by Gloria Cook
‘Louisa,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided to apply for a place at university. Wherever I can get in.’
‘Oh, good for you, Vee. How exciting.’ Louisa looked at her with gratitude for bringing up something interesting. She was angled so Mr Harvey couldn’t see her face, which was burning for he was making her feel ill at ease. She instinctively had her hand up over her birthmark, which became even more vividly red when she was uncomfortable. It was such bad luck to turn up here at the same time as him, wretched man. If only he’d go outside or to the den. ‘I don’t think I’m clever enough to consider higher education. What will you study?’
‘I’m thinking of something along the lines of philosophy or social history.’ Vera Rose kept up the talk for a couple of minutes, then excused herself to go to the bathroom. She felt awful for lying, but if she had said she was off to seek Jonny, Louisa would have undoubtedly said that she’d join her.
She was thrilled to find Jonny quickly, smoking and looking ponderous by the pigs’ crow. She ran to him. He smiled at the sight of her but she could see he was troubled. ‘Hello! Is something the matter?’
He could have blurted out, ‘Nothing, only that I’ve allowed myself to be seduced by a vile woman who’s little better than a barbarian, and I’m getting the most dreadful, harrowing nightmares about Uncle Alec’s last days.’ He said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve left poor Louisa with my father? Selina Bosweld was just here asking me what gives over his frosty attitude towards her.’
‘I feel awful about it, Jonny, but I wanted to see you alone.’ She was curious, and hopeful, about what his reaction would be towards her.
‘Why?’
The question, given so matter-of-factly, crushed her to the roots of her being, stamping out her last tiny hope that she would ever come to be more to him than his cousin, his friend, his lover. She dampened down her emotions. ‘Oh, I have been silly. I should have brought Louisa with me. I wanted to tell you that I’m going to take up your suggestion about university.’
He put an open hand on her shoulder. All he wanted from Vee now was her friendship and support. ‘That’s brilliant. I know you’ll make a success of it. I’m proud of you. What do the parents say?’
‘My mother wasn’t happy about it at first. She had hopes for me to follow the traditional path. Your father’s delighted. He’s making enquiries for me. It won’t be plain sailing getting in anywhere, but with a bit of perseverance, well, a few years from now I might be a doctor of philosophy or something. Yes, I think I’d like that.’ It was suddenly a thrilling prospect after being let down so badly in the romantic department.
Jonny led them off towards the house to rescue their young friend. ‘I suppose Louisa’s looking gorgeous. All these continental trips suit her. She already has such flair.’
‘I didn’t know you felt that way about her.’ Vera Rose was jealous. Jonny had never complimented her, except in a carnal way. This made her feel cheap and hurt, and she was glad he no longer seemed interested in her intimately; a certain gleam in his stunning grey eyes was missing. She wouldn’t let this mar their closeness though – she’d hate that.
‘She’s lovely. It’s hard to believe she’s still a child. I know I’m not usually attracted to someone as unassuming as her, a sweet sort, but there’s something about her.’ He nodded to reinforce his thoughts. ‘I hope she doesn’t make the mistake of falling for some cad or chinless wonder. She’s always so eager to please, be on the right side of everyone. Damn it, Vee!’ He was suddenly angry. ‘Why is my father so against her? She’s the nicest girl in the world. One of these days I’m going to demand he tells me what the hell’s going on.’
Rounding the brick wall of the cattle yard, they saw Louisa perched on the back doorstep, ruffling the necks of Bertie and Hope, the friendliest pair of the numerous Jack Russells. She immediately smiled at them but also fussed with the hair on her right side, bringing it round to cover her cheek, and it was plain she was feeling out of place. Jonny was incensed with his father. He hated seeing her hurt. She was feminine and gentle, delicate and fragile, the sort to bring out the desire in a chap to honour and protect, yet still there was something else about her. Something indefinable. He’d confront his father again but here wasn’t the place. His Aunty Em would likely be back from the churchyard any minute – he had witnessed her cutting a bunch of lilies and heading off.
‘Hello, Lou-Lou.’ Jonny grinned down on her. He wanted to make her happy and he was suddenly back to being a confident youth for the first time in weeks. Louisa was one person who never made demands and she was soothing somehow. ‘You look good, even in your old things. What’s it like swapping the Cornish Riviera for the far more exotic French one? Not so exciting, I’m sure.’
‘Hello, Jonny.’ She stayed put because Jonny would likely gather her in and give her an enormous hug and a smacking kiss on both cheeks as a jolly big brother. Gazing up at him, suntanned, brawny, as handsome as a hero in a Cecil B. De Mille movie, she was shy. A young Italian count had made eyes at her at the last hotel she had stayed in and danced with her very closely, and she had become conscious of men in the grown-up sense for the first time. She had not found this uncomfortable, but now things were different with Jonny, she had confused feelings about him and she was afraid to explore them. ‘I like travelling and I equally like being at home and back at school. I’ve come to help. What shall I do?’
‘You can budge along for a start. Time for me to take a break.’ He made to park himself on the doorstep beside her and she shuffled to make space. Unaware of how nervous he was making her, he fingered in his shirt breast pocket for his cigarettes. ‘I’m parched and hungry. Be a good sport and fetch me a mug of Mrs Rowse’s best and a saffron bun, eh, Vee? Tell me how your Aunt Polly is, Louisa. Someone mentioned she’s looking for a new husband.’
Feeling left out, Vera Rose squeezed past Jonny to act as his waitress.
Louisa fidgeted at his close proximity and nearly stopped breathing when he dropped an arm round her shoulders, even though it was a matey embrace. And she hated talking about her aunt’s flirtations. Her aunt was a vital, stylish lady, with grace and wit, who found men easy to relate to. Louisa was aware of the occasional late-night caller being allowed into her hotel bedroom. Her aunt was lonely, it was why she whisked herself, with or without Louisa, off on so many travels. ‘She’s very well, thank you. Next year she wants to go on a safari in Africa.’
‘Africa? Now that’s somewhere I intend to go to one day. Bag myself a tiger. You can have the skin for your room. My tribute to a lovely girl who will one day become an even lovelier woman.’ He grasped Louisa’s right hand. ‘No need to cover up your birthmark. Be relaxed about it. Think of it this way. It’s a part of you, a way that makes you unique.’
‘Uncle Alec used to say things like that,’ she said, letting her hand fall away, still clasped in his.
‘Well, he was one of the finest men who ever lived. You can’t argue with anything he said, can you?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘There you are then.’ Jonny gave her a bear hug. Louisa found she didn’t mind very much.
Vera Rose halted at the kitchen door. The two older women were no longer there. Her Uncle Tristan was at a window, his hands pressed down on the sill, shaking his head, gasping in a long, fretful breath. He was watching Jonny and Louisa and his usual kind, calm face was steeped in anxiety.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emilia asked the telephone operator to put her through to Reggie Rule’s number. ‘Hello? Perry?’ Since she had spoken to him yesterday her wants and needs had catapulted around inside her head. One moment she didn’t want to see him, then she did, but always she thought that she shouldn’t want to see him. She ought to keep faith with Alec. She owed it to his memory. She should never have kept in touch with Perry. She had tried to work up greater feelings for Alec, but it hadn’t worked. She hadn’t looked to fall deeper in love with Perry than Alec, but somehow she had and that was everl
asting.
He’d said he’d wait two days for her and then leave. She didn’t want him to leave, she could hardly stand the thought of that, and she had his misery to consider as well as her own. She owed him more than her blunt words in the churchyard, when she had treated him as an outsider, as if he had done something wrong. It was she who had kept him dangling on a string, kept his hopes alive. If Alec had not had an illness, if he had lived to some grand old age, there would never have been a future for her and Perry, and he would have wasted his life pining for her. He might have looked for someone else, and even if he couldn’t have loved someone new as much, he would have had hope and companionship. She had relegated him to loneliness. And yesterday she had threatened him to endure it for the rest of his life. Loneliness, the very worst thing in life to suffer. She hated herself. She was selfish. She had treated the two most important men in her life very badly. She didn’t mind if she suffered as a consequence but Perry didn’t deserve to.
‘It’s Selina. How are you, Emilia?’ Lounging on the hall telephone seat, nibbling the tip of one of her nails, wicked lights shone out of Selina’s extraordinary eyes. The revenge she was seeking on all those who had belittled her was not far off, not after the enlightening time she had spent with Gertrude Roberts yesterday.
She had taken a bottle of port with her, left it standing innocently in its brown paper wrapping beside her handbag while drinking the weak tea Gertrude served. Her arrival had sent the retired district nurse into a fluster, then into raptures, seemingly, at being called on by a doctor. Gertrude’s loneliness and her esteem for those more highly qualified than herself in the medical profession made her easy to manipulate.
‘Tell me about your work. Particularly in Hennaford. As I mentioned before, I knew some people there many years ago,’ Selina had said, from a matching easy chair set across from the plaster fireplace in the dark-curtained, stuffy front room. Before arriving, Selina had wondered if she was on safe ground with Gertrude, that if, by trawling through her memories, Gertrude would recall a scandal about the Boswelds who had lived in the village, and she would be refused entry, but Gertrude was a bit vague about most things.
A delighted Gertrude had prattled on for ages. Selina couldn’t be sure about the accuracy of everything and she would have cut the visit short, but she was curious to learn if the baby with a birthmark and Miss Louisa Hetherton-Andrews were one and the same person. There was definitely something odd about Tristan Harvey’s aversion to her; it was worth investigating. Patiently, she pressed for details of the many deliveries Gertrude had made, and as the afternoon wore on and Gertrude showed signs of becoming tired, Selina lifted up the bottle of port.
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Miss Roberts, you’re looking a little pale. I thought so the other day. I’ve brought this with me. A small glass will be the perfect pick-me-up for you.’
Gertrude appeared overcome with gratitude. ‘Anything you say, doctor. It’s most kind of you. I’m so enjoying our little chat.’
‘I see you have some glasses on the sideboard. Allow me to pour you a drop now.’ She made it a large drop and then it was easy to talk Gertrude into drinking a second glass. Selina fixed the old woman with a confidential stare. ‘Tell me more about the baby with the birthmark. I’d be interested in learning what happened to it. Was it a girl?’
‘D-did I mention her?’ Gertrude was bewildered. She blushed, and Selina sensed it was through the guilt of making a professional blunder.
‘Yes, you did. You hinted there was something unusual about her birth. I’d like to hear about that. Was she rejected by her parents because of the birthmark? Some people harbour silly superstitions about such a thing. Of course, you can tell me anything. I’m a doctor and bound to respect the confidentiality of a patient. You don’t have to mention any names.’ She could work out the characters herself.
‘Of course,’ Gertrude relaxed. The tortoiseshell bracket clock chimed four o’clock and it could be seen she was pleased to be honoured with a long visit. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with superstition. It was a terrible tragedy.’
‘Really? Was the mother a Hennaford girl? Unmarried? And she couldn’t keep the baby?’ This could be why Polly Hetherton and her brother had adopted the child. If Tristan Harvey was the father, he and Polly Hetherton would be afraid the girl would discover it. From recollection of the family history, he had been recovering at the farm from battle wounds in the year of Louisa’s birth.
‘Oh, she wasn’t unmarried!’ Gertrude exclaimed, eager to get on with the tale now she had, to her thinking, an appropriate listener. ‘She was married to an army captain.’ Selina poured her another drink and she didn’t object.
‘I see.’ The army captain had to be Tristan Harvey. That was it. Ursula Harvey had died in childbirth. Her baby was reported to have perished too, but obviously it hadn’t.
‘The baby’s father was her lover, a cad, handsome of course, but most disreputable. They were going to run away together and take the four-year-old son of the marriage with them. It was the timely intervention of a young farmer’s wife, pregnant herself, and then the army captain, who put a stop to it. Apparently, the lover pulled a gun on them but they managed to overpower him.’ Gertrude was warming to this now as if a dedicated gossip. ‘I felt sorry for the husband. The wife had run off with her lover before. Now, the unfaithful wife had been in labour for some time, but when she told her lover this he ran out on her. She was so heartbroken she did nothing to help with her baby’s birth and tragically she died, a classic case of post-partum haemorrhage. It was one of the most harrowing cases of my long career.’
‘Did the baby survive?’ Of course she did, she was Louisa Hertherton-Andrews.
‘Yes, she was adopted by a young man who had come to the house with the husband’s younger brother. The young man had a widowed sister who couldn’t conceive and he had a serious heart condition, so he couldn’t look forward to marriage and fatherhood – in fact he didn’t live for many years afterwards – so he took the unwanted baby away with him. I accompanied him in his chauffeured motor car. It was a most odd thing for me to do, I can assure you, Dr Bosweld. It had already been planned for the baby to be adopted. Until the lover turned up again, the husband was giving his marriage another chance, you see, but he wouldn’t accept the baby. It was arranged that I’d take the baby to the adoptive parents but I knew that, sadly, they wouldn’t accept a less than perfect child; the birthmark, you understand. The young man had to haggle for the baby, there was quite a row downstairs about it while I was with her dying mother. I think some of the others wanted to bring her up.’ Gertrude’s wrinkled eyes fluttered. She was drifting off to sleep.
‘The others?’ Selina went to her and prodded her. ‘Miss Roberts, how many people were there? Do you remember?’
‘Remember? Of course I do. All three brothers were there, and the eldest brother’s young pregnant wife and the youngest brother’s weak friend. Such a strange arrangement in the end. The poor husband was talked into it against his better judgement, I’m sure. I remember thinking, there’s going to be trouble in the future.’ Gertrude closed her eyes.
This time Selina let her drop into a gently snoring slumber. ‘You can bet there is.’ Selina stoppered the port and put it back in its wrapping. She rinsed out the glass and put it back in its place. Gertrude would probably stay where she was until the next morning and have a headache and little recollection of anything more than a visit from someone she considered a new-found friend. She had the whole cast list of the drama. The secret. A secret which involved Louisa Hetherton-Andrews, Polly Hetherton, Tristan, Ben, Alec and Emilia. Alec was gone, but she could use this information to cause upheaval in the others’ lives any time she chose. They were keeping secret the fact that Louisa and Jonny Harvey were half-brother and sister. Jonny Harvey would be devastated and that would be more revenge on him. Did Perry know? Had Emilia mentioned it to him? There was no reason why she should. The news would cause little upset be
tween them, but Emilia was doing that anyway. Perry had muttered that he might be leaving soon and he had no intention of revealing the reason why.
Selina’s first instinct at having Emilia on the other end of the telephone was to gloat, but there was something so lamentable about her voice that the part of her that loved Emilia rose to the surface. ‘Are you all right, Em? You sound odd. Is everything getting to you? I’ll come round if you like.’
‘Is Perry not there?’
‘Afraid not,’ Selina spoke truthfully. ‘He’s playing a round of golf with Ernest Rule to take his mind off things. Look, Em, I can tell you’re troubled. I sense that all’s not well with you and Perry. I know I’ve been perfectly beastly to you both at times but you are the two people I care about most in the world. Would it help to talk? I can be there in a jiffy.’
Talk to Selina? The bitch? Strange as it was, she was the only one she could talk to about Perry. She was the only one who knew about their love. ‘I don’t know, Selina. I need to talk about him but I can’t trust you not to turn on me, to use it against us.’
Now Selina’s repressed feelings had surfaced she was anxious to be with Emilia. ‘I promise I won’t cause any trouble, Em. I swear on… on Libby’s grave. Please believe me. I’ve been muddled, that’s all. It’s not been easy feeling shut out of your life for so long. I care about you and I care about Perry, I really do. You choose where we meet. I’ll do everything your way. Please. I hate to see you so unhappy, really I do.’
