There were days of work needed just on the roof—days more to spend in this safe place outside the world, eating well, sleeping long nights in each other’s arms, not thinking of what next. Ben was all too aware there would be a next, sooner or later, but he couldn’t make himself face it. This was a holiday from thought, from the world, with Jonah.
“We’re doing good work,” Jonah remarked one night. “Don’t you think? Mr. Penrose—Harry, not Bill, you know, the one who fishes with Aaron Tapley—he was saying how much more companionable the Green Man is now. Like un afore old Linney passed.” Jonah had developed a creditable Cornish accent. “That’s Dora’s father-in-law, not her husband. Can’t find anyone with a good word for him, but apparently his father was a decent enough sort of man, though everyone says Dora brews better ale. What?”
Ben shook his head, grinning. “You were born for a village, weren’t you? You always have to know everything.”
“I don’t,” Jonah said indignantly. “I just listen to people, that’s all. Anyway, Harry Penrose is a good fellow, very popular, even if his brother can’t hold his drink. He’s sending lots of custom our way.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Oh, because young Aaron wants to marry Bethany,” Jonah explained. “He’s Harry’s nephew by marriage and Harry’s got no children of his own. The Tapleys don’t have tuppence ha’penny to rub together so Aaron and Harry are fishing all the hours God sends. But if the inn can do well enough for a wedding portion for Bethany—”
Ben nodded along. They had been at the Green Man for over three weeks now, slipping further and deeper into a domestic routine. Jonah darted around the garden playing tag with Agnes, served behind the bar as if born to it, lit up Ben’s heart with his smile. Ben settled to work alongside Dora, mending and fixing, fetching and carrying, keeping order as the pub got busier. They talked, too. Dora was a taciturn, self-reliant woman but she’d borne her burdens alone for a long time. She would speak, sometimes, in quiet moments, of her hopes and fears for the girls, of perhaps going to visit her mother one day, occasionally of the unmourned Mr. Linney and their bitter marriage, ended by his drowning after a drunken fall from the quay. Ben found himself wishing he could speak more freely in return.
He enjoyed Bethany’s company as well: her hopeful youth, as yet unworn by care, and her simple happiness with Aaron, who would doubtless be ruled with a rod of iron. At one point he’d worried that the presence of two young men under the Green Man’s roof might cause gossip—it would have in Berkhamsted—or even trouble. Dora was a widow, after all, and Bethany an impressionable girl, and hopes could arise…
He’d been so wrong about that it was almost unflattering. Bethany, quite happy with her fisherman, clearly ranked Ben with her own mother in age, and Jonah with her little sister. Dora had made it very clear that she’d had enough of marriage, and had no intention of giving up her rights to a man again, let alone allowing her girls’ inheritance to pass through her fingers into someone else’s pocket. Ben couldn’t quite see how anyone could ignore Jonah’s vital, animal presence—it was as much as he could do not to watch every graceful movement—but the Linneys seemed to do so effortlessly. And life was simply too hard for the people of Pellore for them to make it more unpleasant than it needed to be. So Jonah and Ben had slipped into place, unremarked, and nobody seemed to question it.
They couldn’t be complacent, of course. The easy acceptance would shatter into sharp edges if the truth about them was known, and they’d be lucky to be drummed out of town with only curses. But that would be the case everywhere, and at least here there were the cliffs, and empty spaces, and a bedroom with thick walls.
And meanwhile, they settled in. Ben recognised many of the local faces now and a lot of the names, although not as many as Jonah, who disappeared into the village or neighbouring Looe and Polperro on any pretext, making new friends and picking up gossip at every turn. Stretching my legs, he would explain to Dora. Ben just hoped he wouldn’t get caught in midair.
In the end, that was not what caught them.
Jonah woke one morning, sitting upright in bed, and saying, “Storm.”
“Storm?” Ben couldn’t hear a thing outside.
“There’s a storm coming.” Jonah sniffed. “It’s in the air. Here by the evening, if you ask me. I think we should get on the roof. Do what we can about those last leaks.”
He headed up to the roof immediately after breakfast, insisting they needed to get an early start. Dora looked after him. “Knows the weather, does he?”
Bethany frowned. “The boats will be out tonight.”
“I’d guess Harry Penrose can tell the weather just as well as that Jonah,” Dora said dryly. “Storm, indeed.”