My body strengthened, the hole in my gut giving way to something that more resembled a permanent dent in my outer shell. On my rambles about the bluffs, I could not bring myself to part with my walking stick, though I no longer needed it. It had become, like the mouldy hat, an irreplaceable part of my adventuring experience. I liked to imagine myself as the lone creature in an oil painting, staring plaintively towards the wild ocean, jacket whipping in the gale, staff clutched tightly in hand. The lack of truth in this image did nothing to tarnish its power over me. Some men like to imagine themselves as great and successful businessmen, while still others would be champions of the Thoreauvian American Idyll, but for my part, I want only to be falsely remembered as a great subject for muted oils on canvas.
On one such day when I struck a pose above the dark waters, allowing the light but consistent rain to drip from the bill of my hat, and gripping my stick like the subject I wanted to be, reality butted in the form of a yelp. Setting my walking stick against the rock wall at my back, I made to look over the edge by the undignified manner of stooping to all fours. When I looked over, what I saw through the falling rain was another solitary walker, collapsed. He was splayed in a manner that suggested he had not simply fallen over while walking but had tumbled from a distance down the slippery rocks before coming to a rest at his current spot.
“Hold still!” I called, thinking it good advice. “I’ll make my way down to you!”
I made my way down to my fellow bluff walker with considerably more care than I would have ordinarily taken, being affected by the sight of the fallen man. When I reached him, I found him responsive and sitting upright, though undoubtedly worse for wear.
“My walking stick is lost,” he said as I kneeled near him.
“I think you’ll find it infinitely more replaceable than your limbs which appear to be in remarkably good order.”
“Yes, let’s test that out. Would you?”
I helped him to his feet, and despite the obvious pain he was in, he had been lucky. Over his complaints, I insisted that he raise his shirt and coat above his head so that I could make sure he was not pooling blood internally. Once this task was finished to my satisfaction, we were just two walkers having met on the bluffs. We sat down with our back to the hill and my companion pulled out a flask. He offered it to me and I took a fiery sip and grimaced.
"You're going to feel like Lucifer himself took his stick to you in the morning."
“I’ve always imagined him using a cane.”
We both laughed freely at his biblical pun, our echoes prevented from traveling by the ever-present rain.
“Tell me, does it ever stop raining?”
“Not in my experience, and I’ve been here a long while.”
“Your slip was from the wet?”
“In technicality. An amateur mistake. I’ve been walking these bluffs for years. There’s hardly been a day when they could be called dry in all that time.”
“How long have you lived in the area, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I moved here with my wife and my daughter thirty years ago last summer.”
His words hung between us, spoken in plain terms.
“All this time sitting here and I’ve not introduced myself. You must think me rude. Grady. Thomas Grady.”
“Blud. Theophilius Blud.”
“You’ve known me this whole while.”
“Guilty, Mr. Grady.”
“And here I’ve thought myself the rescuer, when if it were not for you, I’d not be walking at all, nor breathing. I am in great debt to you, Mr. Blud, not least of which for your cottage which I currently have the pleasure to call home.”
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Mr. Blud smiled, turning to me and putting a gentle hand on my knee. His face was kind, ruddy, like one, might expect a favorite uncle to look, his hair a downy blonde peeking out from his hat. His looks and bearing denied all my mental accounts of his fearsome mystery.
“There’s no need to thank me, Mr. Grady. You’ve accounted yourself every bit the hero today. Let’s consider all accounts settled.”
“On one condition.”
“Very well.”
“You must come have a cup of tea with me in the cottage.”
For the briefest flash his face changed at hearing the suggestion, his composure shattered, and utter terror lay behind his eyes. It was gone as quickly as I could mark it, so fast as to make me doubt I had seen it at all.
“It would be my pleasure, Mr. Grady. Besides, I fear if I don’t walk some more I will stiffen like an hours-dead corpse.”
My landlord and I walked together back to the cottage. I offered my walking stick once, which he politely declined. Our conversation was free and easy, each of us willing to speak on the most inconsequential of subjects during a shared walk, knowing that any true object would be got to over tea. I will admit to being taken aback by Mr. Blud's person. I had quite built him up in my mind as the most sinister of characters, though there was nothing I could say he had done wrong by me. In fact, a careful tabulation of accounts would show he had been incredibly generous towards me at every turn. I wondered at my rush to judgment in his case and thought perhaps I had unfairly maligned the character of Riven as well, although the latter had none of the natural charms of his employer.
Once we reached the cottage, Mr. Blud sat down in the chair by the fire that I often favored, low embers still present from my morning stoking. He crossed his legs and settled back into the chair as easily as a man may when he finds himself in a home that was once his. I set out to make tea and returned to his presence shortly with a tray. I found Mr. Blud unusually quiet for a few moments, sipping his tea and looking about the old place, his eyes lingering on the heavily- striated floor.
“It seems a lifetime since I built this cottage. Did you know you’re my first tenant?”
“I’d heard as much.”
“Sentimental foolishness of course.”
“A man has a right to his sentimentality, and it’s a lovely property at that.”
“Do you think so?” he said, turning to me with a look of shocking earnestness. It seemed that he needed me to confirm the worth of the cottage.
“I’ve grown rather fond of it, though Riven doesn’t much care for it I don’t think.”
Mr. Blud chuckled at this, taking a sip of tea to wet his throat afterward.
“I did mean to apologize to you for him. I can only imagine how he’s treated you. He’s a bit rough about the edges. He’s a good soul, Riven. I owe everything to him.”
He did not elaborate.
“He has never been unkind.”
We drank our tea in silence for a few moments before I was able to come up with what I felt would be a suitable topic of conversation.
“Did you move across the channel because your family outgrew the cottage?”
“My family?”
“Did you need more room I mean.”
“I think we’ve misunderstood each other, Mr. Grady. My wife and daughter are both deceased.”
In the span of a single second, my mind raced back to any mention of his family by Anabel or others and I could not remember anyone mentioning they were dead.
“You’ve not offended me. It’s common knowledge around the channel, so I assumed you knew as well. I apologize.”
“My apologies are what are needed, not yours, sir. I am very sorry for your loss.”
“It has been many years now. I manage okay on my own, though it has not been easy. You’ll forgive my unwillingness to socialize before our...chance meeting. I’ve become accustomed to solitude in these last years. Often folks around the channel mistake this for some kind of secrecy or furtive dealings. I’m sure you can understand.”
“Of course,” I choked, embarrassed to the core at the musings about his private life I had written only that morning, still sitting in a pile on the wicker table by my typewriter. I wondered wildly if he had read them while I made tea, but of course not.
His fear of returning to the cottage made all too much sense in light of these revelations. If only I had gotten to have one conversation with Anabel before the disaster. She would have told me right off.
“Riven tells me you’re here to write a book.”
“Yes, or rather attempt to.”
“A novel?”
“A history. Of the channel. A narrative history perhaps. Forgive me, for some details are still a bit hazy.”
“Why, that’s a wonderful idea. Capital. You must make use of my personal library. You’ll not find more books about wherein the channel plays a part anywhere in the world. I insist. It’s really the least I can do after today.”
I couldn’t understand Mr. Blud’s sudden enthusiasm for my project, especially given what had happened up until this point, but having just learned about all he had been through, I took it as a compliment that I had made it into his inner circle. The truth was...something like that.