Collector of Lost Things (11 page)

‘I must go,’ I said.

‘Please …’ she urged. ‘Stay.’

I had taken a step away from the door, but I returned and leant my head against it once more.

‘My name is Celeste,’ she whispered.

‘Mine is Eliot.’

‘Eliot,’ she repeated, trying the name. ‘Are you the man who is helping my father?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is your work nearly done?’

‘A few more days.’

‘I have seen you, working in a very careful manner.’

I waited, knowing that at any minute I might be discovered, knowing also that this would lead to my instant dismissal, but still I was unable to leave.

‘My father has spent a great deal of time and money collecting those eggs,’ she said. ‘I wish you would smash them all.’

I
WILL SAVE YOU,
I had promised. Each day, sitting at that bench alone in the draughty conservatory, mending the eggs, the same thought. Save her from that dreadful captivity, that torment. Each day I would creep up the staircase and listen outside her door. I will save you, I would whisper, so quiet she would not be able to hear me.

But you didn’t, I said to myself, standing on the deck of the
Amethyst
. You didn’t save her. Out to sea a dense pall of fog rolled towards the ship. It felt like the arrival of a dark and malevolent force. A brooding shadow that was accompanying the voyage, out there, getting closer, gaining on us. Others on deck had noticed it too, stopping their duties to stare at the purplish tinge in the clouds, the colour of Welsh slate. Soon the fog overran us, and a dense storm of snow sped past the ship’s side and through the rigging, fast as smoke, clinging and settling on any exposed part of the deck. Within minutes the entire ship had been transformed under a covering of fine white powder, crisp to the touch on any exposed piece of wood or rope. I expected it to soften and melt, becoming slippery and wet, but instead it had a brittle and grainy texture that remained for an hour or two, setting my teeth on edge as I stepped through it, until some of the men used deck brushes to clear the working areas. Talbot, at the helm, merely turned his collar up against the weather, purposely ignoring it, even though his beard quickly developed a dusting. French, on the other hand, wanted no part of it. I saw him duck into the galley as soon as the snow was sighted, and he remained in there until long afterwards.

After watching the blizzard, startled by the sight of the mast tops spearing through the snow, I needed to go to the saloon for warmth. There, I pressed my ear against the base of the mizzenmast, wondering whether I’d be able to hear the vibrations of the storm: distant sounds carried through the wood, of ropes and cables, the whole living sinews of the ship bearing the forces of the weather. The rest of the room was unnaturally hushed, punctuated by the regular creak of oil lamps swinging above the table and the ticking of the sheep’s head clock by the captain’s cabin. It was only then that I realised Clara was sitting in the second part of the saloon, on one of the settees, studying me.

I quickly removed my ear from the mast. ‘It’s snowing outside,’ I explained.

‘It is?’ She put her book on the cushion and came to the mast, placing a palm against the wood.

‘It feels so incredibly strong, don’t you think? This whole ship feels quite … unbreakable. Like the forest of oaks it once was.’ She stood very close, so that I could see the complicated arrangement of her hair—drawn into a plaited knot at the back, with a similar plaited band across the top of her head and loose ringlets that hung either side. It must take concerted preparation, each day, I thought. I noticed a single grey hair, among the brown.

‘Seeing as I have you all to myself,’ she began, ‘I have been wondering whether you might show me the drawings you have made? You seem quite inseparable from your sketchbook.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s true. Of course, I shall fetch it.’ The sketchbook was in my cabin. On the way back I stopped, took a breath and examined my reflection in the mirror above the washstand.

‘
Careful
,’ I whispered.

We sat on the settee behind the mast while she looked at the sketches. My approximation of the dock at Liverpool, with the tangled riggings of dozens of ships, the distant coast of Ireland, with its small fishing harbours, a view into Simao’s galley in the fo’c’sle, his colourful pendant to remind him of his island home pinned to the shelf. A pot on the range and the pie hole behind it, where food was passed through to the men. More sketches, of the masts and their sails, of seascapes and clouds, and the isolated view of Rockall that she had been so affected by. Gannets, cormorants, the gulls that had followed the ship before Bletchley and the officers shot them, then the half-finished sketch of the poor greenfinch, held between the strong fingers of Martin Herlihy. Finally, an impression of the polar bear, lying on her slab of ice, in the darkly confined lower deck of the whaling ship. Clara examined this drawing for a long time, tracing her finger along the line of its head.

‘Edward told me about this bear in great detail. I’m glad I stayed on the
Amethyst
. I don’t think I could stand seeing something as sad as that. Did you touch it?’

‘Yes. I held the paw.’

‘Like this?’ she asked, reaching across and holding my hand. Her skin felt smooth and cold.

‘This way,’ I said.

‘What was it like?’

‘It was heavy, and the claws had a cruel hard curve. They were not retracted.’

‘I meant not how it felt, but how
you
felt?’

‘I felt afraid. It made me think of a total whiteness, and only this white bear within it.’

‘Yes,’ she said, thoughtfully. She turned to a blank page in my sketchbook. ‘So, now to a challenge for you. Do you think it possible to draw me?’

It must have been her intention all along. ‘I would be honoured.’

‘Good,’ she said, ‘although I can instantly feel myself blushing—it is a weakness of mine. Shall I sit here?’

‘Yes, under the skylight.’

I fetched my drawing charcoals and immediately started drafting her outline, noticing as I did how she grew poised and stiff. Her hands held each other in her lap and her shoulders grew tense.

‘You must relax,’ I suggested.

‘I am sorry. It feels strange for a man to be drawing me. Should I look at you?’

‘If you feel comfortable.’

She considered it, then turned directly towards me, looking steadily into my eyes. I was struck by the flat brown quality of her irises, large and innocent, yet with a pooled darkness within them that was troubling. I began to draw the curve of the line below her eye. The placing of her ringlets either side of her face. The youthful jut of her chin and the sadness of her mouth, pursed and thin lipped.

‘Do you think you will find the birds you are looking for?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Why are you so certain?’

‘The great auk is extinct. However, there’s a part of me that refuses to believe it. I suppose that’s the part of me that is known as hope. There is always a chance that remains of them might at least be found, on the breeding ledges. Even those would be valuable, not just in monetary terms, but because man should have a reminder of what he has done.’

‘Because of hunting?’

‘Entirely. They used to be plentiful, swimming across the ocean—you are aware they were flightless? To think, they’d been doing that for thousands of years, and it has only taken a couple of hundred years, since ships like this began to plunder the Arctic, for them to face extinction.’

‘I can tell you are a man of belief. So if they are to be found, it is you who will achieve it. If only there was a place where man had not reached.’

‘Yes.’

‘I used to have this notion, when I was a child, that God had created a special place beyond the edges of the world, where all the lost souls could go in order to live their lives in peace. I used to imagine it was an island—like the ones in the Norfolk Broads—that are tangled with trees. Only, you could never see this island, unless you too were a lost soul. God had made it, as an afterthought, knowing man would be cruel enough to drive all that was precious away from him.’

‘I like that.’

‘A piece of the world that was left over, when it was made. I still think of it. I think of it when I make pastry, curiously, with the pieces that are left behind after the cutting. I cherish them.’

‘Then I shall, too, in future. Do you still believe in this place—for all that has been lost?’

She shook her head sweetly. ‘Not since I found it.’

‘You found it?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean you found it?’

She held a hand to her chest. ‘It’s in here. It’s in you, too.’

I laid the charcoal on the paper. Her eyes shone with feeling. I was quite enthralled by it.

‘I would like to know more about you,’ she said. ‘Edward told me you are an agent for private collectors. Are your employers very influential?’

‘Well, they are rich.’

‘But are they naturalists, such as yourself?’

I wondered how to answer. There were four men who, over drinks at White’s club on St James’s Street, had made a wager that, contrary to belief, they could procure the last great auk in the world and bring it to London. White’s was famous for such wagers. One of the men was associated with the British Museum, but beyond that, no, they were not naturalists. They were men who liked to make wagers, whether it was gambling on which door might open first to their private lounge, or whether a species could be pulled back from the oblivion of extinction. They had read the reports in the newspapers, they had been drinking, it was a February afternoon, and they made wagers.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘They are merely collectors. They want to own something that no other man has.’

‘Is it really that simple?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Men are really that simple.’

She looked a little surprised. ‘So why did you agree?’

‘They paid my passage. More than that I am free to do as I wish.’

‘But what if you return empty-handed?’

I shrugged. ‘They will bet on something else. Their whims are not mine. If they wish to waste their money on idle wagers, so be it. For me, I have studied birds my whole life and the chance to find one of this species, to find the merest feather that once belonged to them, or even stand in the place where they have so recently vanished—it would be a privilege.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘I … I would love to save something.’ I suddenly felt my feelings were open and might easily become beyond my control. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I am forgetting to draw you.’

She gave me a reassuring smile. ‘Are you happy with the likeness?’

‘I think so.’ I considered it. ‘It’s so very hard to capture what you see.’

‘Do you think my face is a pleasant one?’

I halted. ‘Yes. Very pleasant.’

‘I’m not so sure. Edward says I’m attractive, but there again he says what you wish to hear. He’s like my father in that respect. My father is excellent in knowing what people want to hear. Personally, I think my face is too thin, and my eyes are too dark.’

‘You told me you live with an aunt?’ I asked.

‘In Aldeburgh, on the Suffolk coast. A very damp and creaky house, but it has a view of the North Sea. And mobbed by gulls every hour of the day. Have you been to the town?’

‘Yes,’ I answered, briskly. ‘But several years ago.’

‘It changes little.’

‘I expect so.’

‘It will be washed away one day, God willing. What was the nature of your visit?’

I decided to lie. ‘A funeral,’ I said. A funeral is rarely questioned. If I told her the truth, my identity would likely be revealed. Although I grew up in Suffolk, for the last ten years I had been afraid to set foot in Aldeburgh, knowing that her father often went there as a county magistrate, and would spend his evenings hunting for birds and coursing for hares on Orford Ness. If I had run into her father again, I did not know how he might have reacted or what he would have done to me. He might have shot me.

‘I may not ever see my father again,’ she said, quite unexpectedly. I was alarmed, having just thought of the man, to hear him mentioned. ‘I don’t know why he sprang to mind just now,’ she added. ‘Thinking of Aldeburgh, I suppose. He wanted me to stay in sleepy Aldeburgh, and I’m here, with Edward. Can you believe it?’

‘Does he know you are on this ship?’

‘Oh yes, he knows,’ she replied, implying a subject that was still raw. ‘And I can feel his disapproval, even here in this room. He has not always been a kind man,’ she said, as if it needed explaining. I looked at her, noticing a new liquid quality to her expression. The shape of the mouth I had drawn no longer resembled that of the woman before me.

‘Why do you say that?’

She shook her head, sadly. ‘We don’t choose our parents. We don’t choose ourselves either. If only we could. I would start with brighter eyes and a brighter outlook to go with them.’

‘Clara, did Edward persuade you to come on this journey?’

She regarded me curiously. ‘Edward needs to prove himself as a hunter.’ The idea brought a very private smile to her face. ‘He still believes every man needs a trophy wall. He is so young, he still has those boyish dimples, doesn’t he? But he’s already old enough to think he’s a failed hunter.’

‘But why should you agree to accompany him?’ I persisted.

‘He … Always I am talking about Edward as if he owns me! It’s ridiculous. He needs me, in a way that is quite unusual. It’s absurd—I should never have come. But I did, and shall have to face the consequences when I return.’ She sighed, exasperated. ‘What am I saying—it was Edward’s idea. He wanted to shoot seals and I needed to escape.’

‘Escape your father?’

‘Escape myself. The truth is, Edward likes to keep an eye on me. That is why I’m here. I receive medicine, Mr Saxby. Edward administers it to me in the morning and at night.’

I continued to draw, glad to be occupied by the charcoal, but feeling uneasy listening to a growing confession. The face that was emerging on the page already felt a betrayal of what was truly there, before me. Clara had changed in a matter of seconds, her skin had darkened below her eyes and her expression looked haunted and captive.