Smuggler's Moon sjf-8

by Bruce Alexander

  “But of course at this very moment,” said I, ”Clarissa is telling all she knows to Mr. Sarton-and much of what she suspects, as well.”

  “It is all quite puzzling,” said Sir John.

  “Well, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, it an’t just puzzling; it sounds to me like it’s gettin’ downright dangerous for you people there in the big house. I think you could use a bodyguard, Sir John. I don’t think that I’ve been all that successful as a spy, anyway.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. Still, it is possible you would be even more useful to Mr. Sarton. You see, we’re planning a little something on the order of the enterprises we’ve undertaken in London.”

  “The Bow Street Runners?”

  “Exactly. Yet the Runners number over a dozen and Mr. Sarton has but two constables at his command. Even if Mr. Sarton himself participates, the enemy will still outnumber us. I may be forced to volunteer Jeremy for service, though I have not yet spoken to him of it.”

  (Indeed he had not, reader. I quickened at the notion of participating in such a venture.)

  Mr. Perkins nodded and took a moment to reflect upon what he had just heard. ”On whose information have you planned it?” he asked.

  “Mr. Sarton has a source in whom he puts great trust. I have not yet met the fellow, but I shall later on today.”

  “And you feel that he needs me for this?”

  “Yes, I do. He is a very young man and needs the sort of guidance you can give him. You may tell him … oh, that you would like to try it out for a period of time. That might work, eh?”

  “Well, it might, but I hate lying to the fellow-him having such a high opinion of me and all.”

  “I can understand that, but I shall make it right with him. I must eventually explain all to him.”

  “All right, sir,” said Mr. Perkins, who clearly had yet some misgivings, ”since it’s what you wish, I’m for it. I’ll drop by his place later today and tell him I’ve decided to accept his offer.”

  “Perhaps you’d best make that tomorrow morning. I intend to keep him busy the rest of the day.”

  As they had talked on so intently, I had guided Sir John in the direction of the sea. It was not long till we were walking along Beach Street, braced by a good, stiff breeze from off the Channel. When we reached Broad Street, I thought perhaps we had gone far enough. Sir John wished to be gone but a half of an hour. A resolution had been reached in their discussion. It was time now to part company with Mr. Perkins and return to Number 18 Middle Street. I halted Sir John.

  “Time to go back?”

  “Just so, sir.”

  We took our leave of the constable and walked back the way we had come. For the most part, Sir John was silent the entire length of our journey. I can recall but one remark made by him.

  “You know, Jeremy,” said he, ”all those grand things said by Mr. Sarton about Constable Perkins?”

  “Yes, Sir John?”

  “They were all quite true.”

  Upon our return to the magistrate’s court and place of residence, I gave three or four sound thumps upon the door with the knocker, and then did we wait. I had noted the door was never opened unless Mr. or Mrs. Sarton was quite sure who it was stood on the outside. Yet they could not know every visitor who knocked. What about those who wished to attend his court sessions? What about witnesses? But I saw what I had not before noticed: just above the knocker, which like so many was cast in the form of a hand, was a spy hole which blended so well into the wood of the door that it was near invisible.

  As all this did pass through my mind, my ears told me that there approached from the far back of the house a determined and steady beat of footsteps down the long hall. Then the footsteps halted, and a challenge came from beyond the door.

  “Who is out there, please?” The voice was that of Mrs. Sarton.

  “It is John Fielding, and with him is his assistant, Jeremy.”

  The door came open, and there she stood, a broad smile upon her face. Though her hands were dusty with flour, and a stray lock of her red hair dangled down over one eye, she was not near in the state she was when we interrupted her the day before.

  “Do come in,” said she. ”I’ve just made the acquaintance of your lovely daughter, Clarissa, as fine and intelligent a girl as I’ve ever met.”

  As we stepped inside, Sir John sought to correct her: ”Well, madame, I quite agree with you that she is lovely, fine, and intelligent. Clarissa is, however, not my daughter.”

  “Truly not?” said she. ”And I even thought that she looked a bit like you! And are you going to tell me that this fine lad is also not of your blood?”

  “Alas no, and Lady Fielding and I are the poorer for it. Clarissa and Jeremy are the family we have-and they do quite nicely for us. We could not want for better.”

  “Come back to the kitchen and see. I’ve got her mixing dough for the dainties for this evening’s dinner.” She led the way down the long hall.

  “Ah,” said Sir John, ”I can hardly wait.”

  She-turned back to me. ”You, young man, you’ll be taking her for a walk round Deal, or so I heard from her. Be sure to take her out the pier, and show her the castle. You’ve not been to Deal unless you’ve seen the castle.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it.”

  “Well, she hasn’t. And when you’ve done seeing the sights, you might take her to the tearoom in High Street, just at Broad.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She’d planned a complete itinerary for us, had she not? I would gladly remain, so that I might be privy to the plan Sir John was hatching with Mr. Sarton and his unnamed informant.

  “There’s a widow lady who runs it,” she continued, ”a Mrs. Keen. Just tell her Molly sent you, and she’ll treat you right-if she knows what’s good for her!”

  She had a somewhat rowdy manner but was altogether direct and quite good-natured. I liked her-as evidently Clarissa did also. I had not seen Miss Roundtree smile so brightly since we went out a-walking that day in Bath. It was evident that Mr. Sarton had not made her interrogation a difficult ordeal.

  She greeted us most happily and ran off to wash the dough and. flour from her hands.

  “Has she been with you long here in the kitchen?” Sir John asked.

  “About the quarter part of an hour,” Mrs. Sarton responded.

  “Then the mysterious visitor should be coming along soon.”

  “That I wouldn’t know, sir. I do the cookin’ and the cleanin’ and leave the magistratin’ to him.” She cocked her head then in an attitude of listening. ”But unless I’m mistaken, I hear Berty moving round where he keeps his papers upstairs. He went up to find something for you, sir.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he should be down soon.”

  Clarissa came back, wiping her hands upon a towel, announcing that she was ready to be taken for a tour of the town. Well, as her guide, I took my leave of Sir John, and in company with Clarissa, allowed myself to be taken back down the hall to the door by which we had entered. Mrs. Sarton insisted on letting us out that she might again turn the locks from the inside.

  As we departed the house, she waved us an enthusiastic goodbye. ”The town’s got itself a bad name from all the smuggling done here. But there’s much pleasure to be had in Deal. Enjoy yourselves, both of you.”

  Then did she shut the door behind us, turn the key, and throw the bolt.

  “Isn’t she wonderful?” said Clarissa to me.

  “Why yes, I suppose she is,” said I. ”You certainly seem to have come to know her well in a very short time.”

  “That’s the sort of person she is. I feel as if I had known her all my life.”

  “Hmmm, well, I see.”

  “Why, oh why, must you be so … so … tepid?” said she in utter exasperation.

  And I? Well, I shrugged in answer, indicating, I suppose, that I did not know why, nor did I think it a matter of great import that I did not know. We had reached an impasse of sorts, one which had far more
to do with the differences in our personalities than with anything of a material nature. It was often so with us.

  We had walked but a short distance and were near to the corner of King Street. A man who looked quite familiar came round the corner. I studied his face as I tried to decide where it was I had seen it before. Then, of a sudden, I knew: he was Dick Dickens, to whom I had been introduced by Mr. Perkins; Dick Dickens, the smuggler turned customs officer. He passed us with no more than a wise nod. I, not knowing how else to respond, nodded back to him. What was he doing here? To me, it seemed quite evident that he was on his way to a meeting with Albert Sarton and Sir John Fielding. Dickens, it was, who had become the source of information about the owling trade. Could he be trusted? Though I had my doubts, Mr. Perkins seemed to take him as he presented himself. Well, I had in a sense been invited to stay away from their meeting with him. Let them do without me and my misgivings, thought I.

  “Don’t you want to hear about her?” asked Clarissa.

  “About who?”

  “Why, about Mrs. Sarton-about Molly. Who did you suppose I meant?”

  “Certainly, I’d like to hear more, if there’s more to know. I fear my mind was elsewhere.”

  “Obviously,” said she. ”But now that I have your attention, I’ll tell you a thing or two that you don’t know. First of all, Molly was cook at the house of Sir Simon Grenville until that arrogant fellow Jacques came over from France and robbed her of her position. Lady Grenville insisted that she must have a French cook, and so there it was, practically a condition of the marriage. She would brook no argument in the matter.”

  “When did all this come about?” I asked, interested now, almost in spite of myself.

  “A little over a year ago. That was when Sir Simon wed the beauteous Marie-Hélène, and it was also about the time that Mr. Sarton came to Deal as the new magistrate. That was how they happened to get married.”

  “I don’t follow you,” I said, ”not at all.”

  “Well, it’s simple enough. Cut loose as she was, with nowhere else to go, she presented herself to the new magistrate and asked if he needed a cook. Well, she knew very well that he did-for he himself, being a man, knew not the first thing about cookery, of course. But Mr. Sarton-‘Berty,’ she calls him-was quite smitten by her, red hair and all, and so he hired her on the moment. Six months later they were to be married-and that caused a great many problems.”

  “Of what sort? I’d not heard of any of this.”

  “Didn’t I tell you it would all be new to you?” said she smugly. ”Well, there was trouble on his side because his father and mother had hoped and expected he might marry the daughter of a rich man, who would herself bring a considerable fortune into the marriage, money that might be used to provide him with an entry into genteel society.”

  “Well, there’d be little chance of that, I suppose.”

  “Little chance indeed! She’d been living under the same roof with him as his cook. That was cause for scandal.”

  “But they hadn’t actually been … that is …”

  “Well, she didn’t go into that-but after all, they were in love, weren’t they? But it did bring them down a bit round town. A magistrate simply does not go about marrying his cook, you know. The bishop was reluctant to let them be married in St. George’s, which is, of course, where the magistrate of the town should be married. And of course Sir Simon could not play host to them.”

  “But why not? He was more or less Mr. Sarton’s sponsor here in Deal.”

  “He and Lady Grenville could hardly set a table for their former cook, could they?”

  “I suppose not,” said I as I thought about it for a moment. ”It does account for a lot, does it not? They did eventually marry, though?”

  “The wedding was held in a little side chapel and snubbed by all the best people in Deal.” Clarissa sighed. ”Isn’t it a beautiful story, Jeremy? Love conquers all! I do believe I shall use it as the plot for my first novel. I wonder if she would mind?”

  Again she sighed. Actually, she sighed quite a number of times during the telling of Molly Sarton’s tale.

  “Indeed,” said I, ”you certainly got a lot out of her in a short time.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? But you know, I believe she’s lonely. She seems to have no one to talk to. I came along, eager to hear, and she simply came out with it.”

  Then did Clarissa stop of a sudden and look about her, as if noticing her surroundings for the first time.

  ”Dear God,” said she, ”it is the sea, isn’t it?”

  Indeed it was, for we stood on Beach Street quite near the pier, where a few fishing boats of differing shapes and sizes jittered in the glittering water.

  “You may call it the sea or the Channel, whichever suits you best.”

  “I’d no idea we were so close.”

  “Didn’t you smell it? Nothing quite like the smell of the sea. But come, let’s walk out on the pier and look at the boats, shall we?”

  And that we did, finding much to laugh at as we went upon our way: at the gulls, for instance, which seemed the most pompous of birds as they strutted about boat and pier; and at rest, they seemed to strike heroic poses as they stared out over the sea in the direction of France.

  In general, I led Clarissa along the route I had traveled the day before. The difference, of course, was that together we traveled at a more leisurely pace, thus finding more to see, more to notice, along the way. It was in that way far more enjoyable than yesterday’s brisk race to the castle and back.

  At the fish market, Clarissa exclaimed over the variety of seafood which was on display. She pointed to the mussels, the skates, and the ugly eels and crabs.

  “Do people really eat such?” she asked.

  “Oh, they do indeed,” I assured her, ”and live longer for it-or so I hear.”

  And then did we travel on along the sand, examining closely what the sea had left at the waterline. And on to Deal Castle, where the great cannon pointed out toward France. We walked carefully round the moat, daring only to peek down at its murky depths, which seemed more frightening than the sea itself.

  On our return I guided us down High Street, where Clarissa shopped in every window either side of the street. She had a talent for it and high standards, as well: though her interest was easily captured, in the end nothing she saw-neither frock, nor locket, nor shawl, nor armoire-satisfied her completely. Thus was she saved the embarrassment of attempting to pay for any of these items with an empty purse.

  The tearoom was the happiest surprise of all in our tour of the town. We had passed a coffeehouse on the way, and I looked longingly inside, for as was well known even then, I much preferred coffee to tea. Yet coffeehouses, in Deal as well as London, were of the male province; except for servers, I had never seen a woman inside such a place, nor have I since. Yet as we sat down in our chairs at a table quite near the window of the tearoom, I looked round me and saw that there were women aplenty scattered through the place; some were in the company of men; at other tables there were ladies only; and one brave soul, a woman of apparently limited means, had a table all to herself. The server, a woman of about thirty-five, presented herself and asked our order.

  “We should like a pot of your best tea,” said I.

  “Oh, well, all our tea is the best, sir. What sort would you like? We’ve Chinese green tea, Indian tea, even Persian.”

  Not wishing to seem an utter numskull in matters of tea, I sat for a moment and pondered the matter.

  “I understand,” said I, ”that Darjeeling is quite good. It is an Indian tea, is it not?”

  “It is indeed, sir, and among the best. I might say that it is the best of the best.”

  “Then a pot of that, please, and as for something to accompany it …”

  “We have all manner of cakes and dainties, sir.”

  “Might I perhaps speak with Mrs. Keen on the matter?”

  She assented with a curtsey and disappeared through the c
urtained entrance to the rear of the shop. It was not much more than a minute later when a woman somewhat older than Mrs. Sarton (but otherwise quite like her) appeared from the rear and came straight to our table. Clarissa and I rose, curtsied and bowed, and introduced ourselves to the woman who offered herself as Mrs. Keen.

  “You asked for me?”

  “We bring you greetings from Mrs. Sarton,” said I. ”She would not have us pass through Deal without visiting your tearoom.”

  “Ah, she wouldn’t, eh? Sounds like her, so it does. How long have you known her?”

  “We’ve just met,” said Clarissa, ”and she seems quite the most wonderful person.”

  “She is, bless you, and also quite the most wonderful cook in Kent. Indeed I should know, for I was her pastry maker for three years-that is, before both of us was turned out to make room for the new crowd. We’re both better off for it, but poor Molly had to put up with a lot from this town before she and her magistrate were married. Ah, the snubs and the gossip-it was disgraceful.”

  Most of this last was whispered, yet there was conversation aplenty in the tearoom; none seemed to be listening.

  “But sit down, both of you. I know why Molly sent you here. It was to have a sample of my best. And as it so happens, I just pulled a pan of my best out of the oven. It’ll be here with your tea.”

  And it was. Her ”best,” as she called it, was a whole plate of sugar cakes of such a taste and quality as I had never experienced before-nor, for that matter, since. Clarissa and I ate them all, right down to the last crumb. It was, for us both, a most joyous experience of gluttony. (The tea was also good.)

  We wandered the length of High Street, but when we came to Alfred Square, with its notorious inns, its drunks staggering about in the daylight hours, I thought it best that we circle round it and avoid it altogether. Thus we returned to Beach Street and to the sea. As we did so, I spied a stretch of sand beach ahead of us which was, in its way, quite mysterious. I had no trouble persuading Clarissa to visit the place with me.