Love and the Loathsome Leopard (16 page)

She dared not take the chance of finding out.

Besides, everything that was sensitive in her shrank from taking life, even the life of Jeffrey Farlow.

“You’ll not find me ungenerous,” he was saying, as if he was following the train of his own thoughts, “and I might, if you ask me nicely, build you a house at Roscoff. That way you’d have one on each side of the Channel! What do you say to that?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Wivina said proudly. “You had no right to bring us here, and let me say again, I would rather die than marry you!”

“You’ll marry me,” Jeffrey Farlow said. “I’ve wanted you a long time, Wivina, and you ought to know by now that I always get what I want.”

“I loathe you!” she exclaimed violently.

He chuckled.

“I’ll teach you to love me. All women want a master and that’s what you’ve found in me.”

He looked at her as he spoke, but she dared not meet his eyes. What she saw only revolted her and made her feel as if he was already touching her. She wanted to scream at the sheer terror of it.

She thought he took a step forward almost as if he would put his arms round her. Then, as if he had changed his mind, he smiled unpleasantly at them both and then walked back towards the stairway.

“If you prefer to go thirsty that’s your look-out,” he said. “But if you change your minds, give me a shout.”

He climbed the steps as he spoke and with a sigh of relief Wivina saw the last glimmer of his polished boots as he disappeared above.

She turned to look at Richard.

“Why did you not shoot the swine?” he asked.

“I thought of it,” Wivina answered, “but I was too afraid of what the smugglers would then do to us.”

“Perhaps I had better have a pistol too,” Richard suggested.

“There is nowhere for you to hide it,” Wivina answered. “I will keep this one concealed, and I meant it, Richard, when I said that I would kill myself rather than marry him!”

Richard did not speak, but Wivina thought that he went very pale.

Then after a moment he asked almost savagely,

“How the hell did we ever get mixed up in all this? When Papa saw how bad things were he should have left Larkswell.”

“Papa was not a coward. He would never have run away.”

Richard thought this over for a moment and then he said,

We have to defeat Farlow. We have to defeat him, Wivina, but how? How can we do it?”

“I don’t – know,” she said helplessly.

*

It was nearly three hours later before there was a faint puff of wind and the lugger began to sway on the swell of the waves.

By now, Wivina guessed that the men on the deck above were very drunk and she thought that Jeffrey Farlow must be too.

They had forgotten the precaution of keeping their voices low for fear of the Revenue Cutters, and sang songs in slurred voices, shouted at one another and altogether made the most unseemly noise for men in charge of a ship.

Now as the lugger moved forward, she could hear their feet scraping along the deck and occasionally a thud as if a body had fallen down.

Half a dozen people were shouting orders all at the same time and she was quite certain few of them were being obeyed.

Looking through the porthole, she could see that the mist had lifted a little, and she knew that once the wind began to blow, the fog would disperse altogether.

She was to guess a little later that, owing to the drunkenness of those in control, the lugger was being sailed in a crazy manner. They were not travelling at the speed they should have been or even moving in the right direction.

She slipped her hand into Richard’s as they sat side by side and saw by the expression on his intelligent face that he was aware, as she was, of a new danger that confronted them.

“If the wind really begins to blow we shall doubtless land up on the rocks or be capsized,” he said.

“I know,” Wivina answered, “but perhaps even that would be better than the fate that awaits us in Roscoff!”

“If we ever get there!” Richard said gloomily.

*

They did get there, but not until the night had been passed at sea and it was dawn the following day.

Both Wivina and Richard were desperately hungry and thirsty by that time, but they had no desire to draw attention to themselves and Wivina was only thankful that Jeffrey Farlow had not come below to see how they were faring.

She had the idea, although, of course, she was not sure, that he was the only man aboard by this time who had some control over himself and that he was therefore in sole command.

She could hear him giving orders and she wondered if he had taken over the navigation, in which case the danger of piling up on a rock was not so likely as it would be in the hands of one of the other smugglers.

She was well aware that the men of the village were not on the whole seafaring men, but were farm labourers, strong and healthy, who would have been in most cases, she was sure, better at handling an oar than sailing a ship.

She had always thought that the smugglers’ boats were rowed to and fro across the Channel. But on thinking it over she thought that it must have been because Jeffrey Farlow knew that a lugger would carry more cargo and be swifter that he dispensed with oarsmen and invested in such a large and doubtless expensive vessel.

Whatever the reason, it was on occasions when there was a dead calm that oarsmen would have been more reliable in getting them to their destination.

They must have been very far off course, Wivina thought, for even when she could see the coast of France, a dark silhouette against the light sky, they did not move towards it but sailed West for quite a long time before they turned towards the shore.

Then at last as the sun was rising and dispersing the last sable of the night, she and Richard realised they had come into Port.

Richard had slept through some of the hours of darkness, but Wivina had sat beside him wide-awake, listening to the sounds overhead, trying to plan what she should do once they were taken ashore.

It was difficult to think clearly, because she was desperately tired and the terror which grew insidiously inside her with every hour that passed made her feel as if her will had gone.

All she wanted to do was cry despairingly like a child who was lost.

But a pride that was stronger than herself made her hold her head high, when finally the ship was tied up at the jetty and Jeffrey Farlow sent one of his smugglers down to tell them to come up on deck.

“’E wants you!” the man said, jerking his thumb towards the steps.

He did not look at Wivina as he spoke, and she knew it was because he came from the village and, like the other men, was ashamed of what he was doing.

“Thank you, Ben,” she said. “I hope you are proud of the way you and the others have behaved in bringing Master Richard and myself here. You know full well that we have come against our will.”

“T’ain’t nothin’ to do with me,” Ben murmured uncomfortably.

“I am ashamed of all of you!” Wivina said. “And my father would say the same, if you had not killed him!”

She saw the look of horror in the young man’s eyes and she thought perhaps he had wanted to believe, as some of the others did, that her father’s death had been an accident.

There was nothing more to say and she walked past him, her chin raised, conscious that she held in her left hand the pistol hidden beneath her cloak.

Richard followed her, limping badly because his leg was cramped from sitting all night.

Jeffrey Farlow was waiting for them up on deck.

Most of the men, who were more sober by now, looked unpleasant and dirty, but he looked surprisingly immaculate, although his white cravat had lost its freshness.

“We’ve arrived at last!” he said, as Wivina appeared. “We should have been here many hours ago if it had not been for these muddling fools!”

He glanced with contempt at the smugglers and put out his hand to help Wivina to cross the gangplank onto the jetty.

She moved quickly so that she could give him her right hand, and, although she hated the feeling of his fingers on hers, she knew that she must keep him from coming to her left side.

Roscoff was bigger and more impressive than she had expected.

There were quite a number of well-built houses painted white and with the red-tiled roofs that she knew were characteristic of Brittany.

She also saw large warehouses built down near the quay and knew it was there that the smugglers purchased their contraband goods.

As they walked along the jetty, she saw men coming from the warehouses carrying bales and kegs, and there were half a dozen different sized boats in the harbour that were being loaded.

She made no comment, but moved along beside Jeffrey Farlow, followed by Richard.

“Since I brought you here on the impulse of the moment,” Jeffrey Farlow was saying, “I can’t take you to Tom Johnson’s house, which he’s promised us for our honeymoon. He’s got a woman there who’s hardly in your class, but I’ll get her out by tonight so that we can go there as soon as we’re married.”

He waited as if he expected Wivina to protest, but she deliberately said nothing, biting her lower lip to prevent herself from obeying her first impulse and raging at him.

“You’ll have to put up with the inn,” he went on, as she did not speak. “It’s not much of a place, but you’ll be able to sleep as I expect you will want to do.”

He looked at her and then said, being deliberately provocative,

“You’d better sleep while you can since it’s something I’ll not let you do tonight after we’re married!”

Wivina drew in her breath but still she did not reply.

As if he was tired of baiting her, Jeffrey Farlow walked on rather more quickly until they came to the end of the jetty.

There was a narrow cobbled street leading between a number of fishermen’s houses and halfway up there was a small inn of the type that was to be found in most French villages.

Although it was so early, the door was already open and an elderly woman was sweeping out the first room they approached.

“Here I am,
Madame,”
Jeffrey Farlow said in excruciating French, with a pronounced British accent, “and I’ve brought my bride as I told you I would.”

“You are very early,
Monsieur,
or should I say very late?”
Madame
said.

“We’re late!” Jeffrey Farlow exclaimed. “We were becalmed on the way over and those blasted seamen didn’t know if they were going to Boulogne or Roscoff.”

Madame
gave a shriek of laughter which turned into a fit of coughing.

“I suppose you want a drink,” she said. “I’ll shout for Henri, but the good God knows where he has got to, and he has the keys of the bar.”

She put her hand to her mouth as she spoke, and then screamed,

“Henri! Henri!” in a high soprano voice which seemed to echo through the whole inn.

“Never mind about a drink,” Jeffrey Farlow said sharply. “What my future wife wants is food and coffee. We’ve been at sea for a night and a day without a bite to eat.”

“Mon Dieu!
Is it possible?”
Madame
exclaimed.

“We would like something to eat, if you please,
Madame,”
Wivina said in perfect French, “but my brother and I would first like to be shown to our bedrooms. We are very tired and also would like to wash.”

The way she spoke and her knowledge of the French language impressed
Madame,
and it was in a very different tone of voice from the way she had spoken to Jeffrey Farlow that she replied,

“Of course,
M’mselle.
Come with me. It is fortunate that I have two rooms vacant which will accommodate you comfortably.”

Without even glancing at Jeffrey Farlow, Wivina followed
Madame
up the stairs and only as she reached a door did she hear him shout after her,

“I’ll be seeing you later. Rest while you can!”

She thought there was a note of defiance in his voice. She knew that his whole attitude was deliberately proprietary but there was nothing she could do about it.

The rooms into which
Madame
showed them were poorly furnished but clean and Wivina suddenly felt so tired that she thought all she wanted to do was climb into the bed and sleep.

Madame
pulled back the coverlet.

“The mattress is of goose feathers,
M’mselle,”
she said, “so you will sleep well.”

“I am very hungry,” Richard said.

Madame
smiled at him.

“I will cook for you an omelette,
Monsieur,
and you would like coffee? Or would you prefer something stronger?”

“Coffee is what we both would like,” Wivina said quickly, “and thank you,
Madame.
We are sorry to inconvenience you.”

“That is quite all right,
M’mselle.
We keep strange hours in Roscoff, but who should complain when the money is good?”

She went down the stairs as she spoke and Wivina looked at the door.

There was a wooden bolt on it and also the key which turned the lock.

She slipped the pistol she held in her hand under the pillow while Richard watched her.

“What are you going to do about him?” he asked, and there was no need to explain whom he meant.

“I don’t know,” Wivina answered. “We shall just have to wait and see.”

As she spoke, she sat down on the side of the bed, feeling sick and exhausted.

Her brain seemed to be running round and round in circles and she thought that Roscoff was a prison from which she would never escape alive.

Richard went into the next room and she heard him beginning to undress.

In fact by the time
Madame
came upstairs with a tray complete with the omelette she had promised Richard, and coffee and rolls, he was almost asleep.

“You must eat the omelette after she has gone to so much trouble to prepare it for you,” Wivina said.

“You help me,” Richard suggested. “I am so tired and I am no longer hungry.”