Turning the Stones (20 page)

Doesn’t the raising of these barrels suggest that the
Seal
is headed in quite a different direction?

Oh, Lord! You would think that I might have been able to
tell by the severity of the air and the increasing rain that we are not steering our way towards southern climes at all, but in fact are heading
north
. My hope of landing in France to a new life is dashed. How witless of me not to have seen what was in front of my nose. I would knock my own brains out if I had any.

I arrive on deck to find Captain McDonagh and Mr Guttery conferring at the helm, while belligerent waves try to come aboard. Naturally, it is raining. The captain catches sight of me. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug and says at my approach, ‘At any rate you look less of a drowned rat.’

‘We are not to land in France, are we?’ It comes out as an accusation and a petulant one at that.

Captain McDonagh regards me with ironic weariness. ‘Whoever said anything about France, madam? That was your own surmise. And do not bother to thank me for your costume. Consider it a reward for your charming company.’

‘I don’t care to thank you or anybody else, sir. I have had my fill of gratitude.’ Good God, I sound like Eliza in one of her snits, all high dudgeon and hands on hips.

Captain McDonagh observes to Mr Guttery, ‘For an uninvited guest this baggage is very full of herself, don’t you agree?’

With a start I spy in the distance a headland and Captain McDonagh notices my remarking it.

‘We are near land.’

‘So it seems,’ the captain says drily. ‘When the light begins to fall I will send a signal to bring out a lugger to take you ashore.’

‘But where are we?’

‘Off the coast of Ireland.’

Ireland?! The rain begins to fall more heavily, clattering on the
Seal
’s canvas. I feel a stab of fear. Ireland is ruled by the English – our courts of law prevail there.

Captain McDonagh says not unkindly, ‘Do not fret, you will not be stranded. I shall give you money so that you may make your way.’

It is only a remnant of pride that prevents me from sobbing into my hands. I have come all this way by terrifying land and nauseating sea only to circle back into the jurisdiction of the English crown. Everybody knows that Ireland is nothing but wilderness. God’s teeth! Must I now hide in a bog instead of walking free in sunny France?

I think there might be a very faint trace of pity in the captain’s gaze. He says, ‘Indeed, Miss Smith, I will help you to come away.’ It is the first time that he has alluded to the possibility that I am a fugitive. I suppose it takes one outlaw to recognise another.

‘That is generous of you. I mean that truly.’

‘And reckless too, for how do I know that you will not betray the
Seal
for your own interest.’

‘I would never do that, I swear.’

Captain McDonagh fixes me with a searching look. His blue eyes have turned grey and unfathomable in this overcast weather. He seems to be satisfied by my sincerity, though, because he allows me the ghost of a smile. Perhaps he does not consider me to be utterly callow.

And then the wind comes to my aid.

Captain McDonagh is alert to the shift straightaway, of course. The air is swinging around to the north-east, blowing the
Seal
away from the headland. He looks up at the sails,
cursing the wind for its contrariness, and says, ‘God’s blood, it would be easier to tear a fee from the hands of a lawyer than be rid of you, Miss Smith!’

It seems that his moment of kindness has passed.

*

There is no end to dampness below-decks, with mould everywhere. The bilge pump is often at work – I can hear its clappers beating now. I remain melancholy and anxious at the prospect, which has only been delayed, of being offloaded from the
Seal
. If Ireland is not a woebegone barren place, why do endless waves of its people wash up upon the shores of England? I fidget and fret with nothing to do. Jim is making bread, kneading meal, ale and barm in the trough that he has placed on the table. When I offered my help he only looked at me with a refusing stare, although he has let me stay near the warmth of the stove.

This boat is so confining. I miss terribly being able to roam about. I close my eyes and conjure up the beating wings of geese passing overhead in their chevrons, the hum of bees in the air and the soft smack of waves against the rocks. Ah, I am thinking of a place, which lies about five or six miles south of Sedge Court. Burton Point, it is called. The wife of Mr Waterland’s wildfowler crony, Georgy Bird Richardson, was a wise-woman and I was sometimes sent down to the Richardsons’ cottage at the point for a tincture that would appease the master’s belly vengeance. I liked to stand on the rocks and try to spot the line of demarcation in the Dee where the water that runs quick and lively downriver is overcome by the lethargy upstream. But the border between the two waters was always invisible, to my eye at least. I dare say that the
alteration from one state to another happens so subtly and infinitesimally it is impossible to know exactly where the flowing water turns to a brown soup until it has already occurred.

I am greatly troubled about how I shall make my way when I am thrown off upon Irish soil – if there is any soil. From what I have glimpsed of this western coast it is nothing but slabs of rock. I will guess that there are few openings for a lady’s maid in these parts.

The whiff of sourness rising from Jim’s bread dough reminds me of the frightful milk-water that Downes talked Eliza into using in order to take off the spots and scurf from her skin. Downes must have known that the curdled milk would stink – and that Eliza was quite likely to go to her dancing class reeking like a cheese. One felt concern for Eliza at such moments. Her lack of awareness makes her horribly vulnerable to judgments. I swabbed her face at once of the vile milk-water and repaired the damage with rosewater.

The necessity of Eliza’s marrying was beginning to loom at Sedge Court at that time. I have no expectation that I should ever marry. I have formed the impression that when nets are cast in the marriage market, they haul up from the cold deep all kinds of distorted beasts. I was deathly afraid even then that Mrs Waterland might try to force a match for Eliza with Tobias Barfield. There was always a faint drone of unease in the background of my existence caused by the fear of Barfield’s visits to Sedge Court. I remember an occasion when I was returning from Mrs Richardson’s cottage with a tincture for the master. I had climbed up from the point and was crossing a field next to the road. I disturbed
a pheasant and it burst out of its covert, bronze feathers flailing, and flew off low over the newly turned earth. As I watched it go, I heard hoof-beats and the rumble of an approaching vehicle.

I recognised the chaise. I turned away and hurried along the verge of the road with the idea of taking a bridle path that I knew was close to hand, but the chaise quickly caught me up. As it came alongside Johnny Waterland leaned from the window with his light hair fluttering. There was a lazy smile in his voice as he offered me a lift to Sedge Court. I shook my head and kept on, but Johnny ordered the driver to pull over. The chaise stopped a few yards ahead and Johnny alighted. He shot his cuffs with a flash of silver buttons and said, ‘How thoughtless of me, Em. Of course it would not please you to share a conveyance with Barfield.’ He placed a lightly restraining hand on my arm. ‘Still, we are miles from home and it is a warm day for walking, by Jove.’

I said, ‘The distance is of no concern to me.’

All at once he banged on the side panel of the chaise with his fist – the vehicle flinched and the horses whinnied at the scare. He roared, ‘Barfy, you toad! Come out!’

I averted my face, but I heard the chaise creak with relief as Barfield disembarked. I was aware of his barrel shape at the edge of my vision.

Johnny said, ‘Miss Smith holds you in abhorrence, sir. For your penance and to spare her feelings, you will walk to Sedge Court, while I escort her in the chaise.’

Barfield hooted with laughter and lisped, ‘At your disposal, Waterland. As always.’

‘If you have not reached Sedge Court in an hour, I will
send out a search party.’ Johnny laughed. ‘Come along, Em. We’ve got rid of that dog.’

I saw that I must ride with Johnny or be left on the road with Barfield. I allowed myself to be handed into the chaise – its interior smelled musty and faintly fermented – but I was uneasy. Johnny leaned back against the seat opposite, one sinuous arm lying along the back of the seat. I could no longer see in him anything of the overshaded cornstalk. There was a sheen on him that must have come from the savoir faire that he cultivated in London.

He said, ‘You are quite safe from Barfield now. He knows he made an error.’ He might have been referring to a family pet, some old hound that has snapped unexpectedly at a visitor.

I looked out at the fields. The shadows of the trees behind the hedgerows flung themselves at the chaise one after another as we passed by.

Johnny said, ‘Do not be a little martyr, Em, you haven’t been harmed. Barfy is simply a sporting fellow with a great liking for the hunt. You are not the first little doe he has brought down.’

I turned a cold eye on Johnny, but he only raised his hands palms upwards, lace cuffs drooping in a gesture of laissez-faire, and let them fall again with a rueful smile. He had his mother’s rosebud mouth, but it was less suitable on a man. He asked me how old I was and I replied that I was the same age as Eliza.

Of course he could not recall his sister’s age.

I said, ‘Sixteen and a half.’

He seemed bored. He said, ‘It’s awfully warm in here, is it not?’

He loosened his neck-cloth and undid a couple of buttons
of his waistcoat. I pulled down the window pane and let in fresh air. It was eighteen months since we had seen Johnny at home. The household bemoaned his absence, but money still flowed in and nobody would argue with its bounty. An army of tradesmen had been renovating the interior of the house for months on end. Eliza’s apartment was pasted with the latest wallpaper and lavender borders and she slept now in a mahogany bed hung about with fifty yards of glazed chintz. Mr Otty and Rorke were suave in new livery of blue serge coats and moleskin breeches and there was even a flicker of animation in the master and talk of digging canals and coal mines. None of us below stairs understood exactly what it was that Johnny undertook in London at the bank of Hill & Vezey, but it did seem as if we were in clover, and it was our young master who was the cultivator.

He said, ‘Eliza does badger one so. You might point that out to her. Her recent letters are choked with peculiar military metaphors.’

‘One of her tutors was an army man.’

‘Ah yes, the tutors. I believe I am paying their wages.’

‘They ride over from Great Neston four days a week, if the weather allows. They are called Captain Dennison and Dr North.’

‘Relations of Lady Broome, ain’t they?’

The captain and the doctor of divinity had been engaged as a favour to her ladyship. Captain Dennison was shorttempered with a face like a hunk of corned beef. He habitually wore a soldier’s coat, but in an unexpected concession to fashion, he sported gigantic rosettes on his long-snouted shoes. He was missing his left arm, which had been shot off at the
Battle of Fontenoy in 1745. The sacrifice was not in vain because Eliza had been sufficiently impressed to remember the date of the battle, which was an uncommon feat on her part. Dr North had the pallid, damp look of a potato that has been peeled and washed. He hinted that he had once been a curate. There was certainly something starchy in his dress and in his nature. According to Eliza, divinity and pedantry were his strong suits.

Eventually I said, ‘Mrs Waterland believes that many lessons germane to domestic life might be drawn from the captain’s victories and defeats in the field.’ For some reason this made Johnny laugh out loud. Perhaps my tone was drier than I meant it to be. I said, ‘Eliza writes you so often because she holds you in high regard.’

‘So I gather. I’ve no idea why.’

I put my face to the window. In the distance I could make out the squat tower of Saint Mary and Saint Helen at Great Neston, where Miss Broadbent was buried. The Sunday after her death the parson there preached a sermon in which he asserted that self-murder is by all agreed to be most unnatural and repugnant to the feelings of mankind. Did I tell you already that it was not until after Miss Broadbent’s death that I found out her Christian name – it was revealed during the coroner’s inquisition. She was called Juliet. Its poetical nature struck me, and strikes me still, as unbearably affecting. Juliet. A name that suggests an entirely different future had been intended for her than that of a lonely governess. No one came forward to claim her body, you know.

Johnny was saying something to me. I sat back from the window. I had seen enough of the church.

‘I did not hear you.’

‘I said, you are strange and unaccountable. Do you know, your cool manner is rather agreeable. You ought to teach it to my sister.’

I said, ‘Are you going to throw Eliza and me out when you inherit Sedge Court?’

Johnny laughed. ‘That depends. I might if you disappoint me. But you won’t risk that, will you?’

*

Jim has left the dough to swell while he gets the beef boiling for the crew’s supper. The wind wails and the waves boom. The sound reminds me of Mr Paine’s thunder house and his manufactured lightning bolts and my heart gives me a knock. I am at a low ebb now. Here I am stuck, carried along in the dark hold of this miserable vessel towards a destination that has been decided for me. I cannot escape the feeling that I am caught in the operation of an unknowable network. If you can hear my voice, tell me that it is not so!

Weever Hall, Cheshire
June, 1765

Our journey to Weever Hall for Lady Broome’s summer dance took place on a lustrous June day. By the time we reached the village of Tarporley on the western edge of the Cheshire plain, it was gone noon and we paused there for refreshment. Mrs Waterland had spotted an old walnut tree favourably contorted for shelter and she instructed Mr Otty to spread a rug and cushions beneath its branches, while I unpacked the provisions. We dined alfresco and afterwards found ourselves inclined to linger in the shade, quite toppled by the heat of the afternoon.