The Twisted Sword Read Online Free PDF

tide had been in, and the water glistened like an inserted knife among the jetties and the moored ships. Now all that was gone again, the river lost in a damp mist which cut visibility to a hundred yards. Everything seemed Mysterious in it, even the familiar cobbles of this now , familiar town. It was a short walk along the terrace to the end house. Next to the Pig & Tinker was a ship's chandler; next to him Was Mudd's, a sailors' resthouse of not very good repute; then a house belonging to an anchor smith; then a customs officer; then a genteel lady called Curnow who did dressmaking, and then the Carringtons. As Clowance reached her house Miss Curnow came out.
    'Oh, Mrs Carrington, a young man called to see you about an hour gone. I did not know when you would be home.'
    'Did he give his name?' Clowance asked.
    'No, I didn't think t'ask. But he said he would come back.'
    Miss Curnow had very small screwed-up eyes. Whether it was from doing too much sewing in a poor light or whether they evidenced some specially penetrating talent of inquisitiveness was hard to tell. Clowance favoured the second explanation. She thanked her neighbour and went in. Theirs was a house with a more than pleasant view, but it was very small. There were four rooms downstairs and four rooms up, but they were all tiny. Nor was there any space at the front of the houses, but each house had a little back garden and earth privy. In the Carrington garden was a pump, which was the only water supply for the seven houses, so it meant that there was not much privacy in the back garden. Clowance had spent most of her time on the interior of the house, utilizing her half-forgotten training in sewing and millinery to make brilliant orange curtains for all the windows to frame the lace. She felt certain that her neighbours thought them outrageously bright; however, Stephen loved them and that was the important point. He had said not to wait dinner for him so she had made a pasty for herself. She heated it up in the little cloam oven which was still warm from the early morning cooking, and then, having taken off her riding jacket and boots, sat down to eat it on her own in the front room, cutting the pasty in half and pouring milk into the half she was eating. She had just finished when she saw a young man walking down the cobbled street. She felt instinctively that he was the young man Miss Curnow had referred to, and now understood the extra quizzicality in the woman's eyes - the sort of look that anticipates discomfiture - because the visitor was almost in rags, and was lightly bearded, which in these days did not so much imply a matter of choice as having no money to pay the barber. Sure enough the young man stopped in front of their door and knocked. Clowance picked up the remains of her dinner, bore it away, dug her feet into a pair of pattens and opened the door. He was probably not more than twenty - tall, broad-shouldered, blond-haired with strong features and vividly clear blue eyes. His body looked lean but not over-thin; it was his clothes which were so shabby: a faded shirt which had once probably been royal blue, with a rent at the shoulder and one sleeve short by four inches, a good blue woollen jerkin, newer than the rest, slate-blue coarse drill trousers, much patched with sailcloth and tied at the ankles; and down-at-heel canvas shoes that showed his bare feet
    'Excuse me,' he said, 'be Mr Stephen Carrington in?' A hoarse voice; West Country accent, but not badly spoken.
    'I'm sorry, he's not. I am expecting him shortly.'
    A pause. 'Are you Mrs Carrington, ma'am?'
    'Yes.'
    He turned and glanced up and down the street as if looking for the man he'd called to see. Clowance said: 'Is it about one of his vessels?'
    'Well ... only in a manner of speaking..." The young man bit at his thumb-nail and eyed Clowance. 'I've just come ashore, y'see. We berthed at dawn. Annabelle. Ye see her over there, the brig.'
    'Oh yes, I see.'
    'From Liverpool. Though