THE MORNING OF Mr. Emmerson’s departure arrives with calm seas and a breeze as soft as a child’s whisper. I watch the sunrise from the lantern room, remembering the quiet September morning when Father and I had joked about birds flying into the living quarters downstairs, unaware that before we would see another sunrise we would encounter such drama and tragedy.
It strikes me, as I stand here only two months later, that life is a constant surprise. No matter how many charts and maps we study, or how cleverly we believe ourselves able to interpret the change in atmosphere or the shape of the clouds or the movement of the waves, we can never truly know what the day will bring; cannot plan for every eventuality. Only as each dreadful misfortune or delightful surprise unfolds can we choose how to respond; fleeting decisions made in an instant but which carry an echo across a lifetime.
After tending to the lamps, I take advantage of the clear day to take a walk along the tidal pools. A bitter chill laces the air and my cheeks soon flame from the bite of the wind and my exertions as I clamber over the exposed rocks. I pay no heed to the frigid temperature, only glad to be outside. I stand at the edge of the sea, throwing pebbles in looping arcs, watching the ever-spreading ripples. I am fascinated by the invisible force that propels them on long after the pebble has sunk from view. I wish I could do the same; sink back into the quiet days of invisibility when Grace Darling was an unremarkable young woman, known only to her family and those in her close acquaintance.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t hear Mr. Emmerson approach until he is beside me. He stands quietly for a moment as we watch the path of sunlight on the water.
“Such a contrast,” he remarks. “It is hard to believe the storm of the past week was ever here.”
I turn to him. The early morning light paints his face golden, erasing some of the confusion and doubt I’d seen last night. “That is the way of the island, Mr. Emmerson. Sometimes a lion. Sometimes a lamb. No two days ever quite the same.”
“I have fallen quite under Longstone’s spell, Miss Darling. I envy your ability to say this all belongs to you.”
“Oh, it doesn’t belong to us, Mr. Emmerson. We are only looking after it for a while. In time the lighthouse and the island will pass to another keeper and his family, and so on. People will stand here in years to come and never know the Darling family once lived here.”
He bends to pick up a handful of pebbles, throwing them absentmindedly into the water. “But you are here now, and I have enjoyed your family’s hospitality more than I can say. I shall be very sorry to leave.”
“And we shall be sorry to have an empty seat at the table tonight,” I reply, the lightness of my response concealing the depth of my sorrow.
“I am sure your mother won’t be sorry to have one less mouth to feed. I’m afraid I have been rather an unexpected interruption to your lives.”
“A pleasant interruption all the same, Mr. Emmerson.” I throw a pebble of my own into the water before brushing sand from my fingertips. “But we must now return you with the tide. I’m sure you’ll have been missed while we have enjoyed your company. No doubt there are others who will be glad to have you back.” My invitation for him to mention his betrothal to Eliza is as brazen as bait dangled from a fisherman’s hook, but he doesn’t bite.
He throws another pebble in a high arc. We watch the splash of the water as I remark on the mesmerizing spread of the ripples.
“I like the sense of continuity,” I say. “A small act of rebellion against the inevitable end.”
The waves lap at my feet, the pebbles on the shoreline rattling as the water slips over them before pulling them back in the undertow. The push and pull of the tide. The eternal ebb and flow. In the distance, I see my father preparing the coble to take Mr. Emmerson back to the Main. I notice how he coughs and struggles, making hard work of a task he once performed so easily.
The strengthening sun sets Mr. Emmerson’s face alight as I look at him. I smile despite the flicker of regret I see in his eyes. “I see my father preparing the boat.”
He nods in understanding, and we turn away from the water in silence, our boots crunching over shells as we walk back to the boathouse, our shadows cast behind us, an impression of what might have been, lingering in our wake.
Before Mr. Emmerson steps into the boat, I take a small conch shell from my pocket. “A memento,” I say, passing it to him. “So that you might always hear the North Sea.” My voice catches in my throat. The tremble in my hand clearly visible.
He smiles, that same broad smile I’ve pictured so often in my mind. “And I wish you to have something in return,” he says, pressing a mussel shell into my hands. “To fill the empty chambers of your locket.”
Unable to say anything further, I hold the shell tight in my hand, wrapping my fingers around it as I watch my father guide the boat around the islands until I cannot see it anymore. The wind balloons out my skirts and sends the ribbons of my bonnet fluttering. The sky turns as pink as summer roses and I sense the coming of snow in the fat clouds.
The seasons move on, and so must I.
Later, in the privacy of my room, I open the mussel shell to find two tiny portraits inside, beautifully painted on thick paper. One of Mr. Emmerson. One of me, standing beside the lighthouse. My heart breaks and soars as I take the portraits from the shell and place them carefully inside the locket, a perfect fit. I close the filigree clasp and place the chain around my neck, holding the locket to my chest as I try to dam the rush of emotion that floods my heart, knowing what might have been, but could not be.
I remain in my room until dusk when I ascend the steps to the lantern room to light the lamps. Cocooned in the lighthouse’s sure embrace I set to work, the sound of the sea at the windows soothing me like a mother calming an infant. It is for the best, it says. It is all for the best.
That evening, by candlelight, I write two letters. The first, to Robert Smeddle, informing him that, in agreement with my father, I will not be at liberty to sit for any more artists, nor will I require any further assistance with my correspondence as I am quite able to manage matters myself.
The second letter is to Sarah Dawson. I thank her for writing to me so frankly about her brother, and for explaining the matter of his forthcoming nuptials and I assure her that while I am very fond of George and enjoy his company immensely, I could not, in any way, permit myself to be associated with the breaking of a promise of engagement. I tell her that I wish Mr. Emmerson and Miss Cavendish a very happy future together.
I only wish that I believed my own words.
LATE AFTERNOON AND the sun hangs low over the city of Dundee, illuminating the church spires and gilding George’s small bedroom with a generous light. He takes up his pencils and starts to sketch, her face as clear as if she were standing in front of him, the shape of her features so familiar to him now. But it isn’t just her face he can’t forget. It’s the particular sense of purpose and determination that dripped from her like honey from a spoon. So slender in form and yet so immense in personality and character.
He lifts the conch shell to his ear and listens, first to the steady rush of the sea and then to the bright echo of her laughter held inside. He closes his eyes, imagining himself as the lighthouse, tall and fearless. The beams of light become his arms, reaching out across the miles so that he might touch her once again.
His union with Eliza Cavendish was perhaps inevitable, their future alignment having been set upon by their parents from infancy, their lives having circled around the assumption that they would, one day, marry. He cares for Eliza very much, loves her even, but only in the way that he loves his sister—a love borne of familiarity. He doesn’t love Eliza with the passion he now knows it is possible to love someone. He doesn’t see Eliza when he closes his eyes; doesn’t replay again and again the conversations he has had with her. His mind, his heart, his soul is full of only one: Miss Darling.
Which is why it torments him that he must forget her.
Like the light keeper at sunrise, he must extinguish the flame that burns so brightly within his heart and let the tides of duty carry him onwards.
But first, he must write down everything he was unable to say to Miss Darling in person. Picking up a pencil and a sheet of writing paper, he spills his emotions onto the page like a spring tide, rushing forth without end. Only when the inkwell is depleted and the torrent has eased does he seal the letter, writes Grace on the front and places it on the desk beside his portrait of her. It isn’t finished, and yet it strikes him as he looks at it that its incompleteness perfectly captures how he feels. It is the beginning of what might have been, a moment in time captured and released, a representation in art of a friendship that must remain unknown; a question without answer, a journey without end.
As he stares out of the rain-speckled window, he suddenly understands that love, like art, may perhaps never match the ideal of one’s imagination, that the endless search for perfection causes torment, and rarely any sense of satisfaction. In the spring, he will marry his cousin and childhood friend and he will find a way to be at peace, just as the artist must eventually be content with the image on his canvas, knowing it is the best he can do at that particular time.
Placing the envelope against the back of the portrait, he measures his backing paper before tapping in the fine nails to fix it in place. He wraps the picture in a blanket and places it carefully into a tea chest beneath the window. He blows out the candle then, plunging the room into darkness.
The light is extinguished.
It is done.