The Lie (34 page)

Vane gave a small New Year's party at the house for his friends. He had asked Emily if she wanted to invite any of her family, but she had refused, knowing that they would all celebrate at home. She attended her father-in-law's party, making all the right noises, but feeling removed from the guests, as though seeing them from a distance. She was with them but apart, wrapped up in her private grief.

She worked longer hours at the home, doing more of the jobs that she had left to others previously, making certain that everything was as it ought to be. The nurses whispered that she was worse than any matron they had ever known, and that she would notice if a fly lighted on a window sill.

And then, in the middle of January, Emily was sick when she got out of bed in the morning. So sick that it left her feeling dizzy and when she tried to dress she found herself unable to do so and had to crawl back into bed until the spell of nausea passed.

After a while she was able to get up again, and began to feel much better. She ignored the sickness, dismissing it as her having eaten something that had disagreed with her, but then she was sick again the next morning, and the faintness was even worse. She decided to stay in bed for an hour or so, and was still there when Amelia came up to ask what was wrong.

‘You look pale,' she said, as Emily gazed up at her from the pillows. ‘Are you feeling unwell?'

‘I was sick earlier and I felt faint. It will pass in a little while as it did yesterday, but I thought I would have a lie-in. Perhaps I've been doing too much, as you suggested.'

‘Yes, I think you have been working too hard,' Amelia agreed. ‘But have you considered that you might be pregnant, Emily?'

‘Pregnant  . . .' Emily stared at her. It was in her mind to deny it, but she suddenly realized that it was possible. She hadn't fallen for a child with Simon and so it hadn't occurred to her to wonder; in fact, she had almost made up her mind that she couldn't have a baby, and now the idea burst on her like a bombshell. She pushed herself up against the pillows to a sitting position, realizing that the dizziness had passed. ‘I suppose I might be, Amelia. Yes, now I think about it, the symptoms are just the same as Frances had  . . .' Her eyes opened in wonder as she began to understand what had happened to her. She was having a baby – Terry's baby. She was having Terry's baby! For the first time since she had read Carole's letter a flicker of warmth stirred inside her. Terry wasn't completely lost to her after all. She was carrying his child in her womb. ‘Yes, I believe I might be, though I hadn't realized – but what made you think of it?'

‘I'm not sure,' Amelia said, and sat on the edge of the bed, smiling at her. ‘You hadn't been looking well for a while, and though that might just have been shock and tiredness, I saw something in your face – something I've noticed before. It's a look women get when they're pregnant.'

‘I hadn't even thought about it,' Emily admitted. ‘But now that I have – it occurs to me that I've missed my courses this month. Why didn't I notice that before?'

‘Because you've been desperately unhappy, haven't you?' Amelia reached for her hand, holding it gently. ‘Were you very much in love with your fireman, Emily?'

‘Terry?' Emily's voice was choked as she spoke his name. ‘Terry Burgess. He was so brave, Amelia. I saw him rescue a child from a house fire once, and  . . . yes, I did love him very much. I still do and it hurts terribly.'

‘But now you will have his baby, won't you?'

‘Yes, I shall have Terry's child.' Emily smiled at her as the realization finally burst inside her like a balloon of sunshine breaking through the grey of clouds. ‘Oh, Amelia, I'm going to have a baby!'

There was such a look of delighted disbelief on her face that Amelia laughed. ‘Yes, my dearest Emily, you are going to be a mother. I think that is wonderful – just what we all needed to bring some light back into this house.'

‘But what will Vane say?' Emily looked at her anxiously as she considered her father-in-law's reaction to the news. ‘He wanted a grandson, an heir to the estate, so badly and I didn't give him one – and now I'm having someone else's baby. It's sure to upset him.'

‘Don't you know how much Vane cares for you?' Amelia asked. ‘He has been very worried about you these past few days, Emily. As indeed I have. We knew something was wrong but you seemed to retreat inside yourself and we couldn't ask, we couldn't pry.'

‘It hurt too much to let it out,' Emily said, and brushed at her face as the tears trickled down her cheeks and into her mouth. ‘It still hurts terribly, Amelia. We only had three days together because I wouldn't leave Simon. I knew he didn't love me, not really, and I didn't love him – not in the way I loved Terry. I believe now that it was just a young girl's infatuation and if it hadn't been for the war I would never have married Simon.'

‘It is sure to hurt,' Amelia said, looking sad. ‘When you love someone it hurts to lose them. I loved someone once but he didn't love me. He married someone much prettier and I broke my heart over him, and then I met Vane. I didn't feel the same as I did about Richard, but I came to feel love for him, and I would hate to lose him. We are good friends. I think that was what Simon hoped to give you, the kind of friendship he knew existed between his father and me. You shouldn't feel bitter over what he did, because he couldn't help himself. I know he tried to resist Philip for a long time, but in the end his feelings were too strong. Many people think of what they had together as a bad thing, but for Simon it was real and honest. Can you understand that, Emily?'

‘Yes, I have from the beginning,' she said. ‘I saw them touching and I knew it was love. I might have been angry or disgusted if I hadn't seen the love between them, but I did and I understood that it was something they could not deny. We were going to get a divorce as soon as it could be decently done – that's why I went to Terry. We knew we had to wait to marry but  . . .' she broke off on a sob. ‘We wanted to be together.'

Amelia squeezed her hand. ‘And now you have Terry's baby to look forward to – we all do. I am just so pleased and so excited, my dear. You can't imagine what a difference this will make to our lives. You will let us share your happiness, won't you?'

‘But  . . . will Vane want me to stay here once he knows?'

‘Do you have to tell him, Emily? Couldn't you let him believe it is Simon's child?'

Emily withdrew her hand from Amelia's. ‘Surely you aren't suggesting that I should lie to him?'

‘Would it be so very terrible? It would make him so happy – please think about it, Emily. Go to the doctor and make sure you are pregnant and not sickening for something, and think this through. Vane is a generous man. Nothing would be too good for your child, especially if it is a boy.'

‘I don't think I can lie to him,' Emily said. ‘I know you think it's kind to let him believe Simon and I were together somehow when he came home for a few days, but it isn't true. I like and respect Vane too much to deceive him.'

‘Well, just think it over for a few days,' Amelia said. ‘Think what it might mean for your child  . . .'

Emily was silent as Amelia stood up and walked over to the door. What she had just suggested was terrible  . . . wasn't it? To deceive a man like that was cruel. If he found out one day  . . . No, she couldn't do it, Emily decided. She would visit the doctor and make sure she was having a child, and then she would speak to her father-in-law, and tell him the truth.

She decided to stay in bed until lunchtime, because if she had been doing too much the rest would do her good, and she wasn't going to take any chances. She wanted her baby – Terry's baby. She wanted it very much.

Frances was in the garden hanging out some washing when someone called her name and she turned to see her father-in-law standing just outside the kitchen door. She felt a slight reluctance as she walked back to greet him. She wasn't sure why she had begun to feel uneasy in his company of late, but there was something in the way he looked at her that made her uncomfortable.

‘You shouldn't have to do this,' Sam Danby said, his eyes moving over her almost hungrily. Frances had put on a small amount of weight since the baby, which in his opinion only made her more appealing. ‘Why don't you let me find you a woman to help you?'

‘Millie comes in now and then,' Frances said. ‘And I've heard about another girl who might want part-time work.' She had stubbornly clung to her independence, though Sam had been pressing her to go and live at the big house with him and her mother-in-law. ‘Besides, I don't mind doing housework now that it is my own home.'

‘Mind of your own, haven't you, Frances?' he murmured. ‘I like that in a woman – and I like you. Marcus is a lucky dog. I wouldn't mind changing places with him.'

Frances swallowed hard. There was something in his tone, a look in his eyes that made her feel as if he were seeing her naked. She wished that Marcus would come home on leave – better still that the war would end and he would be here for good. If she hadn't known that she had to be careful, she would have told Sam Danby exactly what she thought of him. But he was her husband's father, and he had been generous to them buying this house and giving them money to start off their marriage.

‘I love Marcus,' she said, looking him in the eyes, challenging him. ‘I wouldn't change him for anyone.'

‘Young love,' Sam said, and laughed. ‘Well, you'll soon get over that, my dear. When you've had enough of billing and cooing you may be looking for something different. I shall be around if you need me.' His inference was clear, chillingly so.

Frances didn't answer. She just stood staring after him as he walked away, a cold shiver trickling down her spine. Why did she always feel that there was something hidden about Sam? On the surface he was a genial, open sort of man who had done well for himself – but underneath she sensed something very different.

It didn't matter, Frances decided. Sam wouldn't try anything on unless she gave him the opportunity, and she would be very careful not to do that. Besides, the war couldn't go on for ever. Marcus would be coming home on leave soon and then surely his father would keep his distance.

Nothing terrible was going to happen to her. She dismissed the shadows that had seemed to come over her as she spoke with Sam. Emily always said she was lucky, and she always had been. Most things went her way. She didn't see why her luck should run out. She had a lovely home, money to spend, a lovely child and a husband she adored. She couldn't see why anything would change. As long as Marcus survived the war and came home to her  . . .

Alice had been up half the night with her son. He had a bad tummy upset and she had been nursing him as he cried almost non-stop. She knew his crying had woken her mother, because she'd heard sounds of stirring coming from upstairs. It looked as if she would have to think about finding herself a house of her own, and Jim had offered her his cottage again. He'd told her that he'd done it up a bit, and that she was welcome to have it for a few shillings a week.

‘It is going begging, Alice,' he'd said. ‘You could have it for nothing but I know you wouldn't accept it like that – so give me three and sixpence and it's yours for as long as you like.'

She knew that Jim hoped it wouldn't be long. He hadn't said anything much, because it was too soon. As yet there had been no confirmation that Dan was dead, and until then Jim wouldn't say what she knew was in his mind. But he was hoping that she would marry him one day, when she finally knew for certain that her husband was gone.

He couldn't be gone! Alice felt the protest rising inside her. She refused to believe it, because it hurt too much. The pain didn't get better whatever people thought. If her lovely Dan was dead she would never stop grieving for him, and yet she knew that she would have to face up to it one day. It was hard to bring up a child alone. Her parents were good to her, her father would never see her starve, but she would have to learn to stand on her own two feet.

Danny was quieter now. He looked up at her, smiling, and her heart turned over. He was getting to be the image of his father, and she kissed his face, holding him to her, crooning softly. She was so lucky to have him, so lucky that she had had a little time with Danny before he left.

She glanced out of the window and saw that the post-girl had left her bike outside the gate; she was coming up the drive and she had something in her hand. It was a telegram.

Alice's heart turned over as the doorbell rang. She put Danny down in his carrycot and went to the door, feeling sick with apprehension. Her stomach was tying itself in knots and she could hardly speak as the girl handed her the small envelope.

‘Perhaps it's good news,' the girl suggested, because she hated to be the one who brought the bad news to everyone.

Alice nodded but didn't say anything. She went back into the kitchen and sat down, staring at the telegram, not daring to open it. It was sure to be bad news and she didn't want to know.

‘Did I hear the door?' Mrs Robinson asked, as she came into the kitchen. She glanced at her daughter's ashen face and then at what she was holding. ‘Oh, I see. Are you going to open it?'

Alice shook her head. She couldn't open it for the life of her. She felt sick and faint and her hands were shaking. She made no resistance as her mother took it from her, her eyes firmly shut as she heard the paper tear, her mouth dry with fear.

‘Well, that's that then,' Mrs Robinson said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. ‘At least we know now.'

Alice's eyes flew open, her chest tight with grief, and then she saw that her mother was smiling. How could she smile if it was bad news? Suddenly, she was desperate to know. ‘What does it say? Is it about Dan?'