At three o’clock the following afternoon, having been granted his freedom on recognizances of £20, Dwight rode in at the gates of Killewarren. If there had been need for subterfuge before, the time for it was over.
For a while he could get no answer either to his rings or his knocks; but eventually the door was opened by the footman Thomas who had often shown him in before. He raised his eyebrows at sight of Dwight’s bandaged head and bruised face.
‘I’ve called to see Miss Caroline Penvenen.’
‘She’s gone, sir. This forenoon with her uncle.’
‘Gone?’
‘They’ve left for London. House be closed, sir, except for the servants. I don’t know when they be coming back. A month may be.’
Dwight was unable to think what to say. ‘What time did they go?’
‘Just after ten. They was both anxious to be off, so they decided to dine on the way.’
‘Was any message left, do you know? I had expected one.’
The man stared at him doubtfully. ‘Not as I know. But I’ll ask the housekeeper if you’ll step inside.’
‘I’ll wait here.’
The man was gone several minutes and then brought back a sealed letter. ‘Miss Penvenen gived this to the housekeeper, just as she was leaving. No address. Just Dr Enys. I suppose she knew you’d call, sir.’
Dwight turned away from the house and, ignoring the man’s talk, stood by his horse fumbling with the seal.
The letter was dated: ‘9 A.M. Sunday, the third of February, 1793.’
Dear Dwight,
I am leaving with my uncle for London within the hour, a move which cannot surprise you after the fiasco of last night. Need I tell you of it? Your servant will already have given his account.
I waited. Oh yes, I waited like a dutiful Bride, you will have been gratified to know, for nearly two hours, while my coachman and my maid yawned their heads off – and no doubt snickered behind their hands and your servant made so many excuses that I wondered at his invention.
But at the beginning he had told me all it was really necessary to know.
It is for the best this way, Dwight. Certainly far better that it should have happened now than later. I have known of your unhappiness for more than a month. Ever since we agreed to elope I have seen the struggle going on, the fight between your infatuation for me and your real love, which is your work in Sawle and Grambler. Well, your real love has won, and won so triumphantly – on the very day when I might most have expected to occupy your mind – that I am quite put to Rout.
Now you need not worry about it any more: you need give up nothing but me, and that you have already done. Perhaps it is for the best in more ways than one. We know so small a part of each other, I of you and you of me. No doubt we should have learned more in Bath, and then it would have been a little late.
So this is goodbye, Dwight. Do not fear I shall come to Cornwall to disturb you again. Not by two hundred miles. Thank you for the lessons you have taught me. They at least will not be forgotten by
Your sincere friend,
Caroline Penvenen
At five o’clock that afternoon, just before the first dusk, six men waited on Charlie Kempthorne in his cottage at the head of Sawle Combe. Their faces were as grim as their mission merited; but they found no one to welcome them. Charlie Kempthorne had gone, taking with him his easy smile and his cough, and a bag of silver he had saved and hidden under the floor. He had also taken his wedding clothes, which he had been making himself, and his Bible and such of his more recent purchases, like the cups and saucers and the mirror, as he could carry.
All he left was Lottie and May crouching terrified in a corner of the room upstairs. When they could be persuaded to speak, they said their father had given them a silver piece each and had gone at daylight, warning them not to stir out of doors for fear of their lives. They did not know where he had gone. Frustrated and angry, some of the men wanted to burn the cottage and beat the children; but moderate views prevailed, and word was sent to St Ann’s to the aunt of the little girls to come and claim them quickly.
Charlie also left behind his wife-to-be. Dwight’s interference had broken two romances. Rosina, at first incredulous, presently found in her memory small factual proofs. She had never really loved Charlie, but after a while she had responded gratefully to his admiration and attentions. It needed an emotional somersault now to realise and to condemn; for a while it was more than she was capable of and she went about in a daze, knowing hurt but not hate, answering the questions put to her flatly and without interest. Only occasionally a spark of anger showed when someone’s question seemed to suggest that her own innocence could not be as complete as it seemed.
The six men who had called on Charlie did not give up their efforts at the sight of an empty cottage. They believed he would not move very fast or be able to travel without leaving a trail. News travels far in country districts, and the informer is the most hated of men. They thought they might catch up with him yet.
At seven o’clock that evening Ross came out of the cache where he had been hiding without food or water for eighteen hours – and in air that no one unused to the bad air of mines would have been able to tolerate for a quarter of the time. He had forced himself to wait until full dark, knowing that other men could be as patient as he. When he climbed up into the library, his eyes – so long accustomed to darkness – were able to pick out the window, the articles of furniture, and the door into the garden. He tried this, expecting it to be locked; but it was not and he stepped into the fresh air. There were lights in the house, but before he would approach it he made a cautious detour of the outbuildings and the surrounding garden and stream. Then he approached the house and looked in at each of the lighted windows. All the troopers had gone.
So at last he went in to Demelza, who for eighteen hours had been wondering what had become of him and had been imagining that the blood from his knuckles had been escaping from some untended artery.
The cache, having been dug to Mr Trencrom’s specifications, had a false side moving on a central swivel, with a secondary and larger cache beyond. It was a not uncommon device among the more intelligent of the smuggling fraternity of Cornwall, but it was one that seldom failed to deceive.
The men who had done this job, being all miners except for one farmer and one carpenter, had completed the work with exceptional thoroughness and skill. They had made the second cache large enough to conceal a considerable amount of contraband, but Ross had not supposed when he watched it done that it would ever be used to conceal himself.