Lighthouse Bay (20 page)

“Very well done, Xavier,” she says to him.

He doesn’t meet her eyes, but she can see the corner of his smile. She suspects Xavier is beginning to like her.

Footsteps. Isabella quickly but gently removes Xavier’s thumb from his mouth. He seems to understand that they are complicit in this deception, and wipes the saliva from his thumb on his pants.

“Mary?” Katarina says, pausing in the threshold to the kitchen. “Mr. Fullbright is having a guest for lunch today and has requested Xavier join us without his nanny. You can help Cook here in the kitchen.”

“I have been here more than a week, Mrs. Fullbright. I see Cook has an afternoon off a week. Might I not also?”

Katarina blinks at her. “I suppose so. Cook will likely manage alone. It is only one extra guest.”

“And, Mrs. Fullbright, when might I be paid?”

“You are very blunt,” Katarina says.

Isabella isn’t sure if this is a criticism or a compliment, so she says nothing. This is the first time she has ever had to ask for money.

“We are a little short this week, Mary,” Katarina says. “I can give you two shillings now, but Mr. Fullbright will pay you at the end of the month, when his own debtors have paid him.” Katarina glances away, as though talking about money embarrasses her. “In future, you should talk only to him about your wage.”

The house is soon in an uproar as Cook is instructed to prepare a roast for the guest, a very wealthy friend of Ernest’s named Abel Barrett. Isabella helps her with the vegetables and the Yorkshire pudding batter in between playing with Xavier and his wooden horses in the nursery.

Ernest seeks her out in the nursery just before midday.

“You need money?” he says, his mouth turned down disapprovingly.

She wants to say, “No, you
owe
me money,” but she knows that will only inflame him. She must pretend to be the supplicant; after all, that is what she is. “Yes, sir. And Mrs. Fullbright says I might take the afternoon off.”

“Ha. A woman loose about town with money and nothing to keep her occupied is a dangerous prospect. Still, if Katherine has promised it to you . . .” He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a few coins to offer to her.

“Thank you, sir,” she says, taking them.

He folds his hands behind his back and leans down to speak to Xavier, who hasn’t looked up from his wooden horses. “Come on, young man. We have a guest.”

Xavier looks longingly at his horses, then casts a gaze towards Isabella, who smiles at him encouragingly. “Go on, Xavier. I made the pudding batter especially for you. I will see you this evening.”

Then they are gone, and Isabella goes to the bathroom to wash
before going up to the lighthouse. It will be the first time she has seen Matthew since she left. An aeon seems to have passed, although it has been little more than a week, and she doesn’t completely understand why she should be so keen for him to see her washed and groomed. She has never been vain, but Matthew has only ever seen her battered and sunburned. Once in her life, she was considered beautiful.

To leave the house, she must cross the sitting room. She pauses near the front door and casts a glance back towards the dining room, where Abel Barrett is in deep conversation with Ernest. Abel looks up, catches her eye. She sees him turn to Ernest and knows he is asking about her. She hesitates: should she wait to see if she is summoned to greet him? But then Katarina comes into view, and makes a theatrical shooing-away gesture. Isabella slips out of the house and down the stairs.

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.