Alice took her mother’s hand and squeezed it. Effie was trembling; afraid of the Colonel’s reaction. But Fairchild surprised them all. He let out a bark of amusement.
‘Well said, young lady. Your loyalty to the Browns does you credit. And your defiance . . .’ He gave her a wistful smile. ‘How like your beautiful mother you are.’
Alice felt wrong-footed by his remark. She had nothing in common with this Charlotte – a callous pleasure-seeker – and didn’t want to be likened to her. Yet, she felt a stab of guilt at her impetuous rejection of his offer. He was obviously a lonely man whose wealth meant nothing to him if he couldn’t share it with someone. He seemed a good person.
The colonel said, ‘Your wishes must of course be paramount, Alice. I hope I may be allowed to correspond with you – and maybe you would write back on occasion and tell me how you are?’
She nodded, squirming with embarrassment at his gallant response to her rudeness.
‘Then I shall take my leave.’ The colonel bowed at the women. ‘Mrs Brown, please forgive me for causing you upset. I should have realised how attached you would have become to my— to Alice.’
George summoned the footman to show his guest out. At the door, the colonel turned and said, ‘Alice, my offer to come and live at Tolland Park will always remain open.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Alice said, her cheeks aflame. She felt wretched at his hurt look and yet angry at him for upsetting her family and putting her in such an impossible position. She just wanted to escape back to the island and hide away. The shipwreck had brought nothing but discord. She wanted none of the bounty or attention that had come in its wake. She was not like Danny. Danny! Why had he done this to their parents? She refused to believe he would have come up with the idea of selling her birth story to that journalist. Thomasina must have wheedled the truth out of him and put him up to it.
Alice and the Browns left swiftly after the colonel. George offered them refreshment but Alice could sense his awkwardness and her parents were keen to be gone. She felt that somehow, by rejecting the colonel’s offer, she had offended George too. But her feelings were all at sea and she couldn’t work out quite why there was this new reticence between them.
Back at the lighthouse, Alice tried to settle into the everyday tasks again as if the traumatic meeting at Black Harbour House had never been. But she caught her parents watching her and trying too hard to please her, as if they now thought of her differently – as belonging to Colonel Fairchild – and it upset the equilibrium of family life.
Sam was told. Arnold did not want to risk him going ashore and hearing the gossip second-hand. It was not long before the story was out. Sam came back from the village the following week with a copy of The Newcastle Messenger. The main headline was ‘Lighthouse Heroine, Alice Brown, is the Long-lost Daughter of Colonel David Fairchild, Veteran of the French Wars’.
There was mention of Alice’s mother, Charlotte, giving birth in the lighthouse and then abandoning her baby. The article speculated on whether the shameless mother had run off with a sea captain.
Arnold shook with rage. ‘That a son of mine could have stooped so low – making us the butt of gossip from here to Newcastle – for thirty pieces of silver! Never let him set foot on this island again!’
Soon the story was spreading far beyond the north east of England. The letters from would-be suitors multiplied. Now that Alice was an heiress, she attracted the attention of fortune-seekers across the country. Women sent requests to be her confidante; clairvoyants wrote predicting her future and the debt-ridden begged for money. Journalists attempted to land on the island and seek interviews but Sam and Arnold chased them away. They wrote stories about Alice anyway; lurid tales of a pretty young daughter of the gentry being forcibly kept in a remote tower by wicked step-parents who refused to let her leave the island and claim her birthright.
By the autumn, Effie could stand it no more.
‘We’re being punished for what I’ve done,’ she fretted. ‘It’s God’s retribution. I should never have kept you. This is all my fault.’
Alice was distressed by her words. ‘No, it’s not,’ she replied. ‘It’s just Thomasina’s mischief and Danny’s greed. It’ll all blow over soon.’
But Effie would not be consoled. Alice found it easier to avoid her mother and find jobs to do outside or in the lamp-room rather than listen to her constant litany of woe.
Standing in the room at the top of the high tower, alone on watch, Alice would be plagued by mutinous thoughts. Effie and Arnold had let her down by hiding the truth from her all these years. Things would never be the same again; the trust between them was gone. What would it be like to live at Tolland Park? What sort of person had her birth mother really been? The Colonel had loved her dearly so perhaps Charlotte had not been all bad. Perhaps she had been young and headstrong and desperately lonely, with a husband far away at war for years on end. How tempting it would have been to fall for a handsome sea captain who paid her loving attention . . .
Alice winced to think how quickly she had fallen for handsome John and his flattery – how easily she had let him kiss her with passion. Was she so very different from her foolhardy mother? It struck her suddenly that she was beginning to think of Charlotte as her mother, rather than the unhappy, guilt-ridden woman in the room below. Gazing out at the pink dawn creeping up over the horizon, Alice had a fresh pang of longing for John. Would she ever hear from him again? If not, would she ever be able to think of him without her insides twisting with regret at what might have been?
As the new day dawned, Alice was overwhelmed by a desire to change things for the better. She must stop hankering after John. She would redouble her efforts to make life bearable again for her family. In the quiet of the lamp-room with the sea lapping gently far beneath, Alice made up her mind what to do next.
‘Are you quite sure it’s what you want?’ Arnold asked again.
‘I think it would be best for us all,’ Alice said, trying to be resolute. ‘My being here is making life impossible for everyone.’
‘And you will be doing right by Colonel Fairchild,’ Effie said. Her mother had not wept when Alice had suggested she write to the colonel and accept his offer of a home. If anything, the woman had looked relieved.
‘And I can always come back when things have settled down,’ said Alice, ‘and I’m no longer a story for the broadsheets.’
‘Of course you can,’ Arnold agreed.
Alice turned away from his sad look; her father would miss her the most. From him she had learnt a thirst for knowledge and a love of books; he had ignited her interest in plants and animals and her passion for lighthouse-keeping and the sea.
She wondered how far Tolland Park was from the sea. Would it be too far for her to ride to the coast? Already she was imagining what her new life would be like – as long as the colonel still wanted her.
His reply to her letter came back the same week. One of Danny’s boatmen brought it out.
‘No doubt Danny already knows its contents,’ Sam grunted. ‘That’s why he’s sent it on so quickly. Thinks there’ll be something in it for him now you’re going to be a lady.’
Alice opened it with trembling hands.
My dearest Alice,
Your letter has made me the happiest man on Tyneside. Of course I still want you to come and live as my daughter at Tolland. Nothing would make me prouder. I want to know everything about you: what your favourite dishes are and who are your favourite poets and whether you would like your chamber decorated in wallpaper or hung with tapestries – and what colours should the curtains be? But we can talk of all that when you are here.
I shall come for you in the carriage a week today.
Your loving father,
David Fairchild
On the day before Alice was due to leave, she went for a walk to the top of the island with Sam.
‘Remember when we used to scramble down for birds’ eggs with Danny?’ she asked.
&
nbsp; ‘I remember him kickin’ them over the cliff,’ Sam said. ‘Always spoilin’ things.’
‘Poor Danny.’ Alice sighed. ‘He’s never happy with what he’s got – always wanting something more.’
‘Don’t feel sorry for him,’ Sam replied. ‘He’s boasting round the village about how much money he’s making. Got himself a boat of his own, so he doesn’t have to rely on Gillveray for charity. And Thomasina’s going about in a fancy blue silk dress. And we all know where Danny’s got his new wealth from, don’t we? Selling gossip about his own sister.’
Abruptly, Sam stopped and gave her an awkward glance.
‘I am still your sister, Sam,’ Alice insisted. ‘I can’t think of us in any other way.’
‘Me neither,’ Sam said bashfully.
They sat near the edge of the cliff watching the birds scream and wheel overhead. Would she miss the sounds of the island? Alice wondered.
‘I remember her a bit,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Your mam.’
Alice’s heart thumped at the unexpected mention. ‘Really?’
‘Aye. I remember her screaming upstairs – in the old lighthouse – ’cause it frightened me. Must have been – you know – when she was . . .’
‘Giving birth to me?’
‘Aye.’ Sam blushed.
So it really had happened; even Sam recalled the momentous night. Somehow it made Charlotte all the more real to her.
‘Do you remember anything about her?’ Alice held her breath.
‘She was pretty. Had pretty hair – red hair that shone in the firelight.’ Sam shrugged. ‘But that’s all.’
Alice wished it was more but it gave her an image to savour and keep.
‘I used to sit by your crib though,’ Sam said. ‘It was a drawer and I thought it was funny putting you into a drawer like the linen. I loved our baby – I loved keeping watch. That’s what mam used to say; “Good Sam; you’re keeping watch over our wee lassie.”’ Sam turned to Alice with a sad smile. ‘I’ll miss you. You won’t forget us, will you?’
Alice felt her throat choke with tears. ‘Of course not.’ She squeezed his arm and smiled. ‘I’ll come back soon, I promise.’
CHAPTER 10
Addiscombe Military Seminary, south of England, 1829
Here comes the gardener’s boy!’ Vernon Buckley mocked as John crossed the parade ground. ‘Been measuring the potato patch again?’
Vernon’s friends sniggered. John bitterly regretted ever telling Vernon about his upbringing but when they had been new cadets eighteen months ago, the tall young general’s son had been charming and friendly. John had soon realised that it was only a veneer.
‘We’ve been building a pontoon,’ John replied, ‘so that your dainty feet won’t get wet. That’s if you ever pluck up the courage to venture beyond the parade ground, Buckley.’
This brought laughter from John’s fellow engineer cadets. They were exhausted and mud-spattered after a long day digging defences and constructing bridges. With satisfaction, John saw the fair-faced Vernon flush to the roots of his curly blond hair.
‘He blushes like a girl,’ Colin MacRae said in Gaelic.
John answered his friend in their native tongue. ‘And smells as fragrant as one too. He bathes in more potions and oils than a queen.’
This provoked laughter from the Highlanders among them.
‘Listen to the savages talking in their coarse language,’ Vernon drawled. ‘Not wearing your skirts today, I see.’
John had got used to ridicule from the southerners about the Scottish cadets and he put up with it good-naturedly. Most had soon tired of baiting the northerners – except for Vernon. John was baffled as to why he was singled out the most. Colin said it was because John wouldn’t fawn and flatter him as others did, or take part in Vernon’s drunken revelries and horseplay with the serving girls. Vernon appeared to have limitless amounts of money to indulge his appetites for drinking and wenching. His room was notorious for breakfast parties with tankards of claret and late-night debauchery where drunken singing kept others awake until the early hours of the morning. John despised the privileged Vernon’s self-indulgence and callous treatment of women.
‘Wouldn’t want you and your wee boys clinging onto our skirts,’ John quipped back.
Vernon and his friend Symonds blocked John’s way. ‘We’re going into town tonight, Sinclair,’ Vernon said. ‘The peasants need teaching some manners. Are you Scotchmen brave enough to come with us,’ he challenged, ‘or are you too frightened of getting into trouble?’
‘We don’t all have uncles who are Company directors and can pay off our fines.’ John elbowed his way past. ‘And we don’t fight skinny underfed town lads – that’s a coward’s sport.’
‘You’re the coward,’ Vernon taunted. ‘I’ve never seen you fight anyone. You’ll never make a proper soldier!’
John ignored him and walked away. All he wanted was a soak in a tub of hot water and a hearty meal to keep him going through an evening of study. He wanted to excel in his final examinations in June and make Hercules proud of him. Vernon could afford to fritter away his time at military school – he could pay his way into the cavalry if he failed the engineering or artillery exams – but John could not.
John had relished his time at Addiscombe. He had made firm friendships and learnt much, both in the classroom and out on military exercises. He was one of the top students in mathematics and languages; his tutors were astonished by how quickly he had become fluent in Hindustani and Persian – the courtly language in parts of the East – as well as French and Latin. But for a boy who had grown up speaking Gaelic, Pashto and English, John found other tongues easy to learn and often helped his fellow students too.
It was now hard to remember how he had once been startled by the lushness of the green countryside around the college – so flat and far from the sea – and how grand the mansion and grounds were. The buildings were severely regular in design, with long elegant windows that let the light flood in. The parkland to which the cadets were restricted was thick with tall, broad trees that grew unstooped by westerly gales. With permission, the students were allowed to venture outside the confines of Addiscombe’s walls and John and his friends had relished riding about the countryside and exploring this land of abundant farms.
John had proved himself an able military cadet too. He was an expert rider who could handle the most nervous of horses, a talented swordsman and accurate with a rifle. Perhaps this more than anything was what riled Vernon; that the upstart Highlander, who was comfortable running barefoot and riding bareback, was a better huntsman than one brought up on a rich estate with a stable of thoroughbreds and kennels of pedigree hounds.
Only one thing had marred John’s time in the south; his estrangement from Alice Brown. His anxiety at her lack of response to his letters turned from bafflement to hurt pride. He had thought of her every day for months after his journey south, images of her fresh-faced beauty and lustrous red-gold hair filling his daydreams. He had craved news of her like a hungry man for scraps of bread but none had come. John had been so sure that Alice had fallen for him as much as he had for her. Why else would she have agreed so readily to be his wife?
But perhaps she hadn’t been as eager; she had forestalled his rash proposal by telling him he must first write to her father for permission. He would have rushed to Arnold Brown there and then and begged for her hand if she had given him an ounce of encouragement. Yet she had not. Worse still, her father had not even bothered to reply to his proposal request and he feared that Alice had told him to ignore it as she had all of John’s messages to her.
Once news spread in the newspapers about Alice’s brave deeds, she became a national heroine. The broadsheets carried dozens of interviews of people who knew her or had corresponded with her – even a few articles that quoted her directly – and there were endless illustrations of Alice, none of which, John thought, did justice to her beauty. It was reported that Alice received proposals of marr
iage daily. No doubt her new suitors could offer her far more riches than a soldier’s pay and a loyal heart. He could hardly blame her for having second thoughts about marrying him.
Yet it hurt him that Alice had not even written to release him from their understanding, let alone thank him for the gifts he had sent. It mattered little to him that she had not acknowledged the blue silk dress to match her eyes or the cask of port for Arnold and woollen shawl for Effie. But to leave him high and dry not knowing if he could still hope to be her husband one day was agonising.
Annoyingly, Vernon had spotted John’s name in the newspapers as one of those saved by Alice and had teased him mercilessly.
‘My, my, Sinclair,’ he had crowed, ‘how humiliating to be pulled from the sea by a mere girl. Must have been a blow to your Scotch pride.’
‘She has more bravery in her wee finger than you’ll ever have, Buckley. She put to sea in an open boat in twenty-foot waves. There was nothing humiliating in being rescued by such a lass.’
John had regretted his outburst; Vernon had needled him constantly about being lovesick for Alice. It was his rival who had delighted in waving the newspaper under his nose with the shock revelation that Alice was not the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, but of a gentleman and hero of Waterloo. A few weeks later it was reported that the famous Alice had gone to live with Colonel Fairchild at his mansion, Tolland Park.
‘Well, well, Sinclair; not much chance of your sturdy boatwoman looking twice at you now,’ Vernon had baited John. ‘I must say, seeing as little Alice has become one of the gentry, I might try my hand at wooing her myself. Looks a pretty little filly from this picture.’
John had wanted to punch Vernon’s lascivious face. Instead he had gone into town and got roaring drunk. Colin had rescued him from being locked up in the local gaol for disorderly behaviour. But for going into Croydon without permission, the college authorities had thrown him into the punishment cellar – the black hole as it was nicknamed – and put him on bread and water rations for a week. There, he had plenty of time to dwell on his foolishness. Alice no longer thought of him so why waste his time on a woman who would never give her heart to him? Perhaps she had already agreed to marry another. Now that she was mixing with the gentry, she would have her pick of eager suitors.
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