Page 48 of By Marsh and By Moor
“Maybe she didn’t write it,” he said aloud.“Maybe Penwick wrote it.”
“It’s not a gentleman’s hand,” Emma said, sounding apologetic.“Not that I’m any great expert myself, but it looks like an unschooled hand to me.”
“Maybe—at his dictation?”Solomon said.
Jed took a deep breath.He didn’t know what to do now nor which way to turn.His old life seemed even further away than ever.
“I cannot make her choose between her husband and her brother.But I did think she might—” He broke off, crumpling the letter in his fist.He had been planning to write to her, but now he could not even begin to imagine what he would say.“Thank you, Mistress Yates,” he said to Emma, as evenly as he could, and then, dully, to Solomon, “I suppose we’d better see if Johns and Norris are back.”
“Want to stop here a minute?”Jed suggested, indicating the coaching inn up ahead.“I could do with a drink.”It hadn’t rained in a few days, and his throat was parched from the dust of the road.
“All right,” Solomon said.
He drew up outside the inn, and Jed climbed down from the cart and went inside.
They were on their way back to Barnstaple from the brewery.It had been a short journey, and a subdued one.Jed spent most of it brooding over Carrie’s letter.Solomon’s quiet presence had been a comfort to him.
In the taproom, it took him a few minutes to get the barmaid’s attention; she had her hands full with the crowd waiting for the Exeter-to-Taunton stagecoach.When he finally emerged from the inn carrying two tankards of ale, the stagecoach had just pulled into the yard.Ostlers came running forward with fresh horses, and the passengers piled off the coach, making for the inn to down a hurried drink, or towards the bushes for a piss.New passengers emerged from the inn and flocked around the coach, fighting over the best places to stow their luggage.
Across the crowded yard, Jed could see Solomon up on the driving seat.He plunged into the crowd, clutching the two tankards to his chest so no one could jostle them.
But when he reached the far side of the yard, Solomon wasn’t there.The cart was empty.The horses stood waiting patiently, grazing on weeds by the roadside.
Jed put down the two drinks on the driving seat and looked around, puzzled.Solomon seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and Jed turned.It was a gentleman about Jed’s age, dressed in the blue coat and cocked hat favoured by Naval officers.Jed froze.
“Where’s the other man who was in your cart a moment ago?”the officer demanded.
Was he alone?Or did he have a gang of men nearby whom he could summon to clap Jed in irons?But they were miles from the sea here, and there was no reason, surely, for him to suspect that Jed was a seafaring man.
“Where’s the man who was in your cart?”the officer repeated.There was something familiar about his voice.“A tall, thinnish, dark-haired man.”
“Don’t know what you mean,” Jed said automatically.
The man’s eyes narrowed.“Don’t play me for a fool, fellow.”
Jed had heard that voice before, at Mrs Farley’s farm.“Dreadfully sorry to impose on you, ma’am…”Could this be the Lieutenant Vaughan that Solomon was so afraid of?Jed stared at him in shock.He was a short, trim man with hard eyes.Handsome in a sneering way.
Vaughan returned the stare, giving Jed a long, appraising look.
“Show me your hands,” he said suddenly.
Reflexively, Jed clenched his hands into fists.The tar-stains had worn off after numerous washings, but the distinctive rope callouses were still there.He summoned up an aggrieved voice.“I don’t know who you are to think you can order me around.”
“Show me at once, man.”
Jed twitched, so accustomed was he to obeying gentlemen speaking in that tone of voice, wearing that uniform.But he didn’t move.Better to brazen it out.He was an innocent carter, going about his business, and not a seafaring man.He repeated that over and over in his head.This fellow Vaughan might have spotted and recognised Solomon, but he couldn’t possibly know who Jed was.
Vaughan strolled around the cart, hands behind his back, and took a good look at the cargo.Jed fought the urge to jump into the cart and hurtle away from the inn, lashing the horses.I’m just an innocent carter… I’m just an innocent carter…
Vaughan returned to face Jed.His gaze raked Jed again, uncomfortably piercing.“I ask you once more—” But he broke off when a young gentleman—the boy looked to be a midshipman—appeared at his elbow.
“Stagecoach is leaving, sir.The coachman says he’ll go without us if we don’t make shift.”
Vaughan made a noise of frustration.
The midshipman cast a curious glance at Jed.“What’s going on, sir?Who’s this fellow?”
