by Jane Jackson
Yet even he could not be as much of a hypocrite as Sir Edward Pengarrick, who regularly sentenced Mount’s Bay men to transportation when everyone knew he was the venturer backing the Cawsand smugglers.
Someone bumped his shoulder, jolting him into awareness of his surroundings. Startled, he realised he had reached the shop without any recollection of the journey. Taking a moment to clear his mind he focused on the negotiation that lay ahead. His dead father still cast a long shadow. But he ran the business now. Devlin was just a courier. It was he, Thomas, elder son and his father’s heir, who held the reins and the power. He breathed deeply, felt new strength and determination infuse him, then pushed open the door.
Later that evening, replete with an excellent meal accompanied by more fine wine, Thomas sat beside a roaring fire in the coffee room, reliving once more the pleasurable part of his afternoon. He had secured an excellent price for the emerald. Unwilling to trust the landlord’s strongbox, and far too wary to leave anything of value in his room, he had secreted the money in various secret pockets about his person. After another brandy he planned to retire to bed. The journey back to Porthinnis would require an early start.
‘Why, damme, it’s Thomas Varcoe!’
Looking up, Thomas saw a brawny figure he knew by sight and reputation. Standing at well over six feet, Harry Carlyon was a head taller than almost every other man in the room, including himself. Thomas found this doubly irksome as it reminded him of his brother. Because thinking about Devlin always filled him with anger and resentment he usually avoided doing so.
The most successful smuggler in Coverack, Harry wore his notoriety as comfortably as he wore his well-cut frock coat. Bitterness burned in Thomas’s stomach. If Devlin possessed such a garment, he’d fill it with the same careless ease.
‘Carlyon,’ Thomas greeted with a smile, and snapped his fingers at the landlord who was hurrying past with a bottle but appeared not to see.
‘Jack!’ Carlyon roared above the rumble of conversation and laughter. ‘Two glasses of your finest cognac.’
‘Coming right up, Mr Carlyon,’ the landlord shouted back.
‘So,’ Harry folded himself into the high-backed settle, forcing Thomas to move along and making him feel cornered. ‘What brings you to Truro?’
‘Business.’ Thomas said curtly, still smarting from the landlord’s snub.
‘Me too.’ Harry’s expression was open, his grin expansive, but his narrowed gaze was as sharp as a gimlet. ‘I tell you, if my bank manager had bowed any lower he’d have been sweeping the floor with his nose. Does your heart good to see them grovel, doesn’t it?’
Thomas responded with a wry nod, intimating shared experience while his dinner curdled inside him. He had known the meeting with Mr Daniell would be difficult. But it had been worse. It had been a disaster. The banker was immovable. Until the current overdraft had been reduced, a further loan was out of the question. He hadn’t even softened his words with an apology. Thomas had found this deeply insulting.
Wanting to grab the man by the throat and shake him until his teeth rattled, instead Thomas had inclined his head, saying he understood perfectly. This acceptance was the banker’s cue to relax. When he didn’t, Thomas found himself driven to further explanation. The situation had come about because money due to him had been delayed. Unfortunately, this had compromised his own affairs.
‘Indeed.’ The banker’s response was totally devoid of inflection. But Thomas’s shirt had grown damp as he masked his embarrassment and fury behind a casual smile.
‘I did consider taking a mortgage on the property –’
‘A second charge, Mr Varcoe?’ the banker interrupted, his brows climbing. ‘As I understand it, there is already –’
‘You did not allow me to finish,’ Thomas chided gently. How in the name of all that was holy did Daniell know? ‘I said I considered it. But as I fully expect to clear the overdraft within the next few weeks –’ His gesture intimated that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. It was a wild impossible claim but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was to escape with the few shreds of dignity remaining to him.
‘I shall look forward to it.’ The banker’s tone made clear the meeting was over.
Thomas bowed and bade him good day, receiving in return a nod of minimal politeness. He left the bank fuming with rage and indignation. But beneath the anger lay cold numbing fear.
He smiled at Harry. ‘It’s always good to hear of someone else doing well.’ Careful not to betray the slightest trace of envy, his tone implied there was plenty of business for both of them.
Harry rubbed his palms together. The rasp of callused skin grated on Thomas’s raw nerves like a blacksmith’s file. The landlord set two goblets half full of golden-brown spirits on the table and hurried away. Harry picked up one and swirled it gently, then inhaled the vapours. ‘Bit of all right, that is.’ He raised the goblet in a toast. ‘Fair winds for all but the revenue men.’
Saluting with his own glass, Thomas drank deeply.
Harry cradled the goblet between scarred hands that were twice the size of Thomas’s soft pale ones. He shook his head. ‘Got to admit I’m bleddy exhausted. Demand’s so high it’s hard to keep up. In fair weather I’m making a run every three or four days.’
Thomas was sceptical. ‘You can’t get to Roscoff and back in such a short time.’
After a brief and apparently casual glance round, the smuggler half–turned so his back faced the room, and lowered his voice. ‘Not Roscoff, Guernsey.’
‘Even so, no lugger could –’
‘I sold my lugger. I’ve got a cutter now. Fast as a swallow she is. I can outsail anything on this coast.’
‘Even the revenue boats?’ Thomas challenged, an idea beginning to take shape in his mind.
Harry grinned. ‘Especially the revenue boats.’
It was a risk, but life was a risk. It would solve all his problems. What if it failed – why should it? He was supposed to take the money back. The colonel didn’t need it immediately. No banns had been posted, so his daughter could not be getting married for at least a month. By then he would have recouped both the investment and a sizeable profit. Besides, most of the time Trevanion was too drunk to know what day of the week it was. It would be easy enough to fob him off. He’d say the jeweller wanted to take the emerald to Exeter to get a better price.
‘Do you believe in fate?’ Thomas blurted, telling himself if Carlyon laughed he’d forget the whole thing.
The smuggler swirled his brandy again and raised it to his lips. He held the spirit in his mouth, savouring the bouquet and taste before swallowing.
‘Funny you should ask that,’ he murmured. His expression grew pensive but his gaze remained sharp. ‘How long is it since I saw you last? Must be two or three months at least. Yet here we are, enjoying a drink and a yarn, both doing well and looking to do better. Would you call that fate?’
Harry Carlyon had turned the question without actually answering it. But Thomas was only half-listening. Surely this was exactly the opportunity he’d been waiting, hoping for? It was too good to miss. Raising his own glass he swallowed deeply, allowing himself sufficient time to control swelling excitement. He had to give the impression of offering, not needing.
‘Well,’ he smiled, ‘fate or not, our meeting like this could do us both a bit of good. As it happens I’ve got some spare funds to invest.’ Just saying the words made him feel powerful. ‘Would you be interested?’
Carlyon’s gaze flicked up. ‘Certainly would. Do you want to take delivery and arrange your own distribution, or –’
‘No. You handle all that. I’ll settle for my stake plus the profit less your costs. What’s your percentage rate?’
After a few minutes of haggling they agreed terms.
‘How long?’ demanded Thomas.
‘Two weeks.’ Harry Carlyon grinned. ‘Meet me back here and you can buy me dinner.’ They shook hands on the deal and Thomas excused hims
elf, going to his room to remove the money in private. Then he called for pen and paper and wrote out a receipt. After signing the document, which Thomas pocketed, Harry stuffed the cash inside his coat and called for more brandy.
The following morning Thomas mounted his horse carefully in deference to the dull throbbing in his skull. He was two hours later than he’d planned. Sitting talking late into the night with Harry, he’d drunk far more than he usually did and woke with a sour stomach and a pounding headache. But after a wash, a shave, and several cups of strong coffee, he had managed to eat a decent breakfast.
The residue of his hangover faded as he pictured his return to Truro, and Harry handing over a bag of golden guineas or a thick wad of the new five-pound notes. His mind leapt forward to his next visit to the bank. It would give him great pleasure to put the supercilious Daniell firmly in his place. But that would be only a passing pleasure. What he really wanted, and was determined to have, was Tamara Gillis.
The ebbing tide had exposed a wide expanse of firm sand. Tamara loosened the reins and leaned forward in the saddle as the mare lengthened her stride and picked up speed. The cold morning air stung her face as they thundered across the beach. Hatless, her hair streamed behind her like a black banner.
Approaching the rocks she reined in, slowing to a trot then a walk. Exhilarated by the gallop, she patted the mare’s neck, guiding her along beside the rocks while she looked at what was left of the schooner.
The morning after the storm Lt Crocker had arrived with a party of dragoons. Tamara had watched them loading bodies onto a cart borrowed from one of the farms. Only two had been strangers. She hadn’t heard if they belonged to the schooner’s crew, or were wreckers from Brague.
The others were local. One woman and three men, drunk on plundered rum, had died of exposure. One man’s widow and the woman’s two children were bound for the workhouse. Another man had slipped on the weed-covered rocks and fallen into a crevice. His leg broken, unable to move, he had drowned in the rising tide.
The lieutenant had examined the wreck, shaken his head, and ridden away with his men. Tamara knew from previous occasions that he would visit the local shops and inns, and post notices warning that anything taken from the schooner was stolen property and must be returned. She also knew, as he surely must, that it was a pointless exercise.
Closing mines had thrown tinners out of work. The fishermen were at the mercy of both weather and shoals. Last year’s bad harvest meant that several farmers, unable to pay their rent, had been thrown off their land. So what the sea gave, the villagers kept.
The schooner had grounded three nights ago. The villagers, the tides and the knife-edged rocks had torn the ship apart. Another week and there would be nothing to show she’d ever been there. Only a marker in the graveyard.
Tamara halted the mare and glanced seaward, judging the state of the tide. Then she looked towards the cliff that marked the end of the beach and separated it from the rocky coves beyond. At the base of the cliff was a basin where, at certain phases of the moon, things lost from the beach or harbour were washed up by tidal currents.
She sat for a moment longer, reluctant. She could tell someone else. Who? Dr Avers? He’d feel bound to tell her mother. As for Mr Carthew, the Methodist preacher, she definitely could not tell him. ‘Holy’ Moses Carthew believed half the village – the half that drank spirits and smoked tobacco – was condemned to hellfire and damnation. It was inevitable he would consider her gift a mark of the devil. In any case, telling someone would only provoke questions. Such as how did she know?
What could she say? She didn’t know how she knew things. She just did. Anyway, she was here because if the knowledge was a gift it was also a responsibility.
Drawing a deep breath she clicked her tongue and gently kicked the mare with the heel of her boot. As they approached the basin the mare tossed her head and edged sideways but Tamara urged her on, soothing her with murmurs.
Her heart sank as she looked at the tangle of rope, seaweed torn loose by the gales, driftwood, and smashed crabpots. But as she drew closer, able now to see the area hidden from view, there it was, just as she had ‘seen’ it, white against the dark rock, small and broken like a doll.
Her eyes burned and her throat tightened. Dismounting, she flipped the reins over the restless mare’s head and looped them over her arm. Untying the holly-green sash around the waist of her jacket, she shook out the folds and laid it on the sand. Blinking away tears and biting her lip hard she gently picked up the tiny battered corpse and wrapped it closely in the fringed muslin. Then, remounting the mare and holding the tragic little bundle in the crook of her arm, she rode up the beach and through the village to the parsonage.
The Reverend Dr Trennack was a scholar, happier with his books than with his parishioners, who found him pleasant if slightly detached. But his wife was a kind woman of great understanding who had borne him seven children and buried three of them.
Caroline Trennack accepted the bundle, her gaze warm and sympathetic. ‘Oh my dear, Thank you. It cannot have been easy. I will write to his mother. Knowing he’s been found might make her loss a little easier to bear.’
Nodding, Tamara turned away. Remounting, she guided the mare up onto the moor and galloped her along narrow paths through the bracken and heather until they were both exhausted.
With her pointed stem and stern and an outrigger to hold the mizzen sheet that mirrored the bowsprit, the lugger was a ‘double-ender’ and typical of the Mount’s Bay boats.
Devlin stood at the helm, the slim package wrapped in oiled silk stuffed down his boot and pressing against his ankle. He had brought back letters and dispatches in the past. But this packet, his uncle told him, was to be placed in the hands of Branoc Casvellan and no one else.
‘Are you mad?’ Devlin had whispered fiercely. ‘I’m running contraband and you want me to take this to our local justice?’
‘It’ll be all right,’ his uncle promised. ‘This is far more important than your cargo of brandy.’
‘You’re sure of that, are you? What is it anyway?’
‘Better you don’t know.’
‘And if we’re attacked?’
Hedley’s fingers had tightened on his forearm. ‘Weight it with an iron pig and throw it overboard. Mind me now, Devlin. It must not be found.’
Jared stood at the mizzen with the other crew forward near the mainmast: three to handle the big lug sail and the fourth to man the jib.
‘Where do your uncle get all his information from?’ Jared asked, shaking his head in awe.
Devlin shrugged. ‘He keeps his ears open. Roscoff is always buzzing with rumours.’
‘D’you think this one’s true?’
‘That there are English agents working in France? Or that the French are desperate to catch them?’
‘Both.’
‘I’d say so. If we need to know where the revenue cutters and the dragoons are on the days we make a run, the British government would certainly want to know if the French are planning another invasion.’
‘After they lost all those men in Ireland?’ Jared was sceptical. ‘They’d be bleddy mad to try.’
‘Still, it’s hardly surprising there’s a growing number in favour of restoring the monarchy.’
Jared grunted. ‘Why, fer God’s sake? ’Tis but a few years since they killed the king and queen they had.’
‘True. But what they’ve got now is a corrupt dictatorship that rules by terror. People are even worse off than they were before the revolution. There’s no work, virtually everything is in short supply, and the paper currency is worthless. Still, at least they have plenty of cheap flour.’
‘Don’t matter how cheap it is,’ Jared said. ‘If you got no work, you got no money to buy it.’
‘True again. So with the French government offering a reward in gold for the capture of enemy agents –’ Devlin broke off, stiffening as he peered into the gloom. ‘What – ?’
Jared follow
ed Devlin’s gaze. ‘God a’mighty, ’tis a revenue cutter.’ He frowned. ‘But ’e shouldn’t be …’
‘No, he shouldn’t.’ Devlin was grim. ‘The Penryn boat is out of the water for repairs, and the two Falmouth boats are supposed to be up around Fowey and Cawsand.’
‘Well, that one isn’t.’ Jared growled.
‘Hey, skip,’ Ben Tozer had caught sight of the customs cutter. ‘That’s the Lark. What the ‘ell’s she doing down here?’
‘Get ready to go about,’ Devlin interrupted. This was a complicated manoeuvre as it required the heavy yard from which the lug-sail hung to be dropped to the deck, moved round forward of the mast then re-hoisted on the new tack. Yet skill and practice meant the crew usually made short work of it, even in heavy weather. But this morning Charlie Grose kept fumbling the ropes, delaying the tack.
Sam and Andy cursed his clumsiness, and Danny swore.
‘For Chrissakes, Charlie, what are ’ee doing of?’
‘Me ’ands is froze,’ Charlie whined. ‘I can’t feel to grip.’ He was certainly trembling, apparently racked by shivers. This struck Devlin as strange, for all of them – including Charlie – were dressed for the winter weather. Beneath canvas smocks they wore woollen shirts, Guernseys, or jumpers of heavy, off-white oiled wool, thick trousers, and knitted socks inside wide-topped high leather boots.
As Charlie shook and fumbled, his gaze kept darting towards the cutter. This slowed him down even further, making him more hindrance than help.
Watching him through narrowed eyes, Devlin’s impatience was suddenly swept aside as shocked realisation was swiftly followed by icy rage.
‘Jared, take the helm.’ Plunging forward, Devlin seized a handful of the stained canvas covering Charlie’s chest and jerked him close. ‘You tipped them off.’
In the pre-dawn gloom Charlie’s eyes widened in fear. Despite the knife-edged wind, sweat beaded his face, giving the lie to his claim of being cold. His lips parted but before he could speak Devlin backhanded him across the mouth. A drop of blood bloomed darkly on the pallid skin.
