Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [27]
“Heel, you ragbag!” he said, and looking up at Rutledge added, “He’s got more energy than I have! But then he hasn’t been working the oars for the past hour or more. I’ll have the devil of a time walking home; he’ll be there and back twice over before I cover half the distance.” It was said with a mixture of impatience and affection. The voice was cultured, without the local accent.
“Can you go out as far as the sea?” Rutledge asked, nodding toward the distant headland.
“Oh, yes. It’s quite nice out there. Silent as the grave, except for the waves breaking as they come in, and the birds putting up their usual fuss. I rather like it.”
He spoke to the dog and the pair set out up Water Street, the dog matching the man’s strides for the first twenty paces and then bouncing ahead like a thrown ball, urging his master on. Then an older woman, coming out of a shop to her horse-drawn carriage, called out, “Edwin? Care for a lift?”
The man waved to her, and whistled the dog to heel. Rutledge watched him swing himself into the carriage and heard his laughter as the woman agreed to allow the wet, wriggling animal to leap up with them.
Returning to his motorcar, Rutledge noticed The Pelican Inn, standing at the far end of the quay, where the road turned up. A barmaid had just finished sweeping the entry and was now shaking out the bit of carpet where customers wiped their feet. She was buxom, fair, and middle-aged, with a good-natured face.
Children rolling hoops ran up the street, shouting to each other, drawing a frown from two well-dressed men conversing under the wrought-iron sign for the baker’s shop. A black cat sat in a sheltered corner, licking its fur and ignoring the small terrier that was trotting at the heels of an elderly man with a cane. The man spoke to the barmaid and she laughed.
A pub, Rutledge thought, was one of the best places to test the temperament of a village. He left the car at the end of the quay and walked across to The Pelican.
The barmaid had gone inside and was wiping down the last two tables, her face pink with exertion as she gave them a good scrub. She looked up and smiled at him, saying, “What can I do for you, love?”
“Is it too early for a lunch?”
“The ham’s not near done, nor the stew neither, but I can give you a Ploughman’s.”
“That will be fine,” he answered. Bread and good English cheese and a pint.
“Here, sit by the windows where you can enjoy the view.” She shrugged plump shoulders and added, “If you like the marshes. I find them dreary, myself. Too much wildlife for my taste. Of the crawly kind, if you take my meaning! More of them than there are of us, and that’s no lie!”
He sat down by the window that looked out across the marsh and counted a flight of some dozen ducks coming in to what must be a pool hidden somewhere among the tall grasses. The barmaid had disappeared into the kitchen, and he heard the rattle of cutlery and dishes.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness created by smoke-blackened beams and tables, he realized that he wasn’t alone. Another man sat in a corner nook by the bar, his head bent over a newspaper. Rutledge wasn’t certain whether he was reading it or using it as a barrier against conversation.
Decoratively, The Pelican contained the flotsam and jetsam of a seafaring port: an iron anchor in one corner, several ships’ models suspended from the beams, a handful of blue-and-white Chinese plates resting on shelves nailed to the walls with haphazard artistry, carved seabirds of every shape and size perched on the wide windowsills as if trying to find a way through the glass.
A stuffed greylag goose, enormous and showing signs of moth, occupied one end of the bar, with a sign around his neck advertising a Norfolk ale.
There were even odd bits and pieces from around the world, hung wherever they might fit. A great hammered-copper