Page 8 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

He’d once thought of showing his colours before they parted—he’d had a feeling Solomon might not be averse to the idea. But these past few days, since they’d run into the press gang, Solomon clearly had other things on his mind. And a friend waiting for him in Barnstaple.

Solomon had dipped his head just a fraction, his eyes no longer visible under the brim of his cap.

Jed got to his feet, turning away from Solomon to take his dry stockings from the bush. “I suppose we’d better get on.”

Solomon didn’t answer. After a moment’s silence, Jed heard the rustle of clothing as Solomon climbed to his feet. Jed picked up his haversack, very aware of the other man’s every movement.

They climbed the slope to rejoin the cart track they’d been following.

It was the right decision. The prudent decision. Solomon wasn’t some stranger in a foreign port, easily forgotten. These past two weeks had been the best Jed had known in five years, and he didn’t want to spoil the memory of those golden days with Solomon’s gentle, apologetic rejection. Or worse.

But now the atmosphere between them felt as strange and awkward as if that imagined rejection had taken form in the air between them.

Another half hour’s walk brought them to the crossroads where they would part. Jed stopped.

“Well, here we are. My village is down yonder”—he indicated the track on the right—“and for Barnstaple, you need only keep straight on ahead. You can sleep at Goodman’s farm by Leworthy Hill. Tell him that Jed Trevithick of Ledcombe sent you. And you’ll be in Barnstaple the following morning.”

Solomon nodded tightly.

Jed rubbed the back of his neck. There was nothing more to be said, but still something held them in place, tied together, unable to turn away.

“Not but what you’re welcome to come down into Ledcombe with me, if you like,” Jed said abruptly. “?‘Twill take you a mite out of your way, but you’ll have a warm fire and a warm bed overnight.”

He didn’t really expect Solomon to accept. But Solomon said, after only a moment’s hesitation, “All right. Why not?”

Jed was so surprised that he let out a laugh. “Good. Well… come on, then.”

Together, they followed the track downhill until the open, windswept moorland gave way to the steep, wooded combe where, as a boy, Jed had gathered firewood to sell for tuppence a bundle.

There was the stream where he and the other village boys held twig races; and here grew the sycamore trees with their treasure trove of whirligigs each autumn.

The road wound back and forth, and from time to time, glimpses of the sea shone silvery-blue through the trees. High above the tree tops, a seagull floated on currents of air.

Here, now, was the old oak tree Jed had once fallen from, breaking an arm; there, the clearing where he’d found an enormous deer antler, the envy of every other boy in the village. It seemed impossible now, that he and that boy were one and the same person.

“I’m afraid I’m dreaming and may wake at any moment,” he said aloud.

“I’m very willing to pinch your arm.”

Jed dodged out of reach, laughing. “No call for that, thank ‘ee.”

They came level with the first houses, small and grey-stoned.

Smoke rose lazily from the chimneys, promising warm and cozy firesides.

A young woman was returning from the well with two buckets of water.

She’d only been a little girl when Jed last saw her.

She gaped at the two of them with open curiosity, clearly not recognising Jed.

At the cottage where Jed and Carrie had been born and raised, everything was just as it had been: the honeysuckle growing around the door; the rows of hoed earth out front, waiting for spring planting; the wooden post where Jed always tied Bess up.

An inviting smell of onion soup wafted from the half-open door.

He knocked on the door, and got a shock when an unfamiliar face appeared. It was a middle-aged woman, giving him an enquiring look.

“Yes, what do you want?”

A man appeared at her elbow. Jed recognised him as one of a family of five brothers who’d lived beside the churchyard.

“En’t you Jed Trevithick?” the man said.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I didn’t know you at first.” His disbelieving gaze took Jed in from head to toe. “We all thought you were dead.”

“Well, I en’t.” Jed craned his head to see into the cottage. “What’s become of my aunt and sister?”

“Your aunt is gone from the village these three years and more. Went back to Exeter, I think. And your sister’s up at Penwick’s.” There was something slightly odd in the way he said it.

“Oh. All right. Thank ‘ee.”

He withdrew, Solomon following him. The man shut the door, and Jed was left standing, bewildered, in the front garden.

“Who’s this fellow Penwick?” Solomon asked.

“A gentleman as owns half the land hereabouts. Carrie has gone to work in his household, I suppose.”

He spoke absently, staring up at the cottage.

The plank he had nailed over a hole in the door was still there, and so were the lines he’d carved into the windowsill as a child—he’d had a hiding from his father for that.

But at the windows hung bright green curtains he’d never seen before, not the old blue ones that his mother had made up years ago.

And chickens clucked from a new coop somewhere around the corner of the house.

He turned his head to find Solomon watching him with sympathy in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Jed said. “Here I was, thinking I’d be offering you the hospitality of my hearth and home… And instead we have to traipse out to Penwick’s house, and probably sleep in his stables.” He gathered himself. “Come on, no point hanging around here.”

Penwick lived up on the headland, a mile or two outside the village.

The shortest path there would take them through the heart of the village, across the green and past the smithy.

Jed had spent years picturing this moment: the old familiar sights and sounds that would greet him, the childhood friends who would address him by name.

Now he found he was reluctant to take that path across the village.

Reluctant to discover what else might, like his childhood cottage, have undergone some unexpected and unsettling change.

There would be time enough for that later.

Instead, he led Solomon around by the woods. They hiked up the long, sloping road that climbed the headland, the sea sparkling below them. A little boat bobbed in the bay, and two small figures were gathering cockles in the very spot where Jed had been pressed.

They came to a pair of ornate granite gateposts set in a high wall.

Beyond the gate, a manor house was visible through the trees at the end of a short driveway.

As a boy, Jed had sometimes clambered over that wall on a dare, to steal an apple or a plum from the garden.

He had never been inside the house, of course.

“We’ll go round to the kitchen door,” he said, avoiding the main gate and leading Solomon down a side lane which he knew would take them to the stables and the back door.

But before they had gone more than a few yards, they met a well-dressed man about Jed’s age. It was Penwick, the master of the house.

“Afternoon, sir,” Jed said, tipping his cap. He had hoped to slip around the back without running into any of the family.

“Trevithick,” Penwick said. He was staring in shock. “You’re alive.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“You had better come into the house. Your sister will be overjoyed.”

“Into the house?” Jed repeated, puzzled.

Penwick cleared his throat. He looked oddly sheepish. “You must congratulate me, Trevithick. Your sister did me the great honour of accepting my hand in marriage.”

Jed could only gape, dumbstruck.

Penwick’s gaze flickered sideways to fall on Solomon. “And, ah, bring your friend.”

“My name’s Dyer, sir,” Solomon said, putting a hand to his cap.

Penwick gave him a distracted nod. “Well, come along, both of you.”

He led them around to the front of the house. In the hallway, he murmured something about finding his wife and slipped away, leaving Jed and Solomon to the care of a maid, who showed them into a parlour.

Once they were alone, they exchanged glances.

“I take it this is a complete surprise to you?” Solomon said.

“I’ll say it is! What the devil—” He shook his head. This still felt like a very peculiar extended jest.

The furniture in the room was very fine: all lacy tablecloths and gold silk damask. But before Jed could take in much of it, Carrie entered the room and threw her arms around him.

“Oh! Oh my Lord! Jed! We thought you were dead.”

She stood back, holding him at arm’s length to look at him. Her eyes shone with tears. “Oh Jed, it’s really you. I couldn’t believe it when dear Mr Penwick told me.”

“I couldn’t believe it either, when he told me you’d married him. But it’s true, I see.”

“Yes.” She was smiling through her tears. “Yes, it’s true.”

He took a good look at her. She wore a fine silk gown of deep green, with a sort of lacy shawl. Her thick brown hair was pinned up under an immaculate white cap.

“Are you happy, Carrie? Does he treat you well?”

“Yes, very happy.” Her voice had the ring of sincerity to it. “Oh Jed, I thought I’d never see you again. How came you here? And—?” She cast a curious look at Solomon.

“This is my friend Solomon. Solomon, my sister Carrie. Mrs, ah, Penwick.”

They exchanged nods, each eyeing the other curiously.

“I got your letter, years ago, saying you’d been pressed,” Carrie told Jed.

“But we already knew what must have befallen you. Two dozen men were pressed up and down the coast that day, and when you didn’t come home…

Oh, how we wept, Aunt Ellen and I! Cousin Robert went to Minehead to try and get word of you at the Rondy there, but you must already have been transferred to a ship. ”

“Where are Robert and Aunt Ellen now?”