Inherit the Skies (55 page)

‘Of course it is. I'm only surprised you thought you had to ask.'

And so, when nursery school disbanded for the summer holidays, Sarah took Stephen each day to Annie's house and collected him each evening.

Though she was grateful for the arrangement and though she admitted she would have gone crazy with boredom if she had had to stay at home with him all day as Annie did, yet perversely she was slightly discomfited by the eagerness with which he left her, jumping out of the motor and skipping up the path to Annie's pretty little cottage where roses trailed around the door like the setting for a popular song without so much as a backward glance. Often Annie, coming out to meet him with John at her heels like a lively puppy, had to tell him to wave goodbye to his mother and sometimes when she arrived to collect him she was greeted with groans and cries of: ‘Oh no! Can't I stay just a little longer? We were just going to …'

On occasions such as these Sarah heard her voice become very firm like a schoolmarm. ‘No, you can't, Stephen. It's bedtime and you have been bothering Aunt Annie quite long enough.'

‘But Mama …'

‘No!' And she was truthful enough to admit that her sharpness stemmed partly from the fact that he seemed a great deal more at home with Annie and John than he did with her. Surely he should be at least a little pleased to see her? But he never seemed to be. She was just a nuisance – a killjoy, spoiling his fun.

Perhaps it is time we had a holiday, Sarah thought. Just a little one, just long enough for me to get to know my son a bit better.

A whole week was out of the question; she did not feel she could abandon Lawrence for that long. But perhaps a few days would be possible. She mentioned the idea to Annie who responded enthusiastically; a couple of days by the sea would be lovely. Neither did Gilbert raise any objections – Sarah had been working too hard in his opinion and a break would do her good.

At once Sarah set the arrangements in hand and on a lovely Saturday in early July the two girls and the children set off in Sarah's motor for the south coast. The sun was shining from a clear sky, the air was warm and calm, everything augured well for a pleasant break. But for some reason she could not comprehend Sarah felt uneasy. As she and Annie sat companionably side by side on the shingly beach watching the children run and play in the breakers and search for unusual shells and pebbles to outdo one another it nagged at her like a persistent rash, a nameless foreboding which refused to be stilled.

Perhaps, she told herself, it was an echo of that other day when she and Annie had been at the seaside with the children – the day war had been declared. But somehow she could not believe that that alone would cause her to be quite so apprehensive. She thought of Adam somewhere in France and wondered if some sixth sense was warning her that he was in danger; she thought of Eric, flying daily as both instructor and operational scout, and said a silent prayer for their safety. But the apprehension remained, feeding on itself until the very sunshine seemed darkened by it.

The beach was almost deserted – war time seemed to have kept people at home. The boys explored happily and even ran a small way into a tunnel in the rocks.

‘Mama – there's a cave! It's very dark and wet – but there's light at the other end. Can we go and see where it leads?'

‘No, Stephen. Stay here on the beach.' She sounded snappy and Annie frowned.

‘Is anything wrong, Sarah? You seem very preoccupied.'

‘I expect I've been working too hard. I can't unwind. I keep worrying about … I don't know really.'

‘The holiday won't do you a bit of good unless you relax. Things will go on without you very nicely, you know.'

‘Yes. I'm sorry.' But she made up her mind that she would seek out a telephone as soon as the opportunity arose and put through a call, if only to reassure herself that all was indeed well.

Towards the end of the afternoon they packed their things together and made their way back up the steep cliff path. The boys scrambled on ahead, their eager feet kicking up small showers of stones which cascaded to the beach far below.

‘Be careful!' Sarah warned, still affected by the inexplicable feeling of unease.

The boarding house door stood ajar; they made the boys kick the sand off their shoes on the bootscraper and went into the hall. As they started up the stairs the woman who kept the boarding house came bustling into the hall, her face a little flushed.

‘You're back. Good. This wire came for you …' She held out a buff envelope, uncertain which of them to give it to. ‘Mrs Gardiner …?'

Sarah's apprehension came rushing back, forming a nervous lump in her throat. ‘I'll take it.'

‘Not bad news, I hope?' The woman hovered, her small eyes beady in her plump pink face.

Sarah took the envelope. It was all she could do to keep from opening it immediately but she waited until she was away from the woman's curious gaze. Her fingers, trembled slightly as she ripped it open and the bald words leaped up at her, then a combination of anxiety and relief made her go weak. Bad enough – but not as bad as she had feared. She looked up. The others had frozen a tableau around her, Annie, the colour drained from her face, chewing her nail and clearly afraid to ask the question that was burning on her lips, the boys, their naturally ebullient natures sobered by the mood of the adults, and the awesome sight of that sheet of buff paper which could inspire such fear.

‘Is it …?' Annie formed the words with lips gone dry as dust.

‘No.' Sarah shook her head, answering the unspoken question. ‘It's Lawrence. He collapsed at the office this morning.'

‘
Lawrence
?'

‘He's ill. He's been ill for a long time and I knew it. I should never have left him.' Her mind was racing. She folded the wire and replaced it in its envelope. ‘Annie, would you mind very much if I went home? I'm the only one who really knows about Lawrence's work. I think I shall be needed.'

‘Of course,' Annie said loyally, though she looked disappointed. ‘We'll pack immediately.'

The boys set up a clamour of protest and Sarah said hastily: ‘There's no need for you to come too unless you want to. Why don't you and the boys stay here as planned – if you think you can cope with them, that is.'

‘I could cope, of course,' Annie assured her, ‘and I dare say we could come home on the train to save you driving all the way back for us, Sarah. The boys would like that, wouldn't you, boys?'

‘Yes! Yes!' Neither seemed unduly bothered that Sarah was leaving now that they knew their holiday was safe and the prospect of a ride in a steam train never failed to excite them.

Sarah nodded. ‘That's decided, then. I'll pack right away.'

‘Oh not tonight, Sarah!' Annie pleaded. ‘You must have something to eat and a good night's rest first.'

Sarah considered and decided she owed this much at least to Annie.

‘Very well. I'll go first thing in the morning.'

When the boys were in bed she and Annie sat in the comfortable lounge in the fading light, talking about the war and its implications – and about Lawrence.

‘I'm sorry to leave you in the lurch, Annie, but I believe he is seriously ill,' Sarah said. ‘I've kept what I knew about him to myself and I suppose I shouldn't have but it was what he wanted. Anyway, now it's all out in the open, but I do feel I owe it to him to keep an eye on things until he's able to take over himself – if he ever can.'

‘That bad?' Annie asked gently.

‘I think so. Anyway, thank you for being so sporting about it – and thanks for staying on with Stephen. He would have been so disappointed if he had had to go home.'

‘It's a pleasure. I'm not clever like you, Sarah, but I like to do what I can.'

‘You are a wonderful person, Annie. Max and John are very lucky.' She hugged her friend, meaning every word she said. Annie was the sweetest, most unselfish person she knew and she very much wished she could be just a little like her. But she knew if she lived to be a hundred she never would.

Next morning dawned, another fine day. They all had breakfast together at the same table in the bay window. Above the craggy cliff top the sky was the same cloudless blue.

‘I think you are in for a couple of really scorching days,' Sarah said.

‘I think so too. Aren't we lucky?'

‘Yes.' But she felt no envy now. She was only glad to be going back. That was how important her work had become to her.

When she had loaded her things into the car dickey she kissed Stephen, cranked the engine to life and climbed in. As she drove off along the road she turned to wave to them, standing there on the steps of the guest house, Annie with John on one side of her, Stephen on the other. They looked, Sarah thought, more like a part of a family than she would ever be, and she experienced a wave of love, all the stronger because she was going away and they had no further claim on her.

Annie was a perfect friend, a perfect wife and mother. She is better for Stephen than I am, far better, Sarah thought, and for once felt not a tinge of jealousy. The motor turned the corner and they were lost to sight.

Chewton Leigh was in a state of uproar. The seriousness of Lawrence's illness had come as a bombshell for they had come almost to take his hacking cough for granted and he had managed to hide from them just how tired and ill he had been feeling for many months now.

‘The boy is in a bad way,' Gilbert told Sarah when she went to see him in his office on her return. ‘Haley tells me he told him months ago he should go into a sanatorium. Why the devil didn't he do it? Why keep it to himself?'

‘I expect he was worried about losing control of the office. You know how much it means to him,' Sarah said, not liking to mention that she had been in Lawrence's confidence.

‘Well, whatever, it's immaterial now. He's off to a sanatorium whether he likes it or not. But he was asking for you, Sarah. He seems to think you know best what he's been doing. Is that right?'

‘I have been giving him a helping hand, yes …'

‘And you are willing to continue?'

‘Of course. I'll do whatever is necessary to keep the wheels turning until he is fit again.'

The worried frown lines creasing Gilbert's brow eased; he smiled and there was a trace of pride in the smile.

‘You are a good girl, Sarah. I know I can depend on you.'

‘Mama – can we go into the tunnel –
please
?

‘No, John, play nicely on the beach, there's a good boy.'

‘But there's nothing left to do on the beach. We want to explore.'

‘
Please
, Aunt Annie!' Stephen added his voice to John's pleas and Annie shook her head in amused exasperation.

The holiday had been pleasant but not nearly as pleasant as if Sarah had been there too. Annie had read her way through two romantic novellas while the boys played, and enjoyed the sun and the bracing breeze from the sea, but now the novellas were finished, pushed to the bottom of her beach bag along with the apple cores and the remains of the sandwiches the landlady had made for them and Annie too, truth to tell, was becoming a little bored of the same stretch of beach.

Worse, another family had set up camp nearby, a rather common family in Annie's opinion – a man with a paunch which hung over the top of his trousers and a knotted handkerchief on his head, a shrill voiced woman and four noisy children who continually ran over the small fort of pebbles which John and Stephen were trying to build, knocking it down.

‘Very well,' she said. ‘But only if I come with you.'

She picked up her bag and followed the boys, who were already running towards the tunnel in the outcrop of rock. The pebbles cut into her feet, making walking difficult, and Annie thought she would not be sorry when it was time to go home to Chewton Leigh – and Max. Though he worked so very hard these days and spent so little time at home, yet it was a comfort to know he was near. When they were apart she always missed him but never more so than now, and she thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was pregnant. Though she had not been sick this time as she had been with John she felt heavier and more uncomfortable and at the same time desperately in need of someone to rely on if – just if – she should need them.

The boys disappeared into the tunnel and Annie followed, picking her way over the tumbled rocks and soft sludgy sand. It was chilly here out of the heat of the sun, a dank chill which made her shiver and she could hear the drip of water on the rock walls of the passage. The dark was complete, the tunnel much longer than she had expected, but as the boys had said there was a glimmer of light at the far end which was briefly eclipsed as first one boy, then the other, squeezed through the neck of the passageway, then slipped back inside to call to her.

‘Mama! There's another beach!'

‘Come and see, Aunt Annie! It's lovely!'

Gamely Annie struggled on. It was rather wet underfoot; she felt her shoes squelch in water and hoisted up the hem of her dress – too late. The soaked material flapped around her ankles.

I should have put my foot down and made the boys stay where we were, Annie thought. But it was too late now. They had disappeared again and moments later she emerged from the narrow cleft in the rocks to find herself on a narrow, secluded stretch of beach.

‘See? Isn't it wonderful, Mama?' John shrieked, swooping towards her. ‘See – it's
sand
. Stephen and I can make sandcastles and pies. Come on, Stephen! We'll build the biggest castle ever. One that not even silly old Kaiser Bill could knock over!'

They ran off again and, smiling at their excitement, Annie followed.

The tiny beach was indeed sand, much more fun for the children than the pebbles they had left behind. And it was so quiet – only the seabirds wheeling and crying as they came in to land on the steep cliffs which encompassed it and the gentle lapping of the tide to break the stillness of the summer's afternoon. The only trouble was the sand was not powdery dry to sit on but firm and slightly damp to the touch. Annie tested it and wrinkled her nose. She didn't want to catch a chill. It wouldn't be at all good for the baby.