vii. In which Arthur learns to drive a cart
Arthur had not expected to set out immediately, but with the sun cresting the horizon he was in the driver’s seat of a small
cart hitched to a burly palomino gelding. The gelding tossed his head. He seemed to find Arthur’s driving skills dubious before
they’d even set out. Arthur didn’t blame him. He’d never driven anywhere, never ridden a horse, barely interacted with a horse
except to sometimes, surreptitiously, pet the nose of a cart horse after disembarking from the occasional hired cart on one
of Charlotte’s bad days.
Agnes had not seemed to think of this, probably because she’d always had a driver until now. Likely because he was Arthur,
Arthur had not thought of it, either, until he was in the driver’s seat, trying to get the driving lines in hand, and she’d
already sailed back into the manor.
Arthur slapped the lines feebly. The horse snorted and pulled forward, but with Arthur’s uncertainty and lack of guidance,
he stopped.
Arthur climbed out of the cart, considering asking Agnes to show him how this worked, but she never drove. It was always her
driver or, in recent years, Gracie. And Gracie was in no condition to teach him.
Foolishly, he led the horse along by the bridle.
Thank God the fishermen were out to sea, the factory workers at their shifts, the women tending house since it wasn’t market day, most of the shops shuttered for years.
Ordinarily, the villagers ignored Arthur, but the few he passed now gawked and, when they thought he was out of earshot, laughed.
As he passed the Youngs’ cottage, Cormac emerged, carrying a fishing net. He was one of the few fishermen of Arthur’s generation
who hadn’t yet had to resort to the cannery.
Like the other villagers, Cormac stared. Unlike the others, he recovered, cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Trouble with your cart, there?”
Arthur flushed. Sometimes he’d forget how blue Cormac’s eyes were; remembering flustered him. He never knew why.
“Well, er, Mrs. Livingston is sending me to Port Lorne on an errand, but I’m . . . I’m afraid I don’t know how to, er . . .”
Cormac thumbed up his cap, gazing at him. Arthur had always wished Cormac would notice him; now that Cormac had, he found
it overwhelming. He stared at the cobblestones, fingers tight on the driving lines. The gelding snorted at his shoulder.
“Easiest thing in the world,” Cormac said at last. “I could show you, if you want. For a spell. Need to get back,” he added,
nodding in the direction of the sea. “Came in for a fresh net. Lost my best one first thing.”
Arthur swallowed. “Yes, that would—that would be lovely.”
They clambered into the cart, sitting so close their thighs pressed together. It was unbearably intimate.
This is what comes of having no friends, Arthur thought in a panic. Anything at all starts to feel like intimacy.
“I didn’t know you knew horses,” he said, attempting to make conversation. To his mortification, it came out as a squeak.
The corner of Cormac’s mouth turned down. “Got an uncle who’s a farmer a few miles inland. Da used to lend me out to him, when he needed me. Here, take the lines.”
He talked Arthur around the perimeter of the village, correcting the way Arthur held the lines, telling him how to make the
horse go faster or stop or change direction. The gelding’s ears twitched toward them, but he was a placid beast and did whatever
Arthur made him do (which wasn’t always what Arthur had meant to make him do). Warm and strong, Cormac’s hands made Arthur’s
stomach swoop whenever he touched Arthur to make some small correction, whether to the lines or Arthur’s grip or posture.
It would have been extremely distracting had Arthur not been determined to focus, to show Cormac he was worth the time and
that they might be friends hereafter.
When Arthur knew enough not to pose a danger to anyone, they turned back into the village to practice driving through the
narrow cobbled streets. Cormac had relaxed at Arthur’s side. His thigh pressed closer than ever.
They stopped in the village square, chickens scattering around them. Though barely September, it was that brisk, sunny sort
of morning that happens only in autumn. Fat white clouds hurled across the sky. Beyond them, the sky was blue; the sun shone
strong one moment, weakly the next, as clouds raced one after the other. Damp from last night’s rain, the cobblestones glistened.
While many of the surrounding shops were dark, the windows of the fishery supply and general store (the latter of which was
also the post office and telegraph office) glinted cheerfully, as if to draw attention to their wares. The old pub on the
corner looked distinguished rather than run-down. Chickens clucked peaceably, golden brown and fluffy.
Seacliff had never been so beautiful. Arthur wasn’t sure why it was beautiful now, but it made him loath to leave.
Cormac leaned back, linking his hands behind his head; his biceps swelled under his shirt. He glanced at Arthur. Dear God, his eyes were blue. Arthur looked away, wiping his palms on his trousers.
“Not bad,” Cormac said. Arthur warmed pathetically under the praise. “Mind, the wood’ll be different. You are going through
the wood, I expect?”
Arthur nodded. “Mrs. Livingston wants the clock quickly.”
It seemed best not to mention why. Cormac was a sensible man, but so were most of the villagers, in most ways—yet they were
a superstitious lot and never more so than when it came to the forest.
“It’s a good cart for it. Small piece but good and sturdy, nice big wheels, should get you through without too much trouble—leastways
without any trouble the wood don’t make itself. Best take some rowan or yew, salt at least. I’d rub the cart with salt, too,
and put some rue in the harness.”
“Of course,” Arthur said, though he hadn’t considered these measures. The villagers had always taken such precautions, but
his father never had. George had thought their superstitions just that: superstitions. He’d discouraged them in his children.
They’d never gone farther into the forest than the edges when they were children, anyway, playing in sight of the cottage.
Now, neither of them had entered the wood in years. The last time Arthur had done so, his brother-in-law had asked him to
come along to chop firewood. Arthur had been hopeless, of course, but John had liked the company and having someone to carry
half the haul back. Arthur could do that even if he’d grown winded and threatened to lop off his own limbs with each swing of the axe.
“Mind,” Cormac said, “even with these wheels, odds are you’ll have to dismount and unstick the thing now and again. The paths
ain’t what they used to be, so few folks drive through anymore. If you tell the horse go and it tries but don’t get anywhere,
could be you’re stuck on a log or rock. Now, not meaning any offense—”
Arthur was prepared to be unoffended. Cormac’s attention was worth that much.
“—but you’re not a brawny fellow, probably be hard for you to move a rock or log without some leverage, especially with the
cart over top of it. You’ll want to have a shovel or suchlike on hand. If—”
He broke off. A knot of men had rounded a corner, seen them, and stopped. The men gawped, brows thunderous.
As an adult, Arthur was used to being ignored, but as a boy he’d been used to being gawped at, no matter how he’d shrunk himself
down in a failed attempt to fit the villagers’ expectations. He straightened in his seat, made sure his hands were right on
the lines, and nodded at the men as he drove onward. The men’s voices rumbled after them, too low to make out, but Cormac
stiffened and slid away.
Arthur swallowed, aware something had changed between them in the last thirty seconds but not sure what. He ought to have
known. The few hesitant attempts he’d made at forging friendships over the years had ended similarly, if they’d gotten anywhere
in the first place.
He’d thought things were going well with Cormac. Why was it such a crime for another man to be seen being too friendly with
Arthur?
“If?” he prompted, in a terrible attempt at sounding normal.
“What?”
Arthur cleared his throat. “You were going to say something, after you told me to bring a shovel.”
“Don’t recall.”
Cormac’s arms folded across his chest. When they approached his house, he snapped to attention. At the sight of them, his
wife had frozen in the middle of sweeping the stoop, wearing the same expression the men had worn.
Cormac spoke without looking at Arthur. “I’ll get out here.”
Arthur stopped the horse.
“Thank you,” he said helplessly, but Cormac had already leaped down. Arthur nodded at Mrs. Young, but she reddened and grabbed
Cormac’s arm the moment he was within reach. She muttered furiously at him. The only words Arthur caught, as he drove onward,
were with that sodomite.
His stomach clenched. He’d never understood this sense of difference between him and the rest of Seacliff, but Mrs. Young’s angry whisper made him wonder whether the villagers did. Whether they
knew something about him that he didn’t know about himself.
Clicking his tongue, Arthur urged the gelding faster. The cart bumped over cobbles now slimy instead of glistening. Fumes
belched from the cannery and smudged the sky gray, smelling of fish guts. Arthur wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t believe he’d
thought Seacliff beautiful. It had always been ugly and had only grown uglier since his father’s disappearance.
Thank God for Mrs. Livingston and her money. The first half was in his breast pocket.
Determined to put on a good face for his family, he sat ramrod straight in his seat and steered the gelding around the side
of the hill, a less direct route to the cottage but less steep than the way the family always took. His driving practice hadn’t
involved hills, but the gelding threw himself into the harness and plowed upward without issue. Arthur plastered a smile on
his face and sang out as the cottage came into view.
They made it to the top without getting stuck or tipping over. Despite the incident with Cormac, Arthur’s smile stretched