The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [273]
Frank Mallett was sitting with Arthur Dobbin, drinking a glass of ale and chewing homemade bread and crumbling cheese. A young man in fishermen’s boots and a heavy jacket came and pulled him by the sleeve. Frank listened, shook his head as if to clear it, stood up and looked at the gathering. Seraphita was sitting in a glow of firelight from a bonfire on which potatoes were baking. She looked dazed, which was not unusual. Frank continued to look around, and saw Prosper Cain, who was bending over Imogen Fludd. Frank walked over to them, not too urgently, smiling at parishioners as he passed them.
“Major Cain. May I have a quiet word with you?”
They moved to the edge of the gathering, out of the light.
“I have just had a message from Barker Twomey. He’s one of those line-fishermen, at Dungeness. He caught a boot. Hadn’t been in the water long. He thinks it’s Mr. Fludd’s boot. Barker Twomey thinks someone should look at the boot.”
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Mallett?”
“I have been disturbed by the absence—now the prolonged absence—of Mr. Fludd.”
“His family and those who know him do not appear to be much disturbed.”
“They do not. It is true he was always wandering off, just walking out, sometimes for weeks.”
“And you think you have cause to think this is different.”
“I am not a Catholic, Major Cain. I am an Anglican, of a liberal kind. Confession is not part of the way of my Church. It isn’t a recognised sacrament. But people do tell me things. Things they expect me to remain silent about. I believe it is my duty to listen. And to keep silent.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I am afraid Benedict Fludd may be dead. I am afraid he may have walked into the sea, down there at Dungeness, where the currents are thick and violent and the water is deep.”
“And you think this for a particular reason?”
“He came to see me, just after his talk to the camp. He said he meant to do away with himself. I should add, this was by no means the first time he had expressed such an intention.”
“He confessed to you, you are suggesting—”
“He was in the habit—fortunately not very frequently—of telling me things about himself—about his former life—about his life—I don’t know much of the world, Major Cain, I suppose, professionally, I should be surprised by nothing human. I shouldn’t say this, I know. I should keep quiet. But he told me things—he told them—not so that I might be able to offer him the Church’s forgiveness—but so as to hurt me. I don’t even know if what he said was true. I just know—it harmed me to listen to it. And it was meant to harm me. I’m sorry. I’m agitated. I do think he is dead. But we have one boot.”
“I am going to marry Benedict Fludd’s daughter Imogen,” said Prosper Cain. “So this concerns me, as a member of the family, so to speak.”
Frank Mallett’s face worked, as though he was about to dissolve into tears.
“I have known old Fludd for many years,” said Prosper. “Nothing he could do, or say, would surprise me. You are a good man, and a generous man and have done what you should—including telling me. Let us go to see this angler.”
They went on foot, in the thickening last light. They walked past the military camp near Lydd and across the Denge Marsh, and then the bleak shingle banks of Dungeness, skirting the Open Pits where the birds were settling for the night on the islets. This stony, shifting land supports a colony of caulked wooden huts, for the most part sooty black, some with boats beached before them, some with curious agglomerations of winches and pulleys. Lanterns were already glittering inside some of the small windows. Frank carried a storm lantern himself, but had not yet needed to light it. They came to the lighthouse, striped black and white, with its oil-fired, mirrored shaft of brightness searching the dark. Barker Twomey, said Frank, would not have left his rod; that was why he had sent Mick. They crunched on, over the stones, paler than the sky, towards the high shingle bank on which the anglers perched, black silhouettes like