Song of the Sea Maid (33 page)

‘Where am I?’

Mr Graybourn’s face appears above. ‘You fainted, Miss Price. We transported you to a physician’s room in the next house.’

And my publisher’s face disappears and is replaced by the peruke, a stern and disapproving scowl upon his face.

‘You must get yourself home forthwith and
look to your condition, miss
.’

On arrival, I slink to my room and sit on my bed, the truth of my condition glaringly evident before me in the modest dome of my belly. Again, my sense has been blinded by attention only to my work, yet inside me, a secret was burgeoning and I was too clever in my stupidity to see it. I stare at it, this new shape, this new life lodged in me, this part of me, of Robin, of us. A wave of nausea rises in me, yet mingled with it is bliss, pure bliss, soon replaced by terror of what will come to pass. I place my hands over it and stroke it, as I know for certain that whatever comes, I will defend it with my very life and no harm shall come to it, to her, or him: my child.

The door opens – Susan rarely knocks – and she looks to my face, then my hands placed just so on my belly.

‘Oh, Susan!’ I cry. ‘What is to become of me?’

Nothing is said for some minutes. Susan holds me and rocks me, as I clutch on to her clothes and wet them with my tears.

‘I thought it,’ says she. ‘The moment you came home from your travels, I suspected it.’ She was always wiser than me, even with all my book learning. ‘Where have you been today, to see
him
?’

‘No! No …’ I sigh. ‘If only I could.’

‘He is far away? Not dead? Or a foreigner? Not a foreigner, Dawnay?’

‘Oh spare me, Susan, please.’ I turn from her and wipe my face on my sleeve. ‘I will never tell of it, so do not ask me.’

She is quiet for a moment, then asks, ‘Was it conceived … in joy, or by force?’

‘In joy! Oh yes, in joy.’

‘Good, good.’ She is thinking. ‘I will not ask you again who he is, as one day you will tell me, if you wish to. But is there a chance that he could come to you, before too long, and marry you?’

I shake my head forlornly. ‘If his situation were altered, or had never been what it is, there would be no happier union. But no, he will not come to me and we will never marry.’

‘Oh,
Dawnay
!’ she scolds me and stands up. ‘Could you not have chosen a single man, one who could stand by you? You did not think on it at all?’

‘I did not
think
at all. I simply loved, that is all. I did not choose it.’

‘Oh, why have you been so stupid? Now there is nothing I can do to help you.’

Susan turns and stares from my window, rubbing her palms together slowly. Now she has gone from me, I feel the isolation of my position, and know I am alone in this, that indeed it was my choice, my folly and yet my delight. I alone chose it, and I alone will face it.

‘You are disappointed in me, perhaps even disgusted. I know that.’

‘You know nothing,’ says she. ‘And I know everything you are feeling at this moment.’

‘I do not think so, Susan.’

She turns and comes to me, sits beside me and takes my hands. There are tears in her eyes. ‘There is much you do not know, despite your great store of knowledge. Stephen was once a curate. You did not know that, did you? When I met him, he had a good career before him, a nice living in Marylebone and he delighted in it, a renowned expert in scripture and a marvellous preacher of God’s word. But I was just a cook and there was no chance for us. No educated man would ever marry beneath him, marry a servant. But we loved each other, and we defied it all to spend secret time together, and I grew heavy and then we knew. He left the Church – his one calling, his vocation – and Mr Woods helped us, gave me a position in his home and secured a teaching post for Stephen. Thus Mr Woods is our benefactor too. He did not approve of what we had done, in fact he railed against us and was quite red-faced about it. But he and Stephen are boyhood friends, a bond that has never been broken, and he did not want to see his friend live in penury. He knew that Stephen loved me and would never leave me. Thus, we married and Owen was born soon after. Stephen became a struggling tutor, but in general a happy one, with his wife and son and a home full of laughter and books. Yet I know he thinks on his lost career, and mourns it, from time to time. It was only when you came to us, and I saw the pleasure and solace he took in your lessons, and as you grew, your discussions and the work you undertook together, that I saw something of the fire in his eyes I had once seen in his regard for the Church. And I thank you for that, Dawnay.’

‘Oh Susan,’ I cry and we hug each other. ‘That was his crooked path!’

‘What is this?’ Susan frowns.

‘Nothing, nothing. I mean to say, what a very fine man your husband truly is. And a devoted wife and mother you are. And I am a fool.’

But Susan sits up straight and grasps my shoulders, forces me to straighten myself too.

‘But you are no fool, my girl. You are the cleverest person I know, or Stephen knows, or has ever known. So put that great intellect of yours to use, and devise a plan to save yourself, your work and your child. What are you going to do, Dawnay? Think on it and
solve
it.’

The beach at Charmouth is littered with fossils. Every few steps, if one knows what to seek, one can pick up an ammonite or suchlike and pocket it, only to find another a few steps on. I have quite a collection now, placed on a high shelf or in heavy drawers so Alexandra cannot find them and pop the smaller ones in her mouth, as she is wont to do with all little objects, unchecked. Other fossils can be found too, though harder to locate – I have found some examples of a marine animal with feathery arms that I do not believe has yet been named. Also, I have three prized examples of small fish, one of which Alexandra found on one of our beach wanders and it was marked in domestic history as the occasion of her first word: ‘Fish.’ When I sit to sketch and paint my finds, she helps with a pencil stub on her own notebook and scribbles snail-shapes, rainbows and smiling faces to entertain me. Her hair is golden-brown with sparks that shine in the sun, like the fool’s gold we sometimes find in the Charmouth rocks.

The same month my daughter arrived in the world, Admiral Byng left it, executed on board ship in the Solent. When she was born, her hair was bright copper, yet within weeks it had thinned and fallen out. When it came back, it was white blonde, now fading to honeyed tones. Her face is so like that of her father, it pains me and gives pleasure in the same glance. My daughter has my eyes at least, green-blue. They began very dark, watchful and curious, then lightened over time. She fed badly in her first weeks, and was forever at the breast. But I could not satisfy her. I began to search out goat’s milk, or sheep, whatever I could get daily from the Charmouth dairy, which I would boil and cool first, in order to destroy any animalcules present. I would spoon it to her, later slow-cooking oats until mush then pushing them through a sieve and mixing this with warm milk to satiate her infinite hunger. I believed myself a failure for being unable to provide everything she required from my own body – what could be more natural than feeding your own baby?

She slept for short bursts, then would wake again hungry, never enough time for me to rest or think or complete a single task. When awake, she would howl if I left her for a moment; she required a constant perch on my left arm from where she would survey her kingdom; and if put down would rarely sleep easily and required jiggling and comforting and singing at length before her eyes would finally droop and close. Even then, she would not sleep soundly and would wake at the slightest excuse, so I took to wrapping Francina’s shawl about me tied with a firm knot, and placing the baby inside it swaddled against my breast, and there she would sleep longer, to the sound of my heartbeat. My back ached as a consequence, and my left arm seized from months of carrying the load, but these were her happy places, and I would not deny her. It was a constant and well-matched battle for attention between mother and daughter – a siege of long days and longer nights – and she was always the victor. (It occurred to me as I continued my chores with the child safely stored at my breast that this method of carrying one’s baby is an example of technology invented by a female surely, back in the mists of time, weaving slings from plant materials; as well as most likely inventing pottery, agriculture, medicine, botany, the spinning of cloth, animal husbandry and even butchery, the use of pigments in decoration and art, methods of cooking
&c
. The list is long.)

When she was around four months of age, I began to mash up bread with milk, then potato, carrot and turnip, or any vegetable I could get hold of and cook to softness. From the moment she started to eat, she was a changed child. She slept for longer and longer, without crying out. Once she was weaning, and I preparing all her food, my feelings of failure evaporated, as I was in control again of her sustenance, and was able to gratify her at last and watch her full-belly smile as she settled down for afternoon naps. She moved from my bed into her own cot and – though she always wanted a bedtime song or story – she would happily close her eyes and sleep all through the night, allowing me my first uninterrupted stretch of deep sleep for half a year or more. I had my first dreams in months, many of my brother, of memories long forgotten, sparked by an intuition I cherish that my daughter seems to carry his aspect. Often I dreamed of Robin, and awoke feverish, then melancholy, the recollection of a hundred tender passages of our love filling my head.

Those early months I look back on and shudder: a wasteland of trouble and loneliness. After my discovery, I kept it from my benefactor as long as I was able. Susan was my rock, took great care with me and insisted I ate properly and regularly with much rest. Two weeks after my meeting with Graybourn the publisher, I had given up all hope of that acquaintance and was desperately trying to formulate a way to support myself and the child, when I received a letter from him. He turned out as good as his word, and said he had no interest in my personal situation as that was my business, and instead wished to renew our discussions in terms of my willingness to write for him, as soon as I was fit and able to do so. I met with him and we agreed I would write during my pregnancy – and after the birth – then I should decide what I could manage and inform him when I was good and ready. I told him how exceptionally accommodating he was and when I asked him why, he kindly stated: ‘Because you are an exceptional person, Miss Price.’

Thus, I had my security and, armed with it, I approached Mr Woods one afternoon and told him my news.

I received a customary, blustering lecture along these lines: ‘
You
, Dawnay? Not you! The last I would ever have suspected of being guilty of such an act. I believed you the most virtuous of your sex, never one for dances or cavorting, or drink or intrigues; always dedicated to your work and the pursuit of reason. This behaviour I can hardly brook. What would the quality think of me? Oh, but what can be said of passion in these reckless days? How careful we must all be of ourselves in this particular, when we daily see good women – hitherto good at any rate – falling into the abyss in this reckless manner …’ And so on, and so on.

Once he had calmed himself somewhat, he demanded the identity of the scoundrel, which I assured him would never be revealed and would remain my private knowledge as long as I lived. He ranted some more and grew red in the face – just as Susan once described to me – but soon saw I would not reveal it, and so gave up that fight. Next he insisted he had the answer to my grievous situation.

‘You will go into the country for your confinement, and upon the birth, you will give up the child to a good farming family or suchlike, and you will return here as if nothing had happened, and London society will be none the wiser. And life in Markham Woods’s house will return to normal, with no more talk of travels or babies or other such nonsense and we shall live quietly and happily together until the Creator deems my time is done and after that, you may do as you please, though I do hope, Dawnay, that you choose the righteous path of virtue and perhaps it would be best for you if you remained a spinster and devoted your life to science. Yes, that would do very well indeed.’

And he closed his eyes as if the matter were settled. I expected this; to his credit, my benefactor has always done his best to serve my interests, to guide and persuade me, yet often has lacked insight into the true nature of my own heart. I waited for him to glance at me, upon which act I merely said, ‘Indeed, it will not do at all,’ and left the room to pack.

But where to go? The dark streets of London confined my senses and I wished wholly to escape them. I wished to breathe clean air again, as I had on my islands. But I could not afford to go abroad and required to be in England at least to send my work easily to Graybourn and receive payment promptly likewise. A childhood memory of Stephen Applebee, collecting fossils on his boyhood beach, reminded me of Charmouth and my mind was set. It was far away enough from London to avoid the scandal Mr Woods feared for his own place in society and his business. It was said to be a beautiful part of the country and it provided on a plate a subject for study: the fossil beach and coastline thereabouts, well known for its ancient finds. And most of all, it was beside the sea. I missed the sound of the sea. It washed a measureless store of flotsam memories for me and I wanted to be beside it once more. I yearned for it.

It seemed a superior plan. To Charmouth I would go – and not to give the baby up, as my benefactor supposed – but instead to make a life there. To live simply, with my child, to write and earn a living, to study fossils and work. I called myself Mrs Price and wore widow’s weeds for a time, to smooth relations with the local people. But I had not prepared myself for seclusion. I had not predicted the intense isolation of being a new mother, with screaming child, and no other meaningful person with whom to share it. Alone, without friend or comforter, only a housekeeper named Betty Dawlish from the village to assist twice a week with household business, and no ear to listen, no friend to embrace, no partner to offer solace. I ached with isolation in the pit of my stomach, in the empty chambers of my heart; I breathed loneliness. I had spent many days alone as a child and younger woman and never once did I feel the stark seclusion of those days; I was left as a lighthouse on a rock, or a folly on a hill.