The Sea Between (8 page)

‘You can have my answer now, Richard. It’s no. And it’ll stay no until you make me a better offer than the one you have,’ she said shortly, and strode off.

As she made her way down the hill to where they’d left the horses she looked back only once, to see if Richard was following her. He wasn’t. He was standing where she’d left him, watching her, expecting her to go back to him no doubt. She didn’t go back. She mounted her horse and galloped off. Half a mile further on she turned off into one of the side valleys, rode until she reached a spot where she couldn’t be seen, and burst into tears.

Three hours later, Charlotte found herself at the centre of a second row; this time in the parlour, with her family. It was a casual question from her father that started it.

‘What time will Richard be stopping by tomorrow morning, Charlotte? I meant to ask him if he’ll buy me some decent tobacco if he comes across some. This stuff is very poor.’ Pulling out a small wad from his tobacco pouch, he stuffed it into his pipe, tamped it down with his thumb, then reached for a taper.

Sarah looked up from her tapestry frame and threw Charlotte a sideways glance. Charlotte had already confided in her what had happened between her and Richard.

‘I don’t think he will be stopping by, Father,’ Charlotte answered quietly.

Putting the lighted end of the taper to the bowl of his pipe John gave two or three short puffs then, satisfied it was lit, blew out the taper. ‘Why not? Is he leaving very early?’

‘I don’t know what time he’s planning on leaving,’ she replied.

Leaning back in his armchair, John fixed a shrewd eye on his daughter. ‘Are things all right between the two of you?’

Sensing the answer might be no, Edwin set his book down on his knee while Isobel, who was sitting next to Sarah, reading through a letter, looked up and frowned.

Deciding it was pointless to beat about the bush, Charlotte said, ‘If you mean will we be marrying, the answer is no, I’m afraid we won’t. We’ve found we’re not compatible.’

John slowly pulled his pipe from his mouth and stared at her, then in an ominously low voice he asked, ‘What do you mean,
not compatible
?’

‘I mean I’m not suited to being a captain’s wife, Father. Richard’s away at sea most of the time and I’m not willing to spend long periods on my own. I said I wouldn’t marry him unless he arranged his affairs so that he’s ashore more’.

‘Did he propose marriage to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you refused him?’

‘Yes.’

There was a long silence during which everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath, then John said loudly, ‘Don’t you think you should have consulted me before giving Richard an answer? Or does respect for your father count for nothing, Charlotte?’

Charlotte reddened and lowered her eyes. She ought to have consulted her father, and he had every right to be cross with her, but the truth was she had never anticipated this outcome. She hadn’t expected Richard to agree outright to her request, but she had expected him to say he would give it some thought. She certainly hadn’t expected him to simply dismiss her request out of hand.

She looked up as her father began to speak again, and listened in tight-lipped silence while, over the next ten minutes, he told her very loudly how very disappointed he was with her, how very disappointed the Steeles would be, how astonished he was that she’d had the audacity and presumption to demand that Richard should rearrange his shipping itinerary, and finally how stupid she was to have refused Richard. After which, he decamped to his study to fume in private.

‘Don’t worry, Charlotte. John will get over it,’ Isobel said dismissively, breaking the heavy silence that John’s angry departure had left in its wake.

Edwin narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he turned to look at his aunt.

Knowing what was going through his mind, Charlotte chipped in quickly, ‘It was
my
decision, Edwin.’

Edwin glanced across at her, his expression cynical. ‘With no influence from any other quarter?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose you agree with John, Edwin? You think Charlotte
should have accepted Captain Steele and made the best of things,’ Isobel remarked scornfully.

‘We all have to make the best of things,’ Edwin replied. He looked at Isobel pointedly, as if to say he had to make the best of her prickly presence in the household. ‘And yes, as a matter of fact I do agree with my father. Charlotte was a fool to turn Richard down,’ he added.

‘And that, I suppose, is an opinion you’ve formed entirely independently, without any influence from your father?’ Isobel taunted.

Edwin tightened his lips angrily.

Springing to his defence, Sarah said in terse tones, ‘Just because Edwin agrees with John doesn’t mean that he hasn’t made up his own mind, Isobel.’

Isobel smiled triumphantly. ‘No, indeed it does not. And just because Charlotte agrees with me doesn’t mean that she hasn’t made up her own mind either. Charlotte can do a lot better than Richard Steele,’ she stated confidently.

‘We’ll see,’ Edwin gritted.

‘What do you think, Sarah? Do you have an independent opinion about all this?’ enquired Isobel.

Sarah’s cheeks turned a deep plum colour. She looked almost as angry as Edwin. ‘I think she’s made a mistake and I think she’ll rue it one day! And I’ve formed that opinion without any consultation with anyone!’

Charlotte had had enough. Rising to her feet, she strode over to the door. As she reached the doorway, she said over her shoulder, ‘You can all think whatever you like. I’ve no regrets. There are plenty more fish in the sea besides Richard!’

She spent the rest of the evening in her room, crying. She had meant it, though: if Richard didn’t love her enough to make some changes, she wouldn’t marry him.

Richard had also decided that there were plenty more fish in the sea, and fish who weren’t so choosy about the bait. In December, his parents received a letter from Southampton, telling them he had married.

January 1866

I
n the New Year of 1866, Charlotte went to live with George and Ann. Her father had told her that he believed it was in her best interests. Although he didn’t state his reasons in so many words, Charlotte knew he had more than one reason for sending her to Lyttelton. First, her prospects of finding a husband to her liking were far better there; secondly, she would be distanced from Isobel’s undesirable sphere of influence, which John was convinced had played a large role in Charlotte’s turning down Richard’s offer of marriage; and last but not least, relations between the Blake and Steele households would settle back into place far more quickly if she was elsewhere. Much as she didn’t want to leave the farm and her family, she couldn’t deny that it would be better for all concerned if she did.

Anyway, she didn’t want Richard to find her still at the farm and still unmarried when he next came to visit his parents, whenever that might be. As far as she was concerned, if she never saw him again it would be soon enough. She’d been deeply and bitterly hurt by what he’d done, far more than she’d let her family see. She had loved Richard and had thought he loved her. Despite their quarrel, she had truly believed that they would talk things over again when he was next ashore, so she’d been completely stunned when Ben
and Letitia had broken the news to them that Richard had married a woman from Southampton. Eliza somebody or other. Four months after he’d asked
her
to be his wife, he had married someone else! She almost wondered if he’d done it on purpose, to thumb his nose at her because she’d turned him down. She was more inclined to think it was simply an indication of how little he had really felt for her.

Living in Lyttelton had one obvious drawback, of course. It was the port where Richard would call whenever he visited his parents—not that he visited them often. But since Lyttelton was where George and Ann lived, there wasn’t much she could do about that. The likelihood of their paths crossing was fairly small anyway. When Richard was in port, she didn’t imagine he would be going out of his way to see her, and she certainly wouldn’t be going out of her way to see him.

Charlotte didn’t settle easily into life in Lyttelton. It was a far cry from her father’s farm, nestled in the beautiful Malvern Hills. The craggy hills surrounding Lyttelton rose up steep and stark; they were sparsely covered in scrubby tussock grass, and the skyline was rugged and angular. The fogs that rolled in were sea fogs, and the smells were the smells generated by fourteen hundred human beings congregating in close proximity. The unpleasant odour of human waste could quite regularly be smelled wafting across the town, when the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Wood smoke, coal smoke, the smell of pigs, which quite a number of residents fattened in their back gardens, and the smell of seaweed—these were the smells of Lyttelton. Charlotte had yet to smell the sweet smell of a grass drifting on the wind.

On the positive side, there was always something happening in the port, something interesting to watch down on the jetties and wharves, and she was getting on far better with Ann than she’d expected to. They prepared meals and did the housework together, and most fine
afternoons, apart from Wednesday afternoon when Ann went off to a ladies’ sewing group, she and Ann walked out together. The evenings, however, were painfully dull. George invariably buried his head in a newspaper or a book, and, since he didn’t like people to talk while he was reading, Ann quietly embroidered and Charlotte quietly occupied herself the best way she could. Usually she either played patience or read. She was currently reading a book that Isobel had sent to her—
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with strictures on political and moral subjects.
It had been written by an Englishwoman called Mary Wollstonecraft, in 1792. Contrary to Charlotte’s expectations, it made very interesting reading. Like Isobel, Mary Wollstonecraft was a highly intelligent woman who passionately believed that women should be allowed the same right to education as men. She maintained that intellectual companionship was as important a component of marriage as any other, and that intellectual companionship could be achieved only if girls were offered the same opportunity for schooling as boys. What Charlotte really admired about her writing, though, was the way Mary Wollstonecraft looked at every aspect of the situation. She was just as quick to point out the disservices that women had done to themselves as she was to point out the disservices the government had done them.

It was, Charlotte decided as she closed the final page one wet Tuesday afternoon in late March, a thought-provoking book.

‘You’ve finished it at last,’ Ann remarked. She smiled as Charlotte looked up. Their afternoon walk had had to be abandoned, owing to the bad weather, so they were sitting in the parlour together. Ann lowered her eyes and dexterously pricked her needle through the cream fabric again. ‘What did you think of it?’

‘It was very interesting. I think Mrs Wollstonecraft makes some rather sweeping statements—tars all women with the same brush, and men too for that matter—but there’s a lot of truth in what she
says. In the main, women
are
treated unfairly,’ Charlotte replied. She opened the book and riffled the pages then with a sigh dropped it on her lap. ‘As for what one can do about it…’

Ann drew her needle through the fabric, pulling a long crimson silk thread in its wake. ‘You’ll have nothing to do now you’ve finished reading it.’

‘I’ll find something to occupy myself,’ Charlotte said.

‘I was wondering if you might like to come to the sewing group with me tomorrow afternoon,’ Ann invited quietly. ‘I know that you don’t enjoy sewing, but quite a few women who go to the sewing group don’t sew, so you wouldn’t feel out of place.’

Charlotte laughed. ‘If they don’t sew, why ever did they join a sewing group?’

‘Well, we discuss things while we’re sewing,’ Ann said, her head still bent over her needlework. ‘I think you might find it quite interesting. We discussed Mrs Wollstonecraft’s book a few months ago.’

Charlotte stared in surprise at Ann’s bent head. Mrs Wollstonecraft’s book was the very last thing she would have expected Ann to discuss. Ann, quiet Ann, discussing inflammatory literature while she embroidered silk flowers on table napkins? ‘And, er…what did the ladies in the sewing group make of Mrs Wollstonecraft’s writings?’ she probed curiously.

‘We all think there’s a great deal of truth in what she says,’ Ann replied casually.

Silence settled. Ann continued to prick her needle nimbly in and out of the cream cloth while Charlotte continued to stare at her. Ann, sympathizing with the women’s movement? Surely not! But as surely as she sat there, it was quite clear that Ann did sympathize.

Intrigued, she leaned forward in her chair and whispered, ‘Does George know what you discuss at the sewing group?’ She’d lay a pound to a penny that he didn’t!

Ann looked up and smiled mischievously—something Charlotte had never ever seen her do before. ‘No, of course he doesn’t. If he found out, he’d stop me from going.’

‘Does Isobel know?’

‘Oh dear me, no! She’s the last person I’d tell.’

Charlotte arched her brows in surprise. ‘But she’d be delighted if she knew that you sympathized with her views.’

Ann nodded. ‘I know she’d be delighted, but she mustn’t ever find out. I told you because I trust you and I know you would never tell George. But I wouldn’t trust Isobel not to tell him. She might tell him for spite, you see. Not to spite me, but to spite George. If they disagreed over something, it’s the sort of thing Isobel would blurt out.’

It was
just
the sort of thing that Isobel would blurt out, Charlotte agreed silently. She was feeling more amazed with Ann by the minute, seeing a side to her sister-in-law that she’d never dreamed existed. Beneath that quiet, meek veneer, Ann housed a sharp, clever brain. She certainly had a shrewd grasp of how Isobel ticked. What was more, Charlotte had a feeling that for the last few weeks Ann had been quietly assessing her, deciding how much she could trust her, deciding whether she was a suitable candidate for the sewing group.

‘How many women go to the sewing group?’ she asked curiously.

Ann’s slender shoulder rose in a small shrug. ‘It varies from week to week. Sometimes as many as a dozen. Sometimes as few as two.’

‘Are they all married?

‘All save one.’

‘I see,’ Charlotte said. ‘And presumably none of these ladies’ husbands are aware of what else goes on, besides embroidery?’

Ann smiled, the smile an answer in itself.

Charlotte tossed her head back and laughed until her eyes watered. It was the first time she’d really laughed since she’d left the farm. She’d forgotten how good it felt.

‘So, will you come tomorrow afternoon, do you think?’ Ann enquired with a grin.

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ Charlotte said. To be honest, she didn’t see herself becoming embroiled in the women’s movement, but she was keen to make friends with some of the women of the town and the sewing group sounded as if it might be a good place to start.

A
s the weeks slipped by, Lyttelton slowly but surely began to take on the feel of home rather than an imposed exile, and this transition was largely thanks to Ann. Charlotte genuinely enjoyed her company. She’d also struck up a friendship with two or three women from the sewing group, and she found that her thoughts were returning less and less to the farm. In July, though, a letter arrived that threw both the farm and Richard into the forefront of her mind once again. The letter was from Sarah, addressed to Charlotte, and it bore bad news.

8th July, 1866

My dear Charlotte,

I fear I am the bearer of bad news. Ben Steele has died. The funeral was held this morning. We are all reeling from the shock of it, and none more than Letitia, poor woman.

It happened three days ago, an accident, here in the yard. Ben had purchased a young stallion from Jack Mallalieu and stopped by to show it off. We all went outside to admire it of course, the whole family, but I did think to myself that it looked
a nervous animal, the way it kept tossing its head and darting its eyes about. The accident happened when Ben mounted it to leave. He had no sooner swung his leg over the saddle than it reared up into the air, and the next thing Ben was lying on the ground. His head took the full brunt of the fall, and I could see at once that he was in a bad way. He wasn’t moving and his face had turned a terrible colour. Edwin and John carried him into the house, then Edwin galloped off to fetch Letitia. Sadly, Ben passed away just two or three minutes before Letitia arrived. We are all in a state of shock, as you can well imagine. It makes one realize how precious each day is.

Letitia is coping well, considering. It was very hard for her at the funeral this morning, standing beside the coffin alone, with no family to support her. She has written to tell Richard the bad news. It will be a great shock for him, too. Perhaps he will give up the sea and take over the running of the farm now. Ben has left the farm to him in his will and has made good provision for Letitia. She is to have the option of remaining here for as long as the farm remains in Steele hands, and at such time as the farm is sold she will receive an annuity from the proceeds. In the meantime, Edwin and John are assisting her in every way they can with the day-to-day running of the farm.

I have little good news to report, I fear. Isobel is ill. She has lost weight and her skin has taken on a yellowish tinge. The doctor thinks she has a liver condition and has prescribed some medicine, but it seems to be having little if any effect. I will be surprised if she is still with us this time next year. Still, she seems not to be in pain, which is a blessing.

The family all send their warmest regards to you. Give our best regards to George and Ann also. I trust this letter finds you all in good health.

Yours affectionately,

Sarah

Numb with shock, Charlotte passed the letter to Ann. ‘Bad news,’ she said in a choked voice.

Ann looked at her in alarm. ‘Is one of the children ill?’

Charlotte shook her head, sending tears spilling from her eyes. ‘No. It’s Ben Steele. He’s dead.’

Ann let out a shocked gasp. ‘Oh, dear God, no! Oh, poor Letitia!’

Leaving Ann to read the letter, Charlotte walked over to the window, gulping back sobs. Poor Letitia, indeed. She and Ben had had a good marriage. Letitia would be grief-stricken. As for Richard, who knows what he might do now. Perhaps, as Sarah had suggested, he might feel it was time to give up the sea and take over the running of the farm. It would be good for Letitia if he did, but, oh God, please let him not do that, she thought selfishly. It would be a cruel twist of fate if, a year after she had turned down Richard’s offer of marriage, he gave up the sea for the farm. It would mean he would take his new wife there, settle there, raise his children there…Unable to bear the thought of it, she burst into tears.

Hurrying across to Charlotte, Ann wound her arm consolingly around her shoulder. ‘There now, Charlotte. There now,’ she soothed. ‘Letitia will be all right. Your father and Edwin will take care of her.’

‘Yes, I know they will,’ Charlotte said, wiping her eyes. And possibly Richard would feel he ought to look after her, too.

More bad news arrived in November. John wrote to tell them that Isobel had died. The news came as a shock. While Charlotte had
known that Isobel was ill and not getting any better, she hadn’t expected her to die so soon—none of the family had. In sharp contrast to the rest of her stormy life, Isobel had died peacefully in her sleep. Charlotte wept like a baby when she read the letter.

Difficult and trying as her aunt had been on occasions, Charlotte had loved her. Isobel had arrived when the family were still reeling from the untimely death of a much-loved wife and mother. In typical Isobel style, she had assumed control of the household affairs, bustled about issuing orders to all and sundry, including John, turned their routines inside-out and somehow, in an inexplicable way, had made them let go of their grief. By the sheer force of her personality, Isobel had bullied them all into living again. Even her rows with John, disagreeable as they were, had put a fire in his belly again. For Charlotte, just a fifteen-year-old slip of a girl when her mother had passed away, Isobel had provided the one thing she most needed: the presence of another female in the house. A strong, resourceful woman, Isobel had never tried to mother her; rather, she had taught Charlotte how to be independent and speak up for herself. Isobel had been difficult, yes—infuriatingly so at times—but Charlotte had learned a great deal from her and she would miss her.