A Carriage for the Midwife (50 page)

‘Your marriage, Edward – it has not been finally made legal by the act of bodily union.’

The shocked incredulity with which he heard these words was almost palpable in the air between them. He flushed deeply.

‘I have never uttered a word to a soul on this matter,’ he said at last. ‘Did
she
tell you this?’

‘Yes, when we returned from her mother’s deathbed. It was a harrowing experience for her, full of conflicting thoughts and feelings.’

Sophia paused and took a deep breath. ‘Edward, how much do you know of Susan’s background? Her childhood in the Ash-Pits, the poverty, the hardship – and her lack of daughterly affection towards her mother? What do you truly know about those growing years?’

Edward considered for a few moments before replying. He was obviously shaken, and she saw that he was making an effort to regain his self-possession.

‘Cousin Sophy, I think I see where you are leading me, but I may be ahead of you. I do not care to discuss my wife with anybody, including yourself, but because of your special position as her friend – and that you were betrothed to my own dearest friend – I will tell you this much.’

Sophia inclined her head and waited.

‘I knew of the roughness of my Susan’s upbringing, of course, the sacrifices she made for her brothers and sister, the loss of three brothers in a night, her father’s drinking habits – ’twas no wonder that her mother’s mind became unhinged. And she was not a well-guarded child, especially when working out in the fields.’

He frowned and ran his tongue around the edge of his mouth, moistening his lips before continuing.

‘I have some reason to believe that Susan – my sweet, innocent Susan was – was ravished at some time by a foul brute not fit to walk this earth, and this abomination has given her a fear of the natural union between man and wife. But I am prepared to wait, to be patient and let her discover for herself that she has no need to fear, and that I do not blame her for what she could not help – or prevent. I have to wait because the poor child has not yet confided in me, understandably.’

He raised his head and faced Sophia squarely. ‘So, Cousin, am I not right? Have I not anticipated this
matter of the utmost importance
that you spoke of? And for which you have taken such elaborate precautions of secrecy?’

‘I cannot blame you for rebuking me, Edward,’ replied Sophia sadly. ‘For you are partly right in your conjecture.’

‘Oh, my poor, sweet love,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Oh, God in heaven, how couldst Thou have allowed it?’

‘Edward, we must finish what we have begun, and then you must make a decision,’ Sophia went on urgently. ‘Susan’s fear and loathing of – of men’s bodies—’

‘Stop!’ he said sharply. ‘I refuse to discuss my wife in this way.’

‘I understand your reluctance, Cousin, but hear me out, I beg of you. There are matters you must still hear, but not from me, and I ask your attention.’

‘Does Susan know of this meeting between us?’ he demanded suddenly. ‘Did
she
ask you to see me.’

‘No, Edward. I asked you to meet me so that I may direct you to where you may discover the truth,’ replied Sophia quickly. ‘There are – secret matters that I have long suspected but put to the back of my mind, but I believe now that there can be no peace or true harmony between you until these things are faced and fully known.’

‘I will hear no more of this, Cousin.’ He rose from the bench.

‘No, stay and listen, Edward, ’tis for love of Susan I am here,’ implored Sophia in rising agitation. ‘I spoke to the Widow Croker at the House of Industry, and to Job Lucket. They both know more than they admit, but Mrs Croker sent me to an old handywoman in Lower Beversley who knew the Luckets well, and attended Dolly at Susan’s own birth.’

‘But why ask all these people about my poor, wronged Susan?’ asked Edward, his dark blue eyes flashing with indignation.

‘To uncover the whole truth, Edward. And if you will hear it, you must go to Portsmouth and seek out Jack Lucket, the other surviving brother.’

Edward was suddenly alert. ‘Jack? A sly-looking little fellow with a vile squint? I heard he’d gone to join the navy with that drunken father – it must have been four or five years ago. How can I or anybody find either of them now?’

‘They never joined the navy,’ answered Sophia. ‘They became smugglers, part of an old ring that has dealt in French brandy for years, even while we were at war with France.’

‘Good heavens! How can you possibly know this, Sophy?’

‘This handywoman is a link in the chain, as is Dick the carrier and his father before him. ’Tis her cottage where the contraband for Beversley is stored overnight until Dick passes it on to the rectory and Bever House. Your butler Martin—’

‘Ah, yes, I recall hearing something of it when we were children, though ’tis never spoken of above stairs,’ said Edward, frowning.

‘According to this handywoman, Jack Lucket’s a messenger, a lookout for the boatmen who bring in the goods, and he passes on information about dates and times of landing to the receivers. You must give me your word, Edward, as I gave mine to her, that you will not speak of her part in it – or the carrier’s.’

Edward was expressionless. ‘I know nothing of the woman. And you say I should go and seek out this Jack?’

‘Yes. There is a tavern called the Galleon in Stokes Bay, hard by the mud flats and frequented by the lowest sort. She said you’ll need to be circumspect in your enquiries, Edward. Take gold with you but keep it well hidden. And be sure to meet Jack in a public place like this, and by daylight.’

‘You have only spoken of Jack. What of the father – of Bartlemy?’

‘When I asked the handywoman the same question, she said there had been no word of him for a year or more. Only Jack.’

She leaned across the settle and took his hand, looking straight into his eyes.

‘Edward, you must do as I have told you. Go to Portsmouth as soon as possible, find Jack and ask him to tell you Susan’s history – why she left home and begged me to find a place for her young sister. I got Polly into the laundry at Bever House, you know with what final result. I have often wished that she’d gone to a humbler household.’

She sighed, and they were silent for a minute or two while Edward pondered on what she had told him. And not told.

‘And you cannot give me this information yourself, Sophy?’

‘No, for I am not acquainted with the full facts, and if I were I could not tell you, for reasons you may discover. You must go and find Jack. That is all I can say, Edward.’

Outside in the inn-yard the sound of rumbling wheels and horses’ hoofs announced the arrival of a coach; it was followed by the sound of passengers’ voices and the thump of their boxes being unloaded on the cobbles. Edward listened and frowned while trying to come to a decision, and then, without a word to his cousin, rose and went to find the landlord. Sophia sat gripping the wooden handles of her bag, briefly praying for a happy outcome to the quest she had set in motion after much anxious heart-searching. Her secret visit to the handywoman had meant pocketing her dignity to some degree, especially in bribing Mrs Gibson with two golden guineas for information about the Galleon and Jack’s part in the smuggling ring. The old woman’s eyes had glinted.

‘Oi thanks ’ee well, mistress – an’ whoever be goin’ to find Jack, bid him take care un don’t get a knife across un’s throat – an’ leave my name out o’t.’

‘I’ll warn him to be very careful, and he won’t even know your name,’ she had replied.

The handywoman clinked the two coins together in her pocket.

‘Oi doubts him’ll thank ’ee fur what un hears, missis.’

Sophia shivered involuntarily at the words.

She now looked up as Edward returned to pick up his hat.

‘There’s a coach leaving for Petersfield in five minutes,’ he announced. Sophia rose at once.

‘Ah, you are going today, Edward.’ There was both relief and anxiety in her eyes.

‘Yes, I’d better go on this chase before I see Susan again,’ he said shortly, thrusting a leather purse into an inside pocket. ‘My box can stay here at the Wheatsheaf. I bid you good day, Sophy.’ He turned to go, but she put a hand on his arm.

‘Do be very careful, Edward. Here is the address of a good lodging in Portsmouth. ’Twas where I stayed with the Hansfords on that – that visit to the docks with Henry.’

She held out a folded sheet of paper, and Edward’s resentment against her dissolved in the remembrance of that tragic loss of life more than a year ago. He turned back and took her hand.

‘Forgive me, Sophy. I’ll do as you say and seek out this brother, though I doubt he’ll say aught to surprise me.’

‘Take care, Edward – for her sake, take care!’

It was dusk when the Petersfield stagecoach reached Portsmouth, and Edward’s landlady at the recommended lodging looked askance when he asked about the Galleon.

‘That be no place for a gentleman o’ the cloth, sir. ’Tis a haunt o’ thieves and cut-throats who’d kill a stranger for his gold.’ Edward assured her that he would not go down to Stokes Bay until daylight on the morrow.

The Galleon was well out of the town to the west, at the bottom of a roughly paved incline where women were selling fresh fish at stalls along one side. It gave on to a stretch of scrubby ground littered with broken boats, bleached ropes and rotting nets where ragged urchins rooted among the debris, their shouts drifting in the autumnal wind blowing off the sea.

Edward entered the Galleon and ordered a tankard of ale from a one-eyed man with a red silk scarf and gold earring.

‘What be yer business, Parson?’ came the suspicious enquiry.

Edward’s experience in the navy had given him a commanding manner, which he believed stood him in good stead with characters like this and two other men who sat crouched over a smoky wood fire. They nudged each other and grinned. Edward sat down and spread out a map.

‘Anybody seen cross-eyed Jack around here lately?’ he asked casually. ‘I have gold for him if he’ll show his face.’

There was immediate interest. ‘Ah, Jack ain’t bin around fur a while,’ said the landlord, giving the other two a sharp look to silence any remark to the contrary.

‘Then I must look elsewhere.’ Edward raised his tankard.

‘Though Oi dare say as him could be found, like.’ The meaning was clear enough.

‘Well, if Jack could be found and brought here by noon today, I’ll double this.’ Edward put his hand in his pocket and drew out three gold guineas, which he put down on the shelf that held the tankards. The one-eyed landlord pocketed them at once.

‘If Oi find un, who’ll Oi say be askin’ fur un?’

‘Parson Calthorpe of Beversley in this county.’ Edward set the tankard down with a flourish. ‘I’ll return at noon, and if Jack be not within sight from the door I shall not come across the threshhold. And I have no more gold on me now, so I’m not worth robbing.’

‘Come back by noon, then, an’ come alone, or ye won’t get past the door,’ growled the landlord.

Edward strode out of the tavern, satisfied with the impression he had given, yet with a sinking of his spirits that he could not quite account for. There was a certain shame in probing into Susan’s history without her knowledge, and the very fact that Sophia had sent him this far must mean that he was to hear a horrible account of Susan’s ravishment by some vile brute, or worse, a gang of brutes.

When he returned on the stroke of midday the Galleon had filled up, as if the word had got around about the strange parson with gold to give away for a sight of cross-eyed Jack.

And there he was, standing in the doorway with a wary look that combined greed with curiosity in equal measure. Edward gasped with shock, so debased had Jack Lucket become. The squint was disconcerting enough, but the broken nose and loose mouth hinted at violence and depravity in a youth of not yet seventeen, with decayed teeth like an old man’s and unhealthy skin; yet something about his forehead and jaw had a look of Joby. To think that this obscenity was brother to his Susan was repellent to Edward, but he stepped forward and held out his hand.

‘Good day to you, Jack. I’m Edward Calthorpe, married to your sister Susan. I want to talk with you and not be overheard.’

The landlord got his further three guineas and gave them a table behind a tall wooden partition, partly within sight but out of earshot of the others.

‘Will you take ale?’ asked Edward.

‘Oi’d sooner ha’ rum, mister.’

Edward asked for a bottle of rum, clearly Jack’s regular tipple, and ale for himself. Once they were seated he extracted a leather purse from an inside pocket and put it on the table, keeping his hand upon it.

‘There’s ten guineas for you, Jack, but in return I want some information about those early days when you lived with your parents and sisters and brother at Ash-Pit End.’

‘Oh, ah.’ Jack swallowed a mouthful of neat spirit without turning a hair. His eyes narrowed. ‘So ’ee be wedded to Sukey, then?’

‘I have that happiness, Jack. And your poor mother died in the House of Industry this month.’

‘Oh, ah? Oi thought her’d been gone long since. Sukey was a good’un, though. Her’d ha’ runn’d off afore her did, only her stayed fur Polly. Ay, her was a reg’lar good’un.’

This praise of Susan should have been welcome to Edward, proving that even in his degraded state Jack retained some natural affection for his sister; yet Edward felt only a stifling sense of oppression, of evil creeping nearer with each minute. He was conscious of his heart pounding.

‘What happened to your father, Jack?’

The boy’s malevolently crossed eyes gleamed. ‘Him ain’t around no more.’

‘D’you mean – is he dead?’

‘Aye. Him was run in by the constables one night down by the rocks.’ He gestured with his head towards the west.

‘You mean the contraband trade, do you? Brandy?’

Jack tapped the side of his crooked nose with a grimy forefinger, and grinned. ‘Hangman’s rope ha’ done fur a few on ’em, mister. Him picked up the wrong signals, if ’ee gets me meanin’. Hah!’

Another swig of rum disappeared, and Edward got the impression that wrong signals or not, some unscheduled plot of Jack’s had gone according to plan. Better not to enquire further, but get on with the business in hand before Jack became drunk.