The Widow's Confession (24 page)

Delphine had a lump in her throat. ‘I find it hard to believe,’ she said. ‘I cannot excuse him on the basis that he says the poor do not love their children.’

‘Do you know anything of poverty, Mrs Beck?’ he said. He did not accuse her with the words, but his gaze grew in intensity as he spoke. ‘In the course of my work I have seen
families with more children than they can count. I have seen squalor and despair, and the brutality that can cause. Many people do love their children; a few are so brutalized by loss and hardship
that they dare not. I have not lost hope, but Dr Crisp has, and I do not think we should judge him for that.’

‘This is a different kind of case, surely,’ she objected.

‘But the victims are not,’ he said. ‘Mr Benedict can scream and shout all he likes; there will be no investigation unless something more marked happens.’ He finished with
a nod that seemed to speak of finality, as though in agreement that they would bury the subject. They stood in silence for some time before he spoke again. ‘Our painter friend would like this
aspect, don’t you think?’ he said, without moving his eyes from the horizon. Delphine could not read him; his voice was completely neutral, but she was surprised that he would mention
Mr Benedict to her again.

‘I disagree, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘I believe, for all his sketching of the cliffs and fields, his main object is to study people. I am told he excels at crowd scenes,
at large compositions, sharpened by his attention to detail, textures and expressions.’

‘Could he paint that spray, I wonder?’ said Theo, as a wave hit the cliffs below them and sent a whip-curve of spray high into the air. ‘Capture its real qualities? He would
say that I should be in the water to see it properly – that is what he meant. He said I did not feel anything truly, or I believe that was his meaning.’

‘I can hardly say,’ said Delphine. ‘I do not know what is in his mind.’

‘I thought he was your good friend,’ he said.

When he turned and looked her full in the eyes, the fierceness of his gaze silenced her. The sight of it not only surprised her, but made her fear for a moment, the true intensity of those eyes.
She turned away, and they both faced the sea, standing alongside each other, buffeted by the wind. As the minutes passed, she felt something grow between them, like the threads of silk woven by a
spider, a sense of communion, as though they were there alone. She did not want to move and break the threads, the voices of the others behind them lost in the strong sea wind. They were, for those
few minutes, companions on the edge of something, as they had been on the day they had half-fallen down the slope at Dumpton Gap together, and the sea itself laid out in front of them with its
threat and adventure.

‘Mr Hallam! Mr Hallam?’ It was Miss Waring. She was standing on the grass, in what had once been the great nave of the abbey, as solid and immovable as a standing stone. ‘Miss
Alba is becoming over-excited; this is a sombre place to spend so much time.’ Beyond her, Edmund was reading the inscription on one of the eighteenth-century gravestones.

‘If you wish, we can leave you here,’ said Delphine softly to Theo. ‘Mr Steele can accompany us to the inn.’ She sensed that he did not want to leave; that coming here
had been some kind of pilgrimage. She felt sorry that they had intruded upon it.

‘No, I must see you all to the inn, and ensure the accommodation is comfortable,’ he said. The familiar blankness had returned to his eyes, and she knew then that he had broken the
threads between them. His words were not a rejection, but his expression and manner were. He straightened the collar of his coat, though it did not need meddling with, and began to walk through the
grass towards Miss Waring, moving his limbs slowly, as though he was wading through water.

My dear Charles,

You will not expect this, but it is a letter from Reculver – a missive sent with the hope that your warm good cheer will be sent by return and be waiting for me at
Broadstairs, so I may shake off the cold and melancholy of this place. We have come here on a trip which I thought would raise Theo’s spirits, but in this dark little inn which, despite its
warm fire and good food, is supported on all sides by the sounds of the sea and its attendant gales, those same spirits seem much depressed.

He had talked with enthusiasm of this place; of the archaeological explorations here, and its claiming from the Romans as a place of sanctity. But now we are here, he does not talk of those
things at all, and if I mention them to him, he answers me with a politeness which, if not curt, is lifeless and without any of his previous warmth. He took dinner with the rest of the party, but
did not eat; sat himself at the head of the table, at a distance from the others, and said Grace as sombrely as one in church on Ash Wednesday. The accommodation here is cramped. There are only a
hundred or so souls in this whole place, and they are scattered to the lands, fearful of the incursions of the sea. As a result, Theo and I are sharing a room, and when I found him – for he
retired early – he was on his knees, praying, and continued in a low voice. When at last I blew out my candle, I fancied he was still praying in the darkness, and I sensed the noiseless
movement of his lips as he spoke to his God. It worries me, and worries me deeply.

I do not doubt that the events of the last weeks have affected him, though he is a man used, surely, to minister to the dead and the dying. The sight of that little girl struggling to live
on the beach, and the awareness that some wretch of a woman had done this to her, affected us all greatly.

I spoke about this to Mrs Beck this evening. She and I are both greatly disturbed by the event, and she is dwelling on the mystery that the words
MARY
and
WHITE
,
White
as snow
, have been found near the bodies. Of course, you will have heard of the
Mary White
yourself, as she and her boatmen are of national fame, but connecting such a great blessing
to these deaths feels wicked. We talked it through, and tried to decipher its meaning; and of course none of the lifeboatmen can be called into question, for they are beyond reproach, but the
presence of those words haunts us, and talk as we did, we could go no further with it.

Being here in this inn, as I looked around this afternoon at my companions, it struck me that we are all haunted, in our own ways. Perhaps it was the low light in the room – the way
the shadows fell – but we all seemed burdened by things, the burdens usually hidden, but brought alive by the fatigue of the journey and the terrible events of the past weeks. The only
countenance that was clear of these things – well, it was Alba’s, as clean and fresh as a piece of parchment not yet written on. And it is for this reason that some of us love her, and
in some of us her very innocence – which is not her fault – raises impatience. She alone does not seem troubled by the near-death of that girl on the beach.

And my burden – I have hesitated to tell you this over the past weeks, but now it is at such a pitch that I must share it with you. My burden is that I am in love; that a young woman
here has come to mean more to me than anyone else ever has. How it has come about is a mystery, even to me. Love has its own form of witchcraft (forgive these dark words; this is a dark place), and
if I feel this love as a regrettable thing, it is because I believe I have nothing to offer her, this lady, and I do not understand why she is still free, why every man who has ever met her has not
bowed down before her.

If I have said too much, I am sorry. This place has affected me – as it has affected all of us – so I hope that when I next write, I will be in my right mind and no longer
afflicted by this infectious melancholy.

I remain, your friend, Edmund Steele

That night in the parlour, with the logs crackling and spitting out their sap in the flames as though it was winter rather than summer, Edmund had said to Delphine, ‘What
of your husband?’ It was a moment made for intimacies; everyone else had gone to their rooms, and he could tell she was on the brink of excusing herself, for it was not right that they should
sit alone together. But they had been worn down by the day: the journey to this cold and blustery place, and the ruins of human lives all around them, the lights on the towers hinting at more ruins
that might be to come, or might be avoided, and the wine drunk at dinner unlocking the fatigue in all of them.

She opened her mouth to tell him a well-practised lie; the lie she told everyone, that was now automatic and settled in her, part of the layers she had painted over herself, over the virgin
drawing – chalk on board – that had once been her. Then she decided not to.

‘I cannot tell you,’ she said. And she saw him read something on her face.

It was in that moment, a moment too late, she thought, that she decided to leave him, to not speak any longer. She went into her room and watched the sleeping face of Julia before taking the
pins out of her own hair. I have undone myself, she thought; I have undone us both. After a journey of a thousand miles, I have realized I cannot escape the past.

On the trip to Reculver, Miss Waring was alone, without her usual friend Mrs Quillian. I was used to their good cheer; to hear them gossiping together, and occasionally
advising Alba and correcting the faults in her behaviour. We saw them as a pair, these two older women, and yet they were quite different. Mrs Quillian saw everything with a warm, sunny eye, and
cared for nothing much other than that her plans were not disturbed and that her dear nephew was well-fed. Miss Waring was a little different; she was stout, and strong, and dressed well, always
with her cameo brooch fastened at her neck, always with her hair and dress so neat and perfect, as if every fold was thought about. But whilst she enjoyed her friend’s good cheer, the visit
to Reculver showed me that she was not naturally so. She chased Alba, as though Alba was a baby animal to be tamed, and it was with a kind of distress that she seemed to observe her; how often she
courted the good opinion of the clergyman in our midst, whilst looking at the other gentlemen with indifference. And her friendliness to me, once so evident, began to seem forced.

When Delphine slept at last, the sleep was fitful and disturbed. She saw the dead girls in her mind, and the sight of Bessie Dalton, gulping for air on the sands, jerked her
into wakefulness. A pale ribbon of light lay across her bed from the slit in the curtains, and she knew she would never sleep now. She climbed out of bed, moving slowly, by degrees, and dressed as
well as she could in the dark room, with only the whispering of the fabric as she raised her painting dress to her shoulders. She let Julia sleep, and went quietly out, creeping down the winding
staircase which creaked under her every step, her pale hands trailing down the smooth cold plaster of the white walls.

To her surprise she found Alba in the deserted saloon. She was wrapped in a cloak, but her slumped posture showed that she had no corset on. Delphine wondered whether she was still in her
nightdress beneath her wrappings, and thought it was enough to send Miss Waring into a faint. Alba was seated by a small window facing the slope towards the Reculver, and the ruins itself, and her
eyes were roaming over the view. When Delphine took a seat opposite her, Alba smiled, then turned back to the window. ‘This is such a melancholy place,’ she said. ‘But beautiful,
in its way, as all desolate places are. We must tell Mr Benedict about it.’

‘Telling him will be no use,’ said Delphine. ‘He would have to see it, to feel what you feel, to digest it in his mind.’ The proprietorial tone of her voice surprised
even her; she felt uncomfortable from it and decided she should probably stay silent until coffee was available. It had only just come to her, the vision of the painter eating all of his
experiences, consuming life, carelessly. She never wanted to draw people, only places, but this was an image so strong that she itched to draw it, in that moment.

‘Oh, but I think we could describe it vividly,’ said Alba. ‘You and I, if we tried, could make him understand its potency as a place.’ She looked more like a work of art
than a person, with her hair loose around her clear-skinned face, and, differently from usual, her violet eyes were not warm or cold, but bright with an animation that was somehow neutral, as
though it depended on nothing – neither her happiness or sadness. Delphine envied her that.

‘I do not intend to describe it to him,’ said Delphine. ‘He needs no encouragement.’ She did not mean the warning in her voice to be harsh, but somehow it was. She had
longed to take Alba under her wing, to protect her and warn her, but it seemed to her that Alba no longer wished for her protection, though she had originally made a bid for friendship. There was
something innately confident and independent growing in the girl’s gaze, a departure from her soft and yielding behaviour within the group. Delphine felt that her words were as ineffectual as
throwing beach pebbles at a flint wall. Obscurely, this wounded her.

Suddenly Alba turned from the window, leaned across the table that sat between them, and clasped Delphine’s hands. Her fingers were cold, and soft, and she held Delphine’s hands so
tightly that Delphine could feel the bones and joints. ‘Please advise me,’ said the girl in an urgent whisper, glancing around as though someone might be listening in the empty
room.

‘Go on,’ said Delphine, slightly amused by the drama in her voice.

‘It is Mr Benedict,’ said Alba. She was talking quickly now, as though she feared they might be discovered at any moment. ‘He – that is, he has led me to believe –
that he admires me greatly.’

For some reason she could not articulate, Delphine wanted rid of her hands, cold paws clawing at her own. ‘We all take delight in you,’ she said. ‘You are very beautiful
– you do not understand how beautiful. The young have their own particular power over those who are tired of the world. If he admires you, then I am not surprised; and you should not take him
too seriously, or give his words too much weight.’