When she came back, her husband let her come through first. He was a striking man, rather Heathcliff in his looks and manner, with dark hair waving down past his collar. He was in shirtsleeves and braces, though if he’d been at work, he must have worn some sort of smock, because his clothing was impeccably clean. Griffin looked up and nodded. “Cliff Hudson, I presume?”
“Aye, and my wife Maud. I gather you’re needing something of magic, then?”
Griffin nodded. “We’ve spoken to Robert Carey. His name and yours were the ones we had. He can’t take on the work, and it was clear he didn’t want to consider it.” Then he laid out what they needed again, in a bit more detail this time. He was intrigued to realise it was Maud who was tracking all the details. Hudson had pulled the bench over, and she was on a stool, just beside him.
“Aye, we could do the work, but not for a good while. A year, at least. I’m committed elsewhere, aye? Talisman work. Someone had a big commission, I’m doing the carving. Bigger than the Courts, even, and steadier work. You all only need us every so often.”
“I’m a shopkeeper’s son,” Griffin said, amiably. “I do understand that. Steady client base wins out over the flash. Is there anyone at all you could recommend we consider? A former apprentice, someone who’s had some training? We’d pay for your consulting time, if it came to that sort of arrangement.”
The couple hmmed and murmured back and forth several times, falling into a Yorkshire brogue thick enough Griffin couldn’t follow it easily. After a good minute, Maud said, far more clearly. “It’s a pity Jack Chapman isn’t still alive. He’d have done the work, and done it well.”
Hudson glanced at his wife. “There’s a tradition, strong one, here, that women don’t work the jet. But he’s got a granddaughter, still living. Shop around the corner, up the hill just a hair. She might know someone, at the least.”
Griffin was fairly sure there were several things they weren’t telling him, but again, he was in no position to press. “That’s a place to start. Is there a good time to catch her at home or whatever?”
“Oh, she keeps the shop open a fair bit.” Maud flicked through something mentally. Griffin knew that expression very well. “Not today or tomorrow, probably, but try in two days. Or if it rains ‘nough to make the pavement shine.”
That was an elliptical sort of comment, but it was at least one Griffin could follow as a guide. “I appreciate your time, then. Perhaps I might look at a few pieces while we’re here?” He had relatives to buy presents for, he always did. And he knew Charlus did, though Charlus’s relatives were the sort who wouldn’t consider jet fashionable these days.
The half-hour that took solidified his impression of the two. Cliff Hudson had a creative spark to him that Griffin rather liked, both in his carving and how he went about deciding what he was going to make. His wife, though, seemed to be the business mind of the bunch, and she was the one who’d guided Hudson into working with ammonites and a few other local specimens as well as jet.
None of it had even begun to solve their actual need, but at the very least, they had weeded out two possibilities.
Chapter8
MARCH 14TH
Annice came back home, feeling utterly drained. The day had, for once, not been entirely made of tension. The three women had come round for the earring, and they’d made an afternoon of it. One of them - the middle of the three, Alexandra’s mother - had asked about having tea in, perhaps from one of the nearby places. She’d disappeared and then come back twenty minutes later with a hamper full of food.
It had meant Annice could lock up the shop, not worry about who might overhear, or any of the other dozen worries that normally flew around her, like flies. They’d been generous, too, not just with the tea, but with their purchases, each of them picking up a piece. It was enough to keep Annice in groceries for at least a few weeks longer without dipping into Grandad’s savings again.
But when they finally left, for a promised supper of fresh-caught fish, back at the inn, Annice had felt deflated. She wasn’t really hungry; she didn’t feel steady enough to try carving, so instead she went up to the workshop to tidy up. There were still more than a few cupboards that hadn’t been properly cleared out in years, in the eaves by the stairs, and they would not sort themselves.
Annice was in the middle of the second one when she moved several books and a pile of ancient newspapers that crumbled in her hands. Underneath, she found a large flat cardboard box, tied shut with string. She set it in her lap, picked at the knot with her fingers until it gave way, then removed the lid. What was inside startled her, badly.
It was the width of her palm, and about half the length high. It was big enough to have made a significant brooch or hair ornament or something of the kind, and wasn’t anything like that. This pulsed with magic. When she turned it over, there were tiny engravings on the back, which had a shallow curve to it. It was meant to sit on something, maybe even spin or move lightly. Even with her jeweller’s loupe, she couldn’t make sense of the markings. They weren’t any kind of magic she’d seen, never mind been taught.
Carefully, she set it back in the box, and the paper on the box, and the books on the paper, feeling like one of the counting folksongs in reverse. She closed the cupboard carefully, as if she might wake something up. Then she sat there, trying to catch her breath.
It could have been Da’s work. He’d had proper magical training. But she hadn’t thought he did things like that. It wasn’t like she could ask him now, and she didn’t think he’d kept more than routine business records. Certainly she hadn’t yet found anything like a working journal.
The only thing Annice could think to do was have tea. The tea was decent, but it turned out not to solve any of her many questions. Finally, she considered. If she went round to Aunt Sarah’s, maybe one of the cousins could talk it through with her, at least. That meant a trek across the bridge, to the west side of the port, but the weather was just cloudy, not raining, and not that unpleasant.
The house was, as usual, complete chaos. Uncle Donald was off on a fishing trip, as were the male cousins. But that still left Nan’s sister’s daughter Aunt Sarah, two of her daughters, two daughters-in-law, and a dozen children including the three babies. They were all crammed into two houses next door to each other. It took a good hour to get through all the pleasantries, and for Annice to agree to a cup of tea and a scone, but not more food. For one thing, she knew they were more skint than she was, if only by virtue of more mouths to feed, and more growing little ones.
Finally, though, she and Ruth, the cousin she was closest to, ended up on the back steps. They sat looking out on the bare little plot of earth that didn’t really justify being called a garden, though come a bit later in the spring, it would have some hardy plants growing again. Aunt Sarah usually got a couple of things that flowered in there, for a bit of pretty, as she said.
“You’ve not been round.” Ruth laid it out, point by point. “Mam was thinking you wouldn’t.”
Annice’s chin came up. “Been busy.” Her shoulders came up too, defensively. “She put out?”
“You know she worries you think you’re better’n us, and it’s no good.” Ruth shrugged. “Good you came. Also good you didn’t need feeding. Mostly.”
Annice let out a hollow noise. “Client fed me tea today. Not that common, not like I’d turn it down. I came to see if Aunt Sarah knew anything, but not if she’s...” Not if she wasn’t sure if Annice was still part of the family. Or was ready to do her part helping the family, or whatever. If any of the boys had showed any sign of wanting to learn jet carving, she’d have taught them long since. But they preferred the fishing boats, even though that was dangerous work. Not that jet carving couldn’t be, if you didn’t have a touch of magic to catch the dust. They all knew far too many people who’d died of a black cough.
Ruth stared out across the yard, at a point somewhere near the middle of the rickety fence. “You ask. She’d rather.” Ruth’s voice got flatter, the broad vowels coming out more.
“Will you get her to come out when she’s got a minute, then? You too, if you like.” Annice offered it as a peace offering of sorts.
