Late Harvest

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘Muffle their hooves,’ said Philip. His young face was drawn with fear, and the candlelight accentuated the lines it had made. ‘I came through Alcombe slow, so as not to make too much noise and I think no one heard me but you’ll be passing St Michael’s and the cottages near it and you mustn’t be heard.’

  ‘All right.’ But I heard the weariness in Bronwen’s voice. She could still enjoy a ride on a sunny morning, but the clock on the mantelpiece said half-past three, and she had been dragged from her bed into the midst of a crisis and she was no longer young.

  ‘I can take the pony,’ I said.

  It was as if, until that moment, none of them had realized that I was actually there. They all turned towards me.

  ‘You?’ said Josiah. ‘You oughtn’t to know anything about all this. You ought to be in your bed, fast asleep and innocent as you should be. No, you get upstairs and get under the covers and stay there till the right time for rising. You’ve heard and seen nothing, understand?’

  ‘I think of myself as part of this family,’ I said. ‘I will be truly part of it soon. I want to help, and Bronwen is tired. It’ll seem a long way, in the dark.’

  There was a silence. Then Ralph said: ‘Good girl. You see, Dad, how well I’ve chosen? Peggy’s part of us already. Let her do it.’

  Josiah and I stared at each other. His eyes had narrowed. The shadows thrown by the candles had changed him too, making him seem taller than he was. He looked, suddenly, remote and formidable and oddly calculating. For a moment I was almost afraid of him.

  Then he said: ‘Very well. Go and dress, Peggy. Fast. Bronwen, find her a pair of Philip’s old breeches. She’d best go astride. Then see to that hamper. Put a ham in, apples, bread – anything you can think of that’ll last a few days. And a knife and some salt and water bottles and ale. Quick now, both of you.’

  We were quick, but by the time I was downstairs again and out in the stable yard, Josiah and Philip had attended to the saddling and haltering and – I noticed this with interest – had from somewhere produced sets of what seemed to be thick felt socks for Tansy and the pony. It was plain that muffling horses’ hooves was a task with which the Duggans were familiar.

  I got astride Tansy, and Josiah pushed the pony’s lead rope into my hand and said Godspeed. Then we were away.

  It was a strange ride in the night, up the steep and winding way past the church to North Hill and along the lengthy track to Selworthy Beacon. To save time, I cantered where possible but I was not used to leading a second animal and feared to lose control if we went too fast.

  The half-moon was still there, in a clear sky, so I could see where I was going but the pale light made the world look mysterious, haunted. I could understand Philip’s fears. Once a sinuous shape, probably a stoat, rippled across the track, to pause for a moment and look at me and I saw the moonlight reflected, greenish-white, in small, fierce eyes. Then it was gone, but then, somewhere out in the heathland, something squealed wretchedly. A rabbit, perhaps, dying in the fangs of the stoat or a fox.

  It was then that I thought of the kingfisher and the little fish in its beak, and now I felt a very real, spontaneous pity for Maisie. Like the fish, she must have known unspeakable terror before she died.

  I came at last to the top of the path down to Porlock, where I drew rein. Tansy snorted, with disapproval, I felt. She probably hadn’t wanted to be dragged out of her doze and her comfortable stable in the middle of the night to be saddled and put to work. I patted her, murmuring a few soothing words. There was an awkward time after that, when I had to dismount and without loosening my grip on her reins, remove the muffling socks from the pony’s feet. Luckily, the pony was tired and put up patiently with me while I fumbled at the straps round its fetlocks.

  I got the socks off at last, crushed them into my breeches’ pockets, took off the halter and used the lead rope to rouse the pony into throwing up its head and cantering off towards the Porlock track. It flashed indignant heels at me as it went and the moonlight gleamed on its shoes. I climbed back on to Tansy and started for home.

  The return journey was different. The moon was westering now and the haunted feeling of the small hours had gone. There was no sign yet of dawn, but it couldn’t be far away. I could go faster now that I only had one horse to manage and Tansy, sensing that she was now headed home, moved quite briskly. I was tiring, though. I was thankful when at last I was riding down past St Michael’s and its neighbouring cottages, because it meant that I was nearly home. I realized that I had come to think of the Duggans’ house as that. At last I was down on the shore road and passing the boatyard entrance and turning in at the little private gate to the house. Josiah emerged from the shadows at once.

  ‘I’ll see to Tansy. All well?’

  ‘All well. She’s not sweating.’

  ‘Go indoors, into the parlour. I’ll come when Tansy’s settled.’

  There was no one about when I went in. Kitchen, parlour, the dining room were all empty. There were still candles alight in the parlour, however. I sat exhaustedly down, until Josiah appeared, with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses dangling from the fingers of the other. ‘We both need this. My thanks, Peggy. You just got back in time – there’s dawn in the sky now. It would have borne hard on Bronwen to do that ride. She’s asleep now.’

  ‘Where’s Philip?’ I asked as he poured the wine. ‘And Ralph?’

  ‘Ralph’s taken him off in the Bucket with food enough for several days. We’re going to hide him till I can get him away.’ He handed me my glass. ‘See here, my girl, do you realize that what you did tonight was commit a crime? You’ve helped to get a wanted man away. That means I can’t tell you things, because if you talk, you’ll land yourself in jail.’

  ‘I wouldn’t talk anyway,’ I said. ‘And I don’t believe Philip did it!’

  ‘I don’t think he did either,’ Josiah said. ‘Not like him at all, I’d say. I’m not sure, mind you, young men in a state of jealous passion … Well, it doesn’t matter anyway; he’s my son and that’s enough for me. But you are not my daughter.’

  ‘I soon will be.’ I sipped the wine, glad of its warmth in my gullet.

  ‘Not as soon as you think. Now, you listen to me. Your mother’ll blow the top of her head off with rage when she gets to know that the family you’re supposed to be marrying into is mixed up with murder – and there’s a warrant out for your intended’s brother. She’ll withdraw her consent, mark my words …’

  ‘She can’t!’ Weary as I was, I sat up straight and angrily. ‘We delayed the marriage until I came of age. After that, she can’t stop me.’

  ‘But I can. I don’t want you estranged from your own kin, my girl. No. Listen! I have to get Philip away overseas. Never mind where or how. He’s young and tough and I’m sending him to kinfolk, but they’re not close kin; maybe they won’t take him in though he’ll carry a letter from me, begging them to. And since I can’t risk him being stranded in a foreign land on his own, Ralph’s going with him, to see him settled, somehow or other. Ralph’s older and a lot more worldly wise. He’ll see Philip right. By the time Ralph comes back, well, maybe all this will be settled down and half-forgotten and then perhaps you and he can start again. But for the time being, the engagement’s broken, understand?’

  ‘No! No!’ I was on my feet, horrified, knocking over the wineglass that I had put down on a low table, sending the wine over the table on to the carpet. ‘The engagement isn’t broken! I’m going to marry Ralph!’

  ‘One day, maybe, but not yet. Sit down. Sit down, I tell you!’ Josiah picked up my fallen glass, which had come to no harm on the carpet, and refilled it. ‘Here. Now then. You’re due to go home in a week anyway, but I’m sending you back early, doing right by you in your mother’s eyes. Not today – you’re worn out. But tomorrow. The sooner you’re out of here, the better. As it is, we’ll have the law at this door any moment! Everything has to look as it should.’

  ‘But I want to stay my
full time. I’m marrying Ralph and …’

  ‘You are not marrying Ralph. Not now, anyhow. Didn’t you hear me? He’s bound abroad, on my orders, and you’ll do as you’re told, same as he will. I had a right barney with him while you were out. He doesn’t want to go overseas; said I ought to go. But I made him see different. I’m sending you home and you’ll put it about that you can’t wed into a family with so much scandal all round it. No one’ll be surprised at that. Tomorrow, I’m taking you and your luggage round to Porlock in the Bucket and I know who’ll lend us a cart in Porlock to get us to Foxwell. I’ll give you a chance to say goodbye to Ralph. He’ll be back here presently, once he’s settled Philip in hiding. Meanwhile …’

  ‘Say goodbye? To Ralph?’ I didn’t know how to cope with this. I really was afraid of this new, overbearing version of Josiah Duggan, and I couldn’t see how to defy him. I felt that he was quite capable of taking me home by force. I was too tired, anyway. I wanted to curl up in a corner and cry.

  ‘You need sleep,’ he told me now. ‘Today you’ll rest upstairs. But first, dress yourself in proper clothes. Get out of those breeches and into a lady’s gown. Then you can sleep on the bed but you’ll still look normal if the law comes here and wants to talk to you. If you’re questioned, you know nothing. You hear me? You slept all night. There were no disturbances. You got up as usual this morning and everything was just as it always is. You’re puzzled and surprised to be questioned. You’ve no idea where Philip is; you thought he was at Standing Stone and you’re shocked to hear he’s a wanted man. You’re horrified …’

  ‘Well, so I am but that’s because I’m sure he didn’t do it …’

  ‘You can say that if you want to. Say you can’t believe it, not Philip! Run out of the room in tears if you like. Then tomorrow, back you go to Foxwell and soon the world will know you’ve abandoned your engagement. You wouldn’t dream of going to the altar with one of us questionable Duggans!’

  I tried once more. ‘But Ralph and I love each other and whatever Philip’s done or not done, it’s nothing to do with Ralph!’

  ‘It is now,’ said Josiah. ‘And tomorrow, even if I have to knock you on the head to do it, you go home to Foxwell, and you stay there.’

  Leaving It To Nature

  It was ten in the morning when two Minehead constables, backed up by a couple of soldiers, arrived at the Duggans’ door.

  The three maidservants had come as usual and been told that I was resting because I was unwell. Bronwen brought me some breakfast in my room. She looked wan but she was fully dressed and said she would be in the kitchen, helping one of the maids to peel potatoes for the midday meal. The other two girls were busy about the house with brooms and dusters. ‘Everything looks ordinary,’ she told me.

  Ralph was not yet back. Josiah was in the boatyard, from which, as ever, came the clamour of tools and voices. I had changed my clothes as bidden and I had also done my hair. I hoped I wouldn’t be summoned but Bronwen called my name after only a brief wait. I put my shoes on and went downstairs.

  The constables did the questioning politely enough and I was, I trusted, the perfect bewildered innocent. No, I had not seen Philip and no, there had been no disturbances in the night that I was aware of. I had slept the night through just as usual though this morning, I said delicately, I was a little out of sorts. As I had calculated, the constables retreated courteously from the obvious implication.

  I exclaimed in horror when they told me that Philip was to be arrested for the murder of Maisie Cutler. I couldn’t believe such a thing of Philip, I said. I was sure there was a mistake. Oh, how dreadful! Oh, dear. I was so overcome that one of the maids offered me some smelling salts though at that point, remembering that I was a strong girl from a farm and not a swooning miss in a romance and that the constables probably knew it, I waved them impatiently away.

  Josiah, who had been summoned but had insisted on finishing something in the boatyard before answering any questions, came in just then and was irritable with the intruders. No, he hadn’t seen his younger son and would have had something to say to him if he had, getting himself suspected of murder! Damned young fool! Not that Philip could possibly be guilty. Young fool, he might be, but not to that extent. Where was Ralph? Took the Bucket to Porlock this morning to see about getting a bill paid, some customers were mighty slack over paying for work. Keen enough to get it done but when it came to opening their wallets … He launched into a tirade about bad payers and the constables had to interrupt him twice before he could be distracted from it.

  The law left at last, still suspicious and dissatisfied but without finding any sign that Philip had come to us last night. It was another two hours before Ralph came home. I was upstairs again when I heard his voice below, and once more I hurried down, to meet him just as he came in through the kitchen door.

  ‘All’s well,’ he said. ‘Philip’s safe enough now though in a state. I’ll have to go back to him later; don’t want him left alone too long. I’ll get some sleep first, though. Dad says the constables have been and gone.’

  I said: ‘Ralph!’

  ‘Parlour,’ said Bronwen, appearing from the kitchen with a bowl of batter in her hand. She went on beating it as she talked. ‘Go on. You need a bit of time to sort things out between you.’

  In the parlour, with the door closed, I said: ‘Your father says he’s taking me home to Foxwell tomorrow but why should I go? Why can’t we go on with our plans? Your father says you’re going abroad with Philip but do you really have to? If so – you’ll come back, won’t you? I’ll wait. It won’t be that long, surely!’

  ‘You have to go home because otherwise your outraged mother would probably fetch you,’ said Ralph grimly. ‘Dad’s sure of it, once the news gets to her. Let her daughter marry into a family with a charge like this hanging over your future brother-in-law! She’ll have none of it! Dad says he knows her well enough for that. Look, Peggy … Oh, my darling Peggy; don’t be angry with me; it’s no fault of mine … but I can’t tell how long I’ll be gone. I’ve got to see Philip safe and settled before I can leave him. I must! and it could well take some time. Years, even. It wouldn’t be fair to leave you – bound. Keep my ring if you wish, but … regard yourself as free.’

  I stared at him and saw that, just as with Josiah last night, he had become remote. Physically, he was standing only three feet away from me yet I felt him withdrawing, and it was dreadful, as though a wall, a buttress, some bulwark on which I had come to depend to guard me against storms or enemies, had crumbled before my eyes.

  ‘Why can’t your father go?’ I demanded angrily.

  ‘Simply because it may take time. He can’t leave the business for so long and besides, Philip’s got to disappear quietly, so as not to affect our family or the boatyard too much, and …’

  ‘No one has ever been really happy about our engagement, not even your father, at heart,’ I said bitterly. ‘This is a golden opportunity to separate us.’

  ‘No, Peggy, that’s not so. My father likes you. He wants to protect you and now that you’ve actually taken part in Philip’s escape and you’re on the wrong side of the law yourself …’

  ‘I’ll still wait!’ I said. ‘Ralph! Don’t you want me to? Don’t I matter to you any more?’

  ‘Of course you do. Always and for ever.’ His voice shook and yet he still seemed remote, and he was holding himself stiffly, his hands at his sides. ‘But I can’t hold you to an engagement that may go on and on …’

  We had never quarrelled before, but we quarrelled then. I threw myself at him, seized hold of him, shook him, demanded to know why if he had to make a long stay abroad with Philip, I couldn’t come out to him, to marry him wherever he was.

  He in turn shook me, telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that he had no idea himself what kind of world he’d find on the other side of the Atlantic, that my mother would be frantic whether I was twenty-one or not, that we’d got to be sensible, and if I thought
he didn’t care, I was wrong, and if I wanted to know, he’d come near to hitting his father last night, when Josiah ordered him to break off with me.

  I said I didn’t believe it; that it was obvious that he just wanted to jilt me and was seizing this chance to go adventuring as an excuse …

  I knew in my heart that that wasn’t true. In the deepest recesses of my being was a certainty that Ralph and I were meant to be a unity and that he knew it just as I did, but I wanted to sting him, to rouse him, to make him fight for us. To some extent, I succeeded, for he became furious and shouted that it was a lie, and one day he would come back and if I were still unwed, then we’d begin again but it was all uncertain, like sailing into a fog, and he couldn’t and wouldn’t leave me alone and yet bound. I shouted something back – I forget what – and then we were holding each other and we were both crying and he wasn’t remote any more, but real and warm and strong …

  And about to be taken away from me.

  In the end I broke free, still crying, and fled from the parlour. I ran upstairs and locked myself in my room. It was evening before at last I let Bronwen in to comfort me. She brought food on a tray and said it was best that I should not see Ralph again, adding that he was in the worst mood she had ever seen him in, and in her opinion, this was a tragedy, but it was nevertheless right that I should go home.

  ‘No one can make you marry anyone else if you don’t want to. You can wait for Ralph if you choose, cariad.’