Charlotte and Vincent Pollard resisted telling the rest of them of the exploits of their two madcap Red Cross daughters, who had now been elevated to the status of heroines in their eyes, and Skye resisted telling Morwen her own plans until it simply became unavoidable. When she did, it was with Philip by her side.
The response was inevitable. Morwen’s face went white, and she clutched at Birdie’s hand.
‘You can’t do this, Skye. I forbid it. Your mother and father would never forgive me if I let you do it—’
‘I’ve already written to tell them, Granny Morwen, and they can’t stop me. And neither can you,’ she said quietly. ‘Philip’s contract at the college is over, and he’s going to enlist next week. He’s taught me to drive, after a fashion, and I want to be with him.’
Morwen looked at them both sharply.
‘And this is something else I shouldn’t allow,’ she said.
‘Mrs Wainwright, we hope that if we enlist together we may be sent to the same detachment in France.’
‘And why do you suppose they would agree to that, young man? You’re not family, or a special group like the clayers.’
‘But as an engaged couple, we shall press to be allowed to stay together,’ Philip went on steadily, playing his trump card, the one that he and Skye had planned for just this moment. Unconsciously they moved closer together, as if to present a united front before this indomitable old woman. For all her frailty, Skye knew how badly she needed to win her over. She needed her blessing to be her talisman.
‘You realise you would be entering into an engagement for all the wrong reasons, however noble they seem to you now,’ Morwen said at last.
Skye rushed to her, kneeling down beside her chair.
‘Granny, you’re wrong,’ she said passionately. ‘The only reason Philip and I want to be engaged, and to be together, is because we love each other so much that it would take far more than a war to keep us apart. Can’t you understand that? You, of all people?’
She hardly knew why she said what she did, nor how she knew that Morwen Tremayne would have gone through fire and tempest to be with the man she loved, whether he was a Killigrew or a Wainwright. Just as she would.
And she saw the softening in her grandmother’s eyes as she stroked the long black hair of the girl at her feet. The shimmering cascade of hair that was so much like Morwen’s own had once been, and which somehow seemed to symbolise the empathy between them.
‘I know that you must follow your heart, my lamb, and if it sends you to foreign shores, then I’m sure the Lord will go with you. And now I’m in danger of sounding more like Luke than Luke himself, so away with you both and let me rest.’
Skye kissed her creased old cheek, her eyes moist, and then she and Philip left her to her afternoon nap. They went outside the house, breathing in the crisp, wintry air.
‘What a woman she is,’ Philip said softly, for no reason at all. ‘And what a beautiful grand-daughter she has. I hope our children will have the spirit of you both.’
‘Then you think we’ll have children one day?’ Skye said, catching her breath at the charm of the thought.
Not only the thought that she and Philip would produce a child out of their love, but that life would go on, beyond the holocaust where they were about to go so voluntarily. The hope of these shadowy children who would develop their own lives, was another talisman to keep safe within her heart.
‘Of course we will,’ Philip said, his arm around her waist. ‘We have to continue your family dynasty.’
‘So we do. But we’ll also be starting a new Norwood dynasty, won’t we?’
They smiled in complete harmony, and then squinted their eyes against the winter sky, seeing a fine dust being thrown up by a horse’s hooves approaching. Yet another visitor. They had intended leaving for Truro, to spend an idyllic couple of hours in the rooms Philip was now renting since leaving the college, but they could hardly drive off when someone was nearing the house in such an almighty hurry.
‘Oh no,’ Skye groaned, seeing who it was. ‘We should have left earlier.’
* * *
Luke Tremayne almost scorched his trap to a halt beside the pair lounging against the motor at the front of the house. His temper was sorely put out, and the sight of the flighty young miss standing so blatantly with the man’s arm around her, offended him greatly. And he didn’t care to have a relative’s name bandied about in idle gossip by the lower members of his community.
Gracie Trethewy had reported with great glee what her brother had told her about the goings-on at the college during the final weeks of term. Shocking, disgusting things to relate to a God-fearing and celibate man, and he had berated the woman soundly for repeating them. He had been far too busy over Christmas to investigate immediately, but seeing the accused pair now, he was in no doubt of their guilt.
‘Good afternoon, Uncle Luke,’ Skye said. ‘Granny Morwen was about to take a nap, but she’ll be glad to see you.’
She was quite sure that Granny Morwen wouldn’t, but she spoke as dutifully as she could.
‘It’s you and your companion I’ve come to see, Miss, so it’s fortuitous that I’ve caught you together. I suggest that we go into the house and discuss things in private.’
Skye didn’t miss his use of the words caught you together. She glanced at Philip, frowning, and knowing they were in for a roasting for some reason or other. Luke had been oddly absent over the Jordan affair, clearly finding it easier to deal with strangers’ grief than his own family’s.
But he went straight into the drawing-room, rousing Morwen without any apology, and obliging them to follow.
‘Now then, Mother, you’d best hear what I’ve got to say in front of these two,’ he began.
‘Good afternoon, Luke,’ Morwen said mildly.
‘Yes, yes, I know all about the formalities, but this is far more serious. It’s been brought to my attention that your grand-daughter has been spending hours at a time in this gentleman’s college rooms in Truro, bringing shame on us all.’
In the small silence following his words, Skye gasped, and Philip exclaimed angrily at the pomposity of the fellow. And Morwen… incredulously, Skye heard her grandmother give a loud chuckle at her son’s scandalised expression.
‘Oh Luke, my dear, I’m sorry to say so, but you do resemble a strangulated pig when you go on so.’
‘Really, Mother! Is that all you can say? Sometimes I think you’re either going senile or you’ve simply taken leave of your senses. And as for condoning fornication—’
‘How dare you speak to me like that, you pompous oaf,’ Morwen said, more sharply.
Philip spoke furiously. ‘I’ll ask you, Sir, to apologise to Skye, for the inferences you’ve just made.’
Skye stared at her uncle unblinkingly, knowing that what he spoke was the truth, all of it, and that it was even worse than his narrow, bigoted mind could possibly imagine. How could he know of the deliriously erotic times she had lain in her lover’s arms, and how she ached to be there at all times? How could he know the feeling, that as soon as they were parted, she felt lost, bereft…?
She caught sight of Morwen watching her, and thought immediately that she knew. She had once known those feelings exactly. Before anyone could say another word, Morwen had lifted her hand.
‘You’re a fool to heed such gossip, Luke, and as for fornication, since I presume that you have never experienced it, you cannot possibly know what goes on between a man and a woman behind closed doors. It may be perfectly innocent, and as the two people concerned in this instance are betrothed to be married, I hardly think it’s any of your business, nor anyone else’s.’
She couldn’t have knocked the wind out of his sails more effectively. Skye was filled with admiration for the way she had deflected Luke so well from his purpose in coming here.
‘Betrothed? Since when? Why wasn’t I told about this before now?’
‘Because it’s none of your business, Uncle Luke,’ S
kye repeated, flaring at once. ‘And if you want some more news for your gossiping busy-bodies, you can tell them that we both intend enlisting next week. I presume it’s acceptable for us to go to war together, is it?’
She was near to tears, but Luke was ready to back down now, knowing when he was beaten, and already concocting a more civilised story for Gracie Trethewy to pass on to her brother than the contemptible lies he had told her.
He finally muttered a miserable attempt at an apology and blundered out of the house. Morwen waved the others away as they attempted to thank her.
‘Perhaps I can have my sleep now,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m fair weary with all this upset, but I think you can forget about Luke’s interference. From now on he’ll be keen to uphold you as shining examples to us all, if I know him.’
They left her then, and far from feeling shame, there was no question of not spending the time together that they had planned, for who knew how little time any of them had left? Neither said as much, but it was in both their thoughts.
And they would have been more than surprised if they had known the thoughts and memories swirling around the head of the matriarch they left behind them at New World. For they were not the dreams of old age, but the dreams of a young and vivacious woman, revelling in the sensual passions of the two men who had loved her.
In her lovely water-colour dreams, the memories all merged so beautifully into one, so that she couldn’t have said where the love of Ben Killigrew ended, and the love of Ran Wainwright began. But she understood and applauded the passionate heart of her grand-daughter so very well…
Chapter Ten
Their plans were postponed when Philip was persuaded to remain at the college for another term. In the circumstances he didn’t have the heart to refuse.
‘My replacement has lost his brother in France and gone into retirement,’ he told Skye. ‘We all have to adapt to changing circumstances these days. But young men still need education, and I can’t leave the college under-staffed.’
‘Doesn’t it make you wonder just what you’re educating them for?’ she said. ‘The moment they’re old enough they go off and enlist, and become another statistic.’
‘Perhaps that’s one advantage of not being young any more,’ he said.
‘You’re not old.’
‘No, but they prefer young men to go to war, my love, and now that I’ve agreed to remain at my post, I’ll have to wait until April to volunteer. But I’ll continue renting my rooms in Truro, rather than live at the college as before. It will be easier for us to meet discreetly in town.’
There was no question of Skye volunteering before he did. The last thing they wanted was to be parted. And guiltily or not, it relieved Morwen’s mind considerably to know that her ewe lamb was going to be safe at home in Cornwall, rather than in the reported mud of the battlefields.
But then, in the bitterly cold and wet weeks of January, something happened to throw the entire family into chaos. Philip had been invited to dinner, and the three of them, together with Birdie, were enjoying the meal, when Theo came roaring up to the house in his motor, flinging open the door and leaving it creaking on its hinges as he hurtled into the house. That fact alone would have alerted anyone that something was terribly wrong.
He pushed past Mrs Arden and rushed straight into the dining-room. His face was ashen, his eyes wild. Morwen half rose from her seat, and then sank back again. As if she already knew…
‘What’s happened?’ Skye said sharply, as the atmosphere become as charged as if a bolt of lightning surged through it.
He ignored her, and went straight to his grandmother’s side, holding her hands in a vice-like grip, and neither could have said whose hands were the icier.
‘Gran, there’s been a terrible accident. Oh God, now that I’m here I don’t know how to say it – how to tell you – it’s too Goddamn bloody awful to put into words—’
‘It’s Walter, isn’t it?’ Morwen whispered in a reedy voice. ‘It’s my Walter.’
Skye rushed around the dining-table to kneel at the other side of her grandmother. Her arms went around the old woman’s thin shoulders, wishing she could protect her from whatever she was about to hear. As yet, no one but Theo knew what had happened, but Morwen’s expression frightened her. It was almost as though she was seeing what had happened, before she even heard it.
‘Tell me what it is you’ve come to say, Theo,’ Morwen almost gasped out the words, as if she was drowning.
He seemed unable to speak for a moment, which was totally unlike the frequently bombastic Pit Manager he could be.
‘For God’s sake, man, don’t keep her in agony like this,’ Philip’s angry voice broke into his stunned silence. ‘Whatever it is, let her know.’
‘I do know,’ Morwen said dully. ‘My Walter’s dead, isn’t he, Theo?’
His own voice was tortured as he answered. ‘Yes, Gran. You know how he’s been all these weeks since hearing about Jordan. He took it far harder than Mother – well, you know Mother,’ he said, dismissing her as easily as if he swatted a fly. ‘We all thought Father was getting over it, but he just couldn’t cope. The doctor’s at the house now, and he says he must have gone into a serious decline to do this.’
Skye felt her heart begin to thud sickeningly. The news was terrible enough, but there was clearly more to come. They hadn’t learned the full horror yet.
‘To do what?’ she asked, looking at Theo above their grandmother’s bowed head.
She saw him bring Morwen’s hand to his lips and kiss it briefly. The action was so touching and so unexpected it sent the weak tears rushing to Skye’s eyes. She dashed them back, knowing she needed to be strong for Morwen.
‘They found Father’s car parked on a headland above the cliffs. They can’t be sure whether he fell or if he threw himself over. There was a storm raging, and the sea was evil, and it was a long while before they recovered his body from the rocks and brought him home—’
They all became aware of Morwen’s keening then. It was loud and awful, like an animal in pain.
‘I’ll fetch her one of her sedatives,’ Birdie said at once. ‘She can’t deal with this—’
‘No!’ Morwen screamed. ‘Do ‘ee think I’m too frail to deal wi’ my own darling’s death? I’m not as soft as my own clay, woman! I have to feel the pain o’ this, same I felt it when Celia, my sweet Celia…’
She slumped forward then, and needed all their attention to get her out of the dining room and upstairs to her bed. It was no more than a faint, but the shock had evidently been too much for her. Her last words had shocked Skye as well, until Theo muttered in her ear.
‘I should have known ’twould bring it all back to her, but you’d never think a young girl’s drowning in a clay pool all those years ago would stay in her memory so vividly.’
‘Not unless it was a very particular kind of memory,’ Skye said. She glanced at him. He had lost his brother in a war, and now his father too. She put her hand on his arm.
‘I’m so sorry, Theo, and for your mother too. How is she bearing all this?’
‘As you would expect. She’ll keep her dignity in public, and shed her tears in private. But once we’ve had the burying, she says she intends leaving for Yorkshire for a long visit. My grandmother Jane won’t make the journey down here again, and Tom Askhew never had much time for my father.’
Skye didn’t know what to say. They seemed such a cold mother and son, and Cathy was preparing to abandon Theo, while her darling Granny Morwen was suffering over her beloved Walter. She heard Morwen moan as she half-regained consciousness, and the drink Birdie urged her to swallow contained the sedative Morwen didn’t want, but badly needed.
‘This’ll settle her for a while, poor soul,’ Birdie told them all as Morwen drifted off again. ‘She’s had a fair amount of tragedy in her life, but somehow she rides it all. A body wonders how long it can continue, all the same. I’ll sit with her, while you folk have your own business to discuss.’<
br />
Tactfully, Philip left the house soon afterwards, promising to call Skye the following day. It wouldn’t be Morwen’s place to host a funeral for a son who had a wife and son of his own, but they all knew it would end up here for the ritual bun-fight, as Theo was now calling it.
There were so many family members to inform. All the ones remaining in Cornwall, and those farther afield. Albert was Walter’s brother, and Primmy was Walter’s sister…
‘I’ll send a telegram to Mom first thing tomorrow,’ Skye said quickly. ‘She’ll be devastated, I know.’
Maybe not quite as devastated as if it was Albie, but that was an unworthy thought at such a time, and she pushed it aside, thinking of what she could do instead. It was far better to be doing something than to sit and brood.
‘I don’t know everyone yet,’ she said diffidently. ‘I’ll call Emma and Charlotte if you like, and Uncle Luke if I must. But the others in Ireland and Sussex…’
‘No, I’ll see to it all,’ Theo said briefly. ‘It will take ages, but I’ll call Albert and the rest of them from here. My mother won’t want to be alone for too long, but I daresay the doctor’s sedated her as well by now. I’ll call Luke first. He’s sure to want to be in the thick of it.’
Sometimes Skye wondered if she could really be related to this cold, aloof man who seemed to have shut himself off from the horror of his father’s death, now that he’d gone through the ordeal of telling his grandmother. But everyone had their own ways of dealing with grief, and this was probably his.
She suddenly longed for Philip’s warmth and love. It wasn’t the time or the place, but she knew it was far better to be alive to all your emotions than to cut them off completely. Morwen knew that, and so did she.
She was glad when Theo was finally ready to leave. It had taken an interminably long time to make all the telephone calls, but he had arranged the funeral date for a week ahead. Luke intended to conduct it himself. The Irish folk, as she thought of them, wouldn’t be attending, but sent their condolences.
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