Shores of Darkness Read online

  Shores of Darkness

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Publihser’s Note

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  This book contains views and language on nationality, ethnicity, and society which are a product of the time in which the book is set. The publisher does not endorse or support these views. They have been retained in order to preserve the integrity of the text.

  To Harry Clifford

  Prologue

  If I believed in such things, I’d think that the spirit of my murdered aunt, Effie Sly, has begun to haunt me.

  It was a strange business.

  Today is the fourteenth of July, in the year of our Lord 1716. Ten years ago exactly, on 14 July 1706, Aunt Effie was strangled by ‘person or persons unknown’. Except that I do know.

  And this very afternoon, when we were at dinner in my hall, the sun darkened all at once. As we scurried for candles the oak that’s stood beyond the lawn these 300 years split in smoking halves. In the same instant, thunder rattled the pewter on the dresser and I swear I heard a voice call, ‘Revenge.’

  I could have said, ‘Go back where you came from, Aunt Effie. For eight bloody years I chased your killer across seas and continents and near lost my own life doing it. You were avenged right enough, though maybe not as you’d wish. If that don’t please you, I’m sorry. I’ll do no more.’

  But I hope I’m a rational man and don’t spend time talking to demons. Instead, I sent John to the stables to help Bates soothe the horses while I went upstairs to see if the thunder had upset my daughter or my wife, who was in labour with our next child.

  Jubah answered my knock, barring the door with her big black arms and telling me to ‘get’.

  ‘How’s she faring?’ I asked.

  ‘Cussing. Where she learn to cuss so strong?’

  ‘Give her my love.’

  ‘She had it nine month since,’ Jubah said, ‘that why she cussing now. You get.’

  I went down to go on with dinner. The storm was passing and thin daylight was beginning to brighten the coats of arms in the little stained-glass panes round the mullions, throwing their reflections on to the floor in flimsy colours.

  The heraldy is not mine, of course, but the De Marchmonts’, one of those strong-in-the-arm, weak-in-the-head families that died out fighting for the wrong kings. This is royalist Devonshire and my neighbours, all High Tories, would leave me in no doubt the De Marchmonts spin in their tombs to see a low-born, jumped-up Puritan in possession of their house. But by the time I bought the place it had deteriorated into little more than a barn. The leaves of the great front door had broken away from their upper hinges and hens pecked at weeds growing between the flags. The farmer who owned it used the kitchen for a cow byre.

  I restored the linen-fold panelling and the newel post of the staircase and the lovely plasterwork of the ceilings and leaded the cracks in the coat-of-arms panes so that they shouldn’t be dishonoured – I have a weakness for those who fight lost causes, even if they are not mine.

  Actually, I think the De Marchmonts rest easy at what I have done for their home; the hall especially has regained the dignity due to its fine, long, low proportions which I have left uncluttered apart from a chest, a refectory table with tapestried chairs and a settle, all of them oak, all dating from the time of England’s first James and all going for a song now that fashion in furniture has changed to spindly elegance. Very pretty, of course, but I like a chair of substance under my arse.

  Usually, I say, the hall keeps its ancient calm, but today, with the storm, a restlessness had entered it. The fire in the huge grate which I’d lit to warm our guest, always a cold mortal, was not drawing well and sent out puffs of smoke. Leaves skittered about that had blown through the windows before we could shut them.

  I experienced an odd repulsion. Again I remembered the date and what happened exactly ten years ago. Aunt Effie. It’s a name to cuddle into, to pat on its white-capped head, totally unsuitable to the woman I addressed by it – a malignant female who brought misery to so many of us and her own death on herself.

  Whether it was Aunt Effie’s ghastly presence or the sudden violence of the storm, I could see as I paused on the stairs that my two fellow diners had been affected by dissatisfaction. My young ward, James, slumped in his chair, unusually sullen, while our guest, Daniel Defoe, crumbled his bread and in his high, nervous voice lamented the lack of duty in the younger generation.

  His complaint was not against James, who is generally an obedient boy, but his own eldest son, with whom he has recently quarrelled over a matter of money.

  ‘How goes it upstairs?’ he asked me.

  ‘No arrival yet,’ I told him and poured him wine. As ever, he was dressed like a Christmas beef and cut a garish figure against the sombre oak of the panelling in his emerald green coat with its gilt buttons and tarnished cuff lace. His long wig’s out of date and could do with a clean. He’s been ill, he says, and needs a breath of our good, Devonshire air. He seems spry enough to me, apart from the hunted look that’s usual with him.

  I suspect he’s come to lie low for a bit, escaping a creditor, or a libel action, or another of the troubles he’s always tumbling into. I never knew a man who can write better theories on how the world should tick, nor one who spends more time tangled up in its machinery.

  ‘I’d like more wine,’ said James, surprising me by his demand since so far he has accorded with my views on continence. He’s about ten years old now, maybe eleven. Since coming to us he’s sprouted tall and is mature for his age. A handsome lad, dark-haired, fair-skinned, with a good blue eye; affectionate, perhaps too passionate, but with a saving interest in science and the natural laws.

  I gave him another half-glass, not wanting to shame him by a refusal in front of Defoe, and suggested we drink to the safe delivery of mother and baby.

  We raised our glasses. ‘And for your peace of mind, may the child be an affectionate girl, not an ungrateful son,’ said Defoe, returning to his theme of fatherhood and its sorrows.

  The fire blew out more smoke, leaves chased back and forth in discontent. As if spurred by the suddenly malicious air of the room, James asked: ‘Since we talk of fathers, guardian, who was mine?’

  I stared back at him. For two years I’ve dreaded him asking, but I hadn’t an answer ready. I’ve rehearsed fairytales and then dismissed them. Lies are unworthy of him, yet he deserves better than the truth. I cannot tell a boy so young he was conceived only for revenge.

  He scowled at me, trembling, then turned to our guest. ‘My guardian does not satisfy. Perhaps you can tell me who my father is, Mr Defoe. Or was.’

  I watched Daniel prick up. He loves a drama. Being so old a friend, he knows some of our story. Not all, thank God.

  ‘What have you heard, my lord?’

  ‘They say I’m the Pretender’s by-blow,’ James told him, ‘the Papist’s
bastard. Hobbledehoys shout it after me in the lanes. Greville Narracott twitted me that I was not invited to court. He says his father says it’s because the king fears I will become the centre of another rebellion.’

  ‘When was this?’ I asked.

  ‘Yesterday, after service. Greville said I didn’t petition for the king’s health. But I was a-sneezing during the prayer.’

  ‘I’ll have words with Squire Narracott,’ I said.

  James sent his trencher spinning. ‘Why not me? Why not words with me?’

  ‘I have to consider.’

  He stood up and threw his wine on the floor. ‘You always consider. I demand you tell me the truth, I command it. I outrank you. You’re only a commoner. I have estates…’ His anger was bolting off with him and he couldn’t rein it in, which was scaring him the more.

  ‘This ain’t one of them,’ I said, ‘Get to your room.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Your room.’

  As the lad ran out, the wind in the chimney moaned as if in triumph. After a while Daniel said, ‘I was there, you remember. In the palace antechamber while Queen Anne lay dying.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Granting the letters patent of his peerage was virtually her last mortal act.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was bound to lead to this interpretation. A mysterious, unknown boy of mysterious, unknown background raised all at once to an earldom? What else but that she was ennobling a bastard son of her brother’s as compensation because she could not hand on the throne to that same brother? It was already being whispered then.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He has the Stuart chin. And eyes.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And Squire Narracott is right. King George is suspicious of the boy, more than ever since the Scottish rising last year. It was a nearer thing than people think. Without Argyll’s prompt action we might even now have a James III on the throne.’

  That I didn’t know. Like everybody, I’d accepted the official version; shiftless Jacobites routed by model Hanoverian troops. But I could trust Daniel on this. His agency still has spies in Scotland.

  ‘So if the boy is James Stuart’s bastard,’ Daniel went on, becoming desperate, ‘he constitutes a threat. Monmouth was a bastard son too, and everybody remembers his rebellion.’

  ‘Didn’t you take part in it?’

  He shuddered. ‘A youthful indiscretion. I extricated myself when I saw which way the wind was blowing.’

  A great one for watching the wind, our Daniel. I nodded. ‘I’m bringing the lad up a loyal subject of King George.’

  ‘And there’s another mystery,’ pleaded Daniel. ‘For Queen Anne to name you his guardian…’

  ‘Once a common dragoon sergeant and at that time her gardener. I know. It must have seemed odd.’

  ‘Odd?’ shrieked Daniel, ‘Is that all you’ll say? It seemed odd?’

  Poor old Daniel. Information is his food and drink. But he won’t get any from me. It’s not that he was once a professional spy, it’s because he’s a scribbler. As well tell the town crier. He could no more help putting our story in print than a charger can resist battle trumpets.

  I changed the subject and went into a dissertation on the drilling of crops that had him almost weeping with frustration.

  He made one last feint. ‘Tell me this at least, Sir Martin. Does the mystery of the boy have anything to do with that other business? You know, our search for…’ he lowered his voice ‘…Anne Bonny?’

  I shook my head. ‘That came to nothing. I told you. Anne Bonny didn’t exist.’ I went to the stand by the front door and picked out a riding whip. ‘Now excuse me. I mustn’t keep the boy waiting.’

  He sighed and nodded. ‘Justice is best when summary,’ he said, ‘Not harsh, but firm. Even an earl must learn respect for his elders.’

  I thanked him for his advice and went upstairs. Jubah stopped me in the corridor, so worried it frightened me: ‘Does it go badly?’

  ‘No, no. That babby still kicking his way out and his mother still cussing.’ She crushed her apron in her hands. ‘You won’t whup the boy too hard, Sir Martin? He don’t mean no disrespect. He only worried this child be a son and you love it more than him. Thrash him light now.’

  ‘Jubah, I’m trusting you with my wife. You trust me with the boy.’

  James was sitting on his bed. He’d been crying.

  ‘You were rude, James. And you were rude in front of a guest.’

  He nodded, miserably. His eyes on the riding whip, he said, ‘I deserve that you should beat me, don’t I?’

  Like I say, too passionate. ‘I don’t intend to beat you. I propose we go for a ride while we discuss matters. Wash your face, fetch a hat and crop and meet me at the gates.’

  Barty Bates saddled up Armchair for me and Picardy for James. He complained, like he always does: ‘Sergeant, it don’t do my bloody reputation no good you riding out in public on a bloody cart-puller like this four-legged fortune. They may have dumplings for brains round here but they know horseflesh when they see it.’

  ‘We ain’t charging the Frogs in Flanders, you grumbling bugger,’ I told him, ‘We’re going alderman pace. Peaceful. Now get me up. And don’t call me sergeant.’

  Barty was in my troop at Ramillies. When I found him again he was begging on the streets, as too many old soldiers have to. Like me he’s a Londoner and as out of place among the bumpkinarchy as I am; though, unlike me, he cares what the yokels think of our stable, James’s being the only hunter in it. My gallops are over; I’ve only one good leg nowadays and a swinger that’s getting worse.

  Waiting for James at the gates, I looked back at the house. It is still so enchanted a place for me that I’m afraid it will disappear one day. Decrepit as it had become when I first saw it, its bones were beautiful and it sat as comfortably in the combe as a fine old lady in her rocking chair. Mostly the estate’s pasture but there’s some forty acres down near the Dart suitable for drilling.

  It was going cheap and I used my inheritance from Aunt Effie to buy it. This may account for her haunting. She always set her mind against other people’s happiness, did Aunt Effie, especially if it was her money they were happy on. ‘You’ve done your damage this day, Effie Sly, if that’s what you wanted,’ I said, ‘Now leave me alone to pick up the pieces.’

  I didn’t want to be away long because of the baby. We rode towards Spitchwick and we rode in silence. I had a lot to consider. At the old pack bridge, James helped me dismount and we sat with our legs dangling to watch the shadow of the fish holding against the rush of water on the pebbles below. The storm had washed everything fresh and the scent of bracken was strong up here on the moorland.

  I said, ‘You ever embarrass me and a guest again, James, I’ll knock you down.’

  ‘I’m sorry, guardian,’ he said.

  ‘I know you are. And, rudeness excepted, you were right; a man should know his parentage. What I’m going to do, James, is this: I’m going to write your history down, all of it I know. And how I discovered it – that’s important. And when I’ve written it I’m going to seal it in that little brass-bound box in my library and take it to Lawyer Pardoe in Exeter and tell him to give it to you on your twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘But that’s ten years off!’

  ‘Haven’t been neglecting your mathematics, then.’

  To hell, I thought. Here I sit, delivering like Solomon, but I’m not sure. Even twenty-one is too young for that much hurt. To know you were conceived only to be an instrument of revenge, not just now but for the generations to come? That’s hard.

  He tossed a stone into the river. He was upset but keeping his temper. ‘Why do I have to wait so long?’

  ‘Because I hope by then you’ll know your own worth. Not your estates’ or your titles’ or your birth’s, yours as a man. A man’s true measure is who loves him and why. To quote our mutual friend Defoe: “Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things.”’

/>   He finished the quotation, ‘“The good of subjects is the cause of kings.”’

  I patted his knee. ‘The same applies to earls. You’re a fine boy in your own right, James, and you’re going to be a fine man. Who fathered you makes no difference to that.’

  He considered for a while. ‘I don’t have to be the cause of a rebellion if I don’t want, do I?’

  They hanged and quartered the Jacobite leaders last January and the account of their executions lost nothing in the telling. It must have been weighing on him.

  I said, ‘No question of it, that much I can tell you. Squire Narracott is a… I’ll have words with Squire Narracott.’ I’ll make that bow-gutted, ale-swilling, piss-brained yokel wish he’d been born in another county; the reason we settled so far from London was to keep away from rumour-mongering clumps like him.

  ‘Greville says the Narracotts can trace their ancestry back to the Saxon kings,’ James said.

  ‘Who were conquered by the Normans,’ I said. ‘So much for heredity. Proves my point.’

  He laughed and seemed satisfied. He’s a good lad. He chattered all the way home. I thought, Why give him pain? Why not manufacture a happy history for him? No, he’s entitled to the truth.

  As we rode through the gates, Jubah leaned out of the solar shouting. ‘She a girl and she fat. Mother and babby doing fine.’

  In my relief I noticed James’s. Jubah was right; he’d been afraid a son would replace him in our affection. On our way upstairs to the solar he said, ‘I wish I was your son.’

  At least there was one truth I could tell him: ‘We couldn’t love you more if you were.’

  * * *

  Now here I sit, a new ledger before me, quills sharpened, inkpot open, candle placed. It’s so quiet I can hear the beams creak as they dry out. Pastor Thomas has been and gone. The sheets are washed, afterbirth burned. Daniel Defoe has toasted the baby in so many drams he’s had to be helped upstairs, while the lady herself is tucked up in bed with her mother and sister. The house smells of dill, which Jubah says hastens nursing women’s milk. If Aunt Effie’s ghost was here, it’s gone again, content with the harm it’s caused.