Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Two: 1816-1822

The Venturer's Agent

Chapter Three

Jessica clung to the dream of her wedding day as to a life-line. She loved Tom, knew him better than he knew himself; yet this lay at the root of her fear. Rising sometimes before dawn, she would see him come in exhausted, drenched and aching; but whereas in the old poaching days he would have been ready for a hug and a cooked breakfast, now he merely suggested she go back to bed, or stated abruptly that he could manage well enough alone.

Jessica had started to believe him. He no longer appeared to need her. Working for Bezant most nights, he slept for much of the day, and studied - with or without Gaspard - in the evenings. The afternoon outings grew less frequent, and although Tom was the kindest to her on these occasions, she felt that their lovemaking had become for him just a means to satisfy his own sexual hunger, and that even when concentrating on her pleasure he was merely performing a fairly enjoyable duty.

He was uncharacteristically snappish and quick to anger, even with the servants. Jessica recalled that he had been the same in the months before his father died, when, instead of simply escaping from Mr. Elderfield, he had begun to question the very basis of his father's stern morality. He could not bear to be chained; and if the chains now were forged by his own conscience, then he was beyond her help. She could only hope that, once they were married, he would realise how little the ceremony need alter his life. It would be a bowing to convention, for the sake of any children they might have, and that was all.

At times Jessica managed to stifle her doubts. She knew that Jack Bezant was sometimes brutal. Tom did not tell her all that happened on the tub-runs, but he could not hide the evidence of cuts and weals and dreadful bruises. Wouldn't such persecution dampen anyone's spirits.

And then there was Sophie Vaillant. A tiny English woman of deep maternal instincts, she had at first overwhelmed the 'poor orphaned boy' with gushing sentiment; until, faced with a tough and capable young man almost six feet tall, who treated her with courtesy and an amused, rather wary affection - and, moreover, developed a habit of patting her on the head - Sophie had felt her sympathy spurned. Tom's disappearances with Jessica, unchaperoned, for hours at a time, had been the final affront. Sophie now took every opportunity to comment on Tom's low origins and lower morals. The confiscation of his grandfather's Paris house and the vineyards in the Loire Valley, followed by the family's flight into near-penniless exile in England, had been no excuse for the young Marie to marry a blacksmith.

More than once, filled with remorse after an unprovoked flash of temper, Tom had told Jessica that nothing was wrong' it was just Sophie's attitude making him edgy, and he would feel better about the situation when they had found somewhere to live.

In April, this problem was solved. Among the many small salterns which had closed in recent years, due to cheaper rock salt from Cheshire stealing the markets, had been one belonging to Hicks; a site called West Mills, adjacent to Pennington Creek. The cottage was still in good repair, and Hicks offered to let it to his newest recruit for the staggeringly low rent of two pounds a year.

"We can move in straight after the wedding. "Tom said, brimming with enthusiasm. "The Forest ponies come down there to graze, and it's right by the Creek. We'll have our own jetty - Hicks is even giving us the old boat moored there. One of the barns is not too derelict, and I could actually turn the windmill into a chicken-house -"

"But darling," Jessica interrupted, laughing, "why on earth is it so cheap?"

"Hicks is getting old. Spending time at the Creek saltern gives him rheumatics. He'd rather be at home. But he likes the thought of someone being around there, keeping an eye on the boathouse and so on, in case the Riding Officers start sneaking about.

"So for two pounds we can get rheumatics instead of him."

Tom was undaunted. "Sweetheart, you'll love the place."

For Jessica, it was indeed love at first sight. She did not care that the cottage was squat and neglected, the window too small, the interior damp and dark.

"I'll whitewash all this," she cried out, whirling o indicate every one of the living-room walls. "Which bedroom shall we have?"

"This one," he said, scooping her up to carry her through the doorway. "With the biggest bed."

Yet the acquisition of West Mills Cottage did not improve his temper for longer than a week of two. When they visited the gypsies at Fordingbridge - which shocked even Madame Angelique, and brought Sophie near to apoplexy - Jessica was anxious enough to ask Meg Wells to tell their fortune, and even more worried by her calm refusal.

"I have little skill in the art," the gypsy woman said, "but I think, Jessica, that soon you will have to make a choice, between one destiny and another. I'll help you then, if I can."

Tom paid no need to Meg's words. Jessica had made her choice, just as he had; but the tub-runs with Trekker Verity remained, in spite of Bezant, his only sure escape from the interminable wedding talk and preparations. To prolong the time spent away from Nelson Place, he often stayed for a drink with Trekker in the Fordyces' kitchen, after the deliveries had all been made. The footman held a back-door key, to save waking the other servants in the small hours, on the understanding that he would not sample too often the liquor which his own efforts had provided; but that Spring had been the coldest and wettest in memory, and Trekker considered that he had earned his perks.

On the night of May 2nd, when the celebrations for Princess Charlotte's wedding had caused the postponement of the tub-run until law-abiding folk were abed, the two young men drank their contraband coffee and brandy so late that Trekker began glancing over his shoulder and jumping at the slightest sound, convinced that the cook would bustle in to start the day's work and catch them red-handed.

Tom was amused by his friend's jittery nerves. Though quick to criticise the foibles of master or servant, Eddie Verity was not at heart a rebel. He flourished under a firm but benevolent thumb, and would have been as helpless as flotsam if turned out to fend for himself.

"I'd best be off," Tom said, finishing his coffee at a gulp. "We've survived being half drowned every night for three months. I'd hate to see you die of fright at this late stage."

Taking the joke in good part, Trekker saw him out. A grey, sullen dawn promised more rain to come; the first drops were already falling. Leaving the noisy gravel drive Tom kept to the grass, moving silently and without haste, glancing to right and left only from habit.

A figure stood, white-clad and ghostly, in the shadows under a cherry tree. Catching sight of this apparition suddenly, and at close quarters, Tom's heart jumped with the shock and he stopped dead; but it was just a girl, thin and shivering in a gown more appropriate to a hot July afternoon. He recognised her; had seen her sitting with downcast eyes in her parents' carriage. A strange little creature, by Trekker's account, and an only child, shy as a mouse and curious as a kitten; Miss Louisa Fordyce, aged fourteen.

The child had backed against the tree, her eyes wide with terror. He said gently, afraid she might scream, "It's all right, Miss Fordyce, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not a burglar."

"I know what you are," she whispered."A Gentleman of the night."

Tom's brows rose at the romantic epithet. "Miss Fordyce, you shouldn't be out here. You'll catch cold."

"You won't tell.....my mother... that you saw me?

"Of course not," he said, puzzled, for the girl seemed more scared of her mother than of this encounter with a 'Gentleman'. "How could I, anyway? Look, run along inside, go on. There's no one in the kitchen except Trekker - er, Edward - and he won't tell tales either. Go on. I won't touch you."

She gazed up at him in fascination; the cautiously she smiled. Elfin, he thought, was the word to describe her, with her thin arms and her pinched, delicate features, and that mass of crimped, pale brown hair barely controlled by the lacy cap.

"I'm not cold," she said, very timidly. "I often come out to the garden, if I wake early."

"At first light? And in the rain?"

"I like the rain."

Tom regarded her in some perplexity. He could not just leave her wandering about the place. Maybe she was lacking a few wits.

"But usually I come out," she said, "to see the Gentlemen of the Night."

This put the matter beyond a joke. He stepped purposefully forward. "Give me your hand, Miss Fordyce."

Louisa stared.

"Come along, I bet your mother is asleep and snoring, and your father too. We won't disturb them."

Like a sleepwalker, or a person spellbound, Louis slid her hand into his. The kitchen door was still unlocked., though Trekker was nowhere in sight as they went inside. The door to the cellar stood open.

"Your footman," said Tom lightly, releasing her cold hand, "is finding room for the old aqua vitae. Water of life."

This comment brought colour to the girl's face and even a spark of fire to the huge green eyes. "You mean brandy, I suppose. And I do understand Latin, sir."

"Much better than I do, probably." Tom leaned against the table, crossed his ankles and folded his arms. "All right, since you're not a half-wit, and if I can trust you not to throw a fit of the vapours, I'll tell you straight. Our beachmaster is no gentleman, in any sense of the word. He arranges for spies to be systematically beaten up. It's said that informers have been killed before now - only on suspicion, mind-"

"But he cannot suspect me," Louisa's blush had faded, she looked white as death. "I'm not an informer."

"Of course you're not. But we aren't playing games for your amusement. I want you to promised that you will never, ever spy on us again."

"I don't think it's a game, I know how brave you all are, and how dangerous smuggling is nowadays. Have you.....have you ever been wounded by a Preventive Officer?"

Tom raised his eyes briefly heavenward. He said, sighing, "Miss Fordyce, I've hardly ever seen a Preventive Officer, let alone stared down the barrel of his musket. I'm a tub-carrier, that's all. It's risky, now and then, but what job isn't? I could be a farmhand and drive a pitchfork through my foot."

But if the sea is rough - "

"Yes, sometimes there's a sort of excitement, the thrill of beating the elements, or staying one step ahead of the dragoons." He shrugged ruefully. "I reckon that's what makes the life bearable. Mostly it's just hard work and a few extra shillings in your pocket. We're not heroes."

Louisa was again studying his face, but this time with alert, intelligent curiosity. She was growing bolder by the moment.

"I don't believe you are just an ordinary tubman," she said.

"Well....define an ordinary tubman."

"There - you have proved it! You talk as though - as though more words go through your mind than come out of your mouth. And yet Mama's and Papa's friends, who are so fashionable, and accomplished, and frightfully witty, seem to give exactly the opposite impression nearly all the time."

Tom shook with laughter. "Miss Fordyce, will you please promise to stop spying, so that I can go home?"

Louisa swallowed, her cheeks flaming. "If you - if you will tell me your name I wouldn't tell anyone else. Not a soul."

"Thomas Elderfield." He bowed, with an extravagant flourish. "I'm sure we'll be formally introduced at some function or other."

"Will we?" The shy, oddly touching smile returned. "You see, I new you were a gentleman in disguise."

"No", he protested, laughing. "A villain, born to be hanged."

"You have my promise, then, Mr. Elderfield. And I'll not be afraid of Mama tonight, because I would rather endure her tongue than - than a musket ball. You make me ashamed to be a coward."

"Cowards live to grow old." On impulse he patted her bony shoulder. "Take better care of yourself in future," he said; and then, with a final, sparkling look as he turned to go. "I'm sorry to have destroyed your illusions about smugglers."

"You haven't", she whispered; and the words were repeated, more softly still, following like an echo. "Oh you haven't."

He noticed her often after that, driving through town with her ageing father, or promenading on the Quay in the company of her strikingly beautiful mother. The girl always looked abstracted, never happy, her mind far removed from the subject of her mother's shrill, vivacious chatter. Tom could not manage to catch her eye.

Four weeks before Midsummer, he forgot Louisa Fordyce. At breakfast time, only two hours after dropping exhausted into bed, he was woken by Jessica shaking his arm.

"Tom! Oh darling, please wake up. Please!"

He sat up, groaning at the intrusion, rubbing a hand over his face. "What the bloody hell...."

"I've had a letter from our Macey."

The anguish in her voice brought Tom fully awake. Jessica laid the crumpled sheet of paper on the coverlet.

"Read it," she said.

Drawn curtains shut out the daylight, and Tom squinted to decipher the flamboyantly atrocious handwriting.

Jess - I am sorry to write but things are so bad here, we think Pa will die very soon - maybe in a week or less - he keeps wishing you will come home before it is too late - Jess please come back, please hurry - your affectionate brother. Mace.

Tom said, frowning, "He lost your Ma, and then Amos, and you. He might be worrying over some trivial ailment. Your Pa was never ill, except for the gout."

Jessica shook her head, in such hopeless grief that Tom's throat constricted. He was offering false hope and they both knew it. Mace, for all his soaring imagination, had a ruthless capacity for meeting the facts head-on.

Tom leapt out of bed and started dressing. "There must be a coach to Southampton today," he said. "Maybe even to Andover, in which case we should make it to Hatchley by dusk -"

"No!" She stood to face him. "I'd rather go alone, truly I would.

"Out of luck, then, aren't you?" he said, preoccupied, hardly aware of his own careless cruelty. "You must be daft if you think I'd-"

"Let me do this, Tom. Let me go."

Shrugging into a jerkin he sent her a flashing, angry glance. "I said we'll go together."

"It's goo dangerous."

"We'll arrive after dark. Anyway, I don't care a damn about Sir Charles Gullifer. He's most likely forgotten me months ago."

"And if he hasn't?"

"I'll be sipped out to Van Diemen's Land, won't I?"

"Maybe you wouldn't be sorry."

The accusation stung. He turned on her furiously. "What is this, a bloody inquisition? You're scared I'll leave you standing at the altar, is that it? Afraid I'll fail in my duty?"

"Duty! Is that all our wedding means to you?"

"Oh, I might have known we'd get on to the blooding wedding. No one in this house ever talks about anything else."

"You brought it up!"

"Christ, I'd need to be desperate though, wouldn't I, to get myself transported just for the pleasure of staying a bachelor."

"Tom!" His name broke from her like a cry of pain.

He stood motionless, appalled by what he had said, his anger killed by her tears. "God, Jessie.....I'm sorry."

"I want to go home, Tom. I want to see Pa again.... and Macey. And I don't want you with me."

"I love you." He could not hide his despair; the thought of losing her was a physical agony as though a knife had been driven between his ribs. "I didn't mean those things, it's just.....Jessie, I'll make it up to you, I swear on my life. Sweetheart, don't leave me."

"Only for a week or two," she said. "Perhaps all we need is a little time apart. When I come back, we'll both know better how we feel," She took his hands. "I'll write every day. And if I'm not back in a fortnight....well, you must come and fetch me, that's all.

She kissed him on the cheek, drawing away when he would have held her close. As she reached the door he cried out, "You said once - your said that together we'd be a match for the best and worst."

"Tell me that in two weeks' time," she said," and I'll never doubt you again."

Part 2, The Venturer's Agent, Chapter 4

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