THE DRINK HELPED but it was still a very subdued Eliza who asked, ‘Why did you spend your money on buying such a lovely necklace for me, Tristram?’
‘Because you are special and because I think we are going to look back on today as being special too. It was going to be a surprise for when you say you’ll marry me. I hope you will and that it’ll help you forget all about what happened back there.’
When Eliza made no immediate reply, Tristram showed his concern by saying, ‘You mustn’t let anything that pickpocket said upset you, Eliza. She just made up the story to take attention away from herself. Anyway, she’d had so much to drink I doubt if she’d have recognised her own mother if she saw her. The police sergeant knew that because he’d had dealings with her before, in London.’
Tristram’s words failed to have their intended result. Indeed, they actually made Eliza feel even worse and, arriving at a sudden decision, she said, ‘Can we leave the fair and go somewhere quiet for a while.’
‘Of course we can, then perhaps you’ll feel well enough to give me an answer, Eliza. It’s far more important than anything else that’s happened today. We’ll take a walk along by the river.’
They walked in silence to the river that ran through the small town and headed downstream along the river bank for a short distance, until noise from the fair became less obtrusive. Here, in the bright moonlight, they came upon a spot where a giant elm tree had been felled close to the path and Eliza suggested they should seat themselves on the stump which had been left protruding from the ground.
When they were seated, side by side, Tristram said eagerly, ‘Are you ready to give me an answer now, Eliza?’
‘I’m ready, but I have something to tell you first. When it’s said you might not want to marry me.’
He began to protest, but Eliza silenced him, firmly. ‘Please, Tristram, let me tell you what needs to be said before you say anything more.’
‘If that’s what you really want, but nothing you can say will make me change my mind.’
‘Not even if I were to tell you that everything that woman said about me is true? That she did see me on a prison hulk and that I was sentenced to transportation?’
Her bald statement left Tristram speechless for a great many moments. When he had recovered sufficiently, he said in a strangled voice, ‘You’re having a joke with me, Eliza, it can’t be true, you’ve been working at the rectory since you were fourteen.’
‘I was only thirteen when I was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing three guineas from the husband of my employer.’
Tristram found it difficult to take in what Eliza was telling him, but eventually he said, ‘Did you take the money?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t steal it. There were about fifteen guinea pieces on his bedside table but I only took what was due to me in wages. If it hadn’t been for the way he was behaving towards me I wouldn’t have needed to try to get away from the house, but if I hadn’t gone right away I’d have been in even worse trouble, although it wouldn’t have been with the law. I’d have probably found myself expecting his baby.’
Belatedly accepting that Eliza was not playing a joke on him, Tristram queried, ‘Didn’t you tell that to the judge, or whoever it was who tried you?’
‘I told it to the constable who arrested me. Lady Calnan, my employer, knew too, but no one mentioned it in court.’
Still finding it difficult to fully accept her story, Tristram asked, ‘But if you were sentenced to be transported how did you escape – and you must have done, or you’d be on the other side of the world now?’
‘You remember the great storm three years ago when I was found down at the cove below Trethevy?’
Eliza told Tristram how when the ship taking her to Australia foundered on the rocks of Lundy Island she had escaped with the ship’s boatswain and others in one of the ship’s boats, only to have it swamped by giant waves in the Bristol channel when the last action of the selfless boatswain had been to tie her to the broken-off mast before the boat sank beneath them.
Washed up unconscious in the cove below Trethevy, it had been assumed by everyone that she was the sole survivor of the Balladeer, a ship wrecked on the Lye rock, at the entrance to Bossiney Haven, one of a number of ships lost in the storms of that tempestuous night.
When she eventually recovered consciousness, in the Trethevy rectory, Eliza had encouraged their assumption, grasping the unexpected opportunity to begin a new life as Eliza Smith and not Eliza Brooks.
Eliza’s confession was too much for Tristram to take in immediately and he remained silent for a long time before saying, in a choked voice, ‘You’ve lived with this ever since Miss Alice found you among the rocks and had you taken to Trethevy rectory?’
‘Yes and for months I lived in constant fear that someone was going to come along and say, “You’re not Eliza Smith, sole survivor of the Balladeer but Eliza Brooks, convicted thief who’s under sentence of seven years transportation.” Then, as time went by, all that had happened in the past gradually began to fade and I really began to believe I was Eliza Smith, trusted personal maid to Miss Alice and her brother, Reverend David Kilpeck. I never dreamed my past would come back to haunt me today, of all days. It was going to be the happiest day of my life …’
Eliza’s voice broke and her whole body shook as she took great gulps of air in a vain attempt to maintain control of herself. ‘I … I’m sorry, Tristram, truly I am.’
Pushing down against the tree stump she tried to rise to her feet, but Tristram was too quick for her. Pulling her back, he said, gruffly, ‘No, come here.’ His arms went about her and suddenly she broke down and began to weep uncontrollably, her head against his shoulder.
Eliza cried for a long time and, even when the tears ceased, great sobs racked her body for many minutes and she felt she might have fallen to pieces had Tristram not been holding her so tightly to him.
When the sobs became less violent and were occurring with less frequency she raised her head to look up at him, but the moonlight was not bright enough for her to see his expression.
‘Thank you, Tristram. Thank you so very much. I don’t know what I would have done had you not been here with me. Thrown myself in the river, probably.’
‘Now that’s silly talk, and you know it. Anyway, I am here with you and always will be, if that’s what you want.’
‘You mean you still want to marry me, even after what I’ve told you about me?’
‘Nothing has changed as far as I’m concerned. You’re still the same girl I fell in love with and want to marry, and none of the bad things you’ve been through would have happened if everyone had known you as well as I do. If I’d been about then you’d never have gone through what you have. I would have seen to that.’
‘I wish you had been, but I’m glad I’ve got you now, I really am.’
‘Does that mean you will marry me?’
‘Only if you’re really sure it’s what you want.’
‘You know it is, Eliza. Besides, I think you need me around to take care of you.’
‘I think I do, too, but you won’t ever say anything to anyone about what I’ve told you, or that my real name is Eliza Brooks and not Eliza Smith?’
‘Of course I won’t. Anyway, it won’t be either Smith or Brooks once we’re married, it’ll be Rowe, Mrs Eliza Rowe.’
‘Then the sooner we can change it the better. I do want to marry you, Tristram and I’ll be the best wife to you that any man has ever had, I promise.’
By the time they returned to the fair, things were beginning to quieten down. Jory Kendall’s recruitment tent had already closed and he was in the beer tent with two of the coast guards who had been helping. They had enjoyed a successful day and their happy mood was boosted by the news that Tristram and Eliza had to tell them.
It was an excuse to call for another round of drinks, this time including the newly-engaged couple, and Eliza tried very hard for Tristram’s sake to shake off the frightening shock given to her by Maudie Huggins. Yet, try as she might she felt sick deep in the pit of her stomach because, after all these years, the past she had tried so hard to forget had come back to haunt her with its grim memories.