A New Dawn Over Devon (7 page)

With big eyes, at last growing afraid from what she saw in her father's eyes, she nodded.

“Go, now,” he said, rushing her to the ladder, “—that's a good lass, up you go. Close the door behind you and don't make a sound . . . not a peep, do you hear, Elsbet—not a peep.”

Within seconds she had scrambled into the loft. With a great heave, Sully shot the ladder into the opening behind her.

“Lower the door,” he added, “close it tight. Good girl . . . be still, not a whisper.”

She let down the door.

“Papa,” she whimpered through the final crack of disappearing light from the room below as she began to cry. “Papa, I love you.”

But he did not hear the poignant words. Already he had turned and was making for the street to continue his escape.

It was too late.

Before he reached it, the door burst open with a terrible crash, and instantly the small flat was filled with angry voices. In terror Elsbet lay down on the floor, peering through a narrow slit between two ceiling boards. She recognized two or three of her father's worst companions.

Terrible yelling and fighting and accusations broke out.

“Let's have it, Conlin!” shouted one.

“I had nothing to do—!”

“It's no use lying. We saw you with him!” A violent curse filled the air.

The man suddenly cried out in pain from a blow delivered by Sully's fist cracking his jaw. Two of his companions surged forward. The burly sailor stumbled back, splintering the table on which his daughter had been preparing to set his breakfast, and crashed onto the bed behind it. The two pounced on top of him. One pulled a pistol from his pocket.

The next instant a great explosion sounded. From where she watched, Elsbet leapt out of her skin at the deafening sound. As the echo from the gunshot faded, none of the men below heard the terrified shriek above them that had accompanied it.

“Now you've done it—let's get out of here!” cried the ringleader through his broken jaw. Footsteps bounded across the floor even as the dying echo of gunfire reverberated off the walls.

For several long seconds Elsbet waited.

“Papa,” she whimpered at length.

No sound answered.

“Papa,” she called out again a little louder. Still he did not answer. A terrible coldness, as of an icy hand, gripped the girl's heart.

She sat up and raised the door of the loft. With great effort she managed to drag the ladder across the boards, lift one end and maneuver the other through the hole. It took all her strength to lower it to the floor without dropping it. When the bottom was securely on the floor, she climbed down. It did not take long for her to see the horrible truth of what the dreadful sound had been.

Shock at the horror of the sight silenced her lips. She crept forward and reached out a tentative hand toward the warm pool of blood that drenched her father's chest.

She had never seen death before this moment. But she knew from the empty stare of his open eyes that her father was no longer the man she had known, and that her life with him was over.

The silence of her tongue lasted but a moment. At the touch of the blood upon her hand, suddenly the streets for blocks rang with the despairing shriek of the little orphan.

The days of innocence for Elsbet Conlin were gone. Though she had never before felt such an emotion toward others of her kind, hatred now rose within her toward the men who had done this evil thing. Through clenched teeth and with a heart of stone, she vowed that she would kill every one of them if ever she had it in her power. She would remember their faces, their voices, and when she was older she would return and find them.

But she could not tarry long. They might be back. And she could not kill them now. Impulsively she pried apart her father's fingers and withdrew what they had clutched in the last moment of his life, cast one last tearful look into his face, then stole carefully out the door. Looking to the right and left, she bolted along the street and away from the house that had become a place of death. Behind her the slice of meat slowly curled into smoky blackness on the stove.

Where she ran she hardly knew; only that she ran until her lungs ached. Still she ran. The streets and the houses of the town grew farther apart. On she ran, not knowing where. Gradually she left the town behind. When she slowly became aware of herself, an hour or two had passed and she was alone, without human habitation in sight, on a lonely moorland overlooking the sea.

She paused to catch her breath, then stared out at the water below.

She had no destination. All she could think were her father's words, “The sea is our friend . . . find the sea . . . follow the sea.”

With her father gone, the great expanse of blue he had loved was now the only link to her life with him. Movement gradually again came to her legs, and slowly she continued on. No thoughts or plans entered her mind, only an impulse to keep the sea in sight. If the sea had taken her mother, maybe it would now take her. She must remain near it.

 4 
A Little Girl Named Chelsea

Amanda rode into Milverscombe, tied her horse, and absently walked into one of the town's few shops. She had nothing on her mind to do other than distract herself from the unpleasant reminders that the visit to Maggie had stirred up within her. She did not necessarily want to avoid the thoughts—she knew this time of growth was necessary—but did not want to be alone with them.

“Hello, Miss Rutherford,” said the shopkeeper warmly as she entered. “Is there something I can help you find?”

“No, but thank you, Mrs. Feldstone,” replied Amanda. “I just thought I would look at some of your fabric.”

Amanda wandered through the few bolts of cloth the shop had on hand and toward the back of the store. But in her present frame of mind nothing here was of interest. She smiled at the round-faced woman and left, continuing along the street in the direction of the station.

Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her running along the boarded walk. She turned and saw a girl of eleven or twelve whom she did not recognize running toward her. The moment she saw Amanda turn, the girl stopped.

For an uncertain second or two they stared at one another. At last the girl spoke.

“You're Amanda Rutherford,” she said excitedly.

“Yes . . . yes, I am,” replied Amanda. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I know who
you
are. My mother told me how you went to London to join the suffragettes. It was so exciting. I always wanted to be like you.”

The sting of hot tears filled Amanda's eyes and she looked away. She could not hold the gaze even of a little girl for the shame of what she had just heard.

After a moment she turned back, brushed at her eyes, and knelt down.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Chelsea . . . Chelsea Winters,” said the girl.

“Oh yes,” smiled Amanda, “now I remember . . . I know your mother.” She paused, looking earnestly into the girl's face. “Chelsea,” she went on seriously. “I am going to tell you something I hope you will remember and think about.”

The girl's eyes returned Amanda's stare with wide silence.

“I am not a person you should want to be like, Chelsea,” Amanda went on. “When I was your age I did not know how much my parents loved me. I did not pay enough attention to what they told me, and it landed me in a great deal of trouble.”

The awestruck expression on the face gazing back at her sobered.

“Do you understand, Chelsea?”

Slowly the girl nodded.

“Be a good girl, Chelsea, not a proud and selfish one like Amanda Rutherford was.”

Amanda felt her voice beginning to fail her. She rose and walked away, leaving little Chelsea Winters silently staring after her.

————

Somehow the day passed. When shadows of evening began to lengthen, Elsbet's stout little legs were easily fifteen or twenty miles along the coast away from the town she had never set foot outside of before that day. Even had her father's murderers known they had been observed, they could never hope to find her now.

Night gradually fell. Fear mingled with her hatred for the evil men, and Elsbet knew she must find a place to hide for the night. She began to look for a crevice in the hills along the water.

She crept into a cave and lay down in exhaustion. Weariness was her best friend on this most dreadful first night, for it dulled her brain and made her drowsy. With the sounds of the waves lulling together in her mind with memories of her father, she finally cried herself to sleep.

Within less than fifty feet from the water's edge, the fatherless girl managed to pass a fitful night.

Elsbet Conlin awoke to the same rhythmic sounds of water slopping and sloshing at the rocks that had lulled her to sleep outside the mouth of the cave. As she drank in the sound, her first few moments of wakefulness were peaceful.

Suddenly the terrible nightmare crashed back upon her. She wept the bitter tears of the motherless who was now suddenly fatherless as well. With renewed horror, visions of the previous day returned, adding tenfold to her sense of isolation, and a hundredfold to the hatred digging itself deep into her soul.

Elsbet shivered. In the chilly morning, the coldness of life overwhelmed her. She was damp to the bone with the sticky, clammy, salty dew of the sea.

She rose and left the cave, seeking movement and activity as the sole antidote for her grief. The morning was grey and still, the sun not yet up. At last she had begun to feel pangs of hunger and was very thirsty. She knew her temporary shelter offered no hope of satisfying either.

She soon quenched her thirst in a small stream tumbling down the rocks into the ocean a half mile farther on. With no destination in mind, she continued in the direction she had been walking, moving along the shore itself and occasionally on the bluffs overlooking the sea, her father's cryptic words the sole motivating force pushing her steps along.

The sun rose, the day warmed, and still she walked. By midday, hunger had asserted itself more vigorously. The birds overhead and an occasional rabbit or squirrel brought interest to the day and gave her something alive to talk to and share her struggle with against the elements.

By afternoon the conclusion had grown obvious that she was unlikely to find anything to eat on her present course and that food and water would be more accessible inland. Thus she gradually turned away from the sea into a region of desolate countryside.

Even legs that are small make good time when they keep moving, and by the evening of the second day of her sojourn she had indeed covered a good distance, probably forty or more miles from the place she once called home. Without knowing anything of the borders of the land, she had by now left Cornwall behind and was walking through the county of England called Devonshire.

Despite her hunger, sleep came that night more easily. Dusk had scarcely fallen when her legs fairly collapsed beneath her in the hollow of an open field.

The next day she continued on again, drinking from streams but still finding nothing to eat but some berries that only succeeded in giving her a stomachache. She began to encounter a few cows and sheep, but was afraid of the people she saw in the fields tending them and kept out of sight. What if they were
all
killers?

By nightfall she was famished. For a third night since her departure from the town, darkness closed around her.

She trudged on. The night deepened. At length she saw a building ahead. She knew she was now in a more peopled region and that it might not be safe to sleep in the open. The few drops of rain that had begun to fall added to her resolve. As she approached the building, she heard the familiar sounds of animals. She was not afraid of them!

She continued forward. The door was unlocked. She pushed it open and from inside came the homey smells of horseflesh, grass, and feed.

She crept inside the dry barn and was soon fast asleep on a pile of hay.