“He does the work. That’s what matters up here. Ridley was a talker—half the village knew his business before he did. Wickie’s the opposite. Keeps to himself. Tends the light.Doesn’t drink, doesn’t brawl, doesn’t come down except for stores.” Mrs Hargreaves paused. “Some folk think that’s odd. Most just think it’s his way.”
“And you?”
Mrs Hargreaves met her gaze. “I think a man who tends a lighthouse for five years without complaint and without company is either the most dutiful soul on this coast or the most troubled. And I’ve never asked which, because it’s not my business.”
Anne set a plate of bread and butter between them without comment.
“Very well. Tell me about the lantern,” Elizabeth said.
The shift in subject worked because Mrs Hargreaves, for all her bluntness, loved to talk about what she knew, and she knew Blackscar. She had been born within sight of the tower. Her mother had served as housekeeper to the last active life-long steward before Prudence Gardiner—a woman named Marian Hale, Elizabeth’s great-aunt by some degree of removal, who had lived on the headland for thirty-one years and died there in winter.
“Hard woman,” Mrs Hargreaves said, not unkindly. “Fair, though. Kept the books herself. Never married. And never let the trustees near the endowment without reading every line.”
“Ah, yes, the endowment. What do you know of it?”
“Only that it’s there. Or was. Marian drew upon it for repairs, stores, the like. When Pru Gardiner died and no steward came forward, the trustees froze it for all but the keeper's wages and supplies. Said they couldn’t release funds without a signature.”
“They told me the same.”
“Aye, well. It’s been twenty years of frozen. The cottage shows it.”
Elizabeth took a piece of bread and chewed it slowly, aware that every question she asked here would circulate through the village by nightfall.
“And the lantern itself? Has it ever failed before?”
Mrs Hargreaves frowned. “Failed?”
“Gone dark. Refused to light. Any interruption in its operation.”
“Not in my lifetime.” Mrs Hargreaves sat back and folded her arms. “Not in my mother’s, neither. There were dark nights during the wars, of course—ordered dark, by the navy, when they feared the French would use the beam for navigation. But that was policy, not failure.”
“And otherwise?”
“Otherwise,it burned. Every night. Every season. Storm, calm, fog, snow—it burned. Sometimes brighter than others, but never out. My mother said Marian Hale used to say you could set your life by that lantern. It was the one sure thing on this coast.”
Elizabeth turned her cup slowly on the table. “Until now.”
Mrs Hargreaves’ mouth thinned. “Aye. Until now.”
“When did it first go dark?”
“Fourteen days ago. Perhaps fifteen. Calder’s wife saw it first—she watches from the harbour. Said the beam stopped sweeping around midnight. She woke Calder, and by the time he’d dressed and looked, there was a hand lantern moving on the knoll. Wickie had already gone out to ward ships.”
“So, the keeper responded immediately.”
“He did. He always does. No one doubts that.” Mrs Hargreaves leaned forward. “And he’s been building that pyre with fresh driftwood the last ten nights at least. Hauled it all up the cliff himself, he did. But the pyre’s not the lantern, is it? A bonfire on a headland is a far cry from a proper beam. And the fishermen—they’re worried. They know the reef. They know what happens when the light goes wrong.”
Anne spoke for the first time. “TheHannah Crowenearly struck.”
“Tom told me,” Mrs Hargreaves said. “Two nights past. Came within a cable’s length of the northern spur. Skipper only saw the rock because the pyre threw enough light to catch the spray.”
Elizabeth set down her cup. “A cable’s length?” She meant to ask what that measured, but Mrs Hargreaves took it for the shock of someone equally staggered by the closeness.
“Aye. And theHannah Crowedraws eight feet. If she’d been any closer, she’d have gone over and taken her crew with her.”
Elizabeth nodded. An eight-foot draw was something she did understand, but the rocks… well, that was quite another. She ought to look at them herself, so that she might understand. The kitchen was quiet. Outside, a dog barked twice and fell silent.
“Has anyone else speculated about the cause of the lantern's troubles?” Elizabeth asked.
