The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (17 page)

‘You know I do.’ ‘Then say
so.’

‘I love you,’ he said
earnestly, bending his head to hers. When he opened his eyes again, she was
looking up at him and smiling. Had she been watching him while he kissed her?

Pushing him away, she sat up.
‘I’m absolutely drenched.’ Once more the forbidden thought nudged his brain.

‘Do you live in college?’
‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then why don’t you take me
back to your room so I can dry off and do my hair and make-up and stuff, and
then we can go and dance.’

He was enormously relieved
that it was she who had suggested it. Having met this lovely girl only a couple
of hours before, and being a chivalrous young man with rather old– fashioned
views about such matters, he could not help but feel responsible for protecting
her reputation. Taking her arm he somehow managed to wind a circuitous route
back to his staircase without being spotted. His satisfaction at the success of
his tactics was somewhat diminished by the fact that Margot seemed entirely
unconcerned whether she was seen or not.

His digs were onthe first
floor, overlooking a small quadrangle at the front and an ancient cemetery at
the rear of the college. It consisted of a small bedsit with an adjoining
bathroom. The largest piece of furniture in the room was a bed, a fact that
clearly embarrassed him. Margot peered through the leaded glass windows at the
cemetery. Arthur stood behind her. ‘Does it worry you?’

‘Not really. Death only
happens to other people, doesn’t it?’ Despite her brave words, she shivered.

‘You’re cold. What am I thinking of?’

Shepherding her to the
bathroom with a bundle of towels, he shut the door behind her. Whilst she was
presumably drying off her dress on the towel rail, and repairing the rain
damage to her hair and make-up, he stripped down to his underpants, put on a
dressing gown and lit the gas fire. He calculated that Margot would be at least
five, probably ten or fifteen minutes. He would give his clothes a few minutes
to dry, then put them on again.

Sitting in an armchair he
looked at his watch. It was unusual for him to be so precise but there was too
much at stake to take any risks. Whether his clothes were dry or not, he would
be dressed when Margot opened that door. Forty seconds, fifty, a minute. And
ten, twenty, forty, and fifty. Two minutes. And ten, twenty . . . A combination
of the heat of the gas fire, the excitement of the evening, and the regular
counting of seconds, made him drowsy. His head began to nod.

When he woke he was in bed with Margot.

‘I swear I never meant this to
happen,’ he said, biting his lip at the banality of the words.

‘Didn’t you, darling?’ Once,
twice, three times she kissed him on the mouth, long, thoughtful kisses. ‘I
did.’

Arthur flushed, feeling stupid.

She traced the outline of his face with her
finger. ‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen,’ he admitted
self-consciously. He was almost too shy to ask her the same question. ‘And
you?’ he asked after a while.

She shuddered. ‘Twenty-five.
An old lady.’ ‘Grandma.’ He kissed her.

Her tongue savoured his chest with long, lingering
licks.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh
no,’ he groaned, ‘it’s three o’clock. You’ve missed the dance.’

‘I haven’t missed a thing,’ said Margot.

In the morning he found
himself on the floor. Margot was asleep in the bed. Her beauty pummelled his
heart. He dressed, made some coffee, and gently woke her. But it was not coffee
she wanted. An hour later she took her first sip.

‘It must be stone cold. I’ll make some more.’

‘It’s fine.’ She was looking
at him in an oddly searching way, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

‘I never saw such deep blue
eyes. They are quite wonderful.’ He was embarrassed.

‘You really are a very
handsome young man, Arthur,’ she said admiringly. ‘You obviously have excellent
genes.’

‘I never knew my real parents.’
‘I know.’

Once again her reaction
puzzled him. ‘How do you know?’ ‘I – I suppose because you said you were
adopted. I just assumed you hadn’t met your real parents.’

He drove her to the train
station in good time for the ten o’clock to London. ‘Let’s sit in the coffee
bar,’ he suggested. He had so much to say to her, so little time to say it.

‘If you want.’ She gave a half
smile as he led her to the farthest, darkest, corner table.

‘We can talk here,’ he said,
looking round to be sure no one was listening. ‘It’s more private.’

‘Why does it have to be private?’

He found it an odd question. ‘Oh, you know.’
She shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

It was the first time he had
ever been in love. Everything had happened so quickly, it was hard to take in.
And now she was leaving him. ‘When can I see you again?’

She held his hands in hers and
stroked them. ‘What beautiful hands. So strong, so fine.’

‘When, Margot?’ he persisted.

It was as if she had not heard
the question. ‘I shall never forget you.’

‘I won’t give you the chance to.’

She eased her hands away from
his. ‘You mustn’t say that.’ He was hurt and confused. ‘Why not?’

‘Please don’t make it
difficult for me, Arthur.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered.

‘I can’t see you again,’ she said, avoiding his
eyes. ‘Not ever.

Not in that way.’

‘But we’re in love, aren’t
we?’ He took her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips. ‘I couldn’t –
not see you again. I never want to be with anyone else. I thought you felt the
same way. Last night . . . you told me . . . you said you loved me.’

‘Did I?’ She said it as though
she had forgotten. ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t see you again.’

He was desperate. ‘That’s not
true. It can’t be.’ She started to get up. ‘I shall miss my train.’ ‘Don’t go.’
He reached out to her. ‘Stay with me.’

Her eyes were suddenly cold.
‘You are being tiresome, Arthur,’ she said disdainfully. ‘I thought you had
more sense. You’ll be telling me next that I’m treating you like a one night
stand.’

‘Don’t mock me,’ he said in a
low voice, ‘I’m serious.’ She pulled a face. ‘Are you, darling? How boring.’

He shook his head ruefully. ‘I
apologise. I’m making a fool of myself.’

Her expression softened. ‘You could never do
that.’

‘At least tell me why.’

She thought for a moment.
‘You’ll be shocked.’ ‘Try me.’

She grasped the back of her
chair and stood looking down at him for a long time. ‘I’m married,’ she said
finally.

The blood drained from
Arthur’s face, the scar on his cheek burned. ‘It isn’t true.’

‘I’m afraid it is.’ Poor boy,
how she had hurt him, her Greek god, her handsome prince. She went to him, took
his face in both her hands and gazed into his eyes so intently that she might
have been looking into his soul. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she said fiercely, ‘it
wasn’t my fault, or yours either. Life makes us do bad things and then it makes
us suffer for them. It was fate. There was nothing we could do about it. It was
meant to happen.’

From somewhere he heard
himself asking, ‘Do I know you?’

‘Who knows anyone?’ She bent
and kissed him softly on the lips. ‘Good-bye.’

He looked up at her hanging
over him in her ball dress like a beautiful white canopy. ‘I’ll see you off,’
he said, trying to delay the dreadful moment.

‘No.’

His heart was breaking. ‘Must you go?’

‘Dear Arthur,’ she murmured, and walked quickly
away.

Lennox was standing at the
barrier looking worried and exhausted. When he saw Margot his eyes lit up. With
relief came anger, and he began to shout at her.

‘What d-do you th-think you are p-playing at,
woman, d-disappearing all night! Where the hell have you b-been?

I’ve b-been out of m-my m-mind with worry.’

‘And who can blame you, my
poor darling?’ said Margot, soothingly, as if she were indulging a wayward
child. ‘You must be starving. I know I am. We’re going to spoil ourselves and
have a lovely breakfast on the train, a huge English breakfast with all the
trimmings.’

Taking his arm, she skipped
along beside him up the platform. ‘Now you must tell me everything, I insist
you do. Were you really out of your mind with worry, my sweetheart? Are you
very angry with me? Is my great big strong husband going to spank his naughty
Margot? Has she been wicked, then? Of course she has! But when you’ve heard all
my trials and tribulations, you’ll forgive me, I just know you will, my sweety
lamb. Poor darling Lennox,’ she cooed, ‘I’ll tell you all about it on the
train. Now you’re never going to believe what happened to me . . .

 She was with him every hour of every day.
During the last two weeks of term he sat every morning under the May tree, bare
of blossoms now, and heard her voice calling him across the college lawns. At
night he felt her soft flesh against his, and lay shivering in ecstasy as she
caressed him with her predatory little tongue, whispering the same lies she had
whispered that night in the darkness of his room: ‘I love you, Arthur. I’ll
never leave you.’

Now, with hindsight, he
realised that he had all too willingly deceived himself. How naïve he had been
to think a woman as sophisticated and experienced as Margot could ever have
fallen for a callow undergraduate. Yet if he had been foolish and presumptuous,
he had been harshly punished for it. He told himself that he was not the first
man to suffer such humiliating rejection, and no doubt would not be the last.
That however was small consolation. It hurt. It hurt all the more because he
had fallen in love, and because the
coup de grace
had been administered
with such callous, and, he suspected, practised efficiency.

There was something else . . .
a question that nibbled away at his subconscious mind, finally to rise to the
surface. Was their meeting pure chance? Or was there something more to it? Her
words kept coming back to him.
There was nothing we could do about it. It
was meant to happen
. What could Margot have intended by them?

For all his pain, he dreamed
of her, and contrary to all logic and common sense, still yearned for her. He
understood only too well that he was indulging in a kind of romantic self-
deception, and that it hardly mattered that the woman he had gone to bed with
was not the real Margot. For the real Margot was not the woman he loved; he was
in love with the woman she pretended to be. But whoever Margot was, he never
expected to see or hear from her again. In the summer vacation, however, to his
surprise, he received a letter forwarded to him by his college. Before he
opened it, and although he had never seen her handwriting, he knew it was from
her. How his heart raced! How his hands trembled as he tore open the envelope!

Dearest Arthur,

I bet you didn’t expect to
hear from me again! I’ve been thinking lots about you, wondering how you are
and whether you have forgiven me. I do hope so.

I have something important to
tell you. Can you meet me at the Café Royal in Regent Street next Thursday at
four o’clock?

Margot.

He was half an hour early, and as the minutes
passed grew more and more nervous. What was the important thing she had to tell
him? That she loved him after all? Could that be it? Had she left her husband?
His heart thumped in his throat. Suddenly there she was, walking across the
room towards him, smiling. How beautiful she was! He jumped up, feeling the old
passion stirring in his blood. If she felt any embarrassment at seeing him
again, she certainly did not show it. Instead she threw her arms round him and
gave him a big hug, stepped back and studied him. ‘As handsome as I remembered.
And oh, those beautiful blue eyes! They give me goose-pimples! How wonderful to
see you, darling.’

No sooner had they ordered tea
than she dragged him onto the dance floor. They danced cheek to cheek, and as
they danced she pressed her thighs against his and caressed the hair at the
nape of his neck until he almost fainted with longing for her. ‘I’m so glad
you’re still a teensy bit fond of me,’ she said, evidently happy to have lost
none of her power over him.

‘How is your husband?’ he asked defensively.

She gave him a reproachful
look. ‘Don’t be cruel.’ ‘Aren’t you afraid he might see us together?’

‘What here!’ She giggled.
‘Lennox wouldn’t be seen dead at the Café Royal – much too kitsch for him.
Besides, we’re not doing anything really wicked, are we?’ She looked up at him.
How well he remembered that provocative look. Before he could stop her, she was
kissing him. ‘At least, not yet,’ she murmured mischievously, her lipstick
smudged, her dark eyes blurred and sensuous.

Abruptly she stopped dancing.
‘Our tea will be getting cold.’

He guided her back to the
table. As she sat down, she asked, ‘Would you like to fuck me?’ as if she had
been offering him a biscuit.

Arthur swallowed hard. ‘You
said you had something important to tell me.’

Swallowing a last morsel of
chocolate éclair, she licked the cream off her fingers with long, lingering
licks. ‘I’m pregnant.’ ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said, concealing his jealousy at
the thought of another man making love to her.

She beamed. ‘Dear Arthur, only you could be so
naïve.’

His face showed first
incomprehension, and then, as the truth dawned, shock.

‘That’s it, darling, you got
it in one.’ Strangely, she seemed quite unconcerned, as if it were someone
else’s baby she was talking about. ‘I know it’s yours, you see, because Lennox
was rather difficult after Oxford. He wouldn’t have sex with me for ages, poor
lamb. Then he was away in the States on business.’ A quick shrug. ‘So there it
is.’

‘I’m so sorry. It’s entirely
my fault.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘You can count on me.’

‘Can I darling?’ Was she mocking him? ‘To do
the right thing I mean.’

She clapped her hand to her
mouth. He could scarcely believe it. There she was erupting into giggles, as if
she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, when she had recovered her
composure, ‘I
am
sorry, Arthur, I didn’t mean to laugh at you, really I
didn’t. But, well – the right thing! How sweet. How gallant. How chivalrous.
And what might the right thing be? An offer of marriage?’

He responded huffily. ‘If that’s what you
want.’

‘There is the slight problem
that I’m already married,’ she said, still teasing him. ‘But then, that was not
what you had in mind, was it?’

‘Actually, I . . . what I meant was, if you
should decide to .

. . you know . . . then I would naturally . . .
pay whatever . . . ’ ‘Poor lamb. It hasn’t turned out well, has it? Not what
you expected at all. I’m not the girl you thought I was. I would like to be,’
she said, wistfully. ‘I really would. You were so in love with her.’

‘I still am – in love with you, I mean.’

‘No, you’re not. How could you
be? You have no idea who I am, no idea at all.’

She was right of course. Maybe
it was love he had fallen in love with, though it wouldn’t hurt any the less if
that were true.

‘Arthur Hughes,’ she said
thoughtfully, adding for no apparent reason, ‘I wonder what your real name is.’
She took his hand, holding it tenderly in what he took to be a condescending
gesture, more about pity than about love. He was overcome, first with
embarrassment, then with remorse for being embarrassed. Abruptly he pulled his
hand away.

It was clear the rejection
offended her. ‘So you want to get rid of it, do you?’

‘I don’t know what I want,
Margot. To be honest, I haven’t taken it in yet. I need time to get used to the
idea of being a father.’

‘What would you say . . . ’ –
over her teacup her dark eyes taunted him – ‘if I had the baby?’

Arthur was uncomfortable and
hated himself for it. ‘How would you explain it to your husband?’

‘Lennox?’ An airy wave of the
hand. ‘I could always tell him the truth.’ Relishing Arthur’s uneasiness, she
said, with mock horror, ‘Surely you wouldn’t expect me to lie to him?’

‘I’m not suggesting that. All
the same, I . . . ’ ‘You are dithering, Arthur.’

It was true. He was not making
sense. ‘Give me a few days to think about it.’

‘What is there to think
about?’ She sat back in her chair, her eyes challenging him.

What he really wanted was for
the baby to go away. He knew that was wrong but he was nineteen years old and a
student. What were the options? He could leave Oxford and take a job. Margot
could get a divorce, they could get married and she could have the baby. But it
was obvious she didn’t want that, that she didn’t love him. What future would
there be for them?

‘You don’t think,’ he said
hesitantly, ‘you don’t think it might be better if . . . ’

She cut in brutally. ‘You want
the baby killed?’ He looked shocked.

‘I’m sorry if my choice of
words offended you. I should have been more elegant. Let me see, now. You want
me to have an abortion. Does that sound better?’

Arthur shook his head
despairingly. She seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him.

‘No? Well then, how else can I
put it? Should I see someone about it? Is that better, my darling? Should I see
someone about it?’

‘I know I’m making a mess of
it,’ he said quietly, ‘but nothing in my life has prepared me for anything like
this.’

‘I see. Let’s all be sorry for Arthur, shall
we? Poor lad, he’s just an innocent teenager and Margot’s a twenty-five year
old slag. So naturally it’s her decision and her responsibility.’

‘That’s not the way I feel
at all,’ he said indignantly.

‘In heaven’s name, how
do
you
feel?’ As heads turned in their direction, Margot lowered her voice to an
intense whisper. ‘You certainly don’t want to face facts, do you, lover boy?
I’m pregnant. There’s this living thing inside me. If I decide to get rid of
it, some sleazy abortionist is going to stick a metal claw up my vagina and
crush his, or her, head.’

‘You must have the baby,’ he
said decisively. ‘Sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘I am a tease, darling, aren’t
I?’ she said contritely. ‘I don’t know how you put up with me. Another éclair?’

He shook his head, confused.
How calmly she was taking it, as if none of it were real.

She helped herself. ‘I shall
have an abortion,’ she said, sucking her fingers. ‘Alright with you?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but so quietly
that she had to strain to catch the word.

Around them the waiters
bustled, clattering away the debris of afternoon tea, already laying out the
tables for dinner. Arthur paid the bill and they hurried out of the restaurant
into Regent Street. He said awkwardly. ‘Please let me help.’

‘Money is not a problem.’ She
stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Just remember, darling,
it’s what you wanted.’ Before he could reply, she was walking briskly away from
him. Without warning he was wracked with pain, as if some wild beast were
tearing out his stomach; in all his life he had never felt so wretched and
ashamed. He had a sudden urge to run after her and tell her he had changed his
mind; but it was too late. She had disappeared in the crowd.

About to leave for the office one morning,
Lennox a tidy man, forever cleaning up after his wife, picked up a letter from
the sitting room carpet. It was from the gynaecologist’s receptionist
confirming an appointment for Mrs M. Lotte that very afternoon.

‘N-Nothing wrong, is there?’
He looked so concerned that even Margot felt a stab of conscience. How to
respond? Should she say she was having a check-up, hinting darkly of a dread
disease? And when the abortion deed was done, she would say it had been a false
alarm, only some minor infection needing antibiotics. Brilliant! His relief
should be worth at least a diamond bracelet.

‘I’m pregnant,’ was what she
actually said. It was as much of a surprise to her as it was to Lennox.

‘That’s w-wonderful, d-darling.’

‘I wasn’t going to say
anything. To tell you the truth, I was thinking of having it – seen to.’

Lennox was appalled. ‘An abortion!’

‘I thought you wouldn’t want
another baby. Besides, I didn’t want to bore you with woman’s stuff.’

‘W-woman’s stuff!’ The
protruding vein at the side of his forehead was throbbing. ‘What a-b-bout
m-man’s stuff! I d-did p-play a m-modest role in its conception, d-didn’t I?’

It was obviously intended more
as a statement than a question. Still, there would never be a better
opportunity to tell him the truth. It was tempting. Should she? Should she not?
She wavered, savouring the moment. But then she thought, poor darling, he was
so innocent, so vulnerable, so bloody naïve, she couldn’t do it to him. ‘Of
course you did, darling, and I enjoyed it enormously. It was unforgivable of me
not to consult you. I’ll cancel the gyno.’

Hugging her affectionately, he asked, ‘When is
it d-due?’

Margot hesitated. Lennox had
blundered into dangerous territory. The baby was due in February the following
year. ‘I never was any good at maths. Let me see,’ she said vaguely, ‘March or
April, I think.’

It was absurd to have a baby so soon after
giving birth to Gaheris, and yet, the more she thought about it, the more the
whole thing appealed to her perverse nature. It amused her to reflect that the
child in her belly was not her husband’s, and it aroused her to think that it
was Arthur’s. If Lennox wanted to believe the child was his, let him; who was
she to disillusion him? Why sink a man with the truth when he was content to
swim with the lie?

It was a boy, and the name
they gave him was Mordred. Lennox had been hoping for a girl, but Margot had
always known she was destined only to have sons. Morgan had told her, and
Morgan knew about such things. The infant supposedly due in April surprised
everyone but Margot and her gynaecologist by arriving in February, and was,
naturally enough, remarkably well developed for a seven month baby. Margot assumed
Lennox was too happy to notice; but she was wrong. He had noticed, and the
doubts gnawed at his mind. After several false starts, he finally expressed
them. ‘M-Mordred was b-born s-several weeks p-prematurely, was he not?’ he
observed without warning one evening, when he had been drinking more than
usual.

‘Was he, dear?’ The response
was soft as a cat’s purr. ‘Since when were you an expert?’