You may know the south coast of the Island of course, so there is probably no need for me to tell you of the long beach of Chale Bay that stretches forever to the west and north, joining with Brighstone Bay and with the great chalk cliffs with their bird-life and groups of vivid wild flowers, while in the far distance thrust the spectacular headland of the Needles that the sailors use as a seamark. Although I was born and bred on the island, the sheer loveliness of it all still takes my breath away so my eyes swivelled this way and that, enjoying everything, as I always did, despite my mother's constant assertion that I was just wasting my time in so doing.
I passed the straggle of cottages that was Chale and hurried onto the grass grown path that led down to Mrs Downer's cottage, just at the head of Whale Chine. Mrs Downer was outside in her garden, hoeing her newly planted vegetables for we all needed to grow what we could in case Boney stole them all overnight.
'Ah, Sarah,' she greeted me with a smile that always made me feel better, however downcast my mood. 'Your mother will be asking about the chickens then?'
I wondered, as I had so often before, how Mrs Downer knew exactly what I was about to say. I nodded and her eyes twinkled as she drew the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a broad grimy band. 'Pray tell her that I can supply a dozen at once, or one at a time for as long as she likes, provided that she sends somebody to pick them up.' She pointed her hoe at me. 'That will mean you, of course!'
I nodded. 'I suppose it will.'
Mrs Downer looked closer at me. 'You are a bit disconsolate this morning,' she said. 'I can't think why. It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining and there are all sorts of interesting things happening in the world.' She stopped there and looked at me, smiling with just her eyes, and I just had to ask for more details.
'What sort of interesting things are happening?'
'Oh all sorts.' Mrs Downer returned to her hoeing, scraping the metal end over the soil to kill off any weeds that might have escaped her earlier attention. 'You have that lieutenant in tow and are due to be married; that is surely of interest.'
I nodded, for that thought was always in the forefront of my mind. 'I am nearly a married woman,' I blurted out in my anger, 'and Mother insists on treating me as if I was still her kitchen maid.'
'Mothers do these things,' Mrs Downer said with a smile, 'and they give nothing in return except endless love, a room, board, keep, training for life and lots of free advice.' She allowed me to ponder her words for a moment and then changed the subject.
'As well as your intended husband and your cruel mother, the world has other things to offer.' She nodded out to sea. 'There is that sloop out there patrolling for smugglers or French privateers, and the convoy on the horizon on its way to London, and all these men who were using the coastal road this morning and not a fear of the Press in any of them.'
'All which men?' My interest was aroused, as Mrs Downer had intended, the cunning witch. She looked at me through her shrewd eyes. 'There was that travelling fellow first: the man who is staying at your Inn, and then…'
'Mr Howard?' I burst in, rudely.
'Is that what he calls himself?' Mrs Downer looked surprised although I am certain she knew Mr Howard's name, place of birth and antecedents all the way back to Adam and Eve. 'Well then, Mr Howard it was. And a few minutes later came a patrol of Volunteers, shambling along with their muskets over their shoulders and chewing baccy as if they had never heard of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French.'
I looked along the coastal path. It was empty just now as far as I could see. Limestone Manor was clearly visible in the middle distance, just past the rocks of Atherfield Point and before Shepherd's Chine.
'Could I catch Mr Howard?' I asked hopefully.
Mrs Downer shook her head. 'Not unless you grew wings, Sarah. Your Mr Howard was on horseback. A fine brown mare.' She looked at me and smiled. 'I thought you might find all these comings and goings of interest. You do like to know what is going on and nobody bothers if an old biddy like me sees them. Us oldsters are invisible you know; we are only part of the landscape, like the trees.'
I said nothing to that, but I recognised that Mrs Downer was hinting at my natural inquisitiveness. I looked again at the path to Limestone Manor.
'Was your mother in a hurry to find out about the chickens?' Mrs Downer asked with as much innocence as a hunting viper.
'I don't know,' I replied, truthfully.
'Did she tell you to hurry back?' Mrs Downer dripped her questions subtly.
I shook my head and Mrs Downer returned to her hoeing. 'It's only two miles to Limestone Manor,' she mumbled, placed her hoe against the hedge and walked straight-backed, toward her cottage. She halted at the door and looked back at me, her eyes bright and old and wise. 'That was where Mr Howard was heading, you know.' She closed the door.
Two miles on a glorious morning is always a pleasure. Temporarily forgetting to sulk, my mother's cantankerous mood and the errand on which I had been sent, I lifted my skirt and skipped along the road. I was fully aware, of course, that I was being very foolish in doing so, but I did not care, and that was unusual for me. I normally care a great deal, as you will know by now, but for some reason I did not yet understand, I was feeling suddenly free and flighty and irresponsible. I love the sensation of a fresh breeze through my hair, and the sound of the breakers hushing along the beach at Chale Bay is sweeter than choral music, but even so my heart was hammering as I approached the wall and hedge and rusted iron gates that marked the boundary of Limestone Manor.
I stopped there. Everything was the same as always. The wall was as tumbledown as ever, with the coping stones all a-crumble where stray animals had kicked at them; the hedge was an explosion of briars and brambles, alive with honey bees and swaying slightly in the onshore breeze. But the gate was open. Now I was twenty years old and had lived in the Back of Wight all my life and I had never seen that gate open before. That in itself was worthy of my attention.
I walked the last few steps slowly, nearly afraid to get too close. These gates were eighteen feet high and had once been beautiful. They were of wrought iron and sat between two stone pillars, each augmented by a carved elephant standing on its hind legs. Salt air from the sea had corroded each iron railing and the elephants were green with moss, so they looked as if they had a fur coat that suited them not one whit. I looked inside the estate, peered up the once graceful driveway that swept to an unseen front door and wondered if I should enter.
Of course I should. I was a local here, a Caulkhead: this was my island! I squared my shoulders, straightened my back and marched straight in, as erect as any guardsman marching to face the French. Except that it was hard to march while advancing along a driveway that had been invaded and conquered by a million weeds that rose knee high; and where moles had tunnelled under the ground so I wobbled on my boots and swayed uncertainly. I stopped at a patch of soft ground; there, in plain sight, was the imprint of a horse's hoof. I knelt down; the earth at the side of the print was barely crumbling so it had been recently made. It seemed obvious to me that Mr Howard had opened the front gate and had passed this way. I stood up and followed the curve of the path in momentary expectation of seeing Mr Howard with his worn cloak and slashed tricorne hat. I turned a corner and there it was: Limestone Manor: I stopped short and stared.
I do not know what I expected but I knew what I was looking at should have been the house of a gentleman of means. It was old, perhaps centuries old, with great wide windows and tall chimneys. It was huge; larger by far than any house in the vicinity and twice as large as Knighton Hazard. The architecture was beautiful but, unfortunately, Limestone Manor was also a derelict wreck. The panes of nearly all the windows were smashed so they gaped like sightless eyes from the face of a house bereft of a soul. At some point a Channel gale had brought two of the chimneys crashing down, one to strew shattered brickwork across what had once been a well-tended lawn, the other to tear a ragged hole in the slates of the roof and do who-kne
w-what damage to the interior of the house. There was a rookery in a copse of trees beside the coach house and the raucous caws of the inhabitants were an ugly backdrop to the dereliction of what had been a well-loved home.
I stared at Limestone Manor, fascinated by the obvious wealth and power that had once been here while still dismayed by the ruin of such a magnificent building. But for the life of me I could not understand why Mr Howard or anybody else would want to come here. There was nothing except a crumbling ruin, tangled grounds and a host of evil stories that were certainly exaggerations and possibly downright lies.
Now I was so close, my natural inquisitive nature would not allow me to back off. Keeping as quiet as I could on the weed-infested gravel walkway that extended around the house, I stepped to the main entrance. The house faced the sea, with a flight of stone steps soaring to a front door so grand I could imagine the Governor of Wight, nobility and even royalty arriving there in a convoy of golden carriages. A tangle of nettles partly obscured the neo-classical portico with the soaring fluted pillars that guarded the iron studded door, but when I ascended up the steps it was locked as securely as the Bank of England on a Sunday.
I pushed as hard as I was able but the door remained obstinately shut; it was obvious that if Mr Howard was inside he had ensured that nobody could follow him. With a mixture of disappointment and relief, I turned away and began to retrace my steps, now anxious to get away from this closed place. I was moving at some speed, with my legs snapping against the constriction of my skirt when I heard the voices. I nearly used the foremast hand's foul language, looked desperately around and slipped into the angle between the stairs and the house so I would not be seen. Now, you may think it strange that I thought to hide myself, for I was a free-born Englishwoman and was breaking no law, but in that wary year of 1803 we were all on edge in case Johnny Crapaud would invade. Wight has a history of French invasion, being an island close to the coast of the continent, so we slept uneasy in our beds at that time.
I was right to hide, for the voices were of strangers and the language was indeed French. I cowered into the corner, feeling the cold bite of stone pressing hard against my back and other places, and wished I had resisted the temptation to enter those gates. It was too late now: I was well and truly trapped. The voices came closer; three of them, two men and a woman, talking openly and loudly as if they owned the place. I felt my temper rise; the cheek of them, wandering around so blatantly as if Admiral Duncan had not stopped their invasion attempt only a few years back and as if Admiral Nelson did not exist!
I shrunk myself as small as I could as the French approached, their voices jabbering above the crunch of feet on the gravel. I expected to smell garlic and onions but instead there was just a whiff of tobacco. They passed me without looking round: the woman was around forty years old, strikingly good looking with a proud, erect carriage and a way of walking that seemed to make her glide across the ground. I compared her grace to my own country gait and resolved that in future I would beat the French at their own elegant game.
The first man was stocky with a mobile face that could have been handsome if he had not been French, and the second man wore a very familiar tricorne hat with a badly stitched cut. I nearly screamed as I realised that it was Mr Howard.
Did that mean that Mr Howard was a French spy? Was my island already over-run with people from that blasted nation?
They walked right past me and around the corner of the house, with Mr Howard and the woman speaking in animated French and the stocky man puffing aromatic tobacco smoke into the air like some fiend from the Republican Pit. None of them so much as glanced in my direction, and after they I had gone I felt such a wave of rage toward them that rather than lift up my skirt and run, which would have been the sensible thing to do, I followed after them, pausing at the corner of the house to ensure they were not waiting to trap me.
They were not. I rounded the corner just in time to see Mr Howard politely hold open a side door for the woman to step through. He glanced around but must have failed to see me for he followed the woman inside. I allowed them a few moments and tiptoed in their wake, trying to make no noise on the shifting gravel. Why did I follow, you may wonder, when they were obviously French and I could be in very grave danger? Well you must remember the spirit of the time when we all lived in fear of the French so the thought of them boldly walking about my island made my blood boil. The fact that I was also inquisitive, and still am, had nothing whatever to do with it, I assure you. Or perhaps just a tiny little bit.
The side door was set in a small round tower on the extreme south western corner of the house. It swung slightly ajar as I turned the handle and I looked into the darkness inside. The smell of damp and decay slammed into me so I gagged, backed off a pace, settled my mind and returned. I wrapped my shawl around my mouth and nose and stepped into the unknown. I really am a slave to my curiosity you see; that and my dislike of Johnny Crapaud.
I felt my way inch by inch into a small, stone flagged square and onto a circular stair case that led upward to a landing. As though embarrassed to illuminate such a dismal place, the light that filtered reluctantly through layers of cobwebs in a tiny window was grey yet still revealed four doors, each one leading in a different direction. With my heart pounding, yet too long-nosed to withdraw, I tried each in turn; only one opened, its hinges creaking so loudly that I was sure the whole of the Back of the Wight would hear.
I stopped for a heart-stopping moment, expecting half of France to burst out of the door to attack me. Instead there was silence save for a slight scratching that could have come from a rat or a bird. I took a deep breath and stepped into a corridor that led into a darkness that wrapped around me like a cloak.
You may wonder at my courage. Well I will tell you that I am not so much courageous as plain pig-headed. It is a trait that has got me into more trouble than you may ever imagine. Take some free advice from me and keep your head secure on your shoulders and your thoughts locked inside your head. Use your brain and think what you do, as I most certainly did not.
The voices came as a low grumble, interspaced with the high clear tones of that woman. I listened for a few moments, wishing that I could speak French so I could understand what was being said, and then as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark I realised that there was a line of shifting light under a door in the corridor, a sure sign that the room was occupied and illuminated.
Lifting my skirt above my ankles, I stepped forward cautiously, just as the door swung slowly toward me. I gasped in fear and shrunk back into the providential shelter of a recessed doorway.
For a moment I could see inside the room. Mr Howard, that mobile faced man and the oh-so-elegant woman were grouped around a table. However I was so intent on inspecting the people that I nearly forgot to look at the other interesting things in that concealed room. By the time the door was swinging shut again my view was constrained so I may well have missed sight of something important. What I did see convinced me that there was bad work afoot and something would have to be done about it.
There was a single lantern hanging from a hook on the wall, pooling yellow light and shadows across a battered circular oak table. The two men and one woman sat around a map of southern England, with little wooden ships sitting on the sea in between, for all the world like children's toys on a nursery floor. Central to the map was our own island of Wight, with the bows of three of the little wooden ships pointed directly toward the very bay in which I lived.
If anybody had been able to see me, they would have had an amazingly clear view of my tonsils, my mouth was so wide. I closed it with a click, at exactly the same time as somebody within the room pulled shut their door.
I had seen enough. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that our Mr Howard was either French or was working with them, and they intended to land some sort of force in Wight. I should have been angry, even frightened, but instead my mind was on the three people who had sat around that circular table. That
woman had moved with more grace than any hunting cat: I wanted to emulate her style. The mobile faced man had total control of himself; he was obviously a man of some authority, while his looks suggested that he walked on the dark side of the street. Yet both faded into insignificance beside Mr Howard. I could think of little save his less-than-handsome face and duplicity of character as I hurried back along the bay to Mother.
I did not tell her of my little adventure. I had too much in my mind to share with anybody. I could only wrestle with the images and wish that I knew what to do and who to tell.
The answer to that was obvious. I was soon to be married and who better to tell than my own handsome, passionate David? I resolved that once the wedding festivities were complete, I would tell him all. With that settled in my mind, I tried to forget elegant French women, monkey-faced French men and especially Mr Howard, and concentrate on my own handsome lieutenant of Volunteers.
Chapter Eleven
The mist returned that afternoon, thickening as it ghosted in from the Channel until by night-time it was a real pea-souper and our customers came in hunched and dripping, to take off their hats and beat them dry against the flanks of their coats or the legs of their breeches and complain about the weather. Of course after enduring the fog they needed something to fortify them and my mother was always willing to oblige.
There were a dozen men and not many less women clustered in the tap room when Mr Howard entered and not a single one stopped to even offer him a nod. Well, I knew he was a Frenchman and therefore an enemy of our blood and as such should be hanged or shot or otherwise disposed of, but that was no excuse for downright rudeness.
'Good evening Mr Howard,' I called out, as cheerily as I ever could even as I scanned him for evidence of his French-ness. I found none and thought that these French spies are very good at appearing English.
Sarah's Story Page 7
