Another Life
Page 59
When Isabella was asleep, Gabby opened the small drawer in the top of the chest and took out an unopened envelope with Bella’s handwriting on. She bent to the small lamp. It was time she had the courage to open this.
She drew out a letter, and a folded document. She stared at it and then started to read Bella’s letter. ‘You will see,’ Bella wrote, ‘that although there is a space on your birth certificate, this document proves you had a father who provided for you until the day he died, certainly long after you left home. I send you proof of this in Clara’s bank statements and in the letters he wrote to her concerning your welfare.
‘It seems, my dear Gabby, that I was not the only one who was kept away from you by Clara. I have to think of my sister as mentally ill rather than wicked. I think that you will see this from the copious letters she kept from your father in reply to her obviously unbalanced ones …’
Gabby reached for the document and opened it slowly. Too late, really, for what did it matter who her father was now. Beside her, Issy made little snuffling noises in her sleep.
In the half-light she read that her father was a merchant captain … David Thomas Welland … of Prince Edward Island. In the dark, Gabby shivered, turned and looked at the small chest she had carried everywhere with her all her life. Again she had a fleeting, unformed recollection of a man holding her gently, smoothing with his hand the small animals on the drawers before he placed her on the floor and she heard the sound of heavy footsteps going down the stairs. She understood now why Clara had so surprisingly let Olive’s brother collect it for her, all those years ago.
She went slowly down the stairs and stood in front of the photograph of Isabella. Her eyes looked steadily back. Mark seemed very near her at that moment and Gabby realized suddenly that all their lives were necessarily unfinished. His. Hers. Nell’s. Elan’s, who had died of a heart attack in Goa.
Sometimes there were no neat and tidy endings.
She went back upstairs and placed the envelope back in the little drawer of the chest, kissed her daughter and went back to the room she had shared with her love.
She would never know that once that small drawer had held a dried grass wedding ring. More binding than a ring of gold.
Acknowledgments
There is no such village as St Piran, who was a Cornish saint, and all the characters in this book are entirely fictitious. There is however a small museum in a village called St Agnes on the north coast where a figurehead, the Lady Agnes, stands. She came from a small vessel built in the 19th century and she traded in cargo ranging from coal and china to salt cod. In her early days she undertook the Newfoundland run, although I did not know this at the time of writing.
I am deeply indebted to my friend, Elizabeth Cynddylan, Fine Art Conservator, for her chance remark, ‘I’ve just finished restoring a figurehead.’ It sparked in a flash the idea for this book. She has been incredibly generous with her information and photographs and has given me a fascinating glimpse of the world of restoring. Any mistakes are entirely my own.
I am also grateful to Annabelle and the wonderful Morab Library and Roger Radcliffe, Hon. Secretary, St Agnes Museum Trust for opening up the museum one winter afternoon so that I could view the Lady Agnes, and for letting me use the atmospheric location of the museum, once a converted chapel, for my entirely fictitious Lady Isabella.
Thanks once again to Toby for checking my military facts. To Broo Doherty for her unswerving support. To Jane Gregory and her team, as always, many thanks.
Last, but not least, I wanted to thank that calm and gentle military voice at the end of a phone in 1999 who talked me through days and nights of a nightmare.
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About the Author
Sara MacDonald has written all her life. She has been an army wife, living all over the world, and now lives in Cornwall. Another Life is her second novel.
Also by the Author
Sea Music
The Hour Before Dawn
Come Away With Me
About the Publisher
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