Several weeks passed, the loneliest weeks Beatrice had ever experienced, for she’d grown used to companionship and now it was gone. After the first few days without Carlyon, without Angelina, the tenor of her parents’ routine became unbearable. Wherever she drifted in the house she was in someone’s way, and she took to going for long walks with Jinx over the cliffs or down to the beach. Cornwall was starting to get busy with summer visitors. Sometimes when the tide was low she’d take that forbidden passage to the less visited next cove, where she’d become absorbed in the rockpools there because it was quieter. But she’d no longer imagine mermaids and palaces. Instead, like a good student, she’d draw fish and birds in her sketchbook, or if it was warm in the sun, sit and read novels from the pile Miss Simpkins had lent her, then when the tide was coming in she’d urge Jinx up the narrow steps cut into the cliff and pass home along the fringes of Carlyon’s gardens.
Her mother had started to encourage her to play tennis at the club further up the hill, where she joined the fringes of a group of the sons and daughters of families Delphine met through charity work or her French conversation lessons. They were friendly, not as grand as the Wincantons’ friends; they invited her to picnics and birthday treats, but still she didn’t feel a part of it all. The Wincantons had spoilt her for that.
When the weather was bad she found herself holed up in her bedroom at home, reading, or arranging and labelling her nature collections. Sometimes she was summoned downstairs to amuse her father by playing chess or reading to him. In the evenings they all sat together listening to the news of the Japanese invasion of China, whilst Delphine sewed and Hugh Marlow played endless games of solitaire, and Beatrice seethed with frustration and loneliness. And every time the postman came she hoped there’d be something for her. Sometimes there would be: a letter or a postcard badly spelt but enthusiastically written by Angelina, with a picture of a stag on it from Hetty.
Beatrice felt empty, yearning. There was a space to fill.
And then Rafe came.
Late July brought more visitors to St Florian, though because it was tucked away, and the beaches were small, it didn’t attract the big crowds. Still, the town was busier than usual. Small children hunted crabs in the rockpools at low tide, the jolly sails of boats skimmed the sea and the Italian ice-cream man set up his barrow on the quay.
One afternoon of intense heat and stillness, Beatrice took Jinx for a walk on the beach, seeking coolness by the water. Delphine had gone to bed complaining of a headache. Hugh was playing bridge at Colonel Brooker’s, a new development that ‘at least gives him an interest,’ as his wife said. Beatrice imagined the middle-aged men sitting round the table talking of the days when they’d diced with death in the trenches rather than gambling away small sums at cards. Yesterday’s men, all of them. Another war was coming, but it wouldn’t be theirs.
She passed a group of boys of about sixteen, playing cricket on the sand, far too absorbed in their game to notice her. When she reached the sea she pulled off her sandals and walked in the shallows, throwing pebbles into the sea for Jinx. They reached the headland that separated this cove from the next. The tide hadn’t gone out far enough yet to reveal the passage, but she looked for the jagged rock where she’d got stuck that far-off day two years ago and saw it as an important moment now, for it had brought her Angelina and a life at Carlyon.
She stopped as close to the rocks as she dared, watching the waves dash against them and swirl back, dash and swirl, then whistling to Jinx, turned back, thinking she’d find the narrow path over the other headland and walk down to the town and buy an ice cream.
As she neared the cricket game she saw the boys had spread out across the beach, the reason quickly becoming obvious as a tennis ball hurtled past her into the waves. A six,’ cried the batter, a heavy red-haired boy she vaguely recognized as James Sturton, a local boy who frequented the tennis club. Jinx leapt into the sea, seized the ball and ran off with it along the beach.
‘Flipping heck, Sturton,’ cried the bowler. ‘You nearly took her head off.’ He wheeled round and strode across the sand towards Beatrice. ‘Sorry miss,’ he called. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’
‘No, not at all,’ Beatrice said. He was tall for his age, this boy, loose-limbed and graceful, with sleek, butter-coloured hair and a thin, sunburned face. A stranger, but with something of Ed in him, that public-school gloss, and, in the concerned way he looked at her and smiled, utterly familiar.
‘Jinx,’ Beatrice said severely, and they both looked at the dog, who opened his mouth in a teasing smile, thus dropping the ball, then snatching it up again, ready for a good chase.