Free Beyond the Storm by E.V. Thompson Page A

from Tavistock with the news that you were to act as Reverend Carter’s curate at Tinagel, you said we could now afford to take on a housemaid. Well, providence has presented us with one!’
    Taken aback, David said, ‘But I was thinking of employing a local girl, someone who would know all the people in the area and be known by them. We know nothing about Eliza and if all she says is true we have no means of obtaining references.’
    ‘She is a fourteen year-old girl, David. If she has shortcomingsas a housemaid she is young enough to learn new ways. I think this was meant to be – and I want her for our housemaid.’
    It was apparent that Alice had made up her mind and David was aware that further argument would be futile. Sighing in resignation , he said, ‘Very well, but she will begin work on the understanding that she is on a month’s trial. If she proves unsatisfactory during that time she must go.’
    ‘I believe she is exactly what we are looking for, David, but thank you. Had you not persuaded Reverend Carter to take you on as his curate we would never have been able to afford a housemaid at all. You are a very clever brother.’
    David was aware his sister was only flattering him because she had got her own way, but he did not mind. Alice had always worked hard on his behalf and he was pleased to be able to do something to make her happy.
     
    When Alice put the suggestion to Eliza, the young girl could hardly believe her luck. Since recovering consciousness and being told where she was, she had feared her rescuers would be bound to learn why she had been on the shipwrecked vessel in the first place.
    Fortunately, for some days after her rescue she had difficulty in speaking, the doctor attending her declaring it was the result of swallowing large amounts of sea water. He ordered her not to talk until the effects wore off.
    As a result, Eliza listened to the conversations of those who frequented the sick room where she lay and by so doing learned that they believed she was the sole survivor of the Balladeer , a ship which had foundered on Lye rock, close to where she had been washed ashore, victim of the ferocious storm which had wrecked so many other ships in the Bristol Channel.
    By listening and not talking, Eliza had been able to mentally build up a new identity for herself – including a new name. Shewould still be Eliza, but it would now be Eliza Smith and not Brooks, a girl whose working life would follow closely upon the life she had known, but leaving out her conviction and sentence of transportation and bypassing those incidents in her life which might lead anyone with an inquiring mind to learn of her true past.
    She was also deliberately vague about the actualities of her survival , an attitude supported by the doctor attending her. He declared her to be suffering from the trauma of her recent experience , advising Alice that she should not be questioned on the subject. It was, he said, something with which she would come to terms ‘in the fullness of time’.
    Eliza was less reticent about the duties she had performed as a housemaid when Alice tentatively suggested she might like to work at the rectory. She was desperately eager to be taken into the household of Reverend David Kilpeck and his sister.
    Should the authorities discover that Eliza Brooks was alive and free, she would be taken back into custody and the sentence of the London judge carried out. On the other hand, Eliza Smith could lead a comfortable enough life here in Cornwall, far from those who had once known her. At least, until she had grown old enough for her appearance to have changed sufficiently to fool anyone who might have known the other Eliza well enough to be able to identify her.

Chapter Twelve
    ‘D O YOU THINK Eliza is well enough now to answer a few questions about the shipwreck?’
    It was almost a fortnight after the storms that had caused havoc to shipping in the Western Approaches and Lieutenant Jory Kendall