The House at Mermaid's Cove(29)

A lump came to my throat when they began to sing. It was the “Regina Caeli”—the Latin chant Jack had told me they’d been rehearsing for weeks. This kind of singing was my passion—the centuries-old music of the church. It was the thing that, more than anything, had drawn me to the religious life, and it had soothed my troubled soul as I struggled to become a nun. Hearing that pure sound as the first light of day slanted down from the chapel windows had made the daily hardships and humiliations seem bearable.

Jack’s clear tenor voice soared up to the rafters. The young boys watched him intently, following his lead. His left hand was resting on the end of the choir stall, above the image of the mermaid. I thought of the story behind the carving—of the mysterious woman who had been mesmerized by a man’s singing. I wondered if Merle had been thinking of Jack when she’d related it.

When the service was over, she was in a hurry to get away. “The children have been invited to a birthday party,” she said, as she ushered them out of the pew. “Sorry I can’t stay and chat. See you tomorrow.”

I stayed in my seat while the rest of the congregation filed out. Jack appeared a few minutes later, minus the cassock and surplice. He came up to me, fanning his face with his hat. “Shall we go outside?”

On the way out, he introduced me to the vicar—a man in his eighties with pale, watery eyes and webs of purple veins on his cheeks.

“My cousin Alice,” Jack said. “Bombed out of London—so she’s come to help us.” He came out with it so easily, so confidently.

The vicar took my hand in both of his. I burned beneath his warm smile. Lying to a man of the cloth—on Easter Sunday. Could any number of Hail Marys blot out a sin like that?

Rain began to spot as we stood there. Jack took my arm and led me down the path through the churchyard. The feel of his hand through the sleeve of my cardigan made me blush even deeper. I supposed that to the vicar, it would have looked like the most natural thing in the world—a man escorting his cousin home from church. I wondered if that was why Jack was doing it, to keep up the pretense.

“I thought you might like to have lunch with me,” he said, as we walked under the arch formed by two aged yew trees. “It’s not much, I’m afraid—but it’ll be a change from what you’ve been living on for the past few days.”

He led me through the trees and around the side of the walled garden to a building I hadn’t seen before. It was a thatched cottage, the roof green with mildew around the eaves. There were four tiny windows in the front wall—two up and two down. One of the top panes was open, and a frayed edge of curtain flapped in the breeze.

“This was the head gardener’s cottage,” Jack said. “He died just before the war. We were looking for a replacement, but once conscription came in that was impossible. Anyway, it’s been very handy, with the house being taken over for training.”

“It’s funny,” I said, “I’ve never seen any of the military people. Apart from one man, when I was with the Land Girls.”

“Oh, they come and go,” he replied. “We’re never sure exactly how many will be staying on any one night.”

He’d used the word we again. It seemed to imply that he was sharing the responsibility of running the house with someone else. I wondered who that was. Could it be Merle?

He unlocked the door and shoved it with his shoulder to open it. A furry missile hurled itself at us as we stepped over the threshold. “Hello, boy!” He bent to stroke Brock’s head. As he straightened up, he swept his hand at a fireplace with a smoke-blackened chimney breast, in front of which was a rough wooden table and two chairs. “Sorry—it’s not very elegant. Just me and the dog living here.”

He pulled out a chair for me. “Would you like some wine? That’s one thing we’ve still got plenty of.”

At the mission house, wine had been a rare treat, served only on special feast days. The glass Jack handed me was a large one.

“Happy Easter!” He clinked his glass against mine.

After a couple of sips, I felt the tension in my body melt away. Jack left me at the table, disappearing through a curtain that divided the dining room from the kitchen. I could hear the clatter of plates and cutlery. He emerged with a tray and set it down in front of me.

I caught my breath. Arranged on a silver platter were a dozen glistening oysters.

“Mrs. Durand told me they were your favorite thing to eat.” He smiled. “I got them from the estuary this morning. Go on—dig in.”

I closed my eyes as the first one slithered onto my tongue. An image from my old house in Ireland filled my head—of my father, who loved the Dublin Bay oysters as much as I did, puffing away on a cigar between courses. We’d been eating them the night he told me that Dan and I could never marry. The night I’d decided to become a nun.

“What did you think of our choir?” Jack’s voice broke into my thoughts. “We’re a raggle-taggle bunch—half the number we used to be.”

“But you sang beautifully.” I put down the empty oyster shell and took another. “It reminded me of the services we had at the mission. I was a choral sister—which I loved. It’s one of the things I know I’m going to miss.”

“I wish you could join our choir—but it’s only ever been men and boys. You’d think the war would have changed that, like it’s changed so many things.” He took an oyster and swallowed it down in one swift, smooth movement. “Thank you for teaching me bell ringing, by the way. I wouldn’t have had a hope of doing it without you.”