"Five minutes," he said. "Only five. You'll want to hear them before you go up that hill, believe me."
So she went back into the parlour, and he followed and shut the door, and Wilmot, who disliked him, went into the bedchamber and shut that door too, rather hard.
Crispin Ormerod was twenty-eight, three years younger than his aunt by marriage, and had been raised in Gervase's house to be Gervase's heir. He had a soft, reasonable voice and a way of looking at a woman as if she were the only sensible person in a room full of fools. Marian had liked him, once, for nearly a year.
"Calloway sent a boy up the road to meet me," he said. "So I know about last night. And I know about this morning." He dropped into the chair the captain had left and crossed his legs. "And I can see from your face that you know about the brig. Shall we save each other the trouble of pretending?"
"Yes," said Marian. "Let us."
"Good." He looked almost relieved. "Then let me tell you how it stands, because I don't think you've seen it all yet, and you'll not like it when you do. You signed the charter party for the Constant in March. You signed the order on the bank for her outfit. You signed the letter to Annet authorising him to supply what the master required, without limit. It's your hand on every one of them, Marian, not mine. I was most particular about that." He smiled faintly. "You were so tired that week. You hardly looked."
She said nothing. There was nothing to say. She had known it, lying awake; it was still different to hear it said aloud, in his pleasant voice.
"The Act is very plain. Every person who shall knowingly and wilfully fit out, man, navigate, equip, despatch, use, employ, let or take to freight or on hire—it goes on for some time. You'll have read it, I expect. You read everything." He leaned forward. "Now. Who in a court of law is going to believe that the owner of two-thirds of a ship signed all those papers and knew nothing of what they were for? Who's going to believe that a widow who went through her husband's books like a ferret, who pestered the clerks for every old journal in the cupboard—oh, yes, they told me—had no idea how the Ormerods made their money? You'll be in the dock beside Calloway. Lady Ormerod of Clyst. They'll sell broadsheets of you outside the Old Bailey."
"And you?" said Marian.
"I? I'm a junior partner who did as he was told by the principal. I'll be very sorry. I'll weep, very likely." He sat back again. "Or. Or the Constant sails tomorrow on the morning tide, for Madeira and the Brazils, as she's cleared to do. In eight months you have a letter from Lisbon saying she was sold there to a Portuguese house for a very handsome sum. The underwriters pay what's owed on the cargo. You are a great deal richer than you were, and no wiser, and nothing has happened in the world that would not have happened anyway, because I promise you, Marian, if it isn't our brig it will be a Yankee brig or a Spanish one. There are thirty thousand a year going across to Havana and Bahia regardless. The Navy can't stop them. Calloway knows that better than anyone; he spent four years trying."
"And the boy," said Marian.
"Ah. The boy." For the first time Crispin looked a little uncomfortable. "That was Calloway's idea, and I don't care for it. But you can see the sense. He can't have a deaf ostler going about telling magistrates what he saw on people's faces. It doesn't matter whether anyone believes him. It only matters that someone might ask questions before the tide." He spread his hands. "So here is my offer, and it's a fair one. Go up the hill. Sit in Trevisa's parlour and say nothing. Let the boy be committed. And the day after the Constant clears the Start, Calloway will write to Trevisa from Falmouth to say he's found his watch was never taken at all—some confusion of his servant's—and withdraws the charge. The boy goes home to his horses. Nobody hangs. Nobody's transported. Not you, not him, not anybody."