MR. EMMERSON DOES not require me to sit like a statue.
With the glow of the fire gilding his cheeks, he explains that he wishes to draw me as he’d first seen me. “With the wind in your cheeks and the sea reflected in your eyes. I find posed portraits so lacking in life,” he adds, pulling on his coat. “I presume you don’t often sit as still as a statue and gaze wistfully out of a window?”
“Not often,” I chuckle. “No.”
“Precisely. Which is why I wish to observe you in your most natural state, when you’re not being Grace Darling’s portrait but are simply being yourself.” He peers out of the window, checking the sky for any threat of rain. Seeing none, he claps his hands together purposefully. “Would you be able to take a walk outside?”
I glance toward the pantry where Mam is pretending to tidy jars of preserves.
She peers around the door. “I’ll keep watch from the window. I would come out with you only the wind got into my bones yesterday and I can’t seem to shift it.”
I pull on my cloak as I wait for Mr. Emmerson to gather his materials from the small traveling bag he’d brought with him, but he walks to the door without them.
“What about your things?” I prompt. “Your brushes and paints.”
He laughs. “A true artist paints first with his eyes and mind, Miss Darling.” He stands to one side. “After you. If we’re lucky we might spot one of those sea dragons.”
As we walk I tell him about the latest fossil I’d found just after the storm.
“You must have quite the collection,” he remarks, slipping on a clump of seaweed so that I almost put out my arm to steady him. “Something new delivered with each tide, no doubt.”
“I have most of the shells common to these islands, but I would love to find some rare specimens to confound the gentlemen at the Royal Society.”
“And you are just the girl to do it! I can picture the look of consternation on their faces when you show them things they’ve never seen the like of before.” He talks excitedly, his accent difficult to follow at times over the rush and slap of the breakers and the strengthening wind. “Not so different to Miss Anning and her sea dragons, after all!”
I point out the different seabirds and seaweeds and the foliage native to the area: pink sea campion and fiddleneck, the scurvy grass where the puffins make their burrows.
Gathering up a variety of shells, I set them out on one of the flatter rocks, explaining how some are bivalves and others gastropods. “The bivalves are twin shells, hinged together. Like these mussel shells. I think of them as portly gentleman, dressed for dinner in top hat and tails. Then we have cockles and scallops—ladies at a dance with their grand skirts flowing.” Mr. Emmerson laughs at my descriptions. “The oysters and Venus shells are the grand old dowagers,” I continue. “I suppose they are a little like a locket when you open them.”
“Like the one my sister gave you.”
“Yes.” I open a clamshell in my hand. “And sadly just as empty.”
“But it mustn’t remain so. It must keep something you treasure. We will find you something.” I smile at his enthusiasm. “And these must be the gastropods,” he adds, picking up a cowrie shell.
“Yes. They are more like snail shells.” I pass him a whelk and a periwinkle. “But even in the broad groupings there are many varieties and colors of each. At first they all look the same, but when you look closer you notice each is a little different. See? Perhaps only slightly so, but they are all unique. One of a kind. It is the same with lighthouses.”
“How do you mean?”
“Each structure is unique. Each one as individual as a fingerprint. Each lamp has a distinguishing aspect to its light, a unique pattern of a flashing or fixed beam. Each tower also has an identifying day mark so that sailors can recognize each lighthouse and navigate by it accordingly. It’s like a private conversation between the light and the mariner. Communication without words.”
Mr. Emmerson picks up several shells to inspect them. “I hadn’t appreciated the humble seashell before, but you are right. Each is a thing of perfect individual beauty.”
“There is so much beauty on these islands,” I say, standing up. “I know there are some who consider us to live a very stark and basic life, deprived of everything people take for granted on the Main. But we have everything we need here. Each season brings its own joys and challenges. Each day is different.”
Mr. Emmerson doesn’t say anything, only looks at me as I speak. Only when I stop talking do I notice the way he is studying me, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes slightly narrowed.
“Are you painting me, Mr. Emmerson?”
That smile. Those gentle eyes. “I am, Miss Darling. Yes.”
I cannot imagine that any of Mary-Ann’s romance novels could contain a scene more perfect or moving. Quite unable to think straight, I suggest we move on before the tide turns and sees us stranded.
As we walk, pausing occasionally to peer into the pools of water, I forget about the newspaper headlines; forget that I am Grace Darling: Heroine of the Farne Isles. For the rest of the afternoon, I am just an ordinary young woman, walking with a young man, looking into rock pools as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you think you could ever give it all up?” Mr. Emmerson asks suddenly as we stroll. “Spend your days at crowded markets and hear the neighbors squabbling? I’m not sure I could if I’d been raised somewhere so isolated and free.”
His question pricks at my conscience as I recall the words in Sarah Dawson’s letter and can’t help wondering if there is a greater question carried beneath.
“I’ve never seriously considered it,” I answer, honestly, hoping my face doesn’t betray my emotions as it so often does. “My sisters tease me for being so devoted to the light and my parents. I enjoy visiting the mainland, but I am always anxious to get back to the island.”
My skin prickles and a dull ache settles across my brow. Suspecting a change in atmospheric pressure and noticing how the gulls settle on the rocks around us, I sense bad weather approaching.
“I feel the weather turning, Mr. Emmerson. We should get back.”
Without waiting for a response, and quite afraid of what might happen if we spend any longer alone in each other’s company, I turn and walk purposefully in the direction of the lighthouse.
Within the hour, it is clear a storm will soon be upon us and there will be no chance of Mr. Emmerson’s fishing boat returning for him. For once, I welcome the dark clouds and the high winds, inviting in the storm that gathers above the lantern room along with that which gathers in my heart.
Before retiring that evening, I mend holes in a fishing net, grateful for a difficult task to distract me from the presence of Mr. Emmerson across the room.
“Might I have a word, Gracie?” Father asks, quietly.
I put down my needle. “Of course, Father. What is it? Another request for hair? I shall be bald by Christmas!”
Smiling, he takes my hands in his. “I received word this morning from my superiors at Trinity House. They have revised their regulations. Every light station must now have an officially appointed Assistant as well as a Principal Keeper.”
We have anticipated changes to the regulations for some time. Knowing what Father is about to say, I save him the anguish. “And you will, of course, appoint Brooks as Assistant.”
He nods and lowers his gaze. “I am afraid so.”
“Afraid? But this is wonderful news. Father and son, manning the light. What could be better?”
His eyes crease into a gentle smile, relief lifting from him like smoke from the fire. “I was afraid you might be disappointed. That you were hopeful of the position yourself?”
I squeeze his hands, affectionately. “And I would have been the proudest daughter in the country if I were permitted to take the position. But that is not the way of things, is it.” I pick up my needle. “I’ll congratulate Brooks as soon as he’s back from the lamps.” As Father stands up, I ask one thing. “I can still assist the two of you? In an informal capacity.”
“My dear Gracie. This lighthouse wouldn’t function without you. This family wouldn’t function without you. You, my dear child, are the light around which we all turn.”
As his boots echo off the steps, I pick up the fishing net, searching for the next fault in the lines, but it is quite impossible to mend delicate holes in fishing nets when your eyes are blurred with tears. I excuse myself under the pretense of fetching my fossils for Mr. Emmerson, pressing my disappointment into each of the sixty steps as I walk to my room because despite my father’s words, I know that the lighthouse will function without me.
Whether I can function without the lighthouse, is another matter entirely.