Morwennan House

by Morwennan House (retail) (epub)

  ‘You work for the authorities, then?’ I asked.

  ‘I work for myself.’ Tom’s voice was hard. ‘I have my own personal reasons for wanting to bring the wreckers to justice.’

  A nerve jumped in my throat. ‘You have lost someone from your family because of them?’

  ‘My whole family. One way and another… My father’s ship fell victim to them when I was but an unbreeched child, and every man on board was lost.’

  The blood was singing in my ears suddenly. A ship out of Falmouth lost to wreckers when Tom was but a young boy… A connection with Francis… Joshua’s warning came rushing in to haunt me and I heard myself whisper faintly: ‘Your father… he was not the captain…?’

  Tom gave me a strange look. ‘The bosun,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘No matter,’ I replied faintly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My mother was left with two children to raise alone. Fortunately for us our grandfather gave us a home on his farm and my brother and I did not suffer too much. There were families left without the breadwinner who, through the work of those evil men, had to sell every stick of furniture, everything they possessed, in order to eat. So, in that respect at least, we were the lucky ones. But my mother never got over what had happened. She died when I was only fifteen years old, of a broken heart, I think.’ He paused, raising his chin and drawing a deep breath. ‘My brother, Roger, was two years older than me. He knew that wrecking still went on and he vowed to bring the murdering swine to justice. He was determined to avenge our father’s death and the death of so many others down the years. As soon as he was old enough he became a riding officer.’

  ‘You mentioned him before,’ I said, a lump coming to my throat as I remembered Tom’s cold, hard tone when he had spoken of his brother, and how I had thought it meant they were at loggerheads. How I had misjudged him!

  ‘Roger was, I may say, one of the few not in the pay of the smugglers,’ Tom went on. ‘For a while he had a certain amount of success. He was responsible for the recovery of a goodly quantity of contraband and the arrest of those who ran the goods in and out. But they were small fry compared to the gang he wanted – the gang responsible for the wreckings – and he would not rest until he saw them safely behind bars. It was the death of him. One dark night as he rode his patrol he was ambushed and his body thrown down a mineshaft.’

  He paused. In the moonlight I could see the grief and anger written all over his face, and this time there was no mistaking it. I said nothing, waiting until he was composed enough to continue.

  ‘Just before he died, Roger had confided in me that he was close to his objective. He would not tell me much – he said it was better I did not know. I think he was afraid I might go rushing in with all the impetuosity of youth and blow his investigation wide open as well as placing my own life and his in danger. All he would say was that it was a ruthless and well-organised gang, which was headed by a prominent figure in the community – someone who scarcely needed the extra profits that wrecking could bring, but did it anyway for the sheer evil pleasure that comes from having power over life and death. And then, before he could gather his evidence and present it to the authorities, he was killed.’

  Tom’s hands were balled into fists.

  ‘He was killed because he got too close to the truth, I’m convinced of it,’ he said. ‘Murdered in cold blood to save the skins of the wreckers.’

  ‘I am so sorry…’ I murmured.

  He scarcely seemed to hear me. ‘I vowed to take up the fight,’ he went on. ‘I discovered that Francis Trevelyan was a smuggler on the grand scale and it seemed to me that he fitted the bill. I insinuated myself into his organisation in the hope of discovering if I was right, and finding evidence to prove it. So far, however, I have to confess I have been unable to do so. And with winter drawing in, the wreckers will begin their evil work again and more men will die needlessly.’

  ‘What makes you think the leader of the wreckers still has this bell you are seeking?’ I asked.

  ‘Roger told me he had talked to a man who used to be one of their number but who has since repented of his wicked ways. The bell was amongst the items stripped from one of the ships they wrecked, and the leader had taken it as a grisly keepsake. It is of little value unless melted down and cannot be sold because it bears the name of the ship – the leader wanted it only for his own satisfaction.’

  ‘And did he not tell you the name of this leader?’

  ‘No – as I explained, he was afraid I might take matters into my own hands. But he did lead me to believe the ringleader kept the bell on display, or at least somewhere accessible where he could take pleasure in looking at it. That’s why I am afraid I have been barking up the wrong tree all these months. If the bell is not at Morwennan House, then I must be looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘Oh, Tom…’ I was icy cold now, and it had nothing to do with the sparkling frost and the biting night air. This cold came from inside me, chilling my blood and my bones.

  ‘So there you have it, Charity,’ Tom said urgently. ‘That is the reason I asked for your help – and continue to ask for it. What I plan to do is this. I intend to seek out the man to whom Roger spoke, the man who knows the identity of this fiend, so that at least I know for sure if I am right in targetting Francis as the ringleader. It will mean I shall be away for a few days at the very least, for I have to follow the same trail that Roger followed and that may not be easy.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been better if you had done that in the first place?’ I suggested.

  ‘With hindsight, yes,’ Tom agreed. ‘But I was so sure it was Francis’s gang who were responsible, Francis who kept the bell to gloat over. Now… well, I am not so sure. But will you continue to search for me, Charity?’

  ‘I will, but I’m sure there’s no ship’s bell at Morwennan House,’ I said – and oh, how I wanted to believe that! It was an insupportable thought that there should be even more evil under that roof than I had already discovered. And yet… my thoughts went to the poor mariners who had died, and would die unless the perpetrators of this wickedness were caught and brought to justice. Mariners like my own father – and Tom’s. And their dependents and loved ones whose lives had been changed for ever, as mine and Julia’s had been.

  ‘But I will keep on looking,’ I vowed. ‘I’ll search for secret hidey-holes – I’ll leave no stone unturned.’

  Tom looked a little startled by my sudden zeal.

  ‘You are not the only one to suffer at the hands of wreckers,’ I said. ‘I have only recently learned of it, but my family too was torn apart by their wickedness. It’s the reason I was raised as an orphan on the parish. So you can count on me to do everything I can to help you.’

  ‘Oh, Charity…’ His hands tightened on mine. ‘But you must take care. Remember these are ruthless people we are dealing with. They dispose of anyone who is a threat to them without a second thought – and enjoy it. I don’t like the thought of placing you in danger. I would never have asked for your help if I had not been desperate, and now… You must promise me to take the greatest care. It may be, of course, that you are right and the bell is not at Morwennan, in which case I dare say you are safe enough. But should Francis be the man I am seeking then you could be in great danger. Should you find the bell, say nothing to anyone until I return.’

  I nodded. And then, for no reason I could think of, but driven perhaps by some deep instinctive suspicion, I heard myself ask: ‘You say the ship’s name was inscribed upon the bell. What was it?’

  And Tom replied, just as I had somehow known he would: ‘The Guinevere!’

  Twenty-One

  I did not tell him. I don’t know why, I simply could not. Perhaps it would have opened the floodgates on too much that I was not yet ready to share with him, though he had shared so much with me. And I needed first to have time to think through the implications of this revelation which had stunned me even though in some inexplicable way I had known it already.

 
If Tom was right, Francis was behind the wrecking that had taken the life of my father – and Tom’s – and made me a virtual orphan. That was the terrible thing I could not bring myself to face. Surely – oh surely! – Tom must have come to the wrong conclusion! Even he was now beginning to doubt what he had once been so sure of – and with reason. In all the time I had been at Morwennan I had never seen anything to lead me to believe his gang of smugglers were also wreckers.

  I could only hope and pray that when Tom found the informant his brother Roger had spoken of he would learn that the evil ringleader he was so determined to bring to justice was someone other than Francis Trevelyan. Not only because I found the prospect so unbearable but also because it would make my own sworn task to rescue Julia the more perilous for both of us.

  But still I did not tell him. It was as if I had lost my tongue. As we walked back to Morwennan House I was in a daze. I think I might have stumbled and fallen more than once on the rough path had it not been for Tom’s arm steadying me.

  The sea was calm as velvet, black velvet broken only by swirls of creamy lace where it broke against the shore, the air so still that the haze of my own breath seemed to hang in front of my face like fine mist, yet inside I was once again thrown into turmoil. When I saw the lights at the windows of Morwennan House and its square solid outline broken only by its chimney pots silhouetted against the dark sky, I felt a sense of rising panic and the same familiar claustrophobia, only sharper, more choking than ever before. Oh, it truly was a house of evil! Yet I hoped with all my heart that Tom was wrong and the evil stopped with the things I had already discovered for myself.

  At the door, in the deep shadow cast by the trees and out of sight of the windows, he took me in his arms. My heart fluttered like a trapped bird and I buried my face in his chest. The fabric of his cloak was a little rough, but comforting against my cheek, and suddenly, for all my fears, for all my turmoil, I felt a fierce stab of joy. I still did not know for certain whether Tom wanted me for myself or for what information I could glean for him that would help him in his obsessive quest. But at least I knew that he was no smuggler, not one of them. And I knew too that what Joshua had intimated was not true. He was not my brother or half-brother. For the moment it was enough.

  I sighed, nestling against him, one good person in this evil world. He took my face and raised it, oh so gently, looking at me with an expression I had never seen on a man’s face before. It was tenderness and desire and concern and pride all rolled into one. And with another leap of my heart I recognised it as love.

  ‘Oh, Charity,’ he said softly, so very softly, and all the same things I had seen in his face were there in his voice. ‘I wish I did not have to leave you here. I want to take you with me – keep you safe.’

  ‘But you can’t,’ I said. ‘And in any case, I could not go with you.’

  I almost told him, then, the reason I could not leave. I almost told him about Julia, locked in her attic room. The words were there, clamouring to be spoken.

  But then he kissed me.

  His lips were gentle at first on mine, then harder, and he wrapped his cloak around us both so that I could feel the beating of his heart next to mine. His hands moved to my hips, holding the full length of me close against him and there was a sweet sharp ache somewhere in the deepest part of me, an unbearable urgent longing in the secret places between my thighs. I felt the muscles in my legs and buttocks tighten as I strained towards him, the unfamiliar desire exhilarating and frightening me both at the same time. And all the while he kissed me. My lips parted beneath the pressure of his and his tongue slid inside my mouth. I had not dreamed of being kissed in such a way, not even realised that such a kiss existed, but oh! the pleasure of it, tasting his tongue as it circled mine.

  Closer I pressed to him and closer, inhibitions forgotten as surely as all my troubles and fears. This was a stolen interlude, a wonderful glimpse of a forbidden world where love and longing and sensuality all mingled to induce a state of euphoria that made everything else unimportant. There was nothing beyond Tom’s arms and body and mouth. We were locked together in our own private world within the shelter of his cloak.

  Then quite suddenly he released me and I felt bereft.

  ‘It’s time I went, Charity,’ he said roughly. ‘If I stay here with you a moment longer I shall forget that you are a lady – and I, so I like to think, am a gentleman!’

  Colour flooded to my cheeks then for I realised I had certainly not been behaving like a lady. Nor had I wanted to! Oh, what must he think of me, to return his kisses so shamelessly, to press my body against his so that every line of it must have been as apparent to him as his had been to me! And to have gloried in it like some common slut…

  ‘I have really let myself down, haven’t I?’ I said in an agony of confusion.

  ‘Oh, Charity!’ He laughed. ‘You are wonderful. Don’t ever change. Except…’ He took a long curl which had escaped my hair pins, twisting it between his fingers. ‘Except that I shall teach you how to enjoy such things and feel no shame. We’ll soar together, you and I, when this is all over.’

  When this is all over. His words drew me back to reality, the world of uncertainty and danger and impossible problems and responsibilities that weighed me down like a collar of stones, the world I had escaped for just a few short minutes when my body and his had been all that mattered. I wanted to weep with despair as well as loss.

  When this is all over. A promise for the future, yes. But when would it end – and how? What would I have to endure first, and what would the outcome be?

  Tom touched my cheek lightly.

  ‘Take care, my love.’

  I nodded, aware that he too was in danger.

  ‘And you.’

  He kissed me again, very lightly this time, with none of the passion, only tenderness, then he released me and was gone.

  I watched him walk away, a tall, strong figure in the moonlight, and felt my heart was going with him. Then I opened the door, which was on the latch, and went into the house.

  * * *

  And so the waiting began again, the waiting now not just for word from Joshua, but from Tom too. It seemed to me I could not remember a time when my life had been calm and ordinary; now it was so full of emotional turmoil normality had ceased to exist for me.

  I thought of Tom often, my whole body coming alive as I remembered the kisses we had shared and the wonderful unfamiliar sensations I had experienced. And I longed for him too with my whole being. But overlaying all this was my anxiety for him and for Julia and Charlotte, and a powerful dread of what was yet to come. So many shocks had I had in the last weeks that I felt as if I were primed and tensed ready for the next one, which might be around any corner.

  And it came, just when I was least expecting it.

  It was mid-afternoon, a cold dark day. Though fires had been lit in each of the living rooms since morning, sitting to work on some grammar with Charlotte I had grown cold. I hoped I was not about to come down with a chill, and I decided to go to my room and fetch an extra wrap.

  Leaving Charlotte hard at work I went upstairs. My room was at the very end of the landing; as I passed Francis’s door, which was ajar, I heard a moan, and then another.

  I stopped, alarmed. Had Francis been taken ill? He had seemed his usual self earlier, but who knew? He had obviously retired, for I would not have expected him to be anywhere but in his study at this time of day, and it sounded as if he was in pain. Might he be suffering an attack of some kind?

  Anxious to discover what was wrong I pushed the door a little wider and peeped cautiously round. Then I froze in shock. Francis was indeed lying on his bed but he was not alone. Selena was with him. They were rolling together like a pair of lovers.

  For a moment I simply could not believe what I was seeing, then I took a quick involuntary step backwards and my elbow caught the planter which stood in a small alcove beside the door, causing it to rock violently on its spindle legs. The sound w
as enough to alert Francis, lost though he might have been in his obnoxious activity.

  ‘What was that?’ I heard him say sharply.

  And Selena’s answering voice, a little alarmed: ‘Someone is there!’

  The bed creaked; I knew someone was coming to investigate. Panic filled me. I couldn’t let them know I had seen them – I would die from the shame of it. But I could not possibly get all the way down the staircase in time, and the haven of my own room was too far away along the landing. There was only one place of escape that I could reach before Francis threw the door wide and saw me there outside. Selena’s room, directly opposite Francis’s, and only a step from where I stood.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, without stopping to think what I was doing, I dived into it, looking around me wildly for some place of concealment in case they should investigate further. In the bare room there was only one hiding place that I could readily see – behind the ornate Chinese screen.

  I ran to it, slipping out of sight behind it. I was shaking and my cheeks were hot. I pressed my hands to them, eyes tight shut, straining my ears to hear what was going on outside.

  ‘There’s no one there,’ I heard Francis say.

  I took a deep steadying breath in an effort to compose myself. In a couple of moments he would go back into his room, hopefully close the door, and I would be able to creep out and escape back downstairs. But oh! the shame of what I had witnessed! Francis and Selena – oh, it was beyond belief…!

  I removed my hands from my face and opened my eyes. And saw it. Right beside me, there behind the screen.

  A ship’s bell.

  * * *

  My knees turned weak. A mist rose before my eyes. The blood drummed in my ears. I thought for a moment I was going to faint clean away and the fear of it momentarily wiped everything else from my mind.