Guarded Passions (24 page)

The shrilling of the telephone brought her to her senses. It was only six o'clock. Who on earth could be phoning so early? she wondered as she went to answer it.

“Hello Grandma!'

‘Who … who is that? Are you sure you have the right number?'

‘I hope I have … at this time in the morning. It's Hugh. I'm ringing to let you know you're a grandmother. Ruth went into labour last night. The baby was born at four o'clock this morning.'

‘Is everything all right? How is Ruth?'

‘Absolutely fine. No complications of any kind.'

‘And the baby?'

‘Quite perfect. A little girl. She weighed in at seven pounds. Looks just like Ruth. Dark hair, same shaped face. She's gorgeous.'

‘That's wonderful, Hugh. I'm so relieved. I do wish it had happened before we left. Do … do you want me to come back?'

‘No need. Ruth's returning to England for a spell, just as soon as she comes out of hospital. It's not really safe for her and the baby out here. We had a lot of bombing last night. Our social club was hit, several of our friends have been badly injured. It's upset Ruth …'

‘How awful! Of course she must come back to England at once. Are you sure you wouldn't like me to come and fetch her? She's not fit to travel on her own.'

‘Give it a few days and she'll be OK. Don't worry, she'll have someone to travel across with when she's ready. A lot of wives are packing it in over here now that things have started to really hot up. I'll phone you again when I know when she will be coming.'

Hugh's call suddenly changed everything. With a sense of relief, Helen pushed to one side her own problem. There were far more important things to do now than brood about the past. She must get everything ready for when Ruth arrived. The days ahead would be busy ones with a young baby in the house.

Since Gary had never known who his father was there was nothing to be gained by telling him, or anyone else, about it at the moment. She would give it more thought … when she had less on her mind. It might be better for everyone if it remained her secret.

Helen idolised Sally from the first moment she set eyes on her. As she cradled the tiny bundle in her arms and gazed down at the mass of brown hair that curled over the baby's tiny ears and forehead, she was filled with a deep tenderness.

Sally was a happy, contented baby, sleeping right through the night and quickly settling into a routine, so that it seemed to Helen she had always been there.

It was a wonderful summer and Sally grew plump and golden as she lay outside in her pram, kicking her tiny arms and legs. Helen kept a watchful eye on her from the kitchen window, and Lucy was in constant attendance as soon as she came home from school. Even Mark made frequent detours so that he could stop by the pram.

Sally thrived on such attention. She smiled readily and her eyes, which were now a soft brown with golden flecks in them, followed every movement around her.

Ruth, too, seemed to be enjoying her new role. Her only disappointment was the fact that Hugh hadn't managed to get any leave, so he hadn't seen the baby since she'd left Ireland. Just after Ruth had come back, fresh disturbances had broken out and in Derry over three hundred people had been injured, so she knew Hugh would be needed there for quite a long time.

‘Sally will be walking and talking before he sees her,' she grumbled, as she put down a letter she had just received from Hugh.

‘Well, you know what the Army's like!' Helen reminded her.

‘I can still grumble, can't I?' Ruth grinned. ‘I can remember the way you used to carry on when you thought Dad was coming home and instead he was sent off on a course or an exercise!'

‘Yes, it can be infuriating. You make all the preparations, spend hours cooking, and then they don't turn up,' Helen said grimly.

‘I don't,' Ruth laughed. ‘Hugh has to take pot luck. If there's no food in the house then we go to the pub, or I send him out to get a take-away.'

Helen was about to voice her disapproval, then held back, remembering all the frustration she had known when she had prepared for Adam's homecoming, only to be disappointed. At the time she had blamed the vagaries of the Army. Now she wasn't so sure that it had always been duty that had detained Adam. Perhaps Ruth had the right attitude after all.

Briskly she turned her mind to other things. Knowing what she did now, such thoughts only embittered her. Given her life over again, she wouldn't have been so gullible. Her lips tightened, hard lines forming on either side of her mouth, visibly ageing her.

Turning stones was dangerous, she decided, and she wished she had never delved into Gary Collins' background. Everything pointed to him being Adam's son. If only she could have talked to someone about it, she thought, just to ease the gnawing doubts in her own mind. Resolutely, though, she had made up her mind not to involve the rest of the family and, difficult though it was, she had kept to her decision. She intended to let them keep the image they had of their father as being a good and honourable man.

Three weeks later, with baby Sally sound asleep, and Lucy also tucked up in bed, Helen was making her way across the meadow, to pen up the hens and geese for the night, when she heard a car draw up outside the house. Since Mark and Ruth were both there she didn't turn back, but it puzzled her just who the caller could be at that time of the evening.

The car was still there when she got back and its long black outline seemed vaguely familiar. As she went indoors she could hear voices and laughter coming from the sitting-room and paused to tidy her hair before joining them.

‘Is that you, Mum? Come and see who's here,' Ruth called excitedly.

‘Hugh!' Delighted for Ruth's sake that he had managed to get home at last, Helen hugged him enthusiastically.

Then, as she became aware of someone else, she stiffened. It was like a bad dream. The man who had filled her thoughts ever since her return from Ireland was there, greeting her like an old friend, putting his arm around her and kissing her on the cheek.

‘I'm afraid I had to bring Gary. It was the only way I could get a lift,' Hugh joked.

‘Gary's always welcome,' Ruth said warmly, smiling up at him. ‘We're thinking of adopting him. I shall teach Sally to call him “Uncle” just as soon as she can talk.'

‘I don't think children should be encouraged to call strangers “Uncle”. It only confuses them,' Helen said tightly and was immediately aware of Ruth's puzzled stare. ‘I'll go and prepare a meal for you both,' she said to hide her confusion.

‘Don't bother,' Hugh said quickly. ‘We'll drive down to the pub later on and get something to eat there.'

‘Mum won't let you do that.' Ruth laughed. ‘She thinks I'm a dreadful wife because I don't have a meal waiting to pop on the table at any hour of the night or day, just in case you should turn up. She always used to for Dad.'

‘You nag me now if I'm five minutes late!' Hugh laughed. ‘I can't bear the thought of what you'd say if I didn't turn up at all.'

‘I certainly wouldn't be as patient as Mum was with Dad. I'd probably throw it at you. She used to pander to his every whim; his word was law.'

Helen went into the kitchen and closed the door firmly, shutting out the laughter that followed Ruth's remarks.

Automatically she began to prepare some food, but her mind was in a turmoil at the thought of Gary being there in her home. Meeting him in Ireland had been bad enough, but to have him under her own roof was a bitter pill to swallow, now that she was so sure he was Adam's son. It was probably only for a couple of days, she reminded herself. Surely she could keep a still tongue in her head for just that length of time.

Their short leave passed better than Helen dared hope. Gary kept out of her way, as if sensing her antagonism towards him, even though she did her utmost to conceal it. He spent most of his time out on the farm with Mark.

Yet even that irritated Helen. She brooded over the way they had taken to each other so readily.

Watching them walk around the farmyard together she was struck by the similarities between them; their height and the breadth of their shoulders was almost identical. Although he was only nineteen, working on the farm had developed Mark's muscles and he carried himself like a military man.

Helen wasn't surprised, only numbly resigned, when Mark remarked conversationally, after Gary and Hugh had gone roaring off in Gary's car when their leave was over, that someone had thought Gary was his brother.

‘Funny thing to say, wasn't it?' he persisted. ‘It was old Bill Thatcher that said it. Gary and I were standing at the bar in the Lion and old Bill was sitting in his usual seat by the fireplace. He stared across at us, and then pointed at Gary with that old pipe of his and said, “This ain't your Ruth's husband.” I told him it wasn't and he sat there for a minute or so, drawing on his pipe, and then he said, “Be your brother, is it? Never knew before that you had an older brother.”'

‘Silly old man!' Helen exploded.

‘When I told him I hadn't got a brother, he just sat there nodding and shaking his head as if he was having an argument with himself and then he said, “Well, you have now.”'

‘And then I suppose you bought him a pint?' Ruth said scornfully.

‘Gary did. He seemed tickled pink at the idea of being my brother.'

Helen walked away. She didn't want Mark to see the misery in her eyes but his words, ‘Gary seemed tickled pink at the idea of being my brother', echoed over and over in her head. Yes, she thought, he would do. Deep down he knows the truth and wants to be recognised as one of the family.

Gary's image filled her mind. He was so like Adam in everything except the colour of his hair, that of course old Bill Thatcher, who claimed the gift of ‘second sight' would see the resemblance when the two of them were standing side by side. They even had Adam's vivid blue eyes and straight dark brows. Of course they looked like brothers! It was there for anyone to see and it worried her in case he went round voicing his suspicions. She could only hope that if he did, his babblings would fall on deaf ears, or be regarded as a sign that he was getting old and muddled.

She was determined not to be undermined by gossip. Adam was dead and his past could remain that way, too. She had no intention of drawing anyone else into her private hell. Except Gary! She would dearly love to make him suffer!

Her own bitterness frightened her. Gary could hardly help his parentage. She should be feeling sorry for him because he had been denied a father, not constantly seeking revenge.

But had he? The question burned in her mind. Had Adam visited him when he was a child? Helen remembered Adam's frequent long absences, the times when she didn't see him for weeks, or even months. Work had always been given as the reason, and accepted without question. But had he sometimes spent weekends in London, visiting his son, watching him grow into a sturdy boy and then into manhood? Had his regular visits impressed the boy so much that he had determinedly followed his father into the Army?

There was only one way to find out … to ask Gary. She shrank from doing so, afraid that once she started talking to him about his childhood, she might disclose what she thought to be the truth about his father. It was torture enough having him in her own home and seeing him on intimate terms with her own three children. To openly admit he really was a blood relation was out of the question.

Helen could see that Hugh's leave had unsettled Ruth, so it was no surprise when, at the end of the summer, since things had quietened down in Northern Ireland, she decided to rejoin him. Sally was over three months old and Hugh had only seen her once in all that time.

Helen missed Ruth and Sally even more than she had thought she would, and she hoped Hugh's tour of duty in Ireland would soon come to an end. Having them at Hill Farm had kept her so busy that she hadn't had time to dwell on what she now thought of as Adam's betrayal. Apart from that, she had actually enjoyed having a baby around the place, and it had been fun for Lucy.

She felt cheated a few months later when Gary Collins was posted back to Chelsea Barracks while Hugh remained in Northern Ireland. Although things were still fairly quiet in Derry, she still felt anxious about them being there.

Now that he was back in England, the farm became a second home to Gary. Whenever he was free he drove there, ostensibly to see Mark, but all the time he was in the house Helen felt he was watching her. Sometimes she caught a strange look in his vividly blue eyes, almost as if he knew her secret. It worried her, too, that Mark had begun to model himself on Gary, smoking as well as drinking.

Before Gary had appeared on the scene Mark had rarely gone to the village pub. Now he went there most Saturday evenings. Encouraged by Gary, he had started picking up girls and this also worried Helen, even though she realised that, since he was twenty, it was only natural. She wouldn't have minded so much if he had found a steady girlfriend. It was the type of girls, and the casualness of it all, that bothered her. She felt his cavalier treatment of women was a flaw in his nature, and feared it had been inherited from Adam.

Gary was an unsettling influence in other ways. When Ruth had married Hugh, Mark had given up all thought of joining the Army. Without any pressure from her he had decided to make farming his life. Now, regaled by Gary's anecdotes, and talk of Army life in general, his interest had been rekindled and she could sense his unrest.

Her resentment against Gary and the way he was affecting her family increased until she could barely manage to be civil to him. Every visit he made inflamed her. She looked forward to the weekends when he was on duty, the weeks when he was away on exercises or courses.

She was surprised when Ruth wrote to tell her that Gary had at last married Sheila. He had never mentioned it to her or Mark, as far as she knew. According to Ruth's letter, no one had known about it until Gary was charged with not asking his CO's permission to get married. When Gary was marched in to his CO's office, a soldier on either side of him, and the charge had been read out, he had been reprimanded and warned, ‘Don't do it again.'