I made my way blindly to my quarters. Once inside I closed both doors. If anyone wanted me they would have to knock.
Choked by emotion, I took refuge in my bedroom, sank down in the chair and wept. Pulling myself together, I imagined the bout was over, only to be overwhelmed afresh moments later. It went on for half an hour or more, a release of grief and joy coupled with anguish. Lucinda – my daughter! But Dorothea – oh God, Dorothea…
I could barely contemplate what she’d been through. I remembered the letter she’d left in Li’s hands, understanding everything now. Recalling the way I’d blamed her, I wept again.
Hypocrite. I’d gone to the house to bring it to an end, anyway. So what would have happened if she hadn’t run off to London? If she’d stayed to tell me she was expecting my child? I couldn’t have abandoned her then. Had she known, the last time we met? That day of the picnic: was the tale of an aborted pregnancy just an attempt to throw sand in my eyes? I remembered her face, its stony expression; her hands on the reins, the casual shrug as she told me about losing a child. As though I, a mere man, could know nothing of such pain. Well, I thought, I’d learned since.
Memory cast up painful images, venting emotions I’d imagined were dead. That last night at the hotel, the way she’d wept in the aftermath of love, body-wrenching sobs that were as startling as they were sudden. I thought I’d hurt her, but she clung, wordlessly, stroking, kissing, wrapping herself around me as though she would never let me go. And when, at the last, I had to leave, she held on to my arm, my hand, the very tips of my fingers, like someone afraid of drowning.
Yet all unknown to me, she was the one making plans to leave.
I thought of that letter, the smudges on it. Better we part now, was clear enough; and then the indecipherable line. Did she say I love you, and then think better of it?
Dorothea – oh, my love, how you almost destroyed me. I wept again, remembering.
No point. No point wishing it could have been different. If I’d stayed, given up my career for her, could it have worked, would we have been happy? Suspecting not, I dried my eyes, tried to banish the regrets.
Even so, I had a terrible aching void where my heart should be; an ache for the daughter I’d not known about, the years we’d missed; not least the suffering she had experienced. I longed to hold her, pour out my sorrow, beg her forgiveness.
Needing to pull myself together, I poured a stiff, restorative measure of whisky. As my mind veered from Lucinda to Dorothea and back to that letter, I remembered something. Amongst the books and thick jerseys at the bottom of my sea-chest there had been a small box. Had Paintin unpacked it when I joined? Hastily, I checked the place where my studs and cufflinks were kept. I felt to the back, even pulled the drawer out, but no, it was not there.
Having gone through every drawer I sat back on my heels and swore. No doubt still in my sea-chest, locked in the hold with the officers’ luggage. But picturing the contents I’d boarded with, I turned to the deep drawer beneath the bed. Inside were two thick white knitted jerseys with a pile of sea-boot socks. Underneath, in the back corner, I found it: the little box. Inside, a scrap of soft, discoloured cotton protected the gold chain that Dorothea had enclosed in that letter almost thirty years ago.
As I ran it through my fingers, I caught Eleanor’s gaze. It seemed I even felt her presence in the room.
Flinching against a sudden burn of guilt, I wondered how I would tell her. What would she say? I had always kept Hong Kong and Dorothea to myself – not just from a sense of shame, but because of the connection with Harry Jones…