Page 39 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

“Come with me to Ledcombe?” Jed said.

Solomon swallowed, his throat moving slowly up and down. “You mean, just to speed me on my way to Barnstaple, or—”

“Come with me to see my sister? If you will? I wouldn’t mind having someone by my side. And then, maybe, we should talk about… everything.”

The fishing smack glided into the tiny harbour at the mouth of the river Led. Jed stood at the bow, looking landward. Above the houses that clustered along the river, steep wooded slopes rose to the moorland hills and ridges that Jed and Solomon had walked over together, months before.

Jed glanced sideways at Solomon, leaning on the bulwark beside him.

Solomon returned his glance with a cautious smile.

During the journey by boat along the coast, it had felt like they were living through a temporary lull of their own making in a longer running storm: relieved to be together, but conscious of how much they still had to talk about.

“Make fast the lines,” called Mrs May’s brother-in-law, and soon Jed and Solomon were ashore, thanking the men who had brought them here.

A favourable wind had carried them swiftly along the coast, and it was now early evening.

The little harbour was sleepy and calm under the long shadows cast by a pale evening sun.

Two fishermen were scrubbing down the deck on a boat moored nearby.

Another sat on the pier, mending a net. This latter was a middle-aged man with a thatch of thick, sandy hair.

He and Jed had sung together in the village choir and shared many a drink in the harbourfront alehouse.

For a second, Jed couldn’t remember the man’s name. Then it came back.

“Isaac,” he called in greeting.

The man gaped at him for a long moment. “Jed? Jed Trevithick?”

“It’s Trevithick’s son,” someone else exclaimed, and the other men left their nets and came over.

“He used to be the village carrier,” one man could be heard explaining to a little boy.

They crowded around him, looking at him with sympathy and curiosity.

But as soon as they realised the newly arrived boat had come from Minehead, another more urgent matter caught their attention. They had already heard a rumour that the press gang had left Minehead—news spread fast along the coast—and they were anxious to learn the truth of it.

Solomon told them everything he knew, with the men of Mr May’s crew leaning over the side of their boat and putting in a word of their own here and there.

The Ledcombe men had plenty to say. “Thank Heaven!—We’ve been living on our nerves since February—I can hardly credit it—I thought they’d never leave, the bastards.”

Jed listened but said nothing. A chasm seemed to separate him from the other men. He looked across the river mouth to the stony little beach where he’d been pressed, so long ago. He’d been expecting to be overjoyed, but just now he only felt overwhelmed.

Isaac stepped over to join him. “You’ll be looking for somewhere to stay, I expect? There’s an empty cottage behind the churchyard since my old grandfather passed.”

Jed blinked. He had not yet thought about that sort of detail.

“Are you setting up in business again?” another man asked. “We en’t had a proper carrier here since you left—only the fellow as comes through from Minehead on Tuesdays.”

Jed nodded, but didn’t allow himself to be drawn into conversation. He only had one thing on his mind: to see Carrie. He touched Solomon’s elbow. “We’d better go, or we’ll arrive while they’re at supper.”

When he’d first come here after escaping from his ship, he hadn’t seen much of the village.

But now, coming up from the harbour, they walked through the heart of it.

Everything was just as it had been: the medieval church with its crumbling belfry, the Dissenters’ wooden meeting house, the odd-shaped village green where the young women gathered to get away from their mothers, the smith taking an evening nap on the bench outside his forge.

Jed felt as if he’d been away for decades, and that surely everything must have changed in his absence. But it hadn’t.

“You want me to wait outside?” Solomon asked, after they’d climbed the headland and were approaching the Squire’s house.

“No, come in with me.”

Jed marched up to the front door. The maid who answered was the same woman who had brought them tea on their last visit. Her eyes widened when she recognised Jed.

“I’m here to see Mrs Penwick,” Jed announced, and she showed them into the same parlour as before.

Carrie appeared soon afterwards. She was accompanied by Mr Penwick, to Jed’s dismay. He had been hoping to see her alone.

Carrie clapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Jed, thank God! A woman called here—your friend from Barnstaple. Emma Yates. She said you’d been pressed again.”

“I’m all right, as you see. But to tell the truth, I didn’t expect such a welcome. Not after that letter you wrote me.”

“I know, but—”

She exchanged glances with Penwick, who cleared his throat. “Trevithick, I did not expect you to show your face here.”

Jed faced him squarely. “Thinking of running off to Minehead again? I wouldn’t trouble myself, if I were you. I’ve just come from there this afternoon. The press gang have left town.” He deliberately left off the ‘sir,’ difficult as it was to break the habit of a lifetime.

“Ah… yes, we have heard something of the kind,” Penwick said in an uncomfortable tone.

Yes, look me in the eye and tell me you betrayed me, Jed thought. But Penwick had not met his eye since he entered the room.

There was a pained silence.

Carrie said quickly into the silence, “Your friend from Barnstaple made some shocking allegations about Lieutenant Vaughan’s behaviour in London.”

“If you mean his practice of preying on improvident young gentlemen, it’s perfectly true,” Solomon said. “I knew him in London myself.”

Penwick looked doubtful. “Indeed, Mrs Penwick told me there appear to have been some rumours… But I can scarcely believe— Such a well-bred gentleman—”

“Then it may interest you to know that he fled the country this morning,” Solomon said. “Soon as he found out someone would be taking an interest in the details of his so-called good works in these parts.”

“Good Lord! Well—that is… Well, I’ll certainly have the matter looked into.” Penwick cleared his throat. “Of course, that is no reflection on the importance of his duty in manning our ships.”

But Penwick still wasn’t able to meet Jed’s eye.

Jed didn’t care. He was here for Carrie. She did meet his eye, and he searched her gaze for the sister he had known. He found guilt and wariness there.

“Carrie—” he began.

He wanted to appeal to her. Wanted her to say something to prove that she hadn’t written that letter. That she didn’t really believe the things she said. That she was still the sister he’d loved.

He looked at her in her fine gown, her hand on Penwick’s arm, and remembered wondering how it felt to be in her position. Commanding a household of servants, entertaining Penwick’s gentlemen friends at dinner… Did she fear Jed would undermine a position in which she already felt insecure?

“Carrie, I don’t want to be at odds with my own family.”

“Neither do I, Jed,” she said quietly.

“Nor do any of us,” Penwick said. “It pains me to see your sister’s distress. But Trevithick, you must see what an impossible situation you put us in. You, a deserter—”

Something inside Jed snapped. “For Christ’s sake, I’ve already given five years of blood and sweat. Other men settle down. Why can’t I?”

“I understand that,” Penwick said unexpectedly. “But you must see that I cannot dine with magistrates and let my own brother-in-law get away with law-breaking.”

“No, you’d rather dine with scoundrels who steal from invalided seamen.”

Penwick flushed.

Jed grimaced inwardly. Perhaps it would have been a better strategy to kneel and lick Penwick’s boots. But he was too angry for conciliation.

“Never mind. I’m just here for my horse and cart. I’ll trouble you to write me a letter of introduction to your agent, if you please.”

Penwick met his eye at last. “Perhaps, Trevithick, it would be best if you were to go away to another part of the country. I would be quite happy to give you a small sum—”

“I don’t need your money, thank you. I ask only for my horse.” He looked at his sister. “Carrie—”

Carrie burst out, “You needn’t go to Mr Morgan. Your horse has been hired out to a man named Harlow, on the Ilfracombe road. The cart too.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

“Yes, it’s true,” Penwick admitted finally.

“Have you known that all along?” Jed looked from one to the other of them. “Have you?”

Penwick’s colour was answer enough. “Your sister didn’t,” he said. “I only told her yesterday.”

Jed bit back his anger. He addressed himself to Carrie. “Then will you give me a letter for Harlow, telling him the horse and cart are no longer up for hire?”

Penwick and Carrie looked at each other, some conversation without words passing between them. Finally, Penwick sat down at the writing desk and wrote a quick note. He folded it over, then stood up and held it out to Jed. But when Jed put his hand to it, Penwick did not immediately relinquish it.

“It will be better for all of us, I’m afraid, if you don’t come to the house again. We cannot be seen to associate with you.”

Jed glanced sideways at Carrie. Regret and a tinge of pain lay heavily on her face. But she nodded in agreement with Penwick.

Reluctantly, Jed nodded too. Penwick released the letter, and Jed tucked it carefully into his pocket.

Carrie took one quick step forward. “Jed, you’ll get word to me and tell me where you are, won’t you? Promise?”

Jed took her hands, pressing them. “Yes, I promise.”

He stepped back, and she offered her hand to Solomon. “I’m glad he has a friend with him.”

Penwick said awkwardly, “Trevithick, I hope to welcome you here when the war is over.”

He and Jed exchanged stiff nods. And then it was all over, and the maid came to show them out.

The evening air was mild, a foretaste of summer. Bees buzzed from daisy to guelder-rose in the hedgerows. Jed strode along the lane, Solomon at his side. Upon leaving the manor house, they had set off immediately for Harlow’s farm.

“Yes, let’s go see the man now,” Solomon had said when consulted. He was staying with Jed, of course; that wasn’t something they’d needed to discuss.

Every so often, as he walked, Jed put his hand to the letter in his pocket. This was the moment he’d been dreaming of for years. He still didn’t know what Penwick would do if he set up in business in Ledcombe, but he would cross that bridge later.

Harlow’s farm was at the end of a steep lane. As they drew nearer, they passed a half-ploughed field in which a man was at work. His plough was pulled by a bay draft horse that Jed recognised immediately. He stopped, staring. Bess was in excellent form: her flanks rounded, her coat glossy.

Horse and man were on the far side of the field. If Jed crossed the field, calling out to the man, then Bess would recognise him. She’d lift her head at the sound of his voice, and whinny softly like she always used to.

A boy was walking ahead of the plough, searching the unploughed earth for stones. He noticed Jed and Solomon and came over to them.

“You all right there?” he called. “If you’re looking for work, you’ll have to come to the farmyard tomorrow morning. But if it’s Mr Harlow you want on business, he’s up at the house now.”

Solomon glanced at Jed, letting him answer.

Jed couldn’t take his eyes off Bess. How many hours had they spent together, travelling over the moors? Hours of freedom, of quiet contentedness, in sunshine and rain. Bess meant peace, respite, coming home.

Or so he’d convinced himself.

In the Navy, many of his messmates had had talismans: a lucky coin, a cheap medallion, a piece of coral.

Something they hung onto, that they took out and looked at from time to time, to convince themselves that everything would be all right.

But that was just an illusion. And in the end, Bess was just a horse.

The boy was looking at him curiously. “I said, if you want to see—”

Jed managed to say, “No. Thank ‘ee. We just stopped for a rest.”

The boy returned to work. On the other side of the field, Bess marched steadily on. The plough reached the end of a furrow, and man and horse turned, moving further away from the road.

Jed stepped away from the hedge. He sank to the ground on the grassy verge, back slumped, head bent over his knees. He heard Solomon sit down beside him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Jed said at last. “I was sure that if only I could get Bess back, everything would be all right. But it don’t work like that, does it?”

Solomon’s shoulder was solid and comforting, pressed against his.

Jed lifted his head to look sideways at him. “I just wanted to go home.”

“I know.”

The grass was warm and dry under his hands. A cricket chirped noisily—nearby, but somehow distant, like being underwater.

“I don’t think I’m going to see this Mr Harlow.”

The words came surprisingly easily. He wasn’t sure how he felt, afterwards. Like coming unmoored—or maybe being set free?

Solomon nodded. In the face of his calm acceptance, Jed felt a little better.

He straightened up, scrubbing his face and taking a couple of deep breaths. He looked up at the sky.

“It’ll be sunset in a few hours. I suppose we should go back down to Ledcombe and look for somewhere to sleep.”

“That old pithead where we slept before,” Solomon said thoughtfully. “That’s not far from here, is it?”