A Night in Cold Harbour

by Margaret Kennedy

  At last he saw them standing by the carriage, so deep in some argument that they did not hear him coming. Ellen looked rebellious, Latymer resolute. When they heard him they turned with grave and anxious faces, but they said nothing. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to begin.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said hastily. ‘I had no idea it was so late. Shall we go?’

  Ellen turned towards the carriage but Latymer said:

  ‘No.’

  ‘If we stay now,’ she protested, ‘we shall be late for dinner. We can tell Romilly on the way back, and if he thinks …’

  ‘We’ve made a discovery,’ said Latymer. ‘I believe you might like to talk to the people at the farm here.’

  ‘It’s only the book,’ said Ellen impatiently. ‘That book Dr. Newbolt lost. After you went down the ravine I remembered that it was in some place hereabouts he lost it. At a farm, he used to say, near a stream like this. He lent it to a person at the farm. We wondered if it could be the same farm. When we came up, just from curiosity, we enquired.’

  She paused, glanced at Latymer, and continued:

  ‘We asked the people at the farm if a gentleman had left a book here, ever so long ago. We never thought … it was just a whim … so very long ago. Fifteen years. But it seems that it was this farm. They remembered. They said a gentleman who stayed here once left a book behind. He said it was not his. It belonged to an old clergyman, who would be calling for it.’

  ‘Then is it here still?’ asked Romilly.

  He was puzzled by her manner and by a stern expression on Latymer’s face. There was obviously more in this than a lost book. It was something which Ellen did not want to tell him.

  ‘No,’ said Latymer. ‘That’s the strangest part. It’s gone. The old clergyman … he came at last, and asked for the book, and took it away. Three years ago.’

  ‘Dr. Newbolt came? Then … three years! Impossible! It’s far longer than that since … Can he have come back to England?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘You think we should let the Newbolts know?’

  They did not answer that. They were looking at one another. Then, in a sudden burst, Ellen came out with it.

  ‘They said … they said he’s still wandering about in this part of the country. And … and … they said he’s not alone. He has a boy with him. A boy who plays the fiddle. And … oh, Romilly! he’s called Dickie. They say the boy is called Dickie.’

  ‘Dickie?’

  He stood at a loss for a second or two before her meaning broke on him.

  ‘Dickie?’

  Without another word he turned and set off wearily, doggedly, towards the farm.

  ‘I hope that satisfies you,’ said Ellen to Latymer.

  ‘We must have told him.’

  ‘I suppose so. But you don’t understand. Now he’ll be off on some new … this tramper’s boy … he’ll get up some romantic notion …’

  ‘I think,’ said Latymer, ‘that he’s done with the romantic tack. He looks sober enough to me. He’d thought that business of the boy was finished, and here it is cropped up again. It’s bound to be a nuisance. But he feels, as I thought he would, that something should be done about it.’

  ‘On our wedding tour!’

  ‘If he wants to stay here, making enquiries, we’ll go on without him. I’m sure he’ll wish that.’

  ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I know how it will be. He’ll pin such hopes on that tramper’s boy, only to break his heart all over again.’

  ‘Ah no. His heart may be safer, now, than you suppose. As safe as mine is.’

  Latymer smiled at her, took her hand, and pressed it to his breast. He added:

  ‘Only one thing to be done with a heart, you know. When we heard him speak of her this afternoon we knew what he’s done with his. I never quite believed it before. I thought it one of his romantic notions. But I believe it now.’

  ‘Oh, so do I. But she’s dead. Poor Romilly! She’s dead.’

  ‘And keeping it safe for him in a better place than this. That’s what you’d do for me, and I for you, if ever … if we came to be parted.’

  ‘Up in heaven?’ hazarded Ellen. ‘Does it say so in the Bible?’

  She had sometimes been a little troubled by her own reluctance to go to heaven and play upon the harp for evermore. The suggestion that there might be something else to do was startling but pleasant.

  ‘It says that love is the only thing we can take with us. Faith and hope we only need here. And … I’ve had occasion to observe … I’ve often wondered at it … the confidence and fortitude with which love, genuine love, endures bereavement….’

  A little surprised at himself, he broke off. Ellen gave a contented sigh at this reminder that her Edward, so brave, sensible and clever, was also very good and religious.

  EPILOGUE: MORNING

  EPILOGUE: MORNING

  JEMMY THE FINGER started awake, aware that somebody was whispering. The hut was pitch dark but a grey no-light glimmered in the doorway.

  ‘What’s that? Who’s that? Hannah?’

  ‘Ay,’ whispered a voice. ‘That sailor, that Hughes, he’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Where? When?’

  ‘Porlock, I reckon. After that Gaujo. He went out must be half an hour since and he an’t come back.’

  ‘The bastard! I suspected …’

  Jemmy rose and went out into a world which hung between night and day. The road, the moor, the wide vale below, were all visible by a light which had, as yet, no declared source. Hughes was nowhere to be seen.

  A moment later Dickie and Hannah came out of the hut. The three stood peering at one another.

  ‘Come morning,’ said Jemmy, ‘we’ll see his lordship’s back. How’s Parson?’

  ‘Still breathing,’ said Dickie. ‘If I’d known I’d have knifed that …’

  ‘Then it’s as well you was asleep. We don’t want no knifing in Cold Harbour.’

  ‘We’d best scarper,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I shan’t. I shall stay with Parson. I owe him a leg, I believe.’

  ‘They’ll take you for perjurating.’

  ‘Na-a-ah! I wan’t sworn. And the gentleman asked for a body I’d never heard on — a reverent doctor or some such. How was we to know?’

  They went back to the hut and roused the sailors. After listening for awhile to their comments Jemmy said:

  ‘Save your breath. You’ll never see that cully of yours no more. News on the roads goes faster than a coach and six. Parson has friends amongst us, and there’ll be plenty, twixt Porlock and Bristol, wanting for to meet the man who sold him. Plenty!’

  ‘Ay,’ said Hannah. ‘And it will be known that he carries ten finches.’

  ‘He’ll ride off safe in the gentleman’s carriage,’ muttered one of the sailors.

  Jemmy spat.

  ‘That’s not their way with an informer. They pays him, but they thinks better of the poor sods he sells. And they show it.’

  He then advised them not to go east, as they had intended, lest Hughes should set the Press on them. They had better, he said, go down to Dulverton and scatter. And he charged them with a message to Ptolemy Boswell, at Dulverton, to come up with a tilt cart to Cold Harbour. Hannah told them where Ptolemy was to be found, but reminded Jemmy that the gypsy would expect pay.

  ‘I …’ began Dickie, but was quenched by a look from Jemmy.

  ‘Say I sent the message. I knows Ptolemy and he knows me.’

  The sailors collected their bundles and trudged off. Their footsteps died away down the hill. Silence fell once more upon the hut.

  ‘If our luck holds,’ said Jemmy, ‘Ptolemy might get here first. ’Tis a long step to Porlock. Hughes might be forced to wait before he gets word with the gentleman. The Quality don’t rise early.’

  ‘Nor they don’t go nowhere fasting,’ said Dickie. ‘Squire Brandon will call for something to eat first.’

  ‘Then I’ll bide here,’ said Hannah. ‘No need to foot it to D
ulverton. I can ride in the tilt cart with the corpse.’

  ‘There an’t no corpse yet,’ snapped Dickie.

  ‘There’ll be one. Ptolemy or the Gaujo, ’twon’t be no living man they takes away.’

  She bent over the fire to blow it up but Jemmy stopped that. It would be better, he said, for the gentleman to find an empty hut and cold ashes. Signs of recent habitation might encourage him. Ptolemy must take the tilt cart back to Dulverton through by-lanes. She grew rather sulky, being too dull-witted to comprehend anything between careless security and blind panic. After grumbling a little she curled up and went to sleep. Dickie and Jemmy went to sit in the doorway. They were all hungry, but this did not trouble them since they were scarcely aware of it.

  The world was brighter now. Day had conquered night, and colour had returned to the scene.

  ‘What does Ptolemy want with a mort like that,’ wondered Jemmy. ‘I’d not walk half a day with her.’

  ‘Shall you come down with us to Dulverton?’

  Jemmy shook his head and said that he must be on his way into the White Horse country as soon as he had seen his old friend clear of this.

  He suppressed an impulse to invite Dickie as a walking partner. A fiddler was a good cully to have and the boy was sharp-witted. He might do well in Jemmy’s line of business, carrying word of contraband over the roads. Now that old Lucy was gone new links in that chain would be needed. But there was something about Dickie which promised trouble. He might quite easily have knifed Hughes, had he caught the man slipping off. Parson Purchiss kept him conformable, thought Jemmy. Nobody else will. He’ll be for the High Toby or some such caper. Born to be hanged. That’s his dukker, come by chance as he is. Too high for us. Too low for Quality. Wild and venturesome, without guineas to pay for his free way of thinking.

  ‘If Ptolemy knows you’ve a guinea,’ he said, ‘he’ll want the whole of it in his hand before he stirs for Dulverton. A crown’s plenty. Tell him you’ve a crown and that you’ll pay him by and by. I’ll be there, if he gives trouble. In Dulverton you may change your guinea.’

  ‘I’m obliged to you. A good friend you’ve been.’

  Down in the valley below a cock crew. Jemmy, after a while, said:

  ‘I wish you’d be as good a friend to yourself.’

  ‘What d’ye mean?’

  ‘If that gentleman is minded to do aught for you, and I’ve a notion he might, give him a civil answer.’

  Dickie brooded on this in silence and said at last:

  ‘He’ll get the answer he deserves.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘And he knows you?’

  ‘No. He’d never look so low.’

  ‘He was asking for you, wan’t he?’

  ‘Hark! Is that Parson stirring?’

  The old man had begun to gasp and cry for air. Between them they carried him out and laid him on the heather where he seemed to breathe more easily. They sat down on either side of him, waiting and watching. Presently the sun rose in splendour. The sky was full of lark song.

  ‘Where d’ye reckon they go?’ asked Dickie mournfully.

  ‘Out like a candle. That’s my notion.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘But you’ve had schooling. They learnt you about Jesus and the good place?’

  ‘That’s a tale they tell us for to keep us down. We lick their arses and we go to heaven. We give trouble and we go to hell.’

  ‘This Jesus? They say he was a poor labouring man. What’s the truth of that?’

  ‘True enough. He was a carpenter. But he wan’t suffered to speak his mind for long. He gave trouble and they nailed him to a cross.’

  ‘They think a deal of him, all the same, don’t they?’

  ‘Dead, they like him pretty well. They write what they please of him, in their books. How should we know true from false?’

  ‘Parson bid you get more schooling. There was one he named last night, that might be a friend to you.’

  ‘Eccles?’

  ‘Ay. That’s the name. Who’s he?’

  ‘A gentleman. I’ll own no gentleman as a friend.’

  ‘You’re too fierce against ’em, Dickie. I likes a gentleman. A true gentleman. Free and affable.’

  ‘Who put them over us?’

  ‘How should I know? We might have worse over us.’

  Dickie shook his head and exclaimed:

  ‘There was never but one of them in the world I’d have trusted. And she bade me have no dealings with Squire Brandon. Is that a cart on the road?’

  ‘I see none.’

  ‘Down by those haystacks.’

  ‘Your eyes are sharper than mine.’

  They sat watching. In a few minutes Jemmy saw it, and declared it to be Ptolemy’s tilt cart. They called to Hannah, who came blinking from the hut.

  ‘Parson’s luck!’ she said. ‘We might be sure he would get clear off.’

  Their hopes rose so high that Dickie suggested Parson might get over this bad spell. He might not be dying after all.

  ‘Ah no! He carries all the signs. Look at his nose, child. As sharp as a …’

  ‘Hark!’

  All stood rigid at Dickie’s cry.

  There was a sound now in the air besides the lark song. It came from the moor behind.

  ‘Horses,’ groaned Jemmy. ‘Wheels. We should have known. There’s more time gone by than we thought.’

  Ptolemy would arrive too late. They were sure of it before the carriage came bowling down the hill. Dickie leapt up and stood threateningly between Parson Purchiss and the road.

  ‘Put up that knife,’ implored Jemmy, retreating with Hannah to the hut. ‘D’ye want us all hanged?’

  ‘They shan’t touch him.’

  Dickie, however, put away his knife as the carriage drew up and Squire Brandon got out of it.

  For a second or two he stared uncomprehendingly at the bundle of rags on the heather and the youth standing on guard over it. Five years had passed since their last and only meeting in the Parsonage lane. He did not immediately recognise that puny child in this young ruffian. When he did so his first thought was that he had come too late.

  ‘Cottar?’ he said doubtfully. ‘Dick Cottar?’

  A jerk of the head from Dickie was the only answer.

  ‘You know who I am?’

  Another jerk.

  ‘I’ve come … Dr. Newbolt … Good God! Is … is this …’

  He advanced a step, at which Dickie shouted:

  ‘You keep off!’

  ‘Is it true then? Is he dying?’

  ‘He’s dying. Can’t you let him die in peace? Han’t he been tormented enough?’

  Hannah, crouching in the hut with Jemmy, whispered:

  ‘Who’s the other Gaujo then?’

  ‘There’s only the one,’ said Jemmy. ‘That’s Dickie. He’s got two ways of speaking. I’ve heard it before. I reckon it comes from walking with Parson.’

  Curiosity overcame Hannah’s alarm. She poked her head out of the hut. The slight movement caught Romilly’s eye and he immediately came towards them.

  ‘You fool!’ muttered Jemmy.

  They were, however, a little reassured by Romilly’s mild greeting. He recognised them as having been in the hut the night before, but did not reproach them.

  ‘Is the old man really dying?’ he asked. ‘The boy won’t let me go near him.’

  ‘He is for sure, sir,’ said Jemmy. ‘There’s naught to be done for him. He was a-dying last night and we all knew it.’

  ‘But he can’t lie there.’

  ‘There’s a cart bringing. Some of his friends are coming for him.’

  ‘The Poor People,’ put in Hannah. ‘We’ll see he wants for nothing. We’ll put him away as we does our own. Parson Purchiss we calls him. When the gentleman come asking for a reverend doctor we was all in a blunder.’

  ‘Don’t think I blame you,’ said Romilly. ‘That fellow who came to me this morning might be
willing to sell him. You would not. I honour you for it.’

  Hannah and Jemmy had nothing to say to this. Nobody had ever honoured them for anything before in the whole course of their lives. Hannah thought him as unaccountable as any other Gaujo. Jemmy noted that he had been right as to a gentleman’s opinion of an informer.

  ‘I only discovered four days ago that these two were in the country,’ explained Romilly. ‘We had supposed Dr. Newbolt to be out of England and we never knew the boy was with him. Since then I’ve had news, in various places, of a couple seen on the roads, who might be the same people. But I could meet with nobody who had spoken to them.’

  That was not surprising. Tradesmen and farmers might know the pair by sight, and say so readily enough. Those who had had dealings with Parson Purchiss would hold their tongues.

  ‘I only want to make sure that he is comfortable and cared for. Do you think you could persuade the boy that I mean him no harm?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hannah, ‘he’s a poor, low ignorant kind of boy. A tramper’s boy. Not right in his wits.’

  ‘No,’ said Jemmy quickly. ‘He’s got all his wits. He’s as sharp as a pin. A fine spirited lad, sir. Good for a better life than this. But he thinks, d’ye see, that he’s doing the best for his friend. It’s a-many years he’s been caring for Parson.’

  They all went back to Dickie, who scowled at them.

  ‘Now, Dickie,’ whined Hannah, ‘speak civil. The gentleman means kindly by you.’

  ‘I’ll speak as I please,’ said Dickie. ‘Kindness can’t be forced on us, low though we may be.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Romilly sadly. ‘That much dignity is still preserved to every human creature.’

  This rejoinder shook Dickie a little. After staring for a moment he moved aside, muttering:

  ‘Look at him, if you like then. See for yourself …’

  Romilly knelt in the heather. He looked at a face changed beyond all recognition, not only by approaching death but by shock, sorrow, heartbreak, and five long hungry years.

  He remembered another face seen in the pulpit at Stretton … pink and smiling between white puffs of wig … strawberries and cream … ‘Remember to bow to the Bishop.’