Excerpt from Patrick O'Brian by Dean King, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The man found the umbrella lying on the rocky beach beneath the bluff and began to climb back up the path with it. But, at a bend, he looked up and saw a ghastly sight: Lena was teetering on the brink of the cliff, her arms raised in front of her, as if she were being beckoned into the precipice. As he raced up the path, he heard a dreadful scream. At another bend, he caught a glimpse of the girl. She was lying on the ground and slowly pushing herself over the ledge. 

The man, Mr. Stephen Brown Balcome, a vacationing stockbroker from West Kensington, continued his frustratingly slow ascent. Jogging around a corner, he lost sight of Lena. When he finally arrived at the top, only the wind and rain greeted him. Lena had fallen to the beach below. Panicked, Balcome ran to a nearby restaurant for help. But when they reached Lena, she was barely alive. She died on the way to the hospital.

Charles, then a medical student, rushed to Cliftonville. At the inquest, Mater testified that Lena was happily engaged and that there had been nothing wrong other than the misery of her physical ailment. "The day prior . . . [Lena] had been for a long walk by herself and brought home a lot of wild flowers," she recounted. "I think she was getting wild flowers and it being such a wet morning she must have slipped over the cliff." But Balcome told the jury he thought the fall was intentional. Charles countered with pointed questions for Balcome: "To what incident in particular do you attribute your belief that she voluntarily went over the cliff? You did not exactly witness the fall of the body to the sands? Do you think it possible she might have become giddy?" 

According to the newspaper, the jury ruled that Lena had "committed suicide whilst temporarily insane." Over the years, family lore would do one better. The story passed down that Lena had been madly in love with a Catholic priest, but she could not persuade him to renounce his priesthood for her. 

No matter the reason, Mater was devastated to lose "such a dear girl." Once again, Charles escorted his mother home after a family tragedy.

Copyright © 2000 Dean King