Within five minutes the old one was back on the foreshore overseeing, while Mary, Kate and a young woman introduced as Sally, dark-complexioned with a tendency to silence, conducted the men into a nearby house. There was a kettle on the hob in the small, lightless kitchen-parlour, and very soon all were drinking tea. A turn-up for the books, thought William, and wondered idly if it would be of the finest sort, supped on by smugglers as normal perquisites, no duty paid. But it was dark and bitter, well below the leaf drunk in his father's house, although Samuel relished it and smacked his lips for more, low swine.
Mary was exceeding open with them, not overawed one whit by their presence and proximity, and she set out by explaining what Widow Hardman had meant by her earliest remarks. First news when Welfare had returned to England, long before the court martial on the Admiral's flagship, had indicated Will Bentley as one of the chief villains, nephew and henchman to the unconscionable Daniel Swift. There had indeed been talk of assassination in the first months afterwards, and not just of him. But it was mainly wildness, was her opinion, engendered by frustration, drink, and anger that the Navy saw no ill in any but the common sailor, nor brooked suggestion that ills could be wider spread.
"The thought of you lying in your sickbed, helpless in your father's house near Petersfield, pretty undefended, struck some hotheads as enticing," she said. "Not a worthy thought for men despising tyranny, but not unnatural, I suppose. There are such hotheads, we have some even in the local band." She and Kate shared a smile. "John Hardman, let us say; who you will meet."
"Hardman?" said Sam. "What, the old dame's son, is it?"
"Her third," said Kate. "The youngest. Seth died at the Navy's hands, and Joseph, who was oldest, was lost at sea. John is not twenty years yet, Ma Hardman had but three but spread them out." The amusement shared with Mary grew. "John came beyond a natural age, people round here insist. She's a witch, no question of it."
"Did not even bother with a man to help her get him," said Mary. "Now there's proof! There's an old chap down Bedhampton way who's very fond of widows, but that don't come into it, except with spoilsports! Want more tea?"
Sam did, Will did not. When the fun had died down, Mary carried on.
"In any way," she told Will, 'it was not long beyond that when better stories began to come out of the hulks. There was a man called Tobin, and a man called Harry Wilson, do you remember them? They told first how you were a friend of my Jesse, and fought with him and Mr. Matthews at the end. Then that you refused to testify against the rebels, and others told us why. Wilson and Tobin, they got life, and Tobin later died of fever. But they've helped you, haven't they? For folks round here will talk to you. If you had come alone, sir, on such a mission' this to Samuel 'you'd likely have been killed. There's no one more hated round these parts than Customs men, or those who give them aid."
Dark Sally gave a little chuckle, in her corner.
"Unless it be the Press," she said.
Will was brooding on the fact he did not remember the two men who'd spoken up for him, or possibly had never even heard their names in all the crush of sailors on his uncle's ship, either way a cause for shame. But Sam had picked up on Sally's voice.
"Ah, the Press," he said. "A necessary evil some would say, but hated wherever seamen go, I'll not deny. Your accent, maid. Or should I call you mistress? You're not from here, I guess?"
"Nor am I married, sir. Your ear is quick. I come from Guernsey. I lived there till some years ago. French influence on my voice. Most people do not hear it."
"Least of all in so few words," said Kate, gaily. She stood and walked across the kitchen, blocking Sally's corner from their view, almost as if on purpose. She opened a small window, leaning out to listen, then stooped back.
"Just play," she said. "I thought I heard Jane bawl. My little one. But sirs, you've only hinted so far, Mary's only sketched us in. My husband's in the trade, I may be frank with you she says, but what exactly do you here? She says it is the matter of those spies. Can not you tell us more? I fear you must."
Sam, with his nerve of iron, plunged in to tell them briefly and succinctly about Sir A and his lost nephew, and his agony of unknowing now Charles Warren had been found. There were so many mysteries to the case, he said, it was so unlike any normal run of war between the Customs and the so-called free trade, that Sir A was fearful he might never know the truth.
' "So-called"?" said Mary, mildly. "You might take care with words like that in certain quarters, I should say."
"Madam," Sam answered, "I am a Navy officer, so everybody knows my public duty. I take your point though, and thank you for it. I suppose what I was hoping to convey was the most unusual level of violence involved, the barbaric depths these people went to. Charles Warren's body, I am told, was burnt, abused, dismembered. Pray God that is not normal in such cases in these parts."
From outside came the sound of children, and the higher screams of gulls. Inside, no one stirred.
"Sir," said Mary, finally. "It is not. I cannot go into details with you, you must understand our difficulties here. We live in fear of death ourselves, either from a bullet from a riding officer or the rope, and one man or woman cannot talk for all the others, least of all to officers of the Crown. Our menfolk will not get to shore until the early hours, or may decide to fish another tide. Until we've spoke to them we can go no further. Except to say, in part way if not all, we do agree with you. We know of it, we are not party to it, and it is a most dreadful case, inhuman, horrible. There. I have spoken. You must return tomorrow after we have conferred."
"You are the leader, aren't you?"
Sam let it out as an expostulation, which made Will jump. But Mary shook her head, unflustered To Will she said: "I'd take him home now, Mr. Bentley, his mouth is far too big for safety. Come back tomorrow when the men, I hope, will be here. It has been, I promise you, some sort of pleasure to me to have made your acquaintance at last. My Jesse was a fine man, and I mourn him still."
She stood, they all stood save for Sally, and Kate said, mildly but with purpose: "But realise the details of this talking will be passed on the instant you are gone, and will reach the men if ... well, if by some sad chance you were acting to a purpose we know not."
Will nodded gravely.
"You may trust in me," he said, 'if nothing else, to do nothing underhand. In both of us. You have my word."
Sam nodded, and threw a glance at Sally, who ignored it. Shortly, they were trotting back to Havant.
Mary was not the leader, they found out, although she was deep inside the counsels of the band. Next day they met Kate's husband Isa Bartram, who was no man's second fiddle, nor woman's either. In the village there were three men they were introduced to they knew them by their first names only, Bob, George and Joe and also John Hardman, the nearest neighbour, who was a thin, intense young man with burning eyes and an air of impatience bordering on violent. At first he seemed the most against them, more deep in his suspicion even than Isa Bartram, but in a day or so he formed a strange alliance with Sam Holt, they shared a boldness and outspokenness that set them quite apart, and they often huddled off together, and swore and laughed in a dialogue of their own. Sam told him he should go for a Navy officer (Sam revealed to Will one night, in their lodging) and Hardman, far from thinking it a jest or kind of insult, became thoughtful. The outlaw life and fishing, he allowed, had some attraction, but he was a man who loved his country, and would like to fight the French, not trade with them. There were, he added darkly, many of his fellow countrymen who filled his heart with shame, and not just common men like him. Sam said he liked him and (more mysterious but he would not expand on it) that he had high hopes.