The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (139 page)

‘All the time.’ She paused. ‘Sometimes I get so
angry
with him. I have these terrific rows with him in my head. And this is going to sound even stranger, but I dread it when he comes back on leave, because I know it’ll be so unutterably awful when it’s over, and we have to say goodbye again . . .’

There was silence between them. Then Sophie gave herself a little shake. ‘But let’s not talk about this. I came to tell you that I’ve hired a motor-taxi, probably the only one in Newton Stewart, and after lunch we’re going for a drive. We’re going to visit an officers’ convalescent home.’

Belle remembered Felicity Ruthven, and her heart sank. ‘Sophie, it’s kind of you, but I really don’t want—’

‘I know you don’t,’ said Sophie, ‘but this is important. There’s something I want you to see.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The pinewoods were silent and still. Only a crow flew down onto a branch and fixed Belle with a beady black eye.

Sophie had told the motor-taxi to wait at the lodge, so that they could continue on foot. She said she wanted Belle to have time ‘to take it in’.

‘To take in what?’ Belle asked warily.

‘Wait and see,’ replied Sophie.

It was a clear, cold afternoon, with a light breeze blowing from the south. The sound of the wind in the pines reminded Belle of Cairngowrie.

‘Your mother used to love pinewoods when she was a child,’ remarked Sophie. ‘Did she ever mention that?’

Belle shook her head. ‘She never talked about her childhood.’

‘She adored Scotland, you know. The beach. The seals. She and Mamma used to take endless photographs. Rose was rather a talented photographer. Did you—’

‘Yes,’ cut in Belle. ‘I did know that.’

Sophie smiled at her. ‘I’d forgotten. You used to help your mother in her darkroom, didn’t you? Although when you were very small, you had something of a love-hate relationship with photographs. I remember once you took against your mother’s portrait of you. “Put it away,” you said. “I don’t like me looking at me.’’’

Belle remained silent. She was beginning to wonder what Sophie was up to.

‘It’s funny how some things run in families,’ said Sophie.

‘Is it?’ muttered Belle. ‘What are you—’

‘Oh. look. Here we are.’

Through the trees, Belle glimpsed daylight. Then the woods were left behind, and parkland opened out before her. She gasped.

From where she stood, the carriageway swept down towards a wide ornamental lake fringed with bulrushes, then up a long hill guarded by a line of stern marble knights towards a great stone mansion at the top. The severity of its frontage was increased by a line of massive stone columns which gave it a forbiddingly cage-like appearance, and its windows threw back the coppery glare of the sun like eyes. It looked just the same as it had in the oil painting in Papa’s study.

‘Strathnaw,’ said Belle. ‘That’s Strathnaw.’

‘Your mamma’s “family seat”,’ said Sophie. ‘At least, that’s what poor Sibella liked to call it. Although of course the Monroes never were gentry. Merely gentleman farmers who made good in Jamaica.’ She paused. ‘Your great-great-great-grandfather Alasdair – May’s father – terrible old man – he built it to show off his money and spite his friends. He planted these woods to obscure his neighbour’s property, so that whenever he looked out of his window he could say that he owned everything in sight.’ She chuckled. ‘He’d turn in his grave if he knew that the whole thing had been sold off, and was now a san for convalescent officers.’

Belle was silent. She was back in her father’s study, lying on the Turkey rug and gazing up at the huge old oil painting of a snowbound Strathnaw. Pestering Papa with questions about robins.

That scene was so vivid in her mind. It was like looking down the wrong end of a kaleidoscope, and watching the tiny, brilliantly coloured shards, impossibly far away.

‘Your grandfather Ainsley,’ Sophie went on, ‘used to come here in the school holidays. As did your father.’

‘Papa? Papa came here?’

‘But you knew that, surely? My grandfather – Jocelyn Monroe – he adopted your father when he was orphaned as a child.’

‘Oh, I knew about that. I just didn’t know that he ever came to Strathnaw.’

‘Well, here’s something else that perhaps you didn’t know. This is where your parents first met.’

Belle stared at her.

‘Your mother was ten years old. Came here in the middle of winter on some secret errand of her own, and saw your father down there by that statue. He was on a white horse, standing so still that for a moment she thought he was a statue himself.’ She paused. ‘Apparently he wore a long grey cloak which she found impossibly dashing.’

‘You said she was a child.’

‘And he was a young officer about to go out to the Sudan. After that, they didn’t meet again for years. Not till we moved to Jamaica.’

‘Sophie,’ said Belle in a low voice, ‘why are you telling me all this?’

Sophie glanced at her. ‘It’s a little hard to explain. But I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day; about your having done something when you were younger that prevents your being with Captain Palairet.’

Belle felt the familiar hot, prickling sensation that told her someone was getting too close.

‘I’ve no idea what you meant,’ went on Sophie, ‘and since you’re not inclined to tell me, I shan’t ask again. But looking back, it does seem to me that it explains why you’ve never been home. You’re running away, aren’t you?’

Belle began to feel breathless. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Yes you do,’ Sophie said gently. ‘You’re running away. Goodness, I ought to know. I tried it once myself.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Of course not. Just another one of my mistakes.’ She hesitated. ‘None of which answers your question: why did I bring you here?’ She turned her head and gave Belle her bright, observant stare. ‘Our family has strong roots, Belle. The Monroes. The Lawes. They go back a long way – here in Scotland, and out in Jamaica. Forgive me for lecturing you like this – I always loathe it when people do it to me – but I can’t see you going wrong without saying something. You can’t keep running away. The family, Jamaica, Eden. It’s part of who you are. You can’t run away from yourself.’

‘No,’ agreed Belle. ‘But you can become someone else.’

Sophie gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, you’re impossible! You sound just like your mother!’

Sophie wanted to go back and retrieve the motor-taxi and drive on to the house, but Belle put her foot down. ‘I don’t want to go inside,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen Strathnaw, and you’ve given me your lecture. That ought to be enough.’

Sophie realized that she meant it, and gave in. ‘I suppose I can’t blame you. I’ve never liked sanatoriums either. And I’ve always found this one particularly intimidating. It’s officers only, so there’s a rule that all the nurses must be ladies.’ She pulled a face. ‘They’re all desperately pretty, and desperate for husbands.’

Belle thought of Felicity Ruthven.

‘Apparently,’ Sophie added drily, ‘it’s a marvellous place for courting. Before the war they had dances; now they have sans.’

‘But some of the officers are very ill, aren’t they?’

‘Oh, heavens yes. Tremors, mutism, memory loss. But those poor fellows just give the nurses the chance to appear angelic in front of the more able-bodied patients.’

Belle smiled. ‘Goodness, you’re cynical.’

Sophie laughed.

They turned and started walking back through the trees.

Sophie became thoughtful again. At last she said, ‘There’s another reason why I wanted you to see the san.’

Belle turned to her, wondering what was coming next.

‘In a couple of days, I shall be going back to Flanders. I was hoping you’d have second thoughts, and make things up with Captain Palairet. But clearly that isn’t going to happen.’

Belle flinched.

‘Where will you go, Belle? You can hardly go to Berkeley Square now that poor Sib . . . What will you do? Shall you go home to Eden?’

‘No,’ Belle said quickly.

‘Then where? I’m sorry to press you, but I think I must. I can’t just leave you.’

‘Yes you can.’

‘No. I cannot.’

Belle turned and walked on a few paces. She’d been wondering about this herself, but so far she hadn’t progressed beyond a vague plan of staying with Dodo for a while.

She had no family in England other than Sophie, and no occupation. She had money, Papa had always seen to that – but as an unmarried girl of twenty, she could hardly set up home on her own without putting herself for ever beyond the pale. The War might have changed things immeasurably, but not to that extent.

‘We could use you in Flanders,’ said Sophie. ‘Plenty of hospitals, of course; less glamorous than Strathnaw, but they might suit you better. Or you could come and help me in the GRC.’

‘Planting shrubs. Yes, I suppose I could manage that.’

‘We need more help than just planting shrubs.’

‘Such as what? I wouldn’t be able to do anything else.’

‘Nonsense. I’ve already had one or two ideas.’

‘What do you mean?’

Sophie shrugged. ‘Nothing I’d care to go into just yet. The point is, will you come?’

Belle thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you, but no.’

Sophie did not press her further, and they drove back to Newton Stewart in companionable silence. When they reached the hotel, Sophie went upstairs to write letters, and Belle went outside for a walk.

It was getting dark, and as she wandered the little streets that were only dimly lit by blue-painted street lamps she attracted curious glances from shopkeepers drawing down their blinds. She ignored them. Walking in the dark helped her think.

Damn Sophie for being so shrewd; for reminding her of where she came from.

Rose Durrant, her grandmother, had given up everything to be with the man she loved. She’d thrown away her good name and followed him halfway across the world. Sophie herself had defied society to marry Ben, and as a result had permanently shut certain doors against her. Even for Mamma, there had been sacrifices and heartbreak, although Belle didn’t know the details. Compared to all that, what were her own doubts and misgivings?

Turning it over in her mind, she walked on. But the more she thought about it, the more certain she felt that nothing had changed. She could never bring herself to tell Adam the truth. She couldn’t risk watching his face change as he realized that she was not the woman he believed her to be.

It was after seven by the time she returned to the hotel. She expected to find Sophie dressed for dinner and awaiting her impatiently in the lounge, but she wasn’t. The clerk said that he hadn’t seen Mrs Kelly since they’d come in from their drive. Some letters had arrived for her in the afternoon post, including (he couldn’t help but notice) an official-looking one from the Front.

With a twinge of alarm, Belle mounted the stairs to their suite.

As soon as she opened the door of their sitting room, she knew something was wrong. The fire had been allowed to burn low, and the lamp on the table was guttering. Sophie sat in the half-darkness, clutching a letter. Her hair was awry. There were traces of tears on her cheeks.

‘Oh God,’ said Belle. ‘Ben.’

Sophie turned her face and looked up at her as if she was having trouble focusing. ‘Missing in action,’ she said.

Part Three

Chapter Thirty

Flanders, 11th November 1918

The War had ended that morning, and Arthur Winsloe was taking it personally.

He’d got his blighty at the battle of Lys, and returned home to find that his wife had gone off with another man: a catastrophe he liked to describe in blinding detail to anyone who would listen. Adam didn’t always listen, but he didn’t walk away, so Winsloe had attached himself, and could not now be shaken off.

‘Bloody Armistice,’ he said bitterly as they drove out of Ypres, the lorry lurching over the ruts. ‘Too bloody late for me. If only she’d waited. I told her it’d be over soon.’

‘I thought she left you back in April,’ said Adam, swerving to avoid a cat. In the rear-view mirror he saw it walk calmly to the edge of the road, and curl up on a fragment of shell casing.

It was a peaceful sight on a beautiful, clear autumn afternoon. Hostilities had ceased four hours before. The stillness took Adam’s breath away.

‘But if she’d known how soon it would end,’ Winsloe insisted, ‘she wouldn’t have left. If only the bloody Boche had caved in weeks ago, when they ought to have done . . .’

Adam stopped listening. Every time he came this way, he remembered how it had looked at the start of the War. At this point the road used to cut through the medieval ramparts, and in 1914 they’d been green and blowsy with trees, and guarded by two splendid stone lions who sat on their haunches like large, sleepy house cats. Beyond the ramparts, as one headed into town, the road had narrowed as it passed between tall Flemish houses with stepped brick gables, then on towards the proud old Cloth Hall and the magnificent cathedral.

Now the ramparts were gone, the cathedral lay in ruins, and the shattered skeleton of the Cloth Hall reared stark against the sky. The lions had long since been blasted to oblivion. Adam wondered if they would be replaced, now that peace had come. Peace. It was too huge to take in. He gave up trying, and concentrated on driving.

They rattled over tramlines and light railways intersecting the road; past the railway yard, and on towards the hamlet of Dickebusch – or rather, towards the pile of rubble which corresponded to that name on the map. Again Adam was struck by the stillness. There were people about – farmworkers in clogs pulling hand carts, and little parties of soldiers – but they moved slowly. Everyone seemed subdued.

That morning they’d stopped at a café on the outskirts of Ypres – a
café
, Adam had thought in disbelief, having once again to remind himself that the front line was now beyond Mons, forty miles to the east.

With Winsloe and half a dozen others, he’d sat in the sunshine, listening to some desultory anti-aircraft fire to the north. Then, at ten to eleven, a furious outburst of shelling had opened up in the distance.