The Hidden Years (75 page)

Ian didn't waste any time, telling him quickly what he had
come to tell him and then letting him absorb the shock of it.

'Did Liz ask you to tell me this?' he wanted to know after
some painful minutes had passed.

Ian shook his head.

'No, she begged me to say nothing. In point of fact she
only told me because… well, because she wanted me to
recommend an abortionist to her…'

He saw the way Edward absorbed his words, and his hopes
grew. 'I asked her…about the father, the man…' he
continued brusquely. 'She told me…she told me that there was
no way she would leave you… That her place was here with you
and with David…'

No need to say that it was his, Edward's need that kept
her tethered to him…

'Think carefully, Edward,' Ian warned him. 'To bring
yourself to accept another man's child as your own, to bring up that
child in the knowledge that another man has fathered it on your
wife… that's a great deal to expect of any man, and only a
very brave man could do so. Liz herself would not ask it of you, but my
oath as a doctor forbids me to give her the information she
requires… If she does go ahead with her plans to abort this
child it could result not just in the child's death but also in her
own… However, I would counsel any man against taking on the
burden of another's child unless—
unless
he can find it in his heart to truly love that child… and
its mother…'

Liz… pregnant… Liz making love with
another man… Liz bearing another man's child…
Jealousy raged through Edward, tearing at his flesh, his heart, his
soul. For one black moment he actually wished that Ian had not told him
this, that Liz had simply gone ahead… better for her to lose
her life than…
No
! The cry was wrung
from him in agonised silence… To lose her, and in such a
way… And could he really blame her? She was a young and
beautiful woman—a woman who had given him so much, who had
turned his whole life around… A woman whom he himself had
almost killed. He remembered her visit to the hospital and how he had
begged her, pleaded with her to take him home. Not to leave him. He
remembered too how she had looked at him then and the despair in her
eyes and he knew—knew that she had come that day to tell him
that their marriage was over. She had sacrificed so much for
him—couldn't he sacrifice his pride for her?

Wasn't he man enough to allow her this small fall from
grace? And if he didn't, what were the alternatives? He tried to
envisage life without her and instantly it was as though a shadow had
come over his world. And yet she had betrayed him with another man. His
male pride, so sorely tested by all that he had endured, rose up inside
him in anguished outrage.

'I'll leave you to think things over,' Ian Holmes told him
gently, standing up.

He was praying that he had done the right thing. He knew
Liz well enough to know that if he hadn't caught her in a moment of
weakness she would never have told him about the pregnancy. He also
suspected that the man involved meant far more to her than she was
allowing him to know.

Edward was a lucky man; how many other women in the same
circumstances would have put his needs before their own desires? He
acquitted Liz of any desire to maintain the marriage because of
Cottingdean or any other kind of material advantages, but he had sensed
how desperately she wanted to keep her child. He hoped that Edward
would find the generosity to allow her to do so… David was
not, after all, his either, and it was plain to everyone that he adored
the boy…

Just as he was about to leave the room Edward called out
to him in a low voice, 'If… if Liz kept this
child… I don't want the whole world and his wife to know
that my wife has made me a cuckold,' he told Ian bitterly.

Ian had been giving the matter a great deal of thought.

'There is a radical new method of allowing women to
conceive that does not involve sexual intercourse.' Quickly he
explained the research being undertaken into human artificial
insemination. 'We could let it be known that both you and Liz had taken
the decision to have another child… And how that child was
supposedly conceived…'

'I would have to be sure that Liz had given up
this… this man…' Edward muttered.

Inclining his head gravely, Ian said quietly, 'I think the
fact that she is still here with you tells its own story, don't you?
Liz is not a woman to involve herself in some cheap, sordid
affair… nor to enter into it lightly…'

Sensing that he had said enough, he took his leave of
Edward. He must be getting old, he reflected tiredly as he drove home.
He was beginning to feel the burden of his patients' woes…
Edward was not the easiest of men to deal with, and he admired Liz for
all that she had done for him. Half of him was inclined to tell her
that she must not sacrifice herself any more, that if this man meant as
much to her as he suspected he did… But without her he
doubted that Edward would survive more than a handful of months. He
could not live alone-even with Chivers's help, as there would be little
money. He would have to enter an institution…

He was not God. He could not order people's lives, but he
could not help offering up a prayer that if there was a God he would
find from somewhere the com-passion to gently urge Edward to ignore the
demands of his pride and think not of how Liz had betrayed him, but of
all the kindness and love she had given him over the years, and would,
Ian suspected, continue to give him at the cost of her own fulfilment
and true happiness.

Duty… It was an old-fashioned word in this
brash new modern world, and yet he suspected that Liz was one of those
people whose conscience would always incline her to put the needs of
others, her duty and responsibility towards them, before her own needs
and desires.

He had asked Liz to give him a week before doing anything
irrevocable and he prayed that she would not break her promise to him
as he had done his to her.

Liz didn't. However much she knew that she had no
alternative, that no matter how much she longed to be able to keep the
child Lewis had given her she could not do so, a stay of execution was
still welcome.

The thought of changing her mind, of leaving Edward and
going with Lewis was one she had forbidden herself even to contemplate.

David, Edward, Cottingdean, the mill—all of them
had claims on her that far outweighed her own selfish desire to be with
Lewis.

And yet when the letter came from him begging her to
change her mind, pleading with her to leave Edward and go to Australia
with him, imploring her to forgive him for so stupidly accusing her of
wanting Cottingdean and all that it could offer more than his love, she
was so sorely tempted, so desperately, dangerously impelled to change
her mind that she had to sit down and write back to him immediately,
forbidding him to get in touch with her again, telling him brutally and
untruthfully that while she had enjoyed their brief fling that was all
it had been to her, and that she had never had any intentions of
leaving Edward or giving up Cottingdean.

It was a cruel, callous letter. Necessarily so. If she
once allowed him to suspect how much she still loved him he would never
give up… he would waste his life wanting her, and, since she
already knew she could not go to him, then she must set him free to
find happiness with someone else.

And yet if she did leave Edward, if she did go with
him… she could keep their child…

Instinctively she placed her hand over her stomach,
staring down at the letter she had just finished, and then, before she
could change her mind, she sealed it in an envelope and addressed it.

She posted it after lunch, passing Ian on his way to see
Edward as she did so.

Edward had summoned him by telephone, telling him that he
had made his decision.

Ian found him in the library, looking gaunt and withdrawn,
and his heart dropped. Edward had about him the look of an
executioner…

'Ian… Good of you to come so promptly,' he said
formally. 'Chivers is just making us some tea…'

Ian's jaw ached with the effort it took to respond to
Edward's civilities.

It was fifteen minutes before the tea arrived, was poured,
and Chivers had left them.

'I've made my decision,' Edward told him abruptly. 'I've
decided that she can keep the child… But… But she
must give me her solemn promise that she will never see
him—her lover—again… I don't wish to
know who he is… I don't wish to discuss the matter with her
at all. I shall leave it to you to act as an intermediary between us to
convey to her my decision… I'm afraid it's something I feel
I just cannot discuss with her myself. The child will be brought up as
David has been as my son or daughter, but shall of course be excluded
from inheriting Cottingdean… The estate will in due course
be passed to David, who does, after all, have Danvers blood…
This… this child is not a Danvers.' There was a distaste and
dislike in his voice every time he referred to the baby and Ian felt
his initial relief start to drain from him… Would Edward
punish the as yet unborn child for Liz's fall from grace? Would Liz be
willing to accept the terms he was laying down?

'With your assistance we can let it be known as you
suggested that Liz and I made a decision for Liz to undergo this new
method of conception…'

'You're a very brave man, Edward, and a very compassionate
one,' Ian told him, standing up. 'I know you'll never regret having
made such a decision. But remember Liz.' He wanted to remind him that
Liz also would be making sacrifices, had already in fact made them, but
he was too wary of antagonising Edward and of giving him an excuse to
rescind a decision which he suspected was not being made wholeheartedly.

'I'll convey your wishes to Liz, of course,' he added
formally. 'I've just passed her in the village, so if you don't mind
I'll wait for her to return.'

'She knows you've approached me?' Edward demanded
suspiciously.

Ian shook his head.

'No, she doesn't. She believes I'm making enquiries into
finding someone to abort her child.'

When Liz returned he knew immediately that something had
distressed her. She gazed at him through heavy-lidded, pain-filled
eyes, so obviously unable to concentrate fully on what he had to say to
her that he led her gently into the garden and made her sit down on a
sheltered stone seat.

'I've told Edward about your pregnancy,' he told her
without preamble.

If she was shocked it barely showed. Only the widening of
her agonised eyes reflected her awareness of having heard him.

'He has agreed that you may keep the child.'

Now he did have her attention. She was staring at him, her
eyes dilating.

'There are certain conditions, though; primarily that you
will agree never to see the child's father or in any way meet him
again, and secondly that the child will be excluded from inheriting any
part of Cottingdean.

'It isn't too late, you know, Liz… You could
leave him…'

She shook her head and spoke for the first time. 'No. No,
I couldn't… It would be like signing his death
warrant… I couldn't have that on my conscience.'

Ian didn't deny it. They both knew that what she said was
true but nevertheless he pointed out gently, 'But you were prepared to
institute the death of your child.'

She went white and then grey, her whole body trembling as
she whispered, 'What alternative did I have?' And then in anguish,
'Will Edward really allow me to keep my baby?'

For the first time since he had known her she sounded
young and insecure.

'Yes,' Ian confirmed but added warningly, 'He isn't happy
with the situation and I dare say there will be times when he wishes he
had not done so, when he will make you feel very uncomfortable. He
loves you, Liz… in the way that a man does love a woman he
desires, and he's very, very jealous, all the more so because fate has
seen fit to destroy his ability to make love to you himself, to father
his own children on you. Unfortunately removing the physical ability to
have sex does not necessarily remove the emotional desire for it at the
same time.

'It won't be easy for you, that's why I'm cautioning you
now to think carefully—and then there's the child. He may
take his resentment out on him or her,' he warned her. 'You do
understand,' he told her gently, 'that to the world the child will have
to appear to be fathered by Edward, that his pride wouldn't allow
anything else?'

'But that's impossible.'

'Not necessarily. There is a way, a process, familiar
enough to you I'm sure from your work with your stock…'

When he explained it to her she frowned and then smiled
faintly. 'You think people will believe it?'

'Why not? It isn't unheard of for couples to want more
than one child. Handled properly and openly…a little
discreet information dropped that the process is still so chancy that
no one wanted to say anything until the pregnancy was properly
established… It's down to you, really, Liz. Down to how you
behave. This child when it arrives can be yours and your lover's, or it
can be yours and Edward's… It all depends on you.

'Oh, and by the way—I wouldn't say anything to
Edward about it yet.'

In the end Liz was five months pregnant before Edward made
any reference to her condition. They were having dinner with the Lord
Lieutenant and his wife. The former had been praising Liz for the work
she was doing at the mill, and then his wife leaned across to
congratulate her on the coming birth.

'Yes,' Edward responded for her. 'We're both very pleased
that things have worked out so well, aren't we, darling?' He took hold
of her hand and squeezed it firmly, giving .her one of his rare, warm
smiles. 'Of course the procedure is a bit chancy, so we've kept our
plans very much to ourselves…'