Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Three: 1826-1831

The Men of Enterprise

Chapter Five

They were married in Southampton a month later. The quiet ceremony was attended by a score of friends, and the twins followed their mother down the aisle, their faces proud and solemn. Obadiah had not answered Jessica's letter of invitation, and it was left to Mace to give the bride away.

That afternoon, in a newly acquired waggon laden with baggage and furniture, Tom drove his family to Bursledon, to the house known as Crosstrees which stood beside the boatyard. Mace accompanied them; though he did say, with a wink at Jess, that September was late in the year for gooseberries, and maybe he should go home to Cowes and Mrs. Gribble.

In fact he was afire with excitement at the move; as brimming with high spirits as the twins, and considerably less manageable. In the space of four weeks he and Tom had worked their notice - in Tom's case, as effectively as his healing injuries allowed - signed a lease with Mr Ekless and a contract with Lord Yarborough, and hired a team of carpenters and men-of-all-work to carry out repairs to the neglected boatyard. In addition to all this, Mace had now seen his sister wed to the man who was also his partner in their glorious new enterprise. Life, with all its lights and rainbow hues and inescapable shadows, had never looked so rosy.

He sat between Luke and Honor in the back of the cart, on a table recently bought by Tom at auction.

"You're not Tandys any more," he told the twins, "You're Elderfields. Time to change the old songs." And he began in a well-pitched baritone:

"Sing us some more," said Luke, when he stopped. "We want the verses about us slaying the Black Knight."

"Ask your Pa. He's the expert on heroic deeds."

"But he can't make up songs, Uncle Macey," protested Honor, "and he's got a voice like an old tomcat."

Their father let out a convincing yowl.

"That's why he was christened Tom," said Mace seriously; and at Honor's wondering expression he doubled up with mirth and nearly fell off the table.

In the end he gave them the requested ballad. Tom and Jessica added a few doggerel lines here and there, concocting them from the privacy of the high driving seat with shared whispers and smothered hilarity.

For the first time since the years in London, Mace felt part of a united family; and he sang out the nonsensical rhymes as though offering up a hymn to the blue heaven.

All the same, he was anxious about the twins. Having known Jess as their mother until they were four years old, they had accepted the idea of 'Auntie Jess' as simply a game, and of course had not been told that their father was Amos or anyone else. Mace was afraid they would see their new relationship with Tom as an extension of the same puzzling joke, and turn to each other as the one solid reality in a bewildering world.

His fears were somewhat allayed during the first months at Bursledon. Jess had brought the twins up to run wild - mainly, in latter years, to keep them out of Wickham's way - and they continued to do so; scrambling over piles of compass timber, their gleeful yells audible above the din from saw-pits and forge; or investigating the mould-loft, where Mace scaled up his drawings and carved the yacht's lines, life-sized, on walls and floor, thus to ensure the accurate measurement of the oak framework. At other times they distracted the thirty-strong workforce of itinerant shipwrights, sawyers and carpenters with endless questions, and clambered on to the scaffolding to view the inside of the skeletal hull taking shape on one of the yard's two slipways. Charles Pelham had already chosen a name - Spirit of the Wight - but the company could not have survived if the relatively small Spirit had been the only source of income. Tom had advertised Elderfield & Tandy both in the local press and by word of mouth. As a result there were usually several fishing boats laid up for repairs, and the twins could always find something new to interest them.

They were undoubtedly happy; but whereas Honor loved everyone who was kind to her - Tom included - Luke remained uneasy with his father, and was often distant or sullen. Tom was partly to blame; he had seemed more comfortable with the twins when he believed them to be Amos' children.

Mace, who knew him pretty well, guessed that although Tom had no difficulty in worshipping his bride and his boatyard - definitely in that order - he could not instantly manufacture love for a pair of offspring thrust upon him almost a decade after their birth. Mace was also sure that Tom would never admit this to Jess, particularly if he thought the problem was caused by a weakness in his own character.

Thought it was Mace's philosophy, unashamedly copied from Tom and often disregarded, that worrying was only useful if it resulted in action, a part of the solution fell almost literally into his path. Not long before Christmas, after a night of hard frost, he loped furtively into the house at dawn, with clothes crumpled, scarlet cravat askew, and coat enveloping an irregular bundle at about the level of his chest. Treading softly, and with sly glances to right and left, he sprang up the stairs three at a time and tapped on the door of Tom and Jessica's bedchamber.

The murmurs from within did not sound too friendly, but the bundle was starting to wriggle. Mace strode into the room, and sat heavily on the edge of the four-poster bed, the most expensive piece of furniture in the house.

"What the hell....." said Tom drowsily; and Jessica groaned, "Go away, little brother."

Mace grinned, "Look," he said," at what I found in a ditch. Can't be more than a few months old." He drew out, with a conjuror's flourish, a bedraggled, small and sorrowful dog, with black bristling fur and no obvious pedigree. "Lucky he didn't freeze to death. I've given him a good rub down."

"Looks half starved," Tom muttered, opening one eye. "Take it away and give it some breakfast."

Jessica sat up, pulling the coverlet modestly about her. She was the only woman of Mace's wide acquaintance who habitually slept without a nightgown.

She put a hand to stroke the quivering puppy. "He must be a stray. We'll have to keep him, I suppose. The twins will be pleased."

"Overjoyed. I did think," said Mace airily, "that Tom might like to give them the poor little scrap as an early Christmas present. You could pretend you found him, Tom, and help them with his training."

"That's a marvellous idea," said Jessica. "Tom, why don't you, darling?"

It was possible, Mace thought, that Jess saw a great deal more than her husband intended. He winked at her. Tom squinted from one to the other, still half asleep. Having trained himself, as poacher and smuggler, to operate at maximum efficiency during the hours of darkness, his body had never totally adapted to a law-abiding existence. Even after four years on yachts and steamers, he was not at his best early in the morning.

"Nagging bloody Tandys," he said, and took the dog from Mace. "Come here, you scrag-eared monster."

Mace, with a satisfied chuckle, leapt up and headed for the door.

Jessica said idly, "Macey, what were you doing, combing ditches for mongrels before sunrise?"

"Aren't you glad if you baby brother finds a warm bed on a cold night?"

Jessica smiles at the closing door, and nestled up against Tom, who was checking the dog for mange.

"I hope you know," she said, "that you've got a business partner worth having."

"Not to mention the best wife in the world," he said lightly, and kissed her forehead. "Whatever did I do to deserve such luck?"

"Earned it in East Cowes," she said.

The dog, which Luke named Smudge for no good reason, succeeded in bringing Tom closer to his children than he had hoped or expected. Every morning during that winter he and the twins would rise earlier than Tom likes, and romp through the yard and along the wooded banks upriver, leaping and prancing, chasing Smudge or each other, or tumbling in rowdy horseplay across tree roots and ice-hardened mud. Jessica stayed tactfully to cook breakfast and Mace could rarely be found at such an hour. A basement room in one of the larger Bursledon residences was occupied by two maidservants - both young, pretty and accommodating - and neither chose to mention to their employers that the window catch was faulty.

After Christmas, at Tom's suggestion, he and Mace built a twelve foot dinghy for the twins, the hull being a scaled-down version of Spirit. It was ridiculous, as Tom pointed out, for children growing up in a boatyard not to have a boat of their own. The dinghy was launched at the end of January, not long after the twins' tenth birthday, and was christened Gemini by their mother.

It was a month or two later, when Luke and Honor had sailed upriver, and Tom had ridden to Lymington to discuss further timber supplies with Gaspard Vaillant, that Jessica ran from the front door of Crosstrees buttoning her pelisse and calling her brother's name gaily, skipping and turning on her heel like a young girl as she sought to glimpse his tousled head rising above all others.

Mace trod through thawing mud to meet her, her happiness lifting his own heart as usual. "What's to do, little girl?" he asked.

Jessica smacked his arm playfully. "That is one habit you needn't copy from my dear husband. I'm nobody's little girl these days."

"Where are you headed, then, foul misbegotten hag and ancient crone, witch of a thousand warts?"

The ensuing brief scuffle would have ended with Jessica falling on her behind in the mud, had Mace not scooped her up in time and set her on her feet.

"Pax, sweet sister?" he asked.

"Will you," she said, recovering her breath, "visit the gypsies with me?"

Mace gestured vaguely around the yard. I ought to oversee the men, with Tom being away for two days."

"Nonsense, they've a reliable foreman. Meg and Othi Wells are camped in Salterns Lane. They've come especially to see us."

"To see you, maybe."

Since the Tandys' flight from Hatchley in 1816 Mace had not met the Wells family, though he was aware that his sister had kept in touch with them until her move to the Wight. He remembered only dimly the gypsy woman and her husband, and a pert, skinny child called Lavinia, who had tried to make him eat snails and hedgehogs, and had refused to lend him her blankets.

But he went with Jessica quite readily. The recent appearance of the first primroses had reminded him that spring was approaching fast, and with it the Mayday launch of Spirit. Before that date, Mace wanted to have ready an alternative hull design to show prospective customers; a design for a yacht that would perform well in heavy seas. Yachtsmen were making longer voyages than of old, and Spirit would be essentially a fair-weather flyer. Mace's newest ideas sprang from the performance of Gemini during the past month, but the work was not progressing as well as he had hoped. Tom suggested dryly that lack of sleep might have something to do with it, to which Mace had replied that he was a fine one to talk. Mace felt today that a change of scene might give him fresh inspiration.

The Wells' caravan and makeshift tent stood beneath dripping trees, set back from the lane. A tabby cat squatted morosely on the steps, and a mongrel twice the size of Smudge bounded to greet the two visitors, seeming to recognise Jessica even after a four year interval. Jess crooned over him and ruffled his fur, without regard for the paw-prints on her best pelisse.

A young woman emerged from under the trees, with a fiat basket full of tied bunches of primroses, and came towards them, smiling a welcome.

Mace had always been attracted to gypsy girls, not least because they usually spurned his advances. It was heavily frowned upon by the tribe if such a girl consorted with a gorgio, a non-gypsy. Now, he stood transfixed; for Lavinia Wells, velvet eyed and honey skinned, with her glinting chain necklace and moss-green shawl and skirt, was more exquisite than any fair complexioned, pastel clad lady of fashion, and far lovelier than the two plump maidservants whose bodies were white as winter.

Jessica hugged the girl. "Vinnie, where were you yesterday? I missed seeing you. Why, you've grown into a beauty, hasn't she, Macey?"

She must be eighteen, he realised; and gypsies married young. If Vinnie was married, Mace thought with a searing intensity that shocked him, then he would cover the walls at Crosstrees with portraits drawn from this one memory, and never look at another woman again.

He bowed, "Good morning, Miss Wells," he said, feeling breathless, dreading that she would deny her maiden name.

Vinnie was staring at him as though at a stranger; and no doubt he had changed a good deal in the intervening years. Jess always said he had been better-looking as a child.

"Mace........" said Vinnie.

He could not bear the suspense. "Vinnie, is your husband......"

Jessica laughed incredulously, but the Romany girl seemed unaware of her. She said softly, "I have no husband yet."

Did he imagine the subtle encouragement in the those words? But he could not mistake her entranced gaze, nor the fizzing shock when their eyes met.

Jessica glanced from her brother to Vinnie Wells. She was no long laughing. "I don't believe it," she said. "Mace, stop this! Vinnie, he's a gorgio."

Mace smiled at Vinnie. "Do you care about that?" he asked her.

"No," she said.

Jessica caught her breath. "Then your father will! For pity's sake. Vinnie Wells, tell my poor smitten brother that you will be gone to Fordingbridge before the end of the week, and will have left Hampshire altogether by the end of May."

"Will you, Vinnie?" said Mace.

She nodded, then half shook her head. Her eyes doubted him now, doubted herself, begged for his understanding. He saw that he was moving too fast, asking too much; she was only eighteen, and had not be parted from her parents before, not been anything but a traveller.

"I.....cannot tell," she said.

"Of course she can't", said Jess hotly. "Take no notice of my brother - he goes a little mad at the sight of a pretty face. Come along, both of you, I promised Meg yesterday that I would buy some clothes pegs and a new broom."

Mace could hardly credit his sister's lack of sensitivity. How could she let Vinnie believe that he fell in love with every girl he met? It was true that his affections in the past had been easily roused and often quick to die; but in all his life he had not felt this sudden, sweet, terrifying sense of communion. The fact that Jess could not know this, and wanted only to protect the young gypsy girl, did perhaps mitigate her offence - but not much.

He looked at Vinnie, and the girl said, with a note of confused and desperate apology that twisted his heart, "I don't even know you. How can I tell what I should do?"

"Do nothing," he said, very gently to reassure her, though a treacherous inner voice clamoured that he could not delay another minute, let alone a week, a month......"Only wait. Wait and see."

"And that," said Jessica, "is the first sensible thing you have said, Mace Tandy."

The three of them went into the caravan, which made it extremely crowded, and were greeted warmly by Meg and Othi Wells. Seated opposite Vinnie, Mace avoided her eyes whenever possible and addressed her with distant courtesy, fearful that a look or word might give away too much and frighten her again.

But when he left with Jessica, using the broom to strike unnecessarily at trailing brambles, Vinnie ran after him. He turned, and she stopped some few feet away, as if threatened by his proximity.

"Mace." No fear in her voice; just uncertainty. "Macey....."

She had heard Jess call him that. His mouth curved in delight. "I'll come again," he said.

"I hope you will, Macey."

A gypsy custom came into his mind. He had once known a Romany woman who covered her hair with a neckerchief, a love token from her husband. Mace unwound his scarlet cravat and held it out to Vinnie.

"Will you wear it for me?" he asked.

"My parents will wonder how I came by it," she said. "No - worse than that - they will know quite well." But she was smiling. When she stepped forward to take the gift, her fingers touched his; and this time when their eyes met, it was to acknowledge a shared secret. For both of them, Jessica might not have been there.

Then the girl ran from him, back to the safety of her father's caravan, pausing only to knot the long red cravat in her hair.

Mace linked his arm through his sister's. "I think," he said. "I'll have to paint a portrait, and hang it above the fireplace in the parlour."

"You drive me to despair," Jessica said.

Part 3, The Men of Enterprise, Chapter 6

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