The de Wolfe of Wharf Street

by Carter, Elizabeth Ellen

  “I’m more concerned about losing our heads!”

  Gabriel allowed the young man to pull himself free.

  “But if we don’t do something, we won’t be able to stay together, and that was the promise we made when mother died,” continued Raphael.

  Evoking the memory of their late mother was a low blow.

  “Well that will be the last thing we’ll have to worry about if they hang us for stealing.” Gabriel’s white-hot anger continued to burn. “Do you think mother would have wanted that? Did she raise a bunch of thieves?”

  Michael put a hand on his shoulder once more, attempting the role of peacemaker, but Gabriel shrugged off the attempt at conciliation.

  He stormed to a cracked earthenware pot sitting on a shelf made of planking, and pulled a penny from the small collection of coins within. He held it up to show his brothers what he was taking.

  Hardacres together.

  Perhaps it had been a mistake to have made such a promise all those years ago when they’d been striplings together in the foundlings’ home.

  Hardacres…

  They looked nothing alike, although it was claimed they had the same mother.

  Gabriel was the tallest of the lot, lean with blond hair. Raphael was nearly as tall but, by contrast, his hair was black as coal and he joked that his father must have been a Welshman. Michael was the youngest, now eighteen, and the leanest. His hair was a murky brown which turned deepest red, the color of dark ale, in the sunlight.

  Silence fell. Michael had clearly lost the taste for excitement. He shoved their haul back into the sack.

  The blow also seemed to have knocked some sense into Raphael, too. He looked down at his feet, shamefaced. At that, Gabriel’s fury ebbed.

  “Look, we’ve got enough to get by until spring if we’re careful. We’ve made it through rougher times than this,” he said. “If you’re that concerned about our next meal, there’s always a sign-on for sailors at the docks.”

  It was an option none of them wanted. They would be separated then for sure.

  “I’m going down to the tavern to listen. I’ll know soon enough if the nightwatchmen still search, or whether they even know it’s us they’re looking for.” Gabriel pointed to the sack on their scarred timber table. “If that’s still here when I get back, then I’ll know what your decision is, and I’ll be out of here by daybreak.”

  Chapter Two

  After the scalding rush of blood through his veins, the walk to the Wharf Street Tavern felt cold and bleak. The carving of a wolf over the door looked particularly menacing tonight.

  The coin bought Gabriel a tankard of ale, a warm meal and the right to linger by the fire until closing time.

  He asked Pettigrew, the innkeeper, if the night had been quiet. The man made a very good living by not expressing too much curiosity about his patrons, and he knew them well enough to know what such an inquiry meant.

  Have the thief takers been in? If so, were they looking for anyone in particular?

  The thinly-built man with an aquiline nose and sparse black hairs on his pate, simply shook his head.

  “Quiet? ’Tis a grave in here tonight. But ye never know. Could change.”

  That was good enough for Gabriel. He would wait until closing time to see if that circumstance altered.

  The drinkers paid no heed as he made his way through the bar and into the dining room which was less crowded now due to the lateness of the evening.

  The Wharf Street Tavern was just this side of respectable. It was even civilized enough to serve women in the dining room as it was one of the few lodging houses close to the wharf. It was a convenience for those obliged to spend the night having newly arrived by ship or who awaited passage across to Ireland, or further afield – even as far as the New World.

  The New World. The very name of it held promise – one of leaving the old world behind and starting anew. It was a hard journey, he’d heard. Not only did one have to survive months at sea, battered by the elements, there was the ever-present threat of piracy and, that, not even too far off England’s own shores.

  Few people lingered this evening; most likely they were patrons staying for the night. A pair of old men played dominoes. A family – mother, father and five children ranging from about ten to a babe in arms – huddled beside the fire. A clutch of sailors, possibly on shore leave for the first time in months, savored their food.

  Gabriel’s meal soon arrived, delivered to his table by Pettigrew’s wife. She was a blowsy woman with a work-stained apron over her wide hips. She ran a hand through frizzy black hair and offered him a smile that promised more than a hot meal.

  Gabriel rejected the invitation with a shake of his head. Mistress Pettigrew shrugged her shoulders and moved on, not so interested in him to press the matter.

  The tension that had coursed through him since the fight with his brothers thawed. The second mouthful of ale and appetizing food helped restore his humor.

  He retreated to the shadows, angling himself to see both the front door and the passage that led through to the kitchen and the back alley – an escape route if needed. But the only new group to enter was another gaggle of sailors who occupied the benches at the far end of his table.

  They paid no heed to the lone man at the end, their attention solely on their own conversation.

  But, after a while, Gabriel couldn’t help but listen in on their discussion. Rather, it was the one man who did all the talking.

  “Their ships are fast. Dozens upon dozens of oarsmen. They were upon us before we could fire a single shot in our defense. And the thing what stung the most is we was in British waters, almost in sight of home, when the Turk came across us.”

  The sailor continued to tell his tale of his three years in captivity – beaten on the soles of his bare feet and beaten on the belly – not so hard as to break skin mind, but rather expertly to make every movement agony, a reminder of his wretched state with or without chains.

  He told how he endured long days at the oars – sometimes as much as twenty hours. Their rations consisted of bread and water once a day. And it was only by luck a Royal Navy ship happened to encounter the xebec on which he was enslaved.

  The man considered himself one of the lucky ones. Forty oarsmen were killed in the salvos; another twenty drowned.

  “We’re no longer safe in our own waters,” observed another man. “Janszoon, that bastard Dutch pirate turned Turk, has taken over Lundy. Oh, they won’t touch our ships, not the big forty-gunners, but they pick off the smaller ones.”

  Gabriel flickered his attention to the front door and then around the room to discover that he wasn’t the only one listening attentively.

  Opposite him at another table, a woman he hadn’t noticed at first in the darkened corner caught his eye. A book at her hand lay open on the table in front of her. She looked down but it was at the table, not her book.

  The sailors in no way moderated their language, the language of the sea, of rough men living rough lives, to talk about their near escapes from the Barbary pirates. They spoke in brute and ugly detail of the raids on the coastal villages of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset – even villages of Ireland were plundered. They told of men murdered, and women and girls raped and sold into brutal sexual slavery.

  His companion eavesdropper looked up and noticed Gabriel seemingly for the first time herself. To his surprise, she did not look away. Nor did she smile.

  It was as though she could read his thoughts and he read hers. The only thing that gave her away was the flush of color to her cheeks. No words needed to be spoken to articulate the dismay, the sorrow, and the sharp desire for justice for those ripped from their homes as described by the sailors.

  The woman was soberly dressed; there was no enticing display or flesh to suggest she was a tavern wench or prostitute advertising her wares. Her dress was matronly, buttoned high to the collar. A starched white cap covered her hair, apart from a stray lock the color of which reminded Gabriel of
the old copper ewer that sat over the fire in their lodgings. Her dress was plain olive green in color, not adorned in any special way, yet there was something about it, about her, that gave him the impression she did not quite belong here in the tavern.

  Perhaps he had listened too long to the sailors because he found himself unaccountably protective of this stranger.

  Was she staying here? Alone?

  Surely, she wasn’t sailing from Barnstaple all by herself?

  He became conscious of the fact that he’d been staring when her lively green eyes finally dropped from his to the small volume at her hands.

  No doubt she’d overheard some of the things the sailors had said about the treatment of women captives. God, he preferred she had not, and couldn’t help imagining her becoming one of their victims. He shuddered. A gentlewoman such as she would not survive long being so mistreated.

  Now, Gabriel found his eyes falling to the nearly empty tankard. He could go back for another, there was still a farthing in his pocket, but he did not.

  The sailors rose from the bench in unison. Without betraying too much interest, Gabriel maintained his hunched position and looked out of the corner of his eye at the men.

  The one not long returned a captive was easy to spot. He was the one whose cheeks were sunken, whose clothes hung from his frame, a limping skeleton. If his skin had been pale and not tanned by the sun, one might consider him diseased.

  Out in the bar, the tavern owner yelled for final drinks.

  Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. No sign of the nightwatchmen. If there had been, they would have come by the Wharf Street Tavern for sure.

  He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, conscious of his exhaustion. He was hollowed out, weary down to the bone.

  He shook his head and rued the moment he let himself be talked by Raphael into being a common thief. He and his brothers had been lucky tonight. And luck alone was a fickle mistress. They had to be more clever and more enterprising if they were to make an honest and productive living.

  What a pity luck never seemed to be on their side.

  “Is aught amiss, sir?”

  Gabriel frowned. The woman – she couldn’t be talking to him, could she?

  He looked up and, indeed, those eyes, green, the color of her dress, looked right back at him. Now he could see her face properly. She was younger than he first supposed, about his age or thereabouts. The expression on her face showed a friendly concern.

  He stood from the table and bowed.

  “Much thanks for your kind inquiry, Mistress. My day has been long and did not end as well as I wished.”

  The woman’s lips parted, as though she were going to say more, but thought better of it. Without knowing why he did so, Gabriel pulled back the bench on the other side of her table and sat down.

  “You are a stranger to Barnstaple, I perceive. May I offer my services?”

  The young woman sat back, a small furrow settling between her brows. Gabriel experienced the strange sensation of being privy to her thoughts once again.

  Foolish for conversing with a stranger! Foolish for drawing attention to myself in a place that was rough and uncouth! And how does he know I am a stranger here?

  Of the foolish things he’d done tonight, this was but another to add to his sins.

  Gabriel offered a half-smile and rose from the table. “My apologies. I should not have intruded.” He was about to turn and return home – if he still had one – when the young woman spoke back.

  “Wait! You are correct, sir. I arrived in Barnstaple just today. I’ve been invited by my father’s cousin, the Reverend Makepeace, and his wife to help run the new almshouse and establish a small school.”

  “Then why are you here and not with them?”

  The half-smile on her face seemed half-amused, half-rueful. “They do not expect me until the ’morrow and so I thought I would make my own way in the morning when it is light.”

  Gabriel wasn’t sure what came over him. Perhaps, it was a need to do some penance for his part in tonight’s thievery.

  “I know the vicarage,” he said. “It’s only three streets away. In return for your thoughtfulness toward me, you would do me a service if you allowed me to escort you there as an alternative to staying here.”

  The woman looked about her and gathered her shawl about her shoulders. “I was told this tavern was a respectable enough place.”

  “There are degrees and degrees of respectability,” Gabriel shrugged.

  “And walking off into the night with a man who is a stranger to me is more respectable than staying under the same roof as Master Pettigrew and his family?” she inquired.

  Gabriel conceded the point with a tilt of his head.

  “I suppose introductions do seem appropriate at this juncture,” he added with a genuine smile. “I am Gabriel Hardacre. At your service, Mistress.”

  “Perspicacity Glenwood.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Gabriel found his own brow furrowing and, in return, this oddly-named woman gave him a look that clearly conveyed its meaning – that she had noted his surprise and found it amusing.

  “My late father named my sisters and brothers after virtues,” she said by way of explanation. “I’m known to most as Cassie and, before you laugh at my name, consider that your own means ‘champion of God’.”

  Gabriel frowned. He’d never given consideration to his name before.

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “Did you not know you were named for one of the archangels?”

  Gabriel shook his head in return. “Up until tonight, it has only been a name.”

  “Gabriel was the messenger of good tidings,” she added.

  Her words warmed him more than the fire in the grate or the ale in his body. “A messenger of good tidings”… that was something positive in his life, at least.

  Gabriel bowed once more. “Then it would please me to be a messenger tonight and deliver you unharmed into your cousin’s safe keeping.”

  Chapter Three

  If the truth be known, Cassie Glenwood did not really want to spend the night here either and was sorely beginning to regret her impulse to surprise Cousin Uriah by arriving two days earlier than planned. But she could no longer stand the well-meaning pity of her family.

  She had grown increasingly resentful of the fact that one reckless error of judgement with the wrong man seven years ago seemed to be the only thing which defined her in their eyes. The matter which sealed it completely was when she overheard her beloved sixteen-year-old niece refer to her as “my pitiable Aunt Perspicacity”.

  However, when Cassie arrived in Barnstaple by coach today, she hadn’t calculated on it being so late.

  The young man’s light blue eyes regarded her patiently, waiting for her to make up her mind. If she declined, she thought it likely he would doff his hat and bid her good night – perhaps a recommendation of trustworthiness in itself.

  Her resolution bounced to and fro. She really shouldn’t be tempted by his offer – they were but strangers to one another. And yet, she had watched him when they were overhearing the conversation among the sailors. The play of emotions over his face suggested he was not so inured to violence that learning the brutality of the Barbary pirates didn’t shock him.

  Finally, she made her decision.

  “I would be honored to have you as my champion,” she said.

  His broad shoulders seemed to straighten even more at her words.

  “Then I shall ask Pettigrew to keep your baggage here if your cousin would be kind enough to send a servant for it,” he said.

  While he left to attend to that, Cassie gathered her cloak and the large tapestry hold-all that would suffice her for the night.

  A little voice warned her again that it was not wise to wander off in the dark with a man she didn’t know. It was the same little voice that spoke recriminations to her daily ever since Hugh left, reminding her of her foolishness. Tonight, she chose to ignore it because, stra
nge though it was, she did know this man – at least enough to put her trust in him for this errand.

  In a moment, Gabriel returned. He took her bag and rested it over his left shoulder. She hadn’t considered why he had done so until they left the tavern and a breeze pulled at the edge of his coat, revealing the glint of a dagger blade at his side.

  She looked up only to find him looking down at her. Amusement played along his mouth.

  “We’re safe,” he assured her, “but it’s always wise to be certain.”

  She quickened her pace to keep up with Gabriel’s long strides as they made their way across Wharf Street to The Strand.

  Although it was bitterly cold, the night was clear.

  Ahead, the moonlight picked out the beautiful sixteen stone arches that made up Long Bridge over the River Taw. It was the largest bridge she had ever seen in her life. On a fine day, she would explore it more closely.

  Cassie felt the press of her own bag at her back as her guardian angel moved her along. He moved with confidence and purpose although she noticed that at each street they crossed or alleyway they passed, his focus was on the darkness beyond where the light could reach.

  Before she could ponder it further, he’d directed her up toward the market square and past new buildings with slate roofs that shone with the touch of evening dew.

  “There are the new almshouses on Litchdon Street,” said Gabriel. “Nearly completed. I’m sure your cousin is pleased with the results.”

  She nodded and would have paused to look longer, except her escort did not linger.

  Another street back, within sight of St Peter’s Church and its crooked spire, was a home set on spacious grounds.

  Gabriel unlatched the gate.

  The flicker of candlelight in the window reassured her that her arrival was not too late. To Cassie’s surprise, Gabriel followed her up the path with her bag still over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing.

  He leaned over her shoulder and rapped the door loudly. Once again, Cassie became keenly aware of his presence. He was a full head taller than she, and it was warm in the lee of his body. It was oh-so tempting to take another step closer and get warmer still.