She lifts the small gold watch dangling from her waist and gasps. “Is that the time? Oh, but I’m afraid I must dash. I’ve overstayed—it’s been an hour and ten already—I must go at once.” She jumps up, the alarm wild in her, pushing her features into a shocked frown. “I do apologize, Isabel. I’ve spent such a marvelous while with you in your lovely garden I lost track of the time. Sir Hugh detests it when I’m late. He dines early, as they do in the service—well, you being an officer’s wife, you understand, I’m sure.”
Isabel rises and Harriet embraces her as if they’re sisters. She smells of sunshine and roses—some perfume, Isabel thinks. Harriet says, “I do hope I shall see you again soon, Isabel. Please call on me at Weatherston anytime. Oh! I almost forgot the purpose of my visit, besides making your acquaintance. I do hope you haven’t found me presumptuous coming like this. I couldn’t think who to ask to make the introduction besides Lieutenant Sowerby, who has been rather busy as of late. Besides, I understand he has not been formally introduced to you himself.”
“He came to warn me about smugglers,” Isabel says, willing any trace of disgust from her voice. “So I believe the lack of a formal introduction may be forgiven.”
“Yes, yes, most certainly. And he is a man of unblemished character, I can assure you.”
“Isn’t he—don’t you find him—a little ruthless?”
“Ruthless?” Harriet’s eyes widen. “My dear Isabel, it’s the smugglers who are ruthless!”
“He hanged a man the other day,” she says, unwilling to let itgo.
“So I heard. A hardened criminal from the sound of it. I’m grateful Lieutenant Sowerby is so zealous in his pursuit; Cornwall shall be safer for it. Do you know he’s from London, too? Born and bred, I believe.”
“Is he?” Her heart thumps. If Lieutenant Sowerby learned the rumors about her and James—it doesn’t bear thinking about.
“Well, I must dash. Dear Isabel, I shall see you soon, I hope.” Harriet darts up the path, around the house.
Isabel hurries after her. “Harriet. The purpose of your visit, you said?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Sir Hugh and I are having a small dinner party Tuesday next week. Just a few of our friends in the area. Lieutenant Sowerby will be there, as well as another officer, Lieutenant Sullivan. Then there’s Mr. and Mrs. William Tredinnick, who own several mines, including the largest copper one—I forget what it’s called—and Mr. John Carlyon, owner of an estate at Roskorwell, and lastly, Mr. Frederick Pickford of Pickford House. And you, I hope, dear Isabel. As you see there will only be one other lady in attendance and she’s past fifty. Do say you’ll come.”
Isabel’s stomach clenches at the thought of seeing Lieutenant Sowerby again. But then she thinks of the blue muslin gown she wore to the ball at Blakemore where she first met George and that she didn’t expect to ever wear again. Besides this, the thought of the food alone is enough—she can almost taste the meats, the cheeses, the puddings they’ll serve. She’d like to see Harriet again, too. And the other guests may prove decent company. Surely they won’t all be like Lieutenant Sowerby?
She glances at the cottage again. It couldn’t be more unlike anything the other guests will have for a house, but she has only just come down from Greenwich, which, as Harriet says, is nearly London. This carried enough weight, apparently, for Harriet to disregard her reduced circumstances in favor of making her acquaintance. Most of the guests at the dinner won’t know of the way she’s forced to live now—not unless Lieutenant Sowerby or Harriet tells them. “I’d love to come,” she says. “Thank you.”
“It won’t be anything grand, mind you,” says Harriet, getting into the saddle.
Isabel bites back a laugh, thinking,It’ll be grander than a supper of fish and carrot soup. Smiling, she says, “It sounds like just the thing.”
She gives Harriet a wave and turns to close the door of the shed, the question of the storing of contraband back in her mind. As much as ten pounds on a good run, Jack said. It’d be wrong, but with ten pounds she could buy another gown like the blue muslin. Or, more practically, she could buy better sheets, a new mattress, an armchair. She could buy all manner of things that would make life in the cottage more comfortable.
And then, suddenly, she cannot do it any longer. All through the past week, she has occupied her mind with practical things, filling her days with necessary but oftentimes mindless tasks, all to keep Jack out of her head. But now he’s in it again and he’s taking up all of the space and she misses him the way you shouldn’t miss someone you’ve only known for two days—someone you will likely not see again. She misses the way they talked and the sound of his laughter and how he made her not think about George so much.
Storing contraband in the shed was never about getting ten pounds with which to buy gowns or sheets.
She retrieves her change purse from the kitchen—she may pick up some fresh fish on the way home, mackerel or maybe pollack if there is any. Along the way people greet her. They’re people she knows from introductions made by Mrs. Dowling, who knows the entire village, and some only from moments like this, when she walks up the road and sees the same faces day after day. So what if half of them—maybe all of them—believe she is the Sea Bucca’s daughter. They’re friendly; they’ve taken her in. She isn’t sure it will be the same at Weatherston Hall. Although, if Harriet’s enthusiasm is anything to go by, she’ll be fine.
When she reaches the Shipwrights Arms, she spots two women onthe doorstep of one of the cottages. One watched her arrive in Helford, the other is younger and wears a shawl that’s similar to her companion’s, but in bright green and blue instead of black. The women watch her approach the inn and she feels the weight of their stares as she did before. They can’t know about Greenwich. Do they, like Mrs. Dowling, believe in the Sea Bucca story?
She turns back to the women and lifts her hand in greeting. A moment, the length of a swing from the inn’s sign, then both women wave back. The older one smiles a dark gap of a smile.
The Shipwrights Arms is shadowy and empty but for two craggy men sharing a jug of ale at a table by the window. Everything inside the inn’s common room is brown: the wooden planked floor and wall paneling, the tables, the chairs, the cabinet where the spirits are kept. It smells brown, too: tobacco smoke and ale. The only things not brown are the stumps of candles mounted on the walls and the black residue left on the paneling where they’ve burned for a hundred years or more.
The glass in the windows is better than that at the cottage. The river lies behind it like a torpid silver snake and beyond that waits the sea, beckoning.
“Mrs. Henley!” Tom Holder exclaims when he comes out of the back room. Bowing, he says, “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Holder.” She inquires after his family; Richard, doing well, he says, and the little ’uns—there are four of them, between three and eight, and his wife, Mary. Then he offers her what he calls “a sip of something,” saying he’s got ale and various spirits.
“No, thank you,” she says. “I’ve come to…”
The two men at the window have stopped talking. She lowers her voice: “I’ve got a message for your friend from the cove.” She has gone over it in her mind countless times, yet it still comes out wrong. “News,” she says quickly. “I’ve got news for your friend from the cove.”
“Do you now, Mrs. Henley?” he says with a smile that seems equal parts amused and astonished. “I dare say you’ve come to know myfriend very quickly. You must feel at home here in Helford.” The way he says it—he’s enjoying this, she thinks. He feels it’s part and parcel of living here. A sign she belongs. She remembers Lieutenant Sowerby’s words,they’re all in on it.Maybe they are. It’s wrong, but maybe a tax of 100 percent on tea is wrong, too.
Just a month ago, she couldn’t have fathomed doing what she’s about to do. She remembers Lieutenant Sowerby’s other assertion, too:they’re aiding the French.She doesn’t want to aid the French, but she does want to help Jack, and she likes the idea that people may be able to buy sugar and tea, things they couldn’t otherwise afford. She herself, too.
