The House at Mermaid's Cove(67)
I nodded and ducked down to grasp the teats. The last thing I wanted was an interrogation.
“Still, at least you got a decent night’s sleep,” Edith went on. “We didn’t bother going to bed, did we, girls?”
Muffled laughter came from beneath the cows farther up the line.
“Did that Yank try it on—the one we saw you dancing with?” This time it was Marjorie, shouting to make herself heard. “Is that why His Lordship came to the rescue?”
“No,” I called back, without looking up. “He was just a bit energetic, that’s all.”
“We thought there was going to be a fight!” This was from Rita. “His Lordship looked fit to throttle him!”
I pulled too hard on the teats, making the poor animal I was milking shift suddenly in the stall. What Rita had said left me feeling even more confused about Jack. I told myself that she was bound to be exaggerating. They loved drama—I knew that well enough by now. The idea of Jack getting into a fight with the soldier I’d danced with would have immense appeal.
“We can get a message to your boyfriend if you want to see him again,” Marjorie piped up.
I looked up, startled. Edith must have seen the expression on my face. “I don’t think she fancied him that much,” she yelled across to Marjorie. “He looked a bit young—and a bit desperate. She wants a fella who’s a bit more . . . mature.”
This produced hoots of laughter from Marjorie and Rita. They started discussing which of the many Americans they’d met at the dance would be suitable for me.
“We’re meeting them at the pub in the village tomorrow night,” Edith said. “Why don’t you come with us?”
I took a breath, inhaling the warm, earthy aroma of the cow whose sturdy haunches were hiding my blushes. “That’s very kind of you.” I struggled to sound casual. “But I’m tied up for the next few days—they want me over at the hospital in Falmouth.”
What an accomplished liar I was becoming. To my relief, they left me alone after that. But the lie had brought the sudden realization that in less than twenty-four hours, I would be on my way to France. I’d allowed myself to become so obsessed with Jack that the looming danger of what lay ahead had been eclipsed. I moved along the row of animals in a trancelike state, my mind hundreds of miles away, back in Brussels, replaying the horror stories the nuns had told about the Great War. How would I cope if it all went wrong? If the Germans caught me out, what would they do to me?
It’s not too late to change your mind. I was back in Cornwall, in Jack’s car, watching the silhouettes of trees glide past the window.
What a coward you are! Did you leave your spine on that sinking ship, along with your robe and veil? Sister Clare’s voice drowned out Jack’s. Yes, I had been a coward, not facing up to the order, letting them all think that I had gone down with the Brabantia. Too late now to make that right. But not too late to show some courage.
When the milking was done, I made my way back through the valley to the church. I’d only remembered what day it was as I was about to leave the boathouse. I thought how different my Sundays were now. In Africa, by this time of the day, I would have already attended chapel three times.
There was no one else in the church when I arrived. I’d got there early on purpose. I wanted to light candles. One for each of the agents we were taking to France—and one for Miranda, who was still missing. As I placed them in the sand tray near the altar, I prayed for the agents’ safety, for Jack’s, and for my own.
Then I lit two more, for Kamaria and Kenyada. It was their birthday—two whole years since the day I’d stumbled upon them in the jungle about to have their lives snuffed out before they’d even begun. I gazed at the flames, murmuring prayers for their future health and well-being. It struck me—not for the first time—that I would never know how they were, that in leaving the order in the way I had, I had forfeited any chance of getting news of them. I made a silent vow, as I stood in front of the flickering candles, that if I survived the coming ordeal in France, then somehow, someday, I would find a way of seeing them again.
As I settled into a pew, I realized what a preposterous notion that was. I had no idea how much it would cost to make such a journey, and even if I had the money, I couldn’t turn up at the orphanage, because everyone there would have heard that I was dead.
The Lord hates a lying tongue.
How many times had I heard Sister Clare say those words to the young African men who had worked at the mission hospital? In pretending to be dead, I hadn’t told a lie, but what I’d done amounted to the same thing. Did God hate me for that? Would he turn a deaf ear to my prayers because of it? Would he disapprove of me going to France, pretending to be a nun, when I’d rejected that life?
My eyes traveled across to the choir stalls. I could just pick out the carving of the mermaid. The flickering candlelight made her seem alive, as if she were twisting this way and that, struggling to break free of the wooden waves lapping around her tail. It was impossible to look at her without thinking of Morwenna: the maid from the rectory in Sithney, going for a dip in the sea on her day off, catching sight of a young man fishing on a yacht moored in the bay, and swimming out, curious.
People used to say that if a man followed a mermaid into the sea, she’d take him down to the depths of the ocean and eat him up. Merle’s words came back to me as I gazed at the image. It struck me what an apt description of Jack that was: the way he’d suddenly changed when I’d mentioned Morwenna, like a man eaten up by the past.