The Smuggler's Daughter

by Kerry Barrett

  ‘These bottles?’ Arthur picked one up.

  ‘Yes,’ I was confused. ‘These bottles.’

  ‘This is brandy.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve seen this brandy before.’

  ‘In the trunks?’ I pointed to the chests on the floor but Arthur shook his head impatiently, looking upset.

  ‘No, Emily. I’ve seen it at home. On my father’s table.’

  ‘When?’ Surely this was a coincidence. Surely?’

  ‘Last night,’ Arthur said, grim-faced. ‘I saw it last night. He said a friend had given it to him. He had a drink with Mr Trewin.’

  I gasped. ‘Mr Trewin?’

  ‘The very same.’

  I thought hard. ‘Did Mr Trewin give your father the brandy?’

  Arthur looked like he would cry. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him as he’d comforted me, but something in his expression told me to let him speak.

  ‘On the night you spied on Morgan, my father said he needed me to help him prepare the eucharist for a woman in Kirrinporth who was very ill. Not likely to last the night. He needed to go and say prayers with her.’

  I nodded. It seemed a worthy way to spend an evening.

  ‘I helped him get ready, but in the end he didn’t go. He said she was much improved and the doctor no longer thought she would die.’

  I shrugged. ‘Good news.’

  But Arthur sighed. ‘He knew I was planning to go for a walk with you. I told him. I think he made up the story about the dying woman to stop me going near the cliffs.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’ Arthur looked wretched. ‘And then last night, he went out around eight o’clock – after dinner. When he came home, he had the bottle of brandy with him. He said it was a gift. And then Mr Trewin arrived and he took him into his study. I heard them making a toast to benevolent friends.’

  ‘Oh, Arthur,’ I breathed. ‘Can this be possible?’

  ‘I thought Mr Trewin may be involved when he spun us that tale,’ Arthur said. He started pacing across the cellar floor. ‘And I thought about telling my father I wasn’t sure he was trustworthy. But I thought better of it, because Mr Trewin is a churchwarden, for goodness’ sake. He is man of God, just like my father. How could a man of God be involved in smuggling, I thought.’ He snorted. ‘Well, it seems I got that very wrong, didn’t I?’

  I was staring at him. ‘Not just a churchwarden,’ I said slowly.

  Arthur looked despairing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Mr Trewin is the parish constable. And he is appointed by the magistrate.’

  I felt completely helpless. If Morgan was smuggling, and Mr Trewin knew all about it, it seemed there was nowhere for us to turn.

  ‘I do not know what we should do,’ Arthur said. He was deathly white, his freckles standing out on his pale skin. ‘We have no options left. Everyone is playing their part in this crime. My father included.’

  This time I did go to him. I caught him in my arms and held him to my chest. We didn’t know anything for sure yet.

  Arthur’s eyes burned with shame and fear. ‘I know that my father is in this up to his neck. I just don’t know what we should do about it.’

  Chapter 26

  My head was spinning. It seemed we were trapped. There was nothing we could do to stop Morgan. If we went to the revenue men, they might not take us seriously. Especially if such important men were involved. And if the revenue men did listen to us, then we could be sending my mother and Arthur’s father to the gallows. But even knowing all this was true, I felt we had to act.

  ‘We have to tell,’ I said into Arthur’s neck. I knew we had to report what we had found.

  Arthur pulled away from me. ‘No.’

  ‘Arthur,’ I said, struggling to find the right words to convince him. ‘He killed Da.’ I knew only too well how brutal these men could be. How could we stand aside and let them continue?

  ‘Reporting them means a death sentence for my father,’ said Arthur. His eyes were wild.

  ‘No,’ I said. I hoped they would never send a minister of the church to the gallows, though I didn’t know that for sure.

  ‘They will do whatever they have to do to protect each other,’ Arthur hissed. ‘The magistrate isn’t going to take the blame, is he? Or Mr Trewin? It will be my father who hangs, not them.’

  We weren’t wrapped around each other any more. In fact there was a space between us that seemed to be growing.

  ‘My father, and your mother,’ Arthur went on. ‘If we report it, and your mam is hanged for it, how will you feel?’

  I felt sick. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We do nothing. That’s what your father wanted. That’s why he told you to stay quiet.’

  My chest felt tight at the memory. My throat narrowed and I gulped for air. ‘That’s not fair,’ I gasped.

  ‘None of this is fair,’ Arthur said. His face twisted and again I thought he might cry. ‘Not one bit of this is fair. It’s not fair that your father died. It’s not fair that Morgan thought your mother could be of use. It’s not fair that my father, my good, kind, godly father is somehow involved in the distribution of illegal goods. And it’s definitely not fair that we’re here, witnessing it all.’

  He looked at me, his angry face softening slightly. ‘I don’t know what to do either.’

  Looking worn out, he sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall of the cellar. I sat down next to him, gathering my skirt around my knees. We stayed like that for a while, neither of us speaking. I was imagining different scenarios in my head. Arthur, I knew, gave me some credibility. There was very little chance of the revenue men believing me if he wasn’t with me when we went to see them. Not when everyone in Kirrinporth believed me to be a simpleton without a voice. I needed him – not least for his voice. But he was right. Reporting this smuggling meant reporting my mother for giving Morgan a hiding place, and his father for doing whatever he was doing to help them. How could I live with myself if our interference meant the death of our parents?

  ‘We could warn them,’ I said suddenly.

  Arthur looked at me, hope flaring in his eyes. ‘Warn your mam? And my father?’

  I nodded.

  He looked thoughtful. ‘We could go to your mother and my father and tell them what we know. And we tell them we’re going to the revenue men because we want Morgan punished.’

  I stood up, and mimed moving the bottles and crates, looking at Arthur. He nodded. ‘If they know the revenue men are coming, they can do whatever they need to do, to make it look as though they aren’t involved. Hide the cargo. Get their stories straight. And Morgan will still be caught.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Could this work?

  But Arthur’s expression was serious. ‘What if they tell Morgan?’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, Emily. But they might. They’re obviously both in his pocket. Your mam’s desperate. A woman on her own? What options does she have if the inn’s not making money? Morgan is the only thing keeping her from the gutter. It’s in her interest to tell Morgan. If we warn her what is happening, then chances are, she’ll go straight to Morgan and tell him.’

  ‘She wouldn’t.’

  ‘Can you trust her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Sure?’

  I leaned my head back against the wall of the cellar, thinking about the demonic look in Mam’s eyes when she burned my pictures. ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither. This morning I would have trusted my father with anything. Not now.’

  ‘We do nothing?’ I said, feeling anger bubbling up inside again. Did he really mean that? For us to do nothing and for me to watch Morgan coming to my mother’s inn. To her bed. For me to stay quiet and let him do what he wanted to do with her and with the inn. And never to tell anyone that he was the reason my mother was such a mess. That he was the one who killed my father, whom I loved and missed
every day. I swallowed a sob. ‘He gets away with it?’

  Arthur turned his head to look straight at me. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘No,’ I said. I was not going to let this happen. I scrambled to my feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Arthur looked alarmed.

  ‘Customs men,’ I said. I was going to tell them what I knew.

  ‘You can’t.’ He got up, springing to his feet like a cat.

  ‘I can.’ I felt like I was seeing things clearly at last. If Arthur wouldn’t come with me, I would go alone. I didn’t care if they laughed at me, or called me simple, or if I couldn’t speak. I would make them hear me somehow.

  Arthur grabbed my arm. ‘What about my father?’

  ‘Your father is a man,’ I said. I couldn’t say anything else but from the resigned expression on Arthur’s face, he understood what I meant. That his father had choices where my mother had none. That he had money where my mother had none. And that he had made his choice to get involved with Morgan and I believed it was time for him to face the consequences. I shook Arthur’s hand from my arm. ‘Let me go,’ I said.

  ‘Emily,’ Arthur began. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  I felt my throat clench. I tried to reply but no sound came out. I’d never been mute with Arthur before. Never. Not even in the worst days after Da’s death.

  He reached for me again but again I shook him off, feeling along the door mantel for the key – my mother always left keys on top of doorframes because she hated the jangle of a keyring. To my relief, I found it, unlocked the door and put the key back on top. Then with a look of disdain at Arthur over my shoulder, I opened the door and slipped out into the inn hallway.

  My heart pounding and my blood rushing in my ears, I went into the main part of the inn where Mam was staring into a drink.

  ‘Kkkk.’ I tried to tell her I was going to Kirrinporth but my throat had tightened too much and I couldn’t speak. She barely looked up at me, just nodded her head.

  A man I recognised as one of the inn’s customers from before Da’s death, and who’d returned since more drinkers had come back, glanced at me. ‘I’m going back that way, Emily love. Want to hop in?’

  I nodded eagerly, trying to show him speed was of the essence here. I wanted to be gone before Arthur either made his way out of the cave and up the cliff path, or came out through the door to the inn. The man clearly understood I was in a hurry for he drained the last dregs from his tankard and then followed me out of the inn to where his horse and cart stood. Infuriatingly slowly he checked the horse’s harness. I watched the top of the cliff, expecting to see Arthur’s red hair emerge any second. But it didn’t and I climbed in to the trap, and off we went.

  The man – his name was Mr Regis I remembered now – chatted to me the whole way and didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t answering. My occasional nods were enough to keep him going.

  He set me down in the marketplace, with a cheerful tip of his hat. I put my hand to my heart, to show I was grateful and then set off again. I hitched up my skirt and ran through the crowds of people in the square, and down towards the sea wall, which skirted the beach, and reached out into the water. At the end of the wall was a small, squat square building, like a tiny castle. The customs house. I knew the revenue men had an office there, but I had no idea if they would be there or out on their horses patrolling the shoreline, or even off in the cutters, sailing along the coast and looking for smugglers. But it didn’t matter. I was here now and I had to try. I burst through the door, and it was only when the two men inside looked up, I realised I had not prepared what to say – if in fact I could say anything at all.

  ‘Hello,’ said one of the men. He was younger than I’d expected the revenue men to be. He was wearing a shirt and britches and his red jacket was draped on the chair where he sat. ‘Are you lost?’

  I shook my head, still short of breath. My throat felt so narrow I feared I might faint if I couldn’t get some air.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’ the other man said. He was older, with a greying beard. ‘Sit down.’

  He pulled out a chair for me and I fell into it. My breathing was slowing down now. I held out a hand to show him I was fine and I was about to speak. The men both looked at me expectantly. But my throat was clenched, and though I tried, I couldn’t make a sound.

  ‘I know you,’ the older man said. ‘You’re the Moon girl. From the inn on the cliff?’

  I nodded, trying desperately to speak.

  ‘She doesn’t talk,’ the older man said to his colleague. ‘She’s not right in the head. Bit simple.’

  I shook my head, and dug into my bag for my sketches of Morgan bringing the cargo ashore, thrusting them at the men. The younger one took them and glanced at the top one, which showed the lanky man ankle-deep in the waves.

  ‘You do drawing do you?’ he said in a tone like fathers used with their small children. ‘That’s nice.’

  He held the bundle back out to me and in frustration I batted them away. The papers scattered across the floor and the younger man tutted. ‘No need for that.’

  I threw my hands out in despair, begging them to understand, to see that I wasn’t simple, but they both looked at me blankly as tears sprang into my eyes. This was hopeless. I buried my face in my hands. All was now lost. I couldn’t protect my mother or avenge my father.

  The older man put his hand on my shoulder gently. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘Come on now.’

  What choice did I have? I nodded and watched as the younger man gathered up the drawings that showed what sort of wrongdoings Morgan was up to, and put them carefully into my bag.

  ‘You keep those,’ he said kindly. ‘They’re obviously precious to you.’

  With slumped shoulders, holding my bag close to my chest, I followed the older man out of the customs house and up to the stables near the shore.

  As I stood waiting for him to get the horse, I felt the weight of eyes on my back. I turned, thinking it would be Arthur, and felt cold fear drip down my spine when I saw Morgan. He was standing a little way from the stables, watching me with interest. Had he seen me with the revenue man? I made to walk away and pretend I was doing chores for my mother, but before I stepped on to the path, Morgan raised his hat to me and with an expression that suggested amusement, much to my confusion, he went on his way.

  In relief and frustration, I leaned against the wall, watching the kind revenue man. He was speaking to a stable hand in a low voice and I clenched my fists as they both sent sympathetic glances in my direction. I wasn’t some poor girl who needed pity. I needed them to act. But unless I could tell them that, how would they ever know? I supposed that was the reason for Morgan’s amusement. He knew there was nothing I could do to stop him.

  With tears silently rolling down my cheeks, I climbed into the trap with the bearded customs man. It was over.

  Chapter 27

  Phoebe

  2019

  It had been raining for days. It was too wet to go running and it was too miserable for walkers on the cliff path, so the few passing customers we’d had at first dwindled to nothing. I had time on my hands but the weather meant it would have been foolhardy to try to get on to the beach to see what Jed and Mark had been doing.

  Jed himself was another misery. He’d not replied to my message. He’d read it, and ignored it. I felt stupid and annoyed and unhappy all at once, but I still hoped he might turn up at the pub with Ewan and Mark in tow. He didn’t though. There had been no sign of them at all.

  All of that would have mattered less if Liv had been her usual self. We could have holed up in the pub, watching romcoms on Netflix and eating pasta, and having a laugh to pull me out of my gloom. But she was equally miserable and whatever I suggested, she turned down. ‘I’m just not in the mood, Phoebe,’ she kept saying. She opened the pub each evening, but by the third evening, when no one had come in, she looked so fed up I was despairing.

  I was sitting on the sofa by the windo
w, looking out over the grey, swirling sea, and Liv was standing in the middle of the pub, flicking through the channels on the TV trying to find something to watch that wasn’t football, when we heard an engine outside.

  Liv straightened up. ‘What’s that? It sounds like a bus.’ She darted to the booth that overlooked the car park steps and peered outside into the gloomy evening light. ‘It’s a bus,’ she said in delight. ‘It must be a coach tour.’

  I was delighted. ‘Are they coming in?’

  ‘They are.’ Liv clapped her hands. ‘Best smiles, Phoebe.’

  We both plastered grins to our faces as the door opened and in came a group of about twelve or fifteen people. All in their seventies, all wearing cagoules.

  ‘Oh thank goodness,’ said the woman in front as they entered. ‘We were worried you’d be closed and we’re all desperate for a wee.’

  ‘Welcome,’ Liv said. ‘What an awful evening to be out on a trip.’

  ‘We’ve been down to the Lizard, but the roads are so terrible because of the rain, it’s taking longer to get back than we expected. Neil’s doing a great job, though. I wouldn’t want to be driving in this rain.’

  There was a murmur of assent and one of the men, who I assumed was Neil, nodded modestly.

  ‘What can I get you?’ said Liv, clearly wanting more from this group than just chat.

  ‘Teas and coffees?’ said the woman.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Barbara,’ said another woman. She put her very nice, bright blue handbag on to the bar, and peeled off her cagoule, holding it at arm’s length as though it disgusted her. ‘I’ll have a red wine, please.’

  ‘It’s only five o’clock, Jan,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Sun’s over the yardarm somewhere.’

  I decided I rather liked Jan.

  I helped Liv keep track of all the orders while the day trippers went backwards and forwards to the toilets and settled themselves in seats. The whole atmosphere in the pub had lifted, thanks to their arrival. Liv was beaming and doing her usual brilliant job at keeping everyone happy. It was so nice to hear the buzz of conversation and laughter for once.