Megan of Merseyside (24 page)

Megan bit her lip. She wanted to say they would
have
her salary as well to live on, but she was very much afraid that she would not be able to count on it for much longer.

Telling Miles that she was pregnant was something else that had to be confronted as soon as possible, but she didn’t feel she could tell him now, not when he was faced with this new problem. She didn’t want him to feel she was trying to blackmail him into marrying her.

The next few weeks were chaotic. Miles was duly appointed director, but he spent very little time in the office. There were constant visits to the solicitors to sign papers and documents, interspersed with visits to the private nursing home where Mr Walker was recuperating.

Although Martin Walker had been warned that he must rest, he insisted on being consulted about everything that was going on. Megan visited each day, taking along letters and ledgers. She sometimes thought it would have been easier if she’d taken her typewriter as well and dealt with correspondence on the spot.

The effects of the miners’ strike a couple of years earlier was affecting the shipments they handled. Like a stone dropped into a pool, the ripples had spread. Trade slumped and their figures had never looked worse.

Convinced that the reason schedules were being lost was due to Miles’ lack of experience, Martin Walker insisted on coming into the office for a few hours each day. Weak and tetchy, he imposed a greater strain on the staff than if he had followed his doctor’s advice and stayed away.

In face of this, Megan’s own problems seemed insurmountable. Her initial fears that she might be pregnant had been confirmed. She knew she couldn’t keep the fact hidden for much longer. She felt desperate knowing that Miles had still not mentioned their engagement to his father.

‘I’ll tell him as soon as I can,’ he promised.

‘Why not now?’ she persisted.

‘And take the risk of my father having another heart attack! What difference are another few weeks going to make?’

Megan didn’t answer. She knew she really ought to tell him that she was pregnant but she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

‘Come on, cheer up. I’ll take you out on Saturday night. We’ll have a meal in Chester and afterwards we can go to the Odeon.’

Megan was not so easily persuaded. To his surprise, she refused.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said with a scowl.

‘I might have been if it had been somewhere local.’

‘I thought you liked Chester?’

‘Come off it, Miles. You picked Chester because it’s far enough away that no one is likely to see us together.’

She walked away, her head held high, her eyes blurred with tears. She desperately wanted to go with him but she was no longer prepared to accept things on his terms. Why was he so scared of them being seen together?

* * *

‘How about coming with us to The Nelson, Megan?’ Robert said when as usual he called at their house on Saturday evening to go for a drink with her father.

Megan was about to refuse then changed her mind. Going out for an hour might help to take her mind off her problems.

‘All right, if Mam comes along as well,’ she agreed with a ghost of a smile.

Her mother looked up at her, startled. She had not had an evening out since Lynn’s death and before that her idea of an outing was to go to the pictures.

‘Yes, come on, Kathy, it will do you good,’ enthused Watkin. He knew it would have been useless for him to have made such a suggestion, but he was delighted that Megan had done so.

‘I don’t know …’ Kathy hesitated, looking from one to the other as they waited for her answer.

‘If you don’t come then neither will Megan,’ reasoned Robert, with a conspiratorial wink at Megan.

‘Off upstairs and get ready both of you,’ urged Watkin. ‘Hurry up, we’re wasting good drinking time.’

They were all seated in the lounge of The Nelson in Grove Road, happy and relaxed, when Robert dropped his bombshell. They had been discussing the many changes that had taken place at Walker’s in recent months and speculating about what the outcome might have been had Mr Walker not made such a rapid recovery from his heart attack.

‘I suppose the next big event will be the wedding,’ Robert remarked.

Megan felt the colour flooding her face and wondered how on earth he had found out. His next words, however, left her stunned.

‘Money marrying money there, all right,’ Robert went on.

‘Who are we talking about?’ asked her father.

‘Young Miles, of course. He’s marrying Brocklehurst’s daughter. With their fleet tied in with Walker’s, Miles will probably be a millionaire before he’s forty.’

‘I didn’t know Brocklehurst had a daughter,’ Watkin Williams said, taking a long drink from his glass.

‘Red-headed girl. A couple of years older than Miles, I’d say. Still, he needs someone to keep him in line.’

‘And she’s welcome to him, the double-crossing killer,’ declared Kathy Williams bitterly. ‘Perhaps now you’ll believe what a blackguard he is and stay away from him in the future,’ she added, glaring at Megan.

For a moment there was an uneasy silence. Quickly Robert began to talk of other things to try to cover Kathy’s outburst. It was too late; the evening was ruined for both Megan and Kathy.

Hours later, as she tossed and turned in bed, fighting her outrage at Miles’ deception, Megan tried to convince herself that it was just dockside gossip. She refused to believe that he had invited her to Tynmorfa and made love to her when all the time he was planning to marry someone else.

It must be a mistake! Robert must have got it all wrong.

She spent Sunday in an agony of despair. Several times she was tempted to phone Miles. Only the thought that Mr Walker might answer the phone, and that he would probably recognise her voice, stopped her from doing so.

On Monday morning, Megan was on tenterhooks waiting for Miles. The moment he arrived she went straight into his office.

‘I can only spare you a few minutes, Megan. My father is waiting to speak to me.’

‘What I have to tell you will only take a few minutes and then you can be the one to explain the situation to your father,’ she said in a strangled voice.

‘Something wrong?’ His eyebrows furrowed. ‘Don’t tell me you are leaving us for a better job?’

‘I shall be leaving, but whether the job is a better one or not depends on you.’

‘I don’t follow!’ His frown deepened. ‘Come on, straight talking, Megan. I’m in a hurry.’

‘All right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m pregnant … so when are we getting married?’

For a moment she thought he didn’t understand what she had said. His blue eyes had a strange blankness as he stared at her. Then a nerve at the side of his jaw began to twitch as his mouth tightened. Dull red colour spread up from his neck.

‘I don’t believe you … you’ve heard that I’m to marry Carol Brocklehurst and you are trying this on,’ he blustered.

For a moment her nerve deserted her. She had steeled herself to face him with the news. She
had
been prepared for dismay, concern, apologies even, but not an outright admission that he was planning to marry someone else.

The lacerating things her mother had said about Miles came rushing back. Her mother was right, he was a two-timer. He had not only been dating both Lynn and her, but Carol Brocklehurst, and probably other girls as well.

Scenes she had witnessed at The Stork Club on the few occasions she had visited it, crowded her mind. The impetuous flirtations, the wild dancing, the torrid atmosphere. He had probably flirted with any number of girls there, but they had most likely laughed it off, knowing that it was just the wild mood of the moment, engendered by the crazy jazz music.

Simple, country-bred girl that she was, she had thought Miles had meant the words of endearment he had whispered when she was in his arms. She’d felt flattered when he told her how much he needed her. When he had promised marriage she had believed him. She would never have agreed to spend two nights with him at Tynmorfa otherwise!

For her that had been the ultimate commitment. For him it had been merely a passing fling.

Remembering the aplomb with which Mrs Jones had accepted her presence probably meant that it wasn’t the first time Miles had taken a girl there, she thought miserably. How they must have laughed when he had packed her off early on the Saturday morning before his parents arrived for the weekend, she thought bitterly.

‘I’m telling the truth, Miles. You can probably work out when it happened,’ she added, biting down on her lower lip.

‘When you were on holiday in North Wales, I would say,’ he commented flippantly. ‘So why are you telling me?’

For a moment she felt taken aback, shocked that he could jest about something so serious, but one look at his face put her on her guard.

‘It happened when I stayed with you at Tynmorfa,’ she said vehemently.

‘Can you prove it wasn’t one of the other boyfriends you slept with while you were visiting Beddgelert?’

Anger seethed through her like a forest fire. ‘How dare you? If you don’t tell your father then I shall … and I shall be telling him that you asked me to marry you,’ she exploded, her dark eyes misting with emotion.

‘Do you really think you could convince him?’ sneered Miles, his lip curling, danger flags in his eyes. ‘My father wouldn’t believe you for one minute!’

His contemptuous laugh echoed in her ears as she fled from his office. Too distraught for tears, she sat down in the swivel chair in her own office, but turned away from her typewriter. She couldn’t work. Her brain was like a gigantic generating box sending out shock waves of anger and self-recrimination because she’d been so easily manipulated.

She couldn’t believe Miles was acting so despicably. Never, as long as she lived, would she forget
the
supercilious look in his eyes or the scorn in his voice.

She paced the room, wondering what to do. She must talk about it to someone.

She had considered herself so clever, so capable of managing her own life. She’d thought that the steady progress in her career put her above her mother’s homilies. Yet her mother had seen through Miles from the start.

She recalled how wide eyed with envy Jennie and Gwyneth had been when she’d told them about her new life, and wondered what they would think if they knew the truth.

Miles had even double-crossed Carol Brocklehurst! For one fleeting moment she actually felt sorry for the girl. What sort of life could she expect to have unless he changed his ways?

As her anger abated, it was replaced by a feeling of fear and despondency as she wondered how she was going to sort things out. She couldn’t turn to her parents so there was only one other person left … Robert.

Even that wasn’t going to be easy, she thought, as the dilemma of how to go about telling him went round and round in her mind.

When her father mentioned that he had invited Robert for Sunday lunch, Megan wondered if fate was on her side.

She felt edgy throughout the meal wondering how she was going to manage to get Robert on his own.

‘You are very quiet today,’ Robert commented as he helped her to clear the table.

‘I … I have a headache,’ she told him with a frown. ‘I think there’s a thunder storm brewing up. I thought of going for walk.’

‘Want me to come along?’

‘I’d like that.’

When she saw the warmth in his eyes, panic swept through her. Would he turn against her when he knew? It was a chance she had to take, she decided, since there was no one else to advise her.

‘Right. Shall we go to New Brighton and walk along the prom?’ he suggested.

It was hot and muggy. A wind was whipping up a scummy froth on the grey water. Clouds raced across the leaden sky. They trudged along King’s Parade propelled forward by the wind. ‘Hang on or you’ll be blown away!’ Robert laughed, pulling her hand through his arm.

She found the closeness of his body against her own was comforting.

‘Something wrong, isn’t there?’ he remarked after they had walked for a few minutes without speaking.

‘Come on Megan,’ he murmured softly when she remained silent. ‘I know you too well not to know when something is troubling you. How can I help?’

‘I don’t know if you can,’ she mumbled.

‘Try me. Look, let’s sit in one of the shelters out of the wind.’

He listened in silence. She sensed him stiffen when she told him about the time spent at Tynmorfa with Miles, but apart from that he gave no sign that he was in any way affected by her story.

‘And now you can’t decide what to do,’ he said quietly when she had finished.

‘I know what I must do,’ she said and her voice thickened. ‘I … I’ve got to get rid of the baby while I still can, so that means as quickly as possible.’

‘Only if you want to do so,’ he said quietly.

‘What do you mean? Of course I must. Think what it would do to my mother if she knew.’ She turned to face him, then looked away quickly, disturbed by the look in his light blue eyes. It wasn’t condemnation. She wasn’t sure what it was.

‘You could keep the baby if you were married.’

‘Miles is marrying Carol Brocklehurst, you already know that. He’s marrying money so there’s no possibility of him changing his mind,’ she added bitterly.

‘I wasn’t thinking of Miles,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘I was thinking you could marry me.’

‘Marry you!’ Her eyes widened in astonishment. She knew Robert was fond of her, that was why she had felt she could confide in him. Marrying him, though, that was something she’d never even considered and she had difficulty in taking his suggestion seriously.

‘You can forget I said that if it upsets you,’ he said stiffly as he saw her stunned reaction.

‘Robert, I’m sorry. I … I was taken by surprise. If I had time to think about it …’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘Have you realised what you are saying … and that you would be taking on another man’s child?’

‘If it made you happy I could come to terms
with
the situation,’ he told her, his gaze sharp and direct.

‘How could you when the father is a man you despise?’