The Gossamer Cord (43 page)

“It will be difficult. I don’t know what the authorities will say. They made a search, you know. All along the coast. They won’t be pleased with all the trouble you’ve caused. You’ll be reprimanded rather severely, I imagine. I don’t like the true version at all. You left your husband and child of a few months to go off to Paris with an artist you scarcely knew.”

“Put like that it does seem thoughtless.”

“Thoughtless! People would call it wanton. You’d never live it down. It would be remembered for ever. Tristan would know when he grew old enough to understand. People will remember, if you don’t.”

“You haven’t changed, Violetta. Still the old crusader for the right. What shall I do?”

“We’ll have to work out a better story than yours.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“We’ll have to keep to the swimming idea…otherwise we shall be in trouble. I don’t think you should have hit your head on a rock. The sea was cold. You were exhausted. You had swum too far out. You were on the point of drowning. You were picked up by a yacht. The owner came from the North of England and had been to Spain. He was on his way home. Your experience had been such a shock that you temporarily lost your memory. You were taken to Grimsby, or wherever it was.”

“I only thought of that place because it’s biggish on the map and it was a long way off.”

“We shall have to be vague about all this.”

“But if I lost my memory…”

“There were pictures in the papers. The yacht people who were going home would have soon discovered. Then…you were in your swimming costume, so you couldn’t have come from anywhere but Cornwall. It all sounds so very implausible. The only one you told your fantastic story to was Mrs. Pardell.”

“Yes.”

“And she did not question it.”

“No. She was too interested in the Tregarlands and the way I felt about that.”

“You’ll have to tell our parents the truth, of course.”

“Do I have to?”

“Of course. Daddy will find a way of getting round all this. The sooner they know the better. They have been terribly unhappy.”

“Bless them, Violetta, you’ll tell them, won’t you?”

“I will do that at once. Then they’ll come down and we can talk to them and work something out.”

“I knew you’d work it out.”

“You’re such a devious schemer. I should have thought you could have thought up a better story than that one.”

“Well, I had to lose my memory, didn’t I? I had to do the swimming. It was really all due to that legend. I wanted them to think I was just another victim of the Jermyn ghost.”

“That part was ingenious, but it is no use planning an elaborate story if you haven’t worked out a suitable ending. It was you who was here that day when I called. You peeped through the curtains.”

“Yes. I wanted so much to speak to you, but I wasn’t ready, I told myself I was a fool to let you go, but I could not see you just then. Mrs. Pardell understood. I must say, she has been a great help to me. Who would have thought it?”

“You know what has happened at Tregarland’s?”

“I know that Dermot died and that Matilda has gone mad.”

I decided that this was not the moment to tell her that Tristan would have died but for the vigilance of Nanny Crabtree and myself.

Moreover, I was filled with joy because she was back. I forgot all the grief and anxiety she had caused. She was back again and that was the most wonderful thing that could have happened.

I now applied myself to the task of extricating her in the best possible way from the net she had woven about herself.

I wanted to laugh—with happiness rather than amusement—at the manner in which she gazed at me; she was completely confident that we should work this out together and, because I was there, I would get her through, as I had been doing all our lives.

The first thing I did when I returned to Tregarland’s was to telephone my parents. I was glad my mother answered.

“You must prepare yourself for wonderful news,” I said. “Dorabella is safe.”

I heard the gasp and the words which came tumbling out.

“She is well,” I went on. “I have seen her. I can’t tell you on the telephone. Both of you, get the first train. That will be quickest. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Don’t worry. She’s well. We’re longing to see you. I’m so happy.”

I could picture her. She would rush to my father. They would cling together, laughing and crying. Just at first they would not care how it had come about. All that would matter would be that she was alive.

They would catch the first train and would probably arrive at midnight or later.

Then I went and told Nanny Crabtree. She stared at me in amazement. Then the tears started to run down her cheeks and we fell into each other’s arms.

“I’ve seen her! I’ve seen her! Oh Nanny, it’s wonderful.”

There were the inevitable questions. I pushed them aside. It was not so difficult because all that really mattered was that she was back.

I told Gordon and James Tregarland that she was here. She had been rescued and had lost her memory. I could not go into details because I did not know what they would be told. The news was spreading through the household and that meant it would soon be through the neighborhood.

Then I went to Cliff Cottage and brought her to Tregarland’s.

There was an emotional scene between her and Nanny Crabtree. Then she went to Tristan. He gazed at her in bewilderment. Then he turned to me and held out his arms.

“He’ll get to know you in time,” I said.

I was amazed that the story which we finally put together when my parents arrived was accepted. This was due, I believe, to the fact that weightier matters arose at that time; and the strange disappearance and reappearance of the second Mrs. Tregarland slipped into insignificance beside them.

During that August Hitler made a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and that, with the Pact of Steel with Italy, showed clearly that he was preparing to march into Poland.

“Will it be war?” was the question asked everywhere, not “What about that Mrs. Tregarland losing her memory like that?”

And on the first day of September the news came: Hitler had invaded Poland, in spite of the ultimatum from Britain and France that if he did he would be at war with those two countries.

And on the third day of that September we heard the voice of Neville Chamberlain coming to us over the wireless, telling us that we were at war with Germany.

Everything had changed. There were rumors everywhere. People could talk of nothing but war.

I did not see Jowan Jermyn for some days. I was wondering how much I could tell him of Dorabella’s escapade. I thought it must be the truth. I could trust him, of course.

When he did come to the house I knew something had happened. We sat in the garden together.

He said: “I’ve come to tell you I’ve joined the Army.”

I stared at him in dismay.

“Well,” he said. “The country’s at war. What else can I do?”

I was filled with desolation. I had been elated since Dorabella’s return. The whole world had seemed different. My parents were overjoyed. We could not think very much of what Hitler was doing. The fact that Dorabella was back overshadowed everything else.

And now it was all brought home to me—the uncertainty of the future, the fears for those we loved, all the heartbreak that war could bring.

I could not bear the thought of his going into danger, and I knew then how important he had become to me. I knew that I loved him.

I stammered: “What of the estate?”

“It will be left in good hands. It won’t be for long. They are saying it will be over by Christmas.”

I could not control my features. My lips were trembling.

He saw that and, coming close to me, put his arms around me.

“I shall be back soon,” he said. “You will wait for me, Violetta?”

“Yes,” I said. “I shall wait.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Daughters of England series

O
N THAT MARCH MORNING
, I arose at dawn. I had slept little during the night. Old Mrs. Jermyn had given a dinner party at Jermyn Priory to celebrate my engagement to her grandson—though perhaps it could scarcely be called a celebration in every way as Jowan was to leave for the Front the following day.

I had known he would ask me to marry him from that September day soon after war had been declared and he told me he was going to join the army.

We had been drawn to each other since our first meeting when, trespassing on Jermyn land, I fell from my horse and he came along to rescue me. One might say that that was the beginning of the end of the feud between the Tregarland and Jermyn families. I was not, however, a Tregarland, my connection with the family being only through my twin sister, Dorabella, who had married into it and whom I was visiting at the time.

Not that Jowan was concerned about the feud. He laughed at it as a piece of nonsense beloved and preserved by the local people. Yet it had kept the families apart for many years—and now here we were, about to be joined in holy matrimony.

As soon as the war was over we were to be married.

“Another six months perhaps,” said Jowan. “Maybe earlier.”

Sometimes it seemed to me that Jowan went through life taking what was and making it acceptable. Perhaps that was why he had been such a great help to me during the terrifying time through which I had passed.

Jowan had been brought up by his grandmother, for his mother had died when he was very young; he had inherited Jermyn Priory only a few years ago. His somewhat dissolute uncle had neglected the property, and since Jowan came into possession of it he had been attempting to put it in order. This he was doing with great success. He loved the house in which he had spent his early years before joining his father in New Zealand. His father had died before his uncle, and the estate had passed to Jowan.

I admired him for his single-minded purpose. So did his grandmother. She could never speak of him without betraying her pride.

“Jowan always sees what has to be done,” she told me. “And he never says ‘can’t.’ He loves this place as I did and it is right and proper that it should be his.”

That was why I was rather taken aback when he immediately decided to leave Jermyn’s and go into the army; but as he saw it, the war had to be won for the prosperity of the entire country and that included Jermyn’s. He had an excellent manager who had a good assistant. They were both considerably older than he was and married with families to support. He could be better spared, he said, and he could trust them to look after the place in his absence.

“We’ll settle the Germans in no time,” he said.

I had not seen much of him during the last months. There were his leaves, but they were never very long. This was one of the reasons why I stayed in Cornwall—another was that my sister refused to hear of my leaving.

Jowan had joined the Royal Field Artillery, whose training ground was at Lark Hill on Salisbury Plain, which was no great distance from Tregarland.

How we cherished those leaves! How we planned for the future! I felt uplifted by them while they lasted, but I was filled with foreboding after he had gone back to camp, knowing that the day for his departure was growing nearer.

Now it had come.

My parents were delighted with the match and Jowan’s grandmother and I were already good friends. Everything should have been perfect, but how could it be with the menace of war hanging over us?

On that morning, when I was washed and dressed, it was still very early and I felt a need to be out in the fresh morning air so I put on a coat and went out to my favorite seat in the garden.

Tregarland had been built on the top of a cliff, like a fortress overlooking the sea. The gardens stretched out down to a beach which was originally a private one, but it had been necessary for there to be a right of way through it, otherwise people walking along the beach would have to scale the cliff to get round, and, as I had once discovered, when caught by the tide, this was almost an impossibility.

I sat down on a bench which had been placed conveniently among the flowering shrubs and looked across the sea. Very soon Jowan would be somewhere on the other side of that strip of water. Destination unknown. It was no use trying to delude myself that he was not going into danger.

I heard a footstep and, looking up, saw my sister, Dorabella, coming towards me. She was smiling.

“I heard you,” she said. “I looked out of my window and there you were. So I followed.”

“It’s very early,” I said.

“The best part of the day, I’ve heard. What’s the matter, Vee?”

She occasionally used the shortened version of my name, which was Violetta; and this morning there was a note of tenderness in her voice. She knew what I was feeling.

Dorabella and I were not identical twins, but there was a firm bond between us. She had once called it “the gossamer cord.”

“It is strong,” she had said. She believed it was unbreakable, but so fine that no one knew it was there except us. But it always had been and it always would be. I think she was right in that.