by Sophia Tobin
And my burden – I have hesitated to tell you this over the past weeks, but now it is at such a pitch that I must share it with you. My burden is that I am in love; that a young woman here has come to mean more to me than anyone else ever has. How it has come about is a mystery, even to me. Love has its own form of witchcraft (forgive these dark words; this is a dark place), and if I feel this love as a regrettable thing, it is because I believe I have nothing to offer her, this lady, and I do not understand why she is still free, why every man who has ever met her has not bowed down before her.
If I have said too much, I am sorry. This place has affected me – as it has affected all of us – so I hope that when I next write, I will be in my right mind and no longer afflicted by this infectious melancholy.
I remain, your friend, Edmund Steele
That night in the parlour, with the logs crackling and spitting out their sap in the flames as though it was winter rather than summer, Edmund had said to Delphine, ‘What of your husband?’ It was a moment made for intimacies; everyone else had gone to their rooms, and he could tell she was on the brink of excusing herself, for it was not right that they should sit alone together. But they had been worn down by the day: the journey to this cold and blustery place, and the ruins of human lives all around them, the lights on the towers hinting at more ruins that might be to come, or might be avoided, and the wine drunk at dinner unlocking the fatigue in all of them.
She opened her mouth to tell him a well-practised lie; the lie she told everyone, that was now automatic and settled in her, part of the layers she had painted over herself, over the virgin drawing – chalk on board – that had once been her. Then she decided not to.
‘I cannot tell you,’ she said. And she saw him read something on her face.
It was in that moment, a moment too late, she thought, that she decided to leave him, to not speak any longer. She went into her room and watched the sleeping face of Julia before taking the pins out of her own hair. I have undone myself, she thought; I have undone us both. After a journey of a thousand miles, I have realized I cannot escape the past.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the trip to Reculver, Miss Waring was alone, without her usual friend Mrs Quillian. I was used to their good cheer; to hear them gossiping together, and occasionally advising Alba and correcting the faults in her behaviour. We saw them as a pair, these two older women, and yet they were quite different. Mrs Quillian saw everything with a warm, sunny eye, and cared for nothing much other than that her plans were not disturbed and that her dear nephew was well-fed. Miss Waring was a little different; she was stout, and strong, and dressed well, always with her cameo brooch fastened at her neck, always with her hair and dress so neat and perfect, as if every fold was thought about. But whilst she enjoyed her friend’s good cheer, the visit to Reculver showed me that she was not naturally so. She chased Alba, as though Alba was a baby animal to be tamed, and it was with a kind of distress that she seemed to observe her; how often she courted the good opinion of the clergyman in our midst, whilst looking at the other gentlemen with indifference. And her friendliness to me, once so evident, began to seem forced.
When Delphine slept at last, the sleep was fitful and disturbed. She saw the dead girls in her mind, and the sight of Bessie Dalton, gulping for air on the sands, jerked her into wakefulness. A pale ribbon of light lay across her bed from the slit in the curtains, and she knew she would never sleep now. She climbed out of bed, moving slowly, by degrees, and dressed as well as she could in the dark room, with only the whispering of the fabric as she raised her painting dress to her shoulders. She let Julia sleep, and went quietly out, creeping down the winding staircase which creaked under her every step, her pale hands trailing down the smooth cold plaster of the white walls.
To her surprise she found Alba in the deserted saloon. She was wrapped in a cloak, but her slumped posture showed that she had no corset on. Delphine wondered whether she was still in her nightdress beneath her wrappings, and thought it was enough to send Miss Waring into a faint. Alba was seated by a small window facing the slope towards the Reculver, and the ruins itself, and her eyes were roaming over the view. When Delphine took a seat opposite her, Alba smiled, then turned back to the window. ‘This is such a melancholy place,’ she said. ‘But beautiful, in its way, as all desolate places are. We must tell Mr Benedict about it.’
‘Telling him will be no use,’ said Delphine. ‘He would have to see it, to feel what you feel, to digest it in his mind.’ The proprietorial tone of her voice surprised even her; she felt uncomfortable from it and decided she should probably stay silent until coffee was available. It had only just come to her, the vision of the painter eating all of his experiences, consuming life, carelessly. She never wanted to draw people, only places, but this was an image so strong that she itched to draw it, in that moment.
‘Oh, but I think we could describe it vividly,’ said Alba. ‘You and I, if we tried, could make him understand its potency as a place.’ She looked more like a work of art than a person, with her hair loose around her clear-skinned face, and, differently from usual, her violet eyes were not warm or cold, but bright with an animation that was somehow neutral, as though it depended on nothing – neither her happiness or sadness. Delphine envied her that.
‘I do not intend to describe it to him,’ said Delphine. ‘He needs no encouragement.’ She did not mean the warning in her voice to be harsh, but somehow it was. She had longed to take Alba under her wing, to protect her and warn her, but it seemed to her that Alba no longer wished for her protection, though she had originally made a bid for friendship. There was something innately confident and independent growing in the girl’s gaze, a departure from her soft and yielding behaviour within the group. Delphine felt that her words were as ineffectual as throwing beach pebbles at a flint wall. Obscurely, this wounded her.
Suddenly Alba turned from the window, leaned across the table that sat between them, and clasped Delphine’s hands. Her fingers were cold, and soft, and she held Delphine’s hands so tightly that Delphine could feel the bones and joints. ‘Please advise me,’ said the girl in an urgent whisper, glancing around as though someone might be listening in the empty room.
‘Go on,’ said Delphine, slightly amused by the drama in her voice.
‘It is Mr Benedict,’ said Alba. She was talking quickly now, as though she feared they might be discovered at any moment. ‘He – that is, he has led me to believe – that he admires me greatly.’
For some reason she could not articulate, Delphine wanted rid of her hands, cold paws clawing at her own. ‘We all take delight in you,’ she said. ‘You are very beautiful – you do not understand how beautiful. The young have their own particular power over those who are tired of the world. If he admires you, then I am not surprised; and you should not take him too seriously, or give his words too much weight.’
‘You do not understand,’ said Alba. ‘He has written to me. Secretly.’
‘Written?’ Delphine could not understand how this was possible. Miss Waring was so careful over Alba, so watchful.
‘I received a note at the Albion,’ said Alba, ‘sent care of his servant, and given to me covertly. I always knew he looked upon me with favour. There were a few stolen moments, when he spoke to me,’ she lowered her eyelashes, ‘at the almshouses, and when we were on the cliffs the other day – but his letter is different. I believe he wishes me to return to the city with him. He says if I sit for him, Mrs Beck, I will be the most famous woman in London.’
Delphine almost laughed out loud from shock. The only thing that stopped her was the expression on Alba’s face. It seemed that the girl was deadly serious; her eyes wore an expression of assessment. Delphine did not understand why Alba – sensitive, curious, amused little Alba – was not shocked to the core by this offer. In fact, she seemed to be considering it, as a much more worldly woman would have considered it, with a balance-sheet of profit and loss. Delphine sat back.
‘What have you done with the letter?’ she said.
Alba lifted her chin. ‘I have burned it, of course.’
‘Good,’ said Delphine. ‘That is the first sensible thing you have said. Do you understand what he is asking you? You seem sanguine, so I assume you cannot.’
‘I think I do understand,’ said Alba, and her gaze was suddenly level, unblinking, flat as the blue sea against the horizon.
‘Did you tell him you were adopted?’ said Delphine. ‘Did you tell him of your background?’ She saw assent in the girl’s face, and pressed on. ‘He only asks because he knows this. He knows you are vulnerable. You should not have told him. You should not have opened yourself to such advances.’ She was surprised at the strength of her feeling. ‘If it was even discovered that he had sent you that letter and you had received it and considered it, you would be ruined, utterly ruined, and Miss Waring’s family, too. Their reputation, not just yours, would be destroyed. He is a charming man, but he has gone too far – to try and corrupt your innocence.’ The sight of Alba’s passive face maddened her. ‘God, do you understand?’
‘I do not know why you are speaking so harshly to me,’ said Alba. ‘It is you who have made me see beyond my narrow lot. You urged me to open my thoughts to ideas of freedom, you told me of women wearing pantaloons on Piccadilly, you shied from me when I asked you to help me marry, and now you reprimand me? I listened to you, Mrs Beck, you above everyone – even when Mr Hallam urged me not to.’
At Theo’s name, Delphine felt a tightness in her chest, as though she had been laced too tight and could not breathe properly. ‘Mr Hallam? What is he to do with this?’
‘He warned me most strongly against listening to you. But I see beyond his simple morality – you must believe me when I say I do. He says you are a bad example, and yet he cannot keep his eyes from your face. They are drawn there each and every time you look away, like filings to a magnet in one of the sideshows.’
Delphine hardly knew what to think about first. She knew that time was ticking away, the moments of Alba’s life where a decision might be made – a bad decision, the kind she had made on one distant night in New York. She tried to put thoughts of Theo Hallam aside.
‘Alba,’ she said, trying to make her voice gentle, ‘it was never my intention for you to be convinced by rogues like Mr Benedict. You are young – please, make a sober judgement. I speak as someone who has made many errors. Do not – do not – make the mistakes I have made.’
Alba stared at her. ‘You have never owned to any mistakes before. And you seem perfectly comfortable to me,’ she said.
Delphine banged on the table, and felt pain sear through her clenched fist. ‘He is asking of you what he would ask of a woman of ill-repute. He is seeking to take you from the respectable, safe life you have and ruin you. And once he is finished with you – where will you be? Dead, under a London bridge, within a year.’ She broke off, knowing that her voice was beginning to crack, and her words and thoughts were beginning to break up from the pressure of sheer emotion. It was, perhaps, the first time she had faced her own desperate situation. There would be no more money from her grandfather, one day soon; she was fading in his mind, until one day he would think of her as dead, truly dead, a beautiful ghost that had once flitted through the rooms of his New York mansion. Replaced by other grandchildren, maybe great-grandchildren – had her brother married? All of this added to the vehemence of her voice and expression, the earnest hope that she could prevent another woman from her own particular type of ruin; from becoming invisible to every person who had ever known or loved her.
Alba looked amazed – not shocked, or thoroughly warned, but simply startled, as though by a failure of manners. ‘I know of whom you speak,’ she said. ‘I know about those women; my aunt talks of them all the time, in veiled ways. But I also know that there is a chance that Mr Benedict may be right. Once I end this season with my aunt, I will become a burden to the family. I have wished for marriage as the only route I may sensibly take. Now, I have an alternative, and I long for excitement and variation in routine.’ She leaned forwards and whispered, ‘As we all do, Mrs Beck. Is it not worth taking one risk, to leave such a life of dullness behind?’
Delphine could say nothing. She knew that she had once felt as Alba did; it was perfectly understandable, and could not be argued against. But she felt, knowing that she could not transfer her experience, filled with grief. ‘If only,’ she said, ‘I could make you understand my life. If I could make you feel, for a moment, what it is to live with my heart. You will face such hardships if you follow this man, little Alba. There are no words that do justice to them.’ She reached out and touched the girl’s face. Alba did not move away, but nor did she yield to the touch. ‘I fear I will be disappointing you,’ said Delphine, ‘but I must say that my honest advice is to make a marriage if you see that as the only alternative. Do not underestimate the value of safety, darling Alba, please do not.’
Alba was no longer looking out of the window; she had slumped against the wooden back of her chair. She looked younger than ever, her lower lip jutting out as she considered Delphine’s words. Eventually, she spoke. ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I must have been mad to even think of it. But he is persuasive.’
Her face was passive in expression, but when she looked at Delphine, the other woman could see the glisten of tears in her eyes, and it reassured her.
‘He is that,’ Delphine said. ‘Do not speak to him again, if you can help it.’ She rose from the table, her limbs feeling stiff and cold, as though she had aged in those few minutes. ‘We should both go, before the others come down. Remember what I have said to you. He is dangerous. I did not know how much.’
Alba reached out and pressed her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then turned away, to look out again at the ruins above them on the slope. Delphine walked away, but an instinct made her turn round and look at the girl. Alba had untied the ribbon holding her hair back, and was running her fingers through her red-gold tresses.
After breakfast, the group decided to venture to the ruins again, as though they might make good their aborted trip from the day before. The decision was made on the basis of a suggestion from Edmund, who thought that the day before had been lost, and, in some way, felt obscurely responsible for it. There was no great agreement with this suggestion; rather it was that no one said ‘no’, but thought that it would be well enough. Delphine even said that it might be brighter, and the sea winds not so punishing. But as they climbed the slope she knew the folly of her words, felt the power of the wind, and looked around at the shivering women in their dresses, and envied the men their long coats, splashed with mud as they were.
She had been determined not to speak to Theo again. At Alba’s words I listened to you, Mrs Beck . . . even when Mr Hallam urged me not to she had felt the depth of her unknowing about Theo Hallam. It was as if a great hole in the earth had opened up before her feet, and she could not take a step forwards or trust even the evidence of her eyes. But when he passed her on the slope, she could not help but raise her eyes to his face. He smiled – a brief, shy smile – and against all her instincts to smile in return, she turned away, mustering as much of an expression of coldness as she could. He hurried on past her, the wind tugging at his black coat, and she watched him move away from her, walking quickly, into the ruins.
They found the ruins still torn by the wind, the sea even wilder below the cliffs, and Alba scampered in the long grass, calling for Theo. He stood beside her, leaning on his walking stick, deciphering an inscription for her, which she said she could not read.
Edmund saw Julia standing at the section of the nave furthest from the towers. She was looking over the weathered stones before her, and laid a gloved hand over the nearest stone. As Edmund approached, he saw the look on her face, as though the inert things were wounded animals that she might heal with her touch. He did not wish to surprise her, and coughed to show he was there; but he had not broken any meditative state
, for she turned and smiled at him serenely, as though she had been aware of his presence and attention all the time.
‘These stones,’ she said, her veil pushed against her face by the wind, like a second skin. ‘I was thinking about all the things they must have seen, and all the centuries they have spent here.’
He smiled, but said nothing; looked at the hat in his hands.
‘I am glad we came with you,’ she said, and her voice throbbed with emotion; the first time he had heard it in her, this refined, controlled creature. ‘It is good to be away from Broadstairs, after all we have seen there in the last few days. And this is a fine view, all the countryside, laid out in swathes and patches, and our little home for the season somewhere along that coast. I had no idea there was such a place, this close, so set out on its own – so majestic, so lonely. All those souls who passed their lives here – what did they feel when they looked out on this? What did they see? Had I come here all those hundreds of years ago, like the two sisters, I would not have wanted to leave.’
Edmund smiled at her warmly. ‘I am quite sure you will be glad to leave by the time we come to,’ he said, glancing at her in her dress, shivering a little. ‘May I give you my coat?’
She shook her head. ‘I have borne far worse than this. A little sea breeze is nothing. But tell me.’ She came closer to him, and the sight of her face seemed suddenly clearer to him, even beneath the veil; her lips red, her eyes blue – not the blue of the sea crashing against the cliffs below but with a warmth that told of candlelight and the sunlight she seemed to shelter herself from every day he had known her. ‘What do you think of this view, Mr Steele? You said to me before that you came from London. How does this compare?’
He did not take his eyes from her face. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said. ‘So beautiful it is almost painful to the eye, for to look upon it is to know you must leave it again.’ He broke away from her gaze; the urge to embrace her was too strong. ‘But I would not know how to live with these empty fields and ruins. My eye is accustomed to the throng, to narrow streets and the way of the crowd; my lungs to the scents of the city. I can appreciate this, but only as an onlooker.’