Chapter 7
Seven
In fact, the small room was positively bristling with company, which he should have realised sooner by the overpowering smell of close-packed bodies replacing the enervating aroma of the sea.
Someone had been speaking, but the aggrieved monotone halted mid-sentence.
Hugh raised the lantern high and saw they were under scrutiny from at least a dozen villagers in varying states of filth and raggedness.
They’d clearly not come from their places of employment but with the intention of remaining unseen in the dark for mud smeared their faces.
“Dear Mother of Mary, what do we have here?”
The speaker, whom Hugh recognised as Silas Trevelyn, publican of the Cock and Bull, stared at them until another man cried out, “Why, it’s Miss Stanbridge, the governess!” A harsh, sinewy man of few words, Hugh recognised him as Jowan Bolitho, one of the ostlers.
A hubbub of tutting and confusion ensued before Hugh was recognised.
“So!” said Silas after a brief silence. “You were sent to spy on us?” His tone bristled with suspicion.
Hugh returned his level stare. Subservient by day, these men could turn violent if they were threatened.
He had to disarm them and hoped the truth would do it.
“We were sheltering from the storm and the tide chased us deeper into the caves. I remember them from when I was a boy and thought we’d be safer there than in the pony trap. ”
Though Hugh had mixed with some of these men when they’d been lads, their lives were rough, unlike Hugh’s. Not all would take kindly to his unexpected arrival.
“And you, missy?” Silas asked as he raked Charlotte with a beady-eyed stare from head to foot. Dressed only in a man’s greatcoat, her ankles peeked from below. She didn’t look like the demure, neatly turned out maiden they knew, and suddenly Hugh was afraid for her.
“Her name is Miss Stanbridge!”
It was a short, young fellow who corrected the lack of regard, recognition mutual as Charlotte burst out, “Tom, the boot boy? You’re amongst all this?”
“Who ain’t?” asked the lad with a grin. “You, included.”
Jowan took a step towards Charlotte and the others joined ranks around him as he said, “So now these two have come upon us unexpectedly and reckon they’d best play the innocent?” His voice was harsh. “A dangerous game, indeed.”
“Are you threatening Miss Stanbridge?” Hugh fisted his hands while Charlotte cried, “We won’t tell anyone!” as she pressed against Hugh. “We’ve just survived the tide that nearly drowned us. We found a tunnel and have come from the beach.”
“Then it were providence sent her to us!” Silas raked a meaty hand through his oily red locks before resting them on his hips.
A barrel headed man with a reputation for meting out justice to any patron who caused trouble, he went on, contemplatively, “The governess is our lass at Honeyfield House where Glendenning entertains all them excise men and government officials.”
“Oi!” Jowan, who’d been patting down Hugh, paused when he felt the bulge in his pocket. Now he insinuated his fingers into the opening, snatching the braceletCharlotte had given him, and dangling it before the rest of the party.
“Innocent? Just came from the beach, you said?”
“It’s mine!” Charlotte cried, reaching for her bracelet, but Jowan whisked it away.
“Yours? Then why does Hugh Kernick have it?” he asked. “There’s a chest of precious gems in them caves. You opened the chest and stole it! You stole wot belongs to us and—”
“It’s mine, and it’s precious. It belonged to my mother and I…” She stopped, then added, “Mr Kernick looked after it for me!”
“Mr Kernick, eh? And wot’s ‘e to you? Besides, why should we believe either of you?” demanded a weedy, obstreperous fellow with no front teeth who stood next to Jonas. “I say we toss the both of you right back through that trapdoor and let the tide decide your fate.”
Charlotte gasped, though fortunately it seemed his idea of rough justice was not endorsed by the rest.
“No, Jowan, we don’t hold with murder and they ain’t done nothing less than the rest of us,” said Silas. “Even if they have opened a chest that don’t belong to them. Go down the ladder, young Tom, and see if our governess speaks the truth.”
With a nod, Tom disappeared through the trapdoor, while Silas addressed the gathering.
“Miss Stanbridge thinks Swain Cove is full of smugglers. Well, me lads, we might be men who flout the law and risk death and disgrace for their families. But we’re not the enemy.
We’re simple folks who pay more taxes than is right and fair.
The real enemy is them excise men who come to Swain Cove, and dine with the squire, and our good magistrate, and the likes of Mr Ravensby and Mr Glendenning and Lord Pencarrow.
They’re the ones who seek to profit by our misery—”
“Silas! Silas!” Young Tom’s cries cut into the older man’s talk and had everyone attending as the bootboy emerged from the trapdoor. “The chest ain’t opened but the brandy barrel is half drained. The cock was opened—”
Outrage from the smugglers overlaid the rest of his words.
Charlotte put her hands to her face and Hugh turned to her, as Jowan snarled, “Sabotage? You did this, didn’t you, Kernick?
I remember your mam was agin the grog. You found the barrel and turned the cock to empty it!
Didn’t expect to get a reckoning from us when you popped your head above the parapet, did you? ”
“No, it was an accident! I did it!” Charlotte cried, the rest of her words drowned out by the fury of the men crowded into the little room before Jowan snarled, “So, you’re like Kernick’s ma! You’ve no truck with the grog, either! Wanting to deny the rest—”
“They must pay! Down the hatch!” shouted several people until the publican’s more measured, commanding voice cut through the din.
“We got more coming in on the boat next week and no way to keep the excise men’s snouts out of our business unless someone with more clout than us keeps ’em occupied.” The publican narrowed his eyes as he stared at Charlotte.
Hugh rested his hands on Charlotte’s shoulders, though he was afraid his attempt at comfort might have a negative effect.
“That’s how we’ll get our pound o’ flesh,” Silas went on. “Our fine governess will keep them excise men occupied when they dine at Honeyfield House next week. She will be our Providence!”
A multitude of voices broke out, one more commanding than the rest.
“Aye, she can be our providence if she chooses. Or she can pay for the crimes of her lover.”
“Lover?” Hugh snarled. “How dare you disrespect Miss Stanbridge? I was taking her to Pencarrow House when the storm hit. That is where she should be right now. Thank providence I remembered the caves from when I was a boy and brought her there for shelter. Now we’ve stumbled upon your gathering, thinking we’d be assisted by our fellow villagers, and this is how you treat her? ” He glared at the gathering.
The men shifted, some looking sheepish.
And then Silas muttered ominously into the silence, “All right. So, you’ve both escaped the raging seas and have come upon what you should not have seen.
Not only that, but between you climbing out of those caves and into this room, a barrel of the best French brandy has been drained, and you claim innocence.
” His chest heaved, and Hugh waited tensely for what he was clearly leading up to.
“If Miss Stanbridge can’t restore a barrel of brandy with a magic wand, then she can do our bidding when the time is right.
Aye, in ten days when the new excise man dines at Honeyfield House, she will have a duty to perform that will be her atonement and penance for all that has occurred tonight.
” He looked about the room, his eyes hardening even more as they rested on Charlotte and he added, “Because Miss Stanbridge is the last person the magistrate would suspect of being involved in smuggling operations.”