The Widow's Confession (16 page)

The silence was broken when Theo entered the front door with a clatter and a crash. Edmund ran out into the tiled hallway. Martha was tucked under Theo’s arm, limp as an injured animal.
‘Mr Steele,’ said Theo breathlessly, observing the proprieties even in this moment of emergency, ‘a boat went out to the Goodwin Sands, to help some foolish excursionists; it has
not come back. Martha’s brother is on board. I must go to the pier where his wife waits. Please, will you look after Martha? She is too shocked to come with me.’ He handed the woman
over to him. The rain was dripping from his hat brim. He held Edmund’s gaze, and for the first time – from that unblinking gaze – a confidence moved between them.

Edmund accepted Martha as he would accept a fragile package, half-carried her, heavy as she was, into the drawing room as he heard the front door bang shut. She didn’t seem to feel his
arms around her sodden sides, and against the conventions of all of her previous behaviour, she sat down on the sofa, her wet dress creating an aura of damp on the fine silken covering.

Time passed slowly that evening, as the storm raged outside. Out of decency, Edmund pulled the drapes closed, so that Martha did not have to see the ferocity of the lightning and the pouring
rain, rain landing on water now as it flooded the gutters. He offered her food, and wine, but she would not accept them; in the end, he poured a large glass of wine and held it to her lips. She
sipped from it, gazing at him with strained black eyes. Kept sipping, until the glass was drained.

‘No more,’ she said, when he stood to fetch some. He went anyway, poured it, and put it in front of her.

‘God bless Mr Hallam for going out there,’ she said, and the words seemed all the more poignant for being said in her rough voice. ‘He does not have to, and I know
it.’

‘He is a good man,’ said Edmund. Despite the closed drapes, there was a vibration through the room, a shiver of light which hinted at the lightning tearing at the sky, then, within
moments, the thunder falling like an axe upon the land, and the very foundations of the house seemed to shake.

‘He is called by God,’ she said. ‘That is how he does all that he does. It is what brought him here from Ceylon, what took him to Ceylon in his younger days.’ Her gaze
flashed to the ceiling, as though it might find something there, then down again. ‘He is led by the Almighty.’

Ceylon, thought Edmund. A missionary life had been hinted at by Charles, but never explained or mentioned by Theo, only references to the heat which had once scarred him and occupied his mind.
It did not seem the time to question Martha any further. Instead, he pushed the glass towards her, but she shook her head. Then, suddenly, she lowered her head into her hands, and the movement of
her shoulders showed that she was weeping. He did not know what to do; only sat there. When she looked up, her eyes were red in the candlelight, her face wet with tears.

‘He went out there on the boat,’ she said, ‘my brother, to help some foolish people out on the Goodwin Sands. Incomers.’ She shook her head. ‘My mother says the
incomers bring bad luck. To you, the people that wait down on the pier are just strangers, but I know every one of them, have their stories up here.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘I know
them in my bones. I like you, sir, I like the misses at the cottage, too, but my mother says you bring bad luck.’

It was past eight o’clock when Theo emerged from the storm. Edmund and Martha heard the bang of the door, then his footsteps moving quickly along the tiled floor. Martha raised her head,
like a cowed animal waiting to be struck.

Theo’s clothes were soaked through. He took off his hat and threw it on the table, with no thought for the rug he dripped upon. ‘They are home safe,’ he said. ‘Safe,
thank God.’ And he laughed with an exhilaration Edmund had never seen before, light in his eyes.

‘Safe?’ said Martha.

‘Yes,’ said Theo, kneeling beside her and taking her hands. ‘All of them. Go home, go and see him.’

For a moment Edmund thought she would say no; that she would gather herself and become dutiful Martha, and offer to make some tea. Instead, she burst into tears. ‘I’ll go,’ she
said. ‘I quarrelled with him last week. I must see him.’ And she ran from the room and they heard the front door shut, as she went out into the storm.

Theo rose to his feet. Edmund saw him gradually becoming more aware of his surroundings, a filtering awareness that made him uncomfortable with the emotion he had witnessed and participated in.
He went to the window. ‘She has gone without her bonnet,’ he said. ‘Into the rain.’ And he shook his head.

‘My dear boy,’ said Edmund. ‘You are shivering. You should go and change, lest you catch a chill.’

Theo went slowly upstairs and Edmund went to the kitchen. He found a chunk of cheese and cut some bread with the large knife. The size of it made him chuckle, imagining Martha sawing away with
it, for it was as blunt as a butter-knife, though twenty times as large.

He took a blue and white plate from the dresser and carried the bread and cheese to the drawing room. In the dining room, by the light of his candle he found a full decanter of Madeira and took
it, and two glasses, in. By the time he had arranged this feast Theo had come down. He stood awkwardly, near the door, rubbing his hands together. ‘You must be chilled to the bone,’
Edmund said. ‘Please, sit down by the fire, and stay there until you feel you might melt, for you must be warmed through.’

Theo smiled weakly, and thanked him for the food. He had recovered his composure and ate like a church mouse, delicately, without seeming to savour the meal. He sipped his wine, and Edmund
gulped it.

‘We are in need of good news, after the past few weeks,’ said Theo. ‘I should not wish to associate this beautiful bay with death again so soon.’

Edmund nodded, and let him eat.

‘You have seen the drama of life and death tonight,’ he said eventually.

‘There are such moments in all places,’ Theo said. ‘Suffering, joy. God is needed in every nook of human existence, and is wanted here as much as anywhere.’ He chewed a
mouthful of bread and cheese. ‘When I heard the boat had not returned, I could imagine the women waiting for them, staring at the terrible, thrashing water – and it did not sit well
with me to be safe and dry when they were terrified and in trouble. I led them in prayer on the pier,’ he said. ‘They are such strong women, yet the blessed words reached them even in
the midst of the storm. Some sobbed, some were still, but I could see how it touched them. It is grace. The prayer book gives us the poetry to pierce their hearts, to peel back all those layers.
They never come to church, some of them. Ordinarily they would turn away from it. But it is needed, and never so much as then, and if they remember that God was here for them in their hour of need,
then it is a good thing.’ He looked up from the plate, and Edmund was struck by the unblinking intensity of his gaze. ‘The Virgin appeared here once, on Harbour Street, in the twelfth
century. And ever since, the sailors lower their sails as they pass the headland, in honour of the Blessed Virgin. And though they sometimes forget it, the faith is always there really – they
know its worth.’

Edmund knocked back his wine, and filled the glass again. He topped Theo’s up, but the priest did not seem to notice it.

‘I was asking for God’s mercy,’ he said, ‘when someone said “I see them, I see a light”. And they all let go of each other’s hands, in the cold and the
rain, and ran to the edge, and strained to see, and one of them shrieked. When the first man came up, his wife clung to him like a mother with a child. She would not let go of him.’

‘It is holy, such love,’ said Edmund. He did not know if it was the wine, but he heard his own voice break on the words. ‘It is the best of us.’

Theo held his gaze for a moment, but he said nothing. When he began to speak, it was about the Sunday service – the choice of hymns. Their moment of honesty had passed.

Edmund felt sadness roll over him, submerge him, like the turning over of a wave on a beach. He felt homesick for London, and the friendship with Charles Venning, and sorry for writing so
harshly to his friend a few days before.

My dear Charles,
he wrote later,
I had begun to think myself Theo’s friend – but now I know I am not. You would not have done such a thing. If you could not speak
openly, we would have sat in the silence, listening to the rain outside, and draining the decanter as the clock ticked.
After he had written the words, he sat for some time, and thought of the
unbending quality of Theo’s gaze, the picture of St Sebastian hung on the wall in the study – the study he had never been allowed into since his first day in Broadstairs – of the
saint’s body all pierced with arrows, and his face the picture of suffering.

When Edmund rose the next morning, all was calm and verdant beyond his window, as if the storm had never been. He dressed quickly, and went down to find Theo sitting at the
dining-room table, eating his breakfast. He wished him good morning cordially. Martha appeared to serve them. ‘How is your brother?’ asked Edmund, but she only bobbed him a curtsey and
said, ‘Very well, sir,’ with a studied subservience. Theo continued reading the paper.

Edmund was toying with his eggs when there was a sharp double knock at the front door. He saw Martha pass the doorway, hurriedly wiping her hands on her apron. A double knock had to be answered,
for it might be a telegram. ‘Message from the Albion Hotel, Mr Hallam,’ she said, putting an envelope on the table.

‘It is my aunt’s handwriting,’ said Theo, with a quick smile. ‘Perhaps she is planning another excursion for us. There has been talk of the Shell Grotto in
Margate.’ He opened the envelope and as he began to read, all the pleasure drained from his face.

‘What is wrong?’ said Edmund. And when there was no response: ‘Theo?’

Theo’s eyes met Edmund’s. He was pale.

‘They have found another body,’ he said.

Mr Steele has told me that every man admired me, that summer. If it is true – and my vanity does not seek it, believe me, for men’s desire always was a poor
amusement to me – I was not aware of it. I had moved invisibly through crowds for so long, that I still thought of myself as invisible, even as I spoke to people, even as I boarded Mrs
Quillian’s hired carriage. I thought I could step amongst the crowd, observe and withdraw, like a ghost. That is also why I identified with those little ghosts, that summer.

I had thought myself unobserved on my morning walks – apart from Solomon, who could be trusted, you knew from looking in his eyes – but now I know nothing passed unobserved in a
place like Broadstairs. Politeness was the key, of course; we were visitors, we brought money, we were to be served, after a fashion. But they had seen us all before, and stripped us clean of our
pretensions with their eyes.

I was different, though. I was the Widow of the Sands. And after the body of Catherine Walters was found, I became something else – not just a stranger, not just a widow, but a bringer
of bad luck. I will never know who began that rumour. Was it a mutter of something, late night, in a tavern? Was it a charwoman on her doorstep, with her arms folded across her chest? Or was it
someone I knew, a member of our group? But I will not enquire too deeply. I cannot bear to think of it.

‘Did you come here to watch for corpses?’ said the landlady of the Tartar Frigate, acidly. ‘A fine holiday you’re having.’ And she glared at
Edmund, as if he was in some way to blame. Her gaze softened a little at the sight of Theo, who had stood for a moment on the doorstep, looking out at Main Bay, so peaceful in the morning light,
though the water was high, claiming most of the beach.

‘Solomon found her,’ she said, polishing a glass. ‘I’ve put him over there with a tot of something to calm him. At least, I think he found her – he carried her
here. Sol?’ she called. ‘Did you get sight of that widow today? Was she there too? Or anyone else?’

Solomon shook his head, knocked back his drink and rose to acknowledge Theo and Edmund. ‘Just me found her,’ he said. ‘Poor little thing. Mr Gorsey came along when I was
dragging her out, and helped me carry her here. But he has gone back to the Albion now – he has no stomach for this.’

‘Understandably,’ said Theo. ‘My aunt is staying at the Albion, and she had it at breakfast from Polly.’ He glanced at Edmund. ‘Word travels fast here.’

‘Do you not think it strange,’ said the landlady in a low voice to Edmund and Theo, ‘how all these things have only started happening since that widow came here – that
widow Solomon sees every morning? I watch her from my window sometimes, walking as slowly and deliberately across the beach as if she were in some procession of her own devising, and it chills me
through and through.’

‘I am sure Mrs Beck has nothing to do with this,’ said Theo.

Edmund’s gaze rested on the object of their discussion; for a few feet away, the body of the girl lay on the trestle table that Amy Phelps had occupied only a few weeks before. She was
covered over, for decency’s sake, but he saw, from beneath the cloak that shielded her from people’s eyes, a few chestnut ringlets. He was of half a mind to ask the landlady for a
drink, but wasn’t sure that she would react kindly to such a request.

‘I will bless her,’ said Theo, and Solomon gave a grunt of approval. The landlady uncorked a bottle and poured the hoveller another drink.

Edmund felt he should support Theo in some way, so he stepped forwards, but kept a little way back. He saw Theo recoil when he lifted the cloak.

‘She’s bashed up, Mr Hallam,’ said Solomon. ‘I should have mentioned it – I am sorry, sir. I figure she must have gone into the water last night, and when the storm
churned up all the water, so it did its worst to her, too.’

Over Theo’s shoulder, Edmund saw her face. She looked to be around the same age as Amy Phelps; perhaps a little younger, twelve or thirteen. Her face was covered with dark smudges –
storm clouds of bruises – and there was a bloody gash down one side of it. Her long chestnut ringlets were shot through with scraps of seaweed and fragments of shells. From the small section
of her torso Edmund could see, her dress had been torn away.