The Widow's Confession (25 page)

‘You do not understand,’ said Alba. ‘He has written to me. Secretly.’

‘Written?’ Delphine could not understand how this was possible. Miss Waring was so careful over Alba, so watchful.

‘I received a note at the Albion,’ said Alba, ‘sent care of his servant, and given to me covertly. I always knew he looked upon me with favour. There were a few stolen moments,
when he spoke to me,’ she lowered her eyelashes, ‘at the almshouses, and when we were on the cliffs the other day – but his letter is different. I believe he wishes me to return
to the city with him. He says if I sit for him, Mrs Beck, I will be the most famous woman in London.’

Delphine almost laughed out loud from shock. The only thing that stopped her was the expression on Alba’s face. It seemed that the girl was deadly serious; her eyes wore an expression of
assessment. Delphine did not understand why Alba – sensitive, curious, amused little Alba – was not shocked to the core by this offer. In fact, she seemed to be considering it, as a
much more worldly woman would have considered it, with a balance-sheet of profit and loss. Delphine sat back.

‘What have you done with the letter?’ she said.

Alba lifted her chin. ‘I have burned it, of course.’

‘Good,’ said Delphine. ‘That is the first sensible thing you have said. Do you understand what he is asking you? You seem sanguine, so I assume you cannot.’

‘I think I do understand,’ said Alba, and her gaze was suddenly level, unblinking, flat as the blue sea against the horizon.

‘Did you tell him you were adopted?’ said Delphine. ‘Did you tell him of your background?’ She saw assent in the girl’s face, and pressed on. ‘He only asks
because he knows this. He knows you are vulnerable. You should not have told him. You should not have opened yourself to such advances.’ She was surprised at the strength of her feeling.
‘If it was even discovered that he had sent you that letter and you had received it and considered it, you would be ruined, utterly ruined, and Miss Waring’s family, too. Their
reputation, not just yours, would be destroyed. He is a charming man, but he has gone too far – to try and corrupt your innocence.’ The sight of Alba’s passive face maddened her.
‘God, do you understand?’

‘I do not know why you are speaking so harshly to me,’ said Alba. ‘It is you who have made me see beyond my narrow lot. You urged me to open my thoughts to ideas of freedom,
you told me of women wearing pantaloons on Piccadilly, you shied from me when I asked you to help me marry, and now you reprimand me? I listened to you, Mrs Beck, you above everyone – even
when Mr Hallam urged me not to.’

At Theo’s name, Delphine felt a tightness in her chest, as though she had been laced too tight and could not breathe properly. ‘Mr Hallam? What is he to do with this?’

‘He warned me most strongly against listening to you. But I see beyond his simple morality – you must believe me when I say I do. He says you are a bad example, and yet he cannot
keep his eyes from your face. They are drawn there each and every time you look away, like filings to a magnet in one of the sideshows.’

Delphine hardly knew what to think about first. She knew that time was ticking away, the moments of Alba’s life where a decision might be made – a bad decision, the kind she had made
on one distant night in New York. She tried to put thoughts of Theo Hallam aside.

‘Alba,’ she said, trying to make her voice gentle, ‘it was never my intention for you to be convinced by rogues like Mr Benedict. You are young – please, make a sober
judgement. I speak as someone who has made many errors. Do not –
do not –
make the mistakes I have made.’

Alba stared at her. ‘You have never owned to any mistakes before. And you seem perfectly comfortable to me,’ she said.

Delphine banged on the table, and felt pain sear through her clenched fist. ‘He is asking of you what he would ask of a woman of ill-repute. He is seeking to take you from the respectable,
safe life you have and ruin you. And once he is finished with you – where will you be? Dead, under a London bridge, within a year.’ She broke off, knowing that her voice was beginning
to crack, and her words and thoughts were beginning to break up from the pressure of sheer emotion. It was, perhaps, the first time she had faced her own desperate situation. There would be no more
money from her grandfather, one day soon; she was fading in his mind, until one day he would think of her as dead, truly dead, a beautiful ghost that had once flitted through the rooms of his New
York mansion. Replaced by other grandchildren, maybe great-grandchildren – had her brother married? All of this added to the vehemence of her voice and expression, the earnest hope that she
could prevent another woman from her own particular type of ruin; from becoming invisible to every person who had ever known or loved her.

Alba looked amazed – not shocked, or thoroughly warned, but simply startled, as though by a failure of manners. ‘I know of whom you speak,’ she said. ‘I know about those
women; my aunt talks of them all the time, in veiled ways. But I also know that there is a chance that Mr Benedict may be right. Once I end this season with my aunt, I will become a burden to the
family. I have wished for marriage as the only route I may sensibly take. Now, I have an alternative, and I long for excitement and variation in routine.’ She leaned forwards and whispered,
‘As we all do, Mrs Beck. Is it not worth taking one risk, to leave such a life of dullness behind?’

Delphine could say nothing. She knew that she had once felt as Alba did; it was perfectly understandable, and could not be argued against. But she felt, knowing that she could not transfer her
experience, filled with grief. ‘If only,’ she said, ‘I could make you understand my life. If I could make you feel, for a moment, what it is to live with my heart. You will face
such hardships if you follow this man, little Alba. There are no words that do justice to them.’ She reached out and touched the girl’s face. Alba did not move away, but nor did she
yield to the touch. ‘I fear I will be disappointing you,’ said Delphine, ‘but I must say that my honest advice is to make a marriage if you see that as the only alternative. Do
not underestimate the value of safety, darling Alba, please do not.’

Alba was no longer looking out of the window; she had slumped against the wooden back of her chair. She looked younger than ever, her lower lip jutting out as she considered Delphine’s
words. Eventually, she spoke. ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I must have been mad to even think of it. But he is persuasive.’

Her face was passive in expression, but when she looked at Delphine, the other woman could see the glisten of tears in her eyes, and it reassured her.

‘He is that,’ Delphine said. ‘Do not speak to him again, if you can help it.’ She rose from the table, her limbs feeling stiff and cold, as though she had aged in those
few minutes. ‘We should both go, before the others come down. Remember what I have said to you. He is dangerous. I did not know how much.’

Alba reached out and pressed her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then turned away, to look out again at the ruins above them on the slope. Delphine walked away, but an instinct made her
turn round and look at the girl. Alba had untied the ribbon holding her hair back, and was running her fingers through her red-gold tresses.

After breakfast, the group decided to venture to the ruins again, as though they might make good their aborted trip from the day before. The decision was made on the basis of a
suggestion from Edmund, who thought that the day before had been lost, and, in some way, felt obscurely responsible for it. There was no great agreement with this suggestion; rather it was that no
one said ‘no’, but thought that it would be well enough. Delphine even said that it might be brighter, and the sea winds not so punishing. But as they climbed the slope she knew the
folly of her words, felt the power of the wind, and looked around at the shivering women in their dresses, and envied the men their long coats, splashed with mud as they were.

She had been determined not to speak to Theo again. At Alba’s words
I listened to you, Mrs Beck . . . even when Mr Hallam urged me not to
she had felt the depth of her unknowing
about Theo Hallam. It was as if a great hole in the earth had opened up before her feet, and she could not take a step forwards or trust even the evidence of her eyes. But when he passed her on the
slope, she could not help but raise her eyes to his face. He smiled – a brief, shy smile – and against all her instincts to smile in return, she turned away, mustering as much of an
expression of coldness as she could. He hurried on past her, the wind tugging at his black coat, and she watched him move away from her, walking quickly, into the ruins.

They found the ruins still torn by the wind, the sea even wilder below the cliffs, and Alba scampered in the long grass, calling for Theo. He stood beside her, leaning on his walking stick,
deciphering an inscription for her, which she said she could not read.

Edmund saw Julia standing at the section of the nave furthest from the towers. She was looking over the weathered stones before her, and laid a gloved hand over the nearest
stone. As Edmund approached, he saw the look on her face, as though the inert things were wounded animals that she might heal with her touch. He did not wish to surprise her, and coughed to show he
was there; but he had not broken any meditative state, for she turned and smiled at him serenely, as though she had been aware of his presence and attention all the time.

‘These stones,’ she said, her veil pushed against her face by the wind, like a second skin. ‘I was thinking about all the things they must have seen, and all the centuries they
have spent here.’

He smiled, but said nothing; looked at the hat in his hands.

‘I am glad we came with you,’ she said, and her voice throbbed with emotion; the first time he had heard it in her, this refined, controlled creature. ‘It is good to be away
from Broadstairs, after all we have seen there in the last few days. And this is a fine view, all the countryside, laid out in swathes and patches, and our little home for the season somewhere
along that coast. I had no idea there was such a place, this close, so set out on its own – so majestic, so lonely. All those souls who passed their lives here – what did they feel when
they looked out on this? What did they see? Had I come here all those hundreds of years ago, like the two sisters, I would not have wanted to leave.’

Edmund smiled at her warmly. ‘I am quite sure you will be glad to leave by the time we come to,’ he said, glancing at her in her dress, shivering a little. ‘May I give you my
coat?’

She shook her head. ‘I have borne far worse than this. A little sea breeze is nothing. But tell me.’ She came closer to him, and the sight of her face seemed suddenly clearer to him,
even beneath the veil; her lips red, her eyes blue – not the blue of the sea crashing against the cliffs below but with a warmth that told of candlelight and the sunlight she seemed to
shelter herself from every day he had known her. ‘What do you think of this view, Mr Steele? You said to me before that you came from London. How does this compare?’

He did not take his eyes from her face. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said. ‘So beautiful it is almost painful to the eye, for to look upon it is to know you must leave it
again.’ He broke away from her gaze; the urge to embrace her was too strong. ‘But I would not know how to live with these empty fields and ruins. My eye is accustomed to the throng, to
narrow streets and the way of the crowd; my lungs to the scents of the city. I can appreciate this, but only as an onlooker.’

She inclined her head, and he could not tell if she approved or disapproved of his words. But her turn away, as slight as the movement was, was too much for him. He had thought of her in the
night, and wondered if he would ever have a chance to speak to her. He had learned to take chances in life; it was something his parents had urged upon him, though he had thought it strange, these
two quiet people with their contented isolation in a country cottage – yet there was a vividness in their eyes as they urged on his thoughts and ambitions, no matter how childish they had
been. He thought of them now, even if it was only for a moment, as the woman he loved reached and touched the stones again.

‘To be plain, the most agreeable view for me, is you,’ he said. The moment he said it, he knew it sounded wrong; for the first time in many years he had spoken with painful
self-consciousness, and it sounded wrong to his ears.

Julia turned sharply, her hand still outstretched as though it might meet the rock.

‘What do you mean?’ she said, and her voice was full of emotion. He could not identify it, although there was fear, and pain, and he suddenly realized that she thought he was mocking
her. He wanted to reach out to her and make her understand – but to touch her would be improper and wrong. He could only say it in words, as clearly as he could.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said, and he did not look around before he said it. He said it in a way which indicated that he did not care who heard.

She looked at him, then shook her head. ‘I am not,’ she said, and she sat down upon the remains of a stone wall and looked out at the sea.

‘I disagree with you,’ he said. ‘I think you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.’

He saw the bitter curl of her lip. She did not turn, but kept her eyes fixed on the horizon.

‘You are kind, Mr Steele,’ she said. ‘And I am most grateful. I take it – for you cannot be dwelling on my blemished visage – that you detect something in me. A
spiritual beauty, perhaps? I value you, sir, you are a kind gentleman, so I will spare you from keeping that illusion. There was a time when I did not feel ashamed of myself. But my deformity has
not made me purer. Quite the contrary. I am all darkness, through and through.’

His mouth was dry; she had spoken with such certainty. He looked around him – at Alba and Theo, talking together, Miss Waring only a few steps behind; at Delphine, struggling to find a
focus as she moved here and there. Everything seemed strange to him, suddenly, as though the world was changing before his eyes.