Jessica (2 page)

The dogcart rattled into the inn, drawn by a shaggy little pony which was so rounded it seemed almost too wide for the shafts. With a long breath Jessica went out to it. Now for the final part of her journey.

The streets of Henbury were negotiated without further event, and with great relief Jessica sat back as they passed St. Mary’s Church and went down the narrow lane toward the ford. The pony splashed happily through the water and up the incline between the high hedges of honeysuckle and hawthorn. The air was scented and in the hollows there were still some bluebells to be seen.

High above some sea gulls wheeled, and the sea glinted where the hills parted momentarily. Then the lane entered the shroud-like, deep green cloak of Ladywood. The huge forest spread over the countryside for five miles, from the little bay below Varangian to the edge of the moor inland. The wind whispered in the branches that laced overhead and a blue jay burst from an oak tree with an excited chattering, causing the pony to toss its head.

Jessica smiled. “It is a world away from London.”

“Ah, and ‘tis a world you should never have left.”

“I loved him.”

“And he were married to Miss Rosamund. He weren’t for you, Miss Jess, not that one.”

“I know. It was wrong. But I’d do it again.”

Tamsin raised her eyebrows disapprovingly. “The only good thing you’m left with is the cottage, for when it comes down to it, he’ve not provided well for you, have he? Eh? Miss Rosamund have inherited the greatest part of his estate, as like she should, being as she was his wife and all. But you, who gave up everything for him, gets left with a cottage, a miserable income, and your memories.”

Jessica leaned over Tamsin and drew the reins to halt the pony. “Tamsin Davey, before we go a step further you and I must have something set straight between us. I am back in Henbury, and I am more grateful than you will ever know for your friendship and company, but I will never hear anything wrong said of Philip Woodville. Do you understand? If you cannot speak kindly of him then I pray you do not speak of him at all, for I would hate to quarrel with you.”

Tamsin nodded, her pale blue eyes kindly. “Then so be it, Miss Jess, but I’ll just say my piece now and have done with it. Master Philip weren’t no good, he weren’t liked by no one ‘cepting yourself and his mother, Lady Amelia. He treated everyone as if they were dirt beneath his feet, high and low alike. Sir Francis didn’t like him long afore you came on the scene. Miss Rosamund, well, she were made right miserable by her handsome husband, before, during and after your affair with him. His brother, Sir Nicholas, was forever at odds with him over this and that. No one, no one will have been sorry that that last illness took him so sudden. There’s just you and poor old Lady Amelia, that’s all the souls in this whole world as will mourn for the loss of the Honorable Philip Woodville. Now that’s the truth, Miss Jess, take it or leave it. The face he showed to you was not the face by which he was known.”

Jessica stared. “You are wrong, he was not as you say.”

“Then you go on believing that, for it’ll do no harm, like as not.”

“Don’t treat me like a child. I will go on believing what I know to be the truth. I need no shielding from the world.”

Tamsin slapped the reins and the pony moved over along the dappled lane. The birds were singing their hearts out as the last of the evening sun sank toward the west and the topmost branches of the trees were blazing with crimson and gold.

Applegarth stood in shadow when at last the dogcart left the lane at the foot of Ladywood and entered the walled enclosure of apple trees from which the cottage took its name. Tamsin reined in before the front door. “Well, what do you think of it now?”

“I’d hardly know it. When I used to drive past here with Francis on the way to Varangian Hall, I thought how tumble-down and sad a place it was, and yet now....”

Jessica looked up at the neat little windows, like sleepy eyes peeping from beneath the new thatch. Fresh whitewash sparkled on the walls, and someone had carefully trained a rambling rose around the little porch so that the clusters of dark red blossoms climbed up toward the bedroom windows above. Away to the left encroached Ladywood, the trees hanging heavily over the crumbling wall encircling the garden. A small plot of vegetables had been painstakingly laid out between the old cider-apple trees.

Tamsin climbed down and pointed toward a path wending its way from the lane, across the grounds of Applegarth, and into Ladywood through a gap in the old wall.

“Take note of that path, Miss Jess. ‘Tis the old way to the abbey ruins above Varangian Bay, and ‘tis more than that. If you hears owt at night, owt strange and uncertain, then you must lie in your bed and make like you’ve heard nothing.”

“Why?”

“ ‘Tis the smugglers you’ll be hearing, and smugglers be no gentlemen.”

“Smugglers crossing my land?” The green eyes flashed angrily.

“Ah, and they’ll continue to do so with or without your permission. There’s nothing you can do about it, and nothing you’d want to do about it if you had any sense. Let sleeping dogs lie, they says, and ‘tis a sensible maxim to go by in these parts.”

“You approve, Tamsin?”

“Do I approve? What sort of question is that? Of course I don’t, but then I value my neck and all, so I lies nice and quiet in my bed of nights and I says and does nothing when I hears those donkeys pass by towards the abbey. Now, let’s go in and I’ll brew a pot of tea and set out something for you to eat.”

Jessica climbed down from the dogcart and turned Tamsin’s key in the lock of the yellow door. She stepped directly into the kitchen with its red-raddled floor. The air smelled of the paraffin with which Tamsin had polished the panes of the latticed windows. Onions, dried mushrooms, and apples hung in strings from the beams and a smoked ham swayed in the breeze from the doorway. Brass and copper utensils hung on hooks and rested on countless shelves around the newly-installed range that was surely the height of modern fashion in Henbury.

Above the chest stood a row of pewter mugs and next to them two oil lamps, shining and polished. Some small hoggins completed the shelf, their caps arranged neatly beside them. On the scrubbed table was a clean napkin, beneath which Jessica found some newly-baked Banbury cakes. She picked one up and bit into it, savoring the melting pastry and the spicy taste. It was a taste that took away the years and she was a little girl again, standing in a farmhouse kitchen watching Tamsin roll out pastry with floury hands.

She listened to Tamsin leading the little pony around to the small stable behind the cottage, then licked her fingers before taking the copper kettle to the hand pump over the stone sink. The range had been blackened lovingly, and Jessica smiled at her own reflection in the metal.

The kettle was just beginning to sing when Tamsin came in at last, carrying a single hand case. “The rest can wait till morning light, it’ll be safe enough in the stable. Have you looked around?”

“No, I’ve only been admiring your kitchen.”

“Then look through here. This was how Master Philip left instructions the drawing room was to be furnished. He decided upon the bedroom upstairs as well.” Tamsin’s pleasant face reddened slightly and she quickly opened the drawing room door and Jessica stepped inside to look.

Her first impression was of chintz: chintz curtains, chintz covers on the chairs, and colorful cushions. The floor was of dark wood, stained and polished until the curtains and covers were reflected in it. Beneath a window stood a huge carved chest, and a table and chairs stood at the far end of the room away from the fire.

In the empty fireplace rested a huge china bowl of roses, and Jessica could smell their perfume wafting on the draft from the open window. It was a homely room, comfortable and practical and at the same time completely in keeping with the cottage
—
yet not in keeping with Philip’s taste. She thought it strange that he should have chosen to furnish and decorate the room in such a way.

Tamsin was carving some cold meat as she turned back into the kitchen.

“Philip chose it?”

“Ah.”

“And the bedroom?”

“Ah, and the bedroom.”

Cool air rushed down the stairwell as she opened the door and began to climb. The large landing was simply furnished with Tamsin’s few belongings, but the single bedroom beyond was a surprise that caught Jessica’s breath. The four-poster bed was hung with dark mulberry brocade and golden tassels, and the coverlet was of the softest swansdown. Chinese wallpaper of pale pink silk threw a gentle warmth over the room
—
a warmth picked up by the deep rose curtains at the tiny window.

Ruby, mulberry, and white rugs were scattered on the dark polished floor, their fringes carefully combed and straightened and their pile fluffed by Tamsin’s industrious brush. Unlike the drawing room below, this room spoke of Philip Woodville’s taste. She crossed the room to rest her hand on the carved oak post of the bed, her eyes lowered to the mulberry drapes; mulberry had been his favorite color. He was so easy to recall, she thought, so very easy, with his thick dark hair tousled and his cravat awry, and a smile on his lips as he held his hand out to her. Suddenly Applegarth seemed empty and lonely, just as her life now was.

The sound of a heavy coach passing down the track behind the cottage drew her attention to the window. Through the small panes she could see the matched team of grays moving slowly down the incline from the direction of Varangian. She stared at the remembered Woodville crest on the coach’s paneling, and with a jolt met the eyes of the woman inside. Rosamund blinked, her lips parting in surprise as she saw Jessica’s figure, and then with a snap she drew down the coach’s blinds.

Jessica sat disheartened on the bed, her hands clasped in her lap. Rosamund would never forgive her for the past, never. Already the two years she must spend at Applegarth seemed a lifetime, a life sentence. She was jolted from her thoughts by Tamsin’s voice calling her down to the kitchen.

That night she lay awake in the mulberry-draped bed, staring up at the golden tassels that moved in the breeze from the open window. She could see the sky above the dark mass of Lady-wood, the stars bright and as clear as cut diamonds, but there was no moon. Tamsin had warned her that tonight the smugglers would go through the woods to the bay. Moonless nights were always good for their activities, for the revenue men would not see so easily, nor would Sir Francis’ gamekeepers who were out watching for poachers.

The single bray of a donkey made her sit up. Gathering her dressing gown around her she slipped from the bed and tiptoed past Tamsin’s little bed on the landing. The stairs creaked as she descended, but then from the kitchen window she could look out across the orchard toward the path into Ladywood.

The donkeys moved slowly, black shapes of no depth, and silent but for that one earlier sound. The men were as indistinct as the beasts they led, and she found she was holding her breath until the last donkey had vanished through the break in the old wall and into Francis’ woods.

She knew her next action was foolish but she could not help herself. Quietly she unbolted the door and went out into the cool night air. The wind rustled the trees and somewhere an owl called. The stars winked and flashed and the air was full of the scent of roses. Beneath the apple trees the grass was damp, dragging at her night clothes as she walked beside the path toward the opening into Ladywood.

The trees stretched beyond the boundary of her land, their leaves whispering secretly and the air wafting more coolly from depths of the wood, as if rushing up from the foam of the waves on the distant beach. She could see the path running straight until the deep shadows swallowed it.

For a moment she hesitated, for to go on would be more than the height of foolishness, yet curiosity pushed her to follow the smugglers who so brazenly used her land to come and go. She stepped over the crumbling, fallen stones of the wall and she was in Ladywood.

She had not seen the horse. It was tethered close to a holly tree, its dark glossy coat mingling with the shadows so well as to make it almost invisible. It was the slight jingle of its harness that caught her ear so that she froze, her hand in the very act of brushing aside a low-hanging branch.

She heard the shouts from deep in the woods, and through the tangle of trunks and branches she could vaguely see bobbing lights. Hounds began to bay and the donkeys brayed nervously. Jessica stared, her eyes round and her heart thumping. She turned, stumbling back towards the gap in the wall, but there was a sharp click and she was brought to an abrupt standstill as her trailing hem set off a trap. The fierce metal teeth closed over the folds of material and she was caught.

With a cry of dismay she crouched to try to drag the ugly teeth apart, but it would not budge. Desperately she struggled with it, trying to lift the trap itself, but it had been chained to a tree and she was held fast. Her only escape would be to remove her clothes. She looked toward the bobbing lights, they were coming nearer now and she could hear men running towards her.

The horse whinnied nervously and she turned. A man in a heavy cloak was untethering it. Jessica shrank into the shadows but he had seen her. He came quickly over and she stared at him. “Sir Nicholas?”

Philip’s brother glanced up from the knife he had drawn. “Miss Durleigh,” he said, his polite, disciplined voice so out of place in the alarm of the moment. The knife cut through her skirts like a flame through butter and she was free.

He pushed her roughly towards the path. “Get back to Applegarth, and be quick about it.” The noise was redoubled in the woods and a pistol was fired. Nicholas frowned, his dark face reminding her poignantly of his dead brother. “God curse Varangian,” he muttered, seizing his horse’s reins.

And then he was gone, mounting the nervous beast and urging it along the path into Applegarth. She followed, watching with a mixture of amazement and anger as he rode thoughtlessly across the few vegetables that Tamsin had planted beneath the apple trees.