“Even when you’re not beside me, I can still feel your presence, and I’m writing this letter slightly under the influence of too much English beer, otherwise I wouldn’t be so free with my words. I shall post it without reading it again, or else I’m quite sure I’ll never dare to tell you how much I love you and ache to see you again.”
“Maybe someday when all this is over, I’ll show you how vast and awe-inspiring the Canadian prairies are – but nothing could ever be as beautiful as you are to me.”
Wenna pressed the letter to her mouth, her eyes stinging with tears. He was so sweet, so utterly and adorably open and sweet, and oh yes, she knew she was falling in love with him. She no longer fought against it. Every love song she sang, she sang for him. Every prayer she offered up was that he would come through this war safely. Every longing in her heart was that someday, someday…
She heard the door of the barrack room open and bang shut, and then came Rita’s alarmed voice.
‘Good God, Pengo, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Not bad news, is it?’
‘No,’ she said huskily. ‘Not bad news at all.’
* * *
By the beginning of April, everyone knew that something big was in the wind. The invasion had to happen soon. By now thousands more American and Canadian troops had poured into Britain as General Eisenhower directed his final preparations for the long-awaited invasion and subsequent liberation of Europe from the Nazi stranglehold.
Every coastal area in Britain was banned to visitors as the dummy manoeuvres were conducted on and off shore, fooling the enemy as to where and when the actual assault would originate. Everything was being rehearsed, from airborne landings by parachute, to amphibious operations for landing guns and tanks and personnel. By the end of the month all foreign travel was banned, except for troop movements.
Oliver Pengelly was impatient for it all to begin, and, with the optimism of youth, he was euphoric with the feeling that he could conquer the world single-handed.
‘Do you have a death wish or something, brainless?’ one of his fellow erks commented. ‘I’m not half so keen to fly over enemy territory as you seem to be. You should have been born a Yank with all that crazy enthusiasm.’
‘Thanks, Tom,’ Olly said with a laugh. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. My mother’s American, and she thanks you too.’
The other grimaced. ‘Doesn’t anything ever get you down, you bugger?’ he said with wry good humour.
‘Why should it? I’m doing the job I was meant to do, and once we’ve gone in to support the invasion forces, we’ll be laughing. It’ll all be over by Christmas.’
‘And where have I heard that before?’
‘Well, it can’t go on for ever, can it?’ Olly said reasonably. ‘Though I intend to stick with this job permanently. Maybe I’ll go into commercial flying or get some backing to start my own flying service—’
‘Listen to the monied bastard!’ Tom and his other cronies started jeering. ‘None of that’s for me, mate. The minute this is over, I’m back to my desk in the bank.’
‘Good. I’ll know where to come for a loan then, won’t I?’ Olly said crisply.
He hadn’t really meant any of it seriously. He hadn’t even thought about after the war. All he knew was that he wanted to keep on flying, to be as near to reaching the stars as it was possible for a man to be. And that little bit of poetic licence was something he wasn’t going to share with these bastards, he thought cheerfully.
But it all had to end sometime, and when it did, there would be thousands like him, looking for something to do. Looking for something to replace the mixture of excitement and fear that was so intense that it was almost sexual. Something to replace the rush of adrenalin that came when their silver machine soared into the sky, with no more attachment to the earth they left behind; as free as birds and almost blinded by the welcoming sun.
Olly wasn’t religious in the slightest, but he had to admit that when he was flying, he felt nearer to God – if there was a God – than at any other time in his life.
‘Who’s coming down to the NAAFI?’ he said, before his thoughts began to get too serious. ‘I’ll stand anyone who beats me there to a pint, and the rest is on you buggers.’
He would miss the camaraderie too, he admitted to himself, as Tom slung his arm loosely around his shoulders and gave him a friendly punch in the solar plexus to wind him and slow him down before they all raced towards the canteen.
* * *
Skye missed Daphne Hollis more than she had expected to. She had been gone a long while now, but her presence had been so forceful that even now, Skye sometimes imagined she could hear her scathing remarks as she burst in from school, especially during her last few days.
‘Bleedin’ stupid lessons. Who cares about stupid old history, anyway?’
‘You have to do your lessons, Daphne. It’s important to know about what happened in the past—’
‘Why is it? It don’t matter to me. I’m prob’ly going to end up famous, anyway, like Wenna. I might even be a picture star, and I won’t need to know about stupid old history when I’m making pots of dough, so there!’
Skye smiled, remembering, and wondered if Daphne’s prophetically wild remarks had been due to the mystic influence of Cornwall. Whether they had or not, she was apparently going to live in America one day, and her young head would soon be filled with dreams of storming Hollywood.
Mentally, Skye wished her well, and admitted that if anyone could manipulate dreams to make them come true, it would probably be Daphne Hollis.
Her own dreams for the re-invented Killigrew Clay were going nowhere. Nor could they, Nick told her reasonably as they got ready for bed that evening. Not yet, anyway.
There was no sense in trying to build a flourishing new empire out of a dying industry, since there would be no tourists, curious to see how an old clayworks operated, for the foreseeable future. She knew she should be content that the pottery was still in business, with the clayworks still ticking over. It just didn’t suit her productive and impatient mind to have to wait until Hitler was crushed before she could begin on her new venture, which was what it amounted to.
‘You can still draw up some outline plans and sketches for the preliminary ideas, darling,’ Nick told her. ‘And the research for your booklets should give you a better idea of how the open-air museum should take shape.’
‘Is that how you see it? An open-air museum?’ she said, pausing in her undressing.
‘Well, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those words, though. I like the sound of it, Nick. And you’re right. There are things I can do, even if the reality of it all seems so very far away.’
He put his arms around her. ‘My poor love. You always did want everything to happen at once, didn’t you?’
Skye smiled ruefully. ‘You think that at my age I should have learned more temperance, I suppose.’
His arms tightened around her. ‘I do not. I don’t want to change a single thing about you. Why do you think I fell in love with you in the first place if it wasn’t for your quicksilver mind?’
She spoke teasingly. ‘Oh, was that the reason? I thought it was more physical than mental.’
He laughed. ‘Well, maybe so, at first. What red-blooded man could resist such a beautiful woman? It was only later than I discovered that you had brains as well as beauty.’
‘I’m not sure whether or not that’s a chauvinistic remark, honey,’ Skye said, ready to bridle.
‘No, it’s not. It’s simply the truth. The man who gets a wife who combines brains and beauty is twice blessed,’ he said, more solemnly. ‘I fear Adam has yet to discover the lack of brains in his new lady when they tie the knot.’
‘Oh, of course he won’t,’ Skye said, defending her at once. ‘Felicity is quiet and charming, as well as being an excellent homemaker and cook, so I’m sure they have everything they both want. No two marriages are ever the same, Nick,
and in your profession you should know that only too well, so don’t be so patronising!’
He laughed again at her indignant voice. ‘I always love the way your eyes sparkle like sapphires when you become defensive about something. And as I didn’t marry you simply because you were an excellent homemaker and cook, I’ve got my own ideas on what makes a good marriage.’
‘Oh, really?’ Skye said, perfectly aware that he was hardening against her, and teasing him a moment longer. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what they are then.’
‘I’d far rather show you,’ Nick said meaningly.
As his hands went to her shoulders and slid the remaining article of clothing from them, she felt the familiar surge of desire at his touch, and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that this marriage was still so good, and so passionate, after all these years.
* * *
David Kingsley telephoned her in the middle of May.
‘Betsy’s in a hell of a state,’ he said. ‘Lily’s gone over there now, but I thought you’d want to know.’
‘What’s happened?’ she said at once. Betsy Tremayne was the calmest of women and almost never got into a state, so it must be something pretty bad, she thought fearfully.
‘Justin’s caught a packet,’ David said baldly. ‘He was patching up some of the wounded when he got caught up in the firing line somewhere in Italy. Betsy doesn’t have the full details yet, except that he’s already been sent home to a military hospital, but she’s in a real panic. After all the comfort she’s given to the boys recuperating at Killigrew House, it’s a pretty rum do that her own two sons should have caught it, isn’t it?’
He went on talking in his quickfire way, but Skye couldn’t concentrate. All she heard was the word Italy, a place she hoped and prayed Wenna was well away from now. And all she could think was that both Betsy’s two sons had been wounded, while her own was blessedly still safe – as far as she knew. As far as any of them knew…
‘Are you still there, Skye? I thought you’d want to get over to Betsy’s as well.’
‘Of course I do,’ she said, fighting down the brief panic that had taken all her breath away for a moment. ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
She put down the phone with clammy hands. Just as you got a little bit complacent, thinking things were going the Allies’ way at last… just as you thought your own family was somehow charmed and invincible, something happened to remind you that everybody was vulnerable…
‘I’m going up to the pottery now, Mrs Pen,’ she heard Butch Butcher’s voice say. ‘Are there any messages?’
She turned with a start. Butch had become so much a part of the family, so much her faithful shadow, that she sometimes forgot he was there. But she wondered now if Seb had gone up to White Rivers before Betsy got the telegram, and if he was unaware of what had happened to his brother.
‘No messages, Butch. I have to telephone Sebby myself. You run along now,’ she said, her voice thick.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.
She nodded, unable to answer sensibly. Just wanting to be left alone, and to gather her thoughts for a moment before she picked up the phone again and asked the operator for the number of the White Rivers Pottery.
‘He’s not here,’ Adam answered. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to everybody today, but we don’t have much business anyway—’
‘Adam, Justin’s been wounded. I don’t know how bad it is, but if Sebby’s still on his way to work it could be that he doesn’t know yet. Break it to him gently when he gets there. I’m going to see Betsy, and I’ll call you again later.’
She couldn’t say any more. She needed to get out of the house and gulp some fresh air. Whatever happened to one member of the family affected all of them, and even though Justin had been the most self-sufficient of all the cousins, she knew that sometimes the most independent were the ones who fell the hardest. Like Betsy herself…
She was proved right the minute she entered Killigrew House and was enveloped in Betsy’s clinging embrace. Lily shook her head behind Betsy’s back, and Skye wondered fearfully just what she was about to be told.
‘Right after the telegram came I got a letter from some medical friend o’ Justin’s, Skye,’ Betsy gabbled, ‘and ’tis worse than I feared. How my poor boy will cope, I don’t know. ’Tis a blessing his father’s not alive to see this sad day—’
‘Come and sit down, Betsy, and tell me exactly what’s happened,’ Skye said carefully. ‘Show me this letter.’
Her heart lurched painfully as soon as she scanned the words, couched in a formal, unsentimental manner of which Justin would have approved, being a medical man himself, but which completely demoralised Betsy.
Dear God, Skye thought in horror, as she read the clinical words. Justin had not only been blinded, but it seemed as though half his face had been blown away… For a moment, she felt her innards turn to water at the thought, and then guiltily willed the ghastly images away.
‘He says Justin don’t even want to come home to us,’ Betsy moaned, her face scarlet, and her eyes flooding with tears. ‘He says Justin has to deal with his blindness in his own way and he don’t want nobody’s pity, nor nobody seeing ’im until they’ve rebuilt his face. His lovely face, Skye,’ she almost screeched. ‘Just as if we’d be giving ’im pity, anyway. ’Tis love he wants, love and comfort, and that’s what he’d get from his own fam’ly!’
Skye met Lily’s glance, and knew they were both thinking the same thing. No matter what she said, they knew that if Justin came home, he would be simply smothered with all the love and pity that Betsy could give him. He’d be as helpless as a puppet, completely dependent on her, and she would slowly love him to death. He would be killed by devotion – if he didn’t take his grandfather Walter’s way out and kill himself. But how could you say such a thing to a grieving mother who wanted him back in the womb?
Skye was still hugging Betsy close and wondering when the keening would end when Sebby came bursting into the room.
‘Adam told me when I got to the pottery, and I came back at once. How bad is it?’ he said abruptly.
Lily took the letter from the table and handed it to him.
‘It seems it all happened a few weeks ago, but Justin refused to let any of us know until he was back in England, had got the full medical opinion and had decided his own future,’ she told him. ‘This is from a close friend and colleague.’
Sebby said nothing for a few minutes, and then he nodded.
‘I’ll go to London and see him,’ he said.
‘Oh, we could do that, couldn’t we?’ Betsy said at once, sudden hope in her voice. ‘We could take him things—’
‘No, Mother, I’d said I’d go and see him. The last thing he wants right now is for folk to descend on him when he’s in a vulnerable state. He’s not a peep show.’
‘I’m not folk. I’m his mother.’
He put his arm around her bulky figure. He rarely made a great show of family affection, but no one could miss his awkward concern for her.
‘Ma, listen to me,’ he said gently, reverting to his old childhood name for her. ‘I know something of what Justin’s going through now, because I’ve been through it too. I know that feeling of not wanting to see anybody, or having anybody see me. My wounds have healed and I’ve little more to show for it than a limp. Justin’s wounds will take far longer, and you have to accept that he’s never going to see again.’
‘You’re cruel to say so,’ Betsy cried out.
‘I’m being honest, Ma. Justin’s blind, and his senses will be heightened because of it. He won’t be able to see, but he’ll sense the pity that people feel for him, and he won’t be able to bear it. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time. And that’s why we have to stay away until he’s ready.’
‘Except for you,’ she said accusingly.
‘I’m his brother,’ Seb said simply. ‘He’ll know I understand.’
Seeing the indecision on Betsy’s florid f
ace, Skye spoke swiftly. ‘Seb’s right, Betsy. No matter how much we want to help, we have to let the young ones fight their own battles. You must know that from the boys you’ve had living here. Some want to talk it all out, and others want to shut themselves away until they’re ready to face the world again.’
After what seemed an age, Betsy nodded.
‘But my Justin’s never going to face the world again, is he?’ She swallowed deeply, then spoke more resolutely. ‘You go to him with my blessing then, Sebby, and tell him when he’s ready to come home, we’ll be here, just like always.’
* * *
‘It was a very traumatic afternoon,’ Skye reported to the family over supper that evening. ‘I felt desperately sorry for Betsy. She’s done so much for the boys in her care, yet when it came to her own, she felt completely rejected.’
‘I can imagine,’ Nick said. ‘It’s a bit like God throwing back all your good works in your face.’
‘Oh Nick, I wouldn’t say that exactly!’
‘You might if it was Olly,’ he said reasonably.
‘Is Justin going to be blind for ever, Mrs Pen?’ Butch said nervously. Hoping they wouldn’t notice, he had experimented on the thought by closing his eyes, feeling across the table for the salt cellar, and knocking it flying.
‘You little idiot,’ Celia snapped, home for the weekend and jittery with nerves at this latest happening in their family. ‘Of course he’s going to be blind for ever. It’s not like a cough or a cold that you get over next week. What do you suppose he’ll do, Mom? He’s too young to sit around in a Twilight Home twiddling his thumbs. He’d go mad in a week.’
‘I don’t know,’ Skye said in distress. ‘I simply don’t know. We’ll find out more when Seb’s been to London and spoken with him and his doctors.’
‘At least he seems to have a good friend in this fellow who wrote to Betsy,’ Nick said. ‘A medical man, is he?’
A Brighter Tomorrow Page 22
