Tell Tale: Short Stories Read online

  What Ralph didn’t know until he had made some inquiries was that the young sheep farmer had already approached Beth’s father and asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Mr. Trevelyan had not only agreed to the match, but offered to hold the reception in his pub.

  Despite these setbacks, Ralph assumed that once Beth knew of his interest, she wouldn’t be able to resist his charms, as had been the case with several of the village girls. Not Beth, however, because when he invited her to tea at Nethercote Hall, she failed to reply. The young woman clearly didn’t know her place.

  As the weeks passed and several more invitations to tea, drinks, and even a trip to London were refused, Ralph was at a loss to understand her attitude, not least because he wasn’t in the habit of being rejected. In desperation, he resorted to suggesting a weekend in Paris, only to be turned down once again. The weeks turned into months, and nothing he came up with seemed to interest her, which only caused Ralph to become more and more obsessed with the Cornish beauty, until he could bear it no longer. He finally turned up at the Nethercote Arms unannounced and asked the publican for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Mr. Trevelyan was left speechless, until Ralph added a sweetener he felt confident would seal the bargain. Of course, Ralph had no intention of marrying the girl, but was determined to discover what it would be like to remove her seven veils. However, Beth was not Salome, and in any case, she already knew the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with, and it certainly wasn’t Ralph Dudley Dawson, Esq.

  Although her father had given Jamie his blessing, neither of them had taken into consideration Beth’s mother, who, like any self-respecting barmaid, knew an opportunity when she saw one. On hearing the news of the squire’s interest, Mrs. Trevelyan didn’t waste a moment, attempting to persuade, cajole, and even bully her daughter into accepting his proposal. However, Beth continued to resist her mother’s blandishments, until she discovered she was pregnant.

  When Beth informed her parents who the father was, her mother was quick to point out that Jamie Carrigan was a penniless shepherd who rented forty acres of land and lived in a small cottage on the estate of a wealthy gentleman who wanted to marry her. However, Beth remained resolute in her determination to marry her lover, until the squire failed to renew the five-year lease on Jamie’s forty acres, and also threatened to replace Mr. Trevelyan as landlord of the Nethercote Arms, if his daughter didn’t accept his proposal.

  The hastily arranged marriage—Ralph couldn’t wait—took place in a register office in Truro, and the reception was not held at Nethercote Hall for those in high places but at the Nethercote Arms for a select few, as Ralph didn’t want his friends to realize he’d married below his station.

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Dawson spent their honeymoon on the island of Rhodes, where there was little chance of them bumping into anyone they knew. When Ralph watched his wife undress for the first time, he was entranced by Beth’s Botticelli figure, even more voluptuous than he’d imagined. But when they finally made love, he was disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm, and assumed it was simply because she was a shy virgin, and that given time Beth would come to enjoy his particular sexual fantasies.

  Not long after the newlyweds had returned to Nethercote, Beth announced she was pregnant. Ralph wasn’t surprised, after all they hadn’t stopped making love during their honeymoon. Five times a night, Ralph boasted to his friends, unaware that Beth was doing no more than carrying out her mother’s instructions.

  Seven months later, Rupert Dudley Dawson entered the world, or at least that was the name that appeared on the birth certificate. Ralph showed no surprise at the premature birth, but did admit he was disappointed that young Rupert hadn’t inherited the Dudley Dawsons’ distinctive red hair and prominent nose. All in good time, he assured his friends, because like the Royal Family, Ralph would require an heir and a spare. Indeed, this mundane tale might not have advanced beyond the fate of a sad, unrequited woman and an overbearing, arrogant man, had Germany not marched into Poland on September 1, 1939.

  * * *

  Young Jamie Carrigan was among the first to report to the nearest recruiting office and sign up to serve his King and Country with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. But then, he had lost his one true love and sought an honorable death.

  Ralph, on the other hand, had no intention of joining up, and as he was over forty—just—was exempt from conscription. So while Jamie went off to fight the king’s enemies, Ralph took advantage of the government’s voracious appetite for more food to feed the troops, which only made him grow richer, while his marriage became impoverished.

  Within a year of his betrothal, the squire’s eye began to wander, and with so many of his countrymen serving on the front line, his choice became even wider. He told his chums that despite Beth’s unquestionable beauty, a chap needed variety. Caviar was all very well, he’d declared, but a fellow also needed the occasional dish of fish and chips.

  It wasn’t long before Ralph began to ignore his wife, and the only joy left in Beth’s life was young Rupert, who she feared was looking more like Jamie with each passing day. Every night she would fall on her knees and pray that her former lover would survive the war and return home safely, but the only news she heard of him came from those soldiers home on leave who, whenever Jamie’s name was mentioned, repeated the words brave, fearless, and foolhardy.

  Beth began to fear she might never see him again, but then, like so many of his comrades, he was wounded on the battlefield and sent home to recover. When she first saw Jamie limping through the village on crutches, she immediately realized what a terrible mistake she’d made, and it wasn’t long before their dormant affair was rekindled.

  It would be wrong to describe what took place during the next six weeks as an affair, because they fell even more deeply in love the second time around. But when Beth once again became pregnant, she realized she would have to tell her husband the truth, not least because he would know that this time it couldn’t be his child.

  Beth planned to tell him as soon as the doctor had confirmed she was with child, and would have done so when she returned home that afternoon, had the parlor maid not informed her that the squire had driven into Truro for an unscheduled meeting with his solicitor.

  Beth was relieved that Ralph must have somehow found out that she was pregnant, and was well prepared to face the consequences whatever wrath might be brought down on her. She sat alone in the drawing room waiting for her husband to return so she could tell him the truth. If he refused to give her a divorce, Beth had already decided she would move out of the manor house and go and live with Jamie in his little cottage. But when Ralph returned several hours later, he marched into the house, slammed the front door, and disappeared into his study without a word passing between them.

  Beth sat alone for hour upon hour until she could bear it no longer, and finally summoned up the courage to face him. She left the drawing room, walked slowly across the hall, and knocked quietly on his study door.

  “Come,” said a terse voice. She entered the room shaking, and without even turning to face her, Ralph handed her what looked like a legal document. She read the letter twice, before she realized what had made him so angry. It was a directive from the War Office requiring him to report to his local recruitment office. The summons pointed out that the call-up age had been extended from forty-one to fifty-one, and he was therefore now eligible to join the armed forces. The only choice they gave him was the army, the navy, or the air force. Beth decided this wasn’t the time to let her husband know that she was pregnant.

  The following day, Ralph lost his temper with the family doctor when the damn man refused to sign a certificate citing his flat feet as a reason he should be exempt from war service. But Ralph didn’t give in quite that easily. He immediately wrote to the Ministry of Agriculture, pointing out the vital role he was playing in the war effort. However, an undersecretary made it clear, by return of post, that being a landown