Hurst reached behind him and began counting candles from a box. The shop was quiet. For a brief, merciful interval, the transaction proceeded as transactions had proceeded for five years—efficiently, without conversation, without the intrusion of opinion or inquiry.
Then the door opened.
Tom Calder entered first, bringing with him the reek of fish and the harbour wind and the boundless energy of a twenty-three-year-old who had never in his life entered a room withoutaltering its temperature. Behind him came Joseph Robson, the blacksmith’s eldest, still wearing his leather apron and carrying a chisel that suggested he had left his father’s forge mid-task. A third man followed—Jem Docket, who crewed on one of the boats out of Alnmouth and who appeared in the village at irregular intervals whenever the tides and his inclination coincided.
“Wickie!” Tom clapped him upon the shoulder with a familiarity they did not share. “Coming down for air, are you? Or did she send you?”
“No one sent me. I am ordering oil.”
“Oil. Right. Nothing to do with the fact that she’s up there running the headland like a quartermaster and you’ve nowhere left to hide.”
Hurst continued counting candles without expression.
Joseph leaned against the doorframe, the chisel dangling from one hand. “My da’ says she walked Tull around the knoll like a dog on a lead. Says Tull came down writing ‘mechanical fault’ in his book like she’d put the words there herself.”
“She did not—” He stopped. He closed his mouth.
Tom’s grin widened. Jem Docket, who had never had words with the keeper before and had no reason to torment him, leaned against the opposite wall and watched the exchange with the frank enjoyment of a man who had stumbled upon free entertainment.
“Who is she, then?” Jem asked Tom in a voice that carried no effort at discretion. “The one the whole harbour’s been talking about?”
“Steward,” Tom said. “Up from London. Came with one trunk and took the whole headland in hand inside a week. Walks up that hill every morning before dawn and doesn’t come down till after dark.”
“And she lives up there? With him?” Jem looked at the keeper with renewed interest.
“She lives in the cottage,” the keeper said.
“The cottage with the chimney that doesn’t work, aye,” Tom said. “So, she cooks at the tower, eats at the tower, works at the tower, spends her evenings at the tower—but she lives in the cottage. Very clear.”
Hurst set the candles on the counter in a neat row. “Two dozen tallow,” he said. “Shall I wrap them, or are you in a hurry to leave?”
“Wrap them.”
Hurst began wrapping with the slow, methodical care of a man who understood that the chandlery was currently serving as an arena and that his role was to furnish the stage, not to perform upon it.
“She’s clever, I’ll give her that,” Joseph said. He had begun turning the chisel in his hands, a habit his father shared. “Da’ says she asked Tull about reporting timelines while Wickie stood there like a post. Bought him a fortnight longer than Tull wanted to give 'im. A whole month, Tull said.”
“She bought the trust a month,” the keeper said. “The trustees. Not me.”
“Aye, the trust.” Tom exchanged a look with Jem that communicated everything the words had not. “And you just happened to be standing there. Behind her. While she did it.”
A woman appeared in the doorway—Meg Robson, Joseph’s mother, wide-shouldered and sun-browned, with a basket of net floats over one arm. She looked at the assembly of men, then at the keeper, then at her son.
“Are you lot tormenting him again?”
“We’re not tormenting anyone, Ma. We’re having a conversation.”
“You’re having a conversation the way cats have conversations with mice.” She pushed past Joseph and set the floats on Hurst’s counter. “Leave him be. The man’s come down for oil, not for an inquisition.”
“Thank you, Mrs Robson,” the keeper said.
“Don’t thank me. I’m as curious as they are. I just have manners.” She turned her full attention on him, and her eyes held the same quality he had learned to recognise in Mrs Hargreaves: the frank assessment of a woman who had been watching him for five years and had formed opinions she was too polite to voice in a chandler’s shop but not too polite to hold in reserve. “She seems a capable young woman, your steward.”
“She is notmysteward. She is the steward of the trust.”
“Of course she is.” Meg collected her empty basket and patted Joseph on the arm as she passed. “Come home when you’re done. Your father wants that chisel back.”
She left. Tom leaned against the counter and let the silence do its work.
