Chapter 5 #2
“But won’t you sit by the fire and warm yourself? You are wet through and look to be perishing cold. I’ll have you brought a pot of coffee to warm you, and something to eat,” she said, deftly guiding the fellow to an empty table close to the fire.
“There’s really no—” the riding officer protested, though he was no match for Mrs Adamson, who was having none of it.
“Please, sir,” Mrs Adamson coaxed. “You have my respect for the job you do, out in all hours, and doing your bit to keep up all safe. Let me show my and my staff’s appreciation in this small way and offer you breakfast on the house.”
Nicely done, King mused as he tucked into the large plate of breakfast that had just appeared before him. Nicely done indeed.
After breakfast, King was at a loss to know what to do with himself.
Mrs Adamson had disappeared downstairs, and he was in no mood to face Mrs Fairway, who would certainly take him to task for his audacity in setting foot in her private arena—most likely with a griddle pan aimed at the back of his head.
Returning to his room, he sat down to read, picking up Guy Mannering once more and enjoying the story until midday, at which time Repton brought him a plate of roast beef sandwiches.
After that, restlessness set in, for he was unused to sitting idle, and he paced the room, wondering how to fill the time until that evening when he’d dine with Mrs Adamson.
He toyed with the idea of going back to London but dismissed it at once.
Mrs Adamson’s company was far too strong a temptation to miss, and he still had not repaid his debt to Alfred Marwick who would not be back for another two days.
The idea of coming all this way and rousing ghosts for no good reason was one that gave him no pleasure.
No, he would see this out, but what to do in the meantime?
Memory lane had proven to be nothing more than a morass of wretched reminiscences and the town was still inhabited by people he’d prefer to spit upon than bid a good day.
There was only one man he deemed worthy of his time and a certain amount of affection, and so it was that King retraced the once familiar and leaf-strewn path through Winsham Woods.
Though he tried hard to fight the recollections the familiar landscape gave rise to, King could not help but remember these woods as a lad.
That tree there, he’d climbed so often, the place in the little clearing where he’d slept many a night rather than let his da work him over with belt or fists, and that one yonder that Jimmy Parker had fallen from and broken his leg.
The fellow had walked with a limp ever after and never came to play with those rough boys again.
They had been rough boys, fair enough, King knew, rowdy and troublesome and loud and always looking for a fight or game, though games turned to fights quick enough. Though he had never been cruel, nor vicious.
A fight, once done, was over in his mind.
He bore no malice towards any man who did him no ill, nor would he ever hurt a dumb animal, nor a fellow smaller and feebler than himself.
Not like Bill, who purported to be his friend.
Looking back, King knew he had never been Bill’s friend.
He was more akin to a burr or a barnacle, stuck fast and impossible to shake off.
He’d simply been there, a part of King’s life that was impossible to deny, like his father, or the mother who had run off and left him to the care of a man not fit to keep a dog.
King shook his head, as if he could deny the memories, or throw off the feeling they gave him of being once again poor and alone, an unwelcome misfit in a pretty town, there only to be reviled and despised.
The vicarage was in front of him before he was ready for it and so suddenly, he almost turned around and walked away again, but a voice hailed him before he could give into cowardice.
“Jasper? Jasper King, is that you? Good Lord above, I had heard you were in town, but I hardly dared to believe it.”
Before King could confirm or deny the accusation that he was indeed Jasper King, his hand had been grasped by the Reverend Honeywell, who shook it with such gleeful zeal King was quite taken aback.
“Come in, come in, my boy. I’ll ring for tea, or would you prefer coffee, or perhaps something stronger, hmmm?
It is so good to see you and looking so well.
You have prospered, just as I knew you would,” the reverend said, bustling his unexpected guest along on a tide of merriment and determination that it would have taken a better man than King to escape.
Confounded and uncomfortable at having been received like the prodigal son when the reverend must be very well aware of just how he had prospered, King wondered what the devil he’d been thinking in coming here today.
Yes, the vicar had been one of the few people to ever show him a mite of kindness or understanding, but…
but he was still a clergyman, for heaven’s sake.
Was he really going to sit in the fellow’s front parlour and take tea?
It appeared he was, for a short time later, King found himself with a plate filled with a selection of biscuits and cake balanced upon his knee and a cup and saucer in his hand.
“Haha! You are regretting the impulse to come and visit me,” Honeywell said sagely, reminding King of the fellow’s uncomfortable knack for knowing what one was thinking before one thought it.
Most especially, he had always seemed to know precisely what wickedness the young louts from the fishermen’s cottages were about to perform in the moments before they put their plans into action.
In that instant, he remembered Honeywell had thwarted so many of their schemes he could only wonder what it was about the fellow he had remembered so kindly.
But perhaps thwarting them had been a kindness, he thought with belated clarity.
“I—well, maybe,” King admitted with a snort. “I’m not sure why I’ve been greeted with such warmth when I’m very sure I’ve done nothing to deserve it. You’ll cop it from your congregation if they discover you’ve encouraged me to stay.”
The reverend grinned at that and then turned his back, opening a cupboard and rifling about inside.
“If you think my job is to keep the good folk of this town happy, then I am sorry to say that you have gravely mistaken my role. Now where is—aha! That’s the ticket,” he said with triumph, straightening with a dusty bottle in his hand.
“I brought this up a short while ago to celebrate a marriage, or commiserate, truth be told,” he said with a wry smile. “But happily, the fellow went off and made a much better choice for all concerned.”
“He stayed single?” King suggested.
The reverend cast him a reproving glance. “No, dear boy. He married my daughter. One of my daughters, that is. I have three, if you remember. But it means this little beauty is still languishing all alone. Finish your tea and cake and we shall open it and see how well it strikes us.”
“It strikes me that there is a deal of fine brandy and wine in this town,” King said nonchalantly.
Even as a lad, he had been aware of the way the reverend straddled the line between the good, respectable folk of the town, and those who lived on the fringes, eking out a living as best they could.
Honeywell had never seemed to judge, certainly not harshly, and no one had ever been turned away from his door that King knew of.
He'd tried to help King too, but at the time King had been too distrustful, unable to shake off his father’s scathing opinions about do-gooders and too determined to play merry hell with everyone simply because he could, because he was too angry to do otherwise.
With remorse he realised he’d been less than kind to the old man, the only person who had ever tried to help him and had thrown his kindness back in his face with a good deal of abuse to go with it.
Was that why he’d come? To make amends?
The reverend, who had sat down and placed the bottle beside him, eyeing it with fond anticipation, turned a reproachful expression upon his guest. “That is dangerous talk in these parts, lad. I don’t know where you’ve been all these years, but I’m certain you’ve not forgotten that much.”
“No, I have not. Especially with a riding officer turning up at the hotel this morning.”
Honeywell’s expression fell. “Ah, yes. Captain Rowe Underwood. I have spoken to him. A charming fellow, most agreeable, and honourable too. I fear there will be trouble ere long.”
“You mean he’s too straight to take a bribe,” King guessed.
“Lamentably honest,” the reverend agreed with a sigh. “Not that I don’t applaud honesty in everyone and almost every circumstance, but many of those poor fellows who risk their lives on smuggling do so to feed their families. What else is there for them, I ask you?”
“You are preaching to the wrong congregation, reverend,” King replied with a snort. “I left here and landed in the Seven Dials. I can tell you a tale or three hundred of good men swinging for nothing but a chance to put a crust in a babe’s mouth.”
A sorrowful light filled the reverend’s eyes as he regarded King, forcing him to look away.
“I’m not one of them,” King added darkly, hoping the man would realise he was not here for salvation, and his soul was long past saving, if ever he’d possessed such an article.
He’d done nothing to make those good men’s lives better over the years, and if he slept ill at night, well, he deserved no less.
Though he intended to do better, to make changes, he had no illusions about redemption when it was far too little, too late.
“No. No indeed, you have prospered, Jasper, that much is clear, but I always believed you would. There was something about you, a liveliness of mind and a strength of character that was obvious to me.”
“Then you were the only one,” King replied scathingly.