The Sea Between

by Thomas, Carol

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Richard replied, taking it upon himself to answer. Resting his arm on the counter, he glanced down casually as Mr Goodridge reached into the box with his thumb and forefinger and lifted out the brooch. He took one look at it, then shot Charlotte a furious look.

  She moved her head fractionally from side to side, trying to reassure him that he needn’t worry, but she could tell from his face that he hadn’t understood.

  ‘I think you’ll agree, it’s a very fine repair. You’d never know the clasp had been broken,’ Mr Goodridge said, holding out the brooch to her.

  Taking it from him, she laid it in her palm, clasp side up, to reveal the underside. She couldn’t resist a small smile as Richard leaned forward to make sure his eyesight wasn’t failing him. He’d been expecting to see the incriminating inscription—To Charlotte, with love, R—but it wasn’t there. There was just smooth, unembellished silver. Along with the repair to the clasp, she’d asked for the inscription to be removed. An inscription of that nature was bound to prompt questions if by chance it was seen, and it wouldn’t require a great leap of the imagination to link the silver barque and the initial R with Richard. Practical considerations aside, the removal of the inscription had also been a symbolic act, to wipe the slate clean as it were, an acknowledgment that whatever there had once been between Richard and herself was now over.

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s very good,’ she said, nodding approvingly. The silversmith had done his work well—no one would ever know that an inscription had once been there.

  ‘It’s a very fine brooch,’ Mr Goodridge complimented. ‘Crafted in London, by James Oakley, an extremely reputable silversmith. See—that’s his mark there,’ he said, pointing to it. ‘Yes, a very fine brooch indeed,’ Goodridge repeated as he removed it from her hand. Instead of replacing it in its box, though, he reached for his eyeglass and wedged it in front of his right eye, screwing up his face in order to hold it there. ‘Oakley is an exceptionally skilful artisan. He’s particularly noted for his minute detail. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, Miss Blake, but the ship has a name inscribed on the hull. Did you realize that?’

  She swallowed and, before Goodridge had a chance to add more, inserted quickly, ‘Yes, I did. Er…could you parcel it up now, please. I’m afraid we don’t have a great deal of time, Mr Goodridge.’

  ‘Before you parcel it up, may I see?’ William asked, holding out his hand.

  ‘Certainly you may.’ Removing his eyeglass, Goodridge handed it to William then passed him the brooch.

  Charlotte glanced helplessly at Richard then looked quickly away again as Eliza walked over to join him. She hardly dared think what the outcome of this would be.

  ‘What is the name of the ship, William?’ Eliza asked curiously. Her inspection of the silverware obviously hadn’t absorbed her sufficiently to block out their conversation.

  ‘Can you make out the lettering?’ Goodridge asked.

  Removing the eyepiece William handed it back to him, set the brooch down on the counter and nodded. ‘Yes, very plainly.’

  ‘What is the ship’s name?’ Eliza repeated, as she reached up to push a hatpin more firmly into her hat.

  ‘Nina.’ It was Goodridge who answered her. ‘Named after a particular vessel, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Charlotte closed her eyes, wishing for all the world that the floorboards would open up and swallow her. They didn’t. Floorboards were rarely so helpful.

  The walk back to the square was not surprisingly a strained one. To her credit, Eliza hadn’t made a scene inside the shop; she’d merely walked out. Richard had followed her. Charlotte had paid for the repair to her brooch, then she and William had left, leaving a very perplexed Mr Goodridge to puzzle over why the Steeles had, for no apparent reason and without offering any explanation, suddenly marched out of his shop. Where Richard and Eliza were now, Charlotte had no idea. There was no sign of them anywhere. They had obviously taken a different route back. Not that she blamed them—she would have done exactly the same. She feared to think how Eliza was reacting. Not well, she imagined. Well, she’d warned Richard that something like this would happen eventually. He’d be wishing he’d listened to her.

  ‘Charlotte.’

  She turned her head sharply as William’s voice interrupted her thoughts. It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d left the shop.

  ‘I know I’ve no claim on your affections as yet,’ he said crisply. ‘Therefore, it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to have told me about whatever there once was between you and Richard Steele. But in view of what happened this afternoon, I do think I’m owed an explanation now.’

  She looked away again, keeping her eyes fixed on a young lad who was noisily trundling a heavy wooden barrow along the street about twenty yards ahead of them. Dust was rising up from beneath the wheels in pale brown clouds, drifting towards them on the light breeze. At length, she said, ‘Richard and I were fond of each other once.’

  ‘So I gather,’ he said drily. ‘Might I enquire what happened?’

  ‘I decided I didn’t want to marry him.’

  They walked on for a few yards in silence, and then he said in unmistakably reproving tones, ‘Why didn’t you return the brooch to him? It’s usual to return such gifts.’

  In no mood for being lectured, she shot him an impatient look. ‘William, I know you found what happened at the silversmith’s very uncomfortable but—’

  ‘Uncomfortable?’ he cut in. ‘I could think of stronger words than that to describe what I felt! As for Eliza Steele—God knows how she felt, poor woman, being publicly humiliated like that. That was the first she knew about you and Steele, by the look of it.’

  Charlotte turned away, remembering the shocked, bewildered look on Eliza’s face as the implications of the name etched on the hull of the small silver brooch sank in. ‘Richard meant for the best, I’m sure.’ She stopped short, suddenly realizing she was defending his actions, but having started, she felt compelled to finish. ‘I imagine he said nothing to Eliza because he thought she might be upset to learn that she was his second choice.’

  William made a sharp scoffing noise in the back of his throat. ‘She’ll be more upset learning it this way.’

  Quickening her stride, she strode off ahead of him. ‘I don’t want to discuss it any more,’ she said over her shoulder. After about twenty yards she relented and slowed down, allowing him to catch up with her; they walked the rest of the way to the square together, but in silence. The quarter of an hour wait for George and Ann to arrive felt more like a week.

  ‘Where are Richard and Eliza? Are they still at the silversmith’s?’ Ann asked, surprised to see the two of them alone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte replied.

  George’s brows gathered in a puzzled frown. ‘Did they not go to the silversmith’s with you?’

  ‘They did, but we left separately,’ she returned.

  Sensing something wasn’t right, Ann gave Charlotte a curious look.

  ‘I hope they won’t be long,’ George said, reaching into his pocket for his watch. ‘We’ll have to leave in quarter of an hour or we’ll miss the train.’ Slipping his watch back, he looked around the square, scanning the web of streets that led off it.

  ‘I very much doubt the Steeles will be accompanying us on the train back to Lyttelton,’ William stated coolly.

  George looked at him, frowning. ‘Oh? Why not?’

  William turned to Charlotte and cocked his forehead at her, his meaning plain: you tell them why not.

  She kept the account as brief as possible. At the finish of it, George, in a surprisingly calm tone, said, ‘Well, I don’t suppose you could have foreseen that happening, Charlotte. All the same, it must have been extremely difficult for Eliza. How did she react?’

  ‘Exceptionally well in the circumstances,’ William answered sourly.

  ‘Oh, poor Eliza,’ Ann murmured, biting her lip. ‘What a dreadful thing to happen.’

>   ‘It was. And entirely avoidable, in my opinion,’ William said.

  Charlotte glared at him in irritation, then turned to George. ‘William blames me for what happened because I kept the brooch and didn’t return it to Richard, as he feels I ought to have done.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame Charlotte, William,’ Ann said, rallying to her defence. ‘Charlotte wouldn’t deliberately hurt anyone.’

  ‘William isn’t blaming her, Ann,’ George said, a fraction impatiently. ‘He’s merely saying this might have been avoided if Charlotte had given the brooch back to Richard.’ Catching William’s eye, he gave a nod of agreement. ‘It could have been avoided, you’re right. And in the normal way of things I’m sure Charlotte would have returned the brooch. But you’ll grant the circumstances are a little unusual, in that Richard is now related to us—he’s part of our family now.’

  Whether William was swayed by George’s reasoning or whether he simply decided to let the matter drop it was hard to say, but he plainly didn’t wish to discuss it further. ‘I suggest we leave if they aren’t here in ten minutes,’ he said. And with that he walked off to inspect the cathedral foundations again.

  Charlotte let out a long sigh then turned to George. ‘Thank you for taking my side, George,’ she said gratefully. She was surprised he had, because he was a stickler for correctness, and the ‘correct’ thing to do would have been to return the brooch. Moreover, she had never known George to disagree with William about anything before.

  ‘I wasn’t taking your side!’ George returned in a sharp, low voice. ‘I was trying to restore William’s good opinion of you, and the only way to do that was to justify your actions somehow. He’s considering asking you to marry him, but after this afternoon I dare say he’ll have second thoughts, and I can’t say I blame him. William won’t want a wife who’s liable to make decisions that might embarrass him.’

  ‘So that was your reason for defending my actions!’ she said angrily. ‘For a moment, George, I mistook it for loyalty.’

  ‘Please don’t argue. Not in public,’ Ann cautioned quietly.

  ‘No, we’d better not argue, George. It might embarrass William,’ Charlotte said.

  Picking the sarcasm in her voice, George glowered at her, then turned away, clasped his hands behind his back, and began pacing back and forth.

  Ann flicked Charlotte a sympathetic look, sensibly timing it for when George’s back was to them. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Charlotte,’ she whispered.

  Charlotte let out a long sigh, nodded, and looked away. The truth was she did blame herself, in part at least. She ought to have returned the brooch to Richard. That had been her intention in fact. After their argument, she’d planned to hand it back to him in person on his next trip home, assuming he hadn’t reconsidered matters. Richard, however, had neither returned nor reconsidered—he had married Eliza. It had been nearly two years before Charlotte had set eyes on him again, on the evening when her brooch had been stolen. When she’d eventually got it back, Richard was at sea again, which meant it would have been several more months before she could return it to him. That was when she’d decided to keep it and have the inscription removed. Gifts of that nature were normally returned, yes, but not nearly three years after the event. As for the inscription on the hull, she hadn’t given it a thought. To the naked eye it merely looked like decorative swirls. How could she possibly have foreseen that it would cause an upset like this? Oh, please let Richard and Eliza not come, she prayed. Let them travel home alone. It would be a very unpleasant journey back if they did show up.

  At the end of the agreed ten minutes, with still no sign of them, George walked over to Ann and took her arm.

  ‘Are we leaving without them?’ Ann asked with obvious relief.

  ‘We shall have to,’ George returned. He threw Charlotte a sour look, then glanced back over his shoulder to give the streets leading off from the square a final check. ‘Blast!’ he muttered, as a distinctive red skirt suddenly came into view. ‘Here they are now.’

  Feigning normality, Richard and Eliza were walking along, arm in arm. Human nature being what it was, they weren’t about to publicly admit that there was anything amiss between them.

  Resigning herself to a journey to Lyttelton via hell, Charlotte went over to William and, taking a leaf out of the Steeles’ book, slipped her arm through his. ‘Shall we walk on ahead?’ she suggested.

  William didn’t reply but merely set off walking, leaving George and Ann with the unenviable task of greeting the Steeles.

  With relationships strained on so many fronts, the train journey back to Lyttelton was excruciatingly silent. To add to the discomfort, every single one of them was assiduously avoiding eye contact with at least one person, and in most cases with several people. When the train at last slowed to a halt in Lyttelton, it was debatable which was the louder: the final blast of steam from the engine or the combined sighs of six very relieved passengers.

  By the time Charlotte stepped down from the carriage, the platform was swarming with disembarking people; George, Ann, Richard and Eliza somewhere among them. She waved her hand in front of her face and coughed as a hissing white cloud engulfed her, momentarily obscuring her vision.

  ‘They’re over there,’ William said coolly from beside her.

  She looked across to where he was pointing, caught a brief glimpse of Richard talking to George, and then he was gone, blocked from view as people moved to and fro on the platform. When she eventually had a clear view again, she wasn’t unduly surprised to see that Richard and Eliza had left. The outing had been meant to end with supper at George’s house, to which everyone had been invited, but Richard had presumably found an excuse to decline it and taken Eliza home. A wise move, in the circumstances. Would William follow suit, make an excuse and go home? she wondered. She doubted it. William was the sort of man who, if he accepted an invitation, would honour it. A man with a strong sense of duty, William. Which was why he’d been so disapproving of her keeping Richard’s brooch: he regarded it as her duty to return it. He was right, of course, but the execution of duty was sometimes not altogether straightforward.

  Charlotte’s assessment of William’s character proved absolutely correct. He did join them for supper, and it was every bit as bad as she expected. Conversation, what little there was, came in fits and starts, lasted for about a minute, then died. In the intervening silences, every sip of tea, every swallow of food could be heard. Ann looked hugely relieved when her son’s cries summoned her to the bedroom. Charles’s day in Mrs Henderson’s care had unsettled him a bit. As the parlour door closed behind Ann, Charlotte glanced at the clock, wondering how much longer William’s sense of duty would demand he stay. He was sitting as he’d been sitting for the last half hour, with his cup and saucer in his lap, the remains of his tea no doubt stone cold.

  ‘Another sandwich, William?’ She picked up the plate and held it out to him.

  William shook his head, reached forward to set his cup and saucer down on the table, then rose to his feet. ‘No, thank you. It’s time I was on my way.’ Tugging his waistcoat down to pull out the creases, he turned to George. ‘Wish Ann goodnight from me, would you?’

  George nodded. ‘I will. Charlotte, will you see William out?’

  Setting the plate of sandwiches down, she stood up and led the way to the front door, only too glad to see William out. Not that the evening was over yet—she still had George to contend with. He’d no doubt have a few things to say before he went to bed.

  As she pulled open the door a refreshing blast of cool night air swept across her face, lifting the lace collar of her dress. She sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs, then stepped aside for William to pass.

  He was obviously not quite ready to leave, though, and didn’t move. ‘Do you intend to keep the brooch, Charlotte?’ he enquired bluntly.

  Resisting the urge to sigh loudly, she answered, ‘I did intend to give it back to Richard, William, but the opportunity never prese
nted itself.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked you.’

  She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I can’t see that there’s anything to be gained by giving it back now. What purpose would it serve?’ It wouldn’t undo the damage that had been done.

  ‘So you intend to keep it. Why? Does it still hold some meaning for you?’

  Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘No!’

  ‘Then why are you so loath to give it up?’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Then you’ll return it?’

  Shrewd as a fox, William had cleverly manipulated things so there was only one answer she could give. ‘Yes.’

  A floorboard creaked loudly as William stepped forward to leave. ‘Well, I suggest you do so before he leaves port.’ He paused in the doorway, looked down at his feet for a moment as if considering, then looked up again, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. ‘Goodnight, Charlotte,’ he said quietly, then left.

  She stood in the doorway, watching him walk down the street until he faded into the shadowy darkness, then shut the door and went back to the parlour—and George.

  ‘I know what you think—that I’m to blame for what happened,’ she said, pre-empting him as she sailed into the room. ‘And before you tell me that I should have given the brooch back, I know I should, and if Richard hadn’t been at sea, I would have returned it. But you can’t return something to someone who isn’t there.’

  George gave an impatient snort. He was standing in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back, waiting to give her a piece of his mind. ‘The brooch doesn’t concern me, Charlotte. The embarrassment you caused my partner this afternoon does. I trust you apologized to him?’

  Evading the question, she said shortly, ‘I wasn’t solely to blame for what happened this afternoon, George. Richard was to blame, too. He oughtn’t to have kept Eliza in the dark.’

  George gave another snort. ‘A man’s marriage is his own private affair, Charlotte. What Richard decided to tell or not tell his wife isn’t for you to pass judgment on.’