Most of all, she wants the war to end, and with it, the high taxes.
George and his friends, his fellow officers, used to jest about it. They dreaded the moment when, in their words, “peace would break out,” taking with it all chance of promotion and prize money—Jack wasn’t wrong about the latter. In the midshipmen’s mess, they’d toast “a bloody war and a sickly season.” When George told her, she merely smiled, but she felt cold at the thought. All she wanted was for the war to end and George to stay home with her. It hurt to know he wished for the opposite.
Perhaps, she thinks, Jack is right not to marry.
“So what’s the news?” Tom Holder says.
“Yes,” she says. “Just that…yes.”Yes, I will let you use the shed for storing contraband. Yes, you have corrupted me into aiding smugglers like you, Jack. Yes, I want to see you again—yes, yes, yes.
Tom Holder nods. “My friend will know your meaning?”
“He will.” She hesitates, then says, “Mr. Holder, do you remember the day I arrived in Helford?”
“I certainly do. It was only a fortnight ago, wasn’t it, you got down from the coach?”
“I meant the day I first arrived, as a little girl.”
“Ah, then.”
One of the men at the table asks the innkeeper for another jug of ale. Tom Holder pours the brown liquid from the barrel into the jug,then says, “I do remember it. I didn’t see you that day, but the story spread around the village like a fire in a hay barn. I wondered about it for a long time—we all did. Not just about how you were found, wet through, but also about the luck of you running into Mrs. Farnworth that day. You could’ve been any of our daughters instead.”
She has thought of this, too. How different her life would have been, for its first twenty-three years, at least. “Did anyone ever come forward to say they were missing a child? Years later, I mean?”
“No, madam. You would have heard if they did.”
“Of course.” She nods. “Thank you, Mr. Holder.”
“You know what they say about you, don’t you? About you being the Bucca’s child?”
“Yes. I can’t understand why anyone would think it.”
The innkeeper scratches his chin. “It’s hard to say. Strange things happen in the country, Mrs. Henley.”
“Strange things happen everywhere. That doesn’t mean there are mermaids.”
Tom Holder says, “I understand why you’d say that, madam, but we here know differently. My brother Gerens is a fisherman; he could tell you some things. And Jori Penrose’s boat would’ve sunk in a gale two years ago if it weren’t for the Bucca, who lifted the thing clear off the cliffs when it was about to be smashed to pieces.”
“Did Mr. Penrose see the Sea Bucca?” she asks.
Tom Holder holds her gaze. “It was too dark,” he says eventually. “But the boat was lifted freeagainstboth wind and tide. Jori owes his life to the Sea Bucca and he knows it.”
She’s looking at him, not saying anything. Would she have believed him had he said thatyes, Mr. Penrose saw the Sea Bucca? Most probably not, she decides. Still. There could be other explanations for such an event, reasonable ones, but something about the story touches some place inside her, as if it’s rooting around for memories to latch on to. Of course she’s not the Sea Bucca’s daughter. How could she be, when there’s no such thing? Only, it would explain the way the sea calls to her. Her dreams, too.
Tom Holder says, “Well. I’ll let my friend from the cove know your news. Do be careful, Mrs. Henley. There are people who do not like my friend and they take against his friends also.”
“I shall. Thank you, Mr. Holder.”
Outside the inn, she purchases the fish, a small pollack, enough for two suppers. She looks around for Jori Penrose, who was saved by the Sea Bucca, but doesn’t see him. She walks home wondering how long it will be before she hears anything about the shed. Will Jack himself contact her? He’ll still be resting, recovering from his wound. Three weeks’ rest, the doctor said. Still, he may send word. Or will the smugglers come at night when she’s asleep and she’ll never even know they were there? She hopes it won’t be long.
Chapter Six
Nothing happens for a fortnight; nothing that isn’t practical, in any case, nothing to do with smuggling. She cooks and cleans and washes. She takes her daily walk, she longs to swim, and on some days she risks it. On one such occasion, she watches the strange shadow flit along the edge of her sight again. Her dreams are filled with waves and currents; she wakes from them feeling oddly wistful, as if she dreamed about George. On Sunday morning, she attends the service in the little church at the end of the inlet together with most of the village.
The fleabane on the garden wall explodes in a carpet of flowers. The days alternate between heavy rain with shoving winds and those as warm and soft as summer. On the fair days, the garden is the most pleasant place she’s ever been.
The pulley on the well breaks and she has to wait for her widow’s pension to come in the post before she can get someone to fix it. Hauling up the water without the mechanism makes her muscles burn to the point she feels even the smallest motion, such as pushing a sewing needle through cloth. She finishes mending Jack’s shirt and places it folded on the kitchen table. Now that she has spoken to Tom Holder, she may be able to return it to its owner.
She’s about to go back into the garden when there’s a knock on thedoor. A wiry boy with thick black hair, perhaps nine or ten years old, hands her a note. Lieutenant Sowerby’s hand is so full of loops and dashes the words nearly blend together. “My dear Mrs. Henley,” he writes. “Please may I have the honor of accompanying you to Sir Hugh and Lady Darby’s dinner this coming Tuesday at three o’clock? There is a matter of some urgency I should like to discuss with you. I await your responsemost ardently. I am, your most obedient and humble servant, Lieutenant A. W. Sowerby.”
