From A Distance

by Gloria Cook

  She took some sun cream out of her beach bag. ‘Will you rub some of this on my back, Jonny?’ She knew there couldn’t be much physical contact with Jonny, not at her young age, but she felt the very first stirring of desire and, carried along on the strength of it, she pulled the straps of her swimsuit down.

  ‘Libby, no!’ Vera Rose struggled out of her seat. ‘I’ll do that for you.’

  Libby saw Vera Rose’s look of horror. She saw it too on Angeline Johnson’s face and, so she thought, disgust. And that same horrified expression was in Jonny’s eyes, plus anger. Libby’s face and neck was drenched in red. She wanted to die on the spot. She had suggested something inappropriate, and dirty. The girls at school were right. She was a misfit and a freak. She couldn’t stand the accusation, the revulsion she saw on these people’s faces. Breaking into wailing sobs, she dropped the sun cream and ran away down to the shore.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Jonny thumped his forehead. He had been embarrassed at the girl’s request but didn’t know what was the matter with the silly little goose. Then, ‘Oh bugger…’ The girl had formed a crush on him. Why, oh, why had his aunt invited the horrid little creature to Roskerne? It had taken all his patience to tolerate her. Libby Bosweld was gauche and pathetic. She pushed herself forward into everything with irritating enthusiasm. She got in the way of everything he wanted to do. Worse still, she was jealous of any attention he gave to Vera Rose and Angeline. The girl had insufferably referred to Angeline as a servant. It was time the little madam was sent packing back to her father. Perry Bosweld was a good-looking, thoroughly nice chap. How on earth had he produced such a plain bore? Jonny wouldn’t consider bedding her even if she were a few years older.

  Vera Rose sighed heavily. Watching Libby buzzing about Jonny, trying to flirt with him and now make a terrible, embarrassing hash of it had been a painful experience. It was something she should have stopped. She should have realized that Libby’s feelings were getting out of control. At least she could have pointed out to her that Jonny had eyes for no one else but Angeline. Now what should she do? Go after Libby or leave her alone for a while? Libby would be devastated. She had become aroused, had put this on display, the most dreaded thing a pubescent girl could do, and Libby had not had the slightest notion it was happening to her. One thing was certain, the poor thing mustn’t come face to face with Jonny again. She’d have to go back to Truro without delay. How was she going to face anyone ever again? It was horrendous.

  ‘I think I’d better take Christine back to the hotel,’ Angeline said, stern disapproval in her voice.

  ‘No! Wait,’ Jonny pleaded. ‘Vee and I will sort this out. At least we’ll soon be rid of the wretched girl.’

  Libby kept running. She saw her swimsuit as she thought Jonny saw it, a flat, strawberry-like overstated confection. She saw her lightly tanned skin as an ugly red. She was ugly. Jonny Harvey thought she was ugly and he hated her. And because of him she had disgraced herself in the most repugnant manner. Damn him! She wished she’d never set eyes on him. The smug swine, who had women falling at his feet. How she wished she could go back and rock his cosy world. Tell him that the wife of his precious Uncle Alec was having an affair with her father. That it had been going on for years. That it was the reason her family had been hounded out of Hennaford. Only it couldn’t have been. The villagers liked and respected her father. So what had her Aunt Selina done to be reviled? Something vile and embarrassing and unforgiveable like she had just done? Oh, God, life just wasn’t fair! She kept on sprinting towards the sea.

  Angeline had packed hers and Christine’s things and was about to go to collect her. Checking on what Libby was doing, she watched as she closed in on the shore. ‘She won’t go in the water, will she?’

  ‘Don’t say we’re in for some more drama,’ Jonny growled, furious that Angeline was leaving and had refused to allow him to walk back with her.

  Libby reached the first frothing wave and splashed straight into it.

  ‘Libby! Come back!’ Afraid now, Vera Rose called out between curved hands round her mouth. The roar of the ocean meant Libby wouldn’t be able to hear her.

  Libby was screaming to herself. She hated those she had left behind. She hated her father for bringing her here. She hated her Aunt Selina for deserting her to work in another country. She hated the girls at school. They said she’d never get married because no one would have her. She didn’t want to be married now, to have to suffer those forbidden feelings again, feelings she’d had no right to have had at such a young age. She must be depraved. Those on the beach knew this. They’d tell others, tell her father. She could never face him again. She must never go back. She had nothing to go back for. Everyone would be glad to be rid of her.

  And she hated herself. It was no wonder people couldn’t stand to be near her. ‘I hate this world!’ she screamed and screamed. And she kept splashing into the waves.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Jonny started a run towards her. ‘Libby! Libby! For goodness sake, come back!’

  Vera Rose took Adele to Angeline. ‘Take the girls up to the house. Tell my mother what’s happened. I’ll go after them.’ She raced off in Jonny’s tracks.

  Angeline had trouble dragging the two girls away. They sensed the danger Libby was in, and like those unable to tear their eyes off an accident, they wanted to watch. Angeline couldn’t help herself either. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. Libby had waded out until she was out of her depth. The next roller lifted her off her feet and she disappeared.

  Jonny was swimming frantically. The undertow was fierce. If he didn’t grab hold of Libby in the next few seconds she’d be swept out to sea. Where the hell was she? She had learned to swim on other coastal holidays and should have known the dangers, but there was no sign of her, no raised hand or struggling body desperately trying to get back to shore.

  Libby went with the waves. She didn’t fight against them. Against what was coming. There was some pain, some discomfort, a rushing and a pulling and some strange sounds. Then only light.

  Jonny felt the force of the water and knew if he didn’t turn round this instant and make for the shore he’d be lost. Lost too. He thrust his head above the water and ran a hand down over his eyes for one more look. He thought he saw a dark head a long, long way out. He felt a great volume of water shifting him further away from the shore and he was filled with fear and panic. There was nothing for it but to turn and strike out for safety, and pray. How he prayed. He thrashed against the hands of the receding tide, but seemed to be getting nowhere. Salt water was in his mouth and it was blinding him. There was a horrid roar in his ears. He was drowning. As surely as Libby was. Or had drowned by now.

  He was aware of pain, of his hair being wrenched almost out of his scalp. His lungs were bursting. He couldn’t breathe. Death was coming.

  To help her get the strength and momentum to drag him out of the water and not allow herself to lose her footing, Vera Rose screamed and screamed. She got the upper half of his body out on to the sand then frantically listened to his chest to hear if he was breathing. He wasn’t.

  ‘Jonny! Oh no! Oh my God.’ She pushed him on to his front, turned his face to the side and started pumping his arms. He didn’t respond. So she heaved him on to his back, and after clearing sand from his lips she put her mouth over his and started breathing into him. Moments passed like hours. She banged on his chest, crying, shrieking at him not to die. She breathed into him again and again. Then suddenly he coughed. She leaned back on her heels, watching as he retched up sea water. Then she helped him sit up. ‘Thank God, Jonny, thank God!’

  He gasped in huge pain-ridden lungfuls of air, then leaned against her breasts and tried to clear his vision out to sea. ‘L-Libby?’

  Vera Rose was crying the worst tears of her life. ‘She’s gone, Jonny. There was nothing you could do.’

  ‘Oh no! What are we going to do, Vee? She was just a little girl. What am I going to do? It was all my fault. I didn’t realize how s
he felt about me. She must have thought I was encouraging her. And then she must have felt so terrible.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Jonny. You must never think that. Never!’ There was vehemence in Vera Rose’s cracked speech. ‘It was Libby’s choice. God above witnessed it. Libby, that poor little soul, just didn’t want to live any more. I think even before what happened she must have been dreadfully unhappy. But that’s the last thing we must tell Perry.’

  ‘Perry? How the hell are we going to tell him? How are we going to explain?’ Jonny made the gruelling effort to stand up. Panting, bowed over with his hands clutching his knees, he stared out across the vastness of the ocean, vainly hoping Libby might have somehow made it safely somewhere. She wasn’t to be seen. She would have been swept a long distance away by now and was certainly dead.

  Vera Rose was shaking her head in horror and disbelief. ‘How could this have happened?’

  Jonny clutched her hand. ‘I can’t think straight now. Come on. We must get to the house and hope Angeline hasn’t told our parents everything.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two days had passed. In the den of Ford Farm Alec poured two large brandies, a second helping for himself and Perry. No words had passed between them for over an hour. None were necessary. They were connected by the soulless, gaunt appearance of fathers who had lost a child.

  Feeling helpless, Emilia hovered outside the closed door in case she was needed. Her heart was rent in pieces over Perry’s suffering.

  ‘Leave them, Em.’ Tristan placed a hand on her shoulder. His family had been left comfortless by the tragedy and he had brought them, and Perry, to the farm that morning.

  ‘I wasn’t going in, Tris.’ Her eyes were filled with tears. ‘It’s so terrible. Perry hasn’t said so, but he must be thinking that if he hadn’t come down Libby would still be alive.’ And guilt filled her to the roots of her soul. If Perry hadn’t still been in love with her then the trip to Cornwall wouldn’t have been made.

  ‘Everyone’s taking it hard, specially Jonny. Come and talk to him? He’s blaming himself over what happened. He needs Alec, and he’s feeling lost because Alec’s with Perry.’ The hurt at his son being closer to his brother was clear in Tristan’s voice.

  Perry needs me and l can’t go to him! Emilia wanted to scream. She had not long left the house at Highertown when Tristan had arrived there with the appalling news. Tristan’s account of the next thirty-six hours was harrowing, dreadful for Emilia to hear because she had ached to be there for Perry. He had gone into shock, unable to stand, barely capable of breathing for some minutes. She had wanted to be with him at Roskerne during the lifeboat search and the vigil on the cliffs for signs of Libby, but Lottie, frightened by the sudden death, had refused to be parted from her. The weather had changed to a mocking cold and wet and windy, and Perry had insisted on watching alone, shrugging off the raincoat Tristan had tried to put round him; refusing food and drink. When the authorities had called off the search it had been necessary to drag him away from the cliff and into the house. Winifred had called in her vicar and he had come and said prayers for Libby. Perry had listened soundlessly and had then asked for some of the weedy roses that grew in the garden. He had taken them down to the beach, asking to be shown the exact spot his daughter had gone into the sea, and after a second lonely vigil he had given up the roses to the hungry waves.

  ‘I’ll go to Jonny, but first I need to talk to you in confidence, Tris,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  They went outside into the yard and sat on the granite steps of the goat house. The spate of bad weather had cleared and summer was back on its balmy course. Emilia felt at odds with the radiant sun. She turned her back to it. ‘Tris, Perry hasn’t informed Selina yet. He doesn’t know how to tell her. He feels that he’s let her down. You see she is, she was, Libby’s mother. Libby’s real father was among a number of soldiers from an American unit during the war. To the world, Libby was Perry’s and his late wife’s.’

  ‘I see. How many people know this, Em?’

  ‘Just Alec and I. Should I find out where Selina is and send her a telegram? I thought I’d ring Perry’s housekeeper and ask her for the address.’

  ‘I think you should. She has the right to know and I’m sure Perry will be pleased that it’s been done.’

  Alec gazed out of the window. Jenna was there on the lawn. She waved to him. He waved back. Then he looked for Libby. She wasn’t there. Should he tell Perry that one day she might appear somewhere for him?

  ‘Is that Lottie out there?’ Perry said, his voice dull and sluggish.

  ‘Yes,’ Alec lied.

  ‘You have her and other children.’

  ‘I have and they’re a comfort to me. I know you’re feeling as if it’s the end of the world for you, Perry, but believe this,’ Alec said, with warmth and sincerity. ‘Something will happen one day to console you.’

  ‘I can’t believe that right now, but thanks for saying it, Alec,’ Perry told the man whose wife he loved so much – without Em he wouldn’t want to go on. ‘I’d better stir myself. I want Jonny to know that I don’t blame him at all. And even Winnie is feeling responsible because she was the one who invited Libby to Roskerne. I believe what the nanny of Adele’s friend said, that Libby went too far out into the water. She was a foolish, headstrong girl. It was just a terrible accident.’

  ‘It will mean a lot to Jonny. It hasn’t helped, the nanny suddenly packing her bags and going off with the child in her charge. She was obviously afraid there’d be a fuss of some kind and she didn’t want to be involved. Perry, what will you do now? Go back to London?’

  ‘No, no.’ Perry shook his head emphatically. ‘I can’t leave her. I can’t leave Libby, she’s out there somewhere. I’ll stay where I am and when Reggie Rule returns home I’ll rent something somewhere. I’m going to ask the rector here if I can put a memorial stone in the churchyard… bury Libby there if she’s ever found. It’s strange, but sometimes I have this feeling that she’s happy, that she’s free.’

  ‘Believe it, Perry, she is. You mustn’t be alone. I insist you stay here.’

  Perry muttered, ‘Thanks,’ and hung his head. It was hardly decent of him to remain under the roof of the man he was cuckolding, but he couldn’t bear to be without Emilia close by.

  * * *

  Brooke was in her bedroom, rifling through the pages of her diary. No matter how she tried she couldn’t make the number of weeks that had recently passed any smaller. She had missed two monthlies. She was pregnant and the child could only be Alec’s. She threw the diary in a drawer. ‘My God, how did I manage to get in this fix?’

  She sat on the bed, numb with panic. How was she going to explain this to Ben? The scant times they had made love since his return from Paris he had used protection. Those things weren’t said to give total safety, but she knew in her heart, in her innermost being, that this baby was Alec’s. There was only one thing she could do, tell Ben that the protection had failed. He’d be delighted she was pregnant.

  And suddenly she was delighted. Somehow she knew this baby was going to go to full term and be happy and healthy, because it was Alec’s baby. His understanding over how she felt about her two lost babies had made him a fit father for this one, which she was sure would be a boy. No one except herself would ever know the truth. She still loved Ben, although not as much as when they’d first met. She had considered leaving him, but not being the father of this child which he would raise as his son and heir would be just punishment for his self-centredness. Brooke was filled with happiness. She put her hands over her tummy and danced about the room.

  She was brought up short at the window. There was a popping in her ears of the sort when something spooked her. A chill rode up her spine. Outside on the lawn was a girl. She was beautiful in a long white dress.

  It could only be Jenna.

  She raised her hand and blew Brooke a kiss.

  Determined not to look away and find a se
cond later that Jenna was gone, Brooke kept her eyes rooted on the vision. Jenna turned round and walked down the lawn and slowly and gradually she faded away.

  Brooke went outside. She felt Jenna’s presence all around her. She had come for a reason. Brooke put her hands together as if praying, and whispered, ‘Jenna came to me because she knows I’m your friend, Alec. You lied about what the hospital told you. I thought you had.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three more days passed, and in the early hours of the morning a taxicab pulled up outside Ford Farm. Emilia, unable to sleep, tormented over Alec’s continued lack of recovery and thinking of Perry, who was all too easily in reach along the corridor, saw the car’s headlights and heard the crunch of its tyres on the gravel. She pattered downstairs before the house was disturbed.

  Clicking on the hall light, she opened the front door. ‘Hello?’

  A suitcase had been deposited on the bottom step. A woman with a self-assured bearing was paying the cabbie. ‘Thank you, keep the change.’ The cabbie touched his cap to her and left. The caller strode up to the door. The instant Emilia saw who it was she clutched her negligee to her neck and shrank back to the stairs.

  ‘Hello, Emilia. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  ‘Selina… of course, come in. We, I mean, Perry wasn’t expecting you. You didn’t answer the telegram.’

  Selina Bosweld stepped over the threshold and dumped her suitcase down on the hall runner. Emilia was held unwillingly by her eyes, which had a magnetic quality and were the gorgeous colour of wild violets. ‘Did you think I’d not come? With my own daughter dead? I’m sure you hoped I wouldn’t. I went to Highertown first, banged up a neighbour of Reggie’s and was told my brother is here. I’d be obliged if you’d bring him down to me. I take it if I get the chance to shut my eyes I can have the use of one of your sofas?’