Rowan returned to the storehouse three days later with a loaf of bread, a small jar of honey, and the book.
He had decided that the new column required further investigation.
“What sort of investigation?” Nell asked.
“Things that have found their way home.”
“Do you know of any?”
“Not yet. That is why I am investigating.”
The innkeeper gave him a basket of old linen.
“Your aunt’s?” Rowan asked.
“No. These came from the storehouse. I found them in the cupboard beneath the stairs.”
They spread the linen on the long table. Some pieces were worn, others had been folded so carefully that their creases remained. One had a small blue border.
Nell recognised it.
“Wasn’t this at the ridge house?”
“Possibly,” said the innkeeper. “There were several pieces like it.”
Rowan examined the border.
“Do you want it back?”
“I don’t know where it belongs.”
“That is a problem.”
“It is not a very serious one.”
Rowan put the linen aside.
They went through the remaining pieces. There were two small tablecloths, a length of curtain, and a square of cloth with a hole in the middle. The innkeeper remembered the curtain from the old storehouse, but nobody knew where the tablecloths had come from.
Nell folded the square with the hole.
“What would you do with this?”
“Patch something,” Rowan said.
“Could it be used as a cloth?”
“Not without making the hole larger.”
The innkeeper laughed.
They carried the linen to the ridge house. Ewan was in the garden, gathering fallen branches beneath the apple trees. He came to the door when he saw them.
The blue-bordered cloth belonged to his aunt.
He remembered it on the table in the old house, and then at gatherings in the storehouse. The other pieces were less familiar.
“Perhaps they were hers too,” he said. “She had a great deal of linen.”
Rowan looked at the basket.
“Would you like it?”
Ewan considered this.
“The blue one, certainly. The others could stay at the storehouse.”
“Then that is what we shall do.”
They left the linen with him and went down to the storehouse.
The innkeeper took the two tablecloths to the cupboard. Rowan put the damaged square in his basket.
“What is that for?” Nell asked.
“Something may need patching.”
“Something always needs patching.”
“Then it will be useful.”
Before they left, Ewan came down the path carrying a small wooden box.
He had found it in the garden shed.
Inside were three buttons, a length of blue thread, and a little brass hook.
“Do these belong to the linen?” Nell asked.
“I don’t know,” Ewan said. “But they were kept together.”
Rowan opened the book.
He wrote:
Blue-bordered cloth: returned to the ridge house.
Two tablecloths: retained at storehouse.
Damaged linen: taken for mending.
Then he added the buttons, thread, and hook.
Found together in garden shed. Destination undecided.
Nell watched him close the book.
“Does everything need a destination?”
“No,” Rowan said. “But it helps to know where things are.”
They walked back to the inn.
The afternoon had grown warm. The road was quiet, and the trees along the valley had begun to turn their leaves.
At the door, Rowan set down his basket.
The damaged linen lay beneath the loaf.
He took it out and looked at the hole.
“I think I know what to do with this.”
“What?” Nell asked.
“Nothing yet.”
He carried it inside.
The book remained on the table, open to the new column.
The buttons, thread, and hook had no destination.
For the moment, that was where they belonged.
No comments:
Post a Comment