‘It won’t be taking too long to dry,’ Harriet said, almost inaudible over the crackling fire and rattling window casements. ‘Your shirt be soaked and all.’
Richard glanced down at the damp patches that gripped the shirt to his chest. He began to unbutton it, all the while holding his eyes on hers. Her coyness and discomfort amused him. Silently, he offered her his shirt.
Harriet mumbled something and clumsily hung it beside his coat, catching a lingering look at his torso in the reflection of the looking glass. Turning back to him, she said, ‘Would you be liking some tea, Richard?’
‘That would be lovely—thank you,’ he answered.
She left the room diffidently and he took the opportunity to look around the parlour: it was just the humble dwelling that he had imagined it to be. Simple furniture. Simple lives. Simple people. And yet they’re not, he thought resentfully, they’re conceited, arrogant and malevolent. He caught sight of the painting above the fireplace and moved closer to it. It was Eliza, painted two years earlier by an artist trained in flattery rather than in reality, it appeared.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Harriet said, appearing behind him clutching a small cup of tea between both hands. ‘Mr Woods painted it two years ago in exchange for a few free drinks. He still be wanting free gin to this day!’
Richard turned with a smile. ‘Yes, it is beautiful. It looks like you’re very fortunate to have such a nice family,’ he responded, taking the cup. ‘Thank you. They seem to be doing well for themselves—your parents, I mean.’
Harriet nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
Richard sipped his drink. ‘And what about you, Harriet? How old are you, now? Twenty?’
Harriet sniggered. ‘I be coming on for eighteen this birthday next.’
Richard looked surprised.
‘How old do you be, Richard?’ she asked.
‘I’m twenty-five.’
Both Harriet and Richard jumped with fright, as a sudden gust of wind violently shuddered through the whole house, like a terrible earthquake. One of the girls upstairs screamed at the same moment as the fire shrank down almost to extinction, before stretching up and hissing into the room.
Harriet shrieked and dashed over to Richard, who flung his arm over her shoulders. ‘It’s all right—it’s just the wind,’ he reassured her.
The sound of two pairs of feet hurrying down the stairs was almost drowned out by another surge of wind that attacked the front of the house, firing sharp pellets of rain at the window shutters.
Keziah and Ann appeared in the room looking terrified, and ran to the embrace of their elder sister.
‘Do we be alright?’ Keziah begged. ‘Ought we not to fetch Ma and Pa?’
‘It’s only a storm, girls,’ Richard comforted.
Another burst of wind hit the house, being instantly followed by a loud crashing noise that sounded to him like a building nearby had collapsed. All three Lovekin girls looked up at Richard in terror. ‘It be pulling the houses down,’ Ann sobbed. ‘Get Ma and Pa, Hattie, please.’
‘I best be getting them,’ Harriet decided.
Richard suddenly pulled away; he couldn’t be found here by Joseph and Eliza—that wasn’t the plan. Not tonight. He’d achieved what he had come to do and now it was time to leave. He strode over to his damp garments and began to pull on his shirt. ‘I need to go and see what that awful noise was,’ he said, pulling on his coat and hat. ‘Someone might be hurt.’
‘Don’t be a-leaving us,’ Harriet pleaded.
‘You’ll be fine, girls,’ he said, as he reached for the door latch. The door flew open, slamming back into the wooden wall behind it.
One of the girls yelped as the wind forced its way inside the parlour, twisting around the flames of the fire and drawing them into the room before pulling on the four chairs and tugging at Eliza’s portrait on the wall.
The door slammed shut and the wind recoiled, leaving the three sobbing sisters holding each other in the middle of the room.
The moment that he stepped from the Lovekin house, Richard’s hat was whipped from his head, joining a raft of debris being torn from boats, yards and buildings all around him, to be tossed and discarded brutally at the wind’s whim. He needed to leave—right now, before he got injured; he had achieved his objective and the weather was now becoming dangerous. Maybe tonight wasn’t a good night to come here, after all, he thought as he battled just to stay upright. With the wind behind him, he began to head back towards the Priory Bridge.
‘Hey! Can you be a-helping us?’ a voice called from the gloom behind him.
Richard swung around and could just discern a dark figure veiled by mist and rain.
‘We be a-needing help, here!’ the man repeated. ‘Folk is trapped and the sea be a-coming in.’
Richard stared: this wasn’t what he’d come for. These same people now requesting his help were the ones that had not long ago thrown their filth over him; the same people who had made his horse rear up and caused him to fall; the same people who had disrespected the authority of the corporation and the laws of King George. With a sneer, he continued for the bridge, leaving the mist to swallow the tragic figure behind him.
There was another crack and crash from the shoreline in what sounded like another building being annihilated by the waves. As Richard set his foot on the Priory Bridge, he stopped and turned. A thin smile spread across his face, as his imagination played out the wild drama taking place beneath the fog. Mother Nature and God had plotted and contrived together to take back what was rightfully theirs, succeeding where the weak corporation officials
