by Jo Macauley
“I can’t see anything,” Maisie complained. “Maybe it’s a false sighting.”
The other passengers pressed close around her, all of them trying to see the American coast. Excited conversation babbled from every part of the ship. Captain Clark was up at the helm, shading his eyes from the sun, trying to see. As minutes passed with nobody else seeing the supposed land, Beth’s heart began to sink. False sightings were all too common out here at sea, especially after a long voyage. Patches of green sea-scum often looked like land to weary sailors.
Beth narrowed her eyes. Far in the west, below a wisp of low cloud, was a faint but visible patch of light brown. That was no drift of seaweed or algae. That was land.
“Land ho!” she yelled, flinging her arm out as if she were hurling a javelin. “Land ho!”
A cheer went up as everyone looked where she was pointing.
“That’s land all right, m’lady,” said John. “Your new home.”
“And yours,” she whispered. “We’re here. We made it!”
She wished she could have given him a hug, right then and there, but no lady would ever hug a servant, especially not one as strict as she’d painted herself to be.
But to her surprise, John reached over, first glancing about to see that nobody was paying attention, and briefly entwined his fingers with hers.
“I ... I just want to say,” he began in a low voice, “that there’s nobody else I’d rather begin this new life with.” John’s eyes shone with a sincerity that made Beth’s heart leap. She squeezed his hand in hers before reluctantly pulling away, her face flushed.
The closer they drew to the American shore, the more detail Beth could make out. At first there was nothing but hills and trees, with no sign of civilization. Maisie had told her to expect this, but the vastness of it all still took her breath away. But as the ship headed upriver towards the docks of Jamestown, she began to see houses. They looked strangely familiar, much like London houses, but out of place – as if some unimaginable force had plucked them up and replanted them thousands of miles away.
“Look there, miss!” Maisie told her. “There’s the tobacco fields.”
Beth could see them now, long fields stretching away beyond the dock for what looked like miles. Leafy plants grew there in thick bunches, far too many to count.
“It’s so different,” she said. “There’s so much space! Even the sky seems bigger here.”
Soon the dock loomed up ahead, and Beth could make out a crowd gathered there waiting for the ship to land. Faint smells of wood-smoke and cooking bacon reached her nostrils, making her mouth water. Even the air seemed clean. There was none of London’s filth and stink here. The New World wasn’t yet stained by the hordes of humanity packed into one small place, with drains overflowing and chamber pots emptied into the street. This was a place to make a fresh start and build a spy network that would make Strange proud.
The only question was: how much had Vale already built here?
After such a long voyage, the last ten minutes seemed to take hours. Eventually the Antelope was moored and the gangplank lowered. The first-time passengers crowded around, eager to be first onto American soil, while the seasoned travellers stood back and watched in amusement.
“Stand back!” Captain Clark boomed. “Let Lady Easton through! Don’t you know how to treat a lady?”
So it was that Beth became the first of the Antelope’s passengers to alight at Jamestown. The crowd waiting at the dock rushed up to her eagerly, half of them wanting to ask her questions and the other half struggling to protect her from the first. Beth felt her legs wobble a little as she finally stepped onto dry land.
“Please, good people, let me through!” she laughed. “It’s been a long voyage, and a lady requires her rest!”
“Excuse me, m’lady. Is there word of the Dreadnought?” a man demanded. “Have you sighted her?”
“Uh, I’m afraid not,” Beth said, curious by what he meant. “Now, if you’ll excuse me...”
Another man pushed forwards. “Was she wrecked? They say a spar was washed ashore!”
“Please, ask Captain Clark!” she said. Somehow she needed to get rid of these eager townsfolk. She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I feel faint.”
“Room!” roared a bearded man in a long smock. “Give the lady room, blast you! Can’t you see she knows nothing of the damn ship? Let’s ask the captain like she said!”
Beth and Maisie pushed out of the other side of the crowds, who by now were pestering the other passengers for information. The Dreadnought was the name on everyone’s lips. John came staggering behind, laden down with the luggage.
“We need to find our new house,” Beth said. “By the look of it, it’s up that hill. Good lord, look at those buildings! The size of them!”
“Almost as big as your uncle’s mansion in Oxford, my lady,” said John pointedly.
Beth coughed. “Yes. Quite. Well, let’s be off. Did you speak to that young chap – what was his name? Ralph?”
“Indeed I did, ma’am. He’s keen to enter your employ, and will join us as soon as he has discharged his duties on board ship.”
“I’m ruddy starving,” Maisie muttered under her breath. “I keep smelling food! Can’t we stop at that chop-house before we go?”
“I don’t think grand ladies eat at chop-houses,” Beth muttered back, though her own stomach was achingly empty. Then she turned back. “Oh, the devil with it. If a grand lady can’t eat wherever she likes then what’s the point of being one?”
The owner of Whitworth’s Chop House was flabbergasted that Lady Easton had chosen to dine at his humble establishment, and told her so several times over. To Beth’s surprise, the other patrons seemed to like her all the better for it.
“This is America!” one of them proudly said. “See? She understands! She ain’t going around with her nose in the air like she’s too good for us!”
Soon they were eagerly devouring the first fresh meat they’d had in months, with Beth at a table by the window and John and Maisie at the back of the place. Beth decided that keeping her mouth shut was the best option. The less people knew about her, the more interesting she’d be to them. So she ate in silence while people whispered behind their hands.
“How did you know Lady Easton was coming to Jamestown?” John asked the owner. “That’s quite a crowd out there.”
“Oh, that crowd’s not for her,” the man said. “They’re all waiting for news of the Dreadnought. She’s a convict ship, out of Plymouth.”
John felt a chill when he heard the words “convict ship”. “I don’t see why they’d be so interested in England’s garbage,” he said, trying to stay calm.
“Then you don’t know how things work around here,” said the man, settling onto a chair beside John. “All those people are businessmen, plantation owners and homesteaders. They need able-bodied men to work for them. Those convicts are free labour, for as long as their sentences last.”
Outside, the crowd was dispersing. The plantation owners were grumbling to one another.
“Doesn’t look like the news was good,” John said.
“Rumours were true, then,” said the chop-house owner. “Can’t say I’m surprised. The Dreadnought was in a bad state of repair, by all accounts. One good sea storm would sink her like a rock. Excuse me.” He stood up to welcome in some businessmen who had come in to gawp at Beth and complain about their bad luck. John sat shivering, no longer able to eat his food.
“What’s wrong?” Maisie said.
“Didn’t you hear? Dreadnought was a convict ship, sounds like it’s been wrecked.” And I was supposed to be on it, he added to himself. John remembered the faces of the men who had trudged miserably onto the boats ahead of him. All dead now, along with the guards and the crew. He thought of white faces beneath the water, staring eyes and open mouths.
Beth and Ralph saved my life, he thought with a shudder.
* * *
As the group finished their meal, a red-f
aced dockhand peered in through the window, saw Beth and came to speak to them.
“Pardon me, m’lady, but you didn’t ship any unmarked boxes on the Antelope with you, by any chance?”
“I only brought clothes and a few personal effects,” Beth said politely. “Why, is something the matter?”
“It’s the oddest thing,” said the man. “There’s a load of boxes been unloaded, and none of them have any labels on. Nobody seems to have taken charge of them. Good quality trunks, though, which is why I thought of you. Haven’t seen the like since the Dorcas came to port a week ago.”
“I’d better come and have a look,” Beth said, carefully keeping her voice neutral. As the man led the way, she whispered to John “The Dorcas! Those trunks have to be Vale’s!”
“And Shaw would have been the one to take charge of what he’d loaded onto our boat,” John whispered back. “But he’s out of the picture...”
“Exactly. So all we need to do is wait for whoever comes to collect the goods, then follow them! It’s our first lead!”
“And we’ve only been here for half an hour,” John said with a smile. “You are good!”
Beth narrowed her eyes. We’re coming for you, Vale, she thought to herself. Ready or not...
* * *
In a mansion on a plantation not far from Jamestown, a crimson chair stood by a window. It was exquisitely made and upholstered in soft leather, but that wasn’t why Sir Henry Vale valued it. This was his favourite thinking chair. He had hatched so many murderous schemes while reclining in it that the cushions ought to leak blood. Being without it had been like missing a limb. Now it was finally here in his new base of operations – along with some vital weaponry and documents that he’d need for his on-going ... endeavours. The captain of the Antelope had unknowingly carried them over the Atlantic for him, allowing him legitimate distance in case of any unwanted prying or discovery. It wasn’t hard to persuade a common sailor to smuggle things on board a ship for you. All it took was money, and Vale had plenty of that.
He lowered himself into the thinking chair as if it had been a hot bath and looked out over his land. Thousands of tobacco plants grew there, flourishing in the Virginia soil – the source of his wealth. He allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation. He, with his brilliant mind, had had the foresight to buy land here when others scoffed. He had planted tobacco, despite the merchants’ insistence that the fad for smoking would soon pass. Then, when the crop had made him a rich man, he had invested in ships until he had amassed a fleet of his own. Other crop-growers, formerly neighbours and equals, now paid him to transport their goods.
Vale frowned in irritation, remembering the news that had come from the port along with his furniture and goods: he now had one ship fewer. The Dreadnought was lost, sunk beyond recovery. His fingers sank into the chair’s scarlet leather as if he was clawing out a heart. He hoped Captain Tucker had died screaming. The man deserved no less for his stupidity and incompetence. How dare he throw away one of Vale’s careful investments like that?
But he soon relaxed again. It was only money, after all. The gold wasn’t important. What mattered was the power it gave him. Power to achieve the one thing he truly craved.
He turned a gold sovereign over in his fingers and glared at the image of the King’s head. He imagined that head severed from the body. He thought of his own fingers grasping it by the hair, lifting it, displaying it to his loyal followers. He mouthed the words he knew so well and meant to say one day soon: Behold the head of a traitor.
The King’s wretched spies would not reach him here in the New World, he’d seen to that. He had the space and the freedom he needed. Now, at last, it was time to concoct the ultimate murder plan.
He leaned back in his blood-red chair and whispered to himself: “Let us begin...”
Epilogue
“More cooled tea, m’lady?”
Beth turned around, drawing her eyes away from the plantation that stretched out before her.
“No, thank you, Miss Blanchet,” she said, grinning at Maisie. It still took some getting used to, being treated as a lady. “But please, with this warm weather, you must have some for yourself...”
“Thank you, m’lady,” Maisie said, returning her smile. “Though I have to say, I like this warmth. Trumps London’s fog any day!”
Beth drew in a long breath as Maisie left the veranda. She had to agree – and along with the humidity, the air here still felt abuzz with possibility and excitement, even a month after their arrival. She’d already begun enquiries into purchasing a building in the nearby town to turn into a theatre with her newfound funds, and she was sure to find some local talent to start creating her new company. She already had Maisie as a burgeoning talent, of course...
But more important than that, she, John and Ralph were already hot on the trail of Vale’s new “enterprise” here in America. There had been reports of growing disloyalty to the King and his rule in the Colonies in the nearby plantations – and Beth was certain who was behind it. The notorious anti-royalist was playing a long game, trying to cause unrest in the King’s empire overseas. He failed to overthrow His Majesty from within, and now he thinks he can do it from without? Beth clenched her teeth at the very thought, but then jumped as she heard more footsteps behind her.
“Lady Easton?” The footsteps grew closer, and the voice lowered. “Beth?”
Beth felt heat rise in her cheeks as she turned to see John’s handsome face. It was so rare now that her friends got to use her real name; it made her warm inside when he did so. But as she saw some of the plantation hands heading towards the house for refreshments, she took a step away from him, and John straightened up, handing her a letter more formally.
“This came for you today, m’lady,” he said, and she took it. “It’s from your family lawyer, Carstairs.” He looked at her pointedly.
Beth quickly opened the envelope and, making sure the workers were out of sight now, held it up to the bright sky. Pinpricks. It was a coded message from Strange, replying to her reports about their lead on Vale.
“Go and fetch Ralph,” she whispered to John. “We have a plan to put together.”
John nodded and went quickly to find their friend amongst the plantation workers.
Beth studied the letter again carefully, nodding intently. She knew Sir Henry Vale would not give up his mission to overthrow the King easily. But if Beth had learned one thing about herself on all the adventures she’d had with her friends and fellow spies so far, it was that the King’s elite did not give up easily either.
Vale would pay – she, Ralph and John would make sure of it. And after that? She looked out at the new world around her.
“Endless possibilities...” she whispered to herself with a determined smile.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Beth Johnson
Actress extraordinaire at the King’s Theatre and – unbeknownst to her admiring audience – a much-valued spy. Tall and beautiful with chestnut brown hair and green eyes, Beth has risen from lowly depths as a foundling abandoned on the steps of Bow Church to become a celebrated thespian and talented espionage agent.
Sir Alan Strange
Tall, dark and mysterious, spymaster Alan Strange seeks out candidates from all walks of life, spotting the potential for high-quality agents in the most unlikely of places. Ruthless but fair, Strange is an inspiration for his recruits, and trains them well.
Ralph Chandler
Former street urchin Ralph has lead a rough-and-tumble existence, but his nefarious beginnings have their uses when employed in his role as one of Sir Alan Strange’s spies, working in the service of the King.
John Turner
Junior clerk at the Navy Board, handsome John imagines himself in more daring, adventurous circumstances – and he soon has the opportunity when he meets Beth Johnson and becomes part of her gang of spies.
Sir Henry Vale
Criminal mastermind and anti-King conspirator, Sir Henry Vale wa
s supposedly executed by beheading in 1662 for his attempt to take the King’s life – but all may not be as it seems...
Edmund Groby
Squat, swarthy and with one ominous finger missing from his left hand, Groby is a relentless villain and loyal henchman. He hates the monarchy and all it represents, and will stop at nothing to prevent our gang from derailing the King-killer’s plans.
Maisie White
A young orange-seller at the theatre where Beth works, Maisie has been quickly taken under the older girls’ wing – but she knows nothing of her friend’s double life as a spy...
A Letter from the Author
Dear Reader,
I hope you have enjoyed this book. While Beth Johnson and her friends are fictitious characters, the world that they inhabit is based on history.
Today, if a person is convicted of a crime, they might be fined a sum of money or sent to prison. However, in the past, it was less common to be sent to prison. Instead, criminals could expect to be fined or whipped as a punishment. Many people were sentenced to death, even for crimes that might not seem very serious today.
In the 17th century, the English government began transporting criminals to its new colony in North America, as an alternative to sentencing them to death. The transported criminals then had to serve their sentences by working as forced labour for either seven or fourteen years, depending on the seriousness of their crime. Most transportees never returned home.
In the 1660s, the colony of North America was still in its infancy, and life could be very hard for the people who lived there. However, for many, it also offered freedom and a new beginning.
Jo Macauley
Other titles from the Secrets & Spies series – Treason
The year is 1664, and somebody wants the King dead. One November morning, a mysterious ghost ship drifts up the Thames. Sent to investigate, fourteen-year-old Beth quickly finds herself embroiled in a dangerous adventure that takes her right into the Tower of London. Will Beth be able to unravel the plot to kill the King before it’s too late?