The River Flows On (29 page)

There was a light breeze in the air. It made the rosebuds sway on their stems like impossibly graceful dancers.

The words were ringing round her head. It’ll kill your father. You were supposed to be the brainy one. Let a man have his way with you. Was that all it had meant to Jack Drummond? That he’d had his way with her? Wasn’t love supposed to come into it somewhere?

If she kept the baby ... But how could she? Jack didn’t want to know. Could she go away, start a new life somewhere else? Buy a cheap wedding ring in Woolies and pretend she was a widow? Use your loaf, Cameron, she upbraided herself. Where would you get the money to live on? She couldn’t go out to work, not with a wee baby in tow;

The door of the house opposite opened. A neat maid, in black dress, white cap and apron, waved a tablecloth free of crumbs. What time was it anyway? Kate had eaten nothing since breakfast that morning. There was a crisp banknote in her purse, enough to pay to get rid of her mistake.

‘You’ll get it back from him, mind!’ That had been Lily’s parting shot, her lips set in a firm line. Kate had miserably agreed, knowing she would rather be torn apart by wild horses than ask Jack Drummond for the money.

The maid had gone back in, the door was once more closed. It was painted a shiny black, like the railings around the little park. The door had a well-polished brass letter box and a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. All she had to do was get up, walk across the road and lift the lion’s head. That was all. She would hand over the money and the rest would be taken care of. Her mistake got rid of, she could get on with the rest of her life: finish her apprenticeship and continue with her art studies. She sighed and tilted her head back to look up at the sky. It was blue, filled with fluffy white clouds.

Kate’s eyes fell again on the roses. They were so beautiful. Yet they were so fragile. Someone could come along here and lop their heads off and they would never get the chance to burst forth into their full beauty and grace.

Slowly, as though she were walking in her sleep, Kate stood up and made her way to the park gate. She turned once, to look at the roses.

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ came a quiet voice from behind her. Kate turned from her scrutiny of the oily surface of the river.

‘We must stop meeting like this.’

Robbie gave her the briefest of grins and ran his hand through his hair. ‘Aye.’

‘How are you?’ she asked.

He shrugged and walked forward to join her at the handrail. ‘Och, you know.’

‘Aye, I know,’ said Kate softly, thinking how tired and pale he looked.

He grasped her hand and slid it through the crook of his arm. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders.

She felt rather than saw Robbie’s sidelong glance at her and he took a step away, allowing her to pull her arm out of his. The air between them crackled with tension. With his usual perception, he had guessed that something was coming.

She had spent the previous night tossing and turning, eliciting numerous moans from Pearl. Her sister’s irritation was nothing compared to the torment going on inside her own head. She wasn’t at all sure that she could go through with this.

Yet she had made her decision yesterday, in the little park looking at the roses. Her life had taken a turn she hadn’t expected, but it had to be faced up to - and dealt with. There was a price to be paid, of course.

The feet that it was Robbie who, all unwitting, was going to have to pay most of that price was what made her hesitate. But he loved her; she knew that. He wanted to marry her... but it was deceiving him - in the worst way possible.

He was silent, waiting for her to speak. He loved her. She kept coming back to that. And she would try her best to be a good wife to him, to make him happy. She had two lives to think of now - her own, and her baby’s. And because of that other small life, so utterly dependent upon her, she turned at last to Robert Baxter and spoke.

‘Robbie,’ she said. ‘Mind you asked me a question, that day you took me out to lunch, three weeks ago?’ Three weeks! Was it so recent? So much had happened since then: Barbara’s death; her own small tragedy.

‘I remember,’ he said gravely. ‘What about it?’

The blood was pounding in Kate’s ears. She turned and looked at him as though she were seeing him for the very first time. He was pale, and very serious. It was a warm evening and he was in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. He had taken his tie and collar off, and undone a couple of shirt buttons, she looked at the skin of his throat, exposed to the fresh air. It made him look curiously vulnerable and boyish. His thick hair was, as usual, tousled. Could she really do this to him? Did she have a choice?

‘Would you ask me that question again?’

He went very still, and it was some time before he spoke. ‘I thought you had an understanding with someone else.’

She dropped her head, shame flooding through her. Maybe she was going to have to tell him the truth after all, see his eyes fill with condemnation and hurt.

‘Has something happened to change that?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she mumbled, ‘something’s changed.’

‘Look at me, Kate.’ His voice was quiet, but implacable. With a toss of her chestnut-brown waves, Kate forced herself to meet his eyes.

‘Are you sure you’re doing this for the right reasons?’

Her stomach lurched. Did he have a crystal ball?

‘I don’t want you to say yes because things haven’t worked out for you, or because you’re feeling sorry for me about ... about Barbara.’ He managed to get his sister’s name out and then clamped his mouth tightly shut. There were to be no tears today. ‘I don’t want you marrying me out of pity, or on the rebound from ... someone else.’ He was finding that name difficult to say, too. ‘You gave me a pretty definite no three weeks ago.’

Kate tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. She hadn’t expected this interrogation - although she should have. It was how he was: honest and straight and always needing to get at the truth. How was she to convince him? Nervously, she got something out about feelings having changed.

‘Is it your feelings that have changed? Or his?’

He had hit the nail on the head as usual, asking the only question which really mattered. She had to steel herself not to drop her eyes again before his level gaze.

‘Mine,’ she whispered. It was the only possible answer, but she crossed her fingers as she said it. Hope leaped into his eyes. She saw it - a tiny flame; saw also how he made a move towards her, then checked himself, hands held stiffly at his sides.

‘If I ask you again, I have to ask you two questions. The second one depends on the answer to the first.’

Squaring his shoulders, he looked her full in the face, preparing himself for the blow she might be about to inflict on him. ‘Do you love me, Kathleen Cameron?’

She had to lick her lips before she could speak and, once again, she gave him the only possible answer.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Robert Baxter wasn’t giving an inch.

‘Say it,’ he insisted. ‘Say the words.’

‘I love you, Robert Baxter.’ She smiled up at him. It was hard to smile when you had tears in your eyes.

‘Say it again.’

‘I love you, Robert Baxter.’ Her voice was stronger this time.

‘Then prove it,’ he said, reaching for her. She could feel the warmth and strength of his arms through the thin cotton of his shirt-sleeves. His lips were cool and firm on her mouth. Swept away on a tide of emotion, Kate found herself kissing him back. He gave a small grunt, tightened his hold on her and redoubled his efforts. Fighting the urge to struggle, Kate forced herself instead to relax against him - and felt the unmistakeable response in the body pressed so closely against her own. He let go of her in the nick of time.

So swiftly she didn’t realize what was happening until he’d got there, Robbie slid to one knee in front of her. He was smiling at last, his face bright as he looked up at her.

‘I think this is what I did wrong, the last time. No’ going down on bended knee.’ Laughing down at him on a surge of relief, she hardly heard the words. ‘Will you marry me, Kate?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘yes.’

His arms came round her waist, pulling her to him, his head warm on her stomach. ‘You’re a daft bisom, Kathleen Cameron.’ His voice was muffled by her body but she could hear the joy in it. Waves of gratitude and relief swept through her. It was going to be all right. Everything was going to be all right. Kate sent up a prayer of mingled thankfulness and apology. If You forgive me, God, I swear I’ll make it up to him. I swear I’ll make him happy.

Just let me marry Robbie and keep my baby. I won’t mind about giving up the Art School, or my apprenticeship - or Jack Drummond. I’ll shut all those memories away in a box in my head, and never look at them again. Just let me keep my baby and I’ll make Robbie happy. I’ll be a good wife to him, I swear I will.

The words swirled round her head, like a litany, a plea both for forgiveness and a promise to their future together.

That night, for the first time in two weeks, she slept through without waking. That was good. She had to think about her health now - for the baby’s sake.

It was only when she opened her eyes the next morning, clutching at a few more moments in a warm bed before she got up to go to work, that she remembered she hadn’t crossed her fingers when she had told Robbie she loved him.

She thought about it. She had told him too many lies yesterday. She had no desire to tell him any more. They had always been honest with each other, right from when they were children. She frowned, trying to puzzle it out. Then her face cleared. Of course she loved him, like a brother, of course, but it was still love. She only hoped it would be enough.

Chapter 17

They married two weeks later - quietly, in the vestry of the church, with only the two families present, as was fitting when the groom was in mourning for his sister. Robbie had made a token protest about the loss of Kate’s apprenticeship, but it hadn’t taken much to persuade him that their wedding should take place soon. Fearful perhaps that she might change her mind if they delayed at all, he didn’t even suggest waiting a decent interval. His family, relieved to see him so happy, put no obstacles in the way of a quick, if quiet wedding, much to the relief of Lily Cameron.

‘We’ll hae to hope this bairn’s a wee one,’ she told Kate. ‘Then we can say that it’s arrived early.’ Kate winced, and hated the deception afresh, but determinedly put the thought into that mental box. Robbie was happy. Any fool could see that.

Andrew Baxter complained that his elder brother was going around ‘grinning like an eejit’ at everyone.

‘Then he remembers about Barbara,’ Andrew went on, ‘and he’s away down in the dumps again.’

‘Well, I think it’s dead romantic,’ sighed Pearl Cameron. ‘I wish I was getting married. And they’re going to have a place o’ their own. A right wee love nest - eh, Kate?’

‘A love nest!’ snorted Andrew Baxter. ‘Likely it’ll be damp.’

‘Och, you, you’ve got no romance in your soul. Has he, Jessie?’ asked Pearl, batting her eyelashes at Andrew and winking at Kate as she put the question to their sister.

Jessie nodded listlessly. Kate was growing increasingly worried about her. She’d been tired and droopy since Barbara’s death, even seemed to have lost interest in her studies. Maybe, once she and Robbie were married, Kate could think of ways of cheering her younger sister up, perhaps have her to stay sometimes at their own wee place - their love nest, as Pearl called it.

Robbie, puffed up with pride, had come home three days before the wedding and announced that he’d got them a house in Clydebank - very central, at the foot of Kilbowie Road. It wasn’t much, he told Kate apologetically, only a single end - a room where they would sleep and eat and live, but it was a start. Astonishingly, he had further announced that they were going to have a honeymoon - four days at Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde.