The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(8)
The perfect man for the Stillwater Swan, in fact.
The cook glanced back at the house, her face thoughtful. ‘You live in the converted cottages, Captain?’ she asked, slightly curious. She hadn’t expected Lucas Finch to be such a considerate employer.
‘Yes, that’s right. Me and Brian O’Keefe, the engineer.’
‘Mr Finch must use the Swan a lot then — if he likes to keep his staff so close?’ she probed, wondering why she was so curious. Perhaps, she thought wryly, it was the siren call of wanderlust catching up with her rather late in life. But she found herself, rather unexpectedly, envying Lucas Finch and Captain Lester the idyllic life they appeared to lead.
‘Oh yes. Lucas loves the Swan almost as much as I do,’ the captain mused, casting such a loving look over the gleaming white boat that Jenny very nearly felt uncomfortable. ‘When I first came here, I’d been in the merchant navy for so long it was getting harder and harder to keep finding a ship to take me on — they like their tars young these days. Can’t say as I blame ’em,’ he added, sighing, then shrugged. ‘It’s a young man’s game, I suppose.’
Captain Lester, Jenny realized, like a lot of solitary people, could become very loquacious when given the opportunity. Not that she minded. She was at a loose end until the food came anyway, and she was genuinely interested to hear about a life led on the water.
‘So when I saw this advertisement, like, for the skipper of an old river paddle steamer, I was down here like a shot. Especially when it came with board and lodging on site. Thought it was going to be one of those touristy things, though. You know what I mean? Take a cruise up the Thames for a hundred quid a day, with a licensed bar thrown in. That sort o’ thing. I was expecting wedding parties and rowdy office outings and whatnot.’
He shook his head sadly at the thought of it, and Jenny nodded glumly in sympathy.
‘So you could’ve knocked me down with the proverbial feather, like, when I came here and met Lucas — Mr Finch. When he told me he was a private owner, I was quite surprised. And then he took me out to the Swan . . .’ His voice trailed off, and Jenny once more nodded in perfect understanding. Yes, she could well imagine his reaction.
As she herself looked at the boat, it wasn’t hard to understand what a dream come true she must have been to someone like Tobias Lester. He must have felt himself approaching the scrap heap, with nothing but rented accommodation in some anonymous town to look forward to, and a slow and lonely descent into old age. To find himself in charge of a beauty like the Swan, and with the added security of a full-time job as well, it must have felt like all of his Christmases and birthdays had come at once.
As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Tobias Lester leaned back against a large wooden pole that marked the beginning of the landing stage, and folded his arms across his muscular chest. ‘I’d more or less resigned myself to a life with my sister, see, up Banbury way. She’s a widow. Got a nice enough little semi, a bit o’ garden. Shops nearby. It’s alright, I suppose. If you like that sort o’ thing.’
But a bit of a graveyard for a man like you, Jenny instantly surmised, and shuddered. She could well imagine the gloom and despondency with which Tobias Lester must have considered a semi in Banbury. The fact that his words confirmed her hypothesis on his character came as no surprise to her at all. She’d always been good at reading people, and their situation in life.
‘And then I saw her.’ The captain nodded his head towards the beautiful white vision, his voice so full of love and slave-like devotion that, for the first time ever, Jenny understood why men insisted on calling a boat ‘she.’
‘Course, when Lucas said he intended to take her out at least once a week, I took it with a pinch o’ salt, like. He’d just had her commissioned, see, and I thought . . .’ Aware that he was becoming a little less than discreet, he shrugged his shoulders and trailed off.
Jenny, of course, had no such scruples. ‘You thought it was just another rich man’s toy?’ she stated flatly. ‘That he’d soon get bored with it, and leave it to slowly rust away, out of sight somewhere?’
Tobias gave her a thoughtful glance, and then nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought, right enough. And glad I was to be proved wrong. Lucas has had her for years now, and we still go out in her near enough every week. Course, he likes to show her off, so we often take guests up to London or Oxford and back. Sometimes even further — though the river gets narrower the further north you go, and it wouldn’t do to get the Swan stuck. Not that I mind the company of guests, you understand?’ he added anxiously. ‘A boat like the Swan deserves to be shown off. She was made for folks to enjoy. But I like it quiet too –when it’s just us.’
Tobias settled himself more comfortably against the post. ‘I remember, deep one winter, we took her out just after an ice-breaking barge had been through. We’d had a hoar frost the night before, and the sun came up next morning as pale as a lemon. Well, we took her out, and she was the only boat on the water. All the weeping willows was hanging over the banks, like them silver strings you put on Christmas trees. Must have been a Sunday morning, too, ’cause as we went, we could hear the church bells a’going. No one was with us on that trip, neither. Just me and Brian, Lucas and Francis. I’ll never forget it. People tend to think that a riverboat’s just for the summer. T’ain’t true.’ He shook his shaggy, leonine head, and Jenny, who’d been almost hypnotized by the vision of it in her mind, suddenly opened her eyes a little wider and gave herself a mental shake.