A Whisper of Life Read online

  When she reached the last two steps, gripping the handrail tightly – climbing up and down was tricky for her – Perry Bosweld held out one hand to take the cleaning things from her and the other to help her alight.

  Kate didn’t realize that she responded to him with shining eyes, or that he was thinking how pretty she was when her face fit up. She was an engaging little thing. Abbie wanted to paint her too. Abbie had a long list of portraits she wanted to do, starting with Emilia. Quite right, there was no one more fascinating and beautiful in the world than his beloved Em. ‘Kate, my dear, do you fancy a stroll down to the shop? My monthly rose-growers’ magazine should be in and I don’t want to wait for the paperboy to deliver it. Would you mind, please?’

  ‘Course not, Mr Perry. Anything you say.’ Kate was pleased to do little jobs for the family. They stressed she was a guest among them but she felt she must pay her way somehow and not become a burden; she dreaded that happening, for then surely they would want her out.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Perry beamed back in his friendly manner. Kate was always eager to please, and his little ruse to encourage her to get away from the house for a while had worked. Apart from exploring the farmyard and short trips down to the ford with Paul, she had barely poked her nose out of doors, wanting instead to haunt the kitchen and help Tilda with the housework. Admirable of her, of course, and Tilda Lawry, in her mid-sixties, was glad to have someone willing to fetch and carry for her, but it wasn’t what Kate was here for. The family had taken her under their wing, not as a charity case but because they genuinely liked her. Hopefully she would prove a focus for Jill when she came home tomorrow, help her come to terms with her heartache. And, more personal, the terrible sadness and put-down aspect that clung to Kate reminded Perry of his daughter Libby. Bullying had cost fourteen-year-old Libby her life. Some years ago, unable to bear returning to the boarding school where her life had been made hell, she had walked into the sea and drowned. He handed Kate a ten-shilling note. ‘Keep the change as a thank you for going. Treat yourself, if you like.’

  Kate stared at the note as if she had never seen such a thing before. Only on rare occasions had she acquired a few pennies of her own. ‘But it will be a lot of change.’

  ‘You deserve it, Kate.’ He closed her small rough hand over the money, for she seemed about to hand it back. ‘You’ve done a lot for all of us. Take it, to please me.’

  What else could she say but a grateful ‘Thank you very much.’

  Emilia had been listening further along the passage. She’d slipped away to a cupboard in the kitchen where discarded items were kept and hurried back with a small brown leather handbag with a gilt clasp. It wasn’t fancy but it was smart, and had belonged to her married daughter, Lottie. ‘There you are, Kate. I’ve been having a bit of a turnout and I was wondering if you’d like this. It’ll be just right for you.’ Just right for her to carry the ten-shilling note in. ‘It’s got a little purse compartment inside and a mirror.’

  ‘I can really have it?’ It was a gift beyond Kate’s dreams. None of the girls her age that she knew had a grand handbag like this and she didn’t think she’d ever possess one. It would make her feel quite grown up. Mrs Em was so kind. Kate eased into feeling completely comfortable in her presence. There was no reason not to. Mrs Em had explained she had been the dairymaid here before marrying the squire, Mr Tom’s father. If only she could be taken on as a worker, Tilda’s assistant perhaps, even in a smaller, less well-furnished room, and stay here for ever.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Emilia laughed, resisting the urge to hug the girl in case she didn’t like it. ‘And take your time. It’s a lovely day out there.’

  Emilia opened the front door for her, then she and Perry watched, arms linked, at the hall window as Kate started off, her limp not as obvious as usual. She was swinging the handbag round and round by the handles to get the feel of it, bringing it up to her eyes to get a good look at it, then opening it up and using the lipstick mirror to gaze at her reflection. Finally, she held it still by her side and carried on with her head up in the air.

  ‘Dear of her,’ Emilia said. ‘It doesn’t take much to make her happy.’

  ‘It’s good to see her with a touch of confidence at last. Em, darling, can’t you do something about her hair? Kate doesn’t deserve to go round looking partly like a guttersnipe. It seems everything was done to her to keep her down.’

  ‘Abbie and I are going to do something with our hair tonight. I’ll suggest to Kate that we wave hers too.’

  ‘That’s the ticket. It’s nice having people in the house again. It’s been too quiet since Lottie moved into her own place, and your father died. Such a terrible shame we won’t be getting a new grandchild and a playmate for Paul from Tom and Jill.’

  Emilia gave a hefty sigh. ‘That’s the trouble with life. It never takes long before sadness comes round again. At least Jill meeting up with Kate when she did means there’s better times ahead for her.’

  * * *

  Jonny and Abbie were up in the foothills of Perranporth, amid pyramids of sand crested with marram grass. They were facing the sea, above the two miles of fine pale yellow beach, with military-occupied Penhale Point a little way upcoast. They had formed an easy, trusting friendship, the sort when two people feel they have known each other all their lives. Without saying so, they admired each other’s achievements, were comfortable about their differences, and both were sure there was nothing to find out about the other that they wouldn’t like. It was as natural as daylight that they went about together. The regulars in the Ploughshare had assumed Jonny had brought his ‘young lady’ with him on this leave to meet the family. The couple’s amused denial had brought out the opinion, whispers they’d overheard, that ‘even so, something will come out of it’.

  Abbie had gone over to Tremore on the north side of the village and met Jonny’s thoroughly pleasant father and attractive, ordinary young stepmother and little stepsister, and the three former evacuee children under their guardianship. Jonny grumbled mildly that there was too much noise and commotion in the house, but Abbie saw he was somewhat envious of the slightly muddled, boisterous order there. She had painted him in the garden at Tremore. His father, Tristan, had insisted on buying the picture, which had been hung in the library. Jonny maintained he valued his independence above all things and could never enjoy the ‘wife and family thing’, but she wondered about that. Why keep bringing it up if it was so unimportant to him?

  Jonny was stretched out on a red tartan rug, his arms comfortably supporting his neck, wearing just shorts. He’d been on edge for months and it was great to relax for a while. In good company, enveloped in nature, the soft warmth of the sand underneath him, his lungs filled with the evocative tang of salt air, his ears charmed by the sounds of gulls screaming overhead and the rollers of the Atlantic Ocean beating in on the shore. ‘You’ll have to go along to the south coast as well, Abbie.’ He broke the long meditative silence. ‘It’s not as untamed and rugged as it is here. Everything is formed more softly but it’s equally as beautiful and inspiring.’

  Abbie had a small sketch pad perched on her raised knees. To speed things along she had painted on some washes the previous night, enough to add contrast and subtlety to the monochrome sketch she was making of Gull Rock out at sea. ‘I intend to do the very thing,’ she said in a voice removed from his company, her eyes flicking to the flat horizon of the boundless expanse of blue-green water on which sat lazy puffed clouds and a distant sea-going ship.

  Jonny leaned up on his elbows. Abbie was with him and yet she wasn’t. She was deep inside her creativity. She had brought the manuscript of the book she was illustrating down with her – kept safe in her room – and she made notes on her work where figures and dwellings and pirate ships and such things would go. It amazed him how fast she worked. When she used colour from the miniature paint box, dipping the brushes into the small bottle of water and mixing tints with a graceful flourish, she’d allow one sketc
h to dry and start another.

  They had moved about, starting under the cliffs, which were honeycombed with little caverns, at the Droskyn end of the beach, parts only accessible while the tide was far out. Abbie had drawn everything from rock pools brimming with several species of green, brown, orangey and pink seaweed, to the various dark formations of the weather-hewn granite rocks, to driftwood and scraps of rope and netting washed in from fishing boats. And tiny whitewashed cottages high up on the cliffs. Every living being she encountered she captured. The local children playing barefoot, some in makeshift bathing costumes cut down from old jumpers. Early holidaymakers, the elderly mainly, in lightweight clothes, sandals and sun hats. A lady in a long dress with an elegant parasol, who looked like a screen siren. Dogs scampering in and out of the waves and two riders on horseback.

  Jonny took out his cigarette case. ‘Want a gasper?’

  ‘In a minute. I’ve nearly finished this. Then we can tuck into the picnic Tilda packed for us. Sorry if you’re ravenous and I’ve kept you waiting.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who’s working. It’s fascinating watching someone so talented and absorbed in her work.’

  When she was satisfied with the sketch she gazed down on him. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Jonny said, passing the picnic hamper to her. He took it for granted that she as the female would dish out the grub.

  Anyone else doing this would have greatly annoyed her, but Jonny didn’t in the least see her in a lesser role, in fact he was honouring her with the responsibility. He was a strong thrusting sort, but at that moment he looked lost and vulnerable and she was happy to wait on him, to seek a way to encourage him. ‘Are you having a few problems with your career?’

  ‘Not with the force, but I am with myself.’ He twisted his mouth as he struggled to uncork a bottle of hock. ‘Oh, I don’t know… I don’t even know what I think or feel or what I want any more. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ When he’d won the battle with the wine bottle and poured out two glasses, she handed him a plate with two potted beef sandwiches, a slice of apple pie and a tiny wedge of cheese on it and a check linen napkin. ‘Perhaps your inner self is prompting you to seek an entirely new direction. I suppose you’d always intended lifelong service in the air force but there’s nothing to say you can’t allow things to change. I get the idea you’re fighting with yourself, Jonny. That’s the worst sort of battle of all, you know.’ Jonny stared at her. She was right. He saw all his ambitions and plans as if they were inside a closed box. He had been free when he’d set out in life, the skies and horizons seemed endless, but now everything had closed in on him. If he didn’t do something about it he might end up in chains of his own making. He’d thought he’d owed it to all his dead comrades, the young men and women who had not made it through the war, and to the survivors horribly maimed and disfigured, to stay in the force and serve no matter what. But he was not paying real homage to their sacrifice and their memory if he ended up a dried-up fossil with little more to show than a chest laden with service medals. His friends wouldn’t have wanted that for him. They had fought not just for freedom from tyranny but for their hopes, for the ability to go on to seek contentment and fresh experiences. Tears sprung along his curling dark lashes and he couldn’t speak, only nod.

  ‘It will be all right, Jonny. You’ll make it so.’

  Her confidence in him meant everything. ‘How?’

  ‘That’s not for me or anyone else to say. You’ll know. It will just happen if you let it.’ She left him to eat and drink quietly, giving him the opportunity to allow some of his old thoughts and values to fade and be replaced by new possibilities. She packed up the hamper.

  Just let it happen. He’d try not to fuss and fret but to be still inside and let fate take its course. Fate had ordained that he’d survive the fighting and now it seemed it might be prompting him to do something new with his life. Life away from the air force was scary. Of course he was as free to stay on as he was to leave, perhaps he merely needed to see things in a different light. ‘More sketching here or shall we move again?’

  ‘I think I’ve done enough today,’ she said, packing away her materials.

  ‘Back to Hennaford then?’ They had ridden the three miles or so here on borrowed bikes and left them by a gift shop down in the little town.

  Abbie let her eyes wander over him. All the way up from his bare feet and long legs, his firm stomach, his broad chest sprinkled with crisp black hair, and his throat, always a sensuous part of a man to her. She reached his gorgeous face, his wide delectable mouth. She closed her eyes for a second and imagined kissing him. She knew Jonny would be a dream of a kisser, and not just on a woman’s lips. He would be masterful and devastating with his hands. He would be expert in every way there was to send a woman wild during lovemaking. His body shouldn’t be allowed to remain lounging and redundant.

  Moving on her knees she went up close to him. ‘I’d like to make love to you, Jonny. Would you like that too?’

  His eyes turned a smoky grey. In a rush he was consumed with sexual hunger, yet he examined whether it was a good time to move on from just being Abbie’s friend. He decided it was. She wasn’t seeking commitment any more than he was and it wouldn’t spoil what they had. He put his uninjured hand along the side of her face and bent forward to kiss her waiting parted lips. ‘I know a nice little hotel where we can go.’

  ‘Let’s stay here.’ She ran searching fingers up and down his hot skin. ‘There’s no one about and I don’t want to wait.’ Neither did Jonny. He enjoyed making love in the open air, best of all with a knowledgeable partner. He pulled her into his arms and let himself go with the moment.

  Chapter Four

  The first sensible place to ask where Kate might have gone was in Hennaford’s general store. Some busybody probably knew what had happened to her, and gossip circulated best in places where people gathered. Sidney Viant found himself the only customer as he strode up to the long mahogany counter. To the short shapeless woman in a plain apron over a brown spotted frock behind the counter he painted on a cheery smile. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Yes, young man?’ she intoned, keeping her attenuated face taut and humourless.

  ‘Eh? Oh, yeh. Box of Swan Vestas.’ Receiving pursed lips and a frown, he tagged on quickly, ‘Please.’

  Nora Grigg half turned to the shelf behind her for the matches, but rather than put the box on the counter she kept it in her hand.

  Sidney disguised a scowl. Bitch! The shopkeeper, with pinned-up greying hair, spectacles hanging from a chain round her neck, was a prim and proper sort and didn’t trust him for some reason. He knew he was hard looking but he didn’t believe he came across as a thief who would run off with the takings. He stuffed his fist into his jacket pocket and scavenged for some change, then offered the requisite money in farthings. ‘I was wondering if you knew anything about my sister. Kate Viant is her name. She looked after our gran, Mrs Moses, till she died a short while ago. Do you happen to know if she got work locally?’

  Nora Grigg pulled in her sagacious features. She wouldn’t tell him anything, except perhaps for lies, about the girl who’d been in here only yesterday, looking pert and a little confident for once. She had seen this character driving a horse and cart past the shop the day his obnoxious grandmother’s home had been cleared out and she had taken an instant aversion to him. No wonder, considering what he’d done to that poor young maid shortly afterward. It was disgusting. He and all his family should be weighed down with shame. It was unlikely there was a good reason for him wanting contact with the sister he had abandoned. Nora had taken over the shop a few months ago and had found no trouble fitting in with Hennaford. She had formed a loyalty to the villagers, especially the landowning Boswelds and Harveys, who had given Kate Viant a home. ‘As far as I know she moved on somewhere. Don’t know where exactly, but someone said she left on the next bus for Perranporth.’ He looked annoyed
rather than disappointed. Nora gleefully rubbed his nose in it. ‘Some upset she were, apparently. If some of the good people round here had known she’d been cast aside on her own they would’ve given her a bed for a night or two at least. Would have done it myself. I hope no trouble will come to the poor little soul.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ Sidney retorted gruffly. ‘To see if she’s all right. She refused to come with me and my brother that day, and my mother’s sent me to bring her home. We want to know if she’s safe and sound. Mother’s worried sick. If I wrote down our address, and if you was to hear news about Kate, can you drop my mother a line? Put her mind at rest?’

  Slowly polishing her glasses and putting them on with distinct condemnation, Nora set her discerning eyes on him. ‘You’d have me believe that you and your family care about your sister, would you?’ A believer in the axiom that what someone didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, she’d take it upon herself not to tell Kate or anyone at Ford Farm that her brother had been inquiring about her.

  In other circumstances Sidney would have given the shopkeeper a lot of lip, but he really did need to locate Kate so he didn’t risk upsetting her. ‘We do actually. Goodbye.’ He left the shop quietly, sidestepping a housewife civilly as she entered, suppressing his instinct to storm out and make the merry tinkling bell shudder on its fixings. He thumped his hobnail boots down each of the four irregular granite steps outside. Across the road in the concrete court was a white-bearded old man at the decorated iron pump. Sidney sauntered over the empty road. Perhaps he’d get some information out of the old boy, who would probably be keen to chat to anyone to break up the monotony of his day. He’d try courtesy. ‘Good morning, sir. I’m hoping you can help me.’