Carrie burst out, “You needn’t go to Mr Morgan.Your horse has been hired out to a man named Harlow, on the Ilfracombe road.The cart too.”
A heavy silence fell over the room.
“Yes, it’s true,” Penwick admitted finally.
“Have you known that all along?”Jed looked from one to the other of them.“Have you?”
Penwick’s colour was answer enough.“Your sister didn’t,” he said.“I only told her yesterday.”
Jed bit back his anger.He addressed himself to Carrie.“Then will you give me a letter for Harlow, telling him the horse and cart are no longer up for hire?”
Penwick and Carrie looked at each other, some conversation without words passing between them.Finally, Penwick sat down at the writing desk and wrote a quick note.He folded it over, then stood up and held it out to Jed.But when Jed put his hand to it, Penwick did not immediately relinquish it.
“It will be better for all of us, I’m afraid, if you don’t come to the house again.We cannot be seen to associate with you.”
Jed glanced sideways at Carrie.Regret and a tinge of pain lay heavily on her face.But she nodded in agreement with Penwick.
Reluctantly, Jed nodded too.Penwick released the letter, and Jed tucked it carefully into his pocket.
Carrie took one quick step forward.“Jed, you’ll get word to me and tell me where you are, won’t you?Promise?”
Jed took her hands, pressing them.“Yes, I promise.”
He stepped back, and she offered her hand to Solomon.“I’m glad he has a friend with him.”
Penwick said awkwardly, “Trevithick, I hope to welcome you here when the war is over.”
He and Jed exchanged stiff nods.And then it was all over, and the maid came to show them out.
The evening air was mild, a foretaste of summer.Bees buzzed from daisy to guelder-rose in the hedgerows.Jed strode along the lane, Solomon at his side.Upon leaving the manor house, they had set off immediately for Harlow’s farm.
“Yes, let’s go see the man now,” Solomon had said when consulted.He was staying with Jed, of course; that wasn’t something they’d needed to discuss.
Every so often, as he walked, Jed put his hand to the letter in his pocket.This was the moment he’d been dreaming of for years.He still didn’t know what Penwick would do if he set up in business in Ledcombe, but he would cross that bridge later.
Harlow’s farm was at the end of a steep lane.As they drew nearer, they passed a half-ploughed field in which a man was at work.His plough was pulled by a bay draft horse that Jed recognised immediately.He stopped, staring.Bess was in excellent form: her flanks rounded, her coat glossy.
Horse and man were on the far side of the field.If Jed crossed the field, calling out to the man, then Bess would recognise him.She’d lift her head at the sound of his voice, and whinny softly like she always used to.
A boy was walking ahead of the plough, searching the unploughed earth for stones.He noticed Jed and Solomon and came over to them.
“You all right there?”he called.“If you’re looking for work, you’ll have to come to the farmyard tomorrow morning.But if it’s Mr Harlow you want on business, he’s up at the house now.”
Solomon glanced at Jed, letting him answer.
Jed couldn’t take his eyes off Bess.How many hours had they spent together, travelling over the moors?Hours of freedom, of quiet contentedness, in sunshine and rain.Bess meant peace, respite, coming home.
Or so he’d convinced himself.
In the Navy, many of his messmates had had talismans: a lucky coin, a cheap medallion, a piece of coral.Something they hung onto, that they took out and looked at from time to time, to convince themselves that everything would be all right.But that was just an illusion.And in the end, Bess was just a horse.
The boy was looking at him curiously.“I said, if you want to see—”
Jed managed to say, “No.Thank ‘ee.We just stopped for a rest.”
The boy returned to work.On the other side of the field, Bess marched steadily on.The plough reached the end of a furrow, and man and horse turned, moving further away from the road.
Jed stepped away from the hedge.He sank to the ground on the grassy verge, back slumped, head bent over his knees.He heard Solomon sit down beside him.
