Chapter 3 #2
Was it a coincidence that the Admiral had mentioned Mrs. Larkin? This line of work was not conducive to believing in coincidences.
Elise Larkin was unsettling and he needed to discover why. He would stake his life that she knew something—but what?
That evening, after dinner, the Admiral retired early so Edmund wandered about the garden. The light had softened into gold, and the sky above the sea was streaked with pinks and lavender. The cliff path was visible from here, cutting its lonely way along the headland.
He caught sight of movement.
A grey cloak.
A basket on one arm.
Elise Larkin, walking with Miss Archer.
They did not see him, but keeping utterly still, he watched them.
She moved with that purposeful grace again—a woman accustomed to bearing a burden without complaint. Beside her, Miss Archer spoke animatedly while Mrs. Larkin listened, replying occasionally, but her eyes drifted often to the sea, as if measuring it.
Danger, Edmund thought.
She walks like one who knows danger.
When she disappeared into the fold of the path, he released the breath he had held for far too long.
He did not hesitate long. Habit, more than curiosity, set his feet in motion.
He left the garden by a side gate, closing it softly behind him, and cut across a field that sloped towards the lane.
There was nothing, after all, in the least improper in walking along a public road at dusk.
A man might choose the same direction as a pair of ladies for a dozen innocent reasons.
Unfortunately, he had none of those reasons.
He kept to the verge, his boots pressing the damp earth without sound.
Ahead, at a bend where gorse and furze grew thick, he saw the grey of Mrs. Larkin’s cloak and the flash of Miss Archer’s bonnet ribbons as the ladies descended towards the town.
Their voices drifted back to him in snatches—one voice light and quick, the other lower and measured.
He could not distinguish the words, but the cadence held no panic, no haste. They did not walk like conspirators on their way to a clandestine meeting. They walked like women who had a purpose.
It was the very ordinariness of it that unsettled him.
He let the distance between them lengthen when the lane grew more open, drawing nearer only when hedges and turns allowed him to do so without attracting notice.
A farmer’s wagon passed him on the road.
Edmund stepped aside, lifted a hand in casual greeting, and received in return the solemn nod bestowed upon all strangers.
By the time he reached the outskirts of the town proper, Mrs. Larkin and Miss Archer had already passed the first row of cottages.
Their figures slipped between the huddle of whitewashed walls and slate roofs, moving towards the square where the church, the smithy, and Mrs. Grey’s bakery faced one another like three old gossips.
He paused in the shadow of a lichen-covered wall, leaning his shoulder against it with the appropriate air of a man resting after a stroll. His hat brim shaded his eyes. From here he might observe without being easily observed himself.
They slipped into the church.
It was suspicious behaviour, he told himself drily—very much the sort one expected in a dangerous agent of the Crown’s enemies.
At last, the ladies emerged to then turn their steps towards the low stone building that housed the postal counter.
The sign above its door creaked faintly as the breeze caught it.
A lantern had already been lit in the narrow window; within, Edmund could see the outline of shelves stacked with bundles of stationery and long, folded newspapers.
He straightened, all indolence gone.
Mrs. Larkin stepped inside, whilst Miss Archer remained on the threshold, speaking to an elderly woman who had evidently been waiting for her; the two ladies bent their heads together in earnest conversation.
Edmund crossed the square with unhurried steps and took up a position near the churchyard gate, where he might observe the door without appearing to be lurking.
He flipped open his notebook and affected to sketch the church steeple.
The wind tugged at the pages; he braced them with his thumb and waited.
Mrs. Larkin did not remain long. When she emerged, she carried her basket somewhat differently—lighter at one side, heavier at the other, as though some weight within had shifted. He caught the faintest gleam of folded, stiff paper between the cloth covering and the wicker.
She had gone in with nothing but what he had seen her take from the Seminary; she came out with a laden basket.
No great crime there, he mused, and yet—
As she stepped aside to allow a gentleman to enter, she glanced back over her shoulder. Not a fluttering, anxious look, but a swift survey of her surroundings.
Her gaze passed over him without pausing. Why should it? He was merely another stranger admiring the architecture.
Miss Archer rejoined her then, having parted from the older woman with a squeeze of the hand and some low-spoken assurance.
Edmund saw a coin press discreetly from Jane’s fingers into the other’s, and the older woman’s hurried curtsy of gratitude.
Was it charity, or payment for news? It was impossible to tell which from this distance.
The pair moved on again, away from the square, towards the narrow lane that led down to the harbour.
Edmund hesitated. It would be one thing to follow them through the open streets; quite another to trail them down to the quayside, where every stranger stood out against the daily pattern of nets, barrels, and rope.
Still, if there were to be a point of contact—if any packet of messages were to change hands—it was most likely to occur where boats came and went without much accounting.
He closed his notebook with a snap, tucked it beneath his arm, and strolled after them.
By the time he reached the top of the harbour slope, they were already halfway down, skirts lifted a little from the tar-stained stones.
The evening light struck the water into sheets of dull silver.
Men moved among the moored boats—mending, stowing, calling to one another.
A dog barked at a gull. Somewhere, someone laughed.
The ladies did not go all the way to the water’s edge. They stopped beside a coil of rope near one of the pilings, where an elderly seaman with a face like carved oak sat upon an upturned crate, pipe in hand. His hair was grey, his jacket patched, but he did not rise at their approach.
Edmund drew back slightly, placing himself behind a stack of empty fish crates. From here he could see without easily being seen.
He watched Mrs. Larkin greet the old sailor with the cordiality of long acquaintance. The man touched his forehead, half salute, half blessing. Miss Archer stayed back next to a hut.
Mrs. Larkin set her basket on the crate beside him, lifted the cloth, and took out a small, wrapped parcel.
He nodded and said something that made Mrs. Larkin’s eyes narrow in the way of one considering unwelcome news. She laid a hand on his arm—a fleeting, respectful touch—and spoke a few low words. Then she turned away, leaving the parcel where she had placed it.
The sailor slipped the bundle inside his coat with a speed and sureness that did not belong to comfortable old age.
Edmund’s pulse beat harder.
He could, at that moment, have stepped forward. He could have approached the old man under pretence of seeking a guide for a coastal walk, spoken a few careless words, and measured the man’s reaction…
… but Renforth’s instructions beat in his mind like a drum. Observe. Confirm. Do not engage.
He stayed where he was, his hands loose at his sides yet every sense sharpened.
The ladies did not linger. Having concluded whatever business had brought them to the harbour, they turned back up the slope, Miss Archer talking, Mrs. Larkin listening with that thoughtful little furrow between her brows.
As they passed him—still hidden in his shelter of crates and shadows—Edmund caught a fragment of a voice, carried on the wind.
“… cannot bear to think of him going back to sea in such weather. There is a storm brewing—”
“—he chose it,” Mrs. Larkin’s lower voice replied, “as all of them did. We may only choose how we care for those they leave behind.”
It was not the speech of a conspirator. It was the speech of a woman who had stood too often at the edge of loss to pretend otherwise.
They disappeared up the lane, back towards the school.
Only when they were gone did Edmund quit his post. He walked, not towards the sailor, but towards the furthest end of the quay, as if to look out upon the horizon. From there he could watch the old man without seeming to do so.
The sailor did not move at once. He sat a while longer, tamped his pipe, lit it with careful fingers, and stared at the water as if reading some code written in the shifting light.
At length he rose, joints protesting, and shuffled—not to any of the taverns, not to the row of cottages—but to a small boat moored at the end of the quay.
He stepped aboard with sudden agility, cast off the line, and pushed out, his oars biting cleanly into the water. He headed, not for open sea, but for a small cove further along the headland, half-screened by rock.
Edmund watched until boat and man were swallowed by the angle of the coast.
Then, and only then, did he turn away.
He walked back to the Admiral’s house with his hands in his pockets and his jaw set.
The Admiral’s windows glowed with lamplight. The smell of dinner and tobacco lingered once he stepped inside. Everything appeared as innocent town life should.