What Manner of Man: Chapter 19 🦇

Rain-swept clifftop dramatics can be fun, but what about the morning after?

• To my patrons: I cannot hope to express even a fraction of the depthless gratitude, amounting to veneration, that I feel for every one of you.

• In spirit I am ritually draping each of you individually in the finest silk and costly furs, offering you fresh figs and honey-wine, etc. as you lounge on metaphysical divans.

• (Keep an eye out for a new post on the Patreon this coming Monday! 💕)

JOURNAL ENTRY (CONTINUED)

Undated.

My next recollection is of thinking how strange it was to find myself lying comfortably, when I ought to have been dashed to pieces on the rocks, drowned in the sea, or both. I was certain that I had been on the edge of the sea-cliff in a violent storm, and equally certain that, with the rock beneath my feet beginning to give way, I had fallen from it. In utter contempt of this, I seemed virtually uninjured; suffering, as far as I could tell, from nothing worse than an empty stomach and a slight ache at my throat.

All this passed through my mind as I slowly regained consciousness — I was comfortable and dry; evidently within doors. I was also not alone; I heard the creak of a step on wooden boards near at hand. For a moment, I imagined that Lord Vane had somehow borne me away from that godforsaken cliff, and that I now lay in some deep inner chamber at the heart of Whithern Hall. That fancy was soon put to rest, however, for the next sound that met my ears was a woman’s voice.

“Looks just about alive to me — there, he’s coming to.” There could be no mistake — the voice was Danny’s.

Then I recognized Sylvia, “Father Ardelian? Can you hear me?”

I cracked one eye. I would have recognized the room anywhere; the wooden beams, the sun-warmed bundles of drying herbs whose perfume hung in the air. The cottage! I must, I reasoned, be in St Silvan’s Head — but how? I was lying, wrapped in blankets, on a couch that had been hastily made up for me in the sunny front room.

Twice, now, this unlikely place has become a sanctuary to me. I feel hardly deserving of it.

“How —” I began, but found I was too parched to speak. It was all I could manage to get the word past my dry, aching throat.

Water had been left on a table at my elbow, and as I hauled myself into something approaching an upright position, Danny and Sylvia both rushed to my side.

“Easy now!” admonished Danny as my haphazard movement bumped the table and nearly caused the glass to spill, “Just lay there a minute — no need to go climbing over the furniture.”

Sylvia handed me the glass and, while I drank, brought a pitcher to refill it.

“You’re safe here,” she said. “You must have had quite a misadventure; Danny found you collapsed on the harbor-shore, below the manor.”

This didn’t make sense; I couldn’t have fallen that distance and survived. Then, I remembered: “How did you find me in that downpour? It was pitch-black — and the wind! Surely you weren’t out sailing around the island in that terrible storm?”

“I don’t know when exactly you mean, Father,” Danny turned to face me, putting her hands in her pockets, “but the sky was as clear and blue as it is today until I got within just a stone’s throw of the cove. Couple of harmless little rainclouds that cleared away by the time I got ashore. Nothing to trouble an experienced sailor.”

Sylvia looked thoughtful. “Storms in midsummer can come and go in the blink of an eye. The cloudburst may well have passed just before you got there, if it’s the last thing that Father Ardelian remembers.”

I winced — Father — for some reason, veiled from my conscious mind, hearing myself referred to by the title sent a throb of some ill-defined, distressing emotion through me. I couldn’t turn my thoughts to the matter then, though my discomfort grew with each repetition.

Instead, I looked at Danny for the first time (she was assenting, I believe, that I’d been drenched enough when she found me to corroborate my story.) I was struck by the genuine concern in her expression. My conversation with Silas had led me to believe I would be in danger if I returned here; yet, so far, I’d met only with compassion.

“Then you don’t — I thought you despised me.” The words broke from me almost without thought.

They exchanged puzzled frowns.

It was Sylvia who replied. “Why would we despise you?” she asked; by all signs, genuinely taken aback.

I told her something of what had passed between Silas and myself; repeating, (as far as common discretion would permit,) all the things he’d said, and my ensuing fears that I’d been in some manner blamed for the tragedy. As I relayed the tale, however, it became appallingly obvious to me how little Silas had actually told me, and how much my own mind had filled in.

Danny shook her head. “Of all the meddlesome, bloody —” (here, a look from Sylvia cut her off) “Don’t you listen to him, Father. Always running his mouth — never met a worse gossip in my life. We lit sacred fires and held funerals for the men, that’s all. Any suspicion we expressed was of Lord Vane alone.”

“We’ve been as concerned for you as for the others,” affirmed Sylvia. “And not unjustly, it would seem.”

Then she began asking me how it was that I can come to be in the position in which Danny had found me. In doing so, however, she again made use of my clerical title. Unable to bear it any longer, I buried my face in my hands.

“Please,” I broke in, “you needn’t call me — my name is Victor.”

After a beat of silence, Sylvia spoke again. “Yes, of course; whatever you’d like.”

“I —” I hesitated. “I believe I would prefer it.”

I’ve been impressed by Sylvia before, and the tacit understanding with which she behaved with regard to my fragile emotional state (a thing I hardly yet understood myself) was remarkable. Her kindness was, furthermore, entirely unearned by me.

She seemed to decide, anyway, that it would be best to wait before asking me further questions. Lengthy explanations are a lot to expect of any man who has only just regained his senses. Danny opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word Sylvia cut in with, “Then we would be honored, Victor — but you must be starving. I’ve already got some porridge on the stove.”

The suggestion made me feel at once how hungry I was — my stomach was quite empty — and I consented to be fed with gratitude. I thought the food was a tad flavorless compared to those meals I remembered having enjoyed here before — but then, after all, it was porridge. It was palatable enough, and it warmed me; I had grown so very cold.

Some few things still remain that I must record in detail, but this entry has already grown extremely long and and I think I shall rest a little before I continue. The task has left me unexpectedly weary. (Perhaps even now I have not yet fully recovered from my ordeal.)

No more occurred on that day, at least. I was left alone and I had a long evening of fitful rest. Though I tried to sleep, my mind was feverishly occupied with the events I have above described — with conjecturing what might have happened after I fell unconscious.

I was troubled not least by the fact that I felt no horror or regret whatever about some things I had done; things which had passed between Lord Vane and myself. I felt only an intense need to find him again, coupled with a fear of what might have happened in my absence.

It was very late when, at last, sheer exhaustion won out and I knew no more.

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. I’m proud to say that this whole section of the book has been completely rewritten, tightened, and made all around more dramatic and better!

(You can get the complete, edited and expanded novel DRM-free on Itch.io or at the retailer of your choice.)

Unofficial, non-binding readers’ poll: Do you think I should let Danny say a curse word? If so — any preferences as to which in particular?

(Idk about you guys but I’ve just noticed a tendency I had with her dialogue to sort of imply she’s being censored all the time? 🤷 What is she always trying to say?)

-St John

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