When Isabella woke, Richard had gone. She returned to her own room where Lisette was filling her bath.
One look at Isabella’s face told Lisette everything. They did not speak but went on doing the things they did every morning in silence.
As she dressed, Isabella kept seeing Richard’s distraught face. She realized in a blinding moment of truth that, had she not been carrying Tom’s child, she might never have been able to leave Richard. It was Tom she loved, but to deliberately injure another human being in the way she had done … She had never understood, or had chosen not to, the depth of her husband’s feelings for her.
An unnatural silence hung over the house. The housemaids did not chatter but went about their work in silence. Trathan, who had looked after Sir Richard since his naval days, had the same sense of dread as Lisette.
Sir Richard had risen early, asked for his horse to be brought round, refused Trathan’s concerned offer to ride with him and had taken off in the direction of Falmouth. Trathan could have saved him the journey, for Lisette had sent him last night with a message for Tom Welland. Trathan was the only person Lisette could trust to keep silent.
Lisette had written to warn Tom that she suspected Sir Richard knew of his relationship with Isabella. She felt angry. What good could come of a man Sir Richard’s age marrying an unworldly girl young enough to be his daughter? And as for Mr Vyvyan, he had sacrificed his daughter for weak and selfish reasons.
‘Oh, Madame!’ she whispered to Helena, as she carried Isabella’ laundry down the back stairs. ‘How I wish you were still alive. You would never have allowed this ill-advised marriage.’
Lisette returned upstairs to Isabella in the breakfast room. It was a beautiful day and the French windows were thrown open to the morning. Isabella was drinking tea but had eaten nothing.
Lisette placed an egg and thin slices of bread and butter in front of her.
‘My Lady, you have an unborn child to think of now, not just yourself. Eat.’
Isabella looked up quickly. It was the first time Lisette had ever used her title. ‘Miss’ was now inappropriate as an affectionate reminder of childhood. My Lady, too, seemed an unwise title, for Richard would disown her.
Lisette sat heavily on a seat by the window.
‘Sir Richard has ridden off towards Falmouth. I sent word to Tom Welland last night as I guessed Sir Richard knew the situation. Tom must warn Ben of the possible consequences for St Piran, Isabella.’
She got up with a little cry and left the table, went out into the warm autumn day and walked towards the woods. Lisette, fearful of what she might do, called out and ran after her.
‘Isabella, stop. Wait a moment … Please, Isabella.’
Isabella turned. When Lisette reached her she took Isabella’s hands, firmly.
‘Listen to me. You must keep your head and wait. You are carrying a child. That life is sacred. It did not ask to be born, but it is a life created and your responsibility.’
Isabella held on to Lisette’s hands.
‘It was created with love, Lisette.’
‘Then,’ Lisette said gently, ‘it is all the more reason for you to take care of yourself. Come, will you rest for a while in the morning room? I will bring my sewing and sit with you and maybe you can sleep a little.’
Isabella nodded for she felt inordinately weary. Once she was settled under a rug in the morning room and Lisette had collected her sewing she asked, sleepily, ‘How are you so wise and steady, Lisette?’
Lisette smiled. ‘I am far from wise, but if I am steady I learnt it from my father. He was a Frenchman who sailed over to Cornwall and never went home. He was a Catholic who married a chapel-going Cornish woman. He and my mother differed much in religion and temperament and they argued a great deal.
‘My father called it debate. He was a fisherman by choice, for he was an educated man. He taught all his children to think things through, before acting. It does not solve everything, Isabella, but it gives an advantage.
‘My father was drowned when I was eighteen and your mama took me on as her personal maid. Everything else I learnt from her. Both my father and your mama taught me to keep very still until you know in which direction to move. This, you must do, Isabella.’
Lisette had been Helena’s maid but their ages had been only two years apart, and she had become Helena’s confidante in her first lonely years in England in the huge, cold house. It was like a circle, a curse, Lisette thought now, my beautiful ladies yearning for more or something different, when they had so much.
When Trathan leaves me, I borrow a horse and set off to ride the narrow lanes to St Piran. What I most feared has happened, and how this should be I know not. It will not have come from Isabella, this I do know.
My father is emerging from the kitchen to the pump with a jug for water and he is startled to see me as I bound through the gate, breathless. He looks upon my face and knows I bring trouble with me. We make our way to the upper boatyard again and we both sit at a make-shift table.
I tell my father of my meeting with Isabella yesterday. My father sucks his tea and is very still. Then he says, in the slow way he has, ‘I remember the day thy figurehead was unveiled, and I have been half-expecting trouble, but it is a shock just the same, Thomas.’
He gives me a piercing look of disappointment which grieves me far worse than harsh words.
‘Anger will serve no purpose, Tom. Thou hast put the girl out of her own society and made her beyond ours. If Sir Richard knows, St Piran will lose all future building contracts with his syndicate. He will not be made a fool of. Men will be out of work and women and children will go hungry. No one will accept Lady Isabella here. They will blame her, and thee. Did thou have no thought for the consequences?’
He stares at me sadly, for I have always been his favourite son, the nearest to him in character.
‘What hast thou done? More, I think, than thou will ever know, Thomas.’
‘Pa, I have money saved. I can now command considerable sums for my figureheads. We have talked, Isabella and I; she is willing to sail with me to New England to begin a new life.’
‘Will thou take her as a wife or as a woman no longer respectable?’
I am suddenly angry. ‘In whose eyes, Father, will she be no longer respectable? In yours? I have no use for society if it judges her. She was sold off to an old man …’
‘Thomas, I am not thy judge. God will be that. Doest thou think that by putting an ocean between thee and English society thou will be free of it? It awaits thee with a different face in the colonies.’
‘I love her, Father. I love this woman. She is having my child, your grandchild. I would marry her tomorrow.’
‘Dost thou think Sir Richard will quietly divorce his prize possession for a working man and let thee sail off with her?’
‘She carries my child …’
‘I am sorry, now,’ my father interrupts with unaccustomed bitterness, ‘that I sent thee to Prince Edward Island with my blessing, for this is the result of mixing too freely with the gentry. Thou hast got above thysen, Thomas. Aye, thou hast money now, saved and well-earnt, but it is as nothing to Sir Richard’s money or Mr Vyvyan’s. Lady Isabella is used to being pampered and waited on. Mr Vyvyan is the squire of this parish. We have worked for him for most of my lifetime. The Welland name will now be blacklisted from all shipbuilding and carpentry, because of thee, Thomas. God knows what thy mother will say.’
‘I cannot believe Mr Vyvyan will ruin you or the village for a thing I have done, Father. You know they have always done well out of us. We build faster and more competently than any firm round here and our prices are more than fair. It would not make sense …’
‘Sense has nothing to do with it, son. Betrayal, everything. Sir Richard trusted thee with his wife.’
I hesitate. ‘Pa, I cannot leave Isabella alone with this. I came only to warn you, not to run away from him. If I have to face him I will. I am not a coward.’
‘Thomas, thou hast made a fool of an old man without an heir. Thou hast fornicated with his wife and she is having thy child. He will not be able to hold his head up for he has been cuckolded under his nose. He will believe the world laughs at him. That damn figurehead will be a bitter travesty for evermore. Keep away from him. Keep away until thou knows how the land lies.’
I drink my tea and begin to eat my pasty for I feel suddenly weak and light-headed with shock.
‘I must sleep, Pa. I have ridden all night and I cannot think.’
‘Aye, sleep. I will say nothing and thou must do the same, Thomas. Thou will need sleep, for Sir Richard will come to find thee, of that I am sure. I must go to my work now.’
I get to my feet. ‘Father, if I could undo this, I would. I cannot regret Isabella, ever, but I regret the situation I have put you … and her in. She thought I might abandon her.’
‘Some might have. What is done is done, son. Go to thy loft and sleep.’
As Ben turned to go down the hill to the quay he had one hope left. A frail hope, but he clutched at it.