As Time Goes By (31 page)

Sally waited, sensitive to his need to unburden himself.

‘Fleur … what is it?’ he asked when Sally made a small sound.

‘Nothing really, just that it’s such a pretty name, so delicate and elegant … not like Sally, that’s so … so ordinary and dull.’

‘No, it isn’t. Sally is love and warmth and caring. Sally for me means home. As for Fleur being delicate, well, she liked to give that impression but in reality she was unyielding and selfish, determined to have her own way no matter what the cost to others. She told me shortly after she had discovered that she was pregnant that the only reason she’d married was because she couldn’t marry her lover, because he was her cousin. She had tried everything she could to persuade her father to relent and sanction their marriage but he would not do so. It seemed there had been some intermarriage
in the family in previous generations, which had resulted in the birth of a child with a number of physical problems. Her father, being a physician, was vehemently opposed to them marrying because of the risk of this happening again, as was his brother, who was her lover’s father. They had both been told they would be disinherited if they didn’t give one another up, and so Fleur had conceived this idea that she would find herself an amenable husband to marry so that they could continue with their affair in secret.’

‘But she was your wife … You had two sons …’

His mouth twisted into a bleak tormented grimace. ‘No, I did not have two sons. Those poor little souls had been fathered by her lover. That was why she had to tell me about him. You see, whilst our marriage had been consummated, we had ceased to share a bed within a few weeks of returning from our honeymoon. I could see no point in continuing with an act that brought me little pleasure and so much bitter self-disgust. She claimed that it was only the lower orders who expected to feel passion and delight in the physical side of their marriage, and that I should remember how much marriage to her had elevated me socially and professionally, and be satisfied with that. She pointed out the humiliation she suffered when her friends questioned her choice of husband and shuddered over my uncouth ways, and said that I should do more to show my gratitude.

‘And then, of course, when she told me that
there was to be a child, she had to tell me the truth. I remember thinking then that perhaps her father had been right to forbid her marriage to her cousin because sometimes it crossed my mind that she herself was not quite … well, that her thinking was not quite as rational as it might have been. She was convinced that once her father had seen that the two of them had produced a normal healthy child he would relent and that with his blessing she could be allowed to divorce me on some trumped-up grounds so that she and her cousin could marry. Sadly within a year of his birth it was obvious that little Euan was not going to be the child she had hoped, but by then she already knew there was to be a second child, and I imagine she put her hopes on this coming baby … She took to referring to Euan, when addressing me, always as “your son”. Poor little lost soul, I wish I might have been a better father to him, for God knows it is true he needed one.’

Sally was too appalled to speak. She remembered the photograph she had seen, and the two beautiful-looking children in it. Tears filled her eyes – for them and for their ‘father’.

‘Physically both children were perfect, good-looking replicas of their mother and their true father, but whilst they were gentle loving boys, they did not have that … that spark of intelligence that is so evidence in Tommy and Harry. I loved them, though – not perhaps as a father, but as their protector, for I could see that Fleur was bitterly resentful of what she could see they would
become. I would often come home to find them locked in their nursery, unwashed and hungry, whilst Fleur had gone out with her lover.

‘And then he was moved to London. His father obtained a post for him in one of the ministries to keep him out of uniform. Fleur wanted me to apply to a London hospital but I refused. There was the most terrible row. I told her that if she went to her lover then she would go alone, that the children must stay with me and that I would go to her father and put the whole sorry business in front of him preparatory to arranging a legal separation. If only I had known then that by delivering that threat I was sealing the boys’ death warrant. She waited until I was out of the house and then she left for London, taking the boys with her. The rest you know. The house was bombed and she and her lover and their sons lost their lives.’

Now she could understand so much that she had not understood before, Sally’s heart flooded with love and compassion.

‘I never wanted to fall in love with you, Sally, but now that I have I can’t bear the thought of living without you,’ Alex told her. ‘You and the boys have taken away the emptiness and loneliness inside me. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted or ever could want in a wife. Just watching you whilst you’ve been here has shown me that over and over again. A doctor ought to be careful about choosing a wife, for her sake and for the sake of his patients.’

His wife! Sally’s heart jerked against her ribs.

‘So having me here as your housekeeper was just to test me out to see if I could measure up, was it?’ she demanded in an attempt to cover up what she was feeling.

‘No. Never! I am the one who needs to measure up to you, Sally, not the other way round.’

Somehow or other one of them had moved, or maybe even both of them, Sally admitted, because she was back in his arms, openly inviting him to kiss her for all that she knew she should be reminding him – and herself – that she was only newly widowed and had no right to be so much as talking with him like this, never mind anything more. But being here with him in the cosiness of the fire-lit room was so very, very sweet that she couldn’t deny either him the comfort of her loving arms or herself the joy of their shared intimacy.

It wasn’t even six o’clock yet, but it had been pointless her lying in bed when she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Far better to be down here in the kitchen, Sally told herself, busying her hands with tasks even if she couldn’t busy her head with enough thoughts to distract her from what had happened last night.

She opened the back door. The sky had that depth of wintry darkness that warned that it would be a day when it couldn’t lighten properly at all.

Like her heart?

She might have gone to bed as though dancing on clouds, warmed by love and deliriously happy, but it hadn’t been very long before guilt had filled her, telling her how wrong it was for her to love Alex with poor Ronnie so recently dead. What kind of woman, what kind of wife was she? Ronnie deserved better from her than that. He certainly deserved that she mourn his memory properly and for a decent enough time instead of wantonly throwing herself into the arms of another man.

When she heard the hall door into the kitchen being opened she knew without turning round that it was Alex. Alex. How sweet and at the same time shocking it felt to be able to think his name inside her head, just as last night she had tasted it and him on her lips.

‘My bed was very empty after you left it,’ he told her softly.

Sally didn’t speak or move, keeping her back to him. She had had to force herself to leave the warmth of his arms and his bed for the cold emptiness of her own but he knew as well as she did that they couldn’t have Tommy waking up early and finding her missing from her bed. And they certainly couldn’t have him taking it into his head, to go to ‘his doctor’s’ room and find his mother there. Being the lad he was, ready to chat with anyone, he’d be telling everyone about it before she could stop him, too young and innocent to know what he was doing.

‘I’ve been thinking …’

Sally stiffened as he came up behind her. ‘So have I,’ she said, evading him as he tried to wrap his arms around her. ‘What happened last night wasn’t right.’

‘Of course it was. It was the most right thing that’s ever happened to me in the whole of my life,’ he stopped her tenderly.

‘No!’ Sally denied, panic sharpening her voice. If she could feel this weak and be filled with this much longing just because of the sound of his voice then how was she going to be able to do what
was right if she had to look at him; if he touched her?

‘You can’t say that. You mustn’t … I should never have let you …’

‘My darling, wonderful, precious girl, what’s wrong?’ He was laughing tenderly, unaware yet of what had to come. Sally felt as though a knife was twisting in her own heart at the thought of how much she was going to hurt him.

‘Everything’s wrong. Me. You. Us. Can’t you see that?’

‘All I can see is the woman I love, the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.’

‘No! You mustn’t say things like that to me.’

She turned round and then wished she hadn’t because now she could see him her heart was telling her what she had already known and that was that she ached with love and longing for him. And that was wrong, so very, very wrong. Just as what she’d done last night – going to him, giving herself to him, loving him with a passion she had never ever experienced with Ronnie – had been very, very wrong, she told herself desperately, trying to whip herself up into the mood of self-disgust she needed to see things through.

‘Why not? Last night—’

‘Last night shouldn’t ever have happened – it was wrong.’

‘How could anything so beautiful be wrong? Last night when you gave me your sweet self, Sally, you gave me something I never imagined my life would have.’ He reached and touched her face
before she could stop him, causing her to make a small moan of protest and longing.

‘I can’t stay here now. Me and the boys will have to leave.’

‘No! I won’t let you go. You love me, Sally, you told me so last night, and I love you.’

‘I can’t love you. Not with me being newly widowed and you being the doctor. I can just imagine what folk like Daisy Cartwright would have to say about me getting ideas above me station.’

‘Ideas above your station? What nonsense! You will make a perfect doctor’s wife, Sally. Is that really all this is about? Some silly woman who doesn’t know any better, gossiping about us?’

She could hear the relief and the love in his voice.

‘Look, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have a fresh start, you, me and the boys. We could move away from here to somewhere where no one knows us. We could be married quickly and quietly first, and then we’d be Dr and Mrs Ross, and anyone who dares to think of upsetting my wife will have me to answer to.’

What he was saying was so tempting, and when he wrapped his arms around her she allowed herself to imagine that his suggestion was possible, but whilst he could protect her from Daisy’s gossip, and they could run away from it, he couldn’t protect her from her own conscience, and she certainly could not run away from that.

‘It isn’t just Daisy and what folk would say,’ she admitted.

‘What is it then?’

‘It’s Ronnie.’ She felt his arms tighten round her. ‘He’s not even cold in his grave yet, and it would not be right me and you … I’d feel like I was behaving like one of them women what goes wi’ other men behind their husband’s backs.’

‘You said you loved me.’

‘I know … and … and I do … but that doesn’t make it right. I may not be able to stop meself from loving you but I can stop meself from … from being with you and being disrespectful to Ronnie.’

‘Sally …’

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

But she knew that sooner rather than later they would have to talk about the future, Sally admitted later in the day when Alex had gone out to do his house calls.

She had just put both boys down for their afternoon nap when Doris arrived at the back door.

‘You’re looking a bit pale and peaky,’ she announced as she sat down at the kitchen table and Sally poured her a cup of tea. ‘What’s to do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘From the look of you it seems to me like it’s the kind of nothing that means an awful lot of “something”. I’m not daft, Sally. Summat’s bothering you. For all the attention you’ve bin paying to wot I’ve bin saying these last ten minutes I could have bin talking Chinese. It’s you and the doctor, isn’t it? Summat’s happened.’

‘No! Yes,’ Sally admitted miserably, knowing that her red face was giving her away.

‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I could see which way the wind was blowing with him, and that he was getting sweet on you. And summat tells me that you’re every bit as struck on him.’

‘Yes,’ Sally admitted wretchedly. ‘I should never have come here, putting temptation in front of both of us, but I didn’t realise then … I never meant anything to happen, Doris, I promise I didn’t, no matter what anyone else might have to say. I didn’t have a thought in me head of anything happening between me and Alex when I moved in here.’

‘Of course you didn’t, and neither did the doctor, I’ll be bound, but things have a way of happening when there’s strong feelings involved and there’s a war on,’ Doris assured her comfortingly.

Sally wasn’t ready to be comforted, though. ‘It’s all very well for you to say that, Doris, but there’s others that won’t see it that way,’ she retorted miserably.

‘Come on, let’s get that kettle on and have a fresh cup of tea, and then we’ll have a talk about it,’ Doris suggested.

Obediently Sally filled the kettle, and then burst out unhappily, ‘I feel that ashamed, Doris. I’ve let my Ronnie down good and proper, and him dead no more than a few weeks.’

Instead of agreeing with her, Doris shook her head. ‘Here, let me make that tea; you go and sit down,’ she insisted.

‘And it isn’t any good me telling meself that I
didn’t want it to happen or trying to lay the blame on Alex,’ cos I did, and it wasn’t his fault,’ Sally admitted.

‘Well, you don’t need to go telling me that anyone with any sense in them can see that you and the doctor aren’t the sort to go getting involved in summat like this if you didn’t have feelings for one another.’

‘I don’t have any right to have feelings for him, not with my Ronnie—’

‘Sally, listen to me. There’s no call for you to go making yourself miserable like this. I know it’s only bin a few weeks since you heard about Ronnie, but it’s bin over two years since he was last home.’

‘That shouldn’t make any difference. He was fighting for his country, and for me and our kiddies, and now he’s dead, and I’m …’

‘Things are different in wartime, Sally, and if you want my advice then I reckon you and the doctor ought to be able to have what happiness you can together. Anyone can see how much he thinks of you and them two lads. Boys need a father.’

‘You brought your Frank up wi’out one, and that’s what I’m going to do as well. I don’t want my lads growing up hearing things said about their mother by other kiddies, like how she was off wi’ someone else with their dad just dead. I couldn’t live wi’ meself if I did that to them, Doris. I’ve got me standards, you know. Me and Ronnie, we promised each other that we’d do the best we could for our kiddies, and I want Tommy and Harry to
grow up knowing what a good dad he would have bin to them.’

‘Well, there’s nowt to stop you telling them that, and giving them a good stepfather as well, is there? You’d be daft to turn your back on a good man like the doctor, Sally, especially wi’ the way you feel about him.’

‘I’ve got to think about what I owe my Ronnie.’

‘What about what you owe yourself and the doctor? It’s right that you should mourn Ronnie – I’m not saying it isn’t – but you can’t live wi’ the dead, Sally, and your Ronnie would be the first to tell you that. If little Tommy hadn’t taken to the doctor the way he has it might be different, but have you thought about what it’s going to do to him if you was to tell him that he could have the doctor for his dad, but for you being daft? You’re too young to spend the rest of your life mourning a dead man, lass.’

‘It’s all very well you saying that, Doris, but if you were in my shoes …’

‘Well, as to that, I have bin, haven’t I? Frank’s dad was killed before Frank was even born.’

‘That’s as may be, but you’ve never remarried … or … owt … and Frank thinks the world of you, and no wonder.’

Doris looked at her and then said quietly, ‘I’m going to tell you summat now, Sally, as I’ve never told anyone. Never thought I would do either, but seein’ as you haven’t got your own mother here to do a bit of straight talking to you then I reckon I’ll have to do it meself. I can’t let you go doing
summat daft on account of worrying about what the likes of Daisy Cartwright might have to say.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you aren’t the first woman to find yourself in this kind of situation, not by a long chalk you aren’t,’ Doris told her meaningfully.

Sally stared at her. ‘You’re never trying to tell that you … that there …?’

‘Just listen to me, Sally, and don’t say a word until I’ve finished. Me and Frank’s dad grew up living on the next street to one another. Already walking out, we was, me and Frank’s dad, Bert, when war was declared. I was doing me nurse’s training and Bert had a good job, but of course what did he do but decide he had to join up? They was all doing it, of course, all the young lads, just like they have done this time. Well, of course, the first thing Bert said after he’d told me that he’d joined up was that he wanted us to get married, and I was just as daft, and said that I wasn’t having him going off to fight without us getting wed – just in case. A proper fight we had on our hands wi’ both his parents and mine telling us that we was too young. Bert was only twenty and me not even nineteen, but in the end they gave in and me and Bert got wed on his bit of leave after he’d done his training.

‘There was plenty of lasses done the same, just like this time. I kept on with me nursing even though normally I’d have had to give it up on account of me being married, but Matron had an idea of what was to come and the Government
had given orders that as many nurses as could be were to be trained up. I even lived at home with me mam and dad and me three brothers after I was married.

‘Of course, we thought it’d all be over in a matter of weeks, and when it wasn’t and the wounded started coming back from the Front, telling such tales …’ Doris shook her head. ‘Those were bad times, I can tell you. When my Bert walked in to me mam’s kitchen late one night out of the blue, I thought for a minute he must have deserted, but it turned out he’d bin given home leave. We’d just had the bad news at home that our Fred, me eldest brother, had been killed, and Bert said he was going to rent a little house for us so that we could be on our own. That was how my Frank came about. Not that I knew until I was being sick half the day three weeks after Bert had gone back to the Front. That was in 1917. By the time Frank was born in 1918 both me other two brothers had been killed and then came the news that Bert wouldn’t be coming back neither.

‘A couple of weeks – that’s all the time we’d spent together as a married couple.’

‘Me and Ronnie didn’t have much more than a few months, not with him being in the army even before the war,’ Sally told her.

Doris gave her a sympathetic look before continuing, ‘When the vicar asked if I’d take in this schoolteacher – Peter Marston, his name was – as a lodger, I thought nothing of it, only that it would
be a bit more money coming in. The vicar told me about how he’d got this wound that still needed attention – dressing and the like – and that he thought I’d be able to do that for him, with me being a nurse. Quiet type, he was, not like my Bert, who’d been a bit of a one for a singsong and a drink, but I didn’t mind him being quiet. It suited me, with Frank being only a few months old. Peter kept himself to himself at first, staying up in his bedroom and reading his books. They’d had to amputate the lower part of his left leg, and that was what had to be dressed clean every day. Never made a murmur, he didn’t, even though I knew it must be hurting him when I had to take off the bandaging. Loved Frank, he did, and took to reading to him. He could get him off to sleep faster than I could.