The Jade Keepsake, page 1
The Jade Keepsake
Isabella Hargreaves
The Jade Keepsake
Published by Isabella Hargreaves
Copyright © Isabella Hargreaves 2019
Cover by Designrans
Cover Images by Brian Sinclair and Hilary Davies
Edits by Laura Greaves
ISBN 978-0-6481531-6-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
What readers are saying about Isabella Hargreaves
The Jade Keepsake – Winner of the Romance Writers of Australia Little Gems competition, 2018
Runaway Christmas Bride – Winner (joint) of the Romance Writers of New Zealand Koru Award (novella), 2018
The Persuasion of Miss Jane Brody – Finalist in the Romance Writers of New Zealand Koru Award (short and sweet novel), 2014
The Persuasion of Miss Jane Brody – Finalist in the Australian Romance Readers Association awards (Historical Romance), 2014
The Persuasion of Miss Jane Brody – Finalist in the Chantelier awards (Historical Romance), 2014
The Persuasion of Miss Jane Brody – Finalist in the Steam eReads, ‘Some Like it Hot’ romance competition, 2013
I love all of Isabella Hargreaves work…. She has a real strength for making the reader care about the characters in just a few pages, and the historical detail is very well done. [Happy Reader, Amazon.com, 9 July 2017]
Snowed in For Christmas is a beautifully written short story. This is my first book of Isabella's and she has proved that she is an extraordinary master story teller who has not only done her homework of the background very well, but has also brought all the characters to life. I would love to read her next book. [Neera Sawhney, Amazon.com, 27 November 2016.]
This is another wonderful book by Ms. Hargreaves. She has such a delightful way of telling a story. With words, she brings the characters of James and Alice to life, writing a sweet tale of humor and love. This one will surely make you smile! [Teri Donaldson, Amazon.com, 20 May 2018.]
About the Author
Isabella Hargreaves writes Romance through the Ages. From tenth century England, to the English Civil War, to Regency London and outback Australia in the 1920s, she has a romance to tell. She writes about strong, determined heroines and heroes who aren’t afraid to match them.
Isabella lives in Brisbane Australia with her family and a house full of pets. Her love of history surfaced in childhood. Years later she became an historian and now she spends her days researching and writing about people, places and institutions.
Find out more about Isabella Hargreaves and her books at: www.isabellahargreaves.com
http://www.instafreebie.com/free/LZUvF
The Jade Keepsake
Old Identities Hotel, Wellington, N.Z., 14 October 1914
My love,
It seems an age since we parted this morning. I promised to write to you every day, and this is the beginning.
I’m holding the beautiful jade amulet you gave me to remember you by. As if I would need anything to remind me of you—the touch of your lips on mine, the sound of your voice rumbling in my ear, the taste of you! Already I long for the day you’ll return. No matter what happens, I’ll wait for you.
Write to me when you can. Safe journey and swift return.
Yours forever,
Viola
1st New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Salonika, August 1915
My darling Vi,
Don’t worry when you see the address—I’m fine. Managed to get in the way of a sniper’s bullet that winged me. My mate, Jimmy from Chandler’s farm—you remember him from Wellington—says I organised it so I’d have more time to write to you because that’s all I ever want to do. And he’s not wrong about writing to you being my favourite occupation.
I expect to be here for a while then get shipped back to Gallipoli.
I look forward to reading that all is well at home and that those school kids of yours are behaving themselves. Tell them, if they don’t, I’ll be after them with a switch when I get back.
All my love,
Alec
Ahipara, N.Z. December 1915
My love,
By now you will be well away from Gallipoli. Thank god!
My class has done very well with their schoolwork this year. So many of the boys are keen to join the Army when they are old enough. I hope they never get the opportunity. It would break my heart to have so many boys risk their lives as you are doing. They are so very young.
I look forward to hearing that you’re safe in England before long. Surely they will send you there rather than straight to the front in France.
I miss you terribly and look forward to showing you my new teacher’s residence—it’s quite unusual for a single woman to be given separate quarters! I’ve made it cosy, ready for your return, which I hope will be soon.
All my love,
Viola
England, March 1916
My darling Vi,
I’m finally in Old Blighty! Never thought I’d make it here until this war started. Almost missed out, thanks to Gallipoli. I’ve been promoted to sergeant and am doing some training before we’re railed out to France. Hope you’re proud of me. Can’t say I did much to earn it except to stay on my pins.
I wish I could show you London. It would be so much more fun to be seeing the sights with you, rather than with young Jimmy. I’ve enclosed a souvenir from the Tower for you.
As there are so many soldiers being sent over to France, surely we’ll be coming home victorious soon.
All my love,
Alec
Ahipara, May 1916
My love,
I love the brooch from the Tower and the photograph of you in your sergeant’s uniform!
Things go on just the same here. Sometimes the days drag endlessly, despite all my busyness at school. It feels like an age since you were last here and an eternity before you will be here again.
I’ve coaxed some flowers into growing in the sandy soil and they are putting on a marvellous display. I can’t wait for you to see them. My class is behaving pretty well, so I’ve no reason to grumble.
I long to see you again.
All my love,
Viola
Paris, France, October 1917
My dearest Vi,
Sorry I haven’t written for some time. We’ve fought our largest battle to date—Passchendaele. So many of the regiment are gone—including Jimmy. It’s hard for the survivors to break out of their melancholia. Mercifully, we have leave in Paris for ten days.
I’ve been promoted again—to lieutenant after officer training school. Can you believe it? Me, an officer! I’ll be in England for a few months then back to France with my own platoon.
Hope you’re proud.
Love,
Alec
Ahipara, December 1917
My love,
Of course I’m proud of you! My heart is bursting with it, but also with fear for your safety. When will this war end so you can come home? Please be very careful. I know you—you’ll put yourself in danger to save your men for sure. Don’t take any risks. I need you home with me.
Mr Lennox collared me the other day and told me there’s still a job waiting for you after your return. He said he misses your good humour and reliability. So do I! And so much more.
All my love, Alec.
Viola
France, August 1918
Dearest Vi,
Everything is hotting up again here. Surely this is the last action I’ll see before leave.
I’ve got a funny feeling about this advance that just won’t go away. Never had it before and I don’t want it again.
I’m sure I’m just imagining things, but just in case, I want you to know that loving you and imagining coming back to you to build that little cottage we planned has been all that’s kept me going these last four years. My will leaves everything I’ve saved to you and all my possessions here will come back to you. If the worst happens, I want to know that you will make a new life without me, marry and have that family you dream of.
I promise you I’ll take care not to go west. But, if it happens, know that I’ve loved you more than life itself and I’ll go on loving you for all eternity. You are my reason for living and my hope for the future.
All my love,
Alec
Ahipara, September 1918
The sky stretched blue and endless above Viola. Clouds like wisps of belly wool floated over the horizon. The wind off the Tasman Sea plumed the waves and looped loosened strands of her blonde hair across her face and over her shoulders. Golden sand scrunched beneath her feet, sliding between her bare toes.
The straw hat that should have been on her head had long since fled her grasp and flown into the dunes. She would search for it on the return journey.
She escaped here for a few minutes every day. A few minutes to be in the place that reminded her most of Alec and their brief time together before war had separated them and ruptured their bubble of happiness.
If it weren’t for the formal studio photographs that he had sent from France, she wouldn’t know what he looked like any more. Every time his face blurred in her mind, in desperate fear that she would forget him, she raced to her room to
The ache of longing in her chest rarely left her. It was only here on the beach that she felt some peace, felt some measure of hope that he would return—one day. Please god it would be soon. She touched the sun-warmed jade around her neck as if she could summon him back to her by doing so.
Never for one minute, when she waved him off from the dock at Wellington, had she thought their parting would be so long; her life put on hold until she knew whether he would come back, whether he would come back whole, or whether when he returned he would even want to be with her still.
He had endured so much in that time, while she had continued on in the same old life, living in limbo.
And when they did meet again, what would they talk of? What would they have in common? She shook her head to scatter her negative thoughts. It would be alright. They would find a way back. She had to believe that.
She turned for home. There was dinner to prepare and school books to mark before she climbed into her lonely bed, ready for the next day to start again.
She approached her little cottage, her wayward hat again in her possession. Through the darkening twilight a blurred figure hurried across her verandah. His sharp rap on her door carried across the gloom.
Viola grasped her skirt and ran. Alec!
She puffed up the garden path. At the verandah step, her feet faltered. She halted, bent over, dragging air into her lungs. The figure before her wore a uniform.
But he was too small for Alec. Hope died—plunged like a ballast stone into the pit of her gut. Nausea rose up inside her, threatening to spill her afternoon tea onto her boots.
“Miss Wilks, I have a telegram for you.” The post boy held out an envelope. Last year he had been one of her pupils. This year he had an adult’s job. “I’m sorry, Miss I ...” His words faded and died. He thrust the paper into her numb hand, motionless at her side, then slipped past her to his bicycle.
Viola sucked in a fractured breath and sank onto the top step. She hooked a finger under the flap of the envelope and tugged the small leaf of paper out.
Regret to inform you Lieutenant Alec Butler missing in action.
The words hit her in the chest like a medicine ball, knocking the air from her lungs. The ink on the sheet in her hand smudged as tears splattered it. She crumpled the words.
Deep chest-racking sobs shuddered out, drowning the nearby waterbirds’ roosting chorus. Her heart felt as black as the newly descended night. She clutched the jade talisman around her neck, desperate to feel the familiar warmth it had conveyed since Alec gave it to her.
Now it was stone cold, as though proof he had left this world.
Damp evening air clung to her. She must get inside. She turned to the door, but unable to halt her tears, slumped onto the verandah boards instead. Would the pain ever end?
Slowly, so slowly, her breathing eased, the tears stopped and, unable to find the energy to stand, she crawled towards the door. For long minutes, she leaned against the timber house, her body boneless, her mind blank, her soul riven.
Later, much later, she shivered awake, unbent her stiff legs and pulled herself upright. The door creaked open into the unlit interior. She stumbled inside and found the matches.
Within minutes the flickering flame grew into a warming fire.
Still the jade felt cold beneath her hand.
Viola ghosted through her evening ritual of getting ready for bed without knowing what she did. The children’s workbooks wouldn’t be marked tonight. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything anymore.
Ahipara, January 1919
Viola scuffed her feet on the damp sand and stared out to sea. Over there to the west was Australia and further west was the vast Indian Ocean, leading on to Europe. It was more than four years since she had watched Alec’s ship steam in that direction, taking him away from her forever.
An ache had settled in her heart that she couldn’t shift from one day to the next. The world was colourless and she wondered if that would ever change, whether she would ever see the sky as blue again, hear the haunting calls of the ocean birds or feel the soft brush of the sea breeze on her skin.
She trudged back towards the settlement. Marking books awaited. She barely ate now—couldn’t get interested in cooking food. She existed as an automaton, no more than that.
She glanced up. A lanky stranger limped towards her from the dunes. His hand shot up and he yelled something in greeting, but he was too far away to be heard. Maybe he was the new teacher replacing her at the start of the school year. She had requested a transfer back to Auckland to be with her family, and it had finally come through. He was a little early, but that would make the transition easier.
Viola waved in acknowledgement and returned to her mindless plodding.
“Don’t you recognise me, Viola?” A deep voice cut through the fog of her mind and Viola looked up at the man who had stopped a few feet in front of her. She blinked.
Alec? Was it him?
“Viola, it’s Alec,” he cried, his words shouted over the background noises of the beach.
“Alec!” How could it be? He was dead. Hadn’t she moved on from imagining him everywhere she went? Everywhere they had spent time together.
He spoke again and limped closer until he stood before her, his hand outstretched. “Viola.” His voice pleaded.
Her eyes raked his form. Tall enough. His face was different—scarred and with a nose that had been broken and set not quite straight. His hair was streaked with grey. His body so gaunt his clothes hung loosely. Those were Alec’s clothes though—from before the war. It was him. She stumbled forward.
He grabbed her waist as she faltered, halting her fall. ‘Steady up, old girl.” That sounded like the old Alec. He smelled warm and manly like her Alec.
She looked into his dark eyes and saw a world of pain and experience written in them, but also love. Love was still there—after all this time. A sob rose from her chest. She gulped a breath and clutched his shoulders. “You’re alive! I thought you were gone forever.”
He wrapped her with his arms and dragged her against his chest. “Almost, but they couldn’t keep me down,” he quipped, his voice rumbling in her ear.
She clung to his ravaged body. Her eyes closed as she savoured the feel of him, the smell of him, the warmth of him for long moments.
She drew back a little and gazed at his face. “Why didn’t you write? Why didn’t anyone write?”
“No time. I was put onboard on a stretcher, too weak to lift a pen, barely awake five minutes in a day.” He gave a grim laugh. “I expect the official notice will arrive eventually.”
She thumped his arm with the bottom of her fist. “You can joke about it?”
“Not much choice if I want to stay sane.”
She ran her fingers through his dark hair, lifting the waves that had formed since his last military haircut. Sunlight lit the coarse tendrils of silver that peppered the black strands.
His gaze seared hers. “Kiss me, Viola. Make all this seem real.”
She nodded once and raised herself up on her tiptoes. His lips met hers with a desperate urgency. She answered him with her own fierce hunger. He pulled her closer, lifting her from the sand. Viola clung to him, never wanting to let him go.
Her lips parted. Their tongues met and danced. Warmth speared through her, igniting her body with four years of longing and unrequited love and lust. Alec was alive, and he was in her arms and she was never letting him go again. She strained to get closer to him. To show him with her body how much she had missed him, how much she loved him still.
The jade necklace heated her neck.
Slowly, inch by inch, Alec lowered her to the ground and eased his mouth from hers. They were both breathless. “Let’s go home, Viola. I’ve so much more love to show you.” He looked up at the gathering clouds threatening rain soon. He gave a lopsided grin. “And here isn’t the best place to do it.”
Viola drew a ragged breath. No, not when there was a cosy bed, a warm fire and privacy at home. She wanted to get there fast. She slid her hand down his arm and threaded her fingers with his, and ran, urging him towards the path through the dunes.
