Chapter Seven

WHEN MORWENNA WHITEWATER returned from the privy, she found the crowd abuzz with talk of May Bell’s return.

“What have I missed?” she asked a passerby.

Sylvia Farriner pushed her way between the widow and the person she was speaking to and drew herself up to her full height.

“That blundering simpleton you’re so fond of brought the girl back, safe and sound.”

She was a head taller than Morwenna, but Morwenna wasn’t easily intimidated. She looked Sylvia in the eye and adjusted her cane, striking it on the cold floor.

“I knew he’d find her,” Morwenna said proudly.

“Well, the girl is safe and sound. Pity the same can’t be said for him,” Sylvia said as she picked some dirt from beneath her riven fingernails.

Morwenna’s bravado faltered and she blinked hard.

“What does that mean? What’s happened to him?”

“I’m afraid the strain was too much for the brute’s heart, and he collapsed, just over there,” Sylvia said, pointing out the exact spot with theatrical relish and mocking concern.

“The men have taken him upstairs,” came a raspy voice from behind her.

The tweed golem that was Mrs. Hanniti Kind came to Morwenna’s aid, flanked by the substantial form of Mrs. Caddy. Sylvia was well able to take them all on, but it seemed she’d gotten the reaction she had wanted from Morwenna and so she turned and slithered away.

Morwenna shuffled her way upstairs as quickly as her short, dumpy legs and rickety hips would take her, and found Sylvia’s son standing outside the closed room door.

“Where is he? Where’s Robin?” she demanded.

“He’s in there,” Edwin replied, “Mr. Bounsell, Mr. Blackwall, and I put him to bed. Doctor Greenaway is in there now, giving him the once-over. He asked me to wait out here.”

Morwenna looked at him, sniffed derisively, then marched straight into the room. Dr. Greenaway—a well-dressed, bemonocled man whose enormous bushy grey moustache curled up extravagantly at either end—had pulled the bedclothes down to his patient’s waist and was listening to Robin’s breathing.

He spluttered and jumped at the intrusion. “I thought I said to wait outside,” he said abruptly.

“Giss on! That’s all well and good for the local baker, but I should be here. How is he? What’s wrong? Robin? Robin, are you awake?” she called as she pushed past the rotund physician.

When she saw the fisherman lying in bed on his back, pale and unmoving, she turned white as a sheet and staggered backwards. For a split second, it seemed as if he was perfectly still, and her heart jumped into her throat. Then his chest rose very slowly and lowered again. Dr. Greenaway hooked his thumbs into his braces, drew himself up to his full height and addressed her.

“Mrs. Whitewater, he’s sleeping. He overexerted himself and got a bump on his head when he fell, but he’ll be fine. He just needs rest. Lots of rest.”

With that, the doctor excused himself and went back downstairs. Morwenna shut the door behind him, much to the surprise of Edwin who had been about to enter. She sat down on the little chair by the bed and fixed the bedclothes back over Robin’s broad, smooth chest. She tucked the sheets in, making sure he was nice and warm, and then she fixed what was left of his hair with her hand. She sat there for a time as he slept, thankful it wasn’t anything too serious.

“You silly fool,” she whispered to him. “You’re not as young as you used to be. Why didn’t you let someone else go and look for the girl. You could have… You nearly…”

She stopped herself there and straightened her back. Hands resting firmly on her cane, she sniffed the tears away and adjusted her shawl. Then she leaned in close and said, “You’re all I have left. Wake up soon, Robin.”

There was a knock on the door and she called for it to be opened. Edwin poked his head in and asked if he might enter. Morwenna, in her infinite grace, allowed it.

Edwin started the fire in the hearth on the other side of the room and brought in chairs to hang Robin’s wet clothes on.

“You go on back downstairs, Mrs. Whitewater,” he said, “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll watch him,” Morwenna said.

“No, it’s fine. I want to be here, Mrs. Whitewater. He would do the same for me,” Edwin replied.

“Very well, but if you’re going to stay, it’s Morwenna, please.”

She studied the baker carefully while the raging winds rattled the shutters. His brow was creased and his green eyes—his mother’s eyes—narrowed in concern. They were set a little too far apart for her liking, but they sparkled enough for her to overlook it. All in all, he was quite a good-looking man, she thought, and had an affable face with a square jaw and dimpled chin. His hair was much too short, of course—what kind of man crops it so short you can see his scalp, she wondered. But then it was receding and so she supposed it didn’t really matter one way or the other. She remembered him as a child, with a mop of bright, shiny, copper hair. While he might share her hair and eye colour, there wasn’t a trace of his mother’s spite in him.

After a while sitting in silence, Edwin began to reminisce.

“We’ve known each other since we were boys,” he said. “Though we were never friends when we were young. He was closer to my brother’s age, anyway. My parents didn’t like Ambrose or me associating with him.”

“Hmm, yes, I know. I’ve had more than one run-in with your mother over the years. She got it into her head that Robin was a bad influence. Afraid he was going to turn out like his father.”

“She can be a bit…of a handful,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “She has never been an easy person to like, but when Ambrose died, it changed her. Every quirk, every vein of malice, every frayed nerve seemed…amplified, somehow. Exaggerated. Ambrose’s wife took their two young sons—my nephews—and moved to Blackrabbit Island. Hester hated my mother. Always did. She couldn’t wait to get away from her, always felt like she was trying to… I don’t know… control the boys, I suppose? Turn them against their mother. I suppose she’s partially the reason why I have to run the bakery alone. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t listen to her. Robin’s been a good friend to me in recent years.”

“He speaks very highly of you. It’s no secret that he doesn’t have many friends in this village. He said you were a great help to him after Duncan left,” Morwenna said.

She knew Edwin and Robin had become close shortly before Duncan moved to the village, and she began to wonder if perhaps there was more to it than friendship. “Duncan was a nice lad. A bit quiet at times—a bit moody, maybe—but he always treated Robin well.”

Duncan might well be thirty-nine years old now, but he’d always be a lad to her.

“Broke his heart when he left. He would hardly talk about him. He’d go out on that boat of his from dawn ’til dusk, wouldn’t speak to a soul. It was the same when his dad died. It’s a shame he and Duncan couldn’t work out their difficulties.”

“Do you know what happened between them?” Edwin asked.

Morwenna looked at him somewhat suspiciously. Her little brow furrowed and her eyes became sharper.

“No. Not really. He wouldn’t tell me. I assumed you knew?”

Edwin shook his head. “It’s odd to see him without his cap, isn’t it? Lying there without it, it doesn’t even really look like him.”

Robin had a big, round face with hooded blue eyes—now closed, of course—and slight, uncoloured lips. His cheeks bore some light scratches from his rescue of May Bell. Double-chinned and bull-necked, he was mostly bald and sprouted only a single little tuft of white hair above his forehead, which his cap normally covered while resting on his small, protruding ears. While some might struggle to describe him as handsome, most everyone would agree he looked gentle, even kind. Despite his size and lumbering stature, he seemed somehow innocent. He smiled a lot; he was good-natured and friendly to everyone. Morwenna always wondered how he managed to be that way. Many people in this town barely tolerated him, all because of his father, and she doubted she could be so magnanimous in that position.

“We have a mutual friend, and we were all in a big group one night at the Moth & Moon and I mentioned I’d never learned to sail,” Edwin said.

“Really!” Morwenna exclaimed.

Even she knew her way around a boat. Edwin laughed.

“I know, it’s daft. All my life in this village, but I never learned how to sail properly. Someone else had always done it for me, my father usually or my brother. Anyway, Robin offered to take me out in Bucca’s Call for a few lessons. At first I thought he was just being polite, but he insisted, so a few afternoons that summer, we went out into the bay and he showed me the ropes, taught me the different kind of knots. He was very patient with me. Well, he’s patient with everyone, isn’t he? Despite how they treat him. I suppose it’s something you have to be, to be a fisherman. All that time spent at sea, waiting for fish to bite, or whatever.”

“Hmm, yes, but some people can be patient to a fault,” Morwenna said.

“True enough. I said to him—I might know my way around an oven and dough, but around ropes and sails, I’m all fingers and thumbs.” He laughed gently. “After a few lessons, we found that we got on really well, and that was that, really. When my brother passed away a few months later, Robin was there for me.”

“It was very sudden; the whole village was rocked by his passing. It must have been very hard on you,” Morwenna said, watching the baker intently. His gaze never left Robin.

“It was. I found myself an only child and in charge of running a whole bakery. My brother, well, he was my rock. He was the dependable, sensible one. Most of the time, anyway. When he was here, I could just, well, I didn’t have to grow up, I suppose. I could just let him take care of things. When he was gone, I was so lost, so overwhelmed by everything. I still feel like I’m running to catch up to him. Robin helped me through it all. It’s funny how you can know someone your whole life and then one day, you just see them in a whole new light.”

“Yes,” said Morwenna, “isn’t it just.”