‘In the vegetable patch you looked beautiful. I shall cherish the picture, even more than the imagined image of the girl in the green silk gown.’
‘Why? That’s not as a woman wants to be remembered.’ He gestured helplessly.
‘How do I tell you? ‒ is it because I see you as something wild and free, wearing the look that courage wears? Even being here, as you are, with me now ‒ riding out on the Marsh with me despite all they had to say against it at Blake’s Reach ‒ eating bread and cheese and ale with me in a tavern. And here you are, letting the sun freckle your white skin, and your hat has almost blown into the dyke, and you don’t notice it. Oh, Jane ‒ Jane, don’t you see that it doesn’t take much to sit by the fire in a green silk gown.’
‘Hush! … hush, now!’ she said, laughing and not able to be angry with him. ‘Sitting by the fire was an accomplishment, too. Things have been done at Blake’s Reach, Paul ‒ and they’re my doing, I’m responsible for the fact that the drawing-room is fit to receive guests in … and carriages can drive to the door now and I’ve no need for shame.’
‘I know what you’ve done to Blake’s Reach, Jane, even in these few days. At Appledore ‒ and even further than Appledore ‒ they think you’re some kind of miracle. They expect to see old John Blake pacing the drive with you some day, passing on advice. No one can decide whether you’ve no more money than Spencer, or whether you’ve inherited a fortune from Anne, and know how to be economical with it.’
Jane laughed outright at that; the sound was loud and unrestrained. The duck fled to cover in the reeds; farther along the dykes, two heron, startled, rose up quickly in lovely, graceful flight.
‘Oh…!’ She dabbed at the moisture in the corners of her eyes. ‘That’s funny ‒ how Anne would have laughed! So Appledore thinks I’m an heiress … Well, let them think it! None of them have to know that I’ve spent the last hour lying here wondering how I can spend the twenty guineas to get the best from it. Which, I wonder, of the leaking spots in the roof most needs attention? ‒ or would it be better to spend it where it would show most? Should it go on the garden or the kitchen? You see, Paul, I’m being strictly honest ‒ every penny shall go on Blake’s Reach, none into my pocket.’
‘Well ‒ I wish it were otherwise, Jane. I wish there was a shower of gold going into your pocket, and that there were green silk gowns without number.’
She opened her mouth to make a teasing reply, and then closed it again; Paul’s face wore a look of repressed irritation and annoyance.
‘What is it? ‒ why do you look like that? I was only joking …’
‘I wasn’t joking! I’m disturbed because there is a way of sending a shower of gold into your pockets right at the moment, and I can’t use it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it takes money to make money ‒ and I haven’t got enough to start.’ He looked at her with enquiring eyes. ‘Not incidentally, it would send a shower of gold into my pockets as well. How much money have you got, Jane?’
‘How much do you need?’
‘Five hundred pounds ‒ thereabouts.’
‘Well! You might as well look for five thousand from me! I haven’t got that much, and if I did I don’t think I’d want to risk all of it with …’
‘Why? Because you’ve heard I once lost money you don’t think I can be trusted. I tell you, Jane, this is as sure a thing as you’ll ever hear of. It can’t miss!’
‘What can’t miss?’
‘It’s this way.’ He rolled over on his elbows until he was facing her directly. ‘There’s a man by the name of Wyatt in Folkestone who’s in trouble for money. He built a lugger to certain specifications ‒ the chief of them being that it could out-sail any revenue ship on these seas. The man who ordered it has gone back on the order ‒ got into money troubles himself ‒ and he’s cancelled. Wyatt is in debt, and looking for a buyer.’
‘Are you suggesting we buy a smuggler’s lugger?’
‘Child! ‒ you couldn’t buy a lugger for a few hundred pounds. But Wyatt is desperate, and would be willing to take cash for the hire of the craft. You see it isn’t just the matter of the lugger, Jane. You’ve got to have enough in hand to buy the cargo, pay the porters, a few pounds here and there as bribes … It adds up. But the profits! ‒ three hundred per cent isn’t unusual! Even a few months with the use of the lugger would pay us both handsomely. On the very first cargo we’d make enough profit to buy the second.’
She shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Well, suppose ‒ just suppose ‒ we could hire the lugger. A few months wouldn’t make us enough profit to buy it outright. What would happen when Wyatt found a buyer?’
‘Well …’ He gestured briefly. ‘We’d be back at the beginning, wouldn’t we? ‒ even if a little richer for our pains. Besides, many things can happen in a few months. Fortunes change …’
‘What do you mean? … “Fortunes change”?’
‘Exactly what I meant. By the end of the summer news may have reached you of Charles Blake. By the end of the summer you might be able to sell the King’s Pearl.’
Her mouth dropped open slightly; she gave a short gasp. ‘Sell the King’s Pearl to buy a smuggler’s lugger! You must be out of your mind!’
‘Some people wouldn’t say I was ‒ those who know the smuggling business. In a few seasons you could make the sort of money you haven’t dreamed of, Jane.’
‘Yes, and throw my hand in with a pack of murderers! It sounds like a poor way to invest the King’s Pearl. I don’t think I want any part of that side of it.’
‘You’ve listened to too many exaggerations, Jane. The smuggler’s band is as good or as bad as its leader. There are some men who’d think no more of murder than stealing a chicken from a cottage garden. But I don’t happen to be one of them. Don’t forget, it suits them to keep up all the old tales of murder and violence. The more frightened the people are, the less interference there’ll be. And don’t pretend you aren’t already a part of it, or that you can turn your head away from it. Every person who buys a half-pound of smuggled tea is part of it ‒ which means about three-quarters of the whole of England.’
She didn’t contest the point, knowing the truth of it far too well. ‘All right ‒ all right! But what’s the use of talking? ‒ I haven’t that much money, and the King’s Pearl isn’t mine. So there’s an end of it.’
‘I wish it didn’t have to be the end ‒ there won’t be another chance like this one. Couldn’t you borrow? Couldn’t you borrow it from Turnbull? Any man who lends you Blonde Bess could be persuaded to lend you more.’
She sat up straight, two bright spots of colour burning her cheeks. ‘I don’t think I care to ask Robert Turnbull for money on your behalf. I don’t want to have to hear him refuse. I don’t want to guess what he thinks of me.’
‘Does it matter to you what he thinks, Jane?’
‘Of course it does! He believes me, and he trusts me ‒ he’d want to know how I’d use the money, and he wouldn’t be fooled by the answers I could think up. No! ‒ not Robert Turnbull!’
‘I didn’t know you thought so highly of him,’ Paul said shortly.
She turned on him. ‘If you weren’t so busy hating everything you see on the Marsh, you’d discover there are people here who know how to live …’
‘Hush! Jane ‒ I didn’t mean to rouse you!’ he said lightly. ‘I should know better than to tease a Blake. They’re famous for their lack of a sense of humour.’
‘Well! ‒ And I’ve known long ago that the salt-water dried up your sense of … of …’ She struggled helplessly for a word.
‘Proportion?’ he suggested.
‘That will do as well as any ‒ and I won’t be badgered by you any more. Loans! … money! I’ve only been a few days on the Marsh, and you expect me to raise money! Why can’t you do it ‒ you must know enough people. They say your brother’s a rich man. Ask him!’
Paul sighed. ‘Him last of all! I’ve just managed to pay off my debts, and I’
d need to match your five hundred with five hundred of my own. It can’t be done, Jane ‒ hereabouts I’m reckoned to be a bad risk.’
‘That wild Paul Fletcher?’ she said softly. ‘Do they expect you to run off with it?’
He grinned. ‘… or spend it on women.’
Suddenly she laughed. ‘What a couple of paupers we are! No possessions ‒ and no money!’ She glanced over at him slyly. ‘Expensive clothes … fairly pleasing manners ‒ but no money! What can we do?’
Abruptly his face darkened; his eyes lost their amused, teasing expression as completely as if he had pulled away a mask. He gazed at her intently, his brow furrowing. Then he leaned over and tugged at her arm, so that she collapsed on the grass; he pulled himself nearer.
‘We can use what we have, Jane ‒ we can enjoy what we have.’
He bent over and kissed her savagely, wildly ‒ a frantic, searching kiss that carried overtones of despair. He rubbed his face against hers, cheek yielding to cheek, covering her with soft, biting kisses, that were passionate and yet protective. She murmured, and he covered her mouth again with his. Gently he kissed her ears, and her throat; his hand sought the swell of her breast under the habit. He could feel the tautening of her body as she responded.
‘Oh, Jane … Jane,’ his voice was low and troubled. ‘You’re so lovely, Jane … and if I had everything the world could give me, I’d still want you.’
Their heads were close together, red and blonde, in the sun. The breeze stirred again, playing through the reeds where the wild duck hid, and lifting and scattering the blossoms over their two bodies, lying so still on the green spring grass, and aching with their need and longing.
***
They rode together on the Marsh until the approach of dusk ‒ disturbed and wondering, hardly speaking to each other, or looking into the other’s face ‒ and yet there seemed no way to part that would not be painful and violent to them both. Jane followed Paul’s lead on the winding roads mindlessly, without question, only wanting above all things in the world that the closeness between them should not be jarred or broken. She lent her body willingly to the rhythm of Blonde Bess’s movements, feeling the wind in her face, hearing it thrust against the elms. Startled birds rose from the hedgerows at their approach; plovers shrieked from their nests in the fields. Jane looked about her and smiled, accepting the subtle magic of the spring afternoon and the presence of Paul at her side with equal sureness.
They rode westward under the great sea wall at Dymchurch where the level of the Marsh was lower than the sea itself. Paul led her off the road to paths among the sand dunes. They emerged from the dunes finally, and halted.
To Jane the sea was part of the afternoon ‒ no more or no less strange and wonderful than everything that had preceded it. She stared at it until her eyes ached; the wind brought tears to them, and she saw the scene through a haze. It was a miracle of light and movement, a heaving, crashing thing, that deafened, fascinated and awed her. It was an immensity she was not able completely to grasp.
Paul reached out and took her hand gently.
‘Out there is France, Jane ‒ someday you’ll come with me and see it. And over to the west there … that foreland is Dungeness. It’s nothing but a huge shingle bar the sea has thrown up over hundreds of years. It’s a natural barrier against the sea on this side of the Marsh, but it’s helped, as much as anything else, to silt up Rye Harbour, and the mouth of the river.’
The long miles of shingle Paul had called Dungeness, were desolate save for the swooping gulls, but now, in the spring, it was cloaked in patches with the wild flowers that somehow managed to take root there ‒ drifts of sea pinks and of broom, and starry stonecrop … inhospitable, frightening, with the sea booming endlessly, remorselessly against the rounded stones that formed its substance. Jane struggled to repress a shudder.
Paul leaned towards her. ‘It frightens most people ‒ those that bother to come and see it. They say there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.’ He shook his head gesturing briefly. ‘It’ll be even less inviting if we linger here, Jane. See those clouds coming up along the coast? … That means rain within a half-hour, and we’d best be away from here. This is the devil’s own place to be caught in a storm ‒ nothing to break the wind over all those miles.’
He dropped her hand, and turned his horse swiftly. ‘Come ‒ there’s nowhere hereabouts to shelter, and you’ll be soaked.’
With a last look backwards to that desolate foreland, they turned their horses. Before they were clear of the sand dunes, the rain was falling lightly, the clouds racing ahead of them eastwards across the Marsh. It was the cold cheerless rain of spring. Jane turned up the collar of her habit. They rode another mile, and the rain was heavier; it had started to drip from the brim of her hat.
Paul leaned towards her. ‘We’ll have to shelter at my cottage ‒ it’s not much farther on.’
She nodded, looking at the darkening sky, and thinking without relish of the miles between her and Blake’s Reach. When they entered the street of Old Romney it was deserted ‒ not even a dog huddled in the shelter of a doorway. Smoke curled from the chimneys, and they heard the sounds of many voices from the alehouse. Through the uncurtained window of a cottage Jane caught the bright gleam of a fire, and suddenly she felt the chill of the rain in her bones, and was conscious of the long miles in the saddle.
‘I’m stiff,’ she said to Paul. ‘I’m hungry, too ‒ and I think that Blonde Bess is almost too much for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden so far.’
‘We’re almost there,’ he answered. ‘It’s over yonder, in that belt of elms.’
At the end of the village the road forked ‒ a left turn to the church, which stood, oddly, by itself, and was reached by the lane that followed the curve of a dyke. Sheep grazed in an open field between the village and the church. Paul’s cottage stood midway along the lane.
The rooks rose from the elms at their approach, their harsh cawing deadened a little by the steadily falling rain. Together Jane and Paul went to the lean-to stable at the back. Paul dismounted, and reached up to help Jane; she rested in his arms briefly, her cheek brushing his wet coat. Then she raised her eyes to look at him deliberately, questioningly, and she found an answer there. They knew, both of them, as surely as if it had been put into solid-sounding words, that, whether the rain had come or not, they would still have taken the fork leading down to Paul’s cottage.
II
Jane pulled off her wet jacket and skirt, huddling gratefully into the warmth of the shabby padded dressing-robe Paul had given her. Her boots and hat and gloves lay in a pile over by the door of the sitting-room. Paul had built a fire, lighted candles and drawn the curtains against the gathering darkness. He was out in the stable now, tending the horses; faintly she could hear him whistle as he moved about. She stripped off a petticoat whose hem was heavy with mud and wet, and flung it with the other garments, shivering a little as she loosened her hair, and bent towards the fire. The wind had risen, and moaned fitfully in the elms by the gate.
Paul came back, and she watched him silently as he busied himself with rum and some spice jars ranged on the shelf. He had taken off his coat, and under the fitted waistcoat of dark blue silk he wore a shirt of fine linen. It pleased her that he had taken trouble to dress in his best for their meeting, but Paul had none of the instincts of the fop and the dandy. The long day in the sun and wind had done its worst with his carefully powdered hair, but he appeared not to have thought of looking at himself in the mirror that hung in his bedroom. At most he would give only impatient and grudging attention to his appearance; the unkempt figure she had seen for the first time in the church was truer to Paul Fletcher than this handsomely dressed man, muttering to himself as he blended the spices.
‘It’s a mixture used in the West Indies,’ he explained to her. He had heated a poker in the fire, and he plunged it now into the liquid. It hissed furiously, and he thrust it under her nose. The fumes brought
tears to her eyes.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘Here, taste it! Best thing I know to drink when the rain gets down into your bones.’
The liquid slipped down easily, and the warmth started to spread through her. He knelt on the hearth rug beside her, and instinctively she moved closer to him, wanting the reassurance of nearness and contact. Gently he put up his hand and stroked her hair.
‘It’s strange, Jane, what you have made happen to this unlovely place. An hour ago it was simply a roof over my head ‒ uncomfortable and lonely. Now there’s a red-headed girl sitting before my fire …’
‘Hush,’ she said. ‘It’s I, Jane Howard! ‒ remember it’s the girl you quarrelled with not a week ago. I’m no different … though I believe you’ve mixed a little spell with your brew, because I think I’ve almost forgotten what it was we quarrelled over.’
‘There was no quarrel,’ he said. ‘I spoke my mind too strongly about your mixing so closely with smuggling, or having knowledge that could be dangerous to you.’ He sighed then. ‘If I could, I’d remove you from everything that has even a taint of smuggling. Part of me doesn’t want you here, sharing my rum and my vaguely shadowed reputation. I know I shouldn’t have allowed you to come here, but I couldn’t deny myself the delight of your coming to share even so little … From this moment on my hearth will never again be empty, because I shall be able to see you here, as you are now.’
‘Paul … I wanted to come!’ she spoke with difficulty, looking towards the fire. ‘It’s been lonely … and I’ve been afraid! I’ve needed to talk with someone who … who is my own kind.’ She uttered the last words wonderingly, as if realizing the truth of them for the first time.
‘Then you’ll never be afraid any more as long as I am here ‒ or lonely. Now you have Blonde Bess, and you know my door is never locked …’
She put her head against his shoulder, unaccountably finding tears again welling up; she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. ‘No one has ever said such a thing to me before. I feel safe here, as if nothing can touch me or hurt me, and I don’t have to pretend I’m stronger than I really am. I’ve never felt this way …’ She looked up. ‘Paul, what does it mean?’
Blake's Reach Page 20
