Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  Lanterns sit in brackets on either side of the doorway, so she lights them with the box of long matches that sits on the dresser. There is a cot pushed against a wall, and a small bed. Against the other wall is an adult-sized bed. Between the beds is a large blue rug and a box of toys. Isabella picks up a dropped teddy bear and places it on the small bed. She hasn’t even asked how old Xavier is. Again the feeling overwhelms her: what is she doing here? It’s too fast. She needs time to get used to the fact that they are all dead and she is on her own in a foreign place.

  But last night she felt overwhelmed too, and after a good sleep she recovered. Her ordeal has exhausted her, deep down to her soul. She drops her bag beside her bed and slides out of her dress.

  The front door bangs shut. Footsteps recede down the stairs. She is alone in a strange house. Curiosity prickles. She opens the nursery door and listens out, hard. Nothing. She pads to the end of the hallway and tries the door through to the sitting room. It is locked.

  Isabella bristles, even though she knows she hasn’t a right to. Katarina had met her for the first time less than an hour ago: of course she isn’t going to have free rein to explore the house alone. She is hired help.

  Isabella returns to her room and sinks down on her knees on the bed, with her elbows resting on the windowsill. She can see the top of the lighthouse above the trees. Its beam has flashed into life and is making a pattern out to sea, across the miles and the raging ocean that separate Isabella’s old life from this new, strange one. She watches it while the night deepens and the dark closes in.

  It is 3 am and Matthew is burying a large object in the forest. It is not a body, but he would feel just as guilty if it were. He has cranked the weights so the signal will keep flashing, but he has never left the lighthouse during operation before. Leaving the light unattended briefly is not forbidden, of course, but it is flirting with risk, and Matthew does not like risk. Nor does he like the fact that he lied to Isabella about this precious object that he has sealed carefully in its walnut coffin with oilskin, in order to bury it here among the buttonwood trees.

  He finishes digging and stands, with his hand on his back. He is not as young as he once was. Then, when the twinge of pain recedes, he drops the box in the hole three feet deep and begins to cover it with soil. As he works, he wonders why he is doing this. Why is he neglecting his duties, toiling in the darkest hour of the night, hiding something precious that was probably gained illegally, for a woman he has known barely twenty-four hours? Is he such an old fool that anybody who reminds him of Clara can crook his moral compass?

  No. He is helping a person in need, that is all. She came to him, desperate and bleeding, without so much as a pair of shoes. Now she has the precious token of her lost baby, and she has a place to stay and an honest job. Burying this chest is as good as dropping it in the ocean: it just allows her to change her mind, should she decide to go back to where she came from one day.

  Matthew pats the soil so that it lies at the same height as the surrounding area. Finally, he arranges some deadfall on top of it, so it seems as though nobody was ever here, burying treasure. It is time to go back to the light.

  Thirteen

  Percy Winterbourne can’t read. Of course he has been taught. Of course he isn’t stupid. But when he looks at letters and numbers, they sometimes turn to hieroglyphs: twist themselves upside-down and backwards. With a little concentration and some clever tricks—covering some letters while deciphering others, looking at them with a pocket mirror, then again without—he can usually get by. But the best way to get by is never to sit at a desk, never to open a book or a ledger, and never to be in company in those moments when he is forced to read something.

  And when Arthur finally returns from his journey, Percy will hand all this paperwork back to him and never look at it again.

  He sits, at his brother’s big mahogany desk, under the window that looks out onto the chestnut wood. The catkins are all blooming, and wildflowers glow golden on the ground in the late-afternoon sunshine. How he would love to be out there, with his dogs, tramping or hunting or just whistling a merry tune. Not in here trying for the fourth time to make the numbers at the bottom of the column match the sum of the numbers at the ends of the rows. He swears that now the numbers are jumping between columns and rows just to spite him because he has cursed them so often today.

  A knock at the door. Percy pushes the ledger under a pile of jewelry orders. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he is still struggling with March’s figures, given it is nearly May.

  “Come in,” he says, making sure that he doesn’t sound frustrated or weak or defeated.

  The door opens and Charles Simmons, head of trade, stands there. He is as white as a sheet. Apprehension tingles in Percy’s gut. “My Lord, I . . .”

  “Close the door, and sit down,” Percy says. It is bad news. Nobody looks like that if it’s not bad news.

  Charles crosses the thickly carpeted floor and sits in the leather chair opposite the desk. He folds shaking hands over his knees.

  “Spit it out,” Percy says.

  “I had a telegram earlier today from an angry businessman in Brisbane, Australia. He was expecting a shipment. It seems the Aurora has failed to reach Brisbane.”

  Percy is confused. “Where is Brisbane? I thought Arthur was going to Sydney.”

  “Brisbane was the last port before Sydney. They were due to drop off a load of carpets and wallpapers.” Charles glances at the flocked green wallpaper in the office.

  “Then they are late. Lateness is not a thing to be so pale-faced about.”

  “I have telegraphed the port in Townsville. Aurora left a shipment there on March twenty-nine, just before a spell of very poor weather. That was nearly a month ago, sir. Townsville to Brisbane is only a handful of days.”

  Percy tries to stop the rising tide of panic. A disaster! The priceless mace, the item that has finally brought them a Queen’s commission. And Arthur: how will he tell Mother if Arthur has been lost at sea? Since Father’s death, she worships her firstborn son. So much so that Percy has long since turned cold towards his brother and his mad sister-in-law.

  Then a thought jolts his heart: if Arthur is gone, will Percy be stuck in this office with numbers and letters forever?

  He leaps out of his seat. “Don’t tell a soul,” he says. “They might yet turn up. Telegraph the light stations along the coast. Contact the constabulary in this Brisbane port. Do everything you can to locate the Aurora. We aren’t to assume the worst. Not yet.” The thought of the priceless mace deep at the bottom of the ocean with only his dead brother’s hands to protect it makes Percy’s stomach itch. If it is lost at sea, then anyone brave enough to dive under the water for it can have it.

  “I will, sir,” Charles says, standing. “I won’t rest until we know what happened. And I regret being the man who brought you the fear of losing something so precious.”

  “So precious,” Percy repeats. “The most costly thing we have ever made.”

  Charles clears his throat. “I meant your brother, sir.”

  The short, awkward silence makes Percy angry. “Go on. Away with you. Let me know what you discover.”

  Isabella wakes very early, but the door at the end of the hallway is still locked. She rises, washes and dresses, then sits on the end of her bed to wait. She is not the mistress of her own house. She is a servant. Servants wait on the whims of others. This is not so different to the general condition of being a woman, so Isabella hopes she will grow accustomed to service quickly. Surely it will take her only a few months to earn the money for her journey. Isabella rubs her fingers lightly over the black ribbon on her wrist. She can endure it.

  As the sun hits the window, she hears the sound of others stirring in the house. Tentatively, she rises and leaves the nursery. The inner door is now open, and the smell of cooking fruit and cinnamon beckons from the kitchen. She rounds the corner, passes through the dining room and sees a full-hipped woman standing
at the wood stove, stirring a pot. Isabella clears her throat softly.

  The woman turns. “Oh, good morning, miss,” she says, with a tight smile. “Mrs. Fullbright told me to expect you.”

  “Is Mrs. Fullbright about?”

  “She’s just downstairs. She’ll be up for breakfast shortly, but if you’re hungry you can eat here with me.” The cook gestures to the small, round table in the middle of the kitchen. “It’s where we staff eat.”

  Isabella pulls out a chair and sits down. It is stiff and hard. “I’m Mary,” she says.

  “I’m Bessie, but everyone just calls me Cook.” She spoons out a bowl of porridge with stewed apple on top and places it in front of Isabella.

  “Are there other staff?”

  Cook glances around and drops her voice low. “The Fullbrights aren’t as well-off as they were. She let the maid go two months ago, and hasn’t advertised for another. You and I will have to do most of the dusting and cleaning.”

  Dusting? Cleaning? “I see.”

  “There’s not much, love. We’ll get it done in a jiffy, and when Master Xavier’s back you’ll see he’s little trouble. Can entertain himself for hours quietly.”

  “Really? Mrs. Fullbright gave me reason to think him a difficult child.”

  “Aye, but not noisy or demanding. He doesn’t speak.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Oh, three or four by my reckoning. Should be talking his head off by now, but hasn’t said a word. Not even Mama or Papa.” Cook turns back to the pot. “But you mustn’t mention it directly to the Fullbrights. They are very sensitive about it. Can’t bear the idea that he might not be normal. Mr. Fullbright has formed the opinion that the boy is quiet simply to be naughty.”

  Isabella lets this knowledge sink in. She is curious to meet Xavier, and Mr. Fullbright. She is curious too to see Katarina again in the light of day. Her memory is of a glamorous beauty, gleaming darkly by lamplight. Perhaps she looks more like a real woman now. But Isabella is also afraid: she hasn’t looked after a child since she lost her own.

  Cook sits down across from Isabella with a bowl of porridge and eats noisily. Isabella hears footsteps on the stairs and then Katarina’s voice: “Is Mary awake yet?”

  “Here, ma’am,” Isabella calls back, pushing back her chair and meeting Katarina in the living room.

  Katarina’s hair is pulled back tightly today. Without the mane of dark hair she lacks the cloud of lush sensuality that Isabella remembers from last night. She is not in red, but in dark blue serge. Still beautiful, yes, but not distractingly so. Isabella wonders where Katarina went last night, without her husband, in such unabashed glamour.

  “Ah, Mary. Your face is not so pink today and you have brushed your hair. I’m glad. You should terrify Xavier should he meet you looking such a wreck. Come, let me show you around the house and we’ll talk about your engagement.”

  Katarina points out all the rooms Isabella has already seen or passed, including the two next to the nursery. One is a sewing room, the other a guest bedroom. On the far side of the sitting room is a sumptuous bedroom, which belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Fullbright. Isabella is led downstairs, then through a wooden gate to the lower floor of the house.

  “Here is Cook’s room and sitting area,” she says, indicating a door on the left. “Here is where the maid sleeps, though she has returned to Scotland and we haven’t replaced her yet.” Then she indicates, with a nod of her head, a narrow hallway ending in a door. “You aren’t to go down there.”

  Isabella opens her mouth to ask why, then remembers she is staff and must not ask. “Yes, ma’am,” she says instead.

  “And don’t take Xavier near it either.” She opens another door. “Laundry. Cook’s doing laundry at the moment until we find a new maid. I want you to take care of upstairs. Make the beds every morning, beat the mats on Saturdays, keep up with dusting and polishing. Cook will show you where everything is. You can start today while Xavier is still away.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Isabella says again, glancing back to the forbidden hallway, the forbidden door.

  “Through here is the garden, though you can also get there down the stairs off the kitchen.” Katarina opens a door onto a sunlit garden.

  Isabella smells the grass, the flowers. It has been so long. Without thinking, she steps out ahead of Katarina, slips off her shoes, and buries her toes in the grass. The heartbeat of the world thunders up through the soles of her feet.

  “Please, Mary, keep your shoes on,” Katarina says with a frown, then starts up the back stairs.

  Isabella startles out of her reverie. Shoes. She presses her feet back into them and hurries up the stairs after Katarina.

  Matthew is on his way down the spiral stairs when he hears the telegraph machine clatter into life. It is just before eight in the morning, and he has been idly sweeping the dead bugs off the deck, wondering how Isabella is today. Mooning like a lad. He is grateful for the distraction of the Morse code. He pulls out a blank telegram and begins to decode the signal. Because he must transcribe telegrams that are not intended for him, he has become adept at writing down what he hears without really listening to it. It is only when he has transcribed the first line that he realizes this message is intended for him.

  Lost ship Aurora. Three-masted barque last seen March 29th Townsville. Expected in Brisbane April 12th at latest. Reply urgently with news of any sighting.

  In his time as a lighthouse keeper, he has witnessed the unfolding drama of two other ships being lost. It is a slow disaster for those left behind, though for those on board it must be fast and brutal. Families and traders and police, however, experience it at one remove: first the suspicion of something astray, then the growing certainty, then the sinking realization that a cruel death has long since taken important men from them. It is horror in increments. And while Matthew hopes for good news of the Aurora for the sakes of all those involved, he has already readied himself for what comes next.

  He finishes transcribing the telegram, looking sadly at the name of the man who has sent it: Charles Simmons on behalf of Percy Winterbourne. He wonders if either of these men are family, if they are pacing anxiously with hot hearts waiting for news of loved ones.

  Matthew turns to his station records, where he logs every ship that he sees and on which date. It is possible that Aurora passed a long way out to sea, beyond his view, but if she was coming to Brisbane she would likely be no more than three miles off the coast. He checks the date. Extremely bad weather. He shudders. He would not have wanted to be out in that weather. He prepares to telegraph back the truth, that he has no record of seeing Aurora. Perhaps another light station has seen her. But then he pauses, his hand frozen in the air.

  Isabella.

  If Aurora went down, it would have been in the past three weeks. Isabella had arrived, out of nowhere, dragging that chest, her clothes in rags. The burned skin on her face and arms, the swollen blisters on her feet—how far had she walked? Had she walked away from a shipwreck?

  Matthew sits back. He mulls it over awhile, then, instead of telegraphing Charles Simmons in England, he sends a message to the next lighthouse north, to Clovis McCarthy at Cape Franklin. Within half an hour he receives a reply.

  Yes we saw her April 7th. Have let Simmons know.

  On 7 April Aurora had passed Cape Franklin. By any estimation, she should have been in Brisbane long ago. She has gone down; Matthew is sure of it. He is also sure that Isabella was on the ship, and that the treasure buried in the woods was on it with her.

  But he will not say anything. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. She said she is running away. He sends a return telegram, giving them all the information they have asked for and nothing more. No, he has no record of seeing the ship. They have heard from Cape Franklin, they will figure the rest out for themselves. Aurora is lost. There are no survivors. At least, none who wants to be found.

  After five days of living in shoes, with a roof over her head, Isabella is healing well physica
lly. The deep cut on her neck is not so bruised; her hand is marred only by a few dry scabs; the sunburn is peeling away and revealing white skin beneath. She has been busy polishing brass and silverware, sweeping and mopping, dusting and sorting. In the afternoons she helps Cook prepare food, sending out an enormous meal to Katarina, who only picks at its edges. She eats well, she sleeps well, she settles into a groove in this, her new temporary life. It reminds her a little of the plays she and her sister put on for their family as children. She is wearing a costume of sorts: she is performing the role of Mary Harrow, nanny and maid. And but for the occasional slip—when she reveals she has never polished silverware before or doesn’t know how to take curtains off the rails to wash them—she is performing it admirably.

  A horse and carriage pull up in front of the house in the bright of the afternoon and Katarina immediately goes into a flurry of orders. “It’s Mr. Fullbright,” she gasps to Isabella and Cook as they sit at the kitchen table shelling peas. “I want an afternoon tea brought within half an hour.”

  Although this seems impossible, Cook nods and beckons Isabella out of her chair. Katarina has gone to the door to greet her husband and child, but Isabella is too busy to indulge her curiosity and peer out to the sitting room. Mr. Fullbright has a deep, booming voice, but little Xavier has no voice at all. Isabella only presumes he is there: she has no proof yet.

  She and Cook recover the rest of the fruit loaf from breakfast, cut up apples and cheese, brew tea, toast bread and drizzle it with honey. Then Cook bustles out with it all on a tray, to set it on the dining table. Isabella hangs back in the threshold, waiting for instruction.

  “Mary, will you come to meet Xavier?” Katarina calls.

  Isabella goes forward. Mr. Fullbright pauses in spreading butter on his fruit loaf to frown at her. “Who are you?” He has a thick black mustache that curls over so deeply that it looks as though he has no top lip at all.