Chapter 30
30
The beech branches were swathed in shadows when the repeated murmurs of, ‘We have to get back,’ and ‘Your family will be wondering where you are,’ could no longer be swatted away with a breathless, ‘I don’t care, they can see me any time,’ or, ‘I’ve been waiting forever to hold you, anything else can wait.’
‘Okay,’ Pip said, pulling away and examining my face as though it would be the last time he could look at me, before pulling in for one more soft peck. ‘Let’s go. You can kiss me tomorrow. I won’t make you miss the best part of an island wedding.’
We clambered back down, Pip wrapping an arm around me as we strolled back, the twilight sending chills across my feverish skin.
I hesitated as we approached the Old Barn, the rhythm of the live band pulsating through the darkness.
‘I said there were a couple of things I needed to sort out.’ I unwound myself from his arm. ‘Is it okay if we keep this to ourselves until I’ve done that?’
I half expected Pip to shake his head, bewildered. Was there such a thing as a Siskin secret? To my relief, he nodded, gave me a light kiss on the top of my head, and said that he’d nip to the bathroom and check on the dogs, giving me time to find a seat and a drink before he followed me in.
Instead of a seat or a drink, I found Gabe, leading Rosemary onto the dance floor, where Richard’s band were striking up a folksy tune.
‘Emmie.’ He beamed at me. ‘Are you joining us for an island reel?’
‘Maybe later.’ I leant closer so I didn’t have to shout. ‘I know it’s not really the time, but in case I don’t get a chance tomorrow, are you still able to show me that information we’d talked about?’
Gabe squinted for a moment, wading through the wine and whisky in his system before he realised what I meant. ‘Ah, of course. The information. About the things. Of course. Absolutely. Although, I’ve promised my wonderful wife a dance. How about I find you as soon as it’s finished?’
We agreed that I’d go and see if the kitchen still needed tidying up, and he’d find me there in a few minutes.
Wandering back to the farmhouse, I started to busy myself stacking serving platters and scraping leftover pastry crusts into the bin, unable to resist slipping a couple to the dogs, sitting patiently beside it as if offering the perfect alternative to condemning any food waste to landfill. The waiting staff were responsible for clearing up, but I was restless, my head buzzing with love and wonder at the events of the day so far, alongside the thrill and apprehension about how it would end.
As I collected a pile of dirty glasses near to the office door, I overheard Pip talking to somebody. Unable to resist leaning closer, I then caught the clear reply.
My heart stuttered like a panicked bird trapped inside my ribcage.
Celine.
‘I’ve seen the way you look at her, Pip. Please don’t deny it. You at least owe me the respect of being honest.’
‘I’m not sure I owe you anything,’ he replied cautiously. ‘In the two years since we broke up, I’ve always been honest about not wanting to get back together.’
‘I know that. But I wanted to be Mrs Pip for a very long time. You can’t blame me for holding out hope that you might change your mind.’
‘I haven’t, and I won’t. Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to get back to the wedding.’
‘Or get back to her?’
‘Either way, it’s none of your business.’
‘Whew.’ Celine chuckled. ‘You really have spent too long on the mainland. As it happens, there is something else. I wanted to tell you that I’m pleased for you.’
‘What?’
‘For you and Emmie. Whether or not something’s happening yet, it’s clearly going to. Or, at least, it should. Like I said, I’ve seen the way you look at each other.’ Her voice lowered so I had to step right up to the door to keep earwigging – which I never would have done, if the woman hadn’t been wreaking clandestine havoc. She had a nerve talking about honesty.
‘I never saw that look in your eyes when you were with me. I tried to convince myself you simply weren’t ready, or were so laid-back, you didn’t feel that kind of passion. But I’ve realised since Emmie showed up, you just didn’t feel that way about me.
‘I want a man who can’t take his eyes off me. Not because I can birth a calf or drive a tractor. Just because I’m me. And I know that will never be you. So, I’ve eaten a tub of Dahlia’s ice cream, dried my eyes and applied for and been accepted on The Perfect Wife for a Farmer’s Life . Apparently I’m an ideal candidate. We start filming the previews in a few weeks.’
‘Wow. Is anyone from Siskin on there?’
‘It’s shot in Texas.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘Will you miss me, then?’ Celine asked, playfully, as I held my breath.
‘Um…’ Pip sounded doubtful.
‘You git.’ Celine laughed. ‘Come here and give me a friendly hug goodbye. Then go and get that gorgeous mainlander. You were made for each other. I’m honestly trying very hard to be happy for you.’
There was a brief pause while I poised, ready to scuttle back across the kitchen, but Pip had a question.
‘Were you in the kitchen earlier, before the pasties were served?’
‘What? No. This is the first time I’ve been in the farmhouse since we left for church. Once we arrived back, I was with Iris organising photos until Lily told me your ma got the timings wrong for serving the food.’
‘You didn’t tell Ma the time had changed?’
‘Of course not.’ Celine sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘I have the spreadsheet on my phone. When I asked Rosemary, she said you told her.’
I paused, trying to process that. Celine sounded completely believable and she’d also come across as genuine when she’d wished Pip well. It was true that she’d been busy with the photographer when I’d left the kitchen unattended. It would have been virtually impossible to sneak back and move the cake, even if she had been aware of the faulty fridge so had known where to move it to.
Which turned my shortlist of suspects completely on its head.
Did I go back to Richard? Or Aster?
Or did someone else have a serious issue with me being here?
When the kitchen door opened and Gabe stepped in, for a dreadful moment, I wondered if it could be him.
But he didn’t need to use underhand tactics to scare me away. A blunt conversation would have been more than enough.
As he smiled, pulling out a chair and gesturing for me to sit down, I hastily scrubbed him off the list. Perhaps our conversation would help me know who really belonged on there. However, before we could start, Pip and Celine came out of the office, both of them startled to see me and Gabe standing by the table.
‘Emmie,’ Pip said. ‘Celine and I were just, um…’
‘Pip was telling me that he’s fallen for you, and I was wishing you the very best before I leave on my own romantic adventure,’ Celine interrupted. ‘I really hope you don’t catch that plane tomorrow. This man is one in a million. You both deserve the chance to figure it out.’
Too discombobulated to reply, I watched as Gabe made an excuse to Pip about helping me clear up and ordered him back to the barn with the promise that his mother and sisters had missed him.
We waited for them both to leave, then sank into opposite chairs.
‘Right. You have questions and I promised you answers, but we’d better be quick about it.’
I took a deep breath.
‘Having read all the letters, it’s a lot clearer why things didn’t work out between you and Mum.’ I paused, choosing my words carefully. ‘Do you think it would have been different if Richard hadn’t had his accident?’
Gabe scratched his beard. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I hated it in Nottingham as much as your mother loathed it here. Perhaps we’d have found a compromise. Scraped together the money for a deposit on a few acres in England. But I doubt it. Your mother had my heart, but I felt as though another vital part of me was back here. I don’t know, my liver, or a good chunk of lung. I was lost. Enfeebled. Certainly not the husband your mother deserved.’
‘Could you have made it work if you’d moved out of the farmhouse, converted Sunflower Barn maybe?’
He thought about this.
‘We’d have probably lasted a while longer. But your ma, she didn’t take to farming. The long, lonely days, out in all weathers. How a year’s profits can vanish in a bad storm or the nightmare of a positive TB test. And she was never comfortable with island ways.’
‘The slower pace?’
One corner of his mouth curled up. ‘Possibly. I was thinking of the, shall we say, neighbourliness.’
‘Being oblivious to the very notion of minding your own business?’
‘Aye. Gossips, she called the other island women. Busybodies, forever finding fault with those different from themselves.’
‘Was that true?’
He sighed. ‘Maybe some of them, aye. But she didn’t help by acting all proud and pretending she didn’t care to be friends with any of them, anyway.’
I nodded. ‘That sounds like Mum.’
‘It was ludicrous, Da refusing to install a phone so even speaking to each other was a huge challenge while we were apart. How could we keep going like that? I wasn’t at all surprised when the letter came asking for a divorce because she’d fallen in love with someone else.’ He grimaced. ‘Didn’t stop it feeling like she’d ripped my poor, withered heart in two, though.’
‘What?’ I sat back, dumbfounded. Was a letter – the most important letter – missing?
‘So, I knew she was set to remarry.’ Gabe didn’t seem to have noticed my reaction. ‘But I must confess that her having a child shook me. She was always so adamant about it.’
The only reply I could manage was a shaky, ‘No.’
‘She must have known, deep down, we wouldn’t make it, and that’s why she refused to even discuss children.’
‘No. She never remarried. There wasn’t anyone else,’ I spluttered. ‘She didn’t change her mind about having a baby. Her cousin turned up on the doorstep one day and left me there. Mum didn’t trust anyone else in the family with a child, and she refused to let me go to a stranger, so became my legal guardian.’
‘Well, I’ll be jiggered.’ It was Gabe’s turn to be astounded. ‘There was no other man?’
I shrugged. ‘Not unless she kept another husband a secret, but I didn’t find any evidence to suggest that.’
‘Then why would she say such a thing? Your mother never lied.’
We sat there in stunned silence, each trying to fit these new pieces into the puzzle that was Nellie Brown.
‘I guess we will never know for sure,’ Gabe concluded eventually. ‘Whatever the reason, it eases my mind a little about you and my son.’
‘Excuse me?’
It was astonishingly na?ve of me, but I’d never clocked that Pip’s dad having been married to my mother might be an issue. Could we be considered ex-stepsiblings, if Mum and Gabe had ended all contact before either of us were born? Was it a problem if in reality, we were ex-step-second cousins?
‘He told me the first Christmas he came home about the pasty girl he’d fallen for. I about fell off the tractor when Violet announced he’d only gone and brought you back with him.’
‘But you know I came here because of Mum, not Pip.’
Gabe raised an eyebrow.
‘Okay. Mum and Pip.’ I glanced at him, suddenly nervous. ‘I’ve been talking to him about potentially staying here longer.’
He nodded, waiting for me to continue.
‘But if I do, if we become proper friends, and I end up spending more time with your family, it feels wrong to keep carrying this secret.’
Gabe took a long, slow breath. ‘I understand.’
‘It’s your secret to tell, so if you don’t want it shared, then I’ll make my excuses to Pip and fly home tomorrow.’
‘It’s not a secret that I was married before. Plenty of people knew Nellie, after all. I’m not ashamed of that, or of you being here. But there was a fair bit of ill feeling. Mostly due to misunderstandings, assumptions, and the like. I wouldn’t want people putting any of that on you. Or questioning why you’re here now.’
‘Why would they question it?’
‘It is a little odd, my ex-wife’s child turning up and staying with my daughter.’
‘But I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t even know you existed until two days before I came here. It was Pip who offered me the room at Lily’s.’
‘I know that. But not everybody else does. The reaction might not be what you’re hoping for.’
I sat back, perturbed.
‘I suppose our deciding factor will be how serious you are about Pip.’
‘Oh?’
‘Are you prepared to chance causing upset, if it means you can stay?’
‘Do you think Pip will be upset?’
‘Maybe a little, at first. Maybe not, if we can explain it to him carefully. That it was me who insisted on you not telling him.’
I thought about it. Fobbing Pip off with a lie, getting on the plane back home and carrying on as before, never knowing what might have happened if I’d stayed.
Or revealing the truth, and risking him wanting nothing to do with me because of it.
One of those options meant my friendship with Pip would definitely end, along with the possibility of anything more.
The other one meant I had a chance, at least.
A chance of a new life, on this island that I was growing to love.
A new life, with Pip, who I loved even more.
‘Will it cause trouble for you?’
Gabe gave a rueful smile. ‘Nothing I’m not willing and able to handle. Ah, love. It can’t have been easy, losing your mother, no other family to support you, or answer your questions about her. Then the bombshell that she had a secret husband, a hidden past. Whether you stay or not, the least you deserve is the opportunity to tell Pip the truth, share who you really are with him. Let’s do it. Only, not on Iris and Hugh’s big day. And I’ll speak with Rosemary first, if you don’t mind.’
We left the kitchen, although Gabe paused as we reached the corner leading to the Old Barn, impulsively pulling me into a hug.
‘I hope you know how very much I loved your mother,’ he said, voice rough with emotion. ‘I meant every word I said, and I’m so sorry that she’s no longer with us. Whatever happens next, I’m grateful to have had a chance to meet you, and I hope we get plenty of opportunities to share more about what a blessing it was to have known and loved her.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Come on, then, I believe my son would very much like to invite you to dance.’