The Cornish Secret of Summer's Promise Read online

  "Searching for something to do?"

  "Maybe. I'm looking for a distraction from my own mind," I answered. "Any suggestions?"

  He opened the passenger door to the jeep, and I climbed inside.

  "Where are we going?" I asked, as I closed the door behind me.

  "Let's be surprised," he answered. "We can't have proper plans all the time." He reversed the jeep and swung around to face the driveway, narrowly missing an opportunity to clip a guest's car reversing its way out of a nearby parking spot. "Hold on," he advised, as the jeep began to pick up speed, coasting down the hotel's long drive.

  "I'll take that under advisement." Unlike holding onto Sidney on his motorcycle, here, there was nothing much to hold onto in the event of a crash, besides the strap of one's safety belt — unless a saint's metal dangling from the glove box knob or the remains of a tattered road map in the side pocket could prevent injury.

  The road wound from the village byways to an apparent path beaten through a local field — I recognized this place, because I had come here before with Sidney to cut holly last Christmas. He had advised me to come back after it was in bloom, and I understood why as we rattled to the path's end, where the jeep couldn't pass between the close-growing sapling trees. The clearing's open space was filled with a carpet of knee-high green blades and a cloud of spring daisies in bloom. Their colored faces and yellow eyes bobbed gently in the breeze, as if nodding a pleasant greeting to one and all — Alice's flower friends in Looking Glass land's garden, albeit without the Disney musical chorus.

  He pulled a blanket from the random pile in the back of the jeep — an old quilt bundled beneath a worn shirt, a folding shovel, an empty box and a petrol can, among other things.

  "Grab that basket, will you?" he asked. He waded into the field's tangle as I followed, basket thumping against my legs.

  "What's in this thing?" I asked.

  "Bit of silver I pinched from old Mr. James," he answered. "I'll stash it here for the time being."

  I stopped short after he uttered the first part of this reply; he looked back and grinned. "Relax, it's only sandwiches. With all my flaws, I'm not such a horrible person that I would rob an old man's cupboards."

  "I was only shocked because that was the last thing I expected you to say," I answered. "Even for you, that joke is pretty outrageous." I tried to sound as indignant as possible.

  "So you say." I caught the twinkle in his eye before he turned away, spreading the blanket on the ground near the shade. When I set down the basket, he opened it and took out some wax paper bundles and a box of savory biscuits. "Hungry?" He tossed me an orange from the fruit which came tumbling out when he unceremoniously upended the basket at last.

  "Thanks," I said. I began peeling it. "Did you plan this?"

  "I planned something, sort of," he said. "With it in mind that you had the first half of the day free, and that you might be a bit bored at the hotel. Even with jewels and famous people about."

  "It's too crowded in the ballroom to look at the jewels, and I didn't see anybody famous," I answered, spreading out across the blanket on my stomach, ankles crossed in the air. "Just some nice, normal tourists who know a lot more about silent movies then I do — sadly."

  "Silent movies are some of the best ones," said Sidney, unwrapping a sandwich. "I'm not saying they're not a bit rough or a bit overdramatic — but have you ever seen the films of Georges Méliès?

  "Yes," I said, scrambling up on my elbows. "Those are amazing — it's stage magic and cutting-edge effects that must've seemed like wizardry. And I like the fairytales, too — the old Snow White and the one I saw when I was a kid, A Kiss for Cinderella, or something like that. Just as art, because there are no tricks for the eye like in Méliès' work."

  "We can never be as impressed by a movie's magic as those audiences were. I think about that whenever I see one," Sidney remarked. "How can we be? We know all the tricks — they didn't know anything, and couldn't begin to imagine how it was done. Like the Cottingley Fairies. Although they didn't fool Houdini." He took a bite from his sandwich. "Chicken or piccalilli?" he asked, between mouthfuls.

  "Neither," I answered. I tossed aside my orange's peel.

  "What did the actress play whose jewels are currently on display? Femme fatales? Fainting heroines?"

  "Something like that," I said. "I think she was a vamp in her biggest picture. And that's about as exciting as it gets, except for her version of Lost Horizon."

  "I haven't seen a silent version of it," said Sidney, interestedly. "I'll look up her works later. Maybe it's on DVD, or available for digital download." He settled on his back across from me. "Did she wear diamonds for the role?"

  "She wore diamonds in her spare time," I answered. "I think her career came to an early end, judging from her bio. A disappointment to her fans, probably ... then again, at least she had her moment in the sun." I licked the orange's juice from my fingers as I pulled its sections into eighths slowly, as if planning to shape it into an orange sunflower on the blanket.

  "Those words sound like the words of someone who wishes they had one themselves," said Sidney, in a softer voice than before. I glanced at him.

  "It's obvious?" I said, but jokingly. "No ... I'm not upset that I'm not published and famous by now, really. I'm just having to find my way out of a troubled patch in my novel."

  It was really more like a troubled patch in my writing itself, which was restless now that my draft was done. Maybe it was a dull spring at the Penmarrow failing to revive me after winter, or the feeling that I had sorted one too many giant piles of laundry with the hotel's two Scandinavian laundresses not to feel a bit stagnant on a personal level.

  "Do you want help?" he asked. "I'll read it again, if you like." He propped his head from behind with one hand, and met my gaze. "I'll give you a frank opinion on any part of it. Without becoming the evil critic you can't abide." He grinned at me — once before, we had words of disagreement about my manuscript, although my reaction had been way too sensitive at the time.

  "I know you would," I said. He was still the only person I had trusted with the truth about my writing. "I can't explain what I need. I'm at an artistic crossroads, I guess. I've changed things, rewritten things ... my instincts think those changes were the right ones, but the closer I come to the completed draft, the more questions I have about what comes next."

  "Artistically — or something more?" Sidney sat up, his posture that of listening intently more than lounging recreationally as he settled meditation-style on the blanket.

  "Both, maybe?" I picked at a loose thread in the blanket, near a hole that was probably the work of one of Sidney's many stray dogs.

  "For what it's worth, I think your story is turning out quite well," he said. "You have pathos and drama and the adventure you wanted it to have from the beginning. It might be a bit rough still in places, but nothing you won't find a way to smooth. Not that I'm any authority on fiction."

  "Your opinion is the best one I've had," I said. "This has nothing to do with you as a reader. It's me. I have to know if the story became what it should be in my novel, or if I've taken some parts in wrong directions. And if it really became what it should be ... all it can be ... is it worth the read to anyone else?"

  Sidney's smile was a little more grave than usual as he listened; he sensed from my voice that this wasn't entirely a lighthearted conversation akin to past ones about the novel. "How close do you think you are to this moment of transition?" he asked.

  "It's not easy to judge," I answered, with a laugh. "It might be weeks ... months ... tomorrow. But there are no more chapters to write, there are no more characters that need rewritten — so what am I going to do next, if not move on?"

  "Find somebody you trust who can give you a frank opinion about it, besides me," suggested Sidney. "Someone better than me. Only promise to take it with a grain of salt, so no self-aggrandizing dreamcrusher turns you aside with a bleak prognosis," he added. "Maybe if they agree tha
t it's good, you'll feel ready to move on to the next stage of the process."

  "All of the writers for the Tucker program are too busy for me — they all have students already, because I missed the deadline," I said. "The great Alistair Davies is probably holed up in a flat in London, typing away — as if he would have read it in the first place." Half-joking, albeit with a little chagrin. The old fantasy of having his help might fade, but his name would always top my list, both as a writer and a devoted reader of his works.

  "Oh, well, if the great Alistair Davies isn't available, I don't know whom you should ask." Sidney's tone of voice was snooty. "It would be a tremendous step down, but perhaps Cormac McCarthy isn't too busy? Jhumpa Lahiri has hit a rough patch in her own work and has some free time?"

  I gave him a look; Sidney's lips twitched with an infuriating smile that didn't quite come through.

  "Wallace Scott would probably tell me that I've come as far as the Tucker Writing Program's five-tier process can take me, that I'm on my own now," I said. "Workshops are mostly about technique, not polish."

  "Is that tantamount to declaring your manuscript ready?" he asked.

  "Sort of. It's not so much a way of declaring it good as it is declaring it done," I answered.

  "What comes next? Presenting it to the world?"

  "Something like that," I said. "Slush piles, contests, and writer's grant applications, if you're playing the traditional game." I twirled a blade of grass between my fingers, pondering whether I had a chance. Were there many gothic-inspired novelist grants out there?

  "You send copies to publishers," surmised Sidney. "Or publish it yourself."

  "Easier said than done."

  "Readers will come, Maisie. It happens all the time — or so I've heard, anyway," Sidney persisted. "Only a handful are born famous or successful, and everyone else makes their own way. Even some of the privileged forsake it, so what they earn is only of their making. Be it brutal or kind, there's only one way to know the outcome."

  "That's a bold step for any writer," I answered. I twirled the loose thread between my fingers. Wallace Scott never covered the big leap that writers take when they go it alone — no editors, no copyreaders, no publishers providing cover art or advance copies for critics. "Am I ready for that? Am I ready for what they would say about it? Acquisitions editors, critics, readers — any of them?"

  Sidney leaned closer, settling his weight beside me on the blanket. "Do you trust yourself, Maisie Clark?" he asked. "You are the only one who knows what you need. You're the only one who can answer any of those questions, and answer for what comes after you decide. I trust you — but that's not enough."

  We were eye to eye like this, and with the space between us diminished to a hand's length. Those hazel eyes were holding mine as if holding me steady, though the tremor in my world was only a small one, for a distant earthquake in the form of rejection or humiliation.

  I could trust his words, as I always had before. He was right that no one but me could decide what — and when — my novel was ready for another step.

  "Are you trying to talk me into doing it?" I asked, trying to be playful. I withdrew a little from him, as if indignant of this idea.

  "No," he scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. Why would I do something as daft as persuade you to show your book to someone else — because I know exactly who will be blamed if they have even the tiniest little criticism —"

  "I will pinch or punch you, Sidney Daniels. It's your choice which it will be," I said.

  "Truce." His smile twisted itself. Unquestioning wickedness in the depths of those eyes for that request, whatever he might claim. "I want you to do this as you want to do it, and need to do it. Whatever it be, Maisie, you have my wholehearted support for it, and I would never dream of offering anything else. Now," here, he leaned back a little also, settling into a new position of comfort on his side, "reach into the basket and hand me my book, if you will."

  "You're going to read?" I said, feigning disbelief. "On a beautiful day like this, you brought me to the middle of a field to watch you read a book?"

  "I told you before, that's why I come here," he said. "I climb the tree with the wide branch perpendicular to the ground, just begging someone to sit on it ... or sometimes sit on the rocks beyond these trees, overlooking the dunes on the shore. You see enough of the world from either one when you look up to keep you from ever feeling bored."

  "I brought a book, too. But I haven't made much progress in finishing it," I said.

  "I have a spare, probably," he said. "Reach into the pocket inside the basket's lining. There's probably a bit of poetry, maybe an old paperback I forgot about."

  "You never talk about what book you're reading while you're reading it," I said, ignoring his request. "Why? Don't you think I'm interested?" So much of Sidney's daily life was almost as vague and unformed as his past was — other parts, like the jazz records, the horrible handyman skills, the random acts of kindness, inserted themselves nearly daily into every interaction between us.

  "You don't tell me what books you read," retorted Sidney.

  "That was because I didn't know if you were interested," I said. "I didn't want to bore you with things you didn't care about, but I asked you directly for details."

  "You could reach into this basket as easily as I could reach into your shoulder bag, and know what book it is," he challenged me. "Then we would both know the answers without having to break silence. We could save our words for something deeper than chitchat about tedium like what page we've paused on, and what happened in the last chapter."

  "What deeper things do you have in mind?" I asked.

  Sidney looked thoughtful, lifting his gaze skywards, where the mild blue sky above the clearing held only a couple of birds taking off from one of the old oaks. He took a deep breath. "Maisie," he said. He glanced at me. "Do you ever ... think the Daleks look a bit like overturned rubbish bins with helmets?"

  The breath I had caught ever so slightly in my throat during his pause now exhaled itself with exasperation. "Are you serious?" For a brief second, I thought he was going to actually be serious upon expectation, though why I would ever expect it of Sidney can only be explained by hopefulness.

  "I am." He shifted his position to look at me earnestly. "And what did you think of that last episode of Doctor Who from Peter Capaldi's series?" he asked. "Before the groundbreaking Christmas special, I mean."

  "The one with the Cybermen?" I said. "I liked it — except I think the Weeping Angels are far scarier as villains, but that's just my opinion."

  "No, I like them best as well." Sidney rested his shoulder against the picnic basket.

  "As for the Daleks, I can agree with that description," I said. "And though I try very hard, I find it's hard to be entirely convinced by the danger of all those little suction-y plunger appendages they have on their bodies. But — the episode in the Dalek sewer? Fantastic stuff."

  "Small talk is actually quite nice, isn't it? We should do more of it."

  He wasn't laughing at me, but he was laughing — enough so that I could see it in his eyes and detect it in his smile. Daring me, just a little, to call his bluff and ask him something I wanted to know, maybe opening the door for him to ask me something personal in return. These things would join others which had unfolded past layers of our relationship, with all its quirks and most un-friend-like facets.

  Of all times for it to happen, no question came, no statement of any bold purpose, even about my feelings for Sidney. I looked at his hand lying a short distance away on the blanket, and wanted to take hold of it and silently explore those fingers from callus to knuckle. I did so, and felt Sidney's fingers slide around my own, gently, in return. An embrace of the hands, our stopping point every time, though feelings might be plunging into deeper channels within us.

  "So what's the name of the book you're reading?" I asked.

  "Sunnyside," he replied. "Satisfied?"

  "For now," I answered.

  S
idney dropped me at the hotel a half hour before my shift, and left me with the remaining biscuits from the basket's tin — ones which the vicar's housekeeper Mrs. Graves had not made but purchased in the shop this week, he assured me. I waved to him as he drove away, then entered the dining room's French door, where the usual dinner staff was laying the service for tonight's meal. Brigette was tidying the stack of brochures on the exhibit, badly mussed by visitors who probably perused them during the 'tourist tea hour.'

  "Did you have a nice outing?" she asked. I smiled, re-shouldering my bag with its burden of unread novel and unfinished sweets.

  "A lovely one," I answered. "Just a picnic in a field — nothing grand, but lots of fun."

  "With Sidney Daniels again, wasn't it? The vicar's groundskeeper." Brigette put the latest tidied brochure back in its place. "He drove you to the spring festival in Bodmin a few weeks ago, too. Didn't he?"

  "He did," I said. I wasn't sure why she was asking. Chitchat wasn't Brigette's usual topic, and her tone of voice was slightly odd to my ear.

  Brigette paused in her tidying.

  "Are you ... seeing him?" She glanced at me. "I know it's none of my business, but — you have been seeing rather a lot of each other."

  I knew that I blushed, feeling it in my cheeks. A sudden wild idea passed through my thoughts that Brigette might like Sidney. A single, handsome young man in the village, and she was single, too — had our unusual friendship trod on someone's secret crush without my ever detecting it?

  My cheeks were still flame red. "I — we're good friends," I said. The way I felt was one thing, and the way Sidney felt was still entirely his own business, though I knew perfectly well it was the same.

  "He helped me figure out my way around the village and Cornwall when I first came." Stranger relying upon a former stranger seemed a very good, normal story, but it was nothing like the truth. Was I saying this to spare her feelings, or to keep myself from feeling jealous?

  "Good." After this word, the worry lines in Brigette's brow smoothed themselves with relief. Her fingers lifted the next brochure, one accidentally mangled when jammed into its pocket.