Mistress of the Storm (13 page)

‘Hm,’ he said, quietly impressed. ‘Well. Let’s see if the famous Gallant instinct rears its head again today.’

Verity smiled.

‘The library …’ muttered Henry as they continued down the road together. ‘No wonder we couldn’t find you.’

Verity and Henry headed towards the shingle beach on the western side of Wellow harbour. It was the one she’d aimed for during the race. It looked very different when you approached by foot, Verity thought, remembering how tiny the fishermen’s huts had seemed from the water.

‘One of Dad’s friends lets us keep our dinghy behind his hut,’ Henry explained as they followed a narrow footpath
between the wooden shacks. As they emerged beside one that was built into the cliff, Verity caught a gust of fresh sea air and smiled nervously. This was bringing back mixed memories of the sailing match.

Stopping beside one of the huts, Henry pulled at a particularly smelly piece of tarpaulin to reveal a small wooden dinghy, mast lowered. He looked down at Verity’s feet and nipped into the hut. Verity could hear him scrabbling about, throwing things to one side. After a couple of minutes he emerged, bearing a pair of deck shoes. They were old and faded, but looked just like the ones all the other girls had.

‘They’re a bit shabby,’ he said, ‘but that’s often considered to be a good thing in sailing. Sort of makes you look like you’ve been doing it for a while.’ He grinned. ‘And they’re lighter than your other ones.’

Verity couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I think there are marble statues that weigh less than those shoes.’

‘How did your parents find such an old-fashioned pair?’

Verity pulled a face. ‘My grandmother spotted them in Joliffe’s.’

Henry shook his head. ‘She really doesn’t like you, does she?’

For once, Verity found it quite funny. ‘No,’ she giggled, ‘I don’t think she does …

‘I suppose it must be quite expensive to moor at the harbour instead of here,’ she said sympathetically as Henry started putting up the mast then rummaging around in
the hold for a smaller sail, which he attached at the front.

Henry looked at her quizzically. ‘You can’t lease a mooring in Wellow: they’re handed down from generation to generation. We just don’t have one.’ Apparently ready now, he began pushing the dinghy down the steep shingle beach to the shore.

‘But it sounds like the Twogoods have been in Wellow a long time?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Henry, taking off his shoes and socks and rolling up his trousers. ‘Our mooring was taken away from us.’

‘Taken away? Why?’

‘When we left the Gentry,’ he said, looking at her as if she were being a bit stupid.

‘They took your mooring away?’

‘They took everything.’

Henry bustled into action. ‘OK. If you jump in, I can push off. We’re facing head to wind at the moment. So we need to pull the nose round a bit.’

‘Right,’ said Verity. Had he been listening when she explained she’d never sailed before the match?

Apparently he had. He slapped the front of the dinghy authoritatively. ‘This is the nose,’ he said. ‘Or bow, if you prefer.’ He pointed up to the largest sail. ‘This is the mainsail … and that’s the jib,’ he continued, pointing to the small sail at the front.

Verity nodded. It was sounding familiar. She must have absorbed more than she thought.

‘This is the mast. And the horizontal bar attached to it is the boom – the thing that hit you in the chest … I thought you weren’t paying attention.’ Henry grinned. ‘Didn’t realize you had no idea it would be heading your way.’

Verity smiled. She could laugh about it now.

Henry passed her a rope. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is called a jib sheet – all the ropes that control the sails in relation to the wind are sheets in fact – and your job is to unfasten it and re-fasten it in these things here called cleats, just like you did in the match. We have to tack to get out of the bay because the wind is blowing in to the shore. Then it’s a nice easy journey up the coast and back again.’

Verity nodded. She could tack. She’d done that in the match.

‘Hop in,’ said Henry, ‘and we’ll get going.’

‘You’re really getting the hang of this.’ Henry sounded slightly surprised. The breeze was good and they were going at a brisk pace, but Verity was fine.

‘It’s brilliant fun,’ she replied as they both leaned out of the boat to stop her heeling. She couldn’t believe how at home she felt again. It hadn’t been a one-off. The air was fresh and sharp, the green waves glistened and the sky was a vivid shade of blue. She breathed in deeply and smiled.

‘There’s Soul Bay,’ said Henry, pointing back to land.

‘Miranda Blake mentioned that the other day,’ said Verity. ‘She said it’s near Tempest Bay.’

Henry nodded. ‘Tempest is the next one round: a bit far for us to go today. Soul Bay was the Gentry’s favourite place for outrunning the Preventative Men,’ he added, nodding to the shore with his head.

‘Really?’ Verity’s ears pricked up instantly.

‘Yeah. There’s just one route through the ledge to the shore, and only they knew it. So they’d head here if they were being chased and the Preventative Men wouldn’t be able to follow.’

‘Why not?’ asked Verity, betraying her lack of sailing knowledge.

‘Because most of the water is too shallow and rocky to sail over,’ explained Henry. ‘Any boat would be ripped to shreds. Apparently the Preventative Men would be stuck out here just watching the Gentry unloading their goods. Nothing they could do.’

Verity was intrigued. ‘Why not wait on the shore for them?’

‘Private land,’ said Henry. ‘Had to ask permission – and by the time they got there it was too late. Plus they never really got the hang of the tunnels.’

‘I found out more about Rafe Gallant,’ Verity told him. Somehow it didn’t feel quite right to say Grandfather. ‘In the library,’ she added, feeling quite proactive.

‘Did you?’ Henry grinned. ‘That’s a particularly Verity way of going about things.’

She ignored him. ‘One of the books said he has a daughter … I have an aunt I’ve never met.’

Henry looked at her and chewed his lip. ‘Was her name Ruby?’ he asked.

Verity looked up eagerly. ‘Yes. Do you know her?’

Henry looked uncomfortable. ‘She died in a sailing accident when she was twelve. It’s quite famous. I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned too. Your father was just a baby at the time. I think it hit your grandfather quite badly.’

Verity was silent. Poor Father. She wondered if he could remember losing her.

‘Best if we anchor off here,’ said Henry, changing the subject as he let some wind out of the sails and drew the dinghy to a halt. ‘It’s not worth going in: this is a lee shore.’

Verity looked at him questioningly.

‘The wind blows in to the land,’ he explained, ‘so it’s difficult to get back out again. That’s what made the wreckers so successful: once a ship had been lured onto the rocks she had no way of returning to safe sea.’

‘Does this boat have a name?’ Verity asked as Henry lowered the little folding anchor.

He smiled. ‘Yeah,
Poor Honesty.
’

‘That’s pretty,’ said Verity.

‘Mm,’ he agreed. ‘It was a dig at the Gentry. After we left, they put the squeeze on us financially. Maybe they thought we’d back down. But my grandda wouldn’t budge: “Better poor honesty than rich deceit,” he said. So when we lost the family boat, that’s what he named our dinghy.’

‘Did your dad tell you that I called round?’ asked Verity, taking the proffered sandwich.

‘Yeah, of course.’ Henry rearranged the cheese and salad in his for optimum distribution. ‘Did you think he wouldn’t?’

‘He didn’t seem very pleased about it, no,’ she admitted.

‘Well, he’d been on nights. There’s a lot of work on since the
Storm
arrived. You woke him up,’ said Henry.

Verity nodded thoughtfully. ‘It wasn’t because I’m a Gallant then?’ she asked, taking a stab in the dark. Bull’s-eye. Henry looked embarrassed.

‘The Twogoods had a pretty hard time from some of the Gentry when they left,’ he explained, ‘so he’s not very keen on thoroughbred Gentry families.’

Verity smiled. ‘That’s quite funny, isn’t it? Being disapproved of as Gentry, when I don’t actually know anything about them?’

‘Dad’s just a bit too much of a Twogood, that’s all,’ said Henry. ‘They take history very seriously.’

‘Henry,’ said Verity, staring out to sea, ‘there’s something peculiar going on, I just know it.’

He frowned at her.

‘The
Storm
has returned to Wellow, and her captain gave me that red book. Grandmother – whom my parents had never talked about before – arrived at the same time. And my parents deliberately kept it a secret that my grandfather,
my father’s own father
, was Rafe Gallant, leader of the Gentry.’ Verity looked at him searchingly.

‘Don’t you think it’s just coincidence?’ he sighed quietly. Why did people always invest the Gentry with
mysterious properties? Couldn’t they see it was just superstition and hocus-pocus?

Verity watched him with frustration. She could tell this wasn’t getting through. ‘There are other things as well; little things. There’s a boy – Jeb Tempest – and I’m sure he’s following me. He seems to know Grandmother too. Alice has disappeared. And Father is acting really
strangely.
’

‘There’s nothing mysterious going on,’ Henry reassured her. ‘I don’t know why your parents don’t like to talk about Rafe Gallant, or the Gentry. Maybe they think it’s best left in the past. And Alice told us she was going away for a bit. The Gentry were just a group of smugglers who no longer trade. The
Storm
is just a ship … and you met her captain. That’s all.’

In the Twogood world view there was a rational explanation for everything: that was their particular religion.

‘Why did he give me the book? You know, it talks a lot about the Mistress of the Storm?’

‘Well, there you are then,’ Henry said patiently. ‘It was a book of mythology about his ship. Perfectly natural for him to take an interest in it.’

‘But why give it to
me
?’ Verity repeated.

Henry paused for a second to think. ‘You
asked
him for the book. Remember? You told him he wasn’t supposed to take books from the library without signing for them. Maybe he thought you were the library police.’

Verity was disappointed. He was being obstinately
sceptical. ‘The strange boy?’ she asked. ‘How does he know Grandmother?’

‘
Seems
to know her,’ Henry corrected. ‘And anyway, you don’t know the Tempests: they’re a peculiar lot. Apart from Isaac.’

‘Grandmother arriving on the same night as the
Storm
?’ Verity demanded.

‘OK, so it’s a coincidence,’ conceded Henry, ‘but that’s all it can be.’

‘There’s something really quite frightening about her,’ Verity persisted. ‘When she loses her temper, she looks completely different, like a skeleton almost. It’s terrifying. And you can feel her anger. I don’t understand how she could possibly have been married to Rafe Gallant.’

‘Verity,’ said Henry, not unsympathetically, ‘your grandmother is just a nasty old woman who likes picking on people. And your dad is probably worried about having an extra mouth to feed. It’s entirely understandable to want a special explanation, but there’s nothing weird going on.’

‘No, Grandmother
is
odd – I don’t care what you think. There’s something strange about her. She’s not normal.’ Verity thrust her hand into her pocket, wondering if she should show Henry the strange wooden ball.

‘You don’t like her, that’s all,’ he insisted bossily.

Verity gave up. ‘No, I don’t,’ she conceded. ‘But she
is
peculiar.’

Back at Wellow, the pair dragged the dinghy up the beach.
Verity looked across the horizon to the famous silhouette of the Spyglass Inn.

‘Rafe Gallant commissioned the tunnels, didn’t he?’ she asked Henry.

‘Not as many as some people make out. But yes, there were tunnels leading from Soul Bay to other parts of Wellow.’

‘Didn’t that make it awkward to move stuff around?’

Henry shrugged. ‘Not as awkward as being caught. And anyway, there wasn’t much difference: it’s not like you could have driven a cart down to the beach. Everything had to be carried up by hand. You might as well do that in a tunnel. They used them to meet up too,’ he added. ‘To begin with at least. Then, eventually, the Gentry were so powerful they did whatever they liked out in the open.’

‘Have you ever seen one – a tunnel, I mean?’ asked Verity.

‘A few times, yeah,’ admitted Henry. ‘With my brothers. We’ve broken in to have a look; admire the Twogood craftsmanship.’

‘Twogood?’

Henry smiled. ‘Yeah. Rafe Gallant commissioned the tunnels, but they were Twogood-built, every single one.’

‘So the Twogoods were the Gentry’s tunnel-builders?’

‘We were their
engineers
,’ said Henry a little indignantly.

Verity looked puzzled.

‘We invented all the things they’re famous for. It was Twogood thinking that kept the Gentry ahead of the game.
To begin with we worked out how to build the tunnels, but then we started inventing all sorts of things: newer and faster ways to navigate and sail; better communications … better weather prediction.’

Verity was silent, taking it all in.

‘We just like finding out how things fit together: it’s kind of a family obsession,’ Henry told her. ‘And once you know how something works, you can improve it. Some of our inventions are still the best you can find,’ he added proudly. ‘Hardly any of them were acknowledged as ours, because we were Gentry. We did tons of work on compasses, barometers, telescopes … lots of modern devices.’

Verity frowned. On the far side of the shore she could see the strange boy. ‘Jeb Tempest,’ she said excitedly.

Henry rolled his eyes disapprovingly. Ignoring him, she ran along the beach towards the boy.

‘Verity, where are you going?’ Henry called after her.

‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ she shouted at Jeb. He stopped and looked in her direction. ‘How do you know my grandmother?’ she asked.

He stared at her for a second, then quickly turned to head towards the town.