‘I’m quite content not to, unless you’re sure, absolutely sure,’ Peter said.
Damaris could have hit him.
Tom’s hands that had been hanging lax across his knees, tightened into fists. ‘I am sure. It’s nothing so very important, anyway. Letters from the King’s Court at St. Germaine to a handful of faithful followers of the cause—Prince Charles Edward’s cause—in London.’
Damaris caught her breath, there was a feeling of cold shock in her. Nothing important! You—you’re a Jacobite!’
Tom’s face crinkled into its lopsided smile. ‘So is your Aunt Selina, from what you have told me.’
‘That’s different. She’s—she’s not doing any harm, not carrying letters from the King’s enemies.’ Her voice was stunned and husky. ‘Oh Tom, you promised me there was not anything that could hurt England or King George in that packet!’
‘And that was the truth.’ There seemed to be a sudden shadow over Tom’s face, and the bitter brightness that she had seen before was in his eyes. ‘Prince Charles had his chance five years ago—I was with him; my father, too, but my father died, like a good many more—he had his chance and he misused it, and he’ll not get another. The Jacobite cause has loyal followers still, but it’s a lost cause, Damaris.’
‘Then why did you bring them, those letters? Why are you taking them through to London, as though they mattered?’
‘Because those were my orders,’ said Tom Wildgoose. ‘Because—Oh I don’t know. For a dream, maybe. . . . You don’t stop serving the cause you were brought up in, just because it is lost.’
Peter, who was usually the sensible, down-to-earth one, said seriously, ‘No, I can understand that.’
And looking at him, Damaris, still feeling oddly shaken, saw that he did, better in some ways than she could herself. Perhaps it was one of those things that men understood between themselves. Some men, anyway. And again, for that moment, she had the feeling of being shut out.
The trapdoor opened above their heads, and Genty’s voice came down to them. ‘Now then, up with ’ee, my lovers, ’tis-time you were away to your homes afore there’s more questions asked.’
‘I’ll leave Don Quixote with you,’ Peter said, pulling the book from his pocket and laying it on top of a keg. ‘Keep you company till I come back. Genty will keep it safe for me after you have done with it.’
He went up the ladder first, and behind him Damaris had just the one moment for a parting look back at Tom Wildgoose. Nothing had actually been said about his going that night, but suddenly she knew that if he could find any means of getting to Chichester, that was what he would do. And this was the last time she would see him. Cold desolation rose in her. Then Tom put that long forefinger under her chin, and tipped her face up very gently, and dropped a kiss, quick and light, on her forehead, and turned her firmly towards the ladder and Peter’s disappearing heels.
Damaris rode home alone. There was no more reason now for Peter to escort her through the familiar woodlands, than there had been before Tom Wildgoose came, and anyway she did not want company just now, even Peter’s. She could not help being just a little jealous of Peter, because for him the thing was not yet quite over: for him there was tonight’s adventure still to come.
She thought of the two of them heading back through the dark woods to Joyous Gard, digging up for the sake of a lost cause the little oilskin packet from its place under the brambles, where it might just as well be left to lie forgotten. A ball of tears rose aching in her throat, and she rubbed the back of her hand angrily across her eyes.
As she did so, turning the fat pony out from the trees into the lane that led home, she heard the squeaking lilt of Shadow Mason’s fiddle somewhere behind her—
‘Farewell and adieu to ye fair Spanish Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to ye Ladies of Spain,
For we’ve received orders to sail for old England—’
The tune was growing fainter, fainter. . . . A turn in the lane brought it back for a moment.
‘We’ll rant and we’ll roar li-like true British sailors,
We’ll range and we’ll rove far over salt seas. . . .
She just caught the familiar hiccup in the tune, and then the faint lilt was lost. He must have struck off down the track to Wittering, and the dense windbreak had cut off the sound.
There would be a cross on the stable door tonight. Well, it would not likely make any difference to Peter and Tom. The Fair Traders of the Manhood generally ran their cargoes away southward, well beyond Marsh Farm, or else on the far side, straight in from the open Channel, hardly ever as far up towards the harbour as this—too close under the eye of the Riding Officers. If anyone had asked her how she knew, she could not have told them: it was one of the things you were born knowing, in the Manhood.
Chapter 12: Voices in the Waggon Shelter
THAT AFTERNOON SUKIE had her kittens in a secluded corner of the granary, firmly ignoring the comfortable place that Caleb had made ready for her behind the chaff house. And at dusk, Damaris went to say goodnight to her and make sure that all was well with her and the kittens.
She went by way of the stable so that she could say goodnight to Snowball and the horses in passing. Earlier the stable would have been a busy place, with Daisy and Dolly and the rest being unharnessed and groomed clean of the day’s mud that caked their feathered legs, and given their second feed of the day. But now Caleb and Dick would be away to their own places, and the only sound was the quiet stirring and soft puffing breaths of the teams, and a contented munching where Beauty was enjoying a mouthful of the sweet hay-straw that was in each horse’s manger to last them through the night.
Damaris slipped from beast to beast with a pat in passing for each one. But she did not stop to fondle or talk to even Snowball. She would do that on the way back. No time now, for the light was going fast, and of course she could not take a lantern into the granary; and if she dawdled it would be too dark up there to see Sukie or the kittens properly.
At the far end of the stable a ladder led up into the hay-loft. Damaris gathered her skirts and scrambled up, and a few moments later she was in the granary by way of the hole where Caleb had removed a couple of boards to make things easier for himself when it came to refilling the corn bins.
In the granary the light was far gone, and the smell of the grain caught at her throat, and she would have been hard put to find the pile of old sacks where Sukie had made her nest, if she had not been there before, for the tiny stirring and whimpering was so faint that she could scarcely hear it until she was kneeling beside the nest. ‘It’s only me,’ Damaris told the cat. ‘Only me again.’ Her fingers found the lean flank and then the velvet cap of fur between the pricked ears. Sukie turned her head sideways, pressing it up into the hollow of the caressing hand with a soft throaty purring in response.
A faint whiffling, a thread-thin sound of life came from the tiny squirming creatures along her flank. Very slowly and gently, Damaris picked up one after another, holding them high to catch the last pale light through the hoisting-window: one jet black like the wheelwright’s tom, one pied like a wagtail, the rest faintly tiger-striped. Little ratlike creatures with blind groping mouths. But to Damaris they seemed almost as beautiful as they probably did to Sukie. She returned each one, careful to see that it was safely plugged in to its mother’s milk, and remained for a while squatting contentedly beside them. Sukie’s kittens always grew up to be splendid mousers, so there were always homes waiting for them, and none of them ever had to be drowned.
She was just beginning to think regretfully that it was time she went in for supper, when she realized that the faint rustling sounds of the granary were not the only ones she was hearing. Other sounds, small and stealthy, and above all, human, and men’s low-pitched voices were seeping up through the floor from the waggon shelter below. Two men: one of them was Caleb, and there was nothing odd in that, he was often around the steading yard after he was off work for the night, and
with a chalk cross on the stable door he would be at hand for sure. But there was that odd suggestion of stealth that was not like Caleb at all. And the other man—Damaris could never be sure in after years, but at the time she was almost sure that it was Luke Aylmer. And that did seem odd, for if the Big House bailiff was at Carthagena, she would have expected him to be talking with Father in the counting-house, not with Caleb Henty among the farm carts, and not in quite that way, either.
For there was something in the quick low growl of voices, that made her freeze into rigid stillness. It was not that she was eavesdropping, but that she was suddenly frightened, very frightened, of being caught seeming to eavesdrop. So she stayed, rather than risk a betraying move.
But soon she was straining to catch the muttered words, all the same.
‘It may be just wild talk in the Black Horse taproom.’ That was the man who sounded like Mr Aylmer. ‘But Daniel Cobby reckons ’tis true, and he’s generally good enough at sifting the talk in his own taproom.’
‘An’ he reckons there’s troops ordered down from Horsham to help t’ Customs men?’
‘Aye.’
Caleb cursed softly and fluently, ‘So who’s turned traitor on us?’
‘Like enough nobody. That new Riding Officer at Selsey has more brains than are good for him.’
‘Or us,’ said Caleb. ‘You reckon he’s twigged?’
‘I reckon at any rate that ’tis time Shadow Mason changed his tune. We’ve kept to the old code long enough. But that can wait: the mischief’s done, and tonight’s work is to undo it.’
‘And how do us do that?’
‘I’ve already arranged for the lugger to be signalled by flasher; we’re switching the main cargo landing to Denman’s Rife. I’m sending off a handful of the escort riders to Marsh Farm to make a diversion—give the troops and the customs men something to keep them busy.’
Caleb grunted in agreement; and there was a faint sound of movement below, as though the two men were on the edge of going their separate ways. And then Luke Aylmer’s voice for the last time. ‘Pass it on to the Birdham and Itchenor men when they come by.’ And the faint movement again, fading into silence.
Damaris remained frozen into stillness, her ears straining after them through the silence until she was quite sure that they were really gone. Then she scurried back by the way she had come.
No time to talk to Snowball as she had intended. The white pony swung his head to stare after her in hurt surprise as she fled past. No time to spare for anything, with Tom and Peter heading straight into the Run, and maybe troopers loose in the woods as well, if the escort riders did not manage to draw them off. She must get to Genty’s cottage quickly—quickly—and warn them. It was supper-time and yet again she would be missed, but there was no time to worry about that either.
She slipped in through the kitchen door, hoping to get by unnoticed in the preparations for supper, and fetch her cloak. It was turning cold with a mist beginning to creep in off the marshes, but it was not the cloak’s warmth that she was thinking of, but it’s darkness to cover her pale dress that might show up too clearly in the woods this evening. She slipped through and let the latch fall behind her—and was instantly pounced on by Hannah.
‘And where have you been, my lady? I bin lookin’ all over for you! Your Aunt’s wantin’ you.’
Damaris hovered on one foot. ‘Is her headache worse?’
‘No, no, she’s better. Aye, sure-lye, an’ talkin’ about supper.’
‘Oh good. Tell her how glad I am, Hannah—I’ll just—’ she was ready to fly, but found herself being bundled upstairs, all her protests and excuses seemingly unheard—and indeed what excuse could she make that would be worth listening to, and not betray Tom Wildgoose?—till she found herself in the big firelit, close-curtained chamber where Aunt Selina lay comfortably propped among her pillows like a stranded whale, and the door firmly shut behind her.
Aunt Selina’s headache was certainly better. Her face, which had been yellowish-grey, was turning pink again amid the crisp white frills of her nightcap. She was beginning to feel like toying with a cold chicken leg and maybe a few cherry conserve tartlets, and beginning also to feel like company. So Damaris must needs take supper with her.
‘It is all arranged,’ she said, ‘I dare swear your Father will not object to supping by himself for once, and Hannah will bring us up a tray. You will enjoy eating on a tray by the fire, and we shall be delightfully cosy.’
Once she had a moment to draw her breath and think straight, Damaris realized that her panic haste had really been quite needless. There was still around four hours left before Tom and Peter would be setting out from the Wise Woman’s cottage. Plenty of time to warn them; and by not going until after supper she might even escape being missed. So she had her supper beside the fire—it took a long time, for Aunt Selina’s idea of toying with a chicken leg and a few tartlets turned out to mean two trays laden with what looked to Damaris’s despairing gaze to be half the contents of the larder. Her own insides were so cold and clenched with an odd mixture of fear and excitement that she did not want to eat anything at all, but she managed to nibble one of the chicken legs, so that Aunt Selina should not notice, and start wondering, as she always did if anyone around her showed signs of not being hungry, if they were sickening for something.
When at last supper was over, and Hannah had taken the trays away, she hoped she would be able to escape. ‘Shall I move the candles? I expect you would like to sleep now, Aunt.’
But Aunt Selina did not feel in the least like sleeping. She waved vaguely towards the copy of The Gentleman’s Magazine which lay on her dressing-table. The same copy of The Gentleman’s Magazine did the round of half-a-dozen houses in the Manhood before it reached Carthagena, so it was at least three weeks out of date. But that did not really matter, for John Crocker seldom found time to do more than skim the overseas and political news, and the Court gossip, which Aunt Selina enjoyed (though always with a sigh because it was the Court of fat Hanoverian George, instead of the rightful King over the Water), was always, so far as Damaris could see, exactly the same.
‘Read to me for a while, my dear,’ said Aunt Selina. ‘It will be improving for you to read of the Polite World, as well as being soothing for me, and I daresay we shall both sleep the better for the pleasant experience.’
Damaris swallowed a desperate protest. There was still time, of course, plenty of time, only—only she began to feel that the fire was much too hot, and the walls of the candlelit room were holding her prisoner, and with the heavy curtains drawn across the closed window, and the door fast shut she might not be able to hear the church clock or the little silvery one in the parlour, and so how was she to know what the time was?
She got up and fetched The Gentleman’s Magazine, and returning to her seat, moved one of the candles nearer and turned to the Court and social pages, and began to read, breathlessly and rather fast, an account of a Court Ball at which Queen Charlotte had appeared in a sacque gown of sea-green paduasoy and a cap of the new style trimmed with point de Dunkerque lace.
‘Not so fast, my love, anyone would think that you were running a race against time!’ protested Aunt Selina.
Damaris drew a long breath, and started again, reading slowly and carefully. Maybe that would soothe Aunt Selina quickly off to sleep. But she read on and on, pausing only to snuff the candles, for a long time—or at least it seemed a long time—before a gentle snore from the bed told her that she was free to go, and she had long since used up all the Court and Social news and droned her way through a long debate in Parliament and the advertisements for sporting guns and matched pairs of carriage horses, and the fire was sinking low.
She got up quietly, laid The Gentleman’s Magazine back on the dressing-table, blew out one of the candles, and taking the dribbling stump that was all that remained of the other, stole out, closing the door softly behind her.
Looking down as she passed the head of the stairs
she saw the line of light under the counting-house door, and that reminded her that she must bid goodnight to her father, lest, not having actually seen her all evening, he should look into her room on his way to bed, to make sure she was safely there. More delay! She put the candle on the top step, and ran downstairs. She tapped on the counting-house door which stood slightly ajar, and pushing it further open, went in.
Her father looked up from the farm ledger on the table before him. ‘Not abed yet? You’re late, Dimmy.’
Suddenly Damaris wished that she was not doing all these strange and lawless and exciting but rather frightening things without being able to tell him about them.
‘Aunt would have me read to her after supper, and she has but this minute gone to sleep,’ she said.
‘So. And it’s high time you were asleep too—close on ten o’clock.’ He put an arm around her for a moment, rather absently, his attention still half on the ledger. ‘Goodnight now. Happy dreams. Don’t forget your prayers.’
Damaris dropped a kiss on the top of his ruffled brown head, ‘Goodnight, Father. No, I won’t.’
She fled back upstairs, collecting the guttering candle from the draughty stair-head, and a few moments later was back in her own bedroom, standing with her back to the door, heaving a long sigh of relief.
She did not say her prayers. There was no time.
She took her cloak from its place behind the door, and rolled it into a tight bundle tied with its own neck-strings. Then she blew out the candle and opened the window that gave onto the mulberry tree and the lane. Too dangerous to try leaving by the door, with Father still up and the household astir, and anyway the door would be barred against her when she got back. She waited a moment, listening. No sound from the stables: probably the Fair Traders had come for the horses while she was with Aunt Selina at the other side of the house.
Flame-Coloured Taffeta Page 9
