September Morning, page 17
‘Is this the reason? Are you having a child – our child?’ She had been prepared to lie, but he held her captive, insisting that she looked into his eyes, and it was impossible for her to continue the lie.
‘Yes,’ she mumbled. ‘But ’tis my trouble, not yours. ’Tis my decision to go, and I’ll not force you into anything—’
‘Trouble? You call the creation of a child between us a trouble? Don’t you think we share this? And how dare you call it a trouble, or think that I would ever let you leave me.’
She looked at him through tear-drowned eyes.
‘No, my love, I can’t let you do this. Think what people would say. Your family – Skye and Nick – I couldn’t face them. I won’t stay here to be shamed, and to shame you.’
He didn’t speak for a few moments. He just stroked her cheek, holding her close and feeling her erratic heartbeat.
‘It’s no shame for a married couple to have a child—’
‘I’ll not force you into marriage,’ she said fiercely. ‘My mother did no such thing, and neither will I.’
She knew she was reminding him that she was illegitimate. Unwittingly she had opened the door to everything he wanted to say since she had given him the momentous news.
‘Nobody’s forcing me, darling girl. But I’ve no intention of letting my child – our child – be born out of wedlock. But you’re right. You can’t stay here, and neither can I. Your father went to Ireland and made a new life for himself, and you want to be back there where you belong. So we’ll both go, and before we do, we’ll be married quietly. The respectable Pengellys will have arrived to make a new start.’
‘We can’t! What would you do? Your life is here. Your family is here. You’re a skilled man, Ethan—’
He shushed her with a kiss. ‘Don’t Irish folk need pots? As you say, I’m a skilled man, and I’ll soon find work. As for my family here – what would any of them mean to me without you? You’re my family now – you, and our child.’
Before she knew what he was going to do, he had bent his head, and kissed her softly rounded belly. As she held his head close to her, she could have sworn she felt the baby give a slight movement, but she couldn’t have done – not yet.
She took it as a sign though, a sign that this was the right thing to do. That their love and their decision was approved by the Holy One above, and for a lapsed Catholic, it was a feeling that was at once awesome and unutterably sweet.
Chapter Ten
They made their plans. They wanted no fuss. A number of letters needed to be written which would be delivered after the simple marriage service had been arranged, and they were safely on their way to Ireland. All anyone would be told was that they had married and decided to make a new life for themselves there. The only people who were to know of their departure in advance were Lily, and Ethan’s older brother, Adam.
When Ethan went to see him, he was shocked at the uncared for state of the house that Vera had once kept so spick and span.
‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself?’ he exclaimed, seeing how unkempt his brother was, and seemingly not even noticing.
‘Who cares about me?’ he shrugged.
‘Well, I do and so does Nick,’ Ethan said, but he was filled with guilt at the thought of how little he had seen of his brother since Vera’s death.
Apart from being prised out of his hermit-like existence to spend Christmas at New World, Adam had insisted on being left alone, and they had all honoured his wish. But the sight of him and his surroundings was alarming.
‘I’m going to open some windows. It’s foul in here,’ Ethan went on. ‘And then I’ve got something to tell you in strictest confidence. I want you to do something for me.’
‘If you’m trying to get me married off again, you can forget it,’ Adam said roughly.
‘I don’t want to get you married off, you old fool. It’s me that’s getting married.’
He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but at least it had the effect of making Adam’s eyes show a flicker of interest. But before his brother could make some all-too emotive comment like hoping Ethan hadn’t got some young wench into trouble, he rushed on.
‘Now listen, Adam. Me and Karina Tremayne have been seeing one another for some time and we want to get wed, but she’s homesick for Ireland, so we’re going there to live. You know how much of an uproar that will create in the family, so we aim to do it quietly and without any fuss.’
At his brother’s gaping look, he smiled faintly.
‘I know it’s a bit of a shock, but before you say anything else, there’s no shotgun to my head. This is our choice, and naturally we’ll need money behind us. So that’s where you come in.’
‘Well, I ain’t got no money to speak of, but you can have all I can spare,’ he said at once.
‘That’s not what I mean, Adam, but I thank you from my heart,’ Ethan said, touched at the ready response. ‘I won’t be needing our old family house when Karina and me go to Ireland. I want you to get Nick to arrange the sale of it, and then see that the money’s transferred to an Irish bank. Karina’s getting in touch with her old lawyer, and he’ll contact Nick to make further arrangements about the money.’
‘You’ve really thought all this out, haven’t you?’ Adam said with grudging admiration.
‘I’m not your kid brother any longer, Adam. I’m twenty-six, in case you haven’t noticed, and Karina’s twenty-four, so we don’t need anyone’s permission.’
‘So since you’re a man, why don’t you ask Nick about all this yourself?’
‘I told you. We don’t want any fuss or arguments. We’ve made up our minds, and we just want to be together as soon as possible. You understand that, don’t you?’
For the first time in a long time, Adam Pengelly’s face softened. Oh yes, he remembered only too well when he and Vera only had eyes and hands for each other, and couldn’t wait to be alone together, desperate for each other’s touch.
‘Aye, I understand. So when is all this to happen?’
‘We’re leaving next week. We’re getting married in Newquay, and taking the afternoon ferry for Cork.’
‘You’ll want someone to stand up for you,’ Adam said. ‘At least let me do that.’
Ethan squeezed his arm, aware of how thin it had got, but thankful that there was a spark more animation in his brother now than when he had arrived.
‘I’d be honoured, bruth. And there’s one more thing you can do for me.’
‘Name it. If I can, I’ll do it.’
‘You can do it better than anyone else in the county. Your skill was once legendary, long before I was knee-high to throwing a pot, and Seb will be missing a good work partner when I leave. I want you to go back to your old job and get back in the world again. I mean it, Adam.’
His brother didn’t speak for a few moments, staring at the chair where Vera used to sit, and where his strong young brother was sitting so tensely now, reminding him that life went on, and that if he wanted to be, he was still part of it.
‘And you think Skye will want me back, do you?’ he said slowly, as if still needing confirmation. ‘You think Seb will want me as a work partner?’
‘Why wouldn’t they want the best?’
Adam suddenly laughed. ‘My God, if that’s the kind of flattery you give Karina, no wonder she’s fallen for you.’
Ethan grinned. ‘Then you’ll do it? All of it?’
Imperceptibly, Adam straightened his shoulders, and Ethan knew what a momentous decision he was making. To come out of the shadows and face the world again couldn’t be easy.
‘All of it, bruth. You have my word on it.’
* * *
They were married at twelve noon on a bright June morning, and as Ethan slipped the ring onto Karina’s finger and said the words that would bind them together for life, he saw the conflicting emotions on his brother’s face, and knew he was remembering another day, another time.
But Adam had already changed, smartened his appearance, cut his wild hair. He was preparing, this very afternoon when the newlyweds had sailed for Ireland, to carry out the rest of his promises: to deliver letters, and to talk to the people whose approval Ethan still needed.
At the last moment, once Karina had told Lily of her plans and vowed that nothing would change them, Lily had arranged for someone to look after her children and insisted on coming to Newquay to see her and Ethan married. And when they had left amid tears of mixed emotions, Lily and Adam drove back to the moors above St Austell together.
‘Now to face the music, eh?’ she said quietly.
She glanced at him, knowing of his heartbreak when her sister Vera had died, and wondering just how this day had affected him. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, Adam?’
He shook his head. ‘I have to see Skye and Nick first of all, and then I’ll be calling on Seb Tremayne. I’m considering going back to work at the pottery. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s the best damn news I’ve heard all day – well, apart from the fact that the newlyweds looked so happy, of course. Good for you, Adam. It’s time.’
‘I know.’ And already, ever since his brother had made the suggestion, his fingers were itching to hold the familiar, sensuous wet clay in his hands and transform it to whatever shape he desired. Her words were true. It was more than time.
* * *
‘I can’t believe it!’ Skye said, after she and Nick had read the letters Adam delivered. ‘How could they go off and do this without telling us?’
‘It was the way they both wanted it,’ Adam told her. ‘It was their choice. The letter to Nick explains everything about selling the house. You’ll see to it, won’t you, Nick?’
‘Of course I will, and there shouldn’t be any problem about selling it quickly, nor arranging for the proceeds to be paid into an Irish bank,’ he answered.
Apart from feeling a mild resentment that his younger brother hadn’t confided in him first, he was more than thankful to see Adam behaving like his old self, rather than the recluse he had become.
Skye wasn’t so ready to be mollified, having a woman’s natural reaction to being done out of a family wedding. It would have been so lovely to have everyone there and given Karina a beautiful send off. She wondered how Wenna was going to take the news. Wenna had been crazy about Ethan ever since her childhood, although the feeling had surely waned of late. Skye turned her thoughts away from it, as something else came uppermost in her mind.
‘And what about the pottery – the orders we’ve got – I suppose Ethan realises he’s left us in the lurch without a master potter to work with Seb?’
‘Seb will still have a master potter to work with – if you’ll have me,’ Adam said.
* * *
The reaction from Theo was predictable, saying he’d expected trouble from the moment he laid eyes on the Irish wench. At which point Adam froze him with a look, reminding him that that first time was at Vera’s burying.
‘Well, good luck to them, I say,’ Betsy said. ‘It’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard in a long time.’
‘Romantic,’ Theo snorted. ‘If that ain’t just like a woman to give no thought to what the pair of ’em are going to do. What’s the plan – to raise horses like old Freddie and Bradley did? A fat lot they’d know about that!’
‘Leave it, Theo,’ Betsy said sharply. ‘You’ve got about as much romance in your soul as a toad. What does it matter what they do? It’s nothing to do with us.’
Theo turned his attention to Adam, as if noticing for the first time that he had come out of his shell.
‘So what’s to do with you, then? I thought you’d taken root in that place of yours.’
‘I was beginning to think so too. That’s what I’ve come to see Seb about.’
He wasn’t going to explain to this oaf that his need to work was becoming more urgent by the minute. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. A man’s wife and a man’s work – they couldn’t compare – but in the matter of need they were one and the same to Adam Pengelly right now.
‘Seb’s still up at White Rivers,’ Betsy told him. ‘He’s taken to staying on later now that he’s making these little pottery figures. Here, I’ll show you.’
Adam followed Betsy into the parlour where a row of pottery dolphins looked back at him: there were single figures; sets of connected dolphin families; others were perched on the rims of ashtrays. Adam’s skilled eyes recognised that all were superbly made. They made his pulse race.
‘These are excellent,’ he said.
‘’Tis Sebby’s new ideas,’ Betsy said with pride. ‘He’s come a long way since you taught him how to fashion the clay.’
‘He certainly has. I think the pupil could show the teacher a thing or two,’ he murmured. ‘Anyway, I’d best be off. I have several more errands to do before dark.’
And one of them was to hightail it up to White Rivers before Seb Tremayne left the premises, and see what other interesting ideas the boy had developed.
As he drove away from the house and started back up the long road towards the moors, he felt a rush of adrenalin such as he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It wasn’t the same feeling that a man felt for a woman, but it was a good and honest feeling all the same.
* * *
Skye worded the letter to her daughter very carefully. She had had several ecstatic letters from Wenna in the weeks since she had gone to London with Fanny, and she always made a regular weekend telephone call to her parents. But this was something Skye didn’t want to tell her over the telephone. This was something that Wenna needed to read and digest alone. She had the added thought that if she needed to weep, Fanny’s broad and comforting shoulder would surely be at the ready.
* * *
Fanny saw the way Wenna’s smile faded a little as she stared at her mother’s handwriting.
‘Bad news, duck?’ she asked.
‘No. Unexpected, though,’ Wenna said, surprised that the stab of jealousy she would have expected didn’t come.
So much had been happening in the last weeks that her childhood passion for Ethan Pengelly had been the last thing on her mind. Besides, she had known that he and Karina only had eyes for each other, and had mutely accepted it.
She went on hurriedly as she saw Fanny’s expectant look. ‘My stepfather’s brother and my Irish cousin have got married and left Cornwall to set up home in Ireland.’
‘Good Gawd, you folks do believe in keepin’ it in the fam’ly, don’t yer?’ Fanny said with a chuckle. ‘I never heard of such going’s-on.’
‘It’s not going’s-on,’ Wenna said. ‘Mom says everyone was surprised, but maybe we should have seen it coming, since they always got along well.’
‘Very well, I’d say,’ Fanny commented, but wisely said no more. Whatever the circumstances behind the hasty nuptials of the couple, it was clear that this little sweetheart didn’t suspect anything other than a whirlwind romance. She was far from dumb, but in some respects she was one of the world’s innocents, and as such, Fanny felt as fiercely protective of her as if she had been her own. And for someone who had no maternal instincts whatsoever, it was a feeling that surprised her.
It was those eyes, she thought, those bleedin’ beautiful blue eyes that could melt a man’s heart and which were going to bring hoardes of customers to the Flamingo Club as soon as she was launched on the scene.
As yet, Wenna hadn’t been tried out properly. She had to be eased in gently to a very different way of life. Fanny and Georgie had taken pains to introduce her first to the sights and sounds of London, and to various acquaintances.
As a preliminary test, and in order to steady the girl’s nerve, it was suggested that she sing a couple of songs on several of their quieter evenings early in the week. It had been an undoubted success, especially when she had accompanied herself on the piano and revealed her second talent. Fanny soon realised that this was more than a good idea, it was a brilliant one. However nervous Wenna felt when she stood alone and faced the dimly lit audience, her nerves seemed to fall away when she had the prop of her beloved piano keys beneath those sensitive fingers. She caressed them and stroked them, putting all the feeling in the world into the music. The combination of the rippling notes and her soft, sensual voice was enough to send a shivery feeling through the most hardened club goer.
Oh yes, she was going to be an asset all right, Fanny thought lovingly. The customers already adored her. Gloria del Mar was still the glamorous Saturday night star performer at the Flamingo, but it was obvious that Wenna wasn’t simply a decorative female who could sing in tune. It was clear to the talent-spotting Rosenblooms that this girl had depth as well as beauty.
Fanny blessed the day that Skye Tremayne, as she had been then, had come into her life during the Great War, and led her to this singing discovery. It was weird how a chance meeting in a war could lead you in directions you never anticipated, Fanny mused. Wars weren’t all bad…
Her thoughts were brought up with a jolt, remembering the hazardous lives of Georgie’s family in Vienna. If this was a hint of things to come, then her thoughts were downright wicked. There was nothing good about a war. Nothing. Georgie’s own recent letter from his father had been full of pain and humiliation at the news that Adolph Hitler had now forbidden German children to speak or play with Jewish children. It was the work of an evil man, to recruit children into such hatred, Georgie had declared savagely. Fanny shivered, and made herself listen to what Wenna was saying.
‘Are you all right, Fanny?’ Wenna asked her. ‘You look a little green about the gills, as they say.’
‘I’m fine, lovey, just wondering what else yer ma has ter say. Anything more to report?’ she asked, forcing her own worries aside for now.
‘Mom says Uncle Theo is still urging her to agree to merging the clayworks with another company. Mom will hold out though. Oh, and Nick’s other brother is going back to work at the pottery. He’s a master potter,’ she added proudly.
