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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
March, 1943. On the brink of marrying her childhood sweetheart, Breda's happiness is shattered by the arrival of a telegram, confirming her worst fears: Warren's ship has sunk and her beloved fiance has been killed in action. Heartbroken, she vows never to fall in love again. The unexpected arrival of Warren's cousin Max helps to bring Breda out of herself, but is she ready to let go of her grief? She has a second chance for happiness, if she is willing to take it.
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Seitenzahl: 504
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Days to Remember
RACHEL MOORE
For my husband,
with love.
Contents
Chapter One
March 1943
Breda Hanney helped her mother clear away the plates from the meagre supper table, ignoring the way her young sisters squabbled over helping with washing-up, and unable to get her mind fully off the infants in her class. They were learning the rudiments of adding and subtracting as a kind of ritual, chanting in their shrill young voices that could almost send a person to sleep, but was still the best way for them to remember it all. One and one are two; two and two are four; three and three are six; four and four are eight; five and five are ten…
Ten was the significant number in Breda’s mind right now, and it was also the moment when her thoughts swiftly moved away from her small charges. In ten days from now, she would be repeating a different kind of ritual – the words of the marriage service that would make her Warren Pascoe’s wife.
Her heart skipped a beat as always whenever she thought of her sweetheart. Before he’d joined the Navy he’d been one of the local fishermen of the small Cornish community west of Padstow. The sea was in his blood. All Cornish fishermen had to be strong in body as well as nerve, fighting the elements off the wild, unpredictable coast, and bringing in the catch that would be sold fresh on the quay and in the local shops, or sent in lorries to faraway markets. Many a larger ship had gone down in these waters, thrashed to a pulp as they crashed into the cliffs by mountainous seas as if by a giant’s hand. Breda’s mother always said seamen, and fishermen in particular, were heroes, every one.
Breda didn’t really care to think of Warren as a hero, not in that sense, not even in wartime. Heroes were always battling against some kind of foe, and she wanted him to be safe, not in terrible danger. But she knew that was a futile hope in these perilous times. Warren was a seaman through and through, as his menfolk had been before him. His father had had to give up the sea after a crippling gash on his back some years earlier, while his late grandfather had ventured as far as the North Sea on the whaling ships, and had told them horrific tales of struggling to conquer the great creatures in all kinds of weathers.
That was heroic, if you like, and Warren had been brought up on such tales, whether or not they were strictly true. In any case, to a young boy they were made even more glamorous by time and distance, and when the time had come for able-bodied men to enlist for king and country, Breda had known there was as much chance of asking Warren not to go to sea when the Navy asked for volunteers as asking for the moon not to rise every evening.
‘If you’re not writing to Warren tonight, we’d better get down to your final fitting, Breda,’ her mother said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Time’s getting on now, and I’ve plenty of other things to see to before your big day. The girls’ dresses still need finishing as well as yours.’
Breda nodded. Her mum was skilled with her needle, which was why many local brides came to her to have their special dress made, and it had taken the family’s combined clothing coupons to get all the material that was needed for Breda’s own. But this dress was extra-special, because it was for her own daughter. It had been virtually ready for ages, but Cornish brides always observed the old superstition about not putting in the final stitches until nearer the day, just in case anything went wrong. But nothing could go wrong, Breda thought, with a surge of happiness, when she was marrying the man she adored, and had done so since they were children.
The image of Warren was very vivid in her mind at that moment. Tall and muscular, his dark hair salt-roughened by wind and sea spray long before he joined up, his skin weathered by daily exposure to the elements, even at twenty-two years old. It gave his handsome face character. It made a man of him, and not a boy. Breda felt her face grow hot. There was none of the boy about Warren when he caught her in his arms and kissed her with all the passion of a man who lived with danger. She knew how much she was loved.
‘Did you hear me, Breda?’ her mother said impatiently.
‘Sorry, Mum. I was day-dreaming,’ she said without thinking.
Her mother didn’t hold with such things. Agnes Hanney was often heard to say that day-dreaming wasn’t for the likes of folk who had a living to earn, but there had to be some excuse for a girl on the brink of marriage – even if she didn’t wholly agree with the idea of them marrying until the war was over. But she knew the impatience of young sweethearts and couldn’t blame them either.
Seeing the look in her daughter’s eyes now, Agnes felt more tolerant. The girl loved her job, and she worked hard. Controlling a boisterous pack of infants couldn’t be easy, especially when some of them couldn’t even be trusted to go to the lav on their own yet and sometimes left a trail of widdle behind them when they left it too late. Breda could be allowed a bit of day-dreaming when she had so much to deal with in her job – and so much to look forward to. It had been a toss-up for her too, whether to keep on with the necessary job of infant teaching, or doing some more worthwhile job for the war effort. But as she had been told repeatedly, what could be more necessary than preparing little folk to be adults?
‘Let’s finish up here then, and we’ll bring the dress down while your father’s out at the pub. We don’t want the stink of his pipe tobacco in it.’
Breda agreed, although since the cottage usually smelt of her dad’s pipe, she couldn’t see that his presence would make much difference.
‘We don’t want the girls’ messy fingers on it either,’ Agnes went on, ‘so they’re going to your gran’s for an hour or two. She’ll be glad of the company.’
‘How was she today?’ Breda said, diverted for a moment.
‘Not so good,’ Agnes replied, and Breda knew that the shortness in her voice hid her anxiety for her elderly mother. ‘She has that many pains in her feet and her hands and everywhere else, she don’t know which is worse. But once the screws get you, there’s not much you can do about it, and at her age, it’s to be expected, I suppose. Old age don’t come alone, Breda. Never did, never will.’
‘I’ll call in and see her tomorrow evening,’ Breda promised, never wanting to think of her gran as anything but immortal, even though she knew she was being blinkered to think so.
‘She’ll like that.’ Agnes went on. ‘Sometimes I swear it’s only the thought of seeing you and Warren spliced that keeps her going. She’s very fond of that young man.’
Breda laughed. ‘I think she always had a secret fancy for him. She once said that if she was fifty years younger she’d marry Warren herself.’
Not much chance of that, nor of anyone else getting their hooks into her boy, Breda thought with a proprietary glow. From the age of six, when she had gazed at Warren Pascoe in wide-eyed wonder when he’d announced that he was going to be a fisherman like his dad, he’d always been the one for her. She had taken him one of her mum’s toffee apples to school, and his cousin Max had teased them mercilessly. That year they had been given the parts of Mary and Joseph in the school nativity play, and Max, always the joker, had said they’d be tottering up the aisle of the church next.
Well, all these years later, that’s just what they would be doing, and the pity was that Max wouldn’t be here to see it. They had tried to get in touch with him in good time, but Max was one of Monty’s Desert Rats now, and even though the successful battle against Rommel for El Alamein had been fought and won six months earlier, the Lord knew where in the world Max was now. Letters from him were so infrequent and out of date by the time they reached Warren’s parents who had brought him up, that he could be in Timbuctoo. Breda often wondered what the rough desert sands were doing to Max’s sensitive musician’s fingers, and just as quickly forgot him, with more important things to think about.
A cottage had become vacant in the village when the old couple there had decided to move inland, away from the rough seas that so often battered the coast. On his last leave Warren had wasted no time in renting it for them, and they would have the best start to married life in the world, even if Breda would spend much of her time there alone until the war ended and Warren came home for good. As always she prayed that wouldn’t be too long now.
Breda’s sisters came clattering in from the scullery, still squabbling. If it wasn’t against her principles as an infant teacher, she would have banged their heads together. Not that these two were infants any more. Esme was twelve and Jenna a year younger, and they were constantly in rivalry with one another over the slightest thing. But their mother was more than a match for them.
‘Now then, you two contrary little maids, get on round to your gran’s and keep her company for a while. Take this pot of soup to warm up for her supper, and read to her if she feels up to it. And no arguing to make her poor head ache.’
They immediately began fussing over who was carrying the pot of soup. Breda couldn’t remember ever being so argumentative at their age, but then she had been the only child in the family until she was eight years old, when Esme was born. Breda had peered with awe at the tiny scrap of humanity cradled in her mother’s arms in the bed upstairs. From the moment she set eyes on the wrinkled little-old-man’s face, touched the tiny, perfect fingers that had curled involuntarily around hers, and counted the tiny toes, she had simply adored the new arrival. Esme had been her little plaything, her baby doll to be petted and serenaded, and when Jenna arrived a year later, Breda was in heaven. She had rocked the pair of them in the big old pram that was as big as herself and pretended they were her babies. It was inevitable that when she grew up, the job that appealed to her most was that of infant teacher. Her gran had heartily approved, telling her it was good practice for when her own babbies came along.
‘Was I ever like them?’ Breda said in exasperation once the girls had finally left to make their way down the steep alleyways to their gran’s cottage.
‘You were a placid enough babby until you got your dander up, and then we had some fair old tantrums,’ Agnes said dryly. ‘You won’t remember the worst of them when you weren’t averse to throwing things about and tearing up books and toys, but thankfully, those two seemed to calm you down a lot when they were born. You always liked having somebody to fuss over. The children at school will be getting the benefit of that.’
Breda couldn’t remember being as destructive as her mother made out. It was like hearing about somebody else, but her mother never lied, so she knew there must be some truth in it. These days she could show endless patience with little hands that were trying to draw around their fingers, or to fashion their clay into recognisable shapes, or arrange the shells they picked up from the beach from their nature walks on to their nature tables, but she also knew there were times when the antics of some of her charges could drive her almost to screaming point. There were also the dark days when one or another of them would be missing from their classes, after the news flashed around the village that a brother or a father was missing in action – or worse.
Breda shuddered at the thought. But frustrating and sometimes agonising though life could be nowadays, she was never in a black mood for long. The forgotten temper tantrums of childhood were long subdued, and such times quickly passed. Besides, even if Warren was away at sea so much now, she wrote to him every night, sharing her life with him in that way.
When he was home, she could talk to him about anything, and it was one of the things she loved about him, because he was always prepared to listen. Intuitively, she thought she knew why he took so much interest in reading of her everyday domestic happenings with the infants. She sensed that it helped to offset the memories of some of the sea battles he was engaged in now. The newspapers were always full of it, but invariably guarded in how much information they were allowed to leak out, and Breda was sure that Warren too never told her everything. He cushioned her, just as she cushioned him in hers.
She could hear her mum coming down the stairs now, the wedding dress over her arm. As always, Breda felt a thrill at just seeing the lovely silky material, and knowing the sensuous feel of it against her skin, as soft as her sweetheart’s touch.
She pushed those particular images out of her mind, knowing these were practical moments, when the hem of the dress was to be pinned up to the correct height so that the pointed toes of her white shoes would just show beneath it. A small band of twisted silk would form a coronet to sit on top of the heavy lace veil that was her mother’s, and she was anticipating the day she would wear it.
She followed her mother into the front room that they hardly used except for very special occasions. They were well away from the clutter of the parlour where there was more room to attend to finishing the dress.
‘Now then,’ Agnes said, ‘you’d best stand on a chair, Breda. I think my joints are going the same way as your gran’s, and I can’t kneel for too long. I think we may have to take the waist in again too.’
They both knew the reason for that without saying as much. Food rationing had made them all tighten their belts, and it showed no sign of easing up. It was something else that could only get worse. Breda pulled the curtains across the window to prevent being seen by any passing onlookers before slipping out of her dress and standing in her petticoat. It was the middle of March now and it would be daylight for a little while longer yet, but modesty had been instilled in her from an early age. They might not be rich, but they had standards.
She put on the white shoes she was going to wear for her wedding, and climbed onto one of the wooden chairs, bending down so that Agnes could slip the silky folds of the wedding dress over her head. To her relief it still fitted perfectly, and she relished again the sensual feel of it against her skin. It had been stitched with love as well as all Agnes’s expertise. The hem wasn’t finished though, and it still needed pinning all round before it could finally be stitched to the correct length.
‘Hold the pin cushion for me, and hand the pins to me as I need them,’ Agnes said, her brusque manner not betraying how beautiful she thought her girl looked now. You didn’t tell daughters how pretty they were, in case it made them swollen-headed, but Breda truly looked like an angel, thought Agnes, with her brown hair that she usually wore neatly tied up for school, falling about her shoulders now.
Breda took the pin cushion and did as she was told, moving gradually round and round on the chair and trying not to wobble as her mother began the pinning. It would be disastrous if she went crashing to the floor, and stubbed her toes or broke her leg or something equally awful. She was so busy imagining the worst things that could happen that she wasn’t noticing what she was doing, until she felt a sudden prick in her finger, and realised she had stabbed herself with a pin.
She gave a small yelp, but if that was the worst that could happen, she could put up with it. Then she drew in her breath with a gasp of horror. Right on the bodice of the dress were two small spots of blood, stark red against the purity of the silk. Agnes straightened up at once on hearing her daughter’s cry, and she tut-tutted as she saw what had happened.
‘Stay right where you are, Breda, and don’t move until I get something to put around your finger, and a damp cloth to remove those spots. As long as it’s done straight away, it won’t stain, and you’d better let me have the pin cushion for the rest of the job. This is what day-dreaming gets you, my girl.’
She went out of the room for a few moments and Breda felt her head swim, gripping the back of the chair for support until her knuckles went white. She felt oddly breathless, and she was totally unprepared for the feeling. She wasn’t squeamish about blood, and had mopped up enough of it from scratched legs in the playground whenever one of her infants went sprawling. But this was different. This was her blood, staining her wedding-dress, and if that wasn’t an omen, a sign of bad luck, she didn’t know what was. And it was the second sign.
‘Now then,’ Agnes said, bustling back with a bandage and a damp cloth. ‘Wrap this around your finger for a minute while I see to those marks.’
Breda spoke quickly. ‘I’d rather take it off, Mum, and I think I’ll leave the pinning until another day.’
‘You can’t take it off yet, or you’ll risk spreading it farther. Stand still and let me get on with it, for goodness’ sake. It won’t take a minute.’
Breda did as she was told, biting her lips to stop them from trembling. Agnes’s cold hand slid down the front of the dress to hold it away from Breda’s body, while her other hand rubbed gently at the bloodstains.
‘There now,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘You’d never know anything was amiss, so let’s carry on and get the job done.’
‘I’d much rather leave it for tonight, Mum. To be honest, I’m starting to feel a bit faint, standing on this chair.’
Agnes looked at her sharply now. ‘You do look a bit white, though why a few spots of blood should upset you I don’t know. It’ll be as good as new when I’ve done with it, but you’d better have your way, I suppose.’
Breda suffered the next few moments until her mother lifted the dress carefully over her head, trying not to admit to the feeling of being suffocated as she was enveloped and blinded for a moment by its silky folds. It was no more than a foolish fancy to think there was anything sinister in what had happened, even though she knew her gran would probably think otherwise. Her mother was a practical woman, but like many Cornish women of an older generation, her gran believed in all things mystical, and that everything happened for a purpose.
Breda was thankful when Agnes took the wedding-dress away to hang up in its protective covering, and she quickly put on her own clothes again. She hadn’t written to Warren yet that evening, but she was suddenly consumed by an urge to be with him, even if it was only through the medium of writing to him, to sense that he was close, to be reassured that her sweetheart was still strong and alive. The word rushed into her head, making her gasp. She hadn’t meant to think it, and she shook herself angrily, feeling a brief return of the childhood rage that had once plagued her, and knew that if anything happened to Warren it would turn her world upside down. It would turn her into a madwoman…
With mild panic, she wondered if she was already on the road to madness to be even thinking such stupid thoughts. And all because of a simple accident that her mother had taken in her stride and put right in minutes. Her head cleared. That was all it was. A simple accident that had been put right.
Right then, her father Gilb was striding down to his local on the waterfront. The old pub with its grimy green bottle glass windows had been there for ever as far as folk knew. It thrived on the reputed history about an ancient law that said a man couldn’t be convicted of a crime if it was witnessed through glass that distorted the image. The thick bottle glass frequently used in pub windows upheld the legend. No one actually knew when the name of this particular pub had changed to the Bottle and Jug, nor if such a criminal had ever been saved by the ancient law in these parts, but such legends lived on for locals and strangers alike. Of course, nowadays there were thick blackouts at the pub windows, like every other window in the village.
Gilb enjoyed his pint of ale and a yarn with the old codgers and the fishermen who congregated there, and these days there was always someone ready to stand him a jar and give him some raucous advice, now that his daughter was a nearly married woman. They had to temper it a bit when it got too fruity, though, because it wouldn’t do for Gilb Hanney to think of his daughter’s good name being bandied about by a crowd of lusty fishermen.
He was almost at the pub, drawing on his pipe in the early evening with the stars just appearing in the sky, when he heard his name being called. He turned with a surprised smile to see his eldest daughter running towards him over the rough ground leading down to the waterfront.
‘What are you doing out and about this evening?’ he greeted her. ‘I thought you and your mother were busy doing women’s work of a kind I’m not supposed to see just yet,’ he added with a grin.
‘We were,’ Breda said breathlessly. ‘But I decided I’d much rather be out of doors. I was feeling too hot inside the house.’
Her father smiled at her, and all thoughts of joining the men at the Bottle and Jug disappeared from his mind.
‘There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than spending a couple of hours with my girl, but it’s a mite cold for sitting around at the beach yet.’
‘I don’t mind where we go. Let’s take a walk along the cliffs. I feel the need to blow the cobwebs away.’
Her father tucked her arm in his. ‘Have the little sprogs been giving you a hard time today?’ he said with a sympathetic smile, as they strode out towards the cliffs. ‘I knew there must be something. I could tell it from your voice.’
Breda gave a shaky laugh. ‘No, it’s not the infants. They were no more troublesome than usual.’
‘What then? You’re not giving Warren the old heave-ho, are you?’ he said, grinning at his nautical joke.
Breda kept her head bent as they walked up the steep slope from the beach to the cliffs, and once they were there, they both paused to catch their breath. From here, they could look down on the picturesque, straggling village. From here the cottages, buildings and church spire were darkened because of the blackout regulations, yet they still had an eerie beauty, steeped as they were in moonlight now, all the way to Padstow. In the small bay the fishing boats were crazily lop-sided and impotent at low tide, belying the power of the craft and the men who manned them, and even though Warren didn’t skipper one of those boats these days, Breda wished momentarily that the tide would never rush in again, and that the boats would stay beached for ever. She had never told anyone of the nightmarish dreams she had occasionally, when the waves started creeping in like greedy, hungry fingers, to capture Warren and take him away from her.
‘What is it, my dear?’ her father said gently. ‘You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?’
She leant against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her body, and she knew at once that she could never tell him of the premonition that had swept through her at the sight of the two spots of blood on her wedding-dress. He would have been badly troubled to know how she felt. If her gran would have said it was a bad omen, how much more bad luck was it to put into words that she feared Warren’s life was in danger? It was something that was tacitly forbidden by all those whose livelihood depended on the sea. She thought quickly of some other explanation for her agitation, knowing now that however much she had needed to get out of the house, it might have been foolish to make her father look so anxious for her. She thought quickly and forced a small laugh.
‘Oh, it’s only Esme and Jenna as usual. They were squabbling so much tonight, and I’ve had visions that they’ll still be arguing at the wedding and spoil everything on my special day. And now you’ll think I’m just being silly,’ she said.
He laughed gently. As he gave her a squeeze, the scent of his old pipe was oddly reassuring.
‘You’re not silly, but I’m starting to think Warren’s marrying a crazy woman. Those two can argue till the cows come home, and it’s not going to spoil anything, I promise you.’
He sounded so confident, so protective, the father who could always smooth over all her ills, that Breda told herself she had been getting worked up over nothing. Then they both groaned as the sound of a distant air-raid siren reminded them that somewhere else was getting a visit from Adolf’s bombers tonight, and that the best place for any sensible folk to be was indoors.
Chapter Two
Springtime was a time of renewal in the countryside, and for coastal communities like Penbole the annual Spring tides also heralded the fact that the seasons were changing. Lush and full, the tides roared up the north Cornish coast, and on good days, with the sun glinting on the blue-green waves, the curling surf and white horses, there was nothing more beautiful.
The locals took it all in their stride, but strangers to the area, like the grockles from upcountry, would stand for hours on the cliffs, admiring what nature provided so effortlessly. It was said that much farther upcountry, where the Atlantic narrowed into the Bristol Channel as it narrowed still more into the Severn river, the water gathered even more strength, and with nowhere else to go there was a huge bore like a tidal wave that surged up the funnel. Such talk was only fascinating hearsay to the insular, stay-at-home folk of Cornwall, who could see nothing but the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean off their narrowing coastline.
Springtime came early here, bringing with it the first annual network of greenery on trees and shrubs. Wild bluebells, cowslips, furze and forget-me-nots flourished among the moorland bracken, and hazel catkins appeared, dancing in the breeze to delight the schoolchildren, who gathered them for their school nature tables. Breda’s infant class had had the joys of nature instilled in them from birth, and enjoyed their regular walks away from the stuffiness of the classroom.
Right now, it was debatable whether they were more excited about their teacher’s forthcoming wedding, or the trip to Padstow for the annual ’Obby ’Oss festivities on May 1st, which fell on a Saturday this year. But since their teacher’s wedding came first, they were busy at work drawing pictures of the scene at the church on Breda’s big day, which would be proudly hung about the classroom. Breda smiled at the various offerings, encouraging her small charges in their artistic attempts, her silly fears about the spots on her wedding-dress diminishing now.
‘You’ll look lovely, Miss,’ piped up one and another, ‘and we’re all coming to see you in your white dress.’
Mrs Larraby, the head teacher, smiled at Breda over their heads.
‘By the sound of it, you may need to get wed in a far larger church than our little local one, Miss Hanney.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that would go down very well,’ Breda said, hearing the chorus of dismay from her pupils. ‘It’s the church where Warren and I were christened, and the vicar would have something to say about it if we deserted him for our big day, to say nothing of our parents!’
Mrs Larraby laughed. ‘Quite right, and I was only teasing, of course. I’m sure the children are all looking forward to it nearly as much as you are.’
Breda doubted that, but she kept the fixed smile on her face, knowing the older woman didn’t hold with arch remarks or double meanings. Nobody could be looking forward to the wedding as much as herself and Warren. It was the culmination of all their dreams, and if only his cousin Max could have been there to stand beside him as his Best Man, it would have been even more perfect. But it wasn’t to be, unless a miracle happened and Max suddenly turned up from wherever he was in the world. But it was too late now, and one of Warren’s old schoolfriends had said he’d be proud to do the honours. You couldn’t start changing arrangements to suit Monty’s military manoeuvres. However little the war had touched them in the far west of Cornwall, you couldn’t ignore it.
Her attention was quickly brought back to the present at the sound of wailing from the back of the class, signalling that the notoriously damp child had had another accident in her excitement and needed tidying up. This was the real world, Breda thought with a smothered sigh, not fighting battles in far-off corners of the Egyptian desert, which was the last place anyone had had any news of Max Pascoe. She gave a comforting word to the snivelling little girl as she took her outside to the lavs to change her knickers.
That night, as she did so many times now, she dreamt again about Warren’s last leave, and in particular, their last evening together.
‘It won’t be long now,’ Warren said, as they walked down the lane to the empty cottage that was to be their home. ‘And once this damn war is over, we can spend the rest of our lives together.’
Breda hugged his arm, feeling a thrill run through her. Tonight would be a rare chance for them to be really alone together, other than outdoors. This would be far more intimate, and she knew Warren was as aware of it as she was. Probably more, since she knew what a passionate man he was, and how he had been anticipating their wedding night with all the fervour of a young and virile man.
‘We’d better not stay too long,’ she told him. ‘We don’t want the neighbours to think we’re doing anything we shouldn’t.’
Warren chuckled, his arm clinging even closer to hers.
‘There’s not much chance of that, my prissy maid, but once I get that ring on your finger things will be different, I promise you.’
Breda laughed back. ‘I hope you’re not marrying me just for you-know-what!’ she said teasingly.
‘I’m marrying you because I love you, as you very well know, you witch,’ he said simply, the words so honest she could never have doubted them. Not that she ever would, she thought, with a rush of love, and it was as hard for her to resist his passion as it was for him. But long ago, she had made a vow to herself and to him, that their first night together would be perfect in the sight of God, and she had never wavered in that resolve. Warren had always honoured that vow, despite the many times he had told her jokingly that she was probably shortening a man’s life by refusing him. She didn’t refuse him in so many words, anyway. She just somehow managed to turn the moments when the tension between them became too much to bear into laughter.
Tonight may be different, she had admitted as they walked through the fragrant, flower-filled small garden of the cottage that would be their home. They had already been to see it with the couple who had lived here, and agreed that the furniture would suit them admirably until they wanted to change it. The only thing that was new was the double mattress that had been delivered a few days ago, and tonight they would add the sheets and blankets and pillows their parents had given them, in readiness for the day when they would walk here from the church as newlyweds and close the door on the rest of the world.
That was the difference, Breda had thought, with a small shiver that was more excitement than fear. The pristine double bed would be a confirmation of all that they would be to one another, their future lives together, and the children they might have. With her love of children, Breda couldn’t wait, and Warren, being an only child apart from his cousin who had lived with him, was in full agreement that a house only really became a home when there were children in it.
Warren flourished the house-key and opened the front door. The previous tenants had left a vase filled with sweet-scented moorland flowers, and they filled the house with their perfume. It was homely and welcoming at the same time. Breda almost danced from room to room, trying to visualise how it would be when she and Warren actually lived here, using their own pots and pans, cooking breakfast for them both, sharing everything, sharing their lives.
‘Let’s take this stuff upstairs,’ Warren said eventually, and they went up the twisting staircase together, into the front bedroom that overlooked the harbour. It was appropriate that it did so, Breda thought happily, since they would be able to see every changing mood of the sea from the window, and snuggle down indoors when the fierce winds rattled the panes.
Just thinking about it made her face grow warm, and to blot out such thoughts, she turned quickly, right into Warren’s arms. She couldn’t miss the passion she felt in him now, and she told him that they had better get their business done and go home before it got dark. He laughed and let her go, and between them they put the sheets and blankets on the bed and smoothed down the pillows.
Soon, Breda thought, almost breathless, those pillows would be indented with the shape of their two heads…
‘What are you thinking?’ she heard him say softly.
‘Oh, I couldn’t tell you! Private thoughts!’ she said, trying to tease.
She felt his arm slip around her waist. ‘Then I’ll tell you what I’m thinking instead. I’m thinking that this is the room where you and I will prove our love for each other, and where we’ll make our babies.’
Breda laughed shakily. It was rare that he said anything so poetic, but she couldn’t miss the meaning in his voice.
‘I never thought we had to prove it,’ was all she could think of saying.
‘Of course we don’t. I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you, and you know that. And I’ve waited for all these years, and not always patiently, to make you truly mine. To feel that we belong, body and soul.’
‘We’ve always belonged,’ Breda whispered.
‘And this is where God will bless our union. Isn’t that what the vicar called it when he told us marriage was for the procreation of children, and for the mutual comfort of a man and a woman? I never fully realised just how much I need that comfort, my darling girl.’
She looked up into his face, her cheeks fiery, knowing what he was saying, what he was asking. Her heart was beating very fast, and her limbs felt as if they had turned to water, but she knew how much he wanted her…and, oh Lord, how she wanted him too. Physical love wasn’t solely for the comfort of a man, and their wedding was so very near…so very near…
‘I need you too,’ she whispered, her voice no more than a thread of sound. ‘So much, Warren.’
And who knew how long this war was going to continue? The unspoken words were that you had to snatch the moment, to make the most of whatever precious time you had together these days. Everybody said it. Everybody knew it.
In her dreams those memories always came flooding back, remembering how she had been cocooned in Warren’s arms. But alone in her own bed now, in the wee small hours, she was wide awake, remembering more.
She must have made a small involuntary sound, and he had stirred at once, enclosing her even tighter.
‘Now we truly belong,’ he murmured against her cheek.
She remembered how her eyes had filled with weak tears, and she couldn’t be sure whether it was with joy and a feeling of total completeness, or shock at what had happened. They had waited so long…and in the end their own natures had betrayed them. As if he was aware of her feelings, he kissed her on the mouth, long and hard and deep.
‘I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life, my darling, and I’ll keep the memory of it with me wherever I am. It will be my talisman.’
He kissed her again, and how could she deny the sweetness of this moment, or the deep and abiding love she had always felt for him? But she had also been steeped in the teachings of the church, and the determination to keep herself pure until Warren placed the wedding ring on her finger, and she couldn’t quite rid herself of the guilt, either.
‘Then you don’t think we did anything wrong?’ she said huskily.
‘Do you?’ he said, holding her slightly away from him for a moment. ‘How could it be wrong? We vowed to love one another many years ago, and to be together in the sight of God and the congregation, and we hardly wanted any of them around in the last hour, did we?’
When she didn’t answer, he spoke more anxiously.
‘Wasn’t it what you expected, my love? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
She hugged him fiercely, aware of her own passion rising again at the feel of his flesh against hers. Everywhere they touched, it was as though they were in perfect harmony, and would always be.
‘It was everything I expected, and more,’ she said, her voice a soft sigh. ‘But we’ve stayed too long, Warren. We must go before we’re missed.’
It sounded so prosaic after the wondrous emotions that they had so recently shared, but the consolation was that they would have the rest of their lives to renew this sharing of mind and body. Breda’s spirits soared at the thought. They left the warmth of the bed and dressed quickly. He went downstairs ahead of her, and when she pulled the bedcovers back on the bed, her heart leapt as she saw the few small spots of blood on the bottom sheet.
Her breath caught between her teeth. Now, now, there was something even more significant to remember about that one night. Now she knew why the blood spots on her wedding dress had made her even more agitated than it was reasonable to be. It reminded her of her premonition…a double premonition now. On that other night, before she went downstairs she had spat on her hanky and rubbed at the marks quickly until the worst of them had gone. It was a natural happening, she reminded herself. It proved to Warren, if proof were needed, that she had never lain with a man until this night. If anything, it would have been far more disastrous if there had been no sign of her purity, and she had persuaded herself at the time that there were no bad portents in what she had seen.
They had walked back to the village in the gathering dusk, arm in arm, saying little. There was a difference in them now, Breda thought. They had known one another for all these years, but never before in the biblical sense. It was an awesome feeling, and she was sure Warren felt it too. He left her at her home, holding her close for a moment before he let her go.
‘Sweet dreams, darling,’ he said softly. ‘Mine will be all the sweeter now.’
She was too busy at school the next day to dwell on her stupid fears. She had promised to call on her gran that evening, and she called out as she opened the door of the cottage, knowing the door was never locked. Gran Hanney always said she had nothing to steal, and nobody would want an old woman like her, so why should she bother to lock her door? The old lady, who seemed as wizened and wrinkled as she had done ever since Breda had known her, looked up from her chair by the fireside, the inevitable knitting in her hand, her knitting bag at her feet. Her old tortoiseshell cat, as thin and scrawny as a scarecrow, wound itself around Breda’s legs as it recognised a familiar face, and purred like an express train.
‘How are you tonight, Gran?’ Breda greeted her cheerfully.
‘Fair to middling and twice as ugly,’ she replied, the way she always did. ‘The damn fool doctor says I should keep myself indoors until your big day or I’ll never make it to the church, but I shall see him out, and most other folks in the village too. It takes more than a wheezy chest to stop me seeing my best girl safely wed. My herbal tonics will sort me out.’
It was quite a speech. It left her breathless, and made Breda smile. She never changed, and even though it was logical that she wouldn’t go on for ever, Breda, too, was quite sure it would take more than a wheezy chest to make her push up the daisies. She hoped it would be a very long while before that happened.
‘So come and sit down and tell me about the antics of your infants today,’ Gran Hanney went on, ‘and then we’ll have a cup of cocoa.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Breda said quickly, and then allowed herself a few minutes more to decide how much she was going to ask her gran. She heard her call out tetchily.
‘What are you doing, girl? If you’re not going to come and talk to me you might as well have stayed home.’
‘Sorry, Gran,’ Breda said. ‘I was day-dreaming.’
She hurriedly made the two cups of cocoa and took them back into the parlour, curling up on the big old armchair that had been her grandad’s. When she was a small child she’d chuckled with delight as he’d swung her around in his arms, saying he was going to cuddle her for ever in that arm-chair…but for ever had a habit of ending far too abruptly.
She became aware that her gran was looking at her strangely, and she took a large gulp of her cocoa.
‘So you’re nearly ready for the big day then?’ Gran Hanney asked. ‘Has your mother finished your dress yet? I hope she’s left a few stitches to do.’
‘Of course. She wouldn’t dare go against superstition,’ Breda said with a grin.
‘You may scoff, my girl, but there’s no point in inviting bad luck.’
‘Do you really believe in such things, Gran? I know you always say you do, but I sometimes think it’s a lot of old wives’ tales.’
‘If it is, then I’m the oldest old wife in the village,’ her gran said dryly. ‘I know you modern young things don’t hold with such beliefs, but they never did me any harm, and I’m still alive to tell the tale.’
‘I don’t say I don’t believe in them, just that I’d rather not, that’s all.’
Gran Hanney looked sharper now. ‘What’s happened, then?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Whenever anybody tells me it’s nothing, I know very well it’s something. And you’re not leaving here until I know what it is. Come on now, my dear, tell your old gran. You’re not having second thoughts about the wedding, are you?’
‘Of course not. We’re wildly happy. It’s not that. But you do believe in omens, don’t you, Gran? You can’t deny it. You’ve told me often enough, scaring me and the girls with some of your old tales!’
‘Oh well, I admit some of them were just tales,’ the old woman said with a soft chuckle. ‘But there’s often a spark of truth in even the wildest story.’
Breda wished she’d never started on this tack, but she knew Gran Hanney wouldn’t let it go now. She was like a fish caught on a line, wriggling and fighting like mad, but never able to let go in the end. She gave a small sigh. Cornish fishermen were the bravest of souls, and she wished that was what Warren was doing now, instead of somewhere at sea in a warship, and for some reason she found herself thinking with a moment’s rare resentment that his cousin should have been here too, taking Warren off to the pub for a game of darts and having a good old yarn or two. Max should have been here. He’d learnt about the wedding from Warren’s mother, or at least, the letter had been sent to him in good time. Whether he’d ever received it, nobody knew. Letters were notoriously slow in reaching the troops, sometimes arriving in great batches, weeks or months old, and who knew what arrangements were made in the desert for such mundane things?
‘Where have you gone to, my lamb?’ she heard Gran Hanney say softly. ‘You’re off in dreamland, and thinking of that handsome young man of yours, I’ll be bound.’
Breda laughed self-consciously. ‘Something like that, Gran!’ she admitted.
The old woman crossed her hands in her lap. Breda knew that sign. It was as good as digging her heels in, and Breda knew she wasn’t going to be able to get home until she’d said what was troubling her.
‘So out with it, then. I need to get my beauty sleep sometime tonight, girl, though there’s some that would say it’s far too late for my wrinkled old face!’ she said briskly.
‘You always look beautiful to me.’
‘And don’t think that soft-soaping me is going to stop me from knowing something’s on your mind. If you can’t tell your old gran, who can you tell?’
‘It’s daft.’
‘No, it’s not, or you wouldn’t still be fretting over it. For pity’s sake, girl, if you dithered this long when Warren asked you to marry him, I wonder he took the trouble to wait for an answer!’
Breda spoke abruptly. ‘When Mum was pinning up my dress, I was holding the pins for her, and I pricked my finger and two spots of blood went on my dress. Now you know. It’s a bad omen, isn’t it?’
When Gran Hanney said nothing for a moment, Breda felt her heart pound.
She could feel the beat of it in her head and her ears. She was a modern young woman, and she should have no truck with omens and superstitions and old wives’ tales, but she prayed with all her heart that the incident was going to be pooh-poohed. She saw her gran rub at the hairs on her chin, the way she often did when she was thinking hard. As a child, Breda had been so fascinated by those chin hairs, which seemed to have always been there, and always tickled her whenever her gran kissed her. Now, they seemed to represent a moment of acute anxiety.
‘I’m sure your mother got the spots out quickly enough,’ Gran said calmly. ‘You shouldn’t let it upset you, Breda. Accidents happen, and I’ll bet the dress looks as good as new again now.’
‘It is new,’ Breda said, wanting to weep, even while she knew how foolish she was being. ‘I don’t want it to look as good as new. I want it to be new!’
Gran chuckled. ‘You’re as soppy as when you were six years old and you dropped your favourite dolly in the mud. No matter how hard I scrubbed it clean, you fussed over it, saying it wasn’t new any more. Do you think anybody’s going to notice anything wrong with the dress once your mother’s got the tiny stain out?’
‘Probably not, but I’ll know,’ Breda muttered.
Gran got up and put a bony arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Breda, and you’ll have a lovely wedding day and a lovely life with your man, so go on home and have a good night’s sleep and think no more about such a trifle. Things always look better in the morning, and by then you’ll wonder what on earth you were worrying about.’
She looked at Breda more quizzically. ‘There’s nothing else you want to tell me, is there?’
Such as what? That I’ve already lain with Warren, and anticipated our wedding vows? And that there had been several more spots of blood on the virginal sheets?
‘No, Gran, and I’m sorry if I sounded such an idiot.’
Gran Hanney kissed her, and the chin hairs tickled Breda’s cheek. ‘You’re not an idiot, dear girl, and being in love makes fools of all of us at one time or another. I’m not so old that I can’t remember what it was like,’ she added, her old eyes twinkling with memory.
The aged tortoiseshell cat rubbed against Grandad’s old chair now, purring ever louder, its amber eyes fixed unblinkingly on Breda, almost mesmerising her. She uncurled herself from the chair and put her feet to the ground, knowing it was time she left. The cat immediately wound itself around her legs again, soft and warm and intrusive, and she felt a wild urge to kick it away.
‘I’m sure that scrawny old thing has got fleas, and I wonder why you don’t get rid of it,’ she said unthinkingly.
‘I’d as soon get rid of my right arm,’ her gran replied, unruffled, and having heard these remarks many times before. ‘If you’re ever old and alone, my dear, you’ll know the comfort of a pet to keep you company, so you get on home now and leave me to give him his victuals.’
Breda left her to it and walked the short distance home in the blackout, thinking that she was probably making a mountain out of a molehill. She tried to recapture the feelings she and Warren had shared on that one magical night. They had merely meant to look over the cottage and make up the double bed for future use. Instead of which…Breda felt a rush of emotion so strong it almost took her breath way. Instead of which, they had discovered the wonder and ecstacy of exploring each others’ bodies for the first time. It had made her feel different in so many ways. It still did. It made her feel a woman and alive, and it made her feel a part of Warren in a way that nothing else ever could. It made them belong to one another, irretrievably and for ever, and no one could ever take that away from them.
Chapter Three
Max Pascoe’s skin was bronzed to a mahogany hue from the blistering sun and desert winds that could so quickly turn a harmless and tranquilly beautiful scene into a raging sandstorm that blinded the eyes and sliced into the flesh with its ferocity. He could have loved Egypt with a passion, but he had to admit that it was mostly because, as a boy, his artistic soul had been charmed by the romanticism of the wonderful discovery of Tutenkhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter.
Had that been a factor that had made him welcome so eagerly the chance to be posted to this bleak and desolate landscape that could change in a moment from such beauty to a living hell? Maybe so. In any case, the charm of it all had vanished like the taunting mirages that were frequently seen until the reality of the brutal and endless landscape set in. He had been disillusioned even more by the relentless fighting that had gone on in the previous year when even Monty’s famed eighth army had faced such desperate times before the final victory against Rommel.
There was no glory in war. And what had he expected? he asked himself bitterly. Allowing the excitement of seeing this place at first hand to blind him to the fact that he was not here as a tourist, but as a soldier, doing what soldiers do. Sometimes he still wondered what the hell he was doing here, when his real vocation, his real love, was to be playing his saxophone in the local dance band back home in Cornwall.
Those days were long ago now, and so were the halcyon days when Howard Carter’s discovery of that ancient tomb had gleamed like the gold artefacts he had found, and when every man and his brother had seemed to think he was an amateur archeologist. The desert then had swarmed with ingenues who tore up the sand with impunity and with no regard for the painstaking work of piecing those treasures together. That same desert was now red with blood, and whatever lay beneath the surface had been broken and swallowed up by the armoured tanks that grated over it, as bitter enemies fought to kill one another.
Sometimes, of course, there had been brief respites. No soldier could continue fighting for ever without becoming completely exhausted and war-weary. With his mates, Max had occasionally managed the tedious journey to Cairo to visit the fleshpots for a few days’ leave. His handsome mouth twisted into an ironic smile. Such fleshpots as there were didn’t appeal to him all that much. He’d seen enough belly dancers and snake charmers to last a lifetime, and knew all the tricks.
Fat chance for any of that now, he thought, in one of his rare lucid moments, while the military medics were deciding what to do with him. The most recent letter from his aunt had told him about his Warren’s wedding to Breda, together with a hasty note from Warren saying he hoped Max could make it home in time to be his Best Man. Enclosed inside his blisteringly hot tent while the wind howled outside, he didn’t need to read Warren’s note again, despite his raging fever, since the words were imprinted in his mind.
Come home, Cuz, and be my Best Man, as we always planned. It won’t be the same without you. Breda sends her love too. Your old pal, Warren.
Breda sends her love. The words had given Max’s heart a painful lurch. He knew he could have got leave if he’d tried hard enough. God knew he was entitled to it, until the savage wound in his leg had turned septic with the dangerous risk of gangrene, and given him the continuing fever that turned his brain to mush. Was it fate that made it impossible for him to return home to watch his cousin marry his sweetheart, when he himself would have given the earth to be the man by her side, and not the one fading into the background? Fading and crumbling into the desert sand if the hopelessness he felt now had anything to do with it.
In Max’s tortured opinion, Best Man was the most ironic title any man could be given. For all these years, he had kept the secret in his heart, but he was also honest and loyal enough to know that if there had been a way for him to be Warren’s Best Man, he would have done it, no matter what his own feelings might have been. He owed his support to his cousin, who had always been more like a brother to him, and Breda was Warren’s girl, always had been, and always would be – and was very soon to be his wife.
The flap of the tent opened and a surge of stinging sand flooded in with a hot stream of air. The medic who entered shook the sand out of his hair and rubbed at his sore eyes. He never stood on ceremony and was blunt with his words.
‘Christ Almighty, it’s bloody murder out there today, man, and dry enough to parch a camel’s arse. But we’ve decided what to do with you, Private Pascoe. You’re to be sent to a military hospital in Cairo, to see if they can save that leg.’
The shock of his last words almost made Max faint. He’d felt so bloody ill and so delirious during these last days or weeks or however long it had been, that it hadn’t crossed his mind that his wound could have been that serious. But looking at the medic’s grim face now, he knew the truth of it, and the thought flashed through his mind that whatever they did to him, he really didn’t give a tinker’s cuss whether he lived or died without the love of his life.
But doggedly, just as quickly he knew he wanted to live. He hadn’t come this far, and lived through the nightmare of these last months, to die in some Godforsaken hospital in Cairo. It was the first positive thought he’d had in months.
