The Widow’s Secret, page 2
“What?” Anthony turned to face her. “You’re going all the way up to Cumbria?”
“It’s urgent. A mining company is involved. They discovered the ship during some offshore test drills, and they want the situation resolved quickly.”
Anthony shook his head slowly, reminding Rachel of a bear. Everything about him reminded her of some big, lumbering, shaggy animal – his size, which was a solid and muscular six three, his dark hair, kept a little too long by her reckoning, as well as his beard, trimmed close. His slow, deliberate movements, the back and forth of his head, when he was shaking it as he was now.
When they’d first met three years ago, she’d liked the comforting bulk of him – he felt like someone solid and substantial, the kind of man she could depend on, an anchor in a life that sometimes felt like the shifting sea.
She’d let that feeling carry her away, and they’d married after knowing each other for just over a month, but three years on it all it was all beginning to grate on her, even though she tried not to let it. She knew it was unfair, just as she knew she was far more of a trial to Anthony than he was to her.
“But what about our dinner tomorrow night, with Ken and Elspeth?” he asked. “It’s been scheduled for months.”
“We can reschedule, surely.”
Anthony kept shaking his head. “You know how busy they are. And you are, as well,” he added; it sounded like an accusation.
“I’m sorry, Anthony, but what can I do? Work is work.” Rachel heard the annoyance in her voice, like needle pricks in a cloth. Make enough of them and even the thickest, most sumptuous fabric would tear.
He sighed. “Do you have to take every job?”
“I was asked for in particular.” She folded her arms, impatience adding to her irritation, although she did her best to tamp both down. “If it was you, I wouldn’t make such a fuss.”
Anthony’s face drooped into familiar lines of disappointment, wide shoulders slumping, which felt far worse than his annoyance. “I know you wouldn’t,” he said quietly as he turned away from her.
Rachel bit her lip, feeling as though she should apologize, but for what? Work was work. She also couldn’t keep from feeling relieved that he was letting it go so easily. She’d expected more of a fight. A few months ago, maybe, she would have got one.
“Is there any coffee?” he asked tiredly.
“I’m sorry. I only made enough for one.” A habit she couldn’t seem to kick after fifteen years of living on her own. “Sorry,” she added again, and she hoped he knew she was apologizing for more than the lack of coffee. At least, she thought she was. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Fine.” Anthony shrugged as he refilled the kettle, and after another second’s hesitation, wondering if she should say something more, Rachel headed for the shower.
An hour later she was on the road, her dive kit packed in the back of her SUV along with a case of everyday clothes. The sun was high in the sky, the whole world bursting with verdant green, as she left the city behind for the open stretch of M5, heading north. It was a little over five hours to Whitehaven, on the coast of Cumbria, halfway between Carlisle and Barrow. If she was lucky, with little traffic, she’d be there before three o’clock.
Her heart lifted as she sped down the road, pushing away the memory of the rather tense farewell she’d had with Anthony. She would have preferred for him to be annoyed rather than disappointed, but he’d been silent and sorrowful-eyed as he’d hugged her goodbye. She’d offered her cheek for a kiss, pretending that this was a sign of intimacy rather than a way to avoid something more.
Anxiety cramped her stomach at the unwelcome and ever-present thought. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she love her husband the way most women seemed to, with effortless ease, as natural as breathing? They were practically still on their honeymoon. It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult yet. But Rachel had to acknowledge that it had nearly always been difficult.
She’d met Anthony while on a research grant in Florida, excavating a newly discovered Spanish galleon off Key West. He’d been the chef and owner of a seafood place on the beach where she’d eaten most nights. She’d been drawn to his easy expansiveness, so different from her own quiet containment. She’d been fascinated by how relaxed he was, and longed for it herself.
And he had brought her out of herself a little, made her smile, made her laugh. Made her start to think, amid the tropical glow of Florida sunsets and sea breezes, that they could be happy together.
Don’t think about it, she instructed herself. You have a project to focus on, and there’s nothing you can do about all that right now anyway. The tension in her stomach eased as she purposefully focused on the shipwreck waiting to be discovered. Already Rachel imagined it shrouded in mystery – an unknown wreck so close to the coast? Most wrecks in sight of the coastline would surely have been recorded at the time.
Perhaps this one had been, and Izzy simply hadn’t discovered the record yet. Rachel would find it somewhere – in the Customs House archives or the ship registers in the archives at Kew. With enough time and attention to detail, most things could be discovered, and if the wreck itself offered up a precious clue…
The possibility and even the promise of such a thing made Rachel’s spirits lift, and she pushed away her last lingering thoughts about Anthony and his disappointment. When she got back to Bristol, she’d make it up to him. Dinner out or, even better, in – a romantic night together. Somehow she’d manage it.
Five hours later, she was driving down the steep hill towards Whitehaven’s waterfront, the elegant skeleton of a once-thriving Georgian town visible beneath the modern marks of petrol stations, superstores, and shopfronts of plastic and neon.
She followed directions to the town’s main museum on the waterfront, where Izzy had said the pieces of wreckage that had been caught in the core matrix were being kept.
During her brief drive through the town, Rachel could see why the jobs the mining company provided might be needed there. Whitehaven looked like a place that was struggling and had been for some time, with several boarded-up buildings scarring the elegantly proportioned streets, as well as many of the warning signs of any town’s declining prosperity – charity and betting shops, and too many empty storefronts, amid the cheerful hanging baskets of flowers and the bustle of a market in one of the town’s small squares.
The waterfront seemed a bit more commercial and cheerful, Rachel noted as she parked her car by the museum, taking a moment to survey the graceful curve of the town’s harbour, the water between the old stone quays now bobbing with various sailing boats and other small vessels.
Once, hundreds of years ago, it would have held huge merchant ships, and these quays would have been used to load and unload vast amounts of coal, iron, wool, sugar, and other goods.
For a second, Rachel could picture it – the huge ships, the smell of coal smoke clogging the air, the harbour bustling with activity and commerce, sailors and stevedores lifting and hauling crates and barrels. High above, the Georgian townhouses that had once belonged to Whitehaven’s wealthy merchant class would have reigned supreme. Now they were divided into shops and flats, or even empty.
With a nostalgic sigh, she let the vision recede and headed into the museum. One of the staff ushered her into the office of the museum director, Anne Barton, a friendly woman in her fifties with a head of curly grey hair and a Cumbrian accent stronger than any Rachel had heard since her childhood.
“It could be anything, of course,” she said as she sat behind her desk. “There’s no obvious record of a ship sinking there, but of course a hundred years ago or more, ships were sinking all the time. Wrecked on the rocks, cargo lost.”
“But it wasn’t near any rocks, was it?” Rachel asked as she took the chair in front of the desk. “A quarter of a mile out?”
“Yes, that’s true. And we do have commercial records going all the way back to the 1600s, when Whitehaven’s harbour was first used for shipping coal to Dublin. You can see them in the archives, if you like.”
“Thank you,” Rachel murmured. “I will take a look.”
“There have been quite a few shipwrecks in the area over the years,” Anne continued. “The SS Izaro being the most notable, perhaps. And there are at least four wrecks off the coast nearby that are marked by buoys… You’ve probably heard that it’s important to ascertain if this wreck contains any heritage assets, so the test drills can continue as soon as possible. The mine is set to reopen next year.”
“Yes, I’m aware, thank you,” Rachel said. “I’ll be meeting with Copeland’s liaison tomorrow. Could you tell me what has been discovered so far?”
“Not very much. When the first borehole was drilled, a bit of iron was caught in the core matrix, and it was enough for Copeland Mining to send an underwater drone down. The footage showed a shipwreck, mostly submerged in mud. They halted drilling until the wreck could be evaluated, but it doesn’t look like there’s much left.”
“And you have the item that was caught in the matrix here?”
“Yes, we put it into storage as soon as possible. I’m afraid I can’t identify it, but it looks interesting, perhaps some part of a tool? Would you like to see?”
Rachel felt that familiar lick of excitement inside as she nodded. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll show you the way.”
Her heart started to beat a little harder as Anne led her to a storage room at the back of the museum, away from any sources of light and heat. Even though she knew whatever fragment had been caught would most likely reveal little about the mystery ship, she couldn’t keep from feeling that flare of anticipation, the intoxicating what-if she was always pursuing beneath the sea, coaxing it to give up some of its many secrets.
“I double bagged it,” Anne said as she put the object on an examining table. “I hope that was correct procedure. I don’t actually have a background in archaeology.”
“Yes, thank you.” Rachel took the pair of latex gloves Anne handed her and pulled them on.
Carefully she undid the bag, knowing she would need to keep whatever object she found exposed to air for as little time as possible, even though by the sounds of it, it had already been somewhat compromised.
Gently she lifted out a small twist of iron, almost in a heart shape, that looked, as Anne had suggested, as if it had been part of a larger implement.
“It’s interesting, that, isn’t it?” Anne remarked. “I wish I could say I knew what it was.”
“I think it must be the head of some sort of tool, as you thought,” Rachel said slowly. “The bottom of the heart shape looks as if it was screwed into something else.” She felt a flicker of some memory at the back of her brain, but she couldn’t hold on to it. Had she seen something like this before? Probably, but she’d seen so many bits and pieces over the years. It was incredibly difficult to remember each and every one.
“Is it possible to date it?” asked Anne.
“Not on its own, not without knowing anything else.” Yet the bit of iron intrigued her, just as it had Anne, the shape of it suggesting something sentimental, although Rachel knew that was unlikely to be the case. In all likelihood the heart shape was similar to the top of a pair of scissors – a way for whatever implement it was to be held by a finger and a thumb. Still, alone, it looked almost like the keepsake of a sweetheart.
Knowing she couldn’t do much more until she’d actually seen the wreck, Rachel rebagged it before heading back with Anne for a cup of tea in her office to view the underwater drone’s footage.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much to see,” Anne said as she turned her computer screen towards Rachel so she could view the footage. “Most of the shipwreck is still covered in mud, or rotted away. I think Copeland Mining would have preferred it to stay buried.” She made a face, half grimace, half apology. “It’s slowing them down, and Copeland have promised the area over five hundred jobs. People are counting on them.”
“I understand,” she told Anne neutrally, and the museum director pressed Play.
Rachel squinted, adjusting to the dark murkiness of life fifteen metres below the sea. The ground was grey and softly undulating, and as the camera moved around, Rachel saw a shape emerge from the mud – the sinuous curve of a hull, poking through the seabed like a hip bone. A plaice swam lazily in front of the camera, making her smile as she leaned forward, searching intently for more clues.
Through the ghostly grey murk of the sea, the skeleton of a ship emerged – the rotted timber, the iron bands, barely visible through the drifts of mud and sand and time.
“What’s that?” she asked, her tone abrupt as she leaned forward, jabbing a finger at the screen.
“What’s what?”
“That iron bar.” She frowned as she studied the iron bar resting gently on the seabed.
“I don’t know.” Anne sounded mystified. “Some part of the ship, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” Rachel allowed. She needed more information before she started making guesses. Still, her heart flipped over and her mind raced as the sea and its secrets proved as alluring as ever.
CHAPTER TWO
Abigail
Whitehaven, 1763
Abigail Heywood pressed her nose to the glass of the upper storey window of her house on Duke Street, the chilly waters of the Solway Firth in the distance ruffled and grey on this cold winter’s day.
The paltry flames from the morning room’s coal fire barely penetrated the room’s icy chill; winter in Cumberland, with the winds off the sea buffeting the townhouse, invariably brought a bone-deep cold that didn’t thaw until June, if not later, or even at all.
Abigail drew her shawl more firmly around her shoulders as she surveyed the scene in front of her: the harbour in the distance, bristling with the masts of its many ships, and below a few people hurrying here and there, heads tucked low against the wind – servant girls intent on going down street on an errand for their mistress, and merchants striding self-importantly about their business on one of the town’s many quays or in its smoke-filled coffee houses.
Whitehaven was a town that positively seethed with determined prosperity, with its new-money merchants rich in coal and tobacco presided over by the Lowther family who had dominated the trade for nearly a century. Once a forgotten fishing village, Whitehaven had been turned by the Lowthers into an elegantly planned town three times the size of Carlisle – one they boasted could rival Liverpool for its port, or York for its society.
Up here, in the solitary confinement of the parlour of her father’s house on Duke Street, Abigail did not think either was true. Whitehaven was miles from anywhere, cut off from the rest of the world by the unforgiving fells, the only turnpike road going to nearby Goswell for coal and no further, and the stage coach having to go up to Carlisle before down to Sheffield and London, taking over three days.
While Whitehaven possessed two assembly rooms, as well as an impressive theatre, its society was small and forever turned inward, focused on a few seemingly important families – the Lowthers, the Jeffersons, the Speddings, the Gales. Abigail’s own family, despite its substantial wealth in the wool trade, was not counted in that number.
And most likely never would be, thanks to an unfortunate summer in Harrogate six months ago. Today, like nearly any other, Abigail knew she could look forward to nothing more than needlework and letter-writing to her relatives in Kendal, perhaps taking tea with one of her mother’s few friends, listening to their idle and speculative chatter about the grand doings of one of the town’s important families. Another dreary day of waiting – but for what? Surely there was nothing more to wait for. It had already gone.
“Abigail, my dear, come away from the window.” Caroline Heywood bustled into the room, her hands laced over her floral-patterned stomacher, her robe cut away to reveal an excessively frilled petticoat underneath. “The last thing we should want is for you to catch a chill. A reddened nose is so unbecoming.”
“Who is there to see my nose, red or otherwise?” Abigail returned as she sat down by the fire and eyed her half-completed sampler with some distaste. She was a mediocre needlewoman at best, and didn’t see the point in so much stitching. She much preferred books to the domestic arts, but she’d just finished the latest novel, Sophia, and had nothing more to read.
“All of polite society, I should think,” Caroline replied in a voice laden with triumph, and Abigail turned to her mother in surprise.
“What can you mean?”
“We have been invited,” Caroline said in the voice of one who is making a grand pronouncement, “to a musical evening at the Tamworths’ tomorrow night.”
“We… have?” Abigail stared at her mother blankly. She had not been invited to a single event in Whitehaven’s scant social season all winter, despite her mother’s desperate and increasingly obvious contrivances to obtain such an offer.
She’d avoided the monthly gatherings at Whitehaven’s assembly rooms as well; her parents had thought it best for her to lie low, at least for a little while. But now it was January and things had changed, just as the tide had turned, bringing new possibility and prosperity to the town’s shores.
Before the summer, Abigail had been a nodding acquaintance of all the genteel young women of Whitehaven. She had been invited to the few card parties, musical evenings, and even the summer ball that comprised the town’s season, although not, perhaps, as an honoured guest.
Abigail had never been under any illusion regarding her status – she was the plain daughter of a middling merchant who had made a respectable fortune in worsted cloth. She was no particular prize for the discerning bachelor, nor was she the most desirable companion for the young women of Whitehaven who aspired ever higher – to wed local gentry, or merchants’ sons in Liverpool or even London. Still, she’d been respectable, so she’d been included, her name had been on every list, if rather far down.
