‘Who can tell?’ she murmured. ‘Much can happen in two years. My grandfather may be dead … I may have come back to London. Anything can happen in two years. You’ll enjoy the expedition … you’ve always said that …’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, but he said it distastefully.
The only unsaleable item was the house itself. O’Neill advised Jane against doing anything with it at the present. ‘Once anyone finds out you want to sell, you’ll never be allowed to leave here until every penny Anne owed has been paid up. You’ll have lawyers’ fees to prove you’ve the right to sell it ‒ and agents’ fees, and the Lord knows what. Besides, I know Anne mortgaged it … leave it until you see what way the wind lies with your grandfather. You may be glad to come back.’
Jane looked around her and knew that she would never be coming back to this house. This represented Anne’s extravagance and irresponsibility; to come back would be to admit that she would need men like O’Neill and Hindsley to pay for it.
She gave a short little laugh. ‘It’s too late to give me notions of living in a house like this, Lord O’Neill! I’m not very handy at spending money I haven’t got!’
He looked at her carefully, from her curled hair to the hem of the expensively simple gown she wore. ‘You could learn … learning to spend money isn’t difficult. And you’d find better men than myself, Jane ‒ ones who had money enough to satisfy every wish.’
Jane bent over her sewing. ‘Anne made her mistakes ‒ and she told me I didn’t have to make them too.’
O’Neill said nothing. He didn’t think it was any notion of virtue that held Jane back ‒ but rather a sense of thrift and good-management. But it was a waste, all the same, he thought. He looked at her, and knew that she was made for a man’s bed, and in this city she could have been highly paid for the privilege. Because she wasn’t careless like Anne, she would make her choices better, and for her there wouldn’t be Anne’s career of debts and extravagance. He had observed her carefully since her arrival, and he knew that she took to ease and luxury with the eagerness of someone who has longed for it. And she could have had it ‒ just by allowing herself to be seen about on his arm, by letting herself be displayed and examined, by giving up this ridiculous independence she had. Instead she had chosen to scrape together a few pounds, and set off for the wilderness of Romney Marsh, and the doubtful welcome of an old man. And just for the hope of inheriting a ruin … it didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t want to think of all that beauty and excitement going to waste. It was worse than pouring gold into the Thames ‒ he had thought she knew enough to know that.
He couldn’t decide whether she was passing all this up because she hadn’t fully realised the possibilities before her, or whether she was taking a bigger gamble in bidding for respectability, her family name, and the long chance of a good marriage. If that was the case, then he admired her courage and was doubtful of her chances. Above all, he hoped that she would have the good sense to show young Jerome Taylor the door, and that a moment of sentimentality wouldn’t condemn her to a life of penny-pinching as the wife of an impecunious man of science. Besides that, Jerome deserved something softer and kinder than Jane ‒ he didn’t deserve to be ruined by a woman with ambition. They were wrong for each other, these two ‒ totally wrong. But he guessed that Jane already knew it.
So he said nothing. He aided her with the preparations where he could, spent his time with her because he missed Anne so badly, and he continued to think his own thoughts ‒ thoughts of the glittering success she could have been, of the jewels and money she could have had, the houses and the carriages, the notoriety. At the same time he was envious because she had the strength he didn’t have to give it all up.
***
The rush of preparation was finished, and they were ready to go. Patrick went to the livery stable, paid a little on account on the bill Anne owed there, and took the greys and the carriage. It remained outside the door until the streets were dark and quiet; Patrick carried the boxes out at intervals, and stowed them inside where they wouldn’t attract attention. It was time for Jane and William to leave ‒ O’Neill had agreed to stay in the house for some days so that the bill-collectors should not realize it was empty.
Jerome was there to say good-bye. He watched as Jane leaned from the carriage window, and O’Neill stretched up and kissed her softly. Jerome hesitated a second, and as his hand clasped Jane’s, with sudden desperate courage, he also sought her lips. It was a clumsy kiss, and full of heartbreak.
‘I’ll never forget you, Miss Jane ‒ I’ll think of you always. It’s only two years … I’ll come to Kent to see you as soon as I’m back.’
She pressed his hand hard, and was astonished to find that there were tears in her eyes. Then Jerome stepped back and took his place beside O’Neill.
‘As soon as I come back …’ he repeated.
Jane waved, and the carriage moved forward. She and William strained from their seats to get the last glimpse of the pair. She held Jerome’s words firmly in her mind against the terrible loneliness and panic which threatened to sweep over her. She tucked William’s hand in her own.
‘Did you hear that, William? Mr. Taylor is coming to see us as soon as he gets back from the expedition.’
William stroked General’s head, and said nothing. It was impossible to tell what he felt about leaving the house in Albemarle Street.
Jane didn’t know, nor did Jerome, that war with France would be many months old when he returned, and that he would transfer immediately into His Majesty’s Navy. He was to die under Nelson at the Battle of the Nile; he was never to see Jane again.
But none of them knew it that chill April night in 1792 when Jane and William set out for Blake’s Reach.
PART TWO
One
The wind drove in hard from the sea, pushing heavy grey clouds across the grey Marsh sky. The ancient town of Rye was behind them on the hill ‒ the sloping terraces of roofs, the square-towered church and the crumbling fortress walls. From Rye, they had been told, the road ran straight by the edge of the Marsh to Appledore. On the heights above the Marsh, a mile this side of Appledore, was Blake’s Reach.
It had been a journey of fear and doubt and self-questioning. As they made their way over the weary, bone-shaking miles of bad roads from London, Jane had lived with a sense of unease and disquiet ‒ made worse by Patrick and William’s dependence and their faith in her. They never questioned, as she did, the wisdom of what they were doing; they accepted her decisions without thought, blindly believing that what she did could never be wrong. William and General often sat with Patrick on the box, and, alone, during those hours, Jane wrestled with doubts and misgivings. Viewed in a cold, sober light, it was expecting much of Spencer to hope that he would welcome them without reservation. They were trusting in the slender chance of his loneliness being greater than his pride, and greater, too, than an old man’s desire for peace and unchanging habit. Every mile that brought them closer to Rye the words of the sailor, Adam Thomas, grew fainter, and Anne’s forthright rejection of Blake’s Reach and its rundown inheritance louder and stronger. Anne had been a woman of the world ‒ not a girl caught up in romantic impulse. More than that, she had known Blake’s Reach, and she had known Spencer Blake. Suppose Spencer Blake should shut the door on all three of them, should refuse to receive them even for a night? What then? … William and Patrick would turn to her for the answer, and, as yet, she had none.
There had been too much time during the long, dragged-out days of fighting the mud and bogs of the spring roads, the delays of the tollhouses, the aggravating slowness of their progress, to wish that she had never seen William and Patrick, had never heard of Blake’s Reach. A few weeks ago she had been responsible only for herself, and for herself she had been able to provide with no other aid but that of her strong body and capable hands. Now her hands were soft and encased in soft gloves, and she travelled like a lady and money flew from her purse into the eager palms of ser
vants and lackeys. Now she had two mouths to feed besides her own, and shelter and security to find for them all. She sat in Anne’s velvet-lined carriage as it bounced over ruts and pot-holes, and wondered if she had made a bad exchange.
Even the end of their journey was obscure. They knew only that they should go to the Romney Marsh in Kent, and that the ancient Cinque Port of Rye was their best goal. So they travelled slowly over the turnpikes, asking at all the tollhouses if they were heading in the direction of Rye. Most of the tollkeepers were as ignorant as themselves of what lay beyond the next ten miles of rutted road. They got lost several times, and there were delays which meant more nights spent in expensive inns ‒ for it was obvious that a carriage and pair like this could not draw up before a modest tavern. Jane travelled with a purse containing some coins and a pair of paste earrings close at her hand; this was in case they were held up by one of the highwaymen who haunted the turnpikes. The rest of the money was sewn into the lining of William’s coat. Patrick lived with a pistol on the seat beside him, which he swore he could use. For all three of them there was fear ‒ and for Jane there was fear and uncertainty, and self-blame.
Last night they had slept at Tenterden, and this morning about noon had reached Rye.
They entered the Port through the great medieval gateway to the Old Town, and the greys had struggled to keep a footing on the steep, slippery cobbles. At Rye the air carried the tang of the sea ‒ that’s what Patrick had told them the smell was, for Jane and William had never seen the sea. The little silt-packed harbour lay below the town, and the Rother cut a sluggish course between mud banks to the sea a mile or more away. The host at the Mermaid Tavern where they stopped for dinner, was talkative. He put Jane and William in a private room and pointed to the crest over the chimney-piece.
‘The crest of the Cinque Ports, ma’am. Rye used to be the best and the greatest of them before they inned the Marsh, and the silt blocked up the harbour. This town used to stand on the cliffs overlooking the sea ‒ can you imagine that, ma’am?’
Jane didn’t welcome his talk, or the curious glances he kept giving her when he came himself to serve their dinner; she paid no attention to his hinting at the strangeness of a young woman travelling with only a servant and a child. But when he asked her if she would accept a glass of brandy with his compliments, she was forced, out of politeness, to comment on its excellence. She tasted and approved it; Tim Cooper’s cellar had held nothing so fine as this.
The landlord shrugged carelessly. ‘Oh ‒ good brandy’s one thing we have no lack of in these parts.’
For an inn in a declining seaport, she thought, it was an absurd extravagance to offer brandy like this to its patrons free. But she sipped gratefully, for it helped to delay the moment of departure. It was almost time to face Spencer, and she was nervous. The landlord handed her into the carriage, and she could no longer avoid giving him the information he had wanted. She had to ask directions to Blake’s Reach.
‘Blake’s Reach, is it?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why ‒ there ain’t no one goes to Blake’s Reach these days.’
Then an expression of dawning comprehension appeared. ‘Why, you must be … Well, I was tryin’ t’ place y’, and I should have know y’ for a Blake! I’ve lived sixty-six years in this town with Blakes comin’ and goin’, an’ I ought t’ know a Blake face when I see one. But there ain’t been none of them about these past years …’
‘If you please!’ Jane said primly. ‘I am in a hurry!’
He made a half bow. ‘Why certainly, ma’am, certainly! You follow your nose t’ the bottom of the hill here ‒ the outskirts of the town it is ‒ and you’ll see the road forking to the right sign-posted to Appledore. It runs along the edge of the Marsh. And on the left ’bout four-five miles, you’ll see Blake’s Reach. Can’t miss it. A big, old house stuck up on the rise, where the cliffs used to be.’
There was a flush of excitement on his pinkish, flabby face as he watched the carriage turn out of the courtyard. Without bothering to take off his apron he followed it to the end of Mermaid Street. Then, at the best pace he could manage, he set off for Watchbell Street, gasping a little for breath, and heedless of the stares of his business friends in the town who hadn’t seen Dick Randell move with such speed since the days when he had been a slim young ostler at The Mermaid.
But Randell was heading for Robert Turnbull’s office in Watchbell Street. Of all the people, in Rye, Robert Turnbull would be the one most interested in the news that a carriage had set out along the Appledore road to Blake’s Reach.
II
The rain had started to fall when they came to Blake’s Reach. For five miles they had followed the road over the Marsh ‒ on one side were the miles of flat pasture lands, interlaced with countless winding dykes and ditches and banks. The wind bent and swayed the new spring grass and the tall rushes; the young lambs huddled close by the ewes for shelter. On their left was the broken line of low, Kent hills ‒ the cliff face of past centuries ‒ sweeping round in a wide arc to encircle the Marsh from east to west. Jane recalled the host at The Mermaid telling her that once the sea had lapped the base of those hills; now The Wall held back the sea ‒ a frail, man-made thing which the Marshmen watched and guarded ceaselessly against tide and wind and storm. In the grey light the Marsh seemed to Jane a faintly sinister place, fertile and yet desolate, unnatural looking. The wild clouds came sweeping in from the sea. The farmhouses were tight and prosperous; they were also withdrawn and alone. Shut away from the rain and the wind in the snug carriage, she shivered momentarily, and could not have said why.
Suddenly William stirred and touched her hand. ‘Look ‒ yonder! That’s Blake’s Reach!’
‘Blake’s Reach ahead, mistress!’ Patrick called from the box.
She craned forward to look. It was on the left ‒ as the innkeeper had said. The house stood half-way up a steep, sparsely wooded ridge which rose sharply from the level of the Marsh. Through the rain and the gathering mist they could see only the outline of the house. There were two wings, one of mellow rosy brick, and the other, older and smaller, was a jumble of sloping roofs and blackened oak and plaster. A few poplars and elms gathered about it. An orchard straggled down the hill to meet the dyke at the bottom.
The carriage wheels rumbled on the bridge that spanned the dyke, and the horses started the pull up the steep hill. The tall gates of Blake’s Reach stood open to the world ‒ gates of massive rusted iron, and stone walls over-grown with ivy. Patrick took the difficult turning on the hill without pause, and swept along the short drive to the space formed by the L-shaped buildings.
Jane’s hand moved convulsively. ‘Oh … oh, my lord!’
Against the racing clouds she saw the tall chimneys, and the cracked and broken chimney-pots. Over the porch were rose vines, grown to monstrous proportions and full of dead wood, like gnarled old trees; someone had tried to cut the vine away from the crest chiselled in the stonework over the door. Jane recognized some of the heraldings she had seen in the crest of the Cinque Ports. Ivy covered these walls too ‒ some of it overgrown so that it sealed the casement windows. Nettles and weeds were high in the tangled lawn; shrubs fought half-heartedly with the vines that weighed them down. Midway down the slope was a broken stone wall which might once have sheltered a rose garden. The wind tore at the young buds on the vines, and splattered the rain against the dirty casements. The leaves of last autumn, and the winter’s mud lay piled against the doorstep. There was an air of deadness over the whole place.
‘There’s no one here,’ Jane breathed, half to herself. ‘There’s some mistake! ‒ this isn’t Blake’s Reach!’
But she uttered the words hopelessly, knowing that nothing she could say would make this spectacle of ruin disappear. This was Blake’s Reach, without a doubt. This was the ruin to which Anne had refused to return, this was the decayed farm of Adam Thomas’s description. A feeling of doom and hopeless fatality was here like a visible cloud.
Patrick jumpe
d down from the box. He knocked loudly with the whip handle on the door. There was no sound at all from within. ‘Open up there! Open up!’
William got down beside him; General sniffed and pawed a little before the door, and then his ears cocked and he moved back down the drive to the corner of the house. All three of them turned and looked after him.
An old woman appeared there ‒ an old woman wiping her hands in her apron. She had thrown a shawl over her head against the rain; grey wisps of hair had escaped it, and blew in the wind. She stood and surveyed the group and the carriage warily.
‘What do ye want? Who are ye?’
Jane got down from the carriage slowly. ‘This is Blake’s Reach?’ she said.
‘Aye …’ The answer was choked off as the old woman’s gaze came to rest fully on Jane. Her features contracted sharply; her brow wrinkled, knit in close lines. She began to walk purposefully towards Jane, ignoring the others. She stood and peered up into the girl’s face.
‘Mercy on us!’ Wonderingly she shook her head. ‘Can it be? ‒ Miss Anne’s child? Is that who ye are?’
Jane nodded. ‘And William also.’ She touched the child’s shoulder.
The woman gazed from one face to the other. With a hand that trembled slightly she reached out and touched William’s red curls, brushed them back off his forehead in a gesture that she seemed to have been performing all her life.
‘Mercy on us,’ she said again, more gently. ‘I never thought to see this day!’ Her eyes were bright with fierce, unshed tears. She turned back to Jane. ‘You’ll be her child by Captain Howard?’
‘My name’s Jane ‒ Jane Howard.’
The woman dropped a stiff, quick curtsey. ‘I’m Kate Reeve, Mistress ‒ an’ I cared for Miss Anne from the day she was born, till the day she went away with Tom Howard. She’ll have talked of me, perhaps?’
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