Hell and High Water by Tanya Landman

Author:Tanya Landman [Landman, Tanya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781406363951
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2015-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

14.

The evening had been beautifully orchestrated from beginning to end, Caleb thought bitterly as they were ushered out of the house and into the cold night air. Pa would have been impressed by the slick deftness of it. As they walked back to Fishpool in the moonlight he turned the question over in his mind: what was the purpose of it all? What had Sir Robert hoped to achieve by this charade?

Firstly, he supposed, it had given an authorized version of events. Signed by every member of the Linnet’s crew and sanctioned by the magistrate, the affidavit could never be questioned. It had also been made plain to Caleb that there was no higher authority to which he could appeal. The law in these parts was in Sir Robert’s pocket.

He seethed with anger. That man, that high-born, titled man, with his vast estates and carriages and money and grand house and fine clothes, had stood there and lied in his own kitchen like the lowest of criminals! With no qualms, with not a moment’s remorse or regret, he had declared that he was entirely ignorant of the convicts’ names. And yet he must have both known them and known that they’d come out. If Anne hadn’t asked her question someone else would have. Every week in church the congregation of Fishpool prayed fervently for the souls of the drowned. Sir Robert had expected the question to come – why else would Puddleby have had a copy of the bill of lading so conveniently to hand?

And the result? The names of the convicts were common knowledge and Pa was declared drowned and dead, dragged down to the bottom of the sea by his convict’s chains. Caleb was now expected to grieve publicly for a man he’d privately mourned for weeks. He was expected to swallow the lie that Pa had been lost in the middle of the ocean halfway between England and the American colonies along with the other felons. This would be the received truth from now on, unless Caleb could prove otherwise.

There was besides the matter of his uncle to consider. Edward Avery walked a little ahead, his arm around his wife’s waist, his hand upon Letty’s shoulder. She was carrying Dorcas and the child was asleep in her arms. They looked like a family happily reunited, and yet Caleb could see from the stiffness of Letty’s back that she was profoundly ill at ease.

Edward Avery had said he was unaware of Pa’s existence, and yet how could that be true, for he’d betrayed not an ounce of amazement?

That Anne herself had never told him she had a brother wasn’t in doubt. Her fit of fainting, her appalling distress, her grief: this part of the scene alone had not been acted. So if she’d never told Edward about her brother, who had?

It wasn’t hard to fathom the answer. All the men had been closeted in Sir Robert’s study for some time before Caleb and Letty had arrived and then they’d all stayed in there even longer waiting for Narcissus Puddleby.

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