At half-past one in the morning she lay, disturbed by the incessant beating of rain that was whipped against her bedroom windows by a gale-force wind booming in from the sea. Each attempt that she made to drive her recent shouting-match from her mind only served to increase her anxiety. The vicious wrangling had ended with the always self-assured, contemptuous Emil Edelcantz collapsed in armchair, curled in a foetal position, his body violently convulsing as he wept.
That memory took on the awesome magnitude of a premonition that made it impossible for her to remain in bed. Donning a robe as she hurried along the landing, avoiding the insanely staring eyes of Oliver Adams as she passed his portrait, she went down the wide majestic staircase without knowing why she was doing so.
An oil lamp that had been lit in the hall was affected by a breeze that threw moving shadows around eerily. Standing on the bottom stair trying to calm herself by deep breathing, Sarai’s heart thudded in her chest when she glimpsed the silhouette of a person inside of the front door. She had all-but convinced herself that she was mistaken when a flash of lightning came through the glass panes in the double-doors to light up the hallway ten time brighter than daylight ever could.
She gave an involuntary gasp as she saw her husband standing inside the door. As the flash of lightning was spent, the whole scene became even more surreal as it appeared she found she would be speaking to a silhouette.
Stepping off the bottom stair on to the floor, she enquired anxiously. ‘What are you doing down here, Emil?’
‘I am …’ he began, taking a few shuffling steps forward that brought him into the dull-orange glow of the oil lamp. ‘I am taking the only course open to me, which is leaving.’
‘Why? Emil, why?’
It took him a long while to answer. Sarai was shaken to see how haggard he looked. His face had become gaunt of late, and now the shadows cast by the lamp accentuated the lines and fissures. But guilt and shame compelled Sarai to face the undeniable truth. As she fully realized this, he spelled it out for her.
‘You have to ask why, Sarai?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘I came to Adamslee a proud man, a man who commanded respect wherever he travelled in the world. Now I am looked upon as a buffoon, a foolish man with a drunken slut for a wife. A wife who treats him abominably, who talks down to him even in company belonging to the highest echelons of society. Nay, especially when among the top people. You lower me purposely in the hope that by doing so you can rescue yourself from the gutter in which you lie in filth with the other whores.’
Moved to tears by his censure, shattered to realize that she could deny nothing that he had said, she pleaded as an exceptionally strong gust of wind rattled rain against the window-panes. ‘But you cannot leave on such a night as this, Emil. At least stay until the morning. That will give us the opportunity to rescue our marriage. I am sure that is something that we can achieve.’
‘Rescue our marriage?’ he questioned with a maniacal laugh that chilled her. ‘That would take a miracle, you stupid woman, and I am convinced that the Lord God would not be interested in practising divine intervention at such a place of ill-repute as Adamslee House.’
Having hurled that final insult at her, he opened the door and the wild wind and rain exploded into the hall. He went out leaving the door open. Battling her way to the door that swung and juddered in the gale, Sarai had to use her shoulder and all her strength to ram it closed during a brief respite in the force of the wind.
Soaked to the skin, she staggered towards the stairs. Aware that she was the author of her own misfortune, she could find not one scrap of redemption in what had just occurred with which to console herself. Yet in the depth of her misery she could find a source of compassion for Emil in the fact that he had been weeping as he went.
Heading for bed and what she was certain would be a sleepless night, she had climbed three stairs when she had a sudden change of mind. Hurrying back down, she made her way to the sitting-room. Returning, cuddling a bottle of brandy in her arms as if it were a baby, she went off up the stairs.
There was a faint smile of satisfaction on Lt Hugh Driscoll’s face when the interpreter finished reading Sergent Allègre’s affidavit to the court martial. The sergent had arrived on the scene before the dust from the cannonade had completely settled. He found the bodies of Lancer’s men lying among the ruins of the enemy bunker. Allègre and his men had checked the bodies in the hope of finding survivors. They found only one man alive: that sole survivor had been an injured and unconscious Captain Lancer.
Driscoll was quick to ask the Frenchman through the interpreter. ‘Captain Lancer was lying among the bodies of the men of his command?’
‘That is so. At first his rank was not visible to me, just as initially there was nothing to suggest that Capitaine Lancer was still alive.’
‘Captain Lancer had not left the enemy bunker from the time it had been demolished?’ Driscoll double-checked.
‘In his condition it would have been impossible for the capitaine to do so, sir,’ was Allègre’s reply.
Reseating himself, Driscoll commented to Lancer, ‘That about wraps it up, sir. All that remains now is to get you reinstated in the army with adequate compensation.’
Unable to credit how swiftly his fortunes had reversed, words failed Joby.
Eleven
CAESAR, SARAI’S HORSE, was found the morning after the freak autumn storm that had devastated the local harvest. A shepherd on the way back from a dawn check on his flock had come across the animal standing dejected, dripping wet and saddleless close to the edge of the cliff just a few hundred yards west of Adamslee House. Though it was not unusual for the horse’s owner to take an early-morning ride, the absence of a saddle was puzzling.
The alarm was raised and Sarai Edelcantz was found safe and well, although somewhat intoxicated, at her home. She could offer no explanation as to why her horse should not be in its stable, but her groom reported that he had found the stable doors open first thing that morning. A horse theft that had gone wrong seemed the likeliest explanation.
The mystery lasted only until 10.30 that morning when it was tragically solved by a longshoreman who discovered the extensively damaged body of Emil Edelcantz on rocks at the foot of the cliff almost directly below where Caesar had been found at the top of it.
Newly appointed Police Constable Coombes, a self-effacing young man unsuited for his chosen profession, went to interview Mrs Edelcantz at Adamslee House. He had got no further than, as tactfully as possible, giving her the sad news of her husband’s demise, before returning post haste to nervously report that the lady of Adamslee House was in an exceedingly distressed condition. Reluctantly the constable had then done a quick about turn to head back up to the cliff top in the company of a concerned Dr Rupert Mawby.
Answering the door to the doctor and police constable, Sarai remained silent as she led them into her office. She deliberately walked slowly in the hope of being able to compose herself before having to face the two men. It was a vain hope.
Sad faced, Dr Mawby studied her both sympathetically and professionally, advising her. ‘Be seated, Sarai, this is a terrible time for you.’
Welcoming the advice, Sarai, close to collapse, slumped into her chair, listlessly waving an arm as a signal for Mawby and Coombes to be seated. She waited, dreading what was to come. Hopefully, the opinion would already have been formed that Emil had unwisely decided on an adventurous horse ride on a stormy night. A foolish escapade that had cost him his life. She forced herself to pay attention as Dr Mawby hesitantly began speaking.
‘In all my long years as a doctor I have encountered numerous tragedies, but each one has caused me as much pain as the one preceding it, Sarai. This is no exception. Most probably it is worse because I have known you since you were an infant, and have become quite fond of you.’
Liking the old doctor, but tormented by the circumstances that had brought him to Adamslee House, she conveyed with a nod that she understood his suffering.<
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‘Have you any notion why your husband would set out on Caesar on such a horrendous night, especially without saddling up, Sarai?’
She spoke for the first time since the two men had arrived. The sound of her choked-up voice was alien even to her. ‘I have tried to find an explanation since I heard the horrendous news of his death but have been unsuccessful, Dr Mawby.’
‘Forgive me, Sarai, but it is necessary to ask certain questions,’ Mawby said, after a pointless pause in the hope the constable would speak. ‘Had he taken any alcohol last evening?’
‘Not a drop. He had been abstaining for quite some time.’
‘I have to enquire if everything was all right between the two of you?’
‘Yes, we spent a pleasant evening together,’ she lied, then added more fabrication. ‘We spent an hour or two discussing spending a few weeks over Christmas with his family in Sweden. I retired early due to a headache, and left my husband downstairs reading.’
‘When did you next see Emil, Sarai?’
‘I didn’t,’ she replied, finding it easy to weep for all the wrong reasons. ‘I slept heavily, and only discovered he had not come to bed when someone from the village called to tell me about Caesar being discovered on the cliff.’
‘I see,’ Mawby said. ‘I am sorry to have intruded on you on so sad an occasion, and hesitate to leave you alone.’
‘Your concern is very much appreciated, Dr Mawby. However, I will not be alone. Mrs Winchell is aware of the tragedy and has insisted in preparing nourishment for me,’ Sarai explained, as Mawby and Coombes prepared to leave.
Travelling across Salisbury Plain in a stagecoach, Lancer found it good to relax after several days of hectic activity. They were days in which he had turned down an offer to return to the army with the rank of major, and had accepted what to him was a vast sum in compensation for having been wrongly accused. His provisional plans were to return to Adamslee. For what purpose he wasn’t sure. Lionel Heelan was a murderer but, nevertheless, he was Arabella’s husband. That being so, as long as he was not mistreating Arabella, Lancer would stay clear of the couple. That wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he accepted it was what he must do.
With it certain that Emil Edelcantz was still there, Lancer would not be calling at Adamslee House. He was still drawn to Sarai but doubted that they could recapture their earlier relationship after the way she had betrayed him. Even though it transpired that her disloyalty had brought him good fortune, she hadn’t known that at the time she had committed her treachery.
Devon had come to mean a lot to him, so he was returning there while leaving his options open. As money was no problem, his favourite, but as yet undecided scheme, was to purchase a property and start some kind of business. Farming was definitely not a possibility. His experience of Euart Owens had put paid to that.
‘Are you a military man, may I enquire, sir?’
His fellow passengers were two young girls, obviously sisters, and an older woman who was their chaperon, and an elderly, obese couple who had the drained appearance of having endured a long marriage.
It had been one of the girls who had asked him the question. Around the age of twenty, slightly older than her sister, she frowned in annoyance when the chaperon reprimanded her.
‘You know better than to address a gentleman so, Mary-Anne, especially in such a rude manner.’
‘There is no harm done, madam,’ Lancer assured the older woman prior to answering the question. ‘I was an officer in the army but no longer, miss.’
‘Then allow me to wish you a happy retirement, sir,’ the elderly man said, as he surveyed Lancer through heavy-lidded eyes. ‘You richly deserve it after fighting for your country.’
‘Thank you,’ Lancer acknowledged. ‘Were you army, sir?’
‘Lamentably, no. I was in administration due to my—’
The old fellow stopped in mid-sentence as outside an order of some kind was harshly given, the coachman uttered a mild expletive, and the coach came to a sudden halt.
A voice outside the coach spoke in a conversational tone. ‘Do not be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen. I will take little of your time, but I will require from each of you a substantial contribution toward my venture.’
‘A damned highwayman,’ the old gentlemen muttered in disgust. ‘I’ll be damned if I will—’
This time it was his wife who cut his sentence short. ‘The miscreant will be armed, Algernon. You will do nothing other than to obey his commands.’
‘That is wise advice. May I suggest that all of you leave the coach? I will come out last and do whatever I can to protect yourselves and your property.’
Lancer had said this without knowing what he could do, if anything. Never had he faced a gun or guns in a situation where the safety of women was involved. Relying on quick thinking, he was in the doorway of the coach about to step down, when the highwayman he hadn’t yet seen let out an astonished squawk. ‘Joby Lancer! As I live and breathe!’
Buckingham Joe was standing there smiling at him, to the puzzlement of the coachman and the other passengers. ‘Stand in line with the others, Joby, but rest assured that I will not require any contribution whatsoever from you.’
‘No, Joseph,’ Lancer shook his head in refusal. ‘Walk to one side with me for a moment, old friend.’
‘My pleasure, Joby,’ Buckingham Joe said as he walked at Lancer’s side to a few feet beyond the coach.
‘These folk are like us, Joseph,’ Lancer explained. ‘They are not the arrogant, selfish wealthy type we despise. I ask you to leave them be. Let them continue on their journey.’
‘I hear you, and I appreciate that you are a fair man, Joby. That is why I must put my case. As much as I would like to, I cannot comply with your wish as at this moment I am completely without sustenance.’
Smiling, Lancer slapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘That is not a problem. I have had a stroke of luck and am now a relatively rich man. I can take care of your needs. Put them back on the coach. I assume that you have a horse nearby?’
‘In that thicket over there,’ Joe concurred, a doubtful expression on his face. Then he brightened up. ‘And I can steal one for you not a half-mile from here, then we can ride together.’
‘That’s good, Joseph. Now let us get these folk on their way.’
The coachman shook Lancer by the hand before climbing up on to the box, and the two girls and their chaperon said a soft-voiced ‘Thank you’ as they passed by. The old man was last to get back in the coach, and he paused to say. ‘What has just happened puzzles me as to what you really are, sir. But I do know one thing for certain; you are a true gentleman.’
‘Coming from a man like you, I take that as a real compliment, sir. Good luck to both your lady and you.’
Lancer stood with Buckingham Joe watching the coach depart. Then he put his hand in his pocket and passed Joe a handful of coins with the instruction, ‘Leave this money where you steal the horse. I want to start my new life in a correct manner.’
‘You have my word that I will do just that, Joby.’
‘If I needed your word I would not have given you the money, Joseph,’ Lancer declared truthfully.
Within half-an-hour Buckingham Joe returned leading a fine horse that was harnessed and saddled. A delighted Lancer walked over to pat the horse appreciatively while Joe explained how he had obtained it.
‘For the first time ever, Joby, I paid more for a horse and riding gear than the animal and the saddle together was worth.’
‘Forgive me for thinking wrongly of you, Joseph,’ Lancer apologized. ‘I was certain that you had stolen it.’
The highwayman paused on hearing this. Then he elaborated on what he had already said. ‘Technically speaking, you are correct, I did steal the horse but in extenuating circumstances.’
‘Then who were you bargaining with?’
‘My conscience,’ Buckingham Joe replied. ‘Like that old fellow on the coach said, you are a gentleman. Aware of tha
t and being keenly aware you wanted to do the right thing by the owner of the horse, I imagined my conscience to be a horse-dealer with whom I haggled with for a considerable time before striking a fair deal.’
‘I trust that you conscience has come back with you,’ an amused Lancer remarked.
‘There was not the slightest possibility that it would not, Joby. I have been trying to dispose of the darn pest for most of my life. Here is the proof that I have failed yet again,’ he said as he held out several coins in the palm of his hand.
‘Keep the money for services rendered, Joseph.’ Lancer waved his friend’s hand away. ‘Let us mount up and head for the fair town of Salisbury. If my memory serves me correctly, there is always a good meal, a decent drink, and good entertainment to be had in the Greyhound Inn.’
‘I have no wish to impose on your good nature,’ Buckingham Joe said humbly, as he swung agilely up into the saddle.
‘That would not be possible,’ Lancer assured him. ‘I still owe you for the drinks you bought me in the Lamb Inn all those years ago.’
With the washing and rinsing over, Arabella wrung out the baby clothes and Ruth’s and her own laundry ready to put out on the line. There was no satisfaction in the work for her as there had once been. It wasn’t a job well done due to soap now being as scarce as food in her house. Lionel hadn’t contacted her in any way since leaving. Not that she had expected him to, resigned from the day he had walked out the door that she would never see him again. That had not worried her particularly, as the Lionel who had abandoned both her and his child was not the Lionel she had known and loved since they were children.
It wasn’t his fault. The dull life of drudgery in Adamslee was the cause of all their problems. But there was no escape for her and her little daughter. Both of them were doomed. They were destined to serve a life sentence of hopeless poverty that had destroyed the hearts and souls of Adamslee folk since the beginning of time, as she had heard the Reverend Worther comment during one of his bleaker moments when life in Adamslee seemed to threaten his faith.
The Toll of the Sea Page 18