She snuffled against his shoulder. He was being very kind, saying what every woman would want to hear at such a time. Except her. She hadn’t given Philip a single thought during the strike, and all her longings now were directed towards Nick Pengelly – and her resentment too. She needed his praise above all things, but according to Ethan, Nick was out of town. On a case, as he called it importantly…
Consumed with guilt at her own restless and wanton feelings for a man other than her own husband, Skye broke away from David and gave him a thin smile.
‘You’re perfectly right, and I know I’ve been neglecting the children lately. They love decorating the house for Christmas, and are probably wondering if we’re even going to have any celebrations this year. But we must, of course. Philip would have wanted it,’ she added deliberately, still making him a part of it all.
Even though it all seemed more sad than joyful to her, she knew how the children needed her involvement, and she resolved from that moment to make their first Christmas without their father as happy as possible. She echoed her own brave newsletter words; they all had to move on.
She felt David Kingsley kiss her forehead lightly. ‘We’re all proud of you, my dear, and Philip would have been proud of you too,’ he told her. ‘Together you were a formidable partnership, but you’ll survive whatever comes your way. The Tremaynes always do.’
It was the sweetest compliment he could have given her, and after he had gone, she washed her face and straightened her shoulders. Then she went to the nursery, where the governess was giving Celia and Wenna their afternoon lesson of letters and numbers. Oliver was curled up asleep on a cushion in a corner, oblivious to it all.
‘You can finish for today, Miss Landon,’ Skye told her. ‘The children and I are going to the beach to collect some driftwood to decorate the house. We must look for fir cones and berries to paint too, and make some new paper chains to remind us that it’s nearly Christmas. What do you say to that, my honeybees?’
After an astonished moment, their answer was to fling their arms around her neck and whoop with delight. Above their clinging arms, Skye met the approving eyes of the governess, and nodded mutely. The worst of the dark days were over.
* * *
There was nothing compared with children’s innocent acceptance of things to obliterate your own worries, Skye thought later. The four of them spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach and she promised that tomorrow they would start to gather the berries and greenery and make the homely decorations that would bring New World back to life again.
By now the children had accepted Philip’s death far more easily than she had expected. She still missed him. You couldn’t spend so many years of your life with a person and not feel his absence deeply. But she was honest enough to admit that what she missed most was the Philip she had first loved so passionately. The Philip he had become was nothing like that man, and if anyone could blame the effects of war on a change of circumstances, it was herself. But there was no use wishing for things that could never be. It was something her mother had always impressed on her, and Skye knew the value of it.
Her grandmother too, had been full of so many wise sayings, and her lyrical Cornish voice was in Skye’s head at that moment. If you can’t change something, my love, then don’t waste your time in fretting for the moon. You only have one life, and ’tis meant to be lived to the full, not wasted on regrets.
Oh, Granny Morwen, thought Skye, watching her children at play on the beach, scrambling back and shrieking with excitement every time the waves threatened to surge over their feet… do you know how many emotive ways those words can be interpreted?
But of course she did. Morwen Tremayne hadn’t wasted a moment of her life. And Granny Morwen had always known exactly what she meant whenever she gave out some of her wise advice.
At that moment, Skye resolved not to make this Christmas a gloomy one, and it seemed that other members of the family had had the same idea. Betsy called on her the next day and spoke all in a rush.
‘I know you’re still officially in mourning, Skye, and even though our children don’t always get on together, we’m all family, so me and Theo would like it if you’d all join us for Christmas dinner.’
‘Theo would like it?’ Skye queried, her eyebrows raised at this unlikely prospect. But there was a new assertiveness in Betsy nowadays.
‘Me and Theo have had a talk, and he knows I ain’t prepared to be a doormat no more. That’s all thanks to you, Skye, so please say you’ll share Christmas Day with us.’
‘Well, just part of it then,’ she said, knowing she couldn’t be so churlish as to refuse this bridge-building gesture. ‘We’ll want to be home by evening.’
Vera had also mentioned them all getting together, but Skye had rejected the idea, saying that she and Adam should spend their first Christmas dinner as a married couple on their own.
Her own words had stirred up bittersweet memories, remembering that she and Philip had spent their first Christmas together, somewhere in France…
As though Vera’s thoughts were in tune with Betsy’s, she telephoned Skye that same evening. She suspected there had been some collusion between the two of them.
‘Nick and Ethan are coming here for a late supper on Christmas Day, so when you’ve put the children to bed, you’re to come and join us. Lily’s coming too, with a guest – and you might guess who that will be. Please say you will, Skye. The house will be bursting at the seams, but we really want to do this. Oh, and Nick will come and collect you because the moors are sure to be misty by the time you leave here.’
And they wouldn’t want any more accidents…
‘Aren’t you taking him for granted? Nick, I mean,’ Skye said, as Vera paused for breath. It sounded all too cosy – too wonderfully, ecstatically cosy.
‘Not at all. He suggested it. Did you know he’s back from Bristol now?’
Skye’s heart jolted. ‘I didn’t know he’d been there.’
‘Well, apparently his ex-partner recommended him for some difficult legal case. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it.’
And maybe he wouldn’t. She was angry that she hadn’t known… but then, why would she? She never invited Nick to call or visit. She held him at arm’s length, because she was too afraid of letting him into her heart. It was too soon. Too impossibly soon…
Her feelings were so mixed, but she knew it was safer to keep the anger simmering, rather than let any other emotion in. But Bristol of all places… and she knew very well why he wouldn’t have told her. He’d know she would be imagining the time they had been there together…
When the phone rang again she almost snapped into the receiver. She had been left discreetly alone after Philip’s death, and now it seemed as if no one would leave her in peace, when all she wanted was to be alone with her children.
‘Em, I’m sorry,’ she stammered, hearing the Cornish-cream voice. ‘I thought it was going to be someone else.’
‘Well, whoever it was, I reckon he was about to get a taste of your tongue,’ Em chuckled, having no idea of the sweet, erotic irony of her words. Skye pushed the thought right out of her mind as she listened.
‘Me and Will thought you might like to bring the babbies to the farm for Christmas. Now just say if you don’t want to, and there’ll be no offence taken, but the offer’s there.’
‘Oh Em, it’s darling of you, but everybody seems to have had the same idea.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe we could come for the New Year instead. Would that be all right?’
‘’Course it would, my lamb. Just come when you’m ready, and we’ll fatten you all up with some good country cooking.’
Skye felt a touch of hysteria threatening, but she knew Emma meant it in all sincerity, and resisted the feeling with a great effort.
‘I do love you, Em,’ she said huskily instead, and put the phone down quickly, knowing that Emma didn’t go in for all that mushy nonsense, but needing to say it all the same.
When the t
elephone rang for a third time that evening, she simply mouthed into it, wondering who felt it their Christian duty to invite the poor widow-woman this time, and unable to stop the cynical thought.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I’ve had better responses,’ Nick said calmly. ‘I have something I need to discuss with you, Skye. Is it convenient for me to call on you this evening?’
She stared into the phone, her heart thudding at hearing his voice, rich and deep and intimately near, and yet so businesslike too. ‘If you’re going to tell me you’ve been to Bristol, I know,’ she said, almost rudely.
‘That’s only part of it,’ he replied, completely unperturbed by her reaction.
But that was part of his training, never to be shocked at anything a client told him. But she was not his client. Well, yes, she was, but she was his lover too…
‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ he said, when she didn’t answer, and then the line went dead.
When he arrived she greeted him coolly, and pointedly sat some distance away from him in the drawing-room. Her emotions were in turmoil, and she couldn’t think what they had to discuss that couldn’t wait until daylight. She stared at him unthinkingly, and Nick found himself cursing the effect those beautiful Tremayne eyes were having on him. But there was business to be done, and there was no shirking it.
‘First of all, I must congratulate you on your achievement over the recent strike. Adam sent me the newsletter while I was away, so I was well aware of it all.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Skye, for heaven’s sake—’ His professional manner slipped for a brief moment, but she lifted her hand as if to ward off any more personal reactions. He shrugged. Such reactions were imminent, anyway. ‘You know I had to go to Bristol for an important legal case.’
‘So I believe. I trust you were successful.’
‘Thank you, yes,’ he said, angry at her politeness, and preferring her to rant and rave the way he knew she could. Being his volatile and passionate Skye, and not this cold, unemotional statue he couldn’t yet reach. But he would. For good or ill, he would. When the time was right.
‘While I was there I visited The Laurels. You’ve been receiving weekly reports, I understand, and you’ll know that your uncle has settled in remarkably well.’
She had hardly looked at the reports, she thought guiltily, and she hadn’t expected this. It was kind and dear of him to visit Albie, and her mouth trembled as she nodded.
‘They say he has brief times of near-normality, but that it makes no difference to the eventual outcome.’
‘He was quite lucid while I was there, although very slow-speaking. But he fully understood when I told him we intended to show an exhibition of his paintings in the new year. He seemed quite pleased.’
‘I had forgotten,’ Skye said in some distress, keeping her eyes lowered now. How awful to have forgotten. Even her father, so many miles away, never failed to ask after Albie in his letters, while she had simply forgotten him and the exhibition.
There was some excuse for it, considering the happenings of the last few months, but even so…
‘He was so lucid, in fact, that he asked me to draft a document for him. It’s legally binding, and was witnessed by several members of the nursing home staff and the regular visiting clergyman.’
‘What kind of document?’ Skye said suspiciously.
Nick drew it out of an envelope. ‘You had better read it for yourself. It’s very short, but I assure you it’s perfectly in order, and dictated of his own free will.’
She was almost afraid to take the document from Nick’s hands, but she knew that she must. She read it aloud, her heart swelling as she did so, imagining Albie’s stumbling words as he dictated it.
‘This is not my Last Will and Testament. I am not bequeathing my goods and chattels after my death. It is a gift of love and enduring affection to my niece, Skye Tremayne.’
She glanced at Nick, her eyes tormented now.
‘The omission of your married name is of no consequence. In any case, you are his only niece,’ he said.
She read on, her voice becoming increasingly wobbly. ‘I wish to make a gift of my studio and everything in it, including all my paintings, to the daughter of my beloved sister, Primrose Tremayne, in perpetual memory of other days. The gift is to take effect immediately.’
That was all. It was dated and signed by Albie’s wavering, scrawling hand, and witnessed by half a dozen other signatures before the name of Nicholas Pengelly was written across his legal seal.
‘How can he do this?’ Skye wept. ‘I don’t want it. I won’t have it.’
‘You must. It’s the last thing you can do for him, and for your mother’s memory,’ he urged relentlessly. ‘Would she have wanted you to throw his gift back in his face?’
‘I hate you,’ she raged.
‘I know,’ Nick said. ‘It’s a blinder, isn’t it? But when you’ve had time to calm down, you’ll know that Albie meant what he says. This is a gift of love, and I’m sure he wasn’t expecting you to live at the studio. Once it’s been cleared out, you can sell it or rent it out, or do anything you like with it.’
‘I can’t even face going inside there! You know that.’
‘We’ll leave it until the new year,’ Nick said more gently. ‘But you know we have to sort things through then, in order to set up the exhibition. But don’t be too hasty in your wish to be rid of it, Skye. It’s a valuable property right on the riverfront, and it could also be the base for a very useful business venture.’
‘And just what did you have in mind, masterbrain?’ she said with a touch of sarcasm, still unable to take it all in, or to see where his words were leading. And not really wanting to. Couldn’t he see how upset she was by all this? Where was the empathy that had been so beautiful between them?
‘That’s up to you. But if you want my professional advice – well, your showroom at White Rivers is pretty much out of the way, and unless there’s constant advertising, few people get to know of it. You don’t need me to tell you that. But a riverfront property in the heart of Truro could really open things up for you.’
Skye stared at him, her thoughts finally coinciding with his. ‘A White Rivers Pottery shop, you mean?’ she said slowly.
‘Why not?’ Nick said, thankful that there was some spark of interest in her eyes at last. ‘You would need someone trustworthy and enthusiastic to manage it, of course.’
They looked at one another, and after a moment they both spoke at once.
‘Lily!’
Chapter Eighteen
The family was openly supportive when Skye revealed the contents of Albie’s document to them. Especially when she insisted that from now on, she would also be solely responsible for his upkeep at The Laurels.
‘That’s generous of you, Skye, and I doubt that there will be any arguments from the rest of them,’ Lily said, the sharpest of them all. ‘All the same, darling, you deserve to have the property if anyone does. You’re the closest to him, after all. But what on earth will you do with it?’
‘As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Skye said carefully. ‘You rather enjoyed being a shopkeeper, didn’t you, Lily?’
Her cousin started to laugh, never slow to catch on, but getting it slightly wrong this time. ‘You want me to be the warden of a picture gallery? Oh, I don’t think so. I always thought Uncle Albie was more than a little creepy, and having all those spooky painted eyes following me about the place wouldn’t suit me at all.’
‘Would the idea of displaying and selling pottery as manageress of the White Rivers Pottery shop sound unsuitable or demeaning to you?’
Lily’s eyes widened, and she didn’t say anything for a moment, and then, ‘You mean it, don’t you?’
‘When did you know me to say anything I didn’t mean? I have to do something with the studio, Lily, and this would still keep it as a family concern. That would please Albie, whether he was aware of my plans or not.
And I know it would have pleased Mom that I wasn’t going to sell the place where she and her brother spent so many happy years.’
Skye realised it no longer pained her to say it. She was sure that whatever had happened between Primmy and Albie had been mostly in Albie’s mind, and it was all so long ago that it was of no consequence to anyone any more.
‘Then I accept,’ Lily said with alacrity. ‘But how did you come to think of it?’
‘I didn’t. It was Nick.’
* * *
By Christmas Day, New World was heavily bedecked with holly and paper decorations. The tree in the corner of the drawing-room was adorned with tinsel and fir cones made beautiful with glitter and glue, and the silver-painted driftwood was transformed into strange and wonderful art forms, according to each child’s imagination.
After the children had opened their presents with much excitement and given Skye their own modest offerings, they all ate hot mince pies as they opened their Christmas stockings, each containing an apple and an orange and a bag of nuts, and various small treats. In every way, it was as comfortably relaxed a Christmas morning as Skye could have hoped for, she thought with some relief.
The day was crisp and sunny, with none of the bad weather experienced upcountry, or habitually in Skye’s native New Jersey at this time of year. And later, snuggled into their winter coats, Skye drove them all into Truro and arrived at Theo and Betsy’s house in time for the midday Christmas meal.
As expected, the decorations here were far more lavish, but the children’s exclamations of delight took away the initial awkwardness on the part of the adults.
‘Thank you for inviting us,’ Skye said simply. She hadn’t seen Theo since the day he came to White Rivers, but now he held her shoulders lightly and kissed her on both cheeks.
‘Might as well get used to doing it the Continental way,’ he said airily, which covered all explanations and apologies in an instant. It was the best way.
White Rivers Page 29