We meet down in the cove at the end of each day. Sir Richard is due back in St Piran any day now. Our days together have an unreality about them, like this heatwave that goes on and on like a dream; yet they seem truer to Isabella and I than real life. We lie naked with wonder and ease with each other. We talk and sleep and love on our deserted and lonely beach and look no further than the end of each day.
Daniel Vyvyan has not yet returned from the south of France, and Isabella takes me to the cool of her father’s garden. We trespass and she shows me the hidden places where she used to play as a child.
Lisette is grieving for her mother and is much less of a guard dog. Morwenna is to be buried in the Methodist chapel. The village stops work for the funeral to pay their respects. Lisette’s father had been a French fisherman who saw Morwenna and never returned home. Both he and Morwenna were loved and respected.
Only those working on the Lady Isabella return to work that afternoon, in order to finish the small outstanding jobs before Sir Richard’s return. The village love a wake and it will go on long after the sun sets.
I go down to the quay with my father and we make the final adjustments to the figurehead. My calculations were accurate and I am mighty relieved. The figurehead looks, as she should, part of the ship. She is now ready to start her voyage through the oceans.
It had not been easy getting her down the hill. It had taken eight of us, four each side of the cart to steady her, for she was heavy and unwieldy.
My father and I stand side by side, viewing her. It is the first time my father has had the chance to look at the figurehead properly.
‘It is skilfully carved,’ he says. ‘The best carving thou hast ever done.’
But something in his expression as he stares at Isabella’s face disturbs me, as if I have somehow given him a glimpse of our secret.
‘Sir Richard should be well-pleased, son. Thou hast done a good job.’
I stare at the face I am beginning to know better than my own.
‘I would not have finished her, Pa, if you had not freed me to work on her full-time. You have done well to finish the schooner in three months.’
My father nods. ‘I could not have worked the men so hard if it had been for anyone but Sir Richard, who is generous with his bonus.’
Yesterday I took Isabella down to the quay to show her the inside of Lady Isabella. Newly fitted, pristine, ropes curled and ready. Foredeck, aft deck, cabins and hold, gleaming and waxed, swabbed and polished. Isabella explored every little nook and cranny of the ship, fascinated by the order of everything and the smell of new wood and glue which filled her nostrils.
I leave my father now and go back to the top boatyard to tidy and pack my tools away. My next commission is in Falmouth, then St Malo. I walk up the cliff and make for the cove where I am meeting Isabella. The heat of the day has driven her into the water and she stands up to her ankles, trying to keep cool. She has on a large straw hat and a thin white dress which suits her dark skin. As I approach she runs towards me laughing and I catch hold of her and whirl her round.
We move into the lee of the cliff where there is shade, and lie on a rug. Isabella takes off her dress to keep cool and lies in her petticoats. I take off my shoes, shirt and trousers and we lie holding each other, skin touching skin, talking.
Then we are both silent, and I say, because I cannot believe it, ‘The day after tomorrow you will be gone from here, Isabella.’
Isabella closes her eyes and leans against my hand.
‘I feel as if I have been here forever.’
I take a strand of her hair and hold it to the light.
‘I have been working so long on your likeness, now I am going to lose you both … My wooden angel and my real one.’
Isabella’s small face closes. She does not want to hear these words.
‘Tom, are we never to see each other again? You told me you were coming to Falmouth, to …’
‘I am. And no doubt I will see you with your husband … but never like this …’ I push her gently backwards onto the rug and kiss her. ‘It will never be like this again. It will seem like a dream … and one day I will see that you are mortified at the memory of me and you will look through me … turn away …’
‘Never!’ Isabella cries vehemently, kissing my mouth. ‘Do you hear me? Never …’
I touch her warm dark skin. ‘Never?’ I smile, wanting to hear it again.
I roll with her back onto the rug. Our lovemaking has the urgency of a leave-taking. This is our last time in the cove, where the cliffs rise high above to hide us and the seabirds mew and wheel overhead, resting in the thermals. The sea is violet, reflecting the sky. From high above on the cliff-top path, Isabella and I would look as small and insignificant as the stones on the shore or the driftwood. Cliff, sea, sky and cove will remain much as it is, but nothing will remain of these moments of our life here.
Shielding Isabella’s nakedness, I want to tell her all that I feel for her has gone into my carving of the figurehead. I will do other carvings, some beautiful, some clever, I know this, but there will never be another moment when my heart and hands come together to make a whole and almost perfect piece. I know this.
I know that if the small schooner makes old age she might lie on the bed of some creek and her figurehead be taken to adorn a public house or sold to a naval establishment. If the ship is ever wrecked in a wild sea or on some far shore, a part of me will sink to the ocean bed and be lost forever. A part of Isabella and I lost in the deep.
I would like to express what I feel to Isabella but I do not have the flow of words, only these fleeting thoughts, only these hands to carve feelings men cannot speak of.
When I look up I see she is crying without sound.
‘I love you, Tom. I love you. I believe I loved you from the first moment I saw you with Mama.’
I am wretched in my turn for I can do nothing about our situation. I try to make her smile. ‘Why, you were “no’ but a child”, as my father would say.’
I wrap my jacket about her shoulders, draw a finger across her wet cheek.
‘Isabella,’ I say gently. ‘Come, we must start walking. It is late.’
Isabella gets to her feet but she is watching my face for the something I cannot give her: hope. Desperately I take her hand.
‘Love is something we dare not think about, Isabella. We have different lives. I have nothing to offer you, even … Come …’
We walk up the steep incline silently, hand in hand. At the top Isabella takes her shoes off to remove the stones and leaves them off. She always likes to walk with the wildflowers under her feet.
‘Tomorrow,’ I say eventually, ‘your husband will see the figurehead for the first time, and in position. How does it feel, Isabella, to see your likeness set up there on the prow?’
‘Strange,’ Isabella says after a while. ‘Proud, and not a little guilty for although Richard called the schooner after me, the figurehead up on the front of the ship will always remind me of you.’
‘Then you will not for get me?’ My voice gives me away.
Isabella turns to me. ‘You know the answer, Tom, for I have already declared myself. I do not know how I am going to bear my life. It is so empty and you have been my friend. I can talk to you about anything.’
Her words strike me with sudden dread, for I realize the truth of them. With Isabella I have been myself. We have talked and loved and been together so much that the emptiness she speaks of opens up before me like a gaping mineshaft. I put my hand over my heart and I can hardly speak for this sudden knowledge in me.
‘When you doubt my feelings, Isabella, look at the drawing I gave you of your face. Look into the face of my figurehead. All that I feel for you is there, and here …’ I place the flat of my hand across my heart.
Isabella smiles and places her hand over mine. It is enough. We turn and walk on, careful now not to touch on the path. At the fork to the village I leave her.
‘Lisette will be home before you. Do you have an excuse ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘I will see you tomorrow, Isabella. When you are sad, remember these were our days, yours and mine.’
‘How lucky we were to have them, Tom. How very lucky.’
‘Indeed, my Lady. Indeed.’
I cannot let her go. ‘Isabella … when you feel alone, I am somewhere thinking of you. You know … what I feel … Run home, Isabella, run home …’ I say fiercely and turn abruptly away.
Isabella runs from me down the path and I can hear her little intakes of breath as she cries. A curlew above me calls out sharply. The weather is going to break. The seabirds are coming inland. There will be a storm.
Isabella reached the gate of the house and stopped dead. There were two horses outside and Richard’s groom was leading them round to the old stables. Richard was back early, he was not expected until the morning.
Isabella replaced her shoes and moved swiftly round the side of the house, up the servants’ stairs and into her room. She took her sandy clothes off and washed carefully, and changed into a dark dress with a high neck to hide where the sun had caught her skin. She tied her hair back tightly into a knot, but there was nothing she could do about the brightness of her eyes or the sense of well-being that gave her a radiance that would not last, unless she guarded it carefully.
She went slowly downstairs. Richard turned as she came into the room and he was stopped by her beauty.
‘My dear Isabella …’ He rushed over. ‘You look wonderful. The heat must suit you …’
He kissed her cheek. ‘Have you missed me?’
‘Of course,’ Isabella smiled, her heart sinking at the look in his eye. Covetous, as if he was reclaiming a prize, which of course he was.
‘Have you ridden all the way from Falmouth?’
‘No,’ Richard turned for his whisky, ‘from Truro. It is a special day tomorrow, is it not? Is Tom Welland pleased with his work?’
‘I believe he is.’
‘I asked for the figurehead to be covered. I will not look until the morning when we are together. Are you excited, my love?’
‘I am. It is not every day that I have a ship named after me, or my likeness carved.’
She went and kissed Richard’s cheek. ‘I thank you for it, Richard.’
Richard took her hand and kissed it fervently. ‘There is nothing I would not do for you, or for our children, once they come.’
‘Come,’ Isabella said gently, ‘let us go into the dining room or Cook will give in her notice.’
As Lisette helped Isabella to get ready for bed she exclaimed over the amount of sand in the room.
‘Lisette, you know I cannot resist going into the water. I am sorry.’
Lisette stopped turning down the bed and sighed. ‘I believe it is time you grew up, Isabella. You cannot recapture your childhood or the times here you had with your mama. Life is not all that we wish it to be. You lead a comfortable life. Sir Richard is a good man who loves and respects you. What more could you want?’
Isabella said in a small voice, ‘I do not love him, Lisette … I …’
Lisette stared at her. ‘I know you do not love him, but he asks so little of you. Love grows, if you let it, Isabella. If you tried harder …’
‘I do try.’
Isabella climbed into bed and leant against the pillows. A small tear of self-pity trickled down her cheek. Lisette relented and sat on the bed.
‘Miss Isabella, I know that you find the … married relationship difficult. I try to help … It gets easier, especially once you have children. The demands get less and it is just something you get used to.’
‘It will not get easier for me, Lisette. I will never get used to it, I know this.’
Lisette smiled. ‘You cannot know, Miss Isabella. Children change everything.’
Lisette was fighting with herself, for she did pity Isabella with her beautiful body, for Sir Richard might be kind, but she doubted he was skilful in bed, being a bachelor so long. She said astutely, ‘It is of no use you comparing a young man with an older man. We all do this when young …’
‘Even you, Lisette?’ Despite herself, Isabella was laughing.
‘Even me.’
‘What would I do without you, Lisette?’
‘Sleep, now.’
At the door, Lisette turned. Isabella was lying, eyes closed, dark against the white pillow, a suspicion of a smile on her lips. Isabella’s looks seemed somehow to have changed this summer, but Lisette could not fathom in what way this change had taken place.
A small shadow eased its way into her mind and she hastily dismissed it. As she shut the door, she thought, I am afraid sharing a bed with Sir Richard is something my mistress is going to have to learn, for it is a duty like any other.