by Lorna Cook
‘I am leaving. I’m going the morning the requisition takes effect. There’s bound to be so much commotion that no one will miss me for a while. The vicar has asked Bertie to say a few words to the villagers. I’m going to try to get away during that.’
Freddie reached over and held her hand. ‘I’ll help you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You will? How?’
‘I’ll help you get away. I have money. I’ll find you a flat, somewhere you can be safe. He won’t take his wife leaving him lightly. He’ll try to find you, you do know that, don’t you?’
‘I know.’
‘We’ll leave together. I’ll protect you. If he comes for you, if he finds you, I’ll kill him,’ Freddie said, leaning towards her, his voice meaningful.
‘Freddie, you don’t mean that. Don’t say such things.’
‘Veronica, you have no idea, do you?’ he said under his breath.
‘About what?’
He turned towards her, his face full of pain. ‘About how I feel about you. How I still feel about you. Nothing’s changed, you know.’
‘Don’t. Don’t, Freddie. I wasn’t anything special to you. Don’t pretend otherwise. It’s not fair.’
His face fell. ‘What? You were the only important thing in my world. I was in love with you. Why do you think I kept away all this time?’
She shook her head, reliving the pain of what she’d found out so long ago. ‘You weren’t in love with me. I was just one in a long line of women. I was just one among many, all at the same time. I fell in love with you, Freddie. I fell in love with you the night we met at that party. But you didn’t want me. Not really. Not in the end.’
Freddie’s mouth fell open and he stood up in front of her. ‘You were the only one in a very very short line. There was only you. There has only ever been you.’ He looked down at her unblinkingly.
‘But … Bertie told me …’ Veronica looked at the wooden floor and fought down the urge to be sick. She felt the colour drain from her face.
‘Bertie told you what?’ Freddie demanded through gritted teeth.
‘He told me that you were making a fool of me, that you’d never marry me, that you had a different woman on your arm every night of the week and that I was best to get away now, dignity intact, and not to make a further fool of myself by clinging on to something that was quickly dying.’
Remembering Bertie’s words brought her fresh pain. The way Bertie had told her, so forcefully, so convincingly. At first, she hadn’t believed him as she thought of the way Freddie would look at her in a crowded room, as if they were the only two people in the world, the way he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb as they’d go for long walks on Hampstead Heath. She was sure she’d seen love in Freddie’s eyes. But the way Bertie told her, so earnestly, that she was being strung along, that she was being played with. His words had hurt, had felt so real. And the more Veronica thought about it, the more truth she thought she had seen. Freddie was flirtatious, charming and charismatic – not just to her but to all women. But Bertie had forced the point home, and Veronica had believed it. Bertie had been ‘so ashamed’ of his brother for the way he was toying with Veronica. And then, Veronica, under Bertie’s helpful guidance, was encouraged to stop all contact, save what little of her dignity she had left.
Freddie nodded slowly and closed his eyes. ‘My brother told you that? And you believed him?’
‘Yes, he—’
‘So that’s why you just left me? That’s why I never received an explanation? Just a cold, unfeeling note to tell me goodbye and good luck. That’s why, less than a fortnight later you were seen stepping out with him?’ He looked lost.
She nodded and put her hand to her mouth to try to hold back the pained noise that escaped her throat. ‘I didn’t want to embarrass myself by confronting you. Far better to leave with dignity. He told me my heart would be safe with him. He told me you were talking about breaking it off with me. He told me he loved me. Then, later, he proposed. You didn’t propose. You never told me you loved me. I didn’t know how you felt and Bertie told me—’
‘Lies,’ Freddie cut in. ‘Bertie told you a pack of lies and you believed them. All of them.’
‘No,’ Veronica cried. But she knew Freddie was right. ‘Why would he do that to me, to you? Why would he want to ruin us?’
‘He did it because he bloody well could. He did it to take you from me, because I wanted you, because he could see I’d fallen madly in love with you. I didn’t propose, Veronica, because I wanted to make something of myself first, to prove myself worthy of you and earn a decent crust to support us. And then the bloody war started. Making permanent plans felt wrong. It felt unfair to you. What if I was called up? What if I was killed? And then, without a word of apology or explanation, you upped and left. Refused to return the messages I left with your parents, weren’t at home when I visited. And only a short while later there you are, in the newspaper … An Engagement is Announced with my bloody brother.’ He was shouting and paced the few feet in front of the daybed.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Veronica was shaking. She looked around her, feeling the weight of the living hell on her shoulders. ‘I did this,’ she whispered. ‘I did this to us.’
Freddie flew to her and knelt down. ‘I’m not angry with you, Veronica. How could I be? It’s Bertie I’m angry with. Bertie I hate. My whole life he’s tried to dominate me and I’ve always brushed it off. Thinking it didn’t matter. Bertie, the older brother, the one to inherit everything. He was the one my parents pinned all their hopes on. The one who went off to parliament while I failed almost all my legal exams and was told to run Father’s factory after he died. And only then because Bertie didn’t want it. He had his eyes on bigger prizes. Bigger fish. But I didn’t care. I didn’t want this house. I didn’t want the London house. I didn’t want any of it. I only wanted you. And Bertie took you from me.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘No one has ever matched up to you, Veronica. I never gave anyone the chance. It was only ever you.’
For so long, deep regret had been building inside Veronica. She should never have allowed herself to listen to Bertie back then. But he’d been so convincing and then she thought she was falling for Bertie. But she wasn’t. She had been lying to herself. It wasn’t love. It was the comfort in moving seamlessly from one brother to the other. She thought she couldn’t have Freddie’s love, so she’d take his brother’s. But Bertie didn’t have any to give. It could all have been so different if she’d been stronger, had damned her dignity to hell and told Freddie she loved him. They could have been so happy.
She looked at the man she’d always loved. He looked defeated, older, a man who had been to war and had returned injured but alive. Just. Freddie was promising to help her, to go with her and protect her and, after all this time, after everything that had happened, he still loved her. She felt the same way.
‘I feel as if I’ve been asleep and it’s as though I’ve just woken up,’ Veronica cried. She moved off the bed and onto his lap on the floor, where he pulled her closer to him, enveloping her in his arms. The feeling inside threatened to burst from within if she didn’t tell him. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I ever stopped.’
‘I’ve always loved you,’ he replied, a smile of happiness playing on his lips.
Then, before Veronica knew what was happening, she kissed him, a kiss that spoke volumes of love that had been lost for years and then found. But a stab of fear entered her heart as they gently pulled apart. Freddie rested his forehead on hers and closed his eyes.
Oh God, they would pay for this if Bertie ever found out. Veronica could feel it.
‘We’ve been gone from the house long enough.’ Freddie read her thoughts.
‘You go first and I’ll follow on in a few minutes. I don’t think we should arrive together.’ Veronica climbed up from Freddie’s lap.
He kissed the tops of her hands. ‘Not long now. We’ll work out how to leave. Together.’
; She nodded, but a feeling of dread had already taken hold.
Freddie tugged the door closed against the December weather and pulled his coat on and his collar up around his neck to protect against the coastal wind.
Veronica sat back on the daybed and took a few minutes to collect herself. She had tried to bury the love she’d felt for Freddie ever since she’d left him for Bertie. She told herself Freddie had been playing her for a fool. But it was she who had been the fool all along.
When she’d given him a few minutes’ head start, she pulled her coat on and left the beach hut, standing on the hard, damp sand by the shoreline, listening to the waves crash onto the rocks at the edge of the small cove. She tried to push the feeling of anxiety far out to sea. The war was raging around them, but for the first time in a long while, Veronica felt a true moment of happiness. Freddie still loved her. She was leaving Bertie. Freddie had said he’d help her. And she and Freddie were leaving Tyneham together.
CHAPTER 14
Dorset, July 2018
‘So now we know Veronica was still alive in the 1970s,’ Melissa said, unclicking her seat belt. ‘Your grandmother just told us. So that’s kind of all I wanted to know. That she’d survived whatever was troubling her when that picture was taken, whatever it was that had given her that frightened look.’
But maybe that wasn’t all she wanted to know. Melissa cast her mind back to the photograph. Veronica had a haunted look about her. It was one she’d seen plenty of times on her mum after a fight with her dad. While he’d never laid a hand on her, the abuse was present nonetheless. It had destroyed her mother’s confidence. Melissa didn’t just want to know if Lady Veronica was alive, she wanted to know if she was okay.
‘You think it’s him, don’t you? Sir Albert. You think he was responsible for that frightened look?’ Guy asked.
‘Well, given the fact his knuckles are white holding her hand so tightly and what your gran said about him being a bit of a shit in general, I do now.’
‘Okay,’ Guy said, flicking the controls into drive. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Tyneham.’
‘Again? Why?’
‘I wasn’t that bothered before. But now I am. And there’s someone there who might be able to shed a bit of light.’
They walked through Tyneham village. There hadn’t been that many tourists the last time they visited, but now it was Monday and it was living up to its moniker of the ghost village. They walked into the church.
‘He might be in here. He was last time,’ Guy said.
‘Who?’ Melissa asked.
‘One of the guides.’
‘Hello again, young man,’ the guide called Reg said as he saw them enter the church. ‘Can’t keep away?’
‘Something like that yes. This is my friend Melissa. Melissa, this is Reg. He used to live here when he was a boy.’
Melissa shook the elderly man’s hand.
‘Reg Chatwell. Pleased to meet you,’ he said.
Melissa introduced herself. ‘You used to live here?’ she asked.
‘And now I’m back looking after tourists, for my sins.’
‘It must be weird, seeing it like this?’ Melissa asked, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head.
Reg nodded. ‘It is. It is. It’s decayed and a bit of a mess, but it’s a pleasure to see it at all. We thought it was gone forever, but the old girl is back, so to speak. So you’ve come again to have another look around?’ he asked Guy.
‘Yes and no,’ Guy said. ‘We wanted to have a look at a few of the boards again – the Standishes in particular.’
Reg made a face. ‘Ah, everyone’s always interested in the gentry, aren’t they? No one cares about the poor old fisherman who lost his home as well, the dairy farmer who lost his livelihood and had to sell off his cattle by auction in under a month. What do you want to know about the Standishes?’ He sighed.
Guy and Melissa exchanged a look. She felt reprimanded.
‘Um, nothing much really,’ Melissa said, aiming to placate Reg. ‘We just wanted to have a look at the picture of Lady Veronica. It’s for a historical fashion thing that he’s working on.’ Melissa nudged Guy and Guy’s eyes widened in confusion before he quickly nodded. ‘Yeah, fashion and dresses through the ages. That kind of thing,’ Melissa plundered on.
Reg eyed them keenly. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Thanks,’ Guy said as Reg walked off. Guy turned and stood in front of Melissa. ‘Well, that went well,’ he whispered. ‘Fashion through the ages?’
She glanced over at Reg and stifled a laugh. ‘I panicked,’ she hissed. ‘He sounded so annoyed that we were only interested in the Standishes. I had to say something. I couldn’t just say, yeah, yeah, fishermen and dairy farmers, whatever, but was Albert Standish beating his wife?’
Reg glanced suspiciously back to them from his position by the church door as he welcomed two more visitors.
Guy took Melissa’s hand, pulled her out of Reg’s accusing eyeline and over to the boards. ‘We may as well have a look while we’re here, so we don’t look like liars,’ he said.
As they stood by the boards, both of them stared straight ahead at the picture of Veronica and Albert. Neither Guy nor Melissa spoke. Melissa could still feel Guy’s hand around hers and she smiled to herself, stealing a glance up at his profile; he was incredibly good-looking. Melissa resisted the overwhelming urge to move her fingertips over the knuckles of the hand that held hers. He had nice hands – soft – and she felt a tingle run through her when she realised he wasn’t letting go. They stood like that for some time, both staring straight ahead at the board. She was pretending to read the words so as not to disturb the moment. She wondered if he was doing the same. She looked down at his hand and he slowly looked down at her.
‘Hold it tighter,’ she said suddenly.
Guy laughed. ‘What? Why?’
‘Hold it so your knuckles are white, and so your fingernails are pushing into my hand, like that.’ She pointed to the photograph.
‘No, it’ll hurt you,’ he said.
She turned back to the creepy photograph and looked at Albert Standish again.
‘Exactly.’
After having ruffled Reg’s feathers they decided it might not be the best idea to approach him again right then. They left the church and wandered back to the car, walking close together. Melissa wondered if Guy was going to hold her hand again. It might have been her imagination, but she was sure her hand was still tingling where he’d held it earlier.
‘I suppose I’d better get going,’ Melissa said as they pulled into the inn’s car park.
‘Really? Big plans?’ he asked innocently.
‘No, not really. Applying for jobs. Doing the food shop. Not going on wild goose chases for wartime women who were probably fine.’
She smiled and their eyes met. How was he so handsome?
He was quiet and so she blathered on. ‘Will you tell me if you find anything interesting? I don’t know if you’re going to ask your gran again. She seemed pretty tired from the first quick-fire round, so if you leave it then that’s fine. But if you do ask, or if she mentions anything, will you let me know? I know Veronica’s probably long-dead by now anyway, but still …’ Melissa stopped speaking. Why did she always talk too much when she was nervous?
He nodded. ‘I will. Gran was being too cagey for me to let it drop now. If I can’t find anything out from a bit of gentle questioning, I’ll see what else I can rustle up.’
Melissa looked taken aback. ‘Are you going to keep looking?’
Guy nodded. ‘I’ll do some more research tonight and see if there’s anything I can find in newspaper records. I’ve got some sites I subscribe to that might be worth looking at. I’ve exhausted official records, but there might be microfiche newspapers from the time or some that have been transferred digitally already.’
Melissa smiled. ‘Will you let me know how your gran g
ets on as well? I hope she’s on the mend soon. She’s really lovely, you know.’
Guy nodded and ran his hand through his hair, seemingly unaware he’d pushed it completely out of place. Melissa fought down the urge to reach up and fix it for him.
‘She is lovely. Listen, Melissa, would you mind if I called you when I get back to London? If you don’t object, it would be really nice to see you again. If it’s too soon after your break-up and you don’t fancy it …’
Melissa smiled broadly and then bit her bottom lip, stopping the smile spreading. ‘Like a date?’ she asked.
‘Like a date.’ He laughed, suddenly interested in the cuffs of one of his shirtsleeves.
‘I’d like that, yes.’ Surprisingly, it didn’t feel too soon. Which probably spoke volumes about her and Liam.
He looked up at her. ‘Great.’
A painful silence descended, during which Melissa wondered if Guy was going to kiss her. You’ve been single for one day, Melissa. One day. Pack it in.
‘Well, I suppose I should fetch my bag and then I’ll head off,’ she said.
He walked with her and carried her bag back to the car park for her. ‘I’m sorry you’re leaving,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve enjoyed spending time with you.’
‘Me too.’ She was suddenly shy.
He loaded her bag into the boot of her car.
‘Will you let me know when you’ve got back safely?’ he asked.
She nodded and they swapped phone numbers. ‘I guess I’ll see you in London then?’
‘Definitely,’ he replied with a smile as she climbed into her car.
‘Bye, Melissa,’ he said as she started the engine.
She waved, pulled out of the car park and looked in the rear-view mirror. He was watching her go with his hands thrust in his pockets.
Melissa switched on the fan and processed the strangest few days she’d ever had. She wasn’t expecting to be asked out by an incredibly handsome and lovely man quite so soon after having just been dumped. Fickle Liam clearly hadn’t done quite as much damage to Melissa as she’d first thought. Liam who? Melissa laughed to herself and then her stomach twisted as she wondered how she was going to go about getting her things back from Liam’s flat. Not that there was much. Maybe she could just sacrifice her few possessions, so she didn’t have to risk seeing him again. Yes, that might be the best thing.