Smuggler's Moon

by Bruce Alexander

  “Don’t you want to hear about her?” asked Clarissa.

  “About who?”

  “Why, about Mrs. Sarton—about Molly. Who did you suppose I meant?”

  “Certainly, I’d like to hear more, if there’s more to know. I fear my mind was elsewhere.”

  “Obviously,” said she. ”But now that I have your attention, I’ll tell you a thing or two that you don’t know. First of all, Molly was cook at the house of Sir Simon Grenville until that arrogant fellow Jacques came over from France and robbed her of her position. Lady Grenville insisted that she must have a French cook, and so there it was, practically a condition of the marriage. She would brook no argument in the matter.”

  “When did all this come about?” I asked, interested now, almost in spite of myself.

  “A little over a year ago. That was when Sir Simon wed the beauteous Marie-Hélène, and it was also about the time that Mr. Sarton came to Deal as the new magistrate. That was how they happened to get married.”

  “I don’t follow you,” I said, ”not at all.”

  “Well, it’s simple enough. Cut loose as she was, with nowhere else to go, she presented herself to the new magistrate and asked if he needed a cook. Well, she knew very well that he did—for he himself, being a man, knew not the first thing about cookery, of course. But Mr. Sarton—‘Berty,’ she calls him—was quite smitten by her, red hair and all, and so he hired her on the moment. Six months later they were to be married—and that caused a great many problems.”

  “Of what sort? I’d not heard of any of this.”

  “Didn’t I tell you it would all be new to you?” said she smugly. ”Well, there was trouble on his side because his father and mother had hoped and expected he might marry the daughter of a rich man, who would herself bring a considerable fortune into the marriage, money that might be used to provide him with an entry into genteel society.”

  “Well, there’d be little chance of that, I suppose.”

  “Little chance indeed! She’d been living under the same roof with him as his cook. That was cause for scandal.”

  “But they hadn’t actually been … that is …”

  “Well, she didn’t go into that—but after all, they were in love, weren’t they? But it did bring them down a bit round town. A magistrate simply does not go about marrying his cook, you know. The bishop was reluctant to let them be married in St. George’s, which is, of course, where the magistrate of the town should be married. And of course Sir Simon could not play host to them.”

  “But why not? He was more or less Mr. Sarton’s sponsor here in Deal.”

  “He and Lady Grenville could hardly set a table for their former cook, could they?”

  “I suppose not,” said I as I thought about it for a moment. ”It does account for a lot, does it not? They did eventually marry, though?”

  “The wedding was held in a little side chapel and snubbed by all the best people in Deal.” Clarissa sighed. ”Isn’t it a beautiful story, Jeremy? Love conquers all! I do believe I shall use it as the plot for my first novel. I wonder if she would mind?”

  Again she sighed. Actually, she sighed quite a number of times during the telling of Molly Sarton’s tale.

  “Indeed,” said I, ”you certainly got a lot out of her in a short time.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? But you know, I believe she’s lonely. She seems to have no one to talk to. I came along, eager to hear, and she simply came out with it.”

  Then did Clarissa stop of a sudden and look about her, as if noticing her surroundings for the first time.

  ”Dear God,” said she, ”it is the sea, isn’t it?”

  Indeed it was, for we stood on Beach Street quite near the pier, where a few fishing boats of differing shapes and sizes jittered in the glittering water.

  “You may call it the sea or the Channel, whichever suits you best.”

  “I’d no idea we were so close.”

  “Didn’t you smell it? Nothing quite like the smell of the sea. But come, let’s walk out on the pier and look at the boats, shall we?”

  And that we did, finding much to laugh at as we went upon our way: at the gulls, for instance, which seemed the most pompous of birds as they strutted about boat and pier; and at rest, they seemed to strike heroic poses as they stared out over the sea in the direction of France.

  In general, I led Clarissa along the route I had traveled the day before. The difference, of course, was that together we traveled at a more leisurely pace, thus finding more to see, more to notice, along the way. It was in that way far more enjoyable than yesterday’s brisk race to the castle and back.

  At the fish market, Clarissa exclaimed over the variety of seafood which was on display. She pointed to the mussels, the skates, and the ugly eels and crabs.

  “Do people really eat such?” she asked.

  “Oh, they do indeed,” I assured her, ”and live longer for it—or so I hear.”

  And then did we travel on along the sand, examining closely what the sea had left at the waterline. And on to Deal Castle, where the great cannon pointed out toward France. We walked carefully round the moat, daring only to peek down at its murky depths, which seemed more frightening than the sea itself.

  On our return I guided us down High Street, where Clarissa shopped in every window either side of the street. She had a talent for it and high standards, as well: though her interest was easily captured, in the end nothing she saw—neither frock, nor locket, nor shawl, nor armoire—satisfied her completely. Thus was she saved the embarrassment of attempting to pay for any of these items with an empty purse.

  The tearoom was the happiest surprise of all in our tour of the town. We had passed a coffeehouse on the way, and I looked longingly inside, for as was well known even then, I much preferred coffee to tea. Yet coffeehouses, in Deal as well as London, were of the male province; except for servers, I had never seen a woman inside such a place, nor have I since. Yet as we sat down in our chairs at a table quite near the window of the tearoom, I looked round me and saw that there were women aplenty scattered through the place; some were in the company of men; at other tables there were ladies only; and one brave soul, a woman of apparently limited means, had a table all to herself. The server, a woman of about thirty-five, presented herself and asked our order.

  “We should like a pot of your best tea,” said I.

  “Oh, well, all our tea is the best, sir. What sort would you like? We’ve Chinese green tea, Indian tea, even Persian.”

  Not wishing to seem an utter numskull in matters of tea, I sat for a moment and pondered the matter.

  “I understand,” said I, ”that Darjeeling is quite good. It is an Indian tea, is it not?”

  “It is indeed, sir, and among the best. I might say that it is the best of the best.”

  “Then a pot of that, please, and as for something to accompany it …”

  “We have all manner of cakes and dainties, sir.”

  “Might I perhaps speak with Mrs. Keen on the matter?”

  She assented with a curtsey and disappeared through the curtained entrance to the rear of the shop. It was not much more than a minute later when a woman somewhat older than Mrs. Sarton (but otherwise quite like her) appeared from the rear and came straight to our table. Clarissa and I rose, curtsied and bowed, and introduced ourselves to the woman who offered herself as Mrs. Keen.

  “You asked for me?”

  “We bring you greetings from Mrs. Sarton,” said I. ”She would not have us pass through Deal without visiting your tearoom.”

  “Ah, she wouldn’t, eh? Sounds like her, so it does. How long have you known her?”

  “We’ve just met,” said Clarissa, ”and she seems quite the most wonderful person.”

  “She is, bless you, and also quite the most wonderful cook in Kent. Indeed I should know, for I was her pastry maker for three years—that is, before both of us was turned out to make room for the new crowd. We’re both better off for it, but poor Moll
y had to put up with a lot from this town before she and her magistrate were married. Ah, the snubs and the gossip—it was disgraceful.”

  Most of this last was whispered, yet there was conversation aplenty in the tearoom; none seemed to be listening.

  “But sit down, both of you. I know why Molly sent you here. It was to have a sample of my best. And as it so happens, I just pulled a pan of my best out of the oven. It’ll be here with your tea.”

  And it was. Her ”best,” as she called it, was a whole plate of sugar cakes of such a taste and quality as I had never experienced before—nor, for that matter, since. Clarissa and I ate them all, right down to the last crumb. It was, for us both, a most joyous experience of gluttony. (The tea was also good.)

  We wandered the length of High Street, but when we came to Alfred Square, with its notorious inns, its drunks staggering about in the daylight hours, I thought it best that we circle round it and avoid it altogether. Thus we returned to Beach Street and to the sea. As we did so, I spied a stretch of sand beach ahead of us which was, in its way, quite mysterious. I had no trouble persuading Clarissa to visit the place with me.

  What had attracted my eye at some distance was the unexpected sight of a mast—no, two of them—rising up from the water, bare of sails. As we came closer, I saw that there was even a bit more of the ship to be seen there: the forward gunwales were also barely visible, giving the impression that it was rising from the sea of its own power, like some great monster of the deep. Yet there were no depths where the masts rose up—only shallows. We stood together looking out at it. I, for one, felt something more than curiosity and something less than awe, and yet a bit of both.

  “How do you suppose it got there?” Clarissa asked.

  “It ran aground,” said I. ”Perhaps it was bad navigation that brought it to such an end. Or it may be that it was driven there by a storm.”

  “It looks old. I wonder how long it’s been here.”

  “I couldn’t say, though I’m sure there are those in town who could tell us with fair exactitude.” I studied its position in relation to the waterlines in the sand. ”At lowest tide it might be possible to walk out to it or wade there from the shore.”

  “Possible for you perhaps,” said Clarissa, ”though not for me with these great skirts I must wear. Sometimes, Jeremy, I simply loathe being a girl.” She gave that a moment’s thought, and then added: ”And sometimes I quite enjoy it.”

  Returning to Number 18 Middle Street, we were both surprised to learn that it was well into the afternoon—near three o’clock, as I recall. The meeting (to which I had not been invited) had concluded less than an hour before, and Sir John had asked if there might be a place, perhaps upstairs, where he might take a nap. He was accompanied to the small guest bedroom by Mr. Sarton. Sir John assured him that he was not ill, simply tired. This was heard from Mr. Sarton himself as he prepared to leave on an errand.

  “He’s resting very well up there,” said he to me. ”Molly’s working at dinner, and Clarissa is doing what she can to help. How can we entertain you until dinner, Jeremy?”

  “Oh, I need not be entertained, sir. So long as I have something to read, I’ll be well satisfied.”

  “And have you something to read?”

  “Well … as it happens, I don’t.”

  “Come along then,” said he, and led me to that small room near the street door which served him as a study. He waved inside. ”Such as it is, my library is here. You are free to browse and read what you find. I must, however, ask you not to disturb the books or papers on the desk. They are part and parcel of something I’m writing—or hope to write.”

  (Ah-hah, I had guessed correctly!)

  “I shall certainly do that, sir. And I thank you, sir, ever so much.”

  With that, he took his leave.

  I entered the study and began searching through the nearest shelves. They were better-stocked than he had given out. I did not find what I hoped to—a copy of A Sentimental Journey, that I might resume where I had left off in the library of Sir Simon Grenville’s manor house. Nevertheless, I did find a thing or two to interest me in the shelves along the wall. There was a copy of Dean Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; and tucked away in a far corner, I found a battered and dog-eared copy of a Latin grammar. It was so old and ill-used that I thought it must be Mr. Sarton’s first book of Latin.

  I moved round the desk for a better look at the books in the case below the window. Yet as I did, my eyes fell upon a paper that had been left upon the desk. It was a map, rather crude but clearly drawn, of that stretch of sand beach which Clarissa and I had visited a good deal less than an hour before. There on the right was a rectangle, which was labeled ”shipwreck”; below it, the shoreline; and above and all around it, a shaded area indicating the size and shape of the sandbar which had trapped the ship. Significantly, the sandbar did not stretch the length of the beach: There was a channel marked, a clear passage from the open sea to the shoreline. Distances were noted in yards or feet.

  This I found most interesting. I would wager that the map was the work of Dick Dickens. Had he brought it with him or drawn it on the spot? Well, little it mattered, for I daresay that Dickens knew the surrounding area so well that he could have drawn any number of such maps from memory. And if I were not mistaken, Mr. Sarton was now on his way to that sandy beach to study the lay of the land and the look of the sea. Or he might even, at that moment, be surveying the scene from the bluff above the beach, comparing it to the map whose image he now had fixed in his mind.

  I could be sure now what was discussed at their meeting. More important, I even had a good idea where the operation which Sir John had mentioned to Mr. Perkins would take place. It occurred to me that after Mr. Sarton had returned, I might go for another look at the beach myself. With that in mind, I resolved not to weight myself further with books. I took the two I had chosen and stepped across the hall to the large parlor which served him as a courtroom; there I would hear the magistrate’s return; there I could read without fear of interruption by Clarissa. I browsed through the Latin grammar and found it not near so difficult as I had expected; I resolved to buy one like it as soon as we got back to London. I put it aside and picked up Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver, which all the world knows as Gulliver’s Travels. I had read the book when I was but twelve, and I thought it quite funny but little more than that. I had come lately to realize that I had missed much of its meaning and made up my mind to reread it at my earliest opportunity. And so I began it and was well into the second chapter, wherein Lemuel Gulliver learns the language of the Lilliputians as a squad of the little people enter his pockets and make a survey of their contents. Thus far did I go—and no farther—for at that point did I fall fast asleep.

  It was Molly Sarton who woke me. She came blustering in, table linen in hand, and began preparing the deal table for dining, the one at which her husband had sat during his morning court session. She looked across the room at me and chuckled.

  “Ah, so this is where you went to hide!” said she.

  “I wasn’t hiding, I was reading,” said I quite defensively. Then I added, ”Is it late?”

  “Late enough. We’ll be eating soon as Clarissa and I can get things on the table. Should be about a quarter of an hour, or not much longer.”

  “May I help?”

  “You can help by going upstairs and attending to Sir John. He’s been making waking-up noises for the past five minutes, and it’s time somebody looked in on him.”

  And I, of course, was that somebody. I ascended to the floor above and had no difficulty in finding which of the two rooms he had situated himself in. It was the door from which issued a medley of coughs and throat-clearing sounds. I opened it and found that he was having his usual difficulty finding his way into his coat. He signaled for his kerchief, which had fallen to the floor. Once he had it in hand, he blew his nose, sneezed, blew his nose again, and thanked me.

  It
was not long before we were both ready to sup in polite society. I guided Sir John through the door and down the stairs, and then into the courtroom where all but Mrs. Sarton awaited us. Mr. Sarton was engaged in reducing a magnificent haunch of beef to portions of slices, chunks, and chips. Indeed, he had carved so much from it that it was evident he had great confidence in the capacity of his guests. Clarissa looked across the table at me with something akin to fright. At about that time, Mrs. Sarton came into the room, beautifully dressed, her hair nicely coifed with no more than touches of rouge upon her lips and cheeks. She had transformed herself completely.

  “Oh, Berty,” said she, ”that’s quite enough, I think.”

  “I’m never quite sure. After all, there are five of us.”

  “No, that will be fine for the time being. Just dish out the pudding, and serve the wine, and we’ll be underway.”

  With that, she smiled and took her place at the foot of the table, whence she presided over the carrots, sauce, and all those condiments and additional pleasures that can make a good meal into a great one.

  Reader, I know not how you stand on matters of cookery. There are some, it is true, who hold that the French cooking is the best in all the world. We had had a fair sample of it the past two evenings, with its plenitude of small courses, wines with each, subtly spiced sauces with all. And I admit that I thought the strangeness of it quite grand.

  Nevertheless, to my mind there is naught that can compare with a good English dinner for hearty flavor, abundance, and pure satisfaction. Be it beef, mutton, pork, or whatever, when cooked to perfection in the English manner, it cannot be equaled. And there could be no question but that Molly Sarton cooked that haunch of beef to perfection. Sir John and I asked so often for more that Mr. Sarton had unexpectedly to carve a bit more. And the Yorkshire pudding was as I had never had it—crisp and buttery, and subtle to the taste. There was but one wine, an excellent claret, yet it was abundantly available—bottles of the best. We were silent through the main course, so absorbed were we in the eating of it. We sighed contentedly through dessert (a fine apple tart), and only when the plate of cheese was brought out did we begin to talk in our usual voluble manner. The Sartons were eager to draw us out, and they questioned Clarissa and me direct on our tour of their town. Mr. Sarton gave forth on the history of Deal Castle; and afterward, I asked him rather pointedly about the shipwreck which was mired in the ocean sands just off the beach and not far from this very house: Did he know how long it had been there? What were the circumstances that had put it there? He had no real information to give, but the odd look that he gave me told me what I wished to know: owlers.