The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Now was the right time, despite the inclement weather, to return to the Priory Ground—he refused to acknowledge the title America Ground, as the savages there had named it, despite the title having become generally accepted around the town; even corporation officials now recognised and used the new designation. The impudence of these criminals, believing that they could run a self-governing colony, outside of the laws and jurisdictions of the rest of the land, was utterly incredible to him.

  He locked the door and stepped out into the cold; darkness was no more than an hour away; foul black and grey clouds writhed and scurried in the sky overhead, heralding the onset of a tempestuous night.

  Richard strode insidiously through the wind—it was the kind described as bleat by the locals— harsh and cutting. He was going to walk to the Priory Ground, having not had the stomach to travel on horseback since the accident; if he were asked, he would cite his medical problems as the reason. In truth, however, he had lost his confidence—the fall and all that had happened on that night had driven him inside an introspective cocoon, from which he was now only just beginning to emerge. His current detestation of the Lovekin family had only intensified in recent days.

  At the corner of the High Street, the run of Elizabethan cottages ceased and as he turned towards the open ground which led to the shore Richard was suddenly buffeted by a blast of wind that ripped Harriet’s shawl from his fingers. He turned to see it dance a few feet into the air, before twisting and falling to the floor. Quickly, he scooped it up and pressed it tightly to his chest. The shawl was a necessary part of his plan to get inside the Lovekin family. Despite not having the backing from the rest of the corporation, who were contented to sit back and wait for the official inquest next month, he was ready to continue his battle against the illegal settlement of the Priory Ground alone.

  Richard stopped and stared momentarily at the great curls of mist blustering over the turbulent sea, wafting in a pervading stench of salt and rotten fish. Tumultuous, antagonised waves dragged their claws down the shingle beach before rising high and spitting their stony content at the shore, clambering and scratching ever nearer to the beachfront houses. Richard had prayed on numerous occasions that the day would come when an official inquest into the ownership of the Priory Ground would be irrelevant because the sea had finally claimed back what had once belonged to it. But that day had not yet arrived.

  He slowed his pace when at last the Priory Bridge came into view. Darkness had almost settled and the light was fading fast. The waxing moon, just two days away from its ripe fullness, had wholly failed to penetrate the dense choking black clouds that had rolled in from across the channel.

  Crossing the stone bridge and entering the Priory Ground, Richard tugged down his clerical hat, shielding his face. He walked slowly as the first houses drew closer. A fat droplet of water struck his hat, followed quickly by another then another. He looked above him: the melancholy clouds could hold their load no longer and the rain began to fall around him. Richard tucked the shawl inside his coat and continued his journey, taking just a cursory glance at the spot from which he had fallen from his horse, having first been showered in her effluence. He ground his back teeth in recollection, as the Black Horse appeared before him, still encased in its wooden shutters.

  Richard sunk into the shadowed awning of the blacksmith’s workshop opposite, from which hiding place he watched and waited.

  He had worried about being recognised, but there was little chance of that; the paths and alleys were tonight abandoned and when, on the odd occasion, someone passed him, their journey was in such haste that his presence was ignored.

  The rain increased its ferocity, descending in long vertical sheets that whipped and changed direction according to the whim of the brawling clouds above. The cold was beginning to seep beneath Richard’s clothing and sting his skin; he hoped that he wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

  A short while later, his patience was rewarded. Squinting through the hazy mix of rain and mist, Richard saw the street door to the Lovekin house open. Joseph, quickly followed by Eliza, darted out along the short path to the gin palace. Moments later, the oil lamps inside were lit, radiating like beacons against the gloom. Richard smiled. It was almost time. He just needed to be patient a little longer.

  He watched as four fishermen bundled into the gin palace—enough to keep the two proprietors occupied for a while. He moved out from under the awning and, keeping his hat tilted down over his face, Richard passed the large illuminated windows of the Black Horse. Taking a chance look inside, he just caught sight of Joseph and Eliza serving drinks from behind the bar.

  He continued to the Lovekin house and stopped beside the parlour window. Through the shutter slats, he could just make out the three girls: the younger two were playing with a wooden toy in front of the fire and Harriet, sitting in an armchair, was engrossed in some sewing.

  Richard tapped lightly on the shutters, startling all three girls and sending Harriet to her feet. ‘Harriet—it’s me, Richard,’ he called.

  Following a rattling of the door bolts, Harriet cracked the door open with a frightened look on her face. He watched as recognition replaced the fear in her eyes with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.

  He smiled. ‘Hello, Harriet.’

  ‘What ever do you be doing here on a night like this?’ Harriet asked. ‘Have you come to arrest me?’

  Richard laughed. ‘After what you did for me? You saved my life, Harriet. I just wanted to return this to you,’ he answered, handing over the shawl.

  Harriet took the clothing, surprise evident on her face. ‘You be a-coming all this way in this’ – she indicated heavenwards – ‘just to be giving me back my shawl?’

  Richard nodded, raised his hat and said, ‘And I will now bid you a good night.’ He smiled and began to head back in the direction from which he had come.

  ‘Wait!’ Harriet called.

  Richard smiled briefly then turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Won’t you be a-coming in—dry yourself for a moment in front of the fire? I can be putting on a drink for you,’ she called.

  Richard shook his head. ‘No need, honestly.’

  ‘Please, Richard,’ Harriet pleaded.

  Taking small steps back towards the house, Richard beamed. ‘Very well—just for a short while.’

  Harriet stepped to one side and let him in.

  ‘Good evening, girls,’ Richard greeted.

  Keziah and Ann stared bleakly at the stranger.

  ‘Who do you be?’ Keziah challenged.

  ‘He be a friend of mine who’s beazled out from all this nasty weather, so you two need to be a-going to your beds.’

  Keziah shot a curious look at him, but silently obeyed and herded her younger sister towards the stairs.

  Harriet moved closer to Richard. ‘Let me be putting your coat by the fire,’ she offered, gently touching him on the shoulder.

  Richard removed his coat and handed it over, noticing that the same sparkle in her eyes, the glint that he had first witnessed after his accident, was there again. She carried his coat to the fire and placed it carefully on the back of the chair that she had been sitting on, turning its back to the hearth.

  ‘It won’t be taking too long to dry,’ Harriet said, almost inaudible over the crackling fire and rattling window casements. ‘Your shirt be soaked and all.’

  Richard glanced down at the damp patches that gripped the shirt to his chest. He began to unbutton it, all the while holding his eyes on hers. Her coyness and discomfort amused him. Silently, he offered her his shirt.

  Harriet mumbled something and clumsily hung it beside his coat, catching a lingering look at his torso in the reflection of the looking glass. Turning back to him, she said, ‘Would you be liking some tea, Richard?’

  ‘That would be lovely—thank you,’ he answered.

  She left the room diffidently and he took the opportunity to look around the parlour: it was just the humble dwelling th
at he had imagined it to be. Simple furniture. Simple lives. Simple people. And yet they’re not, he thought resentfully, they’re conceited, arrogant and malevolent. He caught sight of the painting above the fireplace and moved closer to it. It was Eliza, painted two years earlier by an artist trained in flattery rather than in reality, it appeared.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Harriet said, appearing behind him clutching a small cup of tea between both hands. ‘Mr Woods painted it two years ago in exchange for a few free drinks. He still be wanting free gin to this day!’

  Richard turned with a smile. ‘Yes, it is beautiful. It looks like you’re very fortunate to have such a nice family,’ he responded, taking the cup. ‘Thank you. They seem to be doing well for themselves—your parents, I mean.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

  Richard sipped his drink. ‘And what about you, Harriet? How old are you, now? Twenty?’

  Harriet sniggered. ‘I be coming on for eighteen this birthday next.’

  Richard looked surprised.

  ‘How old do you be, Richard?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m twenty-five.’

  Both Harriet and Richard jumped with fright, as a sudden gust of wind violently shuddered through the whole house, like a terrible earthquake. One of the girls upstairs screamed at the same moment as the fire shrank down almost to extinction, before stretching up and hissing into the room.

  Harriet shrieked and dashed over to Richard, who flung his arm over her shoulders. ‘It’s all right—it’s just the wind,’ he reassured her.

  The sound of two pairs of feet hurrying down the stairs was almost drowned out by another surge of wind that attacked the front of the house, firing sharp pellets of rain at the window shutters.

  Keziah and Ann appeared in the room looking terrified, and ran to the embrace of their elder sister.

  ‘Do we be alright?’ Keziah begged. ‘Ought we not to fetch Ma and Pa?’

  ‘It’s only a storm, girls,’ Richard comforted.

  Another burst of wind hit the house, being instantly followed by a loud crashing noise that sounded to him like a building nearby had collapsed. All three Lovekin girls looked up at Richard in terror. ‘It be pulling the houses down,’ Ann sobbed. ‘Get Ma and Pa, Hattie, please.’

  ‘I best be getting them,’ Harriet decided.

  Richard suddenly pulled away; he couldn’t be found here by Joseph and Eliza—that wasn’t the plan. Not tonight. He’d achieved what he had come to do and now it was time to leave. He strode over to his damp garments and began to pull on his shirt. ‘I need to go and see what that awful noise was,’ he said, pulling on his coat and hat. ‘Someone might be hurt.’

  ‘Don’t be a-leaving us,’ Harriet pleaded.

  ‘You’ll be fine, girls,’ he said, as he reached for the door latch. The door flew open, slamming back into the wooden wall behind it.

  One of the girls yelped as the wind forced its way inside the parlour, twisting around the flames of the fire and drawing them into the room before pulling on the four chairs and tugging at Eliza’s portrait on the wall.

  The door slammed shut and the wind recoiled, leaving the three sobbing sisters holding each other in the middle of the room.

  The moment that he stepped from the Lovekin house, Richard’s hat was whipped from his head, joining a raft of debris being torn from boats, yards and buildings all around him, to be tossed and discarded brutally at the wind’s whim. He needed to leave—right now, before he got injured; he had achieved his objective and the weather was now becoming dangerous. Maybe tonight wasn’t a good night to come here, after all, he thought as he battled just to stay upright. With the wind behind him, he began to head back towards the Priory Bridge.

  ‘Hey! Can you be a-helping us?’ a voice called from the gloom behind him.

  Richard swung around and could just discern a dark figure veiled by mist and rain.

  ‘We be a-needing help, here!’ the man repeated. ‘Folk is trapped and the sea be a-coming in.’

  Richard stared: this wasn’t what he’d come for. These same people now requesting his help were the ones that had not long ago thrown their filth over him; the same people who had made his horse rear up and caused him to fall; the same people who had disrespected the authority of the corporation and the laws of King George. With a sneer, he continued for the bridge, leaving the mist to swallow the tragic figure behind him.

  There was another crack and crash from the shoreline in what sounded like another building being annihilated by the waves. As Richard set his foot on the Priory Bridge, he stopped and turned. A thin smile spread across his face, as his imagination played out the wild drama taking place beneath the fog. Mother Nature and God had plotted and contrived together to take back what was rightfully theirs, succeeding where the weak corporation officials had failed.

  There was a noise from the other side of the bridge. Richard whipped around to see a man on horseback suddenly emerge from the darkness. The horse was virtually upon him when the rider pulled it up abruptly.

  ‘Can you be a-helping, sir?’ the man beseeched from the horse. He was breathless and soaked to the skin.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Richard asked indifferently.

  ‘Haven’t you been a-hearing the storms? Most of the cottages on the shore are down. People be trapped there and the tide be a-racing in faster and higher than I ever did see before. We been trying to help, but more keeps a-falling down. Joe Lovekin and Henry Weller have catched hurt.’

  Richard’s green eyes narrowed in concentration and he tried to seek the horseman’s face through the torrents of rain. Had he heard correctly? That Joe Lovekin was hurt? Just a few moments ago he was behind the bar in the Black Horse. ‘Joe Lovekin, you say?’

  ‘That’s right—we could be a-doing with your brawn down there.’

  ‘Let me up,’ Richard instructed, reaching hold of the leather saddle-back.

  The rider shifted forwards and hauled Richard up behind him.

  ‘You ready?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, go,’ Richard shouted.

  The horse jolted after a sharp kick from the rider, then began galloping down the narrow passage back towards the sea.

  With his eyes shut and his head bowed forward, Richard tried to control his breathing and excessive heart rate as the horse flew past the Black Horse and the Lovekin home, before slowing to a canter. He looked up in astonishment; just forty feet away, waves higher than he had ever seen in his life were slamming into the row of shoreline properties, tearing them apart effortlessly piece by piece, like a voracious raptor ripping into its prey. Under the blackest of skies, just two obstinate stone cottages remained intact; the wooden tenements that had once stood between them had capitulated to the waves, their fractured remains scattered and strewn across the beach. A group of men, sodden and some of them clearly injured, were holding lanterns and shouting instructions to each other over the deafening sea. To the other side of the buildings, Richard could just make out the American flag lashing back and forth in the air: rebellious, provoking and defiant.

  ‘Where’s Joe Lovekin?’ Richard called to one of the men.

  ‘He be trapped in there,’ he yelled back, pointing at the stone cottage furthest away, sitting heavily in the mist. As the words left his mouth, another giant wave rose up and smashed into the cottage, before withdrawing in on itself. The defiant house stood like an empty skull, with no windows, roof or door remaining.

  ‘I’m going in,’ Richard declared.

  ‘You can’t be a-doing that, it be too dangerous,’ the man hollered back.

  Richard ignored the comment and focussed on the sea, timing the brief lull between each wave surge. If he could just make it inside, the structure itself would afford him some protection; it was reaching the cottage which was the most dangerous part. With good fortune, he could time it correctly. ‘Can I borrow your lantern, please?’ he called.

  The man shook his head. ‘I ain’t be a-sending you to your death.
It’s too yeasty out there!’

  ‘Give it to him—he’s from the Corporation,’ the man beside him urged.

  ‘Listen to him. I’ll go in without a lantern, if I have to, but I don’t stand as much chance finding Joe,’ Richard said.

  Another wave hurtled into the cottage, flushing through the voids where the windows had once been. His plan had changed. If Joe Lovekin is inside there and still alive, it’s a miracle, Richard thought. But I need to know, either way.

  ‘Time’s running out,’ Richard warned, extending his hand towards the lantern.

  The man looked hesitantly at his young friend, then passed it over to Richard. ‘I don’t be a-thinking this is a good idea,’ he bawled.

  Richard disregarded him and moved forwards into the sea so that the freezing water lapped over his shins; he now needed to focus and bide his time.

  The largest wave that he had seen so far on this treacherous night stretched up as if it might devour the entire cottage, before suddenly curling its white foamy jaws and biting down into the opening where the roof had earlier been.

  Richard knew that he had just a few seconds to reach the cottage before the sea would mount its next assault. Using every ounce of energy in his body, he waded as fast as he could through the water, battling the undercurrent that wrenched and pulled at his feet. In his peripheral vision, the sea was rolling backwards, just moments away from launching its attack.

  The water suddenly became shallower and he was able to increase his stride.