Between Friends (40 page)

It was three weeks before the doctor at the hospital in Weybridge would allow Martin to come home and then it was only because Robert Hemingway had reassured him that ‘the boy’ would have a trained nurse in charge of him at all times, his own personal physician would look him over every day and that the facilities at the Liverpool Infirmary were excellent and should an emergency crop up, God forbid, they would be freely available to a man such as himself. An ambulance was to take Martin to the railway station at Weybridge. A private carriage was to be put at his disposal on the train. He would travel with the nurse who was to be in charge of him and in short, nothing,
nothing
was too good for the young man who had brought such joy, such reward,
such
acclaim to bless an old man’s declining years! Though he might never race the Hemingway flyer again, or even her successor which would no doubt be built from her ashes, Martin Hunter was not to be discarded like some worn out tool which has lost its use but would be looked after until he, or Robert Hemingway, or perhaps both of them had decided where his future lay.

They were all there at the front door of Silverdale to meet the ambulance as it drew carefully up the long, gravelled drive, even Mrs Whitley, tearful and hardly daring to look for if her lad should be horribly scarred how on earth would she be able to endure it? He and the other two were the closest she had ever known to children of her own. He had helped to save her life at great risk to his own on the day of the fire. She had guided him through his boyhood, taken pride in his achievements, even clouted him a time or two and been driven to distraction by his passion for motor cars but when it came to ‘aye lads aye’, he, perhaps more than Meg and Tom, was the darling of her heart.

His face grinned up at her from the whiteness of his pillow as he lay on the stretcher but for an anguished moment all she could see was the neat bandage which shrouded one side of it, fastened securely beneath his chin and across the top of his head. It was only a degree or so paler than the colour of his skin and where, her old heart pleaded, beneath the pallor of his weakness, was the Martin she remembered? Then he called her name and held out his hand to her, and to Meg, and his grin became wider and they all crowded round him for was he not a hero? With a hand in each of theirs he was carried indoors and the pleas of the nurse to ‘stand away from her patient, if you would be so kind, and be careful of the doors, and to mind the cast on his leg’ ignored by one and all. Mr Ferguson was quite put out for it seemed the servants cared not a jot or tittle for him at that moment and as Tom remarked later, he looked as though he was about to have a bloody fit he was in such a tantrum. Tom should not have been there really for his place was in the garden. At least the indoor staff had some excuse to mill about in the wide hallway but Mr Hemingway was like an old hen with a chick and didn’t seem to mind what anyone was doing as he supervised the stowing away of it in a comfortable nest! Martin was placed in a small, sunny room on the ground floor at the back of the house, a smaller one adjoining it, once a footman’s pantry, made over for the nurse. A coal fire crackled in welcome in the grate and Mrs Hemingway
had
instructed flowers and books to be placed on the window sill for his pleasure and at last, one by one, after speaking a word to him or merely patting the shoulder of the returning hero, the servants had dribbled away, called to their duties by a peevish Mr Ferguson. Even Tom was reluctantly drawn back to the hoeing he had been about when the ambulance had arrived. Mrs Whitley had clung to Martin’s hand for as long as the nurse would let her, exclaiming woefully at the heavy cast on his leg and the thinness of his ‘poor face’, but cheering up immensely at the thought of the egg custards she could now get into him, the kidney omelettes, light enough but nutritious for an invalid, the dumplings as he grew stronger and the good vegetable soups she would carry over to the house and which could be guaranteed to get him on his feet again and his manly strength returned.

Only Meg, with two whole hours before she need return to the hotel, remained, the nurse giving reluctant permission for it, glad herself to have someone sensible to watch over her patient whilst she recovered from the long train journey with a cup of tea and the bite to eat offered beside Mrs Glynn’s kitchen fire.

‘Well, our Meg.’ Martin looked tired now, somewhat drawn about the eyes, his mouth formed, after all its smiling into a thin line of pain.

‘Well, our Martin.’ She leaned her elbows on the neatly folded bedspread which lay across his chest and smiled affectionately into his eyes. She could see he was ready, after all the excitement, to be left alone to sleep for a while but the weeks of worry, of wondering how he
really
was plus her own private anxiety had been long and hard on them all and she needed a moment or two to reassure herself that he was not irreparably damaged. Though they had been told he would mend with time and might not even have the limp which had at first been envisaged, she was not completely certain, not just yet awhile that what the doctor had said was true. She needed to see for herself; look at him for a few minutes longer; study his face and listen to his voice. She would know then. She was not quite certain what she would know or how she could be sure her instincts would not lie but something curious inside her, something she had carried with her since those first days at the orphanage and which had fused her and Tom and Martin into one unit, would tell her. She would know!

‘How is it, then?’ she asked softly.

‘Alright now, Meggie, now I’m home,’ but when he said ‘home’ she knew he meant with her, with her and Tom.

‘You’ll mend now, Martin.’ Though it was spoken as a question, it was really a statement of fact.

‘That I will, our Meggie.’

‘What will you do then?’ She held his hand lovingly between hers and he watched the firelight play warmly in the curly tendrils of her hair which she had pulled carelessly back with a bright green velvet ribbon, her usual trim and proper ‘housekeeper’ self left behind at the hotel. Her eyes were as soft and golden as the sunlight which struck the yellow daisies in the bowl on the dresser and an excited flush of colour stained her cheek. Her hands were warm and softly soothing as they folded about his own. Her lips curved in a smile and the light enhanced her shoulders so that they gleamed beneath the sheer clinging material of her white muslin blouse. Like most of her clothes she had made it herself, knowing instinctively what suited her and it was soft, feminine, quite simple with an embroidered panel down the front. The sleeves were long and close fitting and it had what was known as a ‘Medici’ frill about the neck. It fastened down the back and was tucked neatly inside a straight, tubular skirt made of a pale grey face cloth. She looked lovely. She was looking at him questioningly and speaking his name, smiling, her lips parted a little to reveal her white teeth and the tip of her tongue. She shook the hand she was holding, leaning closer towards him.

‘What is it?’ she asked softly. ‘You are miles away. Where have you gone? Off into the future I’ll be bound, deciding which motor car you will design first and how you will spend the enormous amount of money you are going to make. Will it be a grand house in Aigburth or perhaps one of those lovely villas you talk about in the South of France? Will you invite us to stay with you when you get there or will you be too grand for the likes of us by then? Mixing with dukes and princes, and princesses too, I shouldn’t wonder. Eating caviar and drinking champagne from ladies’ slippers and getting up to all the tricks we read about in the newspapers. Won’t it be wonderful, Martin, when you are rich and famous and I will be able to tell my grandchildren that I once boxed the ears of one of the most important gentlemen in the world!’

She spoke laughingly in the soft, well modulated voice she had acquired quite without realising it from the wealthy and privileged
persons
she served. It was smooth, rich, quiet, the nasal sing-song of her native Liverpool virtually eliminated. It still had the slight inclination to rise at the end of each sentence but it was by this alone that her background could be detected. His was the same. Though neither spoke of it they both recognised that they had changed beyond imagining. They were both of them a different person, a world away from the gauche young girl and boy who had worked in the immigrant house in Great George Square.

He managed a full and impudent grin. ‘Listen Mrs Woman,’ using an old Liverpool expression, ‘I’m tired and I’ll get little rest if you don’t stop your gabble. I’m tired, Meggie. I’m not the man I was, our kid but give me a few days and you and I and Tom will be off on those old bicycles again. What d’you say?’

She leaned towards him eagerly, pleased to see the smile, aware of the effort it had taken him as she had always been aware since they were children of his every strength and weakness. His eyelids were drooping and though he did not complain she knew his leg ached naggingly for the pain was etched in the lines of his face and his pallor beneath the bandage had worsened. She wanted to talk with him softly, to return them both to the happy moments they had shared with Tom in the days at Great George Square. The bicycles, he had said! They were a symbol of those lovely days, the sunshine gleaming on chrome and the flash of pedals, the smell of leather saddles, and oil on the chain and the sound of three young people laughing. She wanted to tell him that though they were older now, two grown men and a woman, they would always be a part of one another as the twirling wheels took to the road again. He was wounded now, like a magnificent eagle which has been brought out of the skies but he would soar again one day when his injuries were healed. They had not the keen excitement he knew as a racing driver, but the days they had spent in companionship, and would again on their machines had a magic which was unique to the three of them, a special mixture of peace, content and intense pleasure which, when they were returned to would help to mend him, to make him fly as an eagle again for that was what he was truly meant to do. She longed to lay her head on the pillow beside his, to comfort him with these bright and lovely thoughts but already he was slipping away into the deep, pain-free sleep he needed. She tucked his hands gently beneath the sheet and smoothed it across his chest. For a moment longer she continued to watch his face, her own drawn into a
worried
frown. He looked so pale, his dark eyebrows and thick curling lashes stood out against the whiteness of his skin and she felt her heart move in anguish for if anything happened to him …

Suddenly his mouth curled in a smile. He did not open his eyes as he spoke but the humour was rich in his voice.

‘Go away, Meggie. I’m not going to die, only sleep!’ and everything was alright again and she smiled too as she tiptoed from the room.

She did not ask Ferguson this time for she was no longer under his control. She simply ran down the broad staircase, ignoring the rule that the back stairs were for servants, and knocked at the study door as she had before. It was over two years since that day and she had changed from a green girl to a woman, a woman who was quite determined on her path and she would not deviate from it now. She had been confident then that she could do it alone. She had contained within herself the arrogance of youth, the belief that her own strength was enough. She would need to ask for nothing else from anyone, she had told herself, believing it, but now she was here again, for the past few weeks had shown her there was a kind of strength in admitting to weakness provided one took steps to safeguard it and the only way to do that was to ask for help. She must either give in to the inevitable, submit to the demands of the brute who was blackmailing her – it could be called nothing else – or fight him. And she could not fight him alone!

She had become even more unapproachable at the hotel in the weeks following her encounter with Benjamin Harris, allowing no-one access to her own private thoughts, indeed it was difficult to get a word out of her unless it concerned the running of her floor. Harris had booked out the next day, she had found out, making discreet enquiries of the receptionist, and when the girl’s back was turned it had been an easy matter to memorise the address he had written in the register. It was a club in London!

It seemed to those who worked for her that her obsession to be the best, to know and learn, and assimilate what she learned of the detailed minutiae of the hotel trade was driving her at such speed she would surely crash for no-one could continue as she did without coming a cropper. Even Miss O’Hara was heard to tell her to ‘take a breather’ if you please! When she was not working no-one knew where she got to for she simply disappeared and
even
the housekeeper, still trying to determine what had happened to her on that strange night several weeks back, did not know where she might be found. Secretive was the word they applied to her. She was rarely to be found in her own room and when she was it took her five minutes to open the damn door!

‘Who is it?’ she would call and until she had recognised to her own satisfaction the identity of the caller she would open the door to no-one! It was a matter for intense speculation what she did in there but whatever it was she did it alone!

Meg was aware they discussed her, those who worked for her, but it escaped their notice entirely that whenever Miss Hughes moved about the rooms and hallways on her floor she was never alone. She always had some young maid under instruction, or she accompanied one or other of the experienced chambermaids about their duties, letting them see, they imagined, muttering to one another, that she had her eye on them at all times.

They did not know of her nightmares! No-one did and she knew that the haunted pallor of her face was put down to overwork by Mrs Whitley and Tom. It did no good to comment, she had heard Mrs Whitley say in an aside to him, for he would only get his head snapped off as she had done!