Moon Rising

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  I thought he probably was, even though I had no other experience to go on, and it was beginning to worry me. Unable to say so, I tried not to flush under those searching eyes, saying only that he was kind and easy enough to work for. They took in my clothes, pretty and sweet-scented, and, with a twist of the lips, drew their own conclusions. It was uncomfortable to know these conclusions would be carried away and repeated; but there was nothing I could do about that. I found it more difficult to be told that without me, Bella was like a lost soul.

  Ironically, the one person I wanted to see was Bella, and she seemed determined to hide. It wasn’t that I imagined she would know the answers, but in explaining things to her, I thought I might understand them a little better myself. Even so, as I tidied things away at the cottage, I wondered what she would make of Bram and his curious stories, what she would say to our moonlight rambles. I was afraid she might pour scorn on them.

  If it shamed me, still I lacked the courage to go to the Cragg and knock on the door. I’d tried to avoid a meeting before, but now, wherever I went, I searched for Bella’s face. I even made a point of passing the fish stalls, but she wasn’t there and I didn’t want to speak to Cousin Martha. I knew I was in the wrong: Bella was the only friend I had in Whitby, certainly the only one with whom I could discuss such personal matters, and I’d turned my back on her.

  Anxiety took the edge off everything, including my good humour, and since I couldn’t explain to Bram I put it down to the oppressive heat, a feeling of exhaustion and the fact that these midnight walks were not what I was used to. When I turned away from him he was offended by what he saw as my rejection, becoming moody and abstracted in ways he hadn’t been before.

  I recall a period of tension between us, although towards the end of June there was heat and tension everywhere. Landwards, the sky had turned a sickly shade of yellow, like a smothering blanket which obscured the sun and muffled every breeze. Even the fog lurked far out to sea, as though unable to penetrate the barrier. The nights, which before the solstice had been so clear and invigorating, were humid, and the waning moon was no more than a shrouded lantern over the sea.

  Things came to a head in ways I could not have foreseen. It had been a stifling day and the evening was no cooler. Bram called for me at the studio about half-past nine, talking to Jack in the doorway while I completed the last of the cabinet prints and switched off the gas hob. The little back room stank of chemicals and glue and I couldn’t wait to get outside. Removing my overall, I hurriedly washed and tidied myself before the sliver of mirror above the sink. A moment later I was ready to go, but the bridge was open, and one of the paddle tugs was going through, belching sparks and smoke as it towed in a large barquentine laden with timber.

  Jack detested the tugs, and as usual complained about the noise and smoke, while Bram, predictably, responded that he’d rather cross the Atlantic by steamer any day. Their conversation expanded into a friendly argument on the relative merits of steam and sail, while I found myself in the background, listening, suddenly beset by memories of Jonathan. Like Bella, he’d been absent from my thoughts while I was enjoying myself, but just then his presence seemed so strong, I half expected to see him passing by.

  Unconsciously I stepped back into shadow. And then I remembered what Jack had said when I left the Cragg: be sure you’re not exchanging the frying pan for the fire. At the time, the excitement of being desired had far outweighed the risks involved. Now, it seemed, I was in danger of feeling the burns.

  The vessels went through, the open bridge swung back into place. The waiting crowd started to move across, but it was a while before Bram was ready to leave. Like me, he seemed to be examining every passing face. I wondered why.

  I would have preferred to head straight home, but Bram wanted to take a stroll on the east cliff. Dragging my feet, I followed him across the bridge and along Sandgate, feeling the effort as we breasted the rise of Tate Hill.

  Pausing to look back as we climbed the Church Stairs, I could see the afterglow of sunset, blood-red against a louring sky. A dark pall of smoke hung over the harbour, and the sultry atmosphere was threatening. Taking the steps slowly, pausing on the coffin-rests, I said we should head for home, but Bram wanted to press on.

  ‘Not a breath of air,’ I said mutinously as we reached the top, needing no ancient weather prophets to tell me we were in for stormy night.

  ‘There’ll be a breeze out on the headland.’

  ‘In that case,’ I persisted, ‘what was wrong with the west cliff? Why couldn’t we catch the breeze over there, instead of trailing up here for it?’

  Turning, he gave vent to words that cut me. ‘If you don’t want to be here, for goodness’ sake go home. Do what you want, Damaris, I’m not here to stop you. Only please don’t whine.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I protested, but I could hear the injured note in my voice which bore a worrying reminder of Cousin Martha. Clearing my throat, I tried to sound as though his sharpness didn’t matter. ‘It’s just that it’s so hot, and I’m sure we’re going to have a storm. I’d rather get home before it starts.’

  Ignoring that, taking my arm, he led me to our usual spot. As I expected, he chose the tomb in preference to the seat, leaning against the stone as he looked steadfastly out to sea.

  Even here, there was only a slightly cooler breath, a stirring of the air that was more a waft than a breeze. The twilight was sinking fast, leaving no more than an angry glow low down by Kettleness. Everything was darker than usual; even the sea looked black, while the squat grey shape of the church was barely visible against the sky.

  With an exaggerated sigh I glanced at Bram, seeing tension in the set of his shoulders. He smoked a cigarette while I wondered why things were going so sadly adrift. With nothing much else to do, I hoisted myself up and tucked my feet under me, absently tracing the remains of lettering on the stone’s upper face. Salt winds had scoured almost all but a solitary name, Lucy, and the month and year of her demise; except even the year was in question, since the last two numerals were hard to define.

  We’d speculated before on her age and identity, from time to time adding pieces to a background that now, when I thought of it, seemed almost as fanciful as that of the young heroine in Carmilla. In one of his lighter moods just a night or so ago, Bram had put everything together and informed me that Lucy had been a spoiled and adored young woman, very beautiful, with several suitors vying for her hand. Tragically, she’d fallen ill with consumption, and in just a few short weeks had wasted away.

  In his story, Lucy’s grief-stricken suitors carried her coffin in torchlit procession all the way through Whitby, while her best friend followed behind, carrying Lucy’s gloves and a wreath of thornless roses, pink and white to symbolise her youth and purity.

  ‘Except,’ Bram had then added, ‘one of the stems bore a single thorn, which stabbed her finger, so a trail of blood was left all the way up the steps and into the churchyard...’

  At that point, having introduced the Whitby barghest as a threat to the friend, he had to summon another character to deal with it. This aristocratic and somewhat daunting figure was to come by ship from one of the Baltic ports, arriving in a fearful storm...

  Round and round the letters of Lucy’s name, my finger went on tracing as I reflected on Bram’s tale; then suddenly he turned and spoke, and, soft though it was, his voice startled me.

  ‘Did I tell you I finally deciphered Lucy’s date of death? It was the other evening, while you were at the studio.’

  He turned and struck a match over the stone, moving it around in an attempt to clarify the date. But the old-fashioned scoops and whorls had been so distorted by the weather, I could no more decipher it now than at any other time. The match burned away and he let it drop to light another, but it was no use. ‘That’s a shame. The sun was really low and bright, and just as I happened to look down, I saw the date - either 1852 or ’32...’

  ‘I don’t think it can be ’52,’ I said as
the second match went out, ‘it’s too near the edge of the cliff.’

  ‘I know. It has to be ’32. The year of the epidemic.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘I’m afraid our poor dear Lucy may be one of your cholera victims.’

  ‘Not mine,’ I said, recoiling at the suggestion. Nevertheless, the fact that she’d been buried in style, at such an unusual distance from the church, did give credence to the suggestion. It seemed so obvious I wondered how we’d failed to work it out before. I slipped down from the tomb as revulsion shuddered through me, but Bram seemed not to notice, seemed not to feel appalled, as I did, that we’d been weaving fantasies around a poor girl dead of the cholera some fifty years before.

  ‘Well,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘I wouldn’t have made the connection, if you hadn’t told me about the collapse of the old burial ground. She must have been on the landward edge of it. I wonder,’ he added, glancing round, ‘whether any more survived the fall?’

  I shook my head, preferring to think of all that sickness and contagion being long gone, absorbed and cleansed by the sea. In the gathering darkness I wanted to be gone myself, preferably to a place of lights and laughter, where we could forget this morbid preoccupation with sickness and death. But when I suggested returning to town Bram was adamant as ever, urging that we walk along the cliffs and back by the abbey, as we’d done so many times before. I agreed, but with a singular lack of grace.

  We’d gone some distance when he turned to me and said, ‘By the way, I think I should tell you something.’

  We both stopped. It was dark by then, even up there, and hard for me to read his face, but I was struck by apprehension. ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I went for a walk on the pier this evening.’ He looked up and I caught the glow of his eyes; then as I nodded, willing him to go on, he said abruptly; ‘I bumped into George du Maurier’s wife.’

  ‘Here already? But they never come before July...’

  ‘She’s here with a friend,’ he explained. ‘George and the children are still in London. Of course, she was most surprised to see me,’ he continued ironically, ‘wanted to know where I was staying, what I’d been doing for the past few weeks, that sort of thing. Everyone’s missed me in London, apparently, rumours have been flying, and – or so she said – Florence is getting very tight-lipped about my absence.’

  I was suddenly tight-lipped myself. ‘I see. And what did you say to that?’

  He gave a little bark of laughter. ‘Well, I tried to pass it off, said I couldn’t think why, when everyone knew I was on a walking holiday and couldn’t be contacted. So then, for heaven’s sake, she wanted to know when I would be back in London – I felt like telling her to mind her own damned business! Anyway, I managed to hold my tongue and said I hadn’t made any definite plans yet.’

  At my little moan of dismay, he turned to me and said harshly, ‘What am I going to do?’

  In the thick air I found it difficult to breathe. What was he going to do? The dread of this moment had been at the back of my mind, but we’d never discussed it. No doubt Mrs du Maurier, whose husband was famous, even in Whitby, for his writing and his Punch cartoons, would send a jolly little note to Mrs Stoker, saying not to worry, her husband was found, and would be returning any day now...

  And Florence, what would she do? Treat it as a joke – pretend to Bram, even, that it was all a silly misunderstanding, and make a great fuss of him once he was back home?

  A well-bred lady, I thought, might well do that. It would certainly save a great deal of unpleasantness. In Florence’s place, though, I would be livid – mad enough to discover his whereabouts, if only to haul him back to London so I could kick him out again.

  But Bram – what did he want?

  ‘Well,’ I said, trying to swallow the lump in my throat, trying to distance myself from the pain and dismay, ‘you said a month, and it’s almost up – perhaps it’s time to give in with grace.’

  He denied it at once. ‘No, never. I won’t give in. I’m not going back.’ He grasped my shoulder, kissed my hair and my face, found my mouth and crushed it under his. ‘How could I ever live without you,’ he whispered fiercely, ‘when I can’t get enough of you now?’

  I wanted him too, and with a touch of desperation at the thought of losing him, but it seemed we’d reached the end of the line. I’d hoped against hope, but never seriously expected him to give up his life in London. All that talk of staying in Whitby and writing for a living was little more than fantasy, and the practical side of my nature resented being teased by promises that were never going to be fulfilled.

  Every time he’d said he would stay, I’d asked him to tell me what he would do instead, how he would support his wife and child in London, if he was living with me in Whitby. Out on the cliff, I asked those questions again.

  ‘I’ll find a way.’

  ‘But you’ve always said how extravagant she is,’ I said reasonably, hurrying to catch up as he strode away from me in the dark. ‘What will you do if Florence gets into debt? She’s your wife – you’re responsible for her. And what about Noel? Don’t you care about your son?’

  Suddenly he stopped and tore at his hair. ‘Damaris!’ he cried, ‘for the love of God, just leave it be! Let me worry about Florence, will you? Anyway, why should you care about her – or my son, for that matter? What are they to you?’

  ‘I don’t care!’ I retorted, feeling tears spring to my eyes and hoping he couldn’t see. ‘Why should I? But I do care about you – and I won’t have you making foolish promises you can’t keep, and raising my hopes, and then going away, and – and –leaving me. I just won’t!’

  ‘I’ve no intentions of leaving you. I’ve told you – I’m staying here, in Whitby. I’m not going back to London!’

  ‘But you love Florence, you know you do, it’s no good saying -’

  ‘Do you want me to leave?’ he demanded. ‘Are you sick of me, too?’

  ‘Of course not!’ I yelled, sobbing for sheer frustration. ‘I love you!’

  We stood apart, glaring at each other through the darkness; and then he came close and cautiously took hold of me. He was shaking: it seemed to extend from his brow to his feet, and yet he held me away from him, as though afraid to do more than touch his forehead to mine.

  ‘I know and I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Forgive me, my love – I’m not myself this evening.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘We should go back -’

  ‘No – let’s walk a little further.’

  We did, hand in hand, his fingers crushing mine. It was a measure of my distraction that I paid no attention to where we were. Did I love him? I imagined I must, since I’d said so, but that declaration had astonished me as much as Bram. And yet he said he knew. And was sorry. For what? For his anger, or because I loved him? My head was bursting with hope and despair, with a riot of questions and blind-alley solutions, until I had to risk putting one of them into words. ‘Perhaps,’ I began tentatively, ‘if you really feel you can’t bear to leave Whitby, then -’

  ‘It’s not that. London’s the problem, Damaris – I don’t want to go back to London.’

  I felt those words like a knife to the breast, and was thankful I’d put Whitby in place of myself. That way I’d saved us both from embarrassment. But it was wounding to realise that his sense of anger and loathing was so much stronger than the love he professed for me.

  Initially I was too upset to wonder why, too upset to notice anything very much, except that we were walking and I was thankful for it. I was even thankful for the dark, although as sense returned I realised that Saltwick Bay was long behind us and we were some distance along the cliffs. Flashes of light over the horizon warned that it would be wise to go no further, and by mutual consent we stopped and turned and began to retrace our steps.

  With London on my mind I found myself thinking of Florence, a beautiful woman with many admirers. I wondered if she’d become involved with one of them, whether in fact she had taken another ma
n to her bed and that was the heart of Bram’s dilemma.

  It would have explained a great deal. I was using it to settle my mind when he said unexpectedly: ‘The problem is that Emma du Maurier will now write to George, and even if she doesn’t immediately write to Florence as well, George will no doubt mention it to Irving...

  ‘In fact,’ Bram added with what seemed unwarranted harshness, ‘I wouldn’t put it past George to go round to the Lyceum with the express purpose of relaying such information – it’s the sort of thing he’d find amusing.’

  ‘Why should it matter?’

  ‘Why? Because at the moment they don’t know where I am. Irving doesn’t know. I told you – I was supposed to be away for a week or ten days, but he hasn’t been able to contact me for almost a month! In all this time,’ he added, pulling me close as we walked, ‘I’ve been safe, in control of my own destiny. I’ve been here with you, Damaris, and not one of them has been able to touch me! Loving you,’ he added earnestly, ‘has saved me.’

  ‘From what?’

  As I slowed and stopped, Bram bent his head to kiss me, cupping my jaw in his hand. ‘From myself,’ he confessed against my mouth.

  Confused, even a little alarmed by that strange mood, I backed away but he caught at my arm.

  ‘Please,’ he whispered passionately, ‘don’t walk away from me. I can’t bear that. I love you. If I could marry you, I’d do it tomorrow. I can’t live without you. You’ve freed me, given me back my life, made me see what love is. I can’t go back to that other existence – it’s false, artificial, an illusion, no better than one of Irving’s plays. And I’m just an onlooker, don’t you see?