She passes a small cove filled with splashing foam. As she looks down at it from the top of the cliff, it’s as if an invisible rope runs from the water to a point inside her chest, and every wave breaking on the rocks pulls on it. The sea has always drawn her, but never like this, with such restiveness. She wants nothing more than to get in, to feel the water rush around her, but the thought of Lieutenant Sowerby and his men patrolling on the path holds her back.
She’s about to go home when she catches sight of a ship, a mile or two out from shore. It’s a cutter, she thinks, shielding her eyes from the sun, or perhaps a sloop. George would’ve been able to tell her. The wood of the hull has been painted black and the sun hitting the sails turns them almost too bright to look at. The ship is sailing away, out to where the ocean is so deep no one knows the end ofit.
She thinks of her father, who spent so many years at sea. Did he feel it, too, this tugging and longing? Did George? She wishes she could’ve spoken with George about it, how the sight of the sea moves her. She almost told him once, but the moment flitted away before she found the words. And what would he have thought? In the nine years since he became a midshipman, he grew to love the sea, but unlike her, he didn’t feel the need to be near it in order to breathe freely. Which was ironic, because he spent most of his short life at sea and in the end it took him.
Since his death, Isabel’s desire to go where he went, to see what he saw, has only grown stronger. George rests at sea; she hasn’t got agrave to visit. She has only the ocean. She’d never envy George, but it’s deeply unfair she’ll never be able to go sailing like him. The deck of a ship is as closed to her as the doors of Parliament.
She watches the ship until it’s a white dot hovering on the horizon. The walk home to the cottage seems longer, somehow.
—
The next two days pass as slow and empty as the first. To fill the hours, she walks the coastal path, learning where it leads, where she can climb down the rocks and stick her feet into the water. On the morning of her fourth day in Helford, a Friday, her breakfast consists of a rock-hard piece of bread. After some debate, she calls on a gratified Mrs. Dowling, and in the course of the next few days, she learns how to make tea, bread, and stew, how to clean and prepare fish. Everything she does takes four times as long as it should. Peeling her first potato, she ends up with half of it stuck to the peel. The second one is the same, as is the third. Gulping down a cry of frustration, she attacks the fourth, which comes out better but takes even longer. No matter. She’ll get faster—so Mrs. Dowling says. When she’s an expert, she’ll be able to do the whole thing without breaking the peel.
She carries a small notebook and copies Mrs. Dowling’s neatly written recipes in it. Mrs. Dowling is as proud of the fact that she can read and write as she is of the handful of cottages she owns in the area, which used to be her late husband’s and which she lets mainly to tradesmen and fishermen.
One afternoon, Mrs. Dowling shows her where to go for the day’s catch and how to negotiate the best price. “The biggest one is for the Bucca,” she says, indicating the display of fish.
The owner of the boat, a grizzled-looking fisherman, overhears. “An offering, for a flat sea and a decent catch,” he says, nodding. “I heard him calling today, Mrs. Dowling.”
Mrs. Dowling looks up. “Do you think there’s a storm coming, Mr. Penrose?”
“Could be.” He turns to Isabel. “When it blows from thesouthwest, that’s the Sea Bucca calling.” Lowering his voice, he adds, “But then you know all about that, don’t you, Mrs. Henley?” His eyes are dark, nearly black, and he gives her a look that seems to imply some shared secret.
A chill tiptoes up her spine. She isn’t sure what unnerves her more: Mrs. Dowling and the fisherman speaking matter-of-factly, the way one might discuss the weather, or Mr. Penrose’s words,you know all about that.But underneath the apprehension lies an odd, insistent sense of recognition. Could she have heard about the Bucca when she was here as a child? She glances at the river and the feeling grows stronger, mixing with the lure of the water and reducing Mr. Penrose’s conversation with Mrs. Dowling to a murmur.
By the time their words grow into separate entities again, Mrs. Dowling is talking about a storm in which one of her cottages lost its roof. Isabel feels bad she initially thought to refuse the woman’s friendship. Without asking for anything in return, Mrs. Dowling is teaching her all of the things her mother would have taught her if she’d been born a cottager’s daughter. She wonders if perhaps shewasborn a cottager’s daughter. She studies the face of every person she meets. Could this woman with the fish basket be her mother? Does that man there share the color of her eyes? The people in Helford treat her as if she has come home.
The storm doesn’t materialize, though the southwesterly stirs up the water. The sea is a constant presence, beseeching, coaxing, consoling. Whenever her frustrations mount, whenever the night is too long in the empty cottage, she has but to step outside and listen to the waves to feel a sense of calm.
Sometimes she watches the men of the Revenue Service pass by on patrol on the coastal path, the riding officers, alone or in pairs, and others on foot. She should be glad they’re patrolling so frequently, but whenever she thinks of it, she can’t help but remember the way Lieutenant Sowerby towered over her, his sweet, liquor-tinged breath in her face; the look in his eyes when he reached for her. She remembers the anger in him as he espoused the virtue of hanging smugglers, theway he wetted his lips as he envisioned the torments he claimed they’d put her through.
When she asks Mrs. Dowling about the patrols, the landlady tells her smuggling has become so widespread the revenue men are growing more and more ruthless. Just last month they caught hold of a farmer in Coverack who stored contraband on his farm and they shot him—no investigation, no trial, nothing. Mrs. Dowling’s indignation is as hot as the tea she purchases at what she calls “a particularly good price.”
On Tuesday, Isabel goes to the market and buys cheese, flour, carrots, and a side of ham. Fish, too: mackerel, brought in with the catch. Mr. Penrose gives her the same meaningful look as before, but he doesn’t say anything.
Mrs. Dowling has told her the market is always busy, but she didn’t expect it to be this crowded. On her way back to the cottage the narrow road heaves with men, women, and children, all moving in the direction of nearby Manaccan. An excited chatter rises from them like heat from a freshly baked loaf. Curious, she turns away from the coastal path and follows the throng.
As they approach the crossroads, the voices fall silent. Some people point, but Isabel can only see an ocean of hats, bonnets, caps, and scarves. Somewhere to the left, a blackbird chafes at the quiet in a long, drawn-out trill. It’s cool out this morning, but the road is dappled with sun. She has a soup to make—her first-ever soup. She ought to turn away and go home, but curiosity tethers her. She pushes ahead, slipping between sweat-scented bodies, past the hard-soft shapes of other women. An elbow pokes her side and then she seesit.
At first she thinks it’s a construction to help lift something, such as you might see in a shipyard. Or perhaps it’s a ship’s mast, taken from its hull and incongruously put down here, by the side of the road to Manaccan. But then her gaze falls on the row of revenue men, armed with pistols and swords, and the prisoner, arms tied behind his back, being led to the low scaffold.
And she sees the man leading the prisoner. One hand gripping theprisoner’s arm, the other the butt of his pistol, is none other than Lieutenant Sowerby. “Oh!” she gasps, nearly dropping her basket.
As if he has heard her, Lieutenant Sowerby looks up. A grin appears on his blushing moon face; there’s no hint of the anger she saw in him before. If anything, he looks gratified, the way a man might when he’s about to cut the meat of the stag he’s shot.
Lieutenant Sowerby gives her a nod as he shoves the prisoner onto the scaffold, pushing him toward the waiting noose with such force the man stumbles and drops to his knees. Grabbing him by his shirt, Lieutenant Sowerby hauls him back to his feet. “Trying to get away, Ferries? I’m afraid it’s a little late for that. The noose awaits—and hell beyond it!”
His voice drips malice above the hum of the crowd. The prisoner’s gaze swerves over the people before he turns to his captor and says something inaudible. Lieutenant Sowerby laughs, and raising his voice, says, “I’llburn for this? You must be confounded, man! That pretty fate is all yours.”
At the sight of the noose, the prisoner’s knees buckle and Lieutenant Sowerby snaps at the nearest of the revenue men, “Help me hold him up.” Then, to the prisoner, “Try not to make a spectacle of yourself. Your wife’s watching, I’m sure.” He utters another short laugh. “You wouldn’t want to soil yourself in front of her, would you?”
As if the moment isn’t wretched enough, Lieutenant Sowerby looks over again and finds her in the crowd, giving her a flushed smile. Voices rear up, hard-edged and raw. “He deserves a trial, damn you!” one man shouts, and, “You monster!” This from the woman next to Isabel, a slender, ageless figure encased in stiff black cotton with her hair tied under a matching black bonnet. The woman has balled her hands into fists, pressing one to each side of her face. Turning to Isabel, she cries, “Poor Agnes! It’s unspeakable!”
To the left of the row of revenue men, a young woman stands supported by two older women. The blue cloth of her dress is stained as if she’s been kneeling in dirt; her hair is loose and uncovered. Shelooks around with unseeing eyes until she catches sight of the prisoner and a thin, horrible wail escapes her.
Lieutenant Sowerby appears not to hear, or if he does, he gives no sign. Standing beside the prisoner on the scaffold, he calls above the noise: “Jed Ferries, you are condemned to death for treason in a time of war! You shall be hanged from the neck until pronounced dead.”
“All he did was smuggle some tea!” A boy this time, maybe fourteen years old. Voices around him chime in and Lieutenant Sowerby searches the crowd, but not for the boy who called out, she thinks; for her. She flinches back into the throng. The smell of sweat and dirt mixes with that of the mackerel she bought at the market and she nearly gags.
