Unclaimed Heart

by Kim Wilkins

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  Unclaimed Heart

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group

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  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published as The Pearl Hunters by Omnibus Books, Ltd 2008

  Copyright © 2009 Kim Wilkins

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  Wilkins, Kim

  Unclaimed Heart/by Kim Wilkins

  p. cm.

  Summary: In 1799, having stowed away on her father’s ship sailing from Dartmouth,England to Ceylon in search of her long-lost mother, seventeen-year-old Constance Blackchurch falls in love with a nineteen-year-old

  French orphan they rescue from a nefarious pearl dealer.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-10859-8

  [1. Love—Fiction 2. Social Classes—Fiction 3. Fathers and Daughters—Fiction 4. Missing Persons—Fiction 5. British—Sri Lanka—Fiction 6. Orphans—Fiction 8. Sri Lanka—History—18th Century—Fiction 9. Sea Stories]

  PZ7.W64867 Unc 2009

  [Fic]22

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Astrid

  Chapter 1

  DARTMOUTH, ENGLAND: 1799

  Constance burst into the sunlight and began the last dash towards home from Dr. Poole’s: precisely where she wasn’t supposed to be. She was supposed to be at French lessons, not studying astronomy. She could see the pale grey exterior of Aunty Violet’s house, the lavender bushes sunning themselves. Aunty Violet. Constance felt a pang of shame, thinking about her own behavior earlier that morning.

  “Mademoiselle Girard is horrid to me!” Constance had protested. “I don’t care to learn French; we are at war with them. I speak it passably well already, so I don’t see why I should endure her.”

  “Constance, so many young women would be envious of your education.”

  “I’m grateful for my education, but won’t sit for another minute with that cross old harpy while she shouts at me for putting my adjectives in the wrong place.”

  “There’s no arguing about this, Constance.”

  So she hadn’t argued; she’d just run off. Which would not have put her in a panic under ordinary circumstances. Ordinarily she would have returned sheepishly at dinner time, apologized, and then resumed French lessons. Today, however, circumstances had become far from ordinary.

  Dr. Poole had lifted his head from the map of constellations and offered to fetch tea. He’d only been gone a minute when he returned with a smile twitching at his lips. “Constance, I believe I’ve seen your father’s ship.”

  A jolt of white heat had leapt into her heart. Father! She raced to Dr. Poole’s front room, which had a view down to the estuary. There at the quayside was, indeed, Good Bess, a ninety-foot merchantman with a gold-leaf taffrail and elegant oriel windows, the red duster of the British merchant fleet flying proudly from the masthead. From this distance, Constance could see a few dark figures moving around on it. When had it arrived? Was Father already home, hearing from Aunty Violet how rude and willful she’d been that morning? Good grief, what if Mademoiselle Girard was there, pouring poison into his ear about what a bad student she was?

  That’s when she had started running.

  Constance paused at the front path, panting. She strained her ears. Yes, that was Father’s booming voice all right, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her stomach turned to water. He came to see her so rarely that he took on mythical size and power in her imagination. She hurried inside, caught her reflection in the glass at the entrance hall and realized immediately that she couldn’t greet her father in this state: eyes wild, cheeks flushed, hair loose. Perspiration had soaked through her chemise and made the muslin of her dress almost see-through. She did not resemble even remotely the respectable merchant’s daughter that her father expected to see. The only thing for it was to go upstairs, change and brush her hair.

  But before she could turn towards the stairs, footsteps approached. She ducked into the morning room. Then, when the footsteps drew closer, she slid behind the heavily embroidered curtains, heart thudding, books still pressed against her chest.

  Father entered the room, followed by Aunty Violet.

  “What does it say?” Aunty Violet asked. “Henry, you’ve gone quite pale. What does it say?”

  There was a rustle of paper, and Constance remembered the letter that had arrived for Father a week before, all the way from Ceylon. She had assumed it to be about tea, one of Father’s chief trading stocks. But perhaps it contained other, more interesting, information. She listened, puzzled.

  “It’s from an old friend,” Father said gruffly. “William Howlett. I . . . he knew me before. . . .” He trailed off. Constance couldn’t remember him ever sounding so uncertain, so vulnerable.

  “Sit, Henry,” Aunty Violet said. “I’ll get you a dram of rum. Then, when you’ve calmed yourself, perhaps you can tell me what that letter contained that upset you so.”

  Minutes passed. Constance held very still. The heavy curtain prevented the heat leaving her skin, and the stuffy air clogged her lungs. Aunty Violet returned, and a moment later Father spoke.

  “Howlett has lately taken up residence in a small port town called Nagakodi, in the north of Ceylon. He has heard news of Faith.”

  Constance’s breath stopped in her throat.

  “The locals have stories about a woman named Blackchurch, who came into the port some years ago.”

  Faith Blackchurch. Her mother. She had been gone for sixteen years. Constance h
ad not noticed her mysterious disappearance initially, as she was only a baby at the time. But as she grew older, she had become fixated by the details, reluctantly related by Aunty Violet. Faith had complained of a headache, and went to sleep in the guest room on the garden side of the house. Sometime in the night there had been a wild storm, and when Father had awoken in the morning she was gone. The front door had been left open, and two sets of footprints had led away through the mud to the road. Despite the police’s best efforts, despite the expensive private investigation Henry had ordered, nobody had heard from her again.

  Until now.

  Constance’s mind was electrified by the idea. For years she had dared to believe that her mother was still alive somewhere. And now it seemed she might be proved right. Her already hot blood warmed further. Behind the heavy curtain, she grew extremely uncomfortable.

  “Some years ago?” Aunty Violet asked dubiously. “How many years? Who’s to say where she went after that?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Father replied hotly. “It’s the first we’ve ever heard of her. We know she didn’t die that night, that she lived long enough to get to Ceylon at least.”

  “Henry—”

  “As soon as Good Bess is unloaded, I’ll be taking her back out.”

  “All the way to Ceylon? You’re chasing a dream, Henry.”

  Constance realized she was starting to feel dizzy. She tried to shift her weight, to lean herself against the window sill. As she did so, one of the books she was holding slid from her grasp, landing with a thump on the floor. Her heart stopped. Footsteps. The curtain was flung back, and she found herself gaze to gaze with her father.

  It had long troubled her that she had inherited Father’s coloring: brown eyes, olive skin, auburn hair. The only thing she had of her mother’s was height: she was precisely at her father’s eye level.

  “Good day, Constance,” he said sternly. He bent to pick up her book, glancing at the cover before handing it back to her. “Astronomy, still?”

  This was his way—to treat her interests as though they were as trivial as a small child’s. She railed. “The order and motion of the heavenly bodies is rather a large topic, Father. It may take some time for me to tire of it.”

  “As I understand it, the language and grammar of France is also rather a large topic. And yet you’ve abandoned that prematurely. It’s certainly a more suitable field of study for a young woman.”

  Constance felt shame flush her cheeks, and glanced quickly at Aunty Violet, who offered an apologetic smile.

  Constance and her father paused in that position a moment, head to head, the book offered across the tight, tense space. Then Constance took her book and nodded. “Welcome home, Father.”

  “I will see you at supper, child. Forget what you heard, for indeed you were not intended to hear it.” He turned on his heel and left, with Aunty Violet scurrying after him.

  Constance took a deep breath and sat heavily in the window sill, her mind ablaze with the possibilities. Did he really think it possible for her to forget what she had heard?

  “She’s seventeen, Henry. I think you should just tell her the truth.”

  Henry Blackchurch leaned both fists, knuckles down, on the back of Violet’s sofa and shook his head vehemently. “We don’t know what the truth is.”

  Violet’s voice softened. “We know enough, surely.”

  His eyes went to the window. Outside, the summer light had finally faded. The night was soft and starry. “We can only speculate.”

  “She thinks her mother was a saint. As a child she spoke of nothing else but Mother coming home to be with her. I don’t know if she still thinks such things. She keeps her feelings to herself. But it’s a vulnerable age; she hovers between childhood and womanhood. Her feelings are not in her control.”

  Henry straightened and nodded towards Alice the maid, who was setting a silver tea tray on the low table. “Leave us, please,” he said.

  Alice nodded dutifully and slipped out of the sitting room, closing the door behind her. Henry found it difficult to speak of personal matters, even to his sister. Another presence in the room would tie his tongue completely. He folded his hands behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet. Violet waited patiently.

  “I know my wife was . . .” He stopped, started again. “She had flaws.”

  Violet snorted a derisive laugh.

  “But she was my wife, and it’s my duty to determine what happened to her, and bring her home if that is her wish. I need you to keep Constance distracted. Don’t let her think too much about where I am, or what I am doing. For, truly, she may be disappointed.”

  “She will be disappointed. You both will.”

  “I can’t bring myself to judge Faith as harshly as you, Violet,” Henry said. “What if you are wrong?”

  Violet shrugged, conceding. “You do what you must, Henry, and we will be here at the end of it, as we always are.”

  Henry opened the window and leaned out. The sea called, as it had always called him, since he was a young lad. He felt trapped on land, helpless. Out there, he could move. Towards Faith, perhaps. Towards the truth.

  “I’ll leave on the first favorable tide,” he said. “I can’t stand still a moment longer.”

  “Are you coming to bed, Constance?”

  Constance turned to the soft hand on her shoulder and smiled weakly at her cousin Daphne. “Momentarily.”

  Daphne sat on the top step next to Constance, folding her hands in her lap. She had in her hands one of the little novels she liked to read: ghastly romances about beautiful orphans, inevitably trapped in ruined castles while ghosts rattled chains nearby. Constance was always mocking her for her tastes—goodnaturedly, of course.

  It was dim in the stairwell, with only the lantern at Constance’s feet to illuminate the space. Mother’s portrait was directly in front of them, at the bend in the staircase. Constance had often studied this portrait, wondered about her mother, wanted to know her mind, her heart. As a child, she had made up many games about her mother’s return, earnestly scribbled stories about her adventures on the road home to her daughter.

  Softly, the voices of her father and aunt drifted up the stairs, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “What’s on your mind, cousin?” Daphne asked.

  “Father has news of my mother.”

  Daphne’s eyes widened, her pupils growing large. “Truly?”

  “She was seen in Ceylon, some years past.” Constance smiled weakly. “That is all I know, as Father will not speak another word of it to me.”

  “How perfectly thrilling,” Daphne breathed, then turned her eyes to Faith Blackchurch’s portrait. “She was very beautiful.”

  “Yes, she was.” Constance smiled. Her mother’s hair was black as a raven’s wing around her oval face, her eyes dark blue and her skin porcelain. In the portrait, she wore a dress of deep crimson and a gold locket around her neck. “You know, I’ve often wondered if she carried a little portrait in that locket.” She didn’t want to sound sentimental, so she didn’t confess to Daphne that she’d long imagined a picture of herself as a baby shut inside that gold oval.

  “Do you remember her at all?”

  Constance shook her head. “No, not at all. I try to think back as far as I can. But I only remember Aunty Violet. You.” She squeezed her cousin’s hand. “I hardly remember Father; he was never around. When he was, all he wanted to do with me was tie knots and learn sailing terms. You know he’s leaving again, immediately. Off to Ceylon.”

  Daphne shuddered with excitement. “To find his lost wife. It’s like a book, isn’t it?”

  “Not the kind of books I read,” Constance teased.

  “If this were a book, you’d go too, Constance,” Daphne said. “You’d stow away and have adventures at sea, meet some noble man posing as a peasant, be reunited with your mother . . . and your father would be revealed as a tyrant, perhaps not even your real father.” She checked herself. Her
cheeks were growing flushed with excitement. “I’m sorry, cousin. My imagination ran away with me.”

  Constance patted her knee. “You read too many of those horrid novels.”

  “I like them horrid.”

  Constance rose and offered a hand to help Daphne to her feet. “I don’t know how you don’t have nightmares. This isn’t a novel, Daphne. This is my dull, dull life.”

  And yet she couldn’t sleep. Daphne had unwittingly sown a seed that had worked its way into her brain and germinated. Father wasn’t taking passengers out on this hastily arranged voyage. Plenty of room for her. Before he realized she was on board, they could be miles from British waters. Too far to turn back.

  In the dark, while Daphne breathed deeply and softly in the bed next to her, a plan began to form.

  Chapter 2

  GULF OF MANNAR, SOUTHERN INDIA: 1799

  The movement of sunlight in the water had always fascinated Alexandre Sans-Nom. He sank down and down on his rope, with a stone tied to his back. He had worked pearl banks all along the coasts of India and Ceylon, and knew precisely what to do. With his little pick, he quickly began to loosen oysters from their sticking places and drop them in his bag. Two other divers worked with him: Sinhalese men whom Gilbert de Locke had employed two weeks ago in Marichchakuddu. Alexandre knew that de Locke didn’t like to keep divers on for too many months. They became lazy, he said. They were more likely to turn to stealing. He kept only Alexandre: for eight years now.

  The Sinhalese divers pulled their ropes and returned to the surface. One minute was the average amount of time that a diver could stay at nine fathoms, airless, under the weight of the green ocean. Alexandre could stay far longer, four or five minutes. Until his lungs felt hard, and dizzy spangles began to gather on the edges of his vision. Then he’d pull the rope and be hauled to the surface, gasping, with four times as many oysters as his companions.