Cherrybrook Rose

by Tania Crosse

  Rose sucked in her lips. Charles had money, and he knew people in high places. But she might as well try to jump the moon as ask for his help. He had always made his opinion of Dartmoor’s convicts abundantly clear.

  ‘The best I can hope for,’ Seth went on, ‘is that I’m not discovered here until I’m able to leave. And I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me.’

  ‘And . . . what will you do then?’ Rose questioned him, shying away from the sadness that gripped her heart at the thought of his leaving.

  ‘I met someone while I was being held in the police cells in Tavistock. There was a street brawl the night after I was arrested, and I ended up sharing a cell for a couple of days with a fellow who was waiting for a coroner’s court hearing. The case against him was thrown out, but when I was brought before the magistrate, I was spirited away to Exeter to await the next assizes. The prison there was rife with illness. I never had a day’s sickness in the army, but in there, conditions were so bad, I ended up with what they said was pneumonia, not that they cared too much. My chest has been a bit weak ever since. Anyway, I’d struck up quite a friendship with this chap, and I think he’d probably help me to get away. Maybe get on that ship to America. Ironic, really, that I ended up serving my sentence back here on Dartmoor. I served my initial period in Millwall, you see. They send you somewhere else for nine months’ solitary to break you down first. It doesn’t even count towards your sentence. Anyway, after Millwall, I could have been sent almost anywhere for my sentence proper, but I suppose robbery with violence made me one of the worst felons in the land, which is why they sent me here. But this other man, he was a local farmer. From a place called Peter Tavy. On the moor somewhere, he said. Do you know it?’

  Rose nodded. ‘Vaguely. I went there once with my father on business. En route to Mary Tavy where there’s a huge mining agglomeration called Wheal Friendship. Used to be copper back along, but it’s been arsenic for many a long year. My father were manager of the gunpowder mills near here, and we used to supply them.’

  She glanced across at him, and caught the arresting clarity of his hazel eyes. ‘You were very close to your father, weren’t you?’ His voice was faltering, sensitive, and with no one to confide in for so long, Rose felt an overwhelming urge to weep, to allow the great, suppressed emotion of her grief to escape in a gushing torrent.

  ‘Yes.’ She scraped the simple word from her throat, surprised at how near she was to sudden tears. But they had been talking for some time, and she must have Seth hidden again before Ned returned. ‘This farmer, what were his name?’

  ‘Pencarrow. Richard Pencarrow. I can’t be sure, but I reckon he’d help me.’

  He stopped as the cough irritated his lungs again and he struggled to stifle it. Rose frowned. He had been secreted in the stable for just about a week, with at least another five to go before he could walk out of her life. The weather had turned cold and dank again, and if it worsened his cough and he couldn’t smother it he would be discovered in no time.

  Rose tried to conceal it, but fear churned uneasily inside her.

  Twenty-One

  With Charles away, it was a case of dreaming up errands to despatch Ned upon. Rose had instructed Cook and Patsy to spring-clean the house from top to bottom so that everything would be in order when the baby arrived. It was unlike Mrs Chadwick to order them about, but it was probably the growing burden of her pregnancy. She spent hours out with the puppies, Cook grumbled mildly, but at least once she had issued her instructions for the day she let them be.

  Not so Ned, whom she was for ever sending all over the place. Often to Tor Royal for extra butter and cream, and she never complained if he dallied an hour with the comely dairymaid there. And one day, Rose had declared a desperate craving for some bananas, if you please! If Ned couldn’t find any in Tavistock, he was to take the train to Plymouth, where he surely would! Rose had said it didn’t matter if he took all day! But while he was out, Dr Seaton had come to check on her health, and while he was there, he was able to re-plaster Seth’s ankle in complete secrecy.

  Seth’s presence had given Rose a purpose in life, something to spur her into action every morning instead of wandering aimlessly about the house. She lived for the moment when it was safe to enter the loose box with whatever provisions she had purloined for him, relishing in the subterfuge she had engaged upon. She couldn’t wait to take up her position sitting on the bale near Amber and her pups, facing the open top half of the door so that she could see anyone who approached and warn Seth to hide himself. She bathed the shot wounds in his shoulder regularly, and there were at last signs of improvement. His cough, too, seemed to have eased, a huge relief as it could so easily give him away, and despite the continuing cold and rain, his health appeared to be a little better.

  ‘When’s the baby due?’ he had asked amiably.

  At just over two weeks old, the puppies were finding their legs and beginning to stumble away from their mother, tippling over quite comically. Amber watched over them indulgently, retrieving them in her soft mouth if they wandered too far, and Rose found she could spend all day being entertained by their antics.

  She looked up. Seth was laughing softly as the tiny runt of the litter had toppled on to her minute snout, but in an instant was valiantly heaving herself on to her wobbly legs once more. Seth’s generous mouth was stretched with amusement in the near beard on his strong jaw, his face for once quite relaxed, and with his light hair beginning to grow from its convict cut, Rose’s heart seemed to trip over itself for not the first time and she allowed the feeling to lap innocently about her tangled emotions.

  ‘Eight weeks.’ She smiled a little ruefully, for it seemed a long way off, and she didn’t want to contemplate a time when Seth would no longer be a part of her life and she would have to endure her future as Charles’s wife.

  ‘And . . . are you looking forward to it?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ She shook her head, as it was a strange question, asked in an even stranger tone of voice.

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Oh, yes! I think he’s always wanted a son.’

  ‘But . . . every time you speak of him,’ she heard Seth’s quiet, intense voice, ‘you seem to . . . I don’t know . . . close up.’

  Rose lowered her eyes. She couldn’t fathom why, but she somehow felt compelled to answer him. As if it would ease the terrible ache inside. ‘I thought I loved him,’ she barely whispered. ‘I wanted to love him. I still do. ’Tis why the child’s so important.’

  She didn’t see Seth flinch. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I hope it all works out well for you.’

  She braced herself to glance at him again. ‘Thank you. I’m certain it will. We’ve been married little less than a year, so there should be some hope for us.’

  ‘You weren’t married, then, when we first met, if you can call it that?’

  ‘At the tunnel, you mean? No. I thought back then that my charmed life would go on for ever. But it doesn’t, does it?’ she sighed sadly.

  ‘No.’ Seth’s eyes had narrowed and he stared ahead at some unseen spot on the opposite wall, his face set. ‘I was really happy, wandering around the countryside and taking each day as it came. Enjoying my freedom from the army. And then look what happened.’

  Rose put out a hand and squeezed his arm, her fingers somehow tingling as she touched him. He brought his eyes to rest on her, and she saw the hurt in them.

  ‘I still can’t believe it, you know. I still keep thinking that I’m going to wake up and find it’s all been a terrible nightmare. But it hasn’t, has it? And now I shall probably end up paying dearly for trying to escape.’

  ‘But you might make it away. And if you are caught, they might be lenient. After all, you did save a warder’s life.’

  ‘If that’s what I did. And I hardly think they’d take that into consideration,’ he said with a bitter grunt. ‘Some of the other inmates did take exception to what I did, though, and landed me
in the infirmary.’

  Rose winced as she nodded. ‘Yes, I heard. The warder. He’s my friend’s father. He told me. Or at least, he told Molly and she told me.’

  ‘Really? There’s not much escapes you, is there, Mrs Chadwick?’

  Rose smiled back. ‘No, I suppose there isn’t. ’Tis because of Gospel, I reckon. I ride all over the place on him. At least . . .’ She faltered, pulling a wistful face. ‘At least, I did until Charles stopped me. So I know everyone hereabouts, and they know me. I’ve lived here, or at least over at Cherrybrook, for so many years.’

  ‘He’s a magnificent animal. Your Gospel, I mean. I’d love to ride him.’ But the sudden excitement on his face died in an instant. ‘But I’ll never get to, will I?’ he murmured.

  And Rose turned away, choking on what she knew was the answer.

  Her feet were leaden as she dragged herself across the yard a week later. The pain in her heart was unbearable. She wanted to cry, to scream, to lash out against the invisible force of fate that was tearing her to shreds, since there was nothing she could do but accept the inevitable.

  ‘A telegram came earlier,’ she told Seth, her voice broken and dejected. ‘Charles is coming home. He’ll be here tomorrow night.’

  Their eyes met, clinging to each other, recognizing with appalled compassion what it would mean to them. Seth scrambled to his feet, taking Rose’s hands as she stepped towards him, but his own words sounded strange. Detached. ‘You knew he’d be coming home soon. He is your husband.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I don’t want him to come back. Not ever. I wish to God I’d never married him!’

  She stamped her foot, flicking her head so that her hair whipped across her face. Seth smoothed it back. Softly. And then placed his hands firmly on her shoulders.

  ‘You don’t mean that, Rose.’

  She reluctantly raised her eyes to his face, but in her own anguish, didn’t see the torment etched in his features. She drew in an enormous breath, trying desperately to calm herself. ‘No, I suppose not. But our marriage was a mistake and . . . Oh, Seth, I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do. Have your child. Make the very most of your life. Be a good wife and mother. Your husband can’t be so bad.’

  Rose blinked at him, her mouth working desperately. How could she tell him how Charles treated her in bed, like a possession, never imagining that she yearned for comfort rather than fear in his arms? ‘No, I suppose not,’ she answered instead. ‘He just always wants everything to be the way he wants it.’

  ‘Don’t we all, in our own way?’

  She gazed up at him, at his understanding smile, his honest, intense eyes beneath his mildly raised eyebrows. All she could see in him was goodness and compassion and suddenly all her suppressed emotions erupted in an unstoppable tide. And it seemed so natural when Seth drew her against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to breathe in the closeness of him, his strength. Dear Lord, she was going to miss him so much.

  ‘’Tis going to be really difficult when Charles gets back,’ she said, tearing herself away. ‘And ’twill be so much more dangerous for you . . .’

  Seth sighed weightily and bit on his lip. ‘If it wasn’t for this wretched ankle . . . I wonder if I got away at night. They’re not looking for someone with his leg in plaster, after all.’

  ‘No, but they are still looking. And you wouldn’t get far. And even if you made your way to find this Richard Pencarrow’s farm, Peter Tavy’s probably ten miles by road. And that’s literally going right past the prison gates. You’d need to make a detour of miles, and the chances are you’d get lost on the moor, not knowing it at all, and at night in the dark . . . No. ’Tis probably safer you stay here.’

  ‘But what about you, Rose? If I’m caught here, you’re deeply implicated.’

  ‘Oh, you let me take care of that,’ she smiled reassuringly, though in truth, she had no idea how . . .

  They made the most of those last few hours, talking as if there was no tomorrow. Which for them, there wasn’t. And never could be. She told him of her father’s accident and how she had tried in vain to secure a new home for herself, for Henry and Florrie until the only answer had been to marry Charles, which she had believed would bring them all happiness. And Seth told her about the army and his time in India.

  They talked on, unaware for some time of the quickly passing minutes, relishing the ease which comes to two like-minded people, until they suddenly realized Ned would soon return with Charles. It was like a final farewell, and yet not, for it would be another two and a half weeks before Seth could limp out of her life.

  Rose kept delaying the moment of departure, whispering to the mound of straw so that anyone who saw her might have had a doubt as to her sanity. And when she finally lumbered to her feet and walked away, her heart was wrenching in strange, unwanted pain.

  She heard him coughing as she crossed the yard and her stomach clenched sickeningly. The days since Charles had returned had been a torment to her. She had hardly been able to come out to Seth at all, and yesterday she had been unable to bring him so much as a drink of water. This morning, though, she had a mug of hot, sweet tea in her hand, which she knew Seth would devour like a man lost in the desert. But the sound of his cough froze her heart with fear, for if she could hear him, so too could anyone else.

  She flew into Gospel’s loose box, almost tripping over the puppies, much to Amber’s indignation. Seth wasn’t even covered properly by the straw, but was lying on his front, half propped up on one elbow as he struggled against the violent, uncontrollable coughing. Rose was on her knees beside him, but her hand on his shoulder only distracted him for a moment before a fresh spasm gripped his lungs. Dear God Almighty, what was she to do? The harrowing cough was clearly agony for him, and when he finally managed to subdue it and drew the back of his hand over his mouth, it came away streaked with blood-stained spittle.

  ‘Drink this,’ Rose said, horrified, as she pushed the mug into his hand and instinctively put a supportive arm about his shoulders. She could feel the searing heat coming from him, the brutal trembling that shook his body, and her forehead pleated in dread. Seth tried to take a breath to drink the tea, but only succeeded in spluttering into it and spilling some down his front. She steadied his hand, and as the hot liquid soothed his throat, she felt him relax against her.

  ‘It feels . . . like pneumonia again,’ he managed to rasp.

  ‘Then you must give yourself up.’ Her heart flooded with the empty numbness of acceptance, as if she had known all along that this would happen. But why now, when Seth was so near to being able to make his escape? It was as if the cruel hand of fate had been teasing them, deceiving them, only to hurl them back into the quagmire of despair at the last minute.

  ‘No. I’ve got . . . to get to Richard’s farm.’

  ‘But, Seth, you could . . . you could die.’

  ‘I’d sooner take that chance.’ And he collapsed into another choking fit of coughing. ‘I just can’t face . . . another ten years . . . maybe more . . . in that hell-hole . . . for something I didn’t do,’ he gasped. ‘If I give myself up, I’m no coward but . . . I won’t be flogged when I don’t deserve it. Oh, God, I’m so cold . . .’

  Rose watched, her heart in savage pain, as he tried to slurp at the tea between rattling breaths. If only Dr Seaton were due to check on her pregnancy, but he would not be coming again for several days, and Rose Maddiford, whose indomitable spirit had always fought back, had fallen into a yawning chasm of despair. There was nothing she could do. All she could think of was to fetch a glass of water so that Seth could take a good dose of laudanum. With any luck, the drug-induced sleep might also suppress his racking cough. And give her time to think.

  In her headlong anxiety, she didn’t see Ned Cornish stand back from the tack-room door at the opposite end of the stable block. His blinkered mind had only been on one thing lately, seducing the dairymaid at Tor Roy
al. He’d managed to get his hand up her skirt, and was convinced his aching, throbbing member wouldn’t be far behind. But the master’s coming home had thrown a spanner in the works. Rose hadn’t sent him on one of her fool’s errands since her husband’s return, and now his free hours that he normally relished – as although he had nothing to do, he must remain on duty in case he was needed to tack up one of the horses at short notice – had become a frustrating burden to him as he dreamt of what he might have been doing. Slowly, his half-witted brain became curious. It hadn’t struck him as particularly odd the way Rose had been . . . yes, getting him out of the way, he was sure of it now. She had even been neglecting that bloody nag of hers in favour of the two dogs and the litter of mongrels they had produced between them, constantly crossing back and forth with a drink in her hand and extra food for the bitch. But, surely the dog couldn’t eat so much. Surely there was something else going on?

  And then he heard it. Someone trying desperately to muffle a grating, vicious cough. And if he wasn’t mistaken, it sounded like a man.

  Ned’s eyes widened, then narrowed into cunning slits as his mouth twisted into a sly smirk. There’d been that escaped convict, hadn’t there, disappeared into thin air. Well, he hadn’t disappeared at all, had he? He was hiding in Gospel’s bloody loose box. And Rose had been looking after him! Typical of her! She was known to have some sympathy for the bastards banged up in the prison, and how far had that sympathy gone? When Ned thought of the years Rose had tried his patience, and he’d never had so much as a willing kiss out of her! But what had she given to that bugger out in the stable?