‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Tom, sit down and stop pulling your lip like a fractious child. I don’t know what’s got into you! This is a business arrangement, a financial venture for all of us so why you are taking this preposterous attitude, I can’t imagine. Martin is to be our partner. He is short of ready cash and has already reached the limit he can borrow. We can raise it by mortgaging “Hawthornes”, which already brings us in a fair profit and you know it is always my contention that an opportunity only presents itself once and you must grab it with both hands when it does. Martin is to run the airfield and motor manufacturing at Camford. We will put up some money and he will do the work. He is a clever man, you know that. His ideas are sound …’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘Tom!’ Meg was astounded and there was a dangerous movement from the other side of the room as Martin stood up slowly.
‘It’s true!’ Tom was beside himself. ‘Your knowledge of the automobile and particularly the airplane, the designing of them and how they work could be put in a teaspoon. He might be …’
Martin moved slowly across the soft coral carpet. His face had become charged with a peril, a threatening anger which said he had stood enough. He had allowed so much, but when Tom had the impudence to impute his knowledge of the engine, of the thing he knew best in the world, at which he was best in the world, he would take no more, but Meg stepped between them, her own face explosive in its anger.
‘Dammit, Tom! Has he not proved himself over and over again in the past nine years?’ Her voice was loud, harsh, demanding his
attention
. ‘Now sit down, both of you. My God, anybody would think you were fourteen again and back at Great George Square. Sit down … sit down.’
She wore green. A vivid emerald green and the colour was almost a shock against the flame of her hair. The dress was a plain, tailor made, wool cloth button through, almost in the shape of a tube with a collarless bodice and long narrow sleeves. It clung to her, revealing the startling splendour of her breasts, the rounded curve of her hips and the smallness of her slender waist. The glow from the fire turned her eyes to liquid golden brown and her white skin to cream, and put a rose on each high cheekbone. Her magnificent body, despite the loss of weight was as pliant as it was ten years ago but she was a woman now with a woman’s maturity and strength. Tom Fraser contemplated her with the frustrated anger and jealousy of a man who has waited more than long enough for what he wants and is dreadfully afraid he is never to get it.
They had been at ‘Hilltops’ for three months and almost every week Martin had motored over from Camford to ‘see how they were getting on’ he remarked casually, ‘and to make sure that the standard a gentleman expects in his choice of hotel was being met in their new project’. He would wink at Meg to let her see he was joking and clap Tom on the back and not once had Tom seen him do anything to which a man with a beautiful woman he is about to marry could take exception, but nevertheless he was wary when Martin came and relieved when he left.
Now it seemed that behind his back Meg and Martin had hatched this scheme to buy this bloody airfield from the old gentleman or some such daft plan and what worried him more than anything was
when
for he had been under the impression that the pair of them had never been alone together during the past three months. And if they had managed secretly to put together this … this business arrangement they had manoeuvered him into, what else had they been up to whilst they were at it? He was a man. He could recognise admiration in another man’s eyes, admiration for a beautiful woman as Meg was and Martin certainly seemed never to be off their doorstep these days. Oh yes, they would say it had been only for the setting up of this business deal, if he should ask them, but perhaps they had set up a more intimate contract, one in which Meg and Martin would be alone, up in one of the many private bedrooms with which the house
abounded
, or even here … here on this lovely coral carpet … Dear God!
The thought barely had time to whistle through his mind before he dismissed it since he knew Meggie was the most loyal, honest and true companion a man could wish to have. She loved him. They were to marry soon and she certainly would not have agreed to it if she had not loved him. On the other hand he knew Martin’s reputation with the ladies for as a younger man he had boasted of it, and the way in which those who came to the racing circuits flocked about the drivers. But some instinct, all male and born in the possessive challenge of every animal for his mate warned him there was some link, not as it had once been in their childhood, but something else, hidden, deep, perhaps not yet recognised, between Meg and Martin. He watched them now, breathing heavily, and they looked back at him. Meg’s face was innocent of anything except her need to persuade him to this thing she was determined upon and he felt the painful ice about his heart melt with his love for her. His face softened and he was contrite. Dear God, what was wrong with him? What the hell was he thinking about?
His
Meggie? She was his and Martin was his friend, the best pal a man had ever had and would he try to take from him, even if he wanted her, the woman Tom was to marry, for God’s sake! Just on a whim, for God’s sake! Of course he wouldn’t but he did wish this tension which had built up somehow between the three of them would go away again for he did not like it. Not with him and Meg and Martin. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t
natural
.
Martin eased himself away from the dangerous turmoil which was growing so insidiously and his own face lost it’s menace for he knew it could not go on, this biting jealousy which was slowly destroying the strong fabric of his affection for Tom. It was like the teeth of a mouse, small and vicious, which nibbles and nibbles until it has torn apart something of immense value. Meg was wearing a ring now, small, but a diamond nonetheless, pressed upon her by an ardently resolute Tom, bent on showing everyone from the joiner who had impudently winked at her one day, to Martin himself, that she was
his
, his fiancée, the woman he was to marry and the ring was a symbol of his ownership.
‘Well, I’m off,’ Martin said carelessly. ‘I’ll leave you to argue it out among yourselves. I’ll let myself out but telephone me soon at the field because if … if Tom’s not willing there are others who are!’
When he had gone Tom sighed and his face lost it’s look of bitter confusion. He sat down in the chair opposite Meg, jerking irritably as he settled his long, rangy frame into the depths of it, then he leaned forward again as though his body, and his mind could arrange themselves to nothing. He took her hands in his and felt them tremble. Turning them over he dropped a kiss in each palm, rubbing his mouth softly across the cushion of flesh at the base of her thumb.
‘Meg, I’m sorry. I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. I love you so much, my sweet darling Meg, you understand that, don’t you.’ His eyes looked into hers and he saw the strong warmth of her feeling for him. ‘You and I, we were meant to be together. We are like the two wheels on the bicycle we once rode, d’you remember?’
Meg nodded and her hands clasped his lovingly.
‘Rolling along in unison, going at the same steady pace together,’ – only because you kept me to it, she had time to think sourly, not allowing me to go at my own speed – surprising herself with the disloyal thought. ‘The sad thing is that though each wheel turns on its own the bicycle is useless without both. I am useless without you, sweetheart. Meg, let’s get married right away. I don’t know what it is that is stopping us, I really don’t. I know it’s only been six months and that’s not long for an engagement but we have nothing to wait for, Meg. You say you want to and yet each time I have pressed you for a date, you put me off. There’s always something else to be seen to first, some other priority. I want to … to have you as a man wants a woman, Meggie. You know what I mean.’ His honest, open face was flushed and his eyes were clear and steady, the bright blue of them darkening with the intensity of his feelings. ‘Let me love you, Meg! Name the day … soon … oh please, Meg, make it soon …’
His face spasmed in his deep, anguished desire and Meg felt herself sway towards him, to his sweet strength, the deep and quiet strength which had stood by her for so long but something,
something
stopped her as it always did.
‘Say you will. Say you will marry me before spring, before Easter, next week, we could get a special licence … tomorrow!’
He knelt then at her feet and put his arms about her, burying his face in the creamy softness of her throat, his warm lips caressing her skin. She felt her heart bound in her breast for he had never been so bold with her before. He had treated her with a reserved
delicacy
which spoke of his reverence and love. A long kiss, perhaps, his mouth gentle and smooth on her own. His arms strong and sure about her but his body holding back as though he was afraid he might startle her. Now she touched his thick, tightly curling hair and it fell about her fingers, the brightness of it turned to the colour of a sunflower in the firelight. She smoothed it, comforting him as a woman will a child’s distress and she held his head to her as his lips moved down the column of her throat to the fabric of her dress until they rested on the curve of her breast. His hands lifted eagerly to the buttons and they brushed against the skin of her throat …
With a jerky movement, one in which she might have been delivered a blow, so sharply did she recoil, she pushed him away and he fell against the armchair from which he had recently risen. His face was flushed, soft with his desire for her but the look in his eyes was dangerous. It was too soon after the dreadful thoughts he had harboured only half an hour ago and they twined themselves inside his head like a nest of vipers and he wanted to strike out and hurt someone as he hurt!
He stood up abruptly. ‘What is it, Megan?’ he said savagely. ‘What is it keeps you from giving yourself to me. You said we would marry last year and yet here we still are, engaged, certainly and you wear my ring to show it, but all we do is talk about it. There is nothing to stop us, nothing, and yet we are still unmarried. We do not have to wait, as other couples do, saving up for our home for we already have one. You have no need to gather a “bottom drawer” as is customary for you already have enough china and linen to sink a ship. We have money and a home and no-one to say we may not do as we please but still we remain apart. You love me. You say you do, but there is something stopping you from making that last, final commitment. What is it, Meg? What is it?’
She did the only thing she knew to keep him from probing her further for in truth she did not want to face the reason herself. She stood up angrily before him.
‘Don’t you get on your high horse with me, Tom Fraser, or I’ll land you one and don’t think I couldn’t. You don’t own me, you know, just because you’ve put a ring on my finger. We may be partners, living here under the same roof which will no doubt cause talk when the first guests arrive but unless I say so, you keep
your
hands to yourself. Dammit, just because we’re promised in marriage …’
‘That’s just it, Meggie! Promised! That’s what we are and you must keep a promise!’
She continued as though he had not spoken, ‘… doesn’t give you the right to handle me when and as you like, Tom Fraser.’
She was getting into her stride now, believing in the cause of her own anger which had nothing at all to do with Tom’s hands on her, and her face flamed with it, not the outraged modesty she would have him believe in but guilt, guilt and the most dreadful sadness.
Tom took a hesitant step away from her.
‘What d’you think I am?’ she hissed, ‘some chippie you can …’
‘Meg … for Christ’s sake …’ He was appalled.
‘… fondle whenever you fancy it. I thought you had some respect for me, Tom and were prepared to wait until I was ready, you said.’
‘I have … Jesus, Meg, I have … and I will, you know that …’
‘No! I don’t! What you have just attempted says exactly the opposite’. Her chin jutted ominously and she clenched her fists as though she was quite ready to box his ears for his impudence as she had threatened.
‘Oh Lord, Meggie … I’m sorry, please … you know I adore you. I would never do anything to upset you, you know that. It’s just … I want you so much and I’m … afraid you’re so lovely … all the men.’ Not for the world dare he mention the one man’s name of whom he was
really
afraid. ‘I’ve seen the way they look … I want us to be married, to be together. I want them all to know you’re mine … mine …’
‘So you think if you … seduce me I will be!’
‘No … no Meggie. I wasn’t trying to … Oh damnation, how the hell did I get myself into this mess?’
When he had gone, swearing he would never touch her again until she wanted it, she sat with her chin in her hands and stared into the fire and gradually her body ceased it’s wild trembling, put there not by Tom’s masculine embrace but some other emotion she knew must soon come to a conclusion, for it was not to be put aside and left for another time as she had been doing now since the day Cook died. She bent her head and her heart contracted in pain for were not they all to be hurt by whatever course of action she decided, and began to weep. She wept for half an hour,
alone
and quite inconsolable, then, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose she turned to the table beside her and took the rosewood box which stood there and placed it on her knee. She opened it and began to lift out the papers which were in it. One by one she studied them with the intensity and scrupulous application she had given to each of her small thrusts into the business world, to the transactions she had made and been successful in. They were records of every investment she had been advised on in the past three years, of the property she owned – with Tom – from the first, ‘The Hawthorne Tree’, ‘Hilltops’ and the most recent, the shares she had purchased in the small flying field and aircraft manufacturing business near Camford where Martin Hunter was to build his first flying airplane!