Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (14 page)

Twenty Eight

The tavern with its few occupants fell silent, all attention on the boy hopping excitedly from foot to foot in the doorway.

“Two girls,” he announced, a little uncertain now that no one had responded in the same vein of pleasure, “Mistress Acorne did say a weight, but I forget what it was.”

“Weight ain’t so essential, lad,” Jesamiah answered. “Are the three of ‘em, mother and daughters, in fine fettle?”

Thomas hurried towards the table, the grin subdued to a broad smile. “I think so. Your lady wife said as how they both had a good pair of lungs.”

“Two?” John Benson queried, the delight finally reaching his voice. “I have two granddaughters? Well, well, who would have believed it!”

Jesamiah leant forward and shook Benson’s hand and raised a gesture of goodwill towards Hartley at the bar. “And congratulations to you too, Sir Nicholas. Though that means twice the fancy dresses, lace and petticoats, and twice the irksome beaus in future years!”

“Nay, nay!” Benson interrupted in mock indignation. “My grand daughters will be angelic little cherubs, who obey every word their doting papa utters.” He winked at Thomas. “Unlike the rascal who is their uncle!” His grin widened as he looked at Jesamiah. “Regardin’ that baccy, Captain. I know of someone who might be interested in it.”

“Might?”

“Is it of a quality that will satisfy a Spaniard’s taste?”

“I see no reason why it should not,” Jesamiah responded, noticing a flash of alarm leap across Carter Trevithick’s face, as quickly guarded. “But had I wanted to sell to the Spanish I would have sailed direct for Cádiz, not Bideford.”

“The buyer I have in mind has a Spanish client, and I happen to know there was a small difficulty with his last shipment. He may be interested in your cargo instead.”

Jesamiah laughed. “As I said, if I wanted to sail to Spain, I would be sitting in a taverna there, in the sun, not here in England in the piddling rain.”

“Aye, but as you’ve found here in Devon, you have no contacts. No one to sell to. The man I can put you in touch with can give you all the authority you need to sell for a profit.”

“In Spain.”

Benson nodded. “So I understand.”

“Would it be legal, this commission?” Jesamiah stared eye to eye at John Benson, daring him not to impart the truth.

The man spread his arms, palm uppermost. “That, you will have to ask for yourself. I have no idea, nor do I wish to know. I am an honest man, what others do with their conscience is their concern.”

Carter Trevithick had said nothing, although his expression betrayed his thoughts. Acorne was, for all his declaration of amnesty, a pirate. No pirate was honest, but what was more worthwhile? Honesty or loyalty? And an ability to keep your mouth shut.

Jesamiah’s returned, unblinking gaze also conveyed his thought,
You trust me, and I’ll consider trusting you.

There was one problem with a possibility of going to Spain. One which Jesamiah would prefer to keep to himself. He did not like the Spanish, and they did not like him. Especially after that enterprise last year concerning Hispaniola – raising rebellion and the death of the island’s governor. How much information had filtered back to those with wide ears? Enough to get Jesamiah hanged – in a most unpleasant fashion – the moment he stepped foot on Spanish soil? He did not know how the Spanish would treat him, and instinct for survival meant he had no intention of finding out.

Benson stood, patted Jesamiah’s shoulder again. “Your entire cargo, Captain, sold as easy as spitting.” He turned away and raised both hands. “Best brandy all round, I think Landlord, to wet the babies’ heads, then I reckon we should take ourselves off up to the house, eh, Nicholas?”

The half dozen patrons surged towards the counter, eager for a free drink. Carter obligingly refilled Jesamiah’s glass from the bottle on the table. They made a toast to the young Hartley mistresses – two toasts – and then one to the mother and, finally, one to the father. Jesamiah could not help wondering whether he was the only person present to notice that Nicholas Hartley did not look ecstatic with delight. Daughters, then, were not what he had wished for.

With more backslapping, laughter and loud chatter, Benson, his son, and son-in-law, eventually left the tavern. As the Squire passed Jesamiah’s chair, he said quietly, “Fetch your ship back to Appledore and I will see what I can do for ye and y’cargo. All of it.”

All of it? Did Benson guess at the illicit stuff? Or was he merely speculating? Trying to pass the impression that he did not care what was legal and what was not, Jesamiah drank his brandy. It seemed very quiet in the tavern once they had departed.

“We started on the wrong foot, Captain,” Carter said after filling his pipe and taking a few puffs, a thin, grey curl of pungent smoke drifting towards Jesamiah. “I think wrong conclusions have been jumped to on both sides?”

Jesamiah waved the smoke away. He had no care for tobacco, except for selling or stealing it, his hand going without conscious thought to the two blue ribbons laced into his hair. “If I’d handed you over to the militia, there’d be no need for misunderstandin’s would there?”

“I do not think your wife would forgive you if you had done that. It is a matter of delicacy whether she forgives you as it is.”

“Not that what occurs between husband and wife is any of your business,” Jesamiah retorted, twirling a ribbon around his forefinger.

Carter Trevithick’s response was as curt, his attempt at amiability fading rapidly. “In this instance it is my business. If you so much as bruise my sister, Acorne, physically or mentally, I will shoot you – and I promise I will not make the shot a clean one.”

For two or three heartbeats Jesamiah stared at the man sitting before him. His finger had stilled, the ribbon gripped firm between it and his thumb. Cleaned up and in daylight Trevithick appeared very different from that first sighting of a bloodied, fatigued and almost defeated man. Dark hair, dark eyes, the same shaped face as Tiola, the same chin below a shadow of stubble. Similar long-fingered hands. The man was taller, stockier of build, but the echo of shared parentage was there – the mother’s likeness at least. Jesamiah had a vague recollection of Tiola mentioning that not all her brothers had the same father, or had he dreamt it? He wondered at that now, looking direct into this man’s face. Was Tiola the result of a lover? Was that why her father had attempted to rape her, because she was not his own flesh and blood?

Then another thought. Was Tiola the only one to possess her magic? She did not call it that, but changing her appearance at will, talking mind to mind, summoning a wind. What else was it if it were not magic? Tiola’s own expression of ‘Craft’ seemed not so disturbing, which was why she used it. Gift, Craft, Magic, whatever it was it still scared him, even though she had insisted she could do no harm to another, unless in defending her own life, and she had promised she would never use what she could do on him. How binding was a promise? He broke sworn oaths all the time, and did the rule apply to this brotherly pothole?

His hand going, casually, to the pistol thrust through his belt, Jesamiah stared evenly back at Carter Trevithick across the table. “I’d like t’see you try,” he answered quietly.

Drawing on his pipe, Carter blew smoke, again, in Jesamiah’s direction. “I do not think you and I are going to get on,” he stated.

Jesamiah finished his drink in one gulp as he pushed his chair back with a noisy scrape of its legs on the wooden floor. He stood and put the glass down with a thump. Retrieving his hat he set it on his head and buttoned his coat. “I don’t think it, mate. I know it.”

He turned on his heel and walked out into the rain.

Twenty Nine

There was no ferryboat at the quay, Kildy appeared to have abandoned his vessel on the far side of the channel, for it was beached well up the sand with no sign of its master. The second boat, too, was unavailable, having pushed off fully laden with a noisy gaggle of a dozen geese a minute or so before Jesamiah walked onto the sand. He stood gazing gloomily out over the estuary, staring at the churning froth of the Bar, then upriver towards where, around those meandering bends,
Sea Witch
was waiting patiently for him.

Perhaps he should hire a pony and ride to Bideford. It would be quicker in the long run, but he hated riding almost as much as he disliked walking. There were two things he wanted to do: make amends with Tiola and punch the daylights out of Carter Trevithick. As neither looked a viable option at present he shrugged his coat tighter round his shoulders, turned the collar up against the biting wind and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, walked up the slight incline towards the lane.

The high-hedged track was muddy and cart-rutted with scattered potholes, and in places the bank on the landward side had collapsed. He stood a moment, considering both directions. Would it be worth hiring transport and going to Barnstaple to see if he could find a buyer there? He shook his head and turned towards Bideford. Benson’s proposal might be worth considering; not that he wanted to sail to Spain, but if he needed an excuse to be gone from here he could not, at this precise moment, think of a better one.

Head down, hat pulled well forward he strode as best he could along the lane, avoiding the worst of the ruts, puddles and piles of dung. Thoughts were running through his head, thoughts that he did not particularly wish to entertain but, persistent, they would not be set aside. He was in the wrong, he had acted the fool, and he ought to apologise. Pride was an arrogant companion though, and he was not sure how to admit his idiocy without losing face. There was the additional problem – he did not want to admit he had been wrong to that pop-cock Carter Trevithick. Jesamiah did not want his nose rubbed in the dirt by the likes of Carter, or anyone else, come to that.

A vehicle was rumbling up behind him. He moved to the side, half stepping up the bank as he motioned with his arm for it to go past. The crunch and grind of the wheels, jingle of harness, creak of timber, the squelch of hooves in mud, the horses’ breathing and snorting; two cobs, a bay and a chestnut with coats polished, harness gleaming. The vehicle, a rather rickety carriage had seen better days, but it too, was as clean and cared for as the mudded ruts would allow.

Jesamiah drew his coat in a little to avoid the mud splashes and was surprised when a few yards further on, the carriage stopped and a woman leant out of the glassless window.

“Captain Acorne? Oh it is you! How delightful!”

Touching his hat, Jesamiah offered a small bow of greeting. “Miss Radcliffe. The delight is all mine, I assure you.”

“How far are you going? We are to the haberdasher in Bideford. Please do join us if you would care to take advantage of traveling in comfort over walking in mud.”

Not quite sure whether the jolting and jarring of a carriage constituted comfort, nor who the ‘we’ referred to, Jesamiah approached the window and peered in. Another woman dressed in worn but immaculate gown and cloak sat on the far side of the rear seat, her knees cocooned in a woollen rug.

Pamela leaned further through the window and reaching down, turned the door handle, swinging the door wide. “Please, there is plenty of room and we would enjoy your company.”

Her smile was charming, her eyes enticing – and it had started to drizzle again. If it came to choosing between riding in a jolting carriage against tramping through mud in the rain… Jesamiah grasped each side of the frame, placed his foot on the metal plate of the step and hauled himself inside. He closed the door and sat on the faded seat opposite the two women.

The older woman rapped twice on the ceiling with a walking cane. The sound of a whip whistling through the air, the coach driver’s voice urging the horses to ‘Coom up thar’, a vicious jerk, and with much creaking and rattling, the coach was underway.

“May I introduce Captain Jesamiah Acorne, Aunt Beth. Captain Acorne, Lady Bethan Hackman, my late mama’s sister.”

Jesamiah touched his hat, nodded, “Ma’am. I thank you for the ride. I was not especially relishing the walk.”

Lady Bethan regarded him with a steady, stern expression, assessing his worth, manner, speech and deportment. Jesamiah stared back, unperturbed.

“I have heard much of you this last eight and forty hours,” she said, satisfied, apparently, at what she saw, her hand gripping a leather strap fastened to the carriage wall in order to save herself from being jolted too much. Like her niece, she carried a slight trace of Devon accent, but was very much the lady of her title.

“Have you indeed?” Jesamiah answered, wondering who had been talking about him. “Not from your niece, I fancy. She met me but a few hours since.”

“No, your fame spreads before you from other lips, although from my niece this past hour have I heard barely nothing save ‘Captain Acorne this’, and ‘Captain Acorne that’.”

Pamela Radcliffe blushed scarlet. “Aunt, that is an exaggeration. I mentioned I met the Captain at Knapp House and we crossed over the river together, nothing more.”

“Really? I distinctly recall you said something about a dashing pirate who saved you from a murderous highwayman.”

The blush flushed deeper. “Aunt!”

Jesamiah recognised the twinkle of amusement in Lady Bethan’s eyes, and the barely concealed smile at the corners of her mouth. He smiled back congenially. “Then my dash has been exaggerated. The highwayman was somewhat short, and underage to be an effective Gentleman of the Road. And his surrender is nothing for me to boast of.”

Lady Bethan’s entire face creased into a broad smile of pleasure. She was elderly, but pretty, the wrinkles, and slight sag beneath her eyes and chin, highlighting, not masking, the beauty that had been there in her younger days. Her hair was silver and there was not the lustre of youth, but age did not decrease the dance of merry pleasure in a person’s eyes. Only disappointments and sadness did that.

“Nevertheless,” she countered, “I thank you for protecting my niece from that dreadful man, Kildy. Is there any news of dear Isabella? Has the child come?”

Delighted to be the bearer of news – suitable payment for the ride – Jesamiah replied with enthusiasm. “Indeed so, ma’am. The lady has been delivered of twin girls.”

“Twins!” Lady Bethan exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight. “Not uncommon in our family line. I too, am a twin, as was my father, Alexander Dynam. Do you know if the three fare well?”

That name again. Who was it who had first mentioned it? Jesamiah could not recall; concluded that had it been important information he would have remembered.

“My wife assisted the birth. I am aware complications can occasionally arise, but she assured Squire Benson and Hartley that all was well. I have no reason to doubt her.” Would Tiola have sent a mind message had things taken a turn for the worse? Perhaps not, and anyway, how would he have conveyed the information? ‘
My wife has spoken into my head to tell me there are difficulties
’. Oh aye – and get the both of them hanged for witchcraft!

The carriage topped a rise and trundled down the slope on the far side, the horses trotting steadily, the vehicle swaying and creaking, lurching occasionally as they bounced over the uneven surface. Although well used to the sea, Jesamiah was surprised to find that he felt a little queasy. The trick to ease seasickness was to look at a distant point, not focus on the nearness of a moving object. He fixed his attention on Lady Bethan’s face; would have preferred to look steadfastly upon the younger Miss Pamela, but etiquette, he sensed, was a priority with these two women. Tiola had said something about pressing hard on the wrist to ease queasiness. Was that on the top, or the underside? He slid his right hand into his left sleeve; the pressure did not seem to make much difference to the nausea.
Nausea
? Did he recall something about the word deriving from the Greek for ship? The carriage lurched and he swallowed hard. This was absurd!

He answered a few questions about his business here in Devon; where he was staying, and for how long. Nothing of importance; small talk.

The horses slowed to a walk as they ascended another incline. At the brow of the hill the wide expanse of the Bideford reach of river came into view; in the distance, the arched bridge spanning the slate-grey water, the masts of ships stretching up to the leaden sky. One was
Sea Witch
but was too far away to see clearly. The sedate river was a mass of small circular ripples as the drizzling rain patterned the surface.

Bracing their hind quarters into the breaching straps the horses took the weight of the carriage as they descended the far side of the incline and, at the bottom, swung into a brisk trot.

They passed two farm labourers’ cottages and a larger house, trundled through a dense clump of woodland, and as they came out from under the trees Jesamiah leant forward, craning his neck to see out of the carriage. Ah! There she was! His beloved ship! He must have given some small give-away sign, for Pamela asked if that was his vessel.

“Aye. The most beautiful ship on the oceans.”

“You speak as if she were your lover,” Lady Bethan observed with a slight laugh. “There is more than a captain’s pride in your voice.”

“My ship is everything to me, ma’am. Mother, sister, wife, mistress. Without her, I could not survive.”

The road was higher than the river, a bank rising up on the left side, sloping steeply down into the water on the right. Overhanging branches whipped and scraped at the roof and sides, making a rattling sound as if someone was unevenly, and poorly, beating a drum. A low branch sprang past the open window, leaving a scatter of dead twigs and bark on the blanket covering Pamela’s knees. The carriage itself was swaying, creaking and groaning; the iron-rimmed wheels and the horses’ hooves grinding and ringing on exposed stones, the occasional spark flying out.

“More than your wife?” Lady Bethan asked, wincing with discomfort as the coach bumped.

Jesamiah squinted out the window across the sombre water at
Sea Witch
. He could see a couple of the crew at the starboard rails peering down at the anchor cable. She was moored fore and aft by hawsers, but he had set the best bower as well, just in case. He smiled ruefully, answered, “Occasionally, ma’am. I confess, occasionally.”

“Oh!” Pamela exclaimed as the rear of the carriage caught against the high bank and rocked unsteadily.

“Have a care, driver!” Jesamiah shouted, squirming round to face the front. “We’re bein’ tossed around like apples in a barrel!”

Did the man hear? Pay heed? The horses trotted on. Rising out of his seat, with the intention of leaning through the riverside window to call again to the driver, the carriage lurched, its rear nearside wheel dropping into a deep rut. Jesamiah fell, his shoulder ramming against the doorframe as the wheel bounced over a protruding rock. Unbalanced, the carriage began to tilt. The driver called out a warning and started hauling the horses to a halt, one rein and a leather trace-strap snapping. Splintering wood, scraping metal and a loud crack sounding like a blunderbuss being fired at close range tore through the vehicle. The offside rear wheel shattered, and the axle broke. Tipping over, flinging the driver from his seat, the carriage skewed at an angle and slithered across the muddy road. Pamela Radcliffe screamed, Lady Bethan cried out, her face pale, eyes wide, one hand clutching at her chest, the other reaching out to Jesamiah sprawled half on the seat, half on the floor.

The driver leapt to his feet and ran to the horses’ heads, his voice calm and soothing – the last thing they needed was for the animals to bolt. The carriage lay on its side, nearside uppermost facing towards the sullen, rain-drizzling sky, its wheels slowly spinning, the rear half hanging precariously over the slope of the bank, with the near full flood of the river only a matter of feet below.