INVERCOMBE’S GARDENS HAD CHANGED. Fir trees ruffled their golden-plumed boughs as Weatherman Ayres, secretly testing and recalibrating his weathertop for the coming of the Proserpine, inflicted quick rains and flurries of cold and midday mists on the valley, which often spilled down across the shore and caused confused circlings amongst the migrating geese and avocets. Cissy, too, was uncharacteristically irritable, chiding her undermaids about the blooms of damp which had appeared on the walls of the peacock room before retreating to her study to try once again to compose the letter of her resignation. Decisions, she decided, were simple things. What was hard were the deeds which brought them into place.
One way or another, Ralph was also leaving. He’d already been fitted for the clothes of a Senior Apprentice, and had been a reluctant interviewee to a fawning contributor to a periodical call the Highclare Alumni Gazette. Every morning now, and again after luncheon, the west’s previously unreliable post system bore him requests from strangers for alms and references, and more papers to endorse. He was set to leave for Highclare on a Fiveshiftday, the first day of October, and he knew that he and Marion would have to leave for the Fortunate Isles before that date.
The Isle of Pines was by far the largest and heavily populated in the archipelago, but for that reason it interested him the least. Hispaniola, too, and even Arawak were too civilised for their purposes, both as students of natural history, but also as fugitives. It was the smaller islands where there was less cultivation of sugar cane which would demonstrate more precisely the supreme mechanism of Habitual Adaptation. Eel Island. The Isle of the Holy Spirit. Crooked Island. Ragged Isle. The names rang out to him, although proper data on the flora and fauna of these lesser islands was impossible to find. All he’d discovered in Bristol and in Invercombe were confused generalities about lizards and pineapples and giant turtles, then rubbish about boiling lakes and chackcharnis—which were red-eyed elves—and birds smaller than your thumbnail. It was confusing, but it was also encouraging. Here, he was sure, lay untouched natural landscapes just waiting to be catalogued and explored.
He found that Marion now was both diffident and different. After all, she was leaving a far more substantial life behind than his had ever been. She had less time to spare now to help with the cataloguing, and their love-making faded. She felt uncomfortable, he knew, about the deceit she was inflicting on her family. Still, it was strange and exciting to open the pages of the Bristol Morning Post, and to scan together the advertisements promising a new life. They settled on the Verticordia, which was offering Good, Simple Berths for a departure on the very last day of September. She was bound for Penn Island, which was one of the smallest of the Antilles, although they both agreed that they would only stay there for a few shifterms before moving on. Being a ringwright was a peripatetic occupation in any case. They talked of travelling island to island, and of Ralph really acquiring the skills of his trade, studying out on the deck with dolphins leaping at the prow, although their aim was always to prove and perfect the theory of Habitual Adaptation. Ralph agreed that it was better that Marion make the journey to Luttrell and withdraw the necessary cash to buy their tickets from the shipping agents.
It was useless now to attempt to finish organising their summer on the shore either in his notes or through the reckoning engine, and in any case he was too distracted. He wandered the gardens. He strode the shore. He walked the roads. He visited the Temple of the Winds. The weather was so variable. Surely Weatherman Ayres could do better than this? He took a detour up around Durnock Head one morning, hoping to be able to look down on Clarence Cove. It had rained heavily in the night, and the earth clotted his boots, although the sky had since hollowed and the view from here was absolutely sharp. Rather to his surprise, a couple of the undergardeners were at work up here. For some reason, they were diligently removing a portion of drystone wall.
As he paused to chat with them, Weatherman Ayres came briskly over the edge of the hill, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead. ‘Well—and I thought you’d be busy with packing.’
Ralph smiled and shook his head. There was another gap, he now noticed, in the wall in the next field along. Together, they formed line a which led towards a small track which wound around the side of Durnock Head to the Luttrell back road.
‘What should I call you now, technically, by the way? It can’t still be just Master, can it?’
‘I like Ralph. That’s what I always tell people.’
‘Always, eh?’ The weatherman worked his lips. ‘Then you’re off to that academy, just like Marion’s brother.’
‘That’s right. Although,’ he felt compelled to add, ‘Highclare and a local Mariners’ Academy are probably a little different.’
‘I’m sure they are.’ Hands on hips, squinting, Weatherman Ayres studied the rolling landscape, which was mottled now in browns and darker greens. ‘And when exactly, if you’ll pardon me for asking, is it that you’re leaving?’
‘My mother’s picking me up next Fiveshiftday.’
‘Quite late to be leaving for a first year, isn’t it?’
‘Well,’ Ralph said, wondering exactly where this conversation was going. ‘This isn’t my first year. Well, it is, but I’m already a year late, if you see what I mean.’
Weatherman Ayres, although for some reason still looking rather doubtful, nodded. And you know what they say about Telegraphers?’
‘What?’
That you should never trust them with a secret, because they’ve probably heard it already.’
Ralph grinned. He hadn’t heard that one.
‘And when you leave, and when you get to be in charge of your guild up in London, you’ll remember how we do things here in the west?’
‘I will. I promise. Although I’ll be back to Invercombe many times before then. I promise that as well’
‘Sure you will, lad.’
The weatherman wiped his brow again, sniffed, and walked away. As Ralph left the men to their peculiar work and gave up on his search of Clarence Cove, he thought again of his and Marion’s plans, the times and meeting places, their journey to Penn Island in the Fortunate Isles aboard the Verticordia in that decent berth. It certainly wasn’t his intention to permanently sever all contact with England. He imagined that he’d probably telephone his mother after a few shifterms, and that she, eventually, would be understanding. After all, wasn’t she an independent spirit herself? After two or three years, his theory of Habitual Adaptation proved and perfected, he and Marion would be able to return home on their own terms. Then, he would be quite willing to study the tenets of his guild and assume his responsibility as greatgrandmaster. In fact, he would welcome it. His mother would be at his side again by then, and so would Marion. From that exalted viewpoint, Ralph was sure, he’d be more than-ever grateful for the things he’d learned about the ways of the west.