Matthew folds Isabella in his arms.
“It’s empty,” she cries. “The world is so empty.”
“Sh,” he soothes. “Sh.”
She cries and cries, shaking in his arms. But these tears, like the storm, eventually grow softer and pass, and he realizes she has fallen asleep.
He gently returns her head to the pillow, and covers her with the sheet. He sits for a little while to stroke her hair and softly caress her back. What has she been thinking? That Xavier is Daniel, just because they have a few similarities?
And it is like the light in the room suddenly burns brighter, because now he wonders what he has been thinking, just because Isabella and Clara have a few similarities. He gazes at Isabella’s face. It is softer than Clara’s. Everything about her is softer. She makes no demands on him. She is young and scared, but she isn’t wild or cruel: she is simply damaged. For all Clara’s protests and dramatic resistance, nothing bad had ever happened to her. Isabella has lost a child and never been allowed to grieve.
In fact, as he thinks it through, he begins to realize that they are not alike at all. Not even a little.
Matthew comes to bed after the night shift and Isabella is still asleep. He curls up next to her and holds her, drifts off. He wakes less than an hour later to see her vomiting out the window. He gets up and rubs her back. She says she feels ill and he tells her to come back to bed, that he will make her tea. When he returns, she is shaking and holding her stomach. The electric heat of fear spreads through his middle.
“Rest, pretty bird,” he says. “You need rest.”
“So do you,” she protests. “I’ve woken you up.”
“I will be fine. You’re ill.”
She drinks her tea, then lies down again. “I am so weary, Matthew.”
He watches as she falls asleep, then he falls asleep next to her again. The day grows bright and warm.
When he next awakes, she is lying next to him staring at the ceiling. He rolls onto his side and strokes her hair. “Are you feeling any better?”
“No. My body feels as if it has been crushed in a vice.”
He feels her forehead, but it isn’t hot. “Stay in bed until you are better.”
A day passes, two, and she doesn’t feel better. She periodically vomits and complains of excessive tiredness, and all the while she is immobile with heavy grief. He helps her as best as he can between jobs, but he is growing tired too. Tired because his sleep is constantly interrupted, and tired because he cannot shake the awful worry. He doesn’t want her to get sicker. He doesn’t want her to die. When he asks her how she feels, where it hurts, she simply says that it is her heart that is sick. Her heart that has decided she cannot get up ever again. He doesn’t push her, he doesn’t remind her about New York or the threat of the Winterbournes. He waits and he makes her food and he goes about his life with lungs slightly compressed by fear.
On the third day he dares to leave her alone for an hour to go into town. He has a lingering fear that she will throw herself from the upper deck while he is not there, but they are out of food and he needs to collect the mail.
The mail is in a small bundle tied together with string, and it isn’t until he gets home that he finds it: a letter addressed to Isabella, with a return address in New York. His heart starts. Victoria. Finally, they have found Victoria.
He goes to deliver it to Isabella, but hesitates. What if it is unwelcome news? What if she says, “Do not come”? Something like that might break Isabella.
Fearfully, guiltily, he picks open the envelope, unfolds the letter and scans it. Mingled dread and hope. What will this letter do to Isabella? Dare he show her?
Then he hears her awake in the next room, vomiting again. He tucks the letter under a pile of papers and tells himself he will give it to her another day, when she is feeling stronger.
Isabella has sunk under a gray cloud. It is in her ears and eyes and lungs and bones, and she feels a weary nausea that seems as though it will never withdraw. She stays in bed and cries and sleeps and refuses to think about the future. Matthew takes care of her and she lets him, even though she knows she is a burden. She lets herself be a burden and she keeps sinking. Where she thinks solid ground will be there are only more clouds. Down and down she goes.
After a week of this, she finally feels well enough to sit up and eat some soup and ask for the curtain to be drawn so she can look out the window. The sky is very blue and the sea air seems to wash away some of the nausea. Matthew draws up a stool next to the bed and looks at her closely but doesn’t say a word.
Finally, she says, “What is it, Matthew?”
“You are feeling better?”
“Perhaps.” She doesn’t want to make promises she can’t keep.
He nods, and seems to decide upon some course of action. “Four days ago, I received a letter for you, from your sister Victoria.”
Victoria. At the sound of her sister’s name, Isabella’s heart lifts. She is reminded of what is possible. “Then why did you not tell me?”
“There is some bad news within the letter.”
And now she sinks again. “She doesn’t want me to come?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Why did you read it?”
“I want, in all things, to protect you, Isabella.” He hands her the letter. “I am sorry for reading it first. But when you read it yourself you will see why I do not regret it.”
Isabella notices her hands are shaking as she unfolds the piece of paper.
My dear Isabella,
You have no idea how welcome your communication is, even though it has passed many hands to finally get to me. We moved in March and I sent you a letter to your old address in Somerset, but of course by then you were away on your journey. Sister, I believed you had perished in the shipwreck! A friend of my husband had read it in the newspapers. The Winterbournes did not deign to send me word of your fate themselves. I am amazed and relieved that you are alive, but curious about where you are and what you are doing. I will, as your original telegram urges, remain secretive, and hope that you will be with me soon to tell me all. You are so welcome to come to me and to stay for as long as you need to. I will list my address on the back of the envelope and you need only turn up, at any time of day or night. I suspect you are far away, but I will wait and hope. Knowing you are alive is enough for me.
Now, sister, I have some unhappy news to share. You may remember that the last time we communicated I was expecting my first child. You no doubt have imagined me many times with a small infant but alas, it is not the case. The pregnancy did not take properly, and a few months in I was very ill and lost the child. Even sadder, I fell again and lost the next in similar circumstances. I have now been told by a doctor not to try again for fear of risking my life, and so I am to remain childless. Please do not be sad for me. I have made my peace and my husband has bought me two Pomeranian puppies who will have to be my babies instead. They are adorable, and I know you will love them and they will love you.
Oh, listen to me waffle on about babies that weren’t even born, when you had to endure the death of your Daniel and, lately, the death of your husband Arthur. I have no idea what you have been through, dear Isabella, but I pray you come to me soon so that we may cry together and gain some comfort.
With much sisterly affection,
Victoria
Isabella finishes the letter, then reads it through again. Her eyes sting with tears of relief and sadness. She folds the letter and puts it down, and now she knows what she must do. It is as clear as the day to her. It is her only way to be free.
“Isabella? Are you all right?”
She sniffs back tears, meets his eyes and lifts her wrist in front of her face. “My sister and I made this when we were girls,” she says. “Whoever had the first child was to keep it. I got it. I had hoped to take it to her for her own child. There will not be a child. There are no babies to wear this bracelet.”
Matthew doesn’t speak
. She can see he is trying to puzzle out what she is saying.
“Matthew, I never buried Daniel. I never mourned him at a graveside. I never wore a black dress and had somebody hold me up while I threw a handful of dust on his tiny coffin. My husband’s family made certain I wasn’t there, because I grieved too wildly and they were afraid I would embarrass them.”
He grasps her wrist and rubs it gently. “I am sorry.”
“I want to bury it, Matthew. I want to bury him. I want to say a proper good-bye. Will you help me?”
Matthew gathers her in his arms. Already she is doubtful. Already she is afraid. How can she put Daniel’s bracelet in the cold, loveless ground? What if he is frightened? What if he misses her? But these irrational thoughts flash across her mind and are gone. Daniel is dead. He has been dead for three years. He neither knows nor feels anything.
“Of course I will, my love,” Matthew says. “If you are sure you want to.”
“I am not sure at all,” she says. “I am only sure that the future will not come until I do this.”
Percy Winterbourne is unhappy with the way his tea has been made, but the maid has already gone, so he can’t call her back and berate her. He has changed hotels half a dozen times already since arriving in Maryborough, and not one of them seems to know how to make tea correctly. He has exhausted every decent option for accommodation in town, so he must now put up with the tea-making at the Oxford Hotel. He doesn’t want to travel too far from the wreck of the Aurora, but nor does he want to stay in a tiny village where the gritty sand and ever-present flies will drive him mad. This bustling colonial town will do for now. He sips the bitter liquid and checks over the newspapers that have just arrived. He demands that every newspaper in which he has placed an advertisement sends him a copy so he can check that his money has not been stolen. One by one, he begins to comb through them.
The ad has had no success. A few crackpots have written to him, but none of the communications has led anywhere. He often wonders if he is wasting his time. Mother has already telegraphed him to tell him to leave it and come home, that his wife and children need him, but home now that Arthur is gone is not a place to be. He cannot fill his brother’s shoes; he does not want to. As for his wife and children, he does not miss them particularly. He cannot wait for his eldest son to be of an age where he can hold a conversation, but until such time it is best for the nanny to raise them. He smirks, thinking about how he can barely hold a conversation with his wife either. They are all millstones around his neck, so why should he not spend his time here in Maryborough, staying in one hotel after another and enjoying all of the pleasure and freedom a man of his substantial wealth can enjoy?
It is while he is flicking through The Queenslander that the game changes. He is caught by a garish heading that reads: “Women’s Department” and at first he sneers. Women are infiltrating everything these days. They want to vote and run about like wild cats. Why do they need a whole section in a newspaper? But then he sees the photograph.
Oh, the photograph.
It is not the wobble-chin dames in the foreground that capture his attention, but the familiar profile in the background. It is her. It is Isabella. He scans the caption. Guests of Lady Berenice McAuliffe at her annual spring ball at the Bellevue Hotel.
He has her. At last. He has her.
Twenty-six
2011
Before Libby woke, she could feel the warm happiness in her heart. She opened her eyes. What was it? Ah, yes. Yesterday with Tristan. She rolled over and reached out to the empty half of the bed. He’d slipped away around one in the morning after a day and night spent tangled in sheets and blankets. They’d talked, eaten, drunk a bottle of wine in bed. Made love, of course: his hands constantly searching her curves, her fingers drawn again and again to the stubble on his chin. He’d cancelled his meetings and then switched off his phone and left it on the bedside table, a mute witness to their pleasure. She’d longed to curl up next to him and sleep all through the night but, despite her requests for him to stay, he had pleaded an early meeting and not wanting to disturb her.
Libby checked her watch on the bedside table. Half past nine. He would already be in the meeting by now. Would he be wearing the same stupid grin as she was wearing?
She nestled on her back and flung her arm over her eyes. Her heart felt stretched to bursting point. What a joy it was to feel passion for a man again. A small part of her heart tightened at the idea that she had forgotten Mark; but she hadn’t forgotten him. She hadn’t even stopped loving him. Perhaps she had just finally accepted that he was never coming back.
Libby lay there for a long time, half-dozing, remembering the bliss of yesterday, then told herself she had far too much work to do on the catalog to lie in bed much longer. The photographs should be waiting in her inbox and she needed to start roughing out the final layout. She rose and went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, but before she could step in she heard a knock on the front door.
Tristan. It had to be. He’d finished his meeting and come back. She quickly pulled her robe back on and hurried to the door.
Not Tristan. Graeme Beers. The disappointment was acute. His car was parked up on the street, his son at the wheel.
“Sorry for not calling first,” he said. “I didn’t have your number and it was . . . um . . . urgent.”
“Urgent?” She wrapped her robe closer around her, very aware that she was naked beneath it.
He held out a thin sheaf of papers. “Yeah, it seems I . . . ah . . . overlooked asking you to sign these before your dive.”
Libby frowned, took the papers from him and glanced through them. It was some kind of a legal agreement protecting Graeme and his business from responsibility for any loss or injury his divers suffered. She almost laughed. He was afraid she was going to sue him over the incident on the dive the other day.
“Come inside,” she said. “I’ll find a pen.”
“Yes, I just don’t understand why I didn’t remember to show these to you. I—”
“It’s fine. I’m not going to sue you. Or report you.” She found a pen on her desk, ticked the “I agree” boxes and signed it. “Here.”
“Thanks. I’m . . .”
Perhaps he had been about to say, “I’m sorry,” but that might have been admitting fault. She waved him away. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
He nodded, backing out towards the door. She closed it behind him and turned to her desk.
Then she heard it.
The car engine. The one that had been idling outside at night. She raced back to the front door to see Graeme and his son speed off. And if she had any doubts remaining, the car backfired for good measure at the bottom of the hill.
No, no doubt at all: it was Graeme Beers and his son who had been creeping around outside her house. Her skin rose in gooseflesh at the thought. What did they want?
Still in her robe, she marched straight up to the lighthouse and hammered on the door. No answer. “Damien!” she called. But he wasn’t there.
She made her way back down to the cottage. What should she do? Call Graeme and confront him? Go to the police station and report it to Sergeant Lacey? She checked the time again. Was Tristan out of his meeting and available to talk it through with her?
She tried his mobile phone and it went straight to voicemail. She quickly copied down the office number and home number he left at the end of the message, then called the office.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Catherwood isn’t in today.”
“Not in?” Perhaps his meeting was out of the office.
“Yes, he’s on leave for the rest of this week.”
She put down the phone and gazed for a long time at the home number she’d written down. After the intimacies they’d shared yesterday, surely it was acceptable to call him at home.
On leave. An early meeting. Libby told herself not to read anything into it. Tristan was ambitious: it wasn’t inconceivable for him to have a meeting while on leave. She snatc
hed up the phone before she could think better of it, and dialed the home number.
One ring. Two. Her heart began to slow: he wasn’t going to answer. On the fifth ring, the line went live and a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”
It took Libby a full two seconds to find her words. “Oh, hello. I’m looking for Tristan.”
The woman’s voice went hard. “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Elizabeth Slater.”
“One moment.” The phone dropped onto a hard surface. A few moments later, Tristan was there.
“Hi, Libby,” he said evenly.
“Tristan, I need your help—”
“Look, can I call you back? Just . . . just give me five, okay?”
“Okay.”
The line clicked. Libby threw the phone across the room. It landed with a rattle up against the leg of the couch. She wasn’t stupid. She knew all the signs. He was married.
Just like Mark.
She went to the shower and turned it on hot. The phone rang, but she ignored it, sitting instead on the shower floor to let the water run through her dark hair and down her spine. She breathed deeply. The terrible fall from this morning’s heights of happiness and hope was crippling.
But then she realized, it would all be fine. She would sell the wretched house and move back to France. All her problems would go away: Tristan, Juliet, Graeme. She would move into a luxury flat and lock all the doors and never have to open up her heart again.
The hot water eventually ran out. She climbed out of the shower and wrapped herself in towels. The phone rang again. This time she answered it.
“Libby, it’s Tristan,” he said.
“Are you married?”
A pause. “No,” he said.
“Who answered the phone?”
“Look, can we have this discussion in person? Libby, please don’t be jealous. Jealous women make life so hard for themselves. This relationship is only new.”
Lighthouse Bay Page 30