Sea Gem (6 page)

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he invited gently.

Mary gave a little shrug. ‘There’s not much to tell,’ she replied slowly. ‘I’m an orphan, raised on charity,’ her face grimaced. ‘For a short while I
taught at the orphanage before I decided to break away and go into service. I met Duret Noyen when he was stationed in England and he suggested I come here and await his return. I had nothing and
no one in England, so I came,’ she told him simply.

It was difficult to read his expression and his features were sober while he sat silently mulling over what she had explained, then he gave a huge sigh that puzzled her.

‘Duret Noyen, only living grandson of Louise Noyen, relic of Jack. Her mother was Anna Carey and her father was a rebel Englishman called Dan.’

‘Goodness me! You know all about the family—more than me!’ Mary exclaimed.

He shook his head. ‘I know
of
them,’ he corrected slowly.

Mary frowned and wondered what he meant exactly. She turned and looked out to sea where the sun glimmered on the water in yellow ripples.

‘For someone whose home was on another island, I find your knowledge about the Noyens rather strange,’ Mary said carefully.

His lips went tight and he regarded her frankly as his right hand stole out to imprison her left. ‘If I don’t tell you, someone surely will.’

Mary was bewildered. ‘Tell me what?’

‘Your famous, or notorious, Tante is my grandmère too, though she will never admit to the fact and would cut me dead if she saw me.’

‘What!’ Mary gasped. ‘I don’t understand.’

He threw her a weak grin. ‘My full name is Victor le Page,’ he said and awaited a reaction.

Mary stiffened and suddenly in a clairvoyant flash understood the conversation she had overheard.

‘Go on,’ she encouraged in a whisper.

‘Oh! It’s the old story with a variation, I guess,’ he mused and stared out to sea as if his thoughts were so tangled he needed extra time in which to tidy them.

Mary sat silent astonished by his revelation.

‘Louise Noyen had a daughter called Christine,’ he started, half nodding to himself. ‘Christine was wild, headstrong and quite unimpressed with her mother’s authority.
What Christine wanted, Christine took and damned the consequences. I am told she was an outstanding beauty and blessed with a charm which could make the birds fly down from the trees. Even tough,
dictatorial Louise Noyen could neither tame nor control her daughter when she entered her teens and for some odd reason, she set her cap at my father who was older than she—about thirty-five.
He was a Jersey man and was in Guernsey on some business trip where they met. Even though safely married, he was bewitched by her and made an utter fool of himself, which wasn’t a hard thing
to do with Christine, and my father was the original
roué
anyhow. How my saintly, adopted mother put up with him I’ll never understand.’

‘Adopted?’ Mary whispered.

‘My father’s wife was Sarah Domaille and they had no children. I have no idea how long the affair went on but my father made Christine very pregnant.’

‘Oh!’ said Mary thoughtfully.

Victor pulled a face. ‘Tante Louise, as you call her, nearly went berserk. You see, apart from anything else, she detests anyone from Jersey. I don’t know the ins and outs but gossip
says it was something to do with her father’s death.’

‘But she told me he died when collecting ormers!’

‘That’s as maybe but gossip says he had an enemy who was a Jersey man, they fought, then Dan Penford was found dead. But that’s all history.’

‘What happened to him? Surely there was an investigation?’

He shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know. It’s all so long ago. When Tante Noyen learned about Christine’s condition and there could be no marriage, there was the most unholy
row and Christine left home. She was exactly nineteen when I was produced.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She died giving me life,’ he said simply and paused. ‘So there I was. A bastard and with half Jersey blood to boot. I was only half a Noyen and most definitely not wanted,
especially as she had two legitimate and adored grandsons already, Charles and Duret.’

Mary was aghast. ‘But surely she could not refuse a home to an innocent baby?’

Victor shook his head. ‘It wasn’t as simple as that. As I found out many years later, my father was a real boozer and Louise Noyen had just suffered a horrible year of three
tragedies, one after the other. She was not exactly young even then, was coming up to her fifties and Duret was only a baby. My arrival was the final straw, especially with Jersey blood.’

‘What happened?’

‘My sainted father’s wife found out and she simply took me in, adopted me as her son and I’ve never wanted for love or affection—from her. As to my father, he broke his
neck in a drunken spree in 1906. My adopted mother died only three weeks ago and that’s why I’m on this island. There is a Will being dealt with, not that I expect there’ll be
much money after my father’s drinking bouts, so I thought I’d come here and renew links with my roots.’

Mary eyed him shrewdly. ‘Do you have financial hopes from Tante?’

He went stiff and shook his head vigorously. ‘No! I know better than that. Grandmère despises me. She seems to think I will be like her wild daughter. Anyhow, I’m a bastard
and carry tainted blood.’

Mary snorted. ‘I too know what it’s like to carry the bastard tag around one’s neck,’ she told him grimly. ‘My years at the orphanage—’ Her nostrils
flared with anger at memories. She turned to him. ‘Let no one put you down because of your birth. The only difference between me and the gentry is that their bank books are bigger than mine.
I consider myself just as good as anyone else, bastardy notwithstanding,’ she said with spirit.

He flashed his teeth in a wide grin and squeezed her hand. ‘My God! That’s what I think is wonderful about you. Fire and fury coupled with spirit and your own, fetching beauty. Guts
enough to come to this island to strangers. Mary Hinton, you are a girl after my own heart. What a pair we would make.’

Mary studied the gleam in his eye and felt uncomfortable. He held her hand more tightly than he should but her heart warmed to his words.

‘So what are you going to do now that you are here?’ she asked him.

‘I think I’ll make my life and home here now. At the moment, I’m going to go on trial as a cub reporter for the local rag. I start next week. If I’m any good, who knows?
I might end up on Fleet Street!’ he joked merrily.

‘You didn’t want to join the Services and go to France?’ Mary asked curiously. Obviously conscription did not apply here.

He threw her another of his piercing looks. ‘What me? Why should I? Look how many have already died for England!’

‘But surely the war affects here too?’ Mary persisted. He couldn’t possibly be a coward—could he? ‘Where do you live then?’ she asked, thinking it better to
change the subject.

‘I’ve found myself some cheap lodgings in town. They’re not much but I can’t afford better. I’ll have to do some smart reporting to impress my editor and get a
rise. Of course, if there was some money in my mother’s estate that would be splendid but it’s highly unlikely, knowing my late, drunken sire.’ He laughed, but with a touch of
bitterness.

Squeezing her hand, he wriggled nearer, making her sway as their bodies touched. Mary’s heart lurched and she knew she should pull away. Once in his arms his hypnotic aura would shatter
her resistance.

‘You mustn’t do that,’ she chided. ‘Duret is in the trenches right now and I wear his ring.’

‘More fool him then!’ he said bluntly. ‘Anyhow, all is fair in love and war.’

Mary was shocked at this outlook. For the past few years her country and the Empire had bled themselves white against the Kaiser. She remembered the awful days of the Somme ’16 when half a
million men had vanished in human hell.

She freed her hand with a sharp snatch and leaned away from him, her face cold.

‘Young, strong and healthy men went to the trenches; men who were not conscripts. Those who failed to go received white feathers from women!’

He snorted with disgust. ‘Anyone who voluntarily fights in the murder of the trenches is a raving idiot if they go of their own free will. Politicians make wars but it is the little men
who have to fight them,’ he retorted. ‘If any woman gave me a white feather I would ram it back down her throat,’ he said coldly.

Mary was appalled at his attitude as well as repulsed. ‘Are you—a coward?’

He turned to her, face bleak. ‘No, girl, I am not! And if you were a man you’d have lost your front teeth by now for thinking the question let alone asking it. Just because I happen
to show a little good sense it does not make me any less of a man.’

Mary felt ice slow in her veins and she hastened to stand. ‘That is a matter of opinion,’ she snapped at him and, turning on her heel, walked away.

‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘Where do you think you are going?’ he sprang after her, grasping her shoulder and made her halt.

‘Take your hands off me!’ Mary spat at him, disgusted with his opinions and, at the same time, widely disappointed with them. ‘You may despise our boys in trenches but I
don’t and my Duret is there right now. He could be going through hell!’

‘More fool him for volunteering!’

They stood face to face and glowered at each other. Mary’s eyes were bleak and narrow while his lips and face were a compressed, rigid mask.

‘You are a pacifist!’ she accused hotly.

‘No, I’m not!’ he shouted quickly in his defence. ‘I’ll fight as hard as the next man—when the cause is a correct one!’

‘In the meantime you have a lovely, idle time leaving your taken-for-granted peace and freedom to the suffering and bravery of others. I think perhaps Tante might just be right about you,
after all!’ she threw back at him furious with herself. Why should tears prickle at the back of her eyes? He was nothing to her, was he?

‘That’s a rotten thing to say!’ he grated, stung and deeply hurt. ‘Mary! Don’t go! Surely we can agree to disagree?’

‘On this subject—I doubt it!’

‘But I haven’t talked to you properly. I want to see you again. I must!’ he told her urgently as she pulled herself free for a second time and stumbled back towards her cycle.
‘I want to show you the island. We can explore it together. We have so much in common, we—’

‘I doubt we’ve anything in common, Victor le Page,’ Mary shouted, striding forward as he ran at her side. ‘Now get out of my way or does your fighting strength and
precious opinions only refer to weaker females?’

‘That’s uncalled for!’ he protested but stood and let her go.

Mary bent and pulled her cycle erect while the tears gathered momentum, ready to spill at any second. His hand grasped her handlebars.

‘Mary?’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t let us part like this when we’ve only just met. I simply have to see you again!’

Mary sniffed, brushed the first errant tears aside and refused to look at him. She was too confused and upset to think straight and just wished he would go away and leave her alone.

‘Mary! Tell me when I can see you again!’

‘Never!’ she snapped.

He gritted his teeth, appalled at her reaction but grimly determined this was not an ending. He knew there was only one step he could take.

‘If you don’t agree to see me, of your own free will, I’ll call at the house,’ he said quietly.

Mary was appalled. ‘You can’t do that!’

He met her hurt and angry eyes without flinching. ‘I can and I will!’ he promised evenly. ‘I’ll do anything to see you again because you mean so much to me. I know it
sounds crazy after we only met this morning but you have done something to me, my life can never be the same again. So we have quarrelled, don’t all lovers?’ he asked hopefully.

‘We are
not
lovers!’ Mary hurled back at him. ‘You are simply some bumptious, odious know-all I had the misfortune to meet a few hours ago!’

‘I’d like us to be lovers!’ he whispered.

‘Stop it! Once and for all!’ she cried, nearly frantic.

‘Mary! Mary!’ he said, trying to gentle her temper. ‘I mean what I say. If you don’t agree to meet me I’ll defy my fierce grandmère and call at her
home.’

‘That’s blackmail!’

He thought about this for a few seconds then nodded. ‘True but I mean it, my wild, spirited sea witch!’

Mary had no idea what to do. The idea of his threat horrified her and she knew he meant exactly what he said.

‘Know this, Victor le Page, nobody threatens me, hectors or bullies me now. I had more than enough of such antics when a child. I make my own decisions and lead my own life. No one will
push me around, ever again,’ she snapped, hot words tumbling from her lips in wild temper. ‘So call at the house! And I’ll tell everyone how you have tried to blackmail me into
meeting you against my will.’

She faced him with head high and eyes sparkling. She had no idea how beautiful she looked to him. All she did know was that she was lying in her teeth but this
he
would never know.

‘My God!’ he breathed softly. ‘You are fantastically beautiful in a rage!’

He paused, head slightly tilted to one side. ‘More than that, you are magnificent!’ He admired her courage and defiance. She was totally unafraid of him and he knew he had lost his
heart to her irrevocably. ‘I’ll be at this spot a week today.
Please
come!’

Mary threw him one final hard look, then straddled the seat and attacked the cycle pedals. She left him with a mixture of rage and longing, but knew she was only doing the right thing.

Mary strolled over the fields with Sam and he eyed her curiously. During the last few days, the Mistress had commented upon how Mary appeared to have changed. She had sunk into
a quiet apathy which alarmed Tante and disturbed Sam.

There had been a letter from Duret which should have sent Mary into raptures. Instead the girl had sunk into a deeper despondency that concerned Sam and frightened Tante. At least, Sam told
himself, Tante had the good sense not to pry with questions. Sam had a shrewd idea this English girl was deep and secretive.