LITMIR.BIZ

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and to the far left a forest of tall green trees. It was among these trees that Hazel, at the great age of fourteen, had built herself a low rambling one-story shack. Rafe had helped, of course, but it had always been her own private place. She had spent a lot of time there during the summer months. Trathen, the name of the village, had only fifty families, excluding the Savages. Each household maintained its own portion of land, but the Savages dominated the area, Savage House standing high up on the cliffs, dominating the whole of the landscape.

      Hazel loved the summers here. With her blonde hair she could be expected to burn easily, but she didn’t have the fair skin that would have been normal with her hair colouring. Her skin was olive brown, during the summer months tanning to a deep walnut brown. She was a strange mixture altogether, blonde hair, olive skin, and deep brown eyes, and no one had yet worked out where the latter two derived from.

      The blonde hair she had acquired from the mother she had never seen, her life being the price she had paid for her long-awaited child. But as both her parents had blue eyes and fair skins Hazel’s own strange combination could only be put down to one of her ancestors. She could almost have looked like a Savage if it weren’t for this fair hair of hers, both the surviving Savages having raven-black hair.

      She smiled at James as he brought in her luggage, standing up to hug his wife Sara as she came into the room with him. ‘Why, Sara,’ she stood back, grinning widely, ‘I do believe you’re more rounded than ever!’

      The cook-housekeeper smiled back at her, a good advertisement for her own cooking. ‘And I do believe you’re skinnier than ever!’ The two of them grinned at each other affectionately, their difference in weight having always been a standing joke between them.

      Sara was the fat jolly cook of storybooks and Hazel was so slender she appeared wraithlike. And it was true, she was slimmer. Her pay as a doctor’s secretary had been quite high, but then so had the cost of living. Rafe had insisted on paying her a monthly allowance, but she had been determined never to use any of it. She wanted to be like any other working girl, and if that included being broke most of the time then that was what she would be.

      And she had been most of the time, not even having enough money to feed herself properly. But this way she had felt like part of the crowd, had forgotten her guardian-cousin was a very rich man, rich enough to buy her anything she had ever wanted. But over the years she had wanted little, not wanting to feed Celia’s unwarranted jealousy any more than was absolutely necessary.

      It seemed strange that Rafe wasn’t here to meet her. He must have known of her arrival time, otherwise he couldn’t have sent James to meet her at the airport. So where was he? Out on the estate, Celia had said. But surely he could have spared five minutes just to say hello. There would have been hell to pay if she had acted in the same casual way where he was concerned. And in truth she didn’t like to admit how much his reticence hurt her.

      She showered and changed into one of the thin cotton dresses she had bought for her return home. None of the clothes she had had for the summer in Cornwall three years previously seemed to fit her anywhere, for where she had lost weight in most places, her figure seemed to have filled out in others. Some of her colourful tee-shirts looked positively indecent, they were so tight.

      She chose to wear a pure white dress, her olive skin and fair hair showing to advantage against its stark colour, leaving her legs bare and donning white rope sandals.

      Her hair she brushed until it shone, brushing it up high and securing it with a white ribbon high on the top of her head, leaving her smooth swan-like neck bare and free to the gentle caress of the breeze. America could be extremely hot, but she knew that Cornwall, during the summer months, could sometimes be almost as hot and humid.

      The front doors stood open when she came down the stairs and as there didn’t seem to be anyone about to tell of her departure she left the house and went out into the blazing sunshine. She would go down to the cabin, and hope that the memories there wouldn’t be too painful.

      The track down to the sea was steep and often dangerous, its rocky steps cracked and crumbling in places. Her movements down the pathway were hurried and shifty; she had been warned time and time again by Rafe not to go this way but take the longer safer path around the back of the house. But Rafe wasn’t here to see her right now and it was quicker this way.

      She had forgotten how much she loved this place, loved the sea, the sand, and the sunshine. She took off her sandals, digging her feet into the warm sand and loving its soft caressing feel. She paddled at the water’s edge, alone and yet not alone. It was impossible to feel that way in this paradise; the beauty surrounding her was the only company she needed.

      She wished now that she had thought to bring her bikini down to the beach with her. It was no good being able to admire the beauty here and not be able to participate. She had bathed alone here from time to time, this also against Rafe’s instructions, the tides here being dangerous to the lone swimmer. She had mainly done this when Rafe was away on business, but she daren’t do it today, not when he could turn up at any time.

      The cabin was getting old now and in a way she dreaded going inside. While the summers could be very hot here the winters could be equally cold, and the damp and rain could have destroyed her tiny haven during her absence. Also she didn’t know what memories awaited her there.

      She turned the handle of the door tentatively, the door never locked as there was nothing here to steal. It was only a one-room cabin, containing a bed, some rush matting, and primitive cooking arrangements. Rafe had occasionally let her stay in the cabin for a couple of days and during that time she had fended for herself.

      She opened her eyes to what she felt sure must be destruction and found the cabin exactly as she remembered it. Nothing had changed, and nothing had been destroyed. She walked around the room, picking up tiny mementoes of her childhood, amazed at the good condition of everything. Perhaps the cabin had been protected, situated among the trees as it was. She could think of no other explanation.

      The picture of Rafe and herself stood on the rickety table beside the bed, a picture of happier times together. She sat down on the mattress, the photograph in her hand. She had just beaten Rafe at a game of tennis, her first victory over him, and they had persuaded a friend to take a photograph of her elation.

      She looked at the photograph now, dog-eared from much perusal. Rafe had his arm thrown casually about her shoulders and she was laughing up happily into his smiling features. She had been fourteen at the time and the harmony between them hadn’t lasted for much longer after that.

      Sighing, she replaced the photograph on the table, anxious to escape now. She hadn’t reacted quite as violently to this place as she had imagined, but nevertheless she had had enough of the past and its memories for her. No doubt the cabin would eventually become her refuge once again, but for the moment she just wanted to get out of here.

      School should just about be finished and Trisha, the girl who taught half the sixty pupils registered there from the village and the surrounding area, had been quite a good friend of Hazel’s before leaving for college two years before Hazel herself had left the district.

      Having lived here all her life, Trisha had returned a few months ago when the vacancy had come up, preferring to teach the children of her friends and so be able to move back in with her own family. The day should be over now as far as school was concerned and Trisha would probably be preparing the schoolroom for tomorrow’s classes.

      The school was a low rambling building situated about a mile away from Savage House; the children’s ages ranged from five to nine. After this they would be sent to the bigger school in the town ten miles away, but more often than not they would be sent away to boarding-school, a lot of them never returning to the isolation to be found here.

      The area just didn’t provide enough work for all of them, or the entertainment for that matter. There was a small country club, with all the usual sporting facilities, and a dance held every Saturday, but certainly nothing like the sophisticated forms of entertainment to be found in the towns. And so the population in this part of Cornwall remained about the same, varying between three and four hundred, and that was the way Rafe liked it.

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