Matty stayed the rest of the day, but she left Louisa and Sophie to sit at his bedside. Dr Crown had been carried off by Will to attend the rescued men who were still recovering at The Clipper.
Sophie sat by Charles’s bed and held his hand. He seemed to be a little warmer now, and his breathing became a little steadier.
‘Come back to us, Charles,’ Sophie murmured softly as she stroked his hand. ‘Come back to us. We all need you. What will AliceAnne do if you die? Your mother is praying for you to recover. And I? I can’t imagine my life without you at the centre of it. You said you loved me before you left. Was that true, my dearest? Come back to all of us. Come back to me. It’s me, Sophie, calling you because I love you and need you and want you.’
It was later that evening, as she continued to sit by his bed, that Sophie noticed a difference. The sound of his breathing changed and the faint shallow breaths sounded stronger. The light of the lamp, shielded from his face, showed a slight movement beneath the covers. Sophie leaned forward and suddenly his eyes flicked open for a second.
‘Charles?’ she breathed, ‘Charles, can you hear me? It’s me, Sophie. Are you awake?’ She grasped his hands so that he would know she was there, and his eyes opened again, and this time stayed open.
‘Sophie?’ he croaked, his voice husky and dry. ‘Sophie?’
‘I’m here, Charles,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here... always.’ And leaning forward, she touched his cheek with her lips.
For a moment a beatific smile spread across his face before he lapsed back into sleep.
Sophie felt a surge of joy welling up inside her as very gently, she tucked the hand she’d been holding back under the covers, and went to tell his mother that Charles had turned the corner and he was coming back to them.
Epilogue
It was almost a week later that the body of Nicholas Bryan was discovered, battered and broken, at the foot of the cliffs. His life jacket was gone, his clothing ripped to shreds on the jagged rocks. He had been cast up at high tide, so much flotsam, and lay face down in a rockpool just yards from where his father had been found over twenty-five years earlier. He was seen from a passing fishing boat and a rescue party clambered down the steep cliff path to bring what was left of him up for burial in the churchyard.
Charles’s memories of exactly what had happened on the fateful night of the lifeboat rescue had at first been patchy, but, as he recovered, so what had happened came back to him. On Dr Crown’s instructions and Sophie’s determination that they should be adhered to, Charles had remained in bed for several days after his brush with death. Sleep was his healer, but Sophie sat with him whenever he was awake and they talked to each other as they had never talked to anyone else before.
AliceAnne was allowed to visit him night and morning, and her delight in his gradual recovery added to it. ‘You’re getting better every day,’ she told him. ‘But Aunt Sophie says you must stay in bed until the doctor says you can get up.’
‘And I shall do exactly what Aunt Sophie tells me,’ Charles promised meekly and then gave his daughter a huge wink, which sent her off into hoots of laughter. ‘Oh, Papa,’ she cried, ‘you are naughty!’
When Charles heard that Nicholas’s body had been found, he had already remembered the vicious punch that had pitched him into the sea and realized that it must have come from Nicholas. ‘He tried to drown me,’ he told Sophie. ‘But how he came to be in the water as well, I don’t know.’
Sophie told him what Will had told Hannah, that Nicholas had been washed overboard by a freak wave, and on hearing this Charles asked to see Will.
The farmer came up to the house, and Charles heard from him how Nicholas had been swept away. ‘It’s a sobering thought the thin line between life and death,’ Will said. ‘One minute a living breathing man, the next a soul gone and a body floating in the water.’
Charles remembered the panicking Nicholas clinging on to him, pulling him under the surging water before another wave had broken them apart, Nicholas to his death, Charles to struggle for his life. He remembered his battle to reach the shore and the nightmare climb as he inched his way up the cliff path, clutching at the rope beside the path and hauling himself upward until he finally reached the top.
‘I must thank you and Ned for bringing me in so quickly,’ he said. ‘I should have died out there on the cliff if you hadn’t carried me home.’
‘Lucky old Frank Davies found you,’ Will replied.
‘I know, I’ve already spoken to him, but I survived because you knew what needed to be done to save me.’
‘Seen a man taken from the water cold like that before,’ Will said. ‘We’ve learned what to do.’
Seeing Sophie’s happiness in her promised future with Charles, Hannah decided that at last she could broach the subject of her own forthcoming marriage.
‘Since you’re going to marry Mr Charles,’ Hannah said, ‘I can now tell you that Will and I are going to be wed as well.’
‘Hannah, you dark horse,’ cried Sophie, giving her a hug. ‘You and Will! AliceAnne said that she thought you were “best friends”. How right she was!’
Hannah laughed. ‘Is that what she said, bless her. I always said she was nobody’s fool. Let’s face it, she was the first person to take against Dr Bryan.’
‘Well, Hannah, dear Hannah, I wish you every happiness. And even if you are leaving me, you’ll be close by at the home farm and AliceAnne and I can come and visit you whenever we want to.’
‘I wouldn’t have left you if you’d married him,’ Hannah said. ‘And so I told Will, but now I have no worries about you. I’ve kept the promise I made to your ma and I can leave you safe in Mr Charles’s care.’
Sophie hugged her again. ‘Hannah, I don’t know how I would have survived without you after Mama died. You were more than a friend to me, and I shall never forget how you stood by me. Be happy with your Will, you deserve him.’
After some discussion, Sophie and Charles decided there seemed no point in making public Nicholas’s attempt on Charles’s life.
‘The man’s dead,’ Charles said. ‘To most in the village he’ll be a hero, a volunteer who took a place in the lifeboat and lost his life in a tragic accident.’
‘You’re very generous with your forgiveness,’ Sophie said as she reached up to kiss him. ‘More than I am.’
‘What was between us has died with him,’ Charles said, his arms tightening round her. ‘I have everything to live for. I have you. I have AliceAnne. And we have a future. He has none. Let him rest in peace.’
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Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks go to Mike Rapps, solicitor, author and friend, who answered all my legal questions in great detail and with enormous patience. Also to the Cornish Andersons, Rosie and Ian, who offered me bed and board and drove me round Cornwall while I was doing my research.
Finally to my long-suffering agent, Judith, and editor, Rosie. Thank you both for your continued encouragement, your input and your patience, without which I might well have sunk beneath the wave.
About Diney Costeloe
DINEY COSTELOE is the author of seventeen novels, several short stories and many articles and poems. She has three children and seven grandchildren, so when she isn’t busy writing, she’s busy with family. She and her husband divide their time between Somerset and West Cork.
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Diney Costeloe, 2018
The moral right of Diney Costeloe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781784976156
ISBN (HB) 9781784976163
ISBN (XTPB) 9781784976170
ISBN (PB) 9781784976187
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