Eight Tragic Romances

By Benjamin Parsons

Eight tales of love, beauty, hatred, betrayal, revenge, and the supernatural. Among these stories of love and tragedy you will hear of a besotted man who unwittingly strikes a fatal bargain to secure the woman he adores; a mysterious foundling whose heart is lost beneath the waves; a couple who find that their romance has already been foretold, long ago; and a cunning beauty whose wiles invoke a terrible supernatural retribution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Mar 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463857977

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

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Eight Tragic Romances

by Benjamin Parsons

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2019.

Smashwords edition, license notes

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Contents

The Castaway

The Assassin’s Assassin

The Clockwork Wife

The Tryst

The Widower’s New Bridegroom

The Sleight of Heart

The Witch of Cromer

The Glass Key

The Castaway

Years and years ago, back in the back of Cornwall, a man went beach-combing in a rocky cove renowned for its interesting flotsam. He was often there, as his little cottage was nearby, and he got his living by fishing; but he idly hoped that one day his fortunes would be transformed by some splashed-up treasure. So he scoured the gravelly wash each morning, especially after a night of high weather, in case something valuable should appear.

You may well believe that it would be a rare chance to come across such a life-changing find, whatever it might be, and so, while waiting for it, he made a hobby of collecting bits of glass that had been worn smooth by the waves and jumbled among the grit. These pebbles of sea-glass were the nearest things to gems his luck would let him have, but nevertheless he grew fond of sifting them out from amidst the other stones on the beach, while all were glistened and becoloured by the water. What were once painful shards and littering splinters became to him, with the intervention of the tides, as hoardable as jewels, their sharp edges smoothed and their bottle-colours rendered strangely lambent; and once he had the knack of finding them, he collected and collected, until he had an impressive trove of this detritus, much to his wife’s chagrin.

This particular morning, the fisherman expected great rewards for his searches, as the sea had lashed all night, and even now ground and seethed as he picked along the waterline; but his expectations were soon confounded and over-topped at once. As he stooped to examine a clutch of rubble, his eye caught a gleaming white object a short way ahead— it amazed him, both for itself, and for the fact that he had not discerned it before: it was a naked baby, lying upon a drift of seaweed, just by the water’s edge.

Of course he dashed forward immediately to rescue it from being doused by the next breaker, and as he hugged the little boy to his chest, looked around angrily to find whoever had so carelessly abandoned their charge there. But the beach was deserted in every direction; he stood quite alone with the infant. The cove was small and enclosed, the encircling cliffs were sheer, and the nearest boulders at a swift dash’s distance— yet the child was warm enough, and dry, and calm enough too, so could not have been left long. The baby was clutching some largish object in his tiny hand, and in case it should prove to be a clue to the mystery, the fisherman retrieved it, and got his second, rather different, surprise.

The boy had been holding a piece of sea-glass, nearly the size of an egg, which was unusually big for such stuff; and more remarkably still, it was a deep, penetrating red. Most such glass, in the fisherman’s experience, was green, or opaque white (originally clear); brown or blue were occasional variations— but he had never found red sea-glass before, and now to come across it in such uncommon circumstances made it seem almost unprecedented.

However, it was not his first concern at that moment, so he quickly pocketed it, wrapped the rapidly shivering baby in his coat, and hurried back to his cottage, peering every which way as he did so, and intermittently shouting out to discover the whereabouts of the person who had forsaken their child. No-one appeared, and he was soon home and calling the police.

It is no enhancement to the tale for me to tell you of his wife’s astonishment, or of their perplexity, or their shocked denunciations of the feckless parents; but it is as well to tell you that they tended to their diminutive guest with doting care and compassion, and made as much goodly fuss as they could. Within days it became clear that the family of the infant could and would not be traced, and all the while the boy was allowed to remain with the couple who had taken him in, once he was found to be perfectly healthy. The authorities, perhaps with more latitude than they would allow nowadays, looked kindly on the busy attentions of the fisherman and his wife, and approved of their warm and obviously growing regard for their temporary ward; and so it was that when the pair, who had no children of their own, petitioned to keep the little castaway and adopt him legally, their case was given undue attention. For sure, they were not rich, nor so young as they might be— in fact they were downright poor, and had almost gotten old enough to never expect their own offspring— but they were popular in the community, and had friends and relations who knew people in the council. Favours were done, presents of fish and other produce made, and at last enough eyes winked or turned temporarily blind for the hopeful couple to get their way. The baby became their own and only son, and his new father named him, having perhaps thought too long and whimsically on it, Seaglass— again, much to his wife’s chagrin— but she was too delighted with her lot altogether to mind it overmuch.

Seaglass grew up to be a fine, fit, cheerful lad, who was much liked, and liked everyone. Although not clever, he was skilful manually, tying all the knots his father taught him without a second lesson, learning to sail when hardly taller than a bollard, and fishing so expertly, both with line and net, that his mother claimed he must whistle the fish onto the table.

One skill, though, was beyond his range for many years: for all his mastery of boats, he could not swim, and sank like a stone whenever he fell in— a great incentive to sail well, of course— but as a fish is out of water, so was Seaglass in it, and quite helpless in his nominal element. However, as he grew older, he challenged himself to do better, and gain through effort and determination the aptitude that others acquire so easily; and with perseverance he began to swim at last, and then swim smoothly, and then swim fast, until, by his twentieth year, he was something of a local Leander, plying the water with such strength that it became a joke that he was ever weak.

Now, a few years later, on one bright and busy morning at the beginning of the holiday season, it happened that two young women, fresh from London for the week, sat themselves down in the window of a smart little café, which overlooked the main street of Seaglass’s native village.

They ordered, and began to talk; but very soon, one said to the other: ‘Julie, stop! Can’t we have five minutes’ conversation together without that man of yours interrupting us twenty times? That’s twice a minute. Really, I could be telling you I’m about to give birth to a porpoise, and it wouldn’t be as interesting to you as two kisses in a text message from him.’

‘Alright, Alright! I’ll put my phone away,’ Julie replied. ‘I hardly get any signal here anyway. Besides, it would be four times a minute if he did text that often— you’re terrible at sums, Arabella.’

‘Well, you’re terrible at conversation, today— I bet you wish he would text you four times a minute. What can you possibly have to say to each other since yesterday?’

‘Nothing,’ —this in a sort of drawn-out whine, which implied: ‘Nothing I’d confess to.’

Arabella smiled. ‘This is just why I wanted to escape London, and the man-market altogether— nothing-messages, nothing-words, nothing-meanings— I’ve had my fill of nothings.’

‘Even sweet nothings?’ asked the other, wagging her phone provocatively before she dropped it into her bag.

‘Especially those! You couples are the worst for nothings. He could talk to you in nonsense nursery-rhymes all day long, and you’d think it was sweet.’

‘You say "you couples" as if you’ve never been half of one yourself.’

‘Well, if I never am again, I’ll be happy enough. I’m determined to be independent from now on— one whole Arabella, all to myself.’

‘This is holiday talk,’ Julie sniffed. ‘You’ll soon be bored of independence. It’s all very well telling me you resent men, but you won’t go so far as telling them.’

‘You’re as wrong as you can be,’ Arabella insisted. ‘It’s men I’m bored of— too bored even to resent them.’

At this juncture the waitress arrived with their order: tea and cake for one, coffee and fruit for the other.

‘Are you actually going to eat that apple, and watch me eat a cream cake?’ Julie protested. ‘All I’ll say is, remember what you’re doing with every bite— eating well to stay slim, to impress men. Ha!’

‘I want to retain my health, not my figure,’ Arabella protested in turn.

‘La, la, la.’

‘Julie, you’re no better than me— you’re only eating that cake because you have a man, and can afford to let yourself go a little.’

‘And isn’t that reason enough to be in a relationship?’

Arabella laughed, conceded defeat, and ordered a cake of her own.

‘Now then,’ Julie resumed, peering out of the window, ‘since you’re so bored of the entire subject, I won’t bother to point him out to you.’

She gestured into the street with her fork, where Seaglass happened to be passing, walking his faithful pet mongrel.

‘You just did,’ said Arabella, hastily looking.

‘And aren’t you glad of it? He’s quite the local beauty.’

‘Hmmm— perhaps a little roughish around the edges for a beauty. Which is the man, and which is the dog?’

‘Hiss! I think the question should be Which is the cat? Come on, now, Arabella, he’s a chunk of Cornish heaven, admit it.’

Seaglass had stopped to talk to an acquaintance, giving the women ample opportunity for scrutiny from behind their cups. Arabella glanced him up and down.

‘Well— well,’ she said, ‘if he’s handsome, what of it? What good does it do me? There are handsome men in the world— it’s a fact I must bear, not applaud.’

‘He’s talented as well as handsome,’ Julie enthused. ‘While you were down in the cove earlier scrabbling over the rocks, I sniffed out a little shop. It’s a tiny place— practically a kiosk— but it’s full of all manner of wonderful trinkets. Some of them are really pretty, if you like that sort of thing, and he makes most of it himself.’

Julie had this information from Seaglass in person, who had been working in the ‘kiosk’ when she visited it. A couple of years previously his adoptive father, having harvested the Atlantic since a youth, finally decided to reign in his nets and sell his boat, defeated by the vagaries of the quotas and the market; and instead he set up the little store, selling tackle and bait and tat. This venture threatened to fail, at first; but as his neighbours began increasingly to turn their attentions from the citizens of the sea to those more lucrative shoals of the land, tourists, the old man saw his business improve by increasing his stock of holiday-fodder: postcards, knick-knacks and gifts. Then Seaglass, on discerning this merchandising trend, was struck by the idea of using his father’s hoard of beach-combing lumber for commercial ends, and one afternoon bolted some old, bleached driftwood into a picture frame, which sold first thing the next day. This was a happy bit of luck, and Seaglass reasoned that hand-made goods, fashioned out of local materials, might hold quite an appeal to worldly visitors whose possessions were exclusively factory-made. His father was doubtful, but his mother, excited at the prospect of clearing the attic and shed of salvaged rubbish, championed the notion, and encouraged her son to make more such fancy-goods. He was pleased to do it, and soon the old man was pleased too, to find that Seaglass had shown great acumen— everything sold, and fast.

Encouraged by this early success, the young man proved quite the artisan, and set up a regular workshop, transforming thrown-away and salt-crusted litter— shells, odd rocks, half-rusted nautical gear— into strange and delightful pieces that the holidaymakers adored: ornaments, paperweights, ashtrays and the like. So of course it was not long before the retired fisherman opened up his treasured chest of sea-glass, and asked what his boy might make of that— and you may be sure that the lad found a thousand ingenious uses for the stuff, from pendants to bottle-stoppers, until the shelves and counter fairly gleamed with soft, pearlescent (and extremely popular) glass wares.

‘So,’ Julie continued, ‘what do you think of him now?’

‘Is he for sale too?’ Arabella asked wryly.

‘Oh, give in— look at him and give in! There’s something else— he has the strangest name. You know how you like interesting names. He’s actually called Seaglass.’

‘I do like interesting names,’ her friend smiled. ‘But I’m not prepared to fall for a man named like a yacht. What am I saying? I’m not prepared to fall for anybody.’

‘He might fall for you,’ Julie murmured, as she finished her tea.

‘I doubt it— I’m named like a racehorse. There’s hardly any appeal to speak of between us.’

‘Have you finished? Let’s get the bill, step outside and accidentally bump into him.’

Arabella made her protests, but Julie was determined; however, circumstances favoured Arabella’s reticence, because by the time they emerged onto the pavement, their quarry had moved past, and they were not inclined to pursue him when they felt the first licks of a shower coming on. The bright day had grown dark suddenly, but also determinedly— the rain advanced in earnest, and they elected to spend their afternoon in a cosy pub, instead of sight-seeing.

As soon as the chase after Seaglass was called off, Arabella sighed to herself in relief. She had not wanted to meet him— her escape to the countryside was intended to be a release from all such introductions, all such steps in the dance. She was weary of it, ready to drop aside and stop her ears against the music; but still it played on, and she knew that she would spring up on her tiptoes in spite of herself. In reality, she was no stoic, and whatever she might say to her friend, she did not feel ready to be ‘whole’, or even capable of ever being so again— rather, she felt chewed up, and partly disintegrated, by a life of social and emotional insincerities, until at last, as though indigestible, she had been spat out. Of course she could laugh at it, outwardly, and even dress herself up as a tempting morsel once again; but there was something, she knew, lost— which is why she had come to the country, to perhaps restore that missing element. When she was younger, a dose of fresh air and fine weather was all she needed for rejuvenation— but now, she feared that she was compromised beyond cure, that what she had known, and relied on herself to be, was spent and gone. And consequently, if this were true, she knew she must rebuild all her hopes, refashion the course of her life, submit, resolve, and imperfectly survive— which naturally terrified her into cynicism.

The next morning a continuing, drizzling rain kept Julie in bed and on the telephone, so Arabella stepped out by herself to explore the sodden retreat, taking advantage of the deserted shops and lanes. The overall effect was slightly depressing, however, and even though the sky was beginning to clear she was returning to the guest house, when she decided to take a detour past Seaglass’s little shop, and stop to peer in the window. The young man was not visible, but his guardian stood by the counter winding his watch absorbedly, and shortly afterwards moved into a back alcove to sit down. Arabella elected to take advantage of his absence to look over the wares, and promptly stepped in.

Her attention was immediately drawn to a large sculpture, like a rain of chandelier drops, hanging near the back of the store, glowing, even in the grey light from the window. It was constructed of large pebbles of sea-softened pale green and moonstone glass, laced together with strands of wire; and in the heart of it hung a deep, red pendant— the very same ruddy shard that the infant Seaglass had clutched in his little hand on the day he was found.

This was Seaglass’s masterpiece. Once his enthusiasm for making things from bits of glass had taken hold, it was not long before, in amongst the specimens that his father had collected, he found the dark red piece that was his first possession. He had often heard the story of how he was discovered, and this lump of glass was usually mentioned as part of the tale; and now, on examination, he found it to be no less unique than beautiful. He gazed at it for a long while, intrigued by its random connection to the mystery of his birth, turning it slowly against the light. In the heart of it was a fissure that glinted occasionally, as though a crimson flame lurked within the pebble, and Seaglass realised that he must make something special with this, something that would let that cold fire flicker. And true to his intention, after a full month of crafting, he fashioned the sculpture, at the sight of which his parents concluded, with a kind of uncertain awe, that their son was nothing less than an artist.

Unbeknownst to Arabella, this graceful work was not for sale— it was suspended there to show off its maker’s craftsmanship and inspire other purchases; nevertheless its beauty attracted her attention completely, and she gazed at it in admiration, gently touching the rough, smoothed surfaces of some of the droplets. She could not, however, reach the warm ruby in the centre, and in a way, did not want to— she liked its remoteness as much as its vibrancy.

While absorbed in this scrutiny, the sun broke a little from the overcast haze, and its beams suffused the entire sculpture with gentle brilliancy; and as it did so, Arabella stood back, stricken for an instant, and expressed her pain in an involuntary sigh. This roused her from her difficult reverie, and she hurried from the premises.

She had not realised it, but Seaglass was a witness to this short episode— he had been crouched down out of her sight, cleaning one of the other items on display. He was about to stand and say good morning, when he noticed her silent appraisal of the glass piece; and, flattered by her interest in it, did not interrupt. But when her face and demeanour suffered such an unhappy change, culminating in the sigh, he was confused, and became wary, instantly doubting whether something in his work had disappointed her somehow. He let her go without speaking— but was too intrigued by her reaction, and her person altogether, to remain mute. With a quick word to his guardian, he pulled on his coat and followed her into the lane.

He saw her passing down the hill towards the beach, and did not catch up until she slowed to cross the shingle. His crooked-eared hound, ever his shadow, had dashed off with him, and now bounded to her side. She paused and bent down to pet him, and as she did, the dog’s master ran up beside her. Arabella straightened in surprise, and some bewilderment, to find the young man standing so eagerly in attendance. Seaglass suddenly repented his rashness, and awkwardly held out his hand to introduce himself. She shook it absently.

‘I saw you were looking at my glass mobile,’ he explained.

‘Oh, did you make it?’ she returned, feigning disinterest.

He nodded, and she complimented his craftsmanship; and at that, his powers of conversation expired— but still he stood, poised to speak to her.

‘Do you—’ she opened, consciously awkward, ‘do you make the glass— I mean grind it smooth, yourself— or do you find it?’

This was a comfortable subject, and he responded eagerly. ‘No, it’s all found. My dad got me into finding it, here on the beach. Look, there’s lots of little bits.’ He stooped to retrieve a nugget from just before her feet. ‘Your eyes get used to looking out for it,’ he explained, and held it forth to her.

Arabella picked it up, and then quickly pressed it back into his palm. ‘You’d better keep that,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s your livelihood.’

‘Oh, there’s plenty,’ he assured her. ‘Mostly it’s green,