The Hidden Years (21 page)

She was not like the others. She didn't treat him with
their rough pity, their feminine contempt for his incompleteness. She
was tender and gentle, and he, after all, had his pride, his
self-respect.

He removed the letter from the envelope and read it
impatiently, stopping suddenly as he realised what it contained, and
then rereading it slowly, absorbing the shock of its contents.

At his side, Lizzie was grateful for his tact. She would
have died if he had asked her what was wrong. It seemed so improbable
that this man should be related by blood to the child she was carrying.
He and Kit were so different… What would he say if he knew?
Somehow she knew that he would not denounce her, that he would not, as
the girls had done, laugh at her and tell her brutally that her child
was something she should want to be rid of, a burden, a punishment for
having allowed Kit to love her.

She had no idea why she was behaving like this, breaking
down into stupid tears. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact
that she had received her aunt's monthly letter this morning. It was as
chilly and disapproving as all her aunt's missives, cautioning her to
work hard and behave herself, warning her against falling into bad
company, reminding her that, no matter what kind of immoral standards
were set elsewhere, in her household there was only one law, and that
was 'Thou shalt not…'

If only she dared ask Edward about Kit, but how could she
when she had promised Kit that she would not? Beside her she suddenly
heard Edward say in a low voice, 'Oh, my God.'

And immediately she pushed her own problems to one side,
turning to him, retrieving the letter he had let fall, and asking
anxiously, 'What is it? Are you unwell…? Are you—?'

'No, no, it's nothing like that…'

His hand closed over hers, surprisingly warm and firm,
even though the skin itself was soft like a woman's, not hard and
slightly scarred as Kit's had been… Kit…
Kit…

'It's Kit… my cousin. You may remember he
visited me here… I've just heard. He's… he's
dead… Killed in action. I must get back… there
will be things I'll have to do, arrangements I'll have to make for
Cottingdean… I'll have to write to his poor fiancée,
too… Poor girl, but I dare say she'll soon find someone
else, and she's well out of it… Kit would never have made
good husband material—'

He broke off, exclaiming in concern as he saw Lizzie's
face. He had never seen anyone lose so much colour. It was as though
every drop of blood had drained out of her skin, leaving it as white as
though she were a corpse. In fact for a moment he wondered frantically
if she was actually still alive—her chest barely seemed to
move, her lips, normally so warm and curved, drawn together, only her
eyes showing any signs of life, as they glittered with shock and
disbelief.

She was trying to say something to him—her mouth
opened, but no sound emerged. She was shivering like someone he had
once seen in the grip of a malaria attack, her teeth chattering, her
body shaking.

He was desperately afraid that she was going to collapse.
He should never have insisted on coming out this morning. It was too
cold, too wet—he had been selfish.

All his old frustration with his immobility, his wounds,
came sweeping over him in a dark, bitter tide. He would have given
everything he possessed right now, and that included Cottingdean, to be
able to get up and take hold of her, to be able to act as a man, and
not as a decaying lump of flesh. As it was all he could do was pray
that somehow or other they could get back safely to the hospital.

Furious with himself for his inability to help her, he
said awkwardly, 'You aren't well. I should have realised… We
must go back…'

Later Lizzie realised that she must have heard the words,
because she did reach out and take hold of the chair, did release the
brake and turn it round in the direction of the hospital, but she was
unaware of doing these things. Unaware of anything at all, other than
the raw agony of what was happening inside her.

Kit dead… Kit gone, taken from her…
But worse…far, far worse than that was that other knowledge,
that frightening, unbelievable knowledge she had been handed so
casually, so accidentally almost…

Kit had been engaged to someone else.

'I'll have to write to his poor fiancée…'
Edward had said, and she knew, no matter how much she tried to escape
from those words, that there was simply no way she could have imagined
them. They were real enough— too real, she thought dully.

She had no idea they had reached the hospital until she
heard Edward calling out anxiously to a passing nurse, 'Can you help
Lizzie? She's unwell…'

She opened her mouth to deny it, but everything was
wavering around her, turning crimson and then black, opening up to
swallow her in a terrifying, pain-filled void.

Edward fretted anxiously all afternoon, asking everyone he
could how Lizzie was, and what was wrong with her.

In the end nurses grew impatient with him, and Sister came
bustling down the ward, her mouth prim.

'Now, then, Major Danvers, there's no use your working
yourself up into a state. There's nothing wrong with Miss Bailey.
Nothing that you need blame yourself for, anyhow,' she added grimly.
Really, these girls… you'd think they'd have more sense than
to get themselves into that sort of trouble. Well, this one would be
sent packing just as soon as the doctor discharged her and from the
talk she had had with matron, who knew the girl's aunt, she'd receive
scant sympathy from that quarter. Sister's bosom heaved beneath her
starched apron.

She was fifty-four and unmarried. These girls with their
stupidity and their man problems infuriated her. Normally she could
tell which ones were going to give her trouble. Never in a hundred
years would she have thought that this girl—but there, you
were, it just went to show.

Her mouth pursed again, and Edward sensed uneasily that
something was being withheld from him.

'Come on, now, Major Danvers—it will soon be
time for your medicine…'

Sister thought she was being kind. After all, what could
it mean to a man like this that the stupid girl had gone and got
herself in trouble? That kind of thing could no longer be any part of
his life.

All night Edward fretted. No matter whom he asked, no one
would tell him what was wrong with Lizzie.

Lizzie herself, banned from returning to her hostel, was
lying in bed, under the grimly disapproving eye of a nurse.

She had been told immediately the doctor had discovered
her condition that she was to be sent home. At first, in the anguish
and misery of discovering that Kit was dead, that Kit, no matter how
much he might have loved her, had been engaged to someone else, she had
had no thought in her head for what was happening to her.

But now, lying sleepless and frightened, the reality of
her situation was beginning to seep into her. She was going to have a
baby, a baby whose father was now dead and to whom she was not
married… Just for a moment she conjured wildly with the idea
of pretending that she and Kit had been married… but that
would be dishonest. She knew she could not do it, which left her with
having to face Aunt Vi. Always providing that the latter would allow
her into the house once she knew why she was being sent home.

She lay shivering in bed, dreading the morning, crying
silent tears of pain and fear.

Edward too could not sleep. A nurse on her late-night
rounds saw how he twisted and turned and, being new to the ward, sent
for the doctor.

'Something bothering you, old chap?' the doctor asked. He
was overdue for retirement, thin and exhausted by the stress of trying
to do the work of four much younger men. He had seen so much pain and
suffering during the years of the war that he had developed a
self-protective distancing mechanism, without which he suspected he
might well have lost his sanity, but there was something about Edward
that had always reached out to him.

'It's about Lizzie, Miss Bailey,' Edward elucidated when
he frowned. 'She became ill this morning when we were out…
No one will tell me what's wrong with her.'

The doctor wasn't a narrow-minded man. One look at the
pale, tragic face of the young girl Sister had summoned him to see had
told its own story. He had felt desperately sorry for her, and angry
with her at the same time. They were such fools, these young girls, and
the more innocent they were, the more foolish.

Now, looking at his patient's tense face, he decided that
if he hadn't known that Edward was an amputee he might almost have
suspected… after all, presumably there was still a chance,
albeit a very faint chance, that he could father a child.

'Silly little fool's gone and got herself into trouble,'
he said brusquely. 'That's the problem with these young
girls… Their heads get turned by some young man, he tells
them a few lies, says he loves them…pity, but there's
nothing to be done about it. Rules are rules. She'll have to be sent
home. Only got an aunt to go to, and by the sound of it she's a bit of
a tartar, a friend of matron's who probably won't treat the poor child
too well—but what can you do? We aren't running a home for
silly young girls…'

Edward stared at him in shock.

Lizzie… little Lizzie pregnant… he
couldn't believe it… he wouldn't believe it…

'The man,' he demanded. 'The father…?'

The doctor shook his head.

'Dead, so I understand… Matron managed to get
that much out of her, although she wouldn't give his name. An airman,
by all accounts. Probably never intended to marry her anyway, they
never do, although she'd never believe that, poor soul…'

Lizzie pregnant, Lizzie who was little more than a child
herself… So pure and so innocent, that he could have
sworn… And then suddenly he knew the truth.

Lizzie, his Lizzie was carrying Kit's child. He didn't
question how he knew, or why he should feel this possessively fierce
emotion towards Lizzie herself; he only knew that from the deep welling
emotion inside him came two sure facts. The first was that Kit, his
hated cousin, had destroyed Lizzie's innocence, had deceived and
defiled her, had no doubt lied to her and deserted her, and the second
was that he had to see Lizzie, to talk to her…

He was awake for the rest of the night thinking and
planning. The doctor had inadvertently let slip the fact that Lizzie
was being sent home in disgrace in the morning. Always an imaginative
man, Edward had grasped all that the doctor was not saying and, having
grown up in a small enclosed community himself, he knew quite well how
Lizzie and her child would be treated, if she was allowed to remain
with her aunt.

That could not be allowed to happen. Lizzie did not
deserve to suffer that kind of pain, that kind of rejection. Her
child… He stopped suddenly. Lizzie's child would be his
nephew, his heir…Lizzie's child would one day inherit
Cottingdean. There could be no other heirs. After all, Kit was dead,
and he… well, he might as well be for all the use he was..:

But he could be of use to Lizzie… He was still
a man… in the eyes of the law at least… and not
just any man. He was a man who now owned the house which would one day
belong to Lizzie's child.

Once, long ago, it would have been his responsibility to
marry and provide heirs, heirs for the land and the house. Lizzie,
though, already carried such a child, the only child of Danvers blood
there could ever be. His brain spun with ideas, urgent and clamouring.
If he were to marry Lizzie…

His ears were buzzing. He felt curiously light-headed, as
though he had suddenly discovered a wonderful and mystical secret, as
though he had suddenly been admitted into an awareness that life could
still hold hope, anticipation, a future.

And as he lay back against his pillows, exhausted by the
enormity of his thoughts, his plans, it came to him that fate might
just possibly have relented, that she might after all have turned the
tide and be handing him the lifeline he needed so desperately to hang
on to if he was to make anything of the worthless remnants of his
shattered life.

He already had Cottingdean—what was to stop him
having everything else as well? He had Kit's inheritance—why
should he not have Kit's child? In his hands, under his care, with his
love that child would, after all, grow to maturity with far, far more
than Kit would ever have given it.

And last, but most definitely not least, he would have
Lizzie, gentle, beautiful Lizzie who walked through the dull greyness
of his days like a rainbow, bringing them to life, giving them colour
and substance.

But would Lizzie want to marry him? She was young,
beautiful, desirable…what if she would marry him now and
then at some later stage leave him? She was so young—was it
even fair of him to think in terms of marriage? Why not simply offer a
home, a haven?

Was it just because he knew how people would gossip,
especially once they saw she was having a child, or was it because
secretly all the time this was what he had wanted?

Lizzie couldn't sleep either. The closer it got to morning
the more afraid she became.

Matron had left her in no doubts as to what her aunt's
reaction to her condition was going to be. The enormity of the future
that lay ahead for her was slowly breaking through the anguish of
losing Kit. Kit who, she was just beginning to realise, had never been
hers in the first place.

Her heart started to beat painfully fast… she
felt so frightened and alone. Even more than she had done when she had
first been sent to live with her aunt.

For the first time she found herself almost wishing there
was no baby, but she suppressed the thought, ashamed of her own
weakness. How could she deny Kit's child? Her hands closed protectively
on her stomach as she begged the growing foetus to forgive her. Of
course she wanted it, of course she loved it, of course any hardship
she had to bear would be more than worthwhile.