Beyond the Storm (20 page)

S
ERGEANT GRUBB AND
a constable from London’s Metropolitan Police Force called at Trethevy again early the next morning, soon after David had left to take an early morning communion service at Tintagel. Eliza opened the door to them and realised straightway that their visit had nothing to do with the pick-pocketing incident at Camelford fair.

Both men were wearing the top hats and high-buttoned jackets adopted as uniform by the London police and, to her utter dismay, Eliza recognised the constable accompanying the sergeant immediately. It was the policeman who had arrested her on the charge of stealing three guineas from Sir Robert Calnan, and who had been in court to see her sentenced to transportation for a period of seven years. It was this man who spoke to her now.

‘Hello, Eliza, I never expected to see you again, especially when it was reported you’d died in a shipwreck on your way to Australia. I thought at the time it had probably been a merciful release for you, but here you are again, large as life and you’ve hardly changed at all. I’d know you anywhere, for all that you’re more than three years older and a lot prettier.’

The leer he gave her was lost on Eliza. She felt as though everything about her was revolving and would have fallen had not Sergeant Grubb stepped forward and caught her. She recovered
quickly, but the whole of her body was shaking uncontrollably and he continued to support her.

He was still holding her when Alice came from inside the house to see who was at the door. At the same time Tristram appeared from the stables, where he had been cleaning out the stall recently vacated by the Kilpeck’s pony.

‘What do you think you are doing with my maid?’

Alice’s question was interrupted by a distraught Tristram, who cried, ‘Leave her alone, she’s done nothing wrong.’ He would have pushed past the constable to go to Eliza, but the policeman barred his way, saying, ‘No you don’t. Who are you, anyway?’

‘I work here at the rectory – and I’m going to marry Eliza.’

‘Then you’re going to have to wait a long time for her. She was sentenced to seven years transportation three years ago and still has the full sentence to serve.’

Alice listened to the exchange in speechless disbelief, and Tristram repeated, ‘I tell you she’s done nothing wrong.’

‘The judge thought otherwise,’ the London constable retorted, ‘and I should know, I was the one who arrested her and was in the Old Bailey when she was sentenced.’

‘Then you’re the one who “forgot” to tell the judge that the only money she took was what was owed her for wages, and that she left behind much more money than she’d taken, as proof she weren’t no thief. You knew full well why she needed to take the money and run away but you didn’t bother to tell the judge that either.’

The sergeant looked sharply at the constable, but it was to Tristram he spoke, ‘None of them things matter any more, young man, she’s an escaped felon and will be taken before a judge in London. The best you can hope for is that she’s not given a longer sentence for escaping – although in view of the circumstances of her escape I’d say she’ll most likely be treated mercifully.’

‘Mercifully? To serve a sentence for something she hasn’t done?’

Tristram was very close to tears and a desperately confused Alice said, ‘Tell them they have made a mistake, Eliza. Tell them they must have confused you with someone else.’

Still shaking and tearful now, because of Tristram’s distress, Eliza shook her head, ‘It
is
true, Miss Alice … at least, what they’re saying about me going to court and being sent away for seven years, but I didn’t steal any money. I only took what was owed me in wages from Sir Robert’s bedside cabinet, I left behind all the other money he had on there. Lady Calnan knew that.’

Pointing to the constable who had admitted having arrested her at that time, she cried, ‘
He
knew it too, but he never told it to the judge. He knew I wasn’t no thief, and I’m
not
, Miss Alice.’

‘I know that, Eliza. Try not to be too upset and we’ll have all this settled in no time.’

Gathering her wits about her with some difficulty, she said to the sergeant, ‘Can you leave Eliza here at the rectory while everything is sorted out – and it will be, you know?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss, I’ve travelled all the way here with Constable Wicks to identify her as Eliza Brooks – although you know her as Eliza Smith. She’s a prisoner who was sentenced to seven years transportation, and who is unlawfully at large. She’ll be taken to Bow Street police station in London to appear before a magistrate, then lodged in Newgate prison until arrangements can be made to take her before a judge. He’ll no doubt confirm her conviction and order that her sentence be carried out.’

‘But you heard what she had to say about it, Sergeant, she is no thief, as I will testify. She has worked here at the rectory for more than three years, ever since I found her half-dead down at the cove when she was no more than a child, having miraculously survived a horrific shipwreck. Surely you can show some compassion for her.’

‘I can
feel
compassion for her, Miss, and I do, but she is a convicted felon and as such my duty is to arrest her and let the law take its course.’

‘Please! Will you wait until I contact my brother, Reverend Kilpeck? He is taking a Communion service at Tintagel church but will be home before too long. He will tell you …’

Alice was distraught, but Grubb interrupted her, ‘He’ll be able to say nothing to prevent me performing my duty, Miss Kilpeck. Brooks – or Smith, as you know her, will be taken by Constable Wicks and myself to Padstow to catch the steamer to Bristol. From there we’ll be travelling on a train to London.’

His face showing the anguish he felt, Tristram said, ‘I’ll come to London to see you in prison, Eliza, I promise you, and I’ll do everything I can to stop them sending you away.’

Remembering the degradation of Newgate, Eliza said tearfully, ‘I don’t
want
you to come and see me there, Tristram. I want you to remember me as you know me here. That’s how I want you both to remember me.’

‘We won’t need to
remember
you, Eliza, we’ll have you here with us,’ Alice said, determinedly. ‘Don’t give up hope. Reverend David and I will do absolutely everything in our power to have you released. You’ll be back here with us at Trethevy and this nightmare will be over before you know it.’

Recovering from the initial shock of the arrest of the maid she trusted implicitly and for whom she had great affection, Alice was being positive for her sake, but she felt entirely helpless in the present situation and at the moment had no idea how she or David were going to be able to do anything at all about it.

The two London policemen drove off in the hired light carriage with their handcuffed prisoner squatting on the floor of the vehicle behind them, and the constable roughly warding off Tristram who ran beside the carriage as it set off, trying to reach in and grasp one of Eliza’s fettered hands.

Standing at the garden gate and watching Tristram’s touching but impotent actions, Alice saw Eval Moyle farther along the lane, watching what was going on. There was no apparent reason for him to be there and remembering his manner when he had stopped the carriage in which she and Eliza were returning to the rectory from their visit to Pendower, Alice thought he had undoubtedly been far more helpful to the London policemen in their enquiries than was absolutely necessary.

When a thoroughly dejected Tristram returned to the rectory, Alice gave him no time to dwell upon the misery he was so obviously feeling about the arrest of Eliza.

Giving him one of her sternest looks, she said, ‘You quite obviously knew all about the problems Eliza had before she came to Trethevy, so I think you owe Reverend David and me an explanation. I will not dwell upon the disappointment I feel that neither you nor Eliza had enough trust in us to tell us about them, instead I want you to come into the rectory and tell me everything Eliza has said to you about her arrest, trial and the shipwreck which brought her to us, and how it is that the police have caught up with her after all this time. I want to know
everything
, you understand? We are going to have to act with great speed if we are to help her.’

H
ER ARREST HAD
an air of unreality about it for Eliza, coming as it had after more than three happy years at the Trethevy rectory and with the prospect of life opening out still more once she was married to Tristram. Feeling numb inside, gone was the bright, resourceful girl who had found her true potential working for the Trethevy rector and his sister.

It was as though the past three years had never happened and she had reverted to being an unhappy waif with no more control over her life than she had enjoyed during her previous existence in London.

When nature and the rough state of the North Cornwall lanes brought back some feeling to her body, she said to Sergeant Grubb, ‘I need to piddle.’

‘Can’t you wait until we reach Padstow?’ Sergeant Grubb turned his head to look at her.

‘I doubt if I’ll be able to hold on to it until we reach the end of this bit of lane. If I don’t go soon I’ll wet me’self and that won’t be pleasant for any of us.’

‘Alright.’ The sergeant said, resignedly.

Constable Wicks had the reins and the sergeant said to him, ‘Pull in to the next gateway and she can go in the field.’

Guiding the horse off the road at a gateway only a short distance along the lane, Wicks said, ‘I could do with going myself. You stay here and I’ll take her.’

The way Wicks had looked at Eliza when she had opened the door to them at the rectory had not been lost upon the sergeant and he said, ‘No you won’t.
I’ll
take her. You can go once I’ve brought her back – if that’s still what you want.’

Helping Eliza from the carriage, Sergeant Grubb opened the gate for her to enter the field and led her alongside the hedgerow for a short distance before saying, ‘Here’s as good a place as anywhere.’

‘Can’t you take these handcuffs off, they’re going to make it awkward for me?’

‘You’ll manage. I’ll look away while you’re going but you can keep talking so I know you’re not getting up to anything you shouldn’t.’

‘I don’t feel very much like talking, what do you want me to say?’

‘Well, for a start you can tell me all about the money you took from your employer in London and why you did it. Then, if you still haven’t done, you can tell me how it is you came to escape from the ship that was taking you to Australia, when everyone else on board was drowned.’

‘Alright, if that’s what you want, but you can turn away while I’m piddling.’

Sergeant Grubb did as he was told and, speaking to his back, Eliza gave him a shortened version of her arrest and subsequent conviction in the London court. Then, in response to a question from him she explained why she felt she had to leave Lady Calnan’s household so hurriedly in order to escape the attentions of her husband.

‘Why didn’t you tell all this to the judge when you came to court?’ The sergeant queried.

‘I told Constable Wicks when he arrested me but he reminded me that I’d been a workhouse girl when I was put into service and he asked me what else I had expected to happen? He said I
ought to have been grateful enough to Sir Robert to give him what he wanted in exchange for being allowed to work in a fine house with good food and a roof over my head. He said I should have thought myself lucky to be doing it in bed with a titled gent and not in a back alley with some worthless street hooligan who’d probably been with half the poxed-up whores in Shoreditch.’

‘He said that to you when you were … how old? No more than thirteen?’

‘That’s right, so if
he
wouldn’t take any notice of me I knew it would be no good telling it to a judge who was probably friends with Sir Robert anyway.’

‘What about this ship you were being transported on, how is it that
you
escaped when everyone else was drowned?

Eliza sighed, ‘It’s a long story, far too long to tell you now, and I’ve finished piddling, so unless you’ve changed your mind and are going to let me go back to Trethevy we might as well get on with what you have to do. I got used to the idea of being transported once – though I didn’t even really know what it meant then – so I suppose I can get used to it again. I’ve had three lovely years working for Miss Alice, which is probably more than I’ve ever deserved, I can always remember that when I’m unhappy. I dread having to go back to a hulk again, but I suppose I’ll get used to that too, in time.’

Eliza was very close to tears and Sergeant Grubb said, gruffly, ‘Like I said to your employer, I feel sorry for you, girl, but I’m paid to arrest those who break the law and however you look at it that’s what you’ve done. Mind you, there are different ways of doing this job and if you’ve been telling me the truth then I’ll be having words with Constable Wicks about the way
he
does it.’

Back at the entrance to the field, Wicks was leaning on the gate, puffing on a briar pipe and when they reached him he said with a smirk, ‘I hope you kept a close eye on her all the time, Sergeant?’

‘I did what needed to be done, no more, and no less, and you are on duty, Constable, so you can put out that pipe right now.’

Grumbling, Wicks said, ‘I was only making sure you’d remembered what Mr Moyle told us, she can take people in.’

‘Moyle? Eval Moyle?’ Eliza said incredulously, ‘You’ve been talking to him about me? He hates Reverend Kilpeck and Alice and he hates me because I work for them. Moyle is a bully, a violent man, and a liar. You won’t hear him say anything good about anyone. You ask Lieutenant Kendall, he was threatened by Moyle.’

‘Are you speaking of Lieutenant Kendall the coast guard officer? How do you know him?’

‘He and Miss Alice will likely be getting married sometime soon. He’s been coming to the rectory for more than three years and me and Miss Alice were staying at his home where his father Lord Kendall lives until yesterday. It was Lieutenant Kendall who took me and Tristram to Camelford fair in his father’s carriage.’

‘You move in high circles for a workhouse girl,’ Constable Wicks said, scornfully, ‘but he’ll drop you like a hot potato when he knows what sort of young woman you really are.’

‘Lieutenant Kendall knows
exactly
what sort of person I really am,’ Eliza retorted, ‘and if he’d been at the rectory when you came there he wouldn’t have let you take me off, I’ll tell you that. He’ll be
Commander
Kendall soon and he’s in London at the Admiralty right now. As for Eval Moyle … I bet he didn’t tell you that he had to run off to America because the Truro magistrate put out a warrant for his arrest when he started a riot there.’

As she was talking Eliza realised that so many things were falling into place. Moyle had been at Camelford Fair. He must have overheard what Maudie Huggins had said about her and told the London police sergeant about the storm when so many ships had foundered in the waters around Cornwall – including the ship carrying the convict women to Australia – and how she
had been found among rocks in the cove where another ship had been wrecked and everyone believed her to have been the sole survivor from
this
vessel.

Even as all the facts dropped into place, Police Constable Wicks put her present predicament into perspective when he remarked sneeringly, ‘Whatever
you
think about Mr Moyle, he wasn’t wrong about you, was he? You are an escaped convict who’s been living a lie for more than three years.’

‘I was only a convict because you never told the whole truth about me to the judge. You may not have actually lied about me, but if you’d told him about what Sir Robert Calnan did – and that I’d only taken what he owed me from his money I would never have been on a convict ship. I might never even have gone before a judge. You’re just as bad as Moyle but in a different way, that’s all.’

Constable Wicks tried to shrug off her accusation with a dismissive smile in the direction of his companion, but the London police sergeant had climbed into the driving seat of the carriage and was looking straight ahead impassively.