by Sophia Tobin
‘Thank you for giving me all the news,’ said Delphine wearily. ‘I wish I had brought my paints and we could settle here, and let them go on.’
‘If you are unwell, we can go back,’ said Julia. ‘You look a little pale. My dear? This is not like you.’
‘I am perfectly well, darling, but thank you.’
Soon, Mr Steele came over and offered his arm to both of them, seeing them into the carriage. He was quiet as he did so, only saying their names and assisting them with careful gallantry. Delphine noted that his gaze often turned to Julia, but as the carriages rattled off up the coast, she wondered if there was something amiss with him, for she had caught a hint of sadness in his eyes.
Before long they came to Dumpton Gap which, as had been predicted, was much quieter. There was a small gap in the cliffs, and a steep incline down to the beach, which looked slightly dangerous to Delphine’s eyes. She had a vision of attempting to struggle down the slope in her slippery shoes, with the back of her dress catching as she stepped, and the idea that she might have to take a man’s arm (in her mind, this was the incorrigible Mr Benedict), made her wonder if she might have to stay at the top. Still, it was a beautiful place, with a high rolling down of green, where they settled for the picnic.
The spread had been well put together by the reluctant Mr Gorsey. The men ate heartily, and poured out hock for themselves and the ladies. Miss Waring and Mrs Quillian, past the age of censure, ate heartily too, taking some of every dish with much enthusiasm. The burden of eating little lay on the younger ladies. As though by secret agreement, they each took a small piece of the bread, and some sliced cucumber to ornament the plate, and left them there, occasionally picking at what was there, in the elegant way they had been taught. Delphine felt sad as she watched them, Julia’s veil fluttering in the breeze as she raised her glass to her lips, and she wondered if she even took in any of the sweet wine, or simply did so for effect, for none of them would allow themselves more than a single glass.
Alba looked around, for the new surroundings had animated her, and she giggled at any remark which seemed to require it, as though helplessly in the grip of her good spirits. Mr Benedict ate with relish, his teeth tearing at a chicken leg; he offered every dish to the young ladies, but seemed pleased when they all refused it and equally pleased to serve large helpings to the older ladies. ‘May I compliment you on making such perfect arrangements, Mrs Quillian,’ he said with a broad smile, starting a girlish flush in the lady’s face.
When the blue cheese was unwrapped, Delphine decided she would take it no more; she requested a large slice, and ate it with an apple hungrily, as if she was showing her parents and grandparents her defiance of them. As the years had passed she had allowed herself to forget them for long periods of time, living their privileged lives in New York, but in the past day or so they had hovered in the corner of her sight, ghosts of her former life. The presence of these people, whose rejection had untethered her, made her deliberately defiant of the rules and conventions she had been raised by, even though they could not see her.
She knew that she would be noticed when she ate the cheese, but was surprised when the eyes that hovered on her with the most intensity were those of Mr Hallam. He allowed his gaze to rest on her as she ate, for a minute too long.
Mr Benedict evidently saw it too, and the way he caught Delphine’s eye before he spoke indicated that he was ready to do battle on her behalf. ‘Many of your parishioners are farming folk, is that correct, Mr Hallam?’ he asked. He was chewing his chicken in a haphazard, almost gratuitous way, and took a large mouthful of wine.
‘Yes,’ said the priest. ‘Visitors normally think only of the sea, but our farms and their produce are just as important.’
‘Do you ever take meals with them in the field?’ said Mr Benedict. ‘Do you – shall we say – try to bring yourself to their level?’
There was an insult in what he was saying, Delphine was sure of it, though she didn’t know what it was. She glanced at Julia, but her cousin’s face was expressionless as she took another mock sip of white wine. Then she saw Mr Steele, and his expression confirmed it; there was a look of disquiet on his handsome face.
Mr Hallam sighed; a departure from his normal way, she was sure. ‘Not on their working days. I bless their Harvest supper, and we eat soup and bread and cheese together.’
‘Very rustic,’ said Mr Benedict. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, having seen your church service – do you think we should all be Papists, Mr Hallam? Is England a little too Protestant for you?’
Alba gave an audible gasp. Before, Delphine had seen only studied politeness in the clergyman’s features, but Benedict’s words had put a light to a wick, and now a flame flared in his eyes.
‘I hope you have not just seen the service,’ he said. ‘I hope you have been part of it. I have served you the blood and body of Christ; Our Saviour demands not just mere attendance, but faith, nurtured in the heart. It is not mere show, Mr Benedict. We must be truthful Christians, prepared for the Day of Judgement.’
‘I wondered, though,’ said Mr Benedict. ‘You seem to embrace so many Catholic principles that I thought you might be a secret convert.’
‘Really, gentlemen,’ said Mrs Quillian, who was polishing off a large slice of pork pie. ‘Is this a conversation for a picnic? Theo?’ She put her hand out, and touched his arm. ‘Where is all the joyful, light conversation I hoped for?’
‘Forgive me, madam, forgive me,’ said Benedict, with a pleading look, a little too intense to be genuine.
‘Perhaps we could play word games,’ said Alba.
‘Alba,’ said Miss Waring, in gentle warning. She was not touching her food, but sat straight, her hands clasped in her lap. Delphine saw that her eyes darted between the painter and the priest; and she guessed it was the priest whom Miss Waring supported.
Delphine roused herself. ‘Shall we walk down to the Gap?’ she said, her alto voice breaking through the tension. She raised a linen napkin to her lips. ‘We were promised shell-collecting, were we not?’
‘That was well done,’ said Mr Steele. Delphine was staring down the steep incline of the Gap, wondering at her rash suggestion. ‘May I assist you?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Take Miss Mardell.’ She saw the flicker in his eyes as he bowed and turned away; she had noted his chivalry towards Julia, and the thought crossed her mind that he had a partiality for her cousin. She watched him go to her and offer his arm, and there was a kind of beauty in the way Julia placed her long white fingers on his sherry-coloured coat, and they went down the slope easily, their steps in time.
Delphine began to walk alone; she was graceful and upright, but as she had predicted, her boots were a problem, and in a few steps she began to slip and slide. She stopped, wondering how she would go forwards, and was settling in her mind that she did not care if she fell, but she would not ask for help, when she sensed someone come alongside her, and she prepared a rough retort for Mr Benedict.
But it was Mr Hallam. He said nothing, only put out his arm. She looked at it for a moment. Her hesitation was hard to overcome; not just because she had refused his help in the past, but because he was a puzzle to her. She had thought she could identify character and motivations as easily as she peeled one of her grandfather’s hothouse oranges. Not him; there was a withholding in him, an opacity twinned with a certain purity – and she could not understand him. She was fearful of such mysteries and, unable to admit her fear, felt on the brink of dislike.
She put her hand on his arm and they started forwards. But they were on a poor section of the path, and when a little gravel gave way, they skidded down a few steps. It was only seconds, but it felt as though time had stopped to Delphine. As panic seized her, she thought they would fall. When they came to a stop, Mr Hallam’s left hand was gripping her elbow, and his right hand her right hand, clasped tightly, his whole hand encompassing hers in a tight grip; he was holding her arm against his chest.
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bsp; They looked at each other. In that brief moment, the look seemed to have a quality of its own that shocked both of them; it was as if their sudden physical closeness had opened up a realm of possibilities between them. Neither of them moved.
He released her.
‘We are safe,’ he said. ‘Do not worry.’
‘I am not worried,’ she said.
As he placed his arm out, formally, and she put her hand on it and they continued to descend, she saw that his pale complexion had gained a tinge of red.
‘The sun is hot,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. They continued in silence, and when they reached the bottom of the slope he drew his arm away even quicker than she could raise her hand from it. He raised his hat. ‘I wish you a good afternoon, Mrs Beck,’ he said. Confused, and wondering whether he might be leaving, she gave the briefest of curtseys. He had left her alone and she saw, below her on the beach, Mr Steele reaching down to pick up a shell and give it to Julia.
‘Mrs Beck?’
It was Alba. Shielded by a bonnet, and in a pale cream dress, she held a parasol over her head, her eyes narrowed in the sun. She had seemed a vision of perfection in the church, and she remained so. Yet the sunlight also revealed her faults – that she was human, not a goddess, with a freckle here and there and, today, shadows beneath her eyes. But the light brought out the extraordinary coppery-gold of her hair, the slight slice you could see, for it was drawn back from her face, and mainly hidden beneath her bonnet. Some yards behind her, her aunt was talking animatedly with Mrs Quillian. The latter said something in response and Miss Waring laughed; a rich, warm sound.
‘Good day, Miss Peters,’ said Delphine. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the girl’s voice was not the perfectly pronounced, middle-class English of her aunt’s. There was a tinge in it, of unfinished words, casually pronounced.
‘Please,’ said the girl, ‘do call me Alba. That is what everyone in my home calls me, and I do miss them very much. It was how I said my name – Albertine – when I was little. It would make me feel better if you called me that.’
Delphine inclined her head. ‘Then I shall.’
‘I have been meaning to say,’ said Alba, ‘I was so fussed the other day, that I did not thank you sufficiently. I meant to write, but when I came to do it, I could not remember the name of the cottage where you said you lived. I am so silly about these things.’ She gave a nervous little laugh. ‘So, I am here to say thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for the kindness you showed me. I am truly grateful.’
Delphine felt a trifle embarrassed. Alba seemed sincere enough, but there was too much intensity in her voice. She smiled, to indicate that the thanks had been accepted, and putting her hand to her brow to shield her eyes, watched the figures on the beach.
‘I also wished to say,’ said Alba, taking a breath, ‘that I would very much like it, Mrs Beck, if you would be my friend.’
Delphine did not know what to say. She looked at the girl, but Alba was in earnest, and was watching her with the same hungry, eager look that she had fixed her with in the saloon of the Albion Hotel. She felt flattered, but also wary, before she told herself: She is just a child.
‘What a sweet thing to ask,’ she said. ‘But I understand there are many girls your own age here at Broadstairs. I am sure you will not need to bother with a stuffy widow like me.’
Alba’s violet eyes clouded. ‘Oh, I do not like people my own age, Mrs Beck. But, if you will be my friend, then I am very glad.’ She came closer. ‘I heard you saw the body on the beach,’ she said in a low voice, glancing back to check that her aunt was not listening. ‘Was it very terrible?’
Delphine had to stop herself from drawing away. ‘I do not wish to speak of it,’ she said. ‘Your aunt says you are easily frightened, and I would not wish to give you nightmares.’
Alba tempered her obvious disappointment with a small smile. ‘You are so kind,’ she said and, unperturbed, bobbed a curtsey and went back to her aunt.
They all went down to the sand. Julia was the best at collecting shells, moving easily over slippery rocks. Delphine saw that Mr Steele’s eyes hardly ever left her cousin; he seemed delighted when she laughed, though he said only one or two words to her, and stood with his hands clasped behind his back.
Alba refused to go onto the rocks, and there was a general sense of approval that she was keeping away from undignified scrambling. Still she bent forwards, peering at shells and rocks in the sand, and picking up a pebble or two.
Delphine preferred watching them from a distance, this group, which now and then moved into the perfect composition, and she wished she had some way of capturing them and framing them in her mind just as she saw them now: the elegant ladies, bonneted, dressed in their summer dresses and ribbons; the gentlemen slim, curious, clad in white and black apart from Mr Steele in his burgundy coat; the crumbling white cliffs; the wet, muddy-brown sand; the slippery rocks, dense green with seaweed as though they were made of them. And she noticed that the painter was the same, though he was not at her distance. He had gone out onto the rocks, taken out a small sketchbook and was drawing them. When Mrs Quillian called and asked him what he was doing – ‘for you know, Mr Benedict, as an old lady I have the licence to ask whatever I wish’ – he had replied that he was making notes of the landscape, of this beautiful gap and its wide, rock-strewn beach. He said this with a broad smile. But Delphine knew he was lying.
She knew he was drawing the people.
The afternoon drew on, but the women’s thirst for shells was inexhaustible. Hooked on Alba’s arm was a basket, and the shells were piling up, a kind of central bank that she and Julia had agreed upon – although Delphine suspected that in fact Julia did not really care about the shells, and would forget them the moment they returned home, whereas Alba was careful, inspecting each and every shell minutely, as though she was trying to decide whether they were beautiful or not. After a while, so as not to appear churlish, Delphine ventured closer to them. But she had no taste for pebbles, for she had banned any desire in herself to collect, on the principle that its pretended permanence was only another way of being cheated. Instead, she left Julia and Alba under the indulgent gaze of Miss Waring and Mrs Quillian, who were speaking to Mr Hallam. She found Mr Steele, at a decent distance, looking out to sea.
As she approached him, he glanced at her and smiled, a smile almost of familiarity. ‘I think there is a sea mist coming,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
Delphine looked. Sure enough, at the blue-green limits of the many-layered sea there was a faint, slim band where the air looked slightly milky; a ghost-line at the horizon.
‘It’s skilled of you to spot it,’ she said. ‘Are you an old cove, Mr Steele, like Solomon on the pier?’
He threw his head back and laughed with real pleasure, and Delphine could not help but laugh too. As she glanced back at the group, she saw Mr Hallam looking at them. To their left, Mr Benedict was sketching furiously.
‘What a strange group we are,’ she said. ‘If you do not mind me saying it.’
‘I do not mind, and I suspect you know that,’ he said.
‘I had to check,’ she said. ‘I know that being American gives me some licence: I am able to say some things without them thinking that I know what I do. I don’t think I can get away with that with you.’
‘Your cousin won’t speak to me with such openness,’ he said, and she saw disappointment in his gaze.
‘She is not as hard and battle-worn as I,’ said Delphine. ‘She still keeps the notions we were raised with – gentility, delicacy and concealment. Give her some time, and she will speak frankly.’
He looked back at the horizon, his expression not softening.
‘Forgive me for asking,’ she said, fixing her eyes on the horizon too, ‘but have you had a disappointment, Mr Steele?’
She knew he was looking at her, and as he did so, she thought she presented the perfect façade of hardness, the brittle glit
ter that she had perfected in the looking glass. What she did not realize was what he saw: a face wide open to the light, and a fellow-traveller in disappointment. He had opened his mouth to be bluff, for he had wavered between bluffness and truthfulness his whole life. Then he decided to speak to the face that he saw so clearly in the light.
‘I left London quickly,’ he said. ‘I was hoping that being here would make me see things anew. Yet I find I cannot be certain about anything. I had hoped to be a family man, Mrs Beck. But I have never been married, and I think I may have left behind my last chance at life.’
Delphine felt a brief shock, and knew that he had spoken the truth.
‘What a sad thing to say.’
They both turned. It was Alba, standing several feet away from them, her basket of shells on her arm. Her voice – young, soft, a note or two too high – was full of expression, but her face was not: it was just its same, remorseless loveliness. Delphine felt chilled, the kind of chill one feels when a cloud moves across the sun – and it was apparent from the look on Mr Steele’s face that he had not meant his words to be heard by anyone but Delphine.
‘I do not believe it,’ Alba went on, with perfect confidence. ‘I think we all have a thousand chances – another and another and another.’ She smiled. ‘We have found the most perfect rock pool, with a hundred beautiful shells. Please come and see, before Miss Mardell pulls them all up and ruins the picture.’
‘Al-baah!’ It was Miss Waring, her deep voice reaching surprisingly far. Alba bobbed them a curtsey and walked off towards her aunt.
When he was sure she was at a safe distance, Edmund glanced at Delphine again. ‘What do you think, Mrs Beck?’ he said. ‘Do we all have a thousand chances, as Miss Peters says?’