Another Life

by Sara MacDonald

  I am mighty pleased with my home. It is warm and I can see the sea from the broken window and look up at the sky as I lie beneath the skylight, newly mended. My brothers and their wives swept and cleaned the loft, moved old sails and boxes away into one corner and placed a mattress under the skylight with one of my mother’s patchwork quilts over the top. The sound of the ocean in the dark soothes my aching body to sleep. Below me, the figurehead stands. I have left the detail of the face until last. I want to concentrate on the angle of neck and shoulder, where it meets the bodice of her dress. Then I must catch exactly the flow of her robe, the angle of her arms and hands, for when she is out on the spar, plunging into the waves. I consider before I sleep what decoration I will place in her hair. Should she hold a flower in one hand?

  I think it is an odd place for the two women to sit, for the noise of anvils and hammers and sawing and general disturbance of men working must reach them and disturb their peace. I bend again to my piece of wood, take a lead pencil from beside me and mark a line.

  Perhaps they sit up there so Miss Tredinnick can sketch the harbour. She showed me her sketches, shyly, as one artist to another, and I was greatly surprised at the detail in her work. She seemed fascinated by the building of the schooners and wanted to know the workings of the rigging and the design of the boat.

  I was amused and praised her work, told her she would have to become a travelling artist to foreign ports of call, commissioned by master mariners to paint their vessels under full sail. I assured her a lot of money was to be had for a good painting from a grateful owner.

  Her eyes had widened.

  ‘I hope to travel. It would be ideal if I could earn my own living. It is a good idea … Of course, I must grow more proficient,’ she had added hastily.

  Isabella, seeing my expression, had smiled. ‘Miss Tredinnick is unique, Tom. She believes that with education and opportunity, women can succeed as well as any man.’

  ‘And you, Lady Isabella, what do you believe?’

  Isabella met my eyes. ‘I believe my cousin is right regarding most things, but she is braver than I am and younger. I am also sure that she will be famous for her views one day.’

  ‘I hope also to be famous for my paintings, Isabella!’ her cousin had laughed. ‘If you knew my mama, Tom, you would understand how vital it is for me to make my own way in the world.’

  She is an unusual young woman and I am impressed by her. The plainness of her face matters not for she has character and she is devoted to Isabella. When I glance upward again they are gone. Pleasant as she is, when Sophie Tredinnick goes home I will have longer to carve and more time with Isabella.

  Sophie had been trying to capture the Lady Isabella. She was anchored up on pit props on the quay. Men swarmed beneath her and on the decks, adjusting her rigging, banging nails, hammering, uncoiling rope. The faint smell of tar and sawdust wafted up to the top of the cliff.

  Isabella, sitting beside Sophie, looked downwards. Her eyes focused on the man like a pirate she knew to be Tom Welland. Stripped to the waist he was the only carpenter wearing a kerchief over his head. Occasionally he stretched and looked upwards, but mostly he was bent to the deck sawing wood. His back was dark, almost as dark as her furniture. He would not be able to see her staring from down there.

  The two women needed shade. It was too hot to sit in the sun. Isabella fidgeted and Sophie threw down her pencil.

  ‘It is no good,’ she declared. ‘It is too difficult and I am too hot.’

  ‘I imagine it is difficult,’ Isabella said. ‘Sophie, why do you want to draw the ship in the process of being finished? It will be much easier once she is in the water, besides, you can see no detail from up here.’

  They walked slowly back to the house and Sophie said, ‘I was trying to capture it for a record in progress for your husband, Isabella, but I do not have the skill yet.’

  Isabella took her arm. ‘How sweet you are. I believe you are rather taken by Richard?’

  To her surprise, Sophie blushed and said quickly, ‘I merely find him interesting, Isabella. I have always loved boats and sailing and he has sailed to so many fascinating places, has he not?’

  ‘Indeed he has,’ Isabella said. ‘I have heard many of his interesting adventures … more than once.’

  Sophie turned to face Isabella. ‘Do you not have a burning desire to visit places you know nothing about, Isabella? Do you not long to see the places on maps, to see what they are really like? So different from England …’ She pointed to the cliffs and sea, ‘… India, China, America, Japan. Isabella, our lives are so small and contained. We know nothing. We do not even know what it is like to live in a large city in our own land.

  ‘Culture!’ she said bitterly. ‘When we visit London or Bath, is it the history that interests Mama? No, it is only the parties to promote the sale of daughters to the highest bidders.’

  Isabella wished she was having a different conversation, for this one triggered her own longing for more. They had left the noise of the boatyard behind, and she viewed the shimmering violet sea once more before they turned and moved inland across the fields towards the house.

  ‘Dearest Sophie, it does you no good railing against being a woman of a certain class, but perhaps it will help you to achieve whatever it is you want. I do understand what you are saying for I know your mama …’ Isabella took her arm. ‘The trouble is that you have grown too clever.’

  They reached the gate of the small house.

  ‘I love this summer house,’ Isabella said. ‘Do you not think it is just the right size?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Sophie. ‘It is a happy little doll’s house.’

  Both women walked in through the open front door. They took their hats off and regarded their reflections in the large gilt looking-glass in the hall.

  ‘I have caught the sun. Mama will have the vapours,’ Sophie said. ‘I miss you, Isabella. At home I have no one to talk to. There is no one to try my ideas out on.’

  She bent to the looking-glass to tidy her hair and Isabella, watching their reflections, suddenly saw an older, grown-up, short-haired Sophie haloed with a man behind her whose mouth was tight with disappointment. When she turned round startled it was only Richard standing there, smiling jovially at them both.

  ‘I am home early, my dears. Just for the one night. I can accompany Sophie home to Falmouth tomorrow. Now, come and have luncheon and tell me all your news. How is the figurehead progressing?’

  There was nothing tight about his lips, he was as cheerful a man as ever, and as Isabella went to greet him the image faded but left a faint aftermath behind, like an omen.

  Richard had decided to accompany Isabella to the old boathouse to inquire how long it would take Tom to complete the figurehead. He wanted only to see it once it was completed.

  ‘How are you progressing, Tom? I understand that some days you are needed by your father in the boatyard?’

  ‘I am, Sir. There is much to do on the schooner if we are to finish on time and we are a carpenter short. My father knows the quality of my work and is loath to employ another.’

  ‘So I understand. I have offered to send a man over from Falmouth. I know his work and your father and I have agreed that I will cover the cost of him. I do not want Lady Isabella to sail late or without her figurehead, Tom.’

  Tom had been relieved. ‘Working on her every day will speed her completion, but I am still at the stage where I need Lady Isabella. I can do much from my drawings, but I cannot do the face. Maybe two weeks more? Then the figurehead will be fitted to the schooner.’

  Richard had nodded. ‘If I plan on the Lady Isabella being ready to sail one month from now, is that time enough?’

  ‘What does my father say, Sir?’

  ‘He believes with an extra hand he can complete the refit in three weeks. That leaves one week to fit the figurehead.’

  ‘I believe I can do it,’ Tom said. ‘It is just that sometimes my work cannot be hurried, Sir.’
>
  Richard laughed. ‘There speaks an artist, Tom. I understand, but I am a businessman and I am afraid you must give me a date.’

  Tom smiled. ‘Four weeks it is, Sir.’

  Isabella had been sitting on her chair in the shade, listening. Richard had gone over to her.

  ‘Isabella, can I leave you here in St Piran for a little longer? I cannot stay, I am afraid, I have to return to Falmouth and then back to London to register my schooners and visit the house. Will it be too dull without Sophie?’

  Isabella’s heart had leapt. ‘No, Richard. Of course, I will miss Sophie, but you know I love it here. I have my books and the garden and Lisette. I can walk, I will be quite happy.’

  She lowered her voice, wanting to please him, ‘When Papa returns from France, I will even steel myself to go and visit him, if it would please you, Richard.’

  ‘It would please me very much.’ Richard sighed. ‘All is settled, then. Tom, you are happy?’

  ‘I am, Sir.’

  ‘Right. I will leave you with my wife and I will go to speak to your father. I will see you in an hour, my dear.’

  When he had gone it seemed quiet in the yard. Tom stood very still, staring across at Isabella. Then he walked over to her.

  ‘Will you stand, Lady Isabella? I want to see how your skirt falls.’

  Isabella stood and he watched the way the folds of her skirt gathered and dropped from waist to ankle. How tiny her waist was.

  I long to place my hand there.

  Touch me. Touch me. Tom was so close Isabella could feel his breath.

  Tom bent to the dusty yard to see where her skirt skimmed her ankles.

  Small narrow feet. He straightened up, stood back and viewed the whole.

  ‘Turn slightly to the sea,’ he said.

  Isabella turned. Tom went back to the figurehead and looked back at her, then came back and with his finger turned her chin slightly upwards, left his finger there on the warmth of her skin as if to remember the difference between wood and flesh.

  Isabella met his eyes.

  ‘Isabella,’ he whispered, ‘stay just like that.’

  Tom had moved a tiny damp piece of hair from her hot cheek and placed it carefully behind her ear. Her ears were like small shells.

  I want to place my lips to an ear. I want …

  Isabella had seen what was in his eyes and they both shivered, and then he had stepped quickly back and had gone to pick up his tools.

  The sun was sliding behind the old glass houses and the scent of flowers and damp earth came in from the open windows. A robin was singing on a branch just outside one window and another answered from across the garden. Isabella was filled with a sudden sense of her childhood.

  Richard laid large maps across the floor of his study and they all knelt on the floor and peered at it.

  ‘Now, you wanted me to show you maps, so here they are. For her maiden voyage, fully fitted, Lady Isabella will sail from here, St Piran. She will do a short hop to Bideford, here, where she will pick up my good friend Captain Trelawney. He will skipper her to Ireland and from there she will cross the channel to St Malo. She will coast the Mediterranean ports, picking up cargo, mostly fruit, and then she will return to Falmouth. Once I have Captain Trelawney’s report on the ship’s ability, and if there are no problems, this, my dears, is the route she will follow …’

  Richard folded the map and pulled out another and flattened out the creases with his large hands. ‘Now then; North America … This is Prince Edward Island, where Lady Isabella was built. Here in Malpeque Bay …’

  Isabella and Sophie peered at the names: Malpeque Bay … Cascumpec Bay … West Cape … North Cape … Greenwich … Hunter River … Charlotte Town.

  ‘Can you show me the sea she sailed, Richard? How long did it take for her to sail back to England?’

  Richard got out some charts. ‘It is hard for you to conceive of the distance, my love. It took twenty-four days for her to get to Plymouth, but she took it easy. I did not want anything to go wrong before you had seen her … Now, fully fitted, why, she will do it in twenty-one days, on the home trip.’

  Sophie asked, ‘Why is it not the same distance both ways?’

  Richard laughed. ‘Because of the Westerlies, my dear, which are a battle for all shipping.’

  ‘All this is sea with no land at all? What do all these arrows mean? I do not see how it is possible to learn navigation,’ Isabella sighed. ‘You are right, Richard, I cannot get a sense of the distance.’

  Sophie pointed down at the chart which could convey nothing of the adventure of sail to her. ‘And I cannot get a sense of how men can stay at sea for so long in rough weather, with no land anywhere, and not die of terror. I love the sea, I am a good sailor, but, when I look at these charts, well … It is like … like a launching into nowhere … a frightening endlessness. I wonder if I could ever be a passenger on a long voyage.’

  Richard sat on his heels, amused. ‘Sophie, my dear, I do not believe you have sailed beyond the Helford! That, my dear, is only dinghy sailing …’

  He folded the charts up. ‘I must try and think of a way of conveying the wonder and possibilities of sea voyages to you both. The trouble with your schoolgirl globes is they cannot show you distance, only the geography of one country to the next … Perhaps when we get home I will make a large wall map for you …

  ‘However,’ he looked at his watch, ‘I think it is time to change for dinner.’

  Isabella was staring down at one of the maps. ‘The island of Newfoundland. I do remember learning about that. It is a wild and inhospitable place, a whaling place with no civilization.’

  ‘It has one of the richest fishing fields on the planet, my dear. Inhospitable it may be, but its indigenous population were massacred in the last century, leaving the Irish and the English …’

  ‘It became a colony,’ Sophie cried, triumphant, ‘with a British Governor. I remember …’

  Richard laughed heartily. He loved the company of women.

  ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Now will you change quickly or we will be in trouble with Lisette, whom I am afraid of, and also with Cook.’

  Sophie and Isabella got to their feet. Sophie said, smiling, ‘You must not patronize me, Richard. I am more than conscious of the gaps in my education. I am trying to address it.’

  Richard looked at her, but did not laugh this time.

  ‘My dear, just be yourself. You are too quick ever to be dull.’

  Isabella was filled with tenderness for her husband. He was a kind and a good man. She saw Sophie was touched. For, however a woman pretended it did not matter, it was easier to have a pretty face. Sophie was struggling to find her way in the world and Isabella could not bear the thought of her being hurt.

  That night when Richard turned to her, she tried to remember his kindness, tried to banish the image of a man with sun-baked skin, a kerchief over his head; tried not to see his naked back and the way she felt as she watched his long fingers carving her likeness.

  But Richard, either with the wine or tiredness, slept before he could make love to her. Isabella, in the dark, her back to her husband, shivered. Her body felt liquid and ached. She pulled her knees up to her chin, curled for sleep, one hand across her heart, the other carelessly over a breast.

  Chapter 41

  Gabrielle ran through the rain to her car with Shadow at her heels. The dog leapt onto the rug in the back seat with a sigh. She drove down the lane and made for the next cove. If the rain stopped she could walk over the headland to Elan’s cottage. She parked in the empty car park and watched the violent sea run at the rocks, hit them with a sound like thunder and spray upwards towards the sky.

  Further out, rounding the cove, a small fleet of fishing boats were battling home along the coast to Newlyn. She could see the skipper at the wheel and the crews in their heavy sou’westers trying to stow away the nets.

  She watched them anxiously. A small green boat seemed to be in trouble; she could s
ee men leaning over the stern looking into the water. None of the boats battling against the sea seemed to be making the progress they should towards the headland and comparative shelter.

  Gabby sat up, mopped the misting windscreen. Something was wrong out there. Should she do something? She reached out for her mobile telephone and at that moment the maroon went off for the lifeboat. Gabby jumped, her blood running cold as she heard the sound of the rescue helicopter above the clouds.

  She got out of the car still clutching her phone. The rain had stopped but the wind nearly blew her off her feet. She hung on to the car, peering out to sea. Two of the fishing boats had made the far headland and disappeared, but the other one manoeuvred dangerously round to go back to the stricken little boat. Gabby could hear clearly the roar of protesting boat engines as they battled not to get blown onshore. Hugging the cliff she edged forward, ignoring Shadow’s indignant barking.

  The air-sea rescue helicopter had descended from the cloud and hovered over the green boat. The crew waved at it and pointed down into the water, and Gabby saw with horror a small yellow figure rising in the water behind the boat. He appeared caught in something, then a huge wave rolled in and they were lost to sight as they sank into a trough.

  When the boat came back into view two fishermen were leaning dangerously over the stern towards him. The helicopter was now winching a crewman down a rope into the water, but the wind kept blowing him away from the desperate yellow blob fighting in the huge swollen belly of the sea.

  The helicopter hovered like an angry wasp as the crewman tried to get a line round the fisherman. The second fishing boat rocked dangerously, men leaning out, waving encouragement to the man in the water.

  Suddenly, riding, plunging, ploughing through the waves, the lifeboat came into sight and the second fishing boat began to manoeuvre out of the way. Knowing there was nothing she could do to help now, she turned and headed for the harbour beyond the headland.