The Cornish Escape: The perfect summer romance full of sunshine and secrets

by Lily Graham

  ‘I love you too,’ I said, blushing like mad.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Calais, 1917

  Dearest Fen,

  I dreamt of our garden last night. How we said we’d plant only the most unusual blooms, not the usual hothouse flowers.

  They were beautiful and strange. Especially the blue thistles and larkspurs; I remember them most of all. They seemed almost to glow in the moonlight. Because, of course, it was night-time in my dream. Perhaps, because when we were still children, that’s when we made that pact.

  I’ve been thinking that, when the war’s over, that’s where I’d like us to meet. Promise me that’s where we’ll meet? We’ll start with the garden. That’s where you’ll find me.

  Yours always,

  T

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Present day

  I found the next letter in the garden, propped up amongst the hollyhocks.

  And then I found one against the newly installed window frame in the kitchen.

  A new letter found me every day; each time I visited the cottage.

  I didn’t know why he chose to do it this way, as if it was all some kind of game. I should have minded, but I didn’t. I went along, finding each one, like I was taking part in some mad Easter egg hunt, each prize a small gem into the past.

  I didn’t give up without a fight though; I laid traps of my own. Tried to hare him out.

  I came at midnight and at dawn. When the weather permitted I camped outside, and when it didn’t, I took my sleeping bag into the potting shed. But each time he outwitted me.

  Once, on a particularly grim Tuesday, I rolled over in my tent and groaned. It wasn’t the fact that I now had a cold and a headache and was in desperate need of a bumper pack of pills, but there right on top of me was a new letter.

  Adam had a rather more practical solution.

  ‘I think it’s time you called the police,’ he told me, when I ventured back to the marina in search of an ear I could bend and some strong coffee. ‘Also, I can’t believe you never told me about him before.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s because he’s harmless,’ I said. ‘If he’d wanted to hurt me or anything like that it would have happened by now. I mean, I’ve been there for months.’

  ‘Well, that makes me feel so much better,’ he said.

  I laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to call the cops on his ass,’ he said, as I choked on my coffee and giggled, ‘then how about a partner for your next stakeout? I was a Boy Scout, so I know a thing or two about camouflage.’

  ‘You weren’t!’

  ‘Was too! I have a Swiss army knife and everything.’

  I laughed. ‘So you could, what, whittle us something while we wait?’

  ‘Er, no… My whittling skills are pretty bad. They kicked me out because of that.’

  ‘They kicked you out?’

  ‘Scout’s honour.’

  I laughed.

  Later that evening, we set up camp in the house. ‘I don’t understand why you would sleep in the shed instead of the house?’

  I shrugged. ‘I was hoping I’d catch him. You know, where he normally ventures.’

  ‘Which is everywhere. Otherwise you wouldn’t have found that letter in the stove.’

  ‘It was on the windowsill, but yes, good point.’

  The advantage of having a Boy Scout for company was that he came prepared. There was a camping stove, and later, fresh coffee, baked beans and noodles.

  ‘Were the beans a good idea? I mean, really? Are we ready to take our relationship to the next level?’ I jibed.

  He laughed. ‘Er, there’s doors here, you know.’

  I suppressed a giggle. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, noting my pile of used tissues. ‘If I still think you’re cute surrounded by these…’

  ‘What!’ I said, blowing my nose again. ‘You think I’m cute with this?’

  ‘Well…’ He waggled his hand. I punched his shoulder. ‘Come here,’ he said, and I curled up into him in our sleeping bag.

  Even with Adam and I taking turns to patrol the grounds, there was no sign of the old man. In the morning there was no letter either, not in the house, anyway.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t like me,’ said Adam. I was glad that his first thought wasn’t that I was going mad. ‘Though are you sure you’re not just coming across them instead of him putting them places for you to find?’

  ‘Of course he’s putting them places for me to find – the whole house has been ripped apart. I didn’t even have a windowsill for him to put it on until the other day. And when I woke up yesterday, there was a letter on top of me!’

  ‘You sure it’s not the builders. Maybe they’re leaving them out as they find them?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not them. They’ve been down in Truro for the past few days, working on another job.’

  When we got to the car, Adam stopped in his tracks. There, on the dashboard, was a letter. I made to open the door but it was locked.

  ‘Now that is weird,’ said Adam

  ‘You see!’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Calais, 1915

  Tilly

  I had been in Calais for six months when I got the news that my parents had left Idyllwild. During a time when I felt that nothing could shock me further, my mother’s letter still managed to do so.

  ‘I regret to inform you that it is your father’s decision to leave Idyllwild until the war is over. We are leaving for Switzerland this week. You may hear some things; I am afraid there is some unfortunate business with your father’s war record, which will no doubt be cleared up soon. In the meantime, it was thought prudent to leave. Rest assured that it is all a grave misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the wedding between Rose and Charles has been postponed until matters are sorted out as well.

  I would find out later that the true cause of their departure came as a result of Mrs Waters, who had been true to her threat to make Father pay for what he’d done. Though I believe she must later have regretted the missile she fired, as it helped to cause the heart attack that killed her husband and altered forever the love between her and her son, and led to her leaving her home not long afterwards.

  After she found out that Father had signed a letter that enabled Fen to join the war, she sent her own to the War Office, supplying an account of Father’s conduct in the Boer War.

  Rose would never marry Charles. To Charles’s credit, this was not as a result of the conflict between our fathers, but because he died at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.

  My parents would never see Idyllwild again.

  Fen went home for his father’s funeral. He tried to get his mother to reverse what she’d done but there was no going back. Not when she’d sent proof.

  Fen said that when she found out that Father had built them the house, and that he’d put it in their names, it was the only time he’d seen her cry.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Present day

  The front gate no longer hung off its hinges, though I hadn’t had the heart to clear it of ivy. It would always be the secret cottage to me.

  In the dusky light, the stone walls were the perfect shade of old parchment. Dust-pink roses trailed over the sign, which read ‘Seafall Cottage’.

  So much had changed since the first time I’d seen it. Not least the fact that there was now a door, painted the colour of sea glass.

  I stood in the terraced garden, where I’d first found myself many months before, and simply stared. There were still seagulls on the roof, but the garden had been cleared of the debris. Gone were the old, rusted-out car and the mountain of beer bottles and pizza boxes.

  I stepped inside, through the blue and white kitchen with its brand-new duck-egg Aga and French grey counters, through to the living room, where fresh paint and plaster had replaced the cracks and vines that had once held the walls in their embrace.

  Now there were two n
ew white sofas and a soft grey coffee table made of driftwood. The understated decor allowed the room’s best feature – the large, round window with its petal-shaped panes and its view of the blue-green ocean crashing amidst the rocks – to stand out. It still remained a sea room.

  The turreted staircase with its pattern of sea-glass spirals had been restored. And, according to the builders, the upstairs would be finished in a week.

  I couldn’t believe that I was finally about to call it home. Though I knew I’d miss my little narrowboat.

  Angie had taken the news the hardest.

  ‘You can’t move,’ she’d said, when I told her that the cottage was almost ready.

  ‘I’m only ten minutes away. It’s not like I’m moving to London.’

  ‘But what about our movie nights?’

  ‘We’ll still do them!’ I’d told her, squeezing her hand to reassure her.

  Adam came in now, with some of the boxes for the kitchen, and found me staring out the round window.

  ‘That will never get old,’ he said.

  I turned around and gave him a hug. ‘Or this,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Have you seen him?’ he asked, referring to the old man.

  ‘Not for a while,’ I admitted.

  ‘He’s probably gotten the hint, finally, what with all the furniture being moved in. He’s probably moved on.’

  I looked at him and frowned. ‘Maybe.’

  I couldn’t explain why it made me feel sad, but it did.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Rouen, 1916

  Tilly

  I’d been transferred to a hospital in Rouen, and on the second of the month, long before dawn, we received our first convoy of wounded soldiers from the Battle of the Somme. Four more convoys would appear over the next forty-eight hours, each carrying over a hundred soldiers.

  I forgot what a full night of sleep was – we all did. We kept going until we thought we’d fall over, but there was no rest, not for the next two weeks.

  I told myself that personal letters had ceased because of the battle. It made sense, didn’t it? Though I couldn’t stop myself from going around each ward looking at the faces of the men in search of Fen, my heart full of fear. His last letter said he hadn’t been stationed far from here. Each wound that I cleansed, each arm that I touched, each voice I heard could have belonged to him.

  I was restocking supplies when I heard someone say, ‘Hello, Goose.’

  I dropped the tray I was holding, the surgical equipment that I’d just cleaned falling to the ground in a deafening clatter, but I didn’t care.

  ‘Fen!’

  His arm was in a bandage and his face was covered in bruises. ‘Someone said you were here,’ he told me.

  I rushed over and hugged him tight. His eyes closed. I looked up and saw him wince.

  I jumped back. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Some ribs have cracked.’

  My eyes widened. ‘Have you been checked by a doctor? Let me fetch someone.’

  ‘I’m fine, don’t worry. Just let me enjoy this for a while. Come here.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, helping him to a chair and sitting down next to him.

  ‘Am I really here, seeing your face? I can’t believe it,’ he breathed.

  I shook my head, tears clouding my eyes. ‘Me neither.’

  He picked up my hand and held it. ‘I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to do this again,’ he admitted. ‘It’s been…’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘It’s been hell, there’s just no other word for it.’

  I swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry, Fen.’

  He shook his head; his eyes were full of pain. ‘You know, I understand now what happened to my father.’

  I nodded. ‘Me too. I’ve seen a few people who have what he did. It’s just too much to witness. I sometimes wonder how anyone can go back to normal life after this.’

  ‘With this,’ he said, squeezing my hand.

  I closed my eyes. ‘Yes. I was so sorry that you had to bury him alone.’

  ‘I knew you couldn’t get away, and anyway, I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be there after everything.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, Fen. Wouldn’t that be the worst thing imaginable? That when we finally get to be together, we let our families come between us? Anyway, I don’t think your father would have wanted that.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ he agreed.

  He took something out of his pocket, wrapped up in a blue handkerchief. He looked at me and smiled. ‘I wanted to wait until the war was over before I gave this to you, but then I thought if I saw you, if we were brought together somehow, then maybe it would need to be this way, instead.’

  I frowned, and opened the handkerchief. Inside was a silver ring with a round stone of aquamarine.

  I bit my lip. ‘You remembered?’

  He winked. ‘I never forgot.’

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Present day

  ‘How’s the fishing?’ I asked Stan over the phone the next day.

  ‘Excellent, if you like pike.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What’s up, my young padawan?’

  I laughed. ‘I’m looking for information about the War Office during the First World War. Do we know anyone at the Ministry of Defence?’

  ‘Let me go get my old address book,’ said Stan. ‘Is it more official stuff you’re after?’

  I pictured him scratching around in his desk.

  I told him about what I’d found out concerning the diary, particularly the bit about John Asprey deserting during the Boer War.

  He whistled. ‘You don’t hear of that every day. Apparently in the First World War it was execution by firing squad. Bastards! Most of them were kids, scared out of their minds and pressured into volunteering.’

  ‘I know. Not that it excuses it – fear is fear – but John Asprey was much older when he was at war.’

  ‘Yeah, true, but it was a nasty one. Some of the things they were made to do… I’m not sure I could.’

  I thought about my history lessons at school, about concentration camps, the unfair treatment of women and children in the Boer War. Perhaps it just ate him alive. ‘I can imagine,’ I said. ‘How would we confirm something like that?’

  ‘I think your best bet would be to call them up. Use my contact – his name’s Derrick Truss, he’ll probably talk to you, do some digging on your behalf, get the background story. Let me call him first.’

  When I got the go-ahead, Truss answered straight away. He said he’d look into it and get back to me. Though he did have some basic information he could share over the phone.

  ‘It seems highly unlikely,’ he said, ‘that he would have been executed – not if he wasn’t doing active duty when they found out. Generally in those circumstances there was a prison sentence of some kind.’

  ‘But what if they wanted to set an example?’

  ‘Well, I mean, who knows? I don’t think it would have been the standard procedure is all I can say.’

  All I knew was that the fear of what might happen had driven the Aspreys out of their home, never to return.

  A few days later, Truss emailed through his findings. I found that, after a lengthy investigation that spanned most of the war, resulting in major financial losses, John Asprey had been cleared of all charges. When I saw the signature at the bottom I had to wonder though: it was signed by none other than the Earl of Monthesay, Lord Arnold Hammond, Charles’s father.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Calais 1917

  Tilly

  Fen’s letters stopped coming.

  A week turned into three, and then a month. I was beside myself with worry and fear. I grew thin and haggard. It felt like time stretched forever in an agony of waiting. At night I twisted the ring he’d given me, over and over, and took no comfort in thinking and dreaming of how we’d make a home out of that little cottage by the sea.

  I wrote letters to everyone I knew.

 
Some of the soldiers that I’d helped gave me the names of the right people to ask.

  In October, I finally got a response: Fen was missing, presumed dead.

  It was Celine who told me to prepare for the worst when she found me howling in the supply cupboard, unable to stand. I think, in her own way, she was trying to be kind.

  ‘It won’t be some fairy tale,’ she told me. ‘You must see that now. I have seen many people think this way. He is gone.’

  ‘He’s gone?’ I started to shake, to sob.

  ‘Yes.’

  She seemed sure. But even as I raged, a part of me wouldn’t believe, would never believe.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Present day

  I threw the diary against the wall and descended into a flood of tears.

  How could it end that way?

  A mess of tears and snot, I searched in vain for an extra page, a hidden compartment. Something, anything, besides this.

  What had happened to him? I felt cheated. But I knew I had no right. This wasn’t some made-up story, this was Tilly’s life, and I knew, perhaps as well as anyone, that real life hardly ever unfolds the way we’d like it to, not like in a story. Yet, it had felt at times like a novel, larger than life. It couldn’t end this way could it? Couldn’t she have said something else? Even if the worst had happened to Fen, what happened to her?

  I picked the diary back up and paged through it again. I re-read each and every letter, hoping I’d missed one. But I found nothing except this cold, impenetrable silence.