Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  “I was never cranky with you.” He couldn’t quite meet her eye.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be gone soon.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was never really welcome, was I?”

  “You didn’t really try,” he said, climbing to his feet.

  She watched him go, then locked the door. Far too wired now to sleep, she switched on her computer to work on the brochure. Outside the sea roared, the stars glimmered, and the breeze played in the trees that separated the beach from the town. Just as they had twenty years ago when she lived here. Just as they would long after she was gone.

  Another police officer, not Scott, dropped by the following afternoon to tell her that, yes, the car was registered to Graeme Beers as she’d suspected but that, no, they hadn’t spoken to him. His house had been locked up, his dive boat gone, his car and trailer parked near the boat ramp. They’d left a card for him to call them, but there was nothing they could do in the meantime. Libby felt deflated, still uneasy and glad that she would soon be gone.

  Twenty-eight

  1901

  The sun shines on the day Isabella has chosen to bury Daniel’s bracelet. The sky is clear and blue. She wears a black dress. Matthew went to the village to buy a length of black cotton for her and she spent morning until evening for two days sewing it. Now, Isabella sits on the bed carefully unpicking the stitches that have held the bracelet inside the black ribbon for so long. One by one, the threads that bound him to her are loosened. Finally, the coral bracelet falls on the bed. Isabella wraps the ribbon around her wrist again, ties it with her free hand and her teeth. Then she picks up the bracelet and considers it in the morning light coming in through the window.

  Each of the coral beads is smooth. Each silver link between them shines. It is a tiny thing, only big enough to circle a baby’s wrist. She kisses each bead reverently. Tears run freely down her cheeks and drip off her chin, but these tears feel different. They feel right, as though they are cleansing her.

  Matthew comes in, dressed in his wedding suit. He holds out the walnut box that once contained the mace.

  “Yes,” she says, “it’s perfect. I can’t bear to bury it just in the dirt. This is almost like a little coffin, isn’t it?”

  He lays the box on the bed and strokes her hair. She holds the bracelet in her hand one last time. It weighs almost nothing. Then she drops it onto the velvet lining and reverently closes the lid.

  Matthew takes the walnut box and Isabella follows him. The sun is warm on her face. The sea air is light and salty. This place, which she had once found so ugly and strange, is a beautiful place for Daniel to come to rest. He will hear the roar of the sea every night in his dreams.

  Isabella grasps her own fingers and pulls them hard. It won’t do to keep thinking like this. Daniel’s spirit is not in the bracelet any more than it is in the Winterbourne family plot back in Somerset. Daniel’s spirit was long ago freed from worldly concerns. She is not sure if she believes in heaven, but perhaps she does and perhaps she can imagine Daniel is there watching over her, wondering why she is wearing a heavy black gown on such a warm day. She smiles, lets her fingers go, and follows Matthew into the wood.

  He has prepared the same hole in the ground in which the mace was originally buried. This time, a treasure infinitely more valuable will rest here. Matthew has brought his bible and they stand by the side of the little grave while he reads Psalm Twenty-three. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Her heart beats so hard that it aches. She lets the tears fall, she moans her grief, and Matthew does not look at her sharply or tell her to stop. She falls to her knees at the grave side as Matthew lowers the box into it, then she collects a handful of dirt and kisses it, then throws it on top of the box. Then, as Matthew fills the grave in for her, she puts her face in her dirty hands and cries. Matthew moves a large rock over the site.

  When she looks up, the sun is still shining. Matthew is still there.

  “It is done,” she says.

  “You have to go,” he says.

  “I know.”

  Late at night, while she sleeps, Matthew is busy. The last thing that ties Isabella and him to the Winterbournes, the mace, has to go. To bury it or throw it into the sea may be simple, but both are reversible. Besides, the gold is worth a great deal.

  He buys an old stone anvil at the mill on the edge of the village, gathers his pliers and his stone mallet and leans the spare acetylene tank on its side. Here, on the sea’s edge behind the lighthouse, he sets to work. He knows he will not be able to make fine ingots, but gold is malleable; it melts enough to be hammered and cut under the acetylene flame. Every night he works, when he should be doing other things. He works as much to distract himself from thinking too much about her coming departure as he does to secure her future in America. One by one, he stores the uneven pieces of gold in the bottom of the suitcase he hasn’t used in many years, ready to give to her on the morning she leaves.

  On the fourth night, the mace is no more. The Winterbournes no longer have anything to reclaim.

  Isabella decides to take her jewelry-making materials with her. She will be alone on the voyage and perhaps making bracelets and brooches for her sister will keep her occupied so she doesn’t fall into a deep pit of mourning and sorrow. While Matthew is out picking up her ticket to Sydney from the post office she makes a last trip to the beach for stones and shells, then packs them all neatly in a box and places them with her folded clothes, ready to pack on the morning of her departure.

  She is marking time now. She feels disconnected from the days and nights; the passing of time seems to make her nauseous. Her grief may be just ordinary grief now—not the tortured passions of a woman forbidden from mourning—but it is grief nonetheless and it must be felt and lived through.

  Isabella looks around the room. She wonders if there is a memento of Matthew that she can take. But there is nothing. No portrait or photograph, no cuff link or watch. There is his pipe, but he will need that. She sits on the bed heavily. No memento could capture the lived experience of being with him, anyway. His smell, his texture, his heat. The thought of leaving Matthew behind has her sobbing into her hands. She is so sick of crying. When will all the pain end? Will it be any different once she gets to America? The long journey by boat fills her with dread. Alone with her thoughts, out at sea.

  The door bangs open and she is happy for the distraction. She palms the tears from her cheeks and greets Matthew happily in the galley.

  He holds up an envelope. “October the fifth. Two days away. The steamer leaves Mooloolah Wharf at nine in the evening. I’ve organized the carriage, and I will take you there.”

  Both are suspended a moment, caught on the aching thought of saying good-bye at the wharf. Then they resume. Isabella takes the ticket and looks it over, Matthew says she has to purchase her New York ticket in Sydney. “You have enough for a night or two’s accommodation if you need it,” he says. “It’s been impossible to find out much at this end. You’ll want to look over the ship and make sure it’s comfortable and right for you.”

  Isabella bites her lip, looking at the ticket. “It’s such a long way to go.”

  His warm, rough fingers are under her chin. “You’ve come so far already.”

  She gazes into his eyes. “It’s such a long way from you. Will you not come with me?”

  “Me? In New York society?” He shakes his head. “Your sister will not want me there. No, Isabella, we have known from the start that this love is not to leave the lighthouse. Out there, the world will interfere with us. It will frown, it will add pressures we mightn’t withstand. You were always going to fly, my pretty bird.”

  “And you were always going to stay,” she murmurs. Is he right? Would it be impossible for them to be together? America is a land of unlimited opportunities. Surely nobody would care who they were and what they did.

  But she knows Matthew won’t be moved. He has always been too sensit
ive about the opinions of the world. And she cannot stay. Sooner or later, if she stays here, the Winterbournes will find her.

  Isabella wants to fall into his arms and press herself against him, but she realizes that holding him so passionately will change nothing. No, she must wean herself slowly from him over the next few days. So she brushes his hand away from her chin and steps back. His eyes are hurt and she almost relents, but then he too turns away.

  The separation has begun.

  Brisbane is a hot town. Stinking hot. Percy sweats hard under his waistcoat. He longs for a chilly English breeze to cool him. But there is no breeze, just a hot, hanging warmth that makes him perspire in places he didn’t know perspired. He can only hope that the inside of Lady Berenice McAuliffe’s house is a little cooler than the colonnaded portico.

  Finally, an aging manservant answers the door. “May I help you, sir?” he asks in a slow drawl.

  “I need to see Lady McAuliffe. Urgent business. My name is Percy Winterbourne.”

  The manservant looks back at him suspiciously. “She is expecting no guest.”

  “Hurry, hurry,” he says. “I’m melting out here.”

  The manservant leads him into the entranceway and leaves him there. Percy considers the fittings. This Lady McAuliffe must be worth a lot of money. He wonders how she came by it. He lifts the corner of a brocade curtain and examines it carefully. Much finer stuff than Mother has back home. These colonials have it made. Their rent costs nothing because nobody cares to live here, and they spend what they have left over on the things that matter.

  “Good day to you, sir.”

  He looks up to see an attractive woman, much younger than he’d imagined, standing in the doorway. He drops the curtain and advances his hand. “Lady McAuliffe, I thank you for seeing me. I come on most urgent and unsettling business, I’m afraid.”

  She takes his hand and shakes it firmly. “Unsettling? Well, then, I’d best sit down while you tell it to me. Do come in.”

  Lady McAuliffe leads him to a parlor, where she offers him a grandfather chair. She sits opposite on a velvet chaise and rings for tea.

  “Now, Mr. Winterbourne, is it?”

  “Yes, Percy Winterbourne. Of the jeweling family. We recently lost my dear brother to a shipwreck on the north coast.”

  Lady McAuliffe’s eyes round with horror. “Oh, but that is dreadful! You poor man. What a terrible thing to have to endure. How can I help you?”

  Percy reaches into his pocket and pulls out the folded news clipping from The Queenslander. “I saw this photograph from your ball.”

  Lady McAuliffe looks over it, a guarded expression on her face.

  “See this woman?” He points at Isabella.

  “Yes, that’s Mary Harrow,” she says.

  “No. It’s Isabella Winterbourne. It’s my dead brother’s wife.”

  A short silence. Then a maid bustles in with a tea tray and they sit considering each other while she lays it out.

  “Enough,” Lady McAuliffe says to the maid. “I’ll pour. And make sure you close that door firmly behind you.”

  When she leaves, Lady McAuliffe says, “What are you saying? What do you mean by this?”

  “She told you her name was Mary Harrow to hide the truth. She is a thief. She has stolen something of great value from my family and escaped. And tell me, how does a young lass such as Isabella become the only survivor of a shipwreck? I know she is a thief, but I suspect she may also be a murderer.”

  Lady McAuliffe pours tea and sits back to sip it. “I am shocked,” she says.

  “I need to find her.”

  “Will you call the constabulary?”

  “No. I want to find her myself.” Then, realizing he sounds too brittle, he adds, “She is still part of the family. Our hope is for her . . . rehabilitation. It will not look good for us if she goes to jail.” He hopes the last is convincing. In fact, he has not written to Mother yet with the news that he has tracked Isabella down. He wants to find her first, and he wants to decide on her punishment on his own. His top lip is sweating.

  But Lady McAuliffe is already shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you find her. I’ve no idea where she is. I knew her very briefly and not at all well. She was a friend of a friend, turned up at the ball at the last moment. Why don’t you leave me your card, and I’ll ask around a little?”

  Steam builds up in Percy’s head. He has come all this way, and she barely knows Isabella? It is all he can do to keep his voice even as he says, “Yes, I would be most grateful for any help.”

  She indicates the pot. “Will you have tea?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve not got an appetite for it,” he says. No, he has an appetite for something else. Revenge. And the longer it goes unmet, the more it roars.

  It is only by chance that he drops in at Hardwick’s. He has seen their advertisement in the Brisbane Courier in the last issue he read, and has noted that they advertise a large collection of Winterbourne pieces. When he walks past the shop window, it seems the right thing to do to go in.

  And from there, only good things happen. While a starstruck Max Hardwick shows him the register of sales, to demonstrate how important Winterbourne stock is to his business, Percy glimpses the name “Mary Harrow.”

  He jabs his finger at the page. “Mary Harrow,” he says. “Who is she?”

  “Ah, a young woman who makes her own pieces. Very pretty. We had three or four of them and they sold soon enough, but she hasn’t offered me any more.”

  Percy’s ears ring so loud he almost doesn’t hear. “I see. And where can I contact her?”

  And here is the answer. Lighthouse Bay. Care of the telegraph office, which, Max Hardwick believes, is located at the lighthouse.

  Percy strides out the door.

  Isabella soaks in a warm tub the night before her departure. She lets the water ease the aches in her bones and back, closes her eyes and lets herself drift for a minute. She and Matthew have been distant, careful not to share the bed, to make love, even to brush against each other in the galley. Every time she feels the ache in her skin to be pressed against him, she dismisses it with her rational mind. They cannot be together, so there is no point in intensifying the pain with long, sad embraces. This time tomorrow, she will be waiting on the wharf for her passage to Sydney, and he will be on his way to a cheap room over the bar at the local hotel for the night, before returning to the lighthouse.

  And that will be that.

  Isabella opens her eyes. Her towel hangs close by, and she stands, feeling the weight of her body again, to reach for it.

  In the lamplight, at this angle, she suddenly sees them: faint blue lines across her breasts. Heat rushes to her heart. She reaches for the lamp instead of the towel and holds it as close as she dares to her bare skin.

  Blue lines on her breasts; breasts that have been tender these last two days.

  Isabella has seen these lines before. She has felt this tenderness before. She clatters the lamp back into its hanger and grasps her towel, wrapping it around herself as she runs upstairs. She opens the door to the deck and finds Matthew out there, gazing at the ocean.

  He turns to her, a puzzled expression on his face. She is, after all, only wearing a towel.

  “Isabella?”

  A soaring hope has gripped her. The stars seem very close. She lets the towel slide away, so that her breasts are exposed to the evening air, and says, “Matthew, I’m pregnant.”

  Twenty-nine

  Isabella wakes from a night of half-dreams and twisted sheets. Today is the day. She and her baby—her baby—will be in New York before year’s end. All of this will be behind her. But there are dark clouds on this horizon.

  She hears Matthew moving around in the next room. The thought of leaving him behind is a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. But even the promise of impending fatherhood cannot convince him to come. He had looked as if he would be sick when she asked him, as shock gave way and the grinding demands of
reality pressed on him.

  “Go and have a life without me,” he had said. The distance they have kept of late seems to have sunk into their souls.

  Isabella sits up. She looks down at her bare breasts. They are still heavy and tender this morning, the nipples darker. The regret that she has buried Daniel’s bracelet began as a prickle last night, but has now grown acute. She tries to think her way through it, but her thoughts are scattered and she feels pressured by traveling time and ship schedules. Perhaps if she goes to stand in the woods where the bracelet is buried, the answer will become clear. She rises and pulls on stockings and a chemise. Her dresses, for want of a proper wardrobe, are laid out on top of one another over an armchair. She chooses one to travel in, and folds the others to take in the trunk. She flips open the lid and gasps.

  The bottom of the trunk is lined with chunks of gold.

  “Matthew?” she calls.

  And he is there at the door, with a telegram in his hand and a dark expression on his face.

  “Where did this come from?” she asks.

  “It’s the mace,” he replies, as if the fact is self-evident. She has no time to respond as he waves the telegram. “It’s for you.”

  She frowns, takes it from his hand and reads it.

  Mary, Percy Winterbourne is looking for you. Have told him nothing, but beware. Berenice.

  Isabella’s head snaps up. Her heart is cold. “When did she send this?”

  “Yesterday morning. Does anybody else know you’re here?”

  “No,” she says, although she knows it isn’t true. The jeweler knows where to find her, perhaps one or two of Berenice’s friends. “When do you pick up the carriage?”

  “In about an hour. Don’t delay. Pack the trunk and be ready to fly. Once you’re at the wharf, you’ll be safe.” He looks as though he wants to crush her in his arms to keep her safe, but he keeps the distance they have tacitly agreed on.

  “I’m ready now,” she says. Her pulse flickers. “I want to go and say good-bye to Daniel in the woods.”