Sea Gem (35 page)

‘There is one thing though,’ Mary began firmly. ‘I agree with everything you said about Michael. Your son was wonderful yesterday. He took complete charge and acted like an
adult. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I would have done without him. He is a very wonderful boy.’

Victor nodded. ‘I think so too. I have been lucky with my children. Jenny is the only weak one which is strange when you realise she is Mike’s twin but she might change as she gets
older. She’s an Oselton. Mike is a Noyen,’ he told her firmly.

‘Does Nicole know you are here?’ Mary asked with sharp nervousness.

‘I neither know nor care,’ he replied coolly. ‘Yesterday’s circumstances warrant unusual situations today as far as I am concerned,’ he told her firmly.
‘Grandmère is Grandmère and you are her family which makes you mine in turn.’

Mary’s head spun. It was complicated logic but she would not argue with him, she was too pleased to see him.

‘Do you know everything?’ she whispered miserably.

His face went grim. ‘I do!’

‘If I thought about it long enough I’d go crazy,’ she said in a low voice. ‘For some reason I never liked William from the first moment I saw him but it never entered my
mind something horrible like this could happen. I’m sending Margaret away to a school in England,’ she began then went on to explain the plan in detail.

Victor listened carefully without interruption. It all made sense to him. James would be of invaluable help and he resolved to talk to him about this later.

‘I’m thinking of sending Mike to school over there too,’ he said almost casually. ‘I think it does youngsters good to go away when they reach a certain age. It certainly
makes them appreciate home when they come back for their holidays. Look at the British middle and upper classes. They think nothing of sending their sons off to boarding school as young as seven. I
might be able to arrange a place near Margaret so that, under supervision, those two could meet now and again,’ he offered.

Mary brightened. Such an arrangement would be almost perfect and they could travel to and from the island together. After yesterday, Mary knew she could always trust Michael le Page. Tante might
not approve though, she thought, but surely she would accept the sense of it?

‘What does your wife say to that?’ she asked uncertainly.

Victor gave a wolfish grin. ‘She doesn’t know yet because I’ve not told her and when she does learn, it won’t be much good objecting either. I expect you can see the
feeling between Mike and Margaret. Do you think he’d want to stay here with Margaret in England? Wild horses wouldn’t hold him and I’ll not stand in his way. Nicole will have to
live with it,’ he replied a little harshly. His wife would still have children at home to fulfil her maternal instincts but Michael was his child and Mike came first. He had the right to act
as he thought fit for his elder son. If Nicole was foolish enough to place a wrong interpretation upon his actions Victor knew he no longer cared. Edwin’s horrific death had affected them all
in different ways.

* * *

William was petrified. There had been so many adults asking a barrage of questions that even his stoicism nearly broke. Only the desperate knowledge of what a revelation would
mean had kept him to his story without deviation.

A police sergeant had bombarded him with questions in a quiet but insistent voice that had gone on and on. It had been the same with his mother’s lawyer. Both these men’s eyes had
been narrow and cold as William stood and faced them, hands at his sides.

He had gone over it again and again, polishing a phrase here, slightly changing a word there but never the gist of the details. He returned the two men’s looks openly without flinching and
he knew they accepted his story finally. There was nothing else they could do and this filled him with surging triumph and wild elation at his superiority over adult authority.

Uncle Victor also questioned him but now he was word perfect with gestures and mannerisms polished. The one person whose questioning he did fear was that of the old lady. William knew she was
hostile to him and he had always been wary of her. Her brown eyes could be so piercing and hard but again he managed to hold her stare firmly without flinching as he went through his act yet
again.

At night, in the attic of Raoul’s cottage, he felt a flood of elation. He had never dreamed it was possible to fool and defy adults and William realised he had left his childhood behind
forever.

He was glad to get away from home. Margaret’s reactions worried him because though he would divulge nothing to her, no matter what she might do to him, William knew he would writhe in
impotent fury and that might make him lose his temper. And that he could not afford to do. It had suddenly dawned upon him that loss of temper weakened a person. The superior always had himself
under rigid control—like the old lady in her cottage.

He had been delighted to live in the Ozanne cottage even though the children there were not his type. He sensed this was but a delaying tactic while other matters were arranged but he would
never lower himself to question. Long ago, William had learned that information overheard and stored away was usually more valuable than direct conversation.

When he learned Margaret would be going to school in England, he was thrilled. That would get her out of the way for most of the year and he would then rule the home roost. With his father dead,
there would be no more children and he swelled with delight. Gradually he also learned of the plans for Margaret’s holidays, again with approval. He had no wish to be in the house when she
came home, especially if the le Page boy would be hanging around.

The thought he would go to stay with continental families to improve his languages delighted him. This was something in which he had tremendous interest and in which he knew he could excel.
Although Margaret was that much older, William had long known he had the better brain. He was also sharp enough to understand the Noyen’s financial standing in the community and one day he
intended to have a major share of this. With a grasp of European languages, he would be in a much stronger position than Margaret, and his mother would have to give him a majority shareholding.

His mother! William’s heart always quailed when he reached this point in his thinking.

If there was one human being who genuinely frightened him it was his mother. Whether this was because he had recognised her antipathy to him since birth, despite the attention she had always
given him, he was never wholly certain. All he did know was that his mother was someone with whom it was decidedly unwise to cross swords.

She could be loving but implacable, gentle yet rough. She was a mixture of human emotions and attributes which he found totally unpredictable. In many ways she fascinated him. There was so much
about her that he admired enormously, yet there was that in her which frightened him.

As he strolled morosely along the beach near the old lady’s cottage, he yearned to go and see her and talk to her. He felt an urge to tell his story to her, yet he dared not approach her
uninvited. Deep down, he suspected his mother knew the whole truth. How this could be he had no idea, not being adult enough to understand the depths of feminine and maternal instinct. Even if he
had, he might have scorned them both as being too intangible to be practical.

What had started to terrify him was the knowledge that once his sister left for her new school in England, he would return home to live with his mother. He had seen her, of course, before
Edwin’s funeral, which he had not been allowed to attend, which suited him. Then he had been whisked away by Raoul on a walking expedition which he knew was but an excuse to get him out of
the way for the rest of the funeral day.

Raoul was all right. He said little. He passed no judgements and William was inclined to look down his nose at him as being just an employee of low intellect. Amelia he dismissed as being of
little consequence. Raymond and his wife Gwen were a couple about whom he had not yet made a decision. Their paths rarely crossed due to greenhouse work.

On the day after Margaret and Michael had sailed to England with Victor as escort, plus James, William returned home ready for starting school the next day. He had not seen his mother. Amelia
had given him his meal and he had retired to bed alone but happy in his odd way. The next morning at breakfast though his mother was there. It was the first time they had been alone since the day
of Edwin’s death and William steeled himself as he walked into the kitchen. Now came the ultimate trial. What would she say? How would she start upon him?

Mary did nothing. ‘Get your meal,’ she told him briskly, ‘then get yourself off to school.’

William was flabbergasted, so shocked he obeyed without thinking, not even daring to lift his head from his food to peep at her. For her part, Mary studied him carefully. He wore his school
shirt and tie, grey short trousers and he was clean and fresh looking. His cheeks were pink and healthy and his dark eyes held no emotion whatsoever as he chewed through his meal.

She tried to examine how she felt about him sitting at the opposite side of the table but there was only numbness when she could not see Edwin alongside him. This was the son with whom she was
left. This was the one she had to control and guide. Her senses told her the task was too late. Whatever went on in William’s mind was unreachable by her or anyone. All she could do was learn
to live with him until something should happen. What that might be or when it would occur she had no idea and indeed did not wish to know. It was bad enough to live each day as it came because
already the house was only half a home without Margaret.

For his part, William sat quietly, anxious not to draw attention to himself. He knew his mother’s iron will and flaring temper just as he was aware he was still too young to contend with
either. He waited and waited for her to mention Edwin until it dawned upon him she was not going to. Her calm and coldness bothered him. He would much rather she came out with an accusation that he
could refute with his polished story. When she did not, William became internally agitated. Was this how it was going to be? Would his mother maintain her aloofness for days and weeks, then
suddenly, out of the blue, strike? It frightened him. She was so strong and implacable. In many ways, unknown to either of them, he was emotionally more of his mother’s child than Margaret or
Edwin. A prognosis would have shown they were utterly different yet exactly the same and one day one of them would have to yield to the other with lethal consequences.

It was a quiet May night, balmy and pleasant and the only sound was the light breathing. Mary gave a silent sigh as she sat on the chair by the open window not far from the
bed, now and again looking at the frail old lady. It was her turn to sit through the night with Tante who was, as the doctor had told them, slowly starting to die. The clock was running down after
ninety years. An age was slowly coming to its close and she could hardly take it all in. Tante had been with her for so many years that it did not seem possible she was preparing to go.

Mary felt incredibly sad, yet there were no tears. The old lady spent much of her time sleeping in her bed at the cottage, having refused point-blank to return to the house for her last days.
Mary knew her going would leave the most terrible void in her heart but perhaps, if Tante had to go, now was the time, when Britain had been at war for over a year and the situation was looking
increasingly frightening.

Not long after Edwin’s death, Margaret had left for her new school and Mary had missed her more than she had thought possible. Without her daughter’s gay laughter and noisy ways, the
house had echoed dismally. The holidays though had been a wonderful time when mother and daughter continually rediscovered each other with Mike always around at Cobo. Margaret constantly said that
when she returned, she felt as if she did not start to live again until the steamer came down through The Russel at St Peter Port.

Margaret returned home finally in 1936, well educated but without any desire to go to university. Mary did not mind; it was too wonderful to have her daughter back. Perhaps Margaret had realised
the grind of university was not for her. Also she had been astute enough to take note of the way Europe appeared to be changing for the worse.

To Mary’s surprise, Margaret had taken over control of the small shop and displayed a sound commercial flair, making changes which Mary approved and the shop had rapidly doubled its
takings. Within another year, a second shop had been bought which Margaret managed and there were plans for a third.

She was formally engaged to Michael who stayed on in England where he had, to everyone’s surprise, joined the army as a regular soldier. Michael never wavered as to where his heart lay and
Margaret seemed equally sure of her own. Mary knew it was a good match and now the couple talked of wedding plans but would these be possible?

When Margaret came home on holidays, William was always away and when her daughter was home for good, Mary tactfully made her flat over to Margaret as a private home. That way brother and sister
were kept relatively apart although they did bump into each other now and again. They were like two stiff-legged dogs facing a juicy bone. Margaret would go all cold and awkward while William
clammed up and said nothing but never relaxed either.

To Mary’s astonishment and great relief, William settled down and was now fluent in French and German. To her surprise he had caused no more trouble yet between them, an atmosphere was
ever present; but at least he did as he was told. Mary suspected she still had the stronger character but William had to be watched. He was a powerful young man and kept himself fit with running
and swimming. Where he went in his spare time Mary did not know though she often wondered with unease. He seemed to get on well with Raymond and Gwen, was diffident with Raoul, sullen with Victor
and James and what he thought of Emil Mary did not know.