The Sea Between (33 page)

S
omewhere close by a dog was barking loudly. It had been barking on and off ever since Richard had disturbed it with his shouts and his loud hammering on the kitchen door. It wasn’t the dog’s renewed barking that sent Richard scrambling to his feet, though, it was the shaft of light shining through the kitchen window. He stared at the illuminated pane in confusion. Someone was in the house and had just lit a lamp. Lost in grief, he hadn’t heard anyone moving about inside.

Charlotte—it had to be Charlotte. No one else had a key to the house, save George and Ann, and they were out of town. His heart started to race. Then another possibility occurred to him. It might also be a looter. For those inclined to loot, a house in darkness on a night such as this was a sure sign of an empty house. That was why the voluntary artillery were keeping watch over the salvaged furniture in the railway yards, to stop pilfering. Doing his best not to make a noise, he went over to the window.

Charlotte! It was Charlotte! She was standing beside the table, adjusting the wick of the lamp. Beside himself with relief and joy, his face broke into a beaming ear-to-ear grin. The grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared, as Charlotte, glimpsing a face at the kitchen window, let rip with an ear-piercing scream. A small table overturned, sending whatever was on it crashing to the floor, as she recoiled in fright.

Realizing that he’d just scared the living daylights out of her, he shouted, ‘Charlotte, it’s me! Richard!’

She stared at him through wide, frightened eyes, her hands still clenched in tight balls at her sides, then all at once her shoulders slumped with relief, and by degrees the rest of her body relaxed.

‘Let me in!’ he shouted through the window, pointing to the back door.

It wasn’t a particularly happy face that greeted him, though.

‘Richard, what on earth do you think you’re doing, leering through the kitchen window like a peeping Tom! You frightened me to death!’ Charlotte said in loud, reproachful tones. Frowning, she stepped aside to let him in, then gave an involuntary gasp as Richard pulled her into his arms and squeezed her tightly against his chest.

‘Richard, you’re crushing me! I can’t breathe!’ she said, squirming loose. She stared at him in bewilderment. ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you down in the town, fighting the fire?’

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said hoarsely.

Charlotte’s eyes widened. ‘Dead? What made you think I was dead?’

‘I thought you’d perished in the fire. Some men said they’d seen a woman inside your shop when it went up in flames. I came back here and found the house empty and– Where the hell have you been, Charlotte? I’ve spent the last God-knows-how-long sitting on the back doorstep, grieving for you, thinking I’d lost you! Where’ve you been?’

She shook her head in confusion. ‘I took some blankets to the orphanage, for the families who’ve lost their homes. Some of them are sheltering there. A man came around, asking if anyone had any bedding to spare for them.’ She shook her head again. ‘Richard, I don’t understand. You’re making no sense. How could you possibly
think I’d burnt to death in the shop? You surely don’t think I’d go inside a building that was on fire?’

‘Charlotte, five men were all adamant that they’d seen a woman inside your shop, surrounded by flames!’ Richard defended vehemently. ‘They said they’d seen her head quite clearly. What’s more, you told me that you wanted to go to the haberdashery to salvage a few things. I thought you’d ignored my instructions and gone regardless, then become trapped by the flames. God knows, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done something reckless.’

Charlotte cocked her head indignantly. ‘Well, if you think I’m reckless and stupid enough to stay inside a blazing shop until I’m surrounded by flames and can’t escape, then you don’t have a very high opinion of my brain! As for the woman those men thought they saw: they probably saw the wooden head that I use for displaying hats.’

Richard closed his eyes as the image of an ostrich feather hat on a carved wooden bust formed with perfect clarity in his mind. Perched on its wooden plinth, it was roughly head height. To add to the illusion, Charlotte had draped some fabric around the wooden stand, which in the smoke would have looked just like a blazing dress. God, why had he not thought of it? He’d seen it at least a dozen times. Because he was in a panic, that’s why. In a panic and not thinking straight. He opened his eyes again to find Charlotte still scowling crossly at him. She had folded her arms, too, the way women do when they think they are due an apology.

He breathed out a weary sigh. He had just been through a night from hell, thought she was dead, found she was alive, and now here they were arguing. Stepping towards her, he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her softly on the lips. Letting his hands fall to her shoulders, he said quietly, ‘Charlotte, I have a very high opinion of you and I certainly don’t think you’re stupid, but you must admit that
you do sometimes take risks and you do have a mind of your own. As for thinking you were in the shop—I thought it was possible that you’d gone there. I’d no idea how you might have come to get trapped, but I thought you had. I thought you’d burnt to death.’ He swallowed as the memory of the anguish that he’d felt flooded over him again. The sensation was almost physical, as if a large wave had suddenly crashed against his legs, making them sway with the impact. He must have swayed visibly, because Charlotte suddenly slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his.

Struggling to contain his emotions, Richard held her tightly in his arms, but there was too much bottled up inside him and within seconds tears were sliding down his cheeks. Mortified, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He couldn’t believe he was weeping in front of Charlotte. He had been raised to do his weeping in private. When he’d received his mother’s letter telling him that his father had died, he’d wept like a child, but not until he was alone. He had wept for Eliza, too. Wept for her in the privacy of his home. Despite all that had gone before, he had wept over her pale, lifeless body as she lay limply on the bed, a bed they hadn’t shared since she’d fallen pregnant with another man’s child. He hadn’t really known why he was weeping, but the tears had flowed like the tide.

Releasing Charlotte from his arms, he turned away. Digging his hand into his trouser pocket, he pulled out his handkerchief. With it came a mangled blue cardboard box, squashed flat—he must have fallen on it when he hurled himself through the haberdashery door. The tie-pin was still inside it, he could feel the hardness of it through the cardboard. He pushed it back into his pocket, blew his nose and discreetly wiped his eyes. In control of himself again, he turned back to Charlotte. She smiled at him, a small half-smile, but said nothing, sensibly realizing that he would rather she didn’t say anything.

God, what a night, Richard thought as the mantel clock began to slowly strike the hour. It was midnight. And the night wasn’t over yet.

‘I’d better go back to town and help fight the blaze,’ he said quietly. As he reluctantly turned to leave, his eye caught the overturned table and the various bits and pieces that had fallen from it, now strewn about the carpet. Among them was a small wooden box with a slit in the top: the charity box that Charlotte kept on the counter in the shop. He studied it for a moment, then looked up and fixed a suspicious eye on her.

‘Charlotte, did you go to the haberdashery after I told you not to?’

‘Yes, I did.’ Charlotte met his eyes unapologetically. Stooping, she reached down to pick up a length of white lace and an oval miniature that were lying on the carpet. ‘To save these. The charity box was an afterthought. I picked it up as I was leaving. I was in the shop less than two minutes. I wasn’t in any danger whatsoever. The fire was nowhere near when I was there.’ Lowering her eyes, she ran her fingertip appreciatively across the lace. ‘This is Betsy Meredith’s bridal veil. She’s to be married in a fortnight and was due to pick it up tomorrow. She’s had enough ill luck over the past few years to last her a lifetime, and I wasn’t going to let her wedding day be spoiled.’ Setting the lace down on the table, she held up the miniature so that he could see the likeness. ‘That’s me, when I was a child of seven. My mother painted it. I kept it on the shelf behind the counter.’ She looked at it for a moment or two, then laid it carefully on top of the lace. ‘They were important to me and I wasn’t going to let them burn.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say? I could have got them for you.’ Richard shook his head in exasperation.

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes fixed on his. ‘How? By
going inside my shop? You wouldn’t let me go inside because you decided it wasn’t safe.’

Richard stared at her. Charlotte’s quick tongue, used to it as he was by now, was still capable of taking the wind out of his sails.

‘I was trying,’ he said in aggrieved tones, ‘to ensure that you came to no harm. You don’t seem to realize, Charlotte, it’s instinctive for a man to try to protect the woman he loves. That’s the way men are made.’

‘Richard, you were treating me as if I was a child, not a woman,’ she returned. ‘You didn’t even ask me what I wanted to salvage. As for wanting to protect me, I don’t doubt that you meant well but—’

‘Meant well!’ he cut in loudly. ‘I went inside your blazing shop to try to rescue you! If they hadn’t dragged me out, I’d have perished in there because I wasn’t intending to leave without you!’

Silence fell on the room like a heavy blanket, thick enough to shut out even the smallest sound. Charlotte had become completely still and was staring at him with a shocked expression on her face. Reaching for her, he drew her into his arms. ‘Charlotte, I love you more than my own life,’ he said in a strained voice.

Charlotte’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘That’s too much,’ she whispered. Resting her head on his shoulder, she clutched him tightly in her arms.

The wind was still gusting fitfully from the north-east, carrying with it the acrid stink of smouldering char as Richard, along with scores of other exhausted men, began to make their way home—those who still had homes to go to. The fire was at last out, mainly thanks to the efforts of the Christchurch Fire Brigade. They had arrived at about the same time as Richard had returned to fight the blaze. Alerted to the inferno by the bright glow over the Port Hills, the brigade had
boarded a hastily organized special train, bringing their fire fighting apparatus with them. Disciplined and with good equipment, within an hour and a half they had brought the blaze under control. But for them, it would still have been raging. The Lyttelton volunteer brigade had done their best, no one could deny that, but their best hadn’t been up to dealing with a blaze of that magnitude. It hadn’t helped matters when their hook and ladder equipment had been destroyed; it had gone up in flames along with a store they’d been trying to save. What had really been lacking, though, even more than decent equipment, was leadership and organization. What little there was had been piecemeal and unco-ordinated. Mostly it had been sheer bedlam until the brigade from Christchurch had arrived.

As he neared the top of Canterbury Street, Richard stopped and looked back over the smoke-blanketed port, or what was left of it. The part bordered by London Street, Oxford Street, Norwich Quay and Canterbury Street had been reduced to ashes. Word was that over seventy buildings had been lost. Besides the Queen’s Hotel, five other hotels had been destroyed, the Post Office and Telegraph Office had been gutted, and the Bank of New Zealand had gone up in flames. Warehouses, stores and dwellings had been indiscriminately razed to the ground. The insurance claims would most likely run into the tens of thousands of pounds. God help those who weren’t insured, Richard thought. Still, there had been no reports of any deaths, thank God. Buildings could be rebuilt, replaced, but when a life was lost it was lost for good. He gave an involuntary shiver. He had come damned close to losing his own life in the blaze.

Turning away, he continued up the street. As he turned on to Exeter Street, he pulled his handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wiped his eyes. They were watering copiously and were wickedly sore. The palm of his right hand was throbbing like hell, too; he’d burnt it but he’d no idea how. Not that he was of a mind to complain.
Sore eyes and a sore hand were nothing compared to the problems that some of the townspeople were facing. All he’d lost were some clothes and the few personal belongings that had been in his room in the Queen’s. Nothing that couldn’t be replaced.

But, dear God, for a terrible hour or so he’d thought he’d lost Charlotte. Shaking his head, he halted in the middle of the street and turned to look once again at the smouldering town. After a minute or two his gaze shifted to Erskine Bay, where the
Firebird
was lying at anchor, not that he could see his ship with all the smoke hanging over the bay. ‘What if you
had
lost Charlotte?’ he said aloud. ‘Would you have wished you’d married her five years ago, wished you’d given up the sea and turned your hand to farming, wished you’d spent time with her as she wanted you to?’ Unbidden, a few lines from Andrew Marvell’s love poem drifted into his mind, like the drifting smoke over the bay.

…But at my back I always hear,

Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near,

And yonder all before us lie,

Deserts of vast eternity…

He had thought, for a terrible hour or more, when he’d believed Charlotte was dead, that those deserts of vast eternity were stretching ahead of him, vast deserts of emptiness, vast empty seas. As for time’s wingéd chariot: time neither stopped nor slowed for any man. And who could say how much time he or Charlotte would have on this earth? Eliza had been only twenty-four when she died.

He shook his head and whispered, ‘It’s time to give it up, Richard. It’s time to give it up.’

February 1871

A
warm nor’wester was blowing, and the temperature had been rising steadily all morning. A good day for drying sheets, Charlotte thought as she pegged the last one on the washing line. It had been a hot summer, and the dry blades of grass crackled beneath her feet as she made her way back to the house. As she passed the open window of the kitchen, she could hear Letitia talking to Suzannah, giving her a telling-off. Charlotte smiled and shook her head. Suzannah had raided the hens’ laying boxes again by the sound of it, collected the eggs, then dropped them. It didn’t seem to matter how many times they scolded her, by the next day she’d forgotten and her little fingers would once again be displaying the telltale sticky evidence of her guilt. Suzannah’s fascination with the eggs unfortunately extended to their layers too. She spent hours following the hens around, clumsily trying to pick them up each time they stopped to peck at the ground. The poor birds had never done so much squawking.

Dropping the peg basket on the ground beside the kitchen door, Charlotte walked around to the western side of the house. A short distance up the hill she could see Richard, checking on the foal that had been born yesterday evening. There had been no rain to speak of since the middle of December, and the Malvern Hills were looking
scorched. The land wasn’t the only thing feeling the effects of the hot nor’westers—her fingers had swollen up noticeably with the heat. As she held out her hands to examine them, her wedding ring winked at her in the bright sunshine. She and Richard had been married for nearly two months now, and were living not in Lyttelton but at the farm with John and Letitia. The great rolling oceans had at last lost their pull on Captain Richard Steele. He had sold his ship not long after the big fire in Lyttelton, and, to her amazement, announced that they would be living at the farm.

‘I love you more than my own life,’ Richard had told her on the night of the fire. For twenty years his life had been the sea. But not any more. Richard was making a new life for himself, one in which his ship, the ‘she’ that he had so often referred to, would no longer lay claim to the lion’s share of his time.

As Richard turned and looked in her direction, Charlotte waved to him, long wisps of hair fluttering about her face in the wind. Smiling, Richard waved back and started making his way back down the hill.

Gathering up her skirts, she ran to meet him.