The Hours That Refused To Stay

The church bell stopped mid note as if it had been caught by a hand. In the space where the sound should have finished a woman folded a black ribbon and pressed it flat against her palm until the heat of her skin dampened it. Someone behind her breathed in sharply. Someone else said a name that did not answer. The bell did not resume. It never did.

Eleanor Margaret Ashcombe stood with her gloves folded inside one another as if they were sleeping. The stone beneath her shoes held the cold of the morning. Incense lingered in the air with the sweet rot of late apples from the market across the square. She did not look at the coffin. She counted the dust motes instead and the way they lifted and fell in the pale light. She felt older than the black she wore. She felt already spent. When the organ finally began again it sounded like an apology that arrived too late.

Later she would remember the smell of wax and apples together. She would remember the bell stopping. She would not remember who touched her arm to guide her down the aisle.

In the weeks that followed she returned to the river at dawn. She told herself it was for the light which rose there first and softened the town. She told herself it was for the cool which steadied her hands. She did not tell herself that the river had been the last place where laughter had not felt like a theft. The water moved in sheets of dull silver. It carried silt and leaves and the occasional scrap of paper that had escaped a pocket. She watched the current and learned its patience.

Thomas William Calder came into her mornings quietly. He stood at the edge of the quay with a ledger tucked under one arm and waited for the ferryman who was always late. His boots carried the smell of leather and damp. His coat had been mended carefully at the cuff. When he opened his book the pages sighed as if relieved to be useful. He wrote with a pencil worn smooth by years of holding. Eleanor noticed his hand first and the faint graphite mark at the side of his thumb. She did not look at his face until he looked at her.

They exchanged a nod that held no claim. The river did the speaking between them. It whispered and slid and kept its counsel. On the third morning he said good morning without a name. She answered with the same and surprised herself by the steadiness of her voice. He asked whether the bell would ever be repaired. She said she did not know. The answer pleased neither of them.

By autumn the mornings had cooled. The apples were gone. Smoke from hearths stitched the air with a smell that made the eyes sting. Eleanor brought bread wrapped in cloth and sat on the low wall to eat. Thomas sat a careful distance away and opened his ledger. He told her he counted cargo for the railway men and kept the numbers honest. He told her it was not a grand life but it paid. She told him she kept accounts for the widow Clarke and taught her niece to read. She did not tell him she had once thought her days would be measured by different things.

When he laughed it surprised him as much as it surprised her. The sound lifted and fell like the river. She watched it leave him and reach her. He did not ask her to walk with him. He did not ask anything. The restraint was a kindness that took effort. She felt it as a pressure at the center of her chest. At night she dreamed of ink and bells and water. In the dreams the bell finished its note.

Winter arrived without ceremony. Frost made a map of the quay stones. Eleanor slipped once and Thomas caught her by the elbow and let go immediately. The heat of his hand stayed with her. It felt like a transgression and a promise at once. She did not speak for the rest of the morning. He watched the river as if it could tell him what to do next. It did not.

They found words in small careful exchanges. He told her of his mother who had died when he was a boy and the smell of lavender that still rose from her trunk. She told him of a room with a window that looked onto a garden where nothing grew straight. She did not say the name that had once filled that room. He did not ask. Names fell away between them like leaves into water.

Spring returned thin and uncertain. The railway extended its reach and with it came a letter written in a hand that did not tremble. Thomas read it twice and folded it with care. He did not bring the ledger the next morning. He brought the letter instead and held it between them like a bridge that could not bear weight. He said he had been offered work in a city where the river ran darker and the bells were many. He said it would be foolish to refuse. He did not say he wanted to go. He did not say he wanted to stay.

Eleanor listened and felt the old ache answer the new one. She looked at the water and saw it as it had been on the day of the bell. She smelled wax and apples though there were no apples. She said she was glad for him. The words were true. They cost her anyway. He nodded as if that settled something. It did not.

They walked once through the market when the air was thick with flowers and noise. He bought her a paper cone of cherries and did not watch her eat them. The juice stained her fingers. She wiped them on her handkerchief and folded it carefully. They stood near the place where the bell had failed and listened to the replacement ring true and clear. It did not sound like forgiveness.

On the morning he left the river ran high. Rain had swollen it. The ferryman was on time. Thomas waited with his small case and his coat buttoned to the throat. Eleanor came with the ribbon she had folded months before. She did not know why she had kept it. She placed it in his hand and closed his fingers over it. He did not speak. He touched her cheek once and let his hand fall. The ferry pulled away. The water took the space he had been standing in and made it look ordinary.

Years later the bell rang at a different hour. Eleanor Margaret Ashcombe stood again in the square with gloves folded inside one another. The smell of wax returned with a new bitterness. A name was read that had traveled far to reach her. Thomas William Calder lay in the ground beyond the city where the river ran darker. She did not cry. She counted dust motes. The bell finished its note this time. The sound traveled and faded. The river carried on.