Easing Caesar down into the lowland of the village, Sarai walked the horse along the edge of a beach where Ruth Heelan was struggling with a massive bundle of seaweed. With a rope tied around the bundle, the crippled girl was pulling on the end of it, her defective foot increasing the strain for her. With the district’s soil being of poor quality, Ruth conversely earned a pittance in providing a valuable commodity.
Watching the girl, who, drooping from exhaustion, had to pause frequently in her task of hauling the seaweed inland, Sarai found herself envying Ruth. The crippled girl didn’t have a large house and unlimited wealth, but she had what was close to being a calling. Unlike Sarai, Ruth had a definite purpose in life.
Riding on, Sarai sent the stallion at a canter up a gradient that would take them up to the cliff at the other side of Adamslee. There was a little breeze and a cloudless sky created an evening sea that was a beautiful indigo blue. As she rode through this uncommonly pleasant spring weather, Sarai hoped that it would hold for May Day. On this social event of the year for the villagers she turned her grounds over to the Adamslee folk for their revels. Sarai quite enjoyed the occasion for she always had guests, and they, like her, found entertainment in watching ordinary folk at play.
Last year had been the best ever May Day at Adamslee House. Sarai had been honoured then to have the Duke of York and his party as guests. Recall of that occasion impressed on her even more how ludicrous was her present position, and made her all the more determined to bring about a huge change for the better in her life. There would be no royalty numbered among her guests this year, who would all be local dignitaries, although a letter she had recently received from her Swedish suitor had stated his intention of spending May Day at Adamslee House. No doubt he would take the opportunity to reiterate and reinforce his proposal of marriage. In the meantime she had to come to a decision as to what her response would be.
Dusk had now begun to blur far horizons. It was a time when Gray Sawtell would be putting out to sea. Very soon she would have to ensure that he was no longer in her present but firmly back in a past that she was determined to reject. It wasn’t going to be easy, for even then a mental picture of the muscular Sawtell moving lithely around his ketch stirred her.
Turning for home, she rode into a twilight that was rapidly surrendering to night. Off to her right she could hear dog-foxes giving the double-bark with which they hoped to influence a female on heat. Despite her strong and fearless character, Sarai found herself trembling a little as she awaited the inevitable reply that would come from the vixen and was the most frighteningly eerie sound to be heard at night.
She had heard the men of the outdoors, of all callings including smuggling, cite the mournful wailing of the curlew as the one thing that would strike fear into their hearts in darkness. But in Sarai’s opinion that bird could not compete in horror with the grim howl of a vixen, particularly when she had cubs to protect.
It came then, piercing through the night, causing her the terror that she knew it would. She continued to shiver until the foxes tired and went silent. When the gentle hooting of owls resumed command of the night, Sarai rode homeward. Recognizing that the sounds of the night had taken her back to a far away childhood, she knew that now she must make an effort to reach a maturity that was long overdue.
They had believed that the night would go without a hitch. Young Willie Brickell was wearing a huge, pleased grin, Abe Wilson, a powerfully built, middle-aged petty thief who was the fourth crew member, gave Lionel a satisfied smile and a wink, and even Gray Sawtell had visibly relaxed. Having been prepared to wait out at sea for the Frenchman to sail up, they had found her to be already in position when they’d arrived. The contraband had been taken on board swiftly, secretly and silently. Both the French crew and they had taken great care not to have a crate or keg collide with each other to create sounds that would carry for miles on that still night. But now as the Revenue boat came out of the darkness to bear down on them they realized that they had been under surveillance throughout. The Revenue officers had waited, biding their time. Not wishing to spark off an international incident they had ignored the French ship so that Gray Sawtell’s ketch was their sole target.
‘This is John Nichol’s doing,’ Sawtell yelled to Lionel, as he steered his ketch at speed on a course parallel to the shore.
Lionel knew this to be the truth. They had become more and more aware of the Customs man’s increased activities. Abe Wilson, who used a heavy stick to bludgeon his robbery victims and, if necessary, beat any witness into silence, had been all for them paying Nichol a visit at his lodgings in the Ship Inn and using violence to deter him from any further investigation.
Gray Sawtell quashed this idea. Although he was angry by the dire effect Nichol was having on the smuggling, he said that the Customs man was too tough a nut to be cracked by intimidation. Sawtell, in fact, seemed to hold Nichol in some esteem. Lionel noticed this, and it wasn’t the first time it had struck him how fair minded the taciturn smuggler was when judging those around him.
Sawtell’s interest in Arabella and himself was as strong as ever. Lionel knew, although he made no protest, that he was being paid far in excess of the share the others got. But now Lionel’s luck, which had improved a thousandfold since he had joined up with Sawtell, was clearly about to suffer a reversal from which he would never recover. Instead of ensuring the comfort of his mother and sisters before marrying Arabella, he looked set to spend long years in prison.
A massive depression settled on him as Sawtell suddenly sent the ketch on a zigzag course. They had to cling on tightly as the boat pitched this way and that, the bow rising high over waves of its own making.
With a superior speed and manoeuvrability, the Revenue boat was staying with them, coming dangerously close in the sharp turns that were being made. Sawtell took skilful avoiding action as one of the officers yelled orders at them through a megaphone. The rushing of the water as the boats ploughed through it drowned out the Revenue man’s words. Yet it didn’t take a clever mind to deduce that they were being ordered to heave-to, and told that they didn’t have a chance of escape. This was true, for the ketch could never outrun the Revenue boat.
Sawtell signalled to his three crewmen. Getting the message, Lionel’s spirits dropped even lower. They were being told to jettison the smuggled goods. All three of them were in despair about throwing into the sea everything they had toiled for that night. But they knew better than to disobey an order from Sawtell. A bit at a time, they dragged the valuable but illicit cargo to the side of the ketch, then tipped it over into the sea where it quickly sank. Working beside Wilson, Lionel thought that the man was uttering a prayer, but then he caught the string of foul words and realized that the older man was cursing.
‘Heave-to!’ a Revenue officer issued the order through the bullhorn.
Checking that everything incriminating had gone over the side, Sawtell gave Lionel the nod. At this, Lionel picked up the sea anchor, a canvas bag that was held open at one end by a wooden hoop and was attached to a line. Throwing this out in the direction from which a moderate wind was blowing, Lionel saw it float on the surface for a moment, then go to the stern where it filled with wind and held the line taut. Slowing down, the ketch was then held fast and steady by the anchor.
Bumping against the ketch, the Revenue boat was then secured as armed officers left it to climb into Sawtell’s boat. Catching sight of the guns, held in a threatening way, Lionel shrank back. But Sawtell faced the Revenue men with his usual arrogance. The officers were aware of what had taken place, and their anger showed. Making a pointless search of the ketch, the Revenue men clambered back onto their craft, with just a senior officer, a big, black-bearded fellow, staying to give Sawtell a mirthless smile with teeth made to look blazingly white in contrast to the dark surround of hair.
‘You won’t always be this lucky, Sawtell,’ the Revenue officer said, adding by turning his head as he climbed back onto his own boat, ‘At least I
have the satisfaction of knowing that I have cost you a small fortune this night.’
Making no reply, Sawtell stood glaring at John Nichol, who looked back steadily from the Revenue boat.
‘One of these days, Nichol, one of these days …’ Sawtell gritted through clenched teeth.
The bearded officer spun round to shout a question. ‘Are you threatening one of my officers, Sawtell?’
Giving no answer, Sawtell moved his ketch off, his hard face set against the spray and the world as he headed the boat for the shore.
Five
MAY DAY DAWNED in Adamslee with a wraith-like rising of ground mist that predicted a brilliantly sunny day. When the sun had set the previous evening, bonfires had been set ablaze in the village streets. Every household had contributed logs and helped to tend the fires. Relatively prosperous villagers set tables before their doors, inviting neighbours and passers-by to help themselves to wine and cake. Those people set apart by disputes during the year, put aside their differences and gathered at each other’s tables to shake hands. The victims of the Paloma disaster were not forgotten, but their tragedy had been put into perspective because life had to go on. Every house was decorated with birch boughs and branches of trees. In keeping with tradition, flora was brought to the heart of each home. Men, women, and children, the old and the young, joined together in a community spirit that must have had love of some kind as a catalyst. It was the end of months of winter confinement with little money for fuel and light, of retiring to bed early and arising in darkness to shiver through another day.
This special day started for Arabella Willard more joyfully than any other day in her life. As she stood among villagers who were coming into some raggedy semblance of a formation in the awkwardly-shaped triangle that was known in Adamslee as ‘the square’, Arabella was pleased that her mother’s friend of long years, Josephine Heelan, was spending the day with her. The two women would enjoy themselves talking about old times. Arabella had promised her mother that she would bring her back a present. She couldn’t afford much, but she knew that her mother would treasure some next-to-worthless trinket.
The procession that would make its way to the grounds of Adamslee House was forming up. The maypole was of enormous length. It was decorated with flowers, bound round with ribbons from the bottom to the top, and painted in variable colours. Standing ready to carry it was Farmer Blaketon’s ox, with sweet nosegays of flowers tied to the tips of its horn.
With everyone anxious to move off, to start the festivities for real, the Reverend Worther climbed awkwardly up onto a cart, where he precariously balanced his swollen-stomached body on short, bent legs, to address the assembly.
‘As you know, brothers and sisters,’ the clergyman began, ‘I am no kill-joy.’
A few of the village boys gave shouted, unflattering opinions of what the Reverend Worther was. Their elders who turned on them with cries of ‘Shame’ silenced them.
When order was restored, the cleric carried on with what was partly a speech and partly a sermon. ‘There are those among you, people who have carried wise heads through long years, who have expressed to me their fears that on this day we are to celebrate a day when once heathens indulged in gluttony as well as leaping about in dance and fornication to dedicate the celebration of their idols. These sages have pointed out, quite rightly, that this’ – he pointed to the maypole – ‘was once regarded as a stinking idol.
‘I was able to reassure these good-thinking folk, just as I this very minute assure all of you, my brothers and sisters, that I have called upon the Lord to bless our festivities this day as a Christian welcoming of summer.’
‘And so shall it be,’ several of the crowd shouted in a disjointed chorus.
‘Are ye telling us that no young maiden will have her cherry taken in the orchard this year, your worshipness?’ an old woman called.
The crone was shouted down by some, laughed at by others, but what she had said momentarily spoiled the day for Arabella. With disgust she recalled the drunkenness and lewdness of other years. The goings-on, with couples lying shamelessly in the bushes, or standing pressed together behind trees. She prayed that there would not be anything at all like that during her day as queen.
An amateur trumpeter, his homemade silver suit as offensive to the eye as his discordant music was to the ear, blew a fanfare. Helped down from his impromptu pulpit, the Reverend Worther took his place beside Dr Rupert Mawby at the head of the procession. Bracing itself for the weight of the maypole, the ox broke wind in a rattlingly loud way that brought forth roars of laughter. Unofficial stewards, self-appointed and with eyes already washed out of focus by cider, cajoled and bullied the procession back into order, and Arabella, who was to be crowned at the grounds, was put into her place of prominence. Ruth was at her side, her plain face already showing the effects of pain from her foot and leg, but bravely ready to march alongside the rest. A contingent of village maidens fell in behind Arabella, when with a strident clashing of cymbals the parade moved off, flanked by Morris-men jerkily waving handkerchiefs as they did their strangely hopping half run. Somewhere in the line someone with a passable voice falteringly started up a song. Others gradually joined in until everyone, including a deliriously happy Arabella, was lustily singing as the procession proceeded along the track out of the village:
Worship ye who have been lovers this May,
For your bliss the Kalendis are begone;
And sing with us, away, winter, away!
Come, summer, come, the sweet season and song.
The fields’ breath sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet.
Just inside of the grounds, where a radiantly smiling Lionel was waving to Arabella, a farm cart decorated as a platform waited. It had been done so cleverly that Arabella didn’t realize there was a cart underneath as she was helped up and seated upon a waiting chair. The lame Ruth was lifted up onto the makeshift stage then, to stand at Arabella’s right side, a hand resting upon her shoulder. Four little girls with long hair and wearing angelic dresses stood one at each of the corners of the decorated cart. Another fanfare was sounded, and the girls then blew showers of golden leaves from cups of gold.
Tears stung Arabella’s eyes as the wives of Worther and Mawby, both elderly ladies, draped garlands over her head. Not passing the lids, the tears just misted up her eyes so that she couldn’t see for a moment; these were tears of happiness mingled with tears of regret that her mother couldn’t be there to share this with her.
Morris dancers, themselves now garlanded, pranced around the periphery of the platform as Rupert Mawby advanced on Arabella, a purple cushion bearing a crown in his shaking hands.
Cheap and constructed from scraps, it was more of a tiara than a crown. But this meant nought to Arabella, nor to the crowd that let out a roar of approval and congratulations as the doctor’s trembling hands placed the crown upon her head. It was all a charade, sheer make-believe, but no royal queen in history could have been as ecstatically happy as Arabella was right then. Feeling Ruth’s fingers squeeze her shoulder, she looked out across a sea of bobbing, smiling, shouting, laughing, friendly faces.
From her side came Rupert Mawby’s stentorian voice, addressing the crowd in the serious tone of someone pronouncing a prison sentence in court: ‘Lenten is come! Good people of Adamslee we are going a-Maying. Behold our queen!’
A mighty cheer went up, and Arabella’s tears welled over the dam of her lower lids and rolled down her cheeks. Beside her she could hear Ruth sniffling and snuffling, and felt a great surge of love for her crippled friend.
Later, when Arabella was walking through the crowd on Lionel’s proud arm, exchanging pleasantries with well wishers, Ruth proved to be a dedicated attendant. Once the ceremony was over, Arabella had felt foolish wearing the crown, but each time she tried to remove it, Ruth made sure that it stayed firmly on her head.
As they toured the ground with interest, taking in the sporting events which had village boys competing against each other, and the games of chance from which the proceeds would go to the upkeep of Reverend Worther’s church, Lionel spotted Gray Sawtell and Willie Brickell up ahead. He guided Arabella closer to them.
When they drew nearer they could see that Sawtell, although he was as sure-footed as ever, was belligerently drunk. There was an air of aggression about the man that deterred even Lionel, who steered Arabella off at a tangent away from his friend and employer.
Behind a table with a huge hamper on it, packed with a variety of food, most of which was too expensive ever to have entered the Willard or Heelan houses, were the two ladies who had put the garlands around Arabella’s neck.
Mrs Mawby spoke to Arabella, putting bottom teeth excessively on show in the manner of most elderly people. ‘Just a penny a time, Bella, my dear. Write your name on one of these pieces of paper, then screw it up and put it in that glass jar with all the others. The winning names will be drawn down at the rostrum at seven o’clock this evening.’
‘I must have a try,’ Arabella told Lionel enthusiastically. ‘I have a penny, and I would love to win all that food for Mamma.’
Unable to contain herself, having a good feeling, a kind of certainty that on this day of all wonderful days she would win the hamper, Arabella wrote down her name, squashed the paper into a ball in her hand, tossed it into the jar, closing her eyes and made a wish that could probably be best described as a prayer.
She was passing over her penny to Mrs Mawby when Lionel gave her three more coins, telling Arabella, ‘Make sure of it. Have three more tries.’
‘You write your name down,’ she protested, a little surprised that he was prepared to gamble so much money. Of late he had been morose, constantly complaining because he wasn’t earning as much as he had been.
The Toll of the Sea Page 8