A spattering of raindrops broke the surface of the river, and both women looked up. The rainclouds were regrouping.
‘Had we better turn back?’
They hesitated, but another heavier burst of rain pocked the water around them and they turned the boat.
It was hard going against the current. Before long the rain was falling not in experimental squalls but with steady purpose, and Rita felt her shoulders become soaked. The rain dripped from her hair and into her eyes. Her wet hands felt sore and she concentrated hard to match the pace that she knew was less than Helena would produce with a stronger mate.
At last a cry from Helena told her they had arrived. They drew close to the jetty and Rita at last had a hand free to wipe the rain out of her eyes. Able to see again, she caught a glimpse of movement in the bushes on the opposite bank.
‘We are being watched,’ Rita told Helena. ‘Don’t look now, but there is someone hiding in that scrub. Listen, this is what we’ll do …’
At the boathouse Helena lifted the child out of the boat and on to the bank, and in the pouring rain the two of them made their way in a half-run to the shelter of Collodion. Rita stepped back into the boat with the rope, took up her oars and was away again, steering a course directly across the current. She was tired, and not fast, but if anyone tried to run they would have to break cover and be seen.
There was no mooring point on the other side, only the reeds to stop the boat. Rita scrambled out and up the bank. She paid no heed to the muddying of her hem, or the fact that she was wet up to her knees and her shoulders were drenched with rain, but made directly for the cluster of shrubs. As she approached, the branches shivered – whoever was there was trying to bury deeper into concealment. She looked through the maze of branches to where a sodden figure crouched with its back to her.
‘Come out,’ she said.
The figure didn’t move, but the hunched back shook as if the person were weeping.
‘Lily, come out. It’s only me, Rita.’
Lily began to edge backwards, branches and thorns catching at her clothes and her hair. Once she had crawled out a little way, leaving some of her own hair behind in the shrubbery, Rita was able to help her by reaching in to detach the clinging spines, one after another, from the wet cloth of Lily’s dress.
‘Dear, oh dear …’ Rita murmured as she smoothed Lily’s hair. Her hands were criss-crossed with scratches. A bramble had caught her face; beads of blood sat along the red line like berries until they fell in crimson tears down her cheeks.
Rita took out a fresh handkerchief and pressed it very gently to Lily’s cheek. Lily’s eyes flickered nervously between Rita, the river and the far bank, where Daunt, Vaughan and Helena were on deck, oblivious to the rain, looking across. Beside them the girl leant out over the water with her fathoms-deep stare, while her father held the back of her dress.
‘Come across,’ Rita soothed. ‘I’ll wash that scratch for you.’
Lily started in fear. ‘I can’t!’
‘They won’t be cross,’ she told her in her kindest voice. ‘They thought it was someone who wanted to hurt the little girl.’
‘I won’t hurt her! I never wanted to hurt her! I never did!’ Abruptly she gathered herself and turned to hurry away.
Rita reached after her – ‘Lily!’ – but Lily would not be held back. She reached the path, and before she had quite scurried out of earshot called back over her shoulder to Rita on the bank: ‘Tell them I meant no harm!’ And then she was gone.
By the time Rita had cleaned her dress and given her boots a chance to dry out, it was getting dark. Henry Daunt offered to take her home in Collodion to save another drenching. They made their way down the garden to the jetty. Daunt offered his hand to help her where the path was uneven underfoot, but she did not take it, so he confined himself to pushing low branches out of the way. Once the two of them were on board, he navigated his way by moonlight to her cottage. It had rained on and off all afternoon, and now that they had reached her home it suddenly drummed heavily on the roof of the boat.
‘It will ease in a bit,’ he said, over the noise. ‘No point going straight in, you’ll be soaked to the skin before you reach the door.’
Daunt lit a pipe. The cabin was snug when two people were in it, because of all the photographic kit, and her proximity together with the lateness of the hour made him conscious of her wrists and hands, the hollow of her throat that glowed palely in the candlelight. Rita tugged at her sleeves as if aware of her naked hands and, fearing she was about to decide to go in anyway, Daunt found a question for her.
‘Does Lily still believe the child is her sister?’
‘I believe so. The parson spoke to her about it and she was unshakeable.’
‘It can’t be so.’
‘It’s most improbable, yes. I wish I had been able to persuade her to come across. I’d have liked to speak to her.’
‘About the girl?’
‘And about herself.’
The rain seemed to ease. Before she could notice it, he asked another question.
‘What of that man who troubled you before? Have you seen any more of him?’
‘Nothing.’
Rita tucked her muffler firmly into her lapels, concealing her throat. She was preparing to leave, but the percussion redoubled on the roof. She sighed in a way that was also an embarrassed smile and her arms fell to her side again.
‘Do you mind this smoke? I’ll put it out if you like.’
‘No, it’s all right.’
He put his pipe out anyway.
In the next silence, he became acutely aware that the bench behind them, which neither had made a move to sit on, was also his bed. It seemed suddenly to take up a huge amount of space. He lit a candle and cleared his throat.
‘It’s a miracle, the light we had for the exposure,’ he said in order to dispel the silence.
‘A miracle?’ Her eyes were teasing.
‘Well, not exactly a miracle. Not by your exacting standards.’
‘It’s a good photograph,’ she offered.
He unstrapped the box in which he had the plate and held it not too close to the flame. The candlelight flickered it into life. Rita took half a step so that she was standing as close to him as she could without touching him, and she leant to peer at the glass.
‘Where is the one from two years ago?’ she asked.
He took it out of the box and held it for her to see. He could see raindrops in her hair as she bent to look.
It was too dark to compare the images in detail, but the idea of making the comparison put the question in his mind and he was certain it was in hers.
‘Two years ago I photographed a child of two, and today I photographed a child of four, and I do not know whether it is the same child or a different one. Is it her, Rita? Is it Amelia?’
‘Helena believes so.’
‘And Vaughan?’
‘He is not so sure. I once thought he was convinced it was another child altogether; now he is wavering.’
‘What do you think?’
‘The child of two years ago and the child of today are like enough that it is possible, but not so alike that it is certain.’
She placed her hands on the edge of the developing table and leant against it. ‘Look at it from another perspective. Today’s photograph.’
‘Yes?’
‘How do you think she looked? I don’t mean clarity and composition, your usual judgements on your work, but the girl herself. How was she?’