“That’s a load of bollocks.”
Arthur turned to Lance and John. “Could you leave us? You too, Vi.”
When James felt Arthur’s weight rock the bed, he lowered his hands to reveal his blotchy face. “Why now? In the middle of all this? He shouldn’t be here. I don’t need him to be here now with all his insipid little apologies.”
Arthur took his hand and placed their entwined fingers on his own knee. “Loads to think about right now. Plenty of trouble and strife. What’s one more thing?”
James had to allow an ironic giggle to puff out.
“We’ve come so far,” Arthur said. “Let’s find Matthew. The rest can wait until then. Unless,” he paused, “you wanted to...”
James let Arthur’s response hang in the air for a long time. “Wanted to what?” he finally finished.
Arthur let out a little grunt of frustration.
“Wanted to what, Arthur?”
Arthur looked at his watch. “We ought to go.”
“Especially if John insists on paying for breakfast,” James sneered. “As if that makes up for all those years of Mum and me , all alone.”
Arthur put an arm around him for a moment and dropped his head as if in prayer. “It could be a start,” he whispered.
Chapter 27
They’d been walking for over an hour when the boy, a sprightly mop-handle-skinny thing with curly hair that completed the mop comparison, pointed to the gray peak of a roof and a small chimney that had appeared behind a hill. “Tha’s the place. Though ye willna see ‘im. I put the post on his doorstep and he leaves me a coin a’times, or an apple.”
“He never comes into town at all?” James asked as they slowed their steps on the dusty trail. To their right was a glorious expanse of rolling hills, then craggy cliffs over the Sound of Raasay. The day had clouded over and the sky threatened rain. This did nothing to diminish the beauty of it all.
“Nae sir, but betimes when I come there be letters to post, or a list of things set under a rock at the doorstep with some money. Then I go buy things and bring ‘em to ‘im. Food, or nails, or paint and such. He sends away for different seeds to plant.” He thought a minute, putting a dirty fingernail against his chin a moment. “Haven’t done that in some time. He must be eatin’ badgers and coneys and the like.”
“Who are the letters to?” John puffed, red-faced from the exertion.
“A Mr. Marlin, or a Mr. Blanchard. Every time.”
“The letters he received,” Lance wondered as he turned to the boy, “did they have money inside?”
“I woulna ken, sir.” The boy lifted his button nose and pointed chin. “I’m no thief and I dinna read other people’s letters.”
“No thief?” James scoffed. “What about the collection plate?”
The boy’s eyes bloomed large. “You ken abou’ that?”
Lance put a reassuring hand on the boy’s bony shoulder. “I only wondered how he made his living, how he afforded the groceries he’d send you for.”
The boy shrugged. “I’ve barely even seen him. Just through the window. When someone comes up the lane his dogs bark. That’s how he knows to go inside and draw the curtains.” He rubbed his hands together. “I canna wait to see ‘im. Wonder if he’s got a scarred-up face.”
“No.” James firmly pointed back down the way they’d come. “We’re very grateful for your help, but this is a private matter.”
“At least tell me his name,” the boy begged.
“Off with you,” Lance ordered, and gestured to Arthur. “Or my friend Arthur the Giant will sit on you and smoosh you to jelly.”
The boy turned and marched back down the path. He kicked innocent stones into the heather, hands shoved in his pockets, and swore up a storm that floated back to them on the breeze.
“Well then.” Arthur let down Mrs. Wylit, who had been riding on his back for the last fifteen minutes. Dark rings of sweat damped his armpits and his hair was moist. “This is it.”
“If he isn’t here,” Lance said, as he lit a cigarette, “God knows what we’ll do next.”
“He’s here.” John went off down the trail toward the bend. As they followed, the peak of the house and the chimney disappeared behind the small hill again. “I can feel it. He’s here.” The dogged emphasis of his face and words caused Arthur and James to share a glance, brows upturned.
As they rounded the bend in the path, they saw two canines of mottled heritage lazing beneath a small tree planted near the prim white cottage. One was small and terrier-shaped, its coat splotched with white and black. The other was bigger, with labrador ears and a tall, sleek body and bristly tan coat. As the boy promised, they bolted over and barked at the visitors in tandem, but pranced about in excitement rather than malice. And, as was predicted, the little cottage’s curtains were drawn and its door tightly shut.
Lance held his hand out to the dogs, and they both submitted to a quick pat before they raced away behind the house, only to return with a stick and a length of thick knotted rope each.
Arthur studied the cottage, with James doing the same at his side, the two of them close enough that their elbows touched. It was tiny, to be sure, but well cared-for and recently painted. The dirt path they’d been following led up to the front door, and was flanked on either side by two expanses of tilled garden soil, which was fenced in with wire, sticks, bits of old furniture, and bundles of tightly-bound grass. Mounds of vegetables flourished in haphazard beauty — beets erupted from the soil, beans dangled like beads from a necklace, and tomatoes hung heavy and ripe from their vines. Two roughly-made but brightly painted flower boxes sat on either side of the cottage door, and spilled a beautiful curtain of color. At the base of these beds lay several cats of various ages and colors, sprawled out for their mid-morning naps, or sitting with their legs tucked up under them in such a way as they appeared to sit like loaves of bread in the grass. Bees visited the flowers, then cycled back to the heather-coated hills that rose up on either side of the place.
The cats regarded them with thinly-veiled annoyance as they approached the door. Arthur took a breath, and looked at James, then Lance. “I’ll stand back.”
“Right, probably for the best.” Lance turned to James. “Well. Go on, then.”
“Me?”
Lance and Arthur nodded, as did Mrs. Wylit. John stood in Arthur’s shadow as the sun broke through the clouds, a stretched, pained expression on his face, his own green eyes wide and ringed with white.
James set his shoulders, took the last few steps to the rough wooden door, and knocked sharply.
They waited, scarcely breathing. There was no sound inside, and no one answered. James knocked again. And then again. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone home? We... mean you no harm.”
“And we’re not selling anything!” Lance added with a helpful nod.
James knocked some more. “Please, sir. We... we know who you are. Mr. Harold Marlin sent us. We have his grandson, Lance, here with us. We need to speak with you. He wanted us to find you.” He paused. “We have some bad news for you, and I’d really rather not shout it through a door.”
With that, a small panel in the door slid open, and revealed two blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. James almost laughed — it was like something out of one of the gangster movies he loved and Arthur hated, as though this were the entrance to some kind of New York speakeasy. The eyes stared holes into James' face, then Lance’s. “Harold Marlin?” a soft voice inquired. “He... he sent you?”
James nodded in relief. “Yes, he’s asked us to find you.”
The eyes stared at him for a solid half-minute. Then, the voice muttered, “No, no, it can’t be, your eyes are playing tricks, playing tricks on you.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Did something... happen?” The voice was barely audible above the sudden stiff sea breeze that whipped their clothing against them. “I haven’t... eh, the money...?”
“If you’d let us inside, we could tell you,” Lance sugg
ested. Then he made the mistake of moving toward the door.
The panel slid shut with a terrified snap.
Mrs. Wylit left Arthur’s side and sat down on the edge of one of the flower boxes. She put her cigarette in her mouth to free up her hands to pet the cats. They submitted, and one of the tuxedos rolled onto his back to have his tummy scratched. “Do you want me to have a go?” she asked after a time.
“No,” they all chorused.
“Suit yourselves.” She shook cat hair from her hand.
“Easy now.” James drew Lance back by the elbow. He knocked gently again. “Sir? I’m sorry for my friend’s... Please. Mr. Marlin tasked us with finding you, and we’ve come a very long way to do so. It’s hot in the sun and we’re terribly thirsty.”
Millimeter by millimeter, the slat slid open again. “Do you have proof?” The voice that belonged to the wide blue eyes was taut and grating like a violin’s E string.
James withdrew the cottage’s deed from his jacket pocket and offered to slide it through the hole. “That came from the personal effects of Mr. Blanchard.” The man took the document with weathered fingers, though the nails were clean.
Nothing but darkness from the slat in the door, and the crinkling of paper. “This could have come from anywhere,” the voice said after a long pause. “Mr. Marlin never mentioned any of you save the grandson, and how should I know if that’s really who you are?”
“Why are you afraid of us?” Lance kept his hands out in the open as not to spook anyone. “We came here to try and help you. My grandfather... look, please, open the door and we’ll explain everything.”
“You can explain through here,” came the sharp reply. Then, “Why have you brought that big lug? Is he your bodyguard? Or will you use him to break down my door if I refuse to open it? I live up here in solitude for a reason. I never did harm to anyone, never came to your town. I’m not hurting anyone. It’s your Christian duty to leave me be.”
“I know you’re not hurting anyone,” James echoed, and nudged Lance back again. He flapped his hand at Arthur, who must have read the message and backed off several more steps. “We’re only here to tell you some news that will change your way of life here.”
“Maybe you are selling something. Does it look like I have a lot of money?”
“Please, sir, I’m begging you—” James' words hushed as he felt hands on his shoulders that guided him slowly to one side. At first he thought it was Arthur, but the hands were too small. It was his father, John, who moved him to the side and stepped up to the small stoop.
“Matthew Barlow,” John said, his face white, his breath short, eyes wet with sudden tears. “Matty.”
“No,” the voice on the other side of the door whispered. “J-Johnny? Is it... no, it can’t be, it can’t, you’re — you were — my eyes — I saw you as a young lad again and I thought—”
“Matty, it’s me.” John smiled as tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and fell on the rumpled collar of his shirt.
With a grinding squeak, the knob’s handle churned, and the door swung open.
Before them stood a man in his middle forties. James immediately saw the resemblance between him and Lady Barlow, even in her advanced age. They had the same long, regal, rounded nose and oval chin. Matthew must have inherited his father’s long arched brows and large mouth, with lips that seemed like they should smile easily but were now pressed into an anxious pucker. He wore a clean white shirt and linen trousers held up by suspenders, and a pair of worn slippers protected his feet from the cottage’s stone floor.
“It... it’s impossible,” Matthew Barlow whispered, hallowed, as if he spoke in a cathedral.
“I know.” John rubbed his eyes on his sleeve in a jerky, embarrassed gesture. “I thought it was you, but I couldn’t believe that my son came all this way to find you, of all people.”
The shocked paleness of Matthew’s pallor shifted suddenly, filling his sun-marked skin with a deep pink flush. “I never thought I’d see you again.” He stepped out of his house and leaned into a mutual embrace withe John’s arms.
James stepped back and bumped into Arthur, who looked down at him with a face twisted in puzzlement, mirroring his own expression. “What in God’s name...” James shook his head and looked at Lance, who threw up his hands.
“You’ve lost me, mate,” he said. “But, this is the man, isn’t it?”
“It’s him.” Arthur put an arm around James for a brief squeeze. “It’s Matthew Barlow. Finally.”
“But — how?” James sputtered.
After a long embrace, John and Matthew pulled back. “I must be dreaming,” Matthew murmured. His gaze shifted wildly between James’ face and his father’s. “He’s your spitting image.”
“No, it’s really me.” John smiled, and it broke the worry from his face. “I know. I can’t believe it either. It’s like something out of an old story. A legend.” He turned to the rest of the party, who gaped with open-eyed wonder — all but Mrs. Wylit, who had found a small white and tan cat and had coaxed it into her lap. “Shall we go inside? I think we all have much to say to one another. Much to explain.”
“Of course.” Matthew dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief that he’d found in his trouser pocket. “Please, come in, come in. Forgive my chilly welcome, I— I don’t get visitors. By choice.”
He led them into the cottage, which had been built long ago indeed. The centuries-old stone flooring and wooden beams told the tale of its age, but the walls were freshly painted the faintest shade of periwinkle and the glass in the small window panes was new. The front door opened into a long rectangular room that housed kitchen, sitting area, and a small library of books next to a heavy antique desk. Handmade shelves lined the walls next to a large wash basin and the ancient black kitchen stove. The furniture was old, but had been recovered with rustic fabrics, none of which matched, but seemed to be friends with one another. The decor consisted of small watercolor paintings and fresh flowers from the boxes outside, which perfumed the air with their fragrance, mixed with that of woodsmoke.
As they filed in, James heard a tiny mewing sound near the wash basin. He glanced down at an old apple crate turned on its side. Within was a folded blanket, and upon it lay a gray mother cat nursing a litter of kittens. All of them were black, except the one that was ginger-colored.
Matthew offered them seats. There was a loveseat, a well-loved armchair, and the desk chair. Mrs. Wylit perched on the small ottoman, and Lance said he was more than content to sit on the rug. Next, their host, clumsy with emotion, tried to find enough glasses to fill with water from his jug. They ended up with a few glass jelly jars and mismatched tea cups, but everyone was grateful to slake their thirst.
At last, they all sat, facing one another, Matthew and John on the loveseat, now and then looking at one another, seeking reassurance, perhaps, that the events unfolding weren’t a dream. Silence.
Then, “What’s her name?” asked Mrs. Wylit.
Matthew blinked. “Sorry, erm,” he coughed into his handkerchief a moment. “Excuse me?”
“Her name.” Mrs. Wylit pointed over her shoulder at the box.
“Oh.” Matthew smiled and dropped his head in a sheepish nod. “Er, it’s, ehm — Hippolyta.”
“Your Majesty,” Mrs. Wylit greeted the cat as she bobbed her head toward the crate. “I’m Viola Wylit.”
Matthew let a strange laugh escape. It was not used to having an audience; especially a human audience. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Wylit. I have a feeling you know who I am.” He smiled with unabashed joy at Lance. “And you’re Mr. Marlin’s grandson. Lord, do I feel old now.”
Lance laughed and apologized for doing so. “And these are my friends, James Wilde and Arthur Pensinger.”
Matthew turned to James. “He... must be yours.”
John nodded, and was quiet for a moment, his green eyes fixed on his hands. “Yes. My son. I married.”
“And then left.” James hadn’t meant i
t to slip out, and was sorry, but resentment stripped that away in a burning instant.
John lowered his head a few degrees, then reached up to touch his handkerchief to his nose. “Yes. I’m not proud of what I did, but I couldn’t stay.”
Matthew put his hand over John’s. The tenderness between them struck James in the gut, and the guilt came creeping back.
“James and I were sent to Willowind House as part of Operation Pied Piper,” Arthur leant forward and put his elbows on the massive shelf of his knees. “That’s where we met Mr. Marlin, and,” he cleared his throat, “your mother, sir. Lady Barlow. Lady Barlow told us that you had died. But later, when Mr. Marlin was ill, he asked us, James and Lance and I, to find you. We set out to know if you were alive or dead, and to fulfill his wish.”
Matthew put his fingers to his breastbone for a moment, and it was John’s turn to squeeze his other hand. “Ah,” he said, “so that’s the connection between you all.” He breathed to settle himself, and took a shaking sip of his water. “Harold Marlin is...” He glanced from face to face. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
They nodded. “I’m so sorry,” Arthur offered Matthew the strong but sympathetic bow of his head. “Loved him dearly.”
“We’ve lost Mr. Blanchard as well,” Mrs. Wylit piped up from the crate, where she was stroking one of the little kittens.
“Yes,” James confirmed. “He died last year.”
“Mr. Marlin told me that he’d been committed, but I didn’t know he’d passed.” Matthew gave a watery sigh. Still, his hand stayed locked in John’s.
“I’m their landlady, by the way,” Mrs. Wylit muttered, but no one was paying attention.
“Did... Did Mr. Marlin tell you why I came here?” Matthew dotted at his forehead with his sleeve to absorb perspiration. It was dark and cool inside the cottage, but still he flushed and his brow and neck were damp.
James looked at Arthur, then at Lance. They each gave slight nods. “Mr. Marlin sent us because... we’re all like you. So you have nothing to fear from us.”
Matthew raised a finger slightly above his knee and pointed at Mrs. Wylit with a raised eyebrow.
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