The Hidden Years (23 page)

His child…Kit's son would be his child in all
the ways that mattered. He looked at his new bride. There would be
plenty of time later for him to acquaint Lizzie with his determination
that no one other than themselves must ever know the child's true
parentage… Plenty of time. He loved her, and one day
maybe…

There was no reception. There was rationing, and besides,
the matron of the hospital was furious about the way she believed
Lizzie had cunningly contrived not only to get herself out of the
disgrace she had so wantonly fallen into, but also to elevate herself
socially at the same time. Edward Danvers might be an invalid, he might
not have more than two pennies to rub together, but he was still one of
Them… the elite, mysterious hierarchy of the upper classes,
even if his family's feet were only on its lowest rungs. The matron
scorned Lizzie. She had no backbone; she was far too soft, too easy
with the patients, and yet… and yet she had managed to go
and get herself married to one of Them… scheming, conniving
little hussy…

They left the hospital with nothing more than a suitcase
apiece, Edward's an old battered leather one, with his father's
initials still on it, and Lizzie's much the same, only hers had not
been handed down to her by her father, but had originally been the
property of Lady Jeveson, just like the heavy tweed suit she was
wearing as protection against the cold, squally weather.

The village's one taxi deposited them at the station. The
platform was already crowded, filled in the main with American
servicemen from nearby. Most of them had girls with them: pretty girls,
wearing bright red lipstick and shiny American nylons.

The train was crowded, even in the first class carriage
which Edward had insisted on. Lizzie had never travelled first class
before. She had expected the other people in the carriage with them to
be like the families her aunt had occasionally visited: stiff, arrogant
dowagers, with their cowed daughters and daughters-in-law, their
grandchildren, and their dogs, the latter normally being more indulged
than any child of the house ever was, but the other occupants of their
carriage were a group of American servicemen and their girls. One of
the men in particular reminded her of Kit, not so much in his looks,
but more in his manner, causing a sudden sharp feeling of despair and
desolation to sweep over her.

At her side Edward sat silently in his chair. Neither of
them had spoken since getting on the train, and Lizzie was shamefully
aware of how little she actually wanted to talk to Edward. All she
wanted was to be alone with her memories of Kit, and all the time the
one thing she had to hold on to was the knowledge that she was to have
his child. She felt disorientated and confused. Too much had happened
and too fast for her to take it all in.

Opposite the Americans and their girls were all laughing
and smoking. One of the men, the one who reminded her so sharply of
Kit, reached towards his girl, clasping her waist while she giggled and
protested. 'Aw, come on, babe, you weren't so reluctant last night,'
Lizzie heard him saying, as he grinned at his companion, and then, in
front of Lizzie's shocked eyes, openly slid his hand into the bosom of
her dress.

Inside her stomach something twisted sharply, something
uncomfortable and painful, some hidden memory of her own that made her,
just for one compelling second, see in the other couple not two
strangers, but herself and Kit. And her body tensed with rejection of
their sexuality.

She shivered suddenly, and one of the other girls asked
solicitously, 'You all right, ducks?' Lizzie nodded. 'Your dad doesn't
look so good, though. He's fallen asleep now… best thing for
him.'

Lizzie stared at her. The other girl thought that Edward
was her father. Lizzie knew how old he was… just thirty. It
seemed old to her, but he had been only a few years older than Kit, she
recognised dizzily… Of course, he did look much older: his
hair was so grey, his body so twisted with pain. But her
father
...

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the soldier who
reminded her of Kit was now kissing his girlfriend, pressing her back
against the dusty seat with such explicit sexuality that Lizzie had to
look away. She felt a surge of relief that she would never be subjected
to male desire, would never again have to pretend… Her
growing revulsion towards sex was something she accepted as a flaw in
her own nature, never even considering laying it at Kit's door for his
lack of sensitivity, his lack of love, or at her aunt's for bringing
her up to regard intimacy between men and women as something to be
endured rather than enjoyed. Too young to be able to form her own
opinion and values, she took those of others as being implicitly and
absolutely true.

Something, some impetus she couldn't entirely understand
made her focus on the girl who had addressed her and say quickly as she
looked down at the worn wedding-ring Edward had given her, the one
which had belonged to his mother and which was too big for her, 'Edward
isn't my father… he's my husband.' Bravely, she looked
straight at the other girl, defying her to offer pity or shock, and
although she herself didn't recognise it she had taken her first step
towards maturity.

Edward was not asleep. He was in far too much pain to
sleep. He had seen and heard everything, and he wondered bleakly just
what the future was going to hold. Was he mad, crazy, to have married
Lizzie? At the moment she was still in a state of shock, still too
distressed by Kit's death to care what happened to her. A small part of
her was grateful to him, because he had offered her a means of escape
from her aunt, from poverty, from the stigma of bearing an illegitimate
child. But once that shock had gone, once she had to face up to the
reality of what marriage to him would mean, how would she feel then?
Would she still be grateful to him, or would she grow to hate him, to
look on him as a burden? She was just eighteen. Far, far too young to
be tied to a man like him. But he loved her so much… needed
her so much.

In Bath they had to change trains and wait over three
hours for the slow-moving local one, which would take them to
Cottingdean. Lizzie could see that Edward was exhausted and, she
guessed, in considerable pain. Dr Marshall had given her Edward's
medication, and a letter to be given to Edward's own doctor. He had
also warned her of the dangers to Edward's health, and how vulnerable
he was. Her husband would always have to live as an invalid, he had
reminded her, and Lizzie had accepted the knowledge without comment,
without really being aware of what it meant.

As the local train wound its way through a succession of
small villages she could see that the only thing sustaining Edward was
the knowledge that he was returning to somewhere where he had once been
happy.

She had tried to visualise Cottingdean from the mental
pictures he had painted for her, but, despite his obvious love for it,
all she had been able to see in her mind's eye was a formidable and
unfriendly sprawl, the kind of house which she and her aunt had only
ever entered via the back door. Now she was going to be Cottingdean's
mistress. The knowledge made her shiver, and by the time the train
actually stopped at the small overgrown station she was both tired and
nervous, the queasy feeling in her stomach intensifying once she and
Edward were alone on the platform.

Edward had telegraphed ahead to warn the elderly couple
looking after the house that they were arriving, but there was no taxi
waiting for them, and it was Lizzie who had to walk into the dusty
booking office and find the clerk, an elderly, gnarled man, who frowned
uncomprehendingly at her as she tried to make him understand what she
wanted.

'A taxi… There's none around here,
missie…' he told her, shaking his head. 'Most folks use old
John Davies's trap if they're wanting to go anywhere… Either
that or their own legs,' he added. 'The only person who has a car round
here is the doctor, and he's over at Miller's farm delivering Maisie
Miller's fifth…'

Lizzie went back to Edward to report what she had learned.
Seeing him abruptly as she emerged from the booking office, she was
struck by the greyness of his skin, the weary exhaustion that made her
realise just why the girl on the train had assumed he was so much older.

Seeing him away from the familiar surroundings of the
hospital she noticed with a sudden start of disquiet just how frail he
was. Somehow at the hospital she had taken it for granted…
but now comparing him with other men, men like the Americans, and even
the old clerk, with his leathery, weathered skin with its healthy,
ruddy colour, she was sharply aware of just how ill Edward was.

'How far is it to Cottingdean?' she asked him.

'About two miles.'

'Oh, well, that's nothing, we'll walk,' she told him,
trying not to let him see how discouraged she felt, how frightened and
alone, as it suddenly came home to her that it wasn't only Kit's baby
who was now her responsibility, but Edward as well. Edward, her
responsibility… But she was his wife, he was her
husband… It should be the other way round. Suddenly she felt
very frightened, very alone…

Behind her Edward was protesting, but she could see how
tired he was, how much he was longing for his home. Telling herself
that it would probably take less time in the long run to walk than it
would to find some means of transport, she reminded herself that she
had pushed Edward's chair just as far on previous occasions…
But then she had not been pregnant. Then she had not been alone,
isolated from any means of help. Then she had not been Edward's wife.

They had arrived at the station late in the
afternoon— the village was deserted, its one street just as
picturesque as she had visualised. It had a pretty, welcoming air about
it, enhanced by the rich verdancy of the summer countryside. Edward
directed her towards a track that ran at right angles to the main road.
The land either side of the track was heavily cultivated, poppies
providing brave patches of colour in the waving corn, dog roses
flowering palely in the hedgerows. The track itself was overgrown with
coarse grass, and plainly unused. It also ran uphill at a slight angle,
and she was soon out of breath from pushing the heavy chair. Pushing it
along this rutted track with its sharp stones hidden in the grass, its
bumpy surface and deep ruts, was nothing like pushing it around the
grounds of the hospital. She ached to stop, her legs felt weak and had
started to tremble, her arm muscles straining with the effort of
pushing the chair, but something inside her refused to allow her to
stop.

It was as though she was locked in some fierce inner
battle… as though she must persevere… as though
she must reach Cottingdean without giving in to her physical need to
rest. It was as though something inside her was warning her that it was
time for her to shed her vulnerabilities, her fears, both physically
and emotionally, and that she must take hold of her life and control it
for herself, no matter how hard she might find it.

Lost in her own strange thoughts, she had stopped looking
at her surroundings until Edward called out excitedly, 'Look, Lizzie,
there it is. There's Cottingdean…'

There was such pride and joy in his voice that at first
Lizzie automatically looked beyond the low huddle of buildings with its
tall, crooked chimneys, instinctively searching for something more
imposing, more in keeping with the mental images Edward had drawn for
her, only slowly realising that there was nothing else, that that
huddle of steeply pitched roofs, those chimneys which looked as though
they were in imminent danger of collapse, did actually belong to
Edward's beloved Cottingdean.

Later she was glad that Edward had not been able to see
her face, that in addition to everything else he had to cope with he
did not have to cope with the realisation of her shocked disbelief that
anyone could possibly love such a forlorn, unkept, decaying collection
of stone and slate.

'There it is!' Edward called out triumphantly.
'Cottingdean.' And she could tell from the pride and excitement in his
voice that he did not see it as she saw it; that he did not see the
neglect, the desolation, the sagging roofs, and damp lichen-covered
walls. The lane petered out and ahead of them lay open a pair of
dilapidated wooden gates, to either side of which ran stone walls. The
gates seemed to perplex Edward. He stared at them as Lizzie fought to
control her own shock. This was Cottingdean… this ruin of a
building with its sagging roofs and tell-tale damp marks on the walls,
its blind yawning windows, many of them without glass, its tangles of
weeds and poor, unproductive fields. This was the nirvana which Edward
had described so lyrically to her. This was the Eden to which her child
was heir.

She could hardly believe what she was seeing. She looked
at Edward, expecting to hear him mirror her own shock, but he seemed
oblivious to the neglect. On his face was a blind, rapt look of joy.
'Cottingdean… at last. I suppose the gates went towards new
tanks—a pity, but perhaps things will improve now after the
war.' Lizzie was astonished that he could think of such things. What
concerned her now were their immediate needs. Food, rest, somewhere to
spend the night. Because she was sure they could not spend it here in
this ruined and uninhabited place. Where were the couple Edward had
told her were looking after the house?

Lizzie had come prepared to be overwhelmed by the house,
by its history, by its richness, its traditions, its staff, and yet it
was plain to her from the moment she set eyes on the place that her new
home was nothing more than a desolate shell. 'I wonder what's happened
to the Johnsons?' Edward said, frowning, as Lizzie attempted to push
the wheelchair down the overgrown drive. 'Kit told me that they'd
agreed to stay on until he could sell the place. It was requisitioned
at the beginning of the war, and then never used. No, none of the
family has actually lived in it since my grandmother died.'