The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, page 18
“I bumped into your daughter while she was walking with the Herberts at Dunstanburgh Castle some months ago. I was fascinated to learn of Miss Darling’s life at Longstone. It isn’t often one meets a lighthouse keeper.” He takes a sip of his nettle tea. “And then, of course, the events of the Forfarshire brought my sister into your care.” We all mark the memory of that night with a respectful silence. “I cannot thank you enough for your bravery, and compassion.”
A nod from my father is all the acknowledgment required. “How is she bearing up?” he asks.
“Some days are better than others. She has returned to Hull and says she is happier to be at home, surrounded by memories of the children. She tells me she is becoming quite the expert in the workings of lighthouses with the help of the manual Miss Darling kindly sent. She is surprised there are so many procedures to follow.”
“It is a highly regulated profession,” my father adds. “Much more to it than lighting a lamp once a day. It becomes an obsession as much as an occupation. Much like your painting, I imagine.”
Mr. Emmerson smiles warmly. “You are absolutely correct.”
“We’ve been rather busy with artists recently,” I add.
“So I believe. I’ve seen some of their efforts.”
“Efforts?” I laugh. “Are they really that bad?”
Mr. Emmerson squirms a little. “I am being disingenuous. They are a little lacking in energy.”
“Oh?” I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. “And they took so long over them.”
He raises his eyes to mine. “Don’t be alarmed. They’re a perfectly acceptable likeness, but who wants to create something acceptable. Who wants to do anything that is merely acceptable?” He takes a long sip of tea, lost in his thoughts as he swirls the cup around. “When I made similar remarks about the portraits to my sister, she insisted I stop complaining about others’ failings and paint you myself. She was quite adamant. My coming here is all her doing,” he continues.
My thoughts turn, again, to Sarah’s letter. I hope Mr. Emmerson doesn’t notice the color that rises in my cheeks.
“Our Grace is sick to the back teeth of being painted,” Mam remarks brusquely as she clears plates from the table. “There are plenty of likenesses in circulation. Mr. Darling said as much in a recent letter printed in the Courant. Perhaps you could make an appointment with Robert Smeddle.”
“Mam!” I stare pointedly at her. “Mr. Emmerson isn’t just another artist. He is Mrs. Dawson’s brother. I needed a break from sitting still for a few days, that’s all.” I turn my attention back to Mr. Emmerson. “An appointment won’t be necessary. You are very welcome to paint my likeness. Right now, if you wish. Did you bring your things?”
Glancing at my parents, Mr. Emmerson confirms that he has, indeed, been rather presumptuous and brought everything required.
Father smiles knowingly at me, amused by the sudden contradiction to the announcement I’d made only yesterday about hoping I never had to sit for another boring portrait as long as I lived.
“If you’ll excuse me I have to check on the lamps,” he says. “You might like to join me, Mr. Emmerson?” Like a proud parent with a new child, Father cannot resist the opportunity to show off his wonderful lantern room.
Mr. Emmerson says he would like that very much.
I explain that I must row over to Brownsman to collect provisions from our vegetable garden. “I’ll be back within the hour. Perhaps we can start then?”
Mr. Emmerson looks a little hesitant. “You’re sure it isn’t an awful inconvenience?”
“Perfectly sure. One more sitting can’t do any harm. I’m far less fidgety than I was a month ago.”
He smiles. “Then ours will be a happy arrangement.”
The manner in which he says this renders my fumbling fingers incapable of tying the ribbons on my bonnet. I leave them loose as I step outside, pressing an enormous smile into my gloves as I walk like a drunken fool toward the boathouse.
Chapter Thirty
Grace
Longstone Lighthouse. October 1838
MR. EMMERSON DOES not require me to sit like a statue.
With the glow of the fire gilding his cheeks, he explains that he wishes to draw me as he’d first seen me. “With the wind in your cheeks and the sea reflected in your eyes. I find posed portraits so lacking in life,” he adds, pulling on his coat. “I presume you don’t often sit as still as a statue and gaze wistfully out of a window?”
“Not often,” I chuckle. “No.”
“Precisely. Which is why I wish to observe you in your most natural state, when you’re not being Grace Darling’s portrait but are simply being yourself.” He peers out of the window, checking the sky for any threat of rain. Seeing none, he claps his hands together purposefully. “Would you be able to take a walk outside?”
I glance toward the pantry where Mam is pretending to tidy jars of preserves.
She peers around the door. “I’ll keep watch from the window. I would come out with you only the wind got into my bones yesterday and I can’t seem to shift it.”
I pull on my cloak as I wait for Mr. Emmerson to gather his materials from the small traveling bag he’d brought with him, but he walks to the door without them.
“What about your things?” I prompt. “Your brushes and paints.”
He laughs. “A true artist paints first with his eyes and mind, Miss Darling.” He stands to one side. “After you. If we’re lucky we might spot one of those sea dragons.”
As we walk I tell him about the latest fossil I’d found just after the storm.
“You must have quite the collection,” he remarks, slipping on a clump of seaweed so that I almost put out my arm to steady him. “Something new delivered with each tide, no doubt.”
“I have most of the shells common to these islands, but I would love to find some rare specimens to confound the gentlemen at the Royal Society.”
“And you are just the girl to do it! I can picture the look of consternation on their faces when you show them things they’ve never seen the like of before.” He talks excitedly, his accent difficult to follow at times over the rush and slap of the breakers and the strengthening wind. “Not so different to Miss Anning and her sea dragons, after all!”
I point out the different seabirds and seaweeds and the foliage native to the area: pink sea campion and fiddleneck, the scurvy grass where the puffins make their burrows.
Gathering up a variety of shells, I set them out on one of the flatter rocks, explaining how some are bivalves and others gastropods. “The bivalves are twin shells, hinged together. Like these mussel shells. I think of them as portly gentleman, dressed for dinner in top hat and tails. Then we have cockles and scallops—ladies at a dance with their grand skirts flowing.” Mr. Emmerson laughs at my descriptions. “The oysters and Venus shells are the grand old dowagers,” I continue. “I suppose they are a little like a locket when you open them.”
“Like the one my sister gave you.”
“Yes.” I open a clamshell in my hand. “And sadly just as empty.”
“But it mustn’t remain so. It must keep something you treasure. We will find you something.” I smile at his enthusiasm. “And these must be the gastropods,” he adds, picking up a cowrie shell.
“Yes. They are more like snail shells.” I pass him a whelk and a periwinkle. “But even in the broad groupings there are many varieties and colors of each. At first they all look the same, but when you look closer you notice each is a little different. See? Perhaps only slightly so, but they are all unique. One of a kind. It is the same with lighthouses.”
“How do you mean?”
“Each structure is unique. Each one as individual as a fingerprint. Each lamp has a distinguishing aspect to its light, a unique pattern of a flashing or fixed beam. Each tower also has an identifying day mark so that sailors can recognize each lighthouse and navigate by it accordingly. It’s like a private conversation between the light and the mariner. Communication without words.”
Mr. Emmerson picks up several shells to inspect them. “I hadn’t appreciated the humble seashell before, but you are right. Each is a thing of perfect individual beauty.”
“There is so much beauty on these islands,” I say, standing up. “I know there are some who consider us to live a very stark and basic life, deprived of everything people take for granted on the Main. But we have everything we need here. Each season brings its own joys and challenges. Each day is different.”
Mr. Emmerson doesn’t say anything, only looks at me as I speak. Only when I stop talking do I notice the way he is studying me, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes slightly narrowed.
“Are you painting me, Mr. Emmerson?”
That smile. Those gentle eyes. “I am, Miss Darling. Yes.”
I cannot imagine that any of Mary-Ann’s romance novels could contain a scene more perfect or moving. Quite unable to think straight, I suggest we move on before the tide turns and sees us stranded.
As we walk, pausing occasionally to peer into the pools of water, I forget about the newspaper headlines; forget that I am Grace Darling: Heroine of the Farne Isles. For the rest of the afternoon, I am just an ordinary young woman, walking with a young man, looking into rock pools as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you think you could ever give it all up?” Mr. Emmerson asks suddenly as we stroll. “Spend your days at crowded markets and hear the neighbors squabbling? I’m not sure I could if I’d been raised somewhere so isolated and free.”
His question pricks at my conscience as I recall the words in Sarah Dawson’s letter and can’t help wondering if there is a greater question carried beneath.
“I’ve never seriously considered it,” I answer, honestly, hoping my face doesn’t betray my emotions as it so often does. “My sisters tease me for being so devoted to the light and my parents. I enjoy visiting the mainland, but I am always anxious to get back to the island.”
My skin prickles and a dull ache settles across my brow. Suspecting a change in atmospheric pressure and noticing how the gulls settle on the rocks around us, I sense bad weather approaching.
“I feel the weather turning, Mr. Emmerson. We should get back.”
Without waiting for a response, and quite afraid of what might happen if we spend any longer alone in each other’s company, I turn and walk purposefully in the direction of the lighthouse.
Within the hour, it is clear a storm will soon be upon us and there will be no chance of Mr. Emmerson’s fishing boat returning for him. For once, I welcome the dark clouds and the high winds, inviting in the storm that gathers above the lantern room along with that which gathers in my heart.
Before retiring that evening, I mend holes in a fishing net, grateful for a difficult task to distract me from the presence of Mr. Emmerson across the room.
“Might I have a word, Gracie?” Father asks, quietly.
I put down my needle. “Of course, Father. What is it? Another request for hair? I shall be bald by Christmas!”
Smiling, he takes my hands in his. “I received word this morning from my superiors at Trinity House. They have revised their regulations. Every light station must now have an officially appointed Assistant as well as a Principal Keeper.”
We have anticipated changes to the regulations for some time. Knowing what Father is about to say, I save him the anguish. “And you will, of course, appoint Brooks as Assistant.”
He nods and lowers his gaze. “I am afraid so.”
“Afraid? But this is wonderful news. Father and son, manning the light. What could be better?”
His eyes crease into a gentle smile, relief lifting from him like smoke from the fire. “I was afraid you might be disappointed. That you were hopeful of the position yourself?”
I squeeze his hands, affectionately. “And I would have been the proudest daughter in the country if I were permitted to take the position. But that is not the way of things, is it.” I pick up my needle. “I’ll congratulate Brooks as soon as he’s back from the lamps.” As Father stands up, I ask one thing. “I can still assist the two of you? In an informal capacity.”
“My dear Gracie. This lighthouse wouldn’t function without you. This family wouldn’t function without you. You, my dear child, are the light around which we all turn.”
As his boots echo off the steps, I pick up the fishing net, searching for the next fault in the lines, but it is quite impossible to mend delicate holes in fishing nets when your eyes are blurred with tears. I excuse myself under the pretense of fetching my fossils for Mr. Emmerson, pressing my disappointment into each of the sixty steps as I walk to my room because despite my father’s words, I know that the lighthouse will function without me.
Whether I can function without the lighthouse, is another matter entirely.
Chapter Thirty-One
Grace
Longstone Lighthouse. October 1838
A FULL HUNTER’S MOON hangs low on the horizon, the agitated sea glistening beneath its bewitching light. Unable to sleep through the storm that has pounded the island for four days and nights, I stand at my bedroom window, mindful of old mariners’ tales of rings around the moon being a foretelling of rain. We are grateful no other ships have foundered in the dreadful weather, and I am also grateful for the storm extending Mr. Emmerson’s stay at Longstone. For that alone, I cannot entirely wish for clear skies and calm seas.
His presence lends an unexpected brightness to the lighthouse, filling a gap I hadn’t known was there. We all feel it. Mam, especially, delights in having another young man about the place to fuss over. She misses her sons since they departed for the Main and it pleases her to have another hungry mouth to feed. Father, too, seems a little lighter with Mr. Emmerson around, or rather George, as he insists Father calls him, happily dispensing with formalities. Another pair of hands about the place is always welcome, especially at this time of year, and Mr. Emmerson is eager to assist and learn. I enjoy listening to the two of them debating politics and philosophy. They briefly discuss the outcome of the second inquiry into the Forfarshire disaster, ruminating on how Captain Humble was found entirely to blame for failing to turn in at Tynemouth for repairs. Knowing how easily the disaster could have been prevented, I feel the anguish of Mr. Emmerson’s loss more keenly.
“Trinity House are pressing the government to make changes to shipping laws,” Father explains. “We can only hope that no life is lost in vain and that we will learn something, no matter how small, from each vessel lost. I am confident there will be a time, perhaps not within our lifetime, when no ships are lost at sea for want of warning.”
I draw a quiet sense of completeness from having Mr. Emmerson around; the hours we spend together while he works on his portraits are as pleasant as the hours we spend apart. I breeze through my chores, spurred on by the knowledge that we will all gather for supper that evening. I find myself listening for the sound of his footsteps descending the stairs each morning, anticipating the cheery greeting which sets me in good humor for the entire day. Our evenings are spent in quiet companionship, safe and warm within the lighthouse while the storm batters the rocks beyond. I am surprised to find myself thinking, on more than one occasion, that if married life is like this, then I might not have been so hasty as to dismiss the idea. The simple fact is that George Emmerson slots into life at Longstone as easily as a lace through a boot, which only makes it harder to accept that the temporary bonds we have formed must soon be untied and threaded back among the lives of others.
Mr. Emmerson’s engagement hasn’t been mentioned by him, and nor have I asked, yet Eliza Cavendish blows through the lighthouse like an unwelcome draft, leaving a chill lingering about my neck. No matter how many rags I stuff against the bottom of doors or against the window frames, still she persists in creeping through, tormenting my thoughts and my conscience, pricking at my morals and asking questions of my Christian principles. It isn’t like me to think unkindly of another, but the energy of the storm and Mr. Emmerson’s company have placed a sort of madness over me.
To fill the long hours of our confinement, Mr. Emmerson works on more sketches and portraits. I am far less fidgety than I was during the early sittings with poor Mr. Perlee Parker and the others, and quite enjoy the process now that I’ve learned how to sit still, to relax my jaw and not pick at the quick of my nails. I sit beside the window with my ankles resting one over the other, releasing the tension in my neck and shoulders, my face turned to the left slightly so that the meager light afforded by the dull skies falls fully onto my face.
Mr. Emmerson settles himself at his stool, palette in hand, assessing the light and the angles of my pose, humming and hawing to himself as he is apt to do when concentrating. “Could you turn your . . .”
I turn my cheek slightly toward him.
“Thank you. You’re a very good student, Miss Darling.”
“I’ve learned that it serves no purpose to shuffle and fidget. The job will be done much quicker without my interruptions.”
“Good art cannot be rushed, Miss Darling. Like the incoming tide, it will take all the time it needs.”
A slight smile at my lips, I settle myself, but despite the rigidity of my body, my senses skip about like a giddy child as I listen to the swish of his brush on canvas, the patient dab dab dab of detail and the long sweep of broader strokes. The room smells of the linseed oil he uses to mix the pigments, and the spirits he uses to clean his brushes. Mr. Emmerson has a habit of tapping his foot as he works, and he also licks his lips in concentration. I hear every swallow, every clearance of his throat, every quick sniff of satisfaction and tut of frustration. Without its ever touching me, I feel every stroke of Mr. Emmerson’s brush like a feather against my skin. Without ever looking at him, I feel his gaze settle on my face. In this quiet, intimate way, hours slip by as the wind whips up a frenzy outside.
When he is happy with the session’s work, he coughs three times and as if a spell is broken, I emerge from my frozen state.
