Abruptly, he sat up in bed, throwing back the covers.He was free, and he had to live like a free man, not like this, a prisoner of his fears.
He rose and went downstairs.At the foot of the stairs he met Wallace, also on his way to the kitchens in search of tea.
“Morning,” Wallace said.At first he didn’t meet Jed’s eyes; then, determinedly, he looked at him directly.
“Morning,” Jed said.“Er, listen, Master Acton… I wanted to say how sorry I am I pushed Solomon to tell me everything as happened in London.I was that angry with him… But it weren’t his story to tell.”
“Oh.No, think no more of it.I couldn’t ask Solomon to tell lies on my behalf—and particularly not to you.”His awkward smile turned into a genuine one.“Solomon holds you in high regard, you know.”
To his amazement, Jed felt himself turn red—something he was not at all prone to do.“He’s been a good friend to me,” he said gruffly.
“To me, too.”
They stood there for a moment, the silence not quite comfortable and not quite awkward.
“You, er, think there’s already tea in the kitchen?”Jed said.
They went in together.Emma Yates was there, busy instructing one of the other maids.“That’s for the gentleman in the private parlour; these three plates are for the taproom.”She cast a warm smile at Wallace, including Jed in it too, and waved them towards the pot of tea.“And mind you go running to the private parlour first, Sally.”She picked up a coffeepot and hurried out, then stuck her head back into the room to address Jed.“Master Trevithick, I set some paper aside for that letter of your’n.”
Then she was gone.
Jed swallowed.As soon as the shock of Carrie’s letter had lessened, he had begun to think about what he would say in reply, turning different phrases over in his head.But when he and Emma finally sat down together in a quiet corner, it wasn’t easy.
Jed had never composed a letter before.When he had written to Carrie and his aunt when he was at sea, the actual writing had been done by a messmate of his, who had been a clerk before he ended up in debtor’s prison, and who proposed exactly the same model of letter to all his messmates.
“Dear sister, I have received your letter,” Jed began, pausing to let Emma write it down.“Since I was pressed, I have wanted nothing more than to return home to my family—” He stopped.There didn’t seem to be much chance of that anymore.“No, better just put, to Ledcombe.”He chewed his lip.“And then will you put…I know that I could live peacefully and happily there, if only Penwick hadn’t took against me.” He thought it over for a moment.“Better make that Mr Penwick.Have you got that?Thank ‘ee, Mistress Yates.And then, um…It seems to me that you are happy in your marriage, and I’ve no wish or intent to do anything to disturb that.But I must tell you that—”
“Wait up, wait up,” Emma said.“…no wish or intent…Yes, go on.”
When Jed first heard Carrie’s letter to him, a cold, sick lump had settled in his stomach, and now it was back with a vengeance.There were so many things he wanted to say—to protest, to plead.But he couldn’t do it like this, with pen and ink, and Carrie twenty miles away.
“—I must tell you that I’m determined to take up the traces of my old life again, soon as may be…No, putsoon as the press cools off.”He rubbed the back of his neck, watching Emma’s nib scratch slowly across the page.“And then tell her:Can you manage to wish me well, at least?I don’t like to be at odds with my own sister.It en’t right.”
They managed to get the whole thing down on paper.Emma folded the sheet over and sealed it with a drop of candle wax.“What’s the direction?”
“Mrs Caroline Penwick at the Manor House in Ledcombe.”
She wrote that on the outside in slow, careful strokes.
Jed reached out, brushing the letter with his fingertips.It was such a poor way to communicate.When would he be able to return to Ledcombe and speak to his sister directly?
Mrs Drake had not given Jed or Solomon a regular route.Instead, she called on them to fill the gaps in her roster when her other waggoners were ill or delayed.That morning, Jed was sent out with a cart to meet the Exeter waggon, which had lost a wheel four miles south of Barnstaple and was stuck, lopsided, in the mud.As Jed helped transfer sacks and parcels to the cart, he had to fight the impulse to look over his shoulder every few minutes.Until today, he had felt fairly safe in Barnstaple and on the inland routes.But now, his skin crawled in anticipation of the heavy hand landing on his shoulder.
When Jed arrived back at the yard, Solomon was helping unload the Taunton waggon.Jed caught Solomon’s eye and jerked his head towards the isolated corner where they usually met to talk.Solomon nodded.
Ten minutes later, Jed found Solomon waiting for him there, propped against the whitewashed wall, hands in his pockets.
They looked at each other.
“You look like you slept as little as I did,” Solomon said.
“Yes.Probably.”Though he felt better just for seeing Solomon.He longed to touch him.
Around them, the yard was unusually calm.It was the lull in the middle of the day: the morning waggons had all left and the evening waggons had not yet started to arrive.
“You have to go back out again?”Solomon asked.
“Not for another few hours.”
