The Hidden Years (20 page)

'Susan Philpott.' Lizzie stared at her. 'But she went
home.'

'Like hell she did,' Donna told her inelegantly. 'God
knows where she is right now, but she hasn't gone home. Told me that
herself—said her dad would kill her for getting herself in
trouble. Of course when the dragon found out it was the end for her
here. Probably on the street somewhere now,' Donna added, explaining
explicitly what she meant when Lizzie looked uncomprehendingly at her.

'He isn't going to come back. They never do,' she told her
with brutal honesty. 'And you're going to have to do something about
that…' she added, gesturing towards Lizzie's still flat
stomach.

'Do something?' Lizzie questioned, puzzled, focusing on
her, ignoring her comments about Kit. Donna didn't know Kit…
Donna didn't realise how she and Kit felt about one another, how much
in love they were. She had known it the moment they met, had seen it in
Kit's eyes, had felt it, she remembered almost maternally, in the
roughness of his possession, his inability to control his passion, his
desire for her.

'What do you mean "do something"?' she questioned softly.

She could see the pity in Donna's eyes, feel it in the
waiting silence of the others in the dormitory. She could feel their
rough sympathy enveloping her, sense their affinity with her, and yet
she felt outside their concern, untouched by it, in no need of it. She
knew they meant to be kind, and she herself was too gentle, too
sensitive to rebuff them directly.

Donna sighed and lifted her eyes to heaven. This was going
to be worse than she had thought. Why was it always these idiotic naive
ones who got themselves into this kind of trouble? she wondered. Hadn't
they got the sense…? But she already knew the answer to that
question, had heard it often enough in her mother's slow Dorset voice,
as she repeated over and over again warningly to her eldest child,
showing her, by the example of her own life, just what happened to
girls foolish enough to believe in the lies told by men. She had been
sixteen when she had conceived her first child, and at thirty-five,
when Donna had left home, she had looked and moved like a woman of
twice her age, worn down by too many pregnancies, too much hardship and
poverty.

The war had come as a welcome escape for Donna, releasing
her from having to follow in her mother's footsteps, from early
marriage and too many children, and she had been glad to go. Glad to
leave the damp, insanitary farm worker's cottage where she had shared a
bedroom and a bed with her sisters, glad to escape from the bad temper
of her father and the rough manners of her brothers. Glad to cut
herself free of too many pairs of clinging hands and too many demanding
voices.

'You're going to have to get rid of it, aren't you? Look,
I know what you think but he isn't going to marry you. They never do,' she said bluntly. Her own life had not
given her tact or sensitivity. As far as she was concerned the best
thing she could do for the silly little fool was to make her see sense
and then, if it wasn't already too late, to sit her in a bath of
near-boiling hot water, and pour as much gin into her as they could get
their hands on in the hope that it would bring on a spontaneous
abortion.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't… There
were other methods, but they were too risky, and anyway, by the looks
of it, they were going to have a hard time persuading her to do what
had to be done.

She looked so pale and raw, so childlike almost, but Donna
wasn't deceived. That type could have the will of a donkey…
and the stupidity.

Lizzie stared at her in shocked disbelief. Get rid of
Kit's child… She recoiled from Donna as though she thought
the other girl was going to physically attack her, her arms crossing
protectively over her belly.

'Look, you little fool,' Donna repeated grimly, 'he isn't
going to come back for you. They never do, no matter what they tell
you. Did he give you his address? Did he tell you anything about
himself other than his name? Do you even know that that's real? You
know what's going to happen to you when it gets out that you're
carrying, don't you? You'll lose your job and you'll be sent back
home…'

Sent back home… To her aunt… For the
first time fear chilled Lizzie's heart. She gave a deep shudder,
totally unable to accept what Donna was saying to her, and yet at the
same time terrified by the mental pictures Donna was drawing for her.
Just for a moment she tried to imagine what her life would be like if
she did have to return to her aunt, pregnant and unmarried. Her aunt
would never have her back—she would turn her from her door,
and disown her. She started to shiver, suddenly cold and shocked. But
why was she afraid? Nothing like that was going to happen to her. Kit
was going to marry her—she knew it. There was nothing for her
to fear. All she had to do was to hold on to that truth, to have faith
and courage, to remember that Kit loved her.

'Come on, kid—be sensible. You can't be that far
along… with any luck, we could get rid of it.'

'No
,' Lizzie told her firmly, and then added with quiet
dignity, 'Even if you are right about Kit not loving me— and
I know you aren't—I still could not destroy my child.'

Donna knew when she was defeated. Muttering under her
breath about the folly of her own sex, she withdrew.

Let the little fool learn, then—and she
would… It was all right now claiming that she wanted the
brat, but let her wait until she was homeless, penniless, disgraced,
without a job, without anyone to help her… Then she would
sing a different tune. She, Donna, had seen it happen so many times,
and to so many girls.

Just for a moment she thought savagely and angrily of the
burdens carried by her own sex, and hungered for a time when things
would be different, when women would have the right and ability to
govern their own lives. But to do that they would have to cast off the
emotional shackles they seemed to be born with, to cease loving and
depending on men… She herself had no illusions about the
male sex. She never intended to marry and she certainly never intended
to burden herself with the responsibility and pain of children.

It was many weeks since she had heard from Kit…
Weeks during which she had slowly grown accustomed to the fact that she
was carrying his child. The end of the war in Europe caused nationwide
celebration, but for Lizzie what was happening within her was more
important. Kit had not been in touch and she had no way of knowing if
victory in Europe had brought him safely home or if he was still in
danger somewhere. Until she knew, there could be no celebration for
her. Her eighteenth birthday, too, passed without any celebration apart
from a card and small present sent by her aunt.

Sometimes, in bed, she pressed her hands to her still-flat
stomach in wonder, in love, and sometimes, shamingly, in panic. She
knew that Kit loved her, of course she did, but she needed to hear from
him, and, even better, to see him… She knew that it was Kit
and men like him who were fighting so hard to protect their country,
and that she, like countless thousands of other women, must wait in
patience and anxiety for his safe return, but she longed so much for
the reassurance of his presence, needed him so desperately to ward off
the pitying looks of the other girls, for the knowledge that she was
now set apart from them, that all of them were silently thanking God
that they were not in her shoes, was undermining her courage and faith.

Edward had noticed her withdrawn mood and been concerned
about it. But he had not questioned her, believing it was because she
found his company a burden.

He had been told by his doctor that, with care, and if he
lived as an invalid, his lifespan could stretch for another twenty
years, and it was a prospect that made him shudder in horror.

Another twenty years like this… There were
mornings when living another twenty hours seemed too great a burden.

Lizzie, normally so sensitive to the moods and feelings of
others, was unaware of Edward's despair. She still spent time with him,
but her attention to his attempts at conversation had become
perfunctory, her concentration narrowed down to the child she carried
and her love for its father.

The weather turned colder, with squally winds and showers
of rain; her cycle ride to work often left her wet and shivering on her
arrival, and, despite the fact that she was pregnant, Lizzie began to
lose weight.

She tried desperately hard not to allow her anxiety, her
natural fears for the future and her need to be with Kit, to affect her
appetite, telling herself that she must eat, if not for her own sake
then for her child's, but, no matter how stern she was with herself,
once the unappetising plate of food was in front of her her tender
stomach rebelled.

Edward was disturbed to see how frail she was becoming.
That she had somehow or other found a place in his heart was something
he had already come to accept. Nothing could come of it, of course, he
acknowledged bitterly. She was a young and potentially very beautiful
girl with her whole life ahead of her once this damnable war was over,
while for him the future stretched merely painfully into
nothingness… A permanent invalid with nothing whatsoever to
offer any woman. Bitterly he contrasted himself with his cousin.

A letter had arrived for him in the morning's post. It was
from the family firm of solicitors, and he hadn't opened it as yet,
suspecting that it was probably a formal warning from Kit to him not to
expect to make his home at Cottingdean once Kit was married.

It would be typical of Kit's selfishly egotistical
attitude to life to do something like that. What did his cousin think
he would do? he wondered savagely as he stared at the
envelope—force himself on him? He'd end it all before he'd do
that… be forced to live as Kit's pensioner, forced always to
be grateful for his contempt, forced to see Kit and Kit's children
thriving while his own life dwindled into nothing.

Lizzie was on duty this morning. As always he was looking
forward to seeing her. She had promised him an outing into the park. He
looked through the window. It was raining and he could see the wind
bending the trees. Normally that wouldn't have deterred her, but she
was looking so pinched and thin these days. He suspected that none of
them, neither the aides nor the nurses, ever really had enough to eat,
and they worked desperately hard.

There was a bustle lower down the ward which heralded the
change of shifts. He stuffed the letter into his pocket unopened and
tried not to search too eagerly for Lizzie's familiar face.

It had rained heavily during the night, and Lizzie had
accidently stepped into a huge puddle on her way inside the building.
Her shoes were soaked and she was shivering; the last thing she felt
like doing was going out again, but as she hurried on to the ward the
girl relieving her whispered derogatively, 'I hope you've brought your
mackintosh with you. His nibs is ready and raring to go…'
She tossed her head in Edward's direction, and Lizzie's heart sank as
she saw that the protective blanket and covering had been pulled over
Edward's chair.

Edward saw the tiredness in her eyes as she walked up to
him, and said quickly, 'Ah, Lizzie… I'm sure you won't want
to go out today… It's been such a wet morning…'

Without wanting to, Lizzie heard the wistful note in his
voice, and wondered how she would have felt cooped up in here, never
breathing in fresh air, never seeing anything other than the grim walls
of the ward; she fought down her own tiredness and cold, and said, as
brightly as she could, 'It is wet, but it has stopped raining
now…'

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Sister giving her an
approving nod as she took hold of Edward's chair and wheeled it towards
the doors. Once outside she shivered, and Edward, who felt the faint
vibration, frowned.

That coat she was wearing—little more than a
jacket really—was far too thin for this weather. What she
needed was something warm and thick in a good tweed, he thought
protectively. He remembered his mother had had a coat like that with a
huge fur collar.

Edward had a favourite place in the grounds: a small quiet
garden with a stone seat overlooking what had once been a large
circular fishpond with a fountain. The fountain no longer worked, and
the water was choked with weeds. What goldfish were left were huge and
fat, and somehow rather frightening, Lizzie felt—or was it
simply that she couldn't help contrasting their overfed, lazy obesity
with her own sharp, constant hunger?

She had been feeling more than usually ill this morning.
The sickness had lasted longer than normal and had left her feeling
weak and shaky. As she put the brake on Edward's chair and sat down on
the bench, she discovered that she was trembling. This morning when she
woke up her face had been wet with tears. She so desperately needed to
hear from Kit. She was so alone… and, yes, she was beginning
to feel frightened as well. Not that he would desert
her—never that—but what if something had happened
to him? But whatever happened she would never give up her baby. Never.

Edward saw that she was close to tears, her eyes dark and
misty with them, her face surely even paler than ever. He ached to be
able to help. He had the sudden presentiment that something was very
wrong. As he watched he saw one tear and then another roll down her
face, and immediately turned away, wanting to spare her any intrusion
into her privacy.

As he turned awkwardly in his chair, he felt the crackle
of the envelope in his pocket, and immediately felt for it, keeping his
head averted from her as he opened it, wanting to give her time to
recover from whatever it was that was upsetting her so much.

He knew virtually nothing about her private life, and had
never felt he could ask, frightened of trespassing too much on her
kindness, not wanting to burden her with his loneliness, his
deep-seated need to form a bond with her that was based on more, he
knew, than could ever exist between them.