The Widow's Confession (8 page)

Edmund nodded, the wine warming his numbed faculties.

‘There was a terrible tragedy involving Anna’s daughter, ten years ago. It was before my time here, but Martha told me of it; it was as if she could not rest until she had told me,
as though by repeating it, the girl could not be forgotten. On the beach one day, at Kingsgate, Anna was busy talking with some other women, and the girl went ahead, round the curve of the cliff.
When Anna went to find her, she did not see her at first. Someone had drowned her – held her face into a full rock pool. She had put up a struggle, I was told. As I say, it was ten years ago,
but the family still bears the scars. At the time, Anna did not have other children. Two years after the little one’s death, she had Sarah, and now they are,’ he paused, and looked into
his glass, ‘protective. Very protective of her.’

‘Did they never find who had done this?’ said Edmund.

The priest shook his head. ‘No. Anna did not see anyone on the beach. But it would have been easy for the person to hide, and the woman was, of course, hysterical with shock. There is
always talk, of course – troubles bring out the worst in human nature as well as the best – but there was no question that the child was adored. Besides, two of the women Anna had been
talking to went with her and found the child.’

‘How is she now?’ asked Edmund, struck to his core with the image of a mother finding her daughter’s body.

‘Poorly,’ said Theo. ‘Now and then she rallies, and manages to do some of her work, but Martha mostly carries the burden. I sit with Anna sometimes, but she says she has no
need for prayers. Poor soul. Her husband is a hoveller; you will see him down on the pier most days, like Solomon, whom you met. They watch the weather, and keep their eye out for vessels in
trouble. They will help where they can – pilot a boat home, for example. In the case of a wreck,’ his voice dipped, ‘they have the right of salvage. It is only fair to repay the
risks that they take. They are hard, brave men, and they have the correct respect for the Goodwin Sands.’

‘Do you know much of the Sands?’ asked Edmund, intrigued by the dark look that had fallen over Theo’s face. For a moment, he thought that Theo would not answer. He became very
still, fixed, his face frozen and stiff. Then he caught Edmund’s eye, and moved as though waking from a reverie.

‘Living here, you are forced to know of it,’ he said. ‘Go out on a clear night, Mr Steele, and you will see the lightships marking its place, warning ships. On stormy nights, I
wonder how the men who tend those lightships cope with them, for even with their anchors forty fathoms deep, they must fear for themselves. They know – and accept, I suppose, as the hovellers
do – that it would be possible for day to dawn and them never to be seen again.’

Something in Edmund’s face must have shown a hint that he thought this was over-dramatic, for Theo looked at him with a sudden intensity.

‘They call it “the ship swallower” – you know that, don’t you?’

‘I did not,’ said Edmund. ‘Why is it so dangerous? Can craft just not avoid the area?’

‘If only it was that simple,’ said Theo. ‘The sands change, and shift. The place seems solid at times, like an island – and in a way it is, but it is also an illusion.
The sand is of a quality that it will claim a ship and take it whole; suck it down and swallow it, once it is in its grip. A steamer with two hundred souls is as much in danger as a skiff with two.
Can you imagine being taken by the sea and the sand, in such a way?’

‘No,’ said Edmund. He had a strong imagination, and Theo’s words were chilling him, adding a fear to the emptiness he had already felt at the inquest. He saw from the look on
his face that Theo was lost in thoughts of the shifting sands of the Goodwins. His eyes were blank, fixed on the middle distance, when he next spoke.

‘Do you know the term they use? They say a boat is “swaddled down” into the sands. It always makes me think of a baby. A huge ship, wrapped and coddled and shrouded in liquid
sand, until it is gone, along with every living creature on board. So often a ship sets its course, and does not allow for the beam tide when sailing down the Channel, so heads on confidently into
catastrophe. With the Goodwin Sands, as with much else in life, to presume you are safe is the most dangerous thing.’

We did not hear from Mrs Quillian for ten days after our first meeting. Julia thought we were safe, again. We were alone with our secrets, free to walk and to watch the
sea. Did the serenity of the place melt some part of my defence? No. I had experienced the picturesque before, and remained impervious.

Alba was the key. She was the reason why Julia and I came to be part of Mrs Quillian’s circle.

She had the kind of beauty that pierces the heart of whatever man, woman or beast it shines upon. When you experience such beauty, there is no help for you. You are lost to it, and to look
upon that face is almost painful, for when you see it, you feel that original wound in your heart. And that wound opens you to others.

I have been accused of trying to corrupt Alba. I think those words even passed your lips, as though the interest of an older woman in a younger one can only be malign. But it is not true. I
was never jealous of her. I pitied her. I saw that she was living through my own predicament; I recognized in her struggles the very things that had burned up my own youth. My interest in her was
totally innocent; I have nothing to confess there.

One afternoon, Delphine and Julia decided to walk towards the Foreland, to see Kingsgate, the bay named in honour of the arrival of Charles II there two centuries before.
Walking was an occupation they both enjoyed, for as pampered girls in New York they had barely walked at all.

‘Do you remember?’ said Delphine, as they set out. Julia knew she spoke of New York; that was the phrase they always used, when they ventured into their past lives. They could only
speak of the past to each other, for they kept their secrets close to them. ‘There was always a carriage, always a room where the drapes were let down and the light shut out.’

Their grandfather, the head of the family, had come to view the physicality of the outside world as a kind of corruption. He had held the common view that women should be protected from fatigue.
So when they first left New York, Julia and Delphine were soft and plump, with delicate limbs and skin that looked as though it had never seen sunlight. Then they came to Europe, and found that
walking was one occupation to fill the endless stretch of their days. To their amazement, their health improved, rather than declining. For weeks they compared their blisters and raw, tenderized
feet. But Delphine felt a kind of triumph in enduring the pain. It was proof that she had broken free from the old world; that she was, now, different. Besides, she hardly cared then whether she
lived or not.

One blister she had treasured – a long blood blister that ran down the outer length of the pad of her foot. The red blood beneath the skin at first looked so angry that it might fight its
way out. Over time, it darkened to brown, and lay there for weeks, then months. She wanted to pierce the skin, but Julia warned her against worsening the wound and, though she heated a needle in a
candle flame, she left it, and wondered if it would stay with her forever. But it did not, gradually fading and working itself away, until her foot was normal again, but harder.

Now, their boots meant nothing to them as they followed the coast road. They saw large, agreeable houses, then only fields, the sea always at their right hand. The road curved, and wandered
gently up and down over barrow-like hills. At Stone they saw a large stuccoed house and estate behind high flint walls, and skirted farmland, seeing workers in the fields.

‘How was your sketching today?’ asked Julia.

‘Well enough, but nothing worth seeing yet,’ said Delphine. ‘I am pleased with how our dresses are lasting – I told you this material would work well being packed and
unpacked. Wearing mourning, it hardly matters if I look rich or poor, as long as I do not draw notice. But I could almost be tempted to cast off black and wear pale clothes, now we are free from
the London soot.’

‘I do not feel quite settled here yet,’ said Julia, giving her a dark look. ‘London seemed safer, somehow.’

‘We need to be somewhere different. It does not pay to become too comfortable in one place.’ Delphine breathed in the freshness of the air. ‘Mrs Quillian seems harmless enough,
but as for Mr Benedict . . .’ She paused, remembering the intensity of his gaze. ‘He is an artist of some type, you know. A member of the Royal Academy, as he was careful to make clear
to me. I am suspicious of him.’

‘We are suspicious of everyone,’ said Julia. ‘Forgive me, I am sorry – that was meant to be in jest. If the town is not what you wish it to be, perhaps we should consider
where we should go next?’ She was wearing a thicker veil than usual over her face. Delphine, so accustomed to the sight of the red birthmark on her cousin’s face, sometimes forgot that
Julia was conscious of it.

‘Let us decide that at the end of the season,’ she said.

‘Yes, but my dear,’ said Julia, ‘what does Mr Lock say, of money?’

‘Let me think of that,’ said Delphine. ‘There is no need to worry. We have lasted this long.’

‘But our income is not increasing, is it? And there is nothing of value left to sell.’

‘Hush,’ said Delphine. ‘If things get bad for me, you can simply go home.’

‘I won’t leave you,’ said Julia, and Delphine did not bother to ask the question which always occurred to her, and which she had asked several times, in train carriages and
hotel rooms across Europe:
why not?

They reached the lighthouse at North Foreland. It had been worth the walk. The white octagonal building towered over them, arresting in its brilliance, its patented lantern at
rest. Beside it stood the coastguard’s handsome cottage, also painted a dazzling white.

‘Knock for the keeper,’ said Delphine.

‘You
knock for the keeper,’ said Julia. ‘It’s quite possible that he hates Americans too.’

But before they could debate it, they saw the figure of a girl hurrying towards them from the direction of the bay. Her bonnet had fallen back, and as she waved at them, urgently, she dropped
one side of her skirts and nearly fell head over heels.

Delphine and Julia were on one side of the road, and the girl arrived on the other. When Delphine looked at her properly, she realized the girl was the one she had seen in church. Violet eyes,
aquiline nose and small and mysterious mouth were framed by the coppery-gold hair that had been tamed into a bun. She thought again it was a face she would have to paint.

‘Can we help you?’ Delphine called.

The girl spoke, but her voice was soft and high, and her words were carried away by the breeze.

‘Speak again,’ said Delphine.

‘It’s my aunt,’ said the girl, shouting now, the flicker of distress across her face indicating that she knew she was behaving with impropriety. ‘She is down at the bay
and is feeling unwell. I was wrong to make her walk so far. We were going to be met by a local man who said he would bring his cart for us, but he has not, and now she will not move, and the tide
is coming in, and I tried at Holland House, but no one would come at my knocking, and after that body was found . . .’ She began to cry. The serenity of her beauty was at odds with the tears
which suddenly began to pour down her face.

‘We must help this young lady,’ said Delphine to Julia, who had said nothing. ‘Come on.’ She took her cousin’s hand and pulled her along. The girl had taken off
running, which was astonishing, unladylike. She was ploughing down the hill at some speed, holding her skirts up, and Delphine said a small prayer for her sake that a coachload of visitors did not
appear around the turn in the road, to shame her. Julia cast Delphine a look of astonishment as they tried to follow her at a more decent pace.

‘She is more child than lady,’ said Delphine, unsure why but feeling the need to defend this young stranger from her cousin’s censure. They hurried along, trying to look as
though they were walking.

The girl scudded ahead of them, skimming down the length of the grassy slopes, then disappearing through a gap in the cliffs.

‘Smugglers,’ said Julia breathlessly. ‘We are following smugglers’ routes.’

‘You have been listening too much to Martha,’ said Delphine, glad to see that the girl had finally stopped. As they got nearer they saw she was bent over a person sitting on the
sand, holding her hand. The woman looked to be a matron of fifty or more, with a buxom, tightly-corseted figure.

‘She is unharmed!’ called the girl.

‘Alba,’ said the woman, as Delphine and Julia approached, seeming both frightened and glad. ‘What has she said? Have we troubled you? There are no gentlemen, are
there?’

‘No,’ said Delphine. ‘It is just me and my cousin. I am Mrs Beck; this is Miss Mardell.’

‘I am so sorry to be sitting on the sand,’ said the woman. ‘I could die of shame. But I cannot rise. I feel so weak. I am trembling – look.’ Dramatically she held
out one large hand, its fingers glittering with rings. After this demonstration, she opened and delved into a capacious bag which sat on the sand beside her. She produced a vial which she
unscrewed, then sniffed.

‘You must have something to eat,’ said Delphine, trying not to laugh at the self-administration of smelling salts. She put her basket down and unwrapped the sandwiches they had
planned to have for lunch, then produced an earthenware flask of ginger beer which Martha had provided for them. She glanced at Alba. ‘The tide is not dangerously close yet; there is no need
to panic.’

Alba turned away, as though she had been scolded.

The woman needed no further encouragement. She began to eat – at first slowly, but soon quickly and heartily, barely managing to stifle a burp when she took a gulp of the beer. Julia had
moved off to the water’s edge, and Delphine thought she saw her turn away to hide a smile.