The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter

Father rubs his chin as he always does when he’s thinking. “I don’t trust that sky, Gracie. You know what they say about red skies in the morning.”

“Sailors’ warning,” I say. “But the sky is pink, Father, not red. And anyway, it’s far too pretty to be sinister.”

Chuckling at my optimism, he places the telescope in his lap and shuts his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight against his face.

It troubles me to see how he’s aged in recent months; that he isn’t quite as vigorous as he once was. But despite doctor’s orders that he take it easy, he insists on continuing as Principal Keeper. As stubborn as he is humble, there’s little point in arguing with him. Being the light keeper here isn’t just my father’s job—it is his life, his passion. I might as well tell him to stop breathing as to stop doing the familiar routines he has faithfully carried out here for decades.

“You look tired, Father. Didn’t you sleep well?”

He waves my concern away, amused by the notion of his little girl taking the role of parent as I often do these days. “Mam was at her snoring again. Thought it was the cannons firing from Bamburgh to signal a shipwreck.” He opens one eye. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

I laugh and promise not to.

Taking the telescope from him, I lift the cool rim to my eye, tracking a fisherman’s boat as it follows a course from North Sunderland toward the Outer Farnes. Hopefully it is a postal delivery with word from Trinity House regarding our annual inspection. Waiting for the report always makes Father restless, even though previous reports have consistently noted the exceptional standards maintained at the Longstone light, declaring it to be among the best-kept stations in England. “Pride goes before destruction,” Father says whenever I remind him of this. “And a haughty spirit before stumbling. Proverbs 16:18.” He is not a man to dwell on success, only striving to work harder because of it. Among the many traits that I admire in him, his humility is the one I admire the most.

Hauling himself up from the chair, he joins me at the window. “The hairs are prickling at the back of my neck, Grace. There’s bad weather coming, I can feel it in the air. And then there’s birds flying in through the window downstairs.”

“Not again?”

“Nearly gave your mam a heart attack. You know what she says about birds coming inside and people dropping down dead.”

“I’d rather the birds flew inside than knocked themselves out against the glass.” Too many birds crash against the lantern room windows, dazzled by the reflected sun. I’ve often found a stiffened guillemot or puffin when I step out onto the perimeter to clean the glass.

“Which one of us do you think it is then, Gracie, because I’m not in the mood for perishing today, and I certainly hope it isn’t you? So that only leaves your poor old mam, God rest her.”

“Father! You’re wicked.” I bat his arm affectionately, pleased to see the sparkle return to his eyes, even if it is at Mam’s expense.

My parents’ quarrelling is as familiar to me as the turn of the tides, but despite all the nagging and pointed sighs, I know they care for each other very much. Mam could never manage without my father’s practicality and good sense, and he would be lost without her steadfast resourcefulness. Like salt and the sea they go well together and I admire them for making it work, despite Mam being twelve years my father’s senior, and despite the often testing conditions of island life.

Father flicks through the Log book, adding a few remarks in his careful script. September 6th: Sea conditions: calm. Wind: Light south-westerly. Paddle steamer passing on horizon at two o’clock. Clouds massing in the south. He takes my hand in his then, squeezing it tight, just like he used to when I was a little girl walking beside him on the beaches at Brownsman, our first island home. The rough calluses on his palms rub against my skin, his fingers warm and paper dry as they wrap themselves around mine, like rope coiling neatly back into place.

“Thank you, Grace.”

“For what?”

“For being here with me and Mam. It can’t be easy for you, seeing your sisters and brothers marry and set themselves up on the Main.”

I squeeze his hand in reply. “And why would I want to marry and live on the Main? Where else would I want to be other than here, with you and Mam and the lamps and the seals?” It’s an honest question. Only very rarely do my thoughts stray across the sea toward an imaginary life as a dressmaker or a draper’s wife in Alnwick, but such thoughts never last long. I’ve seen how often women marry and become less of themselves, like scraps of pastry cut away and reused in some other, less important way. Besides, I don’t belong to bustling towns with their crowded streets and noisy industry. I belong here, with the birds and the sea, with the wild winter winds and unpredictable summers. While a harvest home dance might enchant Mary and Ellen Herbert for an evening, dear Longstone will enchant me far longer than that. “The island gives me the greatest freedom, Father. I would feel trapped if I lived anywhere else.”

He nods his understanding. “Still, you know you have my blessing, should you ever find a reason to feel differently.”

I take my hand from his and smooth my skirts. “Of course, and you will be the first to know!”

I leave him then, descending the spiraling staircase, the footsteps of my absent sisters and brothers carried in the echo that follows behind. There’s an emptiness to the lighthouse without the hustle and bustle of my seven siblings to trip over and squabble with, and although I enjoy the extra space afforded by their absence, I occasionally long for their rowdy return.

As always, there is a chill in the drafty stairwell and I pull my plaid shawl around my shoulders, hurrying to my small bedroom beneath the service room, where a cheery puddle of sunlight illuminates the floor and instantly warms me. The room is no more than half a dozen paces from one side to the other. I often think it is as well none of us Darling children grew to be very tall or large in frame or we should have had a very sorry time always bending and stooping. Against one wall is my wooden bedchamber, once shared with my sister, Betsy. A writing desk stands in the center of the room, an ewer, basin and candlestick placed upon it.

Crouching down beside a small tea chest beneath the window, I push up the lid and rummage inside, my fingers searching for my old work box, now a little cabinet of curiosities: fragile birds’ eggs protected by soft goose down; all shape and size of seashells; smooth pebbles of green and blue sea glass. I hope the collection might, one day, be impressive enough to show to Father’s friends at the Natural History Society, but for now I’m content to collect and admire my treasures from the sea, just as a lady might admire the precious gems in her jewelry box. Much as I don’t want for a husband or a position as a dressmaker, nor do I want for fancy jewels.

Taking a piece of emerald sea glass from my pocket, I add it to the box, my thoughts straying to the piece of indigo sea glass I’d given to Mr. Emmerson, and the generous smile he’d given me in return. “There is an individuality in everything, Mr. Emmerson. If you look closely at the patterns on seashells, you’ll see that they’re not the same after all, but that each is, in fact, unique.” He wasn’t like Henry Herbert or other men in my acquaintance, eager to brag about their own interests and quick to dismiss a woman’s point of view, should she dare to possess one. Mr. Emmerson was interested in my knowledge of the seabirds and the native wild flowers that grow along Dunstanburgh’s shoreline. When we parted, he said he’d found our conversation absorbing, a far greater compliment than to be considered pretty, or witty.

“Grace Horsley Darling. What nonsense.”

I scold myself for my silliness. I am no better than a giggling debutante with an empty dance card to dwell on a conversation of so little significance. I close the lid of the work box with a snap before returning it to the tea chest.

Continuing down the steps, I pass the second-floor room where my sisters Mary-Ann and Thomasin had once slept in their bunk beds, whispering and giggling late into the night, sharing that particular intimacy only twins can know, and on, past my brother Brooks’ bedroom on the first floor, his boots left where he kicked them off beneath his writing table, his nightshirt hanging over the back of a chair, waiting expectantly for his return.

At the bottom of the stairwell, I step into our large circular living quarters where Mam is busy kneading a bad mood into great mounds of bread dough at the table in front of the wood-burning stove, muttering about people sitting around the place like a great sack of coal and, Lor!, how her blessed old bones ache.

“At last! I thought you were never coming down,” she puffs, wiping the back of her hand against her forehead, her face scarlet from her efforts. “I’m done in. There’ll be enough stotties to build another lighthouse when I’m finished with all this dough. I canna leave it now though or it’ll be as flat as a plaice. Have you seen Father?”

“He’s in the service room. I said I would take him up a hot drink.”

“Check on the hens first, would you? I’m all dough.”

Taking my cloak and bonnet from the hook beside the door, I step outside and make my way to the henhouse where I collect four brown eggs and one white before taking a quick stroll along the exposed rocks, determined to catch some air before the weather turns and the tide comes in. I peer into the miniature aquariums in the rock pools, temporary homes for anemone, seaweed, pea crabs, mussels, and limpets. As the wind picks up and the first spots of rain speckle my skirt, I tighten the ribbons on my bonnet, pull my cloak about my shoulders, and hurry back to the lighthouse where Mam is standing at the door, frowning up at the darkening skies.

“Get inside, Grace. You’ll catch your death in that wind.”

“Don’t fuss, Mam. I was only out five minutes.”

Ignoring me, she wraps a second plaid around my shoulders as I remove my cloak. “Best to be safe than sorry. I hope your brother doesn’t try to make it back,” she sighs. “There’s trouble coming on that wind, but you know how stubborn he is when he sets his mind to something. Just like his father.”

And not unlike his mam, I think. I urge her not to worry. “Brooks will be in the Olde Ship, telling tall tales with the rest of them. He won’t set out if it isn’t safe to do so. He’s stubborn, but he isn’t foolish.” I hope he is, indeed, back with the herring fleet at North Sunderland. It will be a restless night without him safe in his bed.

“Well, let’s hope you’re right, Grace, because there was that bird making a nuisance of itself inside earlier. It sets a mind to thinking the worst.”

“Only if you let it,” I say, my stomach growling to remind me that I haven’t yet eaten.

Leaving Mam to beat the hearth rug, and her worries, against the thick tower walls with heavy slaps, I place the basket of eggs on the table, spread butter on a slice of still-warm bread, and sit beside the fire to eat, ignoring the wind that rattles the windows like an impatient child. The lighthouse, bracing itself for bad weather, wraps its arms around us. Within its proud walls, I feel as safe as the fragile birds’ eggs nestling in their feather beds in my work box, but my thoughts linger on those at sea, and who may yet be in danger if the storm worsens.

CHAPTER THREE

SARAH

S.S. Forfarshire. 6th September, 1838

SARAH DAWSON AND her children sleep in each other’s arms, unaware of the storm gathering strength beyond the porthole windows, or the drama unfolding below deck as Captain John Humble orders his chief engineer to start pumping the leaking starboard boiler. Discussions and heated arguments take place among the crew, but as they pass the port of Tynemouth, Humble decides not to turn in for repairs but to press on, tracking the Northumberland coast, his mind set on arriving into Dundee on schedule, just after sunrise the following morning.

Steadying himself against the wheelhouse door as the ship pitches and rolls in the growing swell, Humble sips a hot whiskey toddy and studies his nautical charts, focusing on the course he must follow to avoid the dangerous rocks around the Inner and Outer Farne Islands, and the distinctive characteristics of the lighthouses that will guide him safely through. He has sailed this route a dozen times or more, and despite the failing boiler, he reassures his chief engineer that there is no need for alarm. The S.S. Forfarshire limps on as the storm closes in.

Dundee, Scotland.

At a narrow table beside the fire of his lodgings in Balfour Street, George Emmerson sips a glass of porter, glances at his pocket watch, and picks up a small pebble-sized piece of indigo sea glass from the table. He thinks, too often, about the young woman who’d given it to him as a memento of his trip to Northumberland. Treasure from the sea, she’d called it, remarking on how fascinating she found it that something as ordinary as a discarded medicine bottle could become something so beautiful over time.

He leans back in his chair, holding the page of charcoal sketches in front of him. He is dissatisfied with his work, frustrated by his inability to capture the image he sees so clearly in his mind: her slender face, the slight compression of her lip, the coil of sunlit coffee-colored curls on her head, the puzzled frown across her brow as if she couldn’t quite grasp the measure of him and needed to concentrate harder to do so.

Grace Darling.

Her name brings a smile to his lips.

He imagines Eliza at his shoulder, feigning interest in his “pictures” while urging him to concentrate and tell her which fabric he prefers for the new curtains. The thought of his intended trips him up, sending a rosy stain of guilt rushing to his cheeks. He scrunches the sketches into a ball, tossing them into the fire before checking his pocket watch again. Sarah will be well on her way. Her visit is timely. Perhaps now, more than ever, he needs the wise counsel and pragmatic opinions of his sister. Where his thoughts often stray to those of romantic ideals, Sarah has no time for such notions and will put him firmly back on track. Still, she isn’t here yet.

For now, he chooses to ignore the rather problematic matter of the ember that glows within him for a certain Miss Darling. As the strengthening wind rattles the leaded windows and sets the candle flame dancing, George runs his hands through his hair, loosens the pin at his collar, and pulls a clean sheet of paper toward him. He picks up the piece of indigo sea glass and curls his fingers around it. With the other hand, he takes up his charcoal and starts again, determined to have it right before the flame dies.

CHAPTER FOUR

GRACE

Longstone Lighthouse. 6th September, 1838

LATE AFTERNOON AND the sky turns granite. Secure inside the soot-blackened walls of the lighthouse, we each find a way to distract ourselves from the strengthening storm. Mam sits at her spinning wheel, muttering about birds flying indoors. Father leans over the table, tinkering with a damaged fishing net. I brush my unease away with the dust I sweep outside.

The living quarters is where we spend our time when we aren’t tending to the lamps, or on watch, or occupied at the boathouse. Our lives cover every surface of the room in a way that might appear haphazard to visitors, but is perfectly organized to us. While we might not appear to have much in the way of possessions, we want for nothing.

Bonnets and cloaks roost on hooks by the door, ready to be thrown on at short notice. Pots and pans dangle from the wall above the fire like highwaymen on the gallows. The old black kettle, permanently suspended from the crane over the fire, is always ready to offer a warm drink to cold hands. Damp stockings, petticoats, and aprons dry on a line suspended above our heads. All shape and size of seashells nestle on the windowsills and in the gaps between the flagstones. Stuffed guillemots and black-headed gulls—gifted to Father from the taxidermist in Craster—keep a close watch over us with beady glass eyes. Even the sharp tang of brine has its particular space in the room, as does the wind, sighing at the windows, eager to come inside.

As the evening skies darken, I climb the steps to the lantern room where I carefully fill the reservoir with oil before lighting the trimmed wicks with my hand lamp. I wait thirty minutes until the flames reach their full height before unlocking the weights that drive the gears of the clock mechanism, cranking them for the first time that evening. Slowly, the lamps begin to rotate, and the lighthouse comes alive. Every thirty seconds, passing ships will see the flash of the refracted beam. When I am satisfied that everything is in order, I add a comment to the Keeper’s Log: S.S. Jupiter passed this station at 5pm. Strong to gale force north to northeast. Hard rain.

As Father is on first watch, I leave the comforting light of the lamps, and enter the dark interior of the staircase. My sister Thomasin used to say she imagined the stairwell was a long vein running from the heart of the lighthouse. In one way or another, we have all attached human qualities to these old stone walls so that it has almost become another member of the family, not just a building to house us. I feel Thomasin’s absence especially keenly as I pass her bedroom. A storm always stirs a desire for everyone to be safe inside the lighthouse walls, but my sisters and brothers are dispersed along the coast now, like flotsam caught on the tide and carried to some other place.

The hours pass slowly as the storm builds, the clock above the fireplace ticking away laborious minutes as Mam works at her wheel. I read a favorite volume, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Lady, but even that cannot hold my attention. I pick up a slim book of Robert Burns’ poetry, but it doesn’t captivate me as it usually would, his words only amplifying the weather outside: At the starless, midnight hour / When Winter rules with boundless power, / As the storms the forests tear, / And thunders rend the howling air, / Listening to the doubling roar, / Surging on the rocky shore. I put it down, sigh and fidget, fussing at the seam of my skirt and picking at a break in my fingernail until Mam tells me to stop huffing and puffing and settle at something.

“You’re like a cat with new kittens, Grace. I don’t know what’s got into you tonight.”

The storm has got into me. The wild wind sends prickles running along my skin. And something else nags at me because even the storm cannot chase thoughts of Mr. Emmerson from my mind.

If I were more like Ellen and Mary Herbert I would seek distraction in the pages of the romance novels they talk about so enthusiastically, but Father scoffs at the notion of people reading novels, or playing cards after their day’s work is done, considering it to be a throwing away of time (he doesn’t know how much time my sister, Mary-Ann, throws away on such things), so there are no such books on our shelves. I am mostly glad of his censorship, grateful for the education he’d provided in the service room turned to schoolroom. I certainly can’t complain about a lack of reading material, and yet my mind takes an interest in nothing tonight.

At my third yawn, Mam tells me to go to bed. “Get some rest before your turn on watch, Grace. You look as weary as I feel.”

As she speaks the wind sucks in a deep breath before releasing another furious howl. Raindrops skitter like stones thrown against the windows. I pull my plaid shawl about my shoulders and take my hand lamp from the table.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” The inflection in my voice carries that of a child seeking reassurance.

Mam works the pedal of her spinning wheel in harmony with the brisk movement of her hands, the steady clack clack clack so familiar to me. She doesn’t look up from her task. Inclement weather is part of the fabric of life at Longstone. Mam believes storms should be respected, never feared. “If you show it you’re afraid, you’re already halfway to dead.” She may not be the most eloquent woman, but she is often right. “Sleep well, Grace.”

I bid her goodnight, place a hurricane glass over my candle, and begin the familiar ascent inside the tower walls. Sixty steps to my bedroom. Sixty times to remember eyes, the color of porter. Sixty times to see a slim mustache stretch into a smile as broad as the Tyne, a smile that had stained my cheeks pink and sent Ellen and Mary Herbert giggling into their gloves. Sixty times to scold myself for thinking so fondly of someone I’d spent only a few minutes with, and yet it is to those few minutes my mind stubbornly returns.

Reaching the service room I stand in silence for a moment, reluctant to break Father’s concentration. He sits beside the window, his telescope poised like a cat about to pounce, his senses on high alert.

“You will wake me, Father,” I whisper. “Won’t you?” I’ve asked the same thing every night for as long as I can remember: will he wake me if he needs assistance with the light, or with any rescue he might have to undertake.

Candlelight flickers in the circular spectacles perched on the end of his nose as he turns and acknowledges me with a firm nod. “Of course, pet. Get some sleep. She’ll blow herself out by morning.”

On the few occasions he has required me to tend the light in his absence, I have proven myself very capable. I have my father’s patience and a keen eye, essential for keeping watch over the sea. Sometimes I wonder if it saddens him, just a little, that the future of the lighthouse will lie with my brother, and not me. Brooks will succeed him as Principal Keeper because for all that I am eager and capable, I am—first and foremost—a woman.

A smile spreads across Father’s face as I turn at the top of the steps. “Look at you, Grace. Twenty-two years of unfathomable growth and blossoming beauty and a temperament worthy of your name. Such a contrast to the rumpus outside.”

I shoo his compliment away. “Have you been at the porter again?” I tease, my smile betraying my delight.

Taking up my lamp, I retire to my room, a shrill shriek of wind setting the flame dancing in a draft as a deafening boom reverberates around the lighthouse walls. I peer through the window, mesmerized by the angry waves that plunge against the rocks below and send salt-spray soaring up into the sky like shooting stars.

Picking up my Bible, I kneel beside my bed and pray for the safety of my brother before I blow out my candle and slip beneath the eiderdown. My feet flinch against the cold sheets, my toes searching for the hot stone I’d placed beneath the covers earlier. I lie perfectly still in the dark, picturing the lamps turning above me with the regularity of a steady pulse, their light stretching out through the darkness to warn those at sea and let them know they are not alone in the dark. On quieter nights, I can hear the click click of the clock mechanism turning above. Tonight, I hear only the storm, and the heightened beating of my heart.

CHAPTER FIVE

SARAH

S.S. Forfarshire. 7th September, 1838