by Kayte Nunn
“But—” Eve interrupted again.
“Let me finish, darling. And please . . . I’ve judged myself harshly enough.”
Eve bit her lip, chastened.
“We were the best of friends. We talked. I mean really talked. About politics and psychology, music, art, literature . . . and he listened, valued my opinion. Do you know how rare that was in my day? Well, it was, let me tell you. He saw me as more than a housewife, more than a mother. It was incredibly attractive. I suppose I was vulnerable, but it wasn’t like that. He saw me, me, exactly who I was and who I could be.”
“So what happened?” Eve asked.
“I got better and I came home. I had responsibilities here—your grandfather, Teddy of course.”
“That must have been hard,” said Eve. “I mean to leave a man you were so in love with, to know that you would never see him again.”
“It was,” said Esther. “But it would have been hard either way. I loved Teddy so much, and I knew that if I chose Richard I would never have been able to keep Teddy with me. Your grandfather would never have countenanced it. I had to make the best of it. I always thought one day . . . one day he might turn up, or I might find him again.” She sighed. “You never forget that kind of love.”
Eve’s mind flashed to David, who she had once imagined herself so in love with and now barely gave a second thought to. “Did you look? After Gramps died I mean?” Eve asked.
“It didn’t seem right, not straight away anyway. And then I thought that he had most probably married, gotten on with his life, and I didn’t want to be the one to disturb that. It could have stirred up more trouble than it was worth. Anyway, he might not have wanted to hear from me, not after what I said to him.”
“Oh, Grams,” said Eve. “What did you say?”
Esther shook her head, her mouth firm. “I thought I was being kind, but really it was unforgivably cruel.”
“But what about now?”
“Read the letters,” Esther said, holding them out to Eve. “And then you’ll know why I have to try and find him. If, that is, he is still alive.”
“We’ll help,” said Rachel. “If he’s still alive, we’ll find him, I can promise you that. It’s such an incredible story; it deserves—you deserve—to find out, to see him again. I only hope we aren’t too late.”
* * *
“So how did you get on?” Jonah asked when Rachel returned to St. Mary’s.
“Good . . . and bad,” replied Rachel.
They were sitting on the wall of the quay, eating ice creams. The weather had taken a sudden warm turn and when Rachel had run into Jonah as she was disembarking the ferry, he’d suggested the treat. It felt good to be back among the islands; she had grown to love the gentle light and the peace of the place.
“Tell me the good first.”
“Well, I still have a job. As long as I can rent a boat for a while,” she said.
He grinned at her, raising his hand for a high five. She went to slap it in return but he caught her hand in his and held it, curling his fingers around hers and squeezing them. This simple action made her heart contract uncomfortably and she felt a bolt of warning flash through her. It wouldn’t do to get too fond of him, nothing could come of it, she told herself, and she liked him too much to hurt him.
“So what’s the bad?” he asked, releasing her hand.
“The project’s been extended.”
“But that’s a good thing surely?”
“I had to make a commitment to stay here for the next five years.”
He said nothing.
“You don’t understand. I never stay anywhere longer than two at the most.”
“Why on earth not?”
She hesitated. “It’s just always been easier that way. Life’s too short and there’s too much world out there to see. I hate the idea of being tied to a single place.”
“Or a single person?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I know your type.”
“And what would that be?” she asked warily.
“Women like you chew men up and spit them out before breakfast.”
“I beg your pardon?” He sounded like he was joking, but there was an edge to his voice that she’d never heard before.
“You’re a law unto yourself. Answer to no one, do exactly as you please.”
“And that’s a problem for you?” she fired back.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said with a mock-serious expression on his face.
She looked down at her ice cream and then out to the ocean, a deep sapphire blue that stretched forever. Jonah saw through her as if her skin were tracing paper and it threw her off balance. A line from one of the letters came to her: “The memories of our days together warm me at night . . .” She knew with sudden certainty that she would always remember this day, this hour, simply sitting on a quay licking salted caramel ice cream with a man who made her feel unsettled and at home all at once.
“Oh, and I met Esther Durrant,” she said. “I looked her up online and tracked her down to a house in London. She’s very old, but still got all her marbles.”
Jonah raised his eyebrows.
“And this is where it gets really interesting . . . she’s asked me to help her find the person who wrote the letters to her. She never heard from him again—it was more than sixty years ago. He was a doctor—Richard Creswell.”
“Do you think she still loves him?”
Rachel scoffed. “Can love really last that long? I mean, without seeing someone?” It was such an abstract idea; she found it hard to imagine.
“Of course. Why not?”
“You are a hopeless romantic, Jonah, did you know that?”
He crossed one arm over his heart. “Owning it.”
They were both laughing and so didn’t notice a marauding seagull, keen for the last of Rachel’s ice cream, swoop down on them until it was too late.
* * *
When Esther had told Rachel and Eve about Richard Creswell, Rachel thought privately that the chances of him still being alive were slim. But the old lady had looked so hopeful that she hadn’t wanted to disappoint her and promised she’d do her best to try and track him down.
Starting with Google, Rachel whittled down the possibilities. There were plenty of Richard Creswells, but none of the right generation. Then after nearly an hour of searching, she came across a mention of his name in an obscure academic paper on treatment of shell shock during the Second World War. Bingo. That had to be him. She read the abstract, which led her to a hospital in Birmingham called Northfield. She searched again, but found that it had closed in 1995. There was little hope then of finding their records; she would have no idea where to start looking.
Esther had said she didn’t know where he might have settled after leaving Little Embers. “To be honest, I didn’t allow myself to wonder. I had my own life to get on with and looking backward would have only prolonged the pain,” she had said.
Rachel started with logic. Where had the doctor lived before Little Embers? Where did he grow up? She sent a quick text to Eve, to see if she could find out from her grandmother anything about Dr. Creswell’s background.
An hour or so later, her phone pinged. Eve had responded.
Cornwall. “Lost” something or other, and not far from Bodmin. She can’t remember any more than that.
It wasn’t much to go on, but Rachel was up for the challenge—it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do until her wrist healed.
Another search yielded a town called Lostwithiel. That looked promising. There was a local library and she looked up the phone number. She was just about to call to see if she could speak to someone when there was a loud knocking on the door.
Janice was there, holding a plate covered with a tea towel.
“Hello love. I thought you might like a bit of cake. Baked fresh this morning. Can’t eat it all myself.”
Rachel stood back to let
her in.
“So Jonah tells me you found some letters.” Janice had taken a seat at the kitchen table while Rachel put the kettle on. Her eyes were alight at the prospect of a juicy story. The cake had obviously been a pretense, not that Rachel minded.
“I did,” Rachel admitted, explaining that they’d been in the suitcase of clothes that Leah had given her to wear on the island. “And I found the woman to whom they were written.”
“Ooh, do tell,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows as if she didn’t want to miss a single detail.
Rachel recounted how she had gone about finding Esther, adding, “And now she’s asked me to help her find the writer—a Dr. Richard Creswell, the one who was at Embers all those years ago.”
“That name rings a bell,” said Janice.
“He’s got to be in his nineties by now, and might not even still be around, but I have to find out—I couldn’t really say no to her, not after reading them.”
“Why not?”
“They were the most beautiful love letters I’ve ever come across. Not that I’ve read many, but you know what I mean.”
“Ooh,” said Janice, taking a large bite from the slice of cake that Rachel had placed in front of her. “I don’t think anyone’s ever written me a love letter.”
“Me neither,” said Rachel, feeling a sudden yearning for something she’d never had.
“So where did you start?”
“Google.”
“Any luck?”
“Not really. People that old don’t generally have much of a digital footprint. All I’ve got to go on at the moment is the name of a town near where he lived when he was growing up.”
“Can I help? The museum’s got some pretty good search options.”
“Sure, have a go at it,” Rachel shrugged. “The more the merrier. After all, we might not have much time.”
“Or we might be entirely too late.”
“True. But I think it would put Esther’s mind at rest—you know, to find out what happened to him. I think she might still love him.”
“Oh, I’m a sucker for a love story,” said Janice, the bracelets on her arm jangling as she bit into her cake again.
* * *
Late that afternoon, as the sun was beginning to set, Rachel walked past the slipway near the pub, feeling a pang as she noticed the mooring where Soleil had once been tied up. She was fretting over her assurance to Dr. Wentworth that she would see the project through, that she would stay on the island for another five years.
“Halloo!”
She looked up to see a now-familiar figure a little way along the causeway.
“Leah, what are you doing here?” she asked when the woman came closer. “I thought you never left Embers?” Rachel’s mind scudded back to her meeting with the art gallery owner in London.
“Never say never,” she said. “Anyway, I thought it was about time I got out and about a bit. Join me for a drink?” They were only a few steps from the Mermaid.
Rachel hid her surprise, both at the sudden appearance of Leah and at her suggestion of a drink. “Sure. In fact, it’s my treat. It’s the least I can do.”
“Tanqueray,” said Leah firmly. “Make it a double.”
It was still fairly early and the pub was quiet when they pushed their way past the heavy door. They settled themselves in a corner and Rachel went to the bar, ordering a gin and tonic for each of them. She decided not to question Leah’s order of a double.
Two drinks later, and Rachel was beginning to feel a warm glow envelop her. Leah too was far more talkative than when they had been at Embers. They had been discussing Rachel’s project, and she had confided her promise to stay on the islands to complete it. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know,” Leah said, her voice slipping on the sibilants. “Stay. Put down some roots. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Rachel realized that she didn’t have an answer to that anymore.
“Anyway,” she said. “You and Jonah—”
“There isn’t a me and Jonah,” Rachel said quickly. “Strictly in the friend zone.”
“Well, you should do something about that; the man’s gorgeous.”
“I think he’s looking for something a bit more serious than I can give him,” she admitted.
“What are you afraid of? Everyone needs someone.”
“Look who’s talking!” said Rachel. “You’ve cut yourself off completely. Tell me, why did you choose such a life?”
“Listen, Rachel, I’ve made mistakes in my past, pushed away people who tried to help, tried to help Tabitha too. Perhaps if I’d acted sooner, things would have been different, but at the time I was so caught up in my own dramas . . . getting established as an artist, painting like a demon, ignorant to what was going on right under my nose. I was far from a perfect mother, and then her father . . . well, that’s another story again.”
“I’m sure you did your best.” Rachel guessed that the alcohol was largely responsible for Leah’s unexpected confidences.
Leah looked at her sadly. “In the end, that’s all we can do.”
“But you still haven’t answered my question,” Rachel persisted.
Leah looked her straight in the eye. “I’m a fraud, Rachel,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“A fraud. As an artist. Oh, I had a bit of talent once, but it didn’t last. After everything that happened with Tabitha I lost it all. Her, and my work. I couldn’t face anyone, none of my friends, certainly not my dealer. I ran away I suppose, first to Scotland and then here. Didn’t feel as though I had a right to the life I’d once led, thought I could hide away and everyone would forget about me. That I could forget about me.”
Rachel went to speak but Leah continued.
“Except it didn’t exactly work out like that. I tried to give up painting completely, but I found my way back to it. Somewhere along the way I stopped caring if I was any good. The act of painting was enough. We’re not so very different, you and I, you know,” Leah continued. “Except that I’ve the benefit of a few more years’ hard-won experience than you. All I’m saying is that shutting yourself away, literally or emotionally, isn’t really the best course of action. I believed that by staying away from everyone I couldn’t hurt them anymore, nor could they hurt me. I’m no longer sure I was right.”
Rachel heard the truth in her words.
“You’re young; don’t for heaven’s sake wait until it’s all too late. Get stuck in this messy life, the joy and the sorrow . . . drink deep . . . speaking of which . . .” She got unsteadily to her feet, squinting at the clock above the bar. “Fancy another?” Her words slurred.
Rachel too noticed the time and peered out of the window, where night had fallen without her realizing. “I don’t think you’ll be going back to Embers tonight,” she said.
Leah shrugged. “S’pose not.”
Rachel didn’t feel like any more to drink and didn’t think it would do Leah any good either. “Why don’t we order some food and you can come back and stay at mine?” she suggested. “There’s a spare room and I can even rustle up a toothbrush.”
Leah smiled widely at her. “Great. I’ll get another round in.”
Rachel didn’t have a chance to refuse.
Chapter Forty-Four
Little Embers, Spring 1952
With one arm around her shoulders, Richard guided Esther back to the house and bade her sit in the parlor. She was quiet and clear-eyed, her earlier shivering having ceased, though for years afterward he would be haunted by the look on her face when he had found her. He didn’t think anyone could possibly look so pale, paler than winter milk even, blanched of all color.
It didn’t appear that anyone else had been woken by Esther’s screams and though he hated to leave her, he went to rouse Jean. He knew he could rely on the nurse to keep a cool head and as he explained what had happened she nodded briefly before saying, “We’ll need a ladder, and something to cut him down with. Give me a minute and
I’ll get dressed and come with you. We can put his body in one of the cottages; I don’t think bringing him to the house is a good idea.” She was matter-of-fact and unemotional, speaking rapidly and quietly. He found himself thankful for her calm presence of mind.
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “There’s a ladder in the shed and I’ll fetch a knife too.” It didn’t occur to him that he was still in his pajamas and dressing gown, nor to put shoes on his bare feet.
Together they followed the trail of dark footsteps to the orchard.
Jean let out a tiny gasp when she saw Robbie’s gently swinging form, but stifled it and held the ladder steady as he climbed.
“Oh God. No.” Richard saw that part of the cord Robbie had used to hang himself with was the strap from George’s binoculars. He raised his knife and began to saw at the leather. He made short work of it, a quick back and forth and Robbie fell like a lead weight to the ground. There was no kinder way.
“I’ll take his arms if you get the feet,” Jean instructed after Richard had climbed back down the ladder. He was again grateful for her clear and quick thinking.
Together they made a staggering progress toward the stone cottages on the west side of the island. Richard shouldered the door of the closest one open and they stumbled in. It was a simple dwelling, with two sparsely furnished rooms, but there was an iron-framed single bed in one of them. They hauled Robbie’s body up onto the ticking mattress and Jean found a blanket. Richard noticed her cross herself as she laid it over him.
“We will have to notify the police,” Richard said as she turned to face him. “It is a good thing the boat is due today. We can get a message to St. Mary’s by the evening.”
“Yes,” agreed Jean firmly. “But I think what we need is a strong cup of tea, first and foremost.”
“Right you are. I should get back to Esther too, check on her.”
“Why don’t you leave that to me. You’ve both had a terrific shock.”
Richard hesitated. Insisting on going to Esther would be to further reveal his feelings for her. “Good idea,” he said. “I shall tell the men when they appear, and Mrs. Biggs.”