She pulled a stool beneath the window, and climbed through onto the brewhouse roof. From the edge of the roof, she lobbed her bundled cloak through the mulberry branches towards the lane. It got as far as the tamarisk hedge, where it unfurled itself and hung scarecrow-fashion. No matter, it would be easy enough to collect in passing. She reached out, found the familiar mossy handhold and swung herself into the heart of the mulberry tree. She worked her way out along the further branch that dipped under her weight, and dropped into the lane.
Chapter 13: Wish on a Shooting Star
WHEN SHE REACHED the Wise Woman’s cottage there was no rush-light gleam in the window. She made her woodwind oyster-catcher call, and waited, listening for an answer. None came. She pushed the door open, and called softly, ‘Genty? Genty?’ Still nothing and no one answered her. The fire was banked for the night. Genty must be off about her own affairs, maybe with the sick baby again; and Tom and Peter must have set out already for Joyous Gard. If only Aunt Selina had not kept her so long reading The Gentleman’s Magazine! Suddenly she realized as she had not quite done before, that in going to warn the other two, she was running into the same danger herself; and that it was quite possible, if the decoy riders failed in their task and she got caught between the smuggling band and the Troopers and Customs House men, that she might end up in the general confusion and the patchy mist, by getting herself shot.
Well, she would not get caught. She knew the woods better than the Customs men or any Troopers from Horsham, probably better than some of the smugglers did; and the alternative was to leave Tom and Peter to run into the danger unwarned.
She pulled her cloak more closely round her and turned back into the trees, heading straight for Joyous Gard, which was also straight for the Run. It was the third time that she had taken to the woods at night, and she was beginning to be used to the difference that came over familiar places when the dark came down upon them, changing shapes and sounds and distances from their daytime selves. But tonight there was another kind of strangeness abroad in the Manhood: the woods were awake and aware and hostile, a place where the crack of a twig might be a musket shot, and every bush or shadow or tree stump a crouching man. . . .
The mist that hung in faint ghostly swathes among the trees did not help, either, playing tricks with the direction of the sea-murmur, and more than once making Damaris think that she had lost the way. But at last she was at the spot where she had first found her smuggler lying face down among the roots of the oak tree. Only a little further now. She had taken such care to move quietly, but now despite herself she began to run. The little black hump that was Joyous Gard seemed to grow out of the mist to meet her, and away beyond it through the trees she caught the pale blurred glimmer of the Marsh. Somewhere out on the saltings where the mist eddied like smoke there was a moment’s blink of light. The smugglers often used flint-and-steel for signalling, she knew; the light could carry half a mile on a clear night. Even tonight, as the faint mist wafted aside, she caught an answering blink from somewhere beyond the Rife, followed by a long-drawn whistling call.
In the same instant a shadow rose beside her, and a hand was over her mouth, and a voice whispered in her ear, ‘Damaris! Don’t make a sound!’
Cold terror leapt in her in the instant between the hand and the whispering voice, and was gone again as quick as the will-o’-the-wisp signal lights flashing along the Rife, for the voice was Tom’s. She nodded against his hand to show that she understood, and he took it away. ‘Good girl.’
She was crouching between two black shadows that were Tom and Peter, in the bramble patch against the old chimney-wall, looking out into the mist and the marsh and the faint dregs of moonlight. ‘What in the world are you doing here?’ Peter whispered in her other ear. ‘There’s a Run on.’
‘I know. I heard Mr Aylmer talking to Caleb in the cart shelter. It was to have been out beyond Marsh Farm, but somebody got wind of it, and the Troopers are down from Horsham, so they moved the landing up here—Mr Aylmer said—and sent some escort riders down to Marsh Farm to—to act as decoys. They may be anywhere in the woods—so I came to warn you.’
‘Thank you,’ whispered Tom Wildgoose, politely.
‘Have you got the packet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s go! Let’s go at once!’
‘Not so fast—My means of getting to Chichester to catch the morning’s stage is down there.’ Her hood had fallen back, and Tom’s breath tickled her ear.
‘How?—What—’
‘Look—there beyond the windbreak.’
The ancient thorn trees rising out of the drifting shore-mist had more than ever their witch-wife look; something stirred on the far side of them, and as the mist wafted back a little, Damaris saw a line of horses waiting for their riders or their loads of kegs.
‘You can’t! They’ll have someone with them!’
‘That’s the problem,’ Tom whispered back. ‘This Mr Aylmer, he’ll be the leader, by the sound of it. Who is he?’
‘The Big House bailiff,’ Peter told him.
‘And you’re sure it was him?’
Damaris nodded in the dark, ‘Almost sure.’
There was a pause. Somewhere on the edge of hearing, a horse ruckled down its nose. Then Tom drew his legs under him. ‘Have to risk it. Peter, you come with me; Damaris, you bide here. Don’t move or make a sound. We’ll be back as soon as maybe.’
The shadows on either side of her melted away, and she was alone in the shelter of the bramble patch.
The mist came and went in drifting swathes, and when it drifted close, blanketing sound as well as sight, she might have been alone in all the Manhood; and when it curled back on itself the waiting horses and the shapes of men hauling the bobbing porpoise-lines of kegs ashore, and the dip and creak of oars from boats hidden in the drifting paleness, seemed so close that she might have been in the very midst of all that was going forward.
Once a blue light flickered over to the right towards open water; once she heard the crack of a pistol somewhere in the woods Earnley way, which made her heart jump and race; once a horse squealed. Presently there began to be movement beyond the windbreak; pack-ponies being unhitched and led down the shore. She could hardly bear it, crouching there, straining for any sound that would tell her Tom and Peter had been discovered. She had no idea how time went by, but it seemed to be hours before there was a faint rustle on her right, and even as she tensed between fear and hope, Tom’s voice whispered in her ear again, ‘All’s well. That didn’t take long, did it?’
‘Where’s Peter?’ she whispered back. ‘Did you get a horse?’
‘We did. Peter’s waiting on the track with them. They’re taking the pack beasts down now, and things are starting to move, so we’d best be moving, too.’
She got up and turned to follow him.
‘You first,’ Tom whispered, ‘you’re more sure of the way than I am.’
And she slipped past him and set off for the place where she always hitched Snowball. It seemed to her that Tom was making a lot of noise with his blackthorn staff, that would be because his knee was getting towards the end of what it could take, and anxiety grew in her, as well as the sharper fear of the men behind them. But they came safely to the old half-lost track, and found Peter waiting for them with his arm through the bridles of two saddle-horses.
‘Why two?’ she asked, stopping short.
‘I’m going with Tom up to Chichester to bring his beast back,’ Peter told her. ‘Must obey the rules of the game—every borrowed horse safe back in its stable by morning. I can’t quite manage that, but I can turn them loose on the Green, where they’re sure to be found at first light.’ He handed one of the horses over to Tom Wildgoose. ‘Well, that all went quite smoothly, didn’t it.’
Tom swung himself into the saddle, and Damaris heard him catch his breath with the pain and effort it cost him with his wounded knee. ‘Quite smoothly,’ he agreed, and tossed over his thorn staff for the ot
her to carry. Then, to Damaris, he said, ‘Give me your hand, and put your foot on mine; now—up with you.’
‘Am I coming to Chichester, too?’ asked Damaris in mid-flight. She had not been too happy waiting all alone at Joyous Gard with the Run going on as good as all around her; but to ride to Chichester on Tom’s saddle-bow, that would be another thing altogether.
‘No,’ Tom said, dashing her hopes, ‘we’re taking you safe home on the way.’ He flicked the reins and the horse moved forward, Peter riding close behind. ‘But you’ll have to tell me the way.’
‘How did you steal the horses?’ she asked after a little while, settling herself more comfortably into the crook of his bridle arm.
‘Borrow,’ Tom corrected. ‘Simply told the horse-holders that Mus’ Aylmer wanted two of the saddlehorses over at Marsh Farm—Then I wondered if I should not have used his name, but I didn’t know what else to call him—Didn’t seem to make any difference.’
There was a tight-drawn note in his voice, and Damaris felt how he held himself stiff and a little sideways in the saddle, and she knew that his knee must be hurting him, and held back from asking any more questions, scarcely speaking at all, except now and then to tell him the way.
Just before the old track turned them over to the lane, he reined in and sat listening. From away down the lane seaward came the sound of hooves, many hooves, like a pack-train on the move but without the clonk of bells that always announced a pack-train to other users of the road. The first of the newly landed cargo on its way to the hides. Tom and Peter urged their horses back into the underbrush, and waited.
The hoof-beats came nearer; now they were only just beyond the bend of the lane, and up the little rise came the black shapes of horsemen: the fore-riders of the train, and then the train itself, plodding, jogging along under their slung kegs and bales, with men either side, afoot or moving to and fro on horseback along their line. The lane was full of the ragged clippety-clop of hooves and the creak of harness leather.
Damaris felt the horse shift under her. What if he whinnied in greeting as horses do at the nearness of their own kind? Her breath stopped and she felt Tom’s arm tighten round her.
But the dark train passed safely until even the rear-riders following after, were gone. The smother of hoof-beats died away, and the lane was quiet as before.
Tom heeled his horse forward again out of the woodshore. ‘Which way, Honey?’
Damaris had for the moment forgotten that she was his pilot. ‘Right, here . . . Now left—take to the driftway just beyond the big willow . . .’ And soon after, they were in Carthegena Lane. They went quietly, keeping to the grass verge to muffle the sound of hoof-beats, until rounding the last corner, there was the dark peaceable shape of the old house sleeping companionably among its huddle of outbuildings.
‘That’s home,’ Damaris said, and seeing no lights in the windows, nor any sign of a stir, heaved a sigh of relief. She had not been missed.
‘What about dogs?’ Tom whispered, reining in to a walk.
‘They won’t make any noise, not when there’s a Run on.’
‘So, all’s well. Now how do we get you in?’
‘Here,’ said Damaris. ‘The mulberry tree.’
He brought the horse to a halt below the great branch that arched out into the lane. ‘Can you manage that way?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘I’ve come and gone by it often enough before.’
‘Right, then,’ his hold shifted and his hands were on either side of her waist. ‘Up with you! Stand on the saddle-bow. I have you safe—’
She scrambled up and was among the branches almost without having to reach for them. She gained her feet on the main branch, and stood up, finding a familiar handhold. The two in the lane looked a long way down.
Peter’s hoarse whisper came up through the twig-tangle, ‘I’ll be over first thing in the morning to give Sim Bundy a hand in the lambing fold.’
‘Yes, you come,’ said Damaris, but she was looking at Tom Wildgoose standing in his stirrups just below her. ‘Goodbye, Tom.’ It sounded foolish and polite in her own ears, like saying goodbye to someone who had been to drink chocolate with Aunt Selina, but there was an ache inside her not quite like anything that she had ever felt before.
‘Goodbye, Damaris,’ Tom said. ‘Now in with you. I’ll wait to see you safely through the window.’
And she knew that she must not delay them. Every moment was dangerous. She shifted her hold and moved back, changed branches, and was standing on the brewhouse roof. Her window was open just as she had left it. She hitched up her skirts and scrambled through, turning the instant her feet touched the floor, to lean out again. Through the bare mulberry branches she could see the two dark shapes waiting in the lane. Tom’s upturned face was a pale blur in the darkness: he put up his hand in a wide leave-taking salute; and as she waved in reply, urged his horse forward, Peter after him, hooves almost soundless on the grass verge.
Behind them the lane was left empty. This time it really was over.
The mist was clearing, though it still clung wispily along the ground. The young moon was long since down, but looking up, Damaris could see the stars; the same stars she had counted on the night that it all began. She gazed up at them, seeing them blurred and fuzzy with her own sudden weariness. She had not known that it was possible to be so tired. . . .
And it was in that moment, as she fumbled with the neck-strings of her cloak, almost as she turned towards her bed, that she saw the shooting star. The far-travelling arrow-point of light that seemed to spring clear of the topmost mulberry branches, high overhead, and arch out over the Manhood. She had wished on a shooting star often enough in the winter, but you did not often see one so late into the edge of spring. That must surely make it all the more special, all the more potent for wishing on.
Watching it until it disappeared above the rim of trees at the world’s edge, Damaris wished with all the strength of wishing that was in her, not for a flame-coloured petticoat, this time, but that all should be well with Tom Wildgoose on his road to London, and through all his years to come.
Five years went by, and then the half of another year, and on a soft blustery September evening, Damaris and Peter came back from a walk together. Earlier, they had been at the Vicarage, talking over some plans for their wedding in a fortnight’s time. The weeks between harvest and the start of the autumn ploughing, when the farming year drew breath, was always a favourite time for weddings among farming folk.
Peter’s father had not been over-pleased at Peter’s determination to turn farmer rather than follow him into the Church. But with Carthegana lacking a son to follow on when John Crocker grew too old to farm it, he had had to admit in the end that it was really a very sensible arrangement.
After the Vicarage, they had called on Genty Small to make sure that she was coming to the wedding, and then on a sudden whim they had turned out of their way to go round by the little lost cottage in the woods. They had not been there for a long while, and they had found scarcely anything left of Joyous Gard but the doorsill and the remains of the hearth, and a few rotten timbers lost among the brambles.
‘It makes me feel quite old and rather sad,’ Damaris had said, and Peter had laughed at her, and they had gone on their way.
But going so far out of their road had made them later than they meant to be. Also the sight of the old cottage had started them off saying, ‘Do you remember—?’ which is always a thing to make people walk slowly, and sunset was flying like golden banners all across the levels of the Manhood as they came in through the autumn tangle of the garden towards the kitchen door.
‘I was never more thankful for anything than I was when I got down to the lambing fold next morning and found you safely there and no harm come to you or Tom,’ Damaris was saying. Their talk on the way through the woods had made it all seem so close, as though it had happened only yesterday. And yet in another way it was so long ago. She had been only twelve then, and now she
was seventeen, going on eighteen—quite old and getting married.
Sukie lay in the last warmth of the day beside the brushwood pile, suckling her latest kittens. She was getting to be a little stiff in the joints but her kittens still grew up to be the best mousers in Manhood.
Damaris stooped to stroke her, and so glimpsed a flat parcel wrapped in oilskin lying half-hidden among the brushwood. She parted the sticks a little, and saw carefully painted on the oilskin
‘Mistress Damaris Crocker, for her wedding’
‘What is it?’ asked Peter behind her.
‘I don’t know. A wedding-present for me, seemingly.’
But she did know. Memory was twinging in her, even as the pulled the package from its half-hiding place, and turned, holding it in her arms.
The knots in the tarred string were stiff to undo, and Peter, though he hated wasting string, fished in his pocket for his knife and cut them for her. Under the stiff folds of oilskin was a covering of calico. And inside the calico, as she turned that back also—she let out a little gasp of delight as the sunset fell upon glowing folds of flame-coloured taffeta that seemed to echo its own fires.
Fold upon fold spilled out across her arm. ‘Careful!’ Peter said, ‘You’ll get it muddy’—even as she swooped to gather up the loose end before it could touch the ground.
There was no letter—she knew that there would not be—just the painted direction on the oilskin. ‘Mistress Damaris Crocker, for her wedding.’ He had promised, and he had kept his promise.
With the glowing mass that was the very colour of joy gathered into her arms, she turned to Peter. Square, dependable Peter, with the square, dependable face.
‘Will you marry me in a flame-coloured taffeta petticoat, if I promise to keep it well hidden under my wedding-dress?’
‘You don’t need to promise anything,’ Peter said. ‘I’ll marry you in any petticoat you please!’ And flung his arms round her, laughing, and hugged her close.