Abbeyford Inheritance (2 page)

The memory of her mother's lovely face and her father's smile; of a warm bed; of food and new clothes; of soft hands and a gentle voice; of happiness. For the most part the memories were faint, elusive, obliterated by the harsh reality of the present, yet at times they came flooding back into her mind strong and clear to revive her spirit and help her to fight all the harder for their existence. She had to struggle for the both of them, for Thomas Cole had lost the will to live with the death of his beloved Caroline some nine years earlier. Only Adelina's will-power kept him alive. From a genteel, sheltered little girl, she had, of necessity, had to become a fighter, a survivor and protector of her father. From her parents, Adelina had inherited their best qualities – strength without selfishness, gentleness and compassion without weakness.

There was a commotion in her father's corner. The table overturned and drinks were spilled.

“You're a liar and a cheat, Thomas Cole!”

Her father sat in his chair, slumped forward. Four days' growth of beard upon his chin, his hair long and dirty, his eyes bloodshot. Adelina's heart turned over at the sight of him. Objectively, she couldn't understand why she stood by him, supported him, worked for him. Yet he was her father. He was all she had right now. She moved towards him, but the man who had yelled abuse at him now caught hold of the neck of his shirt and hoisted Thomas to his feet. For a few seconds he held him aloft. Thomas, stupified, hung there limply, his head lolling to one side, his eyes rolling. The man brought his right arm back and clenched his fist.

As Adelina cried out, “No, oh no!” his fist smashed into her father's face, snapping his head back with a sickening crack. The man loosened his hold on him and Thomas Cole fell backwards hitting his head on the table with a dull thud.

Several other men now rose to their feet, their shouts only adding to the confusion. Adelina tried to push her way through them to reach her father, but they pressed round the scene, blocking her path.

Suddenly, their raucous shouts died away and there was an uncanny silence.

“
Jesus
!” someone said, “ you've killed him.”

Frantic now, Adelina fought her way through. The man was standing over her father, who was lying in a twisted heap at his feet. Blood trickled from Thomas Cole's mouth and from a gash on his temple. Adelina threw herself upon her knees beside him. She took hold of his hand and chafed it. Her eyes flashed angrily towards her father's assailant.

“You're a brute, Jed Hawkins. You'll swing for that fist of yours yet.”

“Seems like he will now,” muttered someone. “Yer sure seen him off.”

Jed stood there looking stupid. “ I didn't mean to kill him, Miss Adelina. It's just that the silly old fool was playing his cards all wrong. I guess he was too drunk to see them …”

“Oh, shut up and help me carry him upstairs. I must bathe his head and …”

“ 'Tain't no use, Miss Adelina.” Another of the men put his hand upon her shoulder with a rough tenderness. “ Don't you understand what we're sayin'? He's a gone. He's dead!”

For a moment Adelina stared at the man.

“No – oh, no,” she whispered and then slowly turned to look down at the still form. She was rigidly motionless for some moments, while the men watched with uneasy silence.

Trembling a little, she reached out her hand and slid it beneath his shirt. There was no heartbeat.

As they had said, her father was dead.

Adelina bowed her head on to his lifeless chest and wept. Tears of bitterness, tears of remorse, tears of grief.

She became aware of feet shuffling near her and of the mutterings.

“That sure weren't no fair fight, no sir!”

“You oughta be hanged, Jed.”

“Hittin' the poor ole begger and him drunk and senseless.”

“What about the girl?” “Guess Sam'll take care o' her.” There were a few half-hearted guffaws.

Death came quickly and often in this neighbourhood and was swiftly forgotten by those not directly involved.

Sam! The name penetrated her distraught mind and Adelina scrambled to her feet. There was nothing more she could do for her father.

Now she must save herself …

Too late, for Sam himself was shouldering his way through the throng. Wildly, she looked about her for a way of escape but there was none. He stood, legs apart, over the corpse and laughed, his great, fat belly shaking with mirth.

The tears dried in Adelina's eyes as grief gave way to rage. With a shriek she hurled herself at Sam and pummelled her fists against his chest, but he gripped her wrists and held her easily. So she kicked his legs and bit his hand. She screamed and kicked and scratched, venting her anger and grief upon this hateful man who had been the supplier of the drink which had ruined her father and had held her captive by the subsequent debt.

How she hated and feared this brute who could not even treat his own son properly.

“You've a handful there, Sam,” someone shouted.

Sam laughed. “ I'll tame the she-cat. She'll come a-crawlin' soon enough.” He dealt her a vicious blow with the back of his hand. “I'll lock you in your room, miss, until you've come to your senses.”

Huddled on the shake-down, the bruise on her temple swelling rapidly, Adelina fingered the locket about her neck.

England, she thought, if I can get away from Sam, I'll go to England and seek out Mama's home.

There was a scrabbling at the door and the rusty key turned in the lock and young Sammy's spikey hair appeared round the door. “Quick, Miss Adelina, he's out the back. You can get out while he's gone.”

Adelina scrambled to her feet, snatched her shawl and the bundle of her few items of clothing from the corner and followed Sammy down the stairs, through the now empty saloon bar and out into the wild night.

He took her hand and dragged her along the street. The wind whistled, plucking at her skirt, threatening to tear away her shawl, but bending her head against the storm she followed Sammy.

Breathlessly, they fell into a sheltered corner near the harbour. The storm was overhead and Adelina's teeth began to chatter with fear. She hated storms.

Sammy cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke close to her ear. “ If you can get on a ship, you could get right away from here. It'd be the best way. By road, he'd catch up with you.”

Adelina nodded. “I could go to England, but I've no money.”

Sammy shrugged. “No problem. Stow away.” He suggested in a matter-of-fact manner.

“But – but how do I know which ship is going to England?” Adelina's eyes flickered down the long line of swaying masts.

Sammy said, “ Look, you stay here, I'll go along the harbour an' see if I can find out if there's one bound for England.”

He was gone a long time, so long that Adelina began to think he had deserted her and returned home. She crouched behind a stack of barrels, trying to find a little shelter. Then the rain came, soaking in minutes her thin shawl. She shivered from cold and fear, and delayed shock. She groaned aloud, the picture of her father's still form horribly fresh in her mind.

Sammy was back, squeezing his thin frame between the barrels. “Miss Adelina, where are you? Oh, there you are. I've found one,” he told her gleefully. “Come on, I'll take you. It sails on the tide. If we go now, there's no one about, the crew are all having a last fling ashore. If you slip on now and hide yourself in one of those longboats they have on deck, no one'll find you.”

“But – but I can't stay hidden under there all the way to England. It takes weeks!”

“I've thought about that,” answered the practical Sammy and gestured towards a bundle in his hand. “ I've gotten you some food. Stay hidden as long as you can, then if they find you when they're at sea it'll be too late anyway,” he said triumphantly. “They'll not turn back just to put you ashore.”

“I suppose not,” Adelina said doubtfully, “ but – but what do they do to stowaways? Flog them?”

“Naw,” scoffed Sammy, “not a pretty girl, anyway. Likely as not they'll make a fuss of you,” he added with a confidence Adelina did not share. The young boy, old for his years though his hard life had made him in many ways, could not be expected to understand the fears of a young girl amongst a group of rough, tough sailors.

Adelina swallowed her fear. The prospects of a life under big Sam's rule were even worse. She would take the risk. She would do anything, risk anything, to get away from Big Sam.

“What about you, Sammy, aren't you going to come with me?”

“No, Miss Adelina. I'll get away from him one day, but I want to head west. I gotten it all figured out. When I'm a bit older …” He grinned at her, for a moment no longer the half-starved waif, but a boy with determination and toughness. Adelina felt relief. Sammy would be all right.

Adelina remained hidden for the first four days of the voyage. Luckily she did not suffer sea-sickness and, though the small, stuffy space beneath a tarpaulin covering a longboat was cramped and unpleasant, there she stayed.

On the fourth day, when the sun was high in the sky, two sailors pulled back the tarpaulin.

Adelina blinked in the sudden bright light.

“Gawd love us! Look what we ' ave 'ere!” cried one.

The other one gaped. “A stowaway!” Then he grinned with blackened teeth. “An' a mighty pretty one too, ain't she?”

“I saw 'er first, Black Wilf,” said the first.

“Mebbe, but you owes me for savin' yer miserable life in that fight we 'ad in New York harbour, don't forgit.”

Suddenly a knife blade flashed in the sunlight and Adelina watched with horrified eyes as the two ruffians faced each other, circling like two wary fighting cocks.

“She's mine, I tell 'ee.”

“You owes me.”

“What's this?” roared a deep voice. It was the First Mate bearing down upon the sailors. “ No fightin' aboard this ship.” He stopped in astonishment as he caught sight of Adelina.

“Good grief!” He stared at her open-mouthed.

“She'm a stowaway, Mister Mate.”

“An' I saw 'er first. She's mine. Warm my hammock a treat.”

As Black Wilf growled again, the First Mate said, “ She'll warm no one's hammock. She'll be dealt with by the Cap'n.”

“Aw, come on, Mister Mate …”

“
Silence
!” the Mate roared and even Adelina jumped and began to feel more afraid than she had at the mercy of the two seamen.

“Come on, out with you,” the Mate flicked his hand towards her.

Stiffly, her limbs cramped and cold, she climbed out of her hiding-place. Not one of the watching men stepped forward to offer her his helping hand.

“Come with me.” The Mate turned abruptly and Adelina followed him meekly. The sailors, now united in their disappointment in losing her to their superior, shouted after her.

“Lucky Cap'n with you in his bed the night!”

Adelina bit her lip, regretting her hasty, thoughtless flight from New York just to escape from Big Sam. Doubtless the world was littered with the likes of Big Sam! Perhaps the Captain …

Below, the Mate knocked upon a cabin door and pushed her in front of him.

“Cap'n. We have a stowaway.” The man who looked up from the chart he was studying spread out on the table in the centre of the small cabin, was tall, broad, but with a tell-tale middle-aged paunch. His face was half-covered by a beard and moustache, but his eyes were sharp and bright in the weatherbeaten, leathery face.

He grunted and straightened, his cool eyes looking Adelina up and down. “Well, missy, and where did you think you were going?”

With a brave defiance she did not feel inwardly, Adelina held her head high. “ England! My grandfather is the Earl of Royston.”

A huge bellow of laughter welled up inside the man and he threw back his head and roared. “Hear that, Mister Mate? We have a
lady
aboard!”

“Aye, Cap'n,” the Mate grinned.

Adelina glared resentfully at the Captain.

“Well, missy, I admire your courage. ' Tis a pity you're not a man. You'd make a fine seaman, eh, Mister Mate?”

“Aye, Cap'n.”

“Well, now,” the Captain said, controlling his mirth at last. “ What to do with you?” He pondered for a moment, looking at her reflectively. “Can you cook, girl?”

“Yes – yes I can.”

“Good. Our ship's cook's gone down with the fever this very day. You,” he prodded his finger at her, “can take his place.”

So Adelina passed the voyage as ship's cook! She had been very fortunate to find a Captain, not only with a sense of humour who treated her presence aboard his ship as a huge joke, but one who was also a god-fearing gentleman who minded that she was kept safe from his lusty crew!

“'Ere you be, miss.” The tinker pulled his laden cart to a jingling, tinkling halt. “This 'ere's Amberly. I stops 'ere. O'er yonder, see that wood?”

Adelina shaded her eyes against the summer sun. “Yes – yes, I see it.”

“Go through that there wood, and down t'hill and you'm in Abbeyford. Lord Royston lived at Abbeyford Grange on t'opposite side. Big place, you'm can't miss it.”

“Thank you for the ride,” she said, climbing down from the cart and giving his mangy old mule an affectionate pat. The flies buzzed around the animal's head so that his ears were constantly twitching and his tail swishing, but in vain in the August heat. “ Poor old thing, you're sure hot, aren't you?” She sighed. “ So am I.” She looked down at her old skirt, dusty and badly stained. “ I can hardly meet my grandfather like this,” she murmured, “but I guess there's not much I can do about it.”

Although she had been confiding her thoughts to the mule, the tinker's sharp ears missed nothing.