The talk drifted to fishing yields, to the quality of the ale, and finally to the merits of the local parson’s sermons, which seemed, by consensus, to improve in direct proportion to hisproximity to the cider barrel. Edmund smiled faintly, the first such motion to touch his mouth in weeks, though it passed as quickly as it came. He was good at listening without appearing to do so; war had taught him that men betray the truth most easily when they think no one notices.
It was not only the widow who piqued his curiosity. The old postmaster, it appeared, had grown rich on very little custom. The magistrate had retired mysteriously to Bath. A naval sloop had docked in the harbour three days prior and sailed again without loading a cargo. All were small matters, perhaps—but it was from such threads that an invisible web of intelligence was woven.
“Storm blowin’ in tomorrow,” said the landlord cheerfully as he filled another glass. “You’ll be wanting to keep inside, sir. Sea air’s bracing till it isn’t.”
Edmund thanked him and carried his tankard to a quiet table near the window. The wind outside pressed salt against the panes, and beyond them the masts creaked faintly in the dark. He felt that odd blend of watchfulness and weariness that comes from long habit—like a hound that sleeps but never ceases to listen.
He drew from his pocket the small notebook he always carried and, with deliberate idleness, made a few sketches: the outline of the cliff path, the position of Belair House/the Seminary upon its rise with the cottages clustered beneath. He marked the inn’s vantage and the post-road’s turning. To anyone glancing over his shoulder, it was the work of a tourist recording the picturesque. To him it was intelligence.
When he looked up, a young serving girl had stopped beside him, twisting her apron. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir—Cook says if you’ve a fancy for supper, there’s stew or pie, and pie’s best while it’s hot.”
“Then pie it shall be,” he said with a faint smile.
She bobbed and hurried away, leaving him again to the wind’s low moan and the intermittent crash of waves against the harbour wall. It might have been peace if he had known how to receive it.
The pie arrived—a hearty affair of undetermined contents, untroubled by refinement—and Edmund ate without appetite, his mind occupied by the sea’s steady pulse and the faint gleam of lamps along the headland. There were lights in the upper windows of the Seminary; regular, ordered, like a line of sentries. He wondered if the widow knew what it was to count hours by discipline and loss, as many did.
By the time he went up to his room, the air was damp with mist that no windows could seal against. The sea breathed below like something immense and half-asleep. From his window he could see, even through the drifting fog, the faint outline of the school’s chimneys against the clouds.
He undressed mechanically, extinguished the lamp, and lay staring into the dark. Sleep was long in coming. When at last it did, it brought no rest, only dreams: his brother’s eyes bright with conviction, saying again,We are not enemies, Ed—we are patriots of different kinds.Would he ever reconcile himself to his brother’s betrayal?
He woke before dawn and donned his mask as Mr. Leigh, writer for a London publisher, come to consider a few local tales for a collection of the picturesque. It was a convenient fiction; no one ever suspected a man intent on books. He set out towards the cliffs with a notebook and the air of mild curiosity that attends the literary sort.
The road wound upward through furze and grass, past stone walls half-swallowed by ivy. From the rise above the harbour he caught sight of the seminary—a clean, square building of weathered stone, its windows bright and orderly, its garden enclosed by hedges. Girls in grey cloaks walked two by twobeneath the wind-bent trees, and upon the steps stood a woman with a basket upon her arm, her face turned seawards. Even at a distance he marked the poise of her—not fashionable, but with graceful composure, as though she stood firm against the gusts that would have troubled a lesser spirit.
He was meant to observe, nothing more. Yet he found his gaze lingering.
He walked on down the path and came upon a fisherman mending nets. “Good day to you,” Edmund began with studied friendliness. “Would you happen to know if the cliff path remains open to visitors? I hear the views are worth the exertion.”
The man eyed him with the suspicion due to any stranger. “Aye, the path’s there. Not for them as dislikes heights, though. Steep as sin, and the sea’ll take ye quick if ye slip.”
“Much obliged for the warning,” Edmund replied, refusing to be cowed by the man’s gruffness.
“What ye ’ere fer?” He eyed the notebook in Edmund’s hands.
“Observing and taking notes.”
The man’s gaze narrowed in disapproval. “You writing one o’ them books, then?”
Edmund smiled slightly. “Nothing so grand. Merely trying to document some of the nature hereabouts.”
With a dismissive grunt, he was at least helpful. “Then you’ll want Mrs. Larkin’s permission, sir. All that land up there’s hers now, since the late master died. Seminary, they call it. Fine place. Admirals and the like once shut themselves up there, talking o’ Bonaparte. She’s fair enough if asked proper. Don’t like trespassers, though.”
“Quite right of her,” Edmund murmured. “I shall call upon her then—if she will receive me.”
The fisherman chuckled. “Since her husband went to glory, she mostly keeps to herself and them girls.”
That, Edmund thought, was precisely what he had come to test.
He thanked the man, returned to the inn for luncheon, and spent the afternoon walking the upper lanes under pretence of sketching. Children stared; women nodded; a pair of sailors offered him a pipe. It was honest work of its sort—the quiet, tedious vigilance that makes the world turn.
Afterwards, he sat in the garden pondering his next steps. Edmund unfolded his journal and wrote:
Mrs. Larkin respected by locals.
Keeps to herself.
Twice-weekly errands to the harbour alone.
