The Summoning Bell

 -The Cutter’s Inn, 1844

Winter trees reach with long dark fingers into an unresponsive sky as the figure strikes the match, eagerly bringing the hungry flame to the paper’s edge. Clouds mask the moon as they did a year ago and no reflection from the inky waters mirrors the man’s face, shaggy brows knitted in fervid concentration. He is alone, only thoughts and fears for company.

The canal carves its quiet way through the night, secrets flowing through each of the 105 locks, linking this backwater to the smog and skulduggery of London. The paper catches and the tongue of flame curls upwards, words scorched with a sigh from the page. Rain begins to fall, scoring the smooth water’s surface as if each drop is boring deep, searching the waters for something. Nothing to be found here, he thinks, tossing the burning paper, white ribboning to black, into the darkened waters below. Anything that can sink will, sucked down into the canal and that paper will drown in its drink quicker than one of the rotten-toothed revellers in the inn behind him.

Every year he completes this odd convention, told to none, barely acknowledged by himself: the annual list of regrets, written, just to be consigned to ash in a watery grave. He turns his back; it is only rain upon his face as he passes the canal boats moored there. Hurrying to the welcoming light cast from the only building on the towpath: The Cutter Inn, a guard tower with windows for watchful eyes, he briefly acknowledges there’s an unusual number of barges for this time of year, trade normally ceases for the holidays. But there’s no time to stop and ponder the reason; the tavern’s door is flung open, a drunk staggers out and, as the man retches and curses, he can take the chance to slip in.

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All eyes in The Cutter’s Inn turn from their pints to look at the stranger, shaking himself like a wet dog on their threshold. With a determined tread, he paces to the roaring fire, hangs his dripping cloak on a peg as if he’s been there many a time before and this hook is his own. Standing, steaming slightly in the heat cast from the grate, he surveys the pub and its occupants. Years of spilt beer has stained the sawdust on the floor an unsavoury brown; oil lamps reeking of kerosene choke the air and, at the bar, the dark brows of the landlord knit above his surveying eyes, pulling a pint of ale, his large hands used to the slow rhythmic pull down and down again at the pump, his gaze never leaving the stranger’s face.

This is a place that has seen better days. Haulage by waterway isn’t what it was: the new railway, like an uncoiled snake, rattles and hisses in its cloak of steam into the future, leaving the sauntering canal boats in its wake. And the Cutter Inn, serving the last of the canal traders- dogged souls bound to their canal, boats and horses with chains no upstart railway can sever- are the last to remain, raising a glass as the old year gasps its last. 

“A pint of your best,” the young man says, wiping the rain up from his brow through his hair in a way that might have spelled trouble had any women been present, “and a jar for each man here,” he adds, placing a fat leather purse on the counter to signal the means with which he will extend this hand of bounty.

Loosened by free drink, tongues which might have snapped with opprobrium, scorn at the stranger’s decision to grace them with his presence tonight of all nights, are softened. Talk turns to the year: offerings- gladly received; kicks- deflected or at worst endured. Bert, skipper of the Kingfisher of Avon, is the first to wheeze his reflections through yellow teeth jutting from angry red gums.

“I remember the pies: thick crust and thicker gravy; big chunks of steak and kidney, generous to the last was old Fran. Many a night, when the horse stopped and I needed to give him a lick about the haunches to get him and me on our way, it was only the thought of old Fran and her pies that kept me going.”

The others murmur their assent and the landlord, still delivering the free ale to each table, slams the pint down in front of old Bert. Beer sloshes over the sides, running in rivulets before dripping into the sawdust below. If Bert was about to ask if anyone knows whatever happened to the Inn’s cook, the hovering figure is enough to halt his tongue and he chooses to take a hearty drink of the ale instead.

“To your good health Colin, may your year be a prosperous one!” Another man, ten years younger than Bert but with no more teeth in his mouth, wishes the landlord. The exclamation which shoots from the dark-browed publican’s mouth could be interpreted in many ways; none of them suggest polite agreement. He makes his way back to the bar, wiping his large hands on the apron tied about his waist before thrusting the last ale at the stranger, still standing at the bar, waiting. If the others dare not freely state their minds, even on a night of supposed reckless celebration, the stranger knows no such restraint. He takes a long pull at his pint, wiping the froth on the back of his hand in a somewhat rakish manner; Colin scowls his disapproval.

“So, there is little to celebrate in these parts?” The stranger enquires, surveying the down-on-its-luck establishment, where poverty rather than prosperity seems the only thing on tap.

Bert, obviously the resident blather mouth, starts up again, giddy with freedom now that Colin the publican is back behind his bar.

“Well, we’re like the last men standing.” He lets out a misplaced laugh, indicating with a weathered hand the rest of the Cutter’s motley crew, who nod in agreement.

“And every year the railway takes more and more; first it were our best, now it just takes any. Many a young man has left these parts to feed the coal-guzzling monster.”

The stranger must look blank, for Bert explains: “That’s what the likes of us call that new-fangled train.”

The stranger sips his beer thoughtfully. “And why are they so keen to leave do you think?”

“Fed up with trawling the canals at an old nag’s pace, no doubt!” Bert exclaims, sloshing his drink this time himself. “In all types of weather, you’ll find us out on the canal; the only comfort’s a pint in a place like the Cutter at the end of a hard n’ cold day of haulage.”

“There certainly seems to be little other comfort on offer, that is for sure,” says the man, eyeing the room appraisingly. “Where are all the womenfolk; do none of you have wives if mistresses are not permitted?” He laughs confidently and if one or two men join him, they quickly fall silent as Colin wheels a finished barrel of beer to a hatch, before sending it crashing into the darkness below. All jump although the noise must be hardly new to any of them.

He turns, red-faced and sweating from the exertion back to face the unwanted guest, and his torso and shoulders thrust in a T shape that would spell terror to many a man; the stranger, however, only takes another long expectant pull on his beer.

“You’re not from around these parts.”

It is not a question and the visitor neither concurs or disagrees.

“If you were, you’d have heard about the events of a year ago, that which sent our womenfolk scattering like lambs.”

An expectant hush fills the silence, broken only by the occasional snap of a breaking log in the hearth or the hiss of damp air expiring.

“We never found the perpetrator, but this time last year there was a wolf in our midst in the shape of a young handsome man; stole a lamb as surely as I’m standing here: my daughter, Beth.”

The stranger shifts his weight in his heavy boots for the first time in what might be discomfort. If he is discomposed, the publican is not.

“We searched for hours in the canal out yonder. Searched, till the feeling had gone. Bodies plunging in those freezing waters, looking and looking, every limb turning to ice; but not the heart. It would take more than the canal to cool that. It beats even now, hot and fast. Do you know what for? Justice.”

“You never found her then, your daughter?” The stranger asks, failing to offer commiserations of any sort.

“What does it look like?” Spits the publican, waving at the men staring fixedly into the narrow circles of the glasses they are cradling. “Do you see her? See any womenfolk about here? No, because there aren’t any. Her death scared them off as surely as if they’d seen a wolf rip her throat out.”

Old Bert starts a strange keening sort of a sound and the other man with the gummy mouth helps him up from the table.

“Night one and all. Night Colin.” He says, tipping his flat cap at the publican. “Think this is one New Year’s Day I’ll be seeing in from my bed. ‘Till the next jar at the end of another hard day’s haulage.” He says, picking up his coat and Bert’s; they both shuffle to the door and leave.

Others quickly follow in their wake, perhaps genuinely exhausted, perhaps hopeful of seeing in the New Year in a place with a modicum more of frivolity rather than death about it. Soon, the publican is alone with his unwanted guest, fifteen minutes before he customarily rings the last order bell to see in the New Year.

The publican moves from table to table, ignoring the visitor, tipping the dregs of the drink into the sawdust, stacking the empty glasses one inside the other. He makes his rounds from table to table, ignoring the man, never offering him another drink.

“I think I’ll wash these tomorrow and turn in myself for the night. Little point staying up; I’ve seen in enough New Years to know this one is going to come bringing only flaming misfortune in her hands: more trains on more tracks, no doubt, luring my customers away.”

He begins to collect the lamps from each table, lowering the wicks until the flames gutter and die. Shadows mass and the only light is cast by embers and the one remaining lamp in the publican’s hand.

“Leave it,” the stranger says, turning away from the fire, unfolding something in his hand. “We’ll be needing the light to read this.”

He shakes out a piece of paper which he has taken from his coat. The bottom third is charred, and it looks like it has only recently dried from quite a soaking, but even in the flickering half-light it is possible to make out words, etched like tombstone memorials on the paper’s blackened side.

“Where did you get that from?" Colin rasps, staring with obvious recognition at the tattered sheet like it were a ghost rising ragged but indomitable from its grave. The stranger sits at the table closest to the hearth and takes the oil lamp from the publican’s quivering hand.

“To answer that, I will have to tell you why I’m here. And when my tale is told, I think it will shed more than a little light on your own.”

Colin slumps into the chair opposite him, his face fixed into a mask of dread by the dying light of the fire. “Go on then,” he murmurs through gritted teeth.

“Earlier today I made my way back to this place, The Cutter’s Inn. I’d spent the last twelve months vowing never to come here again. But these last weeks, I’ve heard her voice just as clearly as you have.” Colin shifts, a man at sea, in his chair.

“Up through the waters it’s come. The locks can’t stop it, can’t hold back her beautiful voice. At the Thames it’s the loudest, but even far from the river I hear it still. And to answer Beth’s voice, I came.”

“Why?” The question sounds like it’s squeezed past hands which strangle.

“To throw myself in after her, why else?” The stranger looks to the publican with a blaze in his eyes; a desperate fire more than enough to tip a handsome and healthy man in the prime of his life into premature death.

“Surely you know who I am Colin?” He doesn’t wait for a response, his tale careering forward with a full head of steam.

“You knew of me, don’t pretend you didn’t: the railway man, posted to this backwater to recruit young men to the company. You heard Beth speak of the life she wanted to live in London, a life of finery: balls and gowns, on the arm of her dashing young entrepreneur- me. For yes, I won her heart surely as I won the admiration of the menfolk hereabout.”

“No more,” it is a gasp which the momentum of his story rips straight through.

“We planned our escape in secret of course; she knew you, and your moribund antique ways, would never permit her to go. We were to meet, this very night a year ago: to embark together on our new life; to take the canal boat one last time which I chartered just for this purpose. Slowly, stealthily but surely, it was to bear her away, from you to me.”

“No- “but the young man is relentless, his tale now at full steam.

“But, when I went to the stable to tack the horse which was to tow the boat to this Inn and smuggle her away, I found it lame. I cursed my failure to foresee this possibility; the horse was useless to me and I set out, on foot.”

The only response is a groan.

“As I neared the spot for our arranged meeting, I realised immediately I was too late. I heard two voices raised, hers and one I know now to be yours. I won’t trouble you with the words; you know your response to her pleas. There was a more awful sound than her cries: a blow, then a splash; the roar of my heart stopping for a second.”

The publican’s head has dropped onto his neck, but his chin is forced up with a jerk; eyes spark at his.

“You talk of the icy plunge, searching the canal; I saw only your retreating back. It was me, tearing into the water to save her. And yes, there is a chill to that water; and yes, the passion in a wronged heart never cools.”

“You wronged me,” the publican thumps his chest before making a grab for the suitor who rams the table top into his ribs, pinning him fast. The publican’s breath comes in heaving gasps.

“If she met her end that night, the hand that killed her was more yours than mine; the hand that lured her away from where she belonged: here, with me!”

“I knew that was the tale you’d tell. And yes, I overheard your sob story the next day: how your darling daughter had slipped in a fit of passion from the towpath, half-deranged with love, following a foolish fancy all the way to London, only to miss her footing on the icy path. I listened, always knowing it would be your word against mine, and I knew no one would dare dispute yours: the grieving father pitted against the wolfish young man. But now I have this to add weight to my words. Fortune has favoured me at last, casting this into the water right before the canal boat window where I was waiting."

He brandishes the paper in one hand, the lamp in the other, angling its light to illume the words in the gathering dark.

New Year’s Resolutions, Colin Dredge- 1844

As a year of regret passes, I commit to flame only the recollection of a moment’s sin and 12 months of purgatory thereafter. That moment: New Year’s Eve 1843.

Beth: I wished to stop you, to stay your flight. I didn’t mean for yours to be a watery grave, my hand the one that sent you there.

Read this child and be at peace. Desist from wailing at my door, shaking your wet skirts on my hearth, staining my heart with guilt and shame.

Be at rest child; for without your hauntings, I will toss and turn: damned on earth till I be damned in the ground, joining you as this does, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

“Weight to your words- never!” Cries the publican, desperately flinging back the table and lunging for the paper, but the young man is too quick for him. In three long strides he is at the bar, reaching up, ringing the bell for last orders. Back and forth, hand grasping the thread-worn rope cord, beating the iron ringer against the old brass bell, summoning the waiting police to the Cutter’s Inn.

As Colin Dredge is handcuffed and led away, the sweetest bells echo across the midnight sky. They are ringing in a New Year; one stepping in skirts, waterlogged and heavy, but with a head held high, for justice has been summoned and served at last.