The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “No. I know that.” They kissed. Antonia got off the bed and went through to the bathroom to wash her face. Emerging, she stood at the dressing-table and used Penelope’s comb to tidy her hair.

  “The earrings will bring you luck,” Penelope told her. “And give you confidence. Now, quick, it’s time you went. Danus will be wondering what has become of the pair of us. And remember, speak out and don’t be afraid. Don’t ever be afraid of being honest and truthful.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Goodnight, my darling.”

  “Goodnight.”

  13

  DANUS

  Penelope awoke to yet another clear-skied and pristine morning and to pleasant and recognized sounds—the sea, washing gently onto the beach far below; gulls calling, and a thrush, just below her window, making a great din about something or other; a car coming up the drive, changing gear, drawing to a halt on the gravel; a man whistling.

  It was ten past eight. She had slept for twelve hours, right around the clock. She felt rested, filled with energy, enormously hungry. It was Tuesday. The last day of the holiday. This realization filled her with some dismay. Tomorrow morning, they must pack up and set off on the long drive back to Gloucestershire. She felt impelled by a sense of selfish urgency, because there were a number of things that she still hadn’t done and which she wished to do. She lay making a mental list, for once putting her own priorities first. Danus and Antonia, and the dilemma in which they found themselves, must for the moment take second place. Later, she would think about their problems. Later, she would talk to them. For the moment, time must be her own.

  She got up, took a bath, did her hair, put on her clothes. Then, fresh and scented, cleanly dressed, she sat at the writing table in her room and wrote, on the thick, expensively embossed paper provided by the hotel, a letter to Olivia. It was not a very long letter, more of a note, to let Olivia know that she had given Aunt Ethel’s earrings to Antonia. For some reason, it was important that Olivia knew about this. She put the letter into an envelope, addressed, stamped, and sealed it down. Then she picked up her bag and her keys and went downstairs.

  She found the foyer deserted, revolving doors standing open to the cool air and fresh scents of morning. Only the hall porter stood behind his desk, and a woman in a blue overall vacuumed the carpet. She said good morning to both of them, posted her letter, and went into the empty dining room to order breakfast. Orange juice, two boiled eggs, toast and marmalade, black coffee. By the time she had come to the end of this, one or two other guests had filtered down, to take their places, open newspapers, discuss the coming day. Golf games were planned, and sightseeing trips. Penelope listened, and was glad that she did not have to consider any other person. There was still no sign of either Danus or Antonia, and for this she was shamefully grateful.

  She left the dining room. It was now nearly half past nine. Crossing the foyer, she paused by the hall porter’s desk.

  “I’m going down to the Art Gallery. At what time does it open, do you know?”

  “About ten o’clock, I think, Mrs. Keeling. Driving down, are you?”

  “No. I’m going to walk. It’s such a beautiful morning. But perhaps, if I called you when I’m ready, you could arrange for a taxi to come and fetch me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.” She left him, stepping out with conscious pleasure into the sunshine and sweet gusts of cool and breezy air, which heightened her sense of freedom and irresponsibility. As a child, Saturday mornings had felt just so, aimless and empty, ready to be filled with unexpected delights. She, walked slowly, savouring scent and sound, pausing to gaze at gardens, the glittering expanse of the bay, to watch a man walk his dog across the sands. Thus, by the time she eventually turned off the harbour road and set off up the steep cobbled street that led to the Gallery, she saw that its door stood open, but at such an hour and so early in the year, she found it, understandably, deserted, save for the young man who sat behind the desk at the entrance. He was a cadaverous individual, with long locks of hair, wearing patchworked jeans and an enormous speckled sweater. He yawned as though he had had no sleep, but when Penelope appeared he swallowed his yawn, sat up in his chair, and offered to sell her a catalogue.

  “No, I don’t need a catalogue, thank you. Later, perhaps, I might buy some postcards.”

  Dreadfully fatigued, he sank back in his chair. She wondered who had thought fit to employ him as a curator, and then decided that he probably did the job for love.

  The Shell Seekers waited for her, impressive in its new home, hung in the centre of the long, windowless wall. She walked across the echoing floor and made herself comfortable on the ancient leather couch where, years ago, she used to sit with Papa.

  He had been right. They had come, those young artists, as he had said they would. The Shell Seekers was flanked, framed, by abstracts and primitives, all bursting with colour and light and life. Gone were the lesser paintings (Fishing Boats at Night; Flowers in my Window) which in the old days had filled in the soaring spaces. Now she recognized the works of other painters, the new artists who had come to take their place. Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, Brian Winter, Patrick Heron. But in no way did they overwhelm The Shell Seekers. Rather, they enhanced the blues and greys and shimmering reflections of Papa’s favourite picture, and she decided it was a little like going into a room filled with beautiful furniture both traditional and starkly modern, where no piece clashed nor fought with its neighbour, simply because each was the creation of a craftsman, and the very best of its period.

  She settled, content and peaceful, to feast and fill her eyes.

  When the interruption occurred, and another visitor came through the door behind her, she was scarcely aware of it. A murmured conversation took place. Then footsteps, slowly pacing. And all at once it was as it had been before, on that gusty August day during the war, and she was twenty-three years old again, with holes in her sneakers, and Papa sitting beside her. And Richard walked in; into the gallery, and into their lives. And Papa told him, “They will come … to paint the warmth of the sun and the colour of the wind.” And that was how it had all begun.

  The footsteps approached. He was there, awaiting her attention. She turned her head. Thinking of Richard, she saw Danus. Disorientated, lost in time, she looked at him; a stranger.

  He said, “I’m disturbing you.”

  His familiar voice broke the weird spell. She pulled herself together, shook off the past, arranged her features into a smile.

  “Of course not. I was in a dream.”

  “Shall I leave you in peace?”

  “No, no.” He was alone. He wore a navy-blue guernsey. His eyes, watching her, seemed strangely brilliant, intensely blue, unblinking. “I’m saying goodbye to The Shell Seekers.” She shifted her position, patted the worn leather beside her. “Come and join me in my lonely communion.”

  He did this, sitting half-turned to face her, one arm along the back of the couch, his long legs crossed.

  “Are you better this morning?”

  She could not remember having been ill. “Better?”

  “Last night. Antonia said that you were feeling unwell.”

  “Oh, that.” She dismissed it. “I was just a little tired. I’m perfectly all right this morning. How did you know where to find me?”

  “The hall porter told me.”

  “Where is Antonia?”

  “Packing.”

  “Packing? Already? But we don’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

  “She’s packing for me. This is what I’ve come to tell you. This, and a lot of other things. I have to leave today. I’m catching the train to London and then, this evening, the night train back to Edinburgh. I have to go home.”

  She could think of only one reason for such precipitous and urgent action. “Your family. Something’s wrong. Is someone ill?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “But why?” Her thoughts flew back to last night a
nd Antonia. Antonia sitting in tears upon her bed. You must be truthful and honest, she had told Antonia, certain, with all the arrogance of experience, that she was giving only the most sound of advice. Instead, it appeared, she had simply meddled, interfered, and destroyed. The plan had misfired. Antonia’s brave gesture, her laying of cards upon the table, had in no way cleared the air; frankness had provoked a confrontation—possibly an irredeemable quarrel—and now she and Danus had decided that the only course to take was to part.

  There could be no other explanation. She felt herself near tears. “I am to blame,” she reproached herself. “It is all my fault.”

  “There is no blame. What has happened has nothing to do with you.”

  “But it was I who told Antonia…”

  He interrupted. “And you were right. And if, last night, she had said nothing, then I would have spoken. Because yesterday, that day we spent together, was a sort of catalyst. Everything changed. It was like crossing a watershed. Everything became very simple and very clear.”

  “She loves you, Danus. You’ve surely realized that.”

  “That’s why I have to go.”

  “Does she mean so little to you?”

  “No. The opposite. The very opposite. More than love. She has become part of me. Saying goodbye will be like tearing up my own roots. But I have to.”

  “I am bewildered.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “What happened yesterday?”

  “I think we both suddenly grew up. Or perhaps this thing that’s been happening between us grew up. Up to yesterday, everything we’d done together had been unimportant, quite trivial, harmless. Messing about in the garden at Podmore’s Thatch, swimming off the rocks at Penjizal. Nothing important. Nothing serious. I think this was probably my fault. I wasn’t looking for a significant relationship. It was the last thing I wanted. And then yesterday we went to Manaccan. I’d talked before to Antonia about my dreams of one day having a place of my own, and she’d discussed it all with me, but in the most casual and light-hearted of ways, and I never realized how deeply she’d taken those discussions to heart. Then Everard Ashley began to show us around, and as we went, an extraordinary thing happened. We became a couple. It was as though, whatever we did, we were going to do it together. And Antonia was as enthusiastic and interested as I was, bubbling over with questions and ideas and plans, and all at once, bang in the middle of a glasshouse full of tomatoes, I knew that she was part of my future. Part of me now. I can’t imagine life without her. Whatever I do, I want to do it with her, and whatever happens to me, I want it to happen to both of us.”

  “And why shouldn’t that be allowed to happen?”

  “There are two reasons. The first is strictly practical. I have nothing to offer Antonia. I am twenty-four and I have no money, no house, no private means, and my weekly wage is that of a labouring gardener. A market garden, a place of my own, is simply a pipe-dream. Everard Ashley has gone in with his father, but I should have to buy and I have no capital.”

  “There are banks who lend money. Or perhaps a government grant?” She thought of his parents. From the scraps of information that Danus had dropped from time to time, the impression given had been one of a family, if not rolling in riches, then certainly not without their fair share of worldly goods. “Couldn’t your parents possibly help you?”

  “Not, I think, to that extent.”

  “Have you asked them?”

  “No.”

  “Have you discussed your plans with them?”

  “Not yet.”

  Such defeatism was unexpected and so irritating. Disappointed in him, she found herself losing patience. “I’m sorry, but I cannot see what all the fuss is about. You and Antonia have found each other, you love each other, and you want to spend the rest of your lives together. You must snatch at happiness, hold it tight and never let it go. To do anything else is morally wrong. Such chances never come again. What does it matter if you have to manage on a shoe-string? Antonia can get a job; most young wives do. Other young couples keep their heads above water, simply because they’ve got their priorities right.” He said nothing to this, and she frowned. “I suppose it’s your pride. Stupid, stubborn Scottish pride. And if so, you’re being extremely selfish. How can you go away and leave her, and make her so unhappy? What’s wrong with you, Danus, that you can turn your back on love?”

  “I said there were two reasons. And I’ve told you one of them.”

  “And what is the other?”

  He said, “I am an epileptic.”

  She found herself frozen to stillness, without words, incapable. She looked at his face, into his eyes, and his gaze was untroubled and his eyes did not drop. She longed to embrace him, to hold him, comfort him, but did not do any of these things. Random thoughts took shape, flew about aimlessly in all directions, like startled birds. The answer to all those unasked questions. This man is Danus.

  She took a deep breath. She said, “Have you told Antonia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  “That’s why I’m here. Antonia sent me. She said you, of all people, had to know. Before I go and leave you, I have to give my reasons.”

  She laid a hand on his knee.

  “I am listening.”

  * * *

  “I suppose it all starts with my mother and father. And with Ian. I told you, I think, that my father’s a lawyer. His family have been lawyers for three generations, and my mother’s father was a Law Lord in the Scottish courts. Ian was destined to follow in my father’s footsteps, join the family firm, and generally conform to tradition. And he would have been a good lawyer, because anything he set his hand to was always a success. But at fourteen Ian died. And, inevitably, it fell to me to take his place. I never’d even thought about what I wanted to do. I just knew that that was what I had to do. I suppose you could say I was programmed, like a computer. Well, I got through school and, although I was never as bright as Ian, I managed to pass the necessary exams and won a place at Edinburgh University. But I was still very young, so, before I went to University, I took a couple of years off to travel and see a bit of the world. I went to America. I bummed around from coast to coast, did any job that came my way, and then ended up in Arkansas, working on a cattle ranch for a man called Jack Rogers. He had the hell of a spread, it stretched for miles, and I was one of the hands, helping to round up cattle and mend fences, and living in a bunk house with three other guys.

  “The ranch was incredibly remote. The nearest town was called Sleeping Creek, and that was forty miles away, and no great shakes when you got there. I used to drive down sometimes, to take Sally Rogers shopping for stores, or to pick up supplies and equipment for Jack. It was a whole day’s journey, bumping the truck down a dirt road and ending up coated in brown dust.

  “Then one day, towards the end of my time there, I got ill. Felt lousy, started vomiting and shivering and then ran a raging temperature. I must have become delirious because I don’t remember being moved out of the bunk house and into the ranch house, but that’s where I found myself, with Sally Rogers nursing me. She did a good job and, after a week or so, I’d recovered and was back on my legs again. We decided it had been some virus I’d picked up, and when I could walk three paces without keeling over, I went back to work again.

  “And then, soon after, with no warning … nothing … I blacked out. Went over like a felled tree, flat on my back and stayed unconscious for about half an hour. There seemed to be no reason, but a week later it happened again, and I felt so appallingly ill that Sally piled me into the truck and drove me to the doctor in Sleeping Creek. He listened to my tale of woe and made some tests. A week later, I went back to see him and he told me that I had epilepsy. He gave me drugs to take, four times a day. He said I’d be okay if I took them. He said there wasn’t anything else he could do for me.”

  He fell silent. Penelope felt that some comment was expected of her but could think of nothi
ng to say that was neither trite nor banal. There was a long pause and then, painfully, Danus continued.

  “I’d never been ill in my life. I’d never had anything worse than measles. I asked the doctor, why? And he asked me a few questions, and we finally ran it down to a kick I’d got on the head at school when I’d been playing rugger. I’d suffered concussion, but nothing worse. Until now. I had epilepsy. I was nearly twenty-one, and I was an epileptic.”

  “Did you tell those kind people you were working for?”

  “No. And I made the doctor promise that he would honour his medical confidence. I didn’t want anybody to know. If I couldn’t deal with it on my own, then I wasn’t going to be able to deal with it at all. Eventually, I came back to this country. I flew to London and caught the night sleeper back to Edinburgh. By then I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to take up that place at Edinburgh University. With time to think about it, I’d discovered the truth. That I could never take Ian’s place. And I was afraid of failing, and letting my father down. As well, there was something else I’d found out during those last months. That I needed to be out of doors. I needed to work with my hands. I wanted no person standing at my shoulder, with expectations of me that I could never fulfil. Telling my parents all this was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. At first, they were disbelieving. And then hurt, and desperately disappointed. I didn’t blame them. I was destroying every plan they’d ever made. Finally, they became resigned and made the best of it. But, after all that, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them about my epilepsy.”

  “You never told them? But how could you not?”

  “My brother died of meningitis. I felt that, with one thing and another, they’d had enough to cope with. And what good would it have done to load them with yet more worry and anguish. And I was all right. I was taking the drugs and I wasn’t blacking out. To all intents and purposes, I was perfectly normal. All I had to do was register with a new young doctor … a man who knew nothing of me or my medical history. And he gave me a permanent prescription for my drugs. After that, I enrolled for three years at a Horticultural College in Worcestershire. That was all right, too. I was just another ordinary guy. Did everything the other students did. Got drunk, drove a car, played football. But still, I was epileptic. I knew that, if I stopped taking the drugs, it would all start happening again. I pretended not to think about it, but you can’t stop what goes on inside your head. It was always there. A great weight, like a loaded haversack that you can never put down.”