Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (15 page)

Thirty

With all her attention on birthing what turned out to be twin babies, and a young mother too exhausted to push one, let alone two daughters into the world, Tiola had no time to think of Jesamiah. Perhaps that was as well, for despite her usually serene temperament she felt like hitting him. Occasionally, he could be the most annoying, dim-witted, unbearable crab-head she knew. How often did he grasp the wrong end of the rope and cling on to the bitter end, rather than admit he was wrong? Almost always because he considered he was right in everything.

In truth, Tiola realised that she, too, was not completely in the right over this latest rift between them. She had been ill, which had weakened her awareness and judgement, and she was shaken by discovering her brother here in Devon, as much as the hurt caused by Jesamiah’s assumption that she had fallen into the arms of a lover as soon as his back was turned. Did he know and trust her so little?

She’d had no idea that Carter had reverted to their mother’s maiden name of Trevithick, nor that he had left Cornwall and settled in Devon as landlord of the
Full Moon
. How could she have known? She had written three times, once to say she was safe and settled, a second to tell of Jenna Pendeen’s death, and a third to announce she had married. Her first marriage that had been, to the Dutchman, Stefan van Overstratten. She had not found opportunity to write a fourth occasion to impart that she had been widowed and remarried to a rogue of an ex-pirate. Not one of her letters had given her whereabouts, or her chosen name of Oldstagh – like her brother she too had abandoned Garrick – the surname of her mother’s husband, the name he had registered in the Holy Book of the church where he preached as vicar. Although it was little comfort, now, to know through her gift of Craft that the man she had been obliged to call Father had only sired the first three sons born to her mother. Elswyth, wife to the Reverend Andrew Garrick had suffered at his brutality, but had taken her secret revenge in the arms of a gentle lover. Who that lover had been Tiola had no desire to know, nor did she have any intention of informing Carter about his existence.

Tiola smiled as she coaxed the second newborn little girl to suckle at her mother’s breast. Isabella was tired, but insisted on giving what she could of her first milk to her daughters. “Your mama has sent word to find a wet nurse to assist you, for you need rest to regain your strength.”

“Never,” Isabella confessed, “will I go through birth again, but to see this dear little face… Is she not the most beautiful thing?”

“Indeed she is,” Tiola answered. “Birth is a miracle that even after bringing so many babes into life, I still cannot witness without wonder.”

“For all that, my husband will be disappointed that he has not a son to prove his manliness.”

Men! The word shot through Tiola’s mind.
What mischievous quirk of nature had set their overblown ego in the prowess of their cods?

“I would wish there was a way to prevent me having another child,” Isabella sighed, “but that would be defying my husband and God’s will, and that I cannot do.”

With her skill of Craft, Tiola had remedies that prevented a womb from quickening, but it was not her place to make mention of it to a young woman on the new cusp of motherhood. Were her life in danger from further childbirth, then it would have been different, or if she had a lover who cared more than a rotten-hearted husband, as had Tiola’s mother. It had been Tiola’s grandmother who had passed on the knowledge of Craft. On her death the Wisdom of the Old Ones had transposed into the awareness of the girl-child growing in her daughter’s womb. Elswyth herself had held no power, for it could only pass from grandmother to granddaughter, but Grandmother had known the herbs and remedies, the ways of helping to start a child, or stop one. After three sons, born through fear and violence, no more children had been born from the seed of an evil man. Although he never knew it.

Tiola smiled as the baby, her belly full, eyes scrunched up, milk bubbling from the corner of her mouth, yawned. Tiny, fragile, beautiful.

There were many things that men did not know or understand about women, and many who would never know that a child was conceived from another’s seed. Only a woman had the secret knowing of that, which was why, through millennium after millennium, so many arrogant, pious, men had dominated and oppressed women. Women had secrets that men could not control.

Taking the child from Isabella, who was almost asleep, Tiola laid the baby next to her sister in the cradle. The one baby bed had to suffice for both, but there was room in plenty for they were both small. Petite, their proud grandmother had called them. Then there were men like Jesamiah. Outward bravado and swagger, inward soft-hearted tenderness, when the fog of idiotic foolishness was not clouding his senses. This silly misunderstanding about her brother; why had Jesamiah been so obnoxious? Why had he not listened, or given her opportunity to explain?

Pegget’s married name had alerted her, but there were Trevithicks by the dozen throughout Devon and Cornwall. The last thing she had expected was to see her brother, her dear, dear brother standing there in the
Full Moon
Inn. Nor for Jesamiah to jump, feet first and weighed down with an anchor, to the wrong conclusion.

From the window Tiola could see the confluence of the Taw and Torridge, both in flood now, and beyond, the line of white froth that was the Bar. The anger that was Tethys, trying to get in to the estuary.

There was a woman walking on the sand, her belly swollen, heavy with child. Aimlessly walking, the track of her footsteps meandering and criss-crossing. Tiola frowned. Was she ill? Distraught? She had no bonnet, no cloak, and her gown was sodden at the hem. The skirt was stained. Tiola gasped, realising that Time had shifted and she was no longer looking at the Instow beach in the year 1719. Pain was wracking through the woman as the babe within her demanded to be born, but still she walked. Tears of grief and fear blinding her eyes, her hands supporting the bulge of her abdomen, pressing in as if trying to stop the child from coming into the world.

The tide was on the flood, surging in. A tide high enough – and strong enough – to breach the Bar and roar in as if the barrier were no longer there.

The woman stood at the edge of the lapping waves, bent double with pain as the insistence of life could no longer be challenged. Then she fell, and stayed down, weeping, gasping, as the sea came in, laughing in triumph as it surrounded her.

Tiola clutched at the windowsill for support to save herself from falling. When she looked again there was no woman, no sand, no swirling inrush of an omnipotent sea. Only the high tide of the estuary, with a two-masted barque sailing inward over the Bar.

Thirty One

“No!” Jesamiah barked as he pushed open the carriage door with his uninjured shoulder and carefully hauled himself through, wincing as the bruised side of his body protested. “Don’t cut the horses free!”

The driver hesitated, his knife hovering over one of the traces. He looked towards the man emerging from the wreckage. “If they spook, mister, we could end up in more of a mess. I cannot leave them, and we must get the ladies out!”

Jesamiah cut him short. “I’ll see to the ladies, you see to them ‘orses. They’re the only things keeping this contraption from falling in the river, ladies an’ all. Do what you can to make sure they don’t bloody panic.”

Seeing sense in that, the driver went to the horses’ heads, rubbed their noses, spoke, gentle and soothing words, although the fear in his voice somewhat marred the desired effect. These were experienced carriage horses, long in the tooth at their job and not inclined to panic, but even the steadiest horse could take fright, and equine instinct was to flee from danger.

Kneeling, Jesamiah leant down into the carriage and cursed as it shifted an inch. Pamela squealed. “Keep still, woman!” he snapped, his own concern overriding politeness. “Are you hurt? Is her ladyship conscious?”

“I am in one piece, I think, but my aunt’s breathing is quite shallow. What am I to do?”

Peering carefully in, Jesamiah could see the elder woman sprawled over her niece pinning her down. “Can you move?”

“I’m not sure.” Pamela wriggled, the carriage slid another inch.

“Get those horses to take the strain of the harness!” Jesamiah yelled over his shoulder; to Pamela he commanded, “Keep still.” Then he added, “I am going to say this just in case. If the carriage goes in, take a deep breath and don’t thrash about, else you’ll make the water muddy and I’ll not be able to see when I come to get you.” He said it despite knowing that such an order would be impossible for her to obey.

“If it goes in? Oh God!”

What to do? Jesamiah looked round. They needed rope; something to anchor the bloody thing to firm ground. Anchor! He dare not stand, or attempt to jump down, for his weight was keeping the body of the carriage steady, but he could shout. He cupped his hands around his mouth and in the bellow that he used to bark orders to his crew in the midst of a gale at sea he shouted across the river. “Ahoy, Rue! Ahoy! Ahoy!” Again; three, four times. On the fifth, he saw Rue wave – he had heard! “Help! We need help!”

Rue disappeared, then reappeared on the quarterdeck, and stood with his arms raised at the rail. A glint of light on glass; he was looking through the telescope! Good man! A few moments later there was flurried movement along the
Sea Witch’s
deck. The gig was being lowered. Men were scrambling in, rowing, the oars dipping and lifting, Rue’s voice calling; “Pull! Pull! Pull!”

“Hurry!” Jesamiah urged, “there are two trapped in here!”

Rue did not waste breath answering, but from where he sat in the stern was already assessing the situation. As the gig bumped against the shore, men leapt out and scrabbled up the bank, coils of rope in their hands. Within moments four lines had been fixed to wherever there was a solid anchorage point on the damaged carriage, and the other ends wound firm around the nearest, stoutest trees. Jesamiah could risk leaning into the carriage. His hands grabbed at Lady Bethan’s inert body and inelegantly he pulled her through the door. Isiah Roberts was there, and young Jasper to help. They laid her carefully on firm ground, Jasper taking off his jacket to bundle into a pillow for her head. Again Jesamiah reached in, offering his hand for Pamela to take. She grasped it, curling her fingers into his strong grip, bit back the tears as her hip scraped on the wooden door frame as she scrambled through. She clutched at Jesamiah, was aware that another man was reaching up, his firm, wide hands spanning her waist as he lifted her down to safety.

“I ‘ave you,
mademoiselle; vous êtes en sécurité
.”

He smelt of tobacco and tar; his face was weatherworn, and as his smiling eyes met hers Pamela felt as if she had known this man through all her life.

Thirty Two

Rue had set his coat around Pamela’s shoulders and held her close for warmth and comfort as the crew rowed the gig back across the river. Lady Bethan was conscious, but disorientated, and as he intended to make sail as soon as possible anyway, Jesamiah had made the decision to take them both aboard
Sea Witch,
where he had blankets, braziers, and brandy. He had sent the driver back to Instow with the horses, abandoning the wreck of what was left of the carriage. “
Tell them to watch out for the
Sea Witch
. And ensure my wife is sent for; she is at Instow House.”

Once the horses and securing ropes had been cut free the carriage had toppled down the bank, where it lay, broken and part submerged in the river and the mud. It would, Jesamiah guessed, remain there until it rotted for Pamela had confided that the family did not have the finances to salvage and repair it. “We lost most of our fortune during the war,” she had said. “The rest of it when Monmouth rebelled and we supported the wrong side.”

She had been close to tears, which was why Rue had taken her under his wing. “We are still on the wrong side,” she had added.

What side is the wrong side?
Jesamiah wondered as
Sea Witch
weighed anchor and he put the helm over to guide her into the ebb tide current. The Kraut King, or the Catholic Exile over the water? George or James?

A different pilot was aboard, a man less talkative, but he had been filled with concern when hearing of the two passengers and their plight and had generously offered to waive his fee. The ladies from Tawford Barton, it seemed, were highly regarded and well respected.

“You will find yourself applauded for saving their lives, Captain,” the pilot had observed. “You will be the talk of North Devon for a while.”

Jesamiah was not certain he wanted such a public accolade, least, not while he still had a few hundred pounds sterling value of contraband on board.

Maybe Tiola would be impressed though. Enough to forgive him?

The welfare of the ladies was important, but for the moment,
Sea Witch
was his priority. Jesamiah took the helm himself, the manoeuvres required more or less the same as for coming up river, but in reverse, although the wind direction was more favourable. Most of the crew had been rounded up easily; they rarely went further than the nearest taverns and brothels along a quayside. The majority were not sober, but there were few sailors who could not function while the worse the wear for drink. Only seven were too drunk to be of use, and Jesamiah had left them behind. A pity that Crawford had not been among them, but he had been one of the first to return and he was as sober as a priest. That in itself gave cause for Jesamiah to dislike the man. No Tar went ashore and did not imbibe in drink or fornication, and who had he been talking to? Jesamiah had only got a glimpse of the man, a back view before he’d disappeared around a corner into one of Bideford’s many narrow, secluded alleys. If he hadn’t known better he would have sworn that Crawford had been conversing with Henry Jennings.

Crawford had come aboard at Nassau where many ex-pirates had taken an oath of amnesty. They had been short-handed for a voyage to Hispaniola, and as an experienced sailor there was no reason not to sign him on. But there was something about the man, something about the way he squinted out the corner of his eye, about the way he was always
there
, watching, something that made Jesamiah think, every time he clapped eyes on him, that Bob Crawford was not all he seemed. Jesamiah watched him carefully as they negotiated the first bend, but the man worked well, he knew what he was doing, and didn’t shirk or linger behind the others. It occurred to Jesamiah as he watched him work: was Crawford deliberately ensuring that he gave no excuse to kick him off the crew?

“Wear ship!” Jesamiah called and spun the wheel, forcing his mind back onto the task in hand, but safely into the next stretch and with
Sea Witch
drifting sedately, he had time to think on things again.

An uneasy suspicion popped back into his mind.
Was that Henry Jennings you were with?
he wondered.
Are you his man?
That was it! Crawford had deliberately been put aboard
Sea Witch
to spy on Jesamiah. That would explain everything.

The next fifteen minutes took all his attention as he nursed, guided and bullied his ship downriver. Rue came on deck to inform Jesamiah that both ladies were somewhat revived, although remained shaken.

“Finch is enjoying playing the part of nursemaid. ‘E says it is a pleasant change to ‘ave someone appreciative of ‘is attention.”

Jesamiah laughed, “And I have no doubt the lying old bugger is complaining bitterly about how poorly the captain of this ship treats him!”

The next time they had to wear ship, Jesamiah watched Crawford carefully, if discreetly. The man was inclined to grumble, but Jesamiah could not fault his work. It basically came down to dislike, and these silly thoughts of spies and spying were nothing more than fanciful thinking. Why on earth would Jennings bother to keep watch on Jesamiah? He had already put his life on the line for Henry. What more did the old bugger want from him? Blood? Huh, he’d already had that an’ all!

“Forget Crawford,” Jesamiah told himself, “and concentrate on what is important.”

They dropped anchor without mishap in mid-channel opposite John Benson’s Appledore warehouse. The Instow side would have been preferable for getting the ladies ashore, but the draught was shallower on that bank. As it was,
Sea Witch
would be settled on her keel in the sand for longer than Jesamiah was content with at low tide, but that was often the hazard with shallow water river harbours. At least in mid-channel she would have the run of the river water supporting her, even if it were no more than a minimum buoyancy.

Leaving Isiah Roberts in charge to set everything fair and in order, Jesamiah and Rue concentrated on the business of taking Lady Bethan and Pamela Radcliffe home.

“We cannot expect them to clamber down the hull cleats,” Rue said dismally as he peered over the side at the scummy water below. “Nor do I think it advisable to lower them with the boat.”

Jesamiah was scratching at his beard. He tried keeping it trimmed short to along the jawline; it did itch so if he neglected it. He was thinking exactly the same thing.

Several people were gathered on the far side of the river on the Instow Quay. He recognised one of the men by the cut and red colour of his coat as the carriage driver. There was a boy in a black cloak; Tom Benson, and the broad man behind him, therefore, was his father. The others, Jesamiah could not make out. Servants, he supposed. One woman he would know anywhere, at any distance, and not by the green cloak alone. Tiola.

Are they alright?
Her words came clear into his mind.

~ A bit bruised and shaken. I like not Lady Bethan’s pallor. ~

Bring them across with care, then, Jesamiah.

He didn’t bother answering that one, instead, offered,
~ I’m a bit bruised and battered as well. I think I’ve hurt my shoulder. ~

I expect you will live.

Jesamiah scratched at his chin again. Being spoken to but not forgiven then. “We’ll use a boson’s chair. Get it rigged.”

Rue agreed. That was what he would have suggested.