Elizabeth turned. The woman ascending the track moved with surprising speed for one whose hair had long since surrendered to white. Her back was straight, her boots practical, her shawl tied firmly against the wind. The lines of her face were cut deep but not unkind.She might indeed have grown from the cliff itself—compact, weathered, unwilling to yield.
“I saw the carriage when you crested the hill. No mistaking a hired driver in these parts.”
Mr Gardiner’s expression warmed at once, and he removed his hat. “Mrs Hargreaves. I remember you from the occasions I would come with my mother. The years have been kind, madam.”
“Aye, Mr Gardiner, and I remember you racing down to the beach with sand in your boots and your mother scolding you for it. You’ll be Miss Bennet, then,” she said, coming to a halt and surveying Elizabeth without a hint of embarrassment.
“Elizabeth Bennet, yes. I am pleased to meet you.”
Mrs Hargreaves dipped something like a curtsey, though it was more an inclination of the head. “I’ve the key,” she added, producing it from the pocket of her apron. She pushed the door inward with brisk authority. “Come and see what’s what.”
The interior smelled of damp stone and something sharper underneath—something that made Elizabeth glance at the corners before she crossed the threshold. The main room held a narrow table, a trunk near the window, and a settle near the hearth. The hearth itself was swept clean; a little iron rack stood beside it, ready to receive kindling. Beyond that, a sitting room with a single window facing south, the light falling across bare floorboards.
Elizabeth stepped inside and let her eyes adjust. The walls bore marks where pictures had once hung. The window glass was clear enough, though one pane had been replaced with newer lead.
“My, it is certainly… snug. It will not take long to learn every corner,” she said.
“Easier to warm,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “Though the lantern house never wanted for coal. Hurst always sends it up regular enough.”
Mr Gardiner walked to the hearth and laid his hand upon the mantel. “The old iron stove is gone.”
“Cracked two winters ago,” Mrs Hargreaves said. “No sense keeping what won’t draw. Mr Robson took the scrap down and said he’d fashion something better.”
“Until he has?”
Mrs Hargreaves looked as though he were daft for asking. “There’s the open grate. Does well enough to dry out the walls.”
Her tone implied that nothing more need be said.
Elizabeth stepped into the bedchamber beyond the main room. It held a narrow bedstead, a washstand, and a small chest beneath the window. The shutters were thrownopen; air moved freely through the space, stirring the curtain. One room, one bed. She looked back through the doorway at the rest of the cottage—the sitting room, and off the kitchen, a smaller room where morning light would fall, large enough for a bedstead if one were brought up. No bedding in it at present, but perhaps that was being laundered.
“It is well aired,” she observed.
“I’ve kept it so,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “Wouldn’t do to have it close and sour itself.”
Elizabeth turned. “And you, Mrs Hargreaves. It seems as if you have not been residing here, so where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Down at my son’s house. Warmer there through the worst of winter.” She moved to the window and pushed it wider, testing the hinge. “No sense keeping two hearths when there’s been no one to mind this one.”
Elizabeth glanced once more at the small room off the kitchen. It would do for Mrs Hargreaves well enough, once a bed was arranged. She would have to see to it.
Mr Gardiner, standing near the door, gave a small nod. “Quite so.”
Mrs Hargreaves went on briskly. “I’ll see to what’s needed. There’s a man comes up weekly to chop wood, and I’ve the key to the stores. The village is near enough for anything further.”
Mr Gardiner glanced toward Elizabeth. “You will not be alone.”
“Certainly not,” Mrs Hargreaves said, as if the idea bordered on absurdity. “Not while there’s breath in me.”
“And the keeper?” Elizabeth asked.
Mrs Hargreaves shrugged, as though the matter were unremarkable. “Wickie’s about. Keeps mostly to himself. You’ll not find him meddlesome.”
Mr Gardiner glanced toward the tower, then back at the woman before him. “He must be old Ridley’s successor. I heard the poor fellow had passed some years ago.”
“Nigh on fifteen years back,” Mrs Hargreaves confirmed. “Took some finding, after Ridley. Settled proper once Wickie came. Been here five years.”
“And he attends properly to the light?”
