Moon Rising (3 page)

It was a practised little speech, but, thinking it frank and original, he was both impressed and amused. There was a certain amount of truth in what I said so glibly, and although the unvarnished facts were much less palatable, this was not the place to divulge them. For the time being it was enough for him to know that I was childless. But that was another reason for envying the inestimable Florence. She might have hated sex and disliked her husband – as he'd once claimed – but at least she had his son.

The shortage of tables for dining meant that we were encouraged to take our coffee elsewhere. At last we found a pair of wing-back chairs in a corner of the reading room, and a young waiter keen to earn his tips. He kept up the fire and made sure we were well supplied with coffee and spirits, especially after midnight, when many people had retired to their rooms. I could have done the same, but the coincidence of our meeting gripped me as much as it did my companion. Having once broached Pandora's Box, we found it impossible to shut the lid. To my surprise as much as my dismay I realised that the details of our affair had not been forgotten by him, and that he could recall incidents and events just as well as I.

The intimacy of those hours after midnight brought everything back. Shadows and secrecy, whispered confessions, fears and passions so powerful they seemed still alive. The memories were unsettling and the pain of them made me angry; although in some respects I think my anger was an advantage, since it took the edge off caution and brought out levels of honesty that might have shocked anyone else. Perhaps they shocked him too, but I'd kept a seal on my tongue for long enough. It did me good to say what I thought, to allow myself free rein with never a care for the consequences.

I may have railed against fate, sitting there in my chair by the fire, but my companion had the grace not to remind me that others would have given much to be in my shoes. Mostly I was aware of that, and in bad moments had only to think of my cousin Bella to be profoundly thankful; but just then that was no consolation. Bella was dead, which was another reason to be angry. If the Fates had to have their sacrifice, I demanded of the man by my side, why did it have to be Bella? Why couldn't it have been her twin, Isa, lying there in her shroud?

Isa, dead, would have been a matter for rejoicing. Difficult or not, I knew I would have returned to Whitby under far worse circumstances than this, just for the pleasure of dancing on her grave.

Those sentiments, expressed so vehemently, did surprise him. He'd never forgotten the consequences of my friendship with Bella; what he did not know was how Isa came to be involved. To anyone else those details may not have been important, but he was part of that time, and suddenly I was as eager to tell him as he was to listen. I'd shouldered the burden alone for more years than I cared to recall, and wanted rid of it. Let him feel the weight, I thought; let him wince and stagger while he studied the options. And let him try to decide what should be done to redress the balance.

There was need to remind him of the day we met. He'd always had a passion for the sea and storms, and I know he remembered that one in Whitby, because he wrote about it so vividly in that strange book of his. Under all the embroidery of a novel, events were much the same – the storm, the Russian ship, the wrecks. The great black hound, of course, was the legendary Whitby barghest, the one we'd talked about amongst all the other legends and folk-tales that abound along that coast.

As I recall, the excitement began around the time of low water, which would have been about two o'clock that afternoon. What shipping we'd seen that week had mostly passed on the horizon, beating well out to sea to avoid being driven inshore by those northeasterly gales. The coastguard had spotted a brigantine in trouble just off the Nab – far too close and coming closer. I knew it couldn't be the
Lillian,
a ship in which I had a special interest: it was too early in the season for her return from the Mediterranean. Even so, straining to see her lines more clearly, I felt anxiety grip like a claw.

I discovered from a harassed coastguard that she was in fact the
Mary and Agnes
of Scarborough – but there were still men and boys aboard, precious to someone, in danger of their lives. Wondering about the lifeboat, at last I saw it being wheeled out to the slipway; but at that, like flies to a carcass, people were suddenly gathering to watch. Experiencing a moment's contempt, I turned back to the task in hand.

That day I was working with Jack Louvain, and, because of the exceptionally high tide, we'd been transporting vital photographic equipment away from the quayside shop to his private rooms. By the time he'd decided to stop and take photographs, the piers and cliffs – which in truth were places to be avoided in weather like that – were thronged with sightseers.

Battered by the gale, fighting against it, loaded with camera and tripod and precious glass plates, we struggled to a suitable vantage point on the west cliff. The wind pushing us back inland was equally determined to drive the ship ashore, and it soon became clear that the Master of the brigantine had given up the battle and was making for the harbour. Whether or not this was a wise move remained to be seen, since huge waves were battering the pier ends and breaking over the lighthouses on either side.

On the clifftop we could barely stand. Mr Louvain had me hanging on to the tripod while he attempted to set up the camera for a view of the ship coming in – perhaps successfully between the piers, or more dramatically against the rocks. Either way, he was determined to capture a photograph, if only I could hold the camera still.

Below the slipway, the lifeboat was standing by, ready to launch from the beach. Folk were protesting, saying it should be out there already, offshore, where disaster was just a hairbreadth away. I could have told them there were rules to be obeyed, that a ship had to have struck before the boat could be launched, but I'd neither the breath nor the inclination to argue. For a moment it seemed all would be well, but then the brigantine was swamped by a massive wave. She came up wide of the harbour-mouth, beam on, helpless in the face of that howling gale. Jack Louvain was yelling at me to keep steady, but I was already on my knees under the tripod, trying so hard to hold it down that everything was clenched, including my teeth.

‘Take it, take it!' I muttered desperately, knowing the ship had two chances – either she would roll again and not right herself, or she'd be forced to strike the shore. Praying for the latter, I opened my eyes long enough to see her being lifted bodily by the next wave, and another, as she was swept towards us; but I was not prepared for the unearthly sound as she was driven sideways on to the beach. There came a terrible, deep-throated grinding, topped by almost human groans of protest as every timber jarred, as planking splintered and canvas cracked, and seas gushed over the decks.

Whether Jack Louvain got his picture or not, in that moment I neither knew nor cared. My hands were still clamped around the tripod but I was too shocked to hold things steady. In common with everyone else I simply watched in horror as masts and spars collapsed and the ship sank into the pounding seas. Along the beach, the lifeboat was launched from its cradle into the foam.

As such things go it was dangerously poor, a case of haste and frustration almost causing another disaster. Those first minutes were agonising. Most of the crew were known to me; two were close neighbours. I crawled forward to see them fighting the waves. Relying on the force of the wind, maybe I was leaning out too far; the grass was slippery with spray whipping up from the beach.

I remember peeling wet strands of hair from my eyes; I remember my irritation as Jack Louvain shouted at me. Looking back I saw in the crowd behind me a man with a red beard, glaring so ferociously I thought I must know him. In my momentary confusion I almost slipped, but in the next instant he had my arm and was dragging me back from the edge.

He was tall and well-built; well-dressed too, but that didn't curb my fury. How dared he interfere? How dared he grab me like that? Jack couldn't have cared less. His concerns were to capture a record of wild skies, wilder seas, and that broken ship with her crew struggling to survive.

It seemed we were all fighting just then, the Iifeboatmen having a time of it, their boat pushed back by both wind and tide. They'd barely rounded the second nab, and were still a hundred yards from the brigantine when the boat grounded in the shallows, and oars were smashed with a crack like guns going off. In that moment of astonishment I freed myself. I was so angry I delivered a punch to my captor's midriff that made him grunt, probably with more surprise than pain. Even so, it jarred my wrist. We glared at each other in furious antipathy; then, with arms that were like iron bands, he simply lifted me out of the way and addressed himself to the problem at hand.

Speechless with rage, I watched as this man in his fine tweeds crouched down on the muddy grass. While Jack Louvain changed plates he held everything steady with apparent ease. I wanted to beat them both over the head – preferably with the tripod in question – but my attention was distracted by cries from the beach. Folk were descending by the cliff path, wading into the foam, making every effort to re-launch the lifeboat. It was an impossible task – the boat had to be abandoned. But at least the men were safe, which was more than could be said for the crew of the brigantine.

While a breeches-buoy was being rigged, we moved closer to the wreck for better pictures. It seemed to take forever, and the light was not good, but finally the apparatus was secured and Jack got busy as the first man was pulled ashore. He was just a boy really, more like a drowned rabbit after he'd been dunked a few times in those crashing seas.

Of those that followed, some were so exhausted they had to be carried up the cliff path, and one looked so inert I thought he was dead. As they brought him past on a makeshift stretcher his hands and face looked waxen; there was even a skein of seaweed around his neck like some travesty of a rope. The sight struck me with horror. When I looked again at the brigantine, I saw my mind's own ghost-ship, the
Merlin
of Whitby, wrecked off Tallinn with the loss of all hands. All, including my father and grandfather, drowned in the icy Baltic seas of early spring.

I was just seven years old.

It was like the rekindling of an old nightmare. Shivering convulsively, for a moment I could have been sick. I doubt Jack Louvain noticed, although his new assistant did, and, mistaking the cause, was suddenly bent on ushering me to the warmth and shelter of the Saloon. Although a mug of hot tea would have been welcome, I had no desire to be escorted out again by those who were ministering to the needs of shipwrecked mariners. In the scheme of things a local girl, muddied and bedraggled, was of no concern at all.

That this man regarded me differently made me pause; in fact his chivalry was so unexpected it went straight to my heart, melting antipathy like ice in the sun. So I shook my head and said I was all right, thank you, which in truth I was. At the time I was so flattered, it never occurred to me that he might be stirred by my physical activity and that uncontrollable display of emotion.

I had been ready to resent him, but he seemed a practical man, confident and energetic. I found I admired that almost as much as his fine grey eyes and flourishing red beard. As we started to pack up, I stole surreptitious glances and wondered who he was, what he was doing here so late in the year. The odds favoured a connection with the new coastal railway. Engineers of various persuasions frequented Whitby, and most of them were easygoing, adaptable men. Strangely, I thought him not grave enough for a lawyer or a banker, yet I discovered later that he was a barrister who managed the complicated financial affairs of a most extraordinary business. In fact when I found out all that he did, I was amazed; even more so to find that he was famous in his own world, on hobnobbing terms with the cream of London society.

To begin with, of course, I had no idea of that. Otherwise, I would not have dared speak to him, much less flirt so outrageously.

When he turned to me and said: ‘Fine fellows – such bravery warms the heart,' I could not resist pointing out that the lads manning the lifeboat were fishermen by profession, each one a volunteer and fiercely proud of the fact. I could tell he was impressed; and equally that I'd made a more personal impression.

Jack had warmed to him too, and against the battering of wind and rain was attempting to convey his thanks. There was chaos on the beach, but since he was out of plates, he could take no more photographs. Part of me wanted to stay, to see this thing through to the end; but the crew seemed to be accounted for and I could hardly bear to watch the brigantine breaking up in the surf. Anyway, Jack was packing up, intending to take everything back to his rooms rather than the studio, and clearly expecting me to lend a hand.

Just as I was regretting our separation from the red-bearded gentleman, he relieved me of the heavy tripod and began to walk along with us. We communicated mainly by gesture as the wind whipped our words away. I gathered he'd introduced himself, but I missed his name, and then, when it was a little easier to talk in the shelter of town, Jack monopolised things by offering to forward copies of the photographs taken that afternoon. It seemed he regretted not capturing our escort too, and would have liked him to pose for the camera. But it was late, the light was going, and the studio was not set up.

Jack and I exchanged a look of frustration. Between talk of tides and flooding, we tried to persuade the gentleman to call by for a sitting the following day, but unfortunately he had an early start next morning. It became clear, however, that he thought me Jack Louvain's paid assistant. Catching Jack's cautionary smile I said nothing, just found myself thankful for the storm. I suppose an old serge gown looks not much different from a good one when both are damp and mud-spattered; and for those who must go out, it was the kind of day when thick plaid shawls were infinitely preferable to fancy hats.