The sparrows woke Isabella each morning. They came to catch the small flies under the eaves. She lay and watched them as they noisily bobbed about the window. They were so busy and cheerful they made her smile.
She had chosen the little room Lisette used as a sewing room to have her baby. She had noticed how private and warm it was, for the pale winter sun entered the windows which looked out on the courtyard and the unused stables beyond.
Isabella had had a cough for weeks. It was partly to do with the weather, for as soon as they moved here the mists descended. The damp penetrated all and the vicious winds chapped her face and froze her hands. She had forgotten how Godforsaken and bitter a winter could be.
Isabella’s contentment lay in the knowledge that winter would not last. Spring would come and with it, God willing, her baby. The mists would lift and the months pass to the day when Tom would send for her and their child and they would sail for their new life together. She would be warm again and the damp would cease to penetrate her bones.
Daniel Vyvyan began to visit her, with Charlotte at first and then he occasionally rode over on his own when he had business with Ben Welland. It was hard for them both to begin with. Isabella had hung on to bitterness and hurt for so long, and Daniel had had so little to do with Isabella as an adult that he hardly knew what to say to her. But each time it grew easier.
Isabella saw how old he was getting. His thin shoulders protruded from his jacket and she felt the stab of tenderness she used sometimes to feel as a child. He sent food from the house and fruit. He made sure she always had logs for the fire and worried about her constant cough. Isabella began to learn there were many ways of loving for those who found words difficult.
Every evening she wrote letters to Tom in her old journal. She knew one day in spring the packet boat would bring news from him and she could send this record of her days in return.
Richard came infrequently and only for form’s sake, for people would find it strange if he never visited his wife. He combined it with business in St Piran. They were polite and distant with one another. The anger seemed to have gone from him, leaving a space that was neither cold nor warm but contained nothing.
She had stolen his cheerful, innocent bluffness and there was nothing to replace it. The pain and regret she felt was real. She had to live with the knowledge that she had destroyed the happiness of another human being for the sake of her own.
He had told his friends and family that Isabella was having a difficult time and had been consigned to bed rest. Of course there was gossip. Why would Isabella leave the comforts of her home in Mylor and the softer south coast of Falmouth for St Piran? The word, Lisette told her, was that Richard was humouring her because her spirits were low and she wanted to be near her father.
How odd that it turned out to be true.
Her little household consisted of Lisette, a cook and two maids and a gardener who came three times a week. This is what Isabella could afford and each week she and Lisette checked the books to ensure they lived within their means.
This new way of living gave Isabella much satisfaction and helped her to make decisions. Although she was poor by her father’s and Richard’s standards, she did not feel poor. Lisette told her that by the standards of the village she was very well-to-do.
At first the people of St Piran were wary of her and the trouble she might bring with her. Lisette explained that you could never stop rumours in a village. What the gentry did not know, servants always would.
The villagers who had waved at Isabella all summer often now turned so that they need not pass her. These were Isabella’s lowest moments on her arrival at the Summer House. Lisette said she must be patient and that when they saw that her father visited her they would stop being anxious about what Richard might do. Tom seemed so far away from her some days, that despite her dear Lisette Isabella felt a loneliness that was overpowering.
One evening Cook sent Lisette to tell her that Ben Welland was at the kitchen door. Isabella’s heart leapt thinking that it might be a word from Tom. But Ben Welland had come to ask her help. His daughter Ada’s baby was very sick and he wondered if she had her mother’s gift with the herbs. He remembered that Helena used lavender and herbs to make compresses; he had once seen a child’s fever banished this way.
‘Have you sent for the doctor?’ Isabella asked as they hurried down the hill.
Ben did not answer and Isabella realized all of a sudden that they could not afford one.
As soon as she bent over the baby and heard her cough she knew the poor child had the croup. Instantly, she knew what to do, for she had seen and heard this cough many times on her rounds with Helena.
She turned to Ada. ‘Put kettles on the stove, I need a good head of steam.’
Ben turned immediately and went downstairs. Isabella went to the window in the airless room.
‘This window must be opened, Ada, during the day, both top and bottom casement, so fresh air can circulate into the room.’
‘No,’ Ada cried. ‘It is too cold, my baby will die.’
Lisette picked up the baby who was fighting for breath and said sharply, ‘Ada, do as Lady Isabella tells you. There is no air in this room. Your child cannot breathe. How many of you sleep in here?’
Ada said, ‘My husband, the two lads, the baby and me.’
Isabella looked at the walls. They were not running with water, but crystal beads stood out, a sure sign of damp. Five people in one tiny, fetid room.
‘Who owns this cottage?’ she asked.
Ada’s husband looked at his feet.
‘Yes, M’lady.’
‘And when was Mr Rowe, his agent, last round?’
Again they did not answer.
They took the baby down into the kitchen and had her cot brought downstairs. Lisette laid her across her knee near the steam and Isabella applied compresses to the tiny forehead and bathed her thin limbs with lavender water. Then they sat, listening to the terrible croaking sounds that racked her small body until slowly they became easier as the steam worked on her lungs. Finally the rasping noise grew fainter and then ceased altogether as the baby slept.
They laid her in her cot, as near to the constant steam of the kettle as possible. Ada’s pinched, tired face relaxed into something near a smile.
‘Keep her warm and down here with the steam tonight,’ Isabella told her. ‘Then in the morning your baby should see the doctor.’
They left the house and Ben walked up the hill with them. Lisette said, ‘They will not get the doctor, will they, Ben?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Mines are closing. They have no money for the doctor, but I will see what I can do.’
‘Mr Welland,’ Isabella said carefully, for she knew he was proud. ‘Will you go for the doctor in the morning and ask for the bill to be sent to the Summer House. Please do this. I am not a doctor and the baby needs medicine.’
Ben Welland turned to look at her and then said slowly, ‘Aye. I thank thee, M’lady. I would not accept for mysen but I will for the child.’
‘Good.’ Isabella smiled. ‘Goodnight, Mr Welland.’
‘Goodnight, Miss Isabella. God go with thee.’ His faded blue eyes met hers. ‘Thou art so like thy mother.’ And he was gone back down the hill.
The village began to come to her when they were sick or needed help. Sometimes Isabella could help them and sometimes she could do nothing but soothe them with her herbs.
Her father had been mortified about the state of his cottages. He rode down to see Ada’s house and arranged for the work to be done himself.
People no longer avoided Isabella and she felt warmer for their smiles and their greetings. She was now in her eighth month and Lisette would no longer allow her to walk into the village or let people come to the door. Isabella grew weary quickly and rested each afternoon in her room. Lisette would sit by the fire with her and sew, and Isabella would sleep a little for the movement of her child kept her awake at night.
When she was by herself, watching the firelight play across the walls, in the melancholy time when it was neither afternoon nor quite evening, she would sob with this loneliness and fear that she might always be alone. She felt she had lost her husband, who had once loved her, and she had lost Tom whom she loved beyond everything.
She would look around the room to where her carved chest of drawers stood in an archway that had once been a door. The light played over the small animals Tom had carved and she took comfort from seeing it there, knowing Tom’s fingers carved every piece.
Resting on the chest was a small mirror with drawers and the sketch Tom had made of Isabella for the figure head. Above, on the wall, hung her favourite painting of Helena in a red dress. Her father had brought it over one day and she knew how precious it was to him. She had wrapped her arms around him for a moment in gratitude and he bent quickly and kissed the top of her head.
‘You grow so like her, daughter. So very like her.’
One day Ben Welland knocked on the outside door of the courtyard. Isabella struggled to get out of her chair and Lisette said sharply, ‘Miss Isabella, stay exactly where you are.’
Ben came in carrying a wooden crib and placed it before her. It was made of light wood and was on rockers. The edging all round was carved with small acorns and the wood was so polished she could almost see her face in it. Inside there were layers of tiny crocheted covers in white, and a tiny lace pillow.
Isabella stared at it, reached out to touch it. She could not speak. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she could not even thank him.
He stood awkwardly and said, smiling, ‘My carving is not up to my son’s, M’lady. The crib and the covers are from the village, from us all, to thank thee.’
Isabella found her voice. ‘Thank you, Mr Welland, it is beautiful. I love it. Thank you so very much … it is very kind of you. I am so touched.’
She turned to Lisette, for she wanted to talk to Mr Welland alone.
‘Lisette, would you ask Cook to make tea for Mr Welland?’
Lisette went reluctantly, and before Isabella could speak Ben Welland went to the crib and from under the covers took out three letters and handed them to Isabella. She clapped her hands to her mouth in surprise. She had waited so long she felt almost faint.
‘The packet boat is in from Southampton. Tom’s brother brought them to me. He disembarked at Falmouth last night and came over this morning.’
Isabella clutched the letters to her, longing to be alone to read them.
‘Did you have word too? Is Tom well, Ben?’
‘Tom is well. He asks about thee. He worries about thee and thy condition.’
‘Can I give you letters for Tom, Mr Welland? Will they go back on the packet?’
‘I will give them to my younger son, Jacob, Miss Isabella. He is going back to join Tom in Prince Edward Island. Have you letters ready?’
‘Yes.’ Isabella struggled up and went to the top drawer of her chest. She took out all her letters, dated and in envelopes. She sat to finish the last one with a flourish, to tell Tom of his father’s kindness with the crib and that she held his letters to her heart to read when she was alone. She placed them in a bag with Tom’s name on and gave them to Ben.
‘God willing they reach Tom,’ she whispered, and Ben repeated, ‘God willing, Miss Isabella.’
Isabella looked again at the crib. ‘Mr Welland, it is easy to see that Tom learn this craft from you. You build ships because that is your training. I have no doubt in a different life you too would have carved the most beautiful figure heads.’
Ben Welland’s face crinkled and he gave a wheeze which Isabella believed to be a laugh. He bent suddenly and pointed with his finger at the carving at the foot of the crib. Isabella looked down and for a moment she could not see what he was pointing out. Then she made out, between two little acorns, the letters I and T.
Isabella and Tom.
Ben looked her straight in the eye. ‘Look on’t when thou art sad, lass.’
And he was gone, leaving her in the firelight with Tom’s letters.