again?”
“Nearly gave your mam a heart attack. You know what she says about birds coming inside and people dropping down dead.”
“I’d rather the birds flew inside than knocked themselves out against the glass.” Too many birds crash against the lantern room windows, dazzled by the reflected sun. I’ve often found a stiffened guillemot or puffin when I step out onto the perimeter to clean the glass.
“Which one of us do you think it is then, Gracie, because I’m not in the mood for perishing today, and I certainly hope it isn’t you? So that only leaves your poor old mam, God rest her.”
“Father! You’re wicked.” I bat his arm affectionately, pleased to see the sparkle return to his eyes, even if it is at Mam’s expense.
My parents’ quarrelling is as familiar to me as the turn of the tides, but despite all the nagging and pointed sighs, I know they care for each other very much. Mam could never manage without my father’s practicality and good sense, and he would be lost without her steadfast resourcefulness. Like salt and the sea they go well together and I admire them for making it work, despite Mam being twelve years my father’s senior, and despite the often testing conditions of island life.
Father flicks through the Log book, adding a few remarks in his careful script. September 6th: Sea conditions: calm. Wind: Light south-westerly. Paddle steamer passing on horizon at two o’clock. Clouds massing in the south. He takes my hand in his then, squeezing it tight, just like he used to when I was a little girl walking beside him on the beaches at Brownsman, our first island home. The rough calluses on his palms rub against my skin, his fingers warm and paper dry as they wrap themselves around mine, like rope coiling neatly back into place.
“Thank you, Grace.”
“For what?”
“For being here with me and Mam. It can’t be easy for you, seeing your sisters and brothers marry and set themselves up on the Main.”
I squeeze his hand in reply. “And why would I want to marry and live on the Main? Where else would I want to be other than here, with you and Mam and the lamps and the seals?” It’s an honest question. Only very rarely do my thoughts stray across the sea toward an imaginary life as a dressmaker or a draper’s wife in Alnwick, but such thoughts never last long. I’ve seen how often women marry and become less of themselves, like scraps of pastry cut away and reused in some other, less important way. Besides, I don’t belong to bustling towns with their crowded streets and noisy industry. I belong here, with the birds and the sea, with the wild winter winds and unpredictable summers. While a harvest home dance might enchant Mary and Ellen Herbert for an evening, dear Longstone will enchant me far longer than that. “The island gives me the greatest freedom, Father. I would feel trapped if I lived anywhere else.”
He nods his understanding. “Still, you know you have my blessing, should you ever find a reason to feel differently.”
I take my hand from his and smooth my skirts. “Of course, and you will be the first to know!”
I leave him then, descending the spiraling staircase, the footsteps of my absent sisters and brothers carried in the echo that follows behind. There’s an emptiness to the lighthouse without the hustle and bustle of my seven siblings to trip over and squabble with, and although I enjoy the extra space afforded by their absence, I occasionally long for their rowdy return.
As always, there is a chill in the drafty stairwell and I pull my plaid shawl around my shoulders, hurrying to my small bedroom beneath the service room, where a cheery puddle of sunlight illuminates the floor and instantly warms me. The room is no more than half a dozen paces from one side to the other. I often think it is as well none of us Darling children grew to be very tall or large in frame or we should have had a very sorry time always bending and stooping. Against one wall is my wooden bedchamber, once shared with my sister, Betsy. A writing desk stands in the center of the room, an ewer, basin and candlestick placed upon it.
Crouching down beside a small tea chest beneath the window, I push up the lid and rummage inside, my fingers searching for my old work box, now a little cabinet of curiosities: fragile birds’ eggs protected by soft goose down; all shape and size of seashells; smooth pebbles of green and blue sea glass. I hope the collection might, one day, be impressive enough to show to Father’s friends at the Natural History Society, but for now I’m content to collect and admire my treasures from the sea, just as a lady might admire the precious gems in her jewelry box. Much as I don’t want for a husband or a position as a dressmaker, nor do I want for fancy jewels.
Taking a piece of emerald sea glass from my pocket, I add it to the box, my thoughts straying to the piece of indigo sea glass I’d given to Mr. Emmerson, and the generous smile he’d given me in return. “There is an individuality in everything, Mr. Emmerson. If you look closely at the patterns on seashells, you’ll see that they’re not the same after all, but that each is, in fact, unique.” He wasn’t like Henry Herbert or other men in my acquaintance, eager to brag about their own interests and quick to dismiss a woman’s point of view, should she dare to possess one. Mr. Emmerson was interested in my knowledge of the seabirds and the native wild flowers that grow along Dunstanburgh’s shoreline. When we parted, he said he’d found our conversation absorbing, a far greater compliment than to be considered pretty, or witty.
“Grace Horsley Darling. What nonsense.”
I scold myself for my silliness. I am no better than a giggling debutante with an empty dance card to dwell on a conversation of so little significance. I close the lid of the work box with a snap before returning it to the tea chest.
Continuing down the steps, I pass the second-floor room where my sisters Mary-Ann and Thomasin had once slept in their bunk beds, whispering and giggling late into the night, sharing that particular intimacy only twins can know, and on, past my brother Brooks’ bedroom on the first floor, his boots left where he kicked them off beneath his writing table, his nightshirt hanging over the back of a chair, waiting expectantly for his return.
At the bottom of the stairwell, I step into our large circular living quarters where Mam is busy kneading a bad mood into great mounds of bread dough at the table in front of the wood-burning stove, muttering about people sitting around the place like a great sack of coal and, Lor!, how her blessed old bones ache.
“At last! I thought you were never coming down,” she puffs, wiping the back of her hand against her forehead, her face scarlet from her efforts. “I’m done in. There’ll be enough stotties to build another lighthouse when I’m finished with all this dough. I canna leave it now though or it’ll be as flat as a plaice. Have you seen Father?”
“He’s in the service room. I said I would take him up a hot drink.”
“Check on the hens first, would you? I’m all dough.”
Taking my cloak and bonnet from the hook beside the door, I step outside and make my way to the henhouse where I collect four brown eggs and one white before taking a quick stroll along the exposed rocks, determined to catch some air before the weather turns and the tide comes in. I peer into the miniature aquariums in the rock pools, temporary homes for anemone, seaweed, pea crabs, mussels, and limpets. As the wind picks up and the first spots of rain speckle my skirt, I tighten the ribbons on my bonnet, pull my cloak about my shoulders, and hurry back to the lighthouse where Mam is standing at the door, frowning up at the darkening skies.
“Get inside, Grace. You’ll catch your death in that wind.”
“Don’t fuss, Mam. I was only out
