Shackles Read online

  “I’ll take Delle,” Pierre declared. “You take Robin’s gear.”

  “Lord be good to me! All them boxes? You take the easy way, you, Pierre. I won’t get but a double for my pains, the old lady will see to that.”

  “Easy? Up the Constitution Steps?”

  The boat was manoeuvred alongside the stone steps. The male passengers scrambled ashore. Pierre reached down his hand and Jo took it gratefully. She was unaccustomed to boats and her wet skirts hampered her.

  “Miss want Union Place, is it?” asked Pierre in his rather rough-cut English.

  Miss looked startled and pleased.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “did Mrs. Lucas send you to meet me?”

  “No, no one has sent me but who else could you be? Miss has baggages?”

  Jo stared a little and chuckled aloud as a phrase from the letter in her pocket came to her mind, ‘.... a small world where we all know one another’s affairs and think that, were they our own, we would conduct them better...’ She had not expected to have this so clearly demonstrated the moment she set foot on shore.

  “A small trunk, there....” she pointed. “And that basket”

  The two boatmen began to hurl the luggage ashore. Young Robin protested at such treatment of his stock but neither took any notice. Domaille and De Putron indicated to Ezra, which were their bags and picked their way over the treacherous stones of the causeway to the waiting carriage. Pierre shouldered the little horsehide trunk that belonged to Jo and made his way up the causeway while Ezra took Jo’s basket in one hand and her arm in the other and followed.

  “Hey, you, Ezra, you villain. I’ve all this gear to go to the High Street, eh?” cried Robin.

  “I’ll see Delle to the quay and be back.”

  Pierre’s wooden soles slipped and clattered over the slimy cobbles and Jo was glad of Ezra’s grip on her arm.

  “Rough, eh? Hold to me! Listen to him bawling like a calf...all that boxes and lucky I get a double for my pains.”

  “What is the proper rate?” she asked, sliding on the weed-covered stones.

  “Up there to Union Place? A double, maybe.”

  “But I have no doubles. Only English money.”

  “All’s money, Delle,” he said comfortingly. “Pence or sous, it all buys food for the belly and a bonnet for the baby.”

  Just as she had calculated that a sixpence would cover the service or a shilling if, as she suspected from Ezra’s wide gesture, Union Place was at the end of a long climb, her wet skirts walloping about her ankles tripped her and she would have fallen but for Ezra’s grip on her arm. He clicked his tongue, slipped the handles of the basket over his arm and picked her up and carried her up the last few yards of the causeway. Pierre was waiting there with the trunk at his feet and grinning.

  “Some folk fall in the water and come up with a fish in the mouth,” he said.

  “Mess Robin he will have me take the boxes and such,” Ezra told him rather breathlessly because while Jo was slender she was tall and her wet clothes weighed heavily. “More than I can manage in three journeys. You take Delle to Union Place and come back to help, eh?”

  He set her down and accepted the proffered threepenny bit, peering at it in the dim light before he pocketed it.

  “It ought to be for you to pay Delle,” Pierre reproved him.

  Ezra grinned his thanks and clattered back down the causeway.

  Pierre shouldered the trunk again, picked up the basket and jerked his head at their owner to follow him. They set off along the narrow flagged path that led to the quay. Progress was slow because Pierre knew everyone they met and felt it necessary to explain whom he was escorting and where she was bound. Two men baiting line and another mending a crab-pot were thus informed, also three females who passed by, their faces hidden by deep-brimmed sunbonnets, within the shade of which their eyes gleamed, bright with interest. Pierre also shouted the information up to the lamp-lighter engaged in lighting one of the scanty lamps which did something, if not much, to prevent frequenters of the quay from walking over the edge and into the water or should the tide be out, the stinking mud. His client was a pretty chick, was she not? And she was to teach the Lucas girls and that young imp of hell, Mess Leo and what the old hen Delle Helen would have to say to her didn’t bear thinking about, eh?

  When they reached the quay it was deserted but Jo could see a group of men outside a tavern not far away.

  “You call yourself Pierre?” she enquired in passable French.

  “Pierre Nicolle. Me, I work to the shipyard, days.”

  “I think you should know, Pierre, that I have a moderate understanding of the French language and while I cannot understand all you say...”

  He gave her a slightly apprehensive look under the bottom of the trunk.

  “.... I would prefer not to be called a belle poule.”

  “Delle, I am desolated, I....”

  “That is of no consequence,” she reassured him, “but I would like you to know that I am very wet and very cold. Also, I am emptier than a drum.”

  Pierre made a sympathetic noise, half grunt, half cluck.

  “Therefore,” she went on, “might we go straight to Union Place without stopping to explain me and my prospects to everyone we meet?”

  “As m’Delle wishes,” agreed Pierre.

  Pierre took her at her word and did not stop. He began to explain her name and her prospects and her destination when they were twenty yards from the group outside the tavern and completed his explanation with the assertion that Delle was cold and hungry and did not wish to stop from the bottom of the church steps. This process was repeated for the benefit of the verger for the length of the church, for the benefit of some belated butter-wives for the length of the market place and for the benefit of a group of fishermen outside another tavern at the far end of Market Street. Jo, half amused, half exasperated, said no more.

  Just beyond the tavern he paused beside a shadowy gap between the buildings.

  “Now m’Delle,” he said and settled the trunk more comfortably. “Summon up your strength!”

  He turned into the gap and began to climb a flight of granite steps. Jo, whose nose had been assaulted by a rich variety of smells during the walk, fish, new and old and very, very old, sewage, butcher’s refuse, rotting vegetables and horse dung was now conscious that they were leaving them behind. They climbed between tiny cliff-dwellings, clinging like swallows’ nests to every ledge and slope of the cliff with the steps turning and climbing amongst them. Small square windows glowed yellow with lamplight and a household could be seen about their table dipping by turns in a huge earthenware dish: a donkey considered them gravely from his stable door halfway up a flight of twenty wide shallow steps. A lamp over a gate illumined a tiny garden no bigger than a cottage-kitchen and carpeted with meticulous rows of vegetables. A child cried, it seemed to Jo, right under her feet and she realised that below, to her right were roofs and skylights and tiny wooden bridges which gave access from the steps to neat new-painted doors which might have served Tom Thumb. Geraniums rioted everywhere, tumbling down walls, in pots on the narrow doorsteps crowded into minute window boxes. From behind a blind blank wall with a door recessed into it came a waft of white lilac and the sound of singing. One household was singing glees to the accompaniment of an out-of-tune pianoforte.

  “Mess De Garis’ family,” Pierre volunteered. “They all sing, them. Four sons, five girls.”

  He plodded on, too breathless to say more and the glee ended. A tenor began to sing, Come Unto These Yellow Sands, and the music followed them to the top.

  At the top she paused for breath and turned about to stare at the view. Below, in the twilight was a tumble of roofs, all shapes and all angles with lights here and there among them and beyond was the sea, reflecting the very last of the daylight. Dark islands swam in gleaming silver. It was beautiful and she caught her breath in a gasp of admiration.

  Pierre mistook the gasp for a one of exhaustion. r />
  “Not far now,” he comforted.

  He resettled the trunk and led the way along narrow quiet cobbled streets where tall houses contemplated one another and light escaped from curtains or jalousies to hint at the life within. Jo, almost light-headed with hunger and weariness suddenly thought that it must be like this to be a ghost, forever wandering unheeded among the living. Pierre dispelled this fancy by spitting at one doorstep and calling the owner the meanest man in the island.

  “Looks both sides of every double and puts it back in his pocket twice before he spends it,” he grumbled. “I carried up his baggages last week, me. Twice what you have and heavier. And what did I get?”

  Miss Saughton said nothing, being tolerably sure that he would not withhold information of such immediate interest.

  “A half glass of sour wine from a bottle open a week, a stale biscuit and a French sou.”

  “Is a sou so little?” she enquired.

  “Listen, m’Delle. A double is worth half a farthing and four farthings make a penny English, is it? M’Delle, a sou is half a double! And after all those steps, pardi!”

  They turned a corner and a horse trotted past, the carriage hood up and the lamps twinkling and the horse picking up his feet briskly as horses do on the way home.

  “Mess Collins has been to dine with Mess Brocq to the Fort Road,” Pierre deduced.

  Jo made no reply because she was busy casting up her very limited resources. She decided reluctantly that a shilling was the very least coin, which would cover such exertions. This was very much what Pierre was hoping she would decide. The ‘meanest man in the island’ had a residence in every street to which he accompanied a stranger. He stopped short and opened a gate.

  They had reached a point where three roads met. On one side of a triangle were small, unimpressive little dwellings, little more than cottages, on another was a house much older than those around it, which looked as if it had been overtaken by the other buildings. It should have had a formal parterre before it and a gravelled carriage sweep rather than a steep flight of steps that came right down to the pavement. On the third side was a terrace of large tall houses, narrow and elegant with neat gardens in front of them, wrought iron railings and gates. It was the gate to the end house of this terrace that Pierre had opened and he led the way up the flagged path. The scent of clove carnations and stocks came wafting to her out of the darkness. The kitchens were in a semi-basement and as they stood on the steps above the area the smell of good food came up to them and Jo’s stomach roiled with hunger. Pierre rattled the knocker and dumped the trunk thankfully. He turned about and grinned at Jo in a friendly fashion.

  “I wish you a pleasant stay in the island, m’Delle, and hope to have the pleasure to serve you again.”

  Jo mumbled her thanks and produced a shilling. Pierre smiled his obligation but bit the coin before he stowed it away. He was expecting to be paid by the household for that was customary but he saw no harm in extracting a little extra from a newcomer. Had Jo known it he would have accepted a sixpence cheerfully and a threepenny bit with a fair grace. However, when later she did learn this she did not grudge him his shilling for he had taught her that in the island there were eyes watching everything you did and all the world knew of you

  CHAPTER TWO

  ...a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

  Proverbs.

  The door was opened grudgingly, revealing soft lamplight and a mobcapped head, which peered at them suspiciously.

  “Hé, Jeanne,” Pierre bellowed, “it is the gouv’nante from England come off the packet.”

  “Is it?” enquired the mobcap.

  “The packet was late, it,” Pierre went on as if he were hailing the masthead in an Atlantic gale. “There was much wind and Delle is wet and cold and hungry no doubt because she has been ill, poor chicken, and even if not the food on that packet is never fit to eat, eh, because no one is ever fit to eat it, ha, ha!”

  “Good evening,” Jo interrupted him. “My name is Saughton. I believe Mrs. Lucas is expecting me.”

  She produced a letter from her pocket. The door opened a little wider.

  “If m’Delle will step in,” invited the mobcap. “And you, Pierre Nicolle, bring that in.”

  Pierre forestalled her. Before she could finish her sentence he was halfway up the first flight of stairs the trunk once more on his shoulder.

  “Which room?” he asked.

  Jeanne, now revealed as a small, buxom woman in her forties with a round face and round, deep-set dark eyes, looked up at Pierre in an exasperated fashion.

  “Three up. Second door to the left.”

  Pierre stumped on.

  “And don’t bump the paintwork, you Pierre Nicolle. And come to the kitchen, eh, when you have done.”

  Pierre replied in Guernsiaise and clearly what he said was not polite for Jeanne set her hands on her hips and was about to reply when the door on the right opened releasing a smell of candle wax and giving Jo a glimpse of a large elegant room before it was obscured by a female figure wearing a round gown with very full sleeves and flounces all round the hem caught up with knots of silver ribbon. Because the light was behind her the face was in shadow but it outlined a crop of ringlets.

  “What is all this commotion?” a high plaintive voice demanded.

  “M’Delle Saughton has arrived.”

  “Who?”

  “The new Gouv’nante.”

  The owner of the ringlets sighed ostentatiously.

  “You address me as Miss Lucas, Jeanne. How often must I remind you?”

  “As you will, m’Delle...Miss Lucas,” Jeanne said unabashed. “It’s m’Delle Saughton and she’s wet as a fish, her.”

  Miss Lucas turned her attention to Jo.

  “This is no time to arrive. You are very late,” she said severely.

  Jo was about to protest that it was no fault of hers if the packet was weather-stayed but held her tongue. If this woman did not understand the circumstances, which attended a journey to the island, such a protest was useless.

  “Indeed I am,” she agreed. “I am sorry for it.”

  “The children have been on the watch all day and most ill-behaved in consequence.”

  Jo, thoroughly taken aback, could not think how to respond to this criticism.

  “I dare say it is all of a piece,” said Miss Lucas. “It is just as I said it would be.”

  She looked Jo up and down with unconcealed distaste.

  “And let me tell you,” she added, “if I had been consulted in the matter....”

  “Delle is soaked to the bone,” Jeanne interrupted and bent to feel Jo’s skirts. “She should go and change herself.”

  “Be silent!” said Miss Lucas in scandalized tones and moved out into the hall closing the door behind her. “This is no business of yours. Go away. I will attend to Miss.....”

  “Take her into M’Dame,” said Jeanne unimpressed. “I’ll send up hot water for a bath, Delle. I lay you’d like one. And after, a tray by the fire? Cook’s got some good soup and a slice of pie....”

  Jo yearned after such a prospect and she nodded.

  “All in good time, Jeanne, if you please,” Miss Lucas interrupted shrilly. “I wish to have a word with Miss Sawkins or whatever she is called before she goes to her room.”

  “You keep her here in this cold and draught and she’ll fall sick with the lung-fever.”

  “I wish it to be clearly understood, Miss Sawkins, that as far as I am concerned and I am not nobody, as I believe, you are here only on....”

  “The Mistress won’t like it,” Jeanne said, topping her effortlessly. “She gave her instructions that Delle was to have a hot meal and a fire in her room and not to be....”

  “You are here,” Miss Lucas declared, her voice rising to an angry squawk, “only on sufferance. I cannot allow you to think....”

  “M’Dame wouldn’t allow for her to be kept standing here in wet clothes in a cold hall, all hungry...”

>   “...that because your guardian is a connection of my sister-in-law....”

  Jeanne pushed past and flung open the drawing-room door.

  “M’Dame,” she said in ringing tones, “behold, the gouv’nante is come. And she is wet as a fish, her, and famished I wouldn’t wonder.”

  Miss Lucas dropped her voice to a vindictive whisper.

  “You needn’t think you can take advantage because you are a....”

  “Helen,” called a gentle voice from the other end of the room. “Helen, please bring Miss Saughton in for a moment before Jeanne takes her to her room. I would so like to make her welcome.”

  “.... not that anyone in their senses could think of someone of your sort as a connection, don’t think it, and what is more,” Miss Lucas muttered angrily, “I have the use of all my faculties and I will be keeping a very careful watch on what you do, believe me.”

  She nodded emphatically, her mouth a tight line and the ringlets bounced. Jo, thoroughly dismayed by such an unprovoked tirade hesitated. Jeanne, her face stony, was holding the door. Just then Jo heard whispers and the pattering of feet on the staircase. Her future charges had evidently come down to see what she was like. She hoped they would not fall foul of their aunt and to distract the woman allowed herself to be pushed ungently into the room. Evidently Jeanne had the same notion for she shut the door hard on their heels. The idea of the children leaving their beds to spy out the land made her smile which gave the occupants of the room a very pleasant idea of her. When she realised how many there were waiting, her smile faded. She looked for her employer and saw to her dismay there were four ladies in the room, three of whom were of the right age and appearance and two of those smiling at her encouragingly. She looked from one to the other helplessly and then felt a sharp poke in the back propelling her towards a still-pretty woman in an invalid chair. The hand extended to her was pathetically knotted and twisted.