Count the Shells (Porthkennack Book 6), page 7
He stopped the bicycle halfway along the drive, drinking in the view; there was something unreal—and vaguely unsettling—about how little the house seemed to have changed. It remained a bastion of Edwardian values standing firm in a changing world. Even the layout of the grounds was exactly as Michael remembered it: there the orchard where they’d slung a hammock and swung in the bee-loud summer sunshine; there the shrubbery where they’d played hide and seek; there the path down to the lake where they’d indulged in more worldly pleasures.
This was much harder than he’d feared. Every part of these grounds, every inch of that house, felt awash with connotations of what was and what would never be again. It seemed as though he might at any moment turn a corner and see Thomas’s bright smile, feel the touch of Thomas’s hand on his arm or the softness of Thomas’s breath of the back of his neck. The appearance at the door of a waving figure made Michael reel, before he reminded himself that this was no ghost, just Harry. He took a deep breath and cycled on.
“Hallo!” Harry called, walking up to meet him. “Lovely to see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
Michael, slightly taken aback by his host’s perspicacity, forced a smile. “That would have been unforgivably rude.”
“I’d have understood. This house must bear a weight of memories for you. And for your family.” Harry cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. “We all miss Thomas.”
“He was such a good friend. Even though we argued, and everything got spoiled, it . . .” Michael pulled himself together. “I’m at risk of spoiling things. Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive.” Harry smiled. “Talk about him if you want, don’t if you don’t. I understand.”
Did he? Had Harry, like Caroline, worked out the nature of their relationship? Had Thomas confided in his brother? That barely seemed possible. Harry had always appeared so young, tagging along, forever wondering where Michael and Thomas were going and what they were doing. Thomas, exasperated, had told lie after lie because often the truth had been unable to be spoken.
“Let’s find somewhere to put that, then we’ll get a sherry into you.” Harry led the way.
Michael studied his host as they parked the bicycle and went down to the lawns to take their drink. It was so difficult to shake off the notion that Harry was still only eleven or twelve, a not-unpleasant boy, simply an intruder on Thomas and Michael’s precious time together. But he was now a fine young man, handsome and kind, and the gap in age meant little. He and Michael had both served their country, both suffered loss, both returned to a changed world.
“Penny for them?” Harry asked.
They were sitting on the edge of the lawn now, under the shade of a monkey puzzle tree, although he couldn’t remember how they’d got there nor how a glass had appeared in his hand. He must have sleepwalked through the last few minutes, lost in thought. “Sorry. Wandering through those memories you referred to.”
“I suspected that was the case. Or that maybe you were sizing up the view for your next sketch.”
Michael sipped his sherry. “I don’t think I ever drew the house or grounds here. Maybe I should.”
Harry nodded. “Feel free to bring your stuff next time you drop in. I won’t bother you with inane questions while you work.”
“It sounds like you know what you’re talking about. Do you draw or paint?”
“Heavens, no! Art’s not my thing, given that I have ten thumbs. I prefer music.”
“Music?” Michael raised an eyebrow. “Don’t those ten thumbs inhibit you?”
“Not when you’re singing. I’ve been told I have a very nice voice, but how can I tell?” Harry twirled his glass. “Did your men used to sing a lot?”
“Sorry?”
“In France? Your platoon.”
Michael tried to hide his relief. Why the hell had he read into the simple question something that clearly wasn’t there? “Only when we were back from the lines. Too much chance of Jerry finding us otherwise. You can sing on ship, I suppose, unless you’re running a blockade or something?”
“And dance a hornpipe on the fo’c’sle?” Harry laughed. “We did sing, actually. Had quite a decent choir one way or another.”
“Were you really such a bad sailor?”
Harry shrugged. “The bit about being seasick is true. I wasn’t quite as useless as I made out yesterday, which you’ve probably already guessed. I can’t be doing with this ‘heroic service’ stuff, especially in front of youngsters. I went, I served, I came home. Plenty of better and braver men didn’t. Sorry,” he held his hand up in apology. “You’re one of the people least likely to need that sermon.”
“No need to apologise.” Michael took another drink. “I’ll not ask about the rest of it. You’ll have times you were proud of and times you weren’t, like all of us.”
Harry nodded. They sat in silence, enjoying some respite from the hot sun the tree provided them. The growing sense of relief, that he’d managed this visit so far without making a fool of himself, emboldened Michael.
“What about those girls in every port?” he asked. “Was that answer bowdlerised for Richard’s benefit too?”
Harry stared into the distance. “I hardly think he’d want to hear about what some of the lads got up to.”
“Very true.” Although that didn’t answer the question, and his host’s closed countenance suggested it wouldn’t be worth repeating it. The arrival of what must be Harry’s manservant to announce luncheon interrupted the increasingly awkward silence.
Once in the dining room, and with the servant having slipped away again, Harry apologised for his rudeness. “It’s just that I don’t want to talk about the war, even peripherally. I saw too many good men lost. Maybe in five years’ time when it doesn’t hurt so much, then we can have this conversation, but not now.” He looked up from his plate, straight into Michael’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
“I do.” Michael bit back his frustration. On occasions he wanted to talk about the war with somebody who really comprehended. He could have talked to Thomas or Jimmy or Wilfred if any of them had survived, but death had sealed their ears and that was all there was to it. “Let’s draw a line under things and stamp them paid in full.”
Harry narrowed his brow, as though about to argue, but the frown turned to a laugh. “God, you’ve got that right. Paid in full, with more on top. Come on, Goode’s put his best efforts into this meal. Let’s not disappoint him.”
The food was excellent, and so was the conversation now the air had been cleared.
“How is Olivia?” Michael had only the vaguest recollection of what she looked like: a female version of Thomas, perhaps, but he hadn’t had an eye for girls then. Or since. She was slightly lame in one leg, the result of a childhood accident—he certainly remembered that, because it had led to her being fussed over and protected by her parents. In his mind she was always “poor Olivia” but perhaps that had changed.
“She’s blossoming. One of the few for whom the war brought a bit of good.” Harry’s sardonic look contrasted the fond tone of his words. “She persuaded Mother to allow her to do some nursing. It’s been the making of her. That’s how she met her husband—a doctor, like Eric—hence the move to Yorkshire, where he hails from.”
“That’s good to hear.” Funny how the females of the family seemed to have been the ones favoured by fortune, if good luck could be judged by having met someone to settle down with for the rest of their lives. After discussing Olivia and her family, they turned to Mrs. Carter-Clemence, then found themselves walking down the lanes of memory, along byways such as the present doings of old Mrs. Tregowan, who’d been the cook back in the days of their youth. Naturally conversation turned to the Grays, and by the time their recent family history had been catalogued, any lingering atmosphere between Michael and his host had eased.
“Thank you,” Michael said to Goode, when he came to tidy away the remains of an apple tart. “Every bit as good as one of Mrs. Tregowan’s.”
“High praise indeed.” Harry grinned.
“Coffee, sir?” Goode, clearly pleased at the compliment, inclined his head.
“Maybe after I’ve had some fresh air. That suit you, Michael?”
“It would indeed. I’d like to see round the old ancestral home before the rain comes.”
Harry pushed back his chair. “Then we must make it so.”
Walking the estate again was like walking through a dream. Places that Michael had only travelled to in his thoughts the last few years were under his feet and at his fingertips afresh. Yet it all looked even lovelier than his mind’s eye had painted it. He’d had a concern, cycling here, that all would have changed for the worse or—perhaps more disconcerting—that his memory had been coloured by association of the estate with the man and that he would see the place for the first time in its true colours. That turned out to be a needless worry, at least as far as the grounds were concerned. The place was still as near perfection as could be; there’d always been a touch of heaven on earth about Broch.
Harry clapped him on the shoulder as they headed down towards the lake. “I do so love this place, despite the fact there are times it wrenches my heart in pieces.”
Michael avoided his eye, keeping his own gaze fixed on the view. “I can easily believe that. It’s hardly changed, has it?”
“I daresay you’re right.”
“As though it’s been preserved in aspic. Sorry, that’s unkind.” Michael raised his hand, emphasising his apology. “That sounds as if I meant everything has stagnated, but it hasn’t. Strange as it may seem, it’s more alive than ever.”
Harry favoured him with the kind of smile that could warm the coldest of days and melt the hardest of hearts. Perhaps Broch still felt so alive because he had a living, breathing, suddenly exuberant Harry at his side. As Eric at lunch the previous day had eased them through the two estranged families meeting once more, so Harry had eased him into reacquaintance with Broch.
Maybe the stand of trees on the way to the lake had thinned out a little, victim to high winds or wood management, but the greenery at the water’s edge seemed lusher than before. Back then, he and Thomas would have welcomed the extra privacy it afforded.
Harry swished at some rushes. “I used to get so jealous of the pair of you. I often wondered what you two used to get up to for hours on end. I imagined you playing the most exciting games.”
Michael gave Harry a sidelong look, but the remark appeared to be innocent enough. Their games had been more than exciting, but not fit for the eyes of any younger brother. “Oh, what we did wasn’t as thrilling as all that,” he replied, airily. “Chatting about school, planning what we were going to do at university, idling away time with everything and nothing.”
“Put like that, it does seem a bit dull.”
“What on earth did you think we were doing?” Michael regretted the question as soon as he’d asked it, but Harry seemed to take it at face value.
“Playing soldiers. Or scouts. Anything that would have been fun to join in, the more so because I knew I’d never be allowed.”
“When you’re young, everything you’re not allowed to do seems wonderful. Even enlisting. Sorry.” Michael winced at the pained expression on his host’s face. “I forgot.”
Harry shrugged. “It’s probably a vain hope that the war doesn’t ever get mentioned somehow or other. You’re forgiven,” he added, with one of his dazzling smiles.
It wasn’t just the humid air making Michael hot under the collar now. Those smiles, in this setting, were proving disquieting and not only because of connotations of the past. Harry was every bit as attractive as his brother had been.
They walked out onto the little jetty, where Michael and Thomas had dabbled their feet in the water and made plans for a future together, just like any couple walking out. But that’s what they had been. A couple, as much as Caroline and her Eric and unlike Michael and any other of his lovers.
Lowering clouds from the west—and an increasing mugginess—threatened an imminent storm, similar to the one of the previous day, so Harry suggested they head in the direction of the lake, given that the house was likely too far for them to get back in time. Summer storms here rarely lasted, blowing themselves out with the clouds scudding east to both the environs of St. Enodoc. If they needed to take refuge in the boathouse for ten minutes while the rain blew over, so be it; both knew from experience that the place was weatherproof.
Their timing wasn’t as good as Michael and Richard’s had been, the heavens opening while they were some fifty yards short of shelter.
“Hell,” Harry said, shaking himself as they at last reached the safety of the boathouse. “The one thing I never miss about this place is the weather. It can’t make up its mind.”
“It’s only water.” Michael looked about him. “You’ve not still got that old green canoe? I’d have thought that would have been condemned years ago.”
“That would be an act of sacrilege.” Harry moved over to stroke the canoe lovingly. “I learned to paddle in this. As long as we can keep patching her up, she’ll be here.”
“And what about when she’s more patch than boat? And none of them working?”
“Then I’ll set fire to her and we’ll dance round the flames. Like mad Vikings or something.” Harry patted the hull tenderly. “But that won’t be for a while.”
“Will you be able to keep the estate on?”
“I have little choice, given the complicated arrangements in my father’s will about keeping our inheritance for the next generation.” That didn’t appear to be too great a burden. “Luckily he had a good head for business. Broch should be proof against the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ and all that.”
That was no surprise. Sir Anthony Carter-Clemence had always struck him as shrewd, and he’d heard from Thomas how the man had a broad portfolio of business interests, including the firm of lawyers in which his younger son was learning the ropes.
“I need to put an efficient steward in place. Ypres took the previous one, and while his father picked up the reins and has kept things ticking over admirably, he wants to take a well-earned rest.” Harry caressed the canoe again. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. Got some chaps coming down at the weekend for me to interview.”
“I hope you find the man you want.”
“Oh, I think I might have already found him.”
Michael had realised the double meaning of the question as soon as he’d posed it. Had Harry? If so, he gave none of the usual indications. Probably Michael was too aware of the resonances of this place—he’d taken Thomas in that very canoe—and that consciousness was making him too ready to see and hear what was unlikely to be there. “Rain’s stopped,” he remarked, looking out of a cobweb-laden window.
“So it has. Let’s get back to the house before the next squall blows in.”
As they walked up to the house, Michael turned the conversation back to the upcoming interviews, but if Harry had picked a front runner from the two men he was putting through their paces, he didn’t make it plain. As they reached where they’d parked the bicycle, everything on that subject seemed to have been said, and Michael was none the wiser about what the comment in the boathouse had signified.
“You’ll come back again?” Harry asked. “Now that you’ve visited once, the second time should much easier.”
“I believe you’re right. I will come back. Thank you.” Michael extended his hand for his host to shake.
“I’d offer you lunch again tomorrow—you’ll need a respite from Richard and his friend—but I’ve house and business stuff to deal with. Got Father’s money man coming down to earn his crust.” Harry rubbed his strong, supple hands together. “We’ll be done by late afternoon. Would dinner work?”
“It would.” The speed of the repeat invitation had to be a positive sign.
“You could come earlier if you fancied making the most of the afternoon light to try your hand at sketching.”
“I could. And I’d best book a car so that I don’t have to cycle back in the dark afterwards.”
“Oh, don’t do that. I can get Goode to run you back in the motor. Or,” Harry wagged his fingers, “better still, you could stay over. This house feels awfully large when it’s only me here. You’d be doing me a favour by keeping me company.”
“In that case, I’ll stay.” Michael tried to surreptitiously study Harry’s face, but the man had turned away, to manoeuvre the bicycle from where they’d wedged it behind a large flower tub. “I can pack up my stuff in a kit bag.”
“And ‘smile, smile, smile’?” Harry chuckled. “I need to keep an eye on you. You’ve got me casually making jokes about the war. You’re dangerous.”
Harry had spoken those last two words with an unfathomable expression in his eyes. Michael, transfixed, had to force his gaze away.
“I’m as harmless as a lamb,” he managed, at last, but anything else was left unsaid. Goode had appeared to inform Harry that he was wanted on the telephone and—after another handshake and a brief “I’ll see you tomorrow”—he was left to make his way home with thoughts tumbling round his head.
He felt himself falling, but couldn’t be clear of his motives. Was it just that he fancied Harry? There was certainly an aching gap inside him created by the long absence of a lover. Surely he could allow himself the indulgence on either count.
How to proceed? As he’d always done, letting out his own subtle signs, as men of his nature had to learn to do in any age and in any situation. Looks, words, actions, capable of bearing several interpretations. An experienced practitioner in the art would recognise them, while an unsuspecting man would remain in blissful ignorance.
