Have you a distant relative who would take you in all of a sudden?”
“I am going to Jamie’s sister Mary and her husband. November is around the corner and the cold weather will be here. I must go while I have the chance.”
Mercy pressed her mouth, then let out a long breath. “To the Lockes? It is said Lem Locke is a smuggler, that he will stop anyone by any means if they get in his way. It isn’t as if he is helping any of the poor in Cornwall, for it is also said that he hoards his goods in the caves along the coast, and sells rum and brandy at a high price to the gentry. You should reconsider.”
“I have nothing to fear, and nowhere else to go. I am sure it is only a rumor you have heard about Lem. Jamie told me if I should ever need help to go to them. Why would he say that if they were bad people?”
“Perhaps Jamie did not know Lem Locke as well as he should have. Not only that, they must have heard the unfortunate news by now, and they should have come for you, if they have any Christian charity in them at all. Why are they not here?”
“I had no way of sending word. Paper is so precious, and I had none. But I imagine they may hear from others before I reach them, but only of the wreck.”
Mercy cocked her head. “Have you met them before?”
“Only Mary. It was a few days before Jamie and I were wed. She was quiet but not completely cold. Yet, I do not think she approved of our marriage, and would rather have seen her brother marry a fit woman. She never said where Lem was.”
“Away smuggling, no doubt. I pray he is kind to you, Sarah. It is what you need right now.”
Once they reached her cottage door, Mercy kissed Sarah’s cheek. “I wish you well, and will keep you and your child in my prayers. If you should need to return, come to my door before anyone else’s. Understand?’
“Yes, thank you.” Sarah hugged Mercy, then watched her go, with the children in tow, down the sandy lane that led into the heart of the village.
Before stepping inside, Sarah glanced up at the gray sky that swirled above. “If only you would clear the clouds away, Lord. I might feel better if I were to see the sun. But if not today, then tomorrow.”
Pushing the door in, she stepped over the threshold and paused. The sparse little room seemed neglected, as if no living soul lived there anymore. They owned little, and few things were left of Jamie’s—his pipe, and Bible, and one change of clothes. She packed them in a sack with her own scant possessions—brush, comb, and one pair of stockings. The rest she owned was on her back.
Determined to be strong, she wiped away a tear and heaved the bag into her arms. After she shut the door behind her, she took the path to the rear of the cottage and slowly climbed the grassy slopes. It would take her longer than the average person to reach the moorland above, for having been born with one leg slightly shorter than the other hindered her gait, enough to cause her stride to be uneven. It had been the source of ridicule when she was growing up, orphaned and living in a workhouse for children. Told her mother was dead, her father unknown, she wondered if she were an abandoned child, an embarrassment to some gentry family for being flawed and possibly illegitimate.
Abused and starved, she kept to herself, and barely spoke to anyone, until a good-looking young man came down the lane that bordered the field she worked in. The wheat had been scythed and she, along with other able bodies, stood in a line to gather the sheaves into bundles. He leaned on the fence rail and watched her. The next day, he offered her water from his canteen. On the third day, he approached her during her ten-minute rest time, sat beside her and told her his likes and dislikes.
“I hate the smell of wheat,” he told her. “It makes me sneeze.” She remembered how his comment had made her giggle. “I’m a net maker, but I hate eating fish. Don’t like the bones.”
“What do you like?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Bread and butter … and pretty girls like you.”
She had hidden her