The Hidden Years (74 page)

No matter how much she might want to do so she could not
leave him, or at least if she did… If she did she would feel
so guilty that it would affect her whole relationship with Lewis,
possibly destroying it, certainly souring it. She could feel tears
stinging the back of her throat, still sore from its bruising at
Edward's hands. The outward marks of the bruises had almost faded now.
Ian had assured her that just so long as Edward continued to take his
medicine there would be no further repetition of his violent attack. If
only he were stronger, fitter—if only she could leave him
with a clear conscience. If only he were not so dependent on her.

If she left…if she left he could not stay on at
Cottingdean alone, which would mean that he would have to go into some
sort of institution, and she already knew what would happen then. It
would kill him… And she would have been the one to sign his
death warrant. And why? So that she could be with Lewis.

She couldn't do it.

Wearily she got up. Was Lewis asleep in his bed at the pub
or was he laying awake thinking about her, wanting her?

She would have to go and see him.

She rang him and arranged to meet him outside the village
where it was quiet and no one was likely to see them. It had,
fittingly, after so much fine weather, started to rain, and a soft grey
mist hung over the landscape.

His car was already parked on the lonely cart track when
she arrived. Lewis was standing beside it, his body tense.

As she got out of her own car and hurried towards him he
came to meet her, demanding tersely, 'Well, have you told him?'

She shook her head, and then said huskily, 'I can't,
Lewis. He isn't well… Ian says—'

'I don't give a damn what Holmes says,' Lewis interrupted
her angrily. 'What am I supposed to do, Liz-keep on hanging around
until Holmes decides he is well enough for you to tell him? How long
will that take? A week… a month… a
year… ten years?'

His bitterness, his sarcasm hurt her, but it was no less
than she had expected. 'No… No, I don't expect you to do
that.' She took a deep breath and then faced him, saying quickly, 'It's
over, Lewis. I can't… I can't leave Edward… I
know that now… No matter how much I… I love
you… I can't leave him.'

She saw from his face how much she had shocked him. For a
moment he was silent as he tried to take in what she was saying and
then he said savagely, 'You mean you
won't
leave
him…
Why
? Tell me that,
Liz—why?'

'He needs me,' she told him shakily.

'
He
needs you… what about
me, damn you?' He had taken hold of her and was virtually shaking her.
'Don't you think
I
need you?'

She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes. Another
minute and she would break down completely and she must not do
that…

'Not in the same way,' she told him quietly. 'Lewis, don't
you see if I leave Edward now it will be on my conscience for the rest
of my life? It would spoil our love, come between us… I
can't
let that happen. You deserve a woman who can give herself to you
completely and wholeheartedly, and I don't think I could live with the
burden of what I'd done…'

'And yet you have no compunction whatsoever about hurting
me
,'
he told her flatly. 'Don't
I
matter at all to
you, Liz? Don't you care about
me
?'

Of course I care. The words were on the tip of her tongue
but she forced them back. What use was there in saying them, in
prolonging their mutual agony?

'What do you want me to do? Hang on here begging for the
favour of the odd stolen hours of your company like a dog existing on
scraps? I can't do that, Liz. It must be all or nothing…'

'And I can't leave Edward,' she reiterated. She was
feeling sick and light-headed. If he took her in his arms
now… held her… kissed her… She fought
against her desire that he would do exactly that, that he might pick
her up and carry her off, physically abducting her, physically taking
the decision out of her hands, even while she knew it was impossible.

'So you've chosen him… He means more to you
than me,' Lewis accused her heavily. 'It was all a lie, was it? You
even love Cottingdean more than me. Our love was just a
game…'

She wanted to deny what he was saying, but her love for
him guided her, telling her that it would be easier for him if she let
him go in anger rather than in love; that he would need that anger to
sustain him in the days ahead; that it would be weak and selfish of her
to try to tie him to her with her love when she knew that love was
something she had to banish from her life.

'Maybe it was,' she agreed lightly, fighting to hide from
him how much pain the words cost her.

The look he gave her almost destroyed her.

'Do you really mean that?' he demanded harshly, releasing
her and stepping back from her as though suddenly he found her
contaminated.

'Was that all it was all the time? Just a game, a
diversion?
Did
you ever intend to leave him, or
were you simply playing out some fantasy? A cruel fantasy, since I
actually thought…'

She kept silent, letting him throw all the bitter, hurtful
words at her, letting him savage and destroy her, letting him have the
outlet he so badly needed, knowing that it was the only gift she could
give him, the only panacea he would have.

As he finally turned away from her he said cruelly, 'Well,
all I hope is that someone will some day come in to your life who'll
destroy it in the way you've destroyed mine, and you with
it… Do you know something, Liz?' He turned to look at her,
his eyes cold and bitter. 'I almost feel sorry for that husband of
yours… I certainly wish him luck, because he's going to need
it…'

She stood where she was until the dust from his car tyres
had died down, and the mist had swallowed it up, obliterating it from
her view.

Even then she didn't cry. Instead she turned and walked
stiffly back to her car, driving it slowly and carefully back the way
she had come.

Inside she felt as though she were being torn apart, but
no one else must guess what was happening to her… no one
else must know her pain.

This was something she had to endure by herself, something
she had to live through alone. She had done the right thing. The only
thing… Now all that remained was for her to convince herself
that this was so.

Later she suspected that if it hadn't been for Edward's
illness keeping her so physically busy she would have weakened and gone
in search of Lewis, begging him to wait, to give her more time, but by
the time Edward was well enough to be left for more than half an hour
at a time she discovered that Lewis had left, and that no one seemed to
know where he had gone.

Several weeks of nursing Edward constantly while mourning
for Lewis was beginning to take its toll of her health. She often felt
sick and put it down to nerves until she suddenly realised just what
her queasiness might portend. It was too late for her to change her
mind about Lewis now, though, she reflected unhappily.

Even if she could bring herself to leave Edward and to
shoulder the emotional burden of guilt that doing so would bring, how
could she ever be sure that Lewis believed she had come to him out of
love and not simply because she was carrying his child? No…
it was too late now to change her mind. And as for the child she
suspected she carried…

She placed her hand over her stomach, trying to suppress
the deep, wrenching pain that tore at her heart. It should never have
been conceived and could not be allowed to be born. And yet…
and yet… She shivered with emotion, knowing how much she
wanted to have his child, Lewis's child, and yet at the same time
acknowledging that this must be her punishment for what she had done:
that she must sacrifice not just her need, but also her child. A week
went by and then another.

She devoted herself to looking after Edward. He clung to
her emotionally like a dependent child, and was so full of remorse for
the way he had attacked her, constantly begging her to promise him that
she would never leave him as though in some way he sensed how close she
had come to doing so.

She was losing weight, growing too thin and finedrawn, as
the physical effort of looking after Edward combined with the emotional
pain she was suffering took its toll of her, and she had still done
nothing to terminate her pregnancy even though she knew she must.

But how? Abortions were illegal and could only be procured
with considerable danger.

Ian Holmes had seen how thin and pale she had become and
was concerned about her. And yet as her health deteriorated, Edward's
improved; he was almost back to being his old self again, albeit with
the aid of the drug which successfully seemed to keep at bay his
earlier violent changes of mood. Physically he was as strong as he had
ever been, Ian told her when he complimented her on her devotion to
him. As he had already said to Edward himself, without Liz to care for
him it was doubtful that he could have pulled through the illness which
had devastated him. He was lucky to have a wife like Liz, Ian told him.
Very lucky. Edward agreed with him. He was a fortunate man.

When Ian called to check up on Edward one morning and
discovered Liz on his way out, on her hands and knees, frantically
tearing up the weeds in one of the long borders, while her body shook
with the tears that poured down her face, he knelt down beside her and
put his hands on her shoulders, gently turning her towards him.

He had seen the almost haunted way she had devoted herself
to Edward, and had drawn his own conclusions. It had been obvious how
Lewis McLaren felt about her, and she about him, and he could only pity
them both from the depths of his heart.

'Liz, my poor girl,' he said now. 'What is it? What's
wrong?'

He thought he already knew the answer. She loved a man she
was not free to marry and so had sent him away, but when she turned to
him and said wretchedly, 'I'm pregnant,' he couldn't quite keep the
shock from his face.

'I know,' Liz agreed. 'I should never have allowed it to
happen…'

Ian struggled for a moment and then asked her
uncomfortably, 'McLaren… Does he…does he know?'

Liz shook her head. 'No…and I don't intend to
tell him… This is my problem, Ian. Mine. Oh, God. I know
what I have to do, but doing it…' She shivered. 'Lewis
wanted me to leave Edward. Begged me to leave him, in fact, but I
couldn't do it. I couldn't have lived with myself if…'

'And Edward couldn't have lived here without you,' Ian put
in sombrely. 'At least not here at Cottingdean, and an
institution…'

'Yes, I know. I wanted to go with Lewis,' she went on
painfully, 'I wanted to take my happiness… but in the end I
had to send him away, let him believe that I didn't care… I
thought then that that was the hardest thing I'd ever have to do, that
no matter what pain the rest of my life might hold it would never be
greater, sharper, more agonising than the pain of losing him.' Tears
were pouring down her face, her normal reserve vanishing, swept away by
the force of her emotion, her need… 'I should have realised
then.' She turned to Ian.

'Ian, I'm going to have an abortion. There's no other way.
I don't want to do it, God knows, but what alternative do I have? I
know I shouldn't ask you, but could you… would
you...? You're a doctor—you must know of someone who
could do it… safely…'

For a moment Ian couldn't speak, he was so consumed with
pity and compassion for her. She had suffered so much, given up so
much… but as to what she was asking him…

'Are you insane?' he demanded. 'An
abortion
!
Not only is it illegal, but my God, Liz, do you realise how many women
lose their lives every year by going to those people? They're
untrained, unsanitary, they butcher the women and maim their unborn
children; why in the name of God do women go to them…?'

'Because they don't have any alternative…
because they're desperate,' Liz told him grimly. 'As long as our
society continues to treat women who conceive illegitimate children as
solely responsible for their plight…just as long as it
continues to humiliate and condemn them, women will continue to resort
to the services of back-street abortionists… They have no
option… Edward has already accepted David as his; I
cannot—'

'Do you want this child?' Ian asked her softly.

Slowly she nodded her head. 'More than I can possibly tell
you. It will be all I'll ever have of its father…'

Her simple words betrayed so much.

Ian Holmes ached with pity for her.

'Let me speak to Edward?' he suggested, but she denied him
immediately.

'No, Edward must never know. He has already suffered
enough… Promise me you won't mention this to him.'

When he gave her his promise Ian told himself that in
already knowing that he was going to break it he was doing the only
thing he could.

The thought of Liz offering herself to death or maiming at
the hands of some unqualified butcher sickened him, and yet his own
hands were tied… There was nothing he could do to help
her… nothing at all…

'Just don't do anything until I've had a chance to think
things over,' he asked. 'To make enquiries… Give me a week.'

It galled him to lie to her… to deceive
her… but he had no alternative.

He didn't waste any time in talking to Edward. As luck
would have it, Liz had been invited to a reception in Bath being held
for local industrialists by the Ministry, who were anxious to encourage
new development.

He found Edward alone in the library. Although stronger
physically, he looked pale and drawn—his skin was beginning
to develop the unhealthy greyness of someone who spent too much time
out of the sun. He had aged dramatically; become an old man almost
overnight, or so it seemed.