The Norrises regarded Aymer as a nuisance. Katie threw his shells away where they would not be found again. The whole point of the necklace was that she would only thread the shells she’d found with Robert. She might wish her husband were a little ‘fuller’ in his conversations. She might snub him once in a while, out loud. But that was just to show her power. She loved every blink of his eye. When the necklace was finished, she could tell a rosary of love on every shell, his, hers, his, hers, their lives looped round her throat. She didn’t want a stranger’s shells to interrupt the chain.
By Saturday she and her husband had had enough of Aymer Smith’s unrelenting company. They avoided the nearest foreshores and walked instead along the coast towards more subtle coves. But hardly had they found the path down from the cliff and reached the pebble beach than they heard Whip barking at them from above and turned to find their room companion waving at them with his hat. They were still fond of him, despite his oddities. He was too vulnerable and headlong in his dealings to be disliked entirely. And he clearly regarded them as his friends and equals. That was both flattering and charming from such an educated man. He and Robert had a lot in common, Katie thought. Yet she could not imagine two men less alike in their attractiveness. Aymer wasn’t resolute like Robert. He wasn’t wise. He had, in fact, become an irritant for both the Norrises. They did their best to hide their impatience, though. They didn’t want to be impolite. He meant well, after all.
And surely it was only loneliness that made him hunt them down, that made him join them over breakfast, lunch and dinner, that made him sit on his bed at night, a candle on his knees, engaging them in conversations that had no consequence or end, or reading to them from his book, and asking them to comment on his Mr Paine or Mr Lyell or Mr Know-not-who. He seemed to watch them all the time, and be too ready with his feeble, reedy laugh. Katie didn’t even want to make love anymore. She felt their every movement could be heard and, if she and Robert whispered in the night, the words would bounce around the room and Mr Smith would hear. She wondered if he ever slept. Was that him wheezing, or the dog? She worried that the man was watching her when she took her clothes off for the night, when she crept out for the pot. Did he stand with his candle, looking down on her, when she was unconscious in her bed, her hair across the pillow and her nightdress disarranged? How could she now get pregnant for the Belle with Aymer Smith just yards away?
When Sunday came, despite Mr Phipps’s disapproval, the work continued on the Belle. ‘You will bring God’s damnation down on the ship,’ he warned. ‘Betray the Lord’s observances and you will pay the price.’ But Walter Howells thought God had all Eternity for His observances, and Sabbaths till the end of time, while he had promised Captain Comstock that the ship would sail at high tide on the Tuesday morning, November the 29th, 1836. That was a day that wouldn’t come again. To start the voyage in December, when the sea was at its most unforgiving and the polar ice was sending its outriders south, would be a day too late. It had to be the Tuesday, Comstock said, or it would be next year. So Howells had every hand on deck, tarring timbers, knotting canvas, dislodging barnacles. Most of the Wherrytowners wouldn’t work, of course, not even for the extra fourpence on the day. The Americans might leave on time, they judged, but Preacher Phipps would not. And his memory was long and unforgiving. They didn’t want to find themselves made to stand outside the chapel walls, or be buried on the common land without a prayer or hymn, or be told their sons and daughters couldn’t marry on holy ground. They went to all the Sunday services and made certain they were seen and heard. But there were some who thought it worth the fourpence to risk a stay in Purgatory and help out with the ship. Palmer Dolly, for example. Some of the coastal fishermen, who lived outside Mr Phipps’s rule. Together with the sailors, there were more than twenty men. When the chapel foghorn was blown for matins, the hammers on the Belle called back and didn’t stop for prayers.
Walter Howells couldn’t ride his horse down companion ladders nor canter between decks. He had to swagger on his feet, directing what repairs should be completed, often as not with unseasoned, shrinking wood and cordage that was badly chafed. He pointed out what minor leaks or springing planks or damage from marine worm should be disguised with gobs of tar, or battened down with strips of wood. The Dolly boy, he had discovered, would do what he was told, no questions asked. Howells worked him all the time. That … Palmer? Was that his name? … might prove to be a useful man in future. Palmer had asked Walter Howells to recommend him to the captain. The boy wanted, it would seem, to be a sailor and go off to America. But Howells considered him too handy and too willing to lose so soon. He needed him in Wherrytown. He’d warn the captain that Palmer Dolly could not be trusted. Light-fingered, maybe? Clumsy? Daft? The captain wouldn’t want the risk. Who’d ever know? Who’d ever learn the truth?
That afternoon, when dusk had put a stop to work, Palmer Dolly did ask the captain for Nathaniel Rankin’s place. He was, he said, a willing hand, and strong, and young, and used to boats. He’d been the one, he reminded the captain, to bring the dead sailor ashore. No one had worked harder on the Belle. Surely Captain Comstock had seen him work? But it was too late. Walter Howells had already said the boy had fits. They couldn’t take a boy with fits on board. The captain shook his head, ‘No, sir. Your place is here, amongst your own,’ and went to spend his last night at the inn in Alice Yapp’s good care.
That Sunday night, they all sat down again to pie. Not squab. Not star-gazy. But good beef pie. One of the cattle in the dunes had ‘died’, and Walter Howells had given the flank to Alice Yapp. She’d pay him back somehow, when her captain had departed. Again, the young Americans were sitting at the softwood trestle in the Commercial, raucously excited by the prospects of their voyage home, the wives and lovers they might see in the New Year. They envied Ralph. He would be the first to have a woman in his arms.
The large oak table in the parlour was a squeeze. There were two extra places set. Mrs Yapp and Walter Howells wouldn’t miss out on beef. They sat with Captain Comstock by the parlour fire. Only George didn’t have a knife and plate. He had to serve. And only Otto wasn’t there.
‘Not pie again!’ said Aymer Smith, down at the cold end of the table with the Norrises.
‘It’s always pie,’ said George. ‘Be glad of it. That’s why the Devil never comes to Wherrytown. For fear we’ll put him in a pie.’
At this, John Peacock took up his fiddle and played the Devil’s Jig at George’s shoulder, serenading every steaming plateful in the parlour. When George placed the servings for the Norrises on the table, John Peacock put down his fiddle and sang in Robert’s ear: