by Carla Kelly
‘Your Grace, if I may,’ Mr Selway interjected. ‘Lord Thomson had had no information about Captain Duncan for several years and he hoped that the captain and Grace would fall in love. So he told me.’
Grace felt tears prickle her eyes again. I did, but it was the wrong Captain Duncan, she thought. ‘Rob said the captain’s wife and children would have been surprised at such a turn of events,’ she said. She turned to Mr Selway. ‘Sir, why did you install Mr Smathers in Quarle?’
‘A fair question, Grace,’ the barrister replied. ‘Let us just say that after observing the new marquis’s pettiness and irritation when your paltry thirty pounds per annum was announced at the reading of his uncle’s will, I began to worry. I really worried when I learned that Lord Thomson had insinuated his own butler into the dower house. I knew the captain needed someone else to watch over him.’
Grace nodded. ‘Lord Thomson would have shot Captain Duncan on sight—or Rob Inman, take your pick—if ever he had wandered from the estate or left my oversight.’ She looked at each man in turn. ‘Why are some men so petty and vindictive?’
The Duke frowned. ‘What I suspect about young Lord Thomson I learned from one of my sons, who knew him at Eton. As boys will, they got into some sort of contretemps. It seems that Lord Thomson is one of those petty fellows who never relinquish a hatred. I think he wanted to kill Captain Duncan to get back at me somehow.’
‘He is certainly small enough,’ Grace said. She sighed. ‘And I suppose if Captain Duncan was dead, anyone else would do, too.’
‘Why are some men so vindictive? That, my dear, is the question of the ages,’ the duke said finally. He seemed to struggle within himself again. ‘And why, my dear, are other men so brave?’
Grace regarded the Duke of Clarence in the silence that followed. Perhaps I can give you comfort, even though I already know how removed I feel from this realm of yours. ‘I had such a brief time with…with your son, your Grace, but I know this, in thinking of others as he lay dying, he was a son and leader worthy of Sailor Billy.’
Grace could have gasped at her own frankness, but when the duke, tears welling in his eyes, gazed for such a long moment at her, she knew she had said the right thing.
Overcome with emotion, he would have left the room then, except Mr Smathers stopped him. ‘Your Grace, one moment.’
‘Ah, so I am “your Grace”, you rascal American,’ the Duke said, striving for a light touch, and almost succeeding.
Mr Smathers reached inside his coat and pulled out a miniature. ‘Lord Thomson’s butler Emery found this and used it to ruin Rob Inman. I’m certain old Lord Thomson wanted you to have it.’
The duke cupped the miniature of Captain Duncan gently in his hands, as a father might clasp an infant. ‘Just like his lovely mother,’ he said, his voice soft. He looked at Grace, tapping the miniature with his finger. ‘Lord Thomson kept this miniature for himself. Tell me, my dear—do you think that through all these years of deception on my behalf, Lord Thomson felt a little fatherly toward this American?’
‘He probably did, your Grace,’ she said. ‘I wish he could have lived long enough to meet Rob Inman, who made a fine substitute.’
After the duke left, the rest of them sat in silence. Finally, Grace could not bear the quiet. ‘Mr Selway, is there nothing we can do for Rob Inman? Can his Grace help?’
The barrister shook his head. ‘My dear, the wheels of war grind everything in their path. I fear that sympathy to a prisoner in Dartmoor would be seen as great political weakness, especially when this ratified treaty is due on our shores. Times are touchy.’
Grace nodded, thinking of Mr Smathers’s comment about the particular danger in the beginning and end of a war, when everyone was a little crazy.
Mr Selway helped her to her feet. ‘It is nearly April, just a matter of days before we can expect a ship’s arrival. What is another week or two, in the greater scheme of things?’
‘But…’
‘I agree with Nahum Smathers, Rob Inman is probably safer in Dartmoor right now.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Grace spent the night at Mr Selway’s London house, but not before saying goodbye to Nahum Smathers, who would not tell her where he was going.
‘Let me say that after leaving a stone and an angry note at Lord Thomson’s, I had better go to ground.’
She didn’t want him to leave, which surprised her, and so she told him. He laughed, and touched her cheek, much as Rob would have done, and which only brought on tears she didn’t quite understand.
She took his arm. ‘Sir, why did you not simply tell us who you were?’
‘Would you have believed me?’ he asked in turn.
‘Certainly not!’
He laughed. ‘Admit it, Grace, you know you’re glad to see the back of me!’ He grew serious again. ‘I’ll find a way to keep an eye on your Rob Inman. Trust me now.’
‘I do, actually,’ she told him as he put on his overcoat, checked outside the front door, then came back in.
‘If you need me, write to Exeter, as you have always done.’ He tipped his hat to her. ‘Chin up, Gracie.’
Over breakfast with Mr Selway, she received a small package from Bushy House. Her fingers trembled as she untied the strings binding it together. She felt her lips tremble when she opened the box and counted thirty pounds. She knew she would keep the note for ever.
My Dear Miss Grace Curtis, she read. I’ll see you get thirty pounds per annum, just as Lord Thomson’s will stipulated. This will be our little secret, much as Captain Duncan is, and must remain, for the good of relations between my country, and what I suspect soon will be your country, if I am a good interpreter of daughters. Sincerely, William Hanover.
She showed it to Mr Selway, who nodded.
* * *
Courtesy of Mr Selway, she went back to Quimby at a more sedate pace, pausing for a night at an inn. Mr Selway had told her to speak for a private parlour, but she decided against such an extravagance, choosing instead to sharing a dining table with a farmer’s wife.
Yes, Father, I have slid, she thought as she ate, and appreciated the other woman’s stories of children and crops. But it did not follow that sliding was a bad thing, considering how much she liked her circumstances. Had I been as high in the instep as you, Papa, I would never have met Rob Inman.
He was on her mind every minute of every mile that took her closer to Quimby. It was late in the afternoon and the streets were empty, but they filled up soon enough as the post-chaise pulled up to the bakery and discharged her into the waiting arms of Mrs Wilson. Soon the Gentrys came running from the candlemaker’s shop, eager for news.
By the time Grace was seated on a stool in the bakery, Lady Tutt came puffing in, having exerted herself enough to trot, if not gallop. The tinsmith fanned her with his leather apron and even the constable stayed.
She told them what she could without mentioning the Duke of Clarence, glossing over Captain Duncan’s illustrious parentage and hinting that he was a man somewhat powerful in English leadership and she could say no more. It seemed a durable lie.
To her heart’s delight, her friends were more concerned about Rob Inman. ‘He must stay where he is, I fear,’ she concluded, forcing back her own tears at their long faces. ‘I have it on good authority that the war will soon be over and he will be a free man.’
Lady Tutt’s bobbing feathers indicated her own agitation. ‘That is not good enough!’ she declared. ‘I will write immediately to the regent himself. He will listen to me!’
Grace thought of the years when her late father had labelled the Tutts encroaching mushrooms. She remembered Lady Tutt’s utter willingness to hide Rob, without any thoughts to her own safety. You were so wrong, Papa, she told herself as she touched the woman’s arm. ‘Lady Tutt, I believe that is an excellent idea,’ she said. ‘I fear though, the matter will remain as it is. Even if you are not, the rest of us are very small cogs in the machinery of government.’
‘I
can try, though.’
‘Please do.’
* * *
So it went, as the rest of March passed slowly, livened briefly by the news that the treaty had arrived at Whitehall and the war was officially over. Grace’s heart had soared at the news, then returned to reality when she received a scrawled note from Mr Smathers a week later, telling her that still the prisoners remained in Dartmoor. ‘There they will stay, I fear, until American ships arrive in English waters to take them off,’ he wrote. ‘Captain Shortland is not budging in his insistence on incarceration.’
He had worse news, too, of a smallpox epidemic in the prison, brought by a shipload of sailors captured by the Royal Navy off Africa. ‘The prison now houses nearly six thousand Americans,’ he added in a postscript. ‘Would to God it were less crowded and the men strong enough to resist such insults to their bodies. But we know the truth of that.’
She shared the note with the Wilsons, who looked at her with solemn faces, but said nothing. Grace stared a long time into the dark that night. Even Mr Smathers’s presence would have been comforting.
There was something else, too, so private that she waited a long time before telling the Wilsons. ‘I should be ashamed that we went so far, but I am not,’ she said, when she finished. ‘If it’s a boy, I will name him Robert. We two will have a home in Nantucket.’
She was almost afraid to look at the Wilsons. When she did, all she saw was love and concern on their faces. ‘I hope you are not disappointed in me,’ she said.
‘Nay, lass,’ Mr Wilson said, while his wife dabbed at her tears. ‘War makes life hard to bear. If…if you never see Rob again, you’ll have his son or daughter. It’ll have to do.’
Bobby Gentry gave her the strength to make Yankee
Doodle Doughnuts again. One day as he came with his penny for day-old bread, he had whispered, ‘I don’t think Rob would like us to do without doughnuts.’ He stood on tiptoe and spoke in her ear. ‘I think he would deplore it.’
He made her laugh, which drew her from the shell she thought she had left behind, and which she now rejected completely. ‘You are right, Bobby,’ she had declared. ‘Doughnuts tomorrow. Spread the word.’
Every night, after she had finished sweeping the store, Grace took out the Nantucket deed from its hiding place under the day-old bread bin. She read its few words, remembering Rob’s gift to her and his love when they celebrated the Treaty of Ghent, and celebrated, and celebrated. She took comfort that he had got her with child, as humiliating as such an experience might prove, if he did not return to marry her. The Duke of Clarence would understand, even if no one else did. Perhaps she would send him a note.
* * *
Even as each long day with no news, good or bad, seemed to make her stronger, no one was prepared for the news in April that Mr Smathers brought in person.
She was already in bed and nearly asleep, when she heard tapping at the back door. Nerves tingling, she crept from bed and threw a shawl around her nightdress. ‘Please, God, let it be Rob,’ she whispered as she opened the door.
She swallowed her disappointment to see Mr Smathers leaning against the doorjamb, looking exhausted. Without a word, she took him by the arm and pulled him inside. She turned to get him a drink of water, but he took her hand and pulled her close.
‘Sit down, Grace.’
She shook her head. There was some horror in his eyes that suddenly made her want to flee the room and burrow under her covers in her own bed. She knew she was irrational, but some imp told her that if she did not see him, whatever he had to tell her couldn’t be true.
Smathers did not release her hand. He pulled her closer and covered her hand with his other one. She had no choice but to sit beside him. His eyes bored into hers.
‘Grace, I came as soon as I could, because I want you to hear this from me first. There has been a massacre at Dartmoor.’
She gasped and tried to tug her hand away. He would not release her. ‘That is what they are calling it in Princetown, that village close to Dartmoor. I have been staying there.’
He passed a hand in front of his eyes and she saw how tired he was. She reached for his shoulder then, suddenly aware that as much as he cared about Rob Inman, there were six thousand prisoners Smathers cared about.
‘The news is jumbled. Some say eight men are dead, some say fifty, others a thousand, with tales of many more wounded, crawling to get away.’ He muttered a curse that made her flinch. ‘God, how I hate rumours!’
‘How did it happen?’
He released her hand, so she stood up again and brought him a glass of water. He drank it down without stopping and handed it back, asking if she had any bread and butter.
‘I have not eaten in two days,’ he said.
She went into the store and returned with a handful of doughnuts. ‘We’re making Yankee Doodle Doughnuts again,’ she told him, distressed that her lips were quivering. She wondered if he could even understand her.
He took the doughnuts and looked at them with a half-smile. ‘Your man has a flair for theatrics. He would be—he will be—an excellent impresario. A Yankee himself.’
‘Do you know anything else? Please tell me.’
He ate a doughnut, not looking her in the eye. ‘Nothing more. Some say that Captain Shortland has already buried the dead in a mass grave behind the prison, but I do not know.’ He sighed. ‘Apparently it started during a ball game. The ball went over a fence and the prisoners tried to get it back. The guards refused and the men broke a hole in the fence.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s when the shooting started, apparently. I do know this, the prison is locked down.’
He stood then and paced the room, hands behind his back, biting off his words. ‘I’ve written to Reuben Beasley, begging him to do his duty and find out more.’ He swore again. ‘I might as well write to a stone. Damn him, too!’
Grace closed her eyes, thinking of Lady Tutt’s letters to Whitehall. ‘Mr Smathers, as Rob would say, we are small potatoes, indeed.’
‘He’s right.’ Smathers stopped pacing. ‘There it stands, Grace. I must return to Princetown now.’ He managed a guilty smile. ‘I…uh…borrowed a farmer’s cart and he’d probably like it back.’
She stopped him before he left and took him by the hand, pulling him into the store. She took the Nantucket deed from its hiding place and held it out to him. A variety of emotions crossed his face as he read it by the light of a full moon. The last expression was the one she was most familiar with—steely resolve.
‘Know this, Grace, no matter what happens, I will get you to Nantucket. You have my word on it.’
She nodded, too full of tears to speak and reluctant to show this strong man how weak she really felt.
He took her hand again and this time his touch was gentle. ‘Gracie, you must realise you might be a stranger alone in a strange land.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I know, Nahum. I can bake and I can find work, if I have a home. I imagine many have come to America with less.’
He nodded. ‘My own grandfather was an indentured servant.’
‘So was Rob,’ she said softly.
To her surprise, he kissed her forehead, then left as
quietly as he came. Silently, Grace replaced the deed and made herself comfortable in the back room on a softer chair. She knew she would not sleep any more that night.
* * *
In the morning, Grace told the Wilsons what she had learned, begging them to tell others, as she had not the energy to talk about the massacre. In the days that followed, more news tumbled about, describing a small riot, easily contained, all the way up to a massive prisoner uprising that had led to the slaughter of every American in Dartmoor. Eyes dry, shoulders squared, Grace cut and fried doughnuts and made bread and Quimby Crèmes, wishing for more news from Mr Smathers.
She took heart as she heard nothing from him, deciding that no news was good news. She suggested to Mrs Wilson that she train Mrs Gentry to take her place. ‘She’s a good wo
rker and she will never disappoint,’ Grace told Mrs Wilson.
‘What about you?’ Mrs Wilson asked.
Grace saw how events had worn down her well-loved employer. ‘My dear, I am going to America as soon as Mr Smathers makes arrangement,’ she said.
‘You won’t see him again!’ Mrs Wilson scoffed.
‘I will. He gave me his word.’ She smiled. ‘And do you know, I trust him.’
* * *
Grace finally began to doubt, as April turned into as beautiful a May as she had ever seen before. Even the meadows, blooming trees and blossoming flowers seemed to conspire to fling their loveliness at her and mock her foolishness to think Nantucket was the answer to her troubles. Even Rob had told her it was not, considering that people were small and kind, mean and magnanimous everywhere. True, she would be alone until their baby was born, and that would be a trial. She strengthened her resolve, thinking of that small boy crawling across a slanting deck to wipe the shoes of an American sea captain, and how well he was repaid for his courage.
We can do no less, she told herself, including her unborn child.
Her resolve nearly failed her, as news came of Americans—former prisoners now—being carted daily down to Plymouth and waiting American ships. She was thankful that the main road to Plymouth did not cut through Quimby. She knew she could not bear the Americans’ jubilation at freedom, when she had no word from Rob Inman.
She toyed with the idea that he might have left without her, then rejected it. He would never do that. Then she finally faced it—he must be dead. The pain of that bent her double and caused her to cry out like an animal, but it was late and she was sweeping up, and Quimby slept. Better to bear her grief in silence; too much sympathy would be harder to handle.
* * *
She was almost ready to tear up the deed and resign herself to England. It was a particularly beautiful May morning and she had promised Bobby Gentry they would take a walk in spring’s loveliness.
Grace had finished rolling out a batch of doughnuts and was reaching for the cutter when the bell tinkled in the store. She turned around and dropped the cutter.
