Page 75 of The Cornish Mermaid

“Best put those hats back on,” the old woman muttered. “So’s you lads don’t go out there lookin’ too much like a pair o’ girls.” At least she wasn’t disapproving of their disguises.

Ysella and Morvoren jammed their hats back on, and Jem, shoulders squared and with a proud step, led them out of the kitchen door into the back yard of the house. He seemed to be entering into the spirit of the evening extremely well. “This way,” he hissed. “We has to keep quiet. Don’t speak a word lessen I ses yer can.”

They followed him out into the darkness.

*

Kit

In the farmhouse at Nanpean, Kit pulled on one of Jago’s tatty coats and his old tricorn hat, ready for the off. From outside the open door, in the moonlit darkness, came the muffled sounds of the men bringing their string of sturdy pack ponies into the yard: mutters and whispers from the men, the grate of hobnailed boots, and the shuffle of small unshod hooves on the flagstones.

Only a single oil lamp burned in the middle of the table as Kit loaded his pistols, mindful of Jago’s motto to never go unprepared to a possible affray. Never assume the best, always expect the worst. Wise words, even though Kit had never yet needed to use a pistol. He glanced at the stairs as Jenifry clattered down them. She’d been in the box room setting up the only other lamp in its window. A signal to let the little French cutter know it was safe to bring the contraband goods ashore in its yawls.

Her face was flushed and her eyes alight with the excitement they all felt on the night a consignment was coming ashore.

“All done,” she said.

Jago came stomping through the front door from the yard, bringing with him the cool night air and a whiff of pony. “Damn it,” he said, the lamplight casting his features into frightening shadow. “Clemo’s just come with a message from Aleck Tregothnan to say as he can’t be with us tonight. He’s down with a bad stomach and can’t leave his bed nor his privy.”

Kit raised his eyebrows. “Really? When I saw him yesterday, he seemed in good health.” Why did a little nagging feeling of doubt bother him about this?

He had no time to dwell on Tregothnan’s absence though. Jowan Curnow, who’d followed Jago in, shrugged. “Been eatin’ wot he serves in his inn, I’ll warrant. Last oggie I et over there were all gristle.” He shook his head. “Since you took my Loveday away up England, I’s had to find wot food I can, if’n I doan want ter cook fer meself.”

Kit slapped him on the back, his worries about Tregothnan vanishing. “Time you learned how to bake an oggie for yourself. You’re no true Cornishman if you can’t.”

Jowan spat on the flagstones. “Women’s work, that be.”

Jago laughed. “How d’you think other men on their own manage, then, you lazy old bugger?”

Jowan lifted a shoulder and huffed, turning toward the bottle of brandy sitting on the table beside the lamp. “I’ll have me a glass o’ somethin’ fine an’ strong as I’ve et no dinner ternight.” Not bothering with a glass or beaker, he upended the bottle and took a long swig. He’d be swaying his way down to the beach if he wasn’t careful.

Kit took the bottle back before Jowan drained it. He was a good worker if prevented from becoming pie-eyed, but that was becoming increasingly difficult, especially with the absence of Loveday’s soothing influence. “That’s enough, Jowan. We need you sober on the beach. We don’t have enough ponies to be carrying you back up as well as the brandy barrels.”

Jowan gave him a filthy look and stumped back out into the yard.

Kit followed, trying unsuccessfully to push away the vision of Morvoren his thoughts of Loveday had conjured. Had he done the right thing in leaving her? No, he had to think about tonight. He mustn’t dwell on her face, her laugh, her eyes, her… He dragged himself back to reality with some difficulty.

A dozen men stood waiting in the yard in the all too well-lit darkness, a moon that was well on its way to being full shining down on them out of a frighteningly clear night sky. Not a good night for landing contraband, but at least Nanpean Cove was well out of the way and difficult to access. He could be fairly sure no one knew of their activities—no one that shouldn’t, anyway.

Jago emerged from the house, Jenifry by his side, and all heads turned in his direction. He cleared his throat and stepped onto the mounting block. The block Morvoren had tried to use before Kit had given her a leg up onto Prinny such a long time ago now. His hand on her strangely clad foot… No. He had to stop this.

“Now, I’m afraid tonight you’ve only got me,” Jago said, keeping his voice low. “Aleck’s not able to come with us, thanks to his own cookin’, so I’m told.”

A ripple of quiet laughter rustled through the listening men. They all knew the food at the Ship Inn, as it was where most of them drank of a night. They were a motley crowd, at least one from each family in Nanpean village and the cottages up the valley, some from as far afield as Penzance thanks to family ties.

They shared one thing—they were all out to improve the lot of their poor families, even Jago, whose small farm wouldn’t make a profit were it not for his smuggling activities.

On an impulse, Kit glanced over his shoulder and upward, at the curtains of his own bedroom window, still open tonight, and dark. Of course, no small pale face appeared there this time, to be briefly glimpsed, but recognized, nevertheless.

He smiled to himself. He’d had to go up and check on her that first night, not knowing what he’d do if he found her up and about. But she’d been lying in bed like one dead. Too still for real sleep. He’d stood in silence, watching her where she lay with her blonde hair spread on the pillows—his pillows—before deciding that perhaps he might just be able to trust her not to say anything. And deciding, as well, not to mention to Jago that he’d seen her watching.

His heart ached for the sight of her face up there, sending him out to help his villagers. But no, she was a lady of good breeding, and there was no way he could involve her in his smuggling. He couldn’t be two things at once—an illegal smuggler on the one hand and a married man, possibly a family man, on the other. It was too much to expect of a gently bred young lady. He’d just have to forget about her.

Jago was still talking, telling the men what they had to do, cautioning them rather unnecessarily to silence, suggesting they blacked their faces with the soot Jenifry was passing around in the ash pan from the kitchen range.

Kit took some soot and smeared it across his face and hands—both areas that would show up on a moonlit night like this one, if they weren’t careful. Ned Treloar was smearing soot onto the white blaze his pony had, and one or two other men were decorating their ponies’ white socks. Best to choose ponies with no white markings at all, really, but they had to make do with what they had.

At last, they were ready. Tom Cardy, a lad of only nineteen who was the breadwinner for his widowed mother and her seven other children, came running from the end of the house where he’d been watching for a light at sea. “I seen it,” he called, his whisper hissing around the farmyard over the silent heads of his colleagues and the ponies. “Out to the east an’ headin’ our way. One light burnin’. On her foredeck, I doan doubt.”