Page 64 of By Marsh and By Moor
Jed shook his head.“I’m running away too, you know.”
“That’s not the same.Everyone runs from the press gang.”
Jed couldn’t deny it.
“He won’t be in the area forever,” Solomon said.It sounded like something he had repeated many times before.“He may have contrived to be sent here on the impressment service, but he won’t be at Minehead forever.He’ll get orders to move to another part of the country.We only have to stay out of his way until then.”
Wallace looked unconvinced.
There came a quick, determined step in the corridor, and then a rap on the door.It was Emma Yates, with an armful of linen.
“You’ll have a new fellow in your room,” she said to Jed, shooing Solomon and Wallace off the bed so she could change the sheets.“He’s a wool merchant’s clerk, in town for a week or so.”
She glanced curiously at the other two men as she spoke.
“I’ve told him,” Wallace said to her.“Told him everything.”
“Ah.”She straightened up and directed a sharp, swift glance at Jed, as though searching his face for—what?What did she expect to see there?Jed stared back, bemused.
“All right,” she said at last, and went back to making the bed up.Over her shoulder, she said to Jed, “So you saw this Vaughan fellow today, I collect?Should I expect to find him on the doorstep tomorrow?”
“I, ah…” So Emma knew the whole story too?Jed glanced uncertainly from her to Wallace.“On my life, I don’t know.”
“What did you tell him?”
“As little as I could.Nothing that’d lead him directly here.”
She gave the sheets a final sharp tug, then turned to study him, lips pursed.
“We can trust him,” Solomon put in.“If he says he told us everything that happened, he did.”
“Very well, then,” Emma said, the suspicion disappearing from her expression.She looked from Jed to Solomon and said in a lighter tone, “So, I’m guessing I was right that you two are…?”She gestured between them.
Jed froze, the breath driven from his lungs.He didn’t dare look at Solomon.
“Sorry, sorry!”Emma put up a hand.“You don’t have to answer that.None of my affair.Live and let live, eh?”She gathered up the old sheets.“We’d best get them barrels up from the cellar, Wallace.The goldsmiths’ guild will be in tonight, and you know how much they get through.Come and find me downstairs in a few minutes, eh?”
She went out.Jed drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“I’m sorry,” Wallace said.“I only told her about, well, about myself, but she must have guessed… She won’t make any trouble for you, Master Trevithick, I promise.We can trust her.”
“All right, never mind that now,” Jed said, though it wasn’t at all easy to put aside.“About this man Vaughan—what are the two of you planning to do?I mean, are you staying here in this part of the country, or—” He was afraid of what the answer might be.
They exchanged glances.They’d clearly had this discussion already.
“I’m not going to run anymore,” Wallace said.“I’ve reasons for wanting to stay here.Plans for the future.”He swallowed.“I don’t care if I risk seeing him again.”He sounded as though he were trying to persuade himself of that.
Solomon met Jed’s eye.“I’ll be here as long as you two are.”
The knot of worry in Jed’s chest loosened.“All right, then.Good.”
Jed slept badly that night.Every time he woke from confused dreams of the sea, the merchant’s clerk was snoring away cheerfully in the other bed.
He lay on his back, staring up into the darkness, the clash of steel and the boom of musket-fire still ringing in his ears.Carefully, he flexed his fingers.They ached as though he really had been gripping that boarding cutlass, the blade still unbloodied.All he’d ever wanted to do was survive each battle without killing any of the poor sods from the other ship.But when it was you or him, when you lashed out and the other man crumpled, and you plunged on, not even knowing whether you’d left him alive or dead—
He tossed restlessly in sweat-soaked sheets.In the dream, he hadn’t been fighting.He’d been trying to slip away to some quiet corner.But every time, a hand fell on his shoulder and forced him to turn.And every time, he was looking into the face of Lieutenant Vaughan.
When he’d lain in his hammock on board ship, dreaming of escape, he had never pictured anything like this: the unsettled nights, the nerves during the day, the constant dread in the pit of his stomach.He felt a sudden sharp longing to be back in Ledcombe, and for none of this to have ever happened.
