‘You’re returning to London?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m enlisting in the new year. I don’t have any military experience, but I’ve a more than competent knowledge of the French terrain, and I’m a perfectly capable driver. I’m sure I’ll be of some use.’
His words took her breath away. Her first reaction was of shock, because it was the last thing she had expected to hear. Her second was anger, and without warning, she found herself pummelling his chest.
‘How can you do this, just when we’ve found one another?’ she almost wept. ‘How can you think of leaving me? You’ll be killed at worst, or taken prisoner and tortured at best, and I’ll never see you again—’
‘Well, thank you for that tremendous vote of confidence,’ he said calmly. ‘Some people do come out of a war unscathed, you know.’
‘And some of them don’t.’
She could hear herself, shrill and bitter, unlike herself, behaving like a shrew, but she was knocked sideways by his words, and full of the direst dread.
For no reason at all she remembered the weird old woman she had seen on the moors, and she felt a great temptation to find her again and beg her for a potion to keep her lover safe, and she would sacrifice anything for such a charm… and even more shocked, she knew her thoughts were enveloping the old Cornish belief in witches and omens and premonitions.
But then, as the images that filled her mind became more wild and unreal, they seemed to steady her, and she clung to Philip wordlessly as he stroked her hair.
‘If you’re going to do this, then so am I,’ she said.
His hands were stilled and he tipped up her face to meet his. ‘Don’t be foolish, Skye. I know your sabbatical is only for a year, and come the spring, you’ll be thinking of returning home; if not before.’
‘No, I won’t. My brother is already urging me to go home and implying that America won’t be drawn into a war that has nothing to do with us. He may be right, but he makes me ashamed. Besides, my heart was here the moment I stepped ashore, and if you go to France, you’ll take it with you, and I shan’t be able to live without it.’
He ignored her agitation, remaining as calm as possible, considering his own feelings at the thought of parting. ‘Your family will be upset. Your parents will think you’ve been influenced by your grandmother and your uncles.’
‘My parents know me well enough to know I’ve never allowed anyone else to influence my thinking – until now. Until you. So you see, it’s no use. If you go, I go too.’
‘And what will you do, my brave darling?’ he said.
‘I’ll be a hospital helper,’ she said recklessly. ‘Or a roving lady reporter – or I’ll pack food parcels, or drive an ambulance.’
‘You can’t drive – can you?’
‘Not until you teach me.’
The words tumbled out, nervously and urgently. She had never considered them before. At home, there had always been someone to drive her anywhere she wanted to go, and she had always preferred the freedom of the bicycle and the open air. But there were limits as to how far you could cycle, and the battlefields of France were hardly within pedalling range…
‘Are you serious?’ Philip asked.
‘Why not? Don’t you think I’m capable?’
He began to laugh at her indignant face.
‘I think you’re capable of doing anything your heart sets out to do. It’s one of the things I love you for.’
‘One of the things?’
His hands slid down her body beneath the bedclothes, and she felt her skin shudder erotically beneath his touch.
‘Let me show you the rest,’ he whispered seductively, and proceeded to make love to her all over again.
* * *
It was mid-evening by the time they left the college, and Skye was alarmed to discover how long she had been in Philip’s room. She felt as if they had crossed a mountain in that time, and life would never be the same for them again.
But perhaps she was being selfish, she thought, more soberly. Her euphoria had begun to subside a little, for life would be irrevocably changed for so many people in the days to come. Already the appalling casualty figures had started to filter through, and the thought that it would all be over by Christmas was the most unlikely one of all.
They collected her bicycle from the porter’s lodge, and Trethewy looked after them thoughtfully as they walked away.
Miss Tremayne, he ruminated… he knew of a family by that name. One of them was a well-known artist living in the town who’d once lived a bohemian life, by all accounts…
There was also a preacher of that name over Prazeby way, where his sister lived, and he remembered her saying in passing that a young American relation was coming to stay with the old grandmother. He wondered if there was any connection between them all. In any case, he had a juicy bit of gossip to tell Gracie, next time he saw her.
* * *
Philip had already decided it was too late for Skye to cycle back that evening. It would be dark long before she reached New World, and he suggested that she stayed with Albert and Rose for the night. She could telephone her grandmother from there to tell her what was happening.
She agreed. Their last hours had been so intense that she felt the need to talk about ordinary things, and on the way to the studio she told him about the proposed Killigrew pottery, and about the Lock father and son.
‘It makes sense,’ he said. ‘But it will need more than two amateur potters to make it a going concern.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, and Walter will need to bring in some experts in due course and set up proper premises. In any case, I have a feeling that nothing’s going to happen very quickly after all.’
They reached the studio and were invited up to the living quarters. Skye made her request clumsily, hugely embarrassed at the strange way Albie was looking at them.
As if he could see all that there was to see, and knew that she had spent the last clandestine hours in this college man’s arms. Rose looked at her oddly too, but it was Albie’s expression that disturbed her most. She had seen it in a man’s eyes before now.
It was jealousy, pure and simple – except that there was nothing pure about jealousy. It was ugly and destructive, and without examining the reason why, she shied away from the very thought of staying under the same roof as her uncle.
‘Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all,’ she said, glancing at Philip. ‘I think I really should get home, or Gran will worry. Would you drive me back instead, Philip? I’ll collect my bicycle some other time, if Uncle Albie doesn’t mind me leaving it here.’
‘That’s the best idea,’ Rose put in before either of the men could speak. ‘We’ll telephone your grandmother to let her know you’re on your way, Skye. I gather she’s far from well.’
She wanted her out of here, Skye thought at once. She could also see that Albie was jealous of Philip Norwood, and of course, neither of them knew about the engagement being broken with Ruth. They would think she and Philip had been cheating on the deaf girl.
Her cheeks burned at the very thought, but she could hardly bring Philip’s personal details out into the open. All she could do was to get out of there as quickly as she could.
‘I feel dreadful,’ she gasped to him, as they walked to the garage where Philip kept his hired car. ‘They didn’t say anything, yet they made me feel so cheap!’
‘You’ll never be that, darling,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t concern yourself, although I think we must tell your grandmother right away that I’m a free man, and not about to besmirch your honour in any way.’
‘Oh? I thought you’d already done that,’ she said with a shaky smile.
He squeezed her hand. ‘Any regrets?’ he asked.
‘Not a single one,’ she said honestly.
* * *
Skye hadn’t expected Morwen to be still up by the time they reached New World, but the house seemed to be ablaze with lights. It looked welcoming as
always, and yet Skye felt decidedly uneasy as they approached. And even more so as they saw Theo’s car outside the front door, parked alongside his father’s.
‘Oh Lord, what’s this? I hardly think it’s going to be a welcoming committee,’ she murmured. ‘Please don’t stay, Philip, but may I call you tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be mortified if you don’t,’ he said, and scribbled his telephone number on a piece of paper before discreetly kissing her good-bye, well aware of the many windows that seemed to watch them like kaleidoscopic eyes.
The moment she entered the house, it was to hear the sounds of weeping, and the realisation that more important things were happening here than worrying about one wayward relative.
‘What is it?’ she said, grabbing Birdie’s arm as she came hurrying towards her, her eyes red and swollen. ‘Is it Granny Morwen?’
For of course, it had to be. Why else would Walter and Cathy and Theo be here… but whatever it was, Albie and Rose obviously hadn’t heard of it before she left them.
‘We didn’t know where you were, see?’ the woman gabbled. ‘So we couldn’t let you know, and then ’tothers called to say you were on your way with your gentleman friend, so I daresay they’ll be comin’ here sometime—’
‘For God’s sake, Birdie, is my grandmother dead?’ she screamed. And even as she said the words, the terrible thought ran through her mind that while her grandmother had been dying, she and Philip had been making love…
Birdie’s teeth rattled in her head. ‘’Tain’t her that’s dead, though she looks near to it with the upset of it all.’
‘Then who?’ Skye whispered.
Cathy came hurrying out of the drawing-room, a handkerchief pressed to her eyes, and Skye’s heart sank. As if seeking any kind of comfort, or maybe to give it, Cathy put her arms around Skye at once. Skye still had no idea what had happened, and she was embarrassed at this show of emotion from a woman she didn’t altogether care for.
‘’Tis the other son,’ Birdie mouthed over Cathy’s head. ‘The one up north, only he weren’t up north no more. He’d gone and joined up.’
Theo came to join them at that moment, his face grim.
‘Please see to Grandmother, Birdie, and Mother, come back inside. We’ll stay here tonight. It will be best for us all to be together. I’ve called your mother, and although she’s distraught she intends coming down here to be with us as soon as possible.’
‘Will somebody please tell me what’s happened?’ Skye said in a strained voice. She could guess, but she had to know. She was a journalist, and she had to hear it in the words that were her business… the incongruous, useless thought flashed in and out of her mind.
‘Jordan’s been killed in France,’ Theo said curtly. ‘He was caught up in some shell-fire, and didn’t stand a chance. At least we were told, it was mercifully quick.’
Oh, Theo, Skye thought, don’t you know that’s military and newspaper jargon to gloss over any ghastly truths?
But she could see by the way he avoided her eyes that he knew it all too well. She could see how he was suffering. Jordan was his brother, and although Skye had never met him, he was her kin too, and she was caught up in the family grief. And the bigger the family, the more they clung together and prolonged the grief.
She felt a wild urge to remove this clinging woman from her embrace and run out of the house to go somewhere safe. Running back to Philip where she was loved, and where all that mattered was being together. Or running back home, where there was no urgent talk of war, except in distant Washington conference rooms that were so far removed from the reality that was here and now, and in their midst.
And in those moments of sheer terror she knew she had never really grown up at all. Her lips trembled, and she saw Theo give a short nod as he took his mother away, as if he could read every damn thing going around in her head.
‘Will they – when will they bring him back?’ she whispered, assuming this was the reason that Jane Askhew would think of travelling all the way from Yorkshire to Cornwall to be at her grandson’s burial.
She heard Theo give a harsh laugh. It was a terrible sound in the midst of the weeping she could still hear from the drawing-room, and from the woman still clinging to her.
‘No, they won’t be bringing him back, Skye. When you’re in the direct line of fire from an enemy shell there’s nothing to bring back. Tom Askew might keep the truth from his readers, but he was never shy at giving out the truth to those that needed to hear it.’
And she presumed that he thought he had needed to hear that too, thought Skye, hating the very thought of Tom Askhew, and unwittingly echoing all Morwen’s old feelings about the man. Morwen…
‘I must go to my grandmother,’ she said quickly, almost pushing Cathy towards Theo. ‘How has she taken this news?’
‘As you would expect.’ Theo said brutally. ‘We thought there’d be few of the family going to France, and Jordan wasn’t even a soldier in the regular sense. He was just doing his job, reporting the news.’
‘Every family is touched by war,’ Cathy murmured in a shuddering voice. ‘Even Charlotte’s silly girls were foolish enough to think they could be of use.’
‘They thought correctly,’ Skye said. ‘Everyone should do what they can to stop this horrible war.’
She didn’t look at Theo as she spoke. Nor was she going to tell them yet, that she had every intention of doing what her cousin Jordan had done and report the news. Nothing had changed. If anything, it had made her more determined than ever, and if the Truro Informer didn’t want her reports, she would send them directly to this Tom Askhew and his Northern Informer. There would be a poignancy in her reports following on her cousin’s death, that she was sure he wouldn’t miss seeing and exploiting.
Her reasons were both patriotic and personal. But the one that was still uppermost in her mind was that if Philip was going to France in the new year, then so was she.
* * *
It was hard to forget that terrible night and the weeks that followed. The whole family seemed to congregate on New World as if it was truly the centre of the universe, until it felt as if there was no air left to breathe.
Cathy had recovered from her grief like the lady she was, but Walter had become alarmingly morose and introverted, unable to speak to anyone, and losing interest in everything. Jordan had left the family home years before, but losing a son seemed to affect him as deeply as losing an arm.
‘It’s not as if other families aren’t losing their menfolk and having to deal with their emotions,’ Philip reminded her, during one of her erratic driving lessons. ‘But I must say I never thought your Uncle Walter would take it this hard. He’s almost going into a decline.’
‘I know,’ Skye said, crashing the gears and making Philip wince. ‘He seems to have lost heart in everything lately. The two potters are still dabbling at Clay Two, but any real business plans have been abandoned for now. I might take a look at it sometime, just to keep the interest alive.’
And maybe wander over the moors to find that old witchwoman… The thought was in her head before she could stop it. But she had no intention of doing any such thing.
‘Did Jordan’s grandmother arrive safely?’ Philip asked.
‘She did, and she also called to visit Granny Morwen one afternoon.’ She frowned, remembering the tense atmosphere between them. ‘It was so odd, Philip. They once knew one another pretty well, I gather, and yet you wouldn’t credit how distant they were. They were both suffering, and yet these two eighty-year-old dames sat there facing one another like old enemies!’
He tried to overlook what she was doing to his car as she put it through its juddering paces on the moorland road.
‘You’re exaggerating, of course.’
‘I am not! Granny Morwen seemed quite frigid just talking to Mrs Askhew, and I know she was glad when she left. I felt rather sorry for her – for Mrs Askhew, I mean. She seemed a soft sort of person, and well under her husband’s thumb, I shou
ld guess.’
‘Quite the little philosopher today, aren’t you?’
‘No. Just observant, and my guess is that those two had quite a past between them,’ Skye said thoughtfully.
She suddenly felt Philip jerk the steering-wheel out of her hand and pull it round to the right.
‘Well, I’d prefer to think we have a future ahead of us, providing you don’t run us off the road,’ he snapped.
For once she didn’t answer back. And anyway, what did it matter what those two old dears had once fought over, if they had fought at all? It may be just her imagination playing tricks, of course, even though she was perfectly sure it was not. Her instincts were very strong on that point.
But Philip was right. The casualty lists were becoming longer than ever now, and every family who had sent their sons or daughters to war had a tale to tell, either of bereavement or bravery, or hideous wounds and lingering mental disorders. War was evil, but Skye was just as determined to be in the thick of it. She knew exactly how those clayworkers, forming their own Killigrew Pals Battalian, had felt now. She had never known Jordan, but he was her kin, ana she felt a violent need to go to France to avenge his senseless death.
She brought the car to a sudden stop, her heart pounding too fast for her to carry on with any safety, her knuckles white on the steering-wheel.
‘If you’re going to take offence every time I criticise you—’ Philip began.
‘I’m not. Truly,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I suddenly felt very aware of my mortality, and everyone else’s in this damn awful world. Hold me, Philip. Just hold me. Please.’
* * *
Christmas came and went without too much in the way of celebration in the family, even though they all gathered at New World as usual. But there didn’t seem much to celebrate with Walter’s long face, and Theo snapping at everyone in sight, and Cathy acting the brave martyr who had lost a son.
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