The Blacksmith's Girl

by Rosemary Aitken

  She paused to make sure Mrs Dawes was following, but instead of saying, ‘Well get on with it!’ like Ma would probably have done, the policeman’s wife said, ‘But you did wait in the end?’

  It was proving easy to talk to Mrs Dawes. Verity let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Well, it struck me Pru and Patience would be coming out, and if I found them and let them know to wait, I could walk back home with them. So I told the man I’d do that and went out along the cliff road – to fill in time by calling on my aunt – and when it came to half past six, I started back. It was getting dusk by then and coming on to rain, so I stopped to shelter underneath a wall, trying to make up my mind what I would say to Mr Grey. Just by the top crossroads where there’s that Cornish cross and stile. And that’s when I saw this feller …’

  After the story had come tumbling out, Effie stared at her young caller in surprise. ‘A man was standing on the cliffs, you say, and started signalling to someone with a lamp?’

  The girl nodded. ‘Thing is, I wonder can he have been a spy? Everybody says that there are German spies and sympathizers around and we should all be on our guard because they might be anywhere.’ She obviously believed in every word of this unlikely tale. Her freckled little face was pink with earnestness and her tawny eyes were shining with sincerity.

  Effie frowned. The story was unlikely, but such things were possible. There were reports of spies. And showing lights along the coast was a criminal offence – one that could earn a very heavy fine. Even the light ships and lighthouses had been turned off for weeks – though that had been rescinded since, for fear of accidents. But here in Penvarris Cove?

  She said gently, ‘You don’t think he was signalling to a fishing boat? Pointing out a shoal of pilchards to the crew, perhaps. The older men can spot them from the clifftop miles away, from how the water moves – it’s quite amazing, but I’ve seen them doing it, myself. I know they’re not supposed to do it, with the war, but I expect that they still do.’

  ‘It was too dark for that. And if there was a boat, there was no light on it.’

  ‘Then perhaps he was guiding someone to where the crab pots were, if it was getting too dark to see the floats? Or indicating that it was safe to land?’ There was a little shingle beach down there, with a steep path leading to it from the clifftop by the cross. She and Alex had scrambled down there once, and boats did haul up there sometimes when the tide and wind was right.

  Verity Tregorran shook her tousled head determinedly. ‘Must ’ave been some sort of stranger then. Fishermen round here know every rock and channel like the back of their own hands, and how would anyone forget where he had put his pots?’

  ‘But in the darkness …?’ Effie said. ‘You said yourself you hadn’t seen a light.’

  ‘Well, that is what’s peculiar!’ Verity exclaimed. ‘If fishers d’go out at night, they’ve all got lamps aboard – of course they have, even if it’s only a dark lantern nowadays. How do you suppose they manage else? Don’t know much about fishing, do ’ee, Mrs Dawes?’ She was looking at Effie with a forgiving sort of smile. ‘Besides, if he was local I’d have known him, sure as eggs. By sight, at any rate. My Uncle Terence (the one that’s married to the aunt I went to see) he goes out regular – got part shares in a fishing boat, like lots of miners do – and I used to sneak down sometimes to help him with the fish, so I know all the fishing folk from round the Cove. But I didn’t know this man, he was tall and thin – a beaky sort of face, I saw it in the light. And I’m as near as certain that he had a bowler ’at. Who ever knew a fisherman to wear a fool thing like that?’

  ‘So you saw a stranger on the cliff path with a lantern in his hand. What made you think that he was signalling? Didn’t you say that he was beside the stile? Isn’t it more likely he was simply holding up the lamp to see where he was going?’ Effie was aware of sounding sceptical, but this story did lack substance, the more you heard of it.

  ‘Then why was he acting so suspicious-like – looking up and down the road, trying to make sure that there was nobody about? And I’m not dreaming that. When Farmer Crowdie came past in his cart, the fellow covered up his lantern with his coat and hid behind a rock.’

  ‘And it wasn’t just that he was anxious not to scare the horse and sheltered by the rock to get out of the rain? Just as you yourself had hidden in the shadow by the hedge?’ This time she tried to soften the questions with a smile. ‘I’m only asking to make quite sure what we are dealing with – the sort of things the Sergeant would ask if he were here.’

  The girl turned scarlet. ‘You don’t believe me either! I should have known, I suppose. Stupid to have come here. But I thought about it all last night, and felt I had to come. You aren’t allowed to wave a light from on the cliffs these days. And there was something about the way he sneaked about – he was up to something or I’m a Dutchman’s aunt.’ She glanced at Effie from under downturned lids. ‘Mind, there might be a way that someone could find out. I’m almost certain that he’d dropped something by the stile – I heard him mutter something and search about for it – but in the end he just gave up and left. I went to have a look for it – when he had gone – but in the dusk I couldn’t see a thing and anyway I had to hurry to get back to Mr Grey. But perhaps if somebody went out and made a search—’

  ‘You heard him saying something?’ Effie interrupted, with sudden interest. This was something new. ‘Did he sound like a German? Was that why you think he was a spy?’

  ‘Don’t know what a German sounds like,’ the girl mumbled, turning an even darker shade of red. ‘But I suppose it wasn’t foreign talking, come to think of it. Sounded more like “Now where have I gone and buggering dropped the damty thing?”’

  The laugh which had been hovering for several minutes now, almost defeated Effie and burst out at this, but she managed to bite it back and say, politely, ‘You didn’t know the voice?’

  Vee Tregorran looked affronted. ‘Well, of course I didn’t. Wouldn’t have thought it was a spy, else, would I now?’ She stopped, looking thoughtful. ‘Though if somebody you knew turned out to be a spy, I suppose you wouldn’t know he was one – till someone found him out.’

  The convoluted logic of that last remark did make Effie smile again, but a more serious thought occurred to her. ‘It might have been a smuggler, I suppose,’ she murmured suddenly. Such things had happened in lonely Cornish coves for centuries and they could occur again – even in the twentieth century, possibly. All sorts of things were getting short just now, and prices had been rocketing since the war began. There would be money in importing alcohol again – or even coal and meat. Not from France, of course, but possibly from Spain. And strangers might require a signal in the half-light, mightn’t they? Why had she not thought of that before?

  She gave herself a mental talking-to for having been so slow of wit and so rudely doubtful of her visitor. ‘I think that you should tell the Sergeant what you’ve just told me. Smuggling is a serious matter in a time of war. He should be here directly if you would like to wait. Perhaps in the meantime, you would like a cup of tea?’ But the girl just shook her head.

  ‘Perhaps you’d tell him for me, Mrs Dawes. He’d hear you out, but pay no creed to me. And I had best be off. I was only sent out to Crowdie’s farmhouse for a bag of swedes – and I called here on the way. My pa will be asking questions, as it is!’

  She sounded so hunted that Effie murmured, ‘Never mind your father, you did right to come. You can tell him that I said so, if you think that it will help,’ and escorted the poor thing to the door. She’d delay a few minutes until the Sergeant had come back – she might even make him cocoa, the way she knew he liked. It would give her time to find a few more oddments from upstairs and it would be nice to catch up with police gossip once again. In the meantime, there was this photograph to wrap.

  Alex’s mother had asked to have it sent ‘to remind her of Alex’ as though one needed a starchy photograph for that! Well, Effie could spare it – she had much better
ones – and Alex hadn’t liked it either. ‘Makes me look a pompous idiot – just like Papa!’ he’d said. She smiled at the memory, then fetched a cloth, wrapped up the photo frame and set off for the attic to rummage a bit more.

  It did not occur to her till she was halfway up the stairs, that she had not asked whether Verity had got the hoped-for job or not.

  Sergeant William Jeffries was sitting at the table in the police office, sipping the cup of cocoa that Effie Dawes had made and trying – discreetly – to keep it out of his luxurious moustache. He looked at Effie kindly.

  ‘Course there’s nothing in it, Mrs Dawes. What did she see except a fellow with a lamp, apparently looking for something he’d dropped beside a stile? I’ll take the trouble to question her myself – of course I will, since you have asked me to – but when it comes right down to it, that’s really what it was. All this talk of signalling! The girl’s too fond of reading silly tales – the chap was obviously moving the light about to look for what he’d dropped. And it can’t have been all that important, even to himself, because he seems to have gone off without it in the end. At least according to Vee Tregorran – though you can’t be sure of it. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’d imagined the whole thing.’

  Effie Dawes said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant Jeffries, if you think I’m wasting time. But it might have been smugglers and I thought you ought to know.’

  She was a pretty young woman and he liked her company. He’d miss her when this new young policeman came – perhaps there’d be another cottage vacant she could rent. He’d keep an eye out for one. Meantime, he beamed at her. ‘Now, now, Mrs Dawes – you mustn’t blame yourself. You were not to know what kind of girl she is – but I’ve known her since she was no higher than a blade of grass, and she’s always been the same. I remember when she was five or six years old – gone off missing, like she often did, when she was sent off with her sisters and the barl to fetch water from the peath.’

  Will glanced to make sure that Mrs Dawes had understood the local terms. ‘Bringing home the water from the spring in a water barrel?’ she confirmed.

  He’d forgotten that she’d once been a villager herself. He nodded. ‘They sent for me cause she’d gone running off and not been seen for hours – but by the time I got there, she had turned up again, telling some story about a dragon on the path and how she’d had to walk the long way home to keep away from it. There had been a lizard, so her sisters said. But no, it was a dragon where Verity was concerned – she’d seen a picture in some storybook and this looked just the same, no matter that the creature was only inches long. But that’s typical of Vee. Flighty then and flighty she remains.’

  ‘Flighty?’ Effie was giving him an embarrassed little smile. ‘That’s what she said you’d say.’

  He took a sip of cocoa. If she weren’t here he’d dip his piece of bread in it – make up for the butter which was hard to get these days – but that might offend her, she was rather ladylike. His wife would never let him do it, either, while she lived. Well, never mind, he’d save a bit of crust and dunk it when Mrs Dawes was gone. She was bound to leave directly, before it got too dark, leaving him to finish up his notes and lock up for the night. In the meantime he gave her a sympathetic smile, surreptitiously wiping his whiskers on his hand.

  ‘I’m not saying that Vee does it purposely,’ he said. ‘Believes her own nonsense half the time, I’m sure. She’s not an outright fibber, the Tregorrans aren’t that sort. Very Christian family. Strict Adherents, I believe they call themselves. Brought up a bit severe – no cooking on a Sunday and that sort of thing – but all of them as honest as the day. It’s just that Vee has got a lively mind, I suppose. Just like her mother did, when she was young. Matter of fact …’ He stopped himself in time. He’d been about to say that if he’d been a younger man, he’d have made a play for Martha Tregorran in those days himself.

  Martha Warren, as she used to be. Pretty as a picture and sweeter than a rose – he’d seen that on a card once and he’d thought of her. He sighed, remembering. But she was twenty years his junior and it would not have ‘done’. And then he’d married Ivy and it was far too late – and just as well, perhaps. You’d have to be a braver man than he was, to have dared to court that girl, with a father like she had – dreadful old fellow, always dressed in black with bristling side-whiskers and a ferocious frown. The man she married was out of the same mould – a Strict Adherent too, old-fashioned, righteous and a Bible-thumper – but quite mild-mannered in comparison. But Martha Warren …

  Mrs Dawes was looking at him in surprise. Perhaps she’d heard the sigh. ‘Matter of fact …?’ she prompted.

  Sergeant Jeffries smiled. ‘I was only going to say about the family. Quite religious they are, father especially but the mother’s side as well. That’s how the girls all came to have those names: Prudence, Patience and all the rest of it. Called for Christian Virtues, all the lot of them – and the father won’t have drink or playing cards or singing in the house, unless it’s hymns – and has strict opinions about everything. Don’t think they approve of storybooks in fact – it’s only that Vee won them when she went to school. For prowess in reading, so I understand. Perhaps that’s why she liked them quite so much, and her aunt had no more sense than to encourage her.’

  ‘Would that be the aunt that lives out on the cliff?’ Effie had risen to her feet, and was putting out a hand to clear his cocoa cup away.

  He shook his head, shielding his cocoa and looked at her – surprised. ‘You’ve heard about that business? Verity’s mother’s sister. Dreadful fuss it was. Married Terence Jones – against her father’s wish. Decent fellow, Terence – Methodist and all – but not the right kind of Christian in the old man’s view. He has never spoken to his daughter since – though she’s made a few attempts to heal the breach with him, I know. But it didn’t do no good. From that day to this, if she comes into a room where he is, then he’ll walk out of it. And he expects the whole family to behave the same.’

  ‘But Verity is still in touch with her,’ his guest remarked. ‘She told me so, today.’

  Will Jeffries nodded thoughtfully. ‘That will be her mother’s doing, I expect. Doubt that her father very much approves.’ Although perhaps he tolerated the visits, secretly. Martha could wind any man around her little finger. Always could. Hadn’t she quoted some scripture, something about ‘the churning of milk bringing forth butter’, and persuaded her husband to let those girls of theirs go down to the dairy factory and work? No doubt she had her own way over other things as well, even with a husband like Toby Tregorran: big as an ox and blinkered as a horse. What did she see in him? Waste of a good woman!

  Will brushed imaginary breadcrumbs from his uniform, suddenly aware that Mrs Dawes was looking expectantly at him. ‘And I’m damty sure her grandfather don’t know they’ve been in touch!’ he finished. He lumbered to his feet. ‘But enough of that! I see it’s getting dark. Give me a minute and I’ll light the bullseye lantern and I can see you home. I want to make a last patrol in any case.’

  She laughed. ‘Nonsense, White Cottage is only a stone’s-throw from this door.’

  But she permitted him to escort her, all the same. At her door she turned and touched his arm. ‘You won’t make trouble for Verity, will you, Sergeant? With her Pa, I mean. I sort of promised her.’

  He held the lantern high so she could see him tap his nose. ‘You leave that to me. I’ll call in there tomorrow, when he’s likely to be out – working in the smithy – and see what she has to say.’ It would give him a chance to talk to Martha, too. ‘And I’ll even go and take a look out by the stile, make sure there’s nothing there. Now here’s your door. G’night then, Mrs Dawes.’ He touched his helmet in salute and watched her safe inside. Then he walked on down the street and back up through the lane – though it wasn’t strictly necessary to make that last patrol.

  By the time that he got back home his cocoa had gone cold and he had to make another cup to dunk his b
readcrust in.

  Two

  Will Jeffries kept his word and rode over to Rosvene forge next afternoon, though by the time he got there he was puffing and panting so much from cycling up the hill, he was seriously regretting that he’d been so quick to promise to call by. However, here he was, and there was the smithy with the cottage next to it.

  Carefully approaching from the side where he was invisible from the forge – from whence the roar of the fire and a reassuring hammering could be heard, suggesting that Toby Tregorran was in there hard at work – Will dismounted and walked the last few yards. He leaned his bicycle against the whitewashed wall, mopped his brow with his copious handkerchief, adjusted his helmet and pushed open the gate. A thin girl with copper-coloured plaits was in the yard, sitting on a stool beside the door, stringing beans into a saucepan. She leapt up from her stool as he approached.

  ‘Ma!’ she called, across her shoulder, though without for a moment ceasing to stare at him, ‘there’s that policeman come!’

  Martha appeared behind her at the door, wiping floury fingers on her dusty pinafore. ‘Sergeant Jeffries! Well, as I’m alive! Constance, where’s your manners? How don’t you show him in?’ She smiled at Will. Same smile as ever, though the face was tired and the eyes a little faded. ‘Come in, Sergeant, do!’

  He took his helmet off and followed her inside. ‘How are you, Martha?’ He knew his face was pink, and not just from exertion. ‘I swear that hill gets steeper every day,’ he said, to disguise the effect that her presence – embarrassingly – could still have on him.

  She hadn’t noticed. She was moving damp washing from a line above the fire, to clear a space around the only chair; there was no room for more, in that tiny whitewashed room, what with the dresser and the table with a long bench either side. It must be very crowded with eleven people here, even if most of them were skinny girls, he always thought. As it was there was scarcely room for him to sidle to the seat, though Martha had placed a lumpy homemade cushion on it now and was patting it invitingly.