She wrenched her hand from his and stood up with a suddenness which startled him. Her face jerked convulsively and she put out her hands in the manner of one who is blind, feeling her way, it seemed, to the window. When she reached it she stared sightlessly across the bare gardens, covered now in layers of dead leaves which the man who had replaced Tom brushed and raked in an effort to keep the lawns tidy. They lay in brown smudged heaps as he placed them ready for burning. The trees were stark and naked and the gracefully shaped branches of the larch trees on the far side of the lake had taken on the crêped, lacy look of winter. Across the lawn drifted the winter smell of wood smoke from the bonfires, lit by the gardener, at the back of the hotel.
‘Tom …’
‘What is it, my darling?’ His voice was soft, vibrant with his love for her.
‘Tom … dear Tom … I cannot marry you.’
‘Meggie …’ She could almost hear the smile in his voice as though he could not quite believe what he had heard and was in fact, more amused than concerned. She must be thinking of Martin, he seemed to say, afraid that what had happened to him would happen to himself. All women were afraid for their men. It was only natural but it was no reason to delay their marriage. The reverse, he thought, though there were men who could not bear to think they might make some woman a widow, perhaps with a child to bring up alone. But Tom Fraser was not one of
them
. Nothing was going to happen to him, he would make certain of it!
‘I cannot marry you, Tom,’ she said again.
‘Now Meggie …’ He stood up and moved to where she leaned against the window. He turned her about to look at him, his hands on her shoulders, his bright blue eyes like speedwells in the brown strength of his face. He had aged somewhat in the last few months, the hard routine of drilling and rifle training, the vague but certain knowledge that he was learning how to kill another man giving him a maturity which showed in the strong and resolute firmness of his mouth. He had always been light-hearted, engaging, quite happy to leave responsibility and all that went with it to the other two but now, with the added sorrow of Martin’s death sitting sadly on his weary shoulders, Tom Fraser was a complete man at last.
‘You musn’t worry, love,’ he said gently. ‘What happened to Martin won’t happen to me. I’ll come back to you, sweetheart, I promise you but before I go let me … let me love you, Meg. Really love you.’ He hung his head almost shyly, then lifted his clear, steadfast eyes to hers. ‘You know what I mean, Meg, don’t you? I’ve waited so long now. I want to hold you in my arms before I go and make love to …’
‘Tom … No … No … Tom …’ She almost screamed out loud with the horror of it, with the pain and devastation she must heap on him but how could she let him go on? How could she listen to him saying all the words Martin had said to her. They had been beautiful, complete and perfect with Martin. They had melted her heart and brought it love and joy and wooed her body until she had wept in her delight. With Martin they had been right, they had been what she wanted to hear, what she had wanted to
say
and the wonder of them had satisfied her woman’s heart and mind and body. They had belonged to her, and to Martin, but not to Tom! Not spoken to her by Tom and in that agonised realisation she at last knew what she had done to him in letting him believe
she
loved him. She
did
love him but not as she had loved,
still
loved Martin.
But she must draw about her the strength to tell him, to take that look from his face, to dam up the love which poured from his eyes and stop the words which hovered, longing to be spoken, on his lips.
‘Sit down, Tom.’ Her voice was harsh and he stepped warily
away
from her, like a boy who has done no wrong but knows he is to be punished for it. But he was not a boy and he had done no wrong and she saw the uncompromising awareness of it come to his eyes and they turned to that vivid, icy blue of his affronted manliness.
‘Sit down! Why must I sit down?’
‘Because I have something to tell you!’
‘And can it not be said face to face?’ He was cautious but still insistent that he would not be treated like a child. He was a soldier now and he had just asked the woman he loved to marry him before he went to war, and what was wrong with that, his truculent expression asked.
‘Oh Tom … Tom …’ She turned from him, almost weeping. He had no idea, none, of the savage blow she was to deliver and there was no way to soften it. No way to turn the edge of the knife from his sensitive flesh. It must be done quickly, cleanly, cruelly.
‘I can find no other way to tell you than plainly.’
‘For God’s sake get on with it then!’
‘I am to have Martin’s child.’
The words hung delicately on the air, drifting it seemed, this way and that as Tom Fraser’s mind considered them. They made no sense, of course, none at all for Martin Hunter was dead and Megan Hughes belonged to
him
, Tom Fraser so how could she … how could she … and Martin Hunter was dead … was dead … was dead … and Megan Hughes belonged to … to … to …
Martin Hunter
!
‘No … oh no … no … no …’
‘Tom …’
She had taken a step away from him for although she had expected a raging bitterness, the mortification of pain and shock, she had not believed a human face could express such agony of spirit, and she saw her own each day in the mirror! His eyes were glazed with it as though he burned inside his own body. The flames had branded their message into his brain and it repeated, hammer blow after hammer blow, the words which told him that Martin Hunter had, after all, taken what was his. He had seen it in his eyes but not believed it. He had known but had refused to face it and now she had told him the truth of it and over and over again the words struck him and he staggered back from her, like a man who is threatened with a lethal weapon.
‘Tom …’ She put out a compassionate hand to him, the hand of a friend for that was all she could ever be to him, but he struck at it blindly, frenziedly, as though he could no longer bear her touch.
‘No …’ His voice was thick in his throat.
‘Tom, let me …’
‘No …’
‘Tom, I’m sorry!’
‘Sorry!’
‘We …’
‘Don’t … don’t tell me.’
‘Tom …’
‘I … must go.’
‘Go where? Please … Tom …’ She offered him her hand again then withdrew it hurriedly for he was looking at her with such loathing, such terror she began to be afraid.
‘Let me … won’t you …?’ What could she offer him, her mind agonised, to replace what she had taken from him? What could she say to make him see that what had happened had not been planned, that she and Martin had come together as naturally as the rain falls to the earth. They had loved him, both of them with a deep and enduring strength for he was a part of them, an intrinsic part of their lives, but sadly, there was not … there had not been a place for him on the journey she and Martin had begun together and which now would never be finished.
‘Tom … will you let me talk to you? You have a right to …’
‘To what, Megan Hughes? I believed I had a right to
you
. You told me you loved me …’
‘I did … I do …’
He seemed not to hear. His whole body shook, was charged with an explosive tension which threw him about the room, taking him from one side to the other, knocking him carelessly against furniture and finally bringing him face to face with a wall where he stood, eyes staring tormentedly at the wallpaper.
‘… all this time I waited. I cannot believe I have been such a fool … trusting you … and him.’
‘We did nothing to harm you Tom, nothing … only …’
‘Nothing! And yet you are to have … his … his child.’
‘Please, oh dear God … Tom.’ She must try to make him understand that – oh sweet Lord – how could she help him? He hurt so much. She could feel his pain beat against her in waves!
If
she could explain to him that she and Martin had only once … Her heart was wounded with the thought … only once, and her own pain was almost too much to bear … how could she tell him? It belonged to her and Martin, a sweet, jealously guarded memory and could not be shared, not even to ease Tom’s anguish.
With a sudden movement he turned from the wall and without speaking again he stumbled with broken body and heart towards the door.
‘Tom …’
He opened it, his hand on the doorknob like that of a child who has not yet mastered the art of turning it. His face was white and sweating and his chest heaved as though he was about to vomit. She heard him blunder up the hallway, his boots loud and hurtful on the parquet floor, and go down the stairs and her mind had time to consider in that dreadful moment, the effect the sight of him might have on her guests.
He came back the next day. She had spent the night sitting in a chair by her window, watching the moon slip in and out of the silver-edged clouds, watching as it moved across the sky hour after hour, waiting for him to come back. Annie slipped in a time or two, putting a hand on her shoulder comfortingly, standing with her for five minutes, watching the night, sharing her vigil. She brought her tea and without speaking sat and drank a cup with her, then went away again but letting it be known she was about should she be needed.
It was dawn. There was merely a blush of pink on the edge of the hills shading up to yellow and pale, pale blue and though the moon had gone there was a scattering of stars where it had been. She saw him come up the drive, his body dragging in weariness, a dark shadow against the darker bushes. She saw him stand for a moment by the lake, outlined against its breeze ruffled silver, then he turned and when he reached her room he entered without knocking as though in his despair he had no time for such niceties. What were they when put against what he had been through, his attitude said?
‘Tom.’ Her voice was a whisper in the lightening room.
‘The child must have a name.’
‘Tom!’ She sat up slowly and her heart began to race.
‘Are you to make Martin Hunter’s child a bastard, Megan Hughes?’
‘Tom …’ It seemed she could say nothing but his name.
‘I have been up … I did not know where to go …’
‘Sit down, Tom, or come to the kitchen and I’ll make us some tea. There will be no-one there at this …’
‘I had to think …’ He stared at a spot directly above her head, his eyes pale and clouded in the faded hue of the dawn light. ‘I went up to the top and found a place to … I needed to be alone to think it through. I had heard what you had said, about you and Martin … and the … the child, and though the words …’
His voice, which at first had been hesitant, became stronger and more positive.
‘I had heard them, those words you spoke, and had been, I thought, destroyed by them. I could not cope with it, you see, so I retreated into … into somewhere … safe, where they couldn’t hurt me. I sat … I don’t know how long, and watched the night things … rabbits, a field mouse and others. I suppose I was so still and quiet they thought I was part of the moor. And I was, I suppose. I am, Megan Hughes! Part of this moor and these hills. I love it up here. I have from the first time we came up together. We made a life. It is our life …
my life
. I must go away now …’ He laughed harshly and the young and eager soldier, the idealist who had thrilled to the concept of patriotism and glory, had gone forever. ‘To defend that life. But if I survive I want to come back to it, you see. I want to come back to it! It is as much mine as it is yours and I will not let what you and Martin Hunter have done take it from me …’
‘Tom, you know I would not turn you out! This is …’
‘So how are we to manage it then? Our … situation has been accepted, just, by those who stay here because it was known we were engaged, that we were soon to be married. Now, before long it will be seen that you are … pregnant, that I am away fighting for my country and you will be discredited. No-one will stay in a hotel which is run by a loose woman, for that is what they will call you.’
‘Dear God, Tom … please … you cannot mean what you are …’ She was distraught but he did not listen to her, indeed he appeared neither to listen to nor be aware of anything but the words he himself spoke.
‘This is mine, this hotel and I intend to keep it and if it is left to you it will founder. It will go down, you will go down and I will go down with you. I never thought I could believe that. You
were
always the strong one, the one who fought for what we would have and whose will held it together. It was you who harried the bank into giving us a loan. It was you who invested what we had, so positive that what I saw as a gamble was really no more than a practical way to make our money grow. You did all these things, but it was
me
who stood beside you, not Martin Hunter. It was me who supported you, who was always there to listen to you, and what I often considered to be your daft ideas. I’ve worked bloody hard for the best part of my life but never as hard as these last four years and I’m not going to have it chucked away because Martin Hunter couldn’t keep his bloody hands off you …
and you allowed it
!’
‘Tom … please …’
‘Don’t “Tom, please” me, Megan, We need each other, you and me. You need a name for your child and I need to know that what I have will still be here when I come home!’