The beekeepers war, p.20
The Beekeeper's War, page 20
‘I’m sorry, Jack, but Pru’s promised Peter not to ever tell the child that he isn’t her biological father. He doesn’t want to know anything about you and as far as everyone apart from you, me, Jean, Peter and Pru are concerned, he is that child’s father.’ He rubbed his bad leg and winced. ‘Jack, you have to let her be and get on with her life.’
He stared at Monty, knowing he was right and that it was the kindest thing to do to let Pru go. The thought of never seeing her again almost got the better of him, but he was determined to hold it together, for now at least. He had no right to mess up her life a second time. To do so would be far too selfish and cruel. Although he had no idea how he would find a way to live without her, he loved her too much to hurt her again.
‘Fine, I won’t make contact with her,’ he said, hearing his voice tremble. ‘But I am going to go to Jersey and see her for myself.’
‘Jack, don’t. Please.’
‘I have to, Monty. I promise she’ll never know I’ve been there.’
He sat back on the leather seat as the taxi drove him down grass-banked lanes. He had spotted the sea at the end of one of them and breathed in the salty air. Jack studied the piece of paper in his hand. Pru had mentioned her parents’ guesthouse a few times to him and he remembered the name. Now he had the address and he couldn’t believe he might be able to see her in only a few minutes. His shock at discovering her marriage and that he would never know his child still hurt. He doubted he would ever recover.
His pulse raced as the taxi took him past fields dotted with Jersey cows. She hadn’t been kidding when she told him how pretty this little island was. He reached out to open the window a little wider and winced when the pain in his damaged ribs made him catch his breath. At least she wouldn’t know how badly he had been hurt or see his face all torn up and put back together like an uneven puzzle. It was only a small mercy but it was something.
‘This is where you’re wanting to go, sir,’ the driver said, slowing the vehicle to a stop and pointing to granite pillars either side of an entrance drive. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you up to the house?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No, thank you. If you wouldn’t mind waiting for me a little way down the road though, I’d be grateful. I’m unsure whether my friend is at home, and I might need to find somewhere else to stay.’ It was a lie, but the driver didn’t need to know more about his plans.
‘Fair enough.’
Jack paid the fare so far then walked slowly down the long driveway, breathing in the warm, salty air and smiling at the colourful flowers dotted round the feet of the tall pine trees on either side. A horse neighed somewhere in a distant field.
He reached the house but there was no movement anywhere and it didn’t seem as if anyone was home. Deciding they might be outside in the garden, he took the path around the side of the house, hoping to see if he could find anyone.
He reached a neat garden area surrounded by a wall, a colourful array of roses and lavender interspersed with towering hollyhocks filling the borders and the air with their delicate perfume. He breathed in the scents, enjoying smelling the same thing that Pru did each time she walked in her garden or opened a window. Being so close to her made all his struggles to get home again worthwhile.
He was about to turn and leave when the sound of a door opening alerted him. Barely daring to breathe, he stopped, glad to be standing behind a large pink rose bush when he heard a man’s voice.
‘Pru, sweetheart, where are you?’
‘Out here, Peter, in the garden.’
The sound of her voice so close caused him to hold his breath. He peered through the bush and saw her standing in the shade of a gnarled apple tree. He wished he could savour the moment for longer. Go to her. Take her in his arms. Slipping his right hand into his jacket pocket, Jack’s fingertips brushed against the small box holding the engagement ring he’d bought for her after leaving Ashbury for that last mission.
‘There you are, dear,’ Peter asked, his voice nearing. ‘I’ve brought Emma out to you. She’s been crying and I wasn’t sure if she needed feeding again.’
She’d named the baby Emma? Monty had omitted to tell him the baby’s name, probably on purpose so Jack wouldn’t feel so connected to the little girl. Was it after his mother’s favourite book? He liked to think so. It was a tentative connection but made him think that there was a possibility she still loved him.
Unable to help himself, Jack stepped sideways to get a better look at the woman he loved with all his heart. His breath caught as she turned to speak to the man and took the baby from his arms. Jack didn’t think he had ever seen anything more beautiful, or more heartbreaking. He should be standing there with his arm around her shoulders, not this Peter fellow.
Jack’s heart splintered into fragments as he stared at her. His darling, precious Pru. She was a mother now. He was desperate to leave but unable to make his feet move and so was forced to watch as Pru’s husband began leading her towards the house. He wanted to shout for her to stop, tell her he was there and loved her still – would always love her – but he had promised Monty not to cause her pain. He had already been the cause of far too much of that.
Pru walked a couple of steps, then stopped and glanced in Jack’s direction. Horrified to think she might catch him watching them and intruding on their private moments, he ducked behind the large bush.
‘What is it, my love?’ the man asked.
Pru gave a gentle shudder. ‘It’s nothing. I thought I felt something. Like someone was watching me.’
Jack’s heart broke. She can feel me here, he thought.
Peter kissed her cheek. ‘You’re imagining things. There’s no one here but us. All the guests are out for the day and your parents are visiting their friends in town, remember?’
‘It was the strangest feeling,’ she said, her voice filled with an unmistakable sadness.
Jack struggled to keep his composure. He waited a few seconds to be certain they couldn’t hear him, before hurrying back down the side of the house and out onto the lane. He spotted the taxi parked nearby and went to it. His life was never going to be the same again. And it was his own fault. For the first time he wished he had died alongside Falkner. At least then he wouldn’t have to keep living knowing the only woman he had ever loved would never be his again.
Part Two
Twenty-Four
Pru
June 1940
‘Mum, I hate leaving on bad terms.’ Emma wiped a stray tear from her cheek. ‘I wish I’d never found that box at the back of your wardrobe now.’
So did Pru. Now her daughter knew that the man who had loved and cared for her since she was born wasn’t her father. Why had she stupidly kept that letter from 1918 for all these years? Wasn’t she supposed to have kept the truth about Emma’s true parentage a secret? Pru suspected she might have hoped that one day she would be able to open up to her daughter about Jack. At least Emma hadn’t found it and confronted her until after Peter’s death.
The damage was done now though, she thought, wishing she wasn’t the only family Emma had to turn to in Jersey now that Pru’s parents had died and her brother had moved away. Pru doubted her daughter would ever see her in the same light again. She looked across the kitchen at Emma’s face, blotchy from crying, unable to miss the disappointment in her precious daughter’s eyes. She would give anything to be able to go back in time and destroy Peter’s letter.
‘Mum, did you hear what I said?’
Pru realised she hadn’t. ‘Sorry, darling, I was miles away.’
Emma gave her a suspicious look. ‘You haven’t changed your mind then?’
Pru tensed. Was Emma referring to Pru’s refusal to share her birth father’s identity? Her daughter was grieving for a darling dad who had died five months before; telling her now that the biological father she had only just discovered was also dead was too much for her to chance. Emma was already having to leave her home, now that the German army looked as if it could arrive in the Channel Islands at any time.
‘Mum!’
‘Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking me.’
Emma gritted her teeth and groaned. ‘I was wondering if you’re sure you don’t mind me going to Winchester to stay with Aunty Jean and Uncle Monty?’
‘You know I don’t mind. I’d rather know you’re safe with them than stuck here on the island when we’ve no idea what’s going to happen.’
‘That doesn’t make me feel better about you remaining here.’
Pru could have bitten her tongue. She really needed to think before speaking but she was upset. She and Emma had always got along so well. Pru sensed that their parting was going to be all the more painful since they wouldn’t have time to talk though all that had happened over the past three days. The pain their confrontation had caused was too raw for them both right now.
‘I still don’t understand why you won’t come with me.’
Pru couldn’t miss the accusing tone in Emma’s voice. She supposed it did seem odd, choosing to stay in Jersey when she had somewhere as beautiful and welcoming to go to as Ashbury Manor.
‘I need to stay behind and look after this guesthouse. You know that.’
‘I don’t though, Mum. That’s the point.’ Emma glared at her. ‘Other people are leaving their homes, walking away with nothing but a small suitcase. Thousands of them. There’s nothing to stop you coming with me, and you know it.’
She did, and she wished she could explain her reluctance, but being reminded of Jack as she would be at Ashbury Manor wasn’t something she felt emotionally capable of facing, so soon after losing Peter – and certainly not with Emma to witness any reaction she might have.
‘I’m sorry, darling, truly I am, but I simply don’t feel I can leave this place. It was your grandparents’ home and I’d feel badly if it fell into enemy hands.’ It wasn’t a lie, not really, she told herself guiltily.
‘But it’s not as if they’re here any longer.’
Pru winced at the reminder. She missed her parents but for once she was relieved they weren’t still alive to know what might happen next to their beautiful island. ‘I don’t feel like I should be leaving the island right now,’ Pru said, trying her best to keep a determined tone in her voice. ‘Not when things are so worrying in France.’
‘I wish I hadn’t arranged to leave you now,’ Emma said. Furious with Pru after discovering her mother had lied to her for all these years, Emma had contacted her aunt and uncle to ask if she could go and stay with them. ‘It’s been almost six months since Dad died. I think about him and miss him every day and I know you’re probably still not over the shock of him going in that way. Don’t you think it would do you good to get away from here? Not having to be in the same house where you both lived for the past twenty-two years?’
‘You’re probably right,’ Pru agreed, thinking back to the moment she had found Peter lying on the pathway in the garden a few days after they had celebrated New Year. The doctor said he had suffered a massive heart attack and probably wouldn’t have known very much pain. Pru still had nightmares though that he might have been calling for her and she hadn’t heard him. She took a calming breath. She needed to focus on persuading Emma to leave without her. ‘I’m not ready to leave yet,’ she said honestly. ‘But I can always follow you.’
‘You won’t come even for a holiday?’ Emma asked. ‘I’m sure you’d enjoy seeing the manor again; I know I’m looking forward to it.’
Pru sighed. ‘Jean’s always been the one to come to us, hasn’t she?’
‘When was the last time you were there?’ Emma asked, picking up one of the sheets and helping Pru fold the freshly laundered bedlinen she had been working through when their conversation began.
Pru didn’t have to think; she remembered the day she left the manor more clearly than most memories. Reeling from the pain of hearing Monty tell her Jack was dead. Desperate to see Jack again and refusing to give up hope that it might happen. Her guilt that Peter was pushing aside any hope of marrying for love by committing to marrying her and bringing up her baby. ‘January 1918.’
Emma frowned. ‘But that’s back when you were a nurse there, wasn’t it?’
Pru nodded, taking the folded sheet and placing it neatly on the pile next to her. She knew what was coming next.
‘You mean you’ve never been back since the Great War?’
Pru forced a smile. ‘You make it sound terrible. There just wasn’t any need to visit before,’ she added before Emma could say anything further. ‘Jean always insisted on coming here to see me whenever she visited her parents. You remember, she used to bring Sam sometimes too.’
‘Yes, he was horrible. I remember him putting woodlice in my hair when I was about four. I was terrified.’
Pru recalled Emma’s hysteria and Jean being furious with Sam. ‘Aww, he was better behaved after that,’ she said. ‘Just a little mischievous perhaps.’
Emma scowled and folded a pillow sham, smoothing down the cotton before placing it neatly on top of the other linen in the basket. ‘He’s probably grown up to be a nasty piece of work too. Anyway, that still doesn’t explain why you never went back to the manor. I’d have thought you’d want to see the place again. Just think, I’ll be able to have more of that delicious honey Aunty Jean always brings over for us. I’ve missed eating it on my toast since we ran out of it last week.’
Pru stilled. The honey. She wondered if Jean knew the significance of it each time she brought a jar over when she came to visit the island, or did she just bring it for its goodness and as a souvenir of Ashbury Manor?
‘Mum, you’re away with the fairies again. Did you hear what I said?’
Pru wasn’t sure what to say and, when she didn’t answer, Emma added, ‘Ignore me, Mum. I don’t mean to be nosy.’
Pru shook her head. ‘No, it’s perfectly understandable that you would be curious. I would have loved to return, if only to visit Jean and see how different things are since she and Monty took over the estate after his parents died.’ She hugged the bedsheet to her chest. ‘Jean knew how I’d promised your dad never to mention your real father and we both knew he’d associate the manor with me meeting him, so it didn’t really seem fair to Dad to even consider returning.’
Emma surprised her by taking the bedsheet from her hands and pulling her into a hug. ‘Do you want to help me try and find out what happened to him?’
Pru knew they were stepping on dangerous ground. She shook her head. ‘It’s too soon after your father’s death for me to think about him.’ She felt guilty for the half-truth. She was slowly recovering from the shock of Peter’s death, but mostly she didn’t think Emma was ready to hear everything. She and Peter had always been close and Pru knew her daughter needed time to grieve him and also come to terms with the shocking news that he wasn’t her biological father.
‘I’ve upset you, Mum,’ Emma whispered.
Pru kissed her daughter’s soft cheek. ‘You haven’t. We’ve had a strange few months and it seems that the next few months at least will be ones filled with changes. I love you more than anything or anyone and there’s nothing you could do to truly upset me, Emma.’
Emma hugged her again.
‘What are you thinking?’ Pru asked.
‘That you’ve gone through so much in your life and I never had a clue about it. I feel badly about looking in that box and bringing up painful things from your past. It was wrong of me.’
‘Well, there’s no need. You had to know sometime and this clearly was the time you were meant to find out.’ She watched a range of emotions cross Emma’s face. ‘I am sorry for lying to you but I was carrying out Dad’s wishes and needed to consider his feelings. If I hadn’t married him your life and mine would have been tainted by the stigma of me being unmarried and I couldn’t do that to you, not when I had the choice to be married and respectable.’
‘It’s fine, Mum. I’ll probably take a little time to get used to the idea that someone else was my father, but Dad will always be my dad.’
Pru was relieved to hear her say as much. ‘I’m glad. Your dad was a special man and he loved you deeply.’
‘I know he did.’ Emma sighed. ‘I wish you’d been able to share your feelings with me, but I understand why you kept this a secret.’ She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. ‘Did Granny Le Cuirot never ask you about me?’
Pru shuddered. ‘She had no idea, thankfully. She would have been devastated to know the truth.’ She explained how she and Peter made out that they had been courting for much longer than the short time they actually had. ‘So, you see, there really was no one to speak to about it.’ She smiled, aware how lucky she had been all these years with no one ever knowing her secret apart from Peter, Jean and Monty. ‘And now I can share these things with you.’
Pru had been hoping that would be the end of their conversation. As much as she was acting fine, she felt exhausted by it and by keeping her emotions firmly in check for Emma’s sake.
‘That’s all very well,’ Emma retorted, ‘but you must have loved my biological father very much at some point. How did you cope when you lost him?’
Pru had no intention of discussing Jack or anything about him. Not yet. ‘I had you to focus on and bring up. Loving you gave me everything I needed to keep going.’ She rested a hand on Emma’s cheek.
Emma leaned into it. ‘It’s so sad.’
Pru shook her head and smiled. ‘It’s fine. I believe in fate and all this was meant to happen for some reason. I’ve had a very happy life with your dad. He was the sweetest, kindest man and the best father you could have asked for. We both loved every moment bringing you up and witnessing you becoming the clever, beautiful girl you are today.’
Emma’s eyes filled with tears and Pru knew she had been right not to discuss Jack just yet. Like her, Emma always put on a brave face, wanting people to think she could manage when a lot of the time she was crying inside. ‘Sweetheart, I know this is difficult.’
