Chapter 5 #2
The interior smelled of damp stone and something sharper underneath—something that made Elizabeth glance at the corners before she crossed the threshold.
The main room held a narrow table, a trunk near the window, and a settle near the hearth.
The hearth itself was swept clean; a little iron rack stood beside it, ready to receive kindling.
Beyond that, a sitting room with a single window facing south, the light falling across bare floorboards.
Elizabeth stepped inside and let her eyes adjust. The walls bore marks where pictures had once hung. The window glass was clear enough, though one pane had been replaced with newer lead.
“My, it is certainly… snug. It will not take long to learn every corner,” she said.
“Easier to warm,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “Though the lantern house never wanted for coal. Hurst always sends it up regular enough.”
Mr Gardiner walked to the hearth and laid his hand upon the mantel. “The old iron stove is gone.”
“Cracked two winters ago,” Mrs Hargreaves said. “No sense keeping what won’t draw. Mr Robson took the scrap down and said he’d fashion something better.”
“Until he has?”
Mrs Hargreaves looked as though he were daft for asking. “There’s the open grate. Does well enough to dry out the walls.”
Her tone implied that nothing more need be said.
Elizabeth stepped into the bedchamber beyond the main room.
It held a narrow bedstead, a washstand, and a small chest beneath the window.
The shutters were thrown open; air moved freely through the space, stirring the curtain.
One room, one bed. She looked back through the doorway at the rest of the cottage—the sitting room, and off the kitchen, a smaller room where morning light would fall, large enough for a bedstead if one were brought up.
No bedding in it at present, but perhaps that was being laundered.
“It is well aired,” she observed.
“I’ve kept it so,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “Wouldn’t do to have it close and sour itself.”
Elizabeth turned. “And you, Mrs Hargreaves. It seems as if you have not been residing here, so where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Down at my son’s house. Warmer there through the worst of winter.” She moved to the window and pushed it wider, testing the hinge. “No sense keeping two hearths when there’s been no one to mind this one.”
Elizabeth glanced once more at the small room off the kitchen. It would do for Mrs Hargreaves well enough, once a bed was arranged. She would have to see to it.
Mr Gardiner, standing near the door, gave a small nod. “Quite so.”
Mrs Hargreaves went on briskly. “I’ll see to what’s needed. There’s a man comes up weekly to chop wood, and I’ve the key to the stores. The village is near enough for anything further.”
Mr Gardiner glanced toward Elizabeth. “You will not be alone.”
“Certainly not,” Mrs Hargreaves said, as if the idea bordered on absurdity. “Not while there’s breath in me.”
“And the keeper?” Elizabeth asked.
Mrs Hargreaves shrugged, as though the matter were unremarkable. “Wickie’s about. Keeps mostly to himself. You’ll not find him meddlesome.”
Mr Gardiner glanced toward the tower, then back at the woman before him. “He must be old Ridley’s successor. I heard the poor fellow had passed some years ago.”
“Nigh on fifteen years back,” Mrs Hargreaves confirmed. “Took some finding, after Ridley. Settled proper once Wickie came. Been here five years.”
“And he attends properly to the light?”
“As he always has.” The answer was swift and unembellished.
“I’m sorry...” Elizabeth held up a hand. “‘Wickie?’ Is that short for his proper name?”
Mr Gardiner’s mouth curved faintly. “No, Lizzy. A local nickname for the man who tends the wick. You will find such names adhere more firmly than baptismal ones in coastal places.”
“All anyone calls him,” Mrs Hargreaves agreed. “Saves time. Now, you’ll be wantin’ supper, I s’pose. You’ll put the horses up at Robson’s?”
Mr Gardiner nodded, though his attention had already begun to drift beyond the doorway. The wind had altered again—not stronger, but heavier. He stepped outside and looked southward along the track they had climbed.
Elizabeth and Mrs Hargreaves followed him outside.
“How far to the village?” he asked without turning. “I have not taken that way in more than twenty years.”
“A mile and a half,” Mrs Hargreaves replied. “Two if you take the lower way.”
He shaded his eyes from the wind, following the faint path that curved down the northwestern side of the slope. It was narrower than the approach from the southeast and looked as though it would be less forgiving in wet weather.
“And Robson’s yard has room?”
“Aye. He’ll stable the team well enough.”
He turned to the driver. “How long would that track take us?”
The man shifted on the box. “Narrow, sir. Soft if the rain comes in. We’d lose the light before we cleared it.”
Gardiner looked south along the broader rise they had climbed. “And if we turn back now?”
“Good road once we’re off the hill,” the driver answered. “We could make the inn by dusk.”
Gardiner hesitated only a moment, then addressed Mrs Hargreaves. “You will be well enough provisioned for the night? I had purposed to stay, but with the weather coming, perhaps I had better not.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll see to Miss Bennet myself.”
He studied her face, found nothing uncertain there, and gave a brief nod. “Very well.”
He returned to Elizabeth, brushing the dust from his gloves as though the decision were no more complicated than that. “If I take the south track now, we spare the horses a second climb and reach proper shelter before dark.”
“And you will come again soon,” she said.
“Once the weather clears,” he replied. “And I am sure your aunt and Kitty will wish to come.”
The driver shifted upon his box and called down respectfully, “Sir, the clouds are building from the west. If we mean to make the inn before dark...”
Gardiner gave a brief nod. “Yes, I will come in a moment.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Walk with me.”
They moved a short distance from the cottage, beyond Mrs Hargreaves’s hearing but not so far as to invite remark. The wind plastered her cloak against her skirts, and he held his hat firmly in place.
“You know what I must say,” he began.
She smiled faintly. “You have said it before.”
His gaze lingered on her face, searching for something he had searched for many times these past days. “You are not obliged to bury yourself here because the world has wounded you.”
She did not flinch at the word. “I am not burying myself.”
“You have lost your father. Your home. Your sister.” He did not soften the catalogue. “It would be natural to seek a corner of the earth where nothing more may be taken.”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved slightly. “Uncle, if I wished to hide, I should have done so in Hertfordshire. There were ample hedgerows for the purpose.”
He frowned.
She continued more quietly. “You know why this matters.”
He did not answer at once. Instead, he looked past her toward the tower, as though measuring its outline against an older memory.
“My mother felt rather strongly about this place. She believed the settlement was not merely legal language. That it was worth taking up, and that not only was her life richer for it, but she found some satisfaction in the service.”
He regarded her then, searching her face as if to ensure she spoke from conviction rather than impulse. “And you believe the same?”
“I will see it through,” she replied. “With open eyes.”
That answer appeared to satisfy him no more than the others had, but it was honest. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small bundle wrapped in paper. “You left something behind.”
She unfolded it and laughed under her breath. “Papa’s Horace.”
“You were always partial to it.”
“And Mr Collins was not.” Her gaze softened as she ran her fingers over the cover.
“I have others, you know,” she admitted. “Ten in all. Tucked among my things before we quitted Longbourn. He never thought to examine the crates marked ‘kitchen.’ They are in my trunk even now.”
Mr Gardiner’s expression shifted—grief and amusement meeting in the same place. “You intend to fortify yourself with Latin? You truly are your father’s daughter.”
The driver shifted again upon his box and cleared his throat.
Mr Gardiner drew a long breath and released it with finality. “Very well,” he said. “Mrs Hargreaves is a good woman, and she will look well to you. I shall see you again before winter’s close, or at worst in early spring. Write to us, Lizzy.”
“I shall.”
He hesitated only once, then embraced her briefly. When he drew back, there was no further argument between them. He mounted the carriage and, with one last wave, closed the door.
Mrs Hargreaves stood in the doorway, hands on hips, eyes squinting against the wind. The carriage turned upon the rough ground and began its descent.
Elizabeth remained where she was until it had vanished beyond the bend of the hill.
Only then did she turn back toward the cottage, the tower rising dark and watchful beyond it, and the sea speaking without pause below.