The Light Between Oceans(71)

The town had not seen such excitement in years. As the editor of the South Western Times put it to his colleague in the pub, ‘It’s the next best thing to Jesus Christ himself turning up and shouting us all a beer. We’ve got a mother and baby reunited, a mysterious death, and old Potts of Money giving away his dough like it’s – well, Christmas! Folks can’t get enough of it.’



The day after the child’s return, Hannah’s house is still decorated with crêpe-paper streamers. A new doll, its dainty porcelain face glowing in the afternoon light, sits abandoned on a chair in the corner, eyes wide in silent appeal. The clock on the mantelpiece ticks stolidly, and a music box stretches out ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’ with a macabre, threatening air. It is drowned out by the cries coming from the back yard.

On the grass, the child is screaming, her face puce with fear and fury, the skin on her cheeks stretched tight and her tiny teeth exposed like keys on a miniature piano. She is trying to escape Hannah, who is picking her up each time she wrestles free and screams again.

‘Grace, darling. Shh, shh, Grace. Come on, please.’

The child yells hopelessly again, ‘I want my mamma. I want Dadda. Go ’way! I don’t like you!’

There had been a great to-do when the police had reunited the mother with her child. Photographs had been taken, and thanks and praise lavished on the officers and on God in equal measure. Again, the tongues of the town were busy spreading news, tickling the air with tales of the dreamy look on the face of the child, the joyful smile of the mother. ‘The poor tot – she was so sleepy by the time she was delivered to her mum. Looked like an angel. You can only thank the good Lord that she was got out of the clutches of that dreadful man!’ said Fanny Darnley, who had made it her business to extract the details from Constable Garstone’s mother. Grace had been not drowsy, however, but on the fringes of consciousness, dosed with a strong sleeping draught by Dr Sumpton when it was clear that she was hysterical at being parted from Isabel.

Now, Hannah was locked in a stand-off with her terrified daughter. She had kept her so close to her heart all these years that it had never occurred to her that the child might not have done the same. When Septimus Potts came into the garden, he would have been hard pressed to say which of the two figures he saw was more distressed.

‘Grace, I’m not going to hurt you, my darling. Come to Mummy,’ Hannah was pleading.

‘I’m not Grace! I’m Lucy!’ cried the child. ‘I want to go home! Where’s Mamma? You’re not my mummy!’

Wounded more by each outburst, Hannah could only murmur, ‘I’ve loved you so long. So long …’

Septimus remembered his own helplessness as Gwen, at about the same age, had continued to demand her mother, as though he were hiding his late wife somewhere about the house. It still got him in the guts.

Hannah caught sight of her father. His expression betrayed his assessment of the situation, and humiliation washed through her.

‘She just needs some time to get used to you. Be patient, Hanny,’ he said. The girl had found a safe nook behind the old lemon tree and the Cape gooseberry, where she stayed poised, ready to dart off.

‘She’s got no idea who I am, Dad. No idea. Of course. She won’t come near me,’ Hannah wept.

‘She’ll come round,’ said Septimus. ‘She’ll either get tired and fall asleep there, or get hungry and come out. Either way, it’s just a question of waiting.’

‘I know, I know she has to get used to me again.’

Septimus put an arm around her shoulder. ‘There’s no “again” about it. You’re a whole new person for her.’

‘You try. Please, see if you can get her to come out … She ran away from Gwen, too.’

‘She’s seen enough new faces for one day, I’d say. She doesn’t need my ugly mug on top of everything else. Just give her a bit of peace and quiet.’

‘What did I do wrong, to deserve all this, Dad?’

‘None of this is your fault. She’s your daughter, and she’s right where she belongs. Just give it time, girlie. Give it time.’ He stroked her hair. ‘And I’ll see to it that that Sherbourne fellow gets what’s coming to him. That’s a promise.’

As he made his way back through the house, he found Gwen, standing in the shadows of the passageway, watching her sister. She shook her head and whispered, ‘Oh, Dad, it’s just awful watching the poor little creature. It’s enough to break your heart, all her crying.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Perhaps she’ll get used to things,’ she said with a shrug, though her eyes said otherwise.



In the country around Partageuse, every life-form has its defences. The ones you need to worry about least are the fast-movers, who survive by disappearing: the racehorse goanna, the parrots they call ‘twenty-eights’, the brush-tailed possum. They’re off at the slightest glint of trouble: retreat, evasion, camouflage – those are their survival tricks. Others are deadly only if you’re the one in their sights. The tiger snake, the shark, the trapdoor spider: they’ll use their means of attack to defend themselves against humans if threatened.

The ones to fear most stay still, unnoticed, their defences undetected until you trigger them by accident. They make no distinctions. Eat the pretty heart-leaf poison bush, say, and your heart will stop. Such things are only trying to protect themselves. But Lord help you if you get too close. Only when Isabel Sherbourne was threatened were her defences awakened.