In the dark they ran and fear caught and snapped at their heels. Tom kept a tight hold of her hand and Isabella could feel the tension in him. They stopped to get their breath before they descended the coast path down to the harbour.
They walked along to the quay. Tom pulled Isabella closer and peered into the darkness. He could not see the boat, but he guided her onto the small beach where someone whistled softly.
They hurried over the pebbles to the sound. Someone coughed a little way behind Isabella and she jumped and gave a small cry.
‘Ssh!’ Tom whispered, amused. ‘It is only a cow in the field beyond.’
Tom’s brother, Harry, waited for them by his small fishing boat.
‘Come, let us be off,’ he said, ‘or we will miss the tide and be here till morning.’
Tom lifted Isabella into the boat and told her to sit as the boat swayed. Both men pushed the boat afloat and jumped quickly in and Tom showed Isabella down into the cabin.
‘You will be safer in here for we must get the sails up, Isabella, to catch every bit of wind. If you feel unwell, come up on deck immediately, but it is very calm tonight. Look, I have made a bed for you … rest.’
He smiled and was gone. Isabella looked out of the hatch; it was a dark and cloudy night and she could not see the stars. It felt strange to be here on the sea in a small boat at night when her household thought she was safe in her room.
She thought of Lisette going upstairs in the morning and finding her note. She knew how afraid and distressed she would be and she wished it could have been otherwise. She had written to Charlotte asking that she take Lisette into her household for Isabella knew that Richard would not keep her and Lisette would not want to stay.
She lay on the bunk that Tom had made and felt warm and suddenly safe. No footsteps or voices could reach them here. It was but a short sail to Truro and Isabella felt her eyes grow heavy with weariness. The motion of the boat was soothing and she knew in a moment she would sleep …
When Isabella woke it was to the morning sky. Someone had covered her in warm rugs and they were still sailing. She struggled up on her elbow, still half-asleep, and the sky was blocked by Tom coming down to the cabin. He perched on the opposite bunk and smiled down upon her.
‘You are like a little cat. I believe you could sleep anywhere.’
His eyes were lazy and loving and she smiled and closed hers against them, felt the colour and the rush of love.
Tom bent and kissed her on the lips. ‘How beautiful you are, even when you sleep.’
‘How is it that we are still sailing, Tom?’ she asked.
‘The wind grew perfect in the night. We are headed for Plymouth. It will save us time. Luck is with us, Isabella, my love.’
She looked upon his face. She had a wonderful sense of adventure as if her world had slid suddenly into place.
Isabella went on deck and Harry handed her cold tea which she sipped and did not like. Both men ate a pasty which they wanted to share with her. The sight of them made her queasy and she turned to look at Plymouth appearing pink-washed ahead like a rosy Jerusalem.
They sailed into the harbour on the tide. Harry jumped out as they came to, tied the small boat up to the wooden quay and went to look for the harbourmaster. Tom and Isabella sat watching the comings and goings. Tom seemed uncomfortable.
‘I will find a room to rent, Isabella, so that you can wash … You must tell me what you need … I know this is not what you are used to and I swear that as soon as we are settled I will make sure you are looked after …’
‘Tom,’ she took his hand. ‘It is true that a room to wash would be welcome, but please do not worry about me. I hope I am not so spoilt that I cannot adapt to a little hardship. I am with you and that is all that matters.’
Tom held her fingers to his lips and she thought how lucky she was to be loved by him. They saw Harry returning from the harbourmaster’s office and he had found somewhere for Isabella to wash and change.
While Isabella was in the guest house, Tom and Harry went to see what ships were there in Plymouth and whether it was possible to obtain a passage across the channel where they could relax a little without looking over their shoulders.
When Tom returned for Isabella they walked along the colourful streets. There were wares of all sorts, and near the docks there were jugglers and an organ grinder with a poor monkey who was tethered and woebegone. There was much noise and cheerfulness about these streets full of sailors.
It was warm but Isabella kept her hood up for Tom could not relax, he was afraid someone in the crowd might glimpse and recognize her. It was a strange and liberating experience for Isabella to cover her head for she could walk anywhere and no one stared at her.
Here she walked in a busy seaport, her hand in Tom’s, in the middle of a crowd so varied and dazzling it took her breath away. And she was part of that crowd. She did not have to worry about the colour of her hat or propriety. She could just be. She could just be part of all this and absorb it into her – the noise, the colour and bustle – as she did the sunlight.
‘You are very quiet. What are you thinking about, Isabella?’ Tom asked her.
‘I am thinking how lucky I am to be here with you on a hot autumn day. How good it feels to be invisible.’
Tom smiled. He said, ‘You can not see that people turn after you have passed. Even hidden in a cloak you walk like a beautiful woman. No amount of wrapping will make you ordinary, Isabella, and it is this that worries me. It is impossible for you ever to be invisible.’
‘Tom?’ she asked, suddenly overcome by nausea. ‘Please could we find somewhere to sit so that I might have some bread and tea?’
Tom looked at her alarmed and quickly found a café. He sat her on a bench outside and ordered tea and bread to be brought out to them, as she could not bear the smell of cooking. Harry joined them. He told them there were passages to be had for Calais that night and St Malo the next morning.
Tom made up his mind. ‘It is tempting to take a passage out of here tonight, Isabella, but I think it safer we take a train to London.’
That night Tom and Isabella lay side by side on the narrow bed, husband and wife. Mr and Mrs Jarrard. Isabella did not like this deceit. It made her feel instantly unrespectable. But in the dark, her flesh against Tom’s once more, all was forgotten in their joy of one another, heightened by the tension in them, for neither of them could quite relax.
Isabella woke in the night and felt unaccountably afraid in the narrow bed, in the clean but ugly room. She missed Lisette like an ache in her side. When she woke again Tom had gone but he had left a note for her.
It was another clear blue day, but the freedom and happiness of yesterday had deserted her and she could not banish the nebulous anxiety which lay heavy on her heart. She longed for Tom to return. She wanted to be away from there on their journey to a new life.
She turned to walk back to the guest house and a man walked past her. He doffed his cap and wished her good morning and she nodded but did not speak. When he had passed her she thought that there was something vaguely familiar about him. She started to make her way back to the house, her heart hammering at her wild imagination. Tom was still not back and she knew now something was wrong.
She went upstairs and began to pack her things into her small valise, to be ready to leave quickly. She folded the bed back neatly and went downstairs to wait in the shabby little downstairs room where the window faced the sea. She took more tea and tried to calm herself. Where was Tom? What could have happened? What would she do if no one returned for her?
Just as she decided she must go out again to look for him, she saw Tom’s figure making his way towards the house with another man who was too small to be Harry.
She rushed out of the door and lifted her skirt and began to run to him. She saw suddenly who the other man was and stopped. It was Ben Welland. Tom’s face was pale. As he reached her he took her hands without smiling.
‘Isabella, my father is come. Your husband has closed the shipyard in St Piran. Every man is laid off and denied work in any other shipyard …’
Isabella turned to Ben. ‘My father could not prevent him?’
Ben doffed his cap and replaced it carefully on his head. ‘No, Miss Isabella, thy father could not prevent it, although he tried. Villagers are still employed in the big house but it is not enough to keep any family alive for long. Miss Isabella, I am come to ask thee and Tom to return before thee both become public knowledge … I do not just ask for mysen, there are near three hundred workers laid off and winter is coming. Doest thou and Tom know what thou art doing to gain happiness for thysen? Hast either of thee stopped to think of what trouble and misery thou wilt leave behind?’
Isabella felt dizzy with shock and Tom led her back into the empty little front room.
‘How can it make any difference now?’ she asked Ben dully. ‘Sir Richard will not take me back as his wife. The damage is done. People know.’
But as she said the words she saw that if Richard could not prevent it being common knowledge he could prevent her being with Tom. He could taste revenge.
Ben said quietly, ‘Only I know the real reason he has shut the yard. He has made it common knowledge that there is a business rift between him and thy father. There is rumour in the village but not outside it as yet. Sir Richard gave me his word that if I could find thee and if thou return with me he will reopen the shipyard.’
‘But Tom is to stay away?’
‘Aye, lass.’ Ben looked down on her face and Isabella saw pity there. She felt as if a light was going out and all hope of another life fading.
‘I will leave thee to talk. I cannot force thee; I can only hope that thou both will do what is right and proper.’
When Ben had gone they returned to their room. They could not speak or look upon the other’s face, but they held each other tight, rocking, rocking together in a terrible defeat.
They lay upon the bed, still without speaking, for there was nothing to say. There was no place to go. And Isabella believed they loved each other all the more for knowing they could not turn their backs on their own community.
Tom said, with his face in her hair, ‘We will have this night together, Isabella. One last night.’
Tom went out to reassure Ben and then they had the dark to hide in, and they lay and talked and talked as close as two people could be, and Isabella’s heart broke for Tom’s banishment from his home, his family and his work, because of her.
I am almost relieved for the dark, for Isabella’s face is so young and wretched and when I think of what she has to return to I have to draw back for the anger will spoil this night if I do not take care. How weak a man Sir Richard is to harm those who have done him no harm, to punish those he cannot control. How vicious to demand love where it is not given.
‘It is perverse,’ Isabella cries. ‘I would not want anyone near me who did not love me, who loved another. I cannot believe Richard does not feel the same. His aim is to prevent us being together, Tom …’
‘Isabella, listen. We will let your husband think it is over between us. I will go and find work and earn as much as I can for our future together. When I am on the other side of the world your husband will relax and your life will be easier. When we are sure that all danger has passed to others and Sir Richard believes all links between us are severed, I will send for you. You will just disappear, with no connection to me. Then your husband will not have an excuse to punish the whole village.’
‘Tom, I have some money left in trust to me by my mama. I am not yet twenty-one but I shall ask my father if I might have it early in order to buy a small house somewhere for myself and my baby …’
‘It is a good plan,’ I say gently. ‘I would like that, knowing you were somewhere safe with our child.’
But I believe it unlikely that Sir Richard will allow Isabella her freedom.
‘When our child is old enough for a journey by sea, you will join me, with Lisette.’
Isabella sits up holding on to me. ‘Tom, Tom, I must know that you mean this. I am sorry to doubt you, but I must know that you are not just saying this to give me comfort.’
‘Isabella,’ I take those small hands in mine, ‘you are the woman I love and you always will be. You carry my child and I believe we will be together one day. I am sure of this.’
‘Then I can wait for you to send for me, Tom.’
And then I love her gently because of the child, and Isabella weeps, ‘Tom, when I am not with you I feel a terrible loneliness.’
‘Soon,’ I say, ‘you will have my baby, a part of us both, and you will never be lonely again. I will find a place where we can live together and I will build a small house for us, by the sea. We are young and we have our lives before us. We can be strong, even apart we can be strong, can we not, my love?’
‘Yes!’ Isabella says. ‘We will be strong and we will never break trust with one another or have doubts …’
‘Never. We know our hearts and we understand one another.’
And the night passes and dawn comes swiftly and we rise early to meet my father. Now we must part and it must be quickly done.
I hold Isabella one last time and whisper, ‘Do not let your husband hurt you or make you ashamed. Pretend to forget me. We are as one, Isabella, and neither distance nor words can part us. We will live together one day soon and we will die old together. Isabella, I love you with all my heart. Remember it when you are sad.’
I take my poor father’s hand and he closes both about mine. I look into his eyes and see loss there, too. I turn quickly and walk down to the harbour. I do not look back but I know they both stand watching me. I dare not look back.
Isabella could remember little of the long, weary journey home with Ben Welland. It felt as if a mist had come down and she was enveloped within it. Ben too looked dispirited and they had few words to say to one another.
Ben, beside her, twisted his cap nervously between his fingers.
‘Ben?’ Isabella asked suddenly. ‘You are afraid that even my return may not reopen the shipyard?’
‘I am, my Lady. Every job is dependent on another, lass. Close one thing down and it affects a whole community. In one week the effect has not bitten home, but it will. Sir Richard means business. This is what he is showing thee.’
Isabella turned to him. ‘I understand this, Ben. I will do my best, I promise.’
‘I know thou will, lass. God go with thee.’
He got out of the trap and Trathan turned and urged the horses back up the hill to the Summer House where Richard waited for her.
‘I bought the carver and his family off far more easily than I might have imagined. I suppose I should not have been surprised. For a sum, Welland was only too anxious to sail quickly away from his responsibilities.’
Isabella looked on Richard’s face and saw a quite different man to the one she had held as they wept together a week ago.
Eventually, because she did not speak, Richard looked up at her.
‘What have you to say?’
‘Richard, I am sorry I have hurt you …’
‘Hurt! You are an adulterer.’
‘I have given you the right to say that. I have wronged you. But no one else is responsible. No one in this village has ever done you harm or been disloyal to you. Please do not make innocent people suffer for a wrong I have done you.’
Richard stared at her. ‘I believe people in this community have aided you in your affair with the carver. Why should I reopen the shipyard? Why should I give work to people who have deceived me? I can never be sure of their loyalty or that they will not aid and abet you again.’
‘The village knows nothing. You know that they do not, Richard, for I understand the reason you have given for stopping all work in the yard is a disagreement with my father. Do you think anyone in the village would aid me at the risk of their livelihood? Only Ben knows the truth. What can they aid me with? You tell me that you have paid Tom off, that he was anxious to be away.’
Richard stood up and looked at Isabella with such loathing in his eyes that she quailed.
‘Do not get clever with me, Isabella, or you will be sorry.’
‘Richard, you have every right to hate me, therefore it is better that I go from this house and out of your sight …’
‘What you will do is return with me to Botallick House, Isabella. Nothing more will be said of this incident. In public we remain man and wife. The child you carry is mine and a cause for celebration …’ Richard spat this out.
Isabella was shocked. ‘You would keep me and my child, hating us both, just to save face, Richard?’
‘I will not be made a fool of by one of the lower orders.’
‘Then I am a sort of prisoner?’
‘If you like. You are my wife. I am your husband.’
‘And if I refuse to stay with you?’
‘St Piran will remain closed down. You will put St Piran out of work.’ Richard smiled. ‘The out come of this shoddy little episode, Isabella, was never in doubt. You should have expected this. Whatever your carver whispered to you, I assure you he could not get away from you fast enough. If you play the slut, Isabella, you get treated as one.’
Isabella sat suddenly on the chair. She deserved these words, but she would never have believed Richard could utter them to her and in such a way. She had never even heard him raise his voice before. Is this what she had done to him? She longed to run from the room and his insidious and poisonous words.
‘So?’ Richard said, turning his gaze away, for the sight of Isabella frail and with child threatened to undo him. ‘Do we understand each other? I am saving your reputation as well as mine.’
‘I have no choice but to agree, Richard.’
She did not say, If you had asked me the night you held me and wept. If you had stayed so that we might have talked as friends, my answer might have been so different.
But he had threatened and lied and bullied and that could not be undone either.
She said, without hope, ‘I will act as your wife. I will do all that you ask, but I must have a place I can go. I must have a place of my own to live in peace until my baby comes.’
Isabella was not acting now. ‘I ask this because I have done you a great wrong. Our marriage is not as it was and I cannot live all year with your hate. I cannot socialize at present, I am unwell, and you can explain my absence by my condition. I cannot pretend that nothing has happened and go on as before, whatever you threaten, I cannot do this …’
‘Isabella, you are in no position to ask for any favours.’
Richard watched her, then he asked before he could stop himself, ‘Would you have preferred banishment, Isabella?’
Isabella looked him in the eyes. ‘Yes, Richard, I care little for what people think. It would have been more honest than the life you suggest.
‘I would like to live here in the Summer House. I grew up in St Piran. Although we have been estranged I am near my father. You need have no fear of Tom Welland because he is gone and that part of my life is over. This is the nearest to going home I can get …’ Isabella’s voice broke.
Richard thought, If she stays here it will kill all gossip about my reasons for closing the yard … and I can close the rift with Vyvyan which will ultimately harm my business.
‘Very well. I have no particular love of this place, for obvious reasons. For the period of your confinement I am willing to let you stay here. After that, you return as my wife.’
Isabella got up. ‘Thank you, Richard. I would like to go and rest if I may.’ She walked slowly to the door, closing it softly behind her.
As she left the room, Richard felt vanquished rather than victorious.
How terrible was a love that refused to die.