Someone Special (62 page)

‘I might not be any better tomorrow,’ he growled miserably. ‘We’ll catch the next train. I’ll try harder this time, be more sensible.’ This time they both stood, for this train was just as crowded. All might have been well had Nell not needed to use the lavatory.

‘Come with me,’ she urged him, her eyes anxious. ‘I don’t mind, you come in with me.’

But there wasn’t room, so she went inside and closed the door. The train was moving at a tremendous lick
and her presence only a door away from him was like a magnet, so he stuck it out. He clung to the other side of the door and presently she emerged, took one look at his face and said gently that they would get down at the next stop, ‘just for a breather’.

They walked from the next station, then caught a bus, then walked again. Snip was fine walking, fine so long as he could hold Nell’s hand and stride out and feel the wind on his cheek, so they walked for at least part of every journey.

It took them five days to get to North Wales, ‘dot and carry one’, as Nell said gaily. They caught a train again at Chester, then walked from the coast, and with every mile they covered Snip could feel the black dog and the terrors receding as the beauty of the countryside, the space, the clean air, poured like balm into his war-torn mind.

‘I’ve never seen mountains, not in this country,’ he said in an awed voice as they trudged up from the coast. ‘I never knew there was anything so beautiful, or so lush. Look at the grass, the trees … it’s like a dream after trains and buses and that.’

‘Perhaps we’ll be able to get jobs here, and stay,’ Nell said dreamily. ‘I love it too, Snip. I’m so glad you do as well.’

‘The air’s soft; reckon I won’t wheeze so bad here. I reckon I could get back to what I was, here – not the arm, I’ll give you that – if we could stay. Nell, what’s Hester going to be like wi’ me? She didn’t like me much when we were kids, she called me a gypsy brat more than once.’

‘You’re different now,’ Nell assured him. ‘Besides, she didn’t mean to be nasty then, she was just jealous of anyone I liked. And I did rather harp on about you, you know. It was “Snip does this, Snip thinks that”, until I would have driven a saint mad.’

‘Is that so?’ was all that Snip said, but that one short
little sentence warmed his heart and gave him more hope than all her kindness since they had met in Southampton. Because he knew, of course, that she didn’t love him as he loved her. He did not know why, had no idea what had happened to her or even if she loved someone else; he just knew that, fond though she was of him, she had some deep inner reservation about him. But he needed her so badly that he couldn’t think of asking, perhaps opening up an avenue of escape for her which would leave him bereft.

Yet, because he loved her, he did it as they walked along a valley, with the mountains to their left and the flat meadows leading down to the sea on their right. ‘Nell, you know how I feel about you, but if you want to wait a bit, give yourself time to know me as I am now, then I’ll take it on board, learn to live with it. I’ll manage.’

He heard his words and felt a shiver of apprehension run through him, curdling down his spine like icy water. If she agreed, pushed him back a bit, how would he bear it?

He did not have to; she turned to face him, pulling them both to a halt. She had always been beautiful, but with her words an aura of such splendour formed about her that he could have bent his knee and bowed his head, dazzled by her. The pure, pale oval of her face, the eyes such a dark navy blue that they looked almost black, the wings of straight, shiny black hair which swung forward as she moved, the tender curve of her lips.

‘Snip, we’re getting married and we’re not going to have any regrets or second thoughts if I can help it. Come on, step out, we can be home in twenty minutes and you can meet my … my father!’

Nell and Snip got married on Nell’s twentieth birthday in the beautiful white church with its soaring spire
where Hester and Matthew had exchanged their vows long before.

Outside the arched windows soft spring rain fell on the bed of daffodils which grew against the south wall, on the new grave mounds with their scattering of military crosses and on the older, local stones. It was very quiet and though Nell had worried that Snip might find the atmosphere claustrophobic, you only had to look at him to see that her fears were unfounded. The peace of the place had entered Snip, calming his fears and soothing him, and his dark eyes were steady on the vicar’s face, his attention caught and held.

Nell was sorry that the sky was not blue because the church looked very beautiful when the spire pointed up into an azure sky, but she knew it did not really matter. What mattered was the vows they exchanged, standing at the top of the church before the vicar, her in her worn grey dress, Snip in his demob suit.

It was a quiet wedding, with only the four of them present; Snip, Nell, Hester and Matthew, plus the vicar of course. Nell didn’t want any fuss and Snip agreed that a quiet wedding would be best. He would have concurred had she said she wanted to get married in Liverpool Cathedral or on a ship at sea. What mattered to Snip was marrying, not the means employed to reach that happy state. So the five of them stood in a small group close to the altar, kneeling, standing, bowing their heads, and Snip and Nell exchanged vows and rings. The vicar did his best to make it a memorable occasion, and Hester cried into her hanky and Matthew patted her arm.

When it was over they progressed down the aisle again and out into the thin spring rain. Matthew had bought an ancient Ford, and they all piled in and went into town, where they had booked a table at an inn for the wedding breakfast. It was a typical post-war menu but the landlady had done her best: the soup was vegetable,
thick and good, the main course was roast lamb (‘ask me no questions, but me sister’s husband had to slaughter a beast when its leg got broke,’) and the pudding was apples in a suet crust which, Snip said, he would have killed for.

Nell sat at the head of the table, her knee just touching Snip’s, and thought how lucky she was. They all got on so well, the four of them. Hester had known Snip for years, of course, and if he was puzzled at her sudden change of heart – for Hester welcomed him into her home and her family as though his marrying her daughter had been her dearest wish – he said nothing about it. Nell, who realised that Hester was relieved to see her marrying anyone other than Dan, was nevertheless grateful for her approval. It made things very much easier, especially since the lodge was small and they were, perforce, on top of each other in the evenings, when Matthew was home from work.

Matthew liked Snip too, genuinely liked him. Snip had barely been with them a day before Matthew was taking him off to look at the sheds and barns, the beasts, the farming equipment.

‘He’s not a farmer, he won’t know what Dad’s on about,’ Nell had said to Hester as the two of them worked in the kitchen. ‘Still, Dad does like him, doesn’t he, Mum?’

‘He does,’ Hester had said thankfully. ‘He’s proud of you both. He’s a very generous man is Matthew. I never realised quite how generous until I came home after a dozen years away and found him still loving, still caring.’

‘I know, I felt it as soon as I came through the door. But we can’t stay here for ever, Snip and I. Tomorrow I must go into the village and down to Rhyl, see if we can get a room or something for when we’re married. We’ll move out after the wedding, Mum, you really don’t have enough space for us now.’

‘I know it,’ Hester said ruefully. ‘I suppose you couldn’t find something in the village?’ But they needed work, Nell reminded her mother, and there was nothing in the village for either of them.

When Snip came home, however, he was ablaze with excitement. ‘That castle’s amazin’,’ he said as he sat down opposite Nell. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it – isn’t it grand, Nell darling? I dunno how you ever bore to leave it, though Matthew says it’s a real mess inside. Still, what a place, eh?’

‘Snip would like to see around,’ Matthew said as they began to eat. ‘I wouldn’t take him in, but you could, Nell love. I don’t know the house that well, but you knew it at one time like the back of your hand.’

‘Oh! but who lives there now? Surely whoever lives there wouldn’t want us poking around?’

‘No one lives there. We has our meal breaks in the kitchen, Mrs Alice works there, but we don’t never go outside that one room and I don’t believe Mrs Alice does either. It’s a mess, but no harm in you takin’ the lad around.’

So after they had eaten the two of them walked up the long drive, hand in hand, and stood outside the big courtyard, staring.

‘It’s like the sleepin’ beauty’s palace,’ Snip muttered. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised at what we found in there, would you?’

‘No-oo, but it was lovely, once,’ Nell said longingly. ‘Oh Snip, will it be horrid now? All a ruin, with damp and bugs and filth everywhere?’

Snip shrugged and tugged at her hand. ‘Dunno, but let’s look, sweetheart! You couldn’t just walk away not knowing, could you?’

‘I can remember it when it was beginning to be really lovely. I don’t know that I could bear seeing it if the rain’s got in and tramps have been sleeping rough there. Mum said they might have been.’

He pulled her into the curve of his arm, and kissed the side of her face. ‘Silly little Nell, let’s explore.’

They had to fight to get through the wild garden, though it was nothing compared to how it would be later in the year, when the brambles and briars, the nettles and docks, put on their summer foliage. And once under the arch, it wasn’t that bad. The paving was dirty and weedy but it was possible to cross it and to walk up the half-dozen steps to the big front door.

‘It’ll be locked,’ Nell warned, and she was right, locked it was. But Snip turned over the big stone carved into the shape of a grinning face and there was the key, lying there as though Mr Geraint had put it there last night. He inserted it into the lock, and Nell turned and looked across the yard to the gatehouse room at the top of the flight of stone stairs. Suppose Mr Geraint was here still? Suppose he saw them breaking in and came down and …

‘Come on, sweetheart.’ Snip pulled her into the dim and shadowy hall. ‘We’ll start downstairs, shall we?’

They went through the castle room by room in the end, and it was nowhere near as bad as Nell had feared. In fact, it was quite reasonable, if you discounted a great deal of dust and almost as many webs, Nell said, as those encountered by the Prince fighting his way in to Sleeping Beauty.

‘Why did that Geraint chap just abandon it?’ Snip asked after a bit. ‘Some of the rooms are magnificent and it must be hundreds of years old, I suppose. I like the round rooms, don’t you?’

The rooms in the four towers were all round or hexagonal and Nell agreed a trifle doubtfully that they were picturesque.

‘If no one’s using it now,’ Snip started as they stood in what had once been Mr Geraint’s study, ‘then I don’t see why we shouldn’t take over a couple of rooms. We’d be ever so careful, but it would be somewhere to live until … until there’s more stuff available.’

‘Live here? Oh but Snip, it’s miles from anywhere, the drive is two miles long, you know, and we’ve got to earn a living, got to work. But I know what you mean and I don’t suppose Mr Geraint would mind us making use of some of the space. Come on, let’s go upstairs.’

She found she did not much want to revisit Dan’s little room, but Snip gave her no choice. They went through all the rooms, one by one, until they reached the Long Gallery. There, they went inside and Nell stopped short, a hand flying to her throat.

It was exactly the same! To be sure the roses in the vases were long dead and the long windows, which had let in the scent of the summer garden all those years ago, were closed tight, but even so … sunshine slanted, golden, across the floor, touching the little tables, the chairs, the portraits and paintings on the walls. Even the chandeliers still hung from the high ceiling, though their diamond drops were defaced with webs, and dust, thick and soft as velvet, cloaked their once-gleaming facets. Snip walked the length of the room, calling out to her to come and see this, what did she think of that, but Nell stayed where she was and wave after wave of nostalgia and regret for times past poured over her.

It had all started here, in this very room! The portrait of Mr Geraint’s grandmother, the likeness he saw, or said he saw, her mother’s distress. She remembered that afternoon so well: the golden shine on the well-polished parquet flooring, the sweet scent of the roses, the excitement which radiated from Mr Geraint, his pride in what he had done to the room, how he had restored it.

‘Nell? Do come and look at this old bag. Gawd, be glad she isn’t your granny, old love! Isn’t this a bloody wonderful room, though? Why don’t you come down here, why are you standing there staring? Here, hang on, I’ll come to you.’

He came down the long room at a lope, his eyes fixed
anxiously on hers. ‘Somethin’ wrong, sweetheart? Don’t you like it in here? What are you thinkin’ to make you stare so?’

Nell smiled absently and her voice sank to a murmur barely above a whisper. ‘Forty water-colourists! I wonder if they ever came? It’s all set up for them. Oh Snip, do you realise what that means?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, love,’ Snip said, understandably. ‘Forty
what
?’

‘Forty water-colourists. That’s what you call people who paint pictures in water-colours instead of oils. Mr Geraint had arranged for the North Wales Water-colourists Association or some such thing to come here, pay him for the privilege, and paint. He was just starting, just beginning … Snip, it’s given me an idea.’

In that long golden room, with the late afternoon sunshine slanting through the numerous windows, the two of them had stared at each other.

‘You mean … us? You mean we might … but it ain’t ours, Nell, we couldn’t do that.’

‘We could, Snip, indeed we could! Mr Geraint doesn’t want the place to fall into disrepair, Dad said so, and this way he could get it made nice by us and he could pay our wages by letting us open it to, well, to forty water-colourists, just for a start.’