The return journey from Newcastle was uneventful. The Clairvon party reached home again at three in the afternoon, and dispersed. Miranda ran upstairs at once and burst into her room, flinging her shawl and bonnet onto the bed. She was opening her writing desk when Jane Jenkins appeared around the open wardrobe, frowning at her over a pile of fresh ironing. “You’re back then,” said the maid.
Miranda jumped, quickly shut her journal, and replaced it in the desk. “Yes.”
“The laundress got the tea stain out of your pink muslin.” Jenkins disappeared behind the wardrobe door again to put away the clean clothes.
“Oh. Oh, good,” said Miranda. She fidgeted a little, waiting for the woman to finish and leave.
“No way to treat your hat,” the maid added, reappearing and picking up Miranda’s things from the bed. “It’ll be crushed, likely as not, lying there. Neatness is next to godliness, you know.”
“I thought it was cleanliness,” Miranda couldn’t help replying.
“One and the same,” was the confident answer. “Shall I lay out your blue for dinner, miss?”
“No. Never mind. I can do it.” Miranda nearly stammered in her eagerness to be left alone.
Jane Jenkins’s long, dour face grew even longer. “Not at all, miss. It’s my job to help you, as her ladyship asked. The blue?”
“Yes, all right.”
“And then, perhaps, I’ll do your hair? It’s a bit…untidy from your traveling.” The maid looked at Miranda’s efforts with her hair as if they were the work of the devil.
“No!”
Jenkins stared at her.
“I mean, I want to…to lie down for a while. I’m tired.”
“All this driving about from one end of the county to the other.” Jenkins nodded as if she had predicted it. “And the Lord knows how her ladyship will be feeling. But there’s no time for me to come back before I go to her.” She picked up the hair brush and gazed at Miranda with implacable purpose.
Exasperated, Miranda darted around her, snatched her shawl from the bed, and fled. She was at the end of the corridor before Jenkins called after her, and she ignored the maid’s scandalized exclamation and ran down the stairs and through the hall, throwing her shawl around her shoulders as she pulled the great front door open.
Miranda had longed to be alone for the last day, since her walk with Alan had been ended by their return to Newcastle. In the close confines of the inn and the carriage, she couldn’t think properly about what had happened. She had most wanted to set it all down in her journal, but denied that, she was happy to walk along the gravel drive in solitude and muse on this new thing that had come into her life.
She had often imagined, of course, the meeting between herself and her future mate. She had seen it as rather like the scenes in her favorite novels. She would be in some desperate strait, and he would appear just as her fate seemed sealed and carry her away. She knew, naturally, that she was not likely to be pursued by mad monks or homicidal uncles. Her only uncle was a very quiet gentleman who farmed a small estate in Lincolnshire. But there were other perils open even to a modern miss with no madness in the family.
Yet it had not been that way at all. She had been introduced to Alan in the most conventional way and not realized for the longest time that he would be more than an ordinary acquaintance. And then, yesterday… Miranda sighed as she remembered the look in his eyes when he spoke of dancing together in London. In that instant, she understood that love had little to do with fleeing on horseback through haunted marshes or forcing oneself to walk through a chamber lined with skulls. It had a quiet, undramatic power that made it more thrilling than any of those things. And it was capable, in unmarked silence, of turning one’s life upside down.
When she once again noticed her surroundings, Miranda was outside the park on the cliffs north of the abbey. She had been walking quite fast, and she was a good way along the path. It had been a dreary, gray day, with short spatterings of rain as they drove home, and now, in late afternoon, there was a mist rising from the sea to catch in the clefts and hollows of the coast. Miranda pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders and started to turn back. She might have half an hour before dinner to write in her journal, she thought. Surely Jane would be gone by now.
But as she turned, a low dark shape in the shadowed ravine ahead caught her eye. It was the abandoned house she had found on her first walk near Clairvon, and it was deathly quiet. The dog that had guarded the door was gone, or at least invisible from this distance.
Miranda hesitated. She didn’t want to go down there, really. The place looked sinister and threatening, and she certainly did not want to meet any of the smugglers. On the other hand, if she could find out anything more about their plans by examining the house when it was empty, she could not throw away the opportunity. It was even more important now that nothing befall Alan. She intended to tell him all she knew tonight, as soon as they could be apart from the others—omitting only the disguise she had used to find it out. But perhaps the house held some vital clue?
Slowly, reluctantly, Miranda moved down the slope toward the house. The path was screened by bushes, and she stopped frequently to listen for signs that the place was inhabited after all. But there was nothing, only the hiss of the surf and the soughing of the light wind that drove the clouds.
At last she reached the edge of the open area around the house. Here, she strained her ears for several minutes, almost hoping to hear something that would send her scurrying home. The air was murky in the shadow of the cliffs, but she could not see anything suspicious. Finally, she stepped out of the bushes and stared at the tumble-down walls. Nothing.
Her heart pounding, fists clenched at her sides, she strode forward, around the corner of the building and straight up to the sagging door. If anything was going to happen, she told herself, she wanted to know right away.
But nothing did. The ancient cottage remained silent. No mastiff surged forward to attack her. No rough voice asked her business. Taking a deep breath, Miranda went inside.
It was even darker within the walls. She paused a moment, blinking, trying to see. There was the dog’s collar and rope. He had been untied and taken away. Beyond, the house was one large room whose peaked ceiling was the roof. A hole in the slates in one corner let in more light, and she could see that the place was filled with large wooden packing crates. This must be the smugglers’ spoils.
She went to the nearest and tried to open it, but it was nailed securely shut. So were the second and third she examined, but the fourth yielded to her tugging and revealed rows of bottles packed in straw. She was struggling to open a fifth when she heard voices outside.
Miranda froze. They were coming closer, and they were male. It was unlikely to be anyone but the smugglers. She gazed frantically around the room. There was nowhere to hide, and only one way out. If she fled through the door she would be seen and questioned. Miranda considered trying to brazen it out, telling them she had just wandered in on a walk, curious about the place. But then she remembered the shots. Men who would risk that would not let her simply walk away. She looked around again.
At the back of the room was a crate with the lid half off. She ran to it and found that it was empty. The voices were nearly at the door. Panicked, Miranda gathered up her skirts and climbed into the crate, easing the lid into place over her head. As it dropped silently down, cutting off even the dim light of the house, she heard heavy footsteps enter.
“See,” said a gravelly contemptuous voice. “All’s well.”
Another man merely growled in reply.
“Stow it,” said the first. “We’ve had our drink, and no harm. Let’s finish up so’s I can get moving.”
“And I’m stuck here for the night,” complained the other. “If you hadn’t done for the dog…”
“How was I to know the cursed thing would die from a kick? It was a surly, dirty creature any road.”
“Bill’s not got over…”
“The devil take Bill, and you, too! Where’d you leave that hammer?”
Miranda listened in terror as they stumbled about the room and then began to hammer at something. It took her a few minutes to realize that they were securing the lids of the crates not yet nailed down. It was all she could do not to cry out then. But she was too afraid to burst out of the crate and try for the door.
After a time, they came to her hiding place. Their legs brushed the wood on either side, inches from her shoulders, and she had to press her hands over her lips when they shook the lid to settle it more firmly. Then came the pounding and vibration of the nails, two on each side, trapping her completely.
“That’s got it,” said the second man then. “They’re ready for the ship. I suppose as much will be coming off it, too. It’s all loading and unloading, and then loading again, this crib.”
“And money. Don’t forget that, Dick Townshend. More money than you’d see in a year in London.”
“Maybe. I had a job coming up that…”
“Ahh, don’t give me that.” Footsteps retreated. “I’m off, then.”
“What’s your hurry? I’ve got a bit left in that bottle. Come to that, we might slip open one of these boxes and pull out some good Scotch whiskey.”
“Jem’ll skin you alive for that,” replied the first man. “And I ain’t sitting here in the damp. You got the watch, fair and square.” The only response was a growl. One set of footsteps retreated and were soon lost in the sound of the surf.
Miranda heard the remaining man moving around for a while, and then a sigh as he settled near the door and uncorked his bottle. “Bloody Jem,” she heard him mutter. She crouched in the crate, her knees drawn up nearly to her chin and her head bent. She could rest her head on her knees; otherwise she could not change position. But this discomfort seemed negligible beside what she had heard. These crates were to be shipped out. If she could not escape, she would be sent across the channel without any means of getting home. Yet if she began pounding on the wood and demanded to be let out, she might well be killed. Tears welled in her eyes, and she clenched her teeth and blinked to banish them.
There must be something she could do, if she could only think of it.