CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

All the way to the hospital that day Sharon kept up a constant chatter until Caroline felt like screaming.

'Wasn't he just the most wonderful thing?' she asked for the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time didn't wait for an answer. 'The way he took right over! So big! So masterful! I knew there was nothing to worry about once he saw what was happening. He knew just what to do. You should have been there!'

Caroline ground the gears as they crawled along the winding leafy lanes fast becoming glutted with tourist traffic and gritted her teeth, wishing she could be anywhere else but in this car listening to her sister sing David's praises. She tried to concentrate on the sunshine shimmering in golden splashes on the bay at their side and the wildly beautiful rocky terrain but everything kept coming back to David.

She felt so guilty. It meant nothing, she told herself over and over. Some day he'd be her brother-in-law and he wouldn't thank her for remembering one stupid kiss given in a moment of compulsive sympathy.

She could picture herself through the years, watching him work in the fields, milking the cows, harvesting the grain, doing the hundred and one things needing to be done on the farm. And then when their bedroom door closed at night, Sharon would have him all to herself.

'Grandy fell off the tractor,' Sharon went on, oblivious to Caroline's distress. 'At first we thought he'd slipped but when we saw his face, we knew it had to be something else. Everything happened so fast after that.' Her smile became wistful. 'Oh, he was so wonderful. And to think, I almost let him get away! This time I'm going to marry him, Caro.'

Her lips compressed. 'Oh? Has he asked you?'

She laughed, undeterred by so inconsequential a thing. 'Not yet. But he will. It's only a matter of time. I remember thinking how strong he was when he lifted Grandy in his arms to put him in the car, and how lucky we were that he was there. It was providence that brought him back to me, wasn't it?'

'Providence,' she murmured, her mouth a trembling bitter line.

Why did he have to come back? Why couldn't he have stayed in America? Someone else would have been here to help Grandy. It didn't have to be David. If he hadn't come, she never would have had to see him again, seen what a gorgeous man he had become, or hear about him, or be plagued with his gentle insidious presence. Now he was everywhere. When she closed her eyes his face was there behind her lids. Her hands still quivered with the remembered feel of him; her nose, his scent; her ears, his voice; her mouth, the warm sweet invasion of his breath; her body, the glorious heaviness of his.

A small sob escaped her.

'Oh, Caro, don't worry!' Sharon reached over and squeezed her arm. 'David said Grandy's going to be all right. He knows what he's talking about. He wouldn't lie to us.'

Caroline nodded, pulling herself together with an effort, not correcting Sharon's mistaken assumption that she had been thinking about Grandy.

When they reached the hospital, Sharon's voice bubbled down the hushed corridor, greeting the doctor. They talked for a few minutes and suddenly Caroline was grateful for her sister's more outgoing personality. The doctor told her things he might not have mentioned to a more staid relative. He assured them Grandy was doing well and Sharon accepted it without question. Never feeling things too deeply, Sharon didn't make mountains out of molehills the way Caroline often did. Caroline could learn from her.

'Hello, Grandy,' Sharon said from the doorway of his room, smiling brightly, missing the sudden clenching of his good hand as he looked at them.

'Grandy,' Caroline echoed softly behind her, missing nothing.

He looked a little better than yesterday but not much. Propped up on pillows, he looked pale. He was being fed through a vein in his hand and Caroline quickly looked away from the relentless drip of the clear liquid in the intravenous bottle and tried to smile.

'I see you're having pasties this afternoon,' Sharon said blithely, coming to the side of his bed and kissing him gently. 'The boys send their love and Morwenna says you're not to hurry and get well. She needs a little time to work on Daddy and if you're there, you'll only cramp her style.'

Caroline gasped at her offhand manner but a twisted smile softened Grandy's face.

'David?' he said slowly, having difficulty forming the words.

Sharon laughed delightedly. 'He's such a brick, Grandy!' The wistful look came back to her face, making Caroline's stomach plunge.

She turned away at once, pretending to straighten a box of tissues on the table at the side of the bed. 'David's got everything under control,' Caroline said in a wobbly voice. 'He's repairing the shed today and said to say hello.'

'I talked to John Polgearon this morning,' Sharon's voice was dreamy. 'He rang to find out how you were. He hoped the bumpy ride in his old car didn't jolt you too much or make you black and blue. He didn't know if you'd remember, but he said he broke all speed limits to get you here and he thought if you'd been able, you'd have yelled at him to slow down.'

Grandy actually chuckled at that and visibly relaxed.

It was so surprising and so welcome a sound that Caroline felt the prick of tears behind her eyes. 'Is there anything we can do for you?' she asked gently. 'Anything from home you'd like us to bring next time we come?'

He shook his head. 'I'll ... go home . . . get it... myself. . .'

'We met the doctor in the corridor before we came in,' Sharon bubbled. 'He said you're the most exasperating patient he's ever had. You're much too independent!'

Caroline threw up her hands and rounded on her 'Sharon!'

'Well,' she hunched her shoulders, 'that's what he said.'

'I know, but you shouldn't tell Grandy that.'

'Why? Afraid it'll give him a swelled head?'

Caroline looked at her grandfather with helpless exasperation then stopped abruptly, drawing a sharp breath. Instead of becoming agitated, he was actually laughing in a self-satisfied way. Even his eyes danced.

Astonishment ran through her and a mixture of elation and chagrin. Sharon had known the right thing to say instinctively. Of course Grandy would want everyone to know he wasn't going to let this stroke stop him. Especially here. Especially now. It was exactly what he needed to hear. Why hadn't she known that? Something started to unravel deep inside her.

All this time she thought she was so great. She was the one with all the answers. She knew what was best for everybody. She was the little mother taking charge of all of them. Oh, the arrogance! It had taken this tragedy to open her eyes and suddenly she didn't like what she saw. Her family hadn't needed her all along. She had been the one using them to hide from herself.

Her face was expressive, changing from open bewilderment to misery and desolation. Resisting it violently, with enraged and defeated passion, she stared at Grandy.

He looked steadily back, his eyes filling with compassion.

She felt Sharon pushing a chair against the backs of her knees and sank gratefully on to it. The tears that had been dammed back for so long started welling up in her eyes and the more she tried to blink them away, the faster they came until she finally gave in. 'Oh, Grandy!' She buried her face in her hands and bent down to the bed.

His hand moved to rest heavily on her hair. 'Yes,' he murmured softly. 'I ... knew ... you would ... see it ... one ... day.'

Sharon didn't really know what was going on but she sensed it was time to tactfully withdraw. Blowing a kiss to Grandy, she left the room.

Caroline felt forsaken and deserted and so terribly alone just as she had before, when she was left waiting at the church. Only this time she had nowhere to run. She was floundering. Instead of being the strong one everybody turned to for help, she was the weak clinging vine trying to hide from life behind her family. Even now, she was drawing comfort from Grandy instead of giving it to him.

David knew. He was a stranger but he had seen it at once; The thought was overwhelmingly humiliating.

After a while her breath became easier and the trembling in her body receded. 'I don't know what's the matter with me,' she hiccupped, wiping her eyes self-consciously. 'I used to be so strong. I thought I knew so much. I was so self-sufficient. Being jilted wasn't going to make me bitter.'

'We ... all need ... someone ...' he struggled with the words. '... Even you.'

Her first impulse was to deny it. Her jaw clenched so tightly the bones in her face protested. 'Yes. Even me,' she said hoarsely, hating to admit it. For so long she had crushed the hurt, the pain and rage of being jilted, turning her back on it, refusing to face it and overcome it. She hadn't fooled anybody but herself by pretending she wasn't hurt. Now it stared her in the face and she didn't know how to cope. Instinct had her retreating further.

Smiling tearfully at Grandy to let him know she was all right, she gripped his hand hard and sat with him the rest of the afternoon but all the while, her mind was churning. Somehow, in that moment, she knew her whole life had changed.

That evening when Sharon and Caroline sat down to the meal Morwenna had kept warm for them, the boys rushed into the kitchen all talking at once, full of questions about Grandy. Caroline answered them in a subdued voice, smiling gently, passing on Grandy's witty messages to them. Her turbulent emotions were well hidden behind a cool bland mask. No one could tell by looking at her that her whole safe tidy world had been turned upside down.

A glass vase filled with wild flowers was centred on the big scrubbed table surrounded by a plate of home-made scones, slices of fruitcake and a big bowl of early strawberries.

Morwenna and David and her father were companionably sipping tea from her mother's best china cups and Caroline suddenly realised the house was becoming a home again. As hard as she'd tried this past year, she had never quite captured that elusive quality. Morwenna had done it at once, and instinctively.

Crushing down a rising sense of inferiority, she listened as Morwenna sent the boys back to their rooms to finish their homework and get ready for bed. It was nearing the end of the school year but she allowed no concessions to their routine.

David noticed that Caroline avoided looking directly at him all through her dinner and that her smile didn't really reach her eyes. He looked to Sharon as if she might tell him why but she was gazing at the flowers, lost in her own thoughts.

Each day that followed brought great strides to her father's as well as Grandy's progress. As one day slipped into another, her father became less vague. He still didn't say much but he began to take an interest in things around him and responded at meal times and often played a long silent game of chess with David in the evenings when David was there.

Every so often David and Sharon went out to a Saturday night dance or to a pub or simply to visit Sharon's friends on the neighbouring farms. To be polite, they invited Caroline along but she always made sure she had something pressing to do so as not to have to tag along. She went out of her way to be tactful and allow them their privacy.

John Polgearon wasn't as circumspect. He practically lived here these days. A tall thin man with dark hair and almost black eyes, he spent almost as much time with Sharon as David did. Caroline thought David must resent it but he never let on that it bothered him and she had to admire him for that.

Sharon was so in love. She no longer confided in Caroline now that Morwenna was so readily available but it was there in the way she moved, in her face, her every expression, her rapturous sighs. She stood gazing into space when it was her turn to do the dishes or scrub floors. Caroline watched her and shuddered without knowing why.

Then little by little she began to understand what was happening to her. Ugly, searing jealousy clawed at her whenever she happened to see Sharon and David together. When gentle looks passed between them, Caroline felt ridiculously affronted. A word, a gesture, even one of David's wide white smiles had the power to turn her into a bitter trembling mass of envy.

This is insanity, she told herself night after night. But her heart wouldn't listen. It went right on loving him. She didn't love him! She couldn't. She said it so many times it became a monotonous litany, as if saying it often enough would make it so. She didn't know anything about love. She wasn't capable of it any more—and certainly not with the man her sister loved.

When May turned into June, Grandy was well enough to come home. Caroline was theonly one available to make the drive on the day he was discharged so she went alone to pick him up.

'Oh, stop fussing, Caroline!' he roared when she parked and tried to help him out of the car. His speech was back to normal. The only thing slowing him down now was a slight paralysis of his right leg and a partial blindness in one eye. He was thinner and whiter and looked almost gaunt after a month in hospital.

The doctor had given them a list of instructions when he discharged him and at the top of it was the warning that nothing was to upset him. Caroline wondered how long it would be before she broke that warning. Nothing was going right for her these days.

It had been a long ride home and dusk was falling. She was hot and tired. Grandy's foibles never bothered her before but lately she found herself close to tears over the slightest things. Her poise was slipping badly. Inside, she was falling apart and she couldn't do anything to stop it. Stepping back at once, unbearably hurt, she let David help Grandy from the car.

David's eyes glittered expressionlessly before he handed him his cane and gently led him up the walk where her father stood waiting for him.

Alexander Pentreath looked dark and virile in the fading light, the blue, open-necked shirt and jeans deceptively covering the thinness of his frame. 'Welcome home, Dad,' he said quietly, smiling at him.

No one had told Grandy. His eyes widened in stunned surprise before huge tears welled up in them. His mouth shook. 'Alec!'

Her father flew down the walk to him and embraced him, shaking so much he nearly fell. 'Oh, Dad!' he kept saying over and over. 'Oh, Dad!'

Caroline felt her own tears clogging her throat and turned away at once. Her father was well again. Everything would be the way it was before her wedding day had put a blight on all their lives.

Then all the others were there, gathering around them, laughing, crying, all talking at once. Caroline knew she wouldn't be missed for a while. Slipping away, she sought the solitude of the narrow stream running through the lower pasture where she could pull herself together without anyone but the placid brown cattle intruding.

Listening to the soothing murmur of water tripping over stones, she sighed heavily. Now that Grandy was home, she was sure it would just be a matter of time before Sharon and David announced their engagement. When that happened she didn't know if she'd be able to stand there and smile and offer them her good wishes. Her only alternative was to leave. Now. Before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

The rose and purple sunset was full of silence as twilight deepened. The wind began to rise and the sound of moving water became stronger. She clasped her hands behind her back and kicked angrily at the stones. She knew she had to go. But where? What could she do? She really wasn't qualified to do anything except take care of a family—and she hadn't even done that right.

Self-pity washed over her. She didn't even try to fight it this time. She hadn't taken care of her family. She had used them to hide from herself. That's all it was. Her fists bunched. Why wasn't strength and self-sufficiency there, just for the asking? She needed Philip Tregenna, trusted him, loved him, leaned on him, and look where it got her. She had turned into a bitter, twisted woman without even knowing it.

The sound of the sea beckoned and she followed it without thinking. Even in this half light there was a soothing majesty to the great rugged boulders with the water swirling around their looming shapes. How could she even contemplate leaving this haven of peace? A sick feeling knotted her stomach. There was no place for her any more. She suddenly felt like an outsider, a pariah, she thought. She should have been called Ishmael.

The wind was wilder here on the high cliffs, stiffly blowing, carving her cotton dress harshly against her tall body. Her hair broke from its braid and whipped across her face.

'It's customary to leave a note,' a deep voice said from somewhere behind her.

Startled, her whole body jerked before she turned, her heart leaping to her throat.

David stood close to her, poised as if ready to lunge. Accusation was in his stance and that surprised her. His breath was coming quickly, his chest heaving under his frayed plaid shirt. He had been running, she realised. His sandy hair was wild about his head.

'A note ...?' She frowned, not knowing what he was talking about. Then all at once her eyes widened and a spasm crossed her face when it hit her. 'I wasn't going to jump!' she cried angrily. 'I've got more brains than that!'

Some of his stiffness left him but still, he came closer and gripped her arm tightly. 'How was I to know?'

'You'll just have to take my word for it,' she said coldly, trying to shrug off his hand. 'Will you let go of me, please?'

'I don't think I should. There's a little boy back there who'd never forgive me if anything happened to you.'

She jerked her arm out of his grasp and stepped away. A sound of disgust bubbled harshly in her throat. 'Tim doesn't need me any more. None of them do. They never did.'

A muscle flexed in his jaw but his voice remained quiet. 'I'm glad you realise they can get along without you, but I wasn't talking about any of your brothers. I meant my son.'

In spite of herself, her face softened when she thought of Steven but she stiffened it at once. He was just one more person she would use if given the chance. He deserved better than that. 'He doesn't even know me,' she said. 'Why should he care?'

David let that pass. 'He thinks he knows you,' he said softly. 'The important things, anyway.' Something like pain shimmered across his face. 'Just before you brought Grandy home tonight, we were talking. He asked me if his mother was as beautiful as you are.'

All her breath left her in a rush. The absurdity of such a comparison should have made her smile but for the first time in months she completely forgot her own problems and looked outside herself and an overwhelming sympathy quivered through her. It couldn't be easy for David to live with nothing but the memories of the gorgeous wife he had lost all too soon. 'Oh, David, I'm so sorry.' She knew no one could ever measure up to Judith. No woman in her right mind would even try. 'Doesn't he remember her at all?'

He shook his head. 'He was only three when she died. Before that, I had to leave him with sitters because she was in and out of hospital so much. He never really knew her.'

She drew a slow painful breath and thought she saw desolation in his face. 'Have you been able to talk to him about her? Show him photographs?'

'Oh, I've tried to tell him things to keep her alive for him, but last year we lost everything that belonged to her in a house fire.' He jammed his hands in his pockets and stood looking out to the empty expanse of moon silvered water. 'Nothing was left,' he murmured. 'Not even a photograph. She was completely gone, as if she had never been.'

Caroline swallowed past the huge dry lump in her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut on hot tears. It wasn't her place to cry but she couldn't help it. Judith was the epitome of refinement, of grace and gentleness and beauty. It wasn't right that she should be so completely lost to him. 'Oh, David,' she almost sobbed. 'I'm so sorry.'

She turned away so he wouldn't see her tears but he reached out and gently closed his arms around her, holding her tightly, resting his chin on the top of her head, softly stroking the long rigid line of her back.

'I didn't mean to make you feel bad,' he apologised.

She only shuddered helplessly and burrowed deeper into his chest and clung to him. If only there was something to say to ease his sorrow. But there was nothing, nothing at all.

They stood together for long minutes, not talking, not moving, each giving as well as taking comfort simply from the undemanding presence of the other.

Then it all began to change. It wasn't enough. In the dark sea-tossed silence, she swallowed nervously. His breathing was even and steady but hers seemed to stop altogether before it became strangling. She felt him tense and felt the quickening of his pulsebeat. What was it about him that made her long to be part of him? What kind of flame was this that tantalised and tormented no matter how hard she fought against it?

She knew she shouldn't be here in his arms with her shaking body fitted to the taut muscular length of his. But, oh, for the moment it was heaven! Her skin tingled in waves of pleasure. Her heart lurched and began to race, its rhythm thumping raggedly. Everything was forgotten: Judith, Sharon, her own painful memories of being jilted. They were simply a man and a woman together on a rocky Cornish cliff with the wind and the sea and the night all around them.

She lifted her darkening eyes to look him full in the face, wishing he would lower his head. She could almost taste the warmth of his lips moving back and forth on hers. The clean earthy scent of his body drifted on the wind, enveloping her, making her giddy.

If only she had the nerve to raise her arms to his neck and pull him closer, to press her body more firmly into the hard comfortable length of his, to revel in its languorous melting warmth. Her fingers itched to bury themselves in the tangled thickness of his hair, to stroke the planes of his face, to trace the fine lines crinkling at the corners of those bright blue eyes. She wanted to cup her palms to his throat and let the strong pulse beat against them, to slide and curl them mindlessly over his shoulders, to take his shirt from him so she could feel the pleasing texture of his skin.

A richness of feeling seemed to flow between them, gathering, swelling, until they both were breathing one breath. A fierce sweet passion enfolded her. The deep rawness of desire made her tremble. Her bones turned to water. Her whole body throbbed with the need to feel, to taste, to touch him.

But all she did was stand there, too shy to make the first move, too shy to do anything but look at him with her heart in her eyes.

I want to make love to you, Caroline.

She heard the words clearly enough but his lips hadn't moved. Had he said that? Really? Or had she imagined it? In her besotted state, was she putting words into his mouth?

Ice slithered down her spine. A roaring seemed to sound in her ears as suddenly everything came rushing back: who she was, who he was. Her stomach plunged in painful self-disgust. How could she feel this way? Think things like this? What madness possessed her? She, more than anybody, knew the kind of rejection she was inviting by letting him this close. Hadn't she learned her lesson in the most painful way possible? She was a jilted woman. There was some flaw in her. She wasn't good enough for any man.

She wouldn't trust. Ever, again. No man would be given another chance to hurt her. And besides, there was Sharon. David had had the most beautiful wife in the world and now her beautiful sister was going to make him hers. How could she forget so completely?

Almost staggering backwards, she abruptly broke away from him, her eyes like huge greenish bruises in her white face.

'Caroline?' A flicker of hurt and confusion crossed his face before he let out a defeated breath and dropped his arms to his sides. He took a searching step towards her. 'What's wrong?'

She backed away further, her chin coming up defiantly as she tried to hide her embarrassment behind a proud look.

'I'll never understand you in a hundred years,' he muttered, his mouth twisting. 'I thought there was something between us ... but I'm wrong, aren't I? You don't care for me at all.'

Nausea began to churn in her stomach. Had he forgotten Sharon too? Or did he get some kind of kick out of stringing them both along? Her mouth shook. 'I just remembered who you are!' she choked.

His head snapped back as if he couldn't believe she said that. He couldn't have looked more stunned if she'd struck him. Then his jaw hardened and he took a deep steadying breath before raggedly letting it out. 'I see,' he said quietly, but his voice had the choked softness of a dying man. He looked at her for another long minute almost in a daze. 'I didn't realise . . . what you've heard ... I thought it didn't matter to you.'

It wasn't until he turned and walked away that she realised he was trembling. What he said didn't make any sense. It was the gibberish of a stricken man. Somehow he had been wounded by her remark but she didn't know why. And then she told herself she was right to remind him who he was. He belonged to Sharon. She had to start, now to make sure there'd be no awkward ghosts between them for him to remember once he became her brother-in-law.

She turned back to the cliffs edge and bit her lip, staring at the empty expanse of water until it became a blur of moon shimmered blackness. She had to leave soon. With each tossing crash of a wave, the refrain began again.

I don't love him. I don't love him.

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