The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, page 21
And now the storm is here.
Matilda Emmerson.
I have to tell her. Somehow, I have to find the courage to tell her who she really is, because even if I don’t deserve her forgiveness or understanding, she deserves to know the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Matilda
Newport, Rhode Island. August 1938
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN curious, asking too many questions, always prying into other people’s business. After spending so much time on my own, it’s no surprise that I developed an obsession with other people’s lives. As a shy child I would listen to conversations, sometimes hiding under tables, sometimes perched rigidly beside my mother, following the whispers and revelations that passed around the table with the sugar tongs and the milk jug until I forgot I wasn’t supposed to be listening. “Why did they do that?” I would blurt out. My mother would give me one of her most withering stares before laughingly explaining to her horrified friends that I was a peculiar little girl and she didn’t know where she’d got me from, really she didn’t.
But that peculiar little girl grew up, and my sense of curiosity grew with me, following me from nursery to schoolroom, trailing behind me as I walked into Mass, shadowing me everywhere I went as I observed the affection between other mothers and daughters and wondered what it was, precisely, that I’d ever done to make my mother so emotionally distant.
Perhaps it is that latent sense of curiosity instilled in me since childhood, which sees me standing outside Harriet’s bedroom. Perhaps it is a small sense of rebellion that sees me turn the handle. Perhaps it is that nagging sense of something missing that sees me step inside and close the door quietly behind me.
It is not the room I was expecting to find. It is neat and tidy, the bed covered with a pale yellow eiderdown, a pile of books and an overflowing ashtray on a nightstand beside the bed. Framed photographs on the walls show Harriet as a younger woman, a baby in her arms. In one image, she is standing outside the lighthouse, in others she is at the horseshoe-shaped beach, or beside the boat or at the harbor. In every picture she is smiling and happy, almost unrecognizable. An older man is with her in some of the photos—her da, I guess—and an even older man is pictured with her in others. Boots, perhaps? The baby, I presume, is Cora.
I walk quietly around the room. On the dressing table there are a dozen more photos of a pretty little girl beaming up into the camera, seashells in her hands. On the nightstand there is a single framed photograph of the same child, grown into a striking young woman of about my age, perhaps a little younger, standing at the lighthouse with a little white dog in her arms. I pick up the photograph to look closer and I can’t stop staring because she looks so familiar. The shape of her face. The gentle curve of her lips. The way her hair curls in a calf’s lick around her forehead. It is like looking in a mirror.
A creak on the stairs makes me freeze. Before I have time to react, the door handle turns and Harriet walks into the bedroom. She is as shocked to see me as I am to see her.
“What in God’s name are you doing in here?” she demands.
I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say. “I was just . . .”
She strides toward me, snatching the photograph from my hands. “Just what? Snooping? What exactly are you looking for, Matilda? Corpses in the wardrobe?”
“No. I just . . . I’m curious.”
She puts the photograph into a drawer which she slams shut. The bang rattles a mirror that hangs from a chain on the wall beside the door. “I invite you into my home and this is the thanks I get? You’ve no business being in here.” Her voice is low and threatening.
I have to tell her, if only to offer an explanation as to why I’m snooping about in her room. “I know about Cora.”
She stares at me; through me. “What did you say?”
“I know about Cora. Your daughter. Joseph told me—but only because I asked.” She turns her back to me and walks to the window, placing her palms flat against the windowsill. I watch the rise and fall of her shoulders as she takes deep breaths, partly afraid of her and partly pitying her. “I’m so sorry, Harriet,” I offer. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But you call out for her in your sleep sometimes and whenever she’s mentioned you clam up, so I asked Joseph.” I let out a sigh, relieved to have told her. “Anyway, I know, so you don’t have to pretend anymore.”
Harriet pulls a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her trousers and lights one, tossing the box onto the bed behind her. “You know nothing, Matilda. You don’t know the first thing about any of this.”
“I know that she drowned,” I challenge, desperate for her to open up to me. The words hang in the air between us. “You can tell me about it if you want. If not, I promise I’ll never ask again.”
For a long time, Harriet stands perfectly still, her face turned to the window. I bite my bottom lip and fidget with my locket, wishing I’d never come into her room, knowing I’ve destroyed any trust between us by doing so. I’m about to leave when she starts to speak.
“She had a little dog. Pepper. He went everywhere with her. I laughed when he jumped into the water after a piece of driftwood, but he got caught in a riptide, and Cora ran in after him. I saw it all from the lantern room. By the time I got out to the boat, they’d both been swept out to sea. No matter how fast I rowed, I knew I would never catch up. There was nothing I could do to save her.”
“Harriet, I’m so sorry.”
She turns around, her face as pale as the clouds that dust the sky through the window behind her. “So, now you know.” Her hand trembles as she lifts the cigarette to her mouth. “I watched my daughter drown. Now, I suggest you get out of my room before I say something I’ll regret.”
I close the door quietly behind me.
For a long time I sit in my bedroom, perched on the end of my bed. I spin the locket at my neck, the words engraved on the back pressing into my conscience as the child kicks wildly against my swollen belly. Even the brave were once afraid. A reminder that I have one month to go, and only Harriet here to help me. Just when we were starting to understand each other, I’ve messed it all up. Like I always do. Blundering in, asking too many questions, making a nuisance of myself.
Eventually, I hear Harriet open her bedroom door and walk along the landing. She pauses outside my room. Please come in. Please make it all okay. But she continues on downstairs. A moment later the screen door opens and then closes behind her and she is gone.
I stand up and walk over to the mirror, peering at my reflection, studying the shape of my face, the gentle curve of my lips, the way my hair curls in a calf’s lick around my forehead. I sink back onto the bed, my heart racing, my mind turning over past conversations and memories, trying to make sense of the nagging voice that asks the questions I don’t have the courage to answer: if Cora looked so remarkably like me, and if she was Harriet’s daughter, then who on earth am I?
Volume Three
beacon: (noun)
a source of light or inspiration
I thank God, who enabled me to do so much. I thought it a duty, as no assistance could be had, but still I feel sorry I could do no more.
—Grace Darling
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Grace
Longstone Lighthouse. November 1838
WITH THE DISTRACTIONS of artists and storms and Mr. Emmerson, I had forgotten entirely about Mr. Sylvester, and Mr. Batty’s circus, but the arrival of the supply boat with a postal delivery brings an unwelcome reminder of them both.
I don’t quite know what to make of the letter when I first read it. It is a very earnest missive from a Mrs. Margaret Kirk, sent on behalf of a group of ladies in Edinburgh. With the letter, she has enclosed a cutting from the Caledonian Mercury in which Mr. Batty has printed a copy of the letter I’d written to him, and in which he makes grand claims about my planned personal appearance at the circus. Mrs. Kirk expresses her opinion about my interactions with Mr. Batty, saying he is not a man to be trusted and that she fears he will take my good name and turn it to his own advantage. Please do not, for a moment, consider exhibiting yourself in this manner, Miss Darling . . . We are, ourselves, gathering funds to donate to your cause and have grave concerns that the goodwill toward you from the respectable people of our city will be damaged by your association with this dreadful showman.
My hands tremble as I read Mrs. Kirk’s words for a second time, trying to absorb the full meaning of them. Tears of humiliation prick at my eyes as I rush to find Father at the boathouse. He studies the letter in quiet contemplation as I read it, again, over his shoulder. It only seems to worsen.
“Look, Father. Here Mrs. Kirk says the public will believe me to be courting popularity and that my name will be tarnished. I feel like such a fool.”
He folds the letter and places it in his pocket as he stands up. “Well, you mustn’t feel like a fool, Grace. Not for one moment. The only fool here is Batty and his unscrupulous actions. How dare he?”
I have rarely seen my father as furious. I rush after him as he strides hotly out of the boathouse, declaring Batty to be the very worst kind of shameless opportunist. “I will write to him immediately—and to the newspaper—to state that your intentions were entirely honorable, unlike those of Batty and his disreputable agent.”
His letter written in haste, Father rows to the Main that afternoon to dispatch it, leaving me at Longstone to stew over Mrs. Kirk’s words.
When Father returns and he has calmed down a little, he sits me down to explain that he has received other, similar, requests to Mr. Batty’s. “I didn’t want to trouble you with them, Grace. Not while all the artists were here. But I think you deserve to know.”
He shows me a letter from a theatrical producer in London who sets out, in great detail, his plan to produce a dramatic stage play of the Forfarshire tragedy, asking if I would consider starring in the production myself. I wonder if she might wear the same dress as that worn on the night of the famous rescue.
I can hardly believe it, unsure whether to be horrified or amused by such a ridiculous notion.
“I know their game, Grace,” Father says. “They see that there is profit to be made from your bravery. They are nothing but a flock of screeching gulls following the herring fleet, waiting to devour whatever pickings they can get.” He assures me he has replied to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that I will certainly not be starring in stage plays or any such nonsense. “Don’t worry, Grace. They will turn their attention to something else soon enough.”
But a somber mood settles over Longstone that day. Even Mam resists the urge to say I told you so. Nothing can cheer me. Not the seal pups, nor the miniature portraits in the locket at my neck. I have never felt less like the courageous heroine everyone believes me to be. I am nothing but a naive fool who misunderstands the ways of the real world and is easily duped by the actions of unscrupulous men.
Like the rocks at low tide, I am exposed. A curiosity. Nothing better than a circus exhibit for all to come and peer at. A deep discomfort settles in my stomach as the sun dips behind the horizon and the lamps cast a path of light onto the dark seas beyond. With the tide on the turn, I feel washed away, as if the real Grace Darling doesn’t exist at all.
OVER THE FOLLOWING days, my spirits are lifted by a series of rather more pleasant news. The first comes in the form of an envelope bearing the royal seal.
I watch Father open it with trembling fingers, rubbing his chin as he reads the contents, declaring, “Well, I never did,” several times.
Mam is fit to burst, grabbing it off him to read it for herself as Father takes my hands in his and explains it is from Queen Victoria, who, after reading in The Times about the events of the Forfarshire and our rescue, wishes to donate fifty pounds as a token of her esteem.
Having absorbed the contents of the letter, Mam sinks into a chair beside the fire and fans herself with it. “A letter from the queen! From the queen!” It is too much for her altogether and she has to take herself off for a lie down.
“Good riddance to the like of Mr. Batty,” Father says, a twinkle returned to his eye again. “It’s royalty you’re dealing with now, Grace.”
I cannot suppress my delight. As an ardent admirer of our young queen, I could not be more honored to know that she has thought of me. I read the letter so many times I can recite it at will be the end of the day.
But that isn’t all. Father also explains that a letter has arrived from the Duke of Northumberland. The duke—a nobleman of the Percy family—and his wife, Duchess Charlotte, are well known in the area, their family seat being the impressive Alnwick Castle, a little distance along the Northumbrian coast. The duchess had acted as governess to young Victoria before she became queen, and is extremely well-liked and respected.
“The duke writes to say that he is aware of the circumstances of the Forfarshire and our rescue and has written to the Duke of Wellington at Trinity House,” Father explains. “We are to receive ten pounds each and he also wishes to present us with gold medals, on behalf of the Royal Humane Society, of which he is president. We are to go to Alnwick Castle in person to receive the medals.” I sit beside the fire to warm my hands and feet as Father reads the letter out loud. When he reaches the end he leans forward, the fire dancing in his eyes. “An invitation to the castle, Gracie!”
I have admired Alnwick Castle many times from the upstairs window of my uncle Marsden’s grocery shop on Narrowgate in the town. Never did I think I would be the recipient of a personal invitation there. The thought fills me with excitement and dread.
“And Mam?” I ask. “It doesn’t mention her?”
Father shakes his head. “Just the two of us. Anyway, you know your mam. She won’t be bothered one bit about invitations to castles and meeting dukes and duchesses.” He winks. “She won’t mind at all.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Grace
Alnwick Castle. December 1838
THE DAY OF our appointment at Alnwick Castle, I wake to mercifully calm seas. I have worried about the trip all week, unable to settle on what to wear and worrying about conducting myself adequately in front of the duke and duchess. Mostly, I have worried about the weather, concerned that we might be forced to attempt a crossing in rough seas. Thankfully, no such decisions are necessary.
Father prepares the coble while Mam helps me into my best pink dress, taking extra time to wind my hair into a neatly braided crown on top of my head. I wince at her less-than-gentle touch, but try not to complain. Her nerves are frayed enough as it is without my tugging at them with my grousing.
After saying our goodbyes and promising Mam we will remember our manners, we push the coble away from the rocks and set out for the mainland. Mam stands loyally at the landing steps until she fades from view behind a light sea mist.
“We’ll never hear the end of it you know,” Father remarks as he sets up a steady stroke on the oars.
“The end of what?”
“That time we were important guests at the castle and Mam wasn’t invited.”
We both giggle. “Poor Mam,” I say. “She would have loved to come, wouldn’t she?”
“Poor Mam, nothing. She would have loved to brag about it to anyone who’d care to listen. The poor duchess would have had her ear chewed off! It’s better this way.”
He’s right, of course. I relax in Father’s company, where I only become more fretful in Mam’s. We row in quiet harmony, happy to be out on the water together. Inquisitive seals follow the boat and the gulls cry out to send us on our way.
We make good progress to North Sunderland, from where we take a coach to travel the seventeen miles along the coast to Alnwick. It is almost a year since I visited my cousins and I’ve forgotten how impressive the castle is. As the coach rattles along the cobbled streets beside the castle walls, I peer out of the window, eager to get a better look as we rumble beneath the impressive gateway, guarded by baileys and tower turrets. The area outside the gate is crowded with stall holders, harried mothers with fretful children, serene ladies and gentlemen, and soldiers on horseback. It is a stark contrast to the solitude of the island and I can hardly stop myself gawping. Father sits quietly beside me, absorbing it all in his usual humble way.
“Do you think they’ll have tea and cake for us, Grace?”
“I should hope so,” I smile. “I’m famished.”
He takes up my hand, as giddy as a child at Christmas. “Who’d ever have thought it? Summoned by the duke. Are you nervous?”
“A little,” I admit. “I hope they don’t make a terrible fuss.”
“They will of course. That’s what dukes and duchesses do. But we will be patient and polite and grateful for their time. The duke is a very pleasant man. I know you’ll make a great impression on him.”
Our names announced, we are escorted inside the castle and up an impressive staircase, the ceiling soaring above. I try not to stare but my eyes rove up and down and all around as we follow our guide, my shoes sinking into the soft rugs as we are led down a long corridor, past enormous gilded portraits of members of the Percy family, their expressions captured so perfectly I feel their gaze follow us as we pass. The air is rich with the perfume of hothouse flowers, displayed in ornate porcelain urns that stand on great plinths. Father squeezes my arm as we walk, his lips twitching as he tries to contain a delighted smile.
We enter a sumptuous saloon, decorated in rich gold brocades and crimson velvet, where we are presented to the duke and duchess with quiet dignity. The duke cuts a very impressive figure in formal military dress and the duchess is the most elegant woman I have ever seen, dressed in sumptuous midnight blue velvet with an intricate lace collar. I dare hardly look at her as she addresses me.
