Smuggler's Kiss (9 page)

‘But this is a girl,’ said Jess, looking closely at me. Will put his finger on his lips and winked at her. She smiled and Will smiled back at her. I caught my breath, looking at the two of them. This was so clearly the give and take of friendship and liking. In that moment, something changed in the way I saw Will. It was as though he was a different person. Then he stood up and nodded to me to follow him and the spell was broken.

As we left, Will was silent, a brooding frown on his face. ‘I always think,’ he said as we crossed a field, ‘that next time I come by, Jess might not be there any more.’

‘Why don’t they take her to the doctor with that dreadful sore?’ I asked.

‘Because her mother is dead and her father drinks. And even when he can get work, the doctor costs a week’s wages,’ said Will.

I didn’t reply. It seemed unfair to be sure, that they couldn’t afford a doctor. ‘But they are so dirty!’ I said. ‘Why do they not clean up and wash and put on fresh clothes at least?’

Will shook his head at me. ‘Washing requires clean water nearby,’ he said. ‘Clean clothes means having some to spare. And someone having time and energy left over from working a twelve-hour day and caring for small children to do the washing. And money for soap. Decent housing would help too.’

‘Well, I would never allow myself to become so … degraded,’ I said with a sniff.

‘Perhaps you would not. You’ve known something different, after all,’ said Will. ‘But what if you had ten children, three died, the rest ran wild and had no chance of education? How would they fare?’

‘I would teach them,’ I said, but though I kept arguing from force of habit, clinging to my beliefs, my voice had lost its conviction. I began to have some insight into how hopeless one might become in such a situation.

‘I’d like to see you find the time for that, let alone the money for the materials. And even if you did, what of their children? Your daughter marries a man who beats her and drinks the money. She’s surrounded by dirt and work and want. She isn’t well. How long would this superiority last, Isabelle? In two generations, you and yours would become those people. There’s no difference. Don’t think that you are something better. Besides, take a look at yourself! Two days on the road and you are as dirty as them, and smell very nearly as bad.’

His words shocked me. I took a cautious sniff at my clothes and could smell sweat, manure from the midden, and slime from the marsh we’d skirted. I thought of the little urchin Jess, her dark eyes so clear sighted. The way her hand had slid trustingly into mine. And I did something I’d never done before. I imagined what it must be like to live someone else’s life. It wasn’t a pleasant reverie. Could Will be right? Was there really no difference between me and the people in the cottages?

‘How did you get to know them?’ I asked Will as he strode out across the turf.

‘It’s a long story.’ Will’s voice was curt and dismissive.

‘I couldn’t have asked for a more charming companion,’ I remarked bitterly.

Will turned on me and gripped my wrist. I bit my lip as his hand tightened uncomfortably. ‘You can talk,’ he said. ‘We saved your life and all you’ve told us about yourself is lies. We’ve given you food and shelter and risked our safety for you, and have had precious little in return. So before you criticize me, take a look at your own behaviour.’

He released me abruptly and strode off into the darkness. I stumbled wearily after him. We walked quietly through the next settlement; a poor place but cleaner than the last. It was late now and the houses were all in darkness. Will paused at one cottage, pushed open the gate and then hesitated, turning back to me. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

He walked to the front door, and taking a key from around his neck, he unlocked it. He stepped inside the house, leaving the door ajar behind him, and I saw him lay several things on the table, though I couldn’t see what. He was just emerging from the door again, when small hands grasped his coat and tugged. He turned back and I saw him bend down to embrace a small child, kissing her on each cheek.

‘I can’t stay,’ I heard him say. ‘I’m so sorry! But you should be asleep, Beth. You can look at the parcels in the morning.’

He stepped outside, pulled the door to behind him and walked back to me without a word. As we left, I glanced up at the window and saw a child’s face pressed against the dark glass of a window in the upper storey. ‘Who is that?’ I asked Will.

‘You don’t need to know,’ he said sharply, pulling his cap down lower. He walked swiftly, avoiding further questions. I was puzzled. Who was the little girl? Why did he have a key to that house?

‘You are a strange person,’ I told him at last, breaking the long silence. ‘So harsh and unsympathetic. And yet capable of kindness to those degraded people.’

Will glanced sharply at me. ‘There’s no contradiction,’ he said quietly. ‘I merely save my compassion for those in want. I don’t waste it on those who already spend far too much time feeling sorry for themselves.’

His words silenced me. I was rebuked, and wondered if he would still be so unpitying if he knew my whole story.

Will struck out across fields again and then joined a cliff path, heading west. ‘I don’t think I can walk much further,’ I told him.

‘Just around the next headland, and then we walk down to the sea,’ he replied.

‘Down hill,’ I sighed in relief. ‘Thank goodness.’ I was hopeful that my ordeal was almost over. We passed a barn, and I noticed a movement on the far side. A gentle whicker told me there were horses or ponies on the far side. I could hear them stirring.

At the end of the far field we climbed a gate and the field dropped away to nothingness in the gloom. I hesitated at the top, trying to get my bearings, but Will began to descend the steep slope. The land seemed to drop away at my feet into a deep ravine filled with a threatening darkness. To our left, I could make out rocky headlands stretching out into the black sea.

‘Come, Isabelle,’ said Will impatiently. ‘The ship is in. We need to be away.’

‘How can you know that?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘You heard the ponies waiting behind the barn. Listen!’ he pointed down into the darkness of the ravine, but I could hear nothing except the plaintive bleating of sheep on the far side of the ravine. I shook my head.

‘The landers are down there already,’ said Will. ‘I’m sure of it.’

Gingerly, I stepped down the beginning of the slope. Contrary to my expectation, the ground didn’t drop away completely as I’d expected. A narrow path wound down in a zigzag through the ridged meadow. I could just make out the darker line of it snaking through the rough winter grass. I stepped out more quickly and followed Will downwards. At every steep twist in the path, I slowed, catching hold of clumps of grass to keep my balance. The drop below us made me feel giddy each time I looked down. We went down and down and down until my legs began to shake and I was afraid of falling.

‘Please wait!’ I gasped, as I bent over, trying to steady my trembling limbs. Will paused, restless in his haste. ‘Are … we … nearly down yet?’ I asked.

Will shrugged. ‘Halfway?’ he said. ‘But it gets steeper from now on. I thought you wanted to walk downhill?’

I groaned. ‘What was that?’ I asked suddenly, pointing down the ravine towards the sea. Will turned to look where I had pointed, but it had already vanished. ‘A blue flash,’ I said.

The flare had been tiny; a mere pinprick of light, that rose silently into the air and vanished.

‘That’ll be
The Invisible
,’ said Will. ‘Signalling the landers.’

We stood close together on the narrow path, staring into the darkness. I was breathing heavily, but Will seemed unaffected by the climb.

‘Why is it blue?’ I asked.

‘It’s a pistol shot, but no barrel, just powder in the pan,’ he explained briefly. ‘You won’t see the answering flink from here.’

I followed him on downwards. The path wound through bramble and hawthorn patches now, the narrow track slick with mud. Several times I grasped at plants to catch my balance and spiked my hands. I gasped and caught at Will instead.

‘Anyone would think you were being tortured!’ he said, taking my hand.

‘I am,’ I told him, grasping his hand gratefully and using it to steady myself as the path plunged ever more steeply down into the valley.

‘Will, are the landers really going to carry the kegs up here?’ I asked, pausing again. ‘It’s so steep.’

‘It’s not a route we usually use,’ he admitted. ‘Chapman’s Pool is too steep a climb for regular runs. We have kegs only, no ankers, this trip. And a consignment of snuff. There are reasons why we’ve chosen it.’

‘Which you’re not going to share with me?’

‘Which I’m not going to share with you,’ he agreed. I reflected that the very steepness of this climb would probably put the Revenue officers off patrolling it. The ponies behind the barn must be the smuggling train, waiting quietly in the darkness to relieve the landers of their load.

At long last, we reached a bubbling stream that gurgled down the last steep drop to the beach. I sighed with relief, but the scramble down the stream was tricky. To my surprise, Will turned and lifted me down onto the shingle.

‘You’ve done well,’ he said briefly. I was stunned into silence, hearing even such mild words of praise from him.

‘Who’s there?’ said a gruff voice right behind us. I jumped, but it seemed Will had been expecting it.

‘Nick the Knife,’ he said calmly. ‘Crew member, rejoining the ship.’

‘And him?’ The shape in the darkness jerked his head towards me.

Will hesitated a second before replying: ‘Mermaid Jake,’ he replied. ‘Crew member.’

The man gave a grunt and faded back into the shadows.

‘
Mermaid Jake?
’ I whispered indignantly.

‘You don’t have an alias,’ he whispered. ‘It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment like that. I could hardly tell him “Isabelle, surname unknown, unwilling shipmate”.’

‘It’s pathetic,’ I told him.

‘Then think of one for yourself next time.’

‘What about you? Are you some awe-inspiring knife-thrower or something?’ I asked.

‘No,’ whispered Will in my ear. Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘We had a contest once. I’m the worst knife-thrower on board. Can’t hit a barn door. Hence the name.’

I couldn’t help chuckling as I followed Will wearily onto the sand and shingle beach, my boots heavy with mud. But then memories of my last walk onto a shingle beach flooded back. I shivered. I was still alive. I was breathing and moving, tasting the salt air and feeling the exhaustion in my body and the pain in my feet from two days’ walking. I was struck by the same overwhelming realization I’d had over and over again since that night. No matter how difficult things were now, I was so very
glad
to be alive. Just as long as I could keep the memories at a distance.

This thought buoyed me up despite my exhaustion. Besides, this beach was very different. This wasn’t deep shingle, it was a mixture of sand and flat stones with large rocks scattered here and there. There were no towering chalk cliffs here either, only short black ones before the land turned into steep grassy hillside beyond. It was a small bay, sheltered and slightly spooky.

The wind gusted in off the sea, threatening to tear my cap from my head, and I clapped a hand over it to secure it. The sounds of kegs being unloaded from
The Invisible
carried across the short stretch of water between us.

The tub boat crunched onto the beach in a surge of waves and frothing surf. The landers ran forward to heave it onto the beach, swiftly setting to work to empty it of kegs. These were carried to the back of the beach and hoisted with ropes up the short cliff to the hillside above where they disappeared into darkness.

‘Come on,’ said Will, tugging at my sleeve. ‘The walk is over.’

He and other men were pushing the boat back into the surf. I followed them, feeling my heart thump as I stepped into the water and felt the tug of the undertow at my calves. The boat was already slipping out of reach. Will leapt in and turned to beckon me. I froze, still wanting to be helped. To be carried perhaps. Gentle Jacob would have carried me, I was sure. But Will did not.

‘Come on, Belle!’ he called imperatively. But his shortening of my name sounded friendly and encouraging.

Strangely, at that moment when all the men were in the boat, and I had been left behind, I had no thought of making use of the opportunity to flee. I wanted to be in the boat. I took another uncertain step out into the cold, churning water. Will leaned out, held out a hand. I reached out to take it and missed. I launched myself forward and grabbed the side of the boat. Then in a rush of water and a painful thump into the side of the boat, I was somehow scrambling aboard.

‘It’s so much more satisfying to do things yourself, isn’t it?’ asked Will with a grin. He clapped me on the shoulder briefly and turned away, taking up an oar and throwing himself into rowing. He was right, yet again. I looked out to sea, towards
The Invisible
. I hadn’t expected to be so glad to see her.