I awoke abruptly as if falling. I sat up in bed, my own bed, and found myself immediately lying back down. The pain in my gut was tremendous. Looking down, I saw my middle was wrapped thoroughly in gauzy covering.
“There you are then.”
Riven was in the room with me, sitting in one of my unused kitchen chairs in the corner, his legs crossed in a decidedly feminine fashion, a tattered book across his lap. He was not wearing his patch on this occasion, and his empty socket showed. A skin growth of some kind was visible within the collapsed area, looking for all the world like the gnarled knot of a tree. He looked, characteristically, not pleased to see me.
“How long have I been out?”
“A few days. Lucky that Mr. Blud saw you when he did.”
“Mr. Blud saved me?”
“Aye. You weren’t more than a few fathoms from his dock, but had he not been out there…”
(waiting)
“His dock? No, that’s impossible. I was much further out.”
“...”
“We were near the open ocean. I’m sure of it.”
As if the simple act of saying “we” jolted his memory from me bodily, I choked out “The thief...”
"Escaped, unfortunately. It was you or him, really. I assume you approve of Mr. Blud's choices."
“He wanted Anabel’s seeds.”
Riven snorted.
“I reckon he wanted the money he took as well.”
“It was the seeds he was after specifically.”
“...”
“Anabel told me so.”
“Yes, well Mrs. Liddell was by for you a few times.”
With a vague nod, Riven indicated the flowers on my bedside table.
“With her husband,” he added.
“I’ll have to remember to thank her for her kindness. And Mr. Blud, how can I thank him?”
“He accepts your gracious thanks. And offers my assistance for your recovery.”
I was in no position to turn down Riven’s help. I could, with his assistance, make it from my bedroom to the living room near the fire. It was an arrangement unlike I’ve ever had before or since. I’ve never been able to afford a maid, and I don’t suppose I would choose one quite so frightening and unsupportive as Riven. Nonetheless, I was thankful that someone was there to brew me tea and make soup for my dinner. I must give him credit for being, if not a comforting presence, a competent keeper.
In the evening, Riven brought my typewriter to me, and despite the uncomfortable weight on my knees, I was able to write without stopping or coming back into my own consciousness for nearly an hour. My own flight of madness and adventure in the rowboat with the thief provided me with a rousing beginning for my new book about the channel. Better than I could have hoped for in my gentle questioning of Anabel, though gotten at a more substantial price for certain.
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That was a long slog for me in those days, and even more surprising given I was writing with a one-eyed manservant not twenty feet away thumbing through the dirtiest book I had ever seen. On occasion, I saw him lick his thumb before turning a page and I wondered whether the dirt originated on his own fingers or on the pages. It was a particularly vile version of chicken or egg.
“What did you do before you worked for Mr. Blud?”
My question cracked the silence of the room that had existed for three hours or more.
“I took care of the gardens on a large estate.”
“Are you a gardener?”
He looked as if I had just poked him in his one good eye.
“I am a horticulturist.”
“Did you plant the trees along the path in the back of Mr. Blud’s estate?”
“I did.”
“I’ve always loved fir trees. They remind me of warm, cheery times somehow.”
“Those would, yes. Douglas. Christmas trees to most folks.”
“Are they native to the area?”
“Certainly not. They were introduced in the early nineteenth century. They thrive in cold weather.”
“I can see why yours are growing so well.”
My attempt at a joke was taken as a cue to end the conversation. As I returned to my typewriter, a new wind howled, rattling the arched windows, and a red light was vaguely visible, but it could have been nothing but a trick of the setting sun, a reflection or distortion.
I hit return:
That my sanguine landlord across the channel happened to be on his dock
(waiting)
Saved my life, but did nothing to blunt my curiosity about either the man or the channel. His subsequent refusal to show himself further heightened the mystery surrounding him. The proprietor of the coffee house once told me that Mr. Blud was an intensely private man. That wasn’t a good enough excuse for me, not by a long shot.
Return.
I frowned at the paragraph. Other than my bloody pun, I wasn’t particularly fond of it. I rolled the paper up so that only a blank whiteness greeted my eyes. I think now that perhaps I willed my recovery to its quickness by my sheer wish to be rid of Riven. I was becoming entirely too familiar with his habits and the intricacies of his physical appearance. In my short experiences with him in the past, I had attempted to look at him as little as possible, but such was no longer a luxury I had. I noticed a number of things about my caretaker in my recovery. Allow me to share a few, and I forgive any who might choose to skip ahead.
His remaining eye was a gray color, a spot-on reflection of the constant sky above the channel. He was much shorter than I had previously thought. I was able to see the balding pate of his head when he helped me from room to room. Of his clothes, I can only say that I never saw him change them. It was ever the same gray, wool shirt, the dirty coat he wore when I first met him, pants of black cotton, and boots when he left the cottage. I kept an eye on him as to better describe him in my book, although I admit I feared he was too boring a person to make much of a character, whatever odd proclivities he might have had. On that front, other than the licking of his fingers while reading, which can hardly be called unusual as nearly one in two school teachers are also guilty of this vice, I saw nothing. After a week of sharing my cottage with him, I began to wonder if the man wasn't intentionally hiding his true self from me, forever on guard for fear his face might slip. It was certainly true that he was guarded in conversation, so it seemed not such a stretch to imagine he had extended this care to his physical actions as well.
What he might have to hide was beyond my ken. I hoped not forever.
“What are you reading?” I asked one afternoon several days into our shared incarceration.
“Charts on pollination,” he said, rubbing the side of his nose.
I didn’t believe him.
“Come off it.”
“You said you’re a writer.”
“You’ve seen me working.”
“So nosiness is an occupational hazard then?”
It was my turn to end a conversation by falling silent. It was that evening that I was first successful in walking from one place to another by myself. I made it from my chair by the fire to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. That I had to use a fire poker as a cane had no dampening effect on my feeling of triumph. That same evening I had Riven fetch me a suitable walking stick.
Two mornings later, I dismissed Riven with a typed note of gratitude to Mr. Blud which included an open invitation to stop by for tea or coffee. I did not expect him to accept. I was finally to be free once again, and not to be held captive anymore unless of course, I took it into my head to be a hero again. Not much chance of that.