The Swallow and the Hummingbird

by Santa Montefiore

  Born in England in 1970, Santa Montefiore grew up in Hampshire. She is married to historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha, in London. Visit her at www.santamontefiore.co.uk and sign up for her newsletter.

  Praise for The Swallow and the Hummingbird:

  ‘A story told across continents, with grand themes and strong emotions’ Yorkshire Evening Post

  ‘Ambitious . . . contains all the basic ingredients of a satisfying saga’ Sunday Telegraph

  Praise for Santa Montefiore:

  ‘Santa Montefiore is the new Rosamunde Pilcher’ Daily Mail

  ‘A superb storyteller of love and death in romantic places in fascinating times – her passionate novels are already bestsellers across Europe and I can see why. Her plots are sensual, sensitive and complex, her characters are unforgettable life forces, her love stories are desperate yet uplifting – and one laughs as much as one cries’ Plum Sykes, Vogue

  ‘A gripping romance . . . it is as believable as the writing is beautiful’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘Anyone who likes Joanne Harris or Mary Wesley will love Montefiore’ Mail on Sunday

  ‘One of our personal favourites and bestselling authors, sweeping stories of love and families spanning continents and decades’ The Times

  ‘The novel displays all Montefiore’s hallmarks: glamorous scene-setting, memorable characters, and as always deliciously large helpings of yearning love and surging passion’ Wendy Holden, Sunday Express

  ‘Engaging and charming’ Penny Vincenzi

  Also by Santa Montefiore

  The Secrets of the Lighthouse

  The Summer House

  The House By The Sea

  The Affair

  The Italian Matchmaker

  The French Gardener

  Sea of Lost Love

  The Gypsy Madonna

  Last Voyage of the Valentina

  The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

  The Butterfly Box

  Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree

  First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette Livre Company

  This paperback edition first published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Santa Montefiore, 2004

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Santa Montefiore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-47113-206-3

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-47113-207-0

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  To my son, Sasha Woolf

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  PART TWO

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgements

  FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SANTA MONTEFIORE

  The Summer House

  The House By The Sea

  Secrets of the Lighthouse

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster eBook

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Spring 1945

  Mrs Megalith stared down at the body and sighed heavily. What an unsavoury sight first thing in the morning. It was rigid and cold and looked like something one of her grandchildren might have made at school out of papier-mâché, except this wasn’t a silly prank. She clicked her tongue at the inconvenience and struggled into her dressing gown. Grabbing her stick, she proceeded to prod the corpse. It was little more than a decaying carcass of flesh and bones and fur, rather mangy fur at that. She looked at death and thought how unattractive the body was, even the body of a cat, once the spirit had departed. She felt little, just annoyance. She had so many cats she had lost count. They kept on appearing, though, in spite of the fact that she gave them little attention and certainly knew none of them by name. From where they came and why she hadn’t a clue, but they were drawn to her by a mysterious force. As Mrs Megalith was a gifted clairvoyant, this was commendable indeed.

  She picked up the cat, wondering why it had chosen to die in her bedroom of all places, and limped down the corridor towards the staircase. It was an omen, a bad omen, of that she had no doubt. She found Max in the kitchen making himself a cup of Ovaltine.

  ‘Dear boy, what on earth are you doing up at this hour?’ It was six in the morning and Max rarely emerged before eight-thirty.

  ‘There was a dead cat in my bedroom,’ he replied casually. He still spoke with a Viennese accent and if it hadn’t been for the Jewish blood that careered through his veins Hitler would have considered him the epitome of Aryan man: thick blond hair, sodalite blue eyes, a noble though sensitive expression on a wide, intelligent face. In spite of his nonchalant air, he was a pensive young man whose heart was far more complex than anyone would have imagined, with dark corners and deep crevices where shadows lingered. He showed little of the emotions that simmered there, for his father wouldn’t have wanted him to bare his fear or pain; he would have wanted him to be strong for his sister, Ruth. Max owed him that.

  He chuckled at the sight of Mrs Megalith dangling the dead cat from her fingertips. He was used to the cats and considered them part of the furniture. When he had first arrived at Elvestree House in 1938 as a ten-year-old refugee he had been quite afraid of the solitary creatures that inhabited the place and watched him suspiciously from every windowsill and tabletop, but Mrs Megalith had given him and Ruth a kitten as a present. Although he hadn’t known that he would never see his parents again, he missed the familiar smell of home. The kitten had given him comfort.

  ‘You too? Oh dear.’ Mrs Megalith shook her head. ‘One dead cat is bad enough but two is very worrying indeed. It does not bode well. But what are they trying to tell me? We’ve won the war for God’s sake.’ She narrowed her eyes, the same milky grey as the moonstone that always nestled on the ledge of her large bosom, and clicked her tongue. Max took the dead cat from her and
placed it outside the back door with the other one. When he returned she was sitting in the armchair beside the Aga.

  ‘You are always reading meaning into everything, Primrose,’ he said. ‘Surely it is nothing but a coincidence that two cats die on the same night. Perhaps they ate rat poison.’

  Mrs Megalith pursed her lips. ‘Absolutely not. The omen is as clear as quartz.’

  ‘The war is over,’ said Max. ‘Hitler isn’t coming back.’

  ‘Thank the Lord! And I’ve already had one near miss so it can’t be me!’ she said, recalling a night during the Blitz when she had stayed with her sister in London. A cat had died then too. But Mrs Megalith was irrepressible; a limp and a grudge but more alive than ever. ‘No, the omen has nothing to do with the war. It’s much closer to home,’ she continued, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

  ‘George comes home today from France,’ said Max, thinking of Rita and hoping the bad omen didn’t have anything to do with her. George was another matter entirely.

  ‘By God, you’re right!’ Mrs Megalith exclaimed. ‘Old age is a humiliating thing. I once had a good memory. Now it’s no better than anyone else’s.’ She huffed. ‘Young George Bolton, it’s nothing short of a miracle that that boy survived in those flying tin cans. It’s because of young men like him that we’re not all having to learn German and that I’m not having to hide you in my attic. Not very comfortable my attic. Though, you would have had an advantage over the rest of us, speaking the language as you do.’ She turned her attention to her granddaughter. ‘Rita hasn’t seen George for three years.’

  ‘That is a long time, isn’t it?’ said Max hopefully. Ever since he had first set eyes on Rita Fairweather he had been hopelessly in love. The infatuation of a child had slowly matured into something more profound, for Rita was three years older than him and her heart was no longer hers to give away.

  ‘In the Great War I didn’t see Denzil for four. Thought nothing of it.’

  ‘But you’re not like other people,’ teased Max. ‘You’re a witch.’

  Mrs Megalith’s face softened and she smiled at him. Few dared tease the ‘Elvestree Witch’ and it was well known that she found most people intolerable. But Max was beyond reproach. Mrs Megalith could see what no one else saw, those dark and shadowy corners of his heart where he hid a great deal of suffering. She would never forget the day those two frightened little strays were brought into her care. She loved Max and Ruth intensely, more intensely than she loved her own privileged children who had never known fear. She was the closest they had to family and she cherished them on behalf of the mother and father who were no longer alive to give them what is every child’s right.

  ‘I might be a witch, Max dear, but I’m as human as the next woman and I missed Denzil. Of course I took lovers.’ Max raised an eyebrow. ‘You might laugh,’ she said, pointing a long finger at him. ‘But I was something of a looker in my day.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back to bed? You look tired,’ she said, getting up stiffly, leaning on her stick.

  ‘No point now. The day has begun. I might as well bury the dead,’ he replied, making for the back door.

  ‘Throw them into the bushes, dear boy.’ She waved a hand and her crystal rings glinted in the sunshine like boiled sweets. ‘I’m going outside to enjoy the early worm.’

  Mrs Megalith’s house was a large white building, fine-looking in both proportion and symmetry. One half was covered in a delicate pink clematis, its petals fluttering in the wind like confetti, the other half in climbing roses and wisteria. The open windows revealed floral curtains and potted geraniums and the odd cat asleep in the sunshine. Mrs Megalith also kept two cows for milk, chickens for meat and eggs, and five white Aylesbury ducks for the sheer pleasure of watching them swim prettily on her pond. Foxes especially loved Aylesburies because they couldn’t fly so she kept a hurricane lamp alight all night long to scare them away. She was an avid gardener and planted without design, sowing wherever there was a space. With the help of Nestor, the ancient gardener, she had dug up half her lawn to scatter poppies, cornflowers and wild grasses, and under-planted the rose beds with forget-me-nots. These seeded themselves throughout the borders where she grew love-in-the-mist, campanulas and euphorbia. Hollyhocks were carried on the wind and by birds and thrived among the cracks in the York stone terrace and between the bricks in the wall that surrounded the garden. The air was filled with the sweet scent of cut grass and balsam poplar, and the rich smell of bluebells from the wood above the house drifted down on the breeze.

  Elvestree House also had the advantage of overlooking the estuary, which was filled with every type of sea bird, from the soft grey herring gull to the black cormorant. Their clamour now resounded across the wide expanse of sand where the receding tide left sandworms and small crustaceans exposed in an enviable banquet. Mrs Megalith gazed into the mouth of the sea and to the horizon beyond and pondered on the dead cats and the omen that clouded an otherwise clear blue day. She knew that Rita was out on the beach, staring at the same view, willing George’s safe return from France and reflecting on her future and the realization of all her dreams.

  Rita hadn’t slept. The anticipation was too much. In her hand she held the letter George had sent from France specifying the date and time of his arrival. It was transparent, the words nearly worn away by the gentle corrosion of love. She sat on the cliff top, gazing out over the sea that swelled below the circling of gulls – the same sea that had divided them for so long and was now bringing him home.

  Today even the sunrise seemed lovelier. The sky paler, more translucent, and the sunlight like the gentle brush of a kiss. She loved more than anything to watch the sea, for the sea had moods like a person, one moment calm and serene, the next displaying the full force of its fury. But those waters were far deeper than a person could ever be. In spite of its mercurial nature the sea was constant and dependable and capable of filling Rita with a lightness of spirit unmatched by anything else in her life. The sight of that vast expanse of ocean touched her at the very core of her being. Sometimes at dusk, when the sky reflected the golds and reds of the dying sun and the sea lay flat and almost still, as if awed by the heavenly scene being played out above it, Rita felt sure there was a God. Not the remote God she learned about at school and in church, but her grandmother’s God: a God that was an integral part of the sea, the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the animals and the fish, and an integral part of her too. Sometimes Rita would close her eyes and imagine she was a bird soaring high above the earth, with the wind on her face and blowing through her hair.

  Rita loved nature. As a child she had enjoyed only nature classes; all the others she had found difficult and pointless. While the rest of the children played rowdy games in the playground, Rita had lain on the grass watching ladybirds or a ball of dew on a leaf or taming a titmouse with a walnut from George’s father’s garden. She would sit and sketch insects, observing every minute detail with great curiosity. She had few close friends. No one else had the patience or the interest to sit for so long. But she was well liked, if considered a little eccentric, for she was a gentle child with a great deal of charm.

  But today there was more on her mind than the fluid circling of gulls or the beetles that scurried about the grass in search of food, for George was coming home. She prayed for his safe journey, whispering her words into the wind as she had done throughout the war and especially during those painful moments when Reverend and Mrs Hammond’s son had been killed and Elsa Shelby’s fiancé lost in action. But her George had been spared. She was ashamed to speak of her gratitude in case it was somehow jinxed. So she thanked God in whispers that were lost in the roar of the sea and in the cry of birds that flew with their wings outspread on the back of the breeze. She extended her arms and ran along the sand in imitation, her heart inflated with joy and hope, and no one could hear her laughter and frown upon her childish exuberance.

  Rita had known George for as long as she could remember. Their parents wer
e friends and they had gone to the same village school although George hadn’t been in her class for he was three years older. He would wait for her at the end of the day and walk her home before continuing his journey by bicycle, for his father was a farmer and lived a few miles outside the village. He taught her how to play conkers and Pooh sticks, how to find shrimps and sea urchins in the rock pools on the beach, and in summertime he demonstrated how to start a fire with nothing but a pair of glasses. On her thirteenth birthday he had been the first to kiss her, because, he claimed, he hadn’t wanted anyone else to. It was his responsibility to see that she was initiated with care because a nasty first experience could put her off for life. He had held her in the dark cave that had become their special place and pressed his lips to hers as the tide crept in to witness their secret then wash it away. Thus they had discovered a new dimension to their friendship and, with the enthusiasm of two children with a new toy, they had visited the cave as often as possible to indulge in hours of kissing interrupted only by the odd tern or sea gull that wandered unexpectedly into their cavern.

  George had always longed to fly. He, too, loved to sit on the cliff tops watching the birds circling above the sea. He observed them closely, the way they glided on the air then swooped down to the water. He studied their take-offs and their landings and vowed to Rita that one day he’d fly like them in an aeroplane. When war came he grabbed the opportunity to make his dream happen regardless of the danger to his life. He was young then and sure of his immortality. He had set out on his big adventure and Rita had been proud and full of admiration for him. She had watched the sea birds in flight and thought of him. Then she had watched the pheasants and partridges his father shot down and feared for him.

  She sat on a rock in their cave and remembered those kisses. She recalled the spicy scent of his skin, of his hair, of his clothes, all so familiar and unchanged over the years. She could picture him there, his presence so overwhelming that he dwarfed the small cavern. She imagined him lighting a cigarette, running his fingers through his curly brown hair, fixing her with those speckled grey eyes, grinning at her with only half his mouth as was his way – an ironic, mischievous grin. She recalled his wide jaw, the squareness of his chin, the lines that fanned out from his eyes when he laughed. She pondered the bond that held them together, excited at the prospect of a future that was so reassuringly a continuation of the past. They would grow old together here on this beach, in this cave, in this small Devon village imprinted with the indelible footsteps of their childhood.