White Rivers

by White Rivers (retail) (epub)

  ‘Was there anything else, Mrs Norwood?’ she heard the doctor say. ‘I do have other patients to see.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m taking up too much of your time,’ she said quickly, pushing aside the momentary misery that had swept over her. ‘Thank you for the brochure, and I’ll let you have my opinion soon. I presume it will be in order that we inspect the place before the final decision is made?’

  ‘Oh, naturally. I would heartily recommend that you do. It will be Mr Tremayne’s home for the rest of his days, after all,’ he said delicately.

  * * *

  Skye left the hospital gladly. The unavoidable smell of the overpowering disinfectant that was meant to disguise the far more degrading mixture of human smells, was almost as nauseating. It added to her already jittery feeling, reminding her as it always did of the French hospital where she had been stationed during the war. When she had followed Philip with all the urgency and passion of a woman following her man, no matter where…

  As she went out into the clean fresh air of the hospital grounds, she forced herself to remember other memories of those years too. Good times, not just the bad.

  Times when she and Philip had managed to spend secret hours together, when no one knew they were husband and wife, and where such meetings were so few and far between, and so intensely precious, because they never knew whether each one would be the last.

  She caught her breath in a painful sigh, and told herself not to waste time dwelling on the past, when there was a man’s future to be arranged.

  She went straight to see Charlotte before going to Killigrew House to consult Theo. She knew that Em would go along with whatever was decided. But she could have anticipated the outcome of her visits after they had scrutinised the brochure the doctor had given her.

  ‘It looks perfectly fine,’ Charlotte said. ‘You have my blessing to go ahead with it, Skye.’

  Not, Yes, let’s go see it together before we decide.

  And Theo too. ‘Do what you like. He was always more partial to you and your mother than the rest of us, so I don’t know why you want to bother me with it. Let’s get down to more important matters. Two of the German boys will be reporting to White Rivers tomorrow morning, so I trust there’ll be no trouble on that score.’

  * * *

  He couldn’t keep his mind on Albie for more than an instant, Skye raged to her father later that evening.

  ‘You’re wasting energy thinking you’ll ever change him, honey,’ Cress said mildly. ‘Go see this place in Bristol, and if you’re happy with it, then there’s an end of it.’

  ‘Come with me,’ she pleaded. ‘I know Philip won’t. He hates travelling anywhere farther than Truro these days.’

  Her husband was becoming an old man long before his time, Skye thought sadly. Spending his time with old men, and not wanting to play with his children more than he had to. As for her… she realised that her father was answering her seriously.

  ‘By the time the arrangements are made, I’ll be on my way home, darling. I think you should ask one of your lawyers to accompany you. They’ll have a stake in it too, remember.’

  ‘Why should they?’

  ‘They’ll be dealing with Albie’s estate, and will need to ensure that it’s financially viable. A lawyer can assess things more independently than someone as highly involved as yourself. What’s wrong with asking Pengelly to go with you?’

  ‘I think you know,’ she said slowly.

  ‘And I think I can trust my daughter to know what’s right,’ Cress replied.

  Oh, really? Sometimes she wondered if he knew her at all. Or if anyone in the world really knew anyone else. Because the thoughts that were spinning around in her head at the prospect of going to Bristol in Nick Pengelly’s company were anything but right, in the way he meant it…

  ‘Mr Slater might agree to come with me,’ she pretended to muse, while knowing that wild horses wouldn’t get her to travel anywhere with that boringly pedantic elderly gent.

  Cresswell laughed, reading her mind. ‘And I’m damn sure there’s no way you’ll consider asking him!’

  ‘Well, I’m not asking anyone for the moment,’ she said crossly. ‘There’s no great rush, and I just want to enjoy our last days together, Daddy. If they have to be our last days.’

  ‘I’m afraid they do,’ he said, and she knew, as she had always known, that he would never change his mind.

  * * *

  But once his visit had finally come to an end, it was time to bid him an emotional farewell on the quay at Falmouth, and she tried hard to hold back her own tears and comfort her daughters, who were bereft now at losing their grandfather.

  Oliver had been left at home, too young to understand the implications of the parting. And Philip had had obligations at college for which Skye had been guiltily thankful. This day belonged to themselves, to Cresswell and his daughter, and her daughters, and Skye found a simplistic beauty in the threads of family continuity.

  ‘Will Grandad ever come back again?’ Celia wept, more open with her emotions now than when he had arrived.

  ‘I don’t know, honey,’ Skye said, unable to fob her off with half-truths. ‘But when you grow up you might go to America to see him, and to see my old home.’

  ‘That’s what I’ll do then,’ she announced, always quick to see other possibilities coming out of adversity.

  ‘So will I,’ Wenna sobbed in a small voice.

  They sniffed and snuffled all the way back to New World. Skye toyed with the idea of taking them somewhere, maybe to see their cousins, but she quickly resisted that idea. Sebby and Justin would make such fun of the girls’ puffy red eyes, and she couldn’t bear to sit and make small talk with Betsy. No, home was the only place to be, to try to regain some sort of normality.

  Once the girls were settled with biscuits and milk and telling Oliver and his nanny all about the ship that was taking their grandfather to America, and of their own plans to go there one day, she knew they were quickly recovering.

  They were the lucky ones, thought Skye, wishing that she too was six years old, with all the resilience of childhood… She went into her father’s bedroom and stood quite still for a moment. The room had already been efficiently cleaned before their return home from Falmouth, but Skye could still sense his presence.

  She opened the lid of the little writing bureau where he had often sat in the evening recording everything that had happened that day, and her heart leapt as she saw the envelope addressed to herself. She opened it quickly, sitting on the bed, and hearing his voice in her head as she read the words he had written to her.

  “Darling Skye,

  These weeks with you have been wonderful, but we both know this may well be the last time we ever see each other. Don’t be sad about that. You made your choice to live in Cornwall many years ago, and you went with our blessing.

  I’ll miss you and your beautiful daughters and sweet baby Oliver, but now it’s my choice to be back with my Primmy. If you’ll take a bit of fatherly advice, then live your life to the full, the way we did. And if there’s a telephone call this evening, smile when you answer.

  Always your loving Daddy.”

  Her eyes were damp when she finished reading. It was so like him to know that she’d be wandering through his bedroom, breathing in the lingering traces of him. So like him to leave this little reminder – and a telephone call this evening as well? Were there such facilities from ship to shore? With the magic of modern machinery these days, she supposed there was, though she had never thought about it before. But it would be his way of still keeping contact, of not losing her too completely, too soon…

  The children were safely in bed by the time the telephone rang much later that evening, and she rushed to answer it, elated that he had kept his word.

  ‘I’ve been going crazy, waiting for your call,’ she said joyfully, smiling into the receiver as he had instructed. ‘And this is just darling of you!’

  ‘Well, that’s the most sp
ectacular reaction I’ve ever had to a telephone call,’ said Nick Pengelly’s warm voice. ‘Your father gave you my message then?’

  Skye stared at the wall stupidly, unable to get her thoughts together for a moment. And then it all became clear. The letter had said nothing about Cresswell phoning her. It had just told her to expect a call, and to smile when she answered it. And she had done that, and more, smiling like a Cheshire cat and saying it was just darling of him to call…

  ‘Skye? Are you still there? You do know who this is, don’t you? It’s Nick.’

  ‘I know who you are, now,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘I thought it was going to be my father, calling from the ship. I don’t normally answer the phone in that ridiculous way.’

  And now she felt more like crying. Nick Pengelly’s charisma was as exciting as chalk for all that it hit her at that moment. She didn’t want him. She wanted to hear her father’s voice one more time, as she had expected. But she swallowed her disappointment, her quicksilver thoughts rushing ahead. Nick must be calling for a reason. And what’s more, her father must have known of it. Or planned it. Suspicion was suddenly high in her mind.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, almost more gentle now than she could bear. ‘This day will have been an ordeal for you.’

  ‘Yes. But life goes on, doesn’t it? And I cut the apron strings years ago.’ She groaned, listening to herself talking in cliches, in banalities that had nothing at all to do with the misery in her heart. Making her sound as shallow as any flapper who ever danced the night away without a care for tomorrow…

  ‘I’d like you to meet me at my chambers in Bodmin tomorrow afternoon, Skye. There are things I need to discuss with you regarding your uncle’s future. I can give you an appointment at three o’clock if that suits you.’

  For a second, she marvelled that this businesslike voice she heard now could belong to the same man who had clasped her in his arms and kissed her so passionately.

  But of course it could. She knew full well how people put on different faces and voices for different occasions. She did it herself. Everyone did. It was a useful defence mechanism, and after a momentary silence she replied in the same businesslike way.

  ‘That will be quite convenient,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight,’ he said, his voice perceptibly softening.

  Skye replaced the receiver carefully without answering. The acute disappointment that it hadn’t been her father on the phone was receding now, and she was becoming curious about why Nick should want to see her officially at his chambers.

  ‘Who was it?’ Philip enquired, barely looking up from his book as she returned to the drawing-room.

  ‘The lawyer. Wanting to see me in Bodmin tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Something else to do with Uncle Albie, I expect.’

  She didn’t elaborate that it wasn’t Slater who called, and he didn’t ask.

  * * *

  Nick’s secretary brought them both a cup of tea as she sat opposite him in the wood-panelled chambers she remembered of old. Her heart was thudding, finding as always any command to be here as unwelcome as a visit to a doctor’s surgery to hear bad news. It was ridiculous, but it never failed. And why were all lawyers’ premises so predictably identical? she found herself wondering. The dusty, book-lined rooms were always the same: the desks were always solid, suggesting honesty and efficiency; the pictures on the walls were of ancient, previous partners who had gone to that happy lawyers’ hunting ground in the sky… it was only the present incumbents who ever changed, and some of those were as dry and dusty as their predecessors.

  Skye looked into Nick Pengelly’s eyes, and knew that such a comparison could never be applied to him.

  ‘So why have you brought me here?’ she asked, taking a nervous sip of tea.

  ‘You make it sound more like a royal command than a request,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  He opened a drawer and drew out an identical brochure to the one Dr Rainley had given her. The words “The Laurels, Exclusive Residential Rest and Care”, shrieked out at her, and she had to admit that it looked a truly lovely place. It was beautifully situated on the hills they called the Downs – which seemed such a contradiction in terms – and it overlooked Bristol’s River Avon and the splendid structure of Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge.

  ‘What did you think of it?’ Nick said, pushing it towards her across the desk. ‘I presume you’ve had time to study it, and to discuss it with your father before he left.’

  ‘And my husband,’ she said deliberately.

  But she avoided his eyes, remembering that Philip hadn’t shown the slightest interest in the brochure. Just as long as Albert Tremayne didn’t become his responsibility…

  ‘You’ll want to see the place, to assure yourself that your uncle will have every care,’ Nick went on. ‘Will your husband accompany you? Or any of your relatives?’

  For a moment she wanted to shout angrily ‘Why me?’ Why shouldn’t one of the older relatives, who had known Albie far longer than she had, inspect the place where he would live out his life? But she knew the answer. None of them really gave a damn for his welfare, and as long as she was willing to do it… But the thought made her feel unutterably sad, because it was so terrible for a man to have no one left in the world who really cared about him…

  ‘Of course I intend to view the place, with or without anyone else,’ she said, as if there had been any doubt. ‘I’ll ask Dr Rainley to make the necessary arrangements, and to find out details about the train journey.’

  ‘Would you allow me to do that, and to accompany you? I want to see my ex-partner in Bristol on a business matter, and as your lawyer I have an interest in seeing that The Laurels is suitable. Mr Slater has approved the idea.’

  Skye kept her eyes fixed on the brochure. So they had already discussed it, had they? What a nerve lawyers had! Anyway, she was perfectly sure that Nick Pengelly had no need whatsoever to view The Laurels. It was just a contrivance for them to spend time together. She had checked on the distance between here and Bristol. They would need to stay in the city for at least one night. It was a dangerous thought. And Philip would never agree to it.

  She remembered his indignant reaction at having to look after the children for the time she was in America. Yet, what difference had her absence really made to his life? It had continued in exactly the same way without her. As for more personal needs – they rarely made love any more, but she dismissed the thought from her mind. It wasn’t the issue here.

  And the children themselves – the girls had had their governess to keep them in order, and Oliver’s nanny had been at hand at all times. The staff at New World had undoubtedly fussed over them, and seen that they didn’t miss her too much… and here she was, worrying over Philip’s reaction to being away for two days on a very good cause. She felt herself weakening by the minute. Thoughts whirled around in her head, knowing Nick wasn’t giving her too much time to think.

  ‘Dr Rainley advises that your uncle needs to be settled as soon as possible, Skye, so I suggest we go to Bristol at the end of next week. We can leave on Thursday morning and be back by Saturday night. You can leave all the arrangements to me.’

  She was angered by the way everyone seemed to be manipulating her movements. ‘You take too much on yourself, Nick! I haven’t agreed to any of this yet. I’d certainly want to talk it over with my husband before I made any such decision. And as for staying two nights, I’m quite sure he wouldn’t approve of that.’

  ‘My dear girl, I’m not suggesting an elopement, and we’ll stay in a respectable hotel. Separate rooms, naturally,’ he drawled, making her feel as if she was acting like a frightened virgin in protesting so much. But she wasn’t, and she knew how it felt to be so carried away by passion that nothing else in the world mattered… And she knew how much he wanted her.

  ‘As I said, I’ll talk to Philip about it and let you know,’ she repeated, standing up
and preparing to leave. ‘In any case, I’m not sure I should be away from home at this time. My cousin is stirring up trouble among the clayworkers at Killigrew Clay and it’s spilling over into White Rivers.’

  Nick came around the front of the desk and caught at her hand. ‘Well, providing you’re not actually thinking of digging the clay yourself, and turning a few pots with these fair hands, I suggest you leave it to the men to deal with. Theo Tremayne may be a hothead, but he’s a businessman, and I’m sure Adam won’t let him get away with anything.’

  ‘Men aren’t necessarily the best people to deal with anything involving hot-tempered clashes,’ Skye retorted. He was standing far too close to her, and her senses were in danger of being overwhelmed all over again.

  She could hear his secretary noisily tapping away on her typewriter in the little outer office. It was all too excitingly reminiscent of the hours she had spent in Philip’s college rooms before they were married… dangerous, clandestine hours, with the risk of being discovered adding to the seductive thrill of it all…

  ‘I must go,’ she gasped, wrenching her hand away from his, and knowing he was about to kiss her again. And he mustn’t. He had his reputation to think of. And she had hers.

  * * *

  ‘If you think it’s necessary, I suppose I have no objection,’ Philip said, when she had outlined Nick’s suggestion in as offhand a manner as possible.

  She felt unreasonably mad with him. He should object, loud and strong. He should offer to take her to Bristol himself, like any caring husband would.

  ‘Don’t you have any worries at all about my travelling all that way and staying in hotel with another man?’ she demanded, hoping to provoke him. Damn it, she wanted him to forbid it, to take the decision away from her.

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Skye, the man’s a lawyer. Lawyers and doctors are sacrosanct, aren’t they? Not to say sexless, if you want a more common word for it. Delving into the dregs of humanity in their various ways as they do, I doubt that they have the time or inclination for dallying. I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe with the Pengelly man.’