She was shaking with nervous impatience by the time she slid down from Bess and hammered on Paul’s kitchen door. The sounds echoed strangely through the house. For the first time she paused to wonder what she would do if he were not there. She tried the latch and it yielded.
Paul was still sleeping in the tumbled four-poster. She shook his bare shoulder violently.
‘Paul! Wake up! … do you hear me? Wake up!’
His eyes flickered open, and closed immediately. Then they opened wide with an expression of startled surprise.
‘Jane! What in the name of Heaven are you doing here?’
She drew back a little from the bed, frowning. ‘You said I could come any time. Wasn’t that what you said?’
He propped himself up on his elbow; the movement seemed to pain him. Under the covers his body was naked. He rubbed his hand wearily across his eyes. ‘Of course I said it ‒ and I meant it! But I didn’t expect you to-day … now. What time is it? …’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘My head feels as if it’s still the middle of the night.’
She shook him again impatiently. ‘It isn’t the middle of the night for me! I’ve something to talk to you about ‒ and I want you to pay attention. Here!’
She tossed the reticule on to the blanket. ‘Look at that! ‒ Five hundred pounds!’ Her voice had an edge of triumph.
Abruptly he sat up; she watched his expression change. His features seemed to contract, and even darken under the rough sun-streaked hair. He didn’t open the reticule; instead he poked at it, as if it were a strange and vicious animal.
‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded. ‘What have you been doing?’
Her eyes grew cold. ‘Where did I get it? … I went to the only source I have. The one you told me to go to.’
‘Turnbull!’ Suddenly he reached out and caught her arm in a tight ungentle grip, pulling her closer to the bed. ‘Turnbull! ‒ that’s who gave it to you, isn’t it? Answer me!’ He jerked at her arm again.
‘Of course it was! Who else!’
Now he caught her by the shoulders, and dragged her down close to him.
‘Last night you got it, didn’t you? Last night when you went to his house?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘How could anyone who was in Rye last night not know it? I watched you ‒ I watched you from the windows of the Mermaid. It was quite a show! … and don’t think it wasn’t appreciated. You were all the rage in the tap-room of the Mermaid ‒ and every other ale-house in Rye, I’ll wager! Every story they could remember about your mother was raked up ‒ and some that never happened were thrown in for good measure. Oh, yes ‒ I know about you, and inside of a week half the county will know!’
She tried to pull away from him, and couldn’t.
‘And so you got drunk!’ she said. ‘You were stupid enough to be jealous, and you got drunk!’
‘Why shouldn’t I be jealous? It was more than any man could stand to see …’
‘Oh, hush! Like every man you’re a fool ‒ and a sentimental fool, at that! Didn’t you guess why I would go to Robert Turnbull? ‒ didn’t you ask me to find the money?’
‘You didn’t have to make a spectacle of yourself! You didn’t have to make it look as if you were paying a call on a man who was in love with you.’
‘Perhaps he is in love with me! Does that matter to you? Didn’t I bring the money, and isn’t that all that matters to you?’
‘Damn you! No! Four days ago perhaps it was all that mattered to me. Can’t you see that things have changed since then. You must know …’
He released her shoulders, and she felt his broad hands cup her face. She could feel the callouses on his palms as he caressed her cheeks gently.
‘Jane! ‒ dear Jane! There is nothing now that matters except you ‒ and Robert Turnbull can take his money back and go to hell! We don’t want it, Jane.’
‘Why?’ She frowned, trying to push herself back to read his expression. ‘Can’t you get the lugger? Has something gone wrong?’
He sighed and dropped his hands. ‘I want to talk to you, Jane. Come and sit here, by me.’ He patted the blanket close to him. She obeyed with some reluctance, mistrusting the softness of his tone. He leaned back again on his elbow, one of his hands holding hers tightly.
‘We don’t want the money because I think we should clear out of this place.’
‘What are you talking about? Leave here and go …’
‘The West Indies.’
She stared at him unbelievingly, her mouth dropping open a trifle as the meaning of his words came fully to her. ‘Have you gone mad, Paul Fletcher? Do you think I’m going to leave Blake’s Reach?’
‘Leaving Blake’s Reach you’d be leaving nothing! I’ve told you ‒ you can’t put life back into a dead thing. And Blake’s Reach is dead!’
She tossed the idea aside with a gesture, unable to give it any importance. ‘I seem to remember you told me you hadn’t got the money yet to set yourself up in the Indies. Has something happened to change that?’
‘Nothing has happened except you! Nothing is changed ‒ I still haven’t the money to set myself up.’
She shrugged. ‘Then why talk of it?’
‘Because I must! Because this is an ugly and foul business you’re about to get yourself into, and I’d rather a thousand times take you out of this than own the finest sloop in the Caribbean.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘But what would you do out there.’
‘There are smaller ways to start. There are businesses I could manage, plantations that need overseers …’
‘No!’ The sound came from her almost as a shriek. She tried to pull away from him.
‘You expect to take me to that! To be someone’s servant! I’ve had enough of it, I tell you. Enough of it! A few months ago I didn’t know Blake’s Reach existed, but now I’ve found it, and I have position and respect, and soon I will have money. Do you expect me to leave what I’ve got now … and everything I hope for in the future?’
Then her tone dropped, and grew gentle and pleading. ‘Please, Paul ‒ try to understand.’ She touched the reticule briefly. ‘Neither of us can do anything without money. And this is the start of it. Why shouldn’t we take it when everyone else does? Just a few runs, Paul ‒ just a few cargoes to get us on our feet. This money belongs to Robert Turnbull, and I mean to pay it back. I can’t if you won’t help me.’
‘But you still believe that you can make something of Blake’s Reach?’
She was cautious. ‘I can try. I fail, that will be the only thing that convinces me.’
‘And me? What becomes of me? Must I wait round here while you conduct your experiment? Or am I of interest to you only because I can be of service?’
Her mouth grew a trifle grim. ‘I don’t want you to say that!’
‘I do say it because it may be true. I’ve seen better men than I wither in the clutch of an ambitious woman. I won’t let it happen to me.’
‘Nothing will happen to you that you don’t want to happen! What difference can a few months make in your life? I’ve known you a few days ‒ and you ask me to say I’ll give up something that’s in my blood. If Blake’s Reach is no good I’ll find out soon enough. But give me time …’
‘And time for me to make enough contraband runs? That’s the time you’re thinking of, Jane, isn’t it?’
She didn’t answer him directly.
‘Will you do it, Paul? Will you do it for both of us?’
A look of defeat and weariness settled on his face. He seemed to struggle against it for a few seconds, and knowing that the struggle was useless. He put his hand to his forehead.
‘My head hurts,’ he said. ‘As if the boom swung round and hit me. Perhaps I have been hit, and I’m too dazed and stupid to know it.’
Then he shrugged. ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’
She leaned towards him. ‘It won’t be for long. Just a few months. That’s all.’
‘Will you be satisfied with a f
ew months ‒ or will you grow greedy like all the others.’
She put her face close to his. ‘Do we have to fight? Do we have to talk of the Indies or Blake’s Reach? Can’t we just be happy with one another, and because of one another. Paul … I’ve wanted you so much.’
‘Wanted me? … do you love me, Jane?’
‘Heaven help me! Yes … yes I love you. And I’ve wanted you close to me, near me.’
‘Is this true?’
She put her arms about his bare body, resting her head against his shoulder.
‘Why do we have to disbelieve? Let us just be happy as we know how to be. I want to forget all the other things … I just want you.’
The memory of the journey across the Marsh last night, weeping in the darkness of the carriage, and of her swift, lonely ride to Old Romney in the dawn was strongly upon her. She felt the strength of Paul’s arms, and then felt them tighten about her, and the memory and the fear grew fainter. He was real and living, his head bent close to hers, his breathing in rhythm with her own. She could draw determination and confidence from him, and energy and a zest for living. Because he had strength, she also was stronger.
‘Why is it,’ she whispered, ‘that I can find peace only with you?’
‘Stay with me then,’ he said. He pulled her backwards, and their heads were close together on the pillow.
Eight
Once Paul had committed himself to making the run, Jane’s part in the matter was finished. She ran against a hard wall of determination when she tried to enter into the arrangements and plans.
‘Stay out of this, Jane,’ he said curtly. ‘This is not something for a woman to dabble in ‒ it’s dangerous and it’s ugly. Stay out!’
So he went his own way, and kept his own counsel, as he had done before, and she had to contain her impatience and her desire to share his activities and his dangers in the only way she could. In the following weeks she settled to the day-to-day routine of Blake’s Reach. The spring flush of the May days gave place to June; over the broad acres of the Marsh the lambs were growing fat, and the June roses were blooming in the hedges. The land lay peacefully under the bright summer sun, but it was a false sense of peace. Even to Blake’s Reach, unconnected with the main highways to London or the ports, came the news from Paris, news of the growing tension and the powerless position of the King, of the daily executions. With each mention of the Revolution, Jane’s heart stilled for a second ‒ a little intake of breath; there was always the thought that the next packet to Dover might bring word of Charles Blake … Charles, dead or alive. As time went on she found it easier if she pretended that Charles Blake had never existed. That way there could be no guilt, and no pity.
But the fishermen of Kent and Sussex had a closer contact with the Revolution than the mere exchange of talk and gossip. France was now at war with Austria, and as the excesses of the Revolution grew, its victims grew more desperate; many of them crossed the Channel in a smuggler’s lugger, paying their last gold for the privilege of sharing space with a contraband cargo, sometimes cowering among the brandy casks as the lugger ran from the guns of the Revenue cruiser, and landing on a lonely beach, thankful that the moon was hidden behind the clouds. For many of them their first knowledge of England was the sight of lamplight gleaming faintly on muskets and pistols.
At this stage of the Revolution, those who came were penniless. They could be met on the Dover road, frightened, bewildered, streaming towards London and the hope of help and shelter from the people they had called friends in the secure days of the court at Versailles. The fear in Jane’s heart was that some day one of them would start out from Dover across the Marsh on roads he had known as a boy, moving with certainty towards Blake’s Reach.
Robert Turnbull knew her fear, and he encouraged her to talk of it, to try to ease the load.
‘One of my business associates at Dover enquires constantly among those who come across, Jane,’ he said. ‘I hear nothing fresh ‒ some remember him in prison and most think he’s dead. But they’re frightened for themselves, and have no thought to spare for a man they scarcely knew.’
And her hand, passing the tea-cup, or the wine-glass, would tremble slightly, and her young face grew rigid and disciplined into an expression of indifference. He watched the struggle between pity and self-preservation.
‘There will be war,’ he would say. ‘There will be war with England sooner or later, Jane. They will find a reason to execute King Louis …’
‘War …? If there is war, will we ever have news of him? There will be no way to know … your contacts will be cut off from news …’
He nodded. ‘It could happen that you would have to wait out the war here at Blake’s Reach …’
She shuddered. ‘Waiting … and never knowing. I don’t think I could bear it …’
But her faith in herself was stronger than her belief that Charles Blake was still alive. Deliberately she went on with her plans for Blake’s Reach, stretching into a future where Charles had no place. She spent some of her hoarded money to make further repairs to the house, to renew some window glass, to scythe the long grass in the orchard. Money had to be spent where it would be most noticed because it had to serve as evidence to Robert that she was directing his loan where she had said it would go. There was no possibility of buying rams until after Paul had brought a cargo across, and some gold flowed back into her pockets; but accompanied by Lucas and Patrick, she made tours of inspection to the best farms in the district, and afterwards filled Robert’s ears with knowledgeable talk she had picked up. In the habits fashioned by London’s best tailor she was observed by many sharp-eyed farmers’ wives, and occasionally the occupant of a carriage, passing Jane and the small entourage on the road, would bend forward to get a better view. Jane was comfortably aware that her presence was known and talked of in the houses of the gentry across the Marsh, and she waited for the day when the first of those carriages should turn in at the gates of Blake’s Reach.
By now the vegetable garden was planted, and in immaculate order; Kate went each day to stand and stare admiringly at the sprouting crop; the beginnings of the herb garden were made. Two lads from Appledore came to the kitchen asking for odd jobs, and Jane used this cheap labour to whitewash the dairy and the old cow stalls; the vegetable plot was fenced in, and the poultry rigorously kept away. Two carpenters from St. Mary’s ‒ the village to which the Blake church officially belonged ‒ came and did some work on the stables, at the same time appraising the quality of the greys, Blonde Bess, and the pony which Robert had sent for William. Patrick and Kate kept their mouths closed, and the report went round, neither confirmed nor denied, that the new mistress of Blake’s Reach might not be a great heiress, but she was not a pauper. Jane stitched away at the faint signs of wear in the table damask she had brought from London, added lace to a selected few dresses whose necks were too low for day wear, and kept her own council. She sensed the change in Blake’s Reach, and was happy because of it. She saw Luke and Jed and Kate take pride in the new dignity that had come to them, saw them go to their work with will and energy, comfortable because Blake’s Reach and its occupant were no longer a subject for laughter and scorn in the village. She was beginning to taste the satisfaction of her accomplishment. The days went on, and Charles Blake’s name was heard less and less.
She rode on the Marsh often with only William beside her, discovering its variety and its sameness, struggling to memorize the tricks of its winding roads and its bridges. William’s face now wore a heavy pattern of freckles, and his hair was bleached with the sun. His clothes were often dirty, torn and mismatched; his hands and fingernails were grimy from weeding in the vegetable patch. But even in these few weeks his child’s body and temperament had taken on a certain toughness that made him unafraid to walk the mile to Appledore, and join the village children in the rough-and-tumble games they played. He came back one day bloody from a fight with the boy who had called him ‘The Bastard.’ In a fashion he underst
ood that this would be his name always, but he would accept it only from those he knew were his friends and had earned the right to call him that with affection. The day after the fight he returned to Appledore as usual to join the games, and among the women watching from the cottage doors there were raised eyebrows, and the opinion in the ale-house that evening was that the young ’un at Blake’s Reach was tarred with the same brush as the mistress. In the village there was a kind of inverted pride in William because he had been beaten and had come back to the possibility of more.
The school books he had brought from London gathered dust, but he was learning other things. He developed an eye almost as sharp as Jane’s for a bargain ‒ telling her at which farm the eggs were cheapest, and whose honey was the best, and at what prices. It was he who brought the news of the widow at Snargate who was selling up, and whose sow Jane bought cheaply. General was, as always, close by him wherever he moved, smelling of the stable and the saddle-soap and oil William handled constantly. Looking at them, Jane found it difficult to recall the first time she had seen these two ‒ the child in the blue velvet coat, with the delicate features, the silken dog posed at his side. William seemed years older, and the London child was gone. He had the run of Blake’s Reach, and beyond it, from sunrise until he grudgingly gave up his struggle against weariness at night. He went out to meet his new world with the ardour of someone who has been, unknowingly, in prison. Never again did Jane hear him weep at night for Anne.
But Jane forced William to return to the blue velvet coat on the Sunday they decorously climbed the hill to attend service at the Blake church. Neither of them wanted to go ‒ in Jane’s life there had been little time for church services, and they were something quite new for William ‒ but they both knew what was expected of them now. And so they took their places in the carved pew with the faded blue cushions, emptied now of the tarpaulin wrapped bundles of lace, and the brandy kegs. The church, Jane noticed, still smelled strongly of tobacco and wool.
Blake's Reach Page 23