Chapter Two
In bed that night, she listens to the river and the wind crashing about the cottage.
She’s all alone. She cannot think of it.
She’s not alone—the wind is made of voices.
They’re calling, come home. The sea lies just around the bend in the river.
She’s dreaming, of course. Or half dreaming, hovering in the fuzzy state between sleep and waking, in which her mind jumps from one thing to another, forging connections that cannot be real.
A creaking noise rouses her. The house groans in unexpected places; there is a sound like feet on the roof.
The bed is hard and built for two. The mattress is filled with straw that pricks her back, but the sheets are clean.
Who lived here before her? Mrs. Dowling said the cottage was empty for three years.
She thinks it must’ve been an old man and his wife. Did they die in the bed?
The sea-river is louder at night, the waves from earlier grown into maturity.
The sound soothes her and eventually her mind wanders, the way it does when she balances on the edge of sleep: the house in Greenwich, her parents, George and her after the wedding, during the two days they had before he went back to sea.
They were too young, George’s older brother said.
There would be plenty of time after the war. Only there wasn’t.
—
The morning comes with heavy rain. The tide is out; the inlet has turned into a swath of seaweed and rocks.
The wind sweeps the rain against the windows in sheets.
The sky is low over the river. They’re both gray, the water a stony gray and the sky the gray of overly washed cotton.
Braving the rain, she puts on her pelisse and stands in the paradise garden, watching the water rise and fall in the wind.
She isn’t sure what she is meant to be doing.
Is this how people live? she thinks. Is this what it’s like when you’re well and truly on your own?
Back in the cottage, she puts some kindling in the fireplace.
She goes through the motions Mrs. Dowling showed her—striking the flint, using the cloth for tinder—but the fire won’t catch.
Half the tinder gone, she’s nearly crying with frustration, when suddenly the flame jumps.
Now she could cry with relief. There’s too much feeling in her since she arrived; everything makes her want to weep.
Around noon, there’s a knock on the door.
Could it be Mrs. Dowling again? She doesn’t know anyone else in the village, apart from the innkeeper and his son, and they have no reason to call on her.
When she opens the door, she’s surprised to see the red shirt and blue pantaloons of an officer of the Revenue Service.
Above the stiff cotton necktie, the man’s face reminds her of the moon; it’s pale and round, and there’s something mournful about the way his eyes droop at the corners.
He looks perhaps ten years older than her.
The man removes his hat, bows deeply, and says, “Lieutenant Arthur Sowerby, riding officer of the Revenue Service, at your service, madam,” as if he cannot see the squalid cottage, as if it’s entirely usual for her to answer the door herself.
“Mrs. Henley. Most charmed.” She curtsies, and to her shock, he reaches for her hand and presses his lips to it.
The touch of them is cold. Rain drips from his reddish-blond curls, trailing down his cheeks and into the collar of his shirt.
Somewhere outside, a horse snorts. She says, “But you must step out of this rain, Lieutenant.”
She moves aside and he folds himself through the door, saying, “Thank you, madam. I’m most obliged.” His size belies the gracefulness of his movements: he walks as if he’s dancing. By the kitchen table, he stops and turns. “I’ve come to call on you, madam, to warn you.”
“Warn me? Whatever for?” Her voice is oddly loud. It doesn’t belong in the cottage; it needs more space.
“I understand you live here alone?”
“My, how news travels.”
“I’m based in St. Keverne. It’s only five miles from here.
We’ve had word of your coming. I believe the wife of my most particular friend the deputy lord lieutenant, Sir Hugh Darby, intends to call on you soon.
Lady Darby is keen to make your acquaintance, as am I.
As you may be aware, there aren’t many people of our standing in the area. ”
She’d like to offer him tea but isn’t sure how to make it. She has no other drinks to offer, either. Heat rising, she reaches for the medal around her neck. The length of the ribbon she wears it on places it close to her heart. “As you can see, I’m much reduced in circumstance, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Sowerby has the decency to pretend he only now notices. “I see. Even so. I feel it is my duty to warn you, madam, that these parts are rife with smugglers. As a woman living alone, you’re particularly vulnerable. I would advise you to lock your doors and windows at night.”
Isabel glances at the door behind her. There’s no lock.
“Or have a lock fitted,” Lieutenant Sowerby says. “For the safety of your person and your possessions. If anything is ever amiss, please let me know at once. I’d be honored to come to your aid, should you need it.”
He sounds terribly officious. Looks it, too, with his shoulders squared and his chin sticking up like that. The kitchen is too small; he’s towering over her. She takes a step back, but he follows her, dance-stepping closer. His voice drops when he says, “You are a widow, are you not?”
“I am.” Her hand clasps the Trafalgar medal. The ridges of Admiral Nelson’s profile dig into her hand. On the reverse is a view of the battle in which George died, with above it the words of Nelson’s signal: England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty.
Lieutenant Sowerby says, “So you are in need of protection. As a woman, not perhaps of means, but of rank, living alone in what is a rough and dangerous land.”
She thinks of the loveliness of the paradise garden, the flowers, the river. “I’ve only seen very little of it so far, but it doesn’t strike me as rough,” she says. “It looks to me quite lovely.”
“That’s because you’re a woman. You have a romantic heart.
But I have seen what this land is truly like.
I’ve had to fight its sons upon the waves and cliffs.
Lawless, these people are. They’re all in on the smuggling.
Fishermen, miners, shopkeepers, farmers.
Their wives and children, too! They’re all involved. ”
The anger rises in her as if he’s drawing it out with a hook.
She thinks of Tom Holder and his son, Richard, and Mrs. Dowling.
She has only just arrived in Cornwall, but it seems unfair to accuse the entire population like this.
She has no love for smugglers—she imagines they are dangerous.
But the farmers and fishermen? Their children, even?
She lets go off George’s medal, balls her hands into fists. “Surely it cannot be that bad?”
“It’s worse, madam. I used to think I could bring the men I captured to justice. I had them imprisoned and tried for their crimes. Smuggling, piracy. But nearly all were acquitted. Even the juries are on their side.”
He’s looming over her, his moon face too close. She can smell his breath, which is oddly sweet, as if he’s been drinking spirits; she can sense the anger pulsing under the polite exterior. He hates it here, she thinks. He hates Cornwall; hates its people.
She thinks of his cold lips pressed against the skin covering her knuckles.
For the first time, she wishes the rules governing her limited interactions with men before she married still applied.
In widowhood, she has far more freedom, but now she wishes this freedom revoked, if only for today.
Lieutenant Sowerby would never dream of standing here, alone with her, if she were unwed.
Lieutenant Sowerby says, “These days, I don’t risk a trial.”
“How do you mean?”
“How do you think I mean, madam?” The edge in his voice grows sharper. “I ensure justice takes its course. I have them hanged, as traitors should be.”
“Traitors?” she squeaks, willing away the picture he’s drawn before her eyes. He hangs them? Boys, like Richard Holder?
“You don’t believe smugglers are traitors?
” There’s a fury in him, but it’s controlled, simmering under the surface of a polite smile.
“Their smuggling aids the French. We’re at war, madam.
” His eye falls on George’s medal. His tone, his entire bearing, changes to one of suspicion. “Where did you get that?”
Taken aback, her hand goes to the medal again.
“My husband, George Henley, was a midshipman on His Majesty’s Ship Neptune at Trafalgar.
He died of a bullet fired from the top of the Bucentaure.
” She has spoken these words so many times they have almost become meaningless.
They cannot convey how the world turned black when she received word of his death, of the cutting of everyday things, of how much she still misses him and how much she wishes she had known him better.
“Well. A proper hero,” Lieutenant Sowerby says.
There’s a hint of sarcasm in his tone and she wants him out, suddenly, with a vehemence that makes her desire to be alone when Mrs. Dowling lingered on her doorstep pale in comparison.
Before she has the chance to say anything, Lieutenant Sowerby returns to his officiousness and, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, says, “I hereby offer you my protection, madam.”
She swallows her sigh. “I’m terribly grateful, sir, but I don’t believe I need it.”