Endure My Heart by Joan Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

eat with very little conversation. Edna inquired, after dinner, what ailed me, as I had eaten so little.
    I had been arguing with myself the pros and cons of making Edna privy to my secret. I felt it would be well to have an accomplice under my own roof. Indeed, close as we two were these days, it would be no easy matter to hide my career from her. Like most of the ladies in the village, she looked up to Sir Elwood as a tin god. If I told her, I would let her know the whole; that I was replacing Sir Elwood. Well, to make this uninteresting episode brief, I did tell her. She was first incredulous, then disagreeable, and after I adopted a bout of sulks, she came round to accepting it. She maintained, however, the right to dislike it very much, and tell me so at every possible opportunity, always forecasting disclosure and disaster. I don’t say she is not a moral person, but it was clear her main concern was not that I acted wrongly, but that I might get caught. The name Sir Elwood Ganner had often to be spoken, to remind her what high company I kept in adopting this profession.
    She finally went to prepare herself for the card party and let me get down to some heavy thinking. I had to get five hundred pounds to Jemmie to pay off the French importers, but more importantly, I had to come up with a hiding place for approximately one hundred barrels of brandy. Jemmie was soon tapping at the door.
    “Is it all set, miss?” he asked.
    I took him into Andrew’s study, lest another caller come and see this unlikely guest in my saloon I gave him the money, but was hesitant to tell him what spot I had selected for concealment. I had not told Edna yet the full depths of my depravity. She was initially so upset that she did not know there was a load coming in this very night at all. “Well?” he asked, waiting.
    “Bring it here,” I told him. The church was at the east edge of town—it would not be necessary for the barrels actually to go through Salford. It was perhaps a daring idea, but its very daringness made it unlikely of discovery. Who would think to look in a church for smuggled brandy?
    “There’s a service Sunday morning!” he pointed out. “The tranter don’t pick it up till Sunday night.”
    “I don’t mean to put it in the church proper. There is a crypt underneath, a burial vault with enough room to hold the barrels. The men must move very quietly, mind. Not a sound, or Andrew will awaken and discover them. I’ll be at the back door and let them in, and be there again Sunday midnight to open up for them.”
    “Don’t show yourself, miss,” Jem cautioned, worrying about me. “Just leave the door on the latch and go back in the house.”
    “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll have a look from the bell tower too, to see if anything is stirring that shouldn’t be. Not that I’ll see much in the dark. They must leave the mules in the woods beyond the road and each carry his two barrels on his back to the crypt door. I’ll try to think of a better place for next time, but for this once, we’ll use the church. Crites, we know, will be at the school, so he won’t be pestering us. He doesn’t mean to scout the shore at all tonight, but catch us out at the school.”
    Jem’s freckled face broke out into a smile. “Aye, you’re a wise one, miss. Thyme is the wrong name for you. It’s Miss Sage you are, and no doubt.”
    As our scheme came off without a hitch, I was dignified with the title Miss Sage. Do you know, it is amazing how you can become accustomed to anything after a while. I knew many a nervous hour the first few weeks, but with time I settled down to my old routine and hardly thought of the business but on Friday. The crypt proved so successful a place of concealment that we continued using it for the whole spring and summer. Fewer loads were made in the warmer weather, but with such smooth work as we were making of it, we did not discontinue as most gangs were in the habit of doing. Our supply was