Home From The Sea

by Keegan, Mel

  It was the shutter in Jim’s bedroom, and mention of it brought a rush of heat to his face. Mrs. Clitheroe was oblivious, but he felt the flush in his cheeks and covered it by giving Toby a wink. “Check them all, while you’re at it, and make sure they’re locked down tight. Then, if you can manage it, you could run up to the market in Budleigh – you know it? – and get us half a gallon of milk and a pound or two of salt butter. God knows when we’ll get any more.” He nodded toward the bar. “Take sixpence out of the coin box and fetch some apples and cheese as well, if you can find any. I’d go myself, but –” He slapped the leg that infuriated him more today than usual. “I’ll be far too slow, and unless I miss my guess, you’ll be coming home in the rain even if you run!”

  It was only later when he realized what he had said. Coming home. As if Toby Trelane belonged here now. Part of Jim ached to believe it was true, but he mocked himself for the whimsy. Toby was still a stranger. One tumble on the sheets did not make him a lifelong mate, though Jim knew he could feel himself falling hard.

  “Fool,” he told himself mercilessly as he hurried back to work. “You’re a bloody halfwit, Jim Fairley, and if you’re not careful you’ll be learning it the hard way!”

  Load by load, he brought the flotsam and jetsam of the spring season inside and stacked it beside the big wooden trapdoor to the cellar. The mountain of oddments had become daunting by the time the smell of stewing beef and onions issued from the cauldron on the hob, and Toby materialized at his side.

  “We’re all secure upstairs,” he reported. “I begged a bag of rags from Mrs. Clitheroe and hammered them into a couple of casement frames, like caulking. I think we’ll survive.” He was looking at the trapdoor. “Can you manage here? I mean … damn, you know what I mean.”

  He meant, could Jim make it up and down steps that were as steep as ship stairs, twenty times, or thirty, to get this pile of gear stowed, and do it by the light of a single lantern.

  “I’ll manage,” Jim muttered, furious with himself for the frailty of the limb – and for the vulnerability of his emotions, which was worse.

  Toby’s hand was light on his shoulder. “You’ll sit down by the kitchen hearth and have a mug of something, and wait for me to get back from market. Sixpence from the coin box, you said?” Jim nodded. Toby hesitated. “With the weather like this, you’ll get no business for the next day or three.”

  “All the more reason to get in some milk and butter.” Jim gave him a push. “We’ve got plenty of lamp oil, and Edith says we can make do with what salt and flour and sugar we have. Go on, Toby, while you can. They’ll be closing down the stalls and running for home in another half hour.”

  “Then I’ll be quick.” Toby drank a cup of water to the bottom and shrugged into the coat he had left on the chair in the corner. “Bess? Come on, girl, you fancy a run? What about you, Boxer? Come on!” He gave Jim a crooked grin and left the tavern via the bar, where he stooped to pull out the coin box and count out an assortment of farthings and ha’pennies.

  The door had banged behind him and the dogs when Mrs. Clitheroe looked up from the pastry she was abusing with a rolling pin so old, the wood was nearer black than brown. “Now, ’e’s a right good lad, is that un.”

  “Yes.” Jim poured himself a mug of tea. “Yes, he is. And he’s so full of secrets, you don’t know what to make of him half the time!”

  “Master Trelane?” She cackled again, like a broody hen. “I’d say ’e’s been ’round the block a few times, is all. Thee’s never been the places Toby Trelane’s been, nor done the things ’e’s done. None o’ that makes the lad wicked, mind.”

  “Just makes me sheltered as a hapless little virgin girl,” Jim observed with dry humor, and held up a hand to forestall her apologies. “No, don’t say a word. You’re far from wrong. Fred Bailey was saying the same thing – I need to get out, he said. Get out and do things, before I’m too old.”

  “An’ old Fred’d be right,” she said shrewdly. “Stuck in ’ere all day with the likes of Fred an’ me…? Make thee old before thy time, it will. Still, Master Trelane’s ’ere now.”

  “To stay?” Jim had sat on the stool at the hearth, and looked up at the old woman quizzically.

  “To stay for long enough.” She threw her considerable weight against the dough, rolling it out for the usual pies and pasties, though Jim doubted there would be any drinkers in the house tonight.

  “Long enough for what?” He chuckled.

  Mrs. Clitheroe looked at him cannily. “I dunno,” she said at last. “But yon lad’s good fer thee – ’e’s a breath of fresh salt air in this musty old place. What, you didn’t smell it?”

  In fact Jim did, but he said nothing and finished his tea in silence, content to watch as she cut out the rounds for the pies, stacked them, and threw raisins into the leftover pastry pieces. His leg ached, if he bothered to notice it. He preferred to ignore it until it pained him too badly, and then reach for the rum in preference to the Dutch laudanum, since the rum did not knock him flat on his back and leave him dizzy.

  The backdoor into the tavern yard was open, and he heard the rain begin. The sound of big, fat drops falling onto wet flagstones was exactly like the crackle of bacon sizzling in a skillet, and his nostrils flared as he smelt the rain too. It was sharp with the tang of the beach, and when a swirl of cold air wafted into the kitchen, he smelt the ocean there also – the scent of ships and harbors, ports that were the starting points for places unknown, and the mysterious lands known only as points on maps, with names like Barbados and Hispaniola, Java and Borneo.

  With a shiver he went to the door, about to close it against the cold, rising wind and the steel-gray daylight, when he saw Toby come loping back into the yard with the dogs at his heels. His hair was plastered flat to his head; over his shoulder was a sack, tied down tight to his back, and he ran with his hands thrust deep into coat pockets, the collar pulled up about his ears.

  The easy loping gait made Jim as envious as admiring. Toby was in fine condition – not even breathing hard as he came to a halt in the shelter of the eaves, where he slipped the sack off his shoulder. “Everything you wanted, and a couple of treats. They were almost giving away the milk and butter, to get rid of it before the storm. They don’t know when they’ll have a chance to sell it again – and sure to God, the cow won’t stop making the stuff!”

  They were inside as he spoke, and Jim secured the door behind him. The kitchen was dim, lit only by a half dozen lanterns. Toby took off coat and boots, and set them close to the fire to dry as Jim opened up the sack. Milk, in brown glass jars with the corks waxed into place; butter and cheese wrapped up in scraps of oilskin and tied with string; eight big red apples; and a bag that might have been a tobacco poke, but was stuffed with mint humbugs the size of a child’s thumb.

  Surprised, delighted, Jim chuckled. “We’ll reward ourselves for hard work, will we?” He gave the mountain of gear a look of resignation. “Maybe after we’ve shifted that.”

  “Into the cellar.” Toby was intent on the trapdoor, which was nestled into the back corner of the kitchen between the back door and the hearth. His brows knitted into a faint frown. “Well, now.”

  “Well …?” Jim prompted.

  But Toby shrugged away the question and grabbed a spare lantern from the shelf at left of the door. “Soonest started, soonest done, and I’ve worked up an appetite today.” He stooped to light a taper at the hearth and took a deep breath over the cauldron of simmering beef and onions. “I won’t be singing and storytelling tonight, but I’d say I’ve already earned my supper. Yes?”

  “Supper, and a lot more,” Jim decided, mindful of Mrs. Clitheroe.

  The remark brought a sparkle to Toby’s eyes as he lit the lantern. “Then, let’s get this lot shifted, and we’ll settle down and watch the storm come in. There were fishermen at the market – did you want fish? I don’t care for it, myself, except for kippers – and they were saying the storm’ll land on these shores arou
nd dusk. They were seeing lightning over the horizon before noon, and decided to head in early.”

  The lantern was burning brightly, and Jim beckoned him to the trapdoor. “Give me a hand with this. It’s heavy.”

  The timbers were old, salvaged from a ship sunk on the coast about the time The Raven was built, a hundred years before. Two strong backs lifted it easily enough. Jim looked up into Toby’s face, about to say he would go down first with the light, since he knew the steps, which were steep and inclined to be slick with moss. The look in Toby’s eyes banished the words, and Jim hesitated. Toby had the lantern in his left hand, the better to balance his weight against the wall with his right, and he was already going down.

  He knew these stairs – it was obvious he knew the cellar as well as he knew the rest of the tavern. But as a guest in the house of Charlie Chegwidden’s old mother, who had owned The Raven outright since she was widowed, he should never have been shown this part of the building, and Jim was surprised. Disquieted.

  Without comment he followed Toby down, watched him light a second lantern at the bottom of the steps. There, he took a lamp in each hand and turned around, peering into the coagulated, tar-thick shadows as if –

  As if he was searching for something. Jim came down to the bottom stair and hovered there, intent on him for some moments before he found his voice. He said quietly,

  “If you tell me what you’re hunting for, I’ll help you look.”

  Toby gave a small start and turned toward him with an almost sheepish expression. “I’m being a boor. I apologize.”

  “Don’t apologize. Explain.” Jim frowned around at the familiar cellar with its storage barrels, crates and cases. Sugar, flour, salt, tea and coffee were kept on the shelves in one corner; the kegs of rum and barrels of ale were stored, stacked one atop another, in the opposite corner, and between the two were crates of nails, coiled rope, assorted tools, discarded kitchen pots and rags, all manner of flotsam set down here against the day it was needed, now long forgotten and decaying.

  “You’re still looking for something of Charlie’s, aren’t you?” Jim wondered, more a statement than a question. “The same thing you expected to get when you arrived here, not knowing he was dead, rest his soul.”

  “Rest his poor soul,” Toby echoed philosophically. He shrugged. “Forgive me, but you know I am.” He hesitated and wore an apologetic look as he confessed, “I had a good look around upstairs while I was fixing the shutters. I even had a quick look around in the loft, while I was working on the thatch, in case…” He breathed a gusty sigh. “Sorry. I just thought, maybe Charlie might have hidden some of his things away where you and your father didn’t find them, and –”

  “And you might get what you came here looking for, after all,” Jim finished. “You didn’t find anything, then?”

  The fair head shook, and Toby gestured with the lantern in his right hand. “I’m not seeing it here, either.”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Jim. Honestly.”

  “I told you, I’ll help you look. Whatever it is you’re searching for, I probably don’t even know I’ve got it, so – take it, and good health to you.” Jim swiped the lantern out of Toby’s left hand and played it around the cellar, casting evil shadows into the corners where moss grew, blue-green and malodorous. All he saw was the same old barrels, kegs, crates, cases.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Toby was heading back up as he spoke. “There’s a lot to move – stay where you are, and I’ll pass the smaller things down to you. You know where you want to stash all this rubble?”

  “Rubble?” Jim echoed.

  “Stuff, then.” Toby was back in the kitchen, and peered down at him, face lit weirdly from below. “Ready for the small pieces?”

  It took less time than Jim had imagined to move the mountain of rubble, and he gave some thought to the sheer convenience of having a second pair of strong hands at the tavern. Toby would be useful.

  If he stayed; and all at once Jim was uncertain. Toby was here looking for something, and if he found it – and even if he didn’t – what was there at The Raven to keep him here? He sighed as he finished stacking the oddments to make most of them accessible, even while he knew he would not need anything here for six months, by which time it would be forgotten.

  He was done when heard Toby’s voice from up above, sharp with concern: “Whoa! It’s all right, Bess … come here, girl. It’s fine. It’s nothing.”

  The leg was acid-hot, as if with a knife wound, as Jim climbed back up. He heard the second roll of thunder, startlingly close at hand. The first had been muffled by the cellar, but Bess was shivering by the hearth and Boxer was wide-eyed, poised on his toes as if he would run at any moment, though there was nowhere to run to. Without being asked, Toby lent his hands to get the trapdoor back into place. It landed with a solid thud of ancient timber on older stone, and Jim blew out both lanterns. They sat smoking on the shelf while he came to the fire to warm his hands, and he and Toby listened to the wind. It had begun to howl softly in the chimney now, like a tormented soul trying to escape some hell.

  “It’s gunner be bad,” Mrs. Clitheroe said sagely. “It’s gunner be bad as the big un when I were a slip of a lass, an’ four big ships was sunk between ’ere an’ Portsmouth. Me uncle were on one of ’em, an’ ’is wife come to live wi’ us after, cuz the old bugger were a swine fer drink an’ left ’er wi’ nuthin’ when the sea took ’im.”

  “Damn.” Jim felt a shiver, right to the bone. He lifted a brow at Toby, who nodded.

  “I’ve seen a few bastard storms, and this one’s got the makings of a demon.” He was moving as he spoke, heading for the tavern’s front door, which he opened a mere crack to step outside.

  Even that small gap let the wind whip in and Jim was quick to haul the wood back into place. They stood under the thatched eaves, watching surf crash onto the beach under a sky streaked with great arcs of lightning. The horizon was invisible in a blue-gray haze of rain, but Jim saw the whitecaps of waves, twice the height of a tall man, and the sea was gray and seething as molten lead.

  A demon, Toby had said. The term was apt. The rain stung Jim’s face and he was wet to the skin in the few moments they watched the sea and sky, trying to read nature’s intent. No one was on the coastal path and no ships were in sight. They should be well out by now, with sea anchors set and a light crew of experienced hands aboard, secured to ride it out.

  Lightning sheeted out the sky and the thunder boomed a scant second later, making Jim duck while his heart leapt into his throat. Toby’s hand on his arm drew him back to the door. They wrestled it open and shut, and dropped the bar across it. Jim only used the bar when a sea wind came screaming in, strong enough to test the bolt. In all his years at The Raven this was only the fifth time he had slammed that bar into place, and with the shutters hammered down, the tavern was effectively locked against the world.

  “Damnation,” Toby whispered, hugging himself. “I’m soaked to the bone. Will I get the big fire going out here in the taproom, or will we stay in the kitchen?”

  “I’m for staying in the kitchen,” Jim decided. “It’s smaller – easier to heat and light.” He plucked at his shirt and made a face. “I’m as wet as you are. You got dry clothes?”

  But Toby made negative noises. “Only stockings and linen. I don’t have much, as you well know.”

  He only seemed to own what he could carry, and he had come looking for Charlie Chegwidden, expecting his fortunes to change. Jim sighed. “My things ought to fit you. You’re thinner than I am, but I never wore my clothes tight. You’re taller than I am, but – the same.”

  “You’re going to give me your castoffs?” Toby asked in a tone of such bitterness, Jim shot a startled look at him.

  “I’m going to lend you some clothes before you catch your death of cold and die at my feet,” he said sharply. “If you’re even half as good at the balladsinger’s trade as you say you are, you’ll ear
n nice money here and in a week you can bugger off to Exmouth and buy whatever you like.”

  Toby had the grace to duck his head with a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I’m a little out of practice at being sociable.”

  “So I notice.” Jim marched past him, to the kitchen door. “Edith, we’re going up to get dry. How long till supper?”

  “It’ll be a good ’alf an hour,” she told him over her shoulder as she slid a black iron tray of pasties onto the big hob to bake. “Take thy time, thee’s got plenty of it.”

  So Jim headed for the dark well of the stairs without a glance back at Toby, only knowing the man was following by the footfalls a few paces behind him. He lit a brace of candles on the chest of drawers on the landing, and used one to light four more on the table at his bedside. The room was dim, chill, almost dank. Though the shutters were secured, a draft was getting in somewhere, cold on his cheek and making the candles stutter as he set them down.

  He kept his clothes in two brassbound trunks by the foot of the bed. A seaman had left the chests here for safekeeping and never returned, nor even sent a message. More than three years after the man vanished, Jim baled up his belongings and pushed the bundle into a corner in the loft, in case he ever reappeared, but the trunks were useful. He humped them into his own room, where they remained.

  He threw them both open and stood back. “Pick what you like,” he invited Toby, bluff with a moment’s embarrassment. “It’s all the same to me.”

  “Is it?” Toby lifted out a handful of shirts and held them to his face. “Your things. They smell like you.”

  “The smell of me didn’t bother you last night,” Jim began, on the point of taking umbrage before he saw the soft smile on Toby’s face. “Oh.”

  “They smell of … you,” Toby repeated. “Jim Fairley, you’re just as out of practice at being sociable as I am.”

  “I reckon I am, at that.” Jim raked all ten fingertips through his damp hair. “I’ve known a few men, it’s true. Well, more than a few! But none for more than a week, a lot for less than a day and some for less than an hour.”