A Mother's Love (42 page)

‘No – just hail me a taxicab – please.’

‘As you wish, but I really feel …’ Seeing her expression, the gentleman said no more, but went to the kerbside and waved his stick in the air.

Within minutes, handkerchief held to her eye and cheek, wondering if she had thanked the man, she saw the dingy offices of the
London Graphic
loom beside her, the taxicab motor clacking to a stop.

How she managed to pay the cabbie and get herself into the building and up to Jonathan’s office, she could hardly remember, but she found herself with her back to the door, seeing him half-risen in alarm from behind his desk.

‘What in God’s name!’ He came round the desk and caught her as she fell into his arms. ‘My God, you’ve got a shiner there.’

She made an attempt to extricate herself from his embrace. ‘Don’t be funny!’

Even in this dire circumstance, anger dominated any need to cry. She would not bow to tears; would not be left vulnerable to attack by anyone, especially Jonathan, witnessing them.

‘What on earth happened to you?’ he demanded, holding her.

Sara swallowed hard. To explain, to face up to his ridicule, his corrosive, ‘I told you so,’ was more than she felt she could face. But face it she must. She wasn’t prepared to lie, but neither was she prepared to debase herself.

‘A protest at the Old Bailey,’ she gasped into the folds of his jacket as he guided her to the chair near this desk. ‘A suffragette protest.’

This she uttered with a note of defiance, but all he said was, ‘I see.’

Gently he sat her on the chair, then crouched before her as she let her head fall back with exhaustion and misery. Carefully he pushed back the lock of dark hair that had escaped her hat to cover partially the fast discolouring flesh on her cheek and around her right eye. She winced as a finger inadvertently touched the area.

‘We’ll have to get that seen to, Sara,’ he said in the same quiet, gentle tone of concern.

The deepness of his voice seemed to pour itself over her. Unable to help herself, she lifted her head to look at him, the movement bringing a dull thudding of pain to her eye. She saw tenderness in his hazel eyes as he regarded her with something like fear.

‘You must be careful, Sara. You had no right to go off without speaking to one of us first, letting us know what you were up to.’

‘I acted instinctively.’

‘Then next time, Sara, think. What if you’d been really badly hurt?’

‘Don’t you think this is bad enough?’ she railed at him, again wincing at the pain her energetic reaction caused.

‘It could have been worse. A broken bone. You in hospital. I could have lost a good reporter for weeks … No!’ He caught himself up sharply, ‘No – that’s not what I meant.’

His expression was one of anguish, a strange one to her who had never seen such a look on his face before.

‘Sara … my darling … if something were to happen to you, I don’t know what I’d …’

She was in his arms, not knowing how she’d got there, somehow pulled off her chair, with him kneeling beside her, holding her. His face buried in the curve of her neck, she could feel the unexpectedly soft texture of his hair against her bruised cheek.

For a moment she listened to his words of love, wanted to respond, smooth her hand over that wonderful hair. Yet something froze within her. Matthew too had told her he loved her and then seconds later had backed away, his face contorted with loathing. She could not have borne for this man to draw away from her with the same look on his face. In a moment of panic she knew she had to take the initiative so as not to see that look. She must be the first to spurn and thus be saved.

‘For heaven’s sake, Jonathan. I’m not dying.’

He lifted his head.

‘What?’

Embarrassment had tightened his lips. Sara steeled herself to face that look. She wanted to apologise but knew that apologies would only heighten the damage her stupid words had already done. There was nothing she could say or do, so she did the only thing open to her: she laughed. It didn’t matter that it was a hiccup of a laugh, fraught with dismay, pain, anger at herself; it was a laugh to his ears.

Slowly, with deliberate care, he released his embrace and got up, helping her to her feet at the same time in one studied movement to lessen the humilation he was obviously feeling. He did not look at her.

Now she said it, the
coup de grâce
she had tried so hard not to deliver, and knew even as she did, that she was destroying forever what might have been built between them, yet like an idiot, she still said it.

‘I’m sorry, Jonathan.’

‘For what?’ His voice was harsh, like sandpaper.

‘I don’t know. I just …’ She wanted to bite off her tongue, wanted so much to heal the cut she’d inflicted, but what could she say? She moved away from him, fearing to look at him, and let herself out of the office.

‘I’d get that eye seen to.’ His voice followed her, its tone even, as though nothing had happened at all.

The episode smouldered inside Sara for weeks after. How dare he treat her as though she were a piece of his property, which was how she saw it, remembering. She found herself avoiding him whenever possible, which wasn’t difficult, as he was quite obviously avoiding her. Oddly enough, this fact was vaguely irksome. Yet had he approached her on matters other than work, she felt she would not have known quite how to deal with him. It was such a confusion, such a muddle in her mind. For once she felt totally out of her depth.

The news in late June that Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, on a visit to Sarajevo in Bosnia, had been assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a young Bosnian exile, finally took Sara’s mind off her own affairs. Austria-Hungary accused Serbian officials of being in on the plot; Germany was ready to support Austria-Hungary against Serbia; France and Russia pledged to support Serbia in its rejection of Austro-Hungarian demands to bring those involved in the assassination to trial.

‘Like kids fighting over a ball,’ Sara remarked to Alf Peters as the morse-coded messages, telegraphed through the new automatic printing telegraphy system, were decoded.

She tried not to begrudge Peters, a reporter like herself, the cream of the jobs he was given. It wasn’t his fault that as a man he’d be given preferential assignments over her, a mere woman, though it did rub whenever she considered it. But she liked Peters, his round, middle-aged face always showing a wry expression. Now the creases on his face spread in all directions.

‘Quite some kind of ball,’ he grinned with dry humour.

Sara nodded. Peters had hit the nail on the head. This particular ball could bounce in some rather nasty directions with Germany glaring at France while Russia had begun a general mobilisation on Germany’s very borders. Things were hotting up.

By the end of July, news was pouring into the wire-room of the
London Graphic
, as into every newspaper wire-room. Serbia had refused, as a question of honour, to submit to Sir Edward Grey’s proposal of arbitration by an international conference; and as a result found itself at war with Austria. With Russia persisting with her military preparations and France replying evasively to Germany’s request to declare its neutrality, Germany had declared war on France as well as Russia.

The British went about their business as usual, blind, happy to enjoy the lovely summer weather, content to leave fate in the lap of the gods or the government. A few, excited, longing for a scrap, declared that this arrogant Germany needed to be taught a sound lesson. Others, more apprehensive, as some people would always be about anything dire, held their breath and said nothing.

‘War’s on its way all right,’ Jonathan said to Sara as news came through of German troops crossing Belgium’s borders as an easier route to Paris, despite the Belgian king refusing permission.

Sara glanced up from typing, surprised by Jonathan’s voice in her ear. It was the first time he had spoken to her directly and of his own accord since the episode following the business at the Old Bailey. Now he paused to regard her thoughtfully.

‘I’d like a word with you, Sara, if you’ve a moment.’

‘What about?’

She didn’t care for his use of her name after he had kept his distance for such a long time. Her tone was tetchy. She was tired. She had been in the newsroom since that morning, a boy sent to her home as evening drew on with a message that she’d be staying on to help cover whatever news filtered through on this war declared between Germany and France. It was now midnight and she was furiously typing to catch the early morning edition from a scribbled note, tossed on to her desk, that Britain was asking Germany to respect a treaty guaranteeing Belgium’s neutrality.

‘It’s about that business between you and me in my office a few weeks ago,’ Jonathan replied.

Her fingers poised over the wide-spaced typewriter keys, she looked testily up at him. Now was not the time.

‘I don’t think we need to discuss that.’

‘I think we do,’ he replied. ‘Now more than ever. We have to get a few things straightened out while there’s still time. Have you given any more thought to what I said that day?’

She looked back at the copy she’d been typing. ‘I can’t recall what it was you said,’ she murmured, but her heart was racing and she hated the feeling.

‘Surely …’ He stopped, then began again in a more controlled voice. ‘You must have given it some thought.’

‘I think it would be best forgotten Jonathan, don’t you?’ she said without looking at him.

‘I can’t forget it.’ He was hovering like a small boy waiting for a sweet, and it belittled him. She felt tense with shame that he should so demean himself. ‘I can’t forget it. What I said that day was all true. ‘I love you …’

‘You can’t love me!’ She burst through his declaration. ‘There’s a war coming. I’ve no time.’

It was all she could think of to say. But her defences were already up – fear of entanglement, of being compromised. Why should she have such fear? But she knew why, all in that second. Once before she had been led to love, only to be rejected. It would never happen again. Another rejection would be too agonising to bear. This time she was wiser.

For a moment, Jonathan looked at her as though she had uttered some foul epithet. The next moment he had grabbed her by the arm, pulled her up from her desk and propelled her, protesting, towards his office that lay at the end of the passage from the newsroom.

Once inside, he sat her roughly in the chair beside his desk, then stood over her, his lean face dark with anger and determination.

‘I meant what I said, Sara. I love you. I’ve never before loved any woman, but I love you. And I’m sure you love me.’

Never had he felt about anyone the way he felt about her, so oddly apprehensive. Though he would never, not if it killed him, let her see what turmoil of indecision she raised in his breast – he who had always been so decided about what he wanted in life. It was as though she stood on a mountain far above him, to be worshipped from a distance like some Greek goddess, while he was only too aware of his mortality.

But now he had said it, and now he stood over her where a man’s place should be, awaiting her reply. Her deep blue eyes as she gazed up at him softened a fraction, just a fraction and just for a second, then they iced over, growing blank. And again she reigned above him.

‘Jonathan – don’t say things like that to me. I can’t love you.’

‘Why not? What is wrong with me?’

‘There is nothing wrong with you. It’s just that …’

‘What?’ he prompted as she hesitated. He needed so much to feel those wide lips warm on his. They looked cold but with a kiss must become warm, he was sure of that. Once he kissed her, of course, but her continued silence began to push that hope from him.

‘Don’t you feel anything for me?’ he asked and cursed himself for what his own ears detected as a sad lack of masculine domination.

She shook her head, but the gesture struck him as being not so much negative as bewildered. He forced himself to speak gently, encouragingly. It was, perhaps, what she needed.

‘We’ve known each other a long time, Sara. I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but we can call ourselves friends. In that time my feelings for you have grown. Now I have declared them to you, surely you must have … must feel some degree of … affection towards me.’

He didn’t dare to say love, but accentuated the word affection so that it could mean nothing other than love. He waited, then finally heard the words that made his heart suddenly soar.

‘I do, Jonathan.’ It was as though it came on a sigh, so quietly was it said.

‘Then why …’ he began, but in that second, she started up, cutting short his question.

‘I’m sorry, Jonathan. It’s not you. It’s me. I just can’t … I’m so sorry …’

Before he could stop her, she had bounded out of the chair, pushed him aside and run to the door. She flung it open and ran from the office.

Left standing gazing at the open door, the dark corridor beyond, along which came the hubbub of a newsroom suddenly going crazy, he knew that never again would he declare his heart to her – to any woman – as long as he lived. He had been a fool. And as a fool he saw himself as a clown in Sara’s eyes. How could he ever face her again and not feel the clown?

‘Damn you!’ he muttered as he went and closed the door. ‘You’re a cold fish, Sara – a bloody cold fish. And it’s the last time I shall ever humble myself before you.’

James wasn’t as happy at Oxford as he had thought he would be. It should have been the pinnacle of his ambition, but something was missing.

Clever, he’d gone up to university without any question a month after war broke out. It was now Michaelmas term of his second year and any gratitude he’d felt for what his grandparents had done for him was fast melting away, although he still took full advantage of their generosity.

There was no doubt about his being their favourite grandchild. The love they’d had for their dead son, his father, transferred to him, they had never seen him short for anything. During vacations he had the run of their home. His every whim catered for, his wallet full, or at least for a few weeks until he had gone through it like a termite through wood, he could lord it like a gentleman. So why wasn’t he happy?