Mermaid of Penperro

by Cach, Lisa

  “It’s that house, right there,” Bugg II pointed out, stopping. The upper window was dark, and he felt his heart plummet.

  “That one? With the flowers out front?”

  “Yes. That’s where she went, with a dark-haired man.”

  “I ought to throw you in jail, that’s what I ought to do!” Foweather erupted. ‘Telling lies about a man like Mr. Trewella! If he did bring a woman up there, I’m sure it’s no business of yours.”

  “You know him?” Bugg II cried, flabbergasted by the violent response.

  “Know him! I count him one of my closest friends. A better man you won’t find anywhere in Cornwall.”

  “That’s where she went, I swear it!”

  “Perhaps she did, but the one thing I know is that whoever she is, she is not the mermaid.” He turned back to his men, who had watched the interchange with some amusement. “My apologies! I did not know the man was insane,” he said. They began to trudge back the way they had come, one of the men facing Bugg II long enough to make a rude gesture.

  “But it’s her! At least help me capture her for the theft! It was my mother’s clock!”

  Derisive snorts and insults were his only answer. He stood in the street, furious and helpless. No one would help him, and she had likely fled the house. Damn her! It bloody well wasn’t fair!

  He was still standing there fuming when a giggle floated to him on the night air. He looked up at the house and caught a faint light showing from behind it. He skulked into the shadows, heart racing.

  Soft voices, one male and one female, grew louder as the couple came around the house and started down the stairs. He drew his pistol out of his coat and prepared to fire.

  They stepped down from the bottom step to the street and turned to the left, away from the harbor. He let them go a few paces and then emerged from the shadows, pistol aimed at the harlot’s back.

  “Konstanze!” Bugg II said loudly.

  She spun, the very act of turning proof in itself that it was her. He grinned, victory finally his. It took her a long moment to recognize him, and when she finally gave a gasp of horrified recognition, he fired.

  Even as he pulled the trigger the man was shoving her aside, and as the pistol jerked in his hand, the report a thunderclap in the quiet street, the man stumbled, then fell to the ground like a sack of grain.

  Konstanze screamed. “Tom! Tom!” she cried, then was on her knees beside him, hands fluttering over his body, searching for the wound.

  Bugg II swore under his breath and fumbled in his coat pocket for the materials to reload. People would be emerging from their homes any minute.

  The man on the ground, Tom, moved. His hand went to his side, touching upon the hole in his torso, the fingers coming away dark with blood.

  “Help! Someone help us!” Konstanze cried into the night.

  Bugg II fumbled and dropped his small horn of gunpowder. Damn it all to hell! He glared at Konstanze, who was still caterwauling. From behind him he heard shouts, running footsteps. He’d have to do this the hard way.

  He jogged to the collapsed couple and, making a cudgel of the pistol, raised his arm high. He’d smash in her skull and be done with her.

  Konstanze brought her forearm above her head as if it could protect her, and the pistol began its descent.

  Something caught him at the knees, and he was falling, his own head smacking painfully on the ground. As the shouts drew closer Tom climbed atop him, the man’s fist a cudgel of his own as he smashed Bugg II’s nose, then his chin.

  Then the man was being pulled off him, and they were surrounded by the men from the Preventive crew, and a growing group of locals, the air full of shouts and yells. Bugg II rolled onto his side, his hands going up to his face, feeling the damage. His entire head throbbed, his vision blurry with tears and pain.

  “Grab her, too!” he heard Foweather say.

  Bugg II managed to push himself up to a sitting position.

  “He needs a doctor!” Konstanze cried as she was held between two men. “He’s been shot.”

  “She’s right, sir,” one of the men said. Tom was hunched over in his grip, his hand to his side, not fighting the Preventive man’s hold on him. The man lifted a lantern and looked at Tom’s back. “Looks like it might have gone through, but he’s bleeding something awful.”

  “She’s your mermaid, isn’t she?” Bugg II asked Foweather, his voice sounding nasal even to his own ears. As he breathed, blood bubbled in his nose.

  He watched as Foweather took a lantern from one of the men and raised it up near Konstanze’s face. He pulled the white cap from her head, then yanked at her hair, pulling out her loose chignon. He reached out, hesitated, and then lifted her skirt high enough that he could see the normal leather shoes and white stockings. A look of utter bewilderment and hurt melted his features.

  “Meet Konstanze Bugg, my stepmother,” Bugg II said triumphantly, and climbed unsteadily to his feet. He took out a kerchief and tried to stanch the flow of blood from his nose. “Thief, adulteress, and liar.”

  It was Tom that Foweather turned to now. “Tom?” he asked, a plea in his voice.

  “That man tried to kill her,” Tom said weakly.

  “She’s not a mermaid,” Foweather said, his voice quavering. “He was right; I’ve been played for a fool. It’s all been an enormous joke. Why, Tom?”

  “I did it myself,” Konstanze said to Foweather, before Tom could speak. “I wanted to catch your attention. I thought I’d never do so unless I made myself into something magical. You were always so intent upon your job, you never even saw me when I was as I am now.”

  “She’s lying!” Bugg II said. “And not doing a very good job of it, either. Why would she be here with another man, if she wanted you?”

  “Please,” Konstanze said, “let us talk about it later. Tom needs a doctor now.”

  Hearing his name, Tom raised his head, speaking to Foweather. “You were never meant to be hurt,” he said, his speech slurring.

  “Please!” Konstanze said.

  A man from the crowd called out that someone named Wiggett had already gone to fetch the doctor. Foweather directed the men holding Tom to carry him back up to his house. Konstanze moved as if to go with them, but the men held her back.

  “Whatever else she is, she’s still a thief!” Bugg II said. “And I’ve got the proof of it. I have the pawn tickets for the things she stole from our house, with her name on them!”

  “You’re a murderer!” Konstanze shot back at him, then spoke to Foweather. “He tried to shoot me, and may very well have killed Tom. You have evidence enough of that!”

  “I had my gun out to keep her from running,” Bugg II said. “That man attacked me, and got shot by accident.”

  “Liar!” Konstanze shouted, but her gaze was on the figures disappearing with Tom.

  Foweather looked at Konstanze, then at Tom being carried into the house. There was still hurt and confusion on his features, as if he could make no sense of anything that he saw or heard. He was silent for as much as half a minute, everyone quiet as they waited to see what he would say.

  “Take her to the magistrate. I know she’s a liar, for she’s no mermaid. Let a magistrate decide if she should be tried as a thief, as well.”

  Bugg II met Konstanze’s furious eyes and smiled.

  Chapter Twenty

  Launceston Jail

  The poet Richard Lovelace had written that stone walls did not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage, as long as he had freedom in his love and in his soul was free. It was a beautiful sentiment, Konstanze thought, but she was having difficulty accepting it as truth. The cold, seeping walls around her and the stinking, filth-slimed floors seemed to make for a very real confinement indeed.

  She had been locked in the dank depths of Launceston Jail for a week now, and every moment, waking and sleeping, was spent in tortured worry about Tom. Her last sight of him haunted her thoughts: Tom on the edge of losing consciousness, eyes glazed, blo
od flowing from his body as the men carried him up to his house. Had he survived? She clung to the brief words of the Preventive man who said it looked like the bullet had gone clean through. Perhaps it had missed anything vital. Perhaps it had only grazed the flesh, and looked worse than it was.

  Or perhaps however minor the wound, Tom had succumbed to fever and died, and even now lay in his grave while she rotted here in ignorance. She had received no word, no visits, had had no contact with anyone from Penperro since she had faced the magistrate, roused from his bed. Confronted with written evidence and an enraged Preventive officer, and with Tom unable to speak in her favor, the magistrate had concluded that there was sufficient evidence against her to warrant a trial for theft, and she had been hauled off to Launceston that very night.

  She sat now in the decomposing straw with a dozen other women, thankful only that her nose had become somewhat accustomed to the stench. She was manacled around her waist and ankles, chains stretching between the bands of iron. Already the skin around her ankles was rubbed raw, and she had torn strips of cloth from her chemise and wrapped her inflamed flesh as best she could.

  The door to the cell was suddenly opened. “Constance Bugg!” a guard shouted into the half-dark. “Which of you is Constance Bugg?”

  “Here,” Konstanze called, her heart leaping, a wild hope beating to life in her breast. She struggled quickly to her feet, swaying for a moment as her vision blackened, shimmering with stars around the edges. A moment later it cleared, and she stumbled forward even as the guard continued to speak.

  “You have a visitor. Move lively now! I haven’t got all day!”

  At last! Could it be Tom? Launceston was over a day’s journey from Penperro, and she doubted he could be well enough to make such a trip, but maybe it really had been just a flesh wound; maybe he was here. Or if not Tom, then Hilde. Or even the vicar. Someone had come for her, after a week spent alone with strangers, and they would have word of Tom.

  The guard led her through the jail to a metal-banded door, then opened it to the bright sunlight and fresh air. Konstanze squinted, raising a hand against the glare, and stepped out into a small walled courtyard. She heard a cry, and then Hilde was enveloping her in her arms, weeping, pulling away to look at her and then holding her close again.

  The joy of seeing a familiar and friendly face set Konstanze to weeping as well, and the two clung together for long minutes, until at last Konstanze pulled away, aware of time slipping by.

  “What of Tom?” she asked in German.

  Hilde sniffled once more, then contained herself. “It was bad the first two nights. He lost a lot of blood. The doctor said the bullet went through his liver, but that it missed any major vessels and he should make a full recovery. There was no infection.”

  Relief made Konstanze’s knees go weak, and she staggered. With Hilde’s help she sat on the cobbled ground, trembling. It was not entirely emotion that had her so weak, but lack of food. The prisoners were fed only once a day, and then only one pot of gruel to be parceled out between a dozen women. Launceston Jail had a reputation for being the worst of the worst, and Konstanze could well believe it after having spent a week inside its black-slimed walls.

  “Thank God,” Konstanze said.

  “He cannot yet travel, and it is driving him half mad. He has barely the strength to hold a pen.”

  “Tell him from me not to risk the journey, please,” Konstanze said. “I don’t think I could bear it in here if I knew he were dead.”

  “He gave me this for you,” Hilde said, holding out a letter.

  Konstanze took it, her dirty fingers leaving smudges on the pristine paper as she broke the seal and unfolded the paper.

  My dearest Konstanze,

  Do not fear. You shall be freed. I swear my life on it.

  Your affectionate Tom

  Affectionate. She gave a little gurgling laugh through her tears. The poor fool. He didn’t want to commit his heart to her unless he knew he could follow through, even in such dire circumstances as these. He was willing to pledge his very life to freeing her, but was yet cautious of his heart.

  She touched the black script with her fingertips, as if she could touch Tom himself through the curving letters. He might not be certain of his feelings for her, but she was. Despite his loathing for physical danger, he had used his own body to shield her from Bugg II’s fire, taking the bullet meant for her. Despite his debilitating terror of blood he had retained his senses long enough to knock Bugg II to the ground, saving her life a second time in the space of a minute.

  He might argue he would have done the same for anyone, but the fact was that he had done it for her. He did love her, in some form, and between that knowledge and her own feelings for him she was satisfied. Whatever happened, as long as he lived, as long as she could love, she would not be conquered by her circumstances. Perhaps the poet had been right about that, after all.

  The comfort of love had been sweet after one week at Launceston, but after a month of waiting for the arrival of the circuit judges and for the assizes to begin, the comfort had begun to feel a thin shield against the horrors of the jail.

  Tom had sent money with Hilde, enough to try to better her circumstances in the jail, but as much as the guards were willing to take the coin, there was little they could actually do to help. The jail was so overcrowded that even heavy bribery could not secure a private cell, and there was besides an institutional belief in the corrective power of misery. The jail had no well, and therefore no water to spare for washing. The money had managed to purchase a little extra food, but her cellmates had in their own unique way insisted upon sharing.

  She was not the only one there on a charge of theft. One unfortunate girl had been incarcerated for stealing a single linen handkerchief. Others were guilty of highway robbery, having lurked in the bushes in groups and set upon vulnerable travelers. One silent woman had taken powders to rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy, and had died in the night of the lingering aftereffects. Two of the highway robbers had divested the poor creature of her clothing before the guard was called to haul away the body.

  Hilde had visited twice a week, which was all the guards would allow. Her expression had told Konstanze that she was not faring as well as she had hoped in prison. Better than a mirror, her maid’s growing concern spoke of her loss of weight, her dirt and lice and fleas, and the possibility of illness. Typhus was rampant at Launceston, and she had a sickening fear in her belly that she would succumb.

  And succumb she did. She had a headache that would not leave, and when there had been light enough to check she had peered down her bodice and seen the telltale speckling of the red typhus rash. She was burning with fever when the guard came again to the door to call her name. This time when she stepped out into the courtyard it was Tom who was there waiting for her, looking thin and pale and none too strong himself. He turned when he heard the door open, his face showing his shock when she stepped out into the light.

  “Your wound!” she said, before he had even a chance to come toward her. She little cared how sorry she must look, her concern all for him. “Have you recovered? Are you well?”

  “Well enough,” he said, and closed the distance between them, reaching for her. The shock on his face had changed to something different, something softer and infinitely sad.

  She didn’t want him to risk catching her illness, and stepped back, but he followed and pulled her into his arms, holding her close despite her dirt and disease, rocking her in his arms as he whispered soothing, meaningless words in her ear. She didn’t know if the soothing was meant more for her or to calm himself, as she could feel the strain of intense emotion in his muscles as he held her. The warmth of another body was not welcome in her feverish state, but she clung to him anyway, closing her eyes and disappearing into a world where he was all that existed.

  After a while he began to tell her about his trip to London to meet with acquaintances who, in turn, had connections with the judges who
rode the western circuit. She listened with only half an ear, the vibrations of his voice much more important to her than the words he spoke. These friends of friends, he said, would plead her case in private, asking for clemency. He had hired the best barrister money could buy, to defend her. And then he said something that took her completely unaware.

  “I want to go see Bugg.”

  She pulled back, not believing what she had just heard.

  “Bugg II’s evidence against you is solid, Konstanze, but with a word from your husband the charges would be nothing. I swore to you once that I would not contact him for any reason. Release me from that now.”

  “No. Never.” The very thought made her feel ill.

  “Konstanze… If they convict you, you will hang.”

  “If they release me, Bugg will have me. I’d rather die than go back to him.” Anything was better than returning to Bugg. Launceston Jail was a friendlier home than Bugg House had ever been.

  “I won’t let him have you. The moment you are free I’ll take you away. He’ll never know where you’ve gone.”

  “No.” It was unreasoning, this fear and hatred she had of her husband, but it was also overwhelming. How could she agree to any contact?

  “His son has likely told him already where you are.”

  She shook her head. “No, he won’t tell him until I’m dead. He won’t risk having me freed.”

  “Trust me, Konstanze. Let me contact him. Trust me.”

  She met his eyes, and saw the desperation there, and the love that he did not himself recognize. How could she deny him another way in which to fight for her freedom and her life?

  “Don’t let him have me,” she said softly.

  He held her tight, and she tried to hold tight to her belief in him. He would not let Bugg have her; he would not. She had to believe that, even more than she had to believe that he would not let her hang.

  Hamoaze Waterway, near Plymouth

  It had been six weeks now since Bugg II had come and torn her life apart.