The Retired Exorcist Keeps Christmas

Chapter 1 - A Room for the Winter

The ironmongery traveller arrived shortly after two, with rain on the shoulders of his coat and the same worn sample case beside his boots. Abel had seen him turn in at the gate and reached the door before he could knock. For a moment they stood considering the case, which the traveller had put down to retrieve his folded booking note.

‘You needn’t find the paper,’ Abel said. ‘I have you in the book. Shall I take that while you attend to your coat?’

The man accepted with a warning about the weight, which proved justified; at the foot of the stairs Abel was glad when its owner took the other end. Between them they brought it up without striking the newly sound handrail. A buckle had worked loose on the journey; the traveller caught the strap before it could trail beneath Abel’s foot and apologised to it in the mild, familiar voice of a man who had been disappointed by the same buckle for years.

Room Two, aired that afternoon, smelled of clean linen and the damp garden, and the extra blanket lay at the foot of the narrow bed. The traveller set his case beside the chest, checked that a row of brass fittings remained in place, and looked towards the hearth.

‘The sweep came,’ Abel told him. ‘The flue has been examined and tested. You may have a fire if you want one, though I should agree the additional charge with you first.’

‘I’ll see how I get on with the blanket. I spend half my time in rooms too hot to sleep in. And breakfast at eight, if that suits? I’ve a man to see at the yard before nine.’

Eight suited Abel. They confirmed the two nights at three shillings and sixpence each, plain breakfast included, while the traveller unpacked a clean collar and a brush with most of its bristles worn to one side. Abel fetched his smaller bag while he washed, pleased to have remembered the towel before Joyce could remind him.

When he returned, the traveller was looking out at the garden. Below the window, lengths of the fallen branch stood stacked to drain; beyond them, wet stems leaned across the beds and the cold frame reflected a grey strip of sky. Abel and Lottie had cut the branch the day after he turned the vacancies board towards the street, almost four weeks ago. Their allotted hour had included freeing the saw twice and a disagreement about which end of a crooked length would fall. Lottie had been right about the wood. Abel had been right to move his foot.

‘A fair bit to do out there,’ the traveller remarked.

‘There is. We have made a way through to the cold frame. The rest will have to wait.’

Abel gave him directions to a sailmaker. Coming downstairs with his papers under his arm, the man explained why a certain pattern of hinge sold well near a harbour. Abel listened with more interest than he might once have given a hinge, having lately paid for several small repairs whose importance he had understood only when they failed.

At the door he showed the traveller how to lift the latch from outside during the day. The man expected to return about six, after finding supper near the harbour. He pulled his coat close against the drizzle and went down Harrow Street at the steady pace of someone who knew how long he could remain out before his boots admitted water.

Joyce was waiting in the parlour, pale in the afternoon light, and came to the desk as Abel opened the brown guest book to record the arrival.

‘He seems comfortable,’ she said. ‘You’ll want to ask him about the pillow tomorrow. People will spend a whole night folding a pillow in half before they mention it’s too thin.’

Abel finished the date before answering. ‘If it is too thin, I would rather he mentioned it tonight.’

‘Then tell him where the spare is. A man carrying half an ironmonger’s shop may be reluctant to ring for a pillow.’ She came nearer while he blotted the entry, looking with approval at the space left for the bill. ‘You did remember to say he could use the parlour?’

He had, on the traveller’s first visit. Joyce had a way of finding the one piece of information he considered too obvious to mention and showing him how a guest might spend an uncomfortable hour without it. He shut the book and told her he was going next door for bread. She asked for a currant loaf as well, then corrected herself with a small movement of her hand.

‘You ought to have one, I mean. It’s a poor sort of afternoon for bread without anything in it.’

At Pargeter’s, Lottie was tying a parcel while her assistant sorted the last small loaves. The shop windows had clouded at their lower edges, and somebody had drawn a circle in the mist with a finger. When a woman with two children had collected her order, Abel asked for his loaf and a small piece of currant cake.

‘Your lodger’s arrived, then,’ Lottie said, reaching for the bread knife. ‘I saw the pair of you going upstairs with that case. Has he brought his own bed?’

‘Hinges, chiefly. I believe there are other articles beneath them.’ As she cut the cake he added, ‘The room appears to suit him. He has already gone out to work.’

‘Good. You can get on with yours. I’ve left you enough heel for toast in the morning. The fresh part will do for your tea.’

He had thought of asking whether she would come in that evening, but she glanced towards the bakehouse table, occupied from end to end, and said she expected to be late.

‘Tomorrow, perhaps, if you’ve nothing particular on. I could do with half an hour in a chair somebody else owns.’

‘Tomorrow would be very welcome,’ Abel said. ‘You need bring nothing.’

‘I shall bring my feet. They’re the part most interested.’ She smiled as she handed him the parcel, and Abel went home with the bread warm against his palm.

In the kitchen Joyce had taken an interest in how much onion went into his supper, and suggested that if he meant to chop another he might open the door to the passage first. Abel did so, put the cake beneath a cover, and filled the kettle, leaving it on the stone beside the sink while he cleared a place to work.

He had scarcely begun when someone knocked. He expected the traveller, back for a forgotten paper, but the caller was younger, broad through the shoulders, with a soft hat held against his coat. Rain had darkened his cuffs. He looked past Abel towards the staircase before remembering his manners.

‘Mr Crane? Dennis Wilmot. I wondered whether you might have rooms for a family in a fortnight or so. I saw your board coming up from the harbour.’

Dennis wiped his boots thoroughly, stood his umbrella in the hall and followed Abel into the parlour, pausing at the window to smile at the view down the street.

‘I used to come this way as a boy. I’d forgotten how much uphill there was. My sister remembers every step, apparently, which she might have mentioned before I offered to walk round.’ He settled in the chair Abel indicated and took a folded sheet from his inside pocket. ‘She’s put down what we’re looking for. She thought it safer than trusting me to remember how many of us there are.’

The paper was written in a firm, clear hand. Marian Seaton asked for accommodation for herself, her husband Gordon and their daughter Ruby, aged nine, with a separate room for her brother, Mr Dennis Wilmot. They hoped to arrive on the fifteenth of December and leave on the twenty-second. Beneath were questions about breakfast, fires and whether there was somewhere a child could sit in the evening.

‘Ruby has a strong objection to being sent to bed while everybody else is doing something interesting,’ Dennis said as Abel read. ‘When we were last away together, the interesting thing was her father repairing a button. She watched him through the banisters for twenty minutes.’

‘There is the parlour, and the dining room when it is free. I have a single room which would suit you. I should need to look carefully at the arrangements for your sister’s family before I offered them one. May I keep this and write when I have done so?’

Dennis agreed readily, though his eyes went to the staircase again. ‘Could I see the single room while I’m here? It’s chiefly the stairs my sister will ask about. Our father used to say you could get a splendid view in Saltgrave if you were prepared to carry your own luggage towards it.’

‘That room is occupied for the next two nights,’ Abel said. ‘I can show you the stairs and describe it. The family accommodation will require some preparation, including an examination of the fireplaces.’

Dennis tried the repaired rail with an ordinary, unthinking pressure of his hand, and as they climbed Abel described Room Two, with its garden window and washstand. Through the open door of Room Three, a little harbour water showed between the roofs.

‘The garden side would suit me. Gordon will want the sea, but Marian will want him to stop drawing it for long enough to eat his breakfast.’ Dennis moved aside so that Abel could lead the way down. ‘We haven’t all been here together before. Ruby’s been promised a week of being shown where her mother was once young and badly behaved. She’s expecting a great deal.’

Back in the parlour, he added his own address beneath his sister’s. He struck out one letter and put in another. There was something agreeable about a man who brought a carefully written enquiry and then spoiled its neatness without apologising for five minutes.

‘If you write to Marian, she’ll see that I hear,’ Dennis said. ‘But that’s where you can reach me if you need to. We’ll be going inland on the twenty-second, to our parents. Christmas with them and the rest of the family. Mother would forgive us almost anything except arriving after she’d started worrying about the dinner.’

He spoke cheerfully, but began putting away his pencil as though the mention of another journey had reminded him of this one. He had a coach to catch before evening and had promised to call at the bakery. Abel gave him Lottie’s name.

At the front door, Dennis put on his hat and looked once more at the little vacancies board. ‘I do hope you can manage it. Marian’s had the visit planned for months. It would be pleasant to stay somewhere we could sit together when we came in.’

‘I will let her know within the week,’ Abel said.

Dennis retrieved his umbrella and went along to Pargeter’s. Abel dated the enquiry and set it beside the guest book, with a note to examine the unused rooms in the morning. Above the mantel the clock was coming towards four; the garden beyond the back windows had already lost most of its colour.

He lit the parlour lamp and saw to the fire before returning to his onions. Joyce was at the kitchen window, looking out at the cleared path beside the cold frame. Her outline was easier to see now, and when she turned, Abel could make out the small fastenings at her cuffs.

‘More visitors?’ she asked.

He told her about Dennis and the proposed week. They were still discussing where a child’s bed might stand and how much space a nine-year-old would need for her clothes when the kettle began to sing beside the sink.

Abel looked up from the chopping board. Steam rose from the spout and drifted across the darkening window. The kettle was still on the cold stone where he had left it; as its song grew louder, Joyce turned towards the passage. He put down the knife and wiped his hands on the cloth at his waist.

An elderly woman stood just inside the front hall, beyond the edge of the parlour light. She wore a dark dress with a high neck and a knitted shawl close about her shoulders. One hand rested at her breast as though she had been holding the shawl there for a long time. Through its loose fringe Abel could see the pale patch on the wall where an old hook had been removed.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said, stopping far enough away to leave her room. ‘I’m Abel Crane. Would you like to come and sit down?’

She looked towards the open parlour, then back at him. Her face had the strained concentration he had seen in Joyce after an outing that had taken more from her than she expected. When she moved, the hall showed through her shoulder for an instant before the dark cloth gathered its colour again.

‘If I may,’ she said. ‘I stopped by the baker’s window, but there were so many people going in and out.’

Abel led her to the chair Dennis had used and turned the lamp down a little, so that its light fell below her eyes. She settled carefully, with her hands together in her lap. The cushion kept its shape beneath her. Joyce came to the doorway and, after a glance at Abel, spoke to the newcomer.

‘I’m Joyce Stemp. You’re welcome to rest here. It’s a tiresome hill even before you get to the last bit.’

The woman gave her a grateful look. For a while she watched the fire, her attention following a little flame beneath the upper coal. Abel brought his own chair nearer, so that she need not raise her voice. In the kitchen the kettle subsided to a low simmer.

‘The young man who called,’ she said at last. ‘He had a brown hat. Dennis Wilmot.’ Her fingers moved against each other in her lap. ‘He’s my grandson. I saw him down by the harbour, and I followed him as far as I could. I had to sit a while near the bend.’

‘He was here this afternoon,’ Abel said. ‘He’s hoping to come back with his sister and her family.’

She looked towards the desk, where Marian’s paper lay beside the guest book. Abel waited while she studied the writing from her chair. When she turned to him again, she had loosened her hands, though one still held a fold of her skirt.

‘Did he say anything about Christmas?’