by Sophia Tobin
The boats were abreast for many miles, so that the crowd whipped itself up into a high pitch of excitement – those who cared, who were not looking about for different entertainment – and Mr Benedict remarked that the Broadstairs hovellers were doing so well on account of all the butter they had salvaged from another recent wreck, earning a reproving look from his wife. In the end the Petrel, sailed by Joseph Miller, came third and the Fame came fifth, its yellow flag fluttering in the wind.
As the cheers rose in the crowd, Delphine walked away, weaving through some of those standing at the harbour-side, and found a bench where there was a space to sit down. Her head was weighted with a heavy ache, as though the air itself was pressing down on her skull. She tried not to draw attention to herself but sat upright, with a fixed expression, attempting to look pleased at the outcome of the race. After a moment the pain was too much and she pressed her fingers to her brow. When she looked up, Theo was standing there, having emerged from the crowd. He looked awkward, leaning on his stick, as though he was actively thinking how to stand. ‘Miss Alba said you looked unwell,’ he announced, a little too loudly and formally. ‘But she wanted you to know the Little Western will be arriving soon.’
‘You may go back to the group,’ she said. She glanced at the couple next to her on the bench – a gaily dressed local girl with her swain. They had been laughing and talking about the race, but Theo’s appearance had silenced them.
‘Go,’ repeated Delphine. ‘I will return directly.’ She made to rise, and he looked as though he might turn away, when there was an immense noise – the firing of one of the cannons on the harbour. It drew cries of delight from the crowds, but neither Delphine nor Theo acted so. She flinched, violently, and sat back down suddenly on the bench, overwhelmed with a burst of pain in her head, and he moved to her side in a moment, dropping his cane as he did so. The girl and her swain giggled, glancing at each other.
‘Are you ill?’ He did not pick up the cane, only stood over her, his shadow over the back of her neck. ‘Mrs Beck?’ he said hesitantly. Delphine, sheltering her face with her hands, did not see his hand rise, then fall away without touching her shoulder.
She did not look up at him. ‘Do not speak to me as though you are making a recitation. I have a headache, and if you come here to be Alba’s envoy I would rather you did not come to me at all.’
He moved closer to her, crouched down so when she looked up, his face was improperly close, his eyes level with hers. She met his gaze; breathed in sharply, as though in pain. He could not stop himself; he reached out and took her hand. His skin was cool, hers burning hot. ‘What is wrong?’ he said, his voice so low only she could hear. ‘Tell me.’
She looked at him. ‘I do not want to see the ship,’ she said. ‘I sailed here from New York on the Great Western.’ She saw her distress mirrored in his eyes. She did not take her hand from his, nor could she explain the magnitude of the memory, emphasized by Julia’s words. ‘It took fourteen days,’ she whispered, and a single tear fell from her lashes.
‘Don’t lose your cane, Vicar,’ dared the girl beside Delphine. Theo shook his head, as though batting away an irritant, his eyes never leaving Delphine’s face.
There was the distant sound of a ship’s horn; the bubbling excitement of the crowd rose. The cry went up: ‘It’s the Little Western!’ and the girl beside Delphine stood up, pulling at her man’s arm.
‘I’d kiss her, if I were you,’ called the man over his shoulder to Theo as he was led away, and Delphine heard the burst of their laughter as they merged into the crowd. She leaned back on the bench and looked up at Theo, for he had stood up again at the man’s words, and picked his cane up from the ground.
‘You wouldn’t dare, would you?’ she said, and she felt the sickly smile cross her face.
He did not look at her as he replied. ‘If I began,’ he said, ‘I would not be able to stop. I do not know what would become of us.’
There was no time to say any more. Alba was coming for him, wanting to bring him to the edge of the harbour so that dear Mr Hallam might see the arrival of the Little Western, belonging to the General Steam Navigation Company. He went with her, Delphine following at a few steps’ distance, and Alba, with a touch of pique in her voice, described how it had sailed from London, its decks laden with passengers and its colours flying. Salutes were fired, the great roar of gunfire thrilling the crowd.
Standing near Theo, Alba and Miss Waring, Delphine saw Alba tilt her head and smile at Theo. ‘There will be fireworks this evening,’ she said. ‘I am so excited.’
Delphine could not bring herself to speak to anyone, to keep up the pretence of good manners any more. She prayed only that she could stay, standing upright, and that the day would soon be over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I was unprepared for betrayal when it came, on that summer afternoon. I could have heard dark words from anyone and brushed them away – apart from she who said them. Julia, my poor Julia, carrying the weight of her guilt all those years, the knowledge that she had set fire to my life and watched it burn. As I moved through the crowds, I thought of Amy Phelps and Catherine Walters, their bodies washed clean by the sea, and I wondered if they had fought, as Bessie Dalton did, as Martha’s eldest niece surely did. When I saw a woman in a veil I would examine her closely, but no one looked as though they could kill. Then I realized how hopeless it all was. Because, for those ten years we had travelled, when I looked at Julia I had seen only innocence.
We write stories for other people and yet we are blind to the truth until it hits us, as suddenly as a stranger’s hand on our neck, pushing us into dark water, holding our heads under until we are finally free from the reach of cruelty.
It was past five o’clock when Delphine saw Julia’s fair head bent towards Mr Steele’s, and she knew her cousin was speaking to her beau with some urgency. Sure enough, Edmund came to Delphine.
‘She wishes to go home to the cottage,’ he said. ‘She is insistent. Will you go with her? She does not wish for me.’
‘No,’ said Delphine. Though she had longed to go home, she knew that to be alone with Julia would be unbearable.
He returned; she heard Julia’s soft voice raised anxiously, telling Edmund she wished to be alone. Felt Mr Benedict’s eyes on her as she went to the front and held on to the metal railing which prevented her from falling into the harbour. Edmund spoke to the driver, asking him to return once he had taken Julia home.
The gaiety of the day had deepened. Some of the merrymakers were drunk; others tired. Squalling children were carried away to sleep off the heat and excitement. But as the daylight filtered from the sky and it darkened into night, there was a growing sense of expectation at the idea of fireworks.
‘Papa,’ said Daisy, ‘please let me stay with you.’
She twined her hands into Mr Benedict’s coat, giving the strong impression that she would hold onto her father and not let go, not at all, until he gave way to her. She insisted that she was grown up and that, this evening, everyone should call her Marguerite, her given name. She was no longer Daisy, she said.
Mrs Benedict, the children and their governess were all preparing to go; the children were tired and over-excited. Mr Benedict, of course, had to see the fireworks. He used the painter’s prerogative, brushed his breast-pocket with his hand to indicate that he would be taking drawings with his pencil and sketchbook. His wife smiled faintly, indulgently.
‘Please, Papa,’ said Daisy again. ‘I will be a good girl.’
It was clear that Mr Benedict’s resistance was melting away; as with a pretty serving girl, so with his daughters, thought Delphine, the strength of her irritation surprising her. So it was that Mrs Benedict and her little troupe went off into the dusk, without a glance behind her. How strange it was to see Mr Benedict, who had often bemoaned the burden of family, watching his wife go, keeping his eyes on her until she was out of sight.
They moved through the crowds to find the best vantag
e point. The fireworks were to be set off from the Little Western in the harbour, and there was a rising sense of anticipation all along the front.
‘There are so many people,’ said Alba, sounding a little peevish. ‘Can we not find a place to sit?’ But of course Mr Benedict would have none of it; the right vantage point had to be found, and he would keep looking until it was found, so they walked until the first rocket flamed into the sky and blistered the darkness with its explosion, and Miss Waring said she would walk no longer.
Delphine looked at the sky at first, but she could find no pleasure in the sprays of light. She watched her fellow tourists, their faces lit up in the darkness by yellow then peach-coloured light, and she saw in no one an unthinking delight, save Mr Benedict, who had lifted Daisy onto his shoulders, and Mrs Quillian. These three, in tandem, oohed and aaahed; Alba did the same, but self-consciously, glancing now and then at Theo, who was feigning pleasure – a polite smile, as if he did not trust himself to let his face rest. Mr Steele enjoyed it too, but Delphine saw that he was worrying about Julia. Poor Julia, she thought sourly, who had confessed her sins but had not shed her guilt – and she felt no desire to go home and to speak to her, now that everything was changed.
Miss Waring was not enjoying it at all. ‘Such a crush,’ she said, after five minutes or so. ‘I must find a place to sit and rest. I must also have a drink – no, do not bother yourself, Mr Hallam, I can see that you are relishing the spectacle. Mrs Quillian, will you come with me?’
Poor Mrs Quillian did not want to go, but she did. More light and sparkle flew through the air, more eruptions and cracks like gunfire. Daisy bounced and cheered, until her father lifted her down, declaring himself tired.
‘You have been very quiet,’ he said to Delphine. ‘Are you well?’
‘Perfectly,’ she said. ‘I’ve just thought, this will be the last evening we all spend together. I am trying to observe, to remember.’
He looked at her quizzically, then became aware that Daisy was not tugging at his hand or his coat.
‘Daisy?’ he said. A firework exploded with a spray of light. He glanced, not panicking yet, at the people around him, then looked low, trying to make out his daughter’s golden head.
‘Daisy? Where are you? Daisy!’
He began to push through the crowds, searching, his voice drowned out by the noise of the fireworks and the crowd’s reaction.
It was Delphine who told the others; Delphine who calmed the immediate worry in Benedict’s face, walking alongside him, looking too.
‘All will be well,’ she said, but she could see the sweat on his brow. ‘She is adventurous and wilful, but a good girl – she will find the muster point.’
‘Yes! The Clock House!’ he said. ‘We will go there. That is where she will be.’
There were rooms set up at the Clock House, for anyone who was taken unwell; and when they arrived Mr Benedict told one of the local women, who had been assisting there, what had happened.
‘She is this high,’ he said, ‘and she has long, very long golden hair, and she is dressed in green, with a high lace bow in her hair.’
‘I think I saw her,’ the woman said. ‘She was with a lady who said she needed to lie down.’
‘Where?’
She directed them to the room. As they walked down the hallway, they heard the delighted cries of the crowd as another firework exploded. Mr Benedict tried the door.
‘It is locked,’ he said. ‘Daisy? Daisy!’
‘It should not be locked,’ said the woman. ‘I will find the doctor.’
It was then that panic overtook Mr Benedict. There was no answer to the calls he made, and he began to bang on the door with his fist, then kick it. And when the woman returned and said they could not find the key, he began in earnest, working at it with his shoulder, Mr Steele and Mr Hallam with him.
When they finally broke the door open, the room was silent. The sight that met their eyes was puzzling in its domesticity. The room was lit by a single oil-lamp, flickering behind its cranberry-coloured glass shade. In the far left-hand corner of the tiny room, Daisy lay on a bed, her hair neatly combed around her face, her arms relaxed by her side. She was quite still; not the struggling, vital little presence she had been earlier. She was watched by a woman who sat with her back to the door; it was obvious that she knew they were there, for their entrance had been violent, but she did not turn. She was a familiar figure, dressed in a pale brown dress with tiny pink roses on it; tall, broad, her hands clasped in her lap, her hair drawn back neatly.
Delphine did not know how long they stood there; it seemed an eternity, but it must have been only seconds. She felt as if her mind was playing tricks on her, jumping around in this room of pink shadows, her gaze dwelling on the flickering lashes of the sleeping child; then that familiar figure. It dwelled on, and circled the question of who this woman was, for what her eyes were telling her could not be true.
It was Benedict, of course, who broke this daze that had fallen over them all. Benedict who stampeded forwards and pulled the woman round by her shoulder. And as the woman turned, Delphine saw, as though every tiny movement lasted many seconds, that she was like a puppet in one of the seafront shows the children loved. The face, lit by the pink light, was working; the lips moving in some grotesque incantation – not a prayer, she thought. Oh, God, not a prayer. Then the lips stopped moving and the woman stared hard into Benedict’s face, rage blazing in her eyes.
‘Do not touch me,’ said Miss Waring to Mr Benedict.
The familiar face was unfamiliar; the usual softness of feature, the air of gentility – all gone, replaced by hardness, and ugliness. Even the set of the mouth at rest was different; the eyes cold, unknowable. Delphine knew, suddenly, that this was the natural face, the natural expression, of Miss Waring. She had seen hints of it, flashes of it, merely; in the moment when she had spoken of painting with Mr Benedict; in the moment she had urged purity on her niece. Tiny flashes of the disgust that now worked the features, disgust so concentrated it was painful to look upon. Even then, she thought, Why did I not see? I am a person who prides themselves on seeing everything, even secrets, even those things below the surface. As when the sand is blown over the beach, laying a skin over it, the ghost of the real beach lies below, just visible, and the ghost outline of the real Miss Waring had been there all the time.
Benedict had passed her, had seized his daughter by the shoulders, raising her from the bed, saying her name repeatedly. Delphine was aware of Edmund turning and running into the next room, calling for a doctor.
‘Oh, do not disturb her,’ said Miss Waring, and she gave a little tut below her breath. ‘It is too late. She has taken her medicine.’ She moved forwards to look at the girl’s face over Benedict’s shoulder, and there was a strange kind of gentleness, even of love, in her eyes; not the social affection she had feigned on their trips and excursions for her niece and the others, but something true and felt.
‘What have you done?’ roared Benedict. ‘What have you done to her?’
The disgust returned. ‘I do not expect you to understand,’ she said.
Delphine had dropped her reticule without realizing; she turned in horror and met Theo’s eyes – and saw the same horror mirrored there.
Alba screamed, a scream such as ladies give when they are going to faint, and Theo caught her just as she fell, Delphine going to her other side. A doctor came running in, and Benedict spoke quickly of what had happened, his voice racing over what Miss Waring had said.
‘An emetic,’ shouted the doctor. ‘Bring me Ipecac.’
As she held Alba, supporting her shoulders in her lap as she sank to the floor, Delphine noticed that the young woman’s gown smelled strongly of violet. She saw Theo relinquish Alba and glance at Daisy on the bed, as though he did not know who he should be praying for first. The doctor slapped the child and shook her, and her eyelashes began to blink. Delphine sought Theo with her eyes, and he held her gaze, held it as though he
took succour from her sympathy, and they looked at each other in the reddish-darkness, looked at each other with sympathy, as though for the first time they were companions, and the past meant nothing.
Miss Waring, ignored, had stepped back, looking around her in a slightly bemused, even amused way. Alba had returned to consciousness and was sobbing, glancing at her aunt and then shielding her face with her hands.
‘Oh, hush, you wretch,’ said Miss Waring. ‘Hush, hush.’
She turned, as though to go; but Theo barred her way.
‘Why have you done this?’ he said.
She tilted her head, and her expression softened. Delphine saw regard there; perhaps that was the only thing she had not faked. Her regard for the clergyman; her belief in the efficacy of prayers.
‘To protect them,’ she said. ‘In their moment of best happiness. Before men forced themselves upon them. Before every piece of their innocence was washed away.’ She was rubbing at her wrist, where Benedict had seized her.
‘Why not me?’ shrieked Alba. ‘Why hurt them?’
‘I was not hurting them,’ said Miss Waring slowly, as though she was speaking to a simpleton. ‘I was saving them. And I saved them because they were pure. There is nothing pure in you, Alba.’ She addressed Theo. ‘You astonish me, taking to her,’ she said. ‘Oh, it was too late for her – much too late. She is mine, you know, my daughter – and as for her father . . .’ Disgust shivered across her face, and she could barely get the next words out. With another glance at Alba: ‘Oh, look at you! Does that surprise you? Do you want to faint again? My daughter was born sinful, Mr Hallam, and no holy water could ever wash that away.’