The realisation of it finally roused Skye from her shock and lethargy. Everyone was kind, friends and family… and she recalled how she and Vera and Lily had leaned on one another and supported one another during the dark days of the war in France, and she drew a shuddering breath.
‘I want to talk to Vera. Please send a message for me, Mrs Arden, and ask her to come as soon as possible.’
The housekeeper’s relief was obvious. It was the first positive thing Skye had said since hearing the dreadful news. Her thoughts were still muddled, her brain still dulled, but she knew there were other things to be considered. Things that were far removed from the very personal tragedy of her husband’s death, and the forbidden memory of Nick Pengelly. She had read the brief note accompanying his roses, and then torn it to shreds, unable to cope with its hidden meaning.
The note simply said: ‘I’m here if you need me. Nick.’
But she knew there were other things that needed her attention, if only she had the strength to face them. There was a problem with a German boy and a clayer’s daughter, and something to do with Uncle Albie. Not the removal to The Laurels where he would be cared for – that was clear in her head – but something else that had to be organised. She couldn’t think what it was, and by the time Vera arrived, the frustration of it all was making her angry.
‘Sweetheart, you’ve had such a dreadful homecoming,’ Vera said, taking her straight into her arms. ‘We’re all so very sorry about Philip.’
‘Tell me what was planned for Uncle Albie,’ Skye said, pushing her away. ‘For the life of me I can’t remember and it’s driving me crazy.’
Vera stared at her, alarmed at this reception, so different from what she had expected. She knew Skye was strong, but this was a different Skye. She was hard, her eyes tortured and dry, when Vera had been prepared to hold her in her arms and let her pour her heart out.
‘Uncle Albie? He went to Bristol yesterday, so that you wouldn’t have any more distress. Nick arranged it.’
‘Did he now? How thoughtful of him.’ She couldn’t stop the sarcasm in her voice, without knowing why it was there. She just had to hit out at someone – anyone – and hearing his name merely produced more feelings of guilt.
After a moment’s silence, Vera spoke gingerly. ‘Skye, did something happen between you and Nick? He’s been so strange these past few days, hardly speaking to anyone except to snap, and Adam thinks you must have had a terrible row or something—’ She stopped, appalled at her cousin’s sudden hysterical laughter and the tears that finally streamed down her face. And this time, when she put her arms around her, Skye didn’t push her away. ‘My poor love. What a terrible time it is for you.’
‘It’s not that,’ Skye said chokingly against Vera’s ample bosom. ‘It’s something too awful to talk about, so don’t ask me. Please don’t ask me—’
‘Of course I won’t,’ said Vera, thinking that Skye should see a head doctor, and quickly. She was so clearly deranged and not thinking sensibly.
Skye sobbed, wondering what on earth was wrong with her to feel so perverse, knowing that she wanted Vera to wring the truth out of her, so that she didn’t have to keep the awful guilty secret to herself. In the end she knew it was no good. She had to speak out.
‘I have to tell you something, Vera, but swear not to breathe a word to a soul, not even Adam. Especially not Adam.’
The moment she said his name, she knew she should keep it all to herself. Adam was Nick’s brother, and all their lives were so intertwined, the way the Tremaynes and Killigrews had always been. It never ended, she thought fearfully…
‘I won’t tell a soul, not even Adam,’ Vera promised, sure that nothing could be dire enough to bring this wild look into Skye’s eyes. She had always been so open, so honest.
‘It’s Nick. Me and Nick. Nick and I, or however you people put it. I can’t remember, and what does it matter, anyway? It doesn’t change things.’
‘What things?’ Vera said in a hushed voice, but already anticipating what was to come, and trying to hide her sense of shock. And yet seeing things she should have seen a long time ago. The look in Nick’s eyes when he spoke of her. His need to bring her name into the conversation whenever possible, and the way he spoke her name, lingeringly, like a caress. The tight, lost look on his face now that shrieked of his own guilt to Vera far more eloquently than mere words.
Skye spoke brutally, before she could change her mind. ‘We had an affair. A very brief affair, and now it’s over.’
‘Is it?’ Vera said into the silence.
‘Well, of course it is! Do you think I’d carry on now, with my husband not yet buried?’ But she had carried on while he was alive, and that was a greater sin… She went on deliberately, not sparing herself. ‘I’m not sure if you know exactly what I mean, Vera. When we were in Bristol, we spent a night together. We were lovers, and my penance is the guilt of my husband’s death.’
‘Don’t be daft. Philip’s death has nothing to do with you, or Nick,’ Vera said harshly, still taking in the enormity of it all. ‘We all knew his time was coming, and if you want to put the blame anywhere, then blame the war that caused his head injuries. It’s not your guilt, Skye.’
‘No? And what about the timing? Don’t you think that’s significant? You, with your Cornish omens and superstitions! Why did it have to happen at this particular time, if I wasn’t meant to feel guilt? Tell me that if you can.’
‘You’ll be telling the whole house if you don’t keep your voice down,’ Vera said sharply. ‘Just listen to me, darling. You’ve got the ordeal of the funeral to get through, and then you have to get on with your life. You have three beautiful children, and the last thing they need is to see their mother constantly berating herself for reasons they couldn’t possibly understand. Guilt is a huge waste of emotion. Philip would have said as much. He was always a great one for spelling out such things. You don’t need me to tell you that!’
Skye stared at her through tortured eyes. She heard all that Vera was saying as if she was hearing it through a fog, and it all meant nothing until her final words. Vera was exactly right. Philip was – had been – a great one for logical and pacifying explanations. More than anyone else she knew, Philip had never believed in wasting emotions on things that couldn’t be changed. And the two things in her life that couldn’t be changed now were the inescapable fact of his death, and the fact that she and Nick Pengelly had been lovers. She nodded slowly.
‘Thank you, Vera,’ she whispered. ‘You were the only one I could have faced with this.’
‘Then face it, accept it, and let it go,’ Vera said briskly. ‘Now then, are we having some tea or not? I’m parched after all this soul-searching.’
Skye gave her a wan smile. ‘I’ll order it. And Vera—’
‘You don’t need to ask. I know nothing. And maybe what you were wondering about Uncle Albie was about that exhibition of his paintings that was talked about.’
‘That’s it! How could I have forgotten?’
‘It’s hardly surprising,’ Vera said dryly. ‘Rather a lot has been happening in the past week, after all. But I know David Kingsley has taken an interest in the idea, and is willing to make a big splash about it in the newspaper when you feel like doing something about it.’
‘Or when someone else in the family deigns to get involved, you mean,’ Skye said with a flash of her old spirit.
Vera was more than thankful to see it. Unknown to Skye as yet, ever since the news of Philip Norwood’s death had become common knowledge, everything in the vicinity seemed to be holding its breath, according to Vera’s husband. The clayers had become eerily silent, and the German boys had made themselves scarce at every opportunity. Roland Dewy had packed his daughter off to some relatives, but nothing had been resolved. There had to be a reckoning. But not yet.
It wouldn’t last, Adam had declared ominously. It was all due to shock at the accident, and out of respect for Skye and her family. But it wouldn’t
last. It was the calm before the storm, and the storm was just waiting to happen.
After Vera left, Skye forced herself to receive visitors, rather than face them all for the first time on the day of the funeral. There were plenty of callers, family and friends, clayworkers and pit captains, all offering their awkward condolences. Only one caller was missing. The one she yearned to see the most, and yet couldn’t bear to face.
“I’m here if you need me”, he had written. And she knew he wouldn’t come unless she sent for him. Not until they met formally at the graveside of her dead husband, for as the family solicitor, he would naturally be there. It would look very odd if he wasn’t.
* * *
‘We don’t have to go to the funeral, do we, Mommy?’ Wenna said for the tenth time, by now having heard all kinds of gruesome tales of the dead and dying from the housemaids.
‘I want to go,’ Celia said.
‘Well, neither of you is going and nor is Oliver,’ Skye told them. ‘You’re all to spend the day at Aunt Vera’s with your cousins.’
‘I don’t want to see that awful Sebby, and Justin’s an idiot,’ Celia howled.
‘Will Ethan be there as well, or is he too old to play with cousins?’ Wenna said.
‘I don’t know,’ Skye shrugged, having forgotten that Ethan Pengelly was a relative too, and that the clayworks and the pottery would both be closed for the day.
Celia hooted. ‘Wenna still thinks Ethan Pengelly likes her in a soppy way. As if he’d look at a baby like her.’
‘I’m not a baby,’ shrieked Wenna. ‘And you like him too, I know you do.’
‘I do not,’ Celia was red-faced with rage now. ‘He talks like a clayer, anyway.’
Skye had a hard job not to strike her daughter then, but slapping the child when the whole house was tense with nerves and mixed emotions would do none of them any good. So she held on to her temper with difficulty.
‘That’s a very snobbish remark, Celia, and you should never forget that your grandmother’s family were all clayers. If it wasn’t for their hard work, none of us would live in this fine house and have all the privileges that we do.’
After a few mutterings which may or may not have been an apology, Celia stalked out of the room, and Skye felt a surge of alarm. Her daughters were just children, but they were close in age, and already she could sense the undercurrents of jealousy between them. If ever they fell in love with the same man… but she was being absurd again, and the Cornish legacy of a wild imagination was running away with her.
But for a few moments it had taken her mind off the coming ordeal of the funeral and being the centre of attention of all the people attending. Watching and assessing and noting every scrap of emotion on her face, and naturally expecting her to be the distraught widow.
Which she was, of course. Except that deep in her heart she was also aware of a huge feeling of release because Philip had been so difficult to live with these past few years. But it was a thought that only added to her guilt.
* * *
When the day finally came, the family gathered at New World where the cars were to follow the hearse to the church. Luke had been persuaded to conduct the service, even though he’d virtually retired now, but somehow it seemed right, as it always had, for the family to close together in as tight a circle as possible.
But not only family, Skye realised, as the enormity of the occasion dawned on her. Clayworkers had turned out in force, even though they had had little time for Philip Norwood. But he was part of the tapestry that made up Killigrew Clay and White Rivers, and was therefore to be honoured in death, if not in life.
And there were so many strangers, few of whom Skye recognised. But from their demeanour, so different from the awkward country folk, she knew they were college colleagues and students, and was made acutely aware of the different lives she and Philip had led.
Until she stood at the graveside and watched the coffin being lowered, hearing the sombre tones of Luke Tremayne committing Philip’s body to the earth, she hadn’t fully realised that there was no one here who was truly her own. There was no one left. Not her mother and brother, who were both dead. Not her father, too far away to attend, but who had sent messages every day. Not her children, too young to be there. All these others standing sentinel until the ceremony was over, these Tremaynes and other relatives and friends… none of them truly belonged to her.
Her eyes were drawn momentarily to a figure standing silently on the far side of the grave as she threw the handful of earth onto Philip’s coffin. The sound was a dull thud, echoing the thud of her heartbeats as she saw Nick’s briefest nod, supporting her with his mind and his love, even if he couldn’t do so openly.
As she lowered her eyes quickly, it was the womenfolk who drew her away. Charlotte and Lily and Betsy, and Em. Dear Em, who was robust and brisk and unable to express her feelings in words, but had brought her plants and produce from her garden as a gesture of love. And a whole side of pork for later.
* * *
The house was oveflowing with people for the bunfight, as Theo disrespectfully persisted in calling it. Only a few of Philip’s colleagues attended, and none of the students. But the family was there, and a handful of clayworkers, curious to see the inside of this splendid house. And the Pengelly brothers.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Skye said formally to Adam.
‘Why would I not? We’re all family now, my dear, and Ethan here wanted to pay his respects as well. Though I fancy your young uns might have preferred it if he’d stayed with Vera and the rest of the cousins.’
Skye saw Ethan’s colour rise. It was a shame to bait him, and a boy of fourteen was so vulnerable to teasing.
‘Our Nick said it would be all right,’ he muttered. ‘And if our Nick says so then ’tis all right by me.’
‘Whatever our Nick says is all right with him,’ Adam grinned. ‘He’s the boy’s hero.’
‘Everybody needs one at that age,’ Skye murmured, wishing they’d stop talking about Nick, as if they thought she would be remotely interested.
‘Needs what?’ He was suddenly at her side, a plate of roast pork sandwiches in his hand. ‘I’ve been asked to hand these round, since few folk seem inclined to help themselves.’
She took one automatically, and Adam warmed to his words. ‘Everybody needs a hero, that’s what. And I was just telling Skye that I reckon you’re our Ethan’s.’
‘Excuse me,’ Skye said quickly as he glanced at her, needing to get away before Ethan asked artlessly if she had a hero too. It would be too awful on this day, in this gathering. But he was just a boy, and really out of his depth. He should have gone to Vera’s after all, she thought. She paused, and then put her hand on his arm, taking the initiative since no one else seemed to want to do so.
‘Ethan, why don’t you go back to Vera’s now and have proper tea with the others? I’m grateful that you came, but all this chatter is very boring for you now, I’m sure.’
Even as she spoke, she knew it was her family doing the talking and reminiscing over times past, the way most families did at any such gathering. Half listening to them now, she realised that they spoke about missing family members, the fluctuating price of clay, of good deals and bad ones.
Hardly anyone spoke about Philip, or had any particular memories of him that were worth sharing. He had been part of her life for so long, but he had never been one of them. Even in death, they were unwittingly shutting him out. And she accepted it because there was nothing else she could do.
‘I’ll need to see you about the will,’ she heard Nick say quietly a few minutes later. ‘It’s quite straightforward, and there’s no hurry, so I suggest we leave it until next week. I could come here, or you could come to my chambers in Bodmin. Whichever you prefer.’
‘Bodmin would be best,’ she said, discussing these arrangements as if with a stranger. Somewhere impersonal would definitely be best, while she and her lover discussed the personal bequests of her husband. The iron
y of it didn’t escape her, and she moved slightly away from him.
‘Until next Friday then. About three in the afternoon,’ he went on, as coolly as if they had never lain together, or loved so wildly, or needed one another to the exclusion of all others in the world.
He held out his hand to shake hers in farewell, and only by the slightest pressure of his fingers on hers did she feel anything between them. She was cold, lost and alone, and yet she welcomed the feeling, because she couldn’t bear to interpret any sweet, unspoken sense of intimacy between them at this time.
She was thankful when everyone left at last, save for her cousin Lily, and Emma the homebody, busily helping the maids to clear the remnants of the feast away. As they sat amiably together, Lily looked at her shrewdly.
‘There’s a good man going to waste there,’ she said.
‘What? Who do you mean?’ Skye said, taken off-balance by the odd remark.
‘Nick Pengelly, of course. He should be married with children. Don’t you think so? He’d be a natural.’
‘Are you applying for the job then?’ Skye asked, refusing to allow the rush of jealousy at her cousin’s words.
Lily laughed. ‘Not me, love. I’m not interested, and in any case I wouldn’t stand an earthly. The man’s only got eyes for one woman, and you know it.’
Skye felt her face burn. Surely Vera hadn’t said anything… but she was instantly certain that she hadn’t. It was merely conjecture, but she didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
‘This isn’t the time to be saying such things,’ she said.
Her cousin reached forward and squeezed her hand.
‘Darling girl, I don’t mean to be intrusive. I know that when you and Philip were in the first flush, you were like two halves of the same coin – and I’m hardly the world’s most poetic creature to be saying such things, so it must have been obvious at the time. But that time’s gone now, Skye, and you must look to the future.’
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