Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  The sky is gray today, a leaden blanket between earth and sun. Despite its weight, she feels the lightness of being free of duties. Once she lived her whole life like this, never knowing how sweet it was to be unencumbered. She is tempted to go to town, to look in the shop windows. But there is likely nothing there she can afford. So instead she takes the overgrown road up the hill to the lighthouse.

  She raps hard on the door, then waits. A few moments pass and she suddenly remembers that Matthew sleeps in the afternoon. She is both mortified that she might have woken him and disappointed that he won’t wake and she won’t see him.

  Footsteps inside. The door opens. “Isabella?” he says, wiping a hand over his beard.

  “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “No. I was just finishing some paperwork.”

  “I need to send a telegram to my sister.”

  “Then come in,” he says. “Come in.”

  The smell of the place overwhelms her: she associates it with the safe haven she found after days of hardship, and one sniff of it makes her feel safe and somehow sad, as though a good time has passed. She goes straight past the staircase to the round table and sits down.

  Matthew brings her a form and a fountain pen. “Here,” he says, sliding them in front of her. “Fill out the address and the message.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  Matthew shakes his head. “I won’t charge you.”

  Isabella fills out the address, then hesitates. What is she to write? Then her heart starts: what if her sister contacts the Winterbournes?

  Matthew sees her hesitate and says, “What’s wrong?”

  “Perhaps it’s not safe to tell her where I am.”

  “Do you trust her?”

  Isabella thinks about this, then nods.

  “Do you trust her husband?”

  “I’ve only met him once. But he seemed a lovely fellow.”

  Matthew shrugs. “Only you can decide.”

  Isabella shakes herself. “I’m being foolish. If I intend to go to her for safe haven, then I must trust her.” After all, she trusts Matthew. As the rain begins outside, hammering on the tin roof of the cottage, she writes: Coming to stay with you as soon as I can. May be some months. Have left Arthur and have no money. Contact me via the light station at Lighthouse Bay in Queensland, Australia, but don’t tell a soul. Then she puts the pen down and hands the form to Matthew. He takes it to the telegraph room; she follows him and stands in the threshold to watch. She wonders if he has heard of the wreck of the Aurora but is keeping his “no questions” promise. He begins to tap out the message. She hears the clacking of the tapper, and the reel starts to turn. Isabella doesn’t understand how it works, or where her message has gone now, but when Matthew is finished he turns to her and hands her back her form.

  “No, I can’t take it with me. You dispose of it for me.”

  Matthew tears it in half and drops it in a wastepaper basket.

  “How long will it be before she gets it?” Isabella asks. “Can I wait?”

  “Oh, no. It may take some time for your message to arrive. It’s not instant. For all its innovation, this is a primitive form of communication at its heart. A medieval lighting of beacons, from one hill to another. It takes only one lookout to miss the flare and the message can sit at somebody’s desk for days, unread.”

  She fights disappointment. “And you will let me know if she telegraphs me in return?”

  “I will deliver the message to you at Mrs. Fullbright’s.”

  “But don’t give it to anyone else. They mustn’t know. Mrs. Fullbright thinks my name is Mary.”

  “I’ll be discreet.” He smiles. “Have you been well?”

  “I’ve been too busy to be unwell,” she replies. She wants to stay a little longer, she wants to sink into the comfort of the lighthouse. Outside the rain is cold and heavy. “Could I trouble you for a cup of tea? It’s too wet to walk home yet.”

  He hesitates.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, realizing she is interrupting his day. “You must get to sleep.”

  “It’s not that . . .” he says, and she knows what he is thinking: it won’t do. If anyone sees her staying here for longer than is necessary, people will talk. But Isabella doesn’t share his fear. Nobody has seen her arrive, and they are unlikely to see her leave. She hasn’t brought an umbrella, so he can’t turn her out. She finds his concern endearing. He is clearly a man with a responsible nature, and he is protective of her.

  “Please? I will drink it quickly and go as soon as the rain stops.”

  This makes him chuckle, and his eyes crinkle up sweetly. “A pot of tea, then,” he says. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  He lights the stove and puts on the kettle. “How do you find living with the Fullbrights?”

  “A little exhausting. I’m not used to service. But the little boy is a delight.” She hesitates, then plunges forward. “His birthday is the same day as Daniel’s.”

  Matthew half-turns, raises an eyebrow. “That must be . . .”

  “I thought it would be difficult. I thought I would always be looking at him, thinking about Daniel. But he is his own boy. Do you not think it strange, though? A coincidence? Their names have only a few letters different, just the consonants. Of all the people I should meet, after all the miles I have come . . .” She trails off. Dimly, she is aware that she sounds a little mad; but she is used to being considered a little mad.

  “But he is his own boy. As you say,” Matthew finishes for her. “He isn’t Daniel.”

  “Of course,” she says, and an unexpected desolation washes over her, as though a window has been opened in a warm room, letting in the first edge of a bitter wind.

  The kettle boils and Matthew wordlessly makes the tea. Isabella sits and waits, wishing for something she cannot articulate. She had been feeling fine and light, just half an hour ago. Now the dark network of memories is closing around her again, just as the dark clouds outside are pressing out all the light.

  But the tea helps. Hot and sweet.

  “Tell me about your sister,” he says gently. “Are you close?”

  Isabella smiles, thinking of Victoria: as dark as she is fair. “We were terribly close as children. We grew up on the north Cornish coast, though Papa and Mama were from London—Papa the son of an MP—so we didn’t speak like everybody else. Father was a jeweler. Oh, he was quite mad. He’d work late into the night, with his hair all stuck up.” She gestured to her own hair. “He had the strangest clients: barons and so on from European towns I’d never heard of. He was terribly popular. All his jewels were made with cold connections. Do you know what that means? Without solder. Every clasp bent and wrapped into shape by hand. His hands were so strong he could crush a tea tin with his fingertips. After Mama died, he let us run wild. We’d spend all day down at the beach collecting shells and stones, then come home and make brooches and bracelets.” Isabella drops her eyes, thinking of Arthur. Once in her life, she’d mistakenly thought that she and Arthur would have so much in common. But Arthur never took joy in making jewels, not the way Papa did. Everything Arthur did was passionless. Bloodless.

  “Do you not think it strange,” she asks, after a few silent sips, “that I haven’t missed my husband at all?”

  “No. I presume you left him because he didn’t treat you well.”

  “Sometimes I worry that there is something wrong with my heart.”

  Matthew doesn’t answer. He seems comfortable simply to sit and wait for her to continue.

  “Perhaps it is broken,” she says. “Not a broken heart in the usual sense, not a simple crack down the middle. But broken like a clock that has been taken down from the mantel, disassembled by a rough hand, then left in pieces on the floor. Broken so it cannot work right again.” She checks herself. She is talking too much about nonsense. If Arthur were here, he would admonish her for drawing attention to herself with her wild ideas.

  But Arthur isn’t here, he’s
dead at the bottom of the sea.

  “My husband is dead, Matthew,” she says softly.

  “Then what have you run away from?”

  “His family.”

  He nods, seems about to say something, then thinks better of it. “You don’t have to tell me anything. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.”

  She tries to be bright. “Then you shall think me too mysterious. A secret keeper. Perhaps even a liar.”

  He holds her gaze in his a moment, another moment, time winding out. She is acutely aware of his masculine presence, the oil-and-sea smells, the darkness of his eyes.

  “I couldn’t think ill of you,” he says at last. “Put it out of your mind.”

  Something flares into life inside her, something she has never felt properly before, so at first it puzzles her. A warmth, down low. A tide of longing to press her whole length against his. This is desire. She desires Matthew, the lighthouse keeper. It surprises her, but not unhappily. She doesn’t know what to do, so she stays where she is. It’s unlikely he feels the same, and he would not think it proper for her to express her feelings. She finishes her tea. The rain has eased. It is time to go.

  “I have stayed too long,” she says. “It was terribly selfish of me.”

  “I’ve enjoyed your company,” he says, and she thinks she detects discomfort. No doubt he has seen her desire and it has embarrassed him.

  She pushes back the stool and stands. “I wish you a good rest.”

  “And I will let you know the moment your sister responds.”

  They stand like that a moment, regarding each other. Then Isabella is heading for the door and down the damp path to town.

  A week passes with no news from her sister. She tries to make sense of it. Perhaps she will receive a letter instead of a telegram, with money in it. Perhaps her sister is away and hasn’t yet received her message. Perhaps she is busy with her new baby and it has slipped her mind. Or perhaps . . . perhaps her sister doesn’t want her to come. Isabella goes on hoping, day after day. It will be some time before she has saved the money anyway. She works hard, she tries to stay cheerful for Xavier, and she waits.

  Katarina and Ernest argue every night. Isabella puts Xavier to bed at six, helps Cook clean up until seven, then goes to the nursery and collapses into her own bed exhausted. Within an hour, perhaps when they think she is asleep and doesn’t hear them, they start. She can’t hear their words, just their voices, so she doesn’t know how or why they start. But it is as predictable as nightfall. Most of the time it is just a little shouting. Sometimes it is slamming of doors. Sometimes Katarina shrieks as though it would make her throat bleed. Isabella has learned not to interfere. Her job is to keep Xavier safe. She is happy to be behind the locked hallway door at night.

  Tonight she is lying in her bed in Lighthouse Bay, but her imagination is away in America with her sister. They are drinking tea together. Victoria’s infant coos softly on Isabella’s lap. She builds the scene in such detail that she wonders if she could ever bear to open her eyes and see where she really is. But slowly noises filter into her furtive imagining. Voices within the house. The argument starts and she barely notices. But it escalates rapidly, and within a few minutes there is the sound of smashing glass or crockery. Each smash is punctuated by a devilish shriek from Katarina, so Isabella knows it is Ernest on the receiving end of the storm. Xavier stirs and Isabella shoots out of bed to smooth his hair.

  But this time he doesn’t go back to sleep. He sits up and his little face is working hard not to fall. Ernest is shouting at Katarina so loudly that they can hear the words. “Whore! Hellcat!”

  Xavier finds Isabella in the dark with his eyes and starts to cry.

  “Sh, sh,” she says, stroking his hair.

  Xavier launches himself into her arms and she presses his warm body against hers and holds him firmly. The argument continues. It sounds as though everything in the house is being thrown. Isabella presses one of Xavier’s ears against her breast, and covers the other with her hand. He sobs against her for a little while, then seems to settle.

  The shouting has died down. There are sounds of shards being picked up, angry talking but no more murderous fury. Isabella gently lifts Xavier and brings him back to her bed. Katarina would never condone it, but Katarina thinks it well enough to frighten the child with her anger, and barely touches Xavier. A child needs comfort, and Isabella has so much comfort to offer.

  They curl together on their sides in bed, his compact body tucked inside the curve of hers. She clasps her arm around him, sniffs his hair, feels his soft heat, and the tick-tick of his little heart. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she says, “I will keep you safe.”

  His pulse begins to slow, he settles into her. She can hear him sucking his thumb rhythmically. After a few moments, he is fast asleep.

  But Isabella lies awake a little longer. In the dark, she can imagine this is Daniel. Her own child. He would come to her for comfort, and, oh, she would give it to him. She would live to be all his comfort. She would love him so well, make him feel so safe and treasured . . .

  She begins to drift off, and the veil between reality and fantasy lifts and she is with Daniel, curled together in bed while the night deepens towards midnight, and all is well in the world.

  Percy is afraid of his mother. Many men are afraid of his mother. The only man who wasn’t was his father, and he has been dead for several years.

  Mother still believes Arthur may be alive. She refuses to accept that the ship is not just late, it is sunk. She believes that even if it is sunk, Arthur has somehow clung to a piece of wood and has now, no doubt, made a hut for himself on the beach and is eating coconuts and awaiting rescue.

  “They are incompetent fools!” she rages, as Percy tells her the local constabulary at Cape Franklin cannot say with certainty whether debris they have found belongs to the Aurora. “A good British marine officer could tell in a heartbeat. Arthur would have been found by now! The mace would have been recovered! I do not want our family name forever associated with losing a gift from the Queen!”

  It is late on a Sunday evening. Sundays tire Mother out terribly, what with church and then Sunday roast for dinner. Percy sits opposite her in the conservatory, and lets her rage against the Queensland marine authorities. He knows his moment will come. Last week, he made a terrible error. He sent the wrong figures to the bank and cost the business five hundred pounds. Mother hasn’t discovered yet, but he knows if he plays her right this evening he can be a long way away before she does find out.

  “You know what would be best?” Percy says, in a gap in her tirade. “If somebody who represents the family could go and try to find him.”

  “Like who? Charles Simmons? He wouldn’t last a moment on a ship, let alone on a desert island.” Mother thinks Australia is a small place with one palm tree and a lagoon.

  Percy waits a moment, then says, “I am willing to go. Simmons can take over from me. I’ll find Arthur and the mace, and bring them home safely.”

  Percy does not believe Arthur will be brought home safely, but he is certain he wants to get to the mace before somebody else does; somebody who would think themselves so far from law and civilization that they would steal it. He cannot bear the thought of some hairy savage, with the mace in his hut, using the jewels to decorate his loincloth. Or a lowly sailor saving it from the wreck, only to take it home and melt it down and laugh at the Winterbourne family.

  “We can’t spare you, and your wife and children certainly can’t spare you,” Mother says, but Percy hears in her voice she is almost wavering. Arthur means a great deal to her; Percy doesn’t. “It will take too long.”

  “A steamer can have me there in seven or eight weeks. Mother”—he drops his voice low so she has to sit forward to hear—“who else would show the care and attention to detail necessary to find a lost brother? Who else can we trust? Nobody. I am Arthur’s flesh and blood.”

  Mother considers, knitting and unknitting
her plump fingers in the lamplight. Finally she says, “You are right. You should go.”

  Percy breathes a sigh of relief. Out and away. No more office, no more numbers. “Very well,” he says, “I shall organize it in the morning.”

  Fifteen

  For a month, Xavier has slept in Isabella’s bed at night. They both take comfort from the practice, so it continues. Isabella knows that Katarina would be displeased, but Katarina locks them in this part of the house alone together every night; she won’t know. And it isn’t as though Katarina lavishes the child with physical affection: she barely touches him. She has no right to be jealous of the embraces Isabella takes. A thing that isn’t valued cannot be stolen.

  Isabella thinks herself safe from discovery, but she hasn’t reckoned on the most unreliable of vessels: the bladder of a three-year-old child. Early one morning, before the dark has lifted, she wakes in a warm puddle.

  “Oh, no,” she says softly.

  Xavier wakes, whimpers.

  “All is well, little one,” she says, lighting a lantern and scooping him up. He is soaked. Her nightgown is soaked. The bedding is soaked. “Let’s get you clean and dry.”

  She takes him across to the bathroom, strips off his sodden clothes and sponges him down as he blinks in the lamplight. Goose bumps rise across his skin, and she rubs his arms briskly. She is growing cold as the wet nightgown sticks to her legs. “There,” she says. “A pair of fresh pajamas and you can go in your own bed.”

  He shakes his head and puts his arms up. He wants to sleep with her.

  “The bed’s all wet now. You have to go in your own bed.” She leads him back across the hallway, dresses him and puts him to bed. He clings to her hand, so she kneels next to him, cold and wet, while he falls to sleep. Gently, she extricates her hand and strips off her own clothes, her own sheets. The mattress is wet, so she sponges it uselessly. She needs to get it outside in air and sunshine. She needs the laundry, and she needs it when Cook isn’t around to catch her.