‘I don’t want you to use anything this time, Nate. This is the perfect place to conceive a baby, where we had our first kiss.’ Lottie was stretched out dreamily on a picnic rug, gazing up with all her love for her new husband.
‘I agree it’s the perfect place, Lottie darling, but it’s not the perfect time.’ His desire fragmented by doubts, he gently rolled off her and pulled her clothes together, but immediately brought her to face him, lying side by side, caressing her face, his tender brown eyes fervently persuasive. ‘It’s been a long build-up, but I’ll be shipped overseas any day now. The whole county’s been shut off. It’s a miracle I was able to make it here today. Don’t go all quiet on me. You know how I hate to disappoint you. I’m thinking of you, honey. When I land in Europe I’ll be right up there in the danger zone with the other guys, taking care of them, being where I’m needed.’
‘I know all that.’ She trailed her fingers through his hair. She was affectionate and earnest. ‘I also know that you, like my family, think I’m not much more than a girl and I won’t be able to cope if I lost you. I can’t bear that thought, darling, but I’m strong enough to say it, and I’m strong enough to carry on alone with your child. I want your baby, Nate. Whatever happens, I want to always have part of you with me.’
‘It’s a wonderful thought but don’t you think a baby should have its father around to help raise it?’
‘It will because I’ll tell it all about you. How wonderful and beautiful you are.’
It made him smile. ‘You’re the one who’s beautiful. Well…’
‘Yes?’ She pushed her hand inside his unbuttoned shirt and lingeringly kissed his hot skin. ‘Let’s not waste any time. I’ve only seen you twice since our wedding.’
He let her carry on, enjoying her demanding touch. In her bed on their wedding night, after her initial shyness, Lottie had thrown off all inhibitions. She wasn’t slow at making the first move on him. ‘It’s because we’re soulmates,’ she’d said. ‘You make me whole.’ He was worried that without him she’d be frighteningly less of a person. If he went ahead with what she wanted, if she got a dreaded telegram, if she had his child, at least it would be a reason for her to go on and rebuild her life.
She was working her way all over him. ‘You were saying, darling? I know I might not get pregnant today but we can have a wonderful time trying. I’m determined to have my way.’
‘Little madam.’ He smiled provocatively.
‘What?’ She tossed her head, laughing.
‘It’s what the butcher called you at the reception.’ Expertly, Nate imitated the local nosy parker’s thick Cornish accent, the sideways glance and the working of his jaw he always gave before departing with something confidential. ‘You’ve taken on a lot for yourself there, you know. Young Lottie can be quite a little madam when she gets started.’
‘Well…’ Lottie moved about him, catlike. Her glorious wealth of coppery hair was in a mess. ‘Usually old Sidney talks a load of drivel but for once he’s perfectly right.’
‘Show me then.’
‘Is that an order, Corporal?’
He reached up and put his hand behind her head, pulling her face to his and kissing her mouth passionately. ‘Sometimes I like to give orders. Right now, Mrs Harmon, you’re completely in charge.’
Jill was bored, even though it was Sunday afternoon, which meant she had precious time off; only help with the milking required. When she lacked her closest friend she’d seek out the next. Tom. He was presently in a tiny secluded tumbledown house, at the bottom of a hill, in Church Lane. An old lady, a tenant of Ford Farm’s, had died there recently, leaving no one behind, and Tom was there sorting out her things. Miss Reynolds had been so reclusive Jill had never set eyes on her. She was curious to learn something about her and to see inside her home, which apparently she had rarely allowed anyone to set foot in. Even the oldest villagers knew little more about Miss Reynolds than that she had first rented the house off Tom’s great-grandfather as a young woman with a small private income.
One reason Miss Reynolds’s little dwelling had been hard to spot was the tall trees that grew out of the high hedge in front of the house. There was no gate. Jill squeezed through the impossibly narrow entrance almost blotted out by brambles, nettles and hawthorn, her bare legs getting scratched and stung and her cotton skirt snagged on the way. The minuscule plot of garden was wildly overgrown. It was said Miss Reynolds had stubbornly, sometimes with hostility, refused all offers of help, seeing it as interfering charity. Mrs Em had mentioned that when Tom had turned up back-along with a saw and scythe, to make way for some daylight to her windows, she had chased him off with a horsewhip.
Jill found herself facing what could be charmingly described as an interesting and neglected doll’s house. A one-up-one- down affair, the cob walls were uneven and coated near the ground with moss. The planked front door came as a surprise. It measured no more than five foot high and the words ‘Lower Hill’ were quite newly painted on it in an exquisite hand. Perhaps Miss Reynolds had been one of the ‘small people’ who’d had artistic inclinations. She tried the knobbly iron latch, ready to call out Tom’s name. It wouldn’t budge – must be bolted on the inside. A wall ran round close to the side of the house, over which woody shrubbery loomed and drooped. She eased her way through, noting snapped twigs, no doubt made by Tom’s struggle to gain entry. The stable back door was thrown open. She went in, blinded for a moment after the bright sunlight.
Tom had been in the downstairs room since lunchtime, lounging in the one and only armchair, which barely supported his back, his long legs sprawled out almost to the other side of the room. He’d finished what he’d come to do but was in the mood to linger. It was he, prompted by a sixth sense that something was wrong while driving the tractor past this way, who had discovered Miss Reynolds’s stick-thin, eighty-nine-year-old body. The doctor said she had died of natural causes in her sleep. A good way to go. Just a glance around today had shown that the few ancient bits of furniture, there in place at her arrival, were riddled with woodworm, fit only for burning. There was no evidence of Miss Reynolds ever lighting a fire – just as well from the neglected state of the chimney. However had she survived in winter, the little scrap of flesh and bone? Sheer bloody-mindedness, he guessed. What had made her so belligerent, shunning all contact? A lost love? He could understand that. How had she got through all the loneliness? He belonged to a large, close family and had many friends, yet the loneliness since losing Louisa sometimes came down off the walls of his room at night to meet him. So cold and so bleak he could almost see it as a living entity.
His heart gave a peculiar lurch and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Miss Reynolds was in the doorway, framed in a golden haze, come back to turn him out for intruding. ‘Oh!’ His hand flew to his heart. ‘It’s you, Jill. I thought you were a ghost.’
‘You look as lost as I feel. Want some company?’
‘Come in. Afraid there’s nowhere else to sit unless you care to rest on my lap. I’m wedged in this little chair, not sure if I can get out.’
‘What a strange little place.’ She delved into every nook and space. The curtains were moth-eaten. Tom had packed the few dust-laden ornaments, of fine quality, and the cream and brown odds of crockery into a box. ‘There’s not a single photograph. What did the old lady look like?’
‘She had snow-white hair in a long plait wound up round her head. Her hands and feet were as small as Pearl’s. She spoke like a BBC broadcaster. I used to think she had a vicious streak, but when I looked at her face as she lay dead she looked quite content. Perhaps she knew no one could ever bother her again.’
‘It’s sad though, isn’t it? Wanting that much solitude.’
Tom’s eyes grew watery. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be embarrassed, Tom.’ She went to him. Their friendship was so close she felt no shyness at sitting on his lap. He rested his face against her shoulder. She put her arms round his neck. ‘Cry as much as you want. It’s been easier for me. I had Lottie to blubber to.’
‘I’m glad she understood your heartbreak,’ he sniffed. He wasn’t going to cry – he’d done enough of that. ‘She loses her patience with me.’
‘Don’t you think she has a point though?’ Jill said soothingly. ‘That it’s time you spoke to Louisa? According to Faye, she’s just as miserable as you are. You might be able to sort things out. You’ll continue to find it hard to go on if you don’t thrash out your feelings with her. One of you needs to make the first move. Why don’t you make it?’
‘I’m not being stubborn, honestly, Jill. I don’t believe Louisa is either by keeping her distance. We hurt each other badly. I don’t think we can get back what we had.’
‘You won’t know if you don’t try. And if you can’t, don’t you think it would be good to be her friend again? Think about it.’
He did. They stayed wrapped up silently, finding comfort, enjoying the nearness. It was different holding Jill. Her body was just as feminine as Louisa’s but he could have her this close without lusting for her. Had lust been the biggest attraction where Louisa was concerned? Had her aura of purity, her great compassion, the hint of unavailability, made him long for something he’d thought he could never have? If he had really loved her, how could he have kept this long silence? He knew then that his raw feelings had been more to do with his hurts than the need to be forever with Louisa. He told Jill these thoughts. ‘That makes me bloody damned shallow. I compromised Louisa. I asked her to marry me but I didn’t put it to her properly, in a way a woman would want. Then at the first little crisis, instead of trying to understand the motives behind her secrecy, I blew her out. I as good as deserted her. All I’ve done since is to send her a letter to say sorry about her bereavement – that must have seemed bloody insulting. I do need to go to her, Jill. To say sorry and ask her to forgive me.’ He kissed the crown of her head and snuggled her in tighter. ‘Thanks. You’re everything a chap could wish for in a friend.’
‘You too.’ She was so comfortable with him she could easily have dozed off into a contented sleep.
‘When will you go to Kenwyn?’
‘Today. Soon. But not yet. Let’s stay like this a while longer.’
Tristan timidly approached Ursula’s grave. He’d brought flowers, a few carnations, not knowing if he should leave them. He hardly had the right. He was pleased to see there were some there already. ‘Hello, Ursula,’ he whispered. ‘Hope you don’t mind me coming. I’m so sorry. I was too hard on you. If I’d accepted your baby, you might have fought to live. If you knew how I’ve treated your little girl you’d hate me.’
Despite the crows croaking their everyday treetop graveyard dirge, there was an unearthly hush. A sense of isolation. Tristan swallowed. He was infringing, he had no right to be here. Bruce Ashley had come back to Ursula. They belonged together. He’d leave, take his flowers with him. Then he knew another reason for his unease. He wasn’t the only visitor to this quiet place. Louisa walked round to the head of the grave and faced him. As grim as death. She was pale and thin, her eyes too large for her lovely face. ‘Do forgive me. I shouldn’t have encroached. I, um… just wanted to… say goodbye to her.’
‘Why did you come?’ she asked in the softest whisper.
Her thoughts were unreadable but Tristan feared she’d fly at him. He took a respectful pace back. ‘I’ve wanted to since the day, um, Bruce died. On the way back to Lottie’s reception it hit me just how cruel I’d been to you all your life. And to Ursula. I really did love her, please believe that.’
‘I suppose I should feel glad about that. You’ll always hate my father, won’t you? Do you want to see where he’s buried?’ Accusation blazed in her. ‘There’s flowers on his grave too. I’ll never abandon either of them.’
She expected him to decline, perhaps mumble another pathetic apology and walk away. She was taken out of stride when he said, ‘Yes, I would like to, if you meant that as a serious offer.’
‘I didn’t. I was being sarcastic. Why do you want to go there?’
Tristan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have dreamt of it until you asked. To make a sort of peace, I suppose. I’m not feeling noble, Louisa. I hated Bruce Ashley more for taking Ursula away from me rather than for hurting her so much. Sometimes when I look at you, you remind me of her and I remember how much she meant to me. She was once my lifeblood. I adored her. Her betrayal sliced my heart in half. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
‘Since Bruce died I’ve spent nearly all my time alone, time in which I’ve examined all the facts and all my feelings. I’ve tried to understand things from your angle, although I didn’t really want to. Ursula tried twice to deprive you of Jonny, during a time when you were going through hell in the trenches.’
‘It’s no excuse for my years of animosity. Please forgive me.’
She came round the headstone and gazed at the name, so reviled, so tragic. ‘You and Jonny are my closest links to the mother I never knew, but Jonny doesn’t remember very much about her. If I was to ask you questions about her, would you tell me what I want to know?’
‘I might do. Yes, I would. The memories shouldn’t be exclusively mine. It would please Jonny if we started to talk, came to a truce. Oh, God, Louisa, you look so frail and alone. You’ve cut yourself off from everyone except Faye. It isn’t good for you. It’s time your suffering stopped. I’d be privileged to help you in any way I can.’
She pulled in her face, her chin quivering, close to tears. Concern from the one person who’d always rejected her brought her rawness, all the hurt, to the brink. ‘Put your flowers in with mine.’ Her voice was scratchy with emotion. ‘Then come with me.’
She led the way to the new grave dug at the end of the row of resting places. ‘He didn’t want his name put on the headstone but I couldn’t allow him to be anonymous. I hope you don’t mind the words.’
Tristan read the stone. ‘“John Ashley. 1892 to 1944. Reunited with his love.” Was that his real name? Wise of you to leave out Bruce, with people like me around. No, I don’t mind the words. After all, I was the fortunate one. I had Ursula for a few good years and then a very happy marriage with Winifred. And I was the one who watched Jonny grow up into a fine man.’
Louisa pointed to the verge, just feet away. ‘Bruce liked to sit there. Shall we?’
‘I’d be pleased to.’ Tristan tentatively offered his arm.
She took it and they walked and sat down. ‘Life is strange. I’d never have thought that I’d sit here with you.’
‘Before we talk about other things, may I know how you feel about Tom?’ Tristan said. ‘He’s been so wretched. He’s genuinely sorry for upsetting you.’
‘I believe he is. I don’t know why I haven’t been in touch with him. I make up my mind to write or telephone, then I just can’t bring myself to.’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but is it because you need to forgive him? It’s what you did to Bruce, and the others for keeping the secret. You’ve even forgiven me, haven’t you? It’s what you do, Louisa. Your deep feelings for Tom, your disappointment in him, his lack of support and understanding, while you were wrestling with the stress of keeping Bruce’s identity a secret, was too much for you. You know better than I there is a sweet release in forgiveness.’
She sighed heavily, her whole body sagging. ‘You’re right. I’ve known it all along. I just… with Tom it’s so hard. Was hard. I’ll go to him soon, clear the air.’
‘Do you want him back?’
‘No. We weren’t meant to be together. I’ve come to realize that I didn’t feel the same way about him as I did David. We should have stayed as friends. It would be good to be his friend again. To be able to go to Ford Farm without worrying I might bump into him.’
‘And to Tremore? I hope you feel you can go there. You’ll be very welcome.’ Tristan looked up and was pleased to see someone coming towards them. ‘It’s Tom. He looks as if he’s got something to say to you. I’m sure you’ll sort it out. I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Tristan,’ she said, before he’d gone. ‘Would you like to wait for me? Come back for tea? Whatever conclusion Tom and I come to, I’d be glad of your company.’
‘My dear Louisa, I’d be delighted to.’
‘Surprised to see you here, Uncle Tris,’ Tom said, his amazement plain, when they met along the path. ‘How is she?’
‘I’ve started to make things up to her. You’ll need to go gently with her, Tom.’
‘I will, don’t worry.’
A short time later Louisa walked back to her house escorted on either side by the two men.