‘What kind was it then?’ Celia persisted, still aggressive, and eager for knowledge as ever.
Skye couldn’t bear to hear Philip expound any further. Nor could she risk him deciding to educate her daughters and take away their innocence with his stiffly worded explanations of the particular comforts that soldiers could get from a woman of loose morals. She could practically hear his words in her head now, as clearly as if he spoke them out loud. He was so utterly predictable… which came from his years of college tutoring. The spiel was the same, and only the students changed.
His anger was directed at Skye the moment she walked into the room, his face an ugly puce, and all puffed up with self-importance and fury.
‘What on earth were you thinking about, bringing a woman of ill-repute into my house and infecting my children with her gutter filth?’
Skye felt the room spin for a moment. His house, and his children?
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ she snapped at last.
‘I don’t think so,’ he threw back, astute as ever, and not pretending to misunderstand her. ‘If you’re about to remind me whose house this is, let me remind you that you promised to obey me, and while I live and breathe, I’ll not tolerate my children being subjected to the kind of language such people use.’
‘I also promised to love and honour you, but sometimes you make it damned difficult, Philip,’ she stormed.
She hardly saw Nanny enter the room and take the girls silently away from the two ranting adults. The two of them stared at each other. They were barely a foot apart in reality, but the distance in spirit between them was enormous.
‘What exactly do you mean by that remark?’ he roared. ‘Haven’t I given you everything you wanted over the years? My love and protection, and the children. I’ve never strayed from my marital duties, nor wanted to, which is more than can be said about your wretched cousin.’
‘Marital duties?’ Skye almost screamed. ‘Is that how you see it, Philip? Am I no more than a duty to you now?’
Dear God, whatever happened to the passion between them that had made them unable to contemplate being apart? The passion that had made her risk her family’s wrath in following him to France after a secret marriage? Risking her very life, in being so near to the front line in all those terrible years… But it had been unthinkable to be apart from him, and while duty for their country had been part of it, duty between the two of them had never entered into their decision. Only love.
The antagonism still smouldered between them, and to Skye’s horror and dismay, Philip slept in another bedroom that night, saying coldly that his head troubled him appallingly and he didn’t want to disturb Skye with his thrashings, but they both knew it was more than that.
* * *
The separation continued until Skye’s birthday was imminent, and their guests were due to arrive from Wales. By then, she had never felt more remote from her husband, nor more bereft at the way neither of them seemed able or inclined to reach the other. But once Ruth Dobson and her aunt and friend arrived, she thought hopefully that he would surely move back into their marital bed, and they could become loving partners once more…
‘I’ll use my dressing-room while the visitors are here,’ he told her. ‘I’ve discovered that I sleep marginally better when I’m alone.’
‘Do you?’ she said woodenly. ‘I seem to remember a time when you couldn’t bear to be apart from me, Philip.’
‘My dear girl, we’ve got three children, and we’re too old for all that nonsense now.’
‘For pity’s sake, I find that a depressing statement. I hardly think I’m entitled to be put on the back shelf when I’ll be only thirty-four years old in June!’
‘And I’m fifty-one, and ready to take life at a more mature and steady pace than you and your frivolous friends.’
Skye felt her face go hot. Fanny Webb hadn’t called on them again, but her brief influence was still evident in Celia’s occasional “bleedin’ ’ell”, whenever she thought no one in authority was listening. Skye was well aware that some of the kitchen maids thought it hilarious, which made Celia say it all the more. And Philip wasn’t going to let Skye forget it.
‘Oh, sleep where you like, then, for as long as you like,’ she snapped in frustration.
This wasn’t what marriage was ordained for, she thought, except in certain royal circles, by all accounts. But any attempt to suggest such a thing to Philip now would be to see his pompous face again. And she’d had enough of that. Let him please himself. It dawned on her that he always did, anyway. Maybe Ruth’s presence would lighten his sour looks…
* * *
Any thought of that disappeared the moment the visitors arrived. Ruth had hardly changed from the pale girl Skye remembered, except to look more confident now. Her aunt had aged, and then there was the stranger…
She and Philip had simply assumed it would be another teacher from the school where Ruth taught now. Another woman. Instead of which, it was a man of about her own age who clearly wasn’t deaf, but was adept in sign language and patently adored Ruth.
Once they had all greeted one another and the ladies had removed their gloves for afternoon tea, it didn’t escape Philip’s notice that Ruth wore an engagement ring.
‘What’s all this?’ he said, pointing to her left hand.
It was the stranger – Jeffrey – who supplied the answer. ‘Ruth wanted to keep it a surprise, and in fact, it’s only just happened, Philip – if I may call you Philip?’ He didn’t wait for a reply and went on speaking, facing Ruth so that she could understand all that he said. ‘I teach at a similar school to Ruth, but I’ve been offered a post in Canada, and I can take my wife with me. As I don’t have a wife, I decided it was time to make an honest woman of her.’
Ruth’s laugh denied the unintentional innuendo that Skye thought charming, and Philip obviously didn’t.
‘And what do you say to all this, Miss Dobson?’ he said at last, turning to Ruth’s aunt.
In amazement, Skye realised he was playing for time, and also needed an ally in his discomfiture. He was jealous, damn him, she thought, and even if he didn’t want Ruth for himself, he clearly didn’t want anyone else to have her. What a hypocrite!
Miss Dobson replied warmly. ‘I’m included in the package, thanks to dear Jeffrey,’ she said. ‘A house goes with the teaching post, and there’s room for us all. Ruth and I couldn’t be happier that we’ll still be together.’
‘So when is the wedding going to take place?’ Skye asked.
‘In a month’s time. We sail to Canada at the end of July. It will be a very small affair with my family in London, or we would have invited you all. This flying trip around the country is by way of saying goodbye to England.’
Ruth spoke then, in the slow, flat drawl of the deaf, her eyes unblinking at the man she had once expected to marry.
‘Be happy for me, Philip.’
‘My dear girl, I’m delighted for you. How could I be anything else?’ he said, moving swiftly towards her. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it in a continental gesture.
They all looked slightly relieved, and Skye knew that the atmosphere had been evident to them all. But only she guessed at how Philip still seethed beneath his bland good manners. His scarred mentality had made him increasingly selfish over the years, and while he no longer wanted Ruth for himself, it didn’t please him to see her glowing eyes every time she looked at her fiancé.
It had been a shock to him, and the effect of it resulted in him coming to their room that night, and forcing himself on his wife with no attempt at finesse. It was marital rape, thought Skye, when at last he slid away from her without uttering one word of love, and only his animal gruntings told her that he was enjoying the act in any way at all.
She did not. He was rough and she was sore. She felt the slow tears trickle down her face as he went out of the room as silently as he had entered it. She was no more than a thing to him, and she had never felt it more.
She was used, and abused, as if he had needed to prove his manhood just because his old love was in the house.
* * *
Thankfully, he seemed to have recovered his equilibrium by morning, and was charming and friendly to Ruth and Jeffrey, insisting that he showed them around his college and took lunch with him in Truro. He effectively shut out Miss Dobson from the offer, but since she was more anxious to meet the children than to be involved in academic activities, such rudeness went unnoticed. Or so Skye thought.
‘You’ve a strong personality in your husband, my dear,’ she observed, when the others had left the house in Philip’s car.
‘He’s always been used to saying what he thinks, and it was quite a shock for him to see that Ruth was engaged when she hadn’t told him anything about Jeffrey.’
‘But he couldn’t have expected her to remain unwed all her days, after – well, forgive me, Mrs Norwood, but after what happened between you all.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t. But Philip had a difficult war, and the repercussions of his injuries are far from over, I’m afraid. We don’t talk about it, but we’re always aware of it.’
And she had no intention of discussing details of it with Ruth Dobson’s aunt, pleasant though she was. To her credit, she didn’t ask any more questions, and happily turned to the children when they were brought down from the nursery.
‘Would you like to visit the pottery this afternoon?’ Skye enquired, when the playtime was exhausted. ‘We could all take a drive up there, if you wish. Perhaps you could help me choose something for Ruth and Jeffrey. It would seem a more personal wedding gift coming from White Rivers.’
‘That’s a charming idea. Yes, let’s do that.’
* * *
They chose a set of tableware and tureens that would be shipped to Canada with the rest of their belongings. There was no point in swearing the children to secrecy, because the gift would be presented to the couple before they left Cornwall. But Skye insisted that they keep quiet about it until Philip had seen it and approved. She was sure he would. It would please him to think that Ruth would be using something of the business in which he was involved, however slightly.
She realised she could almost be accused of being jealous too, but she wasn’t, not any more. It alarmed her to know how indifferent she really felt as to whether or not Philip was attracted to anyone else, past or present. And that the real sense of envy in her soul was that these visitors were shortly to be crossing the Atlantic. A great sense of nostalgia for her parents and her old home swept through her at the thought. Canada wasn’t New Jersey, but it was nearer than Cornwall…
* * *
‘It was a very nice idea,’ Philip said, when she showed him the pottery that evening. By now, he was expansive and genial, and she guessed he had had a good day, well in control of himself again. ‘We had best give it to them this evening, before the girls spill the beans.’
‘Why, Mr Norwood, that sounded almost human,’ Skye said, too softly for him to hear, and she didn’t repeat it.
Knowing that it was Skye’s birthday soon, there was a small gift for her too, a pretty tortoiseshell brooch that was almost Victorian in its design. Skye loved it at once, and hugged Ruth as she thanked her.
‘It’s a birthday and farewell gift in one,’ she heard Jeffrey say. ‘While we were all out, your housekeeper took a message for me to call my people urgently. My teaching post has been advanced by two weeks, otherwise there will be a lengthy delay. Ruth and I have discussed it seriously, since it obviously means rearranging the wedding details and an earlier passage to Canada. In the circumstances we have decided to leave for London tomorrow.’
Skye couldn’t deny her huge relief to hear it. They were nice people, but they were strangers all the same. And Ruth and Philip would always share a past that excluded her.
* * *
And if June had been an oddly traumatic time for Skye, July passed smoothly. She immersed herself in domestic matters, and with the added pleasure of knowing that White Rivers was doing exceptionally well this year with the influx of seasonal visitors. She could forget all the mad nonsense of Nick Pengelly’s intimate remarks, since he was no longer in Cornwall to remind her, and the days of summer were warm and fragrant and uneventful.
Just like the calm before the storm, Skye’s grandmother always used to say, and just as untrustworthy… And Skye had always laughingly pooh-poohed such remarks.
She took little notice, therefore, when she saw the telegraph boy toiling up the hill on his bicycle towards New World. The wartime days when such visits brought terror to people’s hearts were long gone. And the boy was probably taking a roundabout route to his destination, just to savour the early August sunshine and the long summer days.
When he turned into the driveway leading to the house, crouched low over his machine to give him more impetus, Skye felt her heartbeats quicken. She was sitting in the conservatory, enjoying a lazy afternoon, with the house quiet. She had been idly reading but, without being aware of it, the book fell to the floor and she was suddenly standing, very still, hands clenched by her sides. Her sense of premonition was strong and painful, and her palms were sweaty. It was bad news about her father. It had to be. She was sure of it.
The boy caught sight of her and came straight to the conservatory. He handed her the telegram, turning away at once, ready to free-wheel back down the hill, and not waiting for a reply. The neglect of his duty was ominous to Skye, but she had no breath to call him back. In any case, her mouth was too dry for her to speak. She ripped open the envelope quickly, and stared at the words in total shock and disbelief:
“SINCLAIR KILLED WASHINGTON DC 8 AUGUST DURING KU KLUX KLAN RALLY. COME HOME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. DADDY.”
The terse words danced in front of her eyes like darting tadpoles in a stream. Her thoughts were just as distracted. She was totally off-balance, and had never felt so alone. Philip had taken the girls for a walk, but would surely be back soon. Oliver was asleep. And there was no one to share the weight of a tragedy she didn’t even understand…
The next moment she felt someone’s arms go around her. She seemed to have difficulty in focusing her eyes. All the same, she knew the arms holding her weren’t her husband’s. She blinked hard, forcing herself to react.
‘David,’ she said in a high voice that didn’t sound like her own. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ And then she slid to the ground as David Kingsley tried vainly to stop her hitting her head on a jardinière.
‘I think she’s coming round,’ she heard a man’s voice say. Philip? No, not him. Not one of her relatives either. Her father? Impossible. Sinclair…?
The pain of remembering rushed at her so fast she was in danger of throwing up all over the sitting-room sofa where she realised she was lying now. She struggled to keep the nausea under control, and looked into the face of David Kingsley, editor of The Informer newspaper, and then at the frightened eyes of Mrs Arden.
‘Steady, Skye,’ David said gently. ‘Take it slowly…’
‘I wish Mr Norwood would come back,’ Mrs Arden whispered in agitation, as if Skye wasn’t there at all. ‘She’ll be needing his strength, poor soul. And perhaps I should send for the doctor too…’
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ Skye croaked. ‘I’m not ill.’
And Philip? What good would he be, with his platitudes and his lack of understanding of the remorse and guilt that ran through her like a knife-edge now, remembering all the times she had despised and ridiculed her brother Sinclair, for his fringe attachments to politics.
And look where it had got him, she thought in anguish. She was appalled at the clarity of her thinking regarding her brother, and also her husband. That was guilt, if you like. She should be needing him, but right now, the solid good sense of the newspaperman, from whom she was sure she could get some sensible answers, was like a lifeline.
‘Mrs Arden, can you get Mrs Norwood some hot sweet tea, please?’ she heard David say briskly now. ‘An
d perhaps a drop of brandy to revive her. She was only out for a few moments, but she’s had a severe shock.’
‘Thank you,’ Skye said briefly, when they were alone. ‘I can’t bear to have someone wringing their hands over me. Now tell me what you know, and how you come to be here.’ She was recovering quickly from the initial shock, and her keen mind needed to know all the facts.
‘The general information came through for the newspaper. Then I saw the name of the victim, and from what you had told me of his involvement in politics,’ he said delicately, ‘I realised at once that it had to be your brother. I hoped to get up here to tell you gently before the telegraph boy, and I almost made it.’
‘I didn’t even hear your car,’ she muttered, as if such an inane remark mattered.
‘That’s understandable. You were hearing nothing but the words your father sent you.’
‘Oh God, my father,’ Skye moaned. ‘He’ll be distraught by this. He had such faith in Sinclair.’ She bit her lip, knowing she hadn’t shared that faith.
‘Listen to me, Skye. From what I can gather, none of it was your brother’s fault, nor the government’s. Sinclair just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ David said brusquely, ‘Are you ready to hear the details?’
‘Of course.’ She took a deep breath, her journalist training overcoming her horror at hearing the details that affected her own flesh and blood.
And in like fashion, David told it concisely and without expression. The Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington DC had been properly organised and approved, and no violence had been anticipated. Perhaps 40,000 members, wearing their white robes and conical caps, had taken part, and huge numbers of spectators had watched the march towards the Washington Monument. By the time it was nearing the conclusion it was raining and the sky was dark. The rain prevented the planned finale of the ceremony and the burning of an 80-foot cross, and by then tempers were at fever pitch on both sides.
White Rivers Page 10
