The Widow's Confession

by Sophia Tobin

  ‘Good,’ said Solomon, once they were at sea again, the distant roar of the Sands surrendering to the water finally dulled. The word was ridiculous in its understatement. There was no hint of the previous moments, other than he was breathing hard, and that Tarney had fixed the clergyman with a hard stare. ‘I don’t mind your sermons, Vicar, but I didn’t much fancy swimming back to the Sands to rescue you.’ And he gave a hearty chuckle, the sound of which warmed Theo like hot liquor, as the boat shuddered and rose on a wave.

  ‘I am grateful to you,’ he said.

  And Solomon thudded his hand onto the younger man’s shoulder, a touch that seemed to tell of his understanding. ‘You were out there for a long time,’ he said. ‘We called and called.’

  As the boat moved through the water, Theo shaded his face with his hand. He wanted only to be back in the vicarage again, with the tick of the clock, and the sun beating down on the red bricks, and that drawer in his room – empty, empty, empty, as though the contents of it had never existed. As though Georgina had never lived.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I told Julia that Mr Hallam was a puzzle I could not comprehend. I told her that he would often look away when I spoke, and I interpreted it as impatience. ‘Perhaps he dislikes Americans,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he disapproves of your frankness. And yet,’ she said, her blue eyes so steady, ‘he stands close to you. He looks at you. When you look at him, what do you see?’

  I thought long on her words before replying, on his gaze, which had the heavy quality of the air when a storm is coming. ‘His eyes are unfathomable,’ I said, ‘like the depths of the sea.’ It frightens me sometimes, what I feel when I look into those eyes.

  Alba settled down happily in the deep grass at the side of the cornfield, surrounded by the swell of her white dress, holding her parasol up to protect her face from the harshness of the morning light. Behind her lay the view Delphine had looked upon on the day of their first excursion, the first stop of the carriage: the basin of the bay, the pier at its far point. The natural beauty of the landscape seemed unnatural in its intensity to Delphine, so beautiful, like the features of the young girl before her, it was almost painful to look upon.

  It had been a great surprise to her when, after a week of silence, she had received a note from Alba saying that Miss Waring was unwell and keeping to her room, but that she had granted Alba the opportunity of going out, as long as she had the protection of one of their party. Delphine guessed that Miss Waring had anticipated that Mrs Quillian would be that protector, but didn’t question her any further.

  Delphine sat a little way from her, also in the deep grass, and began to sketch. She did not ask Alba to be still, so now and then the girl turned to look at the bay, or twirled her parasol, or batted at a butterfly in the long grass, her small grasping hand reminding Delphine of a toddler, so that she almost laughed. She tried, but could not capture her in the way she wished; she had always had trouble with faces, and Alba kept appearing as a collection of features, but without the piquant beauty Delphine saw in her.

  ‘Did you know,’ said Delphine, ‘I read in the London papers that some women in London were protesting about the clothes we must wear.’

  The remark stilled Alba, as she had hoped it would. ‘Clothes?’ she said. ‘What objection do they have?’

  ‘They think it is a tyranny that we are forced to wear corsets, and so many layers in our dresses,’ said Delphine. ‘Some of them even wore pantaloons, on Piccadilly.’ She couldn’t help but smile at the thought, and wondered what her own mother would think of such an outrage. She probably would have fainted on the spot, at the very least.

  ‘How strange, and ridiculous,’ said Alba. ‘I am glad we are here, rather than in London. Such a thing would distress my aunt greatly.’ She glanced around, no longer staying still. ‘Did you hear about the death of that poor young girl?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Delphine, keeping her eyes on the drawing. ‘I understand the inquest has found it was accidental.’

  ‘Such a horrible business,’ said Alba. ‘And it was doubly painful for us, for we visited the lady and her orphans that very afternoon.’

  Delphine stopped drawing. ‘How so?’ she said.

  ‘My aunt is of a charitable bent,’ said Alba, ‘and she knew the lady through the many causes she is involved in. The lady had brought a whole houseful of the orphans to see the sea. They all seemed so very happy. To think one of them is now gone makes me very melancholy, though my aunt says she will be happier in heaven. I cannot quite picture the particular one, though.’ She swatted at something in the grass. ‘It could have been me,’ she said.

  Delphine continued drawing, trying not to show her disquiet, though the girl’s words had set her mind racing.

  ‘Mrs Beck,’ said Alba, ‘can I tell you a secret? Only, you must promise that you will not tell anyone.’

  Delphine’s mouth was dry; the charcoal slipped from her hand. She caught it, quickly but too tightly, and was glad that she was wearing her blackest mourning that day, so her dress would not be blemished. ‘Of course,’ she said, trying to sound unconcerned.

  ‘I am not really Miss Waring’s niece,’ said Alba. She seemed childlike, mouthing the words in an exaggerated way, as though this somehow softened their impact. ‘She is very good to say so, and of course it is better, for society, to think that I am. But really, I am an orphan, like that poor girl on the beach. Miss Waring’s sister took me in when I was small, and now they pretend I am one of them, but really I am not.’ She rushed on, ‘When this summer is over, I must make my way in the world.’

  ‘And how will you do that?’ said Delphine.

  The girl appeared to think, with an exaggerated kind of deliberateness that indicated she had previously imagined this conversation. ‘The worst thing to do, would be to take a role as a governess,’ she said. ‘Altogether I think it better if I can marry, though when I say that to Miss Waring, she says nothing. Will you help me? You are so very elegant. I feel sure that you know the things I must say and do to be thought of – in that way. I have observed that Mr Hallam cannot take his eyes from you.’

  She did not appear to hear Delphine’s sharp intake of breath, nor notice that the widow was staring at her with a look of shock, her face pale against the black silk of her dress and the deep green grass.

  Delphine took up her pad again, but the moment she put the charcoal to the white paper, it crumbled a little, and she set it down. ‘You should perhaps consider,’ she said, trying to ignore what had just been said about Theo, ‘whether marriage is a step you truly wish to take. Would you not wish for more time? A little freedom?’

  ‘What freedom?’ asked Alba shakily, her smile fixed on her face. ‘At present, I am kept at home, caring for the children of my guardian. They are growing older, and I have no place. You were married – surely it was not so terrible? You mourn so deeply – Miss Waring says it is a little self-indulgent, how deeply you mourn, and Mrs Quillian says she does not insist on wearing black rings and hair jewellery and such dark, cheerless clothes. But I think, if you mourn so deeply, then you must have loved very much, and I would wish for such a love.’ She made this speech strongly, in a tone that Delphine had never heard from her before: with a sense of entitlement, as if the love she sought was some kind of prize, to be won by shying a ball at a coconut on the beach stall. ‘You must help me, Mrs Beck,’ she said pleadingly, observing Delphine’s silence. ‘I will do all that you tell me, I promise. I will persevere.’

  ‘I am your good friend, in all things that are within my power,’ said Delphine. ‘But there is no help I can give you in this matter. I cannot create a marriage out of thin air for you, my dear girl – never mind love, which is far rarer.’

  Alba was not peevish, but the words cracked her cheer, and it worried Delphine later when she returned that she might, unwittingly, have broken the girl’s spirits. The front room of the cottage seemed full of shadows that afternoon. When Delphine turned her mind f
rom the past, the present worried her just as much.

  The Shell Grotto in Margate was a mysterious complex of underground caverns and tunnels, its walls decorated with shells, which had only been discovered some sixteen years before by two children playing in the grounds of a school. Mrs Quillian, in sending out notes to arrange an excursion, mentioned that it occupied a full page in Alba’s guidebook. A full page, it was agreed, deserved a visit. Mr Benedict had returned to Broadstairs for a day or two, and so it was with full carriages that the little group set off to Margate.

  Edmund found himself in a carriage with Theo, Alba, Miss Waring and Mrs Quillian. He was in a thoughtful mood, the reason being a letter in his breast pocket, from Charles Venning. He had written:

  Mrs Craven is quite well, and you must forgive me for not assuring you of this. It was no ‘line’, Edmund, but natural delicacy which made me not mention her. The past should be left far behind. That is, in part, why I sent you to Broadstairs, such as you claim I did, though you are not of a character to be forced into anything; it is why you are my friend.

  You asked me about Theo Hallam. I have known his family for many years. He went to Ceylon, as a very young man, and his naturally melancholy disposition has, I am told, yawned wider and deeper than ever since his return. His family is concerned for him, though he shuns their aid. I thought the sea air would do you good – and I also thought your natural facility, in matters of the mind, might prove helpful to this very dark and entangled case.

  This very dark and entangled case, thought Edmund. How strange it was that, since coming here to holiday, his letters to his old friend were no longer full of small amusements and observations, the kind of chatter he would have enjoyed at his club. This morning he had stood outside Theo’s study, that shrine he could not enter, and wondered, with an anxiety that seemed childlike to him, whether he should knock on the door. Then he had left the passageway, and when Theo had emerged, declaring himself ready for the Shell Grotto, his face was flushed with a faintly dangerous animation. It had startled Edmund, for the evening before, Theo had sunk into a gloomy silence, and when Edmund had asked him what was wrong, he only said: ‘I see the face of that girl, with all the bruises there, dealt her by the sea and the driftwood, and it reminds me of the past.’ But he would not say any more.

  These worries displaced others. For days, when Edmund had picked up his pen, he only saw Julia, as she had stood in the doorway of the cottage parlour, so pale and tired in the lamplight, so utterly dear to him. It was her name he wished to write in the lines to his old friend, for in the last few days it was her he had thought of; even the poor dead girls on the beach had taken second place to her. He had never before felt so sickly over a woman, and he knew that a gentleman would not write this to another gentleman – especially not one of his advanced years – without expecting ridicule in return. But he also knew that he could be accused of fickleness, for his good friend had witnessed his apparent partiality for Mrs Craven, had been present at their conversations, which had shimmered with the suggestion of future plans. Even if Charles Venning did not say so, he could not bear for his friend to be disappointed in him; he even had the creeping feeling that Charles might begin to find him truly dishonourable.

  The rocking of the carriage brought him to; Alba was speaking, her voice rising and falling, bubbling with enthusiasm. Edmund heard a gentleman laugh, and realized it was Theo. He laughed, and laughed again, and his face had that same flushed look, the kind of hard animation Edmund had only previously seen when Theo had spoken of his faith. He thought that he should write to Charles and tell him that Theo had not asked for help, and that he could make no inroads on his melancholy without knowing Theo’s own thoughts, or speaking to him about it. He does not want to be helped but by God, Edmund decided.

  Still, he brooded on the case, and during the journey to the Shell Grotto, whenever his awareness popped up to the surface of the conversation, he noted with surprise that Theo was conversing in an animated way with Alba and Miss Waring, negotiating the conversation with respect and even a certain amount of charm. It unsettled Edmund enough to keep him watching.

  Delphine found herself seated alongside Mr Benedict. His appearance was as he had been the first day she had met him, as though it was a part he had chosen: dishevelled, the bejewelled skull pin placed securely in his lapel, his glossy black hair a little longer, and a touch of sunburn on the edge of his cheekbones. She had never been so close to him before. The rough road occasionally threw them together, and it was only this close that she noticed the faint grime in the pores of his skin, and the light occasional sighs which escaped from him. He was unusually taciturn, answering questions about painting politely enough, but without his usual gusto.

  ‘How is Mrs Benedict?’ asked Delphine eventually, thinking that if they stayed silent with each other it would be just as damning as over-enthusiastic conversation. ‘I thought she might be one of our party today.’

  ‘The good lady is occupied with our children,’ said Benedict, in a detached tone. ‘But she is well, thank you. Daisy, our youngest, has had a cold of late, and I have been a little worried about her – you must forgive my quietness. She is such a good girl; she never complains, and is always full of sweetness. My wife has told me, with her usual good sense, that I am of no use during the child’s sickness, and that she will send for me if there is any change in her condition. The best thing for me to do, she assures me, is to gather all my little sketches together and begin the next painting that I have promised her. I slipped to London for a day or two, also, and my dealer grows impatient. London, Mrs Beck, do you miss it?’

  Delphine heard Julia’s sharp intake of breath, and she knew that she had never mentioned their London house to the painter. ‘It is a fine city, just as New York is,’ she said, ‘but I would not say I miss it. Paris has more of a pull on my heart.’

  ‘How mysterious you ladies are,’ he said. ‘But I will not worry away at you. I am not like most men – I tire of a mystery, after a while.’

  Delphine saw Julia’s questioning glance, but could give her no answer.

  It made Edmund suffer to see Julia handed down from the carriage by Mr Benedict, who was playing at being the perfect gentleman, one arm folded behind him, his fingers curling out to meet hers with elaborate affectation. But, to his relief, as the group merged and assembled, ready to descend into the Shell Grotto, it became clear that Mr Benedict only had eyes for Alba. To Edmund, he seemed to watch her with the same hungry stare that he had once displayed when he had spoken of Delphine, and he wondered at the young man’s changeable nature.

  The Shell Grotto was proudly announced in large letters on an arch over its gateway. They were greeted by a finely dressed and obsequious woman, who ushered them through a small parlour shop into the darkness of the grotto. They descended one flight of stairs, then another, into the dense cold of the underground passageway. ‘The north passage,’ the woman said, her voice echoing in the chamber.

  For a moment Delphine felt as though the walls were closing in. They were rough, as yet undecorated – as far as she could see, a mix of dark rock and chalk, with patches of green where algae was growing, nourished by the dampness of the air. The path was uneven, the passage winding. She felt Julia’s hand on her back. She was in the midst of the party, but in the sudden darkness, breathing in the unfamiliar scent of the saturated air, she felt alone.

  In a matter of moments, they had reached the rotunda, announced by the woman as ‘the place of birth’, for its decorative scheme seemed to indicate a preoccupation with the beginnings of life, though the woman, with a polite cough, did not wish to indicate the exact images. It was, as promised, astonishing. The walls were studded with thousands of shells, formed into complex yet strangely naïve motifs: a heart, a shield with a central shell, or grotesques that seemed to make no sense other than in the mind of the person who had put them there. The shells offered texture to the eye – but it was still cold, and dark. In most areas t
he gaslight offered little relief, but there were also apertures from which pools of light fell and uncoiled, like white liquid, on the floor.

  ‘Surely this is the work of a madwoman,’ whispered Julia, and Delphine knew immediately the image her cousin held in her mind: a mad gentlewoman, fixing tiny shell after tiny shell to the wall in a mockery of the decoration that Alba would undertake on a little box with the shells she had gathered on the beach.

  ‘It is very strange,’ said Theo. Delphine heard his voice, soft and close. He moved past her, his eyes ranging over the walls. ‘It seems a kind of hallucination.’

  ‘It is a wonder,’ said the guide, her rich voice trained, it seemed, to fill the caverns of the grotto. ‘The shells are fixed with mortar; some of them are from the Indies.’

  ‘The maker of this was no mere Broadstairs shell-picker like you, Miss Alba,’ said Benedict.

  They moved around the rotunda, and Delphine looked up at a great shell-pocked blister of daylight, bluish-white to her eyes. She blinked, suddenly disorientated, and took a faltering step back.

  She felt someone’s hands on the top of her arms, hesitant, steadying her. The touch was such a gesture of intimacy that she thought it must have been Julia. But glancing back, she found Theo there, his face barely two inches from hers. He should not have touched her; he should not have been standing so close, in the half-darkness. And she knew she should not have kept her face so close to his; she should have sprung back, exclaiming, curtseying, brushing him away with all the weapons in the armoury of convention. Yet she did not; and their eyes remained locked until the moment was broken.