‘There’s a chap here to see you, Megan,’ Annie said, her hands still busy in her apron, the flour on them testifying to the occupation she had been about before she answered the door. There was only her and Edie now and all the lovely rooms and private suites were carefully shrouded and closed in readiness for
the
day when the ‘Hilltop Hotel’ would function again as it should but in the meanwhile there was cooking still to be done and with Edie not much of a hand in the kitchen, except with a frying pan, Annie was baking a tart with the last of the plums from Tom’s trees.
‘Who is it, Annie?’ Meg said, startled since she had heard no motor car engine and who on earth would walk all this way up here, but relieved nevertheless that it was not the dreaded telegram lad.
‘Nay lass, don’t ask me. He said he wanted to speak to Miss Hughes so …’ She was not allowed to finish her sentence and in that last moment Meg had time to smile at the affrontery on Annie’s honest face at the cheek of the chap who pushed past her, then her own face drained of every vestige of colour and the blood left her brain and the room swayed about her for she recognised him instantly.
‘Megan, my dear, how nice to see you after all these years and looking so well too, though I do believe you have lost some weight. What a pity, for really you had the loveliest …’ He did not finish but his insolent gaze fell pointedly to her breast and as Meg clung frantically to her reeling senses she heard Annie gasp and saw her bristle and her cheeks become a bright scarlet.
‘Mrs Fraser …?’ Annie’s voice was questioning and her expression was one which said this chap had best mend his manners for his path was beset with peril if he got on the wrong side of
her
, but Meg had eyes for no-one now but the man who stood in the doorway of her sitting room and did not seem to hear.
‘Aah … Mrs Fraser now, is it? So you married the boot boy, did you? I suppose it was inevitable in view of your condition. You always were an odd sort of threesome, I thought. Quite … unnatural, I would say. Share and share alike was it …?’
‘Mrs Fraser! Megan …’ Annie was scandalized. ‘May I ask who this … this gentleman is for I declare if he says another word I shall be forced to call Will and have him removed. And don’t you tell me he’s an old friend, like he says because I refuse to believe it …’
‘Annie, will you leave us …?’
‘Nay, that I won’t!’
‘Annie, please …’
‘Never mind please. I shan’t move a step from this room while … while he’s here, choose how …’
Benjamin Harris smiled lazily as his pale grey eyes moved like slugs across Meg’s face and body.
‘My word, what loyalty you do arouse in your friends, Megan! The pity of it is you choose such
strange
ones!’
‘Megan, are you going to allow …?’
Benjamin Harris sighed. ‘Must I have this old woman constantly interrupting everything I say, Megan, or can she not do something useful such as bringing us some tea, which is her function in life, one assumes.’
Meg felt the clouded mists begin to clear from her head and though there was a painful mass settled somewhere in the middle of her chest which, if not treated carefully might erupt in a wave of nausea, she was steadier now. Her heart jolted frighteningly, but really, she had nothing to be afraid of since Annie was here, and Will was within earshot and a telephone call would bring the police within minutes. But even while her mind comforted her with these thoughts it cast her back to another occasion when she had conjured up the very same reassurances and the belief that he would never, could never come to terrify her again.
And here he was like a demon summoned from the dark pits of hell, back to haunt her with old fears. She had so much that was precious, her child, vulnerable and defenceless against this man who, in his passion for revenge had followed her for more than seven years and though as yet he had not hurt her physically, he had put the fear of his evil menace in her life, laying it across her like a weight. He had tracked her down like some beast hunting its prey!
‘What are you thinking, Megan my dear?’ he said silkily. ‘I can see behind that pretty face of yours you are wondering what on earth I am to do next and really, I have no idea. Shall I tell you or shall I savour it for a while longer. Shall I tell you what I have
already
done to you besides what you have seen or shall I leave you to … to reflect on it. I meant to hurt you, Megan, I told you that years ago but I wished it to be … of the mind. Mental torment is often greater than the physical kind, do you not agree? I meant to hurt you, make no mistake, and anyone you happen to … care about …’
He turned his head suddenly, his gaze going to the window and beyond to the garden. ‘What a lovely child, Megan … so like her father, whoever he may be … so pretty … and fragile …’
‘No …’
‘Send the woman away.’
‘Please leave us, Annie.’
‘Meg, I will not leave you alone with this …’
‘
Annie! for God’s sake go
!’ Meg’s voice rose to a scream and she saw Will Hardcastle raise his head from his raking, his face uncertain, not absolutely sure of what he had heard. ‘Stand outside the door, if you must, Annie, but please, if you value my life, do not come in unless I call you.’
They drank the tea Edie was summoned to bring and Benjamin Harris kept up a constant stream of small talk, admiring the cut of her hair, though he did regret the passing of women’s femininity which the war had brought about, the cut of her gown which he was sure must have cost a fortune, the setting of her home which he thought must be a very pleasant place in which to spend a holiday, of which he himself often felt in need, and the way in which her business had flourished due, he was certain, to her own shrewd and clever mind. Yes, it must be most satisfying to be so successful and really, did she not agree that success was hard to come by? Take himself, for instance. The bad luck which had dogged his footsteps – here he smiled quite wolfishly at her – had been difficult to overcome but as he was sure she could tell by the way in which he was dressed and the air of affluence those with wealth acquire, no matter how they come by it, he had not gone unrewarded. His own efforts in the business world had often … well … they had paid him handsomely and of course he was truly blessed in the many friends he had made and the acquaintances he had come by in the course of his travels. They came from all walks of life, from financiers, men of substance in the world of commerce, right down the social scale to one who was no more than a mechanic!
He smiled and Meg Fraser felt the world slip away and a great silence enveloped her and the sensation of nausea which still clotted uncomfortably beneath her rib cage stirred uneasily. She knew quite clearly that he was telling her something, watching for her smallest reaction, enjoying it as a cat enjoys the antics of a defenceless field mouse and in his eyes was a look of such unholy joy she was aware that he had waited for this moment of triumph for many years and that now, at last, it was here. He had done something, which, when she learned of it, or when he was ready to divulge it to her would surely destroy her. But wait Megan … wait … for I am not ready yet. I have not done with you but
when
I am you shall know what it is I have achieved, what I have yet to achieve against you.
‘Yes. I am fortunate, Megan, in that I am able to bestow small favours on people, who, in their turn, can often help me … when I need something doing. Do you find that, my dear?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her voice was lifeless.
‘No, of course you don’t but you will one day, Megan, I promise you.’
Her eyes drifted away from him towards the garden where there was goodness, innocence, sweetness, the clean drift of rain clouds, the sound of her child’s laughter, but he would not allow her to escape.
‘Look at me, Megan,’ he said and she obediently turned back to him, a puppet whose strings he pulled. ‘I am going to leave you now, my dear, for really, I must not indulge myself for too long or I might tell you my secrets and I have sworn to enjoy them for as long as I am able. It took me a long time, Megan. I had many hours to brood on what you had done to me, and what I might do in return. I thought at the beginning you had ruined me but you merely turned my steps in another direction for which I suppose I should thank you for the rewards were much greater. Nevertheless, you defied me, Megan, but worst of all you
meddled
with my life and I cannot forgive that and so … I am meddling in yours! And you have so much more to lose now. The last time we met you were nought but a maidservant. Now you are a successful business woman, wealthy, married,
and with a child
!’
She sprang at him then reaching for his eyes and her fingers turned to claws, and her finger-nails to talons, a snarling she-cat defending her young but though he was nearing middle-age, thin as a rapier, he was just as strong as one and he laughed as he caught her wrists and when Annie burst through the door in a charge like that of an infuriated rhinoceros, he threw Meg at her and his face was malevolent in his hatred.
‘Stand away from me, Megan, and tell that woman to do the same,’ his hissed, ‘or by God, I swear I will …’
‘
What
… for Christ’s sake? You will what? What else can you threaten me with?’
‘This is not a threat, believe me, just a warning but if you do anything now which displeases me you will wish you had died in that fire with the half-witted skivvy. Step back from me, Megan, and allow me to leave peacefully. Do it now, girl … do it now!’
He was smiling as he shrugged himself into his expensive overcoat, reaching for his hat and Annie Hardcastle stood, turned to stone, it seemed, by the sense of great evil which had filled the pleasant room. When he had gone, tipping his hat most courteously towards her and Meg, she led her weeping friend to the settee and held her, crooning a helpless lullaby of comfort above her head.
‘What has he done, Annie? Dear God, what has he done?’ Meg cried but in truth Annie could not answer, she only knew that the man who had just gone was completely and frighteningly insane.
‘Nay lass … perhaps when Tom comes home …’
Meg lifted her head and her eyes were spangled with wet tears but in them shone a ray of hope.
‘Yes … oh yes, Annie, you’re right. When Tom gets home … when this bloody war is done!’
IT WAS DONE
at last and at the end of November 1918, Sargeant Tom Fraser, one of the first to do so, came home to his wife and put his trembling hand in hers and gave himself up to the nightmares which had tormented him for the best part of four years, and she finally realised the hope she had held in her heart, that he would share the burden of Benjamin Harris which she had carried about with her for eight weeks was no more than a golden dream.
Though his body was whole, unscathed, just as it had been four years ago despite its dramatic slenderness, Tom Fraser’s mind was not. Meg knew, though not at that precise moment, that never again would Tom be the light-hearted, carelessly good-natured, untroubled man he had once been, that though he had gone to war a man, he had come back a frightened child.
He stepped from the crowded troop train at Victoria station, his arm held by a medical orderly, and with hundreds of others who shuffled along the platform with him, going wherever they were led, he recoiled at every sharp noise and seemed confused by everything from her warm embrace to the simple act of stepping into the taxi which was to take them across London to St Pancras station.
She took him straight home by train, holding his clutching hand in both of hers, blind to the sympathetic stares of those who travelled with them. His uniform was stained still with the mud of the last battle he had fought in around Mons, the very place he had begun his war in 1915. It hung about him in empty folds as though he had shrunk inside it and his greatcoat had two holes in the sleeve, neat and round, just below the shoulder.
When she led him, murmuring soothingly towards the first class dining car, desperate to begin to put some decent food into his gaunt frame, he balked at the swaying communicating passage which led from one carriage to the next, staring at the narrow
moving
floor as though it was about to swallow him up and she was forced to take him back to their own compartment.
‘I’m sorry, Meg, I’m sorry,’ he kept muttering over and over again, for at least half an hour, agonised it seemed by his own foolishness, and to the dismay of those who shared the crowded compartment, he began to weep inconsolably, then suddenly and just as disconcertingly, fell into a deep and complete silence, almost an unconscious state, though his eyes were wide open and staring.
It was only when Beth, curls bobbing in an undisciplined flame of russet, eyes shining with excitement for her ‘Daddy’s’ return, came running on swift feet down the platform at Derby did he come from his trance and in a way which spoke of his desperation and misery, he swept her into his arms and held her to him in the first natural gesture he had made since Meg took him from the troop train.
‘Sweetheart, oh sweetheart,’ he cried repeatedly and his tears wet the shoulder of her woollen coat as he buried his face against her soft flesh. Meg thought Beth would be afraid of Tom’s emotion for how could her young mind understand the horrors which were in his, but Tom seemed to know that this child must not be made frightened and the slender hold he had on reality told him when to set her down. She put her hand trustingly in his, small, and nestling in his none too clean one and led him along the platform, looking about her in delight to let the ladies and gentlemen know that this was
her
soldier daddy and was he not beautiful and he had come home to
stay
!