"It exists," retorted Philip. "I feel it in my bones."
We sat talking. To me it was like taking a journey through the ocean. I listened to them. I caught Philip's eagerness. I loved him dearly. He had such wonderful vitality and when he took an interest in something it was never half-hearted.
He was obsessed about that island as I was about Ann Alice. Our curiosity differed slightly. I yearned to know what had happened on that night. Philip's thoughts were all for the island.
Often later I thought back to that afternoon in the shop and many times I wished I had never found that map.
Philip could talk of nothing else. I would often find him with old maps stretched out before him.
"It could have been in an entirely different part of the world," he said.
"Listen ," I replied. "He was a map maker. He would no more mistake the locality than you would."
"Everyone can make mistakes."
His intensely blue eyes looked into space. "Annalice," he said, "I want to find that island."
He wouldn't leave it alone. It was an obsession. Granny M noticed it and was disturbed.
Gow and his men had finished the roof and were working on the room. All the soft furnishings had been destroyed. They were in tatters. But some of the furniture was quite good and would be restored.
I went through her clothes. I wanted to do that myself. The gloves, the scarves, the hats and gowns ... all her personal belongings. I instructed the servants to wash some of the dresses. Many of them were perished but those which were not I put into a trunk in the attic with her hats and shoes.
I treated them reverently. I felt very close to her and sometimes I had the extraordinary notion that she was watching me and thanking me.
I went up to the room before they started to mend the woodwork and paint the walls. Gow was there. I asked him about the stains on the walls.
He said it was hard to tell what had caused them after so long. It might have been damp ... discolouration.
"It seems to be splashed," I pointed out. "Could it be ... blood?"
"Blood, Miss Annalice? Well, it could be, I suppose ... By the look of it... yes it could be. I wouldn't have thought of that though. Damp and time do odd things to buildings. Why should you think it was blood, Miss Annalice?"
"I just wondered."
"Well, whatever it was we'll soon have these walls looking like new. It'll be a nice room when we've seen to the window."
"And the window will be exactly where it was before?"
"Have to be. That was where it was walled in like. You'll be able to see it from outside now the creeper's cut away. I reckon that's why they let the creeper grow there. There's a difference in the bricks, you see. Oh, this will be a nice room when we've done with it."
Now they have done it. The restored furniture is there. The bed, the chest of drawers, the chairs. This is how it must have looked when Ann Alice sat in it and wrote her journal.
The servants still will not go there after dark. They say it is creepy.
But I often go and sit there in the early evening. Sometimes I speak to her. "Ann Alice," I say, "I wish you would come back and tell me."
Sometimes there seems to be a presence there. But maybe that is only my fancy.
The house and everything seem different since the revelations which came on that night of the storm. She comes into my mind so often and at odd moments I could almost feel that she is beside me. There is some special bond between us. We are of the same blood; we have almost the same name; we have lived in the same house. It is only time that separates us. I often think: What is time? Is it possible to bridge the gulf?
I never say such things. Granny M and Philip are far too practical. They would laugh at my fancies. But Philip has his fancies too.
Constantly he talked of that island. I can see plans forming in his mind. So can Granny M. And she is very uneasy.
One day at dinner Philip said: "I have always wanted to explore new areas, to chart right on the scene. I've always been intrigued by the practical side of the business."
I knew him so well that I was not surprised when he went on to explain that David Gutheridge, a botanist—this was a friend of his with whom he had been at school and who came of a seafaring family—was planning to go on an expedition to the South Seas. Philip went on: "He has suggested I go with him."
Granny M was silent but she expressed no surprise.
"It has always been what I wanted to do," said Philip. "There are some very sophisticated instruments in use now... some of which were never dreamed of a hundred years ago. I would like to check up on some of our charts. I think ... and Benjamin agrees with me... that they might be a little in error here and there in these waters."
Granny M came to my room that night.
"He's determined to go," she said.
She looked rather pathetic suddenly—something I had thought she never could.
"I knew it had to come," she said. "It's natural"
"You wont try to stop him?" -
She shook her head. "No. It wouldn't be right. It's his life ... his profession. He's right in a way. We cannot stand still in one place. He should go out into the world. Benjamin should have done. If he had he would be right at the top now. Philip must go. I have always known it."
"We shall miss him ... terribly."
"It will only be for a year or so. But he'll come back ... enriched, fulfilled. Yes, I shall miss him. But I have you, my dear. I can't tell you what a comfort you two children have been to me."
I felt limp, frustrated. How / should love to go with Philip!
If I could have made plans with him, I should have been so happy, so excited.
I had been on the point of suggesting it to Philip. I had wondered what his reaction would be. But I could see now that I should have to stay with Granny M.
One day perhaps I would go out there to those secret waters. I longed to discover Magnus's Paradise Island.
That was what Ann Alice had wanted to do. And so did I.
I felt melancholy.
Life seemed frustrating.
On a bright day, at the beginning of October, Granny M and I travelled down to Southampton to wave our goodbyes.
Philip had gone on ahead with all his gear; he was to sleep on the ship for a night or two before it set out to carry him across the seas.
I felt very sad, and so did Granny M. But she was convinced that it was the right way to act and I suppose I agreed with her. It was the first time Philip had gone away—apart from school, of course. I remembered how desolate I used to be on those occasions. But how much worse was this!
I had helped him with his preparations and if anything we had been closer during the last weeks than ever before.
"I wish you were coming." he said. "What fun that would be!"
"Oh. how I wish it! It's going to be devastatingly dull without you."
Philip said: "Many times I've been about to say you should come. But we couldn't both leave the old lady, could we?"
"No, of course not."
"Never mind. When I've found the island we'll all go out and visit it. I'll bet Granny M would be game."
"Come back soon," I said.
He had suggested that I make a copy of the map. "So that you have one," he said. "In any case, it is better for there to be two."
"I think I could do it almost from memory."
"I want it to be exact."
"All right."
I made the map. I was rather proud of it.
I showed it to Philip who said: "Perfect. Exact in every detail. Put it in a safe place."
I said almost without thinking: "I'll put it at the back of one of my drawers." Then I had a strange feeling that that was what Ann Alice must have said—or thought—when the map had been given to her.
And now he was going.
Granny M looked pale and sad, as we stood there on the dock watching the ship glide out of the harbour while Philip stayed on deck waving to us.