Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Mrs Hargreaves arrived at half past eight, climbing the path with the grim determination of a woman who expected to find disaster and intended to manage it.
Elizabeth met her forty paces from the tower.
She had prepared for this. She had washed her face with water from the jug, rebound her hair, and brushed the worst of the soot from her sleeves with a dampened cloth.
She could do nothing about the gown—it was wrinkled, stiff in places, and carried the faint scent of coal smoke—but she could account for that.
She had risen early. She had lit the fire. She had been working.
“Mrs Hargreaves. Good morning.”
The older woman looked her over with the undisguised appraisal of someone who had been managing other people’s foolishness for decades. “You look as though you slept in your clothes.”
“The cottage is draughty. I dressed at first light to conserve warmth.”
“Draughty! I told you—”
“You did tell me, and you were right that the night was uncomfortable. But I am here, and I am well, and I have a great many things to attend to this morning.” Elizabeth took her arm and turned her gently but firmly toward the tower.
“Might I trouble you for help with provisions? I find myself in need of bread, and perhaps eggs, and if there is butter to be had in the village, I should be very grateful.”
Mrs Hargreaves frowned but allowed herself to be redirected. “You’ve not eaten?”
“Not yet. The fire wanted attention, and I wished to be up before the mist lifted.”
“And the keeper? Is he about?”
“He went out at dawn. I believe he is attending to the pyre.”
This was true. She had seen him from the tower door, climbing the knoll with a length of timber over his shoulder, rebuilding the structure the storm had diminished.
He had not looked toward her or the path.
He was, she understood, keeping himself visible and occupied—a man about his ordinary work, with nothing to conceal.
Mrs Hargreaves cast a glance toward the cottage. From this angle, the door was not visible—the slope of the ground and the position of the tower obscured it. But the path forked ahead, one branch leading to the cottage, the other continuing to the tower and the knoll beyond.
“I’ll just look in on the house,” Mrs Hargreaves said. “See how it fared.”
“There is no need. I secured everything before retiring. The shutters held.”
“All the same—”
“Mrs Hargreaves.” Elizabeth tightened her arm. “I should be very much obliged if you would help me with the provisions first. I have had nothing since yesterday’s supper, and I confess I am rather desperate for tea.”
The appeal to practicality worked where deflection had not.
Mrs Hargreaves clicked her tongue— “No tea! Lord above, child”—and turned toward the path down to the village, already cataloguing aloud what would be required: kettle, leaves, milk if her son’s household could spare it, and something more substantial than bread if Elizabeth meant to work through the morning.
Elizabeth walked beside her, matching her pace, asking questions about the village, the weather, the state of the harbour after the storm—anything to fill the air with conversation that led away from the cottage and its shattered chimney.
At the fork in the path, she did not look left.
They came in a loose procession throughout the morning.
Robson first, with his eldest son Joseph hauling a barrow of scrap iron for the pyre fittings.
Then Tom Calder—young, windburned, loud where his father was laconic—who had sailed past the headland before dawn and seen only the pyre’s low ember against the cliff.
“No beam last night,” Tom said, not quite a question, standing at the base of the tower with his hands in his coat. “Nor the night before.”
“The mechanism requires a new collar. It has been ordered from Newcastle.”
“What’s wrong with the old one?”
“Bore wear. The collar no longer seats to its original tolerance. The flame draws unevenly and will not hold.”
Tom considered this with the expression of a man who understood boats and rope and very little about brass tolerances. “My da’ says the light’s not swept the water in fourteen nights running. The Hannah Crowe nearly put her bow on the northern spur two nights past. Skipper’s not pleased.”
“The skipper may address his displeasure to the trustees.”
“Aye, or to Josiah Tull, who’s coming up the hill behind me.”
He turned. The path below revealed two figures ascending—one he knew at once: Tull, the harbour warden, a man of sixty with the unhurried gait of someone whose authority did not require haste. Beside him walked a younger man carrying a leather case.
Tull had jurisdiction over navigational hazards within the harbour district.
He could not order the light replaced—that required the trust's decision or Trinity House—but he could file a report recommending it, and Trinity House acted on Tull’s reports with a speed they extended to no one else on this coast.
He descended from the knoll and met them at the tower door.
“Wickie.” Tull did not offer his hand. His eyes moved from the tower to the dead pyre and back. “We need to talk about your light.”
“The apparatus is under repair. The collar has worn beyond its tolerance, and a replacement has been ordered from the foundry that supplies Trinity House. I expect it within the month.”
“So I’ve heard. Robson told the whole of the Anchor the same last evening.
I’ve also heard your light hasn’t swept in a fortnight, and that you’ve been burning timber on the headland like a man signalling a wreck.
” Tull removed his hat and turned it in his hands.
“A worn collar is a day’s work. Fourteen dark nights is something else.
I’ve a duty to inspect the mechanism. You know that. ”
“I know your duty. I question your timing. The housing is partially disassembled.”
“My timing follows yours. Fourteen dark nights, Wickie. I cannot write that off as maintenance.”
The younger man had opened his leather case and was arranging paper upon a flat stone. A pen appeared. An inkwell. He was preparing to record.
“Oh, good morning! I was hoping to meet some neighbours today.”
Miss Bennet’s voice came from behind him.
He had not heard her approach—she moved quietly in those stiff boots—and he turned to find her standing at the tower door with a tin cup in one hand and a composure so thorough it could only have been built in the time between hearing Tull’s voice and reaching the threshold.
“You must be from the village,” she said, addressing Tull directly. “I am Elizabeth Bennet. I have recently taken up the stewardship of the Blackscar trust.”
Tull’s eyebrows rose. He looked from her to the keeper and back. “The stewardship?”
“The female-line trust, established under the original settlement. I arrived only yesterday, and I have been confirmed to my position by the trustees in London.”
Tull glanced at the keeper once more, then removed his hat and turned to bow to Miss Bennet. “Welcome, Miss. I was not informed of any steward.”
“No. I expect not. The trustees’ communications have been, in my experience, somewhat selective.” She took a step forward, placing herself between Tull and the tower door in a manner that could have been accidental and was not. “You wish to inspect the mechanism?”
“I do.”
“Then you will direct your request to me, Mr Tull. The apparatus and the tower are property of the trust, and I am its custodian.”
Tull studied her with the frank assessment of a man who had dealt with obstructive landowners since before she was born. “With respect, Miss Bennet, the harbour authority’s jurisdiction over navigational aids is not contingent upon trust law.”
“No, it is not. But the manner and timing of any inspection is a matter I may reasonably discuss, particularly given that the keeper has identified the fault and a remedy is already in progress.” She sipped from the cup. “I should not wish your report to reflect an incomplete picture.”
Tom Calder, who had been watching this exchange with open fascination, sidled closer to Robson’s son and murmured, in a voice perhaps louder than he intended, “Who is she?”
“The steward,” Joseph muttered back. “Hush, I want to hear.”
“Aye, I heard. But who is she? She’s bonny, whoever she is.”
The keeper did not look at Tom. He did not need to.
Tull replaced his hat. “I’ll inspect today, Miss Bennet. That is not negotiable. But I’ll hear your account first, if you’ve a mind to give it.”
“I have. Shall we go up? The keeper can show you the collar directly. I examined it myself yesterday evening, and the wear is quite visible once you know where to look.”
He kept his face entirely neutral. She had not examined the collar.
She had not even been shown the collar. She had stood in the lantern room and watched the flame die and asked him what was wrong, and he had given her no answer beyond the fact that he did not have one.
And now she was offering to show the harbour warden evidence of a fault she had never seen, in a mechanism she could not yet name the parts of, with a confidence that bordered on reckless.
She did not look at him. She was already leading Tull toward the door.
They climbed in single file—Miss Bennet first, then Tull, then the keeper, then the clerk clutching his leather case against the narrow walls.
The stair delivered them into the lantern room, and Tull went straight to the housing with the familiarity of a man who had inspected this apparatus more than once.
He ran his hand along the lens mounting. He tested the gallery glass. He examined the oil reservoir, the wick cradle, the vent assembly. He opened the draft plate and peered through it. He did all of this in silence, with the methodical attention of someone assembling a verdict.
“Oil is sound,” he said. “Wick is good. Vents are clear.” He turned to the collar. “This is the piece?”