Another Life: Escape to Cornwall with this gripping, emotional, page-turning read

‘Yes, Ma’am, I believe so. But it is his due and I cannot deny him.’

He turned and they followed him out into the sunlight again. Ben called out to his son and the boy turned and stood awkwardly in front of them. Helena congratulated him on his work and assured him that he would be rewarded above the original price mentioned. She also told him that when people saw Isabella’s piece he was sure to gain more commissions.

Isabella, staring from beneath the shadow of her hat, believed Tom Welland to be the most beautiful person she had ever seen. At the mention of her name, Tom’s eyes turned to her, and she said, her face reddening, ‘Thank you … it is lovely.’

She turned away abruptly and walked to her horse. Tom watched her and when he saw she was going to mount without help he moved forward. He cupped his hands so that she could put her small foot into them and carefully lifted her to the saddle. Ben Welland was busy helping Helena onto her horse.

Isabella gathered the reins in her small, gloved hands. When she looked down the boy was still watching her, his face grave, but she had a distinct suspicion that he might be amused by her. She said suddenly, ‘Please do not make another chest of drawers the same as mine for anyone else. I wish mine to be the only one or it will be spoilt, the magic will be gone.’

Her brown eyes met his blue and he held them. The amusement was gone, they held a sudden regard that struck her like lightning. Her bodice felt suddenly too tight, her breasts against the cloth ached. She turned her horse abruptly away before he could answer, brought her whip lightly down on the mare’s flank so that the horse leapt out of the boatyard with Helena behind her.

Helena had witnessed Isabella’s confusion and she sighed. The boy was uncommonly handsome as, probably, the father had been before him. Helena’s thoughts of the morning returned. She was right, Isabella was no longer a child but a young woman with a passionate body difficult to control.

How to tell her, Helena wondered, without putting her off marriage forever, that the men women were often attracted to were not the ones, in general, suitable to marry.

Isabella was now a long way ahead. They had entered the stony cliff path that led down to the cove. Helena did not call out or try to catch up, she wanted to let Isabella compose herself. She would have to talk to her, but not yet, not the second her daughter discovered desire. She must let her have privacy and time to accept her changing body.

Helena remembered her own first thunderbolt of unfulfilled yearning for a friend of her brothers … Claudio … that was his name.

Isabella had reached the bottom of the cliff path and turned her horse to wait for Helena to catch up. Helena was not concentrating. She was back in Rome, remembering the beauty of a young body. Why, she had almost forgotten what desire felt like …

Her mare stumbled on the loose stones and Helena realized she was holding the horse’s head too tight and loosened the reins.

Isabella was having trouble holding her horse. It was plunging and dancing, impatient for a gallop by the sea. Helena called out to her, ‘Let her go, she will unseat you. I will be right behind you.’

Isabella swung her horse round and started to canter towards the edge of the sea. Helena’s horse whinnied in frustration, wanting to be off the stony path onto the sand. Helena spoke to it soothingly.

‘Wait, wait, we are nearly at the bottom … steady now, wait till we are off these stones.’

At last they reached the bottom of the cliff and the beach lay tantalizingly ahead. Isabella was already melting into the distance. Helena’s horse leapt forward, snorting with excitement. The stones skidded under its feet, and as it lurched Helena was thrown forward and lost her stirrup. She gathered the reins in and tried to hold the horse, but the mare reared up on her hind legs and plunged ahead again. Helena flew over the horse’s head and landed on the sand, but the back of her head connected sharply with the black rocks lying at the foot of the cliff. She died instantly.

Isabella was still galloping to the far side of the cove. She had regained her composure and felt exhilarated by her ride along the edge of the waves. Laughing, she turned her horse round to watch her mother coming towards her.

The riderless horse, stirrup flying and thumping into her side, was pounding her way, and Isabella could just make out a small figure lying crumpled and motionless near the black rocks. She gave an anguished cry that was lost in the sound of the surf and the seagulls screaming above her.

The light was going. The room was suddenly cold. Gabby shivered. She had done enough for one day. She finished filling Isabella’s robe, where the wood had rotted at the back of the figurehead where it would have abutted the ship.

She tidied her things and prepared her bottles and jars for the morning. Pink clouds had gathered, coloured by the setting sun. The face of Isabella was caught in golden light from the window and in the rays of the dying sun the face looked as smooth and sad as death.

Chapter 18 (#ulink_0e25ebbd-d047-5dd4-bfea-1ac75e5fb7eb)

It was not until Gabby was on the train to London that she stopped to think about what she was doing. She had told herself that she could not do any more work on the figurehead until the paint samples she had sent up to London had been analysed. This was not quite true, for there were other things she could be doing, such as grouting out all the dead wood from the base of Isabella while she waited.

The sun bounced off the sea as she left Penzance. Nell had wanted to drive her to the station but Gabby had persuaded her it was much too early. Guilt and excitement gnawed at her stomach and she felt odd and jittery as if watching herself from a distance.

It was a long time since she had been on a train on her own. It felt wonderful. No man’s land. She looked out of the window; to her left the Hayle estuary lay full of waders and the sea beyond the sand dunes was rough, rolling in below the cliffs on a high tide.

As the train rattled inland she thought about a time before the railway was built and how once tin, copper and coal had to be transported by hundreds of mules and horses. There were many depressed little towns left by the mining industry and Cornwall constantly struggled to survive. It was going to take her five hours to reach Paddington, but in Isabella’s day London must have seemed as remote as New Zealand.

Gabby’s book lay unread on her knee. Whenever her mind came back to the end of her journey her stomach contracted and her tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. Nell had booked Gabby into her old-fashioned club which was conveniently near to Paddington.

She went slowly over her conversation with Mark. She had rung him excitedly when Nell had rushed in to her mid-morning, waving a catalogue.

‘Gabby! I knew there was something familiar about the face of your figurehead. Look, I’ve been rummaging through my files and found this. Don’t you think this face is similar? I cleaned and restored her in the sixties while I was at the Portrait Gallery.’

Gabby looked down at the photograph of a dark young woman in a rich ruby dress, looking pensive. It was quite hard to tell; after all, they only had a wooden face and blind eyes with which to compare her. Gabby went to her drawer and got out the photos she had taken of the figurehead and placed one of Isabella’s face next to the catalogue. Gabby and Nell peered down and both women shivered in excitement. The shape of both faces was the same. So were the placing of eyes and mouth, the expression in them almost identical.

Gabby looked at the description: Helena Viscaria. Believed to have been painted on her eighteenth birthday by her cousin, Bernardo Venichy, as a wedding present for her husband, Daniel Vyvyan, whom she married in 1844.

‘Definitely the same family, don’t you think?’ Nell asked, pleased with herself.

‘Yes. Oh yes!’ Gabby turned to Nell. ‘What on earth made you remember restoring this painting? It was so long ago.’

‘Quite extraordinary, the subconscious. The face on the figurehead seemed familiar and it niggled at me. Last night I kept dreaming of a red dress, and in the morning the face of the painting was clear in my mind so I went looking for her, not really believing I would find her in my chaos.’

Gabby laughed. ‘Nell, you pretend to be disorganized, but you aren’t really. If I moaned about you making me keep records before, I never will again!’

‘I think the other reason I remembered was because it was such a beautiful painting and was in really bad repair having been stored in a damp loft or cellar. A young member of the family had found it and of course Venichy was having a spectacular revival in the sixties when the painting was brought to the gallery. I’m not sure, but I believe the gallery eventually bought it from the Vyvyan family, or they have it on permanent loan somewhere.’

‘I wonder,’ Gabby said, ‘if this is what Mark Hannah was chasing. He said he had a lead about the family in Manchester and was going to try to visit the Portrait Gallery before he went home.’

‘Possibly,’ Nell said. ‘It might have been hanging in Manchester at some point. Why don’t you ring him? I’ll make some coffee.’

So she had, and he too had been excited. ‘Gabriella … your Nell is a wonder. This is such a bonus. I … I know this is a lot to ask, but could you possibly bring that catalogue up to London? It would make my job of finding out about the family much easier. Is that at all possible?’

Startled, Gabby had mumbled, ‘Um … well … could I ring you back on that one?’

Nell had come back into the study, and Gabby replaced the receiver with nervous hands. ‘He was chasing that painting and it did hang in Manchester. Nell, he wants me to rush up to London with the catalogue so that he can take it to the Portrait Gallery with him.’

‘Today?’ Nell asked, startled.

‘Not today, Nell. It’s far too late to catch a train today.’

‘What if we photocopied it and put it in the post tonight. He would, with luck, get it in the morning.’

They looked at each other doubtfully. ‘With luck is the word,’ Gabby said. ‘I told him I’d ring him back. I’ll have to think. It would be much better if you went, actually, Nell. You restored the picture.’

‘Gabby, I’m not haring up to London for a day. Chelsea Flower Show is my next trip. My dear girl, if you feel like a gallivant to the National Portrait Gallery with your Canadian, you go. It might be quite good for you. I can ring my club and book you in for the night, and you can catch the train home the following day.’

Gabby bit her lip, thinking of Charlie. Nell said quietly, ‘Gabby, if you’re worried about the expense or what Charlie will say, don’t. You’re earning your own money. I’ll pay for the night at the club. I’d love to, that’s what it’s for, to be used. If you think it would be fun and you can put up with five hours on a train, go.’

‘Nell … thanks.’

‘Ring him back. I must get to work. I’ll see you at lunchtime.’

‘Gabriella? Thanks for ringing back. I’ve delayed my flight a day and managed to get a meeting with a friend of a colleague at the National Portrait Gallery. If it is the same painting I’ve been trying to trace, it was loaned to the gallery by the Vyvyan family for one of their retrospective exhibitions in 1964.’

‘That’s right. Nell restored it in the early sixties. Just before that exhibition.’