by Sophia Tobin
‘Do not be scared, Miss Alba,’ cried Benedict, passing them, with a quick, cutting glance in the strange light. Miss Waring followed, chiding him strongly and holding on to her niece’s hand, giving it the occasional strong jerk, as one would pull up a puppy on a lead. Neither of them noticed Theo and Delphine, for they had stepped apart immediately in the moment Benedict had passed them, and Theo turned and followed the group. Delphine let everyone pass, then walked on. Wrapped in her thoughts, she jumped and cried out when a skeleton of white and cream shells on a ground of black suddenly loomed out of the half-light at her. Regaining her composure, she hurried on.
‘And now the altar chamber,’ said the guide. ‘We have moved from birth, through life, through to the afterlife: see the stars.’
It was a rectangular room, lit by gaslight, the walls again completely ornamented, a small decorative altar built into the back wall. ‘Many spirits have been seen here,’ said the guide, precipitating a few gasps. Theo shook his head disapprovingly.
A dark creature darted amongst them; Alba screamed.
‘Some trickery,’ said Miss Waring firmly. Delphine admired how the woman had not jumped; she kept her chin tilted up, but she had released her niece’s arm.
‘My cat,’ said the guide with an embarrassed laugh. ‘Please accept my apologies.’
‘She likes to be scared,’ said Benedict softly, watching as Alba, quickly recovered, moved along the walls of the altar room, running her hands along the shells, as though close inspection would reveal something more.
With a smile, and a nod that showed understanding, Mr Benedict took the lantern from the guide and drew closer to Alba. Then, acting so quickly Delphine hardly saw what he did, he snatched at Alba’s hand. ‘Come with me, Miss Peters!’ he said, and Miss Waring cried out in fury as her niece was pulled away. He did not lead her far, only up to one of the walls, and trailed his lantern against it, watching the expression of fear on her face dissolve into wonder as the light lit up the shells at that particular place, forming a huge heart, surrounded by other lines of colour.
‘A happy coincidence,’ he said, watching her eyes take in the pattern, then settle on his own. Alba laughed, a laugh of embarrassment, her gaze flitting away from his onto the ground.
‘Can she do nothing but giggle?’ said Julia in a low voice. ‘She is such a fool.’
‘She can do nothing to please you, it seems,’ whispered Delphine. ‘Now she is too beautiful; now she laughs too much. She is merely young.’
‘Have you done anything with your shells, Miss Mardell?’ said Theo, approaching them, as Alba darted away from Mr Benedict and back to her aunt’s side. The painter retaliated by placing his lantern on one of the altar room’s niches, taking out a small sketchbook and beginning to draw. The guide cleared her throat, clearly wanting to conclude the tour.
‘Nothing,’ said Julia, ‘and whilst I thought I might cover a box or two, it seems hopeless when I look around these walls.’
‘This, though,’ said Delphine, ‘is a cathedral of shells – you would not wish to recreate this. It tells of a strange mind to make such a place. I think a box or two would be pretty, a keepsake of our days here.’
‘And what will you have as a keepsake?’ said Theo. There was no doubt that his words were directed at Delphine. His eyes had found her in the darkness, and his voice was freighted with some nameless emotion, as it was when he read from Scripture.
‘I have my sketches,’ she said, feeling that he was trying to voice some other question, but unable to decipher his meaning. ‘That is all.’
Exhausted into silence by the emotional pitch of the visit and its strangeness, the group travelled back through the north passage. Before they left, Alba purchased a small sycamore box in the shape of a shell, against the advice of her aunt. To take the focus from her, Delphine did the same, despite Julia’s evidently unimpressed roll of the eyes.
They came out into the daylight again, and it seemed to them all to be a hard climb out of the cold dark air of the grotto, into the sudden harshness of the summer light.
Mr Benedict approached Edmund and shook his hand. ‘I haven’t wished you good day yet, sir. I see the sea air has agreed with you.’
‘And you,’ said Edmund. ‘I hope your family are all well.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Mr Benedict. ‘But what of developments here? You will have noticed that I have changed my favour – from that dark widow to the haloed angel. I wonder where Mr Hallam’s fancy will fall. He seems undecided at the moment.’ He gave a low laugh.
Edmund said nothing, and tried to indicate through his expression that he had no intention of remarking on it.
‘Everyone’s spirits seem a little depressed since I was last here,’ said Mr Benedict, unaffected by the silence. ‘Even Mrs Beck has lost a little of her shine.’
‘It is better that you do not mention it,’ said Edmund, trying not to sound stiff, and failing. ‘We have all been affected by the finding of another young girl’s body on the beach.’
Benedict swung his gaze round to Edmund’s face. ‘Another? My God.’
‘You have dropped your sketchbook,’ said Edmund. He bent down and picked it up. Mr Benedict thanked him for it; his hands were trembling when he took it.
‘I am worn to shreds,’ said Julia.
They were standing outside the Grotto, waiting for their carriages to return. As Julia put her head against Delphine’s shoulder, Delphine couldn’t help but watch the group. Mr Benedict was trying to speak to Alba, but Miss Waring was manoeuvring herself like an outsized chess-piece, positioning her large, bonneted head between her niece and the painter until Benedict fell silent and glum. This only lasted for a moment or two, as he tried to catch Alba’s eye, whilst simultaneously attempting to look penitent and careful for Miss Waring’s sake. Eventually, he addressed the aunt herself, trying gallantry. ‘Are you recovered, madam? My lady wife becomes faint when she first comes down to the coast. She says it is the ozone, and that her senses, used to the city, are overwhelmed by it.’
‘I am quite well, thank you,’ said Miss Waring. Delphine could see a little battle taking place on her face between her desire for respectable silence, and her curiosity. ‘Pray, you were uncommonly busy with your sketchbook, even in the darkness,’ she said. ‘What were you drawing?’ This last question she asked defiantly, as though it was a matter of morality, and that her guardianship of Alba gave her the right to know.
There was no sign of doubt on the painter’s face. ‘Sketches of light effects and the shells, that is all,’ he said. ‘There is a variety of subjects to catch my eye here. Why? Do you care for art, madam?’
‘Some art,’ she said stiffly.
‘We – we went to the National Gallery,’ said Alba, who had been listening, and seeking an opportunity to speak. ‘My aunt likes paintings of the saints; she says they have the truth of holiness in them, unlike many of today’s modern scenes. We saw the one where Our Saviour is praying, and there is a dove above His head.’
‘The Baptism of Christ, my dear,’ said Miss Waring.
‘Piero della Francesca,’ said Mr Benedict. ‘A sublime image, indeed.’
‘And what was the other one, Aunt?’ said Alba. ‘It is by Titian.’ She sounded supremely excited to have remembered the name. ‘The Magdalen is kneeling, and—’
‘Noli me tangere,’ said Miss Waring. ‘I think that is the one you mean, my dear.’
‘“Do not touch me”,’ declaimed Mr Benedict. ‘Beautiful, beautiful.’
‘I know what the title means.’ Miss Waring’s voice was soft, and it was this sudden softness that gave her words emphasis, so that Delphine found she was straining to hear. ‘I know you think I am a foolish old woman, Mr Benedict, and perhaps I am, in some ways. But I know what the title of that painting means, and I do not need you to educate me, or to instruct me in what is beautiful.’
Silence fell. Mercifully, at that moment the carriages appeared from around the corner and were
hailed by Theo.
‘I am sorry to have offended you,’ Benedict said, and Delphine saw the leaden white of shock on his face; the light suddenly drained away by the presence of disapproval.
‘You have not offended me,’ said Miss Waring.
‘I am looking forward to the picnic Mrs Quillian has arranged for us tomorrow,’ said Alba brightly, a slight quaver in her voice. ‘How wonderful it is to always think there is something else to do, tomorrow and tomorrow. I would wish for this summer never to end.’ She looked hard at Benedict. ‘Surely, I do.’
‘The carriages are ready for us, my dear,’ said Miss Waring. ‘Come now.’ And her glance told Mr Benedict that he would go in the other carriage, and say no more words to her today.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The only person I saw with clear sight was Mr Steele. He was good, solid and true. He was a man of experience, and yet he had not been hardened by the world, though he tried to pretend he had. A hardened man would not have fallen in love as he did. No, it all showed on his face, and clearly; he sought Julia’s look, he knew when she was tired and aided her; he brought her drink when she was thirsty. He did all of this politely, without weakness, and everything he gave, he gave freely. Amidst the complicated mass of my own feelings at this time – the memories of the past, my reawakened, violent bitterness, and the sense I had that relationships with others were nothing but poison – still, I believed in him. He was our rock when trouble came, again.
The next day was a fair, bright morning, with the promise of heat. Delphine wondered whether, after his exchange with Miss Waring, the painter might renege on his promise to join the party, but he was on time at the Albion, without a trace of discomfort on his handsome face, though he had chosen to ride rather than take a place in the carriage.
Mrs Quillian settled on a picnic spot a short walk from Kingsgate. The lighthouse was in sight, and so was the Captain Digby, a fine tavern and hotel which had had its origins in a folly on Lord Holland’s estate: a small gothic castle near the edge of the cliff, faced with the local black flint. It was near to the spot where Delphine had first met Alba, and as the carriages followed the coast road, opening out on to the familiar view, Delphine saw Alba glance at her shyly, a brief smile indicating their shared memory. She understood implicitly that they would not talk about that day, the day when the girl had run along the coast and down the gap onto the beach, holding her skirts up, her feet studding holes in the wet sand.
Delphine recognized with a brief shock that the girl was a different Alba now. Aside from her nervous laughter, which she used as a complement to her sunny nature, she no longer allowed any gaucheness to slip through in her behaviour; she was consciously delicate, and agreeable, her gaze often flitting over the men in the party to gauge whether they were attending to her. Delphine realized that the long, bright days of her last summer as a young woman must have focused her mind on the path ahead. Delphine wondered whether she had chosen a suitable beau, perhaps in one of the villas she and Miss Waring had visited, and the thought set up a thread of misgiving in her mind.
She suddenly remembered her family’s salon, on a hot day in New York. Her mother had said something – what was it? – about making a choice, the same choice that Alba now faced: marriage, or nothing, as though the young Delphine had been the pattern of Alba and of so many other women. They were a decorative chain of flat silhouettes, opening out one after the other, all cut from the same paper. Delphine remembered turning to watch her mother walk away, seeing her straight back, her finely corseted dress of pale blue silk, tight around her still-neat, disciplined figure. And she remembered that she, Delphine, was dressed in pink, in a gown displaying her fine young shoulders, her white skin almost translucent. And there were flowers in her hair; too many flowers.
She was only pulled from her thoughts when the carriages drew up. She saw that Mr Benedict had already tethered his horse and was making his way across the field, a wildflower meadow with deep grass. And she wondered why the past was intruding on her again, when she had worked so hard to dispatch it to a distant corner in her mind.
As the sun climbed in the sky the ladies opened their parasols and the men lay back on the picnic plaids, hot in their suits. Edmund noticed that Theo’s gaze seemed to be fixed, as though he was struggling with some discomfort. He was wearing a straw hat to protect his head, but a fine sheen of sweat lay across his face, and he often closed his eyes. As Alba was distributing cold lemonade to the ladies, Edmund leaned towards him. ‘Are you well?’ he enquired. ‘You seem to be suffering in the heat.’
A faint smile played over Theo’s lips, but he kept his eyes closed. ‘I am quite well, quite well,’ he said softly. ‘Remember, I have been in Ceylon.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Martha said she told you about my travels. Even here, in this English field deep in grass, sometimes the harsh sunlight takes me back to that time.’ He smiled, and spoke a line from Psalm 32. ‘For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.’
Edmund sat back and accepted a glass of lemonade from Alba. She did not speak to Theo, only put a glass next to him then moved off to talk to Mrs Quillian, who was sitting on another rug, and setting up a place for herself. While Theo sipped the lemonade, his gaze rested on Alba, with the same marked intensity it had borne the day before in the carriage. The obvious, dramatic quality of his stare disturbed Edmund. It seemed to him that Theo had no real attraction to the girl; he had never seemed to have noticed her, or conversed with her beyond a word or two at the church door, until the last day or so. His changed attention to her had coincided with Catherine Walters’s death, but also with Delphine’s growing friendship with the girl, a kind of twisted synchronicity that Edmund could not fathom. He saw that Theo was drawn to Delphine, though he privately criticized her; he also saw that he was battling it, and markedly turning his attention to Alba. Behind Theo’s studied politeness, and carefully thought-out topics of conversation, Edmund could see no trace of what his real feelings were, and Charles’s letter had added to his uneasiness. A very dark and entangled case.
He could feel a headache beginning, lapping against his skull like the sea against the shore far below these white cliffs. If he was mulling over the possible marriage of the clergyman, it was because marriage was high in his mind. Every day he had gone out with Mrs Quillian’s party, he had done so with the resolution not to speak to Julia, and yet every time he found himself at her side. He was sure now, that in his own way, he cared deeply for her – but he could never imagine broaching the subject with her. He was dedicated to the idea that he would return to London, to his old life and to his club, and was sure that his regard would fade with the effects of the sea air. But still, even now, as he sipped the tart lemonade, his eyes strained to catch a glimpse of her, over in the wild flowers with Delphine, their backs to him, looking at the view of the farmland.
‘I saw you painting on the beach this morning.’
Delphine turned to see Ralph Benedict standing behind her. She had heard movement in the long grass, but had not expected him to come near her; his attention had been taken by Alba, and she had relinquished it without rancour. In the distance, Alba had left her lemonade and was collecting flowers under the supervision of Mrs Quillian and Miss Waring on their blanket.
‘Make sure you pick a good selection,’ called Miss Waring. ‘Not just the red and blue, but also some of the white, to balance them, my dear.’
Julia had gone a few yards ahead, to look at the view.
Delphine wondered what the heat was doing to the picnic, in its basket in the back of the carriage; imagined cheese melting and thinly-cut bread wilting.
‘I am glad you did not come and disturb me,’ she said. ‘I was happy with my work today, but it depends on silence and solitude.’
‘You are brave, going on to that beach alone,’ said Benedict. ‘It strikes me that Broadstairs is as deadly as anywhere at the moment. It is a terrible thing.’ The manner of his spea
king made him sound as though everything was in jest, but when Delphine glanced at him she saw that he had that white-faced haggard look of distress. It struck her that he bore it in so many situations – when he was thwarted, when he was angry – and that his feelings moved through him swiftly, changing as quickly as the weather on this coast.
‘You are right that it is a terrible thing,’ she said. ‘But my cousin and I are not fifteen. We are quite strong, and I trust I could defend myself with a parasol.’
He laughed unaffectedly. ‘I am sure you could. But I am told there was no sign of a struggle on any of these girls, so we hardly know how they met their deaths. I do not like such a mystery.’ He looked out over the field, and she saw an expression cross his face that she did not recognize. ‘I am glad I have a moment to speak to you,’ he said, and turning back, he held her gaze, his green eyes narrowed in the sun. ‘I have recently returned to London, as you know, and as I mentioned, I had the chance to visit my picture dealer. I was explaining to him my latest concept of a picture – I can tell you what it is, since I am sure you will not tell my secret – a group of tourists in a place such as this, on the sands. All of them with their own stories, their own secrets, their own sets of high and mighty principles. Some of them young, some of them old.
‘I talk frankly to my dealer, you see, and I was explaining – in confidence, of course – about some of the characters I had come across during my time here. Naturally I spoke of you, Mrs Beck, and of your cousin – for I do love an exotic character, and to me the American character is most appealing. And the strange thing was, Mrs Beck, he had heard of you. More than that, had had dealings with you. You sold him a painting, did you not? And to prove its provenance, you had to describe its history – and a little of yours, for it came from a distinguished collection. It seems that, in America, you were once another person.’