If I should faint now I would undoubtedly be discovered. Such a thing would place not only me at risk, but Julia too. Desperately I focused every bit of my attention on willing myself to master the weakness that threatened to overcome me.
And I won. Little by little the faintness passed and, though my knees still trembled and I felt nauseous and ill, the immediate danger of collapsing into a tumbled heap and perhaps bringing the screen crashing down with me had passed.
I had to get out of Selena’s room without being observed, to the safety of my own room or the parlour. But first I had to satisfy myself that this was indeed the bell Tom had been seeking.
Steeling myself I looked at it again. Guinevere. The name was clear in the brass, which still shone as brightly as it must have done when it was new, confirming what in my heart I already knew.
I hesitated a moment, then bent to touch it with fingers that trembled. This was the bell from my father’s ship. A direct link to the heritage that had so long been denied me. Had he touched it too? He would have taken pride in it, I felt certain.
I crept to the doorway and peeped out, my heart pumping. There was no one on the landing. I slipped out and hurried to my own room, where I collected the wrap I had come upstairs to fetch in the first place, for I knew Charlotte would think it odd if I returned without it and, should I meet Francis or Selena, it would provide the reason for me wandering about upstairs in the middle of the day. It might, of course, tell them that it was I who had been outside their door as they rolled together on Francis’s bed, but that scarcely mattered to me any more. Disgusting though their antics were, yet they were as nothing compared with the discovery I had made. The discovery that, according to Tom, proved Francis’s involvement in the evil that had stolen the life of my father and so many other poor souls.
One thing I could not understand. The perpetrator of the wrecking had kept the bell to gloat over, Tom had said. And certainly, judging by its perfect condition, it had been regularly polished, as if it were some precious artefact in an art connoisseur’s collection. So why had it been, not in Francis’s room, but in Selena’s?
Charlotte looked up as I re-entered the parlour.
‘I’ve finished all my sums, Charity. I did them quickly, didn’t I?’
Quickly? It seemed a lifetime since I had left her there and gone upstairs; in fact it had only been a few minutes, not even long enough for Charlotte to wonder what was keeping me.
‘Very good,’ I said absently.
‘Aren’t you going to look at them?’ she asked, looking puzzled.
‘Yes… yes, of course…’
Somehow, until I had word from either Joshua or Tom, I had to keep up a pretence of normality. But oh, it was not going to be easy!
* * *
‘Julia, I know it’s painful for you, but I want you to try to tell me about the night you lost me,’ I said, sitting down at her feet and taking her hands in mine.
Selena and Francis were both out, Mrs Durbin had unlocked the attic door for me and was keeping an eye on Charlotte. I had just a little while in which to try and discover the truth behind the evil – and the tragedy – of Morwennan House.
At first, when I had found the bell from the Guinevere, it had seemed conclusive proof that Francis was indeed the man behind the gang of wreckers; now I was not so sure. There were too many unanswered questions, too many areas of uncertainty. Maybe my tortured mind was resisting the terrible possibility that I was employed by my father’s murderer, but it had occurred to me to wonder if there might be some other reason for the bell being here, kept lovingly polished all these years. Could it be that some other gang had been responsible for the wrecking but Francis had somehow managed to gain possession of the bell as a link to the days when Julia was young and healthy and strong? Or that he had revenged himself on the gang who had all but destroyed her and taken the bell as a trophy of war? It all seemed far-fetched, but then, so was everything else in this dreadful puzzle.
There were too many questions without answers and I felt I needed to have them before Tom returned and I delivered Francis into his hands.
How, for instance, had Francis come to rescue Julia and bring her back to Morwennan? How had I managed to survive a bitterly cold night, wet through, on an exposed beach? What had occurred in the years that followed? And why, most importantly of all, had Francis told the world that Julia had died when Charlotte was born and incarcerated her in the attic?
None of it made the slightest sense and I had made up my mind to try to make one more attempt to learn at least something of what had happened from Julia herself. Her mental state had improved so much since I had been visiting her, and she had come to trust me. I very much hoped that she might feel able to confront the events of that terrible night.
But my heart sank as I saw the familiar blank look in her eyes.
‘Please, Mama,’ I said, using the name that had been so difficult to get used to in the beginning, but which now afforded me so much pleasure. ‘Please try to remember.’
‘But I can’t,’ she whispered.
‘You can,’ I urged her.
‘No. There was a storm – I remember that. I was very ill and very frightened. And then… We foundered. The sea…’ Her eyes were wide, her voice trembled. ‘The sea was terrible… so cold. And there were men on the beach. I thought they were going to save us but instead they threw rocks. They tried to drive us back…’
She broke off. Steeling myself to ignore her obvious distress I pressed her: ‘And then? What happened then?’
‘I don’t know. Truly, Nancy, I don’t know. I don’t remember anything until I woke up here, back at Morwennan. And you had gone… You had gone!’
A little ray of hope sparked within me. ‘You remember waking up here?’
‘Oh yes, I’ll never forget that. I thought I must have died and gone to hell…’
‘So tell me what happened when you woke up,’ I said gently. ‘Tell me what happened afterwards.’
And: ‘Very well,’ she said.
Twenty-Two
Julia
The nightmares came first. In a fevered state Julia felt an overwhelming sense of loss, heard the shouts and the roar of the sea, knew she was battling against some terrible fate, screamed, sobbed, writhed, her head twisting back and forth on the pillow, then drifted back into blessed unconsciousness… The only reality had been something too terrible to bear; she took refuge in a place where nothing and no one could reach her. Then, gradually, as her fever-wracked body healed, the refuge became more distant, more inaccessible. There was no longer any escape from the overwhelming despair. It weighed her down and weak tears poured down her cheeks from beneath closed eyelids.
She opened her eyes, recognised what looked strangely like her old room at Morwennan and frowned, puzzled. It was another illusion, there was no other explanation. She stared blankly at that familiar ceiling, moved her head slightly on the pillow to take in the walls and became aware of someone sitting beside her bed. She could not see them, they were outside her line of vision, yet a familiar scent, a recognisable presence pervaded her senses. Her stomach clenched. Julia turned her head a little more and saw what in her heart she already knew.
The person was Selena.
She sat in the comfortable wicker chair, her embroidery in her lap. She seemed to tower over the bed like some evil spirit.
‘So,’ she said, her lip curling. ‘You are awake.’
‘I don’t understand…’ Julia murmured weakly.
‘You were found half drowned,’ Selena said coldly. ‘Francis had you brought home.’
Frantic, Julia tried to raise herself on the pillows.
‘Nancy! Where’s Nancy? And John? I must find them! I must go to them!’
Selena set aside her embroidery and stood up, looking down at Julia with eyes as hard as the lumps of rock that had taken the lives of John and his crew.
‘They are dead,’ she said baldly. ‘Everyone perished in the shipwreck but you. God alone
knows how you came to survive, but you did, and Francis, more fool he, has decided to take you back.’ She moved to the door, a stiff figure in violet silk. ‘I’ll fetch him. He’ll want to see you, no doubt.’
* * *
‘Julia! Thank God! Oh my dear…’
Francis threw himself on to his knees at her bedside. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. It was as if she had never left him, as if she had suffered some terrible illness or accident whilst still living with him as his wife and the last years had never happened at all.
Julia found herself wondering if Francis and Selena, like the tortured nightmares, were all part of some delusion. She stared at him with dull, puzzled eyes.
‘Oh, I thought I had found you only to lose you again! You have been ill, my dear, so ill…’
‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘What am I doing here?’
‘The ship you were on was lured on to the rocks by wreckers.’ His face was ravaged, his hands trembled.
So it was true. All the horrible nightmares were not figments of her imagination but memories. Julia struggled to cope with the enormity of it.
And what of Nancy and John? Selena had said they were dead. But Nancy had been in her arms. If she herself was alive then surely… surely…
‘My baby!’ she cried, struggling to sit up. ‘I have to find my baby!’
Francis’s face changed, his features distorted by a look that was part fury, part pain.
‘You have no baby, Julia. He died, don’t you remember?’
‘No! My little girl! Nancy…’
‘You have no little girl,’ he repeated, his tone hard. Then he reached for her hands, covering them with kisses. ‘You are home now, my love. I’ll take care of you, never fear. Selena wanted me to leave you to your fate, but for once I wouldn’t let her have her way. You are my wife, Julia, and I’ll keep you safe. Safe with me to the end of your days.’
She shook her head, hysteria rising in a flood tide.
‘No – no, you don’t understand…’
‘Oh, I do, my love.’ He stroked her hair, easing her back on to the pillows. ‘I understand very well. You are home now. That is all that matters.’
* * *
The grief overwhelmed her and the blackness, the same grief and blackness she had experienced after the birth – and death – of her little son, only a thousand times worse.
John, her only love, was lost to her, and little Nancy too, both drowned on that terrible night when the wreckers had wreaked their evil under a storm-torn sky.
She was trapped, trapped here for ever at Morwennan with Francis, who loved her so obsessively. Yet that scarcely mattered. Without John and Nancy, nothing mattered any more.
* * *
There can be no denying it, Francis treated her well, as indeed he always had, but for that first unforgivable episode when he had taken her in the carriage on the day they became man and wife, and on the rare occasions when his frustration with her continued rejection of him tried his patience beyond its limits.
His obsession for her was such that it was almost, but not quite, enough for him that she was his, more utterly and completely now than she had ever been; her total dependence on him almost, but not quite, satisfied him. It was as if he had caged some rare and beautiful bird of paradise. He could look at her and enjoy the looking, he could display her proudly to his friends, he could stroke her feathers, listen to the soft musical lilt of her voice, buy her treats that he thought might please her. He had passed the point now of expecting her ever to return his love or even respond to his uxorial advances. A pattern was set in those early days when Julia was still fragile as a butterfly’s wing. She had her own room and he had his and he made no attempt to force himself on her. It was as if, so long as he imposed restraint upon his physical desires for her, he could convince himself that the lack of normal marital relations was his doing and not hers, that it was his sacrifice for her good. To have had her turn from him, or lie weeping silently in his embrace, would have been to expose the whole charade to the light of day, and would have served as nothing but a bitter reminder that she found him repulsive. As it was, he could pretend that she was his adored wife, too sick in body and mind to be put through the rigours of the act of love.
And so Francis satisfied his needs with the loose women who plied their trade around the harbours and in the bars of the less reputable inns, and resumed his intimacy with Selena as he had during the years of Julia’s absence. But never once did he take a mistress, nor want to. The loose women meant nothing to him, his relationship with Selena was so long-standing that he saw it merely as an extension of their fondness for one another as siblings. But to take a mistress – that would have been something quite different. It would diminish Julia in the eyes of his friends and associates, who would surely know about it – it would diminish her in his eyes. Julia belonged on a pedestal, a fragile treasure to be looked up to and idolised. And that was where he kept her.
For her part Julia found that her dependence on him slowly gave birth to something close to affection. She had no one else – her father had lost the farm and moved to Launceston, Aunt Prudence had died suddenly the year after the wrecking. Not that Francis had ever allowed Julia to visit her – he would never forgive Prudence for her part in Julia’s desertion and did not want to be reminded of it. Julia loathed Selena, and Francis discouraged her from making friends. Besides himself the only person who was close to her was Mrs Durbin and it was not enough. Gradually she began to turn to Francis for companionship, gradually, as she came to realise he was making no demands on her, she grew almost fond of him without even acknowledging to herself what she was feeling.
The years passed and, though Julia’s grief never left her, it subsided to a dull ache, just as her grief for her baby son had done. No human being can live for ever in that state of agony, and Julia was no exception. Had she known that little Nancy was growing up in a rectory not more than half a day’s drive away she would never, of course, have allowed what had occurred to recede into the past, she would have been filled with fierce determination never to rest until she found Nancy. But she did not know. She believed the little girl had drowned along with John in the boiling surf.
Though as the years went by they came less often, Julia still experienced times when the grief overcame her. Sometimes there was an identifiable cause, such as the anniversary of Nancy’s birth, sometimes it washed over her for no reason at all. She would weep then, her arms wrapped around herself, doubled up with the agony of loss, the longing for her child and for John. She would weep with the sobs wracking her frail body and the scalding tears drenching her face until she could weep no more, but still the pain remained.
One such night Mrs Durbin, bringing her a bedtime posset, found her crouched in a corner of her room, head bent low, arms around her knees like a mad woman. She ran to Julia, distressed.
‘Oh, my lamb, don’t! Oh, sweeting, you’ll make yourself ill! Whatever is it?’
‘My baby,’ Julia sobbed. ‘I want my baby!’
Mrs Durbin took Julia in her arms, shushing her as one would shush a child until at last Julia’s sobs subsided.
‘You mustn’t upset yourself like this,’ Mrs Durbin counselled. ‘You must try to be grateful for what you have. A good husband, a nice home…’
‘I want my baby!’ Julia whispered.
‘Oh I know, I know…’ Mrs Durbin had no children of her own but she had in her time longed for them, and she could, in some way, share Julia’s pain. ‘You know what I think? I think you should have another child. You’re young enough yet. Mr Francis would be delighted, wouldn’t he? And you would have something to take your mind off your loss.’
Julia shook her head, the tears welling again.
‘No! No other baby could ever take Nancy’s place.’
‘That’s what you thought when you lost the little lad now isn’t it?’ Mrs Durbin reminded her. ‘And then Nancy came along and you loved her just the same. You fo
rgot…’
‘I did not!’ Julia cried fiercely. ‘I did not forget my son! And I don’t want to forget Nancy!’
‘Well of course you don’t. And you never will. That’s not what I was going to say. You don’t forget those you have loved. You just forget to be quite so sad.’
Julia made no reply. But Mrs Durbin’s words remained with her and when she was calm enough to gather her thoughts the seed the older woman had planted began to take root and grow.
Perhaps there was something in what she said. It would be good to hold a child in her arms again. Julia closed her eyes, remembering the sweet scent of soft baby skin, the gossamer feel of fine baby hair against her cheek.
Before long Julia found she could think of nothing else. At last she went to her husband.
‘Francis… do you think we might try to have a baby?’
He stared at her, unable to believe his ears. She laid her hand on his sleeve, looking up at him with pleading eyes.
‘Oh, Francis, I want a baby so much!’
He took her face between his hands and bent to kiss her forehead with great tenderness, though all he wanted was to sweep her into his arms and ravage her there and then.
‘Oh, my dear,’ he said against her hair. ‘I never thought I’d hear those words from you.’
‘Then… then you don’t mind?’
‘There is nothing,’ he said, ‘that I could want more.’
That night, for the first time in twelve years, Francis and Julia slept in the same bed. That night, for the first time in their entire marriage, she gave herself to him willingly.
* * *
This time Julia conceived less easily. Older, no longer the vibrantly healthy girl she had been, her body resisted what she longed for with her whole heart and soul. Then, when she had almost given up hope, the miracle happened.
As she watched her body swell with the longed-for child, Julia was filled with joy and hope for the future and Francis was equally delighted at the prospect of being a father. If, before, he had treated Julia like a fine piece of Dresden china, now he cosseted her even more. Nothing was too good for his wife and his unborn child.
Morwennan House Page 25