We'll meet again

I could not describe my feelings when, waiting with Violetta in the shelter of the rocks, I heard that voice from the past. Jacques in England! And at such a time! Here was the past, which I had hoped was buried forever, come back to confront me. It seems that everything we do remains forever; there is no escaping from it.

I can remember Violetta quoting something like this once:

The moving finger writes

And having writ moves on

Nor all thy piety nor wit

Can lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

Violetta always liked poetry and often quotes it to great effect. I thought of this poem now. How true it was. Many a trouble had she covered up for me throughout our childhood, and my affair with Jacques was the biggest of them all. She had helped me to emerge from it with as little discredit as possible.

The war had helped, for I returned just at that time when it was declared and people had other things with which to occupy their minds than the affairs of an erring wife.

Yes, I was indeed impulsive. It was always act first and think afterwards; Violetta would be there to help if need be. But, of course, when I was about to become involved in a mad escapade, I never thought of the consequences until afterwards.

There had been that time in Germany when I first met Dermot.

There he was, an Englishman on holiday, as we were. It was all so natural-a holiday romance which ended in wedding bells. Quite an ordinary story, really. I enjoyed every minute of it at the time.

Dermot had all the qualities of a romantic hero-handsome, presentable, heir to a large estate, and very much in love with me. Up to that time, I had been a little disappointed in the holiday. All that intense nationalism, all that clicking of heels, the great Hitler and the rise of the new Germany-and then, of course, it became a little sinister.

But it was all so far removed from our lives. When the holiday was over, we should go home and what was happening in Germany seemed of little importance to us. I later realized I was wrong about that-as I was about so many things.

We came home and my family visited Dermot's and everything went smoothly, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that we should marry and live happily ever after.

Perhaps I began to feel a few twinges before the wedding. It is strange how different people can be in certain settings. In Germany Dermot was the romantic hero, rescuing us when we were lost in the forest, defending us during that frightful scene in the schloss when the Hitler Youth tried to break up the place because the owners-our friends-were Jewish. Yes, he was wonderful during that time.

Then, back in Cornwall, he seemed less heroic, seen against the background of Tregarland, the ancestral home. He was in awe of that strange old man, his father, and he was overshadowed by Gordon Lewyth; there was, in truth, something sinister about the entire household. It was not quite as I had imagined it.

I realized then what I had done. It had been like that often during my life. It seems fun to do something until the advantages dwindle away, and one begins to count the costs.

My sister came and I felt better then. She is like a part of myself-the reasoning, sensible part. It never occurred to me until I went away how very important she was to me.

Well, there I was, in the house in which I had never felt entirely comfortable, married to a man with whom I was falling rapidly out of love. I was very fond of my little son, but I am not the maternal type, and a child could never make up for the lack of a satisfactory lover. It was not that Dermot's affections for me had wandered. He remained devoted to me, but he was no longer exciting. I found Tregarland overpowering; the closeness of the sea disturbed me, and I wanted to get away. There was no one to whom I could explain my feelings-not even Violetta.

And then Jacques arrived.

That silly feud between the houses of Tregarland and Jermyn has played quite a part in our lives. It goes back a hundred years or so when a Jermyn girl and Tregarland boy were lovers - our Cornish Montague and Capulet-and the girl drowned herself on the Tregarland beach after her lover who had tried to elope with her had been caught in a man-trap set by the Jermyns, and was maimed for life. This resulted in years of enmity between the two families.

My dear sister Violetta and the charming Jowan Jermyn decided that the whole thing was ridiculous and they shocked the whole neighborhood by meeting, falling in love, becoming engaged to be married, and making a continuation of the feud a nonsense.

I think the locals shook their heads and said no good would come of it and they might have been right, because Jowan had not returned from Dunkirk. I trembled for Violetta. She was not like I am. She would not love lightly.