He was startled to hear a sob before she answered. "To—to know your love will not ever return to you in life is the cruellest thing, Mr Kydd."
They walked out to the brightness of the day and she said, with an effort, "I suppose she will go wool-washing at Crumplehorn. It pays quite well although the work is dirty."
At a loss, Kydd kept pace with her. She stopped suddenly and turned to him with a smile. "Mr Kydd, I'm going to show you my most favourite place in Polperro. Come along!"
She hurried to the corner of the row of cottages and found a neat but narrow path winding up high in the rocks.
"Oh, do we have to?" Billy said.
"Yes, we do! Now, get along up there, if you please."
Kydd, however, found sixpence for him to spend afterwards as he liked, which won him a firm friend.
When they had toiled up a short slope and reached a spur of rock they were rewarded with a dramatic view: the length of the harbour with its impossibly narrow entrance, the two mighty formations of rock, like a gigantic lizard's spine, and stretching in a vast, glittering expanse to the distant horizon, the sea.
"There!" she breathed. "All the rest of the world is out there. The elephants of India, the palace of the King, even that horrid Napoleon. All you have to do is get on a ship and you can go there—anywhere."
Kydd was touched; for him the far horizon was a familiar sea highway to every adventure and experience of significance in his life so far, and he had perhaps taken for granted the freedoms it gave.
She pressed him: what was life like for one who sailed away over that horizon? What changes in character, what deep feelings were involved? Kydd hesitated at first but he was soon opening to her parts of himself that had remained closed to everyone else, including, it had to be faced, Persephone. Rosalynd was reaching him in a unique way.
Renzi arrived back late and somewhat rumpled. "Gurry butts and arrish mows." He sighed. "Such a richness in diversity to the same urgent imperatives. You'll recall the islands of the Great South Seas—the savages there . . . Please know that this is proving a most satisfactory first expedition."
"As I c'n see, Nicholas," Kydd answered, over his port, "an' I wish you well of it all."
Renzi looked at him fondly. "I am aware, dear fellow, that this is hardly an enthralling adventure for your good self and it is on my conscience that—"
"No, no, Nicholas! I am findin' th' peace an' tranquillity a fine solace," he said. "And th' family is, er, takin' good care of me." Renzi would probably not understand if he mentioned his pleasant walks with Rosalynd.
"You should ask them to show you about Polperro," Renzi said encouragingly. "I passed by yesterday, a most curious place." He accepted a restorative drink and continued: "Some might find its fragrance less of sanctity and more of fish, but I was amused to read a most apposite inscription above the door of one such pallace: dulcis lucri odor, or "'This be the sweet smell of lucre.'"
Kydd grinned. "Your Ovid, then."
"Perhaps not. The wit who placed it there was probably thinking of Vespasian, that most earthy of emperors who actually said, pecunia non olet, 'Money does not reek,' a most practical view, in my opinion."
The next day Kydd and Rosalynd visited Jan Puckey's fish pal-lace; it was diverting to see the speed and skill with which the women balked the pilchards. They were placed in an earthenware "bussa," tails in and heads out in an endless spiral of salted layers, two thousand for the Puckeys' winter consumption alone, with the oil pressed from them fetching a good price.
Afterwards they took a picnic atop the medieval ruins of Chapel Hill. Rosalynd spread a cloth and took out country goodies from her basket. "I do hope you'll have these—I don't know, really, what you like," she added shyly.
With mutton pies and saffron cake happily tucked away, Kydd lay back contentedly on the grass and closed his eyes in the warm sun, waiting for yet another question about the wider world but none came. She sat close to him but seemed quiet and affected, staring away over the sea.
At last she broke silence. "When will you leave, Mr Kydd?" she asked, in a small voice.
"Oh, er, I suppose that'll be when Nicholas has had his fill o' things t' see," he said off-handedly.
"Oh."
An awkward silence grew; Kydd got to his feet. "We'd better be back," he said, dusting himself down.
"Oh—not straight away, please," she cried. "Do you see there?" she said pointing to the cliff edge. "It's a path that follows all the way to Fowey and there are enchanting prospects to be had."
"Well, where's Billy? Absent fr'm place of duty—we'll keelhaul him!"
But she had already moved away. He hurried after her, across the grass and on to the narrow track that found its way along the ragged edge of the coast, the sea beating against the rocks a precipitate hundred and fifty feet below.
"Rosalynd?" he called. She did not stop until she had reached a fold in the cliffs.
He caught up and said, "Miss Rosalynd, you should—"
She turned slowly and Kydd was astonished to see the glitter of tears. "M-Mr Kydd," she choked, "I b-beg you—please don't forget me."
"Wha—?"
"I d-do assure you, I will never forget you."
Kydd was unable to think of anything to say.
"You—you've changed me," she said, choked. "I can't be the same person any more."
"I—I—"
"It's not your fault, Mr Kydd. I've been living here quietly and thinking it's the whole world and then . . ." Her hands twisted together. "You see . . . it's nothing you've done—it's all my fault— b-but I've found I care for you more than is proper and now you'll get in your ship and sail away from me and . . ." She buried her face in her hands and wept.
Struck to the heart his hands went out to her. She reached for him with a tearing sob and clutched him fiercely, weeping into his chest.
Appalled, but deeply touched, he stroked her hair, finding himself whispering meaningless phrases while the storm of emotion spent itself. Then she wrenched away from him and sought his eyes. "I love you, Mr Kydd—I love you so much it hurts me. There! It's said!" Her fingers dug painfully into his arms until the moment passed. She kept his gaze, then added, with a shaky laugh, "And I don't even know your name."
Kydd stepped back in dismay, caught up in his own chaos of feeling. He turned away, and saw Billy standing, staring.
They made their way back in an uncomfortable silence; at the manor Squire Morthwen was waiting for them and, seeing his daughter's condition, demanded an explanation. He listened stonily as she declared she had been upset at Billy's absence, thinking he had taken a tumble over the rocks and been swept away. The squire looked sharply at Kydd.
Rosalynd excused herself from dinner; Kydd endured until he could get away to the privacy of his bedroom, then flopped on to the bed, his thoughts running wild.
By morning he knew what he had to do. No decent man could stand to see such sweet innocence betrayed; he had been blind and stupid not to realise that what had been to him a pleasant time in the company of an enchanting young woman might mean rather more to her. It had to end. "Nicholas, I do think I should go back an' see how Teazer is at the dockyard."
Renzi's face fell.
"That is t' say it will only be me, o' course. You should stay an' take aboard a full cargo o' your ethnical facts afore returning."
"You are bored and vexed by idleness while I garner my harvest of particulars," Renzi said suspiciously.
"No! No, Nicholas, it's just m' duty, is all."
There was no prospect that Teazer would be away to sea in the near future. A survey had found started strakes and displaced frame timbers, nothing that could not be put right but the dry-docks were occupied by important units of the fleet and Teazer would have to take her turn.