Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  “It’s one of the few items of value I have,” she says. “I want you to sell it for me and bring me back some things I need.”

  She senses he is both puzzled and relieved.

  “This is highly irregular,” he says gruffly.

  “I am not asking much. And I will pay with my continued silence.”

  “So it is blackmail?”

  “Bribery,” she said. “It’s a prettier word.”

  He puffs on his cigar, bright eyes hard on her face. Then he scoops the brooch from her palm. “I’m off on Friday. I’ll be back within a week. This will be the only thing I do for you. Nothing else. No more ‘bribery.’”

  “I agree.” She hands him the list of items she needs. “There will be money left over, I hope. Please bring it in cash.”

  He reads through the list, looks as though he might ask what she needs silver wire and a jeweler’s glass for, but thinks better of it. He wants this transaction to be discharged and over with minimal fuss. Instead, he examines her face again and says, “Who are you?”

  “Mary Harrow,” she answers, without blinking.

  “You are more than that,” he says. “Katarina always felt so.”

  “I am only what you see in front of you.”

  “It is dark. There are shadows. I don’t see you well at all.”

  Isabella bowed her head. “When can I meet you again?”

  “Friday and one week. Here, same time. I will have your things, and then any relationship between us is dissolved.”

  She lifts her head. “One more thing,” she says. “May I have a cigar?”

  He pats his pocket, finds a cigar and bends to light it for her. She coughs and chokes and he watches her, bemused.

  “You need to know that Katarina has put the word out that you stole from her,” he says.

  “Has she?”

  “It was the only way to explain your sudden departure. I would be careful about town if I were you.”

  “I will be careful. Thank you.”

  Isabella sits on the beach later, finishing the cigar. The coughing and choking have passed and her throat and lungs have settled. A warm, pleasantly distant feeling swims into her head. She hopes Matthew is busy enough at the lighthouse not to worry about her. She is enjoying being outside, rather than locked up in the lighthouse hiding from the eyes and opinions of others. She smokes her cigar and watches the ocean, and dreams of what might come.

  They share a bed but do not sleep at the same time. Matthew sleeps in the afternoon, they are up for a few hours together for supper, then she goes to bed. She works while he sleeps; he works while she sleeps. They make love in the morning when she wakes, when he has finished his long shift and needs the comfort of her body.

  She rattles around in the lighthouse by herself when he is in bed, trying to be quiet, feeling bored and lonely and on the edge of desperation. Now she can do little but wait for Abel Barrett to return with her supplies, she finds the afternoons long and empty. Matthew has given her books to read, but she has never been bookish. Sitting still for hours on end makes her impatient. She thinks too much: long unfettered fantasies of how life might be on the other side of the ocean. Sometimes the fantasies are pleasing, but sometimes they terrify her. Winterbournes turn up and throw her in prison, she is forced somehow to marry Percy, Xavier dies of a fever on the long crossing.

  This afternoon, however, she is neither reading nor thinking. She stands on the upper deck, outside, surveying the world from up high: miles and miles of white sand, green coastal woodland and sparkling blue-green ocean. The wind is strong, tangling her hair in knots and jumping down her throat, but there is something so exhilarating about being up here. It is as though she is part of nature, a bird perhaps. She spreads her arms in the warm sunshine and lets the wind roar over her.

  Finally, it becomes too much and she rounds the lighthouse to find a sheltered spot. Now she is looking down towards the beach, and she sees two figures on the sand. A large one and a small one. She is reminded of her visits to the beach with Xavier, his sweet hand in hers. She feels the space between her eyebrows crease into a frown. Perhaps it is Xavier down there. With Katarina? No, Katarina would never go near the sand.

  A new nanny? Already?

  Isabella’s heart feels hot. What if the new nanny is kind and soft? What if he grows to love her just as he grew to love Isabella? Surely he wouldn’t. Surely he too felt the special bond between them.

  She is pacing. She stops and holds on to the wooden railing, peering down through humid sea mist to the beach. It is an adult and a child, without doubt. Of course there are other children in Lighthouse Bay; it need not be Xavier. But Isabella is desperate to know.

  Inside the lighthouse all is quiet and still. Matthew only sleeps a few short hours a day, so he sleeps hard. She tiptoes down the stairs, then lets herself out.

  The wood between the lighthouse and the beach is thick with tangled plants and uneven beneath her feet. She picks her way carefully, emerging eventually on top of a sandy dune covered with long spiky grass. Here she pauses, scanning the beach. They are, perhaps, a quarter of a mile away, and it is definitely Xavier. He stands with his thumb in his mouth: a familiar pose. The woman’s back is turned, but it isn’t Katarina. It is a matronly woman who has crouched to build a sandcastle while Xavier watches.

  Isabella aches to hold him. This other woman, this new nanny, does not touch him. She does not pull him into her lap and stroke his hair and whisper close to his ear. Surely he needs all of these things to be happy.

  But then a darker thought: perhaps he is happy. Perhaps he is happy without Isabella. This new nanny may not be affectionate, but she may be calm and practical and safe—things Isabella knows she is not. On the one hand, the idea that Xavier is not suffering is a relief. On the other, the idea makes Isabella desolate. If he doesn’t need saving, then what is her purpose in life? She does not want to go on the long journey to America alone across the hollow miles.

  Isabella creeps along the edge of the wood, hoping to get close enough to see better. Something about the hunch of the woman’s shoulders is familiar to Isabella. On closer view, she realizes it is Cook. Cook is looking after Xavier. Of course. Katarina would not have found a new nanny so quickly. She is relieved because she knows not only that Cook will be kind to Xavier, but also that she will keep her distance. Cook is intently focused on the sandcastle. Xavier scans the horizon.

  Isabella holds still, willing him to look her way. He doesn’t.

  She moves back into the hem of the wood and picks her way down towards them. Cook will not want to see her. If what Abel Barrett says is true, and the town thinks she is a thief, it is not safe to speak to anyone.

  They are playing hide-and-go-seek now, Cook and Xavier. Cook stands on the sand facing the sea, with her hands covering her eyes, and Xavier hurries up the sand and into the wood. He won’t go far: he is afraid of snakes. But Cook turns and makes a fuss of not being able to see him, finds him in the edge of the wood. Then she returns to the sand and they are off again.

  Isabella’s heart thuds. Dare she find him before Cook?

  She dashes through the trees, clumsy over roots, scrambling over a gully. A low-hanging branch whips her face. Cook has found Xavier again, but there may be another turn. Please let there be another turn.

  This time she can hear Cook’s voice on the wind. Counting to twenty.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  And now Isabella is within calling distance of Xavier. Only she dare not call. She closes the space as quickly as she can. He hears her footsteps and looks up.

  Isabella holds her finger to her mouth to indicate he must not speak. She grasps his hand and he squeezes her fingers hard enough to bend them.

  “Quickly. Come with me,” she whispers, pulling him farther into the trees. She hurries him to the gully and ducks down, gathering him onto her lap.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, tears on her face. “I’m so sorry. But you mustn�
��t tell anyone you’ve seen me.”

  He shakes his head, indicating he won’t. Has he stopped speaking again?

  She stands him up in front of her and surveys him, feeling along his limbs as though not quite believing he is real. “I miss you so much,” she says. “Are you happy?”

  He cocks his head as though listening for the answer, then shakes it slowly.

  “Is Cook treating you well?”

  He nods.

  She nods back. “You should go. I don’t want to get you in any trouble. And you mustn’t let on you’ve seen me. But I’ll be watching over you, Xavier. And I still love you.”

  He nods again. Cook’s voice in the woods: “Where are you, child?”

  He touches Isabella’s face once, his dark eyes huge and liquid, then he dashes off.

  Isabella hunches down among the foliage, breathing deeply. All will be well. Surely all will be well. Just as soon as she is out of Lighthouse Bay.

  On the Friday she is due to meet Abel Barrett, Isabella’s stomach churns all day. Her imagination, always prone to frightening her, pictures Abel turning up with the police, or denying she ever gave him a sapphire, or not turning up at all. If any of these things happen, would she dare to go through with revealing his affair to his wife? And would his wife believe her?

  She need not have worried. Abel waits for her under the mango tree just after dusk. It is a clear, mild evening and the smell of his cigar smoke is strong and aromatic. He sees her approaching and moves into the shadows.

  “Here,” he says, thrusting a brown paper bag at her. “It’s all in there. Your supplies, the rest of your money and the jeweler’s address.”

  “The jeweler’s address?”

  “He surmised from your purchase of equipment that you made the brooch. He’s interested in seeing more.” He holds up his hands. “I don’t want to know.”

  Isabella peers into the bag but can’t see anything clearly in the dark.

  “Don’t ask me to take anything else for you,” Abel continues. “That’s it. We are square.”

  “Yes. We are square.”

  He is visibly relieved. “And now, I can’t linger. I can’t be seen with another woman.”

  “How is Katarina? And the boy?” Isabella asks quickly. “Is there any news of them?”

  “I don’t know. They are both away.”

  “Away?”

  “Two or three months in Sydney. She is taking the boy to a specialist who can get him to speak.” He stubs out his cigar against the tree.

  Complicated feelings traverse her heart. It will be so long before she can put her plan into action. And Katarina has taken him. Is this the sign of a loving mother who wants what is best for her child? Or is Katarina simply trying to fix him so that she needn’t feel embarrassed about his difference? Isabella can probably convince herself it is the latter, but doubt has tainted her fantasy.

  Abel Barrett thrusts his hands in his pockets. “So it is goodbye, and now I do not know you.”

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “You have never known me.”

  She watches him stalk off purposefully towards the Exchange. Clutching her brown paper bag against her, she heads for the lighthouse. She has at least two months, so this time she won’t make just one piece and sell it. She will make half a dozen, or more. She will travel to New York comfortably and arrive a rich woman.

  Twenty-one

  For three weeks Isabella has not left the lighthouse. What would be the point? She will only run into trouble in town; Xavier is away and not likely to be on the beach; and she is busy, so busy, making brooches and bracelets from her dead husband’s treasure. She works to stop herself thinking about the future, the past, even the present—for Daniel’s and Xavier’s shared birthday comes and goes and she feels too far from them both. She works so hard that sleep does not stop her: ghosts of ribbons and shells and gems arrange themselves on the insides of her eyelids. Her hands ache so much at the end of every day that she has to soak them in the icebox.

  But she has made beautiful things. She is almost embarrassed about her first brooch now, the one she already sold. These are much more tasteful and pretty. Unique without being odd. Opulent without being ostentatious. Matthew has been asking her for weeks how she intends to sell them, and finally she tells him that she will take the paddle-wheel steamer to Brisbane from the wharf down in the Noosa River. He blanches.

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  He is afraid, but he lets her go.

  And so now she stands on the wharf at Tewantin with her one-pound ticket, in a dress she sewed newly—and rather poorly—for going to town. She holds tightly a small case full of precious jewelry and one spare dress as she waits to board the Plover, a ninety-foot paddle-wheel steamer. Dusk is moist and cool. The smell of sawdust and animal droppings hangs on the air. Carts and horses and men carrying barrels move up and down the wharf. She tries not to stand out, but she notices she is the only woman traveling alone on the deck. She hears women’s voices from the saloon, which has already boarded, but Isabella’s fellow passengers are men in faded clothes making their way between their failed dreams of the gold fields and the security of employment in town.

  It seems they stand waiting in the late-afternoon sun a long time, but finally she is ushered up the gangplank and on board. The deck is covered by a large, striped canopy, but the sides are open and it is a cool day. Some men unfold chairs and sit to read their papers in the last light. A number of the rougher-looking men gather towards the stern to smoke cigarettes. Isabella is not sure what to do, where to sit or stand, so she stands near the railing and watches the river disappear under the big wheel amid the smell of coal and the hiss of steam. They slowly pull away from the wharf. The evening air is chill and the wind makes her ears ache.

  They won’t arrive in Brisbane until tomorrow morning, and then Isabella has a room in a boarding house that Matthew organized for her over the telegraph. He was solicitous when he bundled her into the hired carriage that morning—telling her to keep her bonnet down low and glancing about all the time to see if anyone had spotted her—and then when he’d dropped her at the wharf he’d said she must be terrified of traveling alone. But she is not. Yes, there is a prickle of apprehension, but mostly she is excited. Her plan is unfolding. There is even a small, vain part of her that enjoys making jewelry and selling it. She is good at it. She has never really been allowed to be good at anything.

  The Plover moves very slowly through the calm water of the river, then out through the mouth into the sea. She is reminded of the day she left England—it seems a million years ago now. She was surely a different person then. Night settles in and the coastline is too dark to see anymore, so she unfolds a chair and sits back. A purser brings her supper in a brown paper bag: a wizened apple and some bread and cheese. She puts hers under her chair and pulls her legs up next to her.

  The smoking men pass around hip flasks, and start to grow rowdy. At first, Isabella finds it easy to ignore them, but then they start to sing in rough voices: songs with dirty lyrics. She is keenly aware that she is a woman, alone. She puts her feet back on the deck, an ankle on either side of her case.

  She leans her head back and closes her eyes, trying to let the rocking water soothe her, but their voices are hard and loud and she understands this will be a very long night.

  Then a woman’s voice breaks through the rough sounds. “Do you mind?”

  Isabella opens her eyes and sees a beautifully dressed woman in her late thirties standing at the top of the stairs between the deck and the saloon. She is pleasingly curvaceous in the way only wealthy, well-fed women can be, with dark auburn hair and a pretty mouth. She wears a well-cut shirtwaister with a large collar and full sleeves, and carries a silver-tipped cane. The authority in her voice is enough to make the men stop and turn, open-mouthed.

  “I can hear every dirty word you’re singing downstairs, and I am most unimpressed,” she says, pointing her cane at them. “Le
t me ask you, what would your mothers think if they could see you now?”

  Sheepish looks, mumbled apologies. The woman scans the deck and sees Isabella, lifts a curious eyebrow and flounces over. “You there,” she says. “Why are you up here alone? Do you not have a father or a husband?”

  Isabella is taken aback, searches for words. “I have neither.”

  “Why are you on this journey alone?”

  She doesn’t want to say that she has a case full of jewelry, so instead she says, “I am traveling to Brisbane for a . . . business meeting.”

  “Business? What business?”

  Isabella thinks quickly. “It’s private . . . personal.”

  Despite her plain answer, the woman softens. “A businesswoman, eh? And all you can afford is a seat up on deck with those ruffians?”

  Isabella nods.

  The woman offers her a soft hand, which Isabella takes curiously. A moment later she is hauled to her feet.

  “Come,” the woman says. “You can join me and my entourage in the saloon.”

  “I haven’t the right ticket.”

  “A minor matter. Let me take care of it. I’m Berenice. Well, I’m Lady McAuliffe, but you may call me Berenice.”

  “Mary Harrow,” she says, picking up her case and following.

  “Mary Harrow, I hope you have learned your lesson. The twenty-five extra shillings for a saloon ticket are always worth it.”

  Isabella is led down the stairs and into the saloon. It is lit with dozens of candles. A semi-circular leather seat is built into either end, with a large table covered in food: roast turkey and potatoes and china bowls full of peas and gravy. Well-dressed people play cards at small, round tables. It is quiet and calm.

  The purser pounces on them the moment they set foot on the carpeted floor. “She can’t be here.”

  Berenice waves him away. “Nonsense. I know you have a free berth back there, and Miss Harrow is going to sleep in it. She’s going to share the food my friends and I have paid for, and you’re not going to say a word about it.”