AS THE SUMMER months pass, the newspapers and wireless reports are full of speculation about a Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and the British prime minister traveling to Munich for talks with Hitler.
I read the latest headlines as I bite into a ripe peach, letting the juice dribble down my chin. I can hear my mother criticizing me for being uncivilized. “Use a knife, Matilda. It’s inelegant to be sucking and slurping.” I am glad her silly concerns are so far away, and suck a little louder. Harriet doesn’t even notice.
“Do you think there’ll really be another war?” I ask.
“Hmm?”
“The newspapers. They make war sound inevitable.”
Harriet shrugs. “Sure, how would I know? I only read the headlines and listen to the wireless reports, the same as you.”
“I heard that Mussolini is ordering all Jews out of Italy, and that if Chamberlain can’t reach an agreement with Hitler, war is probably inevitable. It doesn’t sound great, does it?”
“No. It doesn’t. But if it happens, I suppose we’ll all do our bit, same as before.”
I think about my father’s night terrors. The uncontrollable tremble in his hand. “Was it awful?”
Harriet looks at me although I think she is really looking into the past. “You’ve no idea, Matilda. If there’s to be another war like it, sure I’d rather walk into the sea and never come back.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’ll say what I like. When you’ve lived through hell once, you sure as feck don’t want to live through it again.” She refills her coffee cup, alternately slurping the coffee and taking long drags from the cigarette that dangles from her lip. I bite my tongue. I know better than to comment on her vices.
Harriet’s quirks and habits are familiar to me now. The things that set my teeth on edge when I first arrived no longer bother me. Like a married couple, we’ve got used to the other being around, and I find myself growing fond of her peculiar ways. Like the old teapot I use each morning, Harriet is full of cracks and flaws. She doesn’t cover things up with false smiles and put-on airs and graces. She is what she is, and there’s something reassuring about that. I don’t have to pretend when I’m with Harriet. I can be myself, and the longer I spend here, the more I feel the real me emerge.
“What are your plans for today?” she asks.
I fix my hair in the mirror, fiddling with pins and wispy curls and wishing it would stay neat like the elegant American ladies I see. “I’m meeting Joseph at the jetty. He’s going over to the island to paint the woodwork. I said I’d help.”
“Joseph this. Joseph that,” she teases. “He’s a grand young fella. Can’t say I blame you for setting your cap at him.”
“I’m not setting my cap at anyone,” I protest, aware that I hardly sound convincing.
She looks at me knowingly, but doesn’t press the matter. “There’s a low tide due. Don’t get stranded.”
I promise I won’t, glad of her concern.
I WALK SLOWLY to the harbor, enjoying the sun on my face as I waddle awkwardly along. For all her talk of miracles, Mrs. O’Driscoll had failed to mention the difficulties of moving around, or that I could expect to spend my last couple of months feeling like a beach ball. I’m exhausted by the time I reach the jetty, glad to sit down for a rest.
Joseph has brought the painting with him. It is wrapped in brown paper, waiting for me in the boat.
“She scrubbed up real nice,” he says. “I hope you’re pleased.”
I can’t wait to see it, but decide to wait until we’re at the lighthouse to take a look, afraid to get seawater on it as we row over.
“And there’s something else,” Joseph adds, pulling a small envelope from his back pocket. “It seems that your Victorian lady was hiding a secret. When I removed the backing, I found this.”
I take the envelope from him. The paper is yellowed and musty, lightly freckled with age. The name Grace is written on the front in neat script. “So the painting is of Grace,” I say, almost to myself. On the back of the envelope, a wax seal is still in place, firmly guarding its contents. “It’s never been opened.”
“No. And from what I can see, the painting was in its original frame. The name Grace and the date 1838 are written on the back.”
“So the letter must have been put there when the portrait was originally framed? By the artist?”
Joseph nods, a smile in his eyes. “Kind of romantic, isn’t it.”
As the boat gently rocks and a breeze ruffles the edges of my skirt, I run inquisitive fingertips over the old envelope, turning the fragile paper over in my hands. “So if the portrait was painted by George Emmerson, then perhaps he was in love with Grace but couldn’t tell her so he wrote it all in a letter instead.”
“Well?” Joseph prompts. “Aren’t you going to open it to find out?”
I laugh and place it in my pocket. “Not yet. It’s waited a hundred years. It can wait a little longer.”
At the lighthouse, I hang the newly framed painting on the wall beside Ida Lewis.
“Back where you belong, Grace,” I say. “In a lighthouse. You deserve to be seen and talked about, not hidden away in a stuffy old tea chest.” I admire the carefully drawn lines and the intensity in her eyes. Whoever had drawn her had really seen her and understood her, most probably loved her. I glance again at the envelope, my fingers itching to open it and yet I’m reluctant to pry into someone’s private thoughts. I leave it on the table while I go for a walk outside.
The envelope sits on the table all day. A tantalizing pause between the past, and the present.
After lunch, Joseph can’t stand it any longer. He pushes it toward me. “Go on then. Let’s see what it says. I can tell you’re dying to know.”
I take a deep breath. “More like you’re dying to know! All right then. Here goes.”
Carefully, I break the wax seal, unfold the pages inside, and start to read. Grace watches over me as the words of a letter written to her a century ago are finally set free. I read in silence as the private revelations of a young man in love tumble from the page and settle on my heart.
“So it was George Emmerson.”
I feel strangely emotional as I reach the end, passing the pages to Joseph so he can read them, too. For a while, neither of us speaks, giving George’s words the respect they deserve. I refold the letter, return it to the envelope and tuck it behind the portrait of Grace, wondering what she would have thought if she’d read the words herself.
“It’s too sad that she never knew,” I say. “I wonder what happened.”
During the afternoon, I sort through more of the newspaper cuttings in the old tea chest, reading fascinating accounts of brave women who kept the lights turning along America’s coastline through times of war and raging storms. For women whose lives were expected to remain as rigid and tightly laced as the corsets that stole their breath from their lungs, I’m surprised to learn how readily they stepped beyond the conventions of society and took on the jobs their fathers and husbands had once done.
I read accounts of women like Hannah Thomas who kept the light at Gurnet Point through the long years of the American War for Independence, Kate Walker at Robbins Reef off Staten Island, and young Abbie Burgess in Maine, left to mind the light when her father was stranded in a storm. These women saved hundreds of lives among them, recovering the washed-up bodies of those they couldn’t. They saw some of the worst storms ever recorded, living in the most unforgiving environments, their priority always to keep the lamps burning. On remote islands, alone in their towers of light, these resourceful women found purpose and independence and I have nothing but admiration for them.
I understand it a little, too. In the compact rooms of the lighthouse, there is space to think. In the grand rooms I grew up in back in Ireland, I only ever felt suffocated and small. Here, I feel like a giant, daring to have opinions, plans and hopes for the future. Just like the generations of female light keepers I’ve read about, the lighthouse gives me a sense of purpose.
While Joseph works, I walk to the horseshoe-shaped beach where I sit alone to watch the seabirds and the boats on the water. The child feels especially heavy today and I lie wearily back against the grass, spreading my arms to my sides like wings, the wind dancing between my fingers until I imagine myself lifted by the thermals, soaring among the clouds where I can go anywhere and be anyone I choose to be.
Too soon, Joseph says it is time to leave. As he rows steadily around the headland and the lighthouse fades into the distance, I promise myself that I will raise my daughters to be strong independent women, not decorative ornaments. My child will have hopes and dreams—a future—and I can’t wait to share them with her.
I take in a sharp breath, blinking back tears as a wave of emotion washes over me.
“Is everything okay,” Joseph asks, noticing the tears that slip down my cheeks.
“Everything’s grand,” I say, brushing the tears away. “It’s just. Y’know.”
He smiles. “I know.”
I place my hands on my stomach and drum my fingers like raindrops, smiling at the kicks and tumbles she gives in reply, challenging me to acknowledge her, and love her, and let the world know she’s on her way.
My daughter.