The Widow Of Pale Harbour. Hester Fox

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СКАЧАТЬ to Pale Harbor and the deception he had practiced in getting here.

      The morning dawned dry and warm, a crystal-clear September day. Dirt mingled with sand, and every breath carried with it the faint promise of the great ocean beyond. Gabriel was small and inconsequential, a drop of salt water among many in the seaside town, and how liberating it was. In the light of day, the dark discovery in the church seemed far away, and his awkward dinner with the Marshalls insignificant. Maybe he would not be a success as a minister, but he had come this far, and if nothing else, it would be the fresh start he so desperately needed.

      Despite the fair weather, the waterfront was quiet, subdued. Only a few small boats bobbed in the placid water, and a handful of dockworkers leisurely unloaded nets full of fish. Mr. Marshall had told Gabriel that twenty-five years ago, Pale Harbor would have been a bustling port, with all sorts of languages being spoken as ships unloaded their goods from lands as far away as China. But the war with the British in 1812 and the subsequent closing of trade routes had strangled the cosmopolitan breath from the town, leaving it choked and withered.

      Gabriel ambled down to the water, watching seagulls squabble over a dropped fish. Despite his pledge to take all the rain as a penance, he was enjoying the early autumn sun on his face.

      He found two young men taking a rest from unloading crates on the dock, their shirts stuck to their backs with perspiration, their sleeves rolled to the elbows. When he asked them where he could post a letter, they directed him to the dry goods store on the other side of town.

      He thanked them and was about to turn to leave. He knew he should introduce himself, tell them about the new church. That’s what a minister was supposed to do. But the idea of proselytizing made him shrink into his skin, and despite days of practicing in front of the mirror, he still tripped over his words and came across as a fool. They would probably scoff at him, just as the Marshalls surely had as soon as Gabriel had left their home, and he couldn’t bear to hear Anna’s dearest beliefs disparaged.

      “Not from around here, are you?”

      Stopping in his tracks, Gabriel reluctantly turned back. He took a fortifying breath. “No, not from around here.”

      The man who spoke had light brown skin and a musical voice with an island lilt. “Thought you might not be local,” he said. “Not with that accent.”

      Gabriel hadn’t bothered trying to disguise the brusqueness of his lower-class voice; he felt comfortable here on the docks in a way he hadn’t in the Marshalls’ dining room. But apparently he had been found out as an outsider anyway.

      “Might as well be from Dixie,” rejoined the other man.

      “Concord,” Gabriel told them, and then added, “Massachusetts. My name is Gabriel Stone.”

      “Well, Gabriel Stone from Concord, I’m Manuel,” said the man with the lilting voice. “And this useless lug is Jasper.”

      Jasper nodded his introduction. He was young, red-haired and pale, with a smattering of freckles. “You’re the one taking over the old church, then?” he asked Gabriel without preamble.

      “That’s right.” Gabriel hoped that his curt response would be the end of it, but Jasper was giving him an assessing look, and both of the men’s curiosity seemed to be piqued.

      Manuel raised a brow. “What is it you’ll be preaching?”

      Damn it. Gabriel had memorized his little speech, which he had given some dozen or so times in the past week. Unsurprisingly, it came out mechanical and dry.

      “Transcendentalism. It’s the belief that God is in nature, and that the answers of the universe can be found within man instead of without. The spirit comes from nature and so knows more than our minds. It’s, uh...” He paused, trying to remember all the correct words. “It’s very popular in Concord,” he finished lamely.

      There was painful silence until Manuel finally said, “Meaning no disrespect, but you don’t do much in the way of putting a polish on your creed. If Saint Peter had been as ho-hum in his preaching, then I doubt Jesus would have had a church to name him the rock of.”

      The man was right, of course. Without conviction in his words, Gabriel came off as a charlatan. “Well, if you change your minds, you’re always welcome.” He was just about to turn to leave when Jasper stopped him again.

      “Seeing as you’re new here, you wouldn’t happen to be looking for some help around the house, would you? A cook, maybe?”

      “I might. Why?” Gabriel had imagined that he would keep his own council, moving about an empty house as a monk might a cell, reveling in the solitude. But the mundane day-to-day tasks of keeping a house were proving a drudgery, and the night crept in so close and thick that he longed for some sound other than the groaning of the wind. A light footstep around the house would be welcome, and that was to say nothing of a hot meal. For the past week, he’d been subsisting entirely on bread and molasses and the charity of the townsfolk, the latter of which he was eager to stop using.

      “My sister, Fanny, she needs a new position.”

      “Does she have references?”

      Jasper’s sharp green eyes darkened. “She works up at the castle for that woman,” he said, barely able to choke out the last word.

      Gabriel looked between the two men, brow raised. “Woman?”

      Manuel gave a jerk of his head toward the hill. “Mrs. Carver,” he said. “The widow.”

      Her name had now made its way to his ears several times over the course of the past week, usually in conjunction with the shaking of heads and disdainful grimaces. The people here spoke as if the devil himself was in their midst, and Gabriel was growing more and more curious about this almost mythical figure.

      “It’s not a fit place for a young lady of her birth to work,” Jasper continued, his jaw tight. “Me and my sister might be fallen on hard times, but we’re of good stock, and it’s beneath her to be scrubbing away and laundering for the likes of her.”

      Mr. Marshall’s warning came back to him. “People here really believe she killed her husband, then?”

      Manuel spat in the dirt and went back to unloading crates without a word.

      “She’s as guilty as sin,” Jasper said, his gaze still trained somewhere past the hill. “She’s the worst sort of fraud, living in her grand house like a lady, as if she’s better than the rest of us. Meanwhile, her hands are stained with blood.”

      “I see,” Gabriel said, surprised at the force of the young man’s words.

      “She doesn’t leave her grounds, thinks she’s too good to mix with the likes of us. But she’s not too good to work Fanny like a slave.”

      Gabriel rubbed at his jaw, considering the proposition. “Send your sister to the church cottage tomorrow, and I’ll see what I can do.”

      The distant, steely look in Jasper’s eyes softened into genuine relief and gratitude, and he took Gabriel’s hand, shaking it heartily. “I will. Thank you, sir.”

      Gabriel said goodbye to the men and left them to their work. But instead of continuing to the post, he looped the long way around from the docks so Jasper wouldn’t СКАЧАТЬ