box was kept beneath their bed until it was decided what should happen to it. Then one day at the end of April, Aaron took some of the ten pound notes to the young fisherman whose boat had been stolen, and mentally crossing his fingers, because untruths didn’t come easily to this honest man, he said that insurance money had been paid out and he was directed to pay him back for the loss of his boat.
Molly still insisted on the story that she had seen Mrs Deakin driving the mule and cart down the track on the night of the fire, but she didn’t bother to tell anyone that she had also seen a booted foot sticking out from under a tarpaulin in the back of the cart, because she knew no one would believe her. In any case, she was bored with the story now, and had another interest as her father had given her two piglets of her own to look after. She told everyone that she was going to breed from them.
ENDING
It was in August that year that Delia’s very best friends Miss Jenny Robinson and Mr Arthur Crawshaw dispensed with the convention of marrying in the bride’s local church and were wed in the village church close by the groom’s home, where a guest reception and wedding breakfast was held in the great hall with a marquee on the lawns for the staff and villagers with food and drink and dancing in the evening.
A moist-eyed Aaron led his Paris-dressed daughter down the aisle; Delia in deep rose satin with a white chiffon overskirt was chief attendant. Arthur’s brother was his best man, Jenny’s four nieces were bridesmaids in yellow and pink silk dresses with flowered headdresses, and Robin was asked to read a lesson which he was very pleased to do, as he said it would be good practice in case he decided to be an actor rather than a fisherman after all. Delia smiled to see her young son, whose head only just showed above the pulpit, proclaiming the words without a touch of nervousness.
Jack was a groomsman, and as Delia watched him, nervous in his unaccustomed finery of hired morning suit and silk cravat, she wondered if now was the time for forgiveness. Peggy, who was splendidly attired in a green silk gown with a large bustle and short train and a matching silk hat set on her red curls, wept throughout the service, not, she explained, because she was sad but because she was happy, as she had always thought that her independent daughter would never marry.
Arthur’s mother was regal in deep purple and told anyone who asked, or even those who didn’t, how very pleased she was with the progress being made in the dower house and that she was looking forward to her residency there.
Giles had brought his violin and at the reception played several merry jigs and reels that the guests danced to, and there were a few sighs from unattached young ladies of distinction who had eyed him as a potential suitor until he began to play for Delia as she sang ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’ and realized that he was spoken for.
‘Won’t you play some more romantic music?’ Delia asked as they sat drinking champagne whilst a string quartet played.
‘No.’ He gently squeezed her hand. ‘I’m saving that for someone special once I’m free.’
Giles had seen an elegant house in Hull’s Albion Street that he said Delia would love. She’d visited it and thought it wonderful, and when Giles suggested that they could convert one or two rooms to music rooms so that they could
