“Hallo, Miss Alexander,” he says cheerfully. A wicker creel is slung over his shoulder. Opening the flap, he shows me the herrings inside. “Got these for tea.”
“Thank you.” I take it from him as he steps into the hall. “I’ll put them in the pan.”
“Aye.” He shucks off his coat. Hanging it up, he swallows, his expression turned grave. “How is he? Our Jude?”
I clutch the strap of the creel. “Sleeping the day away,” I say, trying for lightness. “You can go up and see him, if you like. Dr. Grant checked in on him earlier.”
“Oh, good.” Irving runs the back of his hand across his forehead before tugging at his hair. He looks down the hall to the staircase, to the door leading into the tower. “Though I reckon he’d be wanting me to see to the light first. I’ll head up to the lantern room for but a moment, if you’ll excuse me.”
While Irving tends to the light, I bring his creel of fish into the kitchen. Unbuttoning my cuffs, I push up the sleeves of my dress, setting out a pan and fillet knife. My eyes drift to the books on the table.
Gabriel Flint is too young to be on the petition. Russell Hendry is locked in a jail cell. Nell Bracken’s death provides an alibi for those at the dance. She was waiting for a suitor only to end up in a pool of her own blood—and the police thought it sirens without any witnesses. But why kill her after Connor? What secret had Connor discovered that was worth slitting his throat?
A door opens down the hall. Irving enters the kitchen, cleaning his hands with a handkerchief. He looks at me and says, rather hesitantly, “Might I see him now?”
We go upstairs, and I show him into Jude’s room. He kneels at his bedside, taking one of Jude’s hands in his. Jude mutters something unintelligible, and Irving turns his hand palm up, the blue veins standing out along the inside of his wrist.
“Has he been…? Has he not woken?”
“This morning he did. Not for long.”
The shadows lengthen across the room. Irving places Jude’s hand back on the quilt. Sitting against the wall, he looks over at him. “My great-grandfather,” he says, “God rest his soul, was in a similar state before he passed. I wasn’t even a thought in my mother’s mind at the time, but I was told he would take neither food nor water. He wanted only to go back to the sirens.” He drags his eyes away from Jude to meet my gaze. “We ought to wake him—make sure he eats something.”
I lower myself onto the edge of Jude’s bed. “Mr. Irving, if I might ask, why are you here rather than Mr. Osric?”
“He’s at the offshore light with Mr. Drummond. The tender won’t be able to reach them for another day or two—there’s a storm out that way.” He rakes a hand through his hair and glances out the window. “I reckon it’ll set upon us in the night. I only just managed to catch the last ferry from Lochlan.” When he looks to me, his dark eyes are somber. “There’s also the matter of my owing him this. Jude. He came to relieve me at that light when he was not yet keeper here. I couldn’t get back on the tender—I was too ill—so it was Jude and Drummond taking care of me as well as the light.” He smiles a little, rueful. “Drummond’s about as comforting as a wet sock, but Jude… ah, well, you know how he is.” He sets a hand across his heart, fingers spread. His hands are much like Jude’s: red knuckles, dry, cracked skin. “He watched over me as if I were his own blood.”
I cast my eyes down, staring at a warp in the dark floorboards. Now that Irving has mentioned it, I can almost feel the oncoming storm in the air. I take a glimpse out the window, and the clouds hang low, a uniform gray over the choppy sea. Jude sleeps on, and I stand up from the bed. “I’ll get dinner ready,” I say, “if you’d like to sit with him until then.”
Irving nods. “Thank you kindly, Miss Alexander. I’ll do just that.”
Downstairs, I clear my father’s books from the kitchen table, light the stove, and set about filleting the herrings, coating them in butter, salt, oats, frying them in the pan with another lump of butter. It makes the kitchen smell like wood smoke, like fried fish, so the air is no longer so stale and cold. Before I can call for Irving, I hear his tread on the stairs, alongside another—one I know as well as my own.
Irving comes into the kitchen with his hand around Jude’s uninjured arm. Jude is pale-faced, swaying slightly on his feet. Blood trails from his nose, and he wipes at it with the back of one hand, considering the blood across his knuckles with glassy eyes.
He doesn’t look at me.
Irving directs him to the water closet to wash up. Once Jude closes the door, I turn to Irving. “I’m not sure he ought to be up and about,” I say. “I could’ve brought him something.”
“It might do him good,” says Irving. “He seemed agreeable enough.”
Indeed, when we sit down to eat, Jude does so without protest. He holds his fork in his right hand, his left arm—stitched and bandaged—cradled against his stomach. He doesn’t speak a word, and Irving and I take his cue, so it’s a quiet affair altogether. After we finish, Irving asks him, “Would you like anything else, Jude? Cup of tea?”
Jude stares down at his plate. He shakes his head minutely.
“Then let’s get you up to bed,” says Irving, taking him by the arm.
I rise from my chair as well and follow them into the hall. At the foot of the stairs, Jude pauses, reaching out to touch the wall. He says, voice rasping, “I would like to go to the shore.”
“No, Jude.” Irving’s grip on his arm tightens almost imperceptibly. “Storm’s coming. We’ll stay here tonight.”
Jude looks over his shoulder, finding my gaze and holding it. “Moira…”
“Mr. Irving is right,” I say. “You’re not well, Jude. You need to go back to bed, get some rest.”
He shudders, hand pressed flat against the wall. His nose starts bleeding again, but this time he makes no move to wipe the blood from his face. It drips onto his shirtfront as he ducks his head, breathing ragged.
“Easy, now,” says Irving. He gives a tug on Jude’s arm, pulling him up onto the first step. “Come, you must be tired.”
He manages to get Jude upstairs. I wait, and listen, my hand curled around the banister. I hear Irving say something, low enough to be inaudible, and Jude mumble in answer. They walk into his room, the wood creaking beneath their feet.
When Irving comes back down, he smiles at me reassuringly. “He’s asleep,” he says. “I’ll just head up to the light—wind the clockwork.”
The rain starts not long after, sudden and pouring down in sheets. Irving lights a lamp and builds a fire in the drawing room. I sit on the rug before it, like I did as a child. We drink black tea and eat bread with butter, watching the logs shift in the grate, the wind outside rattling the windows in their frames.
“Good God,” Irving says, “I’ll be hammering shingles back onto the roof come morning.” He sits in an armchair, gazing up at the ceiling. In the corner of my eye, I see him look my way. “Your violin is here, I noticed. Over in the kitchen.”
I nod. Irving takes up the knitting he brought along—a half-finished sock—and I set down my teacup, staring into the fire. After a few minutes, he clears his throat and says, “You know, I don’t mind if you play a tune or two.”