The House at Mermaid's Cove(31)

I came back in my work dungarees, which were rolled up to the knees. I had the fishing net and a bucket. Ned and Louis didn’t see me at first—they were too busy throwing sticks into the waves for Brock to run after. Jack was crouching down beside Ned, showing him how to throw overarm, so that the stick wouldn’t fly up in the air. He straightened up when he spotted me.

Brock came bounding out of the sea and shook himself, which made the boys jump back, howling with laughter.

“I’d better be getting back.” Jack clipped the leash to the dog’s collar. “Don’t let them run you ragged.” He glanced at Ned, who had waded in up to his knees, his shorts soaking up the seawater. I saw that look again—the same expression that had come over Jack when he’d said he wished he could believe what I believed about God. It was a wistful look, as if he wanted to stay and play with the boys but felt he shouldn’t. I wondered if he was afraid of what people might think, of the gossip that might arise from him spending time with Merle’s children and the little boy she was looking after.

Ned came splashing up to me. He grabbed the pole of the fishing net and pulled me toward the rock pools. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Jack disappear into the trees.

“Auntie Alice, can we catch a big crab?” Ned was gazing up at me, his eyes touchingly innocent. With one word he’d melted my heart. I’d never been “auntie” to anyone.

“You mustn’t call her that, Ned!” Louis said in a stage whisper. “She’s Miss Alice.”

Ned’s dark lashes fluttered as he glanced from Louis to me and back again. He was too young to grasp the social distinction that Merle must have drummed into the children—that I was Jack’s cousin and must be addressed in a different way than the other women they knew. I had to fight the urge to gather him up in my arms and tell him that he could call me “auntie” if he wanted to. To contradict what Merle had said would be wrong, however much I longed to.

After half an hour of fishing in the rock pools, I told the boys I had to take them back to the village. They didn’t want to go. I had to bribe them with honey sandwiches. Ned held my hand all the way along the beach.

As we neared Cliffside Cottage, where the party was being held, I could hear children singing. The sound transported me back through time and space, to my first week at the mission, when Sister Clare had taken me to see the orphanage. The children had been shy at first, but within days they’d composed a song in my honor. African voices, singing in French, to the tune of an old folk song:

Bienvenue à Soeur Antoine,

Elle est jolie, elle est jolie.

Bienvenue à Soeur Antoine,

Elle est jolie, elle est bonne!

“Welcome to Sister Anthony. She is pretty. She is good.” The words had made me blush. But I couldn’t help being moved. Sister Clare had warned me not to visit too often. I knew the reason behind the seemingly harsh attitude. I could see how easy it would be for a nun to form an attachment to such children. But I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen—years later—to make me do the exact opposite of what she’d advised.

“They’re singing ‘Happy Birthday,’” Louis said, bringing me back to reality. “Do you think there’ll be a cake?” The smooth skin between his eyebrows wrinkled as he looked at me. “What’s the matter? Your eyes are all funny.”

“Nothing,” I said, twisting my mouth into a smile. “It’s just the sun making them water. Come on, let’s go and find Mummy.”

Merle was surprised to see me—and horrified when she heard where the boys had been. “Louis! I told you not to go any farther than the fish cellar!”

“It’s Ned’s fault,” Louis said. “He wanted to go and find Miss Alice.”

“I’m sorry,” Merle said. “I didn’t mean for them to foist themselves on you.”

“It doesn’t matter—honestly. We had a lovely time, didn’t we, boys?” I glanced down, but Louis was gone, heading toward a woman who was dishing out slices of birthday cake.

“Don’t you want any cake, Ned?” I said.

“Will you come with me?” He fixed me with his melting, dark eyes.

I turned to Merle, embarrassed that he’d asked me instead of her.

“I think you’ve got an admirer,” she whispered, smiling.



It started to rain as I made my way back along the cove to the boathouse. I’d planned to sit outside and read, but there was no chance of that. Instead I curled up on my makeshift bed with Frenchman’s Creek.

I didn’t want to finish the story, but I couldn’t put it down. When I reached the last page, I sat with the book still open in my lap, mulling over the ending. The main character had paid a terrible price for the freedom she sought. She was brave and beautiful and had fallen in love with a kindred spirit in Cornwall. But she had a husband in London—and two young children, whom she didn’t think twice about leaving with a servant while she set off on a dangerous voyage with her pirate. Did I like her? As Sister Anthony, I would have said no. But now? I wasn’t sure.

There was a black-and-white photograph of the author inside the dust jacket. She was a dainty woman, not much older than me, with gentle, pensive eyes. The biography beneath the image said that she was married with three children and lived by the sea in Cornwall. I wondered if, like Merle, the war had separated her from her husband. Frenchman’s Creek was set three centuries ago, but I couldn’t help thinking that the author must have experienced the feelings she’d written about, of being trapped in a loveless marriage and longing to escape a life that was narrow and confined.