`Meet my mother and father. Lee, and Jon,' Haydn introduced them, and Lee took an instant liking to the tall, white-haired woman with twinkling blue eyes, and the upright man with the pepper and salt hair and tawny eyes, who was a mould of what Haydn would probably be at his age. And she felt a surge of relief that her trouser suit would do. Moira Scott was dressed in plain, unadorned linen, mint green to cool the warmth of the day, and Haydn's father was in the same casual attire as the two younger men.
`You young people must be hungry.' Moira Scott's voice was warmed by friendliness and a faint hint of a Highland accent that gave an added significance to the nursery trademark. And confronted by snowy linen and silver cutlery, and china as fine as that from which they had partaken of coffee earlier, Lee found to her surprise that she was. Her nervousness vanished under the unassuming friendliness of the older couple, and by the time the meal was over she felt relaxed and completely at her ease.
`I did enjoy that.' She sank back into her chair with a contented sigh.
`You've just paid Mother the ultimate compliment,' Haydn told her, and seeing Lee's look of surprise he added, `She does all the cooking herself. It's her main hobby. You two have a lot in common—you should taste Lee's strawberry shortcake,' he enthused.
`You must let me have the recipe,' their hostess began, and her husband smiled.
`So that's why you wanted those strawberries in such a
hurry. I thought there must be an ulterior motive !'
There was, but it was not strawberry shortcake. Lee's
after-lunch euphoria dimmed at the edges.
`She'll have a bigger variety to choose from when we get
our own soft fruit area going properly.' Jon could not forget his main interest for long.
`Soft fruit? For yourself, or for trade?' Haydn asked, and Jon replied,
`For both, but mostly for trade, of course. Why, don't you think it's a good idea?' he asked, as Haydn slowly shook his head.
Not really, it's too cost-intensive,' he said, and Lee felt her temper rise. Whatever she or Jon suggested, it was wrong in Haydn's view.
`We're going to plant black and red currants, gooseberries and raspberry canes,' she stated firmly, and felt Haydn's look lance across the room at her.
`Plant what you like for yourself, but they're no good for trade,' he insisted.
`They'll be good for Polrewin's trade,' she was equally firm, and determined to hold her own. They had planned soft fruit bushes, and soft fruit bushes she intended to have.
Not in a town like Tarmouth,' Haydn retorted just as firmly. 'You're placed very much like us, in a way, with a small resident population, and a big dose of holidaymakers for a short time every summer.' He turned to Jon as if seeking male reasonableness, and Lee flushed angrily. 'Leave that sort of thing to the inland farms,' he urged her brother. `They've got the room and the populations of the large towns to draw on, and they can advertise "pick your own" and eliminate the labour charges. That way, they can keep costs down and still make a reasonable profit. On the coast as we are,' he included them all in his gesture, 'the resident population isn't large enough to make it worthwhile, and holidaymakers aren't going to pick a lot of perishable stuff to take home with them, when they can have a day out later on for the same purpose, nearer home.'
`We're a bossy lot, aren't we?' It came with a chuckle from Haydn's father, and Lee looked across and met the twinkle in his eyes, and became uncomfortably conscious that he must have been watching her, reading her expression.
`We made the same mistakes when we started up,' he glanced affectionately at his wife, 'one or two of our good
ideas very nearly sent us bankrupt, and you might as well profit from our experience.'
Again, all the arguments seemed immensely reasonable. Lee sighed. She seemed to be wallowing in a morass from which there was no escape.
`Haydn tells me you were in the domestic science field yourself?' Did Moira Scott notice her sigh, or was she simply being polite? 'Don't you miss it? I should,' she said kindly.
`I do, but until Polrewin's safely in orbit, I'll have to get along without it,' Lee said frankly. 'In the meantime I'm learning a lot from a chef at the local hotel.' Because she felt she had remained silent for too long, she launched into a description of the daisy confection the chef had made in their honour. At first she spoke merely to make a polite contribution to the conversation, but when she found she was talking to a fellow enthusiast she warmed to her subject, and before she knew what had happened it all came out, the strawberries, the tomatoes, the daisies.... 'We've got to decorate the float when we get home.'
`And you're going to be the middle of the daisy? What a charming idea. I'd like to come over and see it for myself,' Moira said wistfully, 'but we've got a similar function to attend here, and we can't do both in one day, it's too far.'
`I'll take some photographs and send them over to you, so you can have the best of both worlds,' Haydn promised, and once again Lee felt trapped. The Scott family were impossible, she thought with helpless frustration. After Haydn's attitude about the daisies, she had almost decided not to sit on the festival float herself, and now, because he had promised to send photographs of it to his mother, she could not very well back out. It would be churlish to refuse, after accepting their hospitality.
`Better still, bring them yourself and we can all have another day together,' Haydn's father suggested hospitably. `Jon can have a look at how we change the glasshouses over for the winter crops, and Lee and your mother can talk cookery to their hearts' content.' He, too, discounted Lee's involvement in practical matters at Polrewin, and Lee shrugged resignedly.
`I'll give you the recipe before we go,' she prevaricated, and Moira Scott got up.
`Come with me now and freshen up before you go back, and you can see my hobby room,' she offered, and Lee left the men behind with a feeling of relief. She wanted to see Jon launched at Polrewin, but increasingly she had to admit that her own interest lay more in her brother's success than her own personal involvement in the nursery. Had Haydn sensed this, even before she admitted it to herself?
`This is my own little retreat,' said Moira, and Lee voiced frank envy.
`This is just what I'd like. When we get the nursery on its feet,' she added with unconscious wistfulness.
`Don't give up everything for the nursery,' Moira advised her, suddenly serious. 'Keep something of yourself alive, you'll need it to fall back on when things are running smoothly, and your help's no longer needed. At least, not in that way,' she added.
`There's so little time. But I'll keep this in mind.' Lee looked about her appreciatively, her eyes lingering on the blue and grey embossed carpet, the soft grey, tweed-upholstered chairs, and the fresh-looking shadow cretonne curtains that picked up the colours of both, and added a warm rose tint of their own, at the same time reflecting something of the occupant of the room. Was it from his mother Haydn inherited his eye for colour? she wondered.
`Haydn didn't show us any of his photographs,' she realised aloud. She had been surprised that there was no evidence of his work anywhere about the nursery. Perhaps his photography was not of the standard he would like them to believe, but as he was the son of the owner it was tolerated, and he was allowed to go his own way.
Haydn's too modest about his work, but this is one.' Moira swept aside a curtain where it had blown across part of the wall with the brisk breeze coming through the window, and took down a plainly framed picture. It showed a perfect rosebud, with the dew still on it, and just starting to open shaded pink petals to the sun. It was a superb picture, there was no doubt of the quality of the photography here. Lee took it from her hand. She could almost
smell the perfume. 'But this is my favourite.' Moira reached another down, and Lee could not restrain her pleasure as she exchanged them.
`This is lovely! He must have waited hours to get a picture like this.'
It was a fieldmouse, busily engaged in making a meal of tiny, wild straw
berries. One of the miniature berries was clutched in both front paws, and the little creature was in the act of beginning to nibble. Enough of the rough herbage showed to bring out the essential wildness of its surroundings, and turn the picture into a perfect wildlife still.
`He's got infinite patience,' Moira agreed, 'he spends hours along the cliffs with his camera. He'll wait for weeks, sometimes, until something is just right before he takes a photograph of it.'
The patience of a mountain lion, watching, waiting, until the time was ripe. Was he waiting like this for Polrewin to fall into his hands? Lee handed the photograph back, suddenly repelled. Moira took it from her and hung it back on the wall, as if sensing her withdrawal, but she said nothing, and they rejoined the men shortly afterwards and waved their host and hostess goodbye to echoes of 'Come again as soon as you can,' and Lee wondered, as they sped back towards the harbour and the Sea Mist, whether she would ever return. Jon would, in all probability. But not herself. Unconsciously she shook her head, not realising what she was doing until she heard Haydn say,
`Don't you want it, after all?'
`Want what?' She came back to the present with a start, and the realisation that their driver was holding out something towards her. Something she had not noticed was in the vehicle when it returned them to the harbour.
`It's a baby rose bush,' Haydn told her, and she took it automatically. 'One of our own, that we've grown from seed.'
Lee cupped it tenderly in her hands, enslaved from her first look at the miniature blooms, the minute buds that were beginning to burst into perfect flower.
`With the compliments of the nursery,' Haydn said gravely.
Her eyes rose from his gift to his expressionless face, and she could not help it if they were suddenly misty, any more than she could help the wild, irrational wish that it might have been Haydn's deliberate choice, rather than just coincidence, that the rose was a red one.
CHAPTER EIGHT
`IT'S a red one.'
`Yes.'
He did not say 'I know.' He did not give any indication that he might have had a hand in its choosing. He did not say anything, except just the monosyllabic reply that gave nothing away. Lee could not read anything from his face; he stood at the wheel of the Sea Mist and his expression was intent as he steered carefully out of the harbour, going slowly to avoid the clutter of small craft that slid about like water spiders on the sunlit surface, happy, carefree holidaymakers. Lee found herself envying them, with nothing more urgent on their minds than the hope that it would be fine tomorrow. They were not at war within themselves, as she was. And then they passed a boat with a couple in it who were not laughing and talking. The man was rowing, and the girl was looking away from him, frowning, towards the shore. Lee clutched her miniature rose bush to her and stayed thoughtfully silent. Maybe Haydn would hand the wheel over to Jon, as he had done coming out, and then perhaps he might talk. Perhaps tell her that he had chosen her rose himself....
`I'll keep the Sea Mist going back, it looks as if we might run into a storm.' Haydn dashed her hopes, and then her spirits with his next remark. 'If you're cold,' he told her formally, 'go and sit in the day cabin, you won't have to face the breeze there.'
She was not cold. The cockpit of the cruiser was well screened, so it probably meant he did not want her with them. Perhaps he wanted to talk to Jon, and he preferred her to be out of earshot. She hesitated for a moment, then gave in with a shrug.
`I'll make a cup of coffee as soon as we're out of the harbour.'
She left them and took her rose bush, and made herself
comfortable in the day cabin, and watched the harbour fade behind them, felt the stronger movement as the Sea Mist rose to the open sea. She put the rose bush on the table, but it slid about, and fearing it might get damaged she held it in her hands again. It gave her an odd sort of comfort, but it did not resolve the tug of war that was going on inside her, and which she seemed to have no power to stop. Haydn found her there when he came down, and she jumped to her feet guiltily.
`I'd forgotten the coffee.'
`Now will do,' he answered indifferently, and reached for his jacket which was lying across the other bench seat. He paused as he slipped it on. 'Can you manage on your own?'
`Yes.' She did not know whether she could manage or not. She only knew she did not want to. She wanted Haydn to stay with her, to hold her against the sway of the boat, to care whether she accidentally scalded herself with the coffee. She wanted him to . She despised herself for wanting. She reached for the coffee things before her thoughts could go any further. 'I can manage.'
She burned her hand. The boat lurched, the hot coffee spilled and went over her fingers, but she gritted her teeth and said nothing. Somehow, she did not know how, she managed to get the filled mugs on to the deck without spilling too much of the contents, and whether they wanted her or not she remained in the cockpit with the two men while she drank her own. It was difficult, holding her mug with one hand and the rose bush with the other, and trying to brace herself against the movement of the boat at the same time, but she managed it, though not without drawing a comment from Haydn.
`Why don't you push the rose down? You'll find it easier with two hands free.'
`It might get damaged. It can't stand up either.'
`Have it your own way.' He handed back his empty mug and concentrated on his controls, as if he was not really interested. They were returning at a much greater speed than they had reached on the outward journey. 'The tide's behind us,' was all Haydn said when Lee commented on this, and she took the empty mugs and got them, herself
and the rose bush back into the cabin again without encountering disaster. She swilled the mugs and replaced them in the cupboard, then after a moment's hesitation decided to remain in the cabin rather than go back to the cockpit. Indifference, she discovered, could hurt worse than anger. A hand on her shoulder shook her awake.
`My rose?'
`I've got it. Wake up, we're home.' It was Haydn. And he still called Polrewin 'home'.
`I don't want to go down that rope ladder again.' She rubbed balled fists into her eyes, willing herself back to consciousness, fighting against the awful drowsiness that still claimed half of her mind.
`You won't have to. The tide's right in, and we're anchored against the harbour steps. Come on.' He pulled her to her feet, but gently this time, not roughly as he had held her on the island. She shivered, suddenly cold, and he drew her to him, and the hard lean strength of him, and the closeness, brought her vividly awake, and she almost wished she was asleep again, and unaware, because being awake, and being aware, brought the tug of war back, and it hurt.
`I thought you said there was a storm?' The storm seemed to be inside her. It shook her with a ferocity which left her anchorless, and at its mercy, but there was no sign of the ordinary elements when she got on deck. She turned her face up to a clear sky.
`It passed off,' Haydn said, 'though there's a lot of electricity in the air still. Look at the masts.'
Lee looked, and wondered, as she had so often wondered before at the strange, faint glow surrounding the mastheads of the anchored boats. As if each mast tip had its own glowworm, working overtime to produce the weird, soft light.
`Static electricity,' Jon stated in a practical voice.
`St Elmo's fire,' Haydn contradicted him softly, and kept his hand on Lee's waist, so that they stood together on the deck, close together, watching it, each masthead like a subdued candle outlined against the dark sky, and the
even darker outline of the buildings on the curve of the harbour wall.
`I wonder if....' Lee stretched out a tentative hand towards their own mast, to feel the bottom of it, then drew it away again, afraid to touch.
`It won't burn you.' Haydn looked into her face. 'It's only a glow. A nice warm one, but it lacks the spark of fire.' The vital spark. The one that he had, compared to Dennis, or Vince. She looked at the glow again. It was warming, comforting. And fire
seared and burned, and the pain hurt unbearably. It hurt now, while he had his arm round her, and it would hurt even worse when he took it away. She sighed sharply, and he spoke.
`Come on, you're tired out. Home and bed now, tomorrow's another day. Here's your rose,' when she looked to see if he still held it, anxious not to leave it behind.
`It's a bonny little bush,' Nell admired it the next morning. 'By the way, Miss Lee, someone's delivered a trailer, the man said you'd know what it was, and he just left it and went away.'
`It's the float for the festival,' Lee identified it for her. `The market are lending them for the purpose, we're going to drag it behind the Mini.'
`Why not make it into a flower train?' Haydn came downstairs and joined in the conversation. 'Turn the Mini into a little engine, and the trailer into a coach.'
`That's a wonderful idea,' Nell complimented him, and Lee wished she had thought of it herself. The flower train that travelled from Penzance daily, taking the produce of the local market gardens to the London markets, was a familiar part of everyday life in Tarmouth. It would be a popular display, one people would remember, and with it they would remember the name of Polrewin.
`I've been showing the stretcher to Ben.' Jon came in and gave brief approval to their idea before returning to his own immediate problems. 'It seems the boatyard are getting rid of quite a lot of wood, odd spars and things, and we can have what we want for next to nothing if we go down and sort it out today—they've even offered to send the long bits up on their lorry. It seems they're thinking of
moving, and they want it out of their way. I know I said Ben could help with the float, but....' He eyed his sister doubtfully.
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