Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (13 page)

Twenty Six

Ham, eggs, new made bread, fresh-churned Devon butter served with a generous helping of apple chutney relish, and washed down with several cups of coffee – Jesamiah felt more human again. He sat sprawled in a chair occasionally glancing at the scenery outside, in particular the tide swamping the course of the river and the sandy beach. Young Thomas Benson had gone across more than half an hour ago, waving his arms about in an effort to make Kildy put his back into rowing. On the far side the lad had leapt from the boat, splashed through the shallows, and hurried up the quayside steps to the
Full Moon
Inn. He had yet to reappear.

It had occurred to Jesamiah as he had swallowed down the last of the coffee that perhaps he should have fetched Tiola himself. It would have given him an excuse to make his apologies. Too late now; he’d have to think of something when she reached this side of the estuary.

Ah! There they were. Distant figures, but undoubtedly them. A boy running down the steps to the narrowing beach, a woman following more sedately. Tiola rarely ran when summoned by a client, maintaining that she could get to places as quickly at a brisk walk, and that a midwife running could cause unnecessary alarm. To Jesamiah’s consternation, however, someone else was with her – a man was helping her down those weed-slippery steps. The distance was too great for Jesamiah to see who he was.Anxiously he felt into his coat pocket, swore beneath his breath; he had left his telescope on
Sea Witch
for safe keeping. Did he need to see? Could he not guess the identity? She had said he was her brother, why should he not be brotherly towards her? Damn it! Jesamiah did not want someone being brotherly. Brothers were trouble, brothers were possessive, sly, mean. They wanted to control, and Tiola needed no brother. She had him, Jesamiah, her husband!

He watched the boat coming back, could see Thomas, in the bows, squirming round to assess how far they had to go, Tiola sitting in the stern next to,
Him.
As they approached the Instow side of the estuary, the cottages alongside the quay obscured the boat from view. Tempted to go outside to meet Tiola, Jesamiah forced himself to sit still. He half rose, changed his mind, sat down again. Should he go? Should he stay? He reached for his hat; was distracted by Nicholas Hartley’s sudden bellow of laughter from where he propped up the bar counter, the sound joined by hearty guffaws from Benson and the landlord. The three men had been discussing something of earnest importance this last fifteen minutes. Jesamiah had not eavesdropped; other people’s merchant trading, whether legal or illegal, held no interest for him.

“Would ye care for a drop of cider?” Benson called from across the room. “We have shamefully neglected you, Captain Acorne. Ah, wait! They are here I see!”

His son was outside the window, frantically beckoning. Two people were walking up the hill. Tiola, and Carter Trevithick. He had washed, shaved, and attired himself in clean clothes, no sign of blood or injury. Benson strode to the door, his son-in-law, not so hurried, paused to pull on gloves, find his hat, then followed more like a man who had time to kill, not one whose wife may be dying, or already dead.

Perhaps indifference is his way of dealing with things?
Jesamiah conceded, as jaw clenched, he set his own hat on his head and went outside to face Tiola and Trevithick. They were walking, brazen, in full daylight with her arm threaded through his. Jesamiah bunched his fist, his arm was taut – it was utterly stupid, but the incomprehensible jealousy raised its ugly head again, and refused to lie down. Jesamiah knew it was irrational, but still he wanted to hit the man. Hit him and hit him. Regretted rescuing him – should have left him to freeze to death, bleed to death. Be captured, be hanged, but he had sense enough to reckon that now was not the time or place to have a public brawl, so he kept his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets in case temptation grew too strong.

Tiola at least had the decency, on seeing him emerge from the tavern, to let go of the bugger’s arm, and to step a foot or so away from him. Ha! Guilty conscience? Was she hoping her husband had not noticed the intimacy?

Benson whisked his hat from his head and offered a deep and courteous bow. “Mistress Acorne, I thank ye for coming so prompt, m’dear; my daughter is in a bad way, so m’wife tells me. I know nothing of these things, save my first boy were delivered in half the time that this babe seems t’be takin’.” The worry was there in his voice, a slight quiver, a choke in his dry throat.

“It is my pleasure to attend, Squire Benson. I will do all I can to aid your daughter’s labour.” Tiola bobbed a curtsey and peered over Benson’s broad shoulder at Hartley, not failing to see the flicker of relief in his face, but misinterpreting, assumed he was relieved at her presence, unaware it was more to do with her not turning out to be a ragged tavern slut. “A first child can often be a long and difficult birth. I will do all I can for her, but I can do nought standing here in the lane.”

Benson almost jumped and reached to take the bag from Carter Trevithick’s hand. “Nicholas, do you wish to escort Mistress Acorne to the house?”

“Nay, there be no need, Thomas knows the way. Aside, I have more business to discuss with the landlord here.”

Nicholas Hartley returned inside the tavern. Benson, after bowing again to Tiola, trailed after him with Carter close at heel. Jesamiah stood in the lane, alone, not sure what to do, feeling like a bewildered boy on his first day at school. “I’ll come with you,” he called after Tiola, who was already twenty yards up the lane, Thomas Benson trotting beside her.

You are no use to me in a birthing chamber. Your time would be better employed being nice to my brother.

And why should I be doing that?

~
Because you are behaving like an imbecile and because I ask it of you. ~

Forget it.

Very well.

Jesamiah’s mind filled with a blank darkness. She had gone, end of conversation.

“Oh bugger it,” he grumbled as he turned towards the tavern’s door, pushed it open and marched inside.

Benson was seating himself at the window table, removing his hat and propping his walking cane against the wall. Carter, to Jesamiah’s interest, had accosted Hartley, his hand gripped tight to the taller man’s arm.

This is interesting
, Jesamiah thought to himself. He sat down, listening intently to the short, but heated conversation between the two men.

“My money, Hartley. You said I would have it three days since.”

“You shall have it, when I am ready to give it.”

“That were good brandy. We risked a lot to fetch it in.”

Hartley’s response was a sneer. “Keep your voice down – and remove your hand from my person. You shall be paid, when I have the money.”

Carter lowered his voice but did not remove his hand. “Money which you know you do not have. There will be no more goods for you, sir, until you settle your debts.”

Fastidiously, Hartley picked off the gripping fingers. “If your recent shambles is anything to go by, there will be no goods for anyone, Trevithick. Who is responsible for that mess, hmm? You?”

Carter Trevithick almost choked on the furious words that spluttered from his lips. “We were lured onto the rocks, as well you know. My question, Hartley, is who told the excise about us? How did they know when we were sailing? Can you tell me that?”

Twenty Seven

John Benson frowned as the exchange between his son-in-law and his friend, Carter Trevithick, became more heated. They were both being indiscreet. It was bad taste to do business in public, especially
private
business. He was also annoyed that Nicholas had not paid what he owed to Trevithick. The man was in as much financial difficulty as most people here along the north coast of Devon – and elsewhere for all Benson knew. Hartley also had money problems, but did the fool need to ensure all and sundry knew of it?

“Nicholas,” he called, louder than necessary, “send that serving lass over here – we are in need of our glasses refilled! Carter come and join us, it looks like you have worked up a thirst.” He half rose and enthusiastically beckoned Carter over. The man came, scowling at still not being paid, and then scowling deeper at Jesamiah as he sat down opposite him.

Jesamiah stared back through narrowed eyes. Thought:
Be nice to him? I have no idea how to be nice to a brother. My brother was never nice to me.

Carter folded his arms; returned the stare. For Tiola’s sake he had promised to be congenial, and he was grateful – this fellow had, unasked and unexpected, helped him out of a tight spot. On the other side of the debate, he was rough, uncouth, scowled and kept his hand near his cutlass hilt. This Acorne was trouble, was no good for Tiola and the sooner he was gone – and Tiola came to her senses – the better.

Seeing his sister sitting there in his own inn, her dear face, her sweet smile, had stunned him. For several minutes he had stood in the kitchen doorway, staring, not believing what – who – he was looking at. The last sight of her had been on a cold, sodden October night in 1715 as his smuggler friends had quietly rowed her and Jenna Pendeen, his mother’s maid, out into the darkness of a secluded cove. Laying off the coast had been a French fishing boat. England and France were often at war, but enemy or friend the Gentleman’s Free Trade of smuggling continued. Tiola had been no more than a child – still was – despite being a married woman. Pah! Married to a womanising pirate! What had the fool girl been thinking?

It had been a time of upheaval; her going, his father’s murder, his mother’s lynched hanging – Tiola’s too had the mob gotten hold of her. If only he had been there in the house that day; if only he, not their mother, had heard Tiola’s screams. The sorrow of ‘if only’! He had not been there, he had lingered in town, passing time with the chandler’s daughter. Had he been at home he would have plunged that kitchen knife through his father’s heart himself, and gladly so. The man was a bastard, for all he wore the title Reverend. He had terrorised mother and children, particularly when he had been in his cups, saturated with drink. It would have been good to have finished him off that day when the monster had attempted to rape his own daughter.

Carter rubbed his hand over his chin. He had not forgotten those days, but Tiola’s return had set them to the fore again. Getting her away to safety, facing down his elder brothers, all three of whom took after their father in looks, attitude and hypocrisy, had taken courage, and had shown him he did not want to stay in Cornwall where people hanged a woman for protecting her only daughter. Where people called his mother and sister slut, witch and whore. He had packed a few essentials and a trinket to remind him of his mother, and walked away up over the moors, his back turned to everything he had known in life. Pleased to have found, after the first mile, that his younger brother, three years older than Tiola, had hurried to catch him up. Bennett was a good lad. They had changed their name, the decision taken on that long walk in bitter weather across Dartmoor, heading north to God alone knew where. Garrick was not a name they wished to hear again, while
Trevithick
, their mother’s maid name was one that carried honour and pride. There were Trevithicks all over the West Country, unlike Garrick, that could easily be remembered as a murdered clergyman’s name.

“Trevithick?” Benson nudged Carter’s boot with his foot. “I asked what you would have. Cider? Brandy? A dram of rum?”

Startled, Carter half jumped. “What? Oh, thank you kindly, Squire. I’ll partake of a brandy if you don’t mind.” He grinned suddenly, wide and mischievous. “Though I can attest that the kegs served this side of the river be not as good as mine on t’other side.”

“Nicholas!” Benson called to his son-in-law who was at the bar, laughing with the landlord. “Three brandies here if you would be so kind.”

Hartley raised a hand in acknowledgement; bellowed another guffaw of laughter.

“Forgive me for saying,” Jesamiah observed, “your son-in-law does not seem overly concerned for his wife.”

Benson frowned. He did not like his son-in-law, but had no intention of saying so to a stranger. How such a spoilt, arrogant good-for-nothing, bone idle wastrel had emerged from the Dynam family he had no idea. Old Lady Jennet, her daughter and granddaughter were saints; kind, generous, nothing too much trouble for them. Lady Jennet’s nephew by marriage, the present Lord Westley, Viscount Cleve Hartley, was an amiable fellow, although he was often the worse for drink and had, so it was rumoured, debts up to his eyebrows, but his son, Nicholas? Benson sighed. What Isabella had seen in the fellow he could not fathom. “We all have different ways of dealing with what gives us concern. I prefer to keep busy, m’self. M’wife, bless her, has a tendency to want to purchase a new bonnet each time something vexes her!” The jest was a good one. Both Carter and Jesamiah laughed.

“I reckon lace and ribbons and pretty bonnets will not be high on your list, Sir John. This Whig government is bleeding us dry, and no mistake,” Carter said.

“You have a point there, lad, “Benson replied. “ We are all sailing in the same squall given the present political circumstances. I can see more than a few ruined by these taxes shackling our purses.”

“Are the Tories any better?” Jesamiah said. “Whatever government squats in Parliament it’s the ordinary folk who suffer.”

“Nay, nay, lad,” Benson replied, shaking his head. “Mention one whisper of sympathy towards the Tories in these parts and you could be ruined within the week. The West Country still suffers for the Monmouth Uprising y’see? Even those of us who stayed tucked in our beds and let Charles II’s base-born son and papist brother fight the succession out between them.”

Jesamiah stretched his boots out before him; noticed they had mud and sand clinging to the heel and sole. “You are not old enough for that wasted skirmish, surely? We’ve had Dutch Billy and Fat Anne on the throne since then.”

“And now we have the German Turnip,” Carter muttered.

Benson looked at him sharply, then turned the subject. “I was not far off my Thomas’s age when Monmouth initiated his rebellion. Old enough to recall Judge Jeffries’ reign of terror that followed. I can still see those he hanged,” he tapped his forehead, “up here, in my mind. The wailing of the women, the protests of the innocent – and yes there were many innocents. He hanged old men, children, women. All for the sake of the Catholic Church. Had England not suffered enough during the wars?”

Carter’s response was vehement. “We were already ruined under Cromwell. Hanover is making it worse for farmer, taverner and layman alike, whatever altar you kneel to.”

The landlord bringing the brandy was a timely diversion. He set three glasses to the table, and a bottle with them. “I hear there were a to-do a couple o’ nights back over your side,” he said to Trevithick. “Excisemen caught a band o’ smugglers red-handed, so rumour’s spreading.”

Carter poured himself a brandy. “Word is that the redcoats lured the boat on to Baggy Point by placing false lights. Poor beggars aboard thought it were the village and steered wrong; ran right onto the rocks. Them as didn’t drown were shot or arrested, and there’s no assurance of any survivors. Not that I know anything personally; it’s all rumour. This is good brandy. French by chance?”

“Aye, French. Legal imported an’ tax paid. Those caught deserve t’hang. If we permit lawlessness among the common folk we’d all ends up murdered in our beds. The law is the law, and any Jacobite smuggler should be aware of that.”

Listening, Jesamiah disagreed with every word, but prudently remained quiet. He could tell by Carter’s expression that they, at last, held a bit of common ground in this respect. For some, living on the money made from contraband was the only way of survival. Tea purchased in Holland at three-and-a-half pence a pound sold in England at anything from seventeen to twenty-five pence per pound. French brandy bought for one pound sterling per keg retailed at four pounds. With much of the profit going as taxes into parliamentary coffers was it any surprise that smuggling was looked on as a worthwhile business? And if this fellow had bought this brandy legally then he, Jesamiah, was a Molly caught with his drawers down.

“For all the profit,” Benson said, “smuggling carries a risk.”

“That it does,” Carter replied, “but whatever the right or wrong of it, deliberate wrecking is not something I hold to.” If any of them expected him to elaborate, they were to be disappointed. Carter had been one of the lucky ones to get away from that night’s dirty work, but he was not prepared to sing openly of it. What? Put a noose around his own neck for doing so? The only outsider who knew of his involvement was this fellow Acorne. Carter gazed at him, eye to eye. Maybe he would have to consider trusting the scut after all. He raised his glass in a form of salute. “Do ye not agree, Captain?”

Jesamiah gazed back. He did agree, was not certain he wanted to say so, but something neutral could be a stepping stone towards an amicable conversation, and would please Tiola. He reached for his glass, was about to raise it when the tavern door was flung open, and Thomas Benson, breathless, beaming a smile, burst in.

“She’s had two! Two girls popped out!”