Marian found that she was quite calm. It was a peculiar calm, cold and clear and very far away, like the bottom of a well.
"A watch," she said. "Of what value?"
"Thirty guineas, the captain says. Engraved, from his old ship's company." Mrs. Keverne's eyes filled. "Above forty shillings, my lady. Off the person. They hanged a man at Exeter for less than that, not five years gone. Jory never took it. He never would. He's never took so much as a heel of bread in four years that I didn't give him."
"I know he did not."
"Then what—"
"It is quite simple, Mrs. Keverne." Marian reached for her cloak, which hung over the back of the chair where Wilmot had left it to dry. "If he is committed to the assizes for felony, he will lie in Exeter gaol until the spring. And a man committed for felony is not a man whose word anyone will take against a post-captain's. And the Constant sails on tomorrow's morning tide." She swung the cloak about her shoulders. "Where does Mr. Trevisa live?"
"At the rectory, my lady. Top of Church Hill. He's the vicar as well as the justice."
"Of course he is," said Marian. "Wilmot! My gloves."
She was at the head of the stairs when she looked down and saw, through the open street door, a gentleman getting out of a chaise in Fore Street. He was young and fair and very well dressed, in a bottle-green coat and pale pantaloons, and he was laughing at something the post-boy had said. He looked up as he crossed the threshold and saw her, and the laugh stopped.
"Aunt Marian," said Crispin Ormerod. "What a very great surprise."
V.
He would not let her pass him on the stairs. He did not touch her—Crispin had never in his life done anything so crude as touch her—but he stood on the step below with one hand on the rail and the other on the wall, smiling up at her, and to get by she would have had to push him.