Chapter Six #3
“Why, yes. The entire population is in on it, sir!” His voice rises.
Taking a lace-edged handkerchief from his pocket, he dabs his forehead and utters a dry laugh.
“We in the Revenue Service say in order to stop the crime of smuggling entirely, we’d need to pay half the inhabitants to keep an eye on the other half! ”
Isabel’s nerves are taut like the skin of a drum.
If the lieutenant learned of Jack’s secret identity, he would see him hanged.
She thinks of the woman in the stained dress at the crossroads to Manaccan; of the crunch, the scream.
You’re playing with fire, she wants to tell Jack. Please, please be careful.
They have reached the point at which the path ends and the field begins. Advancing into the meadow, Jack steps into the hollow between two clumps of grass. She sees the pain bloom in his face as he catches himself, then vanish with the brush of his hand across his forehead.
Lieutenant Sowerby has seen it, too. Sucking on his lip, he says, “Are you ill, sir?”
Jack says, “I pulled a muscle going after a deer. Got her in the end, though.”
Isabel’s hands become fists, tight around the muslin of her gown as she lifts the hem over a tuft—as tight as her chest feels suddenly.
“Perhaps we should hunt together someday,” says Lieutenant Sowerby at last.
She lets out her breath slowly. Jack says, “I should like that.”
When Lieutenant Sowerby takes out his pocket watch, she looks away, gazing at the low sun carving out the shape of the folly to hide her relief as he says, “Is that the time? We are expected at dinner, my friends.”
The dinner is a long succession of delights.
It is served à la francaise, with every dish on the table at once, and consists of no less than thirty different offerings.
For a while, Isabel concentrates only on eating—it has been too long since she tasted food like this.
The dinner talk wafts around her like a fine drizzle.
Jack sits at the other end of the table from her, where he continues to wheedle information from Lieutenants Sowerby and Sullivan.
Sir William Tredinnick, besides being a mine owner, is also a naturalist and holds forth about his collection of specimens until Sir Hugh redirects the conversation to the rising copper prices and their effect on the market, a move that allows the quiet and apparently shy Mr. Pickford to join in.
Harriet sits diagonally across the table from Isabel, far enough to make conversation difficult, which she doesn’t mind at the moment as Harriet is talking over Mr. Pickford’s shoulders with Mrs. Tredinnick on the subject of local shops and the meager selection of fabrics in Cornwall as compared to that in London—or something to that effect.
Isabel catches only shreds of their conversation until Mrs. Tredinnick’s voice rings out, the sound of it as large as her bosom: “Mrs. Henley, I have heard a positively astonishing rumor about you! You shall have to tell us if there’s any truth to it. ”
Isabel’s spoon clatters onto her plate. All conversation stops; only Mr. Pickford is still saying, “depending on the situation in Bodmin,” and then he, too, falls silent.
She can hear the sea in her ears, the crash of the waves; she wishes she was underwater, untouchable, free.
She wants to look at Jack but finds she cannot.
She can’t give away how, stupidly, he means too much to her; how it hurts to know she’ll lose his good opinion.
Harriet’s, too—she’s a friend, but she won’t be any longer once Mrs. Tredinnick tells them what they’re saying about Isabel in London.
The food on her plate looked so appetizing before.
Now it’s a swamp of meats, gravy, vegetables, pudding, potatoes—peeled to perfection by the cook, she thinks, and then: what an odd thing to think when she’s about to be ruined for the second time, at the very moment of her reentrance into society.
“I…I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she says.
Sweat drifts under her dress. Her thighs stick together.
“Oh, I am sure you do, Mrs. Henley. Everyone is talking about it.”
It’s hard to hear Mrs. Tredinnick through the crashing waves. The woman is laughing, her red-velveted body is shuddering with it. “I…”
Harriet says, “What is this about, Isabel?”
“I shall tell you, if Mrs. Henley won’t,” says Mrs. Tredinnick.
“Will you believe, my dear friends, that a story goes around that Mrs. Henley here is a foundling, who is none other than the daughter of a merman.” She stresses the words daughter and merman as if they’re sweetmeats she wishes to savor.
They’re all laughing. Sir Hugh has lost some of his sternness as he slams his hand into the table, exclaiming, “Do they say this, truly?”
The crashing in her ears continues. Daughter.
Merman. The words filter through the waves.
Mrs. Tredinnick’s rumor isn’t about her and James.
The swamp on her plate begins to take the shape of food again.
She hears Jack say, “Ah, that story. Indeed, I’ve heard it, too.
They say Mrs. Henley is the daughter of the Sea Bucca. ”
“The Sea Bucca?” Harriet says. “Pray, what is that?”
“It’s a fabled creature, a sea spirit, whom many call a merman. It stands about two feet high and has the skin of a conger eel, with seaweed for hair—so the story goes,” Jack says.
“And my dear friend would be the creature’s daughter? What stuff!” Harriet says.
Isabel gives her a grateful smile.
“My, the look on your face, Mrs. Henley,” Mr. Tredinnick says. “You’d almost think there was something to it and my wife here had discovered your great secret.”
Lieutenant Sowerby swallows a mouthful of wine. “What ridiculous notions the inhabitants of these parts hold. No wonder Mrs. Henley looks startled. Skin of a conger eel? I declare, it’s an insult! If I knew the man responsible for starting this absurd rumor—”
Jack says, “There isn’t a single man responsible. It’s a local legend. A myth, if you will.”
But you believe it, she thinks. Maybe.
“But where would they get such a mad idea?” says Sir Hugh, pointing his wineglass in Isabel’s direction. “Do you know, Mrs. Henley?”
“It’s because there is some truth to it,” she says, forcing herself to look at them one by one.
When she meets Jack’s eyes, he gives her a nod.
“But only a very little. I am a foundling. I was found in the town of Helford, where I now reside, nineteen years ago, and I was adopted by my parents, Admiral and Mrs. Farnworth of Woodbury House.”
Mr. Tredinnick says, “But that is remarkable! Have they never found your parents?”
“They have not. As far as I’m concerned, Admiral and Mrs. Farnworth were my parents.”
“You have lost them both?” Harriet asks. “I am ever so sorry to hear it.”
The cranberries look strange swimming in her pudding. How did she not notice it before? Quietly, she says, “It happened many years ago.”
Sir Hugh says, “That may be so, but it’s tremendously difficult to lose one’s parents.
I know, as do my grown sons, who lost their mother, my first wife, when they were but small.
But I’ve had the good fortune to marry again, a woman of great beauty and understanding: my dear Harriet.
” He speaks with unexpected feeling, and when Isabel looks up, he gives her a smile warmer than she imagined him capable of.
Her voice soft, yet carrying across the table, Harriet says, “Thank you, Sir Hugh. I consider myself fortunate as well.”
After that, the conversation moves on. Jack resumes his assault on Lieutenant Sowerby’s defenses, prying from him what intelligence he can.
Isabel eats quietly, sometimes adding a word here or there.
Outside, the night grows dense. By the time the women rise to go to the drawing room, leaving the men to their port and snuff, it’s past ten in the evening.
Isabel casts a glance over her shoulder and catches Jack looking at her.
He mouths something—she thinks it’s soon, but she cannot be certain.
In the drawing room the conversation moves along like a rusted wheel.
Harriet and Isabel have much to talk about, but it isn’t easy to find subjects that allow them to include Mrs. Tredinnick.
Despite this, as the evening wears on, Isabel feels more and more at ease.
The house, the company of the two women in their silk dresses, the footmen in their livery offering brandy and port—all of it conspires to create such a copy of the life that was still hers just weeks ago that she begins to feel as if her time living in the cottage has been a dream and she has only just woken to reality.
The men seem to have no trouble with their conversation; they remain in the dining room for over an hour and only join the women for some twenty minutes before the party breaks up. Isabel hasn’t found a moment to speak to Jack alone.
The Tredinnicks leave in their carriage and so does Mr. Pickford.
The two lieutenants have only a short ride to the customhouse at St. Keverne and Jack, too, has come on horseback.
When Isabel is putting on her gloves, ready to step out of the door, Jack moves to stand beside her and, leaning in, whispers, “Can I continue to rely on your discretion now you know who I am?”
Before she has the chance to even so much as nod, Harriet has taken her arm. “Oh, Isabel, you cannot mean to go out in the night like this! Not on your own, surely. You must stay.”
Jack says, “I’m happy to accompany Mrs. Henley back to her house.”
Her heart leaps, but then Lieutenant Sowerby says, “As am I. I know where Mrs. Henley lives; I’ve had the honor of visiting her several times, and unlike you, sir, I am well positioned to deal with any bandits along the way.”
Harriet sees her consternation. “Isabel? I’m afraid I must insist you stay the night. It’s very kind of the two gentlemen to offer their services, but I would be glad of your company and it’s awfully late and dark along the path.”
“I shall be glad to stay, dear Harriet,” she says. The regret sits heavy in her stomach; she wanted nothing more than the chance to ride back to Helford with Jack.
Harriet says, “You shall have the best room in the house.”
“It’s settled then,” says Lieutenant Sowerby, adjusting his neckerchief before going out.
“I promise I shall call on you before the week is out, my dear Mrs. Henley. I look forward to conversing with you at length. It’s my sincere hope the more mundane aspects of your current situation shall not deprive me of a few hours of your delightful company. ”
Mundane aspects? Does he mean the daily washing, cleaning, baking, and cooking that now form the foundation of her existence? She tries not to grit her teeth when she makes her response: “That will be lovely, Lieutenant, thank you.”