I smiled perhaps the broadest smile I had ever smiled in my life. I should have said no. I should have run away as fast as my legs could carry me – I still knew absolutely nothing about him. And yet, I knew him as I knew my own reflection. Which is why I didn’t say no.
Of course, I didn’t say no.
‘Oh, Edward,’ I said. ‘One wonderful day just for us? I’d absolutely love it.’
Chapter 11
Juliet
Magnetism
Oh, the impetuosity of youth!
Scratch that.
Oh, the impetuosity of being in love, whatever the age of the lovers. I would have trampled my own mother to spend time with Edward that day. Why is it that we turn into foolhardy, live-for-the-moment and ‘to hell with everyone else’ children the very moment we fall in love?
Magnetism, again?
Whatever the answer, it was a wonderful day. But a great many things can happen in twenty-four hours … in fact, not just in twenty-four, but in an hour or two, or even just in a minute. And by Christmas Eve everything in my life had changed in a way I could not possibly have imagined when I said yes to spending the day with Edward.
Our ‘one wonderful day to last a lifetime’ had proven worthy of its name. We spent the morning as Edward had planned – exploring the cove, taking a trip in the Tiger Moth, lots of photographs and then lunch. It felt like the first day of a honeymoon – that carefree, selfish time of pleasing only ourselves. After lunch the weather closed in suddenly, as is its want in Cornwall, and we did not head down to the river as planned, but stayed indoors, resting by the fireside in the cottage. We read, we talked, we listened to the gramophone and bit by bit, the light that had shone brightly through the kitchen window in the morning – a light that held all the promise of a fabulous day in its fiery glow – faded, only to be replaced by thick fog that shrouded the Angels in a heavy and oppressive blanket of gloomy murk. The perfect flicker of candles and the glow of firelight only served to continue to wrap us in romance, and I loved every single moment of it.
The little Art Deco clock on the mantelpiece chimed four times when, with a heart made of lead, I rose from my place on the rug in front of the fire and began to gather my things. Edward took a vinyl from his collection and placed it on the gramophone. Standing slowly, he took me in his arms and without words we danced to Peggy Lee, Linger In My Arms A Little Longer. It was at that very moment, while resting my head on Edward’s shoulder, that I was at my most happy and most sad, right then and there, in a little cottage called Angel View, with a man I had known for less than a week.
The song ended.
I stepped away from his embrace and in the firelight Edward said just four words, ‘Don’t marry him, Juliet.’
I kissed him then – the perfect kiss to end the perfect day – and answered in the only way I knew how.
‘I won’t.’
Holding my father’s compass for luck, I dashed upstairs to find Lottie. Pa’s motto, after all, was, ‘when in doubt, don’t!’ And so, I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t marry Charles. I would call off the wedding. But I needed to find Lottie first. She would have to find a plan B.
I turned the door knob and stepped inside to find the shutters closed and her bedroom shrouded in darkness. Lottie’s frame was highlighted from the light of the hallway. She was laying on her bed, her back to the door. I didn’t turn on the light but crossed to the bed and shook Lottie gently.
‘Lottie,’ I whispered. ‘Lottie … there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something I need to tell you.’
Lottie stirred.
‘Juliet?’ she murmured, in that confused, barely awake state. ‘You’ve been gone all day. Where on earth have you been? Ma is starting to get a bit cross with you disappearing off all of the time, you know.’
‘Never mind that now. Listen, about Edward Nancarrow. How well do you know him?’
Lottie raised herself up and rubbed her eyes. She turned to plump a pillow against the wooden headboard.
‘Well, let’s say I know him well enough to wish I wasn’t pregnant so I could persuade him to take me out to dinner sometime. Why?’
‘He’s a good man, then?’ I pressed.
‘He seems so, yes, although no one seems to know much about him. He’s rented that old cottage by the beach from Pa for about a year now. Pa knows him quite well, I think. He’s quite old, though. At least thirty! But sexy as anything!’ She giggled. ‘But he’s a bit of a charmer if you ask me, not that Edward Nancarrow could ever be in the running if you’re thinking of pairing us up’ – she glanced down at her belly – ‘even if I wasn’t in this damn pickle …’
‘Why not?’
She sat up further, more animated now.
‘There’s rumour that the American accent is fake. That he’s actually German!’
‘German?! No, not really?’
Lottie nodded.
‘Really! And he’s married, too. But it’s an odd carry on if you ask me.’
And at that moment, with Lottie’s words bouncing around the room like a stray bullet, my world fell apart.
Edward. Married.
Spend the day with me. No promises. Today, right now, that’s all that matters …
And then I turned to see Charles standing in the doorway, and when I saw the desperate expression on his face, I felt certain he knew about Edward. That’s it then, Juliet, I thought. The game is up. You’re left with nothing and you deserve it.
But Charles didn’t know about Edward. His anguished expression concerned another issue entirely.
Charles walked into the bedroom with his arms outstretched and directly behind him, Pa Lanyon appeared at the door, his face wet with tears.
Ma Lanyon, Charles explained, was in hospital, fighting for her life, and so was Katie. A car crash returning from Penzance, they said.
Taking in the scene as if watching from above, I saw my new family gathered around me in the darkness. They were people who had supported me through the worst news a young woman could ever have, the premature loss of her parents. I saw Lottie, too, asking frantic questions about her beloved Ma. Lottie, who was being forced into hiding in Yorkshire after Christmas because her illegitimate baby was beginning to show. And I saw Charles, trying to be brave standing side by side with Pa Lanyon, who was driven half-crazy with the worry of how to financially maintain an estate that since the end of the First World War had been unable to support its tenant farmers and staff. This family needed me as much as I had once needed them.
Which was why, on Christmas Eve, while Ma Lanyon and Katie fought for their lives, I stood with Charles, Pa and Lottie outside a nondescript room in Penzance Town Hall, in my old tweed suit, waiting for a clerk to come and escort us in.
The clerk appeared at the door. ‘It’s time,’ he said with an encouraging smile.
With no other friends or relatives around me, through silent tears I listened vaguely to the registrar as he talked us through the vows and eventually whispered the only words that were left for me to say … ‘I do.’
Chapter 12
Katherine
Finding Fenella
With the bubble caption of ‘Don’t marry him, Juliet!’ floating above my head, I decided that I really did need to put down the manuscript and spend a part of the day out of bed. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I noticed vaguely that a note had been pushed under the door. I meandered into the kitchen with the note in my hand and smiled at the elf – at least I still had him for company, even if he did wear the expression of an edgy sociopath. I picked him up, gave him a little kiss and sat him on the chair opposite. He smiled. I read the note.
Dear Katherine
My name is Fenella and I’m friends with Gerald. As there is no smoke coming out of your chimney, I assume you must be freezing and possibly hungry. Come down and warm yourself by my Aga. A full breakfast is waiting for you in the bottom oven. Mine is the pink thatched cottage by the harbour on the corner. It’s to the left of the shop (
don’t go in unless you want to spend a tenner on a tea towel. Tourists only).
Yours, F
Thank you, Lord!
I pulled on my boots, hat, coat and gloves and was out of the door and running down the track before the elf on the shelf (or the chair) knew what had hit him.
A ruddy-faced woman – the top of her head just about reaching my nipples – opened the door. She was wearing hair rollers, slippers and a blue tabard apron over Jazzercise leggings and a Christmas jumper (at least, I guessed it was a Christmas jumper, what with the shimmering antlers popping out of the top of the tabard). Her eyes shone with the unsquashed enthusiasm of an eager puppy.
‘Hi,’ I said, waving the note in my hand as if handing in a winning raffle ticket. ‘I’m Katherine? Gerald’s niece?’
She beckoned me in. ‘Yes, yes. Of course, you are. Of course, you are. Come on in! Come on in!’
I ducked to pass under the door frame and stood in the hallway, being disrobed. Once shot of my coat, she took my hands in hers and blew on them. Her breath was like dragon breath on ice.
‘Like two little blocks of ice, they are!’ she chided. ‘Never mind, we’ll soon get that sorted out. Go on through to the kitchen. Terrible news about George, although what on earth Gerald was doing rushing off in the middle of the night – in the middle of the storm – to get to him, I will never know. But …’ she sighed, ‘I suppose that’s love for you. I’d have been the same if it had been the dog.’ She shooed again. ‘Go on through, go on through. You’ll soon warm up in there.’
Stepping into Fenella’s kitchen was like a re-entering the womb – swaddled, cosy and ever-so-slightly claustrophobic. She bustled towards the Aga, grabbed a mitt and bent – her rear end in the air – to open the bottom oven door. I pulled out a pine chair with a padded cushion on it, sat down with a contented sigh and tried to look around but couldn’t as my eyes were fixed on a small, intricately carved wooden box sitting in the middle of the table. The brass nameplate on the front read:
My Beloved Monty
Rest in peace old friend
Ah.
I decided to leave Monty as the elephant in the room and looked away, only to notice a dog’s bed by the Aga, which matched the empty water bowl sitting by the door and the lead hanging on a peg with a pair of battered walking boots abandoned underneath.
‘Gerald said you need feeding up,’ she said, placing a full English breakfast in front of me. She paused to take in my physique. ‘But by the looks of you, you’re not going to waste away any time soon. Tea?’
I looked down at my breakfast – the fried egg was utter perfection, and that’s not easily done – and sighed yet another contented sigh. ‘Ooh, yes please. That would be lovely.’
After five further minutes of bustle, Fenella eventually sat herself down across the table and watched me polish off my breakfast with the obvious delight of a woman who takes great pleasure in feeding people up.
‘How was your first night in the cottage?’ she asked, taking the wrapper off a Wagon Wheel.
I dabbed runny egg off my bottom lip with the back of my finger and tore off a piece of kitchen towel to use as a napkin. ‘Oh, it was fine. Windy, but fine. Lovely place.’
‘Best house in the village, most say. Best view, anyway. Not sure what Sam Lanyon’s going to do with it, but there’s not rush.’
‘It was very good of him to let me stay.’
Fenella snapped the Wagon Wheel in half and dunked it in the tea before swallowing her first bite. My eyes narrowed in concentration as I watched the biscuit make its precarious journey from cup to mouth. Surely Wagon Wheels were not designed for dunking.
‘Such a lovely man, Sam Lanyon.’ The Wagon Wheel hovered by her lips. ‘The ex-wife was an absolute dragon. Buggered off with another sailor, and all while Sam was away at sea, too. Horrible woman. He came back to an empty house. Kids gone. Just a note. Dreadful.’
She took a bite.
‘How awful. How long ago was that?’
She swallowed. ‘Ooh, ten years, give or take. Juliet was ninety then, but still going strong. Sam fell apart, but she kept him going, wouldn’t let him give in. Got him to go travelling for a bit. He’ll be home for good soon. After Christmas, according to Gerald.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s leaving the Navy and taking over his estate. Big deal round here, the Lanyons. But it’s time he settled here, I think. The old house sold years ago, but the estate still carries on. Sam is the sole inheritor. It was always the plan that he’d have his time in the Navy then come home and run the estate. That’s why Juliet insisted he spent time with the tenant farmers when he was young – learn their ways, you know. But she taught him how to fly when he was just a nipper, so I suppose he was always going to go off and spread his wings first. But he loves it here, though, so he does.’
Fenella silenced herself for a moment to dunk her Wagon Wheel again while I considered telling her the truth about my first night in Angel View – that I had sat up half the night reading Juliet’s memoirs. But I didn’t. I wanted to keep Juliet private for a little while and not risk her ruining the story for me with any little titbits here and there. We moved onto the apostrophe issue instead.
‘The cove is nothing more than a village of old folks and holiday cottages now. All the young ones have left or been priced out. Such a shame. And I don’t suppose the old folks have got anything better to do than argue. But not to worry,’ she said, taking my plate and emptying the dregs of the teapot into the sink, ‘because you’ve come to sort it all out for us, haven’t you, lovely?’
‘Hmm?’ I took my third slice of toast and started to butter. ‘Oh, yes, I suppose I have. Gerald wants me to come to some kind of dramatic conclusion at a meeting in the village hall, but now that he’s gone to Brighton, I’ve no idea what will happen.’ I twisted the lid off of a pot of home-made marmalade and spoke into the pot while scraping off a little mould. ‘I suppose all I can do is make some notes during the next couple of days, chat to a few people and then offer my hypothesis to anyone who wants to hear it …’
Fenella put the kettle back on the Aga and stood waiting for it to boil.
‘Hypothesis?’ She sniffed. ‘That won’t do. You need to be firmer than that or they’ll eat you alive. No, you need to tell them what to do, no argument. That’s what Gerald wanted. And they’ll listen to you if you’re firm – you should act a bit prissy. Gerald said you’re a history professor …’
Ah …
‘I’m afraid I’m not actually a professor as such. Just a teacher. Gerald has a tendency to …’
‘Play things up?’ She grabbed a tea towel and began to wipe some plates.
‘Exactly!’ I laughed. ‘My husband is … was,’ I corrected, ‘… the actual professor.’ I smiled thinking of James. ‘He’d have known exactly what to do. I gave up academia years ago when we got married. I think Gerald just wanted to add a bit of weight to my credentials with the professor thing.’
I glanced at the urn on the table. Fenella followed my eyes to their resting place. I smiled to show my silent understanding and noticed her eyes mist over. I swear I saw tiny little velvety strands of sadness seeping from her heart and winding their way across the kitchen into the little wooden box. The silence hung heavy. Fenella took a very large intake of breath through her nose and, try as she might to hold them back, within a few moments, the tears began.
‘I just can’t seem to able to pull myself together,’ she said, leaning her back against the sink and dabbing her eyes with the tea towel. ‘He’s been gone for two weeks, but I just can’t get over it – he was my best friend.’ She took a photo frame from the windowsill and handed it to me. ‘There he is, you see … my perfect little man.’
A more ragtag of a dog the world had never seen, but you could tell in his eyes he was a sweetheart, and I swear he was smiling at the camera.
‘Always there for me, he was’ she said with a sniff. ‘Always. Thick and thin, day and night, eit
her sitting on my knee or by the side of the chair or the end of the bed. Dogs only know love – how to love and be enthusiastic – that’s all they know. And I keep on hearing his little footsteps padding around the house, then I hear him scratching at the door to get in, and I open it and he isn’t there, just like my own little Cathy from Wuthering Heights. And I worry about him being all alone, you know …’ she glanced up and her voice broke revealing the deep and desperate outpouring of a broken heart. She dabbed her eyes again. ‘And he hates to be on his own, hates it. He’s never been left on his own, never.’ She blew her nose on paper towel. ‘Sorry, love. You don’t need to hear all of this.’
‘Don’t be silly. I don’t mind. Not a bit.’ I sat immobilised by the impotency of the listener and began to finish my toast but then realised that eating during such a discussion was a bit … irreverent. Fenella pointed to a pine shelf to the right of the kitchen window.
‘See those boxes on the shelf?’
I twisted my neck to look. Three boxes (that looked remarkably like the one on the table) sat on top of a bigger box – which also looked like the little wooden box on the table.
‘That’s my life, that is … my life in dogs. Every single one of them loved. And that’s not all of them, either. The earlier ones were buried in the garden, bless them.’
The kettle began to whistle on the Aga. Fenella busied herself making a fresh pot of tea while talking. I stared at the boxes with the words, my life in dog, ringing in my ears. But I couldn’t get my head around the bottom box. It was massive. What the hell kind of horse-dog needed a box that big?
Fenella read my mind.
‘The bottom box isn’t a dog, mind you …’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s my mother. She liked to have a dog sitting on her lap. And there they all are, sitting on her lap in heaven. How about a biscuit? Blue Ribbon? Rich Tea?’
Despite my enormous breakfast – and extra toast – I couldn’t refuse a biscuit and it was definitely a Blue Ribbon kind of a moment (actually, it was more of a Jaffa Cake moment but I didn’t want to be picky at a time like this).
The Last Letter from Juliet Page 8