Relief flooding through her, Sarai asked hopefully, ‘Then it is possible that both of those local men may yet be respited?’
‘I understand that Judge Lawes was about to set off from Exeter to open the Cornish Assizes when he was delayed upon receiving an impressive memorandum from the defence solicitor, together with other deputations. The judge has made a concession: he is to return to Exeter within days to study both cases prior to fixing an execution date.’
‘Could I ask you a favour, Trevor?’ Sarai enquired nervously, being encouraged to continue by a smile and a nod from the governor. ‘Could you possibly keep me informed as to any developments at Exeter Gaol?’
‘Of course I can. We have been friends for a very long time, Sarai. Please be assured that you can rely on my discretion,’ he said, from which she gathered he had perceived her need for secrecy.
Heartened by this, but shamed by the perceptive Bolland having detected her extra-marital reason for enquiring, Sarai saw her husband hurrying towards them. He was sober, having curbed his drinking of late.
Smiling at the prison governor and her, he said politely, ‘Forgive me for interrupting. When you are ready, Sarai, folk are clamouring for you to sing again.’
‘I’ll be happy to do so, Emil,’ Sarai heard herself say.
Arabella Heelan could understand her child’s reluctance to enter the dark and desolate world that she inhabited. If the souls waiting to enter the world had a choice, which she disbelieved, no child would opt to be born in Adamslee, the forbidding place where its penniless ancestors had suffered and starved. Neither was it just a past generation’s heartbreak. A similar destiny awaited her unborn son or daughter and its eventual descendants. Arabella wanted more for her child than a struggle to survive against overwhelming odds. She no longer wanted to be where poverty caused people to live together in fury and bitterness, suspecting, misinterpreting, over-dramatizing, denouncing, resenting and conspiring.
The dream she had long had of a better life had breathed its last in the first few weeks of her marriage to Lionel Heelan. Fantasy could not survive in a relationship with a husband who became increasingly remote and distant every day. She mourned the dream’s passing now as she huddled under a torn and inadequate blanket in her squalid bedroom. She was terrified that devoid of her mental equilibrium she wouldn’t be able to endure the sheer agony of childbirth.
She lay trying to concentrate on the sound of the gentle waves of August lapping against the shore. This helped to block out midwife Granny Galpin’s demented muttering to herself while fumbling with barely adequate items that were needed. In the flickering light from two candles the witch-like crone’s wrinkles became ancient furrows.
Light-headed with the pain that began in her grotesquely swollen belly and went down through her legs and reversed from there up into her mind, Arabella regretted refusing Ruth’s kind offer to sit with her. Having someone for whom she cared and who cared for her present at this time would be wonderful. But she couldn’t have subjected her sensitive best friend to such a harrowing experience.
Suddenly she became aware of the beat and the clamour of the child quickening in her womb. Her whole body trembled and fought. She turned her head to one side, and her teeth were bared, her face glistening. It was her time, and Arabella Willard was afraid. Why was she thinking of herself in terms of her maiden name? What was happening to her was the unknown. It was something large and frightening and uncanny, human, yet past human comprehension. It was a complete mystery even to medical science and theology. Both the physician and the clergyman came into the world the same way as everyone else, and were therefore just as ignorant as the masses.
She had a sudden sharp and demoralizing memory of once having overheard the Reverend Worther commenting that, ‘The easiest childbirth is more traumatic than the worst death.’
‘That young man of yours should be here at this particular time,’ Granny Galpin pointed out, managing to force a coherent sentence through her gabbling.
‘He’s out at the fishing,’ Arabella lied, not knowing where Lionel was, but in no doubt that he wasn’t at work as a fisherman.
The change in Lionel had been both upsetting and inexplicable. He seemed to have retreated to a place deep inside himself. Of late he had spent little time in the house, mostly coming home just to sleep. As he had no money, Arabella supposed that he was wandering alone somewhere in the hills. There was no longer any intellectual level ground for conversation between them. Unlike Arabella, who was always able to look with new eyes at the parade of sensations, thoughts and feelings that made up her inner world, Lionel was now never tempted to think for long about things that were clearly beyond understanding, or to ask questions that are unanswerable.
As if summoned by her thinking of him, Lionel entered the house at that moment. Closing the door behind him, he didn’t look in the direction of either her or Granny Galpin, but walked off into the other room as if they were not there. Then she was gripped by awesome pain, shaking her head, her eyes unseeing, and turning suddenly to bite at her arm like a snared animal. When she cried out the old woman came to bend over her.
‘It’s all right, lass. Think of the little one you will soon hold in your arms, not of that heathen who has just passed by as if you and the child he has fathered don’t exist. Do you want me to scold him?
Arabella stared at the bulging ceiling, and when she spoke it was in a startlingly calm tone, as though the agony of a moment ago had been entirely forgotten. She knew that it wasn’t wise to anger Lionel, who had been violent to her recently when losing his temper.
She pleaded, ‘No, please don’t. I wouldn’t want you to upset him.’
‘Humph!’ Granny Galpin snorted. ‘I’d do more than upset that ignorant lout if you allowed me to.’
The old midwife tried to cover Arabella’s feet that she had thrust out from under the bedclothes, but realized that she was struggling to press them against the bars at the bottom of the bed. There was an expression of concern on Granny Galpin’s craggy face. In prevailing conditions that had child-bed fever mean death for many women, and in which babies were frequently born blind and terribly crippled, she seemed to dread what the fast approaching night would bring to add to the difficulties that already beset them.
Able to sense the witch-like woman’s worry, Arabella asked. ‘Will it be long now?’
Granny Galpin murmured an unintelligible reply. Feeling all alone and suffering terribly, Arabella noticed the old woman’s body jerked each time a cry of pain escaped involuntarily through her clenched teeth. It increased her anxiety to see this sign of the veteran midwife’s fear for her and the baby.
It was a long night. As dawn neared, a cock crowed and the clip clop of a horse being led past the house could be heard, Arabella’s twisting and writhing on the bed became convulsive.
The Heelan baby arrived at six o’clock on that morning of 5th February. Its crying filled the cabin as Granny Galpin came into her own. Washing the child in warm water that had been previously boiled, binding its belly with gentleness and patience, and bundling it in a blanket, she spoke clearly. ‘It’s a girl, Bella, a beautiful little girl.’
Tears mingling with the sheen of sweat on her face, Arabella closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them to look around the room for her husband. He was not there.
The Governor of Dorchester Gaol had kept his word. In one way, Sarai wished that he had failed to do so. A horseman had ridden up to Adamslee House, a young lad who had obviously been instructed by Trevor Bolland to first check that Emil Edelcantz was not at home, and then asked to see her. Since that moment she had been so stunned on hearing the message she had been given that it seemed she was only partly in the world.
Doubt about Willie Brickell’s guilt had led to his execution being put off until 26 August, but Friday 12 August was the day that Gray Sawtell was to be executed. Though aware that it would be a terrible ordeal, Sarai’s conscience permitted her no choice other than t
o attend the ghastly event.
Arriving in the City of Exeter at seven o’clock in the morning of the execution, a bewildered Sarai spent the next two hours watching the continuous arrival of sightseers assembling at the prison gates to see the hanging that was due to take place at ten o’clock. They came in carriages, on horseback, and on foot, chatting and laughing as if attending some festive event.
Sarai’s heart skipped several beats and she had difficulty with her breathing as she saw Sawtell led out of the condemned cell into the courtyard. Shielding his eyes from the brilliant morning sun, he could have been strolling out to go to his boat on a normal morning. Governor Bolland stayed at his side as far as the door of his own house, where John Smith, the Under-Sheriff of Devon who was in charge of the execution, took over. A procession was formed to lead Sawtell down the long walk to the prison gates through rows of javelin men carrying white batons drawn up on each side. John Smith led the procession, with two prison chaplains close behind reading the burial service aloud as they walked, with Sawtell, who was flanked by an escort of two more javelin men, coming next.
Smartly dressed in a light-green coat, dark-green waistcoat, cashmere breeches, green worsted stockings and calf-length boots, Sawtell held his head high. His face was noticeably pale, and Sarai found herself wondering pointlessly whether this was due to his confinement, or because he was the principal player in a real-life tragedy. It was heart-breaking for her to realize that it made no difference as he would be dead in a very short time regardless.
Possibly to deter them from future law-breaking, other prisoners had been brought under guard from the prison to witness the execution. Sarai noticed the young Willie Brickell was among them, looking in every direction but at the gallows that had been erected just outside of the gates.
The procession reached the gallows and Sawtell nonchalantly climbed a short flight of stairs to a platform. At one end was the press room that was packed with newspaper reporters and prison officials. Conspicuous at the other end of the platform was the coffin that awaited Sawtell’s body.
He stood for a moment calmly looking out over the crowd. A force beyond her control pushed a reluctant Sarai through to the front of the crowd. Once she was there she felt compelled to look up at Sawtell but feared the thought of making eye contact. She looked up, and it happened. He stared down at her. Face expressionless, he held her gaze for what seemed an eternity. Something mysterious passed between them that had an endearing touch to it that was spoiled by Sarai’s realization that it was an exchange between her and a dead man.
She could see the effort it took Sawtell to break off the contact. Looking away, he spotted Calcraft, the hangman, and walked over to him. Sarai could see a short conversation take place between the two men, and then she forced herself not to look away as the executioner pinioned Sawtell’s arms. Then, kneeling, Calcraft fastened heavy weights to the condemned man’s right leg. His task finished, the executioner stood and used both hands to explain something to Sawtell about his head and neck, to which Sawtell must have responded with a witty remark, as Calcraft smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
Always having been in awe of Sawtell’s courage, Sarai’s admiration of him soared to fresh heights as she observed his coolness in such an appalling situation. The whole drama was being played out on a balmy summer day before a mass of spectators occupying an area that stretched out to Longbrook Street, Northernhay, and St David’s Hill.
The crowd had been quiet throughout to show respect for the fearless man about to die, but now a ghostly hush settled on the gathering as the condemned man’s last words were eagerly anticipated. The two clergymen had stepped out on the platform beside Sawtell to resume the burial service. They paused while one of them asked Sawtell if there was anything he wished to say.
Despite the warmth of the day, Sarai’s body suddenly turned so cold that she was shivering as she heard Sawtell’s deep voice firmly reply, ‘I have just one thing to say, and that is to tell each and every one of you here that I make no protest about being found guilty. But William Brickell, the boy who was on trial with me, is totally innocent. That is all.’
In the silence that followed, Calcraft pulled the cap down over Sawtell’s face while the voice of one of the clergymen continued the service. When he reached the words ‘any pains of death to fall from thee’, the executioner drew the bolt of the gallows and Gray Sawtell was plunged into eternity.
The impact that the gruesome sight had on Sarai convinced her that something of herself died at the same time as her love.
It had been a long climb up to Adamslee House on an oppressively hot day. It had been much more exhausting for Ruth Heelan, and Arabella was shamefaced at having asked her crippled sister-in-law to accompany her. But there was no way she could have faced the haughty Sarai Edelcantz alone. Ruth lacked the nerve to speak in the situation ahead but her support just by being there was essential to Arabella.
A maid answered the door to them, and they followed her into a study where Sarai Adams sat behind a desk leafing through a stack of documents.
‘Mrs Heelan is here for an interview, ma’am,’ the maid announced shyly.
‘Thank you, Elsa,’ Sarai said, without raising her head.
Arabella, who had become aware of the imposing presence of her prospective employer immediately on entering the room, became increasingly nervous as Sarai Edelcantz continued to inspect the documents, neither looking up nor speaking. It was just as if she was alone in the room.
A grandfather clock standing at the side of the room ticked away the passing minutes agonizingly slowly for Arabella. Then she was startled as Sarai picked up the documents, holding them with both hands as she tapped the pile into shape on the desktop, then placed them to one side.
Raising her head to flash a smile at the girls, she said, ‘Living up here on the cliff top I lose touch with Adamslee folk. Please remind me, which one of you two ladies is Arabella Heelan.’
‘That’s me, ma’am.’ Arabella said, as she silently thanked the maid for revealing the correct term of address. ‘This is Ruth, my husband’s sister.’
‘Forgive me; I should have recognized you as our May Queen. What sort of employment are you seeking, Arabella?’
‘Anything, ma’am. I am a hard worker.’
‘I am sure that you are,’ Sarai agreed, then went on to reveal that she wasn’t as out of touch with Adamslee as she had professed. ‘I believe that you recently gave birth to a child.’
‘That’s right, ma’am.’
‘That makes it difficult for me to consider employing you, Arabella. There are no facilities here to care for your baby while you work.’
Fearing that the opportunity to earn money was slipping away, Arabella hastened to give an explanation. ‘That won’t be necessary, ma’am. Ruth and her mother will take turns in looking after Thelma, that’s my daughter.’
‘I see,’ Sarai said doubtfully. ‘But surely a child so young needs its mother full time?’
‘If my situation was different, ma’am, I would want nothing more than to be with my baby day and night,’ Arabella replied. ‘But we are very poor, and Thelma needs things that I can only give her if I earn money.’
To Arabella’s surprise Sarai responded sympathetically to this. ‘I should have realized that, Arabella. Please excuse my ignorance. I am prepared to offer you work in the kitchen. It will be on a trial basis, more in your interests than mine. If your arrangements for your baby prove to be impractical for either of us, then your employment here will end. If that should occur, then as I admire your pluck in attempting to improve your lot in such difficult circumstances, I will ensure that you leave here with a financial reward for your courage in trying.’
‘That is very kind of you. I am most grateful. ma’am.’
‘I hope that everything works out for you,’ Sarai said with a smile. ‘I’ll call Elsa and have her take you down to the kitchen and introduce you to Mrs Winchell. You’ll find she is a very nice p
erson.’
Walking in an easterly direction from Exeter following his release from prison, Joby Lancer reached a point that presented him with two options: he could continue straight ahead to arrive at Adamslee, or follow a north-east trail that would take him to Adamslee House. The first possibility beckoned strongly to him by offering to reunite him with Arabella, the second would mean renewing his brief relationship with Sarai Adams, a prospect that appealed to him far less than being with Arabella again.
Yet Adamslee could not proffer any paid work, whereas Adamslee House held the promise of the position of estate manager. Considering this to be the deciding factor, Lancer took the left fork.
Half-an-hour later his trail merged with a well-worn track that was somehow familiar to him. Hot and thirsty from the long trek, he rejoiced when coming to a clear stream flowing from a rocky area. Deliberately delaying the need to satisfy a raging thirst, he sat on his heels to scoop up handfuls of cold water and spatter it over his face. Only then did he slowly kneel to drink water that was unbelievably refreshing.
Straightening up, relaxed and stretching his arms above his head while enjoying the luxuriant grassed, treeless countryside around him, a memory clicked in. Then he knew that he had stopped here on the day that he had walked away from Adamslee.
Dwelling on this memory, he became instantly alert at the dull sound of the hoofbeats of a horse at a walking pace on a grassy surface. Pulling himself tight against a stone ridge in preparedness, he offered up a prayer that the approaching horseman would not mean trouble just a few hours after he had left prison.
He was puzzled on vaguely recognizing the front of a horse as it emerged round a slight curve in the track, and was then astonished to see the rider was Sarai. She wore a red merino shirt with black buttons, a belt, and a pale-green skirt. Her hair cascaded down, long and full, from under a wide-brimmed hat that had a domed crown, which she pushed up off her forehead as she looked down at him. A mysterious creature, the bloodline of the unknown ancients she had descended from was reflected in her dark eyes and flowing, blue/black hair.
The Toll of the Sea Page 14