A fresh sea breeze blew in gusts across the bare churchyard. The low, dry stone walls were no protection against the onslaught of winds which had raced across the Atlantic and then been funnelled up the Bristol Channel. Tussocks of grass grew between moss-shrouded graves, and against a grey body of a church sheltered a dying yew, thick woody growths ridging its massive trunk, and so ancient it had witnessed pagan rites.
Sarah stood and watched as heavy clods of earth were shovelled into Sophie’s grave. She had insisted on a good wooden coffin and had ordered a marble gravestone which would be erected later. The innkeeper’s wife had protested at such an expense for a serving maid and Sarah had noticed her look curiously at Sophie’s blood-stained, but very obviously expensive, dress, which she had insisted on taking with her.
‘It’s best not to leave anything to incriminate me,’ she had thought. She paid for the coffin and the gravestone with coins from Sophie’s purse and it had been a very strange and guilt-wracked experience being able to touch such a large amount of money for the first time.
The vicar’s hastily intoned words were whipped away by the wind and she only caught snatches. Her mind strayed from the service, as waves of grief engulfed her. She felt so completely alone, standing there in the desolate cemetery. Her beloved Sophie would be abandoned in this grim place, so far from any life she had ever known.
‘Perhaps I will be able to come back and visit her grave sometimes’ she wondered, feeling a sense of profound guilt that Lady Sophie Throgmorton was being laid to rest in this poor part of the churchyard, without any of the trappings that would normally be expected for her rank and status. The vicar seemed ill at ease, his cassock flapping against his ankles. He looked anxiously towards the church and as she followed his gaze, she noticed several horses tethered by the lych gate. Banging and knocking echoed from the building and she saw a man dressed in the black uniform she had seen that morning, come out of the main door. The vicar, visibly preoccupied with what was happening inside his church, rushed his last words and quickly made a sign of the cross.
She felt drained of emotion. It was almost as if she was floating away on the wind and looking down on herself. Her leaden feet carried her to the waiting coach, and dazed, she sat and looked back at the treacherous, winding ravine which led to Lynmouth. Dun-coloured cottages, beetlebrowed with overhanging thatch, huddled in the lee of a hill, and barefoot children gaped with amazement to see strangers in this remote corner of Exmoor. The innkeeper had told her that the village on the top of the hill was Lynton.
“I must remember the name,” she said to herself. “I want to return here.”
The carriage rolled swiftly along, once past the hamlet, as the track became flat, caked earth. Moor-land stretched as far as a smudge of dark hills on the horizon. Charred swathes of land striped the pale green bracken; a singed odour tainted the air and curling wisps of blue smoke drifted across the barren landscape. A grass verge was bounded by prickly gorse with its lemon-yellow flowers, and by tall, tapering foxgloves, heavy with pink thimble bells.
She was pleased to have left behind the extreme steepness of the Lyn’s wooded gorge. Far below the moor, the sea was a sombre blue and in the distance she could see a ship, its sails billowing out. Cumulus clouds, edged in black, served to deepen her despair and she sat hunched in a corner of the carriage, grief-stricken and afraid. She had arranged her hair
high on her head, with curls on her neck, and it seemed very strange to be without her cap.
She had chosen a plain gown in white muslin, and a blue cloak, and repeatedly smoothed and adjusted the clothes, trying to gain courage from the idea that, in a way, a little of her mistress was still with her. All too soon, the openness of the moor was left behind. A sunken lane
descended downwards, high hedges of elm scratching and banging at the coach’s sides, and she now understood why it was so small. The sun was low in the sky and light slanted across the path. The banks diminished in height, medieval field strips could be seen in rows on curving slopes and whole plots of dark green hemp lay flattened and broken. A muddy brook, awash with twigs, leaves and even a dead sheep from the recent storm, flooded untidily across the valley floor and lapped against cob-walled cottages and a building which strangely resembled a house of cards.
The coachman called down, “This be Combe Martin, milady, t’is not far now.”
The coach rattled along, splashing through rivulets and pools of water. The stream flowed in full spate across a shingle beach, carving out the branches of a myriad channels. Fishing boats squatted untidily on smooth mud, and a low cliff, fashioned like the head of an animal, a stone Cyclops with one eye, jutted into a choppy sea.
The meandering track followed the coast, sometimes high on exposed headlands, sometimes careering down into sheltered combes, smothered with white-flowered may. The light was starting to fail. Evening was drawing in. She took one last look at her locket’s picture. “Give me strength for whatever lies ahead,” she prayed.
Cottages appeared, some thatched, others roofed in slate. The path climbed almost vertically, then fell steeply seawards. A chapel lantern glowed dimly on a hill near the entrance to a harbour crowded with ships, and the jagged outline of a massive cliff loomed hazily in the twilight. The monogrammed coach trundled along Fore Street, past several ale houses, and people moved hurriedly out of its way. Inquisitive faces stared and a few men knuckled their heads.
Her heart was in her mouth. She nervously patted her hair and pulled the cloak tightly around her. “What’s going to happen to me?” she murmured. “Dare I do this?”
Woods replaced the town and the evening gloom blotted out the hills and trees, blurring the nearest branches into mysterious forms. Venus shone with a sparkling brightness in a darkening sky, eclipsing the neighbouring star-patterns still faint in the early night. Sarah felt shrunken and insignificant. A creature screamed and she briefly glimpsed the broad, flat head and powerful wings of an owl, silhouetted against a full moon. The country night terrified her, a terror made worse by the thought of her imminent arrival.
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