The Admiral's Daughter (23 page)

Above the trees beyond he could see the rearing bulk of the bare hills that formed the edge of the moor and his pulse quickened. Presently they swung into a lane and stopped in the spacious courtyard of a considerably sized riding stable.

The concentrated odour of horses was heavy on the air as they were handed down, Cecilia finding coins for the coachman. There was no party waiting and he felt a stab of anxiety—his fob watch told him they were on time.

A groom led out a fine Arab that snorted and pawed the ground with impatience. Persephone, arrayed in a brown riding habit, walked beside it. Her hair was pulled back severely, a few chestnut wisps escaping from her masculine-looking black hat. “Why, Mr Kydd, I do adore your taste in colour!” she said teasingly, glancing at his coat.

Kydd bowed deeply, aware of Cecilia's respectful curtsy next to him.

“Miss Kydd, it is a pleasure to see you again,” Persephone went on, in the friendliest tone. “It is tiresome, but the men are so disinclined to make the journey to the moor to ride and I do so love the freedom here. Do you ride much?”

“Not as much as I'd like, Miss Lockwood,” Cecilia said carefully, eyeing Persephone's spirited beast. “I do find, however, that a morning canter does set the pulse to beating, don't you?” Her mount was a pretty dappled mare of more docile habit than the Arab, and the groom adjusted the robust side-saddle with a slipper stirrup for her.

Kydd's horse was brought out: a powerful-looking mahogany bay, which he approached with caution. Its eye followed his every motion and when he swung up it skittered and snorted, tossing its head, feeling the bit.

“Oh, that's Sultan—do you take no nonsense from him, Mr Kydd. Sometimes he can be quite a rascal if he gets it into his head.”

Kydd strove to let the horse feel his will and, after some ill-tempered gyrations, it seemed to settle and he brought it next to Cecilia. He stole a glance at Persephone: she looked breathtaking, her handsome straight-backed posture set off by the fall of her habit. “There will be a hamper and champagne for us at Hele Tor, should we deserve it,” she said. “Shall we?”

They clopped across the cobblestones of the courtyard then turned in single file up a leafy lane, Kydd happy to allow Cecilia to follow Persephone cautiously while he rode behind on his fractious steed. The groom with the pannier of necessities brought up the rear. It was now clear that no one else was to join them, and he glowed to think that they must have been specially invited.

The lane stopped at a gate, which Kydd opened and held for the ladies. It led to the open moor, the vast swell of heathland romantically bleak and far-reaching, with only the occasional dark clusters of rocks, the mysterious tors, to intrude on the prospect.

“At last!” laughed Persephone, and urged her horse straight into the wild openness. Kydd's horse whinnied as the others went ahead and he had no difficulty in spurring it on, feeling its great muscles bunch under him.

He passed Cecilia, who was concentrating on finding her rhythm, and quickly came up on Persephone who threw him a surprised but pleased glance, her eyes sparkling. “Have no concern, Mr Kydd. The footing here is excellent.”

Kydd was having some difficulty reining in his horse and Persephone increased pace to keep with him. She swayed effortlessly in her saddle round rambling patches of furze and laughed into the wind, her cheeks pink with exertion.

Kydd glanced round and saw that Cecilia was trailing, but the groom had stayed with her so he turned back to the reins.

As they cantered further into the moorland Kydd was struck by its wild immensity—not a tree, hedgerow, or building in sight. It was an awesome loneliness—not unlike the sea in a way. The rhythmic thudding of hoofs on the turf came together in a blood-rousing thrill of motion.

A sudden flutter of wings made Kydd's horse rear, its hoofs flailing, the whites of its eyes showing in terror. He fought to stay aboard, dropping the reins and seizing the animal's mane with both hands as it teetered, then crashed down to leap forward in a demented gallop. Kydd hung on in grim desperation as the horse's panicked flight stretched out to a mile or more. He tried to claw forward to retrieve the flying reins but in vain. Instead he lay along the beast's neck, hoping its pace would slow as its energy gave out.

Eventually Sultan's frenzy lessened and Kydd dared to loose one hand to snatch at the flying reins, then transferred the other, his thighs gripping his mount's sides as he did so. He saw a water-course of sorts disappearing into a wooded fold and coerced the animal to head for it, hoping the thicker going would slow it.

The first bushes whipped past, then more substantial trees, and the horse slowed. The gallop fell to a canter and then to a trot. With a sigh of relief Kydd straightened, only to be summarily ejected from the saddle as the horse bucked unexpectedly. Kydd whirled through the air and landed in a tangle of boots and undergrowth.

He lay on his back, staring up and panting. A breathless, concerned Persephone came into focus. “Oh, my poor Mr Kydd!” she said and knelt down, her gloved hand on his. “Are you hurt? May I help you up?”

“Miss Lockwood,” Kydd managed, and hauled himself to his elbows. “That damned mutinous beast!” he gasped. “Which is to say that I should clap him in irons as would teach him his manners to an officer.”

He pulled himself to a sitting position. “Your pardon while I recover my senses,” he said, pulling greenery from his hair and feeling his leg cautiously.

“Of course.” She sat demurely next to him. “The groom will take care of Miss Kydd and I see Sultan is not to be troubled.” The horse was browsing contentedly nearby, on the lush verdancy by the edge of a stream.

Persephone turned to face him. “You know I am glad to have met you, Mr Kydd. We are both . . .” She dropped her head and toyed with a leaf.

When she looked up, Kydd's eyes held hers for a long moment. As he helped her to her feet they found themselves together in a kiss, which took them by surprise. She froze, then said, with just the faintest quiver in her voice, “We must find the others now.”

C
HAPTER 9

“G
ET Y'R HEAD DOWN, Y' NINNY
!”
hissed Stirk. Luke Calloway crouched lower in the hedgerow as a horse and rider clopped down the narrow lane in the darkness. “Mr Stirk, an' we're safe now, isn't we?” Calloway said, aggrieved.

Stirk listened for any others who might be coming, then stood up and stretched. “Shut y' trap, younker, an' do as I says.” Even though they had made it this far, just a mile from the tiny fishing village, they were not safe yet.

Stirk hefted his bundle and they resumed their journey. It got steeper. The village glimmering below was nestled in a coombe, a deep valley with precipitous sides, and seemed shoehorned into a tiny level area.

The lane had become not much more than a path when they finally reached the first houses by a little stream. “Bless me, Mr Stirk, but th' place stinks,” Calloway protested. A strong, insistent reek of fish was thick in the night air. Stirk stopped and listened again: strangers would be viewed suspiciously in this small community as possible spies for the Revenue, and all it needed was for some frightened widow to raise an alarm . . . but there was no sign that the inhabitants were in a mind to roam abroad in the dark.

“Where d' we kip, Mr Stirk?”

“First we finds th' kiddleywink,” Stirk snapped.

“Th' what?”

“What the Janners call a pothouse, lad,” he said, looking around. Even a village this size should have two or three. They headed towards the snug harbour and on the far side near the fish-quay buildings the Three Pilchards was a noisy beacon of jollity. Stirk checked about carefully, then he and Calloway passed by a blacksmith's shuttered forge and hastened into the tavern.

It was small but snug, and dark with the patina of age. The aroma of spilt liquor eddied up from the sawdust on the floor and the heady reek of strong cider competed with the smell of rank fish from outside.

The tavern fell silent. Half a dozen weathered faces turned to them, distrust and hostility in their expressions. The tapster approached them, wiping his hands. “Where youse come frum, then?” he demanded.

“As is none o' y'r business,” Stirk said mildly, and crossed to a corner table from which he could survey the whole room, “but a shant o' gatter 'd be right welcome,” he said, sitting and gesturing to Calloway to join him.

The tapster hesitated, then went back to pull the ale. One of the men sitting at a nearby table fixed unblinking eyes on Stirk and threw at him, “'E axed yez a question, frien'.”

Stirk waited until the ale came in a well-used blackjack, a tarred leather tankard. “Why, now, an' isn't this a right fine welcome f'r a pair o' strangers?” He took a long pull, then set it down quietly. He felt in his pocket and slapped down a small pile of coins. “This'n for any who c'n find us somewheres t' rest. Maybe two, three days, nice an' quiet like, an' then we'll be on our way.” He clinked the coins patiently. After a few mutters with his companion the man came back loudly, “I knows what thee are—ye're navy deserters, b' glory.”

Stirk bit his lip and then said warily, “S' what's it t' you, mate? Thinkin' on sellin' us out?”

The man cackled delightedly. “Knew 'oo ye was, soon as I clapped peepers on yez.” He turned to the other and said something that raised a laugh.

“Ah, but ye'll be stayin' more'n a coupla days, I reckon,” the other added. He had a milky-blue blind eye. “Else theys goin' t' cotch ye.”

Stirk said nothing.

“What they call yez, then?” the first asked.

“Jem'll do, an' this skiddy cock is m' shipmate Harry.”

“Oh, aye—but if y' wants t' stop here, Mr Jem, we can't have useless bodies a-takin' up room. Thee looks likely lads—done any fishin'?”

“Mackerel, flounder—some hake.” Stirk's boyhood had been the hard life of an inshore fisherman at Hythe in Kent.

It seemed to satisfy. “Davey Bunt,” the first said.

“Jan Puckey,” the other came in. “An' t'night I'll see y' sleepin' in a palace, I promise ye.”

They slept in one right enough: in coarse canvas on a bed of nets reeking of fish, in what the Cornish called the “fish pallace,” the lower room of dwellings turned over to keeping the family fishing gear and storing pilchards pressed into tubs.

Stirk rolled over, vainly seeking a more comfortable position and ruefully recalling that nights at sea in a small fishing-boat were far worse. Had this been a bad mistake, a decision made on the spur of the moment that he would come to regret? And had he been right to involve Luke? The young man knew so little of the wider world.

Stirk was under no illusions of the risk: they were not yet trusted and could be disowned on the spot until they had proved themselves, and in the future . . .

It was all because of what he had done at Stackhouse cove that night several weeks ago. Mr Kydd had remembered his smuggling reminiscences and seen his knowledge at first hand. Now he had allowed himself and Luke to be landed ashore and, under the pretence that they were deserting seamen, they had made their way to the smugglers' haunt of Polperro to see if they could win confidence and discover something of the unknown genius who controlled the trade.

In the darkness he heard Calloway grunt and turn over; he must be missing his comfortable hammock, Stirk thought wryly.

For Luke it had been the adventure that appealed, but the only reason Stirk had volunteered was the deep respect and, indeed, lopsided friendship he felt for his captain, whom he had seen grow from raw landman to first-class seaman, then achieve the quarter-deck, and now the command of his first ship. It was unlikely that in trim little
Teazer
they would achieve anything like lasting fame in their duties in the Plymouth command; Stirk was well aware that, without it, the best that could be expected for Kydd was a quiet retirement amid the fading glory of once having commanded a King's ship. He would try his copper-bottomed best to give Kydd a triumph to bear back.

“Thank 'ee, Mrs Puckey,” Stirk said gratefully, to the close-mouthed woman after she had handed him a piece of coarse bread to go with his gurty milk—thin seed gruel.

She said nothing, her dark eyes following his every move.

“Th' first time I've bin fishin', Mr Puckey,” Calloway said respectfully. “I aim t' learn, sir.”

He grunted. “You will, son,” he said significantly, and his glance flicked to Stirk. “Mackerel, y' said.”

“Aye.”

“We'll be out handlinin' tonight—Boy Cowan says he's a-willin' t' have youse along.”

“Owns th' boat?”

“An' we all has shares in th' catch,” Puckey said firmly.

Stirk finished his bread. “No business o' mine, cully, but we sometimes hears as Polperro's not a place t' beat fer free tradin'. Why, then—”

There was a sudden tension in the room. Puckey laid down his spoon very deliberately and glared at Stirk. “We doesn't talk about such here, cuffin. Ye understan' me?”

“O' course. Me bein' in the trade as a kitlin' an' all,” Stirk added quietly, meeting his eyes. There was no response and he bent to his meal again.

A ragged child came up and stood gazing at the strangers. “Good day, y' young scamp,” Stirk said.

The boy continued to stare at him, then suddenly broke into a chant:

Mother at the cookpot, Father with his brew
Waitin' for the gennelmen who'll dish the Revenoo!

Mrs Puckey clapped her hands and scolded him. He disappeared.

It was bright outside as the three men made their way to the quay, the early-morning sun drying the effects of the overnight rain and setting off the little village to gleaming perfection. Gulls wheeled and keened about the fish quay in front of the Three Pilchards while boats bobbed and snubbed at their lines in the harbour.

On each side, the land sloped up steeply with, occasionally, cottages perched at seemingly impossible angles. It was as individual a place as could be imagined, every house set to suit its tiny plot of rock and thin soil, the dwellings of all hues, owing more than a little to shipwreck timbers.

Along the seafront fishermen were taking advantage of the clear morning light to mend nets and work on tackle. Past the tavern was a jumble of rocks and a final jagged cliff soared at the narrow but picturesque harbour entrance. A short pier beyond the Three Pilchards gave shelter to the inner harbour.

“Well, now, an' here's Boy hisself,” said Puckey, as they reached the level area of the fish quay. “Mornin', Mr Cowan.”

Cowan was well into his sixties and white-haired, but had a genial manner that gave him a serenity beyond any cares. “Jan, are these th' noo hands ye told me of?”

“Aye. Jem here, an' that's Harry.”

“Ye've whiffled f'r mackerel, Jan tells me.”

“I did.”

“An' can ye tell me what yarn y' used fer y' snoods?” Cowan asked casually.

“Cobbler's thread, mebbe gut,” Stirk answered, in the same tone, “an' a long shanked hook if we's expectin' hake.”

Cowan eased into a smile. “We likes horse-hair in Polperro, Jem. Like t' bear a hand on th' nossil cock, you an' young Harry both?” This was a simple wooden device that twisted together yarns for greater strength into a snood—the final length carrying the hook that stood out from the main hand-line.

Calloway was set to pulling an endless cord passing over a series of whirligigs that were set into a frame to spin hooks with the yarns beneath. Stirk, with a piece of soft leather, took the strands and evened out the twists, lead weights giving it all a momentum. Finally the nossil was detached, and a hook whipped to the line with a mackerel feather. “There we is, mate,” said Stirk, looking with satisfaction at his finished snood. “Where's the backin' line?”

Forty fathoms of line looked an overwhelming amount lying in a heap, but Stirk faked it out in six-foot coils and patiently began the task of working a figure-of-eight knot every half a foot, needing to heave the whole length of line through for every knot. These would be where the snoods would attach and it would see him occupied for hours.

Calloway was sent away to help with the barking—dipping nets and sails into the boiling cutch, a nauseating mix of Burma bark and tallow.

“Can't we not fin' 'em some breeks, darlin'?” Puckey said, when his wife came with the noon tea. “They'll be haulin' fish b' evenin'.”

From somewhere she found smocks, knit-frocks and canvas trousers reeking with old fish-slime, and two seamen were translated on the spot into fishermen. Later, the most important article appeared: sea boots, the like of which Calloway had never seen— huge and thigh-length, they were of hard leather encrusted on the soles with hobnails.

Boy Cowan cocked an eye skyward and, with a seraphic smile, pronounced, “Mackerel or herring, they a-goin' t' be about t'night. Bait up, boys.”

His work finished until evening, Stirk decided to wander round the narrow lanes to the Consona rocks where the boat-yard was seeing the last touches to a repair on the skipper's boat. “Which 'un is Mr Cowan's?” he called, to an aproned shipwright working on a vessel propped up in the mud.

The man looked up briefly. “This 'un,” he said, and went back to his planing.
Polperro Fancy
was lettered on her square transom, and she was a beamy half-decker, well used by the sea and in pristine order. But so small!

“Sprit main?” Stirk guessed, noting the snotter. Without sails it was difficult to make out her rig beyond the single mast and long bowsprit, which, no doubt, would sport at least two jibs for balance and speed.

The shipwright straightened slowly, squinting up at Stirk against the sun. “An' who's askin'?”

“I'll be goin' out wi' Mr Cowan t'night.”

“Hope they're bitin' for ye,” the man said, wiping his forehead, apparently unwilling to pursue why a complete stranger would be going out to the hard work of the fishing grounds with his client. “Yes, ye're in th' right of it, we call 'em ‘spreeties.' Y' only fin' luggers at Looe.”

Stirk nodded. Looe, three or four miles away, would have different local conditions, different traditions of boat-building handed down. This fore-and-aft rig was almost certainly to keep as close by the wind as possible when passing through the narrows at the harbour mouth.

He looked again. There was only a tiny cuddy forward and two compartments amidships before the open afterdeck, probably a fish hold and net stowage, and was certainly not suited to the running and concealment of contraband.

“How is she, Mr Butters?” Cowan hailed respectfully from the end of the pier opposite. “Ready for ye an hour afore sundown,” the shipwright shouted back.

At the appointed time, and replete after a meal of scrowled pilchards and back-garden potatoes, Stirk and Calloway trudged over to their boat. Their hobnailed sea boots crashed on the cobbles but caused not the slightest interest as others made their way down to the harbour, a busy and amiable throng.