In that last year we achieved a measure of contentment that pleased us both; and if there were occasions when I hugged Henry just because I saw a repeat of that fleeting resemblance to Jonathan, then it did neither of us any harm. The only time I felt bitter was when I had a missive from Isa Firth. Each time I kept thinking I would go to Whitby one day and settle my score with her, but I knew it needed both courage and a convenient moment, and my courage was sadly lacking.
After that brief period of contentment the following winter was a worrying time. Throughout the autumn Henry seemed far more tired than he should have been, and a nagging cough which had persisted over Christmas developed into a bout of bronchitis in the New Year. He was confined to bed for over a month, and to the house for a further six weeks. We joked that he was swinging the lead, that it was the worst time of year and he’d never liked travelling any distance in winter, not even as far as the City; but the illness weakened him, and he aged visibly in those last few months.
Dismissing my anxieties, Henry’s doctor said he was pleased with his progress; everyone seemed to expect him to get better, and with the spring and good weather I told myself he would soon be well. By the middle of April he’d recovered sufficiently to potter about in the garden, and was even talking about taking a trip to Cornwall in June. On the day he died, Henry had gone for a short walk in company with an old friend, but it turned out to have been too much. He was stricken by a heart attack on the way back, and died before I could get home.
~~~
In the months that followed, all I could think of was Henry. Not just his death, but his life, his absence, and the work which had been so important to both of us. To begin with I blamed myself for being at the office, for not being with him when he needed me; and yet where else could I have been? While he was ill, I had to carry the responsibility, just as he had carried it for me. In a way the business was like our child; it had brought us together and kept us together, and I couldn’t just let it go. For his sake I had to find some means of carrying on.
I needed a man with the necessary background to replace the name of Henry Lindsey at the Baltic Exchange, a man who was willing not only to work with me, but to accept me as the senior partner. Temporarily one of the senior male clerks acted as proxy, but although in a mad moment I thought of Jonathan, there was something so distasteful in the idea of inviting him to take Henry’s place, that I dismissed it at once. I even thought of my brother Jamie, but he was now in Fremantle, the owner of a successful boatyard. Besides, he was married, with children, and Australia was his home.
Eventually, after long discussions, I entered into partnership with two of the younger Addisons, under an agreement which benefited both sides. In effect they became my apprentices, providing the necessary names for trading in return for my expertise and Henry’s contacts. Ned and Bob were cousins, twenty-three and twenty-five years old respectively, who had been bred to the shipping business. The elder one had even spent some time at sea, and both had more than a little respect for the formidable grandparents who had started the company; even for Henry and myself, who had been on the periphery for years. It did me good to realise that I’d become something of a legend in the Addison family and, as I started work with the boys, that I was in fact repaying their grandmother’s kindness to me. She had been my friend and mentor, as well as my inspiration, and I never lost an opportunity to remind her grandsons of what an extraordinary woman she’d been.
That sense of continuity went some way towards curing my sense of failure as a wife. I hadn’t borne the children Henry wanted, but I was passing on his knowledge and expertise to these young men, who would in turn carry the business into the new century.
It took time and effort but it was just what I needed, and when Ned and Bob came to lodge with me in Hampstead at the end of the summer, they soon transformed that sad and somewhat dreary house into a place of light and music and laughter. I found myself wishing that Henry was still alive; he’d known the boys since childhood and would have enjoyed their adult company. And I liked to think he would have approved of my decisions.
They were good for me, so determined not to leave me brooding that they took me home with them over the festive season, for the kind of family celebration I remembered with gratitude from the old days. But the following year, as we toasted their first anniversary, I was very much aware that our initial impetus had settled into something less exciting if more dependable. In a business sense the cousins had grown up, they knew what they were doing as brokers and were developing their own style; they even had their own apartments in St John’s Wood, and no longer needed ‘Auntie’ to show them the ropes. In short, my presence was no longer essential, and I could afford to sit back for a while – permanently, if I so desired. When that awareness dawned, I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad, but within a day or so I’d realised something more important – that I’d discharged my obligations, and no longer had anything to prove.
Unfettered for the first time in my life, I found it a light, heady sensation. I hardly knew where to start, much less what I really wanted to do in the long term. The boys suggested that I should take a holiday first of all, to visit my brother and his family in Australia, and with that, I agreed. In principle at least.
I didn’t tell them the first and most important item on my agenda, since it would have been meaningless to them, but I had decided to look for Jonathan. Our parting had been too abrupt; our liaison had not been resolved in any way. Now that I was free to do so, I felt the need to settle things properly, to confess my sins and do my penance if necessary, but I had to see him. The emotional pull was too strong to ignore.
But would he want to see me? It had been three and a half years, after all...
Privately, I wrote to the company offices in Hull, seeking the name and whereabouts of his current ship. The reply I received was hardly a surprise, but I was dismayed by it. Having left Addisons’ the year before, Jonathan was now employed by a company trading out of Singapore. After many attempts, I wrote a brief letter which outlined my present circumstances with what I hoped was the right degree of friendliness and warmth, and posted it to the forwarding address. I wondered how long it might be before I received a reply. Three months at least, was my calculation, and it was with an anxious heart that I settled down to wait.
With the excuse that I would set sail for Australia in the spring, I kept working at the office on a part-time basis. Even so, waiting for Jonathan’s reply made for a frustrating time. As Christmas approached, I wondered whether he’d moved on again, whether my letter was on a wild-goose chase around the China seas, or stuck in some pigeonhole in a damp and airless office in Singapore.
I was even wondering whether I could risk making enquiries in Whitby, when news reached me of Bella’s death. At first I couldn’t accept it, thinking it must be a mistake, or some kind of cruel hoax. But as the facts sank in they cut deep, and I was angry that no one had seen fit to let me know she was ill. And because we were the same age, I was also deeply shocked. It was a herald of mortality, when I was just beginning to realise that the years were marching on.
But with the next post came another missive from Mr Richardson. This time with news that Thaddeus Sterne had died peacefully in his sleep, only a few days short of his ninetieth birthday.
Grief overwhelmed me then, mainly for Bella, for the shortness of her life and its many hardships; but I was saddened too by Old Uncle’s passing. For all my contempt when young, respect had grown between us over the years; and more than that, a measure of affection. There was no one else in the Sterne family who mattered. I had no option but to go to Whitby. For the time being all other business would have to be shelved.
That decided, I telegraphed Mr Richardson to make money available for a decent funeral for Bella. Left to Cousin Martha I felt it might well be a pauper’s grave and a few tots of gin afterwards, and I couldn’t bear that.
In addition, I felt I could also make some discreet enquiries ab
out Jonathan, but it didn’t relieve my feelings. For years I’d been saying that when the time was right I would go to Whitby and settle my scores in person, and, like it or not, it seemed the time had at last arrived. There would be Isa Firth to deal with, of course, which made for elements of fear and loathing, but I was beginning to suspect that with regard to those photographs, fear had always been the strongest emotion. For all my surface bravado, I’d gone on preferring to pay up rather than face what those pictures represented. Now, it seemed as though Whitby had grown tired of waiting, and had issued its own summons for my return.
Forty-six
The reality of that journey was even worse than might have been expected. Bad weather and slow progress, rising emotions intensifying as the train crawled further north, all conspiring to increase my feeling of dread. I thought I’d shed superstition years ago, but with every passing mile I became more and more convinced that everything comes in threes, and those two deaths in Whitby were almost bound to herald a third. Who would be next? With fear for Jonathan lurking at the edge of my mind as I stepped off the train in York, I was totally unprepared for the shock of meeting Bram.
Age and illne ss had taken their toll, yet when I heard his voice I knew him at once, just as he knew me. And when I looked into his eyes, that sense of recognition, of time moving backwards, was almost terrifying. It was like meeting my fate, my doom, my own grim reaper in the guise of an old lover. If I hadn’t loved him so intensely all those years ago, it wouldn’t have mattered at all, but I was afraid of what the meeting signified. Why now? What more could he possibly want?
I doubt he realised the extent of it. He had little inkling of the damage he’d inflicted so could not know the wild swings of emotion that assailed me as we faced each other before that falling curtain of snow. For him the past may have been laid to rest, but for me it had been kept alive by books and blackmail and a barren womb.
Over dinner I kept trying to reconcile the man before me with the image in my mind. If I closed my eyes and listened to his voice I could almost feel myself being seduced again, by memory as much as the sentiments he expressed. And then I would look at him and experience the same disorientation that had attacked in the beginning. How could he be so old? In my memory he was no more than forty, the age that Jonathan would be now.
I told him about Henry, and Henry’s death, but something – some remnant of superstitious dread, I think – stopped me from mentioning Jonathan. I kept his name to myself, although as the night wore on I was glad of the chance to talk about Bella and Isa and Jack Louvain. Bram seemed genuinely sorry to hear of Jack’s accident and that painfully protracted death, but evidently found it difficult to understand my taut and brittle manner. Until, that is, I mentioned Isa and the photographs. But that was much later, after midnight, when the hotel was quieter and we were almost alone in our corner of the reading room.
As coals fell in the grate, I reached out to pour myself more coffee. ‘Whether Jack intended it or not,’ I said, ‘Isa Firth seems to have inherited much of his work, including the plates of some – well, some of his more unusual pictures.’ I glanced up to meet his perplexed expression, and added tersely: ‘Pictures of you and me – together – at Saltwick Bay.’
‘Together?’
‘Naked,’ I whispered fiercely, watching his eyes widen in appalled understanding, ‘at sunrise, making love.’
On a sharp intake of breath, he said: ‘But how? How could he do that?’
‘Oh, Bram, please! How do you think?’ Conscious of other people at the far side of the room, I lowered my voice again. ‘I don’t know – from the cliffs, or even from Black Nab. It was certainly light enough, and distance wouldn’t be a problem. In the studio, I imagine he discarded the landscape and enlarged the figures.’
‘I meant morally,’ my companion interjected. ‘He was a friend, for heaven’s sake. How could he justify taking photographs like that?’
‘Quite easily, I imagine. The same way you justified abandoning me.’
There was a momentary silence. ‘My dear, you dismissed me – said you never wanted to see me again. And I believed you,’ he added heavily.
His words were not untrue, but went so far against the spirit of events that I felt he wronged me yet again. I was furiously angry. Longing to scream at him, instead I hissed, ‘Well, be that as it may, Isa Firth’s been blackmailing me for years on your account. Be thankful she never managed to put a name or an address to you!’
Even in the firelight I could see his sudden pallor, and felt a fierce stab of satisfaction that seemed to lance my fury. I hated him, but I was glad he was there. It was a relief to speak the words and share the anguish. To my astonishment he seemed to understand. Reaching for his stick, he said: ‘Let’s find our coats and go outside – I think we could both do with some air.’
The blizzard was over, but in the blue-white moonlight the frozen tracks looked more like eastern Europe than England. Apart from muffled railway employees going hurriedly about their business, the platforms were deserted, and, as we walked, I wondered how long either of us would withstand the cold. The main line was clear in both directions, but workmen were busy with shovels, their faces hidden by caps and scarves. They moved out of the way as a snow-plough came chugging through, followed by an old tank engine, incongruously swathed and swagged like a wedding car in ribbons of white.
‘Why didn’t you get in touch with me?’ he demanded as we paced the platform together. ‘I might have been able to help.’
‘Why didn’t you reply to my letters?’ I snapped back. ‘I wrote several times from Whitby.’
‘When did you write? I never received anything.’
‘When I needed your help, for goodness’ sake. As you asked me to.’
He stopped and turned, and scanned my face. For a moment he seemed mystified. ‘I had nothing from you. Of course, I knew you’d cashed the cheque,’ he added, ‘because it was presented to my bank. By that I assumed you were all right. Other than that, not a word.’
I burned at that, but not even indignation could warm me against the bitter wind. ‘Then what happened to those three letters? I sent them to the Lyceum, as you said. One to thank you for the cheque, one to tell you about the cottage, and the other...’ I stopped as the words stuck in my throat, threatening to choke me. It was unbearable. As he reached out for me, I clenched my fist and beat at his chest, and at last got out harshly: ‘The other was to tell you I was expecting your child!’
He gazed at me, incredulity changing to dismay, while hot tears poured down my cheeks. It felt as though furrows were being burned into my face. For a long moment we stood unmoving, and then, as I scrubbed at the tears, he reached out for me in distress. ‘Oh, dear God, dear God – I never knew – why didn’t I know? I thought – I thought so many things – that you hated me, despised me – oh, my dear, I’m so sorry...’
I could have twisted free, but his grip tightened, and with a whispered exclamation he pulled me close. Locked together, we stood for what seemed a long time. Eventually, calmer, he said: ‘What happened? Tell me – what happened to the child?’
I shook my head; couldn’t answer. As I covered my face, he held me more gently, murmuring words of comfort that seemed as necessary to him as they were to me. I welcomed his embrace, needed it, even though I still wanted to strike at him, hurt him, make him feel the pain which had pursued me over the years. The worst part was that I could feel it dogging my heels even now, and with a sharp gesture I broke away, retreating from his questions and his sympathy.
‘If you’d been there, Bram,’ I ground out accusingly, ‘if you’d been willing to stand by me, even in secret, it might have been different – but you ignored my letters! You said you loved me, but in the end it was a lie – all lies – you were just using me! When Irving turned up, off you went, with barely a hesitation! That’s what I couldn’t forgive – your eagerness to escape!’
Ignoring his protests, I marched away, heedless of onlook
ers or the picture I presented. There was even something bleakly appropriate in giving way to hysterical emotion in that echoing, arctic cavern of a station. Like steam from one of those great engines passing through, the pain seemed to grow and expand to fill the space, and its growth was accompanied by coughs and moans and cries of torment.
Somehow that noisy outburst propelled me forward until I came to a gasping halt at the very end of the platform, where the wind tore at my scarves and skirts and reminded me of Whitby and Bella and winter over the cliffs. I longed to be there, alone, to grieve and mend my wounds in the sharp salt air. I longed to touch the past and heal it, and I cursed the ice and snow which kept me here.
When he came up beside me, I was calmer, more stricken than angry, too spent to protest when he took my arm and led me away from that exposed spot. In the shelter of a kiosk he paused to put his arm around me. He seemed very much upset, and said gruffly: ‘I think I know what happened, but I need you to tell me. You were alone, and expecting my child, so you...’ He broke off, shaking his head, as reluctant as I’d been to use the word.
‘Yes,’ I said wearily, ‘I had an abortion and nearly died. Bella saved my life.’
As memory overwhelmed me, he held me close. At last, he said with difficulty, ‘I’m sorry. All I can do is beg your forgiveness. I didn’t know, and I’m ashamed that I didn’t. I should have done, might have done, if only I’d written... You don’t know how many times I began letters to you, only to destroy them. There was so much to explain, and so much more beyond that – in the end it seemed better to let things lie...
‘But that doesn’t answer the question of your letters,’ he added heavily, ‘and in that regard, I’m afraid there is only one explanation.’
‘Irving.’
‘Yes, Irving!’ he echoed with sudden bitterness. ‘Ellen always said he had no scruples, and she was right. No wonder he was so keen during those first few weeks of my return – in first thing, every day. I thought he was concerned to get everything running smoothly again, but all the time he was making sure I received no communications from you!’
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