The Lost Lover

Chapter Thirty-One

‘You’re dead,’ she whispered, feeling her blood run cold.

James stared back at her with the same anger that had driven him to send Edward sprawling. ‘Unfortunately for you, I’m very much alive,’ he said, stepping over Edward’s outstretched legs and coming into the apartment. She saw his eyes run over her fashionable haircut and the flimsy nightgown, reading the very clear message it sang out. He looked at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing – but she didn’t trust her own eyes either. His form was altered too. He had lost weight and there was a tension about him that hadn’t been there before. If he wasn’t a ghost, he looked haunted.

She took a step towards him, wanting nothing but to throw herself into his arms, to feel for herself that he was real – but he stopped her with a look that could have cut her in half and she knew what he must be thinking, finding them together like this. She knew exactly how it appeared.

‘Get out, Callaghan!’ Edward said from behind him as he staggered to his feet. Bleeding from the nose, he pointed to the door. James didn’t move. If Edward wanted him to leave, clearly he would have to bodily eject him.

The moment held until Edward looked away, surrendering to the invasion. He slammed the apartment door shut, blotting his nose with his fingers and seeing how the blood was spotting the new rug. ‘Fuck!’ he spat. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ James’s gaze was still fixed on Flora. ‘I came to see the show. I wanted to see with my own eyes what the fuss was all about.’ He shook his head as if in disbelief, his eyes travelling over her body again. ‘You’re quite the sensation, Flora, even making headlines in London... Impossible to escape you, it seems.’

She blinked, hearing the cold glint of sarcasm in his voice, but she couldn’t reply; she couldn’t stop staring at his face. That handsome, angular face she had kept in her mind’s eye for so many long, lonely months – and now here he was, not dead, and he was looking at her like he despised her. Was this a dream? Or a nightmare?

Edward grabbed a white napkin from the ice bucket and pressed it to his nose, his head thrown back. ‘Spit it out, Callaghan! What do you want?’

James’s eyes never left hers. ‘It’s quite simple really. I want Flora to tell me to my face why she no longer wants to be my wife. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t propose marriage to every girl I see.’ His eyes were cold. ‘I want to hear from her why she called off the engagement – even though she’s still wearing my ring.’

She gasped as she remembered it glittering on her finger. He had given it back to her? She recalled Pepperly’s bewildered expression at the dinner table earlier.

‘James... I didn’t... I never called off anything—’

‘That’s not what your neighbours said.’

Her neighbours? His every word was like the thrust of a sword. Everything was happening too fast – she could scarcely catch her breath, much less make sense of it all. ‘James, they told me you were dead,’ she repeated. ‘They said the ship sank.’

‘Sank?’

‘Yes. That it got caught in ice and the hull was breached.’

He let a beat pass. ‘We were stuck for three days in the ice. Three. It was an inconvenience at most.’

‘But...’ She felt panic rising in the pit of her stomach. ‘We were told you’d perished. That’s what we were told! All of us. Even Edward, he—’

She stopped as James’s lips curled into a sneer. ‘Oh no. Rushton never thought that; not for a moment.’ Sarcasm dripped from his words, a new, offhand cruelty she’d never seen in him before. ‘He saw me very much alive at our London club only last month – and he wasn’t too happy about it. You got quite a petition going in my absence, didn’t you, Rushton? Trying to get them to blackball me.’

‘Fuck you!’ Edward snarled. It seemed to be all he could say.

‘You allowed me to go on believing he was dead?’ Flora whispered to Edward in disbelief. He simply shrugged, and she realized that his treachery didn’t surprise her after all. She would have expected nothing else from a man of his type. He was an opportunist – in business as well as pleasure.

She looked back at James with renewed urgency. ‘James, you’ve got to believe me,’ she beseeched. ‘I never called off anything. I thought you were dead.’

‘If you thought that, then why did you write me that letter?’

‘What letter?’ Her hands splayed in front of her in bewilderment. It was as if they were having two entirely separate conversations.

‘Asking me to meet you off the boat in Oban.’

She caught her breath, feeling disorientated. ‘I didn’t write any letter to you! I thought you were dead!’ she cried. ‘How many times do I have to say it?’

He blinked, a small doubt starting to register. For the first time since he’d entered the room she saw something like a thaw in his eyes, as if he was beginning to hear her. Believe her. A glimmer of the old James, her James, ran across his face.

‘James, please. I’m telling the truth,’ she begged. ‘Please!’

He relented, a tension inside him seeming to release suddenly and he nodded. ‘Then we need to talk. We need to get out of here, Flora.’ He held a hand out to her and she moved towards him, feeling the same urgent need for his touch that Edward had felt for hers.

But Edward, quick as a cat, sprang between them.

‘Not so fast!’ he said, gripping her upper arm and holding her back. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Flora winced as his fingers dug into her skin. ‘It’s a shame to have to put it in such crude terms, but you’re mine now.’

‘No!’

‘Oh, yes. Money is god on this side of the water, Flora – and you, sweet girl, owe me lots of it.’

Flora swallowed. All of Pepperly’s cautions rang in her ears as Edward played his trump card.

‘Let go of her.’ James’s voice was low.

Edward snapped his head round to face him. ‘Things have changed while you’ve been gone, Callie. Forget that ring on her finger; she’s not yours any more. I own her.’

‘I’ll settle everything.’

Flora looked over at James with a gasp. He had said the words without hesitation. ‘James—’

Edward smirked. ‘No, it’s really not that straightforward. I’m afraid it’s quite a debt, old boy,’ he tutted. ‘Pepper went to town on launching her. If I pull the plug now, there will be no more ticket sales to offset the costs. She’s liable for all of it.’

James took another step closer, looking down upon him. ‘I said I’ll settle it.’

A silence drew out as Edward saw his pulled fist, recognizing the further physical threat to his own handsome bone structure. He knew better than anyone that James had boxed for Cambridge.

Slowly, he nodded. ‘Yes... I’ve heard things are going especially well for you now. That jolly of yours with the Eskimos wasn’t such a waste of time after all.’

Flora said nothing, but she felt his grip loosen around her bicep until eventually he released her. She drew her arm in and began rubbing it, as if sloughing off his physical contact.

‘Flora, get your things,’ James said, not taking his eyes off his former friend.

Neither man stirred as she darted into the bathroom and shoved her clothes into the bag, the silver rattle safely packed under her dress. Picking up the sable and her shoes, she returned to stand by James’s side, breathless.

‘Send me your invoice, Rushton,’ James muttered, placing a hand on the small of her back and moving her towards the door, keeping his body between her and Edward all the way.

Flora didn’t say a word as Edward, his dinner shirt splattered with blood, watched her leaving in her nightgown, still unconquered. She stepped out into the corridor and James closed the apartment door behind them.

Immediately she turned to him. ‘James—’

But the words were torn from her as he pushed her against the wall and kissed her, right there, his hands in her hair, their bodies pressed together. Making her his again. She felt the world contract between them: all the distance and time that had forced them apart was swept away as she was transported back to their last moments together on St Kilda. I’ll come back for you, he had whispered to her in the cleit. Now she inhaled his scent, remembering how it had felt being with him the last time they were together.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she breathed as he pulled back and kissed her cheeks, her brow, her nose, her eyes. ‘You’ve no idea how I’ve missed you.’

‘I have some idea,’ he murmured.

‘No,’ she protested. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘And I thought you no longer loved me. That’s worse. I’d rather be dead than unloved by you.’

She smiled at the twisted logic as he kissed her over and over.

‘We have to go somewhere,’ she panted, looking up and down the corridor. ‘We can’t stay out here, like this.’

He trailed his fingers over her hip and up her side as he reached into his pocket and held up a key with the other hand. She watched in astonishment as he slid it into the door of the apartment... next door.

‘But...’ she whispered as he opened it up.

‘It’s how our families first met. We’re neighbours here,’ he smiled, pulling her inside.

‘Did he touch you?’ he asked jealously, kissing her, pulling her towards the bed.

‘No.’

He groaned with relief. ‘I want to kill him.’

‘No... you stopped him in time.’ They fell together onto the mattress, limbs intertwined. The kiss deepened and she felt the connection between them surge, somehow stronger in spite of all they had lost. She wanted to lose herself in him and never be found again, but she pulled back, panting. This was no ordinary reunion. He’d returned from the dead and everything had changed. He had no idea just how much.

‘Where are you going?’ he protested as she clambered off the bed and moved away, putting a much-needed distance between them. She tried to gather her thoughts. There were things he had to know.

Her too. She had questions that needed answers. ‘... How did you even know I was with him?’

He watched her closely, his eyes tracking her every move, as if he would never let her out of his sight again. ‘I didn’t. I arrived in the city last night and went straight to your hotel – it was late, but I needed to see you and I’d heard where you were staying.’ He sighed and shifted his position, leaning back on his elbows. ‘When I saw him coming out, of all people, my heart sank. I was afraid that was why you’d left me – to be with him after all. But I couldn’t be sure. He’d come out with another chap, so I decided to follow you around today, to see if you were with him.’

That feeling of being watched... the sound on the balcony. This balcony. ‘That was you?’

He shrugged. ‘Every time I saw you, you were alone; I still couldn’t work out what was going on. So I paid someone I saw coming out of the stage door to drop the ring to you before the show; I wanted to see if you would wear it. When you did, I felt some hope that you still cared after all.’

Flora listened in silence. It really had been his face she had seen in the crowd tonight. Not a wish, or a hope, or a dream – really him.

‘I tried going backstage to see you afterwards, but you had already left before I could get there. I happened to see the same girl I’d paid earlier, so I paid her again to tell me where you’d gone. Then I took a cab to Le Boeuf and waited outside – and that’s when I saw you coming out with him.’ He sighed again as he looked down at his feet. ‘It was my worst fear confirmed. I followed you, but I already knew where you would go. Rushton’s a creature of habit and it wasn’t difficult to guess he’d make his move here. Believe me, he’s seduced many girls by showing them the lights from that balcony.’

Flora stared at him, hardly able to take in what she was hearing. She didn’t care about Edward’s ploys. ‘But how did you come to have the ring?’

‘I saw it by chance in the window as I passed the shop, soon after I returned home.’

She was horrified by the thought of what he must have felt, seeing his mother’s ring in a pawn shop window. ‘I had to sell it, James, I had no choice. We had no money—’

‘I know that now,’ he said, seeing her distress. ‘At the time, though, it seemed to me you’d simply had a change of heart.’

‘But I hadn’t! I wouldn’t!’

‘Well, that’s not what I was told. Everyone had disembarked at Oban and there was no sign of you. When I asked them where you were, they said you didn’t want to see me; that the engagement was off...’ He stared at her with pained eyes. ‘When I saw the ring in the window, I hated you. Or at least I tried to.’

‘But this makes no sense – I never did any of those things. I never wrote asking you to meet me in Oban, and I never called off the engagement. I don’t know why anyone would say otherwise.’ She frowned. ‘Who was it you spoke to?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know her name. Some woman. Rather bad-tempered-looking. She was carrying a newborn—’

Flora’s head whipped up and she recoiled as if he’d scalded her. No...

‘Flora?’ he asked, concern in his voice as she stepped backwards, her fingers pressed to her mouth as she tried to make sense of it. Everyone in the village had heard what she had heard: that James’s ship had sunk. If Mary had seen with her own eyes that he was alive, why would she have said such a thing?

She felt a sudden sickness in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t explain, an uneasiness that made her want to drop to the floor. She had a sense of a picture coming together – and yet pieces were missing. She paced, beginning to feel frantic as her mind rushed to make connections.

‘Flora, tell me what’s wrong.’ He sat up now, planting his feet on the floor as he watched her.

She looked back at him, knowing she had to tell him what she had done. ‘There’s something you need to know.’

He looked nervous. ‘Very well. What is it?’

She swallowed, knowing she couldn’t sugarcoat her words. Would he hate her? Could he ever forgive her? ‘... I had a baby. Our baby.’

‘What?’ The colour bled from his cheeks at the stunning announcement.

‘I had no way of telling you. And then, when... when I was told you were dead, the shock, I... I went into early labour. Brought on by the distress.’ She watched his eyes run over her face, a look of utmost dread on his own. ‘We had a little boy.’

‘Had?’ She heard the trepidation held in that one word.

‘I had to give him away.’ She heard her voice rise as her panic – her pain – grew. ‘To a couple who were desperate for a child of their own. It was the only way. We were about to come over to the mainland and I had no money – no one to support us – and I knew I couldn’t get work with a baby. If I was to arrive there as an unmarried mother, we’d have floundered. I had to do the best thing for him. Giving him up was a mercy – you see that, don’t you? At least this way, he would grow up with a happy family that wanted him.’

But even as she said the words, she knew that wasn’t strictly true. Donald and Mary would never be happy together.

A deep groan escaped him as he dropped his head into his hands, his body hunched as his fingers twisted hard in his hair.

‘Please say something,’ she whispered, as his silence grew.

‘This is a lot to...’ He swallowed, looking up to meet her eyes. ‘And are you telling me... the baby that woman was holding – it was... it was our child?’

Flora nodded, seeing his despair as he absorbed the fact that he had greeted his own child – his own flesh and blood – in another woman’s arms. A fresh moan escaped him as he fell onto his back, his hands over his face. ‘She stood there, with my child in her arms, and lied to my face about you calling off the engagement?’

Flora couldn’t even answer him. Too many questions were swirling in her mind.

‘Why would she do that? What have I ever done to her? What have you done to her?’

‘That’s what I can’t understand,’ she said desperately. ‘I had no quarrel with Mary. I gave her our child, for God’s sake!’

He looked back at her with sudden understanding, sitting upright again. ‘So then that’s it! She saw I was alive and feared that if I found you, and you knew it too, we’d take the baby away from her.’

Flora stared at him. Of course. It was suddenly so obvious.

Mary had already lost the baby Mhairi had promised to give her. Her husband’s illegitimate child had been her best chance of being a mother, until Mhairi had made the grave mistake of lambing the late-tups. When their daughter had been stillborn, there had been only one hope left. But that meant something else too...

‘Oh, James... she planned it.’ Why else would Mary have pretended her pregnancy had continued for those three weeks after Mhairi’s baby had been lost? ‘She actually planned it!’

James looked at her intently, seeing her panic rising. He jumped up from the bed and held her firmly by the arms. ‘Flora, we’ve got to go and get our son back. You made the best possible choice under the circumstances, I know that – but everything has changed now. We’re together again and we must find our baby boy.’

She blinked, tears coming to her eyes as the horror of the situation began to overwhelm her. This had been planned. Plotted. It was grotesque. Monstrous. ‘But we can’t,’ she said, beginning to cry. ‘Effie rang me yesterday: Mary’s gone. No one knows where!’

A flash of anger, such as she had seen in the apartment next door, crossed over his face as their luck continued to plummet. His hands dropped from her and he took a step back. ‘But someone must know. A friend? A neighbour? Think, Flora! People don’t just disappear without trace.’

‘... Mhairi? She might know something,’ she stammered, remembering Effie’s phone call. ‘She had a letter from her. She was on her way down from Harris yesterday to give Donald an alibi.’

He frowned in bewilderment. ‘Who’s Donald?’

She wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. ‘Mary’s husband. He’s been arrested.’ Seeing his blank expression, she shook her head dismissively. ‘It’s a long story.’ She glanced around, an idea coming to her. ‘Is there a telephone here?’

‘Through there.’ He led her into the living room and lifted the receiver.

‘The Royal Hotel, Oban. Ecosse,’ she said to the switchboard operator. James watched her as the dial tone sounded in her ear. ‘... Hello – Miss Gillies’ room, please.’

There was an agonizingly long pause. Flora’s fingers twitched as she waited for her friend to pick up. ‘Effie!’ she gasped as Effie came onto the line at last.

‘Flora?’

‘Eff, I’m sorry for my haste, but I must know urgently – have you heard any more about Mary?’

‘Aye.’ Effie hesitated, and Flora knew that whatever was coming next couldn’t be good. ‘Mary told the neighbours she was going to Canada. Sholto and I went round and spoke to them today.’

‘... What...’ The word was just a breath; no colour, no shape.

‘Apparently she booked onto the RMS Empress of Scotland – three third-class tickets to Quebec City. Donald’s beside himself. He had no idea. He got bail, only to find she’s taken the baby and the ambergris money and left the country.’

Flora’s legs began to tremble. The receiver fell from her hand, Effie’s voice dropping away to become a tinny staccato in the background.

James bent to pick up the receiver. ‘She’ll call back,’ he murmured, before replacing it on its cradle with a concerned look. ‘Flora, what is it? What’s happened?’

‘She’s gone to Canada. Three tickets to Quebec.’

‘Quebec?’ A look of horror crossed his face but he reined it back in the next moment, his eyes becoming intense as he thought fast. So cool in a crisis. ‘All right, then we’ll... we’ll sail over there too. Next and fastest crossing we can get, and we’ll... hire a private investigator once we’re over there. They won’t be moving quickly with limited funds and a newborn. Her husband will need to look for work—’

‘That’s just it,’ Flora said quietly. ‘He’s not with them. Donald’s been in police custody. He’s only just out on bail.’

James frowned. ‘Well, he can’t leave the country if he’s on bail.’

‘No. She went without him.’

‘So then she took someone else?’ James asked. ‘But who?’

Flora lifted her head at the simple question. Who would Mary have taken?

She stood in silence, sudden clarity spreading in her mind like the dawn light as she saw, from a distance, what she hadn’t been able to see up close: that there was someone else involved in all this. Someone who had always been involved.

Someone who had access to the post bags and could easily have dropped in a forged letter.

Someone who had given and withheld information at her own discretion.

Someone with a bag of special tonics that she had said would calm – but in fact might have done other things as well.

Someone who had found a way to move everyone off the island and scatter them like marbles into the ether.

Someone who was behind every secret. And behind every solution.

Snapshots of daily life clicked through her mind: Mary won’t lie with him ... staying overnight, just to be sure ... hands held behind the cottage... an old maid ...

What did she know of love?

It was a secret that had lived out in the open, too bold to be taken at face value back home. But Flora was more worldly now, not so naive. She had seen things: George and Marcel, in the office...

‘Lorna,’ she said, seeing it all at last, her eyes filling with tears as she looked back at him. ‘Oh God, she’s taken Lorna with her... James, they’ve got our baby.’