Secrets of Midnight (33 page)

Corisande began to walk faster, glancing behind her to
see that the men were now walking faster, too, which made her heart jump. Then
she immediately told herself she was being silly. It was growing dark, but
there was still enough light to see quite well, and she was in the very center
of the village. Surely she had nothing to fear. So why, then, was she suddenly
so nervous?

She didn't want to, but she hazarded a quick glance
behind her to find to her immense relief that the three men were gone. Where,
she could not say, but she didn't waste time wondering. She half flew into the
parsonage, where the comforting warmth of the place and the smell of Frances's
leek and potato pie greeted her like an old friend.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

At once a clatter arose from the kitchen as wooden
chairs scraped against the floor and Luther began to yip, and her sisters came
spilling down the narrow hallway at a run.

"Oh, Corie, is she here? Is she here?" That
from Marguerite, who embraced Corisande excitedly while glancing past her into
the parlor.

"The duchess, Corie! Where's the duchess?"
piped Estelle as Luther spun and pranced and yapped at her feet.

"Oh, so you heard Donovan and I have important
visitors?" Not surprised that the news must have flown like tonight's gale
through Porthleven, Corisande bent down to give her youngest sister a hug and
then moved on to Linette, who flung her slender arms around her neck.

"I don't care about any silly duchess, Corie. I'm
glad just to see you."

"And I'm very glad to see you too," Corisande
murmured, giving Linette a good squeeze before releasing her. "But I'm
sorry to say the duchess decided to go home. Charlotte doesn't much like
storms. Doesn't like much of anything, for that matter."

"Did she take her shiny black coach with her?"
Her voice very small, Estelle looked crestfallen. "Johnnie Morton saw you
riding in a huge, shiny black coach—with men in fancy clothes sitting on a
funny little seat. He came hollering back into the school to tell us."

"Yes, it was quite big with a crest and silver
mountings and footmen in fancy clothes, and I'm afraid they all went home with
the duchess. But I'm here, and something smells very good in the kitchen. Do
you think Frances made enough for me too? Where is Frances?"

Suddenly there was an uncomfortable silence as all
three girls looked at each other, none of them looking at her.

"She's not in the kitchen? Marguerite?"

"She's out trying to get Papa to come in for
supper, Corie. She told us to stay inside—the storm coming and all —and she
knew, too, that you might be stopping by—"

"What do you mean, trying to get Papa to come in?"

Again the silence, Estelle looking up with very big
eyes at Marguerite while Linette chewed her lower lip.

"Well, is somebody going to answer me?"

"He doesn't want to come inside, we don't know
why," Marguerite said in an uncertain voice. "He's too busy digging
holes."

"Holes?"

A chorus of nods greeted her incredulous query;
Corisande stared at them in confusion. "Where? Why?"

"I told you we don't know." Tears filled
Marguerite's eyes. "He's been outside in the garden—"

"Well, of course, that explains it, then,"
Corisande broke in as she moved down the hall. "You know how he loves to
spend time out there tending the flowers."

"But all day long, Corie, and into the night?"
Marguerite called after her while Linette and Estelle followed closely at
Corisande's heels, and Luther skittered ahead into the kitchen. "I don't
think he's slept at all for two days."

Growing concerned now, Corisande said as reassuringly
as she could, "Go on, all of you, sit back
down
and eat your supper. It smells wonderful. I'll go see if I can help Frances,
all right?"

But they didn't sit down, instead following Corisande
to the kitchen door until she spun and said in her sternest voice, "I said
to go finish your supper. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

They silently obliged with long faces, their chairs
scraping dully, not at all the boisterous girls who had greeted her only moments
ago. It was as if seeing her had given vent to unspoken fears, but Corisande
couldn't worry about them now as she went outside into the garden, astonished
at how dark it had grown. A thick rain was falling, too, scratches of lightning
cutting across the pitch-black sky. And the wind, the wind had become a wild
thing that tore at her clothes, her hair, whistling shrilly as it whipped
across the heath.

"Frances! Papa!"

She ran deeper into the garden, but she didn't see them
anywhere, a great sense of unease swamping her.

"Frances?"

"Here, Corie! Here!"

She whirled, relief overwhelming her as she spied
Frances and her father just outside the garden wall. She ran and pushed open
the metal gate, barely dodging a yawning hole some two feet across illumined by
a great flash of lightning.

"Be careful, they're all around!" Frances
warned, waving her back inside the garden. "The good passon's fine, Corie,
never 'ee fear! Go back now! I'll have him into the house quick as a wink!"

Corisande doubted it would be quick as a wink since her
father walked more slowly and more stooped than she'd ever seen him, his
snow-white hair plastered to his head, his clothes drenched. She made a move to
come and help, nearly slipping into another hole just inside the wall. Good Lord,
how many holes—

"Oh, God!"

Corisande's hand flew to her throat as two cannon
explosions in close succession rocked the earth, rumbling over the village as
loud as any thunder. As lightning flashed brilliantly around them, she could
see Frances's stricken face that must have surely matched her own.

"Lord help us, Corie, that alarm hasn't sounded in
over a year!
'
Tes a ship! They've sighted a ship in
trouble!"

Chapter 29

Corisande gasped as a third cannon blast shattered the
night—which meant only one thing: the ship must have already struck the shore,
with who knew how many lives at stake.

"Get Papa inside—see to him, Frances!"

Corisande ducked her head against the slashing rain and
ran back through the garden to the house, taking care to watch for any
treacherous holes. Her three sisters scattered away from the door as she burst
inside the kitchen, their faces
pale
and their eyes
wide.

"Papa's fine. Frances is bringing him back to the
house," she explained hastily, wiping the moisture from her eyes. "See
that he eats, and drinks some hot tea. A ship's in
trouble,
and they may need him to . . ."

Corisande didn't finish but raced down the hall, her
sisters well understanding that their father might be needed to perform a
burial service if anyone drowned—though she prayed that help would arrive in
time for those poor desperate souls. To her relief, she saw as she stepped
outside that the village was alive with commotion, men and their wives, too,
tugging on cloaks and caps and coats as they rushed from their houses and
jumped onto pony-drawn wagons already rumbling down to the harbor.

She ran to a passing cart; villagers outstretched their
arms to give her a lift up, and she clambered aboard, breathlessly murmuring
her thanks as she joined the flight to help strangers in trouble. It seemed in
only moments they'd reached the water and there everyone set off on foot,
running north along the beach. Some men had huge twists of rope thrown over
their shoulders while still others half
dragged,
half
carried rowboats across the sand. A tar barrel stood lit and burning brightly
atop a nearby cliff to show them the way.

It only took a brilliant flash of lightning to spot the
distressed ship fifty yards from shore being buffeted by a tremendous sea, her
eerily white sails split and tattered. It looked to be a fishing vessel, and
Corisande's heart pounded hard for a moment when she thought it might have been
the
Fair Betty
returned home because
of the fierce gale. At once a hue and cry went up to man the boats, while a host
of villagers suddenly dashed into the boiling surf to drag a limp survivor to
shore.

Corisande was stunned to see another exhausted swimmer
struggling through the breakers to reach the safety of the beach, and she
rushed with four others to help. The water was bitterly cold and dragged
heavily at her skirt, while the sand shifted dangerously beneath her feet with
the powerful undertow. But she managed to grab onto the man's collar while the
others grabbed his arms and legs and hauled him to dry land.

"There's seven hands . . . seven hands still
aboard without Hodge an' me," the man gasped, coughing up water as he
looked to where the other sailor was surrounded by villagers farther up the
beach. "An' Captain Briggs an' his young son . . . we were bound with a
load of mackerel for Falmouth . . . tried to run the storm . . . we're the only
ones who know how to swim . . ."

As the man fell into a fit of violent hacking,
Corisande did her best to lift his shoulders so he wouldn't choke.

"I'll stay with him. Tell the others there are
still nine people on board!" she shouted above the roaring wind to the
villagers who had helped her drag the sailor to shore, waving them away to
alert the men climbing into the rowboats. But already several boats had headed
into the crashing waves, only to be tossed about like bits of cork and
overturned, spilling their occupants into the sea.

At once people forged into the heavy surf to save their
own. Corisande's heart sank as another streak of lightning lit the sky and she
saw that the ship now listed ominously. God help those poor people, there wasn't
much more time—

"Hell and damnation, woman, must you forever place
yourself in harm's way?"

Corisande gasped as she was hauled to her feet, barely
able to see Donovan's expression in the darkness although she could hear the
scowl in his voice. She could tell, too, from how tightly his hands were
gripping her shoulders that he must be furious she'd not returned in the
carriage with Charlotte, but there was no time to think of that now.

"Donovan, this man swam from the ship, but there
are still nine on board including a little boy! They've already tried to launch
some boats . . ."

Corisande's words were drowned out as a great anguished
cry went up along the beach when another rowboat was cast back onto shore by
the churning sea. She saw then that several men with ropes tied around their
waists were plunging into the water in a valiant attempt to reach the ship
before it foundered. Donovan must have seen them, too, for he turned back to her
and shook her hard, his voice brooking no argument.

"Stay here, Corie, where I'll know to find you.
Don't move an inch!"

She didn't have a chance to reply as he left her and
ran to the water's edge, where a cluster of villagers gathered round him to tie
a lifeline about his waist as well. Then Donovan was gone, disappearing into
the waves while Corisande's heart flew to her throat.

That's what she had meant to ask him—if there might be
some way he could help—but now that he was swimming out to the ship as the
storm was shrieking and thundering and blowing all around them, she had never
felt more frightened. The water was so cold, the waves like mountains. Oh,
Lord, oh, Lord . . .

Corisande dropped to her haunches as another fierce fit
of coughing seized the sailor, but to her surprise he waved her away as if
sensing her unease.

"I'm all right . . .
go
on if 'ee want to join the others."

Corisande shook her head, but when three women came
rushing over with blankets, one of them saying that he should come with them to
the overhang of a cliff where a bonfire had been lit, she was only too relieved
to see the man helped to his feet and led away.

She knew Donovan had told her to stay put, but she
hurried down the beach anyway. She wanted to make sure that the villagers
holding his lifeline were ready to haul him in as soon as they saw him swimming
back to shore—and not to pull too hard either. Last year a rescuer had been
swallowed up by the sea when his rope had snapped . . .

"No, Donovan will be fine. He's going to be fine,"
she intoned to herself, dodging two men who had suddenly gotten in her way. But
she was no sooner past them than she felt a jarring tug that nearly felled her,
her sodden cloak yanked from behind as someone else grabbed her around the neck
and clamped a rough callused hand over her mouth before she had a chance to
scream.

And she tried to scream, struggling in mute terror as
she was half dragged along the beach, realizing with a horribly sick feeling
when no help came that everyone was too intent upon watching the desperate
rescue to see her plight. It was so pitch-dark at this far end of the beach,
too, so dark and the wind howling so bitterly that she could hear nothing but
the blood thundering in her ears.

Two men now held her, one with his arm curled around
the back of her neck and his hand still clamped firmly over her mouth while the
other gripped her right arm cruelly, twisting it as if daring her to try to
escape. Then to her horror, a third man suddenly appeared almost out of nowhere
and strode toward them, and Corisande was sickeningly certain that these were
the very same men who must have been following her to the parsonage, who had
bumped into her so rudely at the inn—

"Let her go! No one can hear her scream now."

Corisande recognized that harsh voice at the same
moment she was knocked forward onto the sand, an ice-cold wave hitting her full
in the face. She'd had no idea they were so close to the water. Her eyes
burning from the salt, she tried to rise but instead found herself hauled to
her feet and then thrown forward again, and this time the water was much
deeper, another frigid wave breaking over her head.