The House at Mermaid's Cove(59)

“In the bureau in the library.” I tried to swallow but my mouth was so dry I couldn’t. “I wasn’t prying, I promise. It was before I started the radio work. Merle had sent me to fetch stamps.” My voice was croaky. I coughed and tried again. “When I couldn’t find them in the pigeonholes, I spotted a drawer. It wouldn’t shift at first. Then it shot open. There was an envelope inside.”

I thought he’d be furious that I’d opened what had clearly been a private letter, addressed to him. But he said nothing. Just went on watching me.

“I guessed who the girl was,” I continued. “Leo Badger had told me about her—her name, and what she looked like.”

A flicker of something creased the skin between his eyebrows. A mixture of surprise and indignation. I realized that I’d fanned the flames, letting out that people had been gossiping about him.

“When I saw the baby’s name, and the date, I . . .” I faltered. “I’m sorry. It was none of my business. I shouldn’t have looked inside the envelope.”

He closed his eyes and drew in a breath. “I shouldn’t have left it there. It was careless. And it was na?ve of me to think that people in the village wouldn’t know about her.” His eyes snapped open. “What exactly did Leo Badger say?”

“Well, he . . .” I hesitated. I felt bad about revealing the source of the gossip. I hoped it wouldn’t have repercussions for Leo. “He only mentioned her because he saw a resemblance with me,” I replied. “I almost laughed when he said it—even with my scarf on, I look as if I’ve had an argument with a sheepshearer—but according to him, I have the same eyes and the same ‘fairy look,’ as he put it.”

“Hmm. Did he say where he’d seen her?”

“On your boat. He’d spotted you together when he was out fishing.” I didn’t want to humiliate him by repeating Leo’s actual words. “He told me she worked as a maid in a village along the coast—and that a maid wasn’t the sort of girl someone like you would be expected to marry. I asked what had happened to her, and he said she’d gone away, to work in Devon, he thought.”

He shook his head. “I wish to God she had,” he murmured.

“Because Guernsey was invaded?”

He looked at me strangely, as if I’d said something nonsensical. “No,” he said, “she wasn’t there when the Germans came.”

“She wasn’t in hospital?”

He brought his hands up to his face, pressing his fingertips against his forehead. “Morwenna died, Alice.”

“Oh, Jack . . . I . . .” The words caught in my throat.

“She disappeared when she found out she was pregnant. I didn’t know she was expecting a baby—I just assumed she’d had enough of me. We hadn’t known each other very long. I met her one day when I was out fishing. She came swimming out from the beach at Porthleven.” He heaved out a sigh. “I’d gone out in the boat to escape what was going on at home. The family finances were at their lowest ebb, and my father had just been diagnosed with cancer. Morwenna drove the dark thoughts away. She dived under the boat and tugged the fishing line so hard I thought I’d hooked a whopper. Then she came up, laughing, and climbed aboard. We met as often as we could after that. But after a couple of months she vanished. I made inquiries at the place where she worked. They had no idea where she’d gone.

“Then a letter came, out of the blue. It was nearly two years later. And out fell that photograph.” He went silent, as still as a statue, his fingers glued to his forehead, as if the memory had paralyzed him. Then he said: “She wrote that Ned was mine, and that she hadn’t told me because she knew I couldn’t marry her. She said she’d gone to Guernsey because a friend of hers worked in one of the hotels on the island. Morwenna got a job there, too. But with the war, the work had dried up. She said she needed money.”

“What did you do?”

“I said I’d give her what she wanted if I could see our baby. I sailed over to the island on Firefly. She was waiting for me at the harbor, with Phyllis, her friend. When I’d seen Ned, Morwenna said she needed to talk. Phyllis said she’d take him for a walk while we went out to the boat.” He shook his head slowly. “It was low tide, so I’d anchored Firefly to a buoy out beyond the harbor. When we got into the tender, the wind was picking up. By the time we reached the boat, there was a swell running. I climbed out first, so I could help her up. But she slipped on the ladder.”

My hand went to my mouth. “That was how she died?”

His head dipped. It was an almost imperceptible nod—as if, even now, he found it hard to acknowledge what had happened. “I dived in after her, but I couldn’t see her. The water was murky—and it was so cold. I couldn’t swim against the swell. I had to give up.”

His fingers parted. I saw that his eyes were glassy with tears. What he’d told me was too shocking for words. It brought back all the horror of the attack on the Brabantia—the panic and the fear as the water pulled me under. I could imagine Jack’s desperation as he plunged beneath the waves, the blind terror of flailing about, unable to save her.

“The lifeboat went out looking for her. They searched for days. But her body was never found. After a week they told me to go home.”