The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  After Carn Cottage we went on, deep into the heart of the little town, to find the Art Gallery and to see The Shell Seekers. The Gallery is not large, but a particularly attractive one, with whitewashed walls and a huge northern skylight. They have hung The Shell Seekers in quite the most important position and it looks utterly at home, bathed in the cold brilliant light of Porthkerris, where it was originally conceived. The Art Gallery lady was elderly, and I don’t think she remembered Penelope, but she certainly knew who she was and made a great fuss of her. Apart from this, there don’t seem to be a great many people still alive whom she knew and remembers from the old days. Except Doris, of course. She is going to see Doris tomorrow afternoon, and have tea with her. She is much looking forward to this, and seems excited at the prospect. And on Saturday, we are going out on the Lands End road, and taking a picnic to the cliffs at Penjizal. The hotel provides picnics in fancy cardboard boxes, with real knives and forks, but Penelope does not consider these proper picnics, so we shall stop off on the way and buy fresh bread and butter and pâté and tomatoes and fresh fruit and a bottle of wine. If it goes on being as warm as this, I expect that Danus and I shall swim.

  And then on Monday, Danus and I are going to go over to the south coast, to Manaccan, where a man called Everard Ashley is running a nursery garden. Danus was at Horticultural College with this man, and he wants to go and look at the nursery, and maybe get a few tips. Because, in the fulness of time, this is what he wants to do, but it’s difficult because you need a lot of capital for such a venture, and he hasn’t got any. Never mind, it’s always worth picking other people’s brains, and it’ll be fun to go over and see the other side of this magical county.

  From all this, you will gather that I am very happy. I couldn’t have believed that, so soon after Cosmo’s death, I could be happy again. I hope it’s not wrong. I don’t think it is, because it feels nothing but right.

  Thank you for everything. For being so endlessly kind and patient and for fixing for me to stay at Podmore’s Thatch. Because if you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here, living the life of Riley with the two people I like absolutely most in the whole world. Except, of course, yourself.

  My love,

  Antonia

  Her children, Nancy, Olivia and Noel, had … Penelope was forced to admit … been maddeningly right. Porthkerris, to all intents and purposes, was changed. Carn Cottage was not the only house with a bulldozed garden, an hotel sign over the gate, and striped umbrellas set up on the newly constructed terrace. The old White Caps Hotel had been hideously enlarged and converted into holiday flats; and the harbour road, where once the artists had lived and worked, had become a fairground of amusement arcades, discos, fast-food restaurants, and souvenir shops. In the harbour itself, most of the fishing boats were gone. Now only one or two remained, and the empty moorings were filled by pleasure craft offering, for enormously inflated sums of money, day trips to see the seals, with a few queasy hours of mackerel fishing thrown in as an added inducement.

  And yet, astonishingly enough, it was not so changed. Now, in the spring, the town was still comparatively empty, for the first flood of tourists would not arrive until Whitsun. There was time to dawdle, space to stand and look. And nothing could ever alter that marvellous blue, silken sweep of the bay, nor the curve of the headland, nor the baffling muddle of streets and slate-roofed houses tumbling down the hill to the water’s edge. The gulls still filled the sky with their screams, the air still smelled of salty wind and privet and escallonia, and the narrow lanes of the old town, mazelike, were as confusing as they had ever been.

  Penelope walked to visit Doris. It was pleasant to be alone. The company of Danus and Antonia had proved nothing but delight, but still, for a little while, solitude was welcome. In the sunlight of the warm afternoon, she made her way down through the aromatic gardens of the hotel, onto the road above the beach, past terraces of Victorian houses, and descended into the town.

  She searched for a florist’s. The one she remembered was now a dress shop, filled with the sort of clothes that tourists, mad to spend their money, mistakenly buy. Elasticated sun tops in Day-glo pink, enormous T-shirts emblazoned with the features of pop stars, and crotch-hugging jeans that caused one pain just to look at them. She found a flower shop at last, in a crooked corner where, a long time ago, an old cobbler in a leather apron, had put new soles on their shoes, and charged them one and three pence for his work. She went in and bought a huge bouquet for Doris. Not anemones or daffodils, but more exotic blooms. Carnations and iris and tulips and freesias, an armful of them, wrapped in crisp, pale-blue tissue paper. A little farther on down the street, she turned into an off-licence and bought, for Ernie, a bottle of The Famous Grouse whisky. Laden with these purchases, she continued on her way, deep into Downalong, where the lanes were so narrow that there was no space for pavements, and the whitewashed houses crowded in on either side, with steep granite steps climbing to brightly painted front doors.

  The Penberth house was tucked into the very heart of this labyrinth. Here Ernie had lived with his mother and father, and down these alleys Doris and Penelope and Nancy had come on wartime winter afternoons, to call on old Mrs. Penberth, and be given saffron cakes and strong tea out of a pink teapot.

  Now, remembering, it seemed extraordinary to Penelope how long it had taken her to realize that Ernie, in his shy and silent way, was courting Doris. And yet, perhaps, not so extraordinary. He was a man of few words, and his presence at Carn Cottage, saying little, and working like ten men, became, quite naturally, something that they all took for granted. Oh, Ernie will do it was the cry when something really horrible had to be accomplished, like a hen slaughtered, or the gutters cleaned out. And he always did. Nobody ever thought of him as an eligible man; he was just one of the family, undemanding, uncomplaining, and perpetually good-natured.

  It was not until the autumn of 1944 that the penny finally dropped. Penelope walked into the kitchen at Carn Cottage one morning to find Doris and Ernie having a cup of tea together. They sat at the kitchen table, and in the middle of the table stood a blue-and-white jug crammed with dahlias.

  She surveyed the scene. “Ernie, I didn’t know you were here.…”

  He was embarrassed. “Just dropped in.” He pushed his cup and saucer away and got to his feet.

  She looked at the flowers. Dahlias, with all the work they entailed, were no longer grown at Carn Cottage. “Where did these come from?”

  Ernie pushed back his cap and scratched his head. “My dad grew them in his allotment. Brought a few up for … for you.”

  “I’ve never seen such gorgeous ones. They’re enormous.”

  “Yes.” Ernie put his cap back on, and shifted his feet. “Got a bit of kindling to chop.”

  He moved towards the door.

  Doris said, “Thanks for the flowers.”

  He turned, nodded. “Nice cup of tea,” he told her.

  He went. Moments later, from the backyard, could be heard sounds of chopping.

  Penelope sat down at the table. She looked at the flowers. She looked at Doris, though Doris would not meet her eye. Penelope said, “I have a funny feeling that I have disturbed something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “He didn’t bring these flowers for us, did he? He brought them for you.”

  Doris tossed her head. “What’s it matter who he brought them for?”

  It was then that realization dawned and Penelope could not imagine why she had not latched on before. “Doris, I think Ernie fancies you.”

  Doris was instantly scathing. “Ernie Penberth? Tell us another.”

  But Penelope refused to be put off. “Has he ever said anything to you?”

  “Never says much to anyone, does he?”

  “You like him, though?”

  “Nothing there to dislike.”

  Her manner was too offhand to be convincing
. Something was up. “He’s courting you.”

  “Courting?” Doris sprang to her feet, collecting cups and saucers with the maximum of clatter. “He wouldn’t know how to court a fly.” She dumped the china onto the draining board and turned on the taps. “Besides,” she added, over the rush of water, “he’s such a funny-looking chap.”

  “You’d never find a nicer—”

  “And I’ve no intention of ending my days with a man who’s not even as tall as me.”

  “Just because he’s not another Gary Cooper, that’s no reason to turn up your nose. And I think he’s nice-looking. I like his black hair and his dark eyes.”

  Doris turned off the taps and swung around, leaning against the sink and folding her arms. “But he never says anything, does he?”

  “With you talking non-stop most of the time, he can scarcely get a word in edgewise. Anyway, actions speak louder than words. Look at him, bringing you flowers.” She thought back. “And he never stops doing things for you. Mending the washing line, bringing you little treats from under his father’s greengrocery counter.”

  “So what?” Doris frowned suspiciously. “You trying to get me married off to Ernie Penberth? Trying to get rid of me or something?”

  “I am simply,” said Penelope in a sanctimonious fashion, “thinking of your future happiness.”

  “In a pig’s eye. Well, you can think again. The day we’d heard Sophie’d been killed, I promised myself I wasn’t moving from here until this bloody war is over. And when Richard went … well, it just made me more determined than ever. I don’t know what you’re going to do … go back to that Ambrose or never go back, but the war’s ending soon, and you’re going to have to make up your mind, and I’m going to be around to see you through it, whatever you decide. And if you go back to him, then who’s going to look after your dad? I’ll tell you right now. I am. So we’ll have no more talk about Ernie Penberth, thank you very much.”

  She kept her word. She wouldn’t marry Ernie, because she wouldn’t leave Papa. It wasn’t until after the old man died that she found herself free at last to think about herself and her sons and her own future. She made her decision. Within two months, she had become Mrs. Ernie Penberth, and she left Carn Cottage for good. Ernie’s father had recently died, and old Mrs. Penberth moved out of the house and went to live with her sister, so that Doris and Ernie would have a place to themselves. Ernie took over the family greengrocery business, and he took over Doris’ sons as well, but he and Doris never had any children of their own.

  And now … Penelope paused, looking about her and getting her bearings. She was nearly at her destination. The North Beach was close. She could feel the tug of the wind, and smell its salty tang. Rounding a final corner, she started down a steep hill, at the bottom of which stood the white cottage, set back from the street and fronted by a cobbled yard. Here a string of washing flapped in the breeze, and pots and containers, set all about, were bright with daffodils and crocus and blue grape hyacinths and trailing greenery. The front door was painted blue, and she went across the cobbles, ducking beneath the washing line, and raised her fist to knock upon it. But before she could do this, it was flung open and there stood Doris.

  Doris. Dashing and dressy; pretty and bright-eyed as ever, no fatter, no thinner. Her hair was silver-white, short and curly; there were lines on her face, of course, but her smile hadn’t altered and neither had her voice.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. Watching from the kitchen window.” She might have arrived that very day, straight from Hackney. “What took you so long? Forty years, I’ve been waiting for this.” Doris. With lipstick and earrings, and a scarlet cardigan over a frilled white blouse. “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t just stand there on the doorstep, come along in.”

  Penelope went, stepping straight into the tiny kitchen. She put the flowers and the bag containing the whisky bottle down on the kitchen table, and Doris shut the door behind them. She turned. They faced each other, smiling like idiots, lost for words. And then the smiles turned to laughter, and they fell into each other’s arms, hugging and holding like a pair of reunited schoolgirls.

  Still laughing, still wordless, they drew apart. It was Doris who spoke first. “Penelope, I can’t believe it. I thought perhaps I wouldn’t know you. But you’re just as tall and long-legged and lovely as ever. I was so afraid you’d be different, but you’re not.…”

  “Of course I’m different. I’m grey-haired and elderly.”

  “If you’re grey-haired and elderly, then I’ve got one foot in the grave. Pushing seventy, I am. Least, that’s what Ernie’s always telling me when I get a bit above myself.”

  “Where is Ernie?”

  “Thought we’d like to be on our own for a bit. Said he couldn’t stand it. Taken himself off to his allotment. It’s his life-saver since he retired from the greengrocery business. I said to him, take you away from carrots and turnips and you’re like a man suffering from withdrawal symptoms.” She screamed with the old noisy familiar mirth.

  Penelope said, “I’ve brought you some flowers.”

  “Oh, they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have.… Look, I’ll put them in a jug, you go through to the sitting room and make yourself comfortable. I’ve got the kettle on, too, thought you’d be ready for a cup of tea.…”

  The sitting room lay beyond the kitchen, through an open door. Going through was a little like stepping back into the past, for all was cosy and cluttered, much as Penelope remembered it from old Mrs. Penberth’s day, and the old lady’s treasures were yet in evidence. She saw the lustre china in the glass-fronted cabinet, the Staffordshire dogs on either side of the fireplace, the lumpy sofas and armchairs with lace-edged antimacassars. But there were changes too. The huge television set was shiningly new, as were the brilliantly patterned chintz curtains; and over the mantelpiece, where once a much-enlarged sepia photograph of old Mrs. Penberth’s soldier brother, killed in the First World War, had held pride of place, now hung the portrait of Sophie, painted by Charles Rainier, which Penelope had given to Doris after Lawrence Stern’s funeral.

  “You can’t give me this,” Doris had said.

  “Why not?”

  “Your mother’s picture?”

  “I want you to have it.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because you loved Sophie as much as any of us. And you loved Papa too, and took care of him for me. No daughter could have done more.”

  “It’s too good of you. It’s too much.”

  “It’s not enough! But it’s all I’ve got to give you.”

  She stood now, in the middle of the room, and looked at the portrait, and thought that after forty years, it had lost none of its appeal and charm and gaiety. Sophie at twenty-five, with her slanted eyes and her enchanting smile and her gamine crop of hair, and a scarlet silk-fringed scarf knotted casually about her sun-browned shoulders.

  “Pleased to see it again?” asked Doris.

  Penelope turned as she came through the door, bearing the jug of loosely arranged flowers, which she placed, with some care, in the middle of a table.

  “Yes. I’d forgotten how charming it was.”

  “Bet you wish you’d never parted with it.”

  “No. It’s just nice to see it again.”

  “Gives this place a touch of class, doesn’t it? It’s been ever so admired. I’ve even been offered a fortune for it, but I wouldn’t sell. I wouldn’t let that picture go for all the tea in China. Now come on, let’s sit down and make ourselves comfortable and get chatting before that old Ernie comes back. I wish you were here with me, I’ve asked you often enough. Are you really staying at The Sands? With all those millionaires! What’s happened? Have you won the pools or something?”

  Penelope explained her changed circumstances. She told Doris about the gradual, miraculous re-appreciation of Lawrence Stern’s work on the world art market; told her about Roy Brookner, and the offer for the panels.

  Doris was dumbfounded. “A hund
red thousand for those two little pictures! It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard. Oh, Penelope, I am pleased for you.”

  “And I’ve given The Shell Seekers to the Porthkerris gallery.”

  “I know. I read all about it in the local paper, and then Ernie and I went along and had a look for ourselves. Seemed funny seeing that picture there. Brought back ever such a lot of memories. But won’t you miss it?”

  “A bit, I suppose. But life has to go on. We’re all getting older. Time to put our houses in order.”

  “You can say that again. And talking of life going on, what do you think of Porthkerris! Bet you didn’t recognize the old place. We never know what the folk are going to do next, though heaven knows the developers had their way for a year or two after the war. The old cinema’s a supermarket now … I expect you noticed. And your father’s studio was demolished and a block of holiday flats built right there, looking out over the North Beach. And we had a few years of hippies—that was unsavoury, I can tell you. Sleeping on the beach, and peeing any place they fancied. It was disgusting.”

  Penelope laughed. “And the old White Caps is a block of flats, too. And as for Carn Cottage…”

  “Didn’t it make you weep? Your mother’s lovely garden. I should have written to warn you how things were.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Somehow, it doesn’t matter any more.”

  “I should think not, living in luxury up at The Sands! Remember when it was a hospital? You wouldn’t have gone near the place unless you had two broken legs.”

  “Doris, it’s not just because I’m feeling rich I’m staying at The Sands and not with you. It’s because I’ve brought a couple of young friends down here with me, and I knew you wouldn’t have had space for all of us.”