Lighthouse Bay (30 page)

But she is already shaking her head. “No. But I know somebody who goes there a lot, somebody who knows rich people who might want to buy jewelry.”

“Who?”

“Abel Barrett.”

Matthew is puzzled. “You know Abel Barrett?”

“I know more of Abel Barrett than most people,” she says with a sniff. “I have a plan.”

“Do not put yourself in any danger, Isabella. It’s best if nobody in Lighthouse Bay knows you’re still here. Mrs. Fullbright will no doubt have poisoned the well by speaking ill of you, and . . .” He trails off, suddenly ashamed. Isabella sleeping here with him in the lighthouse also needs to be kept secret. He cannot reconcile the fierce protectiveness he feels at this thought and the shame that he is the one who has placed her in this position.

But she is waving him away. “Don’t concern yourself. I am not reckless.”

He hesitates. He wants her nowhere near Abel Barrett. But then he says, “Don’t go to his house. His wife is a friend of Mrs. Fullbright. He drinks at the Exchange every afternoon, usually with Ernest Fullbright, but Ernest is out of town at the moment. Your best chance of catching him alone and unseen is on Shore Road just after sunset.”

She beams at him. “We are a good couple, are we not, Matthew?”

Even though he knows she means something different—that they are partners in crime—the thought of them as husband and wife comes to his mind. But there will be no marriage. Isabella
cannot stay in Lighthouse Bay forever, and he . . . he cannot leave. It is too late in his life to leave. Sadness seeps into his bones. “Yes, we are a good couple,” he replies somberly. “A good couple doing bad things.”

Isabella dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “I see no crime here. All I have taken from the Winterbournes is gold and gems. They took from me my freedom and happiness without blinking. Arthur would have gladly taken my life to save his own out there on the sea. He pulled that oar so hard, I truly believed he wanted me to be in the water with him.” As she says this, a peculiar kind of cold touches her voice and Matthew feels a niggle of alarm. “Don’t torture yourself with guilt,” she continues, touching his hand lightly with her soft fingers. “The end will justify the means.”

T
he wind off the sea is cold and heavy with salt. Isabella shelters from it by pressing her back against the sturdy trunk of a mango tree, waiting in shadows and watching the front door of the Exchange Hotel. A few people have entered the building, but nobody, as yet, has left it. She is wearing Matthew’s dark overcoat, and her hair is under a scarf. The sun has set and the evening hides her. Her heart beats dully in her throat. Sometimes her scheme seems all too impossible, but she reminds herself to take one step at a time. She has made the first piece of jewelry: the first Winterbourne gem is ready to rejoin the world. That is enough for now.

She looks at the sky. Stars twinkle between scudding clouds. She has been so consumed with prizing the gems off the mace, with making and remaking this brooch, that she hasn’t stopped to think. But thoughts come now. Thoughts of Daniel and Xavier and Arthur and Matthew. Thoughts of Victoria, whom Matthew
is trying to locate in America. Isabella would say she feels a long way from home, only she isn’t sure where home is anymore. She is adrift in the world. Perhaps she is destined to be the kind of woman who only touches certain spaces at certain times. For now, home is the lighthouse, but she knows it cannot last. Matthew knows too.

But she wants very much to be a different kind of woman: one with family and roots and bricks under her feet that will be there when she dies. Melancholy washes over her, but she tells herself there is no time to be melancholy. All she must do now is sell the jewels and make enough money for a comfortable, safe passage into her new life.

The door swings open, and there he is. But he is not alone and Isabella’s heart falls. She must be alone with Abel Barrett, or this will not work. He is lighting a cigar and chatting to another man. She slumps against the tree.

Then Abel Barrett waves the other man off, and he is alone, walking in her direction. She straightens, pulls the coat tight about her, and waits for him to pass.

“Mr. Barrett,” she calls softly.

He stops, turns, peers into the dark. “Who is there?”

She leaves the shadow of the tree, but not by much. “Talk with me,” she says.

“Mary Harrow? Why should I? What are you even doing in town still?”

“Talk with me,” she says again, “because I know things about you that your wife does not.”

He hurries over, anger on his brow. She braces herself. He might grow violent. He is a rich, arrogant man used to having things his own way. But he does not strike her. He is, after all, also a man whose wife keeps him wealthy. “Now you listen,” he spits, “you
are nothing. Nothing. Nobody will believe anything you say so–”

“Stop,” she says. “Listen to me.”

He puts his cigar up to his mouth, folds his arms and glares at her. The rich smell of his cigar smoke catches in her throat. It reminds her, inexplicably, of her childhood. Perhaps her father smoked cigars. She takes a deep gulp of the smell.

“Go on, then,” he says. “I’m listening.”

“I need your help.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“I need things from Brisbane. You go there all the time.”

He breaks into a grin. “So you intend to blackmail me? I haven’t any money of my own, you know. She watches every penny that leaves my bank account.”

“No. I don’t want any money from you. I want only your time.” She fishes in the pocket of the coat for the brooch. “Here, do you see this?”

He peers at her hand, then withdraws a match from his waistcoat and strikes it. It flares into life, catching the dark gleam of the sapphire and making her palm glow amber.

“It’s one of the few items of value I have,” she says. “I want you to sell it for me and bring me back some things I need.”

She senses he is both puzzled and relieved.

“This is highly irregular,” he says gruffly.

“I am not asking much. And I will pay with my continued silence.”

“So it is blackmail?”

“Bribery,” she said. “It’s a prettier word.”

He puffs on his cigar, bright eyes hard on her face. Then he scoops the brooch from her palm. “I’m off on Friday. I’ll be back within a week. This will be the only thing I do for you. Nothing else. No more ‘bribery.’”

“I agree.” She hands him the list of items she needs. “There will be money left over, I hope. Please bring it in cash.”

He reads through the list, looks as though he might ask what she needs silver wire and a jeweler’s glass for, but thinks better of it. He wants this transaction to be discharged and over with minimal fuss. Instead, he examines her face again and says, “Who are you?”

“Mary Harrow,” she answers, without blinking.

“You are more than that,” he says. “Katarina always felt so.”

“I am only what you see in front of you.”

“It is dark. There are shadows. I don’t see you well at all.”

Isabella bowed her head. “When can I meet you again?”

“Friday and one week. Here, same time. I will have your things, and then any relationship between us is dissolved.”

She lifts her head. “One more thing,” she says. “May I have a cigar?”

He pats his pocket, finds a cigar and bends to light it for her. She coughs and chokes and he watches her, bemused.

“You need to know that Katarina has put the word out that you stole from her,” he says.

“Has she?”

“It was the only way to explain your sudden departure. I would be careful about town if I were you.”

“I will be careful. Thank you.”

Isabella sits on the beach later, finishing the cigar. The coughing and choking have passed and her throat and lungs have settled. A warm, pleasantly distant feeling swims into her head. She hopes Matthew is busy enough at the lighthouse not to worry about her. She is enjoying being outside, rather than locked up in the lighthouse hiding from the eyes and opinions of others. She smokes her cigar and watches the ocean, and dreams of what might come.

T
hey share a bed but do not sleep at the same time. Matthew sleeps in the afternoon, they are up for a few hours together for supper, then she goes to bed. She works while he sleeps; he works while she sleeps. They make love in the morning when she wakes, when he has finished his long shift and needs the comfort of her body.

She rattles around in the lighthouse by herself when he is in bed, trying to be quiet, feeling bored and lonely and on the edge of desperation. Now she can do little but wait for Abel Barrett to return with her supplies, she finds the afternoons long and empty. Matthew has given her books to read, but she has never been bookish. Sitting still for hours on end makes her impatient. She thinks too much: long unfettered fantasies of how life might be on the other side of the ocean. Sometimes the fantasies are pleasing, but sometimes they terrify her. Winterbournes turn up and throw her in prison, she is forced somehow to marry Percy, Xavier dies of a fever on the long crossing.

This afternoon, however, she is neither reading nor thinking. She stands on the upper deck, outside, surveying the world from up high: miles and miles of white sand, green coastal woodland and sparkling blue-green ocean. The wind is strong, tangling her hair in knots and jumping down her throat, but there is something so exhilarating about being up here. It is as though she is part of nature, a bird perhaps. She spreads her arms in the warm sunshine and lets the wind roar over her.

Finally, it becomes too much and she rounds the lighthouse to find a sheltered spot. Now she is looking down towards the beach, and she sees two figures on the sand. A large one and a small one. She is reminded of her visits to the beach with Xavier,
his sweet hand in hers. She feels the space between her eyebrows crease into a frown. Perhaps it is Xavier down there. With Katarina? No, Katarina would never go near the sand.

A new nanny? Already?

Isabella’s heart feels hot. What if the new nanny is kind and soft? What if he grows to love her just as he grew to love Isabella? Surely he wouldn’t. Surely he too felt the special bond between them.

She is pacing. She stops and holds on to the wooden railing, peering down through humid sea mist to the beach. It is an adult and a child, without doubt. Of course there are other children in Lighthouse Bay; it need not be Xavier. But Isabella is desperate to know.

Inside the lighthouse all is quiet and still. Matthew only sleeps a few short hours a day, so he sleeps hard. She tiptoes down the stairs, then lets herself out.

The wood between the lighthouse and the beach is thick with tangled plants and uneven beneath her feet. She picks her way carefully, emerging eventually on top of a sandy dune covered with long spiky grass. Here she pauses, scanning the beach. They are, perhaps, a quarter of a mile away, and it is definitely Xavier. He stands with his thumb in his mouth: a familiar pose. The woman’s back is turned, but it isn’t Katarina. It is a matronly woman who has crouched to build a sandcastle while Xavier watches.

Isabella aches to hold him. This other woman, this new nanny, does not touch him. She does not pull him into her lap and stroke his hair and whisper close to his ear. Surely he needs all of these things to be happy.

But then a darker thought: perhaps he is happy. Perhaps he is happy
without Isabella.
This new nanny may not be affectionate, but she may be calm and practical and safe—things Isabella
knows she is not. On the one hand, the idea that Xavier is not suffering is a relief. On the other, the idea makes Isabella desolate. If he doesn’t need saving, then what is her purpose in life? She does not want to go on the long journey to America alone across the hollow miles.

Isabella creeps along the edge of the wood, hoping to get close enough to see better. Something about the hunch of the woman’s shoulders is familiar to Isabella. On closer view, she realizes it is Cook. Cook is looking after Xavier. Of course. Katarina would not have found a new nanny so quickly. She is relieved because she knows not only that Cook will be kind to Xavier, but also that she will keep her distance. Cook is intently focused on the sandcastle. Xavier scans the horizon.

Isabella holds still, willing him to look her way. He doesn’t.

She moves back into the hem of the wood and picks her way down towards them. Cook will not want to see her. If what Abel Barrett says is true, and the town thinks she is a thief, it is not safe to speak to anyone.

They are playing hide-and-go-seek now, Cook and Xavier. Cook stands on the sand facing the sea, with her hands covering her eyes, and Xavier hurries up the sand and into the wood. He won’t go far: he is afraid of snakes. But Cook turns and makes a fuss of not being able to see him, finds him in the edge of the wood. Then she returns to the sand and they are off again.

Isabella’s heart thuds. Dare she find him before Cook?

She dashes through the trees, clumsy over roots, scrambling over a gully. A low-hanging branch whips her face. Cook has found Xavier again, but there may be another turn.
Please let there be another turn.

This time she can hear Cook’s voice on the wind. Counting to twenty.

“One . . . two . . . three . . .”

And now Isabella is within calling distance of Xavier. Only she dare not call. She closes the space as quickly as she can. He hears her footsteps and looks up.

Isabella holds her finger to her mouth to indicate he must not speak. She grasps his hand and he squeezes her fingers hard enough to bend them.

“Quickly. Come with me,” she whispers, pulling him farther into the trees. She hurries him to the gully and ducks down, gathering him onto her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she says, tears on her face. “I’m so sorry. But you mustn’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.”

He shakes his head, indicating he won’t. Has he stopped speaking again?

She stands him up in front of her and surveys him, feeling along his limbs as though not quite believing he is real. “I miss you so much,” she says. “Are you happy?”

He cocks his head as though listening for the answer, then shakes it slowly.