Page 71 of The Cornish Mermaid

Morvoren eyed their newest set of replacements out of a grimy window. James and John were unhitching them from the carriage. She’d thought the ones they’d ridden up to Jamaica Inn had been bad, but these were a whole lot sorrier. She doubted very much if anyone had ever sat astride any of them. Plus, they didn’t have saddles and Carlyon Court and Nanpean lay a long way off.

“We’ll just have to stay here overnight,” Sam said. “At least until the early hours. I’m sure everything will work out. We can’t be more than a day behind Kit even with all the problems we’ve had.” He gave Morvoren and Ysella a cheering smile. “And we don’t even know whether he hasn’t had any delays himself. We could have passed him on the road already, for all we know.”

Morvoren smiled and pretended to agree with him, but her instinct was warning her that Kit was already far ahead and galloping headlong into danger.

Chapter Thirty

Morvoren

The next morning, the earliest time they could safely make their crossing of the river was just after ten, so the landlord informed them. He even went so far as to show Morvoren the chart he kept in the tap room. “There ain’t much of a safe time ter cross, Missy. On account o’ the water bein’ too deep most o’ the time. We doan get too many carriages like yourn wantin’ ter cross—most does like the mail coach and teks the longer road through Falmouth, away south o’ here.” He rubbed his bristly chin. “Be more than my life’s worth ter let you an’ your fine friends put yourselves in danger o’ drownin’ in the current.”

It was with great impatience that she sat in the window of her and Ysella’s small bedchamber, watching the all too gradual receding of the tide and exposure of the mud and sand banks. “We’ll be there in time,” Ysella said, taking Morvoren’s clammy hand in hers. “Don’t worry. I’m convinced we will.”

Her conviction, however, was not enough to satisfy Morvoren. She sat, casting her mind back again and again, trying to remember the date of the attack on the smugglers and failing. Until it suddenly dawned on her that without knowing what today’s date was, knowing the other date would have no meaning. She glanced across at Ysella, who was sitting on the bed, picking at her lace gloves and making a hole in them for want of anything else to do, clearly as impatient as she was. “Ysella? What day is it today?”

She looked up. “Why, I believe it’s Wednesday, although I feel I’ve quite lost count.”

Morvoren shook her head. “No. Not the day of the week. What is the date today?”

“Well, you already know it’s 1811,” she said with some asperity. “And let me see…” She counted on her fingers. “Today must be the seventh of July. I think… If today is Wednesday in truth.”

The seventh day of the seventh month, 1811. Seven, seven, eleven. It rhymed. Of course. Now it all came rushing back. She’d read the date and laughed to herself at the inadvertent rhyme in the write up about the raid. But perhaps back then, well, now, they didn’t think of the months by numbers and wouldn’t have spotted the rhyme. And today was the seventh day of the seventh month. The day that rhymed with the year. It was today. Today, or more correctly tonight, was the night of the attack.

She grabbed Ysella’s arm. “I remember,” she cried, her fingers digging into her friend’s flesh. “Seven, seven, 1811. The date rhymed. I noticed it when I was in the museum, and when you told me the date just now, I remembered. Today’s the day of the attack. We only have today to get to Kit and warn him.”

Ysella clutched Morvoren back. “The seventh of July? Today? We have to tell Sam. Come on.”

They clattered down the stairs to find Sam in the tap room supping a brimming tankard of cider. Morvoren grabbed his arm, some of it spilled and both girls pulled him into the bay window away from the bar. “It’s today,” Ysella hissed. “Morvoren remembers. We have to get there as fast as we can to warn him. It’s imp-imp…” Her voice trailed away.

“Imperative,” Morvoren said, and she nodded.

To do him credit, Sam could move fast when he wanted to. He sent James and John out to make sure the carriage was ready to go as soon as it was deemed safe to cross the estuary, whose waters still looked frighteningly high. What if the carriage was washed away by the outgoing tide? What if they couldn’t get out of it and all drowned? What if she’d been meant to drown on that first fateful day in 1811, and time was waiting to exact its cruel punishment on her?

She didn’t have time to dwell on this for long.

“Go and pack your things and have them down here to load on the carriage,” Sam said. “It’s after nine now, so we’ve not long to go.” He smiled a hollow, desperate smile. “We can do it. I know we can.”

If only they hadn’t had one mishap after another. But at least they knew it hadn’t happened already. How awful would it have been if today had been the eighth and for them to have been one day too late?

Just before ten, the man standing guard at the crossing point informed them it was at last safe to cross, and the carriage wheels rumbled off the stone slipway and onto the silent sand. Ahead, the river hadn’t withdrawn entirely of course, and when they reached its banks, they were still going to have to negotiate what looked to Morvoren like very turbulent waters.

She hung onto Ysella’s hand, and Ysella held onto Sam’s. Morvoren forbore from saying, but her head filled up again with those frightening pictures of the carriage rolling over and over in the water with all of them stuck inside as it filled up and they were drowned. Of their horses thrashing in the water. Of the people on the bank standing staring but unable to save them.

No. She had to push images like that out of her head. She had to be brave. Perhaps Josh had been right and by facing up to her terror of water like this, for the sake of someone else, she could perhaps overcome it.

She gritted her teeth and clutched the balance strap, keeping her eyes averted from the watery prospect outside the carriage window, determined not to make a fool of herself. It took a lot of doing, and brought a whimper from Ysella, whose hand she had in a death grip.

But at last, after what felt like ages but was probably really only a couple of minutes at most, they rolled out of the water and onto the sand on the other side. Morvoren relaxed her grip on Ysella’s hand and the strap, and heaved a deep, shuddering breath.

Ysella released Sam’s hand and threw her arms around her, patting her back in encouragement. “I didn’t realize you were so afraid of water, dear Morvoren.”

Morvoren nodded, aware of her still thumping heart. “I can’t help it. I’ve been like it since I was a small child. I don’t know why. I know it’s unreasonable, but nothing makes me more afraid than the feeling of being helpless in water.” She sniffed. “Or the things I imagine might happen.” No need to reveal what she’d been thinking, not now the ordeal was over.

Sam gave her an awkward pat on the arm. “Many of us have a morbid fear of something, Morvoren. I myself, despite being a man grown, cannot bear spiders. If one is in the office or at my home, I have to get someone to come in and deal with it or I cannot be in the room.”

Whether that were true or not, Morvoren had no idea, but it had the effect of making her smile at the idea of big strong Sam having to get someone to rid a room of a spider before he’d go inside.

“That’s better,” Sam said, resuming his seat as the carriage jolted over some ruts in the road. “You were courageous to even contemplate the crossing. I admire your pluck after your experience under the sea.”