The Widow's Confession (19 page)

He thought the past was possessing him again, and turning his mind; making his thoughts swarm with heat and possibility, and the American widow was at the heart of it. He had believed himself
strong, but he could not divert his thoughts away from Delphine, as they turned back to her, again and again in the long evenings: her dark, adamantine gaze, her coiled, ash-coloured hair, the way
she always wore lace gloves, so that when she removed one it made him catch his breath at the intimacy of seeing her hands, so smooth and pale as though they had never seen the sun. Only once
before had he been so obsessed with a woman, and he knew now that these thoughts were not to be encouraged. He felt lust; the same lust that had steered the first woman here –
here.
The ship bringing her to him, at his request, wrecked on this site.

How would Georgina walk in this sand? There would be no small sand-ghosts here; with every step her feet would be suckered at by the sand, as though it sought to absorb the life-force from
her.

But she was here. It had already taken her.

He unfolded the letter. He knew it off by heart. In it was wrapped the string of polished stones she had given him.
For counting prayers.
Of course, he had never used it. It had been
banished to a drawer, together with the letter, signed
Your Georgie.

‘God bless you, in your innocence,’ he said. ‘He takes the blessed early, so that they may never know suffering.’

He thought he could hear the screaming. Hear the tearing of wood, the roar of the sea. See, as if he stood on deck, the distant, gazing beam of the North Foreland, as it sought to warn.
I
told you,
it said.
I warned you. It is all as I said.

He threw the letter and the beads into the clear water of the gully beside him. He wanted to say a prayer over them, but the words had gone from his head.

Then across the Sands, he heard Solomon’s call, and it sounded desolate. The beads had already been swallowed up by the Sands; he still saw the white glow of the letter below as it floated
down. He turned and began to walk, and as he topped the bank, he saw Solomon waiting for him.

Then, Theo stopped. The thought had come suddenly, but with a right-feeling intensity, as though everything had fallen into place; it was stronger than the voice of God which counselled him in
his prayers.
I must stay. I must be with her. It is my duty.
The thought had come as a surprise; for buried deep, he had had the idea that coming here might finally close up the wound
within him. But he could feel no healing; his desire for Delphine had not been extinguished as he hoped. If I go back, he thought, it will continue: and we will both be driven on to the rocks by
it, and destroyed. The sudden pull to stay surprised him with its strength. It was not an urge, but a duty, and the hidden desire he had always had for martyrdom suddenly opened up in him.

‘Go without me,’ he called, and he had no idea whether they heard him, or if his voice had been lost in the breeze. He saw Solomon start to walk, coming towards him, and he waved his
arms, then placed them in a cross: do not come here. ‘Go without me,’ he shouted, louder.

He turned his back to the men, and heard a cry: his name. He began to walk away from them, saying to himself:
leave me, leave me, leave me. I will save myself from the
flames.
He hoped they would understand. The sea was already growing louder; or was that in his mind?

He considered himself alone with the gulls and the sky, ready for the Sands to take him as they had taken her, when he heard the sodden thump of Solomon’s feet behind him, and two strong
hands grabbed his shoulders. As Solomon pulled him round, Theo saw the other man’s face: saw his disbelief, and displeasure, and also with a sudden ache, the knowledge that the man would not
let him go. He read the question that the mariner posed with his eyes:
will you let the Sands take me, too?
It was with that sudden humanity before his eyes that Theo felt fear silver his
heart, like the edge of a sickle moon, and when Solomon grasped his hand and pulled him, bawling, ‘It’s flooding! Come
on
!’ his feet responded, and he began to run.

He had not imagined the sound. The sea was rushing in on them fast, and this incoming tide was not like the gentle lapping at the bay in Broadstairs. His body responded: the strong thud of his
heart, the sensation of the muscles in his legs stretching as he ran and jumped, all the time the Sands seeming to dissolve beneath his feet. And they
were
dissolving, brought alive by the
sea, changing themselves, transmuting from solid to liquid, ready to reveal more wrecks, more secrets. He imagined the yawning of the sand beneath his feet, a pit of lost souls beneath, reaching
for him. A kind of ecstatic panic overcame him as he neared the boat, which was already floating completely with the turn of the tide, and they waded through the water, waist-deep, Tarney leaning
out to them as they reached for the ladder.

‘Good,’ said Solomon, once they were at sea again, the distant roar of the Sands surrendering to the water finally dulled. The word was ridiculous in its understatement. There was no
hint of the previous moments, other than he was breathing hard, and that Tarney had fixed the clergyman with a hard stare. ‘I don’t mind your sermons, Vicar, but I didn’t much
fancy swimming back to the Sands to rescue you.’ And he gave a hearty chuckle, the sound of which warmed Theo like hot liquor, as the boat shuddered and rose on a wave.

‘I am grateful to you,’ he said.

And Solomon thudded his hand onto the younger man’s shoulder, a touch that seemed to tell of his understanding. ‘You were out there for a long time,’ he said. ‘We called
and called.’

As the boat moved through the water, Theo shaded his face with his hand. He wanted only to be back in the vicarage again, with the tick of the clock, and the sun beating down on the red bricks,
and that drawer in his room – empty, empty, empty, as though the contents of it had never existed. As though Georgina had never lived.

I told Julia that Mr Hallam was a puzzle I could not comprehend. I told her that he would often look away when I spoke, and I interpreted it as impatience. ‘Perhaps
he dislikes Americans,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he disapproves of your frankness. And yet,’ she said, her blue eyes so steady, ‘he stands close to you. He looks at you. When you
look at him, what do you see?’

I thought long on her words before replying, on his gaze, which had the heavy quality of the air when a storm is coming. ‘His eyes are unfathomable,’ I said, ‘like the
depths of the sea.’ It frightens me sometimes, what I feel when I look into those eyes.

Alba settled down happily in the deep grass at the side of the cornfield, surrounded by the swell of her white dress, holding her parasol up to protect her face from the
harshness of the morning light. Behind her lay the view Delphine had looked upon on the day of their first excursion, the first stop of the carriage: the basin of the bay, the pier at its far
point. The natural beauty of the landscape seemed unnatural in its intensity to Delphine, so beautiful, like the features of the young girl before her, it was almost painful to look upon.

It had been a great surprise to her when, after a week of silence, she had received a note from Alba saying that Miss Waring was unwell and keeping to her room, but that she had granted Alba the
opportunity of going out, as long as she had the protection of one of their party. Delphine guessed that Miss Waring had anticipated that Mrs Quillian would be that protector, but didn’t
question her any further.

Delphine sat a little way from her, also in the deep grass, and began to sketch. She did not ask Alba to be still, so now and then the girl turned to look at the bay, or twirled her parasol, or
batted at a butterfly in the long grass, her small grasping hand reminding Delphine of a toddler, so that she almost laughed. She tried, but could not capture her in the way she wished; she had
always had trouble with faces, and Alba kept appearing as a collection of features, but without the piquant beauty Delphine saw in her.

‘Did you know,’ said Delphine, ‘I read in the London papers that some women in London were protesting about the clothes we must wear.’

The remark stilled Alba, as she had hoped it would. ‘Clothes?’ she said. ‘What objection do they have?’

‘They think it is a tyranny that we are forced to wear corsets, and so many layers in our dresses,’ said Delphine. ‘Some of them even wore pantaloons, on Piccadilly.’ She
couldn’t help but smile at the thought, and wondered what her own mother would think of such an outrage. She probably would have fainted on the spot, at the very least.

‘How strange, and ridiculous,’ said Alba. ‘I am glad we are here, rather than in London. Such a thing would distress my aunt greatly.’ She glanced around, no longer
staying still. ‘Did you hear about the death of that poor young girl?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Delphine, keeping her eyes on the drawing. ‘I understand the inquest has found it was accidental.’

‘Such a horrible business,’ said Alba. ‘And it was doubly painful for us, for we visited the lady and her orphans that very afternoon.’

Delphine stopped drawing. ‘How so?’ she said.

‘My aunt is of a charitable bent,’ said Alba, ‘and she knew the lady through the many causes she is involved in. The lady had brought a whole houseful of the orphans to see the
sea. They all seemed so very happy. To think one of them is now gone makes me very melancholy, though my aunt says she will be happier in heaven. I cannot quite picture the particular one,
though.’ She swatted at something in the grass. ‘It could have been me,’ she said.

Delphine continued drawing, trying not to show her disquiet, though the girl’s words had set her mind racing.

‘Mrs Beck,’ said Alba, ‘can I tell you a secret? Only, you must promise that you will not tell anyone.’

Delphine’s mouth was dry; the charcoal slipped from her hand. She caught it, quickly but too tightly, and was glad that she was wearing her blackest mourning that day, so her dress would
not be blemished. ‘Of course,’ she said, trying to sound unconcerned.

‘I am not really Miss Waring’s niece,’ said Alba. She seemed childlike, mouthing the words in an exaggerated way, as though this somehow softened their impact. ‘She is
very good to say so, and of course it is better, for society, to think that I am. But really, I am an orphan, like that poor girl on the beach. Miss Waring’s sister took me in when I was
small, and now they pretend I am one of them, but really I am not.’ She rushed on, ‘When this summer is over, I must make my way in the world.’

‘And how will you do that?’ said Delphine.

The girl appeared to think, with an exaggerated kind of deliberateness that indicated she had previously imagined this conversation. ‘The worst thing to do, would be to take a role as a
governess,’ she said. ‘Altogether I think it better if I can marry, though when I say that to Miss Waring, she says nothing. Will you help me? You are so very elegant. I feel sure that
you know the things I must say and do to be thought of – in that way. I have observed that Mr Hallam cannot take his eyes from you.’

She did not appear to hear Delphine’s sharp intake of breath, nor notice that the widow was staring at her with a look of shock, her face pale against the black silk of her dress and the
deep green grass.

Delphine took up her pad again, but the moment she put the charcoal to the white paper, it crumbled a little, and she set it down. ‘You should perhaps consider,’ she said, trying to
ignore what had just been said about Theo, ‘whether marriage is a step you truly wish to take. Would you not wish for more time? A little freedom?’

‘What freedom?’ asked Alba shakily, her smile fixed on her face. ‘At present, I am kept at home, caring for the children of my guardian. They are growing older, and I have no
place. You were married – surely it was not so terrible? You mourn so deeply – Miss Waring says it is a little self-indulgent, how deeply you mourn, and Mrs Quillian says
she
does not insist on wearing black rings and hair jewellery and such dark, cheerless clothes. But I think, if you mourn so deeply, then you must have loved very much, and I would wish for such a
love.’ She made this speech strongly, in a tone that Delphine had never heard from her before: with a sense of entitlement, as if the love she sought was some kind of prize, to be won by
shying a ball at a coconut on the beach stall. ‘You must help me, Mrs Beck,’ she said pleadingly, observing Delphine’s silence. ‘I will do all that you tell me, I promise. I
will persevere.’

‘I am your good friend, in all things that are within my power,’ said Delphine. ‘But there is no help I can give you in this matter. I cannot create a marriage out of thin air
for you, my dear girl – never mind love, which is far rarer.’

Alba was not peevish, but the words cracked her cheer, and it worried Delphine later when she returned that she might, unwittingly, have broken the girl’s spirits. The front room of the
cottage seemed full of shadows that afternoon. When Delphine turned her mind from the past, the present worried her just as much.

The Shell Grotto in Margate was a mysterious complex of underground caverns and tunnels, its walls decorated with shells, which had only been discovered some sixteen years
before by two children playing in the grounds of a school. Mrs Quillian, in sending out notes to arrange an excursion, mentioned that it occupied a full page in Alba’s guidebook. A full page,
it was agreed, deserved a visit. Mr Benedict had returned to Broadstairs for a day or two, and so it was with full carriages that the little group set off to Margate.

Edmund found himself in a carriage with Theo, Alba, Miss Waring and Mrs Quillian. He was in a thoughtful mood, the reason being a letter in his breast pocket, from Charles Venning. He had
written:

Mrs Craven is quite well, and you must forgive me for not assuring you of this. It was no ‘line’, Edmund, but natural delicacy which made me not mention her.
The past should be left far behind. That is, in part, why I sent you to Broadstairs, such as you claim I did, though you are not of a character to be forced into anything; it is why you are my
friend.