Dovecote

by Oleson, Anne Britting;

  The gloomy day had segued into a gloomy evening, and she could see a vague reflection in the window glass. Her hand, her chin, her frown. If that were indeed her second cousin, she should probably make her way to the pub soon and introduce herself. Except. What if he felt cheated at not having inherited? Here he was, working—living? There appeared to be a flat above the pub—just across the street from the great-aunt they shared, while she had lived three-thousand-five-hundred miles away; and their great-aunt had chosen her over him. It was telling, she supposed, that he had yet to come across Eyewell Lane to introduce himself. Of course, he had a business to run, so he might just have been busy.

  Somehow she didn’t think so.

  Gwynn stared down at the pub door, painted red and with a big gold handle, a light on either side. It was unnerving to think a cousin might be behind that door. That there were others, too—Colin Moore had used the plural—who were related to her. Once Richard had died, Gwynn had slowly grown used to the idea of being on her own, an only child of only children, the last in her family living anywhere near what had always been her home, the last one there standing. That’s what had made it so easy to fly over and claim this windfall: there was no one left in Southport to hold her back, once she had learned of the cottage and her inheritance. There had been no one for years, really.

  The tears surprised her. Gwynn hadn’t cried out of loneliness for a long time. She hadn’t cried for Richard in years. Slowly she lowered her face into her arms on the table and let the tears come, just for a minute. It hurt, she was surprised to realize; it was raw. Still. After all this time. Just for a minute, she told herself, because she might be lonely, but wasn’t she independent? Hadn’t she come to a point where she could sell the company she and Richard had started together? Hadn’t she come to the point where she could start looking for something to do with her own life that she enjoyed? Hadn’t she? But in this minute, dislocated and disjointed, she found herself staring down a dark tunnel of empty years leading to the future. At the loneliness of knowing there was no one else who cared. Much as, she suddenly knew, her great-aunt had felt.

  Gwynn let herself cry just a little bit longer, then ordered herself back to practicality. She lifted her head, hoping no one in the street below the window had witnessed her brief breakdown. She looked to the glass, wiping her eyes quickly when she thought she was seeing double: two vague reflections. Her own, white-faced, teary-eyed—and the other standing behind her, white-haired, a shimmering image of an old woman who lifted a hand, then was gone.

  6

  THE BELL OVER the shop door tinkled as she entered. Behind the counter, the proprietress—Leah, Colin Moore had called her—looked up and smiled. It seemed the first real smile Gwynn had seen in days. Her own face felt stiff when she smiled in return.

  “What do you need, love?”

  Leah looked like someone’s mother—or at least, how one would hope a mother would look. Her dark hair was held back from her round face with clips; her cheeks were flushed. Yet she couldn’t have been all that much older than Gwynn.

  “I’ve got a gate latch that’s rusted shut,” Gwynn said. “I don’t know if you’ve got some penetrating oil or something that would loosen it up.”

  Leah frowned for a moment in thought, then pushed back her stool from the counter and stood. “I think out here.” She was wearing a flowered bib apron, but Gwynn saw when she stood that she was wearing jeans. Still, she absolutely bustled around the counter and toward the back. Gwynn followed through a room with racks of towels and hangers of aprons very much like the one the woman wore. Another room held shelves of light bulbs and fixtures. There seemed no logical order, and yet the woman seemed to know exactly where she was headed, along the narrow passage, deeper and deeper into the building. Finally she ducked through a low doorway and stopped so quickly Gwynn nearly ran into her. “Here.” She reached up onto a shelf to the left and pulled down a small can. “You’re in luck. I think this is the only one left. I’ll have to have Harvard order some more.” Again the smile. “Would there be anything else today?”

  Gwynn shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re in Gull Cottage over on Eyewell Lane now, aren’t you?” Leah asked over her shoulder as they returned through the labyrinth to the front counter. “Gwynneth Chelton’s old place? How’re you finding it?”

  “Yes,” Gwynn answered, suddenly wary. “It’s—interesting.”

  Leah shot back an openly curious look. “You’re on your own?”

  They reached the counter. Leah, surprisingly, wrote out a receipt by hand on a block. She made change from a drawer under the bench, then dropped the can of oil into a small paper bag. She seemed not to notice how long Gwynn took to answer, so intent was she upon the sale, a tiny frown between her dark brows. “Harvard just mentioned he’d seen all the lights on, upstairs and down, the other night. Thought you might be throwing a party.” She laughed, handing Gwynn the bag, though there was more than a hint of question in her tone.

  Gwynn’s smile was again tight, making her feel her face was not her own. “No, it’s just me.”

  Leah shrugged, still cheerful, still curious. It was like playing chess. “Well, if you need anything more, you stop in.” She waved her hands at the wild array around her. “We’ve got some of everything.”

  GWYNN STUFFED THE paper bag and receipt into the cold stove on the way through to the back garden. The dead leaves whispered wetly underfoot as she forced her way through the brambles, and the closer she came to the wall, the darker the day seemed to grow. She shivered, wishing she’d worn a heavier jacket, wondering if the sun ever fell at the rear of the cottage. Those brambles she had shoved aside on her previous trip had sprung back as though insulted that she would wish to tame them. Determined, she pushed her way to the gate, still black and stubborn; she ignored the scratching at her legs and arms.

  Apply liberally. Allow to work into rusted metal.

  Gwynn opened the nozzle, made a test squirt, and then worked the point down into the innards of the latch. The rusted metal darkened with the spread of the oil. After a moment’s consideration, she squirted some into the gate’s two equally rusted hinges as well. From somewhere beyond the high wall came a sudden rustle of wings, a chorus of cooing. Doves? She wasn’t sure. The air was still and cold and wet; with her free hand, she rubbed her arm, trying vainly to warm herself. It was no use: the dampness which had rusted the metal had worked its way into her bones.

  She waited impatiently for a few minutes, then grasped the latch and pulled it. Nothing. It did not move. She shoved the flat can into her back pocket and used both hands. Still nothing.

  This was getting ridiculous. Gwynn jerked the can out again and squirted the remainder of the oil all over and into the latch, cursing it for the foul thing it was. The smell of the oil worked its way into her nose, overlaying the scent of wet leaves and mold and old, wet wood. Probably she would have to leave it overnight, and the thought of having to be that much more patient infuriated her.

  The sound of the doves grew louder, as though an entire flock roosted just on the other side of the wall. She looked up at the ivy, wishing it were possible to see over. One more glance at the latch—she wouldn’t touch it this time, in case she jinxed the efficacy of the oil—and she turned away, disgusted, resisting the urge to haul off and kick the damn thing.

  Gwynn shoved her way back through the brambles and heard, above the crying of the doves, a soft human sobbing. She turned and gazed intently at the closed gate, to the high wall.

  “Is—anyone out there?” she called after a moment.

  But there was only the low cooing of birds. Nothing else. She must have imagined it.

  7

  GWYNN WAS UNSETTLED all afternoon at her drawing, and when the light, never strong to begin with, began to fail, she set the pencils aside and pushed back from the table. Still she remained sitting in the chair before the window, watching the streetlights bloom in the lane. The hulkin
g stone facade of the pub across the way grew darker, the gold handle on the red door sparked by the lamps beside it. The afternoon was still gloomy, but now the daylight had bled away. All day, each time she’d looked up, it had looked like a rainy scene—but without the rain. Two men emerged from the pub’s door and stood huddled under the overhang between the glowing bow windows on either side. One shook a cigarette out of a packet and offered it to the other, who waved it away. The first man lit a match and bent over it, cupping the flame in his hand. After a moment, he leaned back, pulled the cigarette from his lips, and blew a long cloud into the air, where it hung over their heads.

  She watched the two take their leave from one another, one man heading up the hill, the second down toward the village.

  It would be companionable, she thought wistfully, to spend an hour in the local with a friend. Talking football or the EU, perhaps. She could imagine the low murmur of voices punctuated by the occasional laugh, the clink of glass against glass. All romanticizing: she had yet to set foot inside the pub. She felt hesitant, knowing what she knew about the proprietor. A cousin. More than likely, a resentful one. She sighed.

  The clock in the sitting room struck the hour.

  There really was no way around it. She plucked her coat from the tree by the front door, checked to be sure she had her keys and cash, and let herself out.

  THE PUB WAS very much as she had imagined it, though dingier, not quite as firelit, not quite as noisy. It was early yet, and there were only a handful of people scattered about the low heavy tables, and a couple more at the fruit machine to the right. The man she had seen the other day, sans cap and red jacket, had his shirtsleeves rolled up as he wiped down the bar, his backward twin in the speckled mirror behind him. He looked up as she entered and nodded shortly, as though they were acquaintances. Which, after a fashion, they were.

  “What’ll you have, Mrs. Forest?” he asked, tossing the bar towel aside. He was wearing reading glasses, and he dipped his head to look over them at her. His voice was not hostile, nor was it overly friendly. Just neutral. On guard.

  She looked at the taps; they all advertised Bowman Ales. “What do you recommend, Mr. Stokes?” Two could play this game, she supposed—as long as she hadn’t made a grievous error in guessing his identity.

  Again he nodded. Acknowledgement of points to both sides.

  “I’d suggest a Swift One.”

  “A pint, then. And have something yourself.” She laid her money down and watched his large hands upend a glass and pull the tap handle.

  The ale gushed out a warm light amber. Almost the color of her hair, she thought, catching a glimpse of herself in the back bar mirror. Almost the color of his, too.

  “You know who I am, then,” she said as he slid the pint glass across the buffed wood of the bar.

  He nodded again, his eyes narrowed above the glasses. “Not hard. You’ve been in the village—what? Two days now? Three?”

  Something told her he knew exactly how long she’d been in the village, in the cottage, down to the minute. She nodded. She recognized the beginning of a dog fight, the two of them circling warily, getting a sense of one another.

  “And you know who I am.” He drew himself a half, took a long drink, then wiped his sandy moustache with the back of his wrist.

  “Cousins,” Gwynn said. “Of a sort. I didn’t even know I had any cousins until James Simms the solicitor told me I did.”

  “So you thought you’d just slip across and say hello.”

  “I did.”

  “You want to gloat?”

  The anger burst out so swiftly and unexpectedly—violently, even—that it was like being slapped. Gwynn reeled back, staring at Paul Stokes.

  “No,” she gasped, catching her breath.

  He tossed back the rest of his half as though it were water, then set the glass on the bar so sharply Gwynn thought it would break. She too took a long sip from her pint, rolled it around on her tongue, buying time. Perhaps she had imagined the anger. Perhaps she was just paranoid. She blinked, letting the world right itself.

  “This is good,” she offered weakly after a moment.

  Stokes sneered at the inanity. “If that’s all you can come up with.” Leaning with both hands against the bar, he watched her with those narrowed eyes. They were dark, deep-set.

  She willed herself to hold his gaze. Not so paranoid after all.

  “Stokes. What Gwynn’s having,” Colin said.

  Gwynn had not seen him come in; perhaps he’d been in the pub all along.

  Stokes started, though, more so than she thought he might have at the request. A moment passed before she realized that Colin had used her given name; he had not once called her by it the previous afternoon, maintaining a formal distance. The name had jarred her cousin: Gwynn. The given name of their mutual great-aunt.

  “If Sarah’s around, come join us and sit for a minute.” Colin’s suggestion was firm, saying more than the words. He paid for his pint, nodded in the direction of an empty table in the rear corner. Gwynn followed him through the gauntlet of customers, the pub filling now; he heard Paul Stokes shout “Sarah!” over his shoulder before skirting the bar to join them.

  Perhaps later in the evening someone would touch a match to the already-laid fire on the broad hearth beyond their corner table. Perhaps Stokes would, after he’d calmed down. Right now, though, he was too angry to do much of anything save yank the chair out and throw himself heavily into it. Gwynn felt the waves of fury rolling off him as though heat from a furnace. No fire needed. She recoiled, inching her chair a bit further away from him.

  “Why are you here?” Stokes demanded. He’d abandoned his half-pint glass for a full one.

  Gwynn reminded herself that she had expected the antagonism. Whether her cousin owned this pub or simply managed it, having lived with expectations of inheritance for so long and then having those expectations dashed must have been gall in his mouth.

  “I told you,” she said. “To meet you. I didn’t know I had any relations left in the world until Mr. Simms told me about you.”

  “Didn’t know you were taking from me, then?” Stokes didn’t sound convinced. He held his glass between both hands. The dim light glinted on the sandy hair on his thick arms.

  “Our great-aunt made that choice,” Gwynn protested. “I had nothing to do with it. We never spoke about it.” Nor about anything else, she thought, but that was beside the point.

  “You could have refused the bequest. But you didn’t.”

  She hated being made to feel defensive. She had always hated it. She knew, from experience, that someone who worked to make her feel that was immune to reason, so there was no point in attempting to defend herself anyway. The hole would only get deeper.

  “No. I didn’t.” She sighed, took a sip of ale. “I’m not here to gloat.” She set her glass down in the wet circle on the scuffed table.

  “No? Well, I’m guessing you’re not here to turn the house over to me, either.” Stokes nearly spat the words. He’d taken off the reading glasses, and now turned the wire frames in his beefy hands as though he might crush them.

  “Tell me why I should give you Gull Cottage.” The words sounded more of a challenge than she had intended; she’d have to moderate her tone if she expected this conversation to go anywhere.

  Stokes leaned toward her. “Because you were nothing to Gwynn Chelton. Nothing. You didn’t even know her.”

  “But Mrs. Chelton obviously knew about Gwynn,” Colin said, laying heavy emphasis on the given name.

  “Stay out of this, Moore,” Stokes said. “It’s none of your business. This is a family matter, between Mrs. Forest and me.”

  His voice, though low, sounded clear over the clink of glassware, the shouts of the men at the fruit machine. The rage was loud and obvious.

  “You weren’t here, Not when the old woman needed you. Not like I was. You’re not the one who grew up here. You’re not the one who looked in on the old woman, who took c
are of things for her when she wasn’t able. You did sod all for her, and she left the entire bag to you in her will? Why’s that, then? Because you two shared a name? That’s just not on. You don’t deserve the house. You’re an incomer, taking what isn’t yours—what you have no right to.” Again Stokes leaned closer, so close the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes was acrid in Gwynn’s nostrils. “If you had half a shred of decency in you, you’d refuse the bequest, and let it go to relations who were closer. Relations who are deserving. Relations who were here.”

  Again Gwynn felt the fury like a slap, and again she recoiled. It was black, powerful, and frightening. Was it right, though? Perfectly legal, the solicitor had reassured her, but was her inheritance morally right? She shook her head.

  “What did you do for her?” she asked.

  Gwynn thought Stokes’ face grew redder at the question, but in the dim lighting she couldn’t be sure.

  “I was here. Here for her. Unlike you.” He slapped a beefy hand on the worn table. “And I am contesting that will, you can be sure of it.” He stood up, kicked the chair aside. “You’ll be hearing from my solicitor. So don’t get too comfortable over there, because you’ll be out on your ear. It’s only a matter of time.”