The Blighted Cliffs (20 page)

We
walked up around the castle, retracing the path I had taken with
Ducker, but instead of following the Deal road, which took an inland
route along a ridge, Isobel insisted we take the cliff path.

'It'll
take longer,' I objected.

'It'll
be nicer,' she answered. 'And I'm the one who should worry myself,
walking too near the cliff edge with a man of your reputation.'

Before
I could deny the slander, she was skipping off across the field
towards the sea. Another of her jokes, I supposed; at least I only
offered her insult inadvertently.

'I
never murdered anyone up here, nor down on the rocks either for that
matter,' I protested, when at last I caught her up.

'I'm
sure you didn't.' She stopped, looking at me with a firm gaze. 'I
know what you were like when I left, and I should think you didn't
get much better after that.'

'Thank
you, I muttered. It was exoneration - of a sort. 'Although I doubt
your opinion will convince a jury, if it comes to that. Especially as
it's well known you were in bed at Miss Hoare's establishment all
night.' A thought occurred to me. 'You didn't chance to notice three
men sitting at a table in the
Crown
and Anchor
that evening - two foreigners, Vitos and Laminak, and another man
no-one saw properly?'

Isobel
wrinkled her nose in thought. 'Don't think so. It was very busy
there, though. And of course, I only had eyes for you.'

'Did
you?' After her run of insult and innuendo, I took any compliment
with some suspicion.

'Of
course. Isn't every day a handsome lieutenant walks into a place like
the
Crown
and Anchor
.'

I
was surprised my fellow officers had such scruples. 'I chose the
first tavern I found,' I explained. 'What took a good Christian
washer woman like you there? Fetching some black strap for Miss
Hoare?'

She
giggled. 'Miss Hoare doesn't drink - at least, not in front of us.' I
had a brief vision of Miss Hoare and Captain Crawley together forming
a holy union for abstinence and cleanliness. 'I went, out the window
and over the roof, cos I'd had enough of Miss Hoare's dunkings and
Fat Bess trying to pinch my fingers in the tub. I wanted some
nonsense.'

'And
you decided on the
Crown
and Anchor
?'

She
shrugged. 'It needed to be where word wouldn't get back to Miss
Hoare.'

It
certainly seemed unlikely that many of Miss Hoare's acquaintances
would frequent that place.

'So
how long have you been living in the laundry?'

'How
long've I been in gaol, more like. Three months, since my husband
died.'

I
had forgotten this particular little mystery. 'Your husband –
Mr Dawson, I imagine?'

'Corporal
Dawson, he was. Passed through on his way to Hanover. Liked the look
of me, I liked the look of him, and I was...' She paused. 'Tired of
living in the poorhouse. Been in and out of it for as long as I can
think - "a leech on the good will of the parish", as the
magistrate was kind enough to say once. I thought I'd escape it.

Even
living with a bad man'd be better than living with a score of 'em ,
an' I'd not have got anything from him I didn't get from them.'

She
laughed, with a shocking bitterness for a girl so young. 'Not that he
had time to do anything, good or bad. The day after we married, he
was on the boat to Hanover. Two months later they told me he'd died
of a fever on the march, and it was back off to the workhouse for
me.'

I
felt suddenly numbed by her bleak voice as much as the misery in her
story. As a child I had several times followed my father around while
he ministered to the poor, and seen plenty of the condition in which
they lived, but it had never seemed real, more like an exhibit or an
illustration, with as much life in those mute, grimy faces as in my
regiment of wooden soldiers. I could not comprehend the truths behind
Isobel's words, only try to mumble something inarticulately
sympathetic.

'It
happened,' she cut me short. 'And that's it. I cried when I heard,
but I didn't know him. I think he was a good man, but they'll not
write that on his tombstone.'

An
idea began to grow in me, and although it seemed hideous to be
thinking selfishly in the face of such misfortune, I could not help
wondering what Isobel intended with me.

'Don't
worry,' she said, perhaps anticipating my thought. 'I didn't fix on
you in the tavern for my next husband.' Considering the brief tenure
of the previous incumbent, this was something of a relief.

'Like
I said, I just wanted some nonsense.'

Under
the circumstances, I could hardly resent being merely nonsensical,
but for the moment I was trying to be serious.

'Could
you not have found employment elsewhere?'

'There
were none who'd take me. Sir Lawrence and his banker friends had just
set up the laundry, and they wanted girls in it who could work cheap.
Once they'd made sure everyone in town knew that, you couldn't get
work for begging.'

'It
seems we both have reason to dislike Sir Lawrence, then.' There
certainly seemed to be few enterprises in Dover that did not have his
fingers somehow sunk into them.

'More
than you'd think,' agreed Isobel. 'I lived four years as a maid to
him. Terrible, that was. When he was in a mood, he'd rage about the
house with a poker, beating the walls and anyone who crossed his
path. And even when he wasn't in a mood, he'd still snarl at you if
you even dared to look at him. I was so glad when he went away to
London and wouldn't take me. A real beast, he is.'

'Did
he... ?' Whether out of concern for Isobel, or an urge to rake
through Sir Lawrence's character, I found the indelicate question
emerging even as I formed it.

'Did
he have me?' She snorted. 'No. Not that he didn't try, of course, but
you learn tricks in the poorhouse, and after I'd seen what he did
with Lady Cunningham I made sure to stay clear. Probably gave him
more reason to throw me in with Miss Hoare when he got the chance.'

There
was a silence, save for the breeze snapping at her skirts. Her story
had a horrible fascination, and though she clearly had few qualms
telling it I felt uncomfortable hearing it told. And I could not in
decency probe any further into Sir Lawrence's debauches.

Isobel
must have wearied of the tale herself. 'Anyway, now you know about
me, what about yourself? Have you got a better story to it a day like
this?'

If
the day was considered to be rather dull, then my story matched it
well, but Isobel had granted me an intimacy and I wanted to
reciprocate. So, as we walked, I told her what little of my life
seemed relevant: my childhood in Hampshire, and my upbringing as the
only grown son of a vicar, a meek and ineffectual man who had easily
succumbed to his brother-in-law's insistence that the navy offered
the only hope for his son's improvement. I recalled how I had crawled
and puked my way through five years as a midshipman until, after
three failed examinations, I found a board which cared less for my
manifest unsuitability than for my uncle's influence. I talked about
the boredom of being at sea, and the rare bouts of terror when an
unknown sail was sighted. I even told her the truth about Trafalgar,
for when someone has seen you standing naked in the bath tub there is
precious little dignity left to protect. I told her all this, and
doubtless a hundred other insignificant details, but she listened
without interruption, save the occasional question, and seemed as
happy to be hearing these irrelevancies - nonsense, perhaps - as I
was to speak them.

We
passed the bay where the fisherman's hut stood, and carried on up the
coast, and at some point I felt a jostling against my side and saw
with surprise, and no little pleasure, that she had linked her arm
through mine. Thus we came into Deal.

I
had not visited Deal before, and what I saw now from the heights
above did little to spur regret. It looked a sober sort of town,
inescapably formed around the square barracks and hospitals that
accounted for so much of its area, and a world removed from the
pinching, crooked jumble of Dover. But where Dover was formed like a
wedge driven between the two headlands that buttressed it, and so
could only grow inwards and upwards, Deal, with no such constraints
of geography, ran as a thin ribbon along the sea-front, indulging in
a dignified distance between each of its well-tempered buildings. And
while Dover's chaos thrived on the energy of private commerce - the
only port in England, I believe, where even the navy's supplies were
carried by local boatmen - Deal was a thoroughly garrisoned town.

'You'll
look better if you arrive at the door without me,' said Isobel.

We
a
re
descending from the cliffs. In the distance, out to sea, the masts of
the Downs squadron rode gently at anchor, while hoys and galleys
thronged the water in between.

'I'll
look incomparably uglier if I arrive without you, I argued, glad that
she had saved me from having to broach the topic. 'But the officials
may find it more decorous, and it might be deemed seditious to have
you distracting the guards.'

She
laughed, her long hair blowing forward around her face, and as she
squeezed my arm tighter I found myself smiling with more sincere
happiness than I'd felt in weeks.

My
high spirits did not impress the sentry at the customs house, but at
the mention of the names Crawley and Webb he let me through into an
anteroom. It had much the same official austerity as Crawley's office
in Dover, with white walls and small windows, but the occupant here
had clearly felt the need to add a touch of warmth, for a few
paintings of ships and storms hung on the walls and a thick rug
covered the floorboards.

'Lieutenant
Jerrold, eh?' I rose to greet the stout, ruddy-cheeked man who
entered. 'Camberwell. How do you do, sir? Don't stand on ceremony,
for God's sake, sit down and have a drink.' He took a decanter from a
cabinet. 'Brandy? One of the perks of the job, eh, confiscating the
contraband.' He winked obviously. 'After all, only way to tell if
it's the real thing they're importing or just imitation Cornish rot.'
He swilled the liquor in his glass. 'This, I think, is rather good.'

I
could only agree. Clearly the Revenue had engaged an expert.

'Now,
the man tells me you're here about my unhappy predecessor, Mr Webb.
Turned up, has he?'

'After
a fashion.' I described the circumstances of Webb's reappearance.
'Captain Crawley believed that you might know something of his
movements.'

'Know
something?' Camberwell laughed. 'I fear you've wasted your journey,
Mr Jerrold, if you've come to find out what I know. Never met the
man. Only came here because he'd gone.'

'But
there must have been something, surely? He can't have vanished
completely for six months.'