Marriage of Mercy Read online

  * * *

  He was back in less than a week, knocking on the bakery door after they had closed for the night and she was sweeping up. She let him in and he gave her a tired smile.

  ‘I am weary of post-chaises!’ he told her, shaking his head when she tried to help him off with his overcoat. ‘I just dropped by to tell you that we are going to Dartmoor tomorrow.’ He sighed. ‘Captain Daniel Duncan is still ours.’

  She could not say she was pleased, and she knew her discomfort showed on her face. Mr Selway put his arm around her. ‘Buck up, my dear. At least we needn’t stay in Dartmoor.’ He gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Let’s make old Lord Thomson proud of us Englishmen.’

  Chapter Three

  Grace knew she had a fertile imagination. After only a brief hour in Dartmoor, she knew not even the cleverest person on earth could imagine such a place.

  Her mood had not been sanguine, but she credited their first stop of the morning to the lowering of her spirits. Mr Selway had had the key to the dower house and said they would visit her new home first, as he handed her into the post-chaise.

  When they had arrived, the solicitor had unlocked the door and they found themselves in an empty house.

  ‘I thought the will mentioned house and contents,’ Grace said, as she looked around the bare sitting room, where even the curtains had been removed.

  A muscle began to work in Mr Selway’s jaw. ‘Wait here,’ he said. He turned on his heel and left the dower house.

  Grace wandered from room to room, admiring the pleasant view from uncurtained windows, even as she shook her head over Lord Thomson’s petty nature.

  Mr Selway had returned in no better humour. He walked in the door and threw up his hands. ‘Such drama! Such wounded pride! Lord Thomson can’t imagine what happened to the furniture in the dower house and heartily resents my accusation that he emptied it out like a fishmonger’s offal basket.’ He shook his head. ‘He says all will be restored to its proper place.’

  ‘I won’t hold my breath,’ Grace said.

  ‘Wise of you. There might be furniture here, but I think Lord Thomson will send his minions to the attics to find the dregs.’

  ‘We don’t need much.’

  ‘What a relief. I doubt you’ll get much!’

  * * *

  It’s good you did not ask me if I am afraid, Grace thought, as they left Quimby by mid-morning and began a steady climb onto the moors. This spares me a lie of monumental proportions.

  The higher they climbed, the colder the air blew, until she had wrapped herself tight in an all-too-inadequate shawl. Shivering, she looked on the granite outcroppings and the few trees. ‘Is it April here, or only April in the rest of England?’ she asked.

  ‘Many have remarked that even nature conspires against this place,’ Mr Selway commented. ‘I have heard complaints about the change in atmospherics around Dartmoor.’ He glanced out the window. ‘Could England have chosen a more unaccommodating place for a prison? I doubt it, perhaps that is the point.’

  They were both silent as the post-chaise wound its way along a dirt track of considerable width, as though armies had marched abreast. Or prisoners, Grace thought. Poor men.

  When she thought they would wind no higher, the fog yielded to cold rain. She peered out of the window as the chaise entered a bowl-shaped valley. And there was Dartmoor Prison, an isolated pile of granite with walls surrounding it like a cartwheel. She looked at Mr Selway. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing old Lord Thomson never got here,’ she said. ‘It would have broken his heart.’ It’s breaking mine, Grace told herself.

  ‘There must be thousands of prisoners inside,’ she said, touching the small carton of biscuits she had brought along as a gift, suddenly wishing it were loaves and fishes and greatly magnified.

  ‘The prison’s first inmates were Frenchmen, acquired during the war,’ Mr Selway told her, his eyes on the tall grey walls as the carriage drew nearer. ‘I don’t know when Americans started arriving, but I can surmise it was after 1812.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ Grace whispered as the chaise stopped and a squad of Royal Marines approached at port arms.

  ‘Who can blame you?’ the solicitor murmured. ‘Here we go, Gracie.’

  He rolled down the glass and handed over the papers. The corporal took them inside a small stone building by the gate. He was gone long enough for Grace to feel even more uneasy. ‘There is nothing about this process to put someone at ease, is there?’ she commented to Mr Selway.

  ‘No, indeed, child,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been in Newgate—just as a solicitor, mind!—and it’s the same there. I don’t know why it is that everyone seeking entrance, even by legal means, is made to feel so small.’

  The marine returned their papers and hitched himself up next to the coachman. The chaise rolled through the first gate, which led to another gate. There appeared to be three gates and then an interior wall that bisected the circle, with a still-smaller gate yielding to what must be the prison blocks beyond.

  Mr Selway eyed the grey government buildings. ‘It takes a lot of paper-pushing to run a prison, I suppose. Even misery must be documented.’

  ‘You sound like a radical,’ Grace whispered, her eyes widening at her first sight of prisoners, dressed in yellow smocks and unloading supplies into a warehouse.

  ‘Do I?’ he asked. ‘Fancy that.’ He tightened his grip on her hand as the chaise slowed and stopped, and the coachman set the brake. ‘End of the line. We walk from here.’

  The marine jumped down from his perch and opened the door, holding out his gloved hand for Grace. She took a deep breath and regretted it immediately. A foul stench rose from the very stones of the prison. Grace put her hand over her nose, but it did little good.

  They were led immediately into an office on the second floor of a building that looked out on to the prison yards, as though the caretakers of misery felt they would be somehow beyond the noisome odours, sights and sounds below. She looked out of the window in horrified fascination. The prison appeared to be divided into pie-shaped wedges with high walls around each three-storey building.

  After a long wait, she and Mr Selway were ushered into the prison governor’s office, a comfortable haven with sweet-smelling fragrances in bowls on every table. The governor introduced himself, holding a scented handkerchief to his nose, then took their papers. He spent a long time looking at the signature that had surprised Grace yesterday.

  ‘Imagine,’ he said at last, flicking his handkerchief at them, as if they smelled bad, too. ‘What possible interest his Grace has in this one, I can’t understand.’ He waved his handkerchief again. ‘Go on. Take him. Take them all! What an argumentative, carping lot.’ He looked at the letter again, then at the clerk hovering at his elbow. ‘Daniel Duncan, captain of the Orontes. Building Four. Keep an eye on him, for God’s sake.’

  He turned back to the paperwork in front of him. They were dismissed. Mr Selway lingered a moment. ‘Captain? Could Miss Curtis remain here while I fetch the prisoner?’

  Shortland frowned at Grace. ‘No. This damned document specifically states she is to accompany you to retrieve the prisoner.’ He looked at the corporal at attention in the open door. ‘Send a squad. She’ll be safe enough.’

  ‘Safe enough doesn’t thrill my bones,’ Mr Selway muttered as they followed the marine downstairs. ‘Still… Chin up, Gracie. This shouldn’t take long.’

  Surrounded by a squad of marines, they entered the prison courtyard. ‘Don’t look at anyone. Eyes ahead,’ Mr Selway murmured, keeping a tight grip on her hand.

  She did as he said, taking shallow breaths as the stench grew the closer they came to a single prison block. Two men in plain uniforms stood at the entrance, blocking it with their muskets. As the squad advanced, one of them stepped forwards.

  ‘We’re here for Daniel Duncan of the Orontes,’ the corporal said. ‘Produce him at once.’

  One of the warders shook his head. ‘Can’t. He’s ill. You’l
l have to fetch him out.’ His eyes stopped on Grace and she felt her face begin to burn. ‘Good Lord deliver us! He’s halfway back. Stall Fourteen, I think.’

  The squad of marines pressed closer to Grace and Mr Selway as they entered Block Four. Even above the odour of too many unwashed bodies, Grace could smell mould and damp. As dark as it was, the walls seemed to shine and drip. Dear God, how could anyone survive a day in this place? she thought, trying not to look at the misery around her: men lying on the rankest straw, others huddled together, one man muttering to himself and then shrieking, someone else coughing and coughing and then gasping to breathe.

  ‘We’ve passed into hell,’ she whispered to Mr Selway, who clung tighter to her hand.

  Guarded by the marines, they walked half the length of the building, which appeared to be comprised of open compartments that reminded her forcibly of the stalls in her father’s stable. Ten or more men appeared to be crammed into each stall, sitting or standing cheek by jowl.

  ‘’Twas built for far fewer,’ the marine next to her said.

  Grace’s feet crunched over what felt like eggshells. It might have been glass; she was too terrified to look down. She walked on what she fervently hoped was nothing worse than slime and mould. The straw underfoot was slippery with it.

  ‘Here,’ the corporal said, and there was no denying the relief in his voice. ‘Daniel Duncan? Captain Duncan?’

  Grace screwed up her courage and peered into the enclosure. A man lay on the odourous straw, his head in someone’s lap. All around him were men equally ragged, some barely upright.

  ‘There he be,’ said one of the scarecrows, gesturing to the man on the filthy floor. ‘What can thee possibly do more to him that hasn’t already been done?’

  His voice was stringent and burred with an accent she was unfamiliar with. Grace looked at him and saw nothing in his expression to fear. She looked at Daniel Duncan and her heart went out to him. She came closer, the marines right with her, which forced some of the prisoners to leave the enclosure. She knelt by the still form.

  ‘Captain Duncan?’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’

  After a long moment, the man nodded. Even that bare effort seemed to exhaust him.

  ‘Mr Selway and I are here to parole you to Quarle, the estate of the late Lord Thomson, Marquis of Quarle. Do you know that he was your father?’

  Another long pause, as her words seemed to seep into his tired brain, and then another nod. ‘I know,’ he whispered. She had to lean close to hear him. ‘I’m dying, though. Best you leave me alone to do that.’

  ‘You can’t die!’ she exclaimed and the prisoners close around her chuckled.

  ‘Like to see you stop him,’ a Yankee said. ‘It’s the only right we have left and, by God, we’re good at it.’

  ‘But we’re here to parole him,’ Grace said. ‘Mr Selway, do something!’

  Oddly, Mr Selway backed away, as though he hadn’t the stomach for such desperation. She hadn’t expected that of him, but then, he was a gentleman, and not the baker’s assistant she had become, used to throwing slops on middens.

  ‘I don’t know what I can do,’ he said.

  She shivered, then knelt in the straw. ‘Maybe we can help you,’ she said.

  Duncan shook his head. ‘Too late, miss.’ He turned his head slightly. ‘Choose another.’

  ‘But…’

  She stopped, listening to another commotion near the entrance to the prison block. The prisoners started to hiss in unison, which made her jump in terror. She looked at the enclosure entrance to see a warden carrying a cudgel. He spoke to Mr Selway, who looked at her.

  ‘I am to go with him and sign yet another infernal paper.’

  ‘Don’t leave me here!’ Grace said, her hand at her throat.

  ‘I’ll be right back, Gracie,’ Mr Selway said uncertainly. ‘You’re safe with the marines.’ He hurried after the warden. ‘I’ll bring a stretcher,’ he shouted over his shoulder, as the hissing started again.

  ‘Thee is safe with us, miss,’ said the first prisoner who had spoken to her. ‘We mean thee no harm.’ He chuckled. ‘Besides, thee has marines and we don’t.’

  She jumped again as Daniel Duncan reached out slowly to touch her arm. One of the marines moved closer, but she waved him back. ‘Please, miss,’ Duncan whispered, ‘I have an idea.’

  He looked into her eyes, then up at the marines. He did it twice, and she thought she understood. Grace stood up. ‘Would you mind giving this dying man some room?’ she asked the corporal. ‘I’d feel a great deal braver if you would guard the entrance to this enclosure. You can face out. It might be safer for all of us. I don’t trust the ones roving in the corridor.’

  ‘Nor I,’ the corporal said. He glared at the prisoners in the enclosure. ‘No trouble, mind, or you’ll be taken to the cachot and left there to rot!’

  Can there be a worse place than this? Grace thought. With an effort, she turned her attention back to the dying man. ‘Captain Duncan, what can I do?’ She knelt again, taking his hand. His bones felt as hollow as a bird’s.

  ‘Take someone in my place,’ he said again. He coughed and Grace wanted to put her hands over her ears at the harshness of the sound. ‘Now! Choose!’

  He closed his eyes in exhaustion, coughed again, took a gasping breath that went on and on, and died. His hand went slack in hers.

  Horrified, Grace sat back on her heels. She looked around her, but all the prisoners were looking at their captain, the man who must have led them well, because they were in tears. Two men—mere boys—sobbed in earnest.

  She glanced at the marines, who were facing out, concentrating on the prisoners milling in the passageway. Lord Thomson would want me to honour his son’s dying wish, she thought.

  ‘Quickly now, who should it be?’ she whispered, as one of the men rolled his captain to the side of the enclosure and shrouded him with a scrap of burlap. No one came forwards to be chosen. They were stalwart men—that she knew without knowing more. Choose, Grace, she ordered herself. Just choose.

  She knew then who it would be. He was sitting on the foul floor, leaning his head against the rough wood of the enclosure, eyes half-open. He looked as starved as the others, no healthier or sicker than his mates. What she saw in him, she could not tell, except that he was the man who would take his captain’s place.

  Grace touched his arm. His eyes opened wider; they were blue as the ocean.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Rob Inman,’ he said. His mates quickly moved him forwards to lie down where his captain had died.

  ‘I choose you, Rob Inman.’

  Chapter Four

  The whole business was deceptive in its ease. In less than a minute, Grace received an education in how desperation can grease the wheels. The only one who seemed to harbour any misgivings was the chosen man.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ he said, not opening his eyes. ‘Surely someone else is sicker.’

  ‘Nope. Thee is our ideal candidate,’ said the sailor who had spoken to Grace first.

  He did something then that touched Grace’s heart and assured her she had nothing to fear from these rough, stinking men: he kissed Robert Inman on the forehead. ‘Thee is a sailing master fit to fight another day.’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Aye, lad. No argument now. We’ll see thee again in Nantucket.’ The man—he must have been a Quaker—transferred his gaze to Grace. ‘Keep him safe, miss.’

  ‘I will. I promise,’ she whispered.

  She rocked back on her heels, ready to stand, when she heard the prisoners in the passageway hissing again. The warden with the cudgel reappeared, followed by a very concerned-looking Mr Selway and other marines carrying a stretcher.

  Mr Selway sighed with relief to see her safe and looked at Rob Inman. Grace held her breath. In the gloom of the stall and his obvious eagerness to be gone, would he notice?

  He didn’t. Mr Selway motioned to the stretcher bearers, who were none too gentle as they picke
d up the sailing master and plopped him on a stretcher marked with yellowish stains. Inman groaned and opened his eyes, reaching out for his mates, who gave him three feeble cheers and sent him on his way. Grace looked at the Quaker. ‘Thank you for doing that,’ she whispered. ‘I could not have thought so fast.’

  ‘Nothing to it,’ he whispered back. ‘Dartmoor sharpens the intellect.’

  She had to smile at that. And England thinks to defeat these men, she told herself. Think again, Johnny Bull. ‘I wish I could help you,’ she whispered.

  He indicated Rob Inman with his eyes. ‘Thee has.’

  There was nothing more to say, not with Mr Selway looking at her with such a worried expression, and the prisoners starting to shift about, as though wishing her gone, and with her, their sailing master. I’m sorry we were too late to save your son, Lord Thomson, she thought, near tears. ‘Let us leave this place now, Mr Selway,’ she said.

  She experienced momentary terror when the warden made them stop at Captain Shortland’s office again. ‘Can’t we just leave?’ she asked Mr Selway.

  ‘You have to sign the document releasing Captain Duncan,’ the solicitor said. ‘I signed when I was in here earlier.’

  Anything, anything to get away, she thought, glancing at Rob Inman on the stretcher. He had shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun. She looked around quickly; everyone looked alike: thin, yellow-smocked, with hollow cheeks. She doubted the governor of the prison could tell any of them apart. Still…

  She willed herself calm. ‘Mr Selway, do get…Captain Duncan in the chaise. The light is bothering his eyes.’

  She held her breath. Surely no one would have any need to examine Rob Inman closely. To her relief, the solicitor indicated the post-chaise and addressed the marines. ‘Lads, help the captain into the chaise.’

  Grace hurried up the stairs to the governor’s office. Handkerchief still to his nostrils, Captain Shortland stood at the window, watching the marines deposit Inman in the chaise. He returned to his desk, his lips tight together with every evidence of displeasure.