Blake's Reach

by Catherine Gaskin

  She gasped, and the explanation struck her coldly; it was their own horses that had been ridden away with such complete boldness ‒ the horses belonging to Blake’s Reach, and the two beautiful greys Lord O’Neill had given her.

  The thieves were gone already ‒ lost somewhere out there in that blackness.

  Savagely she banged the casement behind her, and scrambled to find flint to light the candle. Then she flung a cloak about her shoulders, and thrust her feet into icy shoes. Outside in the corridor she paused, shielding the flame with her hand; the house was unfamiliar ‒ the only thing she recognized was the head of the stairwell in the new wing. In outraged haste she made for it.

  ‘Kate! Patrick! Wake up! Someone’s stolen the horses! Patrick ‒ wake up!’

  As she raced down the stairs she heard General barking ‒ a frenzied sound in the otherwise still house. Now the strangeness of the house maddened her; in the hall downstairs she flung herself futilely against two locked doors in her search for the kitchen. She found it at last ‒ a flagstone paved room with a huge fireplace where the live embers still glowed. Leading directly from it was a twisting, narrow staircase. She stood at the bottom and called loudly, ‘Patrick! Kate! The horses ‒ someone’s taken the horses!’

  It took her several minutes to light one of the lanterns she found ranged on the mantel, and more time went on struggling with the bolts on the kitchen door. Above her she could hear noises now ‒ Kate and Patrick calling to her, and General still barking.

  ‘Mistress! … Wait!’

  Jane didn’t wait. She ran across the rough paving to the stables, the rain pelting down into her face, making her gasp and twist to escape it. The wind struck cold right down to her bones. The stable door was latched, but not locked. She flashed the lantern quickly along the stalls; there was no answering movement of animals. The stalls were quite empty. In fury she banged the stable door again, and started back to the kitchen.

  Her rage made her forget the cold. Angrily she faced Kate, who waited beside the door. Patrick was behind Kate, with his thick driving coat pulled over his nightshirt, and a long expanse of bony ankle showing above his shoes. By the light of the lantern he held, his pale face looked thinner than ever, and the hair blacker. At the doorway was William, barefooted and wild with excitement, straining on General’s collar to hold him.

  It was Kate who must bear the brunt of her wrath. ‘What sort of an idiot is Jed to go off and leave the stable unlocked! As if things aren’t bad enough without we lose the horses as well …! Those greys ‒ they were worth money! And the carriage … how can I use the carriage without horses?’ Furiously she swept past Kate. ‘Oh, the fool! ‒ the blasted fool! Just wait until I lay my tongue about his ears ‒ yes, and a whip about his stupid shoulders .…!’

  ‘Hush, Mistress … Hush you now! There’s no need to be fretting.’

  ‘No need!’ Jane’s irritation increased. ‘Well, then, how are we to get them back? By morning they could be anywhere … Day after to-morrow they could be sold, and gone forever!’ Her voice quivered at the thought of it.

  Kate shook her head; she closed the door firmly behind Jane and reached out and took the lantern from the girl’s tense fingers. Her wrinkled face was framed by two grey plaits hanging down across her shoulders.

  ‘Easy, Miss Jane! They’ll not be sold anywhere to-morrow, and you’ll find them back there, safe and snug. And more than likely there’ll be a little present of tea or brandy to go with them.’

  Jane looked at her coldly, her anger dying in a second as the meaning of the words came to her.

  ‘You mean, Kate,’ she said, ‘that this is the doing of the smugglers …’

  ‘Yes, Mistress.’

  ‘Why?’

  With great deliberation Kate looked at Patrick. ‘Yer man, there ‒ shouldn’t he be takin’ Master William back to his bed now, Mistress.’

  Jane nodded slowly. ‘Yes …. yes.’ Then to William she said: ‘You’ll take your death of cold. Look, you have no shoes …’

  He grimaced. ‘But I want to go and look for the horses … Lord O’Neill wouldn’t like to know that the horses are gone.’

  ‘We are not going to look for the horses now, William. I … made a mistake. They’re not stolen.’

  He tugged irritably at General’s collar. ‘We’re not cold, and we’re not tired,’ he said loudly as he turned away.

  Patrick went with him, and he was about to close the door, Jane motioned him. ‘Come back here ‒ when William is settled.’

  Kate looked after them doubtfully. ‘Is it wise, Mistress ‒ yer man, can he be trusted to hold his tongue?’

  ‘My mother died with Patrick by her bedside,’ Jane said sharply. ‘His devotion is more to be trusted than any soul I know.’

  When Patrick returned Kate had a brisk fire of kindling started. She had taken away Jane’s wet cloak, and given her an old woollen shawl. The blackened kettle hanging on the firecrane had begun to steam. As Patrick eased his long body into the corner of the settle, Kate handed them mugs of strong sweet tea.

  ‘Take it now, against the cold,’ she urged. ‘I’ve put a drop o’ brandy in to warm yer insides.’

  She settled herself in her own tall-backed chair, wrapping her soiled grey home-spun shift about her thin flanks.

  ‘Well, Mistress,’ she said, ‘ye’ve lived inland until now, and you’d not be expected to know the ways of sea-going folks. But where there’s an easy bit o’ money to be picked up, there are always men to be found to do it. The French coast is very handy-like to the Marsh, and the tax on tea and brandy’s high enough to make sure that a body would never get the taste of it.’

  Patrick moved indignantly. ‘That’s all very well now ‒ haven’t we all been settling for contraband tea and stuff whenever we could get our hands on it. ’Tis only fools who pay the full price, whether they live inland or not. But look you, woman, this comes close to home ‒ there’s empty stables out there now, an’ them two beautiful creatures that were the joy of Miss Anne’s heart are gone. An’ here’s Miss Jane worryin’ her head off about them …’

  She held up her hand for silence. ‘Will ye let me be? I’ve more to say, and I’ll finish me piece in me own time.’

  ‘Go on, Kate,’ Jane urged.

  The old woman swayed a little in her chair. ‘Ah, I know well that the whole country gladly takes what our gallant lads can get past the Customs boys, and I dare say the folks on the Marsh would go on running the cargoes even if the other great injustice weren’t here to ruin the farmers.’

  ‘Injustice?’ Patrick’s aggressiveness rose to the bait.

  ‘Aye ‒ a foolish and cruel tax Parliament put on shipping wool from the country. They say ’tis to help the weavers ‒ and the weavers pay as little as they like, and it’s ruin for the farmers. What could you expect men to do with the prices they offer for English wool across the Channel? What fools they be in London if they think a man will see himself ruined when all he has to do is run his wool across to Holland to fetch a fancy price.’

  ‘All along this coast, Mistress ‒ from here to Cornwall, the highest and the lowest ‒ there’s hardly a family it doesn’t touch in some way. Even the small people on the Marsh have a hand in it on their own account. The Dutch ships heave-to off the shore, and the folks row out and buy the cargoes as free as you please. All it needs is a dark night, and some idea of where the Revenue cutter is likely to show up. And the Revenue men ‒ being paid as miserably as they are, and scared stiff, most o’ them, to come up against the smugglers ‒ well, they’re not always very slow to sell that kind of information. In good weather yawls and little sloops slip across to Jersey and Guernsey and fill up with as much as they can hold. The Channel Isles, Mistress, are like big store houses for everything the English smuggler wants. ’Tis a profitable business, even when it’s done in a small way.’

  ‘We’ve all known that for a long time, woman,’ Patrick said. ‘But in heaven’s sweet name will ye tell us where
the horses are?’

  ‘I’m gettin’ to that,’ Kate said crossly. ‘I’m gettin’ to that directly. Now ‒ what I’ve been talkin’ about’s small stuff, a side line, you’d call it, for the smaller folk without much money. But for the big men in the business it’s a different thing. There are men on the Marsh and hereabouts who’ve made themselves rich in a few years on runnin’ the tea and brandy. They’re the ones who own the big luggers ‒ the Folkestone boat-builders make a fancy, handsome craft, with fore and aft rig, that’ll outsail anything the Revenue people put on the seas. All along the coast ‒ places like Rye, Deal and Folkestone ‒ they put out of harbour in the usual way with a small crew on, like as they was goin’ fishin’. Then they heave-to off the coast somewheres, and wait until the darkness. Then the fisher folk and the village people come out in their rowing-boats, and leave a crew on the lugger of as many as forty to sixty men, Mistress ‒ depending on the size of the lugger. Then they’re off to France or Holland, and the people on that side be only too willing to give them the sort of cargoes they want ‒ why, in places like Flushing and Roscoff, they leave a permanent man there to have their stuff ready for loading, just like a regular business.’

  She sipped her tea, nodding her head sagely at the thought of a business well handled. ‘When it’s all stowed, then back the lugger comes, and at night the boats come out again, unload the cargo and the extra men and run it in shore. That’s where the horses come in, Miss Jane. It needs a powerful lot of horses ‒ maybe as much as a hundred ‒ to carry a cargo like that any distance from the sea before dawn.’

  ‘And that’s where our horses have gone!’ Jane was shaken by the audacity and simplicity of it.

  ‘Heaven help us!’ Patrick said impiously. ‘T’ think of them two darlin’s with a load on their beautiful backs ‒ them that weren’t built for it. I’ll sit up wid them for the future ‒ and see that it don’t happen again.’

  Kate looked at him coldly. ‘’Twould be a foolish person who locked his stable when they thought their horses might be needed. Mor’an likely they’d find it burned down for their trouble. But if they’re obligin’ ‒ why, there’ll be a present, tea or a couple o’ half ankers o’ brandy, nice as y’ please, left back with the horses in the morning. Them fine gentlemen,’ she said slowly, ‘are easy to deal with as long as a body goes along with them. But it’s a dangerous and foolish thing to cross them. There’ve been bad tales o’ murder and beatin’s. The smugglers are the law along the seacoast, and there’s none that dare stand against them. Informers have a bad time of it, I can tell you …’

  Jane frowned. ‘But everyone must know … A hundred horses can’t pass along a road unnoticed.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘They do when everyone’s particular to draw their curtains tight, and close the shutters. And in the morning ‒ why they’ve not heard a sound. It ain’t healthy to have keen ears in these parts.’

  ‘Well!’ Patrick said with satisfaction, ‘they’ll not accomplish much on a night like this.’ He was still thinking sadly of the greys.

  ‘Unless the wind drops they’ll not land anything this night. It means that the lugger will put out to sea for the day, and to-morrow night they’ll try again. But it’s a dangerous business, because by the second night the Preventive Officers may have got wind of it and have called out the Folkestone Dragoons. There’s often a drop o’ blood spilled on nights like those, let me tell ye.

  ‘The smugglers usually have a few different places they can drop the cargo a bit inland if they’re pressed ‒ “hides” they calls them. It depends on the information they get about the Revenue people which one they decide to use.’

  She put down her cup and leaned forward to stir the logs. The light played over the gaunt hollows of her face; the thin plaits of hair looked curiously childish now.

  ‘In the past years, Mistress, Blake’s Reach has had a hand in that.’

  Jane stirred in alarm. From Patrick there was a frightened gasp. ‘Mother of God!’ He looked expectantly round the dark kitchen.

  ‘You don’t mean they leave the cargo here, Kate!’

  ‘No, Mistress! … No! They leave it at the church up on the old cliff face there. Likely you saw it as you came from Rye this afternoon? Aye … well that’s John’s church. One way an’ another they do say he made a lot o’ money ‒ this is what I hear, Mistress. It was all before my time. So he built this church that no one wanted in particular ‒ St. Saviour’s-by-the-Marsh, it’s called. Ain’t in any useful position, not for church-goin’ folks ‒ stuck off by itself, away from the village, just because old John had a notion to build it where it looked right over the Marsh. He endowed it, and there’s a service there one Sunday in three, just for the sake of the vicar earning his keep, so to speak. Though he doesn’t much like riding over from St. Giles. But he has to do it, like it or not. Not many of the villagers come to it, either ‒ too far when the weather makes the roads mucky. As churches go, it ain’t much use.

  ‘It makes a good store, Mistress, seeing as they have upwards of two weeks to move the stuff before the church is opened for the service. I expect the vicar knows ‒ but he don’t dare say nothing. If truth be known, he’s probably been paid to keep quiet. There’s so much profit in a big run that any number of folks can be paid for services like that.’

  ‘Did Spencer know?’

  Kate permitted herself a faint grin. ‘Why, bless you, Miss Jane … there’s a key to the church kept in this house, and it’s a privilege of the Blakes to walk in there whenever they’ve the notion! Your grandfather was paid handsomely for forgetting his privilege at times. Perhaps the smugglers might use the church only once in three or four months, but Spencer got his money regardless.’

  ‘Money!’ There was an eager catch in Jane’s voice. ‘Have they paid since he died?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Well, they’ve not paid me ‒ that much I can tell you. O’ course, I ain’t important, but I know what was goin’ on because sometimes ‒ well, yer grandfather wasn’t up to seein’ to things and he trusted me, Mistress. I don’t think Mr. Turnbull knows of it, so he’s not got the money. Like as not they’re glad to get out of paying.’

  ‘Well, they won’t get out of paying. Who else knows ‒ Jed? or Lucas?’

  ‘No, Mistress ‒ if they’ve found out they’ve kept their mouths shut, as it’s prudent to do. They’ve no call to go to the church ‒ or no call to poke their noses in where they’re not wanted.’

  Jane looked firmly from Kate to Patrick as if daring a contradiction.

  ‘It’s money that belongs to the Blakes … and for the time being it belongs to me. If Charlie ever shows up I’ll settle my debts with him. Now ‒ who do I see to get it?’

  Patrick looked at the ceiling wordlessly, his melancholy face expressed his outraged feelings. Kate’s horror was plain.

  ‘Lord, Miss Jane, you’re thinkin’ of goin’ after ’em. Tain’t wise, I tell ye! Ye don’t know these kind o’ folk. You’re new to the Marsh … and the Marsh don’t care for strangers pokin’ into its business.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger,’ Jane said shortly. ‘I’m a Blake! Now tell me ‒ what’s the name of the man I must see.’ Kate’s voice wavered.

  ‘Oh … Miss Jane …’

  ‘What’s the matter, Kate? Are you afraid I’ll inform? What sort of a fool do you take me for? All I’m interested in is the money for Blake’s Reach. After that they can all drown or hang, and it’s no concern of mine.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Aye, but you’re young, Mistress, to have words like those on yer lips.’

  ‘I have to have words and feelings like that or Blake’s Reach will be sold over our heads. Now, tell me ‒ what’s the name of this man?’

  ‘Mistress, I tell y’ to stay clear of this business. Y’ve no idea where it may lead y’ … Some bad things ’ave ’appened …’

  ‘Kate, you’d better tell me. If you don’t, I’ll find other people to ask, and that could be worse.’

&nbs
p; Kate sighed and shrugged. ‘Then y’d best be seein’ Paul Fletcher, over at Old Romney. I doubt he’s the man behind it all, but he’s the man to see. He’s not long back on the Marsh after leavin’ the Navy. But, Mistress, dear,’ she added pleadingly, ‘you’ll mind what you have to say to him? I don’t trust none o’ them what mixes in the business, and Mr. Fletcher being a gentleman makes it harder to judge.’

  Jane felt a wave of anger and irritation sweep over her as she listened. She was tired, and the chill was beginning to creep into her bones. It seemed that everyone ‒ Kate, Patrick, even Turnbull ‒ was bent on putting only fear and frustration before her. At the same time they clung to her, and looked to her to provide the means and reason for existence ‒ somehow. She wrapped her night gown more closely about her ankles; it was wet and dirty where it had dragged in the mud of the stable-yard. The wind had dropped while Kate talked, and she could no longer hear the sound of the rain. The smugglers would bring off the run, she thought, and someone ‒ perhaps this Paul Fletcher ‒ would be richer for it. She thought wearily and enviously of the gold that would be earned for this night’s work, and of the frightening way the golden sovereigns in her own purse had dwindled since they had left London ‒ frightened when she considered all that was needing at Blake’s Reach, and the demands that would be made on her. And the only saleable possession left to her ‒ the pair of greys ‒ were out somewhere on the dark night, risking their precious hides to make someone else’s gain. The thought enraged her; she felt young and ignorant, and the difficulties ahead were beyond counting.

  She rose to her feet stiffly, gathering all the dignity and firmness that was left to her, because somehow, now, it mattered that Kate and Patrick should never sense her weakness.