The Captain's Daughter (7 page)

“Who is that?”

Emma’s excited exclamation brought
her train of thought to a shattering halt.

Amy jumped to her feet and looked
through Emma’s telescope. A figure was riding in the direction of Hillfield
House. From the distance she could not make out the face but the figure looked
familiar. To Amy it was unmistakable. The rider was clearly Ben.

Quickly pushing Emma on to the seat
of the trap and setting the telescope and its stand on the floor, Amy grabbed
the reins and urged Pansy forward even before she had sat down. She had to
catch up with Ben before he reached the house and hid from her, which she
convinced herself he would try to do.

Bouncing furiously down the slope
while Emma hung on for dear life to the seat and to her precious new
possession, they soon reached the road and then Amy drove poor Pansy in the direction
of Hillfield House.

When they reached the house the
figure was coming from the stables and about to go up the steps to the front
door. But he turned around as she ran towards him yelling: “Ben!”

It was not Ben. The rider who she
convinced herself looked like Ben was a stranger.

“Oh,” she spoke in a gasping voice.
She had never seen this man before.

He did have a similar build to Ben,
in fact, he looked just a little like Ben, at least from the distance. And he
appeared to be wearing Ben’s clothes.

“You’re not Ben,” she said in a
small voice.

“That is true, Mademoiselle, I am
not Sir Benjamin if that is who you mean by Ben.”

“Who are you?” she asked deeply
puzzled, and then almost immediately realized that might be considered an
impertinent question to ask someone who did not know her and was, she supposed,
going into what was in some respects his own house.

“Mademoiselle, I might well ask
that of you.”

Once again she felt that she was
slipping into her ‘setting mighty woodlands aflame’ mode. She apologized very
emphatically and it must have worked.

The stranger gently told her that
his name was ‘Pierre’ and that he was Ben’s secretary and Ben is away attending
to business matters. But Amy was puzzled. If Pierre is Ben’s secretary who was
the other man dressed in a scholarly fashion. She asked Pierre who the other
man was. Pierre after a long pause where he appeared uncertain what to say,
finally told her the man was one of Ben’s clerks.

Amy was aware that her questions
were very much out of place because she had no right to ask these things, but
her innate and burning curiosity drove her to go where angels fear to tread.

She told him she didn’t know Ben
had a clerk, or for that matter needed a clerk. She realized that she had
Pierre at somewhat of a disadvantage. He didn’t know who she was and because of
her bold and really impertinent boldness he didn’t know if she had the right to
ask these things. He was clearly uncomfortable and tried to excuse himself.

“I must go now. I have work I must
do for Sir Benjamin.”

As he turned towards the door of
the house, he seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something.
Abruptly, he turned back to Amy.

“Mademoiselle, I cannot explain
this right now but I would much appreciate it if you would not tell anyone of
our meeting.”

Immediately after he spoke he
seemed to have doubts if his request was a wise one. Amy watched him enter
Hillfield House. She returned to the trap completely mystified. She summoned
Emma who was hunting down some hapless lifeform in the bushes, and left for
home. They could feel drops of moisture gently alighting on their faces.

By the time they reach home, it was
beginning to rain, albeit lightly. Amy helped Emma unload her precious
telescope and then she took the trap around to the stable. Old Hubert who had
suspended his weeding in deference to the rain, looked up at her approach.

“There be someone to see you.”

“Who?” she asked puzzled.

“He be a man in what looked like
sailor’s clothing, but old and worn. I sent him to Mrs. Pemberton cuz he was
not rightly attired for the front door of a respectable house.”

Amy found Mrs. Pemberton in her
domain where she ruled.

“Is there someone her to see me she
asked the cook?”

“An old man came a while ago. He
had a package for you. But he had to leave to catch the coach back to London.”

“Why did he want to see me?”

“I don’t rightly know if he wanted
to see you. He had a package he wanted to give you. Or, the way he put it, he
was told to deliver it to you in person.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“He wouldn’t tell us. All he would
say it must be put into your hand. We had to assure him that we would
unfailingly deliver it to you before he was willing to leave it.”

“Who could possibly be sending me a
package?”

“Effie, get Lady Amy’s package,”
she instructed. “I put it away for safekeeping,” she told Amy.

Effie quickly produced the package
which was wrapped in an old piece of rough cloth. When Amy unwrapped it, she
found an old dingy looking leather pouch. On the pouch as if scrawled by a
sharp object was one word in large letters:
Amaryllis
.

Clutching the pouch, Amy sat down
at the large kitchen table. She carefully examined it turning it over. She was
almost hesitant to open it. This old worn pouch had come out of nowhere, and
yet her name was scrawled on it in large letters. It was her name and yet it
gave no evidence of being freshly or recently carved into the leather. The
writing wasn’t soiled but it still did not look of recent origin.

After hesitating for a minute, she
knew she must look inside. Amy carefully opened the pouch, and after looking at
the contents for a few moments, she slid them out gently onto the table.

The pouch’s contents consisted of
three items, an old yellowed newspaper, a folded sheet of paper, and a small
tarnished locket. She looked over the newspaper with its front page which
consisted of advertisements, and then she unfolded the letter and read it.
There were only a few lines and it clearly had not been finished. She read the
date on the newspaper. It was nearly twenty years old. Outside, the rain was
now coming down in earnest rattling against the kitchen windows.

Amy picked up the three items and
returned them to the pouch, and then she went slowly up to her room.

Amy had
just
finished placing the pouch and
its strange contents on the writing desk in her room when Emma looked in at the
door way.

“Effie was dusting my room and said
you received a pouch from an old sailor, with a newspaper and a letter in it.
What is that all about?” asked Emma.

“That is the question, Emma. Come
and look at this stuff.”

Emma came over to the writing desk
and looked wondering at the items.

“So you got an old pouch, with an
old newspaper, from an old sailor. How do you know it wasn’t some confused old
man that just left you some old junk?”

“Well firstly, according to Mrs.
Pemberton he said he came by coach to Stockley-on-Arne and was returning to
wherever he came from by coach. And he asked for me by name, and look, my name
is on the pouch.”

Lifting it up Emma took it over to
the window and examined the pouch carefully. The rain beat hard against the
window. It sounded as if the rain was turning into hail. Taking it back to the
desk she took Amy’s ivory handled letter opener and scratched a line on the
pouch.

Looking at Amy with a puzzled
expression she said: “Look at the difference between the scratch I just made
and your name.” She paused. “Amy, your name was scratched on this pouch long
ago.”

She rubbed the fancy
A
in
Amaryllis
, and then rubbed the mark she had just
made, using her thumb. Flexing the empty pouch she twisted it in several
directions.

“Look at these.”

Amy looked at where Emma was
pointing. The pouch was covered with white circles. They were so faint Amy had
not noticed them.

“These are salt stains, but from a
long time ago,” said Emma most seriously. “The pouch must be very old and it’s
made of Russia leather. Russia leather is saturated with birch oil when it is
first made, but the pouch is still flexible, which means it was kept well oiled
but the surface is dry so it has been a long time since it was last oiled. The
little hole in the flap matches this mark on the pouch. It must have had a
double button to keep it closed, but that is long disappeared.”

“Emma, how do you know all this?”

“I read it in one of the papers I
got from Sir Frank Ramsey.”

“Just don’t tell mother, she might
not understand.”

Emma did not seem to be listening.

“Effie said a sailor brought it to
you but this isn’t the type of pouch that is normally used on ships.”

Amy decided not to ask Emma how she
knew that, she decided Emma clearly knew everything because of her addiction to
reading.

“I wonder,” said Emma dramatically,
“if it was owned by a pirate. This type of pouch is a hunting pouch, so how did
it end up at sea? Maybe somehow you are related to pirates.”

“You are my sister, so if
I
am related to pirates then so are
you
.”

“But why does the pouch have your
name?”

“That is what I would like to find
out, Emma. Perhaps the newspaper or the other things in the pouch will tell us
the answer.”

Typical of many newspapers of the
time the front page was mainly advertisements and the news items were inside.
Emma perused the ads and only briefly glanced at the inside of the newspaper.

“Almost all these advertisements
are for ships or activities related to shipping.”

“That is what you would expect
Emma, since it is the
Bristol Gazette and Public Advertiser
and Bristol
is a great seaport. Notice the date of the paper.”

“Thursday, May 20, 1773.” Emma
spoke in a hushed tone. “It’s about twenty years old.” She paused and then
looked up at Amy. “All of these items must have been put in the pouch twenty
years ago.”

Emma examined the locket and the
letter.

“Read the letter Emma and tell me
what you make of it. Emma read it slowly and carefully.”

Dear
Beloved Child, I have long struggled over whether to write this letter. Having
decided to do so, I now find I must pen it with great urgency since the time is
much shorter than I expected. Yet I do so with trepidation. There are things
you need to know, but this knowledge could expose you to great danger, because
there are those who would not wish you to learn what I am about to reveal...

Emma looked at Amy. “The letter is
unfinished, in fact it looks as if it was just begun to be written when the
writer was interrupted.”

“Exactly. But it cannot have been
written to me. I was a baby when it was written. No one would write a letter to
a baby since that just would not make sense.”

“Maybe it was written in advance
and you were intended to read it when you grew up. I’ve read that has been
done.”

“The problem with that, Emma, is
why would a stranger write me a letter telling of danger, but not write to my
parents. Who would write me such a letter and why? What could that danger
possibly be? You did notice that the letter was addressed to
Dear Beloved
Child
. The letter was
not
addressed to me.”

“How can you be sure of that, Amy?”

“Look at our life, Emma, and where
we live. Just tell me how I could possibly face any danger that would not face
Father, or Mother, or you, or Mattie. Why just me? Why not my parents?”

“I don’t know. But that letter was
written by someone for a reason. And someone, likely the writer of the letter,
wrote your name on the pouch twenty years ago when you were just a little baby.
And they included an old newspaper. It must all add up somehow.”

“Well, if it does, Emma, I just
don’t see how.”

Emma was examining the locket
again. Suddenly, it clicked open. Inside was a miniature of a baby.

“Let’s go and show these items to
mother,” suggested Amy, as she put them back into the pouch.

They found their mother in the
sitting room working on her embroidery. She did not mind rain as long as it was
the usual British drizzle but when it became intense she became religious. She
never said as much, but Amy always had the impression that heavy and intense
rain combined with hail and thunder and lightning somehow suggested to their
mother that the Apocalypse was imminent. She was visibly nervous and agitated.

“Mother.” Amy tapped her mother on
the shoulder to get her attention. “Look at this.”

She looked up at her daughter.
“What is it dear?”

“Look at this.”

When Lady Sibbridge saw the old
timeworn pouch, she wrinkled her nose in disgust and drew back as if it was
some diseased object.

“Oh dear,” she said sounding
perturbed, “what is that dirty old thing.”

“An elderly sailor left this for me
while Emma and I...”

She paused, remembering that her
mother didn’t know of the girl’s little trip to Camp Hill and Hillfield House.

“...the old sailor approached
Hubert, and Hubert seeing how scruffily he was dressed didn’t think we would
want him in the house so he sent him to Mrs. Pemberton.”

“Good for Hubert,” said Amy’s
mother, “he may be old, but he really is a jewel. I don’t know how we would get
along without him.”

“He left this pouch with Mrs.
Pemberton. He said he was supposed to give it to me in person. But when he
couldn’t, he made them promise they would make sure it was put into my hand.”

“Why didn’t Mrs. Pemberton just
send for you?”

“He had a coach to catch. Anyway,
there were three items in the pouch, and I want to ask you about them,”
continued Amy.

She opened the pouch and took out
the newspaper, the locket, and the letter. Setting the pouch on the small table
next to her mother, an act that her mother clearly disapproved of, she gave her
mother a quick introduction to the three items.

“These all date from when I was a
baby. Do they have any meaning to you?”

Her mother seemed uneasy as they
were displayed to her.

“Oh dear. They don’t mean anything.
I don’t think they have anything to do with you. The old sailor must have left
them at the wrong place.”

Emma was watching her mother with
curiosity but said nothing.

“But the pouch has my name on it,”
Amy pointed out to her mother, holding the pouch so her mother could see. Lady
Sibbridge tried to avoid looking at it.

“Obviously, the old sailor asked
someone in the village if they knew where an Amaryllis lived and they told him
to go to our house. The old man was probably drunk and got off the coach at the
wrong town.”

It seemed as if all of a sudden
Lady Sibbridge found her chair uncomfortable. She set down her embroidery.

“Look at this,” said Amy, “does it
have any meaning to you. Does the city of Bristol have any meaning?”

“No dear, I don’t see why it
would.”

“What about this letter?”

Mildred Sibbridge glanced at the
letter and made excuses not to read it, so Amy read it to her.

“What about this locket. Have you
ever seen it before?”

Lady Sibbridge, struggled out of
her chair, picked up her embroidery, and complained, “Oh dear, that chair has
become uncomfortable. They do that at times when you sit too long in the one
place. I have to go to my room and lie down. I...I feel a little faint.”

“Mother...” Amy stopped appealing
to her mother. It obviously wasn’t going to be productive.

Emma just watched everything.

“Well what do you think, Emma? To
me Mother acted a little queer.”

“A little queer? These items
definitely mean something to her.”

“You think she has seen them in the
past?”

“I don’t know about that, but they
do mean something to her. The question I have is what do they mean? Mother is
always nervous, so that makes it difficult to decide if they have any serious
meaning. But they do mean something, and that is what we have to find out. I am
now convinced more than ever that the old sailor brought the pouch to the right
place and it was given into the right hands. You are Amaryllis, but I do not
know what your secret is.”

As Amy was returning the three
items to the pouch, Emma asked to look at the locket again. When she opened it
she looked intently at the miniature. It was a tiny painting of a baby who
appeared about one year old. Tiny as the painting was it was well detailed. The
baby was not smiling and yet there could be seen a sparkle in her little blue
eyes beneath a tiny swath of bright orange hair.

Emma looked up at Amy, her eyes
wide and her mouth slightly open.

“This baby is you, Amy Sibbridge.”

“That’s ridiculous, it can’t be.”

“Then come with me.”

Emma dragged her to Mr.
Gainsborough’s painting of their family.

“Look at the painting. Look at you
when you were eleven years old. Now look at the baby in the locket. The same
expression. The same slight curl of the lips. It
is
you.”

“You cannot compare a baby with an
older person. All babies look the same. They all have blue eyes and blonde or
orange hair.”

Emma looked at her with disdain.

“All babies do not look the same.
That is you whether you accept the fact or not. Now I have a telescope to work
on, although I find your mystery worthwhile thinking about. I’ll have to develop
a theory about it. Draw out the meaning to the items in your pouch. I’m
beginning to think it must have something to do with pirates, or estranged
lovers, or a hidden romance, or maybe all three.”

Emma stomped off with a frown on
her face. It was not a frown of disapproval, but rather of a serious scholar
challenged by an inscrutable mystery. Amy watched her sister leave and smiled.
If anyone could solve her mystery it was sister Emma. Then she turned her
attention back to the locket. She looked at the painting and then back at the
baby in the miniature.
It cannot be me
.

Once again she did not rest easy
that night.