Hell and High Water

  Instead the parson cleared his throat, exchanging a glance with Anne that spoke of severe embarrassment. And then horror was piled on horror as it became clear that Caleb’s tale was not believed.

  “You found a dead man, Caleb, but it wasn’t your father,” the parson said. “I know you’re missing him, lad. That kind of sorrow can do strange things to a person’s wits. It sometimes makes people see things that are not there.”

  Caleb was confused to begin with. Why was he being contradicted? He looked to his aunt but Anne would not meet his eyes. Letty, seized with a fit of coughing, had her face turned away. “It was him!” he cried. “It was Pa!”

  “It was not,” the parson insisted. “Joseph Chappell was transported. He’ll be in the colonies by now.”

  “I know what I saw!”

  “You are mistaken, boy. Your mind is playing tricks. You told my wife you dreamed of him last night. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Well, then. You didn’t recognize his face, did you?”

  “No, sir.” Caleb recalled the bloated features, the flesh so corrupted by the sea that the man looked scarcely human. He feared he might begin to retch again.

  The parson sat down in front of Caleb and assumed a tone of utmost patience as if he was speaking to a very small child. “And so tell us once more what happened. You were gathering driftwood. You looked along the beach. What did you see?”

  “A dead man.”

  “How far away?”

  “Fifty yards or so. I knew at once it was a corpse.”

  “But you can’t have,” the parson said calmly. “You couldn’t have seen clearly, not from that distance. You’d have seen a shape, nothing more. You would have thought it was seaweed. Driftwood. A barrel, perhaps. You can’t possibly have known it was a dead man until you got closer. Not unless the idea was already in your mind. Come on, boy: will you not admit it? You saw what you wished to.”

  “I would never have wished to see Pa like that!”

  The parson urged him to think again. “The past few months have been difficult, I know. There’s no one in Fishpool who doesn’t pity you. It would be no disgrace to admit you were mistaken.”

  Once more, Caleb glanced at his family. Anne was white with shock, Dorcas looking wide-eyed and fretful in her arms. Letty was frowning, her brows drawn so fiercely together they made one line across her forehead. None of them had spoken a word.

  Again Caleb said, “I know what I saw.”

  The parson was done with patience. Now he did not trouble to conceal his irritation. “This is absurd!”

  “I saw his ring.”

  “There was no ring, Caleb! The dead man was not your father. The very idea is ludicrous. Impossible!”

  “May I see him?”

  “What?”

  “May I view the body?”

  “There is no need. You are quite distressed enough – I will not allow you to completely unhinge your mind. Are your wits already turned so inside out that you would not take my word on this?”

  Challenge a man of God? Caleb could not. And yet he couldn’t let the matter rest. “If he was not my father … then who was he?”

  The question drove the parson into a temper. “A common sailor, no doubt. It takes but a small slip for a man to end up in the water. You’d do well to remember how easily a man can drown, Caleb, if you continue to live with your aunt.”

  If he continue? The parson’s words seemed heavy with menace. If Caleb had to leave Fishpool, where would he go? The workhouse? The lunatic asylum?

  The parson turned to Anne. “His wits are addled. In time, he will come to his senses. Take him home for now and make sure he doesn’t talk to others the way he’s talked to me. He must not speak of this. I won’t have the whole of Fishpool running wild with foolish rumours.”

  It was too late for that, Caleb thought. The maid must have heard him telling the parson’s wife that he’d found Pa’s body on the beach. She’d gone running to Fishpool to fetch Anne and she’d have passed the gossips at the well. There would be more whispering. More sideways looks. The thought wearied him beyond belief.

  Perhaps he’d have yielded. Perhaps he would have believed the parson and given up the idea that the man he’d found was Pa. He might have bowed to the pressure that was being brought to bear upon him had it not been for one thing: a change in Letty’s demeanour.

  The parson was talking still, telling Anne that the dead man must have gone into the water soon before high tide. “It is always the same tale. A few months at sea and a crew comes home with a raging thirst. A night in Tawpuddle’s taverns and one too many draughts of ale. A dark night. No moon. He probably fell from the quay or from the bridge and the river’s current carried him out into the bay and onto the beach.” The parson said he’d make enquiries, discover from the Harbour master or one of the many seamen in port who the dead man might be. Perhaps if he could discover his name, it might soothe Caleb’s troubled mind. He spoke as if Caleb was deaf and dumb or as if he was not in the room.

  It was when Caleb turned his head away that he caught sight of Letty’s expression. He’d thought her earlier frown had been directed at him, but no… She was perplexed, observing the parson as if puzzled by something. Then she became annoyed. Her lips thinned into a line like a thread pulled tight against the cloth and then she was staring at the parson with ill-concealed distrust. Finally she gave the smallest, slightest shake of the head.

  Letty was no friend of Caleb’s. Yet now she fixed him with a stare so penetrating it was as though she had pierced his very soul. He felt suddenly certain that Letty knew he was speaking the truth.

  Anne, apologizing over and over again for the trouble Caleb had caused, took their leave of the parson. Caleb got to his feet and followed his aunt. As they reached the door Letty sped ahead of him down the path, eager to get away, but Anne hung back, standing on the step, continuing to murmur how dreadfully sorry she was about the morning’s events. Nodding his thanks to the parson’s wife, Caleb darted after Letty, catching up with her in the lane out of sight of the parsonage, where he seized her by the arm with such sudden force that she was thrown off balance and flung against the hedge.

  He did not say sorry. Too many apologies had been made that morning. Anne’s footsteps were fast approaching. Before she was within earshot he demanded, “You shook your head, Letty. I saw you. Why?”

  Caleb startled the words out of her.

  “The parson’s lying.”

  3.

  Caleb wasn’t comfortable with Letty. He felt they’d been like two dogs circling each other, hackles raised, the whole time he’d been at his aunt’s. Yet in the days that followed his discovery of Pa’s body he burned to speak to her. He would have been utterly overwhelmed by sorrow, but the thought that the parson had lied filled him with rage, and rage was so much easier to bear than grief. He was desperate to hear more from Letty, and there were times that she seemed to hover on the brink of conversation, but then Anne would appear and her jaw would clamp shut. He watched. He waited. A chance would come to talk to her. When it did, he promised himself he would be ready.

  That chance was a long time coming.

  Anne’s remedy for Caleb’s supposedly addled wits was to keep him occupied. No doubt the parson had advised her – exhaust the body and the mind will have no time to dwell on unsavoury matters. At first she used Letty’s cough as an excuse, giving him the tasks that her stepdaughter usually carried out. From before dawn until after dark she had him gathering driftwood for the fire, drawing water, filling the copper, running errands, washing shirts, delivering orders, doing endless chores in addition to the sewing by which he earned his keep. His competence with a needle meant that demand for their services had increased. There was no shortage of things to keep Caleb occupied.

  As he walked from Fishpool to Tawpuddle and back again on his aunt’s instruction he caught the tittle-tattle of the women at the well – as indeed, he was meant to. They wer
e gripped by Caleb’s discovery of the drowned man and his lunatic delusion that it was his father’s corpse.

  “Buffleheaded fool!”

  “Simpleton!”

  “Lost his marbles, he has!”

  Loudly they speculated about whether he should be admitted to an asylum and if he might run mad during the next full moon. Their fascination with him seemed limitless.

  “Better bar our doors, I reckon.”

  “Keep the children inside.”

  “Who knows what he might do?”

  He pretended deafness each time he passed, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing him break his step. But one morning the gossips stopped him in his tracks.

  “That drowned ’un got a name, so they say.”

  “Thomas Smith, I heard.”

  “Sailor, he was.”

  Caleb turned. He loathed these women, yet the temptation to know more was too much. “Who says so?” he asked.

  For the very first time they did not look through him but answered directly, “The parson. He just come from paying a visit to your aunt.”

  “And what else did he discover?”

  With relish one of the toothless crones informed him that the parson’s guess had been right – Thomas Smith had stumbled on the Tawpuddle quayside and fallen in the river after a bellyful of ale.

  “Why didn’t he swim to shore?” Caleb asked.

  “Lord love you! No sailor can swim!” laughed one of the women.

  “Especially not after a night in the tavern!” wheezed a second.

  “What would be the use of it?” cackled a third. “If your ship goes down, ’twould just prolong the suffering, staying afloat.”

  “Best to get it over with!”

  “And so the river carried him out?” asked Caleb.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Did the parson speak of any family?”

  “No. He wasn’t from around these parts.”

  So that was that. It seemed that “Thomas Smith” had no one to mourn or miss him. How very convenient. He’d been buried the day before in the churchyard, with only the parson and his wife present.

  Now they had Caleb standing before them the women were hungry to hear every detail of the corpse’s discovery. They smiled. They simpered. But they were like crows pecking at his thoughts and he refused to oblige them. Anne was expecting him back, no doubt poised and ready with another chore. Besides, his mind was too full for chatter. Nodding to them as courteously as he was able, he made his excuses and went on his way.

  4.

  The following Sunday Caleb found himself facing a strange ordeal in Fishpool’s church.

  The entire village was gathered as usual and the parson was delivering his sermon, rambling and repeating himself, talking in tedious circles. Sir Robert and Lady Fairbrother dozed, as was their privilege, while the rest of the congregation was condemned to a purgatory of boredom. At last they came to the prayers: ones for the souls of the dead, and most particularly for those lost at sea.

  “Thomas Smith” had been added to the long litany. The name dropped like a stone into a still pool. The moment it was uttered, ripples of curiosity spread the length and breadth of the church.

  When the service was done at last, Sir Robert was gently roused by William Benson. Without even a nod at the parson he and Lady Fairbrother proceeded down the aisle, looking neither to left nor right, bestowing neither look nor greeting on any person present. Every head was lowered respectfully, every back almost bent double as they passed by.

  The fact that Anne had been Lady Fairbrother’s maid had always seemed to lend her an even greater degree of repulsiveness, for both would turn their heads to the side as though a foul smell emanated from the place in which Caleb’s aunt sat. Or perhaps it was his presence next to her that provoked their reaction.

  That Sunday Caleb expected them to glide past in their customary fashion and indeed Lady Fairbrother did so. But from the corner of his eye he saw a pair of gentlemanly legs stop and then turn towards him.

  Not wishing to invite another blow from William Benson, Caleb kept his head lowered. It was not until he was addressed that he looked up.

  “You, boy. Caleb Chappell.”

  The moment he raised his chin, Sir Robert’s eyes latched on to his.

  Caleb had once heard tell of how a rabbit could be transfixed by the gaze of a weasel, and unable to flee though its life was in peril. He had thought it foolish, but in that moment he perfectly understood how the creature felt.

  Sir Robert spoke again. Before the whole congregation he asked, “You found Thomas Smith, did you not?”

  “I found a man, sir,” Caleb said carefully. “I hear his name is Thomas Smith.”

  “And do you doubt it?”

  “I could not say who it was. I did not know Thomas Smith while he lived, so I wouldn’t recognize him dead.”

  “The parson has discovered he was Thomas Smith, and he is a man of God.” Sir Robert tilted his head slightly, waiting for a response.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Caleb said, “Indeed, sir. And I put my trust in him.”

  It was an adept move. Caleb referred to the Almighty but Sir Robert took him to be speaking of the parson. His eyes continued to bore into the lad, skewering him to the pew so that he could neither move nor turn his head. Letty had been right, Caleb thought: Benson was a mere lapdog. This was the pack leader. The wolf.

  There was menace in every line of that aristocratic face. Sir Robert had no need to say aloud that Caleb must think no more, know no more, discover no more about Thomas Smith. His eyes warned him off so powerfully that words were unnecessary. He held Caleb’s gaze for a few seconds longer. And then at last he turned away and Caleb could breathe again.

  Only when the gentleman was out of the church and in his carriage, only when the sound of its departing wheels clattered on the cobbles was the rest of the congregation permitted to stir.

  Caleb’s heart was pounding, his mind racing, every inch of his flesh prickled with fearful excitement. Sir Robert had meant to silence him, humiliating him in front of the entire village like that, but all he had done was convince Caleb that something was deeply amiss. Why would a man like Sir Robert Fairbrother concern himself with a drowned sailor, much less discuss the matter with the likes of him? There was a mystery here, some secret evil was afoot. He had caught the scent of it, and now his blood was up.

  He was aware of the parson standing in the porch watching him as he rose from the pew. When he reached the church door the parson’s wife enquired after Caleb’s well-being with what appeared to be sincere concern. He was braced for the parson’s less sympathetic enquiries into his state of mind but was mercifully saved by one of the village crones – a talkative old maid – who engaged the couple in a long, rambling account of her various ailments.

  Caleb noted the mound of fresh earth in the far corner of the churchyard. A new corpse had joined the silent army of the dead but was it Pa or the drunkard Thomas Smith? How was he to discover who truly lay in that grave?

  Letty – who had now recovered from her cough – went on ahead because Anne had asked her to go to the river’s mouth and gather cockles. Caleb would have gone in pursuit of her but his aunt put her arm through his to keep him beside her.

  Dorcas toddled along in front, but she had only recently taken her first steps and suddenly stumbled over her own feet and fell, cracking her head on a stone. The wound was small but bled profusely, as cuts to the head often do, and the little girl started crying with shock and pain. The noise she was making would surely wake the dead!

  Releasing her hold on his arm, Anne ran to Dorcas. She was distracted. Here, at last, was his opportunity. Running, ducking swiftly through the side gate, he left the churchyard and went in pursuit of Letty.

  He found her on the sand. The tide was ebbing fast, beaching fishing vessels, turning them onto their sides, and the stink of salt and sodden timber was overwhelming. Letty had a rake and a pai
l and was already hard at work along with maybe a dozen others. When she saw Caleb approaching she frowned.

  There was nowhere in the village that they would not be noticed. Nowhere they could go that the gossips would not see, and discuss, and remark on them being out alone together. Caleb did not doubt that their whispers would reach his aunt’s ears before they returned home and yet here was his chance. He had to take it.

  “My aunt has sent me to help you,” he said loudly for the benefit of the other cockle-pickers.

  Letty’s frown deepened. Her fingers tightened around the rake. She said nothing.

  He bent to pick shells from the sand she had turned over. “The parson’s lying,” he reminded her quietly. “Those were your words. What did you mean?”

  She straightened up at that and thrust her chin out as though accepting the challenge. “I know this river,” she said. “I know this shore. Currents. Tides.”

  “Well,” Caleb said. “What of it?”

  “Look, see… Whoever he was, he didn’t go falling in the river off Tawpuddle quay.”

  “Does it never happen?”

  “Oh, it happens often enough. We get a fair few every year. Drunken sailors lose their footing, fall in, drown. But they get washed up on the far side of the river, opposite Fishpool, this side of the bar. With your man? I’d say he died a long way from shore. The river didn’t carry him out. The sea carried him in.” Caleb must have looked sceptical for she added hotly, “I’m telling the truth.”

  “And so am I,” he countered. “I know what I saw.”

  She sniffed. “There’s a fair few gentlemen wear rings. How do you know it was your Pa’s?”

  “It was unmistakeable. It belonged to his father.” He described the insignia.

  “You knew the ring. And yet you didn’t know his face? Your own pa?”

  “No. It was…” He could not begin to describe the corpse’s features. The very thought made the gorge rise in his throat. But there was no need to tell Letty: it seemed she already knew. She nodded, sparing him from having to say more.