Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

“He’s resting very well up there,” said he to me. ”Molly’s working at dinner, and Clarissa is doing what she can to help. How can we entertain you until dinner, Jeremy?”

“Oh, I need not be entertained, sir. So long as I have something to read, I’ll be well satisfied.”

“And have you something to read?”

“Well … as it happens, I don’t.”

“Come along then,” said he, and led me to that small room near the street door which served him as a study. He waved inside. ”Such as it is, my library is here. You are free to browse and read what you find. I must, however, ask you not to disturb the books or papers on the desk. They are part and parcel of something I’m writing-or hope to write.”

(Ah-hah, I had guessed correctly!)

“I shall certainly do that, sir. And I thank you, sir, ever so much.”

With that, he took his leave.

I entered the study and began searching through the nearest shelves. They were better-stocked than he had given out. I did not find what I hoped to-a copy of A Sentimental Journey , that I might resume where I had left off in the library of Sir Simon Grenville’s manor house. Nevertheless, I did find a thing or two to interest me in the shelves along the wall. There was a copy of Dean Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels ; and tucked away in a far corner, I found a battered and dog-eared copy of a Latin grammar. It was so old and ill-used that I thought it must be Mr. Sarton’s first book of Latin.

I moved round the desk for a better look at the books in the case below the window. Yet as I did, my eyes fell upon a paper that had been left upon the desk. It was a map, rather crude but clearly drawn, of that stretch of sand beach which Clarissa and I had visited a good deal less than an hour before. There on the right was a rectangle, which was labeled ”shipwreck”; below it, the shoreline; and above and all around it, a shaded area indicating the size and shape of the sandbar which had trapped the ship. Significantly, the sandbar did not stretch the length of the beach: There was a channel marked, a clear passage from the open sea to the shoreline. Distances were noted in yards or feet.

This I found most interesting. I would wager that the map was the work of Dick Dickens. Had he brought it with him or drawn it on the spot? Well, little it mattered, for I daresay that Dickens knew the surrounding area so well that he could have drawn any number of such maps from memory. And if I were not mistaken, Mr. Sarton was now on his way to that sandy beach to study the lay of the land and the look of the sea. Or he might even, at that moment, be surveying the scene from the bluff above the beach, comparing it to the map whose image he now had fixed in his mind.

I could be sure now what was discussed at their meeting. More important, I even had a good idea where the operation which Sir John had mentioned to Mr. Perkins would take place. It occurred to me that after Mr. Sarton had returned, I might go for another look at the beach myself. With that in mind, I resolved not to weight myself further with books. I took the two I had chosen and stepped across the hall to the large parlor which served him as a courtroom; there I would hear the magistrate’s return; there I could read without fear of interruption by Clarissa. I browsed through the Latin grammar and found it not near so difficult as I had expected; I resolved to buy one like it as soon as we got back to London. I put it aside and picked up Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World , by Lemuel Gulliver, which all the world knows as Gulliver’s Travels. I had read the book when I was but twelve, and I thought it quite funny but little more than that. I had come lately to realize that I had missed much of its meaning and made up my mind to reread it at my earliest opportunity. And so I began it and was well into the second chapter, wherein Lemuel Gulliver learns the language of the Lilliputians as a squad of the little people enter his pockets and make a survey of their contents. Thus far did I go-and no farther-for at that point did I fall fast asleep.

It was Molly Sarton who woke me. She came blustering in, table linen in hand, and began preparing the deal table for dining, the one at which her husband had sat during his morning court session. She looked across the room at me and chuckled.

“Ah, so this is where you went to hide!” said she.

“I wasn’t hiding, I was reading,” said I quite defensively. Then I added, ”Is it late?”

“Late enough. We’ll be eating soon as Clarissa and I can get things on the table. Should be about a quarter of an hour, or not much longer.”

“May I help?”

“You can help by going upstairs and attending to Sir John. He’s been making waking-up noises for the past five minutes, and it’s time somebody looked in on him.”

And I, of course, was that somebody. I ascended to the floor above and had no difficulty in finding which of the two rooms he had situated himself in. It was the door from which issued a medley of coughs and throat-clearing sounds. I opened it and found that he was having his usual difficulty finding his way into his coat. He signaled for his kerchief, which had fallen to the floor. Once he had it in hand, he blew his nose, sneezed, blew his nose again, and thanked me.

It was not long before we were both ready to sup in polite society. I guided Sir John through the door and down the stairs, and then into the courtroom where all but Mrs. Sarton awaited us. Mr. Sarton was engaged in reducing a magnificent haunch of beef to portions of slices, chunks, and chips. Indeed, he had carved so much from it that it was evident he had great confidence in the capacity of his guests. Clarissa looked across the table at me with something akin to fright. At about that time, Mrs. Sarton came into the room, beautifully dressed, her hair nicely coifed with no more than touches of rouge upon her lips and cheeks. She had transformed herself completely.

“Oh, Berty,” said she, ”that’s quite enough, I think.”

“I’m never quite sure. After all, there are five of us.”

“No, that will be fine for the time being. Just dish out the pudding, and serve the wine, and we’ll be underway.”

With that, she smiled and took her place at the foot of the table, whence she presided over the carrots, sauce, and all those condiments and additional pleasures that can make a good meal into a great one.

Reader, I know not how you stand on matters of cookery. There are some, it is true, who hold that the French cooking is the best in all the world. We had had a fair sample of it the past two evenings, with its plenitude of small courses, wines with each, subtly spiced sauces with all. And I admit that I thought the strangeness of it quite grand.

Nevertheless, to my mind there is naught that can compare with a good English dinner for hearty flavor, abundance, and pure satisfaction. Be it beef, mutton, pork, or whatever, when cooked to perfection in the English manner, it cannot be equaled. And there could be no question but that Molly Sarton cooked that haunch of beef to perfection. Sir John and I asked so often for more that Mr. Sarton had unexpectedly to carve a bit more. And the Yorkshire pudding was as I had never had it-crisp and buttery, and subtle to the taste. There was but one wine, an excellent claret, yet it was abundantly available-bottles of the best. We were silent through the main course, so absorbed were we in the eating of it. We sighed contentedly through dessert (a fine apple tart), and only when the plate of cheese was brought out did we begin to talk in our usual voluble manner. The Sartons were eager to draw us out, and they questioned Clarissa and me direct on our tour of their town. Mr. Sarton gave forth on the history of Deal Castle; and afterward, I asked him rather pointedly about the shipwreck which was mired in the ocean sands just off the beach and not far from this very house: Did he know how long it had been there? What were the circumstances that had put it there? He had no real information to give, but the odd look that he gave me told me what I wished to know: owlers.