“All of us?” Nicky said. “Jim, too?”
Callie hesitated. Gabriel intervened. “I need to have a word with Jim in private, first. Jim?” He waved a hand toward the door, and with visible trepidation Jim went.
“Now, Jim, I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with us,” Gabe said once he had taken Jim into the library.
Jim sat on a chair opposite him looking small and skinny and scared. The livid mark of the count’s whip bisected his swollen face. It gleamed with Mrs. Barrow’s ointment. His head was hunched defensively into his shoulders. His ears stuck out, made larger-seeming by his severe haircut, and somehow adding to the look of vulnerability. He said nothing.
Gabe said gently, “You told us your father had only been gone for a week or two.”
Jim nodded, then swallowed, the action painfully visible in his scrawny neck.
“Mrs. Barrow got Barrow to ask around,” Gabe said. “Nobody has seen your father for at least six or eight weeks.”
“You’re not goin’ to put me on the parish as an orphan, are ya, sir? Coz if you are, I won’t go. I’ll run away.” Jim looked around the room desperately and tensed, as if preparing to flee.
“No, we won’t put you on the parish,” Gabe assured him.
Jim’s eyes fixed on Gabe’s. “You promise?”
“I promise. But you must tell me the truth.”
Jim searched his face with painful intensity. He seemed to find reassurance in Gabe’s expression, for the tension drained from his body. “Me dad’s been gone more’n two months. I reckon he’s dead. He ain’t never left me for that long afore—never for longer’n a week.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve.
Gabe passed him a handkerchief. Jim thanked him, folded it, and put the handkerchief carefully in his pocket, untouched.
“I’ll take care of you in the future, Jim, if you agree. But I will have the truth from you at all times.”
The boy looked at him warily. “What would you want me to do?”
“I’m not sure,” Gabe said. “For the moment, I want you to keep young Nicky company.”
Jim frowned. “You mean look after him coz bastards like that slimy yeller count are after him?”
Gabe smiled. “Something of the sort. I want you to keep him company. You’ll have to do lessons with Miss Tibby when Nicky does. And you’ll have to do whatever Mrs. Barrow tells you. And when we all go to London in a day or two, we might take you with us. If you agree.”
Jim’s eyes bulged. “To London? You’re not joking me are you, sir?”
“No joke, Jim.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “I’ll go to London, all right! And I’ll look after Nicky and do lessons and I’ll be as good as gold, sir, just you wait!”
Gabe laughed. “Good. Now, I think we should probably have a memorial service for your father, don’t you?”
Jim frowned. “You mean like in a church?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Me dad hated churches and preachers, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, sir. I don’t want no church service for him.” He looked at Gabe with an anguished expression. “If you want to change your mind about keepin’ me, sir, I’ll understand, but…I couldn’t let me dad down on this. He was a good dad.” He sniffed again, and again used his sleeve.
Gabe was touched. He ruffled Jim’s spiky hair. “No, you’re quite right to respect your father’s wishes. But I think you should do something to say good-bye him. What do you think he’d like us to do?”
They all gathered at the beach next to Jim’s cottage that evening at dusk. Mrs. Barrow had prepared a good spread of baked meats and funeral fare. Barrow had spread the word and about twenty of Jim’s father’s friends came. They seemed to know what Jim’s father would wish.
They lit a fire on the beach. They carried beach stones to the top of the cliff and built a cairn looking out to sea. Then, down on the beach, they dragged out a battered dinghy, ancient and unseaworthy, with a large gash in its side. The fishermen repaired it roughly, hammering planks over the hole and plastering it with hot tar to make it temporarily seaworthy.
From the cottage, Jim brought out a number of items. He distributed his father’s things among the fishermen; his clothes, his tools, various bits and pieces from a man’s life.
There was pitifully little.
