Moments of Time

by Gloria Cook

  He was further surprised at the mild American accent. ‘No, I…’ He consulted the skies. The sun had gravitated a long way west. ‘I’ve been here nearly all day. I’m…’

  To cover his confusion, she shot out her hand, making her unpretentious little bag sway, and for a moment he was mesmerized by it. ‘Brooke Wilder. From Wyoming, United States. Pleased to meet you. Although my pa died in the Argonne forest, in France, I’ve come here to look for the grave of a cousin of my mother’s. She originated from England, and he was a private in a West Yorkshire regiment. Sorry, I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘Ben Harvey, from Cornwall, England.’ He returned her firm handshake.

  ‘I’ll leave you now.’

  Discreetly, he shook out the rigidity in his limbs. ‘No, don’t. I mean, I can’t stay here for ever and you’re not disturbing me. Have you just arrived or are you leaving?’ According to the dried tears on her cheeks, she had already made her pilgrimage. She appeared cool and unruffled despite the atmosphere having turned humid and airless, but was prettily flushed. She was about twenty years old, with bobbed, light-brown hair shot through with gold flecks, and had a smile that was unobtrusive and warm and somehow uplifting.

  She read the name on the grave he was attending, and the inscription. ‘“After Conflict Rest.” That’s well said. They all deserve their rest. Was he a relative, may I ask?’

  ‘A friend. I had three close friends as a boy and I’ve lost them all.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Are the other two buried here?’

  This made him smile. ‘No. They’re alive and back in England. Actually, they’re both women, one is the sister of Billy lying here.’ His prolonged inactivity had made his head throb. He needed oxygen to course through his body and clear his befuddled mind. ‘I walked here, Miss Wilder. May I escort you to your motor car or whatever?’

  ‘I’ve hired a touring car. I take it you’re staying at Ypres? If you want to spare your feet I’d be glad of the company.’ She had an endearing way of leaning forward and giving self-deprecating little laughs. ‘Hope you don’t think I’m being forward.’

  Ben’s heart leapt with triumph, for all at once he no longer felt the crushing need for solitude, and this unassuming young woman was just perfect to begin the process of rejoining life and order. ‘Not at all. I’d appreciate that, Miss Wilder.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emilia and Dolly were coming out of a ladies’ fashion shop in Truro, each lightly laden with a carrier bag.

  ‘You should’ve treated yourself to something more than just a nightdress, maid,’ Dolly said. ‘Like one of those summer sweaters. They’re all the fashion now. I read about it in the Woman’s Weekly. Alec said you should pamper yourself today. You’re lucky to have a man who don’t mind spending money.’

  Emilia pretended to look in the shop windows, hoping to put an end to the nagging that had been coming her way all morning. ‘I didn’t see anything I liked, Mum. Anyway, you’ve only bought yourself some new knickers.’

  ‘Emilia, don’t you dare mention such a thing in the street! Darn, you can be deliberately difficult sometimes. What I meant was you’re a young woman, you should want to look nice.’

  ‘I do want to, Mum.’ To compensate for shocking her mother Emilia linked arms with her. ‘You needn’t worry about me, you know.’

  ‘Can’t help that, can I? To worry is the lot of a—’ Dolly looked apologetic and gazed down at the wide paving stones.

  ‘You can say it, Mum. To worry is the lot of a mother. We’ve both lost a child, it gives us an even closer bond.’ They were heading down Kenwyn Street towards Victoria Place, known locally as Victoria Square. People stopped, it seemed, every few steps to greet Emilia, to say how pleased they were to see her out and about again after her ‘great sorrow’. Other times they were hailed from slow-moving motorized or horse-drawn vehicles.

  ‘You certainly know a lot of people now. It comes from being the wife of a country squire,’ Dolly remarked proudly. She homed in on a restaurant tucked away in the corner of the square. ‘Now we’re here, shall we pop into Henderson’s for a cup of tea? After that we’ll go on to the West End Stores where I’ll make sure you treat yourself.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Mum,’ Emilia replied, trying to work up an appetite to please her mother. In the past, she had always enjoyed being in Truro, taking a break from the farm and her busy life, but she could hardly retain interest today.

  ‘I’ll see what’s on the menu to tempt you to eat, don’t like seeing you this thin. Then I’ll raid their bakery department and take something home to put a bit of meat on Alec. He’s a little too gaunt these days.’ The stern approach left Dolly in favour of a little satisfied smile. ‘The boys were some excited about him taking them out today. Cricket on the beach, what better for all of them?’

  ‘He’s up to something.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Alec. I know when he’s scheming.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be anything too sneaky with the children in tow.’ Dolly hooted in laughter but quickly grew serious. ‘Everything’s all right though, isn’t it, dear? There’s been a bit of an atmosphere since Alec had those words with Tristan.’

  Of course everything’s all right, Mum.’ Emilia kept secret her frustration with Alec for refusing to telephone Tristan and apologize over his unmerited outburst. ‘Come on, let’s slip inside and get a table near the window.’

  They freed their arms to be able to pass through the low door of the small, classy restaurant, its windows curtained in brilliant white lace. A male voice called out Emilia’s name.

  She went to the edge of the pavement where a trap and ponies were being brought to a halt. ‘Perry! I didn’t know you’d be in town today. Hello, Selina.’

  After the usual polite exchanges, Perry said, ‘I’ve just attended a meeting, Emilia, for one of my charities. You’re welcome to bring Will and Tom to the house for tea with Libby this afternoon.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll do that if Alec brings them back in time from the beach.’

  ‘Where’s he taken them?’ Selina asked, puzzling Emilia and Dolly, for she didn’t usually keep on with this sort of commonplace conversation.

  ‘He didn’t say,’ Emilia frowned. ‘Perranporth, I suppose.’

  ‘Any news yet from Ben?’ Perry enquired.

  ‘Oh, I saw Eliza Shore in the village yesterday,’ Emilia replied eagerly. She always enjoyed talking to Perry and spun out her tale. ‘All I got out of her at first concerning Ben was that he’d written to say he was now somewhere in England. Somewhere in England, I said. Sounds like an introductory sentence to some creepy movie. Whereabout in England is he? Then I received ten minutes of rapture from Eliza about Rudolph Valentino. Who’d have thought she’d be capable of idol worship? Never seemed the least bit interested in men before.’

  Perry smiled down on her. ‘So she gave you no clue as to where Ben is?’

  ‘Eventually. West Yorkshire. Strange, I thought. Why there? I could imagine Ben living it up in London.’

  Dolly cut in to ask Perry in her blunt manner, ‘When are you sending your little girl to boarding school, Mr Bosweld?’

  ‘Yes, when will it be, Perry?’ Emilia took the conversation back. ‘I shall miss Libby very much.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Emilia?’ Perry’s eyebrows shot up high on his handsome face. ‘Whatever gave you the idea that I’m sending Libby away?’

  ‘Well, Selina mentioned it during our first meeting.’ Emilia looked from the amazed brother to his sister, who with guarded eyes, promptly said, ‘You are mistaken, Emilia.’

  ‘I am not. It’s what you said.’ Emilia was not going to allow Selina to further embarrass her by allowing her to get away with a lie.

  ‘Then it must have been some silly notion of mine,’ Selina replied, with a fleeting smile. ‘Well, we really mustn’t keep you. Come along, Perry, I need to get back home. I’m on duty later.’

  Perry tipped his hat and order
ed the ponies to walk on, and Emilia stared after the trap. He had given her one last deep smile but his annoyance with Selina was obvious.

  ‘She’s a bad’un, that one,’ Dolly snorted, rearranging her home-knitted cardigan and shuffled her shoulders as if shaking off something irreverent. ‘Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.’

  Emilia confided much in her mother but had thought it wise not to mention that Selina Bosweld was Jim’s seducer. Alec had described Jim’s behaviour as of one being in the grip of an addiction, and while Emilia was grateful for Selina’s sympathetic care on the day she had allowed herself to get sunburned, she grimly considered that the nursing sister had corrupted Jim. When Selina finished her association with him, she hoped Selina did so with gentleness. ‘She can be very kind, Mum. She must be a wonderful nurse.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for that, maid. The brother’s easy to rub along with though, isn’t he?’

  Emilia couldn’t help smiling with pleasure. ‘Perry’s a thoroughly decent man, everyone likes him.’

  ‘Pity his sister isn’t more like him. Well, come on then, maid, let’s eat before you fade away.’

  * * *

  When the Boswelds had left the town behind and were making for home through the back lanes rather than following the longer route by the main roads, Perry demanded, ‘What’s this all about a boarding school for Libby? You know I’d never dream of sending her away. I want her with me while she’s growing up.’

  ‘And I want what’s best for her. A good schooling, then university.’

  ‘I’ll send her to a girls’ day school when she’s about twelve. She can go on to university from there, but only if it’s what she wants. I don’t understand why you made a decision about Libby without consulting me first. It’s what we agreed we’d always do.’

  ‘There’s no need to be so possessive. Don’t forget she’s my daughter.’

  ‘I won’t, but our arrangement made me her father, don’t you forget that.’

  ‘Few things stir your passion, Perry, apart from Libby.’

  Keeping his face straight, he turned the team out of Church Lane and they were soon starting up the long hill that led towards Devil’s Arch. ‘Is that a snipe of some kind?’

  ‘Yes. No. Let’s forget the whole silly argument.’ Selina leaned back with her arms along the back of the red padded seat. ‘Sorry, but I can’t help being curious. Why aren’t you looking for a bed partner? As far as I’m aware you haven’t done it for ages. What’s wrong with you? It isn’t normal to go without sex for so long. Or are you getting it from someone and not letting it be known? Let me see. The only woman you’re alone with for any length of time is—’

  ‘Shut up, Selina!’

  ‘Ah, so that’s it, is it? Emilia. You’ve got a thing for the little earth mother? I can understand that. She’s fascinating, and I’m sure when roused she’s full of passion underneath her apparent respectability. So, are you bedding her?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Selina looked up in under his flamboyant hat. His dark skin was on fire. ‘Ah, passion at last! You’d like to, eh, Perry?’ She looked ahead when she said, ‘I think a lot of people would. I could help you out by seducing Alec.’

  ‘Don’t start. I don’t want to have to leave another home because too many wives were getting suspicious that you’re giving their men sexual favours. Keep to Jim and the consultant you’re screwing at the hospital.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of Jim.’

  ‘Then for goodness sake tell him, and gently, the poor boy’s besotted with you. And don’t start on anyone else in the village, including Ben Harvey when he gets back.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Selina poked him hard in the ribs.

  Perry yelped. As a nurse, Selina had the softest of capable hands, but she also knew how to hurt and spin out the pain. ‘Look, please don’t make things difficult, Selina. Libby’s getting older now and that means you have to behave more responsibly. Your affairs could lead to her being shunned and I won’t have that for her. The war stripped me of everything, I had nothing left to live for until you got in touch with me about your terrible fix and we agreed that your baby would be thought of as mine and Ada’s. We’ve had to move a long way to ensure there would be no one who could compare dates. You had better not dare do anything that might spoil Libby’s security and happiness.’

  ‘That sounded like a threat, Perry.’

  ‘I suppose it was. Damn it, Selina, she deserves only the best out of life. You’ve no idea who her real father was out of half a regiment of American soldiers! Your free and easy lifestyle is risking a scandal. Let me warn you again, I love Libby like she’s my own daughter and if I’m forced to I’ll do anything, absolutely anything, to protect her.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jonny was up in the storage attics of Roskerne. Usually he came up here to indulge in a lonely party of self-pity, to plan his next wayward prank and to snatch a forbidden smoke. After the burning couch incident he had been sent up to tidy the entire confines, which were dusty and dark despite a skylight and a lit ship’s lantern hanging safely from a hook on a massive beam. Today he had been asked by his father, so pleasantly it had given no room for cheek or protest, to come up for a different reason.

  Supposedly, because of his recent punishment, it was considered that he knew best where ‘things of a particular interest’ could be found, and he had been given the task of seeking them out and setting them aside. It had been raining hard since dawn, and although he would rather be up here than hanging aimlessly about the house, and although every now and again, when filtering through the amazing amount and manner of past Stockley belongings, he felt a spark of curiosity in his father’s intention of opening an antique and curio shop, he was tossing things about, half-hoping something would break.

  He had cleared off the chipped black marble top of a creaking washstand, and despite himself had a growing collection on it. A bronze cigar cutter shaped in the form of a bulldog, Vesta holders, miniature watercolours, boxwood models of boats, foreign shells and fossils, a set of animal-shaped jelly moulds and a Sheffield plate decanter stand. He was adding a ship’s brass companionway lamp to the hoard when he heard steps on the stairs.

  He scowled as Vera Rose’s beribboned fair head appeared.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re back from ballet already? What do you want?’

  ‘I thought you might like to know it’s stopped raining at last.’

  ‘So?’

  Ignoring his rudeness, she came through the doorway, still in her frilly, stiff-netted, pale pink dress, and started to sift through the things in an open sea chest. ‘I think it’s a great idea of Uncle Tris’s. You should be proud.’

  ‘Why should I be proud? It’s boring.’

  ‘But you’re going to have your name put on the shopfront, Harvey and Son. People don’t do that sort of thing for girls.’

  ‘Course they don’t. Girls only get married. Put that barometer down. I’m supposed to be doing this. I don’t want your company.’ Jonny strode towards her and slammed down the heavy carved lid.

  She leapt back in fright. ‘Be careful! You nearly jammed my fingers. These are my family’s things, you’ve got no right to exclude me. And don’t be so horrid.’

  Jonny glared at her and chose the most offensive expletive he knew before ending, ‘So bugger off.’

  ‘You’re absolutely beastly, Jonny Harvey,’ she gasped in disgust. ‘I hate you! I wish you’d never come here to live.’

  ‘Not as much as I do,’ he snarled. ‘I can’t wait to get away to university. And when I join the RAF, I’ll never come back.’

  ‘Good. I hope you never do!’

  ‘And anyway, Aunt Winnie’s given my father permission to take what he likes. He should have bought a house in Truro and set up a shop there. He would have done if they hadn’t got married because your mother was so hard up and he was so set on getting sex all the time.’

  ‘What are
you talking about?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand, you’re just a stupid girl. I know all about what men and women do in the bedroom, after spending so many years on a farm. Haven’t you heard them? They’re at it like bleddy rabbits.’

  Vera Rose clenched her fists. Her face seemed to be filling up with steam and she looked about to explode. ‘I wish you’d disappear for ever. I hope you fall on the way back down and break your rotten neck. I hope you drown in the sea. I’ll never forgive you for saying those terrible things about my mother.’ Then, letting out a high-pitched scream, she began to sob with an arm in front of her face.

  Jonny shushed her. If his father heard her and asked why she was so upset, he’d be in trouble again. He was also blushing with shame. Vera Rose must be distraught; it took a lot to make her cry. ‘Look, Vee, I’m sorry. Be careful, you can’t see where you’re going like that.’

  Vera Rose walked into a box and wailed at the excruciating pain in her shin. Afraid she would scream again and cry even louder, Jonny dashed to her and put an arm over her shoulders. ‘Quick, sit on the couch. Be brave, it won’t hurt for long. I’m sorry for upsetting you. It’s just that I miss the farm and Uncle Alec so much. I’ll miss being there for the haymaking. They’ll be starting tomorrow. I promise I won’t take it out on you again.’ He tried to curl his little finger around her little finger. ‘Friends again? Dad stopped my pocket money but I’ve still got thruppence. I’ll buy you a big ice cream.’

  Vera Rose sat down but she shoved Jonny away violently and he ended up on the planked floor. She sniffed a last tear and glared down on him. He was wearing a pleading expression. ‘Oh, you! You’re so full of gab, Jonny Harvey. I will have your thruppence but I’ll save it. I’ll get so much money together you’ll never be able to accuse me and Mummy of sponging off you and Uncle Tris again.’

  ‘I didn’t mean sponging, Vee.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You’re horrible to everyone. I don’t know why Uncle Alec likes you so much. Anyway, I bet he’s forgotten you by now. He’s got two sons of his own.’