The Hidden Years (16 page)

Odd how, now, when her mother could not physically or
emotionally compel her to act in the way she considered right and
proper, she was actually compelling herself to do so… The
details of her own work, her own commitments, she carried around with
her in her head, much to the irritation of her secretary—she
had never been methodical, never been organised or logical in the way
she worked, always taking a perverse and contrary delight in abandoning
routine and order to follow a seemingly careless and uncontrolled path
of her own.

And yet here she was meticulously planning to follow in
her mother's orderly footsteps, as though in doing so she was somehow
fulfilling some kind of sacred trust, somehow keeping the flickering
flame of her mother's life-force alive.

Ridiculous… emotional, idiotic
stuff… and yet so powerful, so strong, so forceful was its
message within her that she was compelled to listen to it and to obey.

'I hadn't
realised—it was almost as though Gran wasn't there at all.'
Camilla shivered, despite the centrally heated warmth of the hospital.

'She's heavily drugged, Cam,' Sage told her gently. 'The
nurse said that it was to give her body a chance of getting over the
shock of the accident and her injuries…'

Camilla swallowed visibly, suddenly a child again as she
pleaded anxiously, 'She isn't going to die, is she, Sage…? I
don't want her to die…'

Sensing the hysteria lurking beneath the plea, Sage turned
to her and took her in her arms. 'I can't answer that question, Cam. I
only know, as you do, that if anyone can survive this kind of thing
your grandmother will do so…'

Sage was wondering if they had been wise allowing Camilla
into the intensive care unit. She had seen the compassion in the
nurse's eyes when Camilla had visibly reacted to the sight of her
grandmother hooked up to so much machinery, her body still, her eyes
shuttered, to all intents and purposes already gone beyond any human
help.

'Please, let's go… I can't…'

'I have to wait to see the specialist,' Sage reminded her
quietly. 'But you can go and wait in the car if you'd
prefer… Perhaps your mother…?'

She turned to Faye, who was if anything even more visibly
affected than her daughter, but Faye shook her head and said doggedly,
'No, I'll stay with you.'

Handing Camilla the car keys and watching her walk a
little unsteadily down the corridor, Sage nibbled ferociously on her
bottom lip.

'I hadn't realised,' Faye was saying unevenly beside her.
'I knew she was very ill, but I hadn't…' She swallowed. 'Oh,
God, Sage, I'm so scared… I can't bear the thought of losing
her… I thought… I thought the worst was over and
that it was just a matter of time… of recuperation, but
now… And I'm being so selfish. She's your mother and not
mine…'

'And because of that I must love her more?' Sage smiled
grimly. 'How naive you can be sometimes, Faye. You know the situation
between Mother and me. We don't get on; we never have. Oh, as a child I
wanted her love, craved it almost until I realised I simply was not and
never could be the child she wanted—or another
David… I don't blame her for that… After David, I
must have come as a deep disappointment to her. I don't suppose you can
understand. The whole world adores my mother… adores her and
respects her…'

'I do understand.'

It was said so quietly that Sage almost didn't hear it.
She turned to look at her sister-in-law and surprised such a look of
raw pain in her eyes that she had to turn away again. It was as though
she had momentarily opened the door into a private, secret room, and
she withdrew from it with the instinctive speed of a nature that hated
to trespass or impinge on anyone else's privacy because she valued her
own so much.

'Sage—'

The fierce urgency with which Faye said her name caused
her to look at her again, but just as Faye was about to speak the door
opened and the specialist she had seen before, Alaric Ferguson, walked
in.

If anything he looked even more exhausted, Sage
recognised. He gave her a distant glance before focusing properly on
her, saying as he recognised her, 'Miss Danvers, Sister will have told
you that we have had to sedate your mother in an effort to lessen the
physical shock of her accident, and until we're completely happy that
that has taken place we won't be able to do anything further.'

'Her injuries—what exactly are they?' Sage
demanded urgently.

He paused, looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and
then said bluntly, 'We suspect there's some pressure on her
brain—how much we can't as yet tell. In case you don't
understand the seriousness of this, perhaps I should
explain…'

When he did so, outlining in brutal detail the small, very
small chance of her mother actually recovering, Sage discovered that
she was gripping the inside of her mouth sharply with her teeth to
prevent her lips from trembling. Behind her she heard Faye give a low,
shocked cry. She reacted to it immediately, spinning round to reach out
to her, but the specialist had moved faster and as Sage turned towards
Faye he was already reaching out to grip her arm and steady her.

He wasn't the kind of man who appealed sexually to
Sage—oh, he was tall, and probably well enough built if one
discounted the exhausted hunch of his shoulders and the stoop that came
from working long hours. True, his skin was pale from lack of fresh
air, his eyes bloodshot, his dark red hair untidy and badly cut, but
underneath his lack of outward physical gloss there was such an obvious
aura of male strength and reliability about him that Sage was astounded
to see Faye stagger back from him, her face white with deathly fear,
her mouth contorted almost in a grimace of atavistic rejection.

Sage knew that her sister-in-law preferred to keep the
male sex at a physical distance, but she had never seen her react like
this before, never seen her make a movement that was
uncoordinated… never seen any emotion across her face as
intense and primitive as the defensive rage which now etched it.

For a moment she was too shocked to speak or intervene.
The specialist looked as shocked as she felt, and then Sage saw shock
give way to a mingling of curiosity and concern as he quickly withdrew
from her.

'It's perfectly all right,' he told her quietly. 'I'm
sorry if I alarmed you.' With that he turned on his heel and left them
alone.

In the strained silence of the empty room, the harsh
battle Faye was fighting for control of her body and breathing was
painfully audible. Sage dared not reach out to her, dared not speak to
her, never mind touch her. Her eyes had gone wild, feral almost like an
animal's when the primitive instinct of panic overcame every trace of
domesticity. It was almost as though, if Sage did reach out to touch
her, Faye might sink into her hand the teeth she had bared in that
shocking sharp snarl of rejection.

Her skin, usually so pale, was now burning with colour.
She started to shake violently, her eyes slowly focusing on Sage, their
brilliance dimming as recognition took the place of rage and then gave
way to flat, open despair.

She was shaking so much that she could barely stand up,
and very gently, very cautiously, Sage reached out to her and, when she
let her take hold of her arm, led her gently over to a chair.

Much as she longed to ask what was wrong, she suppressed
the words, knowing by instinct that she wouldn't get an answer.

'I'm so sorry,' Faye was whispering painfully. 'So very
sorry… It was just the shock…'

Of hearing about her mother's slender chances of
recovering, or of being touched by the specialist? Sage wondered
silently.

'He could have broken the news rather less brutally,' was
all she allowed herself to say. 'It's just as well Camilla decided not
to stay…'

The look of mingled agony and gratitude Faye gave her made
her wince inwardly for her own lack of strength. Had she been her
mother, there was no way she would have allowed the incident to be
passed off like this… She would have insisted on routing out
the real cause of Faye's reactions… Would have told herself
that, no matter how much pain talking about it might cause Faye, in the
end she would feel better for unburdening herself of whatever it was
that had caused such a violent response.

But she wasn't her mother… She avoided
encouraging people to confide in her, to lean on her. Selfishly she
didn't want their problems… their confidences. She was
almost glad that Faye had withdrawn from her, that she was keeping
whatever it was that troubled her so desperately to herself.

'I think perhaps I'd better leave calling at my office
until tomorrow. It's been a traumatic visit for all of us. We can't do
anything to help Mother by staying here, no matter how guilty we might
all feel about leaving her. The sister said they'd ring us immediately
if there was any change in her condition…'

'If she dies, you mean,' Faye said bitterly. 'Have you
noticed how even here in a hospital, where they're dealing in death
every day, they refuse to use the actual word? Not at all
well… but never, never dying…'

Watching Faye pound her fists helplessly against the arms
of her chair, Sage wished she could give vent to her feelings as easily.

She too was frightened, she recognised… No, her
fear wasn't the same as Faye's… But it was there none the
less. Hers was a selfish fear, she thought in self-contempt. Hers was a
fear of having to shoulder the burdens her mother had
carried… Of having to step into shoes which had never been
designed for her… which she knew instinctively would cripple
and hobble her. And already it was happening… already Faye
was turning to her. How long would it be before she started to lean on
her the way she had leaned on David and then on her mother?

Shocked and almost disgusted by the selfishness of her own
thoughts, Sage took hold of Faye's arm and gently pulled her to her
feet. 'Camilla will be waiting,' she reminded her.

She had always liked Faye, albeit with the same kind of
affection she might have felt towards a favourite pet, and it came as a
shock to find herself almost close to hating her, to feeling as though
Faye had set in motion a trap which was starting to close around her.
Faye wasn't the clinging type in the accepted sense of the word. On the
contrary, she visibly and painfully struggled not to be so, and yet one
was always aware of her desperate need for the strength of others, for
the companionship and caring of others. Why she had never married again
was a mystery to Sage. She so obviously needed the strength and
devotion of a husband, of another David…but then men like
David were hard to find, even if one looked, and Faye did exactly the
opposite of that, preferring to shut herself off from the rest of the
world rather than go out to meet it.

She couldn't go on like this, Faye recognised as she
followed Sage down the corridor. For a moment there in that small
stuffy room she had virtually destroyed everything she had worked so
hard to create… for a moment there with that male hand
reaching out towards her, she had stupidly, recklessly come perilously
close to throwing everything away, everything she had spent her entire
adult life trying to achieve.

Why had she been so careless? Why had she overreacted so
dangerously? She could put it down to the shock of realising how very
ill Liz was, but that was no excuse.

Thank God Camilla hadn't been there to see… She
swallowed hard, her mouth full of nervous saliva. She glanced sideways
at Sage.

Her sister-in-law was far too astute not to realise that
it was more than mere shock at Liz's condition which had made her react
so violently, but thank God she had not tried to question her, to dig
and delve as others might have done. Surely after all these years she
ought to have more command over herself, more self-control? Why had she
behaved like that, and to a man so obviously unthreatening, so
obviously well-intentioned? How on earth would she ever be able to face
him again? She had seen the shock, the concern, the curiosity shadowing
his expression as he looked at her, and no wonder… She
wished that he weren't Liz's specialist, that there would be no
occasion for her ever to have to see him again, but how could she
refuse to visit her mother-in-law? How could she allow Sage to shoulder
the burden of visiting her mother alone? How could she abandon Liz to
the cold efficiency of the machinery which was keeping her alive when
she owed her mother-in-law so much? How could she put her own welfare,
her own needs before theirs? She couldn't do it… She could
only pray that the specialist would accept, as Sage seemed prepared to
do, that her shock had been so great that it had led to her idiotic
behaviour. A psychiatrist of course would have recognised
immediately—but Liz's specialist wasn't a psychiatrist, thank
God… he would have no inner awareness, no
realisation… It was stupid of her to feel this panic, this
fear, this anxiety. No one could, after all, compel her to talk about
the past. To revisit and relive it…

She ached to be back at Cottingdean, to be safe,
protected, within the haven of its womblike walls. By the time they
reached the car she was trembling inwardly as though she had been
running frantically in flight, a stitch in her side caused not by
exhaustion but by tension, by her grimly clenching her muscles until
they ached under the strain she was imposing on them.

Running, running… sometimes it felt as though
she had spent her entire life in flight. Only with David had she felt
safe, protected… Only with David, and with Liz, who knew all
her secrets, knew them and protected her from them.

Liz… This was so wrong. She ought to be
thinking of Liz, not herself—praying for her recovery, not
because she needed her so much, but for Liz's own sake. Please God, let
me be strong, she prayed as she got in the car. Give me the strength I
need—not for myself, but for Liz and for Camilla…
and perhaps as well for Sage, she added, glancing at her sister-in-law,
and wondering if the latter had yet recognised within herself the same
fierce will-power that was Liz's particular gift. And, like all gifts,
a two-edged sword which could be honed in use for the benefit of others
for the greater good, or sharpened on the dangerous edge of
self-interest and used against other, weaker members of the human race.