Chapter Eight
Robert walked away from the argument, a strange blend of fury and impotence boiling through him. He had lost his temper, which he rarely did.
He had grown increasingly frustrated and angry after his failed attempt to write to Montacute, over the last few days, and this hadn’t helped today.
There were details of the ongoing investigation, his discoveries, what he had learned so far about the smuggling gang.
Listing all the hints that indicated smuggling was occurring—the constant drinking of ‘flip’ which given its ingredients of rum, sugar, beer, gin and brandy spoke to a town well versed in shipping in illegal goods.
The problem was who. Which was why he’d questioned the Weirs’s maid last night.
“Miss Enskin—Bessie,” Robert drew nearer to the maid. He gave her his most winning of smiles.
Bessie dimpled up at him, clearly a little inebriated. The gentry were not the only ones making the most of the spring ball.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Robert said as Bessie swayed closer. He could tell she would like it if he kissed her hand or whispered a sweet nothing to her, but suddenly the thought of seducing a witness for evidence was not quite so appealing when it wasn’t Abigail.
“Yes, sir?” she murmured.
It was time to test his theory out. “Have you heard of Punch?”
She grinned as she stepped closer. “She scares me. My brother’s done a bit of work for the Pinhayers, but…” Suddenly, she clamped her hand to her mouth, cutting off the words, as if she realized what she’d said.
“Please,” Robert tried again, but she shook her head dramatically and ran off crying.
So, his witness was just a scared girl, or the woman he didn’t know if he could trust, because of how much he desired her. And this Punch might still be Abigail.
Robert had a profile of the most prominent members of Lyme society—both men and women.
Detailed what he thought of each one in turn.
Yet as he wrote these down, he’d found himself scribbling down anecdotes about Abigail.
Reflections on something she had said. A sweet comparison to her freckles.
Hurriedly he had stuffed all of his pages into the fireplace so best not to dwell on what that meant.
*
In anger, he kicked out a nearby pile of rubble and rocks, sending the lot scattering in every possible direction. As soon as his outburst and the flying stones had settled, he had regretted his response.
Drawing in a breath, Robert tried to resume his gentlemanly demeanor.
It felt a long way away at the current moment.
Where was his famed calmness and logic? Surely it was simply down to frustration with how the investigation was progressing—yet Robert had encountered numerous setbacks and problems with his other enquiries, yet never had he been moved to lose his patience so entirely with an innocent young woman.
You don’t know if she’s innocent.
He had been so convinced that she was the smuggler Montacute sought, but on closer inspection, he questioned his choices. Yet every time he sought to distance himself, or make use of her, his attraction to her clouded his logic.
Abigail Fossey was a problem. Constantly pulling his attention regardless of whether she was in his presence or not.
The picture of her frowning, a knitting of her brow, her quizzical mouth chewing on a topic before offering her unusual pronouncement, flooding his mind.
Her damned little chin with its dainty cleft was plaguing him.
It was annoying.
It was infuriating.
It made no sense.
Diverging off the path back to Lyme itself, Robert cut down onto the bobbled beach, meandering through the rockpools and chalky outcrops toward the water.
There was a soothing quality to the sea that Robert had always enjoyed.
Many men in the navy had been press-ganged, forced to work, and whilst there was a great deal Robert could not claim to enjoy about navy life, he had always loved how close he was to waves.
In quieter, tranquil moments, when they occurred, Robert liked to imagine his life after the navy—it was an elusive series of images, a blurry looking cottage framed by climbing ivy, the nearby sound of church bells, and a pathway that led inextricably to the sea.
It wasn’t an opulent or fashionable future, but it felt achievable.
It felt like his. In no circumstances had Robert ever allowed himself the thought that anyone else would be with him.
Looking at the water, as it came in and then out, in a rhythmic manner, did soothe him.
Pulled him onto the calmness he had sought.
Just as he was certain he put aside his irrationality and reclaimed his equilibrium, an almighty crash drowned out the sea’s noise.
It echoed around the long bay as if it had been sent from God above.
Robert whirled around. Part of him was scared that this was the invasion from some foreign powers that every able-bodied man in England feared. The French? Or a different nation turned traitor? The wild thought that it could be the Americans…
But surely it was too loud for a mere army?
And then he realized what it was, and he wished with all of his heart that it had been a foreign power, because at least that wouldn’t mean he had to know that Abigail was about to die.
The hillside pathway that curved alongside the cliff, was coming away at the seams, bowing and crumbling at some internal pressure as bits of chalk and rock gave way.
The sound was tremendous, the blurry shade and scatter of dust was billowing outwards, and Robert could at least see the vague shape of the dust clouds.
The sand beneath his feet shook with the earth’s movements.
Fumbling in the pocket of his waistcoat, cursing himself for not wearing them sooner, Robert snatched up his glasses and shoved them onto his nose.
In the midst of the rockslide, there was the running figure of Abigail.
She was scrambling and jumping this way and that as she tried to fight against nature to escape.
Her body rose for a moment, and she screamed long and loud and crystal clear.
So, for as long as he lived, Robert feared he would never forget the sound of her screech in the air, desperate to somehow rise above the all-consuming wave of rocks, chalk and dust.
He thought he saw her land, scramble forward but then she vanished, claimed entirely by the sweep of the landslide.
Robert’s body was moving before his mind caught up with him.
Panic pulsed through him, of a similar taste as he had experienced during the war.
Yet this was different because he himself was not in any danger.
But that sort of sense was not permeating through him because his limbs dashed forward and toward the now slowing cascade of the landslide, desperate to try and pinpoint where Abigail was.
Never had he felt his damaged eyesight more. Never had he cursed his ill luck and not being closer to save her.
But he refused to think she might simply be gone.
His stumbling legs gave way as he hurried forward back across the sands, and toward the inky blackness, and stilted rockslide that spilled out onto the sands.
A calmed part of him wondered if perhaps he could or should hurry back to Lyme Regis and rouse the town up.
Get willing volunteers and workers to come help him.
It was a big enough landslide that someone else, not just Abigail, might have been caught up in it.
But she was trapped down there, if she had survived, then she was at risk of suffocation or drowning caught beneath those rocks.
With quickened his steps, Robert found himself running now toward the point at where he thought Abigail had vanished.
Given his eyesight, could he be sure? Everything had happened so quickly—could he trust his questionable sight to guide him?
Before him the beach stretched, sunlight bright for late March, beating down around him—it should have been a pleasant day—they should have laughed and talked, and he should never have mentioned such things as liars and corruption. Nor should he have fought or quizzed her.
Guilt, a sensation not often familiar to Robert, flooded through him. Did people ever survive landslides?
Abigail, though, wasn’t people. She was her own strange little being, and as much as she perplexed and confused him, the idea that he could come away from today without her presence, her talk, the quick way she accessed a fossil or society, or the unique way she would watch him, was not an idea he could entertain for long.
In fact, he utterly refused to accept that he would not find her. She was in this chaos in this mountain of rubble, dust, chalk and mud, and he just had to find her.
There was a sound, a shouted cry in the air. Robert blinked, realizing that he was calling, no, shouting for her, desperate for her to respond.
“Abigail!” He was within twenty feet of where he thought he’d seen her disappear.
It was the edge of the rockslide, half of the overspill pushing into the water’s edge.
He started to climb, his feet rough and difficult to find.
Hard to balance in amongst the rocks and slippery chalk, which more often than not, simply gave way beneath his feet.
His view blurred from sweat, grit and his own poor eyesight.
Giving up on standing, Robert started to crawl over the remnant of the rockslide. His eyes fixed on where she had been. It was next to a pinkish-red stone, and he made himself promise that he would begin to dig there.
“Abigail.” It had become his mantra. He was repeating again and again, eager that if there was any way she might be able to hear him, she would be reassured—she would know that someone—that he—he was coming for her. She would not be alone.
He set to work, his hands digging into the dirt and rocks, chalk coming away in chunks as he pushed and dug at the spot he told himself she would be. He would find her.