Late Harvest

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  We settled him in the old comfortable basket chair, Susie brought out the brandy, and then we sat down too and waited. John took a couple of comforting gulps of his drink and said: ‘We’ve had wild weather to deal with since then, but thinking about it just brings it back. Awful, it were!’ He stared into space, as if seeing a vision invisible to us.

  Then he said: ‘Four months ago or so, the Eleanor and the Fairing were in the same port together – Marseilles it was. The Eleanor had picked up cargo there and we were bound for the Indies with it. Just before we were due to leave, Captain Grover had news from his wife that she had had their first baby, a son. So there was a party on the Fairing and all the Eleanor’s crew were invited. We all bought gifts; Captain Summers was ashore half a day, looking for just the right thing. When we went aboard the Fairing for the party, all the presents were set out on display.

  ‘There was things for Mrs Grover and for the baby, and things for Captain Grover, too. I remember there was a pair of silver candlesticks for Mrs Grover, and about six rattles for the baby, and Captain Summers’ gift was a big brass ornament, like an engraved plate, for Captain Grover’s cabin aboard ship. It showed a lad in sort of rustic clothes handing a bunch of ribbons or something like that anyway, to a lass, and across the foot of the plate were the words The Pretty Fairing. Captain Summers had it engraved specially, found someone who’d do it while he waited.

  ‘And somebody else, I don’t know who, gave Captain Grover another gift for his cabin – the oddest thing, but Captain Grover was very pleased with it. A set of lanterns, it were. All with bronze frames. They were just simple candle lanterns but they all had coloured glass – red, green, blue, yellow. Well, they’d make a lit cabin pretty, Captain Summers said, and I think he thought they were a bit of nonsense, but Captain Grover was mighty pleased with them. I hope he enjoyed them, for the little while he had them … Oh, my God!’

  He gulped brandy. ‘I can’t stop remembering. It was all so happy and Captain Grover was so full of how glad he’d be to see his wife and his new baby …’

  ‘Go on,’ I said, realizing that although reliving the memory was painful to him, he needed to do it.

  ‘When we got back from the Indies, we fell into each other’s company again, not entirely by chance, I think. I believe the two captains had made a rendezvous and hoped to keep it, wind and weather permitting! Well, it did and we set off to sail home together. We was off the Cornish coast. It was night, the Fairing was just ahead of us, and we were tacking in towards the land. We were taking care; that stretch of coast is all rocks, much like here and it was a dark night – overcast – but we could see another ship further away, ahead of us both, still making in towards the land so we knew we were all right, or we thought we were, but then the clouds parted and out came a full moon and oh, my God …!’

  He had gone white. ‘I hope never to see or hear anything like that again. The lights of the third ship, so far ahead, they weren’t a ship’s lights at all, they were lanterns. We could see that they were being carried by men on the shore. They were moving … pretending to be a ship’s lights, drawing the Pretty Fairing after them, and us as well and at that moment, the Pretty Fairing hit the rocks. There was nothing we could do! She was – what? – a hundred yards ahead, no more, but we couldn’t get to her. We lowered two launches – I was in one of them – but it was no good, there were rocks all around; the launch I was in was holed and sank. There were four of us in it and somehow the men in the other one kept clear of danger and hauled us out of the sea. We lived by a miracle! We couldn’t help the Pretty Fairing; she was jammed tight, cocked up, one end standing into the sky and the other under the water, and the tide was rising round her, crashing over her, great white breakers with teeth … we could see her crew trying to escape, climbing the masts, only then there were the men on the land, running to the sea, and not so as to rescue anyone!’

  ‘You mean …?’ Susie had gone white too, as understanding came.

  ‘Yes, I do mean!’ John was full of rage. ‘Those crewmen on the Fairing, that didn’t drown, they were clubbed to death, we were near enough that in between them crashing waves, we could hear screams! We could hear them dying! As for the cargo – we saw boxes and kegs being snatched, or floating away and those devils hauling them back; they had nets to throw over them. There was cold-blooded murder done that night and we’d have been murdered too if we’d got any closer. Then the moon went in again … seemed like it had come out just to show us what we’d missed … it was no use, in the end, we just rowed back to the Eleanor quick as we could …’

  He nearly broke down then but after a sob or two he commanded himself and said. ‘We could only get away. Next day, Captain Summers took a couple of us and we put into the next port and reported what we’d seen and I dare say someone will try to do something but what? We couldn’t describe what any of that gang of … what any of the gang looked like, we were too far away for that, and we didn’t know exactly where we were at the time, anyhow.’

  ‘There’s never been anything of that kind along our coast,’ Susie said thankfully, replenishing his glass. ‘What wickedness! What awful wickedness!’

  ‘What happened next?’ I asked.

  ‘We sailed off again and that’s when the storm came up! We just about made it into Minehead. The sea was getting into the hold and there were bales of flour and sugar kegs there that got ruined. Captain Summers is heartbroken, and he’s had to inform Mrs Grover that she’s a widow and her son is fatherless, and on top of that, Captain Summers lost so much cargo that there’ll be no profit on this trip. Some men,’ said John, ‘long to be ship’s masters but I’m damned if I do. Too much responsibility. Mr Duggan’s seeing to the Eleanor’s repairs and he’s making two new launches. We lost them both. One was the one I was in, that sank, and the storm got the other one – just wrenched it loose and flung it overboard.’

  ‘When did you reach Minehead?’ Susie asked.

  ‘Oh, two weeks ago. There were things to do aboard ship, the smaller repairs and such, and there was a funeral I wanted to attend.’

  ‘A funeral?’ I said.

  Old Memories

  John drained his glass and set it down on the mantelpiece. I watched him thoughtfully. My younger son looked very like James, just as William did, but – also like William – he did not think like James. Life at sea, with the constant travelling and contact with other places and people, had probably given him plenty to think about, too.

  The easy way he had accepted my reappearance was proof of that and so was his attitude to Rose and Henry Hannaford. When he heard how they had cut themselves off from me, he shrugged and said: ‘Rose always was a prig and that man Hannaford is worse. We can do without them,’ and left it there.

  But now, he was eyeing me as though something about me worried him.

  ‘What is it, John?’ I asked him.

  ‘I went to the Duggan boatyard with a message. There was something Captain Summers had forgotten to say when he gave the order for the new launches …’

  ‘Oh, John!’ Susie was reproachful. ‘It would have bin best if ’ee hadn’t gone there, now wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Susie, sweetheart, I’m an able seaman. If my captain says take this here note to Duggans Boatyard, I can’t say to him, sorry, I can’t do that, due to some old mix-up with the Duggans and my family. I say Aye aye, sir, and do as I’m bid. Anyhow, I went there and I found Mr Ralph Duggan in a great state of upset, worse than Captain Summers, even. Mrs Duggan was taken bad at New Year – got caught outside in the storm that nearly did for us. She came home drenched and was in a high fever next day and dead two days after that.’

  ‘Harriet!’ I said, distressed. Harriet was the only Mrs Duggan at the boatyard. Bronwen had died two years before. The Darracotts had told me that.

  ‘Yes. When I went to the boatyard, Mr Duggan was getting ready for the funeral next morning. Poor man. He kept saying … Oh, look, Ma, I know, we all know, that he once meant a whole
lot to you …’

  ‘We were young then. We’ve long since got over all that and got settled in our lives,’ I said. ‘What did Mr Duggan say?’

  ‘That his wife was the best of women and it was cruel of God to take her the way he had and he couldn’t bear it. His son Charlie and the three daughters, they were there and in a state as well. It was a house of mourning if ever I saw one. I asked permission to attend the funeral, as a mark of respect. I’ve met Mrs Duggan though I never thought I ought to talk of her to you, Ma. I liked her.’

  ‘Everyone liked her,’ I said steadily. ‘Harriet was a good woman. So you went to her funeral? Ral … Mr Duggan let you?’

  ‘He said, the more folk were there, the better, that it would comfort them all to see a lot of people come to say goodbye to her. So I went. Mr Silcox and Edmund Baker were there too.’ He paused and then said: ‘But that’s not all.’

  ‘What else is there?’ I asked. Susie, who had started to make tea, also heard the curious note in his voice, and looked round in concern.

  ‘Mrs Duggan was buried in St Michael’s churchyard,’ said John. ‘But when we were all standing round afterwards, the way people do, I heard some talk. I heard a name. Reckon you’ll know it. Laurence Wheelwright.’

  ‘Wheelwright!’

  ‘Aye, that’s him. Him that’s said to have murdered a girl years ago, though Mr Ralph Duggan’s younger brother was accused of it, first. This Wheelwright fellow left Somerset and no one knows where he went but he came back flush with money, and a big sum was paid to the girl’s parents all of a sudden and now everyone thinks that he was the one as murdered her, but the money’s kind of bought him out of it. No one’s after him any more and the Duggan chap is settled overseas, seemingly. This Wheelwright has a ship’s chandlers in Minehead and he’s got a sailing boat – the Summer Dawn, she’s called, smart little thing, apparently, red sails and a little cabin and all, and he goes out fishing in her now and again. Well, folk were standing about and gossiping about him and sayin’ – Charlie Duggan was sayin’ – that it was on this Laurence Wheelwright’s account that his mother died. You see, the free tradin’s started up again. This Wheelwright fellow began it – found he’d got likely customers among them as used his shop and he soon found others who were willing to join him, and after a bit, Ralph Duggan did too. Charlie Duggan was saying that he couldn’t think how his father could work with Wheelwright after that murder business, but Mr Duggan said the past was all over and Philip was happy in Antigua …’

  Involuntarily, I said: ‘Oh, Ralph, Ralph!’

  ‘Anyhow,’ said John, taking no notice, ‘seems Mrs Duggan had heard somehow that the Revenue knew there was to be a landing, and where. Someone laughed when Charlie told us that, and said Mrs Duggan used to take tea with women friends and one of them was a Revenue man’s wife and women’s tongues wag, don’t they, and never tell a secret to a woman! Anyhow, Mrs Duggan had heard something that scared her and out she rushed to catch her husband before he could get into his boat, to warn him that he mustn’t sail that night. Charlie wasn’t home that evening, or he’d have gone.’

  ‘Did she catch him?’ Susie asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said John. ‘She did, and he didn’t sail. He probably couldn’t have, anyway, because of the weather. But the storm blew up all of a sudden as Mrs Duggan was going home and, well, she died. This Wheelwright wasn’t at the funeral, it seems. I heard something about that, too; someone said he probably felt he’d best not show his face. I was all ears, I can tell you.’

  ‘You must have been sprouting them,’ I said, as lightly as I could. ‘From head to ankles!’

  ‘Mr Silcox and Mr Baker weren’t in the group that was talking about Wheelwright and free trading,’ John said. ‘They was talking to Mr Ralph Duggan and the vicar, in the church porch. Charlie and his friends that were gossiping about Wheelwright stopped when they saw the vicar bringing them over. But like I said, what Charlie Duggan said, was that his ma caught her death warning her husband not to go out smuggling that night.’

  ‘Do you think this Laurence Wheelwright really did kill a girl once?’ Susie asked. ‘I’ve heard the story. Her name was Maisie Cutler, wasn’t it? But why would he do such a thing?’

  ‘Oldest reason in the world. She preferred another man – the younger Duggan boy, probably. I reckon Wheelwright did it, yes,’ John said.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I said. ‘I’ve known for years. Let’s get settled in the parlour with tea and scones and I’ll tell you this tale, too.’

  So Susie and I got the tea and scones together, and once we were seated and private in the parlour, for the first time ever, I told the tale that Daniel Hopton had told me, as we sat in the gig out in the Bristol Channel, waiting in the moonlight for the Moonlight to arrive. Susie and John listened with much astonishment.

  ‘It was because of that night,’ I said, ‘that James sent me away. He was angry that I should want to warn a free trader and he suspected that something happened between me and Ralph Duggan that night. Which it did. As you both know already. I did wrong, and yet at the time it seemed to be right. I am not able to regret it.’

  ‘It doesn’t worry me,’ said John. ‘The past is the past. Maybe Mr Duggan had the right of it there.’

  ‘It worries me!’ said Susie. ‘I can’t put a young girl’s murder in the past, just like that. I’m thankful it wasn’t me, having to decide, should I break the law to save my husband! I wouldn’t know what to do.’

  ‘I find it confusing, too,’ I said. ‘Very. But we can’t undo what’s over and done with. Only I feel very sorry about Harriet. I’m glad you were at her funeral, John. Poor Harriet. Poor Ralph.’

  But while I was saying, Poor Harriet; poor Ralph, another voice, a treacherous voice, of which I was ashamed, was speaking inside me. Old memories were awake.

  Ralph, you are a complete fool, said the voice. Getting entangled in the free trading again! You idiot!

  And …

  Ralph Duggan is a free man now, it said.

  Midsummer

  The year went on, bringing springtime and sunshine, and a plenitude of work. Harry was now much more manageable but as if to make up for this, little Michael, small as he was, was developing a streak of inquisitiveness that meant he had to be constantly watched if he were not to fall into the well or get into the stables and irritate a horse into kicking him, or eat poisonous berries or overturn saucepans in the kitchen. Then, in the spring, Susie announced that she was expecting again, and her pregnancy was very obviously a strain for her. Most of the childcare seemed to devolve on me.

  As June approached, with its shearing and haymaking, I found that for the first time ever, I couldn’t enjoy them. I was fifty now, would soon be fifty-one and my body had just passed its great change. Now that it was over I was not as vigorous as I used to be. Now, I could only think of the extra cooking to be done, day after day until both shearing and haymaking were over, as well as making sure that the children were kept well away from the shearing and watched over during the hay harvest. Neither Harry nor Michael would be safe anywhere near a pitchfork.

  The weather that year was uncertain and was complicated by the Darracotts at Standing Stone, who, having arranged to cut their hay on a certain Tuesday, asking Marsh and Foxwell for assistance, changed their minds at the last moment. It wasn’t the first time. They had done exactly the same thing at the same time the year before. Just as we were all honing our scythes in readiness for them, they decided at five minutes’ notice to sell off a couple of cows they thought weren’t giving as much milk as they should, and buying some others, and they wanted to attend to that first.

  This time, they didn’t even offer the excuse of being too busy with their cows, but simply sent word that they’d put their haymaking off for a week. It threw us all into confusion though it did work out well in the end – for us, that is. We got our hay in at once with help from Marsh and another farm, and had a patch of good weather in which to do it, while the vacil
lating Darracotts were not so lucky. They cut their hay the following week and then had it soaked in a downpour when it was supposed to be drying in the field. The Darracotts were the losers, not us. But it was aggravating at the time.

  When it was all over, I felt as exhausted as though I had personally sheared and scythed and thatched the haystacks. The sheep, looking oddly small now that their woolly coats were gone, were back on the moor. The first evening after it was all finished felt like a magical pool of calm. I could sit in the parlour and take the weight off my feet, not that they had any excessive weight to carry. My busy life had kept me from growing fat. I could still get into dresses I had worn years before.

  But I wondered, as I sank down into an armchair and hoped that Jenny wouldn’t take too long to bring me the tea I had asked her for, how much longer I would be able to go on working as I had. I had got through this year’s June, but at the thought of next year’s, I found myself wilting.

  The tea came and I poured myself a cup, wishing that now I could have a less physical life, could sit back and do something that would occupy my brain. My modest bookshelf was handy, next to the fireplace, but everything on it I had read a dozen times. I ought to buy something new, I decided. Why not buy a set of Shakespeare? I could read Antony and Cleopatra again! I hadn’t read the play since my schooldays. It would be interesting, something to do.

  The parlour windows didn’t overlook the farmyard and since we so rarely used the front door, nearly everyone who called on us came in through the yard gate. So when a visitor arrived, I knew nothing of it until Jenny came to the parlour door again and declared in her broad Somerset voice that someone had called to see me.