Jill stared up at the ceiling high above her head. One more day and she could leave behind this immaculately tucked-in bed, the clinical smells, the hushed bustling efficiency of the infirmary staff, and the rigid routine. She was counting off the minutes until she was back at home and surrounded by her own things, in a more restful atmosphere, in the security of being with Tom. To see for herself how Kate was. But it also meant leaving her baby behind, the scrap of humanity that had barely formed and had died inside her, too soon to tell if it was a boy or a girl. Not enough of anything to be given a funeral. To face the numbing fact that her hopes of becoming a mother were slimmer now a vital part of her body had been cut out.
The beginning of the regimented visiting time was rung in. The double doors down the end of the surgical ward were opened and people filed in, doused in church quietness, assuming encouraging smiles, bearing the usual sort of gifts for the neat rows of the sick and the recovering. Jill’s fellow patients were envious of the number of visitors and well wishers she received. Every evening Tom came alone. Usually, it was someone from the family in the afternoon. Yesterday, it was Jonny, not knowing what to say, bluffing his way through, talking about nothing in particular. She’d got the feeling he had something on his mind. Jill’s ready ear and non-judgemental nature meant she often found herself a confidante, but Jonny had not shared his deepest thoughts with her. She was glad of that. She had her own miseries and she was concerned about Tom, he was being brave and positive for her sake but losing the baby was just as heartbreaking for him. Focusing a little on Kate for a moment or two helped her cope with her aching loss. Today, it was Jonny’s half-sister – a long-time family friend before the secret of her true identity had been revealed to her and Jonny – who had come to see her.
‘Hello Jill. You look a little brighter today.’ In her unpretentious manner, Louisa Carlyon kissed Jill’s cheek and patted her hand to convey she knew she must still be feeling devastated, despite looking better. Slender and fair, invariably gentle, in a neat utility suit, small felt hat and white cotton gloves – her clothes were always easy on the eye – she rarely failed to uplift the recipient of her care. She had a ragged birthmark, the size of a half-crown, on her right cheek, but it did not spoil her attractiveness. While smilingly glancing at Jill, she added the daffodils she had brought from her garden to one of the overflowing vases of flowers on the bedside cabinet. ‘Is Tom bringing in your things tonight?’
‘Clothes to go home in tomorrow, you mean? Yes. He’ll get Mrs Em to pack them. He’s so afraid he’ll bring the wrong things. I wish I could have been there for him all this time. He’s got that little boy lost look, you know, that he gets when he’s terribly upset. At least he’s got young Kate Viant to take his mind off things.’
A wealthy war widow, fully occupied with charity work here at the grey-stoned infirmary and elsewhere, Louisa was curious to meet Kate Viant. She pulled up a chair. ‘Jonny’s filled me in on what he knows about her. What a dreadful affair, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. If you hadn’t been taking her home you would have collapsed in the field and, well, the end result doesn’t bear thinking about. And if not for your kindness, no one would have known about her problem and something bad might have happened to her.’
‘She wrote me a letter of thanks.’ This brought a hint of a smile and an inkling of colour to Jill’s blanched cheeks. ‘It’s written well so she’s obviously a bright girl. It’s in the drawer. Read it, if you like.’
Louisa read aloud the words in careful big lettering on the Harveys’ headed stationery. ‘“Dear Mrs Harvey.”’
‘I told her to call me Jill, but I suppose she thought she should keep to formality in the letter,’ Jill interrupted. ‘Tom says she seems happy and relieved to be at the farm but is very unsure of everything. That’s understandable after what she’s been through, the rotten life she must have had. I’m eager to find out if anything really dreadful happened to her. I’ll never forget how upset she was that day.’
‘It will be good for you to have something to think about, but don’t take on too much and risk your recovery, Jill.’ Louisa went on with the letter. ‘“I hope you are getting well. I would visit you, but Mr Tom said it’s family only. I like being here at the farm. Everyone has been very kind to me. I like playing with Mrs Em’s little boy, Paul. I take him for walks. Miss Rothwell is a very nice lady. I am looking forward to seeing you again. Yours sincerely, Kate Viant.” It’s a very sweet letter, Jill. She comes across as rather childlike.’
‘I’d like to make sure she gets a better chance in life. I owe her that. I’ve got Abbie Rothwell to thank as well. I didn’t even get a glance of her. Have you met her?’
‘No. I haven’t been to the farm for a while. Jonny seems to like her. He’s not chasing after her in the usual way. Actually, I’m worried about him. He’s told me he’s feeling restless and he seems really down. Oh well, there’s always something, but I expect he’ll sort himself out soon.’ Louisa put the letter away in the drawer then lifted out a new ‘get well’ card. ‘From Mark and Jana. Who are they?’
‘Mark Fuller. The chap who moved to Hennaford two years ago, the one who’s gone into partnership with the builder, Jim Killigrew, just down from the farm. Jana is his little girl.’ Jill felt a stab of heartache and jealousy as she thought about the seventeen-month-old child, who, having been abandoned by her mother, was being successfully brought up by her doting father. With a sense of despair she knew how anguished she would be when next faced with a child. She wanted her baby. She wanted time to wind back and for her baby to have been safely conceived inside her womb. The baby she would never see, would know nothing about. She couldn’t even picture it. Part of her felt she had let her baby down. She didn’t want to answer any more questions about the Fullers. She wanted to be alone and hide away. But she couldn’t do that for ever. Panic rose up in her.
‘Oh, of course. He survived as a Japanese POW. Then his wife did the dirty on him. I’ve not met him yet either. Well, I really ought to go. I don’t want to tire you.’ Louisa had sensed Jill becoming distant but her curved eyebrows shot up at seeing Jill turning red. ‘Jill, are you all right? Shall I fetch a nurse?’
‘No.’ Jill took a deep calming breath. ‘I keep getting moments where reality hits home, that’s all.’
Louisa reached for her hand. ‘Dear Jill. I won’t say the usual things, I’m sure you’ll not want to hear them. I’m always available if you need me.’
‘I know. Thanks, Louisa. Life goes on, they say, but not for my baby. Its life was no more than a whisper.’
Kate was cleaning the room she was staying in. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of it as ‘her room’, as people usually did when temporarily resident somewhere. That would make the wrench harder when she had to leave. It was marvellous to sleep on a gleaming brass bedstead with a sprung mattress, with plump pillows, fine linen and a soft wool blanket, all covered with a coral-pink watered silk bedspread. At home she’d had a narrow musty mattress on the floor of a bleak cupboard-sized room, where her family had barged in invading her privacy. Now she had a double bed all to herself, in a house which altogether seemed the size of a manor. One of the main sources of awe to her was having the use of a proper bathroom. No need for a chamber pot pushed under the bed here, no trips necessary down an ash path to the bottom of the garden to a tiny, draughty, spider-infested, stinking privy. There was actually hot water on tap, unimaginable luxury. The household never had to fetch water from the well. The dreaded job of trudging journey after journey to fetch heavy buckets of water from the well at home had used up a big chunk of each day, leading her ungrateful mother to snap down her ears, ‘Get a move on, damn it, bleddy girl!’
Another wonderful thing here was the lack of unpleasant smells. The odour of farmyard manure filtered inside when the windows were open but it was an unavoidable smell and one the nose quickly got used to. At home her mother and the men had been careless of hygiene and their offensive body odours had permeated every dark and dingy corner. Her father and Sidney had never washed the coal dust off themselves thoroughly and it had been impossible to launder their blackened shirts, the towels and sheets back to whiteness.
She was in the corner of the Boswelds’ wing, with its refined Victorian facings. The front window of her room looked over the lane and she could see ploughed and planted fields, and fields of cattle and sheep, and neighbouring farms and the church tower in the distance. The view at the side window fell away into a meadow and the woods. Ford House, once Harvey property, now owned by the local builder, could be glimpsed, and further up the hill was a new house, built on traditional country lines and belonging to Jim Killigrew’s partner. The man who lived there, Mark Fuller, had a beautiful infant daughter, who he’d brought over to play with three-year-old Paul Bosweld.
People were always dropping in at the farm. Kate tended to keep her distance from them. The visitors were curious about her and often kind, but she didn’t want to make any friends. She didn’t want to get to like it here too much. At some point she would have to leave. Most of all, she mustn’t get to rely on anyone. Dreams and hopes were all too easily crashed. Although she didn’t believe the people here would simply turn her out, she couldn’t risk one day soon pining for Ford Farm and the security she now enjoyed. The emptiness might be unbearable.
She dusted and polished the walnut furniture and used the carpet sweeper in here every day. There was no need, the room sparkled like diamonds, but she was used to being busy and she wanted to show the family her gratitude. It was lost on her, despite their constant reminders, that they owed more to her than they’d ever be able to repay. Putting the cleaning things back in their wooden box, she opened the wardrobe and looked into the full-length mirror on the door. She smiled a wide smile. It was what she did every time she saw herself in the glass. Each time she could hardly believe it was herself. She was wearing a blouse with a pretty scalloped edge and a pair of trousers. Mrs Bosweld, known by all as Mrs Em, had gone into town and bought them for her. It was wonderful to have trousers to take the emphasis off her disability and cover her ugly shoes. She had a new dress too. She had tried it on in stunned excitement. Mrs Em, who was tall and beautiful like a statue, with volumes of shiny reddish-brown hair, had offered to fasten the buttons at the back of the neck, but had sensed Kate’s embarrassment and kindly waited outside the door. Kate was shy about her softly moulded figure and ashamed of her underwear, made from any old scraps of cotton. Jill, who although taller than Kate was roughly the same size, had asked Mrs Em to take some items from her own wardrobe, and now Kate had proper underwear, another dress, two skirts, and two cardigans which were not knitted from unpicked garments. Tilda, the housekeeper, who fussed over her like a broody hen, had showed her how to use the sewing machine to take up the hems. It never occurred to her to consider if she looked attractive in her gifts. Having something fine and pretty on her spare frame was a joy and her only concern.
‘Kate! Are you up there?’ came a shout from below. It was Mr Bosweld, at the foot of the stairs.
‘Yes! Coming right away!’ She snatched up the cleaning things and hurried out to the long landing. She felt an empathy with Perry Bosweld. He too was crippled; he walked with a limp, aided by a prosthetic, having lost a leg in the Great War. He was cheery and good-hearted, and wore clothes more colourful and stylish than other men. Miss Rothwell termed his dark looks as classically handsome, and said he was ‘one of those men who gets better with age’. And she wanted to paint him. He was just the sort of man Kate would like as her father. He gave her twinkly-eyed grins and his posh voice had soft tones. Apart from Jill, he was the one person she wasn’t at all shy of.
When she reached the last two steps, gripping the handrail tightly – climbing up and down was tricky for her – Perry Bosweld held out one hand to take the cleaning things from her and the other to help her alight.
Kate didn’t realize that she responded to him with shining eyes, or that he was thinking how pretty she was when her face fit up. She was an engaging little thing. Abbie wanted to paint her too. Abbie had a long list of portraits she wanted to do, starting with Emilia. Quite right, there was no one more fascinating and beautiful in the world than his beloved Em. ‘Kate, my dear, do you fancy a stroll down to the shop? My monthly rose-growers’ magazine should be in and I don’t want to wait for the paperboy to deliver it. Would you mind, please?’
‘Course not, Mr Perry. Anything you say.’ Kate was pleased to do little jobs for the family. They stressed she was a guest among them but she felt she must pay her way somehow and not become a burden; she dreaded that happening, for then surely they would want her out.
‘Thanks a lot,’ Perry beamed back in his friendly manner. Kate was always eager to please, and his little ruse to encourage her to get away from the house for a while had worked. Apart from exploring the farmyard and short trips down to the ford with Paul, she had barely poked her nose out of doors, wanting instead to haunt the kitchen and help Tilda with the housework. Admirable of her, of course, and Tilda Lawry, in her mid-sixties, was glad to have someone willing to fetch and carry for her, but it wasn’t what Kate was here for. The family had taken her under their wing, not as a charity case but because they genuinely liked her. Hopefully she would prove a focus for Jill when she came home tomorrow, help her come to terms with her heartache. And, more personal, the terrible sadness and put-down aspect that clung to Kate reminded Perry of his daughter Libby. Bullying had cost fourteen-year-old Libby her life. Some years ago, unable to bear returning to the boarding school where her life had been made hell, she had walked into the sea and drowned. He handed Kate a ten-shilling note. ‘Keep the change as a thank you for going. Treat yourself, if you like.’
Kate stared at the note as if she had never seen such a thing before. Only on rare occasions had she acquired a few pennies of her own. ‘But it will be a lot of change.’
‘You deserve it, Kate.’ He closed her small rough hand over the money, for she seemed about to hand it back. ‘You’ve done a lot for all of us. Take it, to please me.’
What else could she say but a grateful ‘Thank you very much.’
Emilia had been listening further along the passage. She’d slipped away to a cupboard in the kitchen where discarded items were kept and hurried back with a small brown leather handbag with a gilt clasp. It wasn’t fancy but it was smart, and had belonged to her married daughter, Lottie. ‘There you are, Kate. I’ve been having a bit of a turnout and I was wondering if you’d like this. It’ll be just right for you.’ Just right for her to carry the ten-shilling note in. ‘It’s got a little purse compartment inside and a mirror.’
‘I can really have it?’ It was a gift beyond Kate’s dreams. None of the girls her age that she knew had a grand handbag like this and she didn’t think she’d ever possess one. It would make her feel quite grown up. Mrs Em was so kind. Kate eased into feeling completely comfortable in her presence. There was no reason not to. Mrs Em had explained she had been the dairymaid here before marrying the squire, Mr Tom’s father. If only she could be taken on as a worker, Tilda’s assistant perhaps, even in a smaller, less well-furnished room, and stay here for ever.
‘Off you go then,’ Emilia laughed, resisting the urge to hug the girl in case she didn’t like it. ‘And take your time. It’s a lovely day out there.’
Emilia opened the front door for her, then she and Perry watched, arms linked, at the hall window as Kate started off, her limp not as obvious as usual. She was swinging the handbag round and round by the handles to get the feel of it, bringing it up to her eyes to get a good look at it, then opening it up and using the lipstick mirror to gaze at her reflection. Finally, she held it still by her side and carried on with her head up in the air.
‘Dear of her,’ Emilia said. ‘It doesn’t take much to make her happy.’
‘It’s good to see her with a touch of confidence at last. Em, darling, can’t you do something about her hair? Kate doesn’t deserve to go round looking partly like a guttersnipe. It seems everything was done to her to keep her down.’
‘Abbie and I are going to do something with our hair tonight. I’ll suggest to Kate that we wave hers too.’
‘That’s the ticket. It’s nice having people in the house again. It’s been too quiet since Lottie moved into her own place, and your father died. Such a terrible shame we won’t be getting a new grandchild and a playmate for Paul from Tom and Jill.’
Emilia gave a hefty sigh. ‘That’s the trouble with life. It never takes long before sadness comes round again. At least Jill meeting up with Kate when she did means there’s better times ahead for her.’
Jonny and Abbie were up in the foothills of Perranporth, amid pyramids of sand crested with marram grass. They were facing the sea, above the two miles of fine pale yellow beach, with military-occupied Penhale Point a little way upcoast. They had formed an easy, trusting friendship, the sort when two people feel they have known each other all their lives. Without saying so, they admired each other’s achievements, were comfortable about their differences, and both were sure there was nothing to find out about the other that they wouldn’t like. It was as natural as daylight that they went about together. The regulars in the Ploughshare had assumed Jonny had brought his ‘young lady’ with him on this leave to meet the family. The couple’s amused denial had brought out the opinion, whispers they’d overheard, that ‘even so, something will come out of it’.
Abbie had gone over to Tremore on the north side of the village and met Jonny’s thoroughly pleasant father and attractive, ordinary young stepmother and little stepsister, and the three former evacuee children under their guardianship. Jonny grumbled mildly that there was too much noise and commotion in the house, but Abbie saw he was somewhat envious of the slightly muddled, boisterous order there. She had painted him in the garden at Tremore. His father, Tristan, had insisted on buying the picture, which had been hung in the library. Jonny maintained he valued his independence above all things and could never enjoy the ‘wife and family thing’, but she wondered about that. Why keep bringing it up if it was so unimportant to him?
Jonny was stretched out on a red tartan rug, his arms comfortably supporting his neck, wearing just shorts. He’d been on edge for months and it was great to relax for a while. In good company, enveloped in nature, the soft warmth of the sand underneath him, his lungs filled with the evocative tang of salt air, his ears charmed by the sounds of gulls screaming overhead and the rollers of the Atlantic Ocean beating in on the shore. ‘You’ll have to go along to the south coast as well, Abbie.’ He broke the long meditative silence. ‘It’s not as untamed and rugged as it is here. Everything is formed more softly but it’s equally as beautiful and inspiring.’
Abbie had a small sketch pad perched on her raised knees. To speed things along she had painted on some washes the previous night, enough to add contrast and subtlety to the monochrome sketch she was making of Gull Rock out at sea. ‘I intend to do the very thing,’ she said in a voice removed from his company, her eyes flicking to the flat horizon of the boundless expanse of blue-green water on which sat lazy puffed clouds and a distant sea-going ship.
Jonny leaned up on his elbows. Abbie was with him and yet she wasn’t. She was deep inside her creativity. She had brought the manuscript of the book she was illustrating down with her – kept safe in her room – and she made notes on her work where figures and dwellings and pirate ships and such things would go. It amazed him how fast she worked. When she used colour from the miniature paint box, dipping the brushes into the small bottle of water and mixing tints with a graceful flourish, she’d allow one sketch to dry and start another.
They had moved about, starting under the cliffs, which were honeycombed with little caverns, at the Droskyn end of the beach, parts only accessible while the tide was far out. Abbie had drawn everything from rock pools brimming with several species of green, brown, orangey and pink seaweed, to the various dark formations of the weather-hewn granite rocks, to driftwood and scraps of rope and netting washed in from fishing boats. And tiny whitewashed cottages high up on the cliffs. Every living being she encountered she captured. The local children playing barefoot, some in makeshift bathing costumes cut down from old jumpers. Early holidaymakers, the elderly mainly, in lightweight clothes, sandals and sun hats. A lady in a long dress with an elegant parasol, who looked like a screen siren. Dogs scampering in and out of the waves and two riders on horseback.
Jonny took out his cigarette case. ‘Want a gasper?’
‘In a minute. I’ve nearly finished this. Then we can tuck into the picnic Tilda packed for us. Sorry if you’re ravenous and I’ve kept you waiting.’
‘Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who’s working. It’s fascinating watching someone so talented and absorbed in her work.’
When she was satisfied with the sketch she gazed down on him. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘What?’ Jonny said, passing the picnic hamper to her. He took it for granted that she as the female would dish out the grub.
Anyone else doing this would have greatly annoyed her, but Jonny didn’t in the least see her in a lesser role, in fact he was honouring her with the responsibility. He was a strong thrusting sort, but at that moment he looked lost and vulnerable and she was happy to wait on him, to seek a way to encourage him. ‘Are you having a few problems with your career?’
‘Not with the force, but I am with myself.’ He twisted his mouth as he struggled to uncork a bottle of hock. ‘Oh, I don’t know… I don’t even know what I think or feel or what I want any more. Pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ When he’d won the battle with the wine bottle and poured out two glasses, she handed him a plate with two potted beef sandwiches, a slice of apple pie and a tiny wedge of cheese on it and a check linen napkin. ‘Perhaps your inner self is prompting you to seek an entirely new direction. I suppose you’d always intended lifelong service in the air force but there’s nothing to say you can’t allow things to change. I get the idea you’re fighting with yourself, Jonny. That’s the worst sort of battle of all, you know.’ Jonny stared at her. She was right. He saw all his ambitions and plans as if they were inside a closed box. He had been free when he’d set out in life, the skies and horizons seemed endless, but now everything had closed in on him. If he didn’t do something about it he might end up in chains of his own making. He’d thought he’d owed it to all his dead comrades, the young men and women who had not made it through the war, and to the survivors horribly maimed and disfigured, to stay in the force and serve no matter what. But he was not paying real homage to their sacrifice and their memory if he ended up a dried-up fossil with little more to show than a chest laden with service medals. His friends wouldn’t have wanted that for him. They had fought not just for freedom from tyranny but for their hopes, for the ability to go on to seek contentment and fresh experiences. Tears sprung along his curling dark lashes and he couldn’t speak, only nod.
‘It will be all right, Jonny. You’ll make it so.’
Her confidence in him meant everything. ‘How?’
‘That’s not for me or anyone else to say. You’ll know. It will just happen if you let it.’ She left him to eat and drink quietly, giving him the opportunity to allow some of his old thoughts and values to fade and be replaced by new possibilities. She packed up the hamper.
Just let it happen. He’d try not to fuss and fret but to be still inside and let fate take its course. Fate had ordained that he’d survive the fighting and now it seemed it might be prompting him to do something new with his life. Life away from the air force was scary. Of course he was as free to stay on as he was to leave, perhaps he merely needed to see things in a different light. ‘More sketching here or shall we move again?’
‘I think I’ve done enough today,’ she said, packing away her materials.
‘Back to Hennaford then?’ They had ridden the three miles or so here on borrowed bikes and left them by a gift shop down in the little town.
Abbie let her eyes wander over him. All the way up from his bare feet and long legs, his firm stomach, his broad chest sprinkled with crisp black hair, and his throat, always a sensuous part of a man to her. She reached his gorgeous face, his wide delectable mouth. She closed her eyes for a second and imagined kissing him. She knew Jonny would be a dream of a kisser, and not just on a woman’s lips. He would be masterful and devastating with his hands. He would be expert in every way there was to send a woman wild during lovemaking. His body shouldn’t be allowed to remain lounging and redundant.
Moving on her knees she went up close to him. ‘I’d like to make love to you, Jonny. Would you like that too?’
His eyes turned a smoky grey. In a rush he was consumed with sexual hunger, yet he examined whether it was a good time to move on from just being Abbie’s friend. He decided it was. She wasn’t seeking commitment any more than he was and it wouldn’t spoil what they had. He put his uninjured hand along the side of her face and bent forward to kiss her waiting parted lips. ‘I know a nice little hotel where we can go.’
‘Let’s stay here.’ She ran searching fingers up and down his hot skin. ‘There’s no one about and I don’t want to wait.’ Neither did Jonny. He enjoyed making love in the open air, best of all with a knowledgeable partner. He pulled her into his arms and let himself go with the moment.