‘Not as well as you did.’
‘I beg your pardon. How could you possibly know who I am?’
‘I recognised you from a painting inside. It’s set in a prominent place, so you must have been very important to the old lady.’
Jo moved up to him. Luke eased his footing, casually placing his hands on his hips. He kept his eyes on her, and Jo did not drop hers from his dark face. For several seconds, without invitation or rebuff, embarrassment or a bid to gain supremacy, each searched the other’s expression, digging deep, delving wilfully. It became more than inquisitiveness. Equanimity of sorts, strangely not unwelcome for two very individual people who demanded their own space, was being set up.
‘Miss Sayce never mentioned anyone like you to me.’ Jo’s voice was a touch softer, conversational. ‘What connection did you have with her?’
‘As I said, we were friends.’
She responded to his smiles, which came readily one after the other. She was in no doubt this man operated on wit and guile, was a quick thinker, adept at talking himself out of tricky situations and she was sure his reason for being here was not at all innocent. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Luke lit a smoke without lifting his gaze from her. He was enjoying the banter, sensing a haughty madam of her birth, but a free spirit, one who could take kindly to gentle mocking. ‘We did business together is nearer the truth. I’m in the demand-and-supply business.’
‘A dealer.’ Jo was satisfied with the explanation. ‘I thought it was something like that.’
She walked past him and peeped through the window of the nearest outhouse. A fan of emotion sent moisture behind her eyes. There among the miscellany of old lanterns, stored apples and garden furniture were her childhood toys. The hobby horse, hoop and toboggan, all crafted by the village blacksmith, one of the few mourners at Celia’s funeral yesterday.
Luke followed her, pressing his hand against the outhouse wall above her head, towering over her. He liked her invigorating perfume and drew in a long breath of it. It was a healthy, young smell and stimulated all his senses. He felt she had something new and unique to offer.
‘Are you a niece of Miss Sayce’s?’
Jo moved to the lawn, passing over the stepping stones until she was standing at a green-painted swing. She gave it a little push, and told the man at her side, ‘I met her nineteen years ago, on a hot sunny day, on the bridge down the lane. I was hurt and lost and she took me back to my mother. We became close friends. I shall never forget her.’
‘Those who cared for us never leave us.’
Jo looked at him, smiled her appreciation at not getting a platitude but a sincere word of comfort. A cherished sadness had formed on his brow. He knew what he was talking about. Who had he lost? Who was he?
‘Do you live in Parmarth?’
‘Not often.’
‘May I know your name?’
‘Luke Vigus. Pleased to meet you…?’
Jo accepted his hand and felt his firm fingers wrapping around hers. ‘I’m Jo Venner. Yes, it’s been interesting.’ Then a lift of her brows intimated that their meeting should come to an end; she needed to be alone.
He gave a small nod of understanding. ‘I’d better go. I hope we meet again before I go off on my travels.’
He left without a goodbye. Jo sensed he avoided goodbyes. She watched his strong, athletic outline, his loose, confident way of walking, until he was out of sight. She thought him both straightforward and complicated, most definitely attractive, and a little exciting. Was he a thief? Had he stolen Celia’s stone eagles? It seemed unlikely. She knew him somehow. He would not have stayed and made himself available to her if he’d committed an offence here. Whether he had been about to was another matter. Her mind drifted over his every word and smile, before, while sitting on the swing, she found Celia again.
Celia had often said she would leave Jo her house and money. Was it wrong to hope she really had? It would provide Jo with more security and a greater independence. The house featured a bathroom, upholstered furniture, silverware and genteel crockery, books and a piano, all of which, despite feeling quite comfortable at Nance, Jo would be glad to have the use of again.
Unknown to her mother, Alistair paid a small allowance into her bank account each month, but to have her own means before her trust fund matured and to possess property would make her… someone of importance? Noteworthy? Was it what she desired? Katherine’s spiteful remark about her cultivating Celia’s friendship for selfish ends repeated itself in her mind.
‘No,’ she said aloud and the word was snatched away by the wind, as if nature itself recognised an unfair accusation. Jo could honestly say it was her love for Celia, her desire to return all the years of Celia’s care and affection, which had made her want the position at the insignificant local school.
Jo’s mind went back down over the years to the stream a short distance down the lane. While trying to make urgent repairs to her unkempt appearance, she had felt someone watching her up on the little bridge, and she had been mightily relieved to find it wasn’t her mother who had discovered her.
A lady in her middle years, wearing an embroidered long-coated linen suit and a large hat with a double bow – fashionable wear for this quiet backwater – called down to her in pleasant unfaltering tones, ‘Are you hurt badly? Did you take a fall?’
‘It’s nothing really.’ Jo explained how, thanks to the Trevail brothers, she came to be in her predicament. Looking closely at her surroundings for the first time she realised she was lost.
‘That was very unkind of those two boys. Don’t worry, I’ll take you back to Fern Field where you’ve left your picnic. I’m dressed this way today because I’ve just had company but I’m wearing my walking shoes.’ The lady held out her ungloved hand to help Jo out of the stream. ‘My name’s Miss Celia Sayce. I live a little further along the lane. And who are you, dear?’
Dripping like a pond leaf, Jo pulled on her shoes and stockings. ‘I’m Joanna Venner. I prefer to be called Jo but my mother insists on Joanna.’
‘Which name do you think portrays your true character?’
‘Jo,’ the little girl replied emphatically.
‘Then I shall call you Jo.’ Celia Sayce smiled warmly, and Jo instantly liked her. ‘And you may call me Celia. I know the Trevail brothers. A noisy pair of ruffians from the village. Their father is a tinner. Do the boys themselves worry you, Jo, or is it just their rough play?’
‘They use awfully naughty words and my mother would be cross if she knew I’d even spoken to them, but it would be good to have friends of a sort. My brother rarely plays with me. I’ve got nobody really.’
‘Well, Jo, the next time the boys cut up rough, be sure you return the compliment. And you could suggest to your mother that you wear older clothes while out playing.’
Jo’s mouth dropped open. Celia Sayce was suggesting a combination of disrespect and wickedness. ‘I don’t think my mother would approve, Miss Sayce.’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t but perhaps I could persuade her. Now do call me Celia.’
Jo frowned; it felt uncomfortable calling adults by their first name unless they were servants.
‘Come along, Jo. We’ll take a short cut across the moor to the farm.’
When they reached the end of the rough narrow lane and had crossed the St Ives road, they were tramping through coarse springy grass and patches of heather on the open moor. Jo’s shoes were becoming more and more scuffed, her stockings snagged, but she was unconcerned. It did not seem to matter in Miss Sayce’s company. In Celia’s company.
Celia strode along, loose-limbed, head up, surprising Jo when she broke into a cheerful whistling. ‘I can’t offend anyone out here on the moor, so why not?’ She laughed.
‘Yes, why not?’ Jo shouted, her echo returning to her and encouraging her to be even more carefree. She ran on ahead, plunging through the foliage, bounding round clumps of gorse and bramble, skirting crops of fern, finally le
aping up on a high granite boulder. She whooped and trilled. She felt silly. She’d always wanted to act silly. Her mother’s most constant rebuke was, ‘Joanna, stop being silly at once!’
When Celia reached her, however, she was unsure. Grownups were apt to change their judgements in unfair and inexplicable ways. She blushed and hung her head.
Celia lifted her chin. ‘Be as energetic as you like, Jo. Be yourself. I don’t believe in us conforming to rigorous ideals, of having to restrain our natural spirits.’
Jo knew she could trust Celia’s word. With a gleeful scream, she jumped off the boulder, forgetting everything drummed into her from the moment she could understand an order. It was as if something heavy and choking had seeped out through her flesh and bones, something that had been crushing her soul.
‘See the hole in the top of the boulder, Jo,’ Celia said. ‘It’s been formed by centuries of wind and rain. There’s a legend which says if you look through the hole and see one of the small people, you’ll have your first-born child stolen away by them. Another belief is the hole was made by the local giant, Holiburn, tossing a stone in play at it. If one can find a stone which fits the shape exactly, then that person will be imbued with the giant’s strength. The moors have many legends. I hope I shall have the opportunity to tell you more of them.’
Jo absorbed the information, her thin lips moving, silently repeating Celia’s tales. She was certain her new friend was an encyclopaedia of interesting facts, and although she lived in a remote area, kept up with all the current news and had a strong opinion about everything.
‘Celia, have you ever climbed that hill up there?’ Jo was pointing to Carn Galver, one of the most beautiful tors on the moor, which provided a dramatic backdrop to the farm.
‘Yes, Jo. I climb to the top at least half a dozen times every summer.’
‘Will you take me there one day?’
‘Certainly, dear. I have a strong feeling that you and I will become very good friends.’
Jo hoped so with all her heart. She needed a friend more than anything else in the world. Although Alistair was showered with everything he wanted, her mother denied her the company of other little girls at Tresawna House. Apart from these moorland picnics her mother had suddenly acquired a strong leaning for, the only time Jo got away from home was twice a year when she was packed off to stuffy relatives in Norfolk. She did not attend a school, but had her lessons with a severe governess, excruciatingly boring lessons in which Jo was unable to discuss any scintillating information she procured. She longed to learn more and more and to pass it on, and already cherished the ambition of becoming a teacher in a proper school. A progressive school, where girls could achieve more out of life than merely becoming wives and mothers. It was something her parents would never agree to.
‘Celia, are you going to get married one day?’
Celia did not answer straightaway and Jo apologised. ‘I’m always being scolded for being too curious.’
‘I don’t mind what you ask me.’ Celia took her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. ‘I’ll tell you about myself. I would love to have had children but, of course, I’ve never had a husband. I live alone and get rather lonely in my big house. I’m keen to see you again, Jo. I’m sure we could get along well.’
‘Would you have liked a little girl like me?’
‘Exactly like you, Jo, dear.’
Jo was set on impressing her new friend. Recently, she had listened in on a conversation her father had conducted with a group of gentlemen luncheon guests (rarely being spoken or listened to, Jo had acquired the habit of eavesdropping and collecting information) and the male gathering had branded Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragette movement as a ‘scourge on the British Empire! Women who did not know their place. Outrageous!’ ‘Celia, are you a suffragette? They stand for women’s rights, don’t they? I don’t understand much about it but I think it must be a good thing.’
‘You have got an old head on young shoulders.’ Celia did indeed seem impressed. ‘I totally admire their stance. If I did not live quietly in this part of the world I would be fully involved with the Movement.’
Jo was delighted with Celia’s response in taking her seriously, and with the thought that perhaps Celia really was slightly wicked.
Next, she wanted to know, ‘Are you worried about the war in the Balkans? My father frowns and says it could spread and involve our country.’
‘If it does, I don’t think it will affect us very much, my dear.’ On that point Celia was to be proved tragically wrong, when just a few years later her lover, Katherine’s lover, and Jo’s father were all killed in the Great War.
They walked on towards the outlying fields of Nance Farm, the question-and-answer session, which was to become a feature of their relationship, in full flow.
When they approached Katherine Venner, who was pacing furiously among the ferns, near the pony and trap, Jo clung to Celia’s hand. Tension formed throughout her body.
‘Where on earth have you been, you disobedient girl? Look at the state of you! Where is your hat?’ Katherine’s face pulsed with wrath as she gripped Jo’s arm and shook her violently. She delivered a resounding slap on Jo’s leg.
Jo’s hand flew guiltily to her bare head. She had forgotten Russell Trevail had swiped off her dainty straw hat, that she had not retrieved his trophy from him. The unsedate passage from Bridge Lane had added more tangles in her long, ringletted hair, the old-fashioned torture her mother insisted she endure every day. She could expect more punishment when they arrived home.
‘I’ve brought Jo back safely to you, Mrs Venner. There was no need to strike her,’ Celia intervened forcefully.
Katherine glared at Celia Sayce. Then, ‘I know who you are! How dare you talk to my child?’
The strength of her mother’s hostility left Jo shocked, but she had no need to be afraid.
‘Mrs Venner, I know why you’re here and why you’ve brought Jo with you,’ Celia continued, completely unruffled. She was the more graceful figure, looming some four inches over Katherine, but it wasn’t her advantageous height which made her the dominator. ‘In the circumstances, I think you and I should form an alliance, don’t you?’
An alliance was formed between the two women that day, and it was always hostile on Katherine’s side. Jo was to spend time with Celia while Katherine enjoyed her picnics. During Jo’s first visit to Cardhu, Celia mentioned she’d ask her mother if she could sleep over at times.
‘Do you think she’ll really say yes?’ Jo said, hoping desperately it would happen.
‘I’ll do my best.’ Celia laughed. ‘I can be quite determined.’
‘That’s just how I’m going to be when I grow up.’
Celia had drawn her into her arms and hugged her affectionately. ‘It’s how us women often have to be, Jo.’
There was no history to Cardhu, but Jo had found love inside the house, and it had been loved in. Jo had never met Sheridan Ustick. When Jo reached womanhood, Celia had told her how desperately she had loved him, how she’d tried not to fall unwisely for a married man, but after it had happened how she could not give him up. There had been no question of him deserting his marriage and children. His wife had not been a hard or unloving woman, but when Sheridan was killed she had set her lawyers against Celia, demanding she leave Cardhu immediately. To help her come to terms with her grief, Celia had been able to prove Sheridan had gifted her the house outright and she had never heard from Mrs Ustick again.
Now Cardhu was to get a new owner.
Chapter Seven
‘Thank you for coming to me last night. If only it wasn’t too late for us to be together. I’m going to the school when I leave here,’ Jo whispered tearfully beside Celia’s grave. And in the same way she had informed Celia of all her movements when her friend was alive, she told her about Katherine’s reaction to the news of her post at the village school, about staying at Nance, and the gipsy-dark man who had brought a little colour to her sad pil
grimage at Cardhu.
She had applied for the teacher’s post at Parmarth following news of the vacancy in one of Celia’s regular letters. Informed of the governing board’s decision the same day as the interview, Jo had celebrated with Celia in a tea room at the top of Market Jew Street, in Penzance. Celia’s response to Jo’s request that she come to live with her had been joyful, as if she was expecting a beloved daughter home.
‘If it’s what you really want, my dear,’ she had said in a typical unselfish statement, ‘then I shall be delighted to have you with me. But are you sure you want to leave Hampshire?’
‘I’m certain it’s the right thing to do. Lately I’ve felt I’m slipping into a life of routine and monotony, and that’s the last thing I want. I need an even greater challenge than teaching young women, who, in the main, will achieve their aims. Perhaps, before I go on to found my own school, I could inspire one or two of the village girls to seek better things.’
‘Careful, Jo.’ Celia had smiled. ‘You’ll be accused of putting unethical notions into their heads.’
‘We’ll see. Parmarth will give me a breathing space and it will be wonderful living at Cardhu and wandering the moors, to be with the person I love the most.’
They had parted at the railway station, Jo to travel back to Hampshire to hand in her resignation, Celia to return home to make the arrangements for her indefinite stay at Cardhu. Then a sudden cold had turned into pneumonia and Celia had died. Snatched away from Jo, as Sheridan Ustick had been snatched away from Celia and Bob Merrick from her mother. Although Jo’s father had also died in the war, Jo’s visits to Cardhu had not been stopped, as she’d feared. Years later she discovered Celia had paid her extravagantly spending mother for the privilege.
As there was no one to erect a memorial to her friend, Jo resolved to have a granite headstone inscribed herself: ‘Celia Mary Sayce Died 17th December 1929 Aged 69 years’, and add, ‘Sadly Missed’.
‘I’ve picked some snowdrops from the clump you always admired in Bridge Lane, my dear,’ she said emotionally. Tenderly, she placed the white posy on the mound of wet earth, next to the only other flowers there, a wreath from herself. ‘I haven’t really wept for you yet.’
Listening to the Quiet Page 5
