‘Because he’s a soldier, that’s why,’ Skye told her. ‘And you should listen to what Justin says, Betsy. I’m sure he’s seen plenty of severely injured patients who find it hard to come to terms with it. Lily and I had similar experiences with our boys in French hospitals in the last war, and it’s true what Justin says. You must see some of that resentment in those who stay with you at Killigrew House, don’t you?’
‘Oh ah. But they’re not my Sebby, are they?’ she said. ‘He’ll be glad to come home where he belongs, and I’ll make sure my other boys give him the red carpet treatment.’
Skye replaced the phone slowly, and immediately rang her cousin Lily.
‘You’ve got to talk to Betsy,’ she said urgently. ‘She’s got Sebby taking a starring role as a hero, which he may well deserve, but she’ll drive him crazy if she doesn’t let him get it all out of his system in his own time. And the other fellows are going to hate his guts before he even gets home.’
‘I’ll do what I can, darling,’ Lily promised. ‘But Seb’s made of pretty strong stuff, and from what I can gather he won’t be home for a long while yet.’
* * *
Right then, Sebastian Tremayne was staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling of the French hospital ward, gritting his teeth as he counted the length of time in seconds between the bouts of screaming from the bed at the end of the ward. He knew the reason for it. The soldier had had both legs amputated that morning, and had come round from the anaesthetic to the horrific discovery.
There had been no time to warn him beforehand. He had been close to death when they brought him in, and was only now learning the extent of his injuries. Seb could hear the starched swish of the nurses’ uniforms as they hurried towards the soldier, pulling the curtains swiftly around the bed while they tried to comfort him.
‘They’re trying to shut him up so the rest of us don’t know what we’re in for, mate,’ the young man in the bed next to Seb wheezed. ‘Have you got a ciggy by any chance?’
‘No,’ Sebby said. ‘I don’t have any use for them. And neither should you if that cough’s anything to go by.’
The youth gave him a beatific smile, hawking and spitting into the tray balanced on his chest in the disgusting way that had continued all night long, and almost turned Sebby’s gut.
‘This cough, mate,’ he wheezed again when he could draw breath, ‘is the only thing telling me I’m still alive, so don’t you go knocking my bloody beautiful cough. Once I croak you won’t be bothered with it no more.’
‘You’re not going to croak,’ Sebby snarled. ‘You talk too bloody much for that.’
‘So they tell me,’ the boy said with a strange sort of gurgling chuckle. And now that Sebby gave a bit more attention to it, he realised the boy’s voice had begun to sound different, as if it was coming from under water. As if his entire lungs were filling up with water, or fluid, or blood…
Sebby hadn’t taken too much notice of him until now. Listening to him all night long since he’d been brought in was bad enough. Sebby was too busy bemoaning his own fate, and the pain in his leg that was excruciating, even though they all kept telling him cheerfully that he’d live, and not to worry, soldier, and there were far worse than him… bloody Job’s comforters, the lot of them, he thought savagely.
The boy next to him was making an odd piercing noise in his throat now, and Sebby looked at him sharply, in time to see the sudden glazing in his eyes and the gush of frothing blood and mucus that filled his chest tray and overflowed on to his bedding, forming a thick and ever-spreading stain.
‘Nurse—’ Sebby heard himself croaking. ‘Orderly – somebody – come quick, for God’s sake—’
Nobody heard him. Nobody was near. They were all taken up with the screams of the boy who had lost his legs and badly needed sedating. And Seb could only fix his eyes in horror as the boy next to him died with a final explosive vomit.
Then his chest collapsed violently, and he seemed to dissolve into the bed. As he did so, the putrid trayful of blood and vomit slid to the floor of the ward with a clatter, the vile substance moving insidiously towards Sebby’s own bed, and sliding beneath it. Near-demented, and in the throes of shameful hysteria now, Sebby watched the nightmare lava flow coming for him, from which he was never going to escape…
He didn’t know how long it was before he felt the sharp stab of a needle in his arm. These bloody orderlies were as brutal with their injections as if they sank their fangs into their victims, he thought. But right then, he didn’t care. Right then, he’d have welcomed a whole bloody armful of drugs if only they would have given it to him.
Anything but having to relive all the sights and sounds and smells – above all the smells – he had to endure day and night in this place out of hell.
* * *
When he came to full consciousness a long while later it was night. He struggled to remember where he was and what had been happening. The lights in the ward were dim now, and all was quiet. There was only the distant sound of gunfire to remind him that he was still somewhere in a safe zone in France and that there was a war going on. The patient in the bed next to him had been removed, and he presumed that the amputee was heavily sedated. His own pain was temporarily under control from the cocktail of drugs they had pumped into him.
As his senses revived, he realised that the ward smelled cleanly of disinfectant, and he became aware that he could feel a cool hand on his wrist. As his eyes focused properly, he saw what looked like a white halo above someone’s head, and the sense of gladness that rushed through him overcame any feeling of panic. He was obviously dead. He was in some transitional no man’s land before he was whisked skywards into some mythical heaven, and he was never going to feel any more pain. Nothing else mattered but that.
‘Are you an angel?’ he muttered, his voice slurring through lips that seemed far too large for his mouth.
He heard a soft laugh. ‘I’ve been called many things, soldier, but never an angel,’ the female voice told him. ‘My name is Colette and I’m to be your helper when you come to stay with us, while the nurses get on with their real jobs.’
Seb’s eyes opened more fully as he realised he was not dead after all, and that this angel with the soft French accent but excellent command of English was no angel after all. She was…
‘Bloody hell’s teeth, you’re a nun,’ he ground out. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Sister—’
‘Don’t be,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sure God won’t object to a few blasphemies now and then. And I told you, my name is Colette. If we’re to spend a lot of time together, I prefer that you use it. You are Sebast something – how do you say? I find it difficult to pronounce, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m Seb Tremayne,’ he managed to say after a moment when his lips wouldn’t seem to work again, wondering if this was a ploy to make him say his name himself. As if she thought he was some kind of blubbering halfwit who had lost his senses as well as… his hand went down to the cradle over his leg.
‘Is it still there?’ he said hoarsely.
‘Don’t worry, Seb, everything is intact.’
She was smiling down at him, and she truly had the face and voice of an angel, he thought. She was beautiful and serene, the way these bloody nuns always were. Nobody had a right to be that treacly, he thought mutinously, especially when their bloody calling put them out of reach of any healthy, red-blooded male who came into contact with them.
Something in her gently teasing words made him want to shock her.
‘Everything? You mean you’ve washed me? Every bit of me? Is that part of your duties – Sister?’
She gave a small sigh. ‘Every bit of you, soldier. And nothing has shocked me, nor will it. So take that mocking look from your face and I’ll give you a sip of water before you go back to sleep.’
Well, at least he could thank God or whoever had been watching over him that she hadn’t said he needn’t make a fuss over such a little thing. His brief attempt to think lecherou
s thoughts subsided slightly as a wrenching pain shot through his leg, and he saw her reach for the jug and pour a small amount of water into a cup. She was trim in her grey habit, though he could only make a guess at what was underneath it, and he was hardly in a fit state or mood to take much interest, but the day he couldn’t appreciate a pretty girl was when he’d know he was really dead, thought Seb, and he wasn’t dead yet.
He knew she was young, and she was the best thing to happen to him since he was picked up and brought here, well away from the front line. He took the cup from her hand and took a deep draught of cold water, wondering if he dare ask for more painkillers yet.
‘Slowly,’ she urged him, far too late.
The shock of drinking too fast on top of the sedative cocktail made him throw up at once, and he spewed all over her clean grey serge. She folded it into her as if it was of no consequence, took the cup from his shaking fingers and said she’d be back in a few moments when she had cleaned herself.
He watched her go, and felt a fierce and unreasonable rage that she could take things so calmly. He had just spewed all over her, for God’s sake, and she was no more upset than if he had handed her a rose. If that was what nunning did to a perfectly healthy young woman, he thought aggressively, then they could stuff it.
His brief interest in her as the only decent-looking female he had seen in months was fading fast, and he turned his face into the harsh hospital pillow and returned to his anger and self-pity.
* * *
Daphne Hollis was anxious to meet the war hero in the family. She and Butch had discussed it at length.
‘I ain’t never met one before,’ she said. ‘Do you fink he’ll have a wooden leg by the time he comes home?’
‘Nah,’ Butch said. ‘They said he’ll limp, that’s all.’
‘I bet he will have a wooden leg,’ Daphne went on positively. ‘I wonder if he takes it off at night and hangs it on the bedpost like me uncle does,’ she added with a giggle.
‘You’re so stupid, Daphne,’ Butch said rudely. ‘Anyway, he’s not coming home for ages yet, so you’ll just have ter wait and see, won’cha?’
She glared at him. Daphne was sorely put out by the fact that her mother hadn’t sent her much for Christmas, promising to come and see her in the new year if she could. And now it was nearly February, and she still hadn’t had a visit, while Butch’s father had turned up out of the blue and gone away just as quickly, out of his element and needing London’s frenzied pace of life as much as Butch hated it.
All the talk everywhere now was of the Yanks who were being sent over here in droves, and of the increase in the rationing system. Practically nothing was going to be available, no sweets or biscuits or tinned fruit – they might as well starve to death, Daphne had announced dramatically, to Skye’s amusement.
For a child of such tender years, Daphne knew what was what in the world, Skye told Nick. Butch went on blissfully in his own sweet, unacademic way, but now that he was gone thirteen and the war showed no signs of abating, they realised they might need to find some occupation for him.
The children had come a long way since their first traumatic arrivals in the community, and Skye had got far too fond of them, she sometimes thought uneasily. They were only on loan, as Daphne herself had said loftily when the little Lunn children had been whisked back to London by their mother and her gentleman friend, and never heard of again… and Skye didn’t want to look any deeper into it than that. But then, Mrs Lunn wasn’t the kind to keep in contact, and she prayed that they had all fared better than Fanny had.
Skye still thought about Fanny a great deal, especially now that they had a casualty in their own family. She couldn’t really understand why Sebby had been kept in France all this time, but Betsy had been told that his shell-shock had seriously affected his mind. When his physical wounds had healed, they had taken him to a monastery where the nuns were caring for him, and someone called Sister Colette was his chief nurse.
‘I bet he’ll come back all churchified,’ Daphne observed, clearly disappointed at hearing that her hero might not be as dashing as she expected. ‘Nuns make yer that way, don’t they, Mrs Pen? They sing all day and pray all night, and live on bread and water. Bleedin’ daft, I call it.’
‘Daphne, I’ve told you before about your language,’ Skye said, trying hard to keep a straight face. ‘And with all this rationing we might all be living on bread and water soon.’
‘Mrs Pen, when are we going to the pottery like you promised?’ Butch asked, as gloom descended on them.
‘Today,’ she said, turning to him with relief. ‘We’ll go today, and it will cheer us all up to have something to do.’
‘Oh, do I have to go?’ wailed Daphne. ‘Cook was going to show me how to make oatcakes. I don’t want ter see how ter make those bloomin’ old pots.’
‘Then you can stay behind with Cook,’ Skye said, ‘and Butch and I will cycle up to White Rivers. We can’t spare the petrol to take the car for a joyride.’
‘He won’t mind that, Mrs Pen,’ Daphne said slyly. ‘He’ll do anyfing as long as it’s wiv you!’
Skye saw the painful blush creep up the boy’s freckled cheeks, and to diffuse his embarrassment, she said airily that as she was acting as his mother, it was just as well, and that Daphne could learn a lesson or two from him.
* * *
They reached White Rivers after a considerable effort. The weather was usually mild in the far west of Cornwall, but even so, the wind had taken their breath away long before they reached the end of their ride, and they had been obliged to get off their bicycles and push them uphill for the last bit.
‘There you are, Butch,’ Skye said, leaning on her handlebars and throwing one arm out expressively. ‘How does it feel to be on top of the world?’
He looked around him as she spoke, following her gaze over the sky-tips and the scoured countryside, where the remaining pits of Killigrew Clay were now part of Bokilly Holdings. He gazed down at the clay pool, as creamy smooth as palest green milk, and listened to the whisper of gorse and bracken over the moorside. And he knew he was home. Truly home, in a place that he never wanted to leave. And because he didn’t have the words to say all that his heart felt, he said the only thing that came into his head.
‘It feels weird – like I should stay here for ever, Mrs Pen,’ he blurted out. ‘Like I belong. And now you’ll fink I’m as daft as Daphne.’
‘No, I don’t, Butch,’ she said softly, more touched than she could say. ‘Because I felt exactly the same way the very first time I saw this place. But we can’t stand here all day like two ninnies. Let’s go inside and see how to throw a pot.’
They freewheeled the last hundred yards to the dip in the ground where the pottery was built, and Skye felt a burst of pride at knowing that starting this business had been her idea. It had been her choice of name too, despite her cousin Theo’s derision when she had first mooted it.
She had no regrets about selling out to Adam Pengelly and Seb in later years, though, since it kept the business so very much in the family. It had been a delicious piece of continuity that very much appealed to her romantic heart.
For the first time, she wondered how Sebby was going to cope with being a partner in a business when he came home again. He was once so skilled at his wheel, but who knew how those hands might tremble now? Or how his injured leg might affect his abilities? However, those were problems for later, and she pushed them out of her mind as she saw her brother-in-law coming outside to greet her.
‘Skye, by all that’s holy. I haven’t seen you in ages. What are you doing here? Not bringing bad news, I hope?’ he said anxiously.
She shook her head at once. It was a measure of the way they all felt these days, that any unexpected visit might herald bad news.
‘Not at all. Butch and I felt like some fresh air, and he’d like to watch you throwing a pot or two if you’ve got the time to show him, Adam.’
‘Plenty,’ he said, his voice gi
ving away more than he intended. But they all knew that a luxury product like White Rivers pottery was of far less importance in wartime than providing the medical manufacturers with the pure white clay that the clayworks could supply. He turned to Butch.
‘So you’re thinking of taking up potting, are you, boy?’
‘I dunno about that,’ Butch mumbled. ‘I just wanted to see how it’s done.’
‘And then you’d like to try it,’ Adam finished for him.
* * *
‘It was like watching fate reveal itself,’ Skye told Nick that evening when they had finished their evening meal. ‘Butch is a natural. He reminded me of the way Seb took to it – the way Tremaynes have always regarded the clay, I suspect, loving it and moulding it as if it was a living thing that required all the care in the world.’
‘Good God, darling, you’re getting quite poetic over that sloppy stuff,’ Nick said, laughing at her eloquence.
She laughed back. ‘So I am. And where would we all be without that sloppy stuff, as you call it? If my parents hadn’t gone to America and raised a family and been unable to resist passing on the old tales of Killigrew Clay, I’d never have been so fascinated that I had to come over here myself to see what it was all about. And we would never have met. Why shouldn’t I be poetic about that sloppy stuff?’
He caught her in his arms, and at the fierceness of his embrace, she knew why she had fallen in love with him. And as he looked down into her luminous, beautiful blue Tremayne eyes, Nick knew why he’d been possessed by her beauty, even when he’d thought she was no more than an enchanting portrait painted by an old uncle incestuously in love with his sister. But the reality of the living, breathing woman had been so much more electrifying than a face on a painted canvas.
A Brighter Tomorrow Page 11
