The Healing Stream (12 page)

And when, half an hour later, he opened the heavy ancient front door, he only had to look at her expression to know he’d been right.

‘Giles,’ she turned to him, so full of emotion that she could find no words. ‘Giles,’ she said again, putting her arms around his neck and burying her head against his shoulder.

He held her close against him, then raised her head so that he could see her face.

‘You think this can be our home for two weeks?’ he asked softly, a teasing note in his voice.

‘I think I could stay here forever and ever. It’s so
right
, all the lovely old oak furniture and such comfy-looking chairs. It’s a proper home. You like it too?

‘Come upstairs and see the rest. It’s not large but I agree with you, it’s so
right
. And so it should be; the owner is an interior designer. He lives in London but has this for when he wants to escape. I’ve known him for years. He only rents it to friends. Come up and see the bedrooms. I’ll bring the cases.’

He’d said ‘bedrooms’. Did he mean that they wouldn’t share? Again she felt unsure of herself, out of her depth. At the top of the narrow staircase he dumped their cases and steered her towards one of the bedrooms, stopping on the way to open the door of a modern bathroom with off-white tiled walls and bathroom fitments.

‘This is bedroom number two,’ he said, ushering her into a delightful room in total keeping with the living quarters downstairs.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said hesitantly then, holding his gaze and feeling her nails biting into the palms of her clenched hands, ‘but Giles, we don’t want two rooms. Isn’t that why we came away? I thought that was what you wanted.’ There! She’d said it. Now she turned her face away, feeling so uncomfortably hot that she was sure he must notice. She felt his hands on her shoulders, then drawing her close he tilted her face.

‘Did I will you to say that?’ he whispered.

‘Tell me, Giles.’

‘Tell you I want you more than I thought possible to want any woman? We’ll find paradise together, Tessa, my sweet Tessa.’

‘Show me our room,’ she whispered, her mouth so close to his that he could feel the warmth of her breath.

‘I want to take you there now, this minute. I want us to feel the warmth of the evening sun on our bodies. I want to be deep, deep inside you.’

‘Why do we have to wait?’ She guided his hand to her breast, silently begging him to do what he’d done before. If only she knew more about what would make it wonderful for him too, but she only knew about kissing and that people made love to get babies. Nothing had prepared her for this aching yearning that made her legs feel like jelly.

Without releasing their hold of each other they moved towards the main bedroom, Giles walking – shuffling, rather – forwards and Tessa backwards. Once inside he kicked the door closed, not because there was any chance of their being interrupted, but because it seemed to shut the rest of the world away. Then he unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Next came her bra before together they pushed the rest of her clothes to the floor and she kicked off her sandals. She seemed to stand outside herself, savouring every second yet not completely part of it all. Her sheltered life had left her unprepared for the sensations, both physical and mental, that made a stranger of her even to herself. Already she was unbuttoning his open-necked shirt. The situation held a quality of unreality; it belonged in her dreams. Yet even her dreams hadn’t prepared her. Giles pulled off his undergarments, letting them fall to the floor next to hers. Shoes, socks, and then, like her, he was naked.

‘The sun’s gloriously warm still,’ she said softly, frightened of breaking the spell. How trite her words sounded. Would he know that she had hidden behind making the first comment to come into her head rather than let him guess that the nearest she had even come to seeing a naked man was in pictures of statues? Perhaps he understood her sudden discomfort. No, the spirit he was sure lay dormant waiting for him to bring it to life would know nothing of false modesty.

‘And you’re gloriously lovely. You’re just as I’ve imagined,’ he said softly, drawing her closer.

Her momentary unease had gone as suddenly as it had come. Leaning against him she felt the warmth of his body.

‘I can feel your heart beating . . . bump, bump, bump,’ she muttered, her lips moving against his shoulder as he held her.

‘Every pulse in my body is beating, throbbing.’

‘And mine,’ she breathed. She had the strangest feeling: half fear, half yearning. Taking his hand she carried it to her breast, longing for him to do what he’d done that evening in the cottage. Instead he dropped to his knees, pressing his head to her groin. Involuntarily she gasped. This was something she hadn’t expected; momentarily she was lost. As his warm mouth caressed her she was taken over by something out of her control; she pressed his head closer, closer. Then he raised one hand to her breast.

‘Want . . . want . . .’ she breathed.

Kneeling up straight he leant against her, gently moving her backwards to the bed.

‘And I want you.’ He was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. ‘Now . . . now.’

If Tessa was on strange territory, so too was Giles. His life of casual affairs had satisfied him physically; there were no sex games he hadn’t played. But no woman had excited him as Tessa did, even though in experience she was little more than a child. As he moved her further on to the bed he looked down at her, so perfect, so eager. He must be gentle, he told himself; the first time would hurt. But there was nothing gentle in the need that drove him.

In her nightly imaginings she had never felt this strange aching feeling that tingled even in her arms and legs, a yearning for something still unknown.

And then it happened. Yes, it hurt, but the pain was exquisite, it was as if he were branding her, making her his own, now and forever. She was filled with joy as, with her legs wrapped around him, she arched her back to force him ever nearer. There was something primitive and wild in the way she moved beneath him. Then, for both of them, control was gone, nature was supreme. She had been born for this moment.

Afterwards as they lay close, fighting for breath, she managed to force out the words, ‘Was like – was like – never knew – be like that.’ Then, after a huge gasp, ‘Sort of sacred, glorious.’

He didn’t answer. They were free agents; there was nothing to get up for. So, as the sun started to sink behind trees on a faraway hill, they both slept.

Much later, bathed and dressed for the evening, he took her out to dinner. White damask tablecloth and napkins, champagne, candles; it was an evening like no other.

Back in the car, before he switched on the engine he held his cigarette case to her, then lit first hers and then his own. For a few seconds they sat back in their seats, seeming to savour the moment.

‘This evening . . .’ she began, groping for the right words.

‘Yes? This evening?’ He turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised as he waited.

‘It’s hard to find the right words.’

‘This evening . . .?’ he prompted.

‘Well, don’t you see, it’s made me a different person? Even though I knew you were wrong when you used to say I was just a child, I can see now that I wasn’t really a proper
woman
. There was so much I didn’t know, don’t you see? I was a young girl and now, even though I’m only a few hours older, I’m a proper woman.’ In the darkness she couldn’t see his expression, but she took his soft chuckle as agreement. ‘I’m glad about it, though, Giles. I mean, we really
know
each other now.’ Never in her life had she experienced such a feeling of contentment and certainty. She wound down the window to let the cigarette smoke go out and the scented air of summer come in, so sure of the rightness of where she was that she didn’t notice Giles had not replied.

‘Just the two of us,’ she said, just as she had earlier. He understood what was left unsaid.

As the days of their fortnight passed all too quickly, she made two or three phone calls home to the farm; she even gave them accurate descriptions of where they had walked on the Shropshire hills and, during the second week, of the trip ‘she and Natalie’ had taken to Shrewsbury.

On their last morning she brought all her hotel training to bear as she cleaned the cottage before they left.

‘They’ll send a cleaner in; you don’t want to bother mopping the floors.’

‘Yes, I do. We walked an awful lot of mud in after yesterday’s storm. I won’t be long. What time do you want to be on the road? Oh, Giles, it’s all gone so quickly.’

‘Too quickly,’ he said, coming towards her.

‘Don’t walk on the wet floor. If you get the cases down I’ll be ready in five minutes. The floor is the last thing.’

‘I never doubted you were a Mary; don’t tell me you are a Martha after all.’

She chuckled, carrying her bucket out of the back door to throw the water by the hedge, then took off her shoes once she was back inside. ‘I’m a bit of both, I expect. Don’t you think most women are?’

‘Not those of my acquaintance. I’ll pack the car.’

Was it because she’d insisted on leaving the cottage looking as inviting as she had found it that he was so quiet on the drive south? It wasn’t that he was bad-tempered or angry with her, but he seemed withdrawn. Perhaps he was just sad to be going home, she told herself and, as if to console him, laid her hand somewhere near the top of his leg as he drove. For a second he covered it with his, the action driving away her doubts.

‘Doesn’t it seem silly that you have to put me down in Exeter so that I go home by bus, when you will be passing the end of the lane? I hate going home to lies and deceit. Can’t we tell them, Giles?’

‘Tell your uncle that I’ve taken his ward away a child and delivered her home a woman? Wasn’t that what you said that first evening? No, my sweet Tessa, what is between us is just for us. Soon you will be a free agent and until then I’m not chancing the wrath of an irate guardian because I’ve deflowered his ward who’s young enough to be my daughter. In any case,’ he went on firmly as she tried to interrupt, ‘I’m not going back to Downing Wood at the moment. After I’ve left you I shall get straight on to the London road. I must check into the apartment and see my mail, then I’m going down to Spain for a brief visit.’

‘Spain?’ He might as well have said he was going to the moon. ‘What? Another holiday? Or is it the setting for a new book or something?’

‘Neither. It’s my retreat from the fleshpots.’

‘Fancy you having a faraway house like that.’ She was determined not to let him guess how hurt she was that there were things in his life he didn’t share with her. ‘Deirdre never mentioned it.’

‘I doubt if I’ve ever talked about it to them. Why should I? I told you, it’s a retreat.’

She wanted him to know her every thought and yet, even now, she was on the edge of his life. ‘We could have gone there for our holiday,’ she said, horribly aware that such an idea wouldn’t have occurred to him.

‘Indeed we could if you’d had a passport and the freedom to live your own life.’

His answer took away her feeling of being isolated from him. She turned to him, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘Next year, Giles. As soon as I’m twenty-one I shall apply for a passport, and anyway by next summer we shall already be married.’

‘Bugger!’ He swore softly as he rounded a bend in the narrow lane and saw a herd of cattle ahead of them being driven home for milking. ‘I should have stuck to the main road. I know the district well around here and thought I’d take this as a shortcut. Damn it, just when I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.’

‘You can dump me off before we get right down to Exeter if you like. I’ll get a train or a bus.’

‘I’ll put you off at the bus stop in Exeter as we arranged. There’s no point in trying to get to London cross-country. From Exeter I shall have main road all the way.’

There were so many questions she wanted to ask him. Whereabouts in Spain was his retreat? Was it a house or an apartment? Who looked after it when he wasn’t there? What was he doing in Spain when he found it? Did he drive all that way or go on a train? Yet there was something about his expression that prevented her questioning him further.

An hour later he drew up at the bus stop in Exeter. Leaning close to him she wound her arms around his neck. ‘The end; once I get out of the car it’s really all over. Now I have to go home and tell fibs.’

‘It’s their own fault. They should realize you are old enough to make your own decisions.’

‘Will they know I’m different? It’s all been so wonderful. Was it wonderful for you too, Giles, darling Giles?’

For a moment he was silent, his expression inscrutable. Then, looking at her very directly, he said, ‘It has been a fortnight I shall remember all my days, if I live to be a hundred. Out you get, sweet Tessa.’

‘How long will you be away?’ she asked, not loosening her hold of him.

‘I don’t know. There are things I have to arrange. I’ll come back as soon as I can.’ Then, kissing her very gently on her forehead, he unwound her arms from him and got out of the car to get her case.

It was all over. In that moment as she climbed out and held her hand out to take her luggage, she seemed to see the fortnight flash through her mind. She too would remember it for the rest of her life. And soon he’d be back; at the thought her imagination took her to the cottage in Downing Wood and the hours they would spend together there. Before the holiday she had known nothing of love, not as she did now. As she watched him get back into the car, her memory carried her to the moments when their love-making had brought them to that pinnacle of joy, a sensation that each time had been more than physical: it had been a union of their bodies and their spirits. She wished the car door wasn’t shut and Giles already looking over his shoulder to make sure he was safe to pull out into the traffic; she wanted to remind him, to rekindle the wonder of it in his mind. But the car was moving away and she was left at the bus stop with her case.

If only she could talk about it to someone. But she mustn’t. And in any case, who could she talk to? She believed Naomi would have understood what she meant, and yet surely there was no logic in her thinking. Naomi and Richard were ancient, thought the twenty year old, and yet there was something about them that told her they would understand the wonder of what she had discovered. But she knew she couldn’t. And if she were honest with herself she knew she wanted to hear herself put it into words and yet she wanted to hug it to herself. Soon Giles would come home from Spain and then there would be no need to find the right words; for him as well as for her what they had shared had been glorious. She thought of Amelia and seemed to hear her familiar voice: ‘Rejoice’. Yes, Gran knew.