by Jan Needle
Céline was an expert sailor, and they got the masts up almost without a difficulty. Shipping the rudder was the hardest — he had to grip her round the waist while she plunged head-under several times before the pintles and gudgeons were engaged — then they rested for a while, driving under poles. With wind and sea astern it was more comfortable, and in the east the sky was lightening. The clouds had retreated to pile above the land once more, and they both prayed for sun, and quickly, before they froze to death. Best part was when she rooted in an after locker, to produce cold cured bacon and a brandy bottle, put there — although she’d only guessed and hoped — when the boats were readied earlier, in case of a disaster. They ate like ravens, but drank sparingly, and that for warmth. Typical free trade trick, she mouthed, holding up the spirit. I would give my nose for a tin of good fresh water.
The yawl would carry half a main, when they decided time had come, and as they hoisted Will realised just what a weight there still was in the wind. It had veered round to the north and was blasting clear and chill, and the sailing, for a time, he found exhilarating. This troubled him, because there were many other things that he should think about, but he recognised his brain was tired almost beyond the point of reason. The lift and surge of each passing roller, the juggling of mind and tiller to keep her on her course and safe from broaching, this was enough for him for the moment. He could not even face steering in towards the land, bringing the sea from its comfortable set on to the beam, where he would have to fight or guard against the breaking tops. Céline slept, sitting head down in her cloak, and it occurred to him as in a dream that she would end in France if the boat kept on like this. With wind astern it did not chill them, and the sun climbed hot and naked so that he gently steamed. He woke up with a dreadful jerk, as the yawl went into a broach. But Céline had plucked the tiller from his hand, and she heaved it hard to windward. She was smiling down at him.
“You are tired, you must sleep. I’ll wake you when we reach the Sussex beach.”
“What?”
She was joking with him. The thought had not occurred to Will. The Sussex beach? Where were they now? How far?
Maybe she was not joking. He stared at her but did not know. He tried to take the tiller back but she pulled him forward so that she could have his place. Will did not resist her strongly. There was an emanation off her of command.
“It was something that your friend said. Kershaw. Whose body I tipped overboard. Who was he, Will?”
“He was not my friend, he was — He was a spy, I think. Do you think he put the lugger on deliberately?”
She shook her head.
“I do not know. He knew the waters. He told me your Captain Kaye had come on us because he saw an opportunity. Some English lord had said he must take smugglers, so he needed an excuse. He knew of us from his spies, other spies.” She laughed, briefly and not with enjoyment. “There are so many spies, aren’t there? You English love them very dearly. He came on us, his very splendid cover. And left your Samuel on the beach.”
“But you are smugglers! If his intention was protection of the breed, if he loves smugglers — ”
Her next laugh silenced him. Céline shook her head.
“He does not love smugglers, he is part of them,” she said. “But only part of some of them, of course. I thought that Mary had explained, maybe? No? No, Isa Bartram is a suspicious man. Or perhaps she feared that it might hurt you. It — ” She stopped. “No, we are smugglers, in our fashion, but Kaye does not stand to gain or lose by us, there is no business link, however tenuous. He could attack us, kill us, capture us, the outcome would be all the same to him. But those men on the beach, whom he was set on to knock down — Well, suffice to say he did not want to do it. Does not. But could not, under any circumstance, admit. He got word of us, we were convenient, a sacrifice. Although their lordships, as I’ve said before, might not be so sanguine as to what he’s wrought.
“Yes,” she added, abruptly. “I do think Mr Kershaw put us on the sands deliberately, out of some sense of duty I would guess, misguided duty, possibly. He thought Kaye ought to do his duty also, at the very least to rescue Sam. He thought from where we were, a rescue would be feasible. Do you tell me seriously you did not know this? It is tonight the gangs are running to the Adur, it is tonight the link takes place. Kaye could have done it, what you and he and this Navy lord agreed, but he used us as a blind, the timing fitted perfectly. If I understood your Mr Kershaw right, he thought that you and he could, also. At least could go and aid Sam on the beach. It may be that we cannot make it, the beach is many leagues. But do you tell me it was not what you intended?”
“What time is it?” asked Will. “How many leagues?” And then, inconsequentially, “Bobby Beaumont, that was the lord. Lord Wodderley.”
“We should turn west,” said Céline. “The sun is past its peak, but with this wind I think there should be time enough. The landing will not be till after dark, the boat is good, and we are good enough. But you, Will, must get sleep.”
He nodded, and his head was throbbing with dull pain. How many days, he wondered, since he’d had a proper rest. Oh many, many days.
“But you could sail to France.” He said it without thinking, the thought just came. She nodded.
“I could, but then I won’t. You have to trust me, Will. Remember Mary and the Bartrams, though. I am not a business associate, but the links are strong, what good to me if I betrayed them? They do not want this thing tonight to happen, that’s how Sam and you were first involved. Was it not Sam’s kinsman that they killed?”
Yes, true, thought Will. Sam, at the worst, is there to watch, to spy out the participants. God’s blood, if he achieves it, and then we pick him off the beach, the job is done! And if he’s attacked, and I am there to help him — That gave him pause, for in the boat he had no weapon. But he believed that he did trust her, and somehow that gave him comfort. She was, in truth, a most extraordinary maid.
“You can handle her alone?” he asked, then humphed at his own stupidity. “Pardon me. Young women, as fine seamen, are unknown, almost, where I come from.”
“You live at Petersfield,” she said laconically. “It is a long way from the sea. I could sail a boat at six years old. Before you go to sleep, sir, take the helm. I need the bucket.”
“But the bottomboards are dry.”
“And I, sir, need the bucket. Take the helm.”
*
Dr Marigold, whom Deborah had never seen before, saved her life that night. After Will was dragged away from her she fought like an animal, but had no doubt at all that she would die. The mob was overwhelming, fired up with lust for blood, but for her body also. She received many blows from fists, and scratching tears from women’s claws, but she was also bitten on both cheeks and on her neck, and her bosom was squeezed and torn. Between her legs a stick was thrust, and hands, and — had she gone down — she would have died of crushing, rape, and suffocation.
He was a short, fat man with powdered face and powdered wig, and something of a dandy. He was, to Deb, a face beyond the crowd, who stood out because he was flanked by three enormous flunkies holding burning brands as torches. His mouth opened as he shouted, but that was lost within the general roar. She lost sight of the face as someone tore a tuft from off her head and blinded her with pain. A blow to her chest, and she was falling backwards, to the gutter and her death. It stopped very shortly after that. She hit the ground, and rolled and tried to spring on to her knees, then upright to face them, but her tormentors had pulled back. Instead of bellies, fists and snarls, she had the yard in front of her, setts slippery in the glim. And this short, fat person with a garish face, and dandy clothes, and a pistol with silver chasing that he waved about without aggression, but to miraculous effect. In thirty seconds she was bleeding there alone, except for her rescuer and his men. In the shadows there were figures, but they did not stay to watch, they disappeared.
“You are a trouble to me, wench,” he said. “Mis
tress Margery said that I must save your life, and indeed, two corpses in my house would be an embarras de richesses for one night. Now you must go. I give you half an hour.”
A wild idea to follow Bentley came to her, but she was naked, beaten, and did not know where to go. The vision in one eye appeared blurred, she could not rightly see.
“But… but I have protection here. Sir Ar — No, I cannot give his name. And Dr Marigold.”
“I am Dr Marigold. I had hopes of you, but I fear your looks are gone. That gentleman who pays for you gave me discretion, as is normal. He will not complain.”
“But, sir — ”
But Marigold had turned, and Marigold was gone. One of the flunkies gestured with his torch, lasciviously, and in its gleam she recognised Mrs Putnam. Some minutes afterwards, in a cloak, she was led to the older woman’s room, and given brandy and some washing water, and — shortly — some of her own stouter, outdoor clothes, brought by a girl from her own suite. The body, Margery told Deb, was gone from out of it, as soon would every trace of her inhabitation also be. She showed a purse with money in, that she would donate from the goodness of her heart, but implied the maid had brought the trouble on herself. When Deb — a shadow of her spirit stirring in her — challenged that, Mistress Margery sighed, and said it was the times, the times. Which, strangely, reminded her of old Sir A, and made her cry again.
“He says I’ve lost my looks,” she said. “That Marigold. But I have never seen him, how should he know? Oh Margery, it is not true though, is it?”
“The times he’s looked at you, only your face was bruised, maid. Now you’re bruised all over, and you’re scalped in parts, as if Virginny savages had got at you. Nay, your looks will grow again, don’t fret, the reason he wants rid of you is scandal, a thing he can’t afford here, in any wise. That’s what it boils down to, maid, just money, like everything in this world we live in, where all are money mad. You have brought scandal here, you must allow, since the very moment that you came. That mountebank attacks the house and kills that thin girl, what was her name again, that Cynthia, and now he’s dead and in the Fleet or in some limepit if I know Marigold. Just because he looks a fop, dear, don’t mean he ain’t a man of hardest stone. Cecily, poor Cecily, see, I ain’t forgot her, bless her soul. She cried to me the day before she died, of a town called… Stockport? And a river with an ugly name, the goitre, or some such. Now, what was it?”
“The Goyt. The name is bad but it is very lovely. The Goyt, the Tame, the Mersey.” Deb had dried her tears, but they still leaked down on her cheeks. She sniffed, hard, and shuddered. “But can he throw me out? What will Sir Arthur say? My good protector?”
“What the hell he likes,” said Margery. “No skin off Dr Marigold’s appendages. Look, there’s a bit of money there, go find yourself a lodging, some cheap house. Or even wander home, back to the River Goitre. There’s not enough to take a coach but carters will do a little trade in my experience, and you’re safe enough from pimps and whore-masters in your current state. Go home and fright your ma to death, she’ll box your ears but probably forgive you, as mas must do. You could try your ‘protector,’ I suppose, but you’d be a fool, in my opinion. It’s not every maiden that Marigold kicks out for bringing murder to his house, I can tell you that much. This ‘Sir Arthur’ would be good indeed if he did not merely bar the gates to you, when he could have you hanged for certain. Listen — in a month or two you’ll have your face again. Get some good cheap lodging and when you’re right you can go whoring for yourself. That’s the best way up the ladder, maid. Do that.”
Deb, silent but no longer tearful, contemplated her future, but saw only Will Bentley, being dragged away to join a ship. She was the maiden in the song, in all the songs, the maiden weeping on the shore, her sailor gone away.
“Where is the Adur?” she asked Margery. “What is ‘the Adur way?’” The matron shook her head.
“There’s a River Adur down near Shoreham and Portslade. I left Sussex when a kid, but I’m pretty sure of that. The Arun, the Adur, and the Ouse, through Lewes. I was born at Burgess Hill, I couldn’t stand the quiet. Why, do you know — ”
But Deb’s face cut off reminiscence. She stood, distracted, and said she had to leave, which was quite right, her time was more than up. Rain spattered on the window, and it was cold outside, but she thought she would go there, to Sussex and the Adur, where — she pretended that she hoped — she might find Samuel.
“How will I get there?” she asked Margery. “There is someone I must give a message to.”
Mrs Putnam’s eyes were full of pity.
“Maiden; maid,” she said. “Stay in London, where you might be safe. Don’t go out on the roads alone at night, or you will die.”
When Deborah left the house, she took a wicked little knife the woman gave to her. It might serve equally, to save her life, or end it.
*
Sam Holt had been betrayed, but the chaos of the landing and the night came close to saving him. In any way, he’d been in his home country for several days, had spoken to people, had spent cash — Sir A’s — and knew the secret house as clear as day and had a vantage point that should have been impregnable. He had seen men he had known since early days as respectable, upstanding pillars of the eastern community, and had seen one man arrive from Hampshire — one man of several of a similar type and order — whom he had recognised. He had only seen Will Bentley’s father once before but he had no doubt, however much it saddened and alarmed him. Now Christ, he thought, how do I tell my dear friend that?
Will Bentley, in the yawl out in the ever-wilder Channel, was moving, through Céline, to sad awareness of his own. She had awoken him as the weather had deteriorated, suggesting that they might be better off, in fact, to up and run for France, which was at that point not so very far away. She couched it in the nature of a jest, but when he was wakeful and aware, Will could see merit in it, from a seaman’s angle. The northerly was blasting fiercer, with a heavy sea running offshore, confused by a counter tide. The surface was broken and ugly, with gouts of heavy water rising abrupt from any quarter, threatening to swamp. Had he not been so dead with exhaustion he would have woken naturally, and within a minute he was bailing hard. The boat was good, though, with another reef to take, and when he’d emptied her he dropped the sail and she rolled safe and comfortable in the troughs while they tied the last one in.
“She’ll do,” he said. “We’ll work her closer in to get some lee. You could have run me off to France but did not, and I thank you for it. If you wish to go on shore in England, rather than risk your life out here, I would be proud to take you, if not pleased. By which I mean,” he added, flustered, “by which I mean, you are such a… by which I mean, your help is very vital, and that is a pleasure, very great.”
She was laughing, her brown face frank and easy, although drawn and pale with tiredness.
“You are such a gallant boy,” she said, “so galant. I am old enough to be your sister, is that English?, and that is how I treat you, I could not dream of leaving you alone. No, she will serve, or ‘do,’ as you put it, and I am as determined to help Sam Holt as you are. And Mary Broad, and Kate, and Isa and the rest. It is you that — ”
Will had been thinking that his sisters were both younger, and not in any way at all like this young woman. But her breaking off alerted him, and the way she turned her face away.
“What? It is me that what?”
“Oh, hoist away!” she said. “Let’s see how well she takes it, and work her in towards the shore. We cannot be so many miles from the Adur, I spoke a clump of fishers while you slept and they were out of Pevensey.” She grinned. “I played the part of boy at tiller, my master sleeping, my accent West Sussex way. They maybe thought that we were of the trade, but being taken for a woman would have been much more unwise, I think!”
They got the close-reefed sail up and sheeted and the yawl lay to the seas much quieter, taking spray but no more solid water. She was tearing
through the sea at a terrific rate, and would probably handle in a full gale if one came on. Will took the helm while Céline broke out more bacon and — to his joy — produced a water breaker she had found. It would have served several men a half a week had the yawl become a lifeboat, so they did not stint. In the fading light, and not far northwards, they could see the Sussex coast in its wreath of cloud. Whatever happened, shore and safety, of a sort, was achievable.
Will came back with his question after they had sailed another mile or more, and he had thought the implications through. He did not ask Céline what she had meant to say, because she had stopped herself from finishing. He harked instead to Richard Kaye, and something she had said earlier, before he’d slept.
“Mary Broad,” he started. “She knows something about Slack Dickie — Lieutenant Kaye — that she would not tell for fear of hurting me. That was your implication, I believe? Some leagues ago?”
Céline’s eyes were calm. She decided in a second, and she nodded.
“So Kaye, I take it, is some way involved with smuggling, and somehow involved with the men behind the Hampshire men, who would take over?” he continued. “The men who want to link up with the East Sussex men and Kent men, whom Mary and her fellows see as villainous? He agreed to help in mine and Sam Holt’s venture, then attacked your lugger so our attack would fail without him being seen reneging? Have I got it right thus far?”
Céline nodded once more. She looked to weather, and eased her sheet a fraction.
“But Kaye’s no friend of mine, but is to Daniel Swift, my uncle. And throughout my times with Mary Broad, and Hardman, and the Bartrams, they would never venture any names. It was ‘shadows’ this, and ‘shadows’ that, the men behind the bitter changes, the men behind those two most dreadful outrages, the men who murdered Charles Warren and Charles Yorke. Am I to believe they are both implicated, Kaye and Daniel Swift? That as well as being Navy officers they are traders with the enemy!”
