‘The photographer sent me all the pictures. I got rid of them. It didn’t feel right somehow to keep them, but that one, I couldn’t throw away.’
‘Do you know, I never gave them any thought, but I’m glad you kept this. I shall treasure it.’ It was a snapshot of love and happiness and a reminder that life turns on a penny.
‘And you can look at this day without pain?’
‘I can.’ She swallowed. ‘Not that it makes the pain I’ve been through any easier to reconcile.’ To say so felt bold, but this was the person she was now, emerged from a chrysalis of timidity.
‘I understand.’ Loretta looked into her lap. ‘I’m getting old, Merrin. There’s not much to recommend it, but it gives you clarity, I’ll say that.’
Merrin stared at her over the rim of her mug, suspecting that Ma Mortimer wanted her to listen rather than comment.
‘I wasn’t born rich. I’m sure you have heard that – I know my story goes before me,’ she huffed with a wry smile. ‘I never had pretensions, and despite what folk say, I was never ashamed of my background or my family; quite the opposite. I think my parents were remarkable to raise six healthy kids in such adversity. That takes some doing, doesn’t it?’
‘It really does.’ Merrin spoke sincerely and was fascinated by the woman’s words, her candid admission.
‘But Port Charles was determined to paint me in a certain way and, after some years of hiding away up at the Old Rectory, running off to Bristol whenever possible and crying myself to sleep, I embraced it. Sod the lot of them! I thought. I even bought a hat with two curled pheasant tails and my pearls’ – she ran her fingers over the double string that sat over the silk collar of her shirt – ‘and I cocked a snook at them all. Still do.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘Guthrie,’ she began, pausing to lick her dry lips and take a breath. ‘Guthrie was a couple of decades older than me, and rich. I found both of these aspects fascinating and I remember the first time I walked into that big old house.’ She looked again at the view as if lost in a memory. ‘It was like a dream, to think I could live in a place like that!’
Merrin was rapt, the atmosphere silent, allowing every nuance to be heard and savoured from this woman who wanted to tell her story, revealing her inner self.
‘I loved him. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t only the trappings that appealed. I loved him. He read Shakespeare, he knew about wine and art and he had travelled. Can you imagine what it felt like to have someone like him interested in a girl from Mellor Waters? It was intoxicating.’
‘I can imagine.’ She spoke softly.
‘Our wedding was modest; I was giddy with happiness and for the first month or so things were wonderful. Until I realised that they were only wonderful for me and that Guthrie, despite my every effort, was not happy, not at all. He was either sad or drunk.’ She nodded and sipped her tea. ‘And that was pretty much how he stayed until the day he died.’
‘Why was he so sad?’ Merrin asked without hesitation, swept up in the tale and unaware now of any reason to feel nervous when addressing Loretta.
‘Because he loved someone else.’ Her lip quivered and the hurt at this admission, even after all this time, was clear. ‘He loved someone else very much and they had planned to marry, but his parents intervened and made a deal. They sent Guthrie around the world on his yacht for a few years and the girl – a local girl – they paid off her parents and the parents of a local boy whom she was encouraged to marry. And marry they did. Beneficial to all except dear Guthrie, who, broken-hearted, went off the rails.’
‘God, that’s—’ She fumbled mentally for the word – what was it? Sad? Horrific? Cruel?
‘It is.’ Loretta finished her tea and placed the mug on the floor. ‘He told me that on the day he was supposed to marry the girl he loved, his mother, Eunice, came into the room and presented him with a note saying the girl had changed her mind. His mother was furious, of course, shouting around the corridors “How dare she? A local girl! The daughter of a fisherman? A bloody fisherman!”’
‘A fisherman?’
‘Yes. A fisherman.’ Loretta held her gaze. ‘But it was all a ruse. It was the very next day that he set sail on his big life adventure, away for seven years. He was never able to forget her, but found escape in the bottom of a bottle. He saw her from time to time over the years, his would-be bride, but never spoke to her again. On the odd occasion when interaction was unavoidable, whether I was there or not, she looked through him like he was a ghost, and many was the time I wondered if he might be. So thin was his heart, so transparent his body that ached his whole life for the girl he lost.’
‘So, you . . . you saw her? She was a Port Charles girl?’
‘Oh yes. Guthrie died without ever knowing the cost of the transaction on what should have been his wedding day. But I’ve unearthed the documents since.’
‘What was the transaction?’ Merrin asked quietly with her pulse racing and her mouth dry. Outside, dusk drew its blind on the day as the sun sank beyond the window and the two women sat in the cocoon of her new home, transfixed by their conversation.
‘It was a gift of the Old Boat Shed and a fancy trawler, given to the Kellows on the condition that their oldest boy, Arthur, marry Ellen Bligh. A fine vessel and one on which Ellen’s husband worked happily until the day he died. And then I believe your father, too, and now Jarvis. The boat, Sally-Mae, a combination of Arthur’s mother’s name and Ellen’s mother’s name, is that right?’
‘Yes.’ Merrin’s voice was no more than a murmur. Granny Ellen and Guthrie . . . It was a lot to comprehend, shocking, and she wondered how she had never questioned how humble fishermen had come to be the owners of this lovely building and the little trawler that had no debt.
‘Ellen – the girl who married a Kellow, who gave birth to Ben and never left Port Charles,’ Loretta surmised.
‘I . . . I don’t know what to say.’ Her thoughts came thick and fast.
‘Guthrie never forgot his first love and when he died I found this in a book of verse by his bed.’ She reached again into her pocket and produced a small black-and-white photograph that she handed to Merrin. It was of her gran, Ellen Bligh; she was smiling with eyes lit up in a way Merrin had never seen before, beautiful.
‘Look at the back,’ Loretta instructed. Merrin turned it over and read the calligraphy.
‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you.’ William Shakespeare.
‘So was it revenge, Loretta?’ Her tone was kindly despite the nature of her question. ‘Did you want to spoil Ellen’s granddaughter’s life because Ellen seemed instrumental in destroying Guthrie’s?’
‘Maybe a little bit at first.’ The woman’s eyes misted. ‘But then I realised you two were in love and I did my best to make things perfect.’
‘But then?’ Merrin asked with emotion.
‘I could see that my son wasn’t ready. Was too young, immature, and so I asked him which he would choose: you or our money. It was a test. Guthrie would have given up every penny he owned for Ellen.’
‘But Digby chose the money.’ Merrin spoke with a crack to her voice, her distress not at the loss of him, not any more, but at the whole bloody mess and all the heartache that their love affair had caused.