The Silent Tide (22 page)

‘I don’t know,’ she managed to say. ‘I wasn’t sure, that was all.’

And now the moment had come, she didn’t know what to do with it. There were things she wanted to ask, but couldn’t – not here.

‘I feel sometimes,’ she murmured, ‘just sometimes, that I don’t know where I am with you.’

‘Isabel, isn’t it obvious? Can’t you see how I feel? You do trust me, don’t you?’

Trust.

And now, surrounded by all these strangers, she was horrified to feel her eyes prickle with tears. She reached for her handbag, but Hugh was already pulling out his handkerchief, showering sand everywhere. He dabbed her cheeks with a clean corner.

‘Can we go?’ she asked. People were starting to look at her curiously.

‘Of course.’ He helped her on with her coat and cast a few coins on the table as they left.

Outside on the seafront, there was a sense of doubt about the daylight. Dark clouds had amassed overhead. Sharp raindrops stung their faces. An imposing ochre-plastered building stood opposite, bordered by a covered colonnade, and he hurried her across the road and into its shelter. At one end was a sort of recess where they were protected from public view. There it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him finally to pull her close. Their mouths met in hot, yearning kisses. His lips were soft and tasted of cinnamon.

‘My dear girl, I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ he whispered in her ear, and when she looked into his face she saw deep concern, and for some reason this moved her deeply. How close she felt to him now, and powerful too. She was awed that she could have this effect on him. She did finally what she had longed to do for so long, reached up and traced the shape of his mouth with her fingers, then brushed his rough cheek with her hand, then she kissed him again. And for now, anyway, all the things that had bothered her no longer seemed to matter.

They stood together kissing for a long time whilst the rain fell in earnest, then watched as the buildings around them and the pier turned to silhouettes and the cloud light ripened to deep gold over the sea.

‘We ought to go, I suppose,’ Hugh murmured eventually. ‘Can you manage to run in those shoes?’

‘I’ll try.’

Arms still round each other, they dashed through the rain, laughing, stumbling over puddles, along the shiny promenade to the car.

Driving back to London, the weather heightened their new closeness. Hugh hunched over the wheel trying to see the road, the windscreen wipers thrashing uselessly against the flood pouring down the glass. With the car heater turned up high, it felt terribly safe and intimate to Isabel.

They had just cleared the summit of the South Downs and were racing for home on an open road when an ominous thudding noise started up and the car began to list.

‘The front tyre’s gone, dammit,’ Hugh groaned, clutching the steering wheel with both hands to steady the vehicle. He slowed down and managed to pull the car into the side of the road, bumping it up onto a grass verge, then got out and examined the wheel on his side.

‘Flat as a pancake,’ he called to Isabel, looking mournful. ‘I’m very sorry, but you’re going to have to get out.’ She opened her door to find a ditch full of nettles.

‘It’ll have to be your side,’ she said, but he’d already gone to open the bonnet and didn’t hear. She climbed across and went to join him.

‘Why not stand under those trees while I sort this out,’ Hugh told her as he began to unclip the spare wheel.

‘No, I’ll help.’ The rain was already soaking through her coat.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not strong enough. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’

‘I’m sure there’s something I can do.’

‘You can watch for other vehicles then,’ he said, rolling the wheel to where he needed it.

She settled for passing him the jack out of the toolbag and gathering up the bolts when he took the flat wheel off and then substituted it with the other.

‘Show me your hands,’ she commanded when he’d finished, and with an old rag from the boot scrubbed the worst of the oil off them. They climbed back into the car half-drowned, and at once rich smells of wet wool, earth and leather mingled with the usual stink of petrol and upholstery.

After several tries the engine caught and they smiled delightedly at one another. ‘Bingo!’ he cried, then turned in his seat and embraced her. ‘You’re a brick, you darling girl, you know that?’ And a feeling of deep joy washed over her.

It was late in the evening when he pulled up outside her house, and both of them were exhausted.

‘It’s been the most wonderful day,’ she said.

‘It has, despite everything.’ He took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘I’d better not risk turning off the engine.’ She opened the car door. ‘I’ll telephone you,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’

She didn’t hear anything from him the following day, nor the day after that, though in the office she answered the phone with a little pang of expectation every time it rang. At home in the evening she sat mutinous when any of the other lodgers were on a call in case he was trying to get through. Why didn’t he ring? First she was puzzled, then hurt, then despairing.
Trust me,
he had told her. How could she, when he left her hanging on like this?

Her thoughts flew everywhere. Perhaps there was something wrong. Perhaps she’d misjudged him or offended him in some way. And yet he’d made her feel so sure of him. Once or twice she dialled the number of his flat, but nobody answered. Where was he? She whipped herself up into a maelstrom of anger and longing, first one and then the other.

After three days that dragged endlessly, she walked into the office on Thursday morning and picked up her ringing phone.

‘Isabel?’ It was him. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. ‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Hello, Hugh.’

Hearing the dullness in her voice he said, ‘You’re angry with me.’

‘No,’ she lied.

‘You are angry – I can tell. Look, I’m in Suffolk, but coming back later. Are you free this evening? I’d like you to have dinner with me.’

‘I’m busy.’ It happened to be true. She was going with Berec to have supper with Gregor and Karin. Part of her wanted to say she’d cancel this, but her dignity would not allow it. He must be made to wait.

Tomorrow then? Dammit, you are angry. I don’t blame you.’ She was silent. ‘I’ve been here all week, Isabel. My mother’s been in hospital.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, instantly concerned. ‘What’s been the matter?’

‘She had a bad asthma attack. Her housekeeper called me on Monday, very distressed. I got a train immediately. It’s been an anxious few days, but she’s much better now. I’m sorry I haven’t telephoned. I left my address book behind. I tried you at the office yesterday lunchtime, left a message with what’s-his-name, that gawky lad?’

‘Jimmy?’ She’d wring Jimmy’s neck for not passing it on.

‘That’s him. Please, Isabel. May I see you? There’s something important I need to say.’ He was pleading now and she finally gave in. Besides, she was curious about what he wanted to tell her.

‘Tomorrow, then,’ she said.

He took her to a restaurant you’d never know existed, tucked away in a side street in the heart of St James’s. It was a place of thick carpets, rich furnishings and low lighting, more like an opulent drawing room than a commercial establishment. Here the waiters trod softly and spoke in low voices, and there were no prices on the menu, which was all in French. The head waiter greeted Hugh with enthusiasm, but regarded Isabel curiously as he showed them to their table, tucked in a corner.

‘
he champagne ce soir, m’sieur?’
the man enquired of Hugh.

Hugh hesitated. ‘Perhaps not. How about a gin and tonic, Isabel?’ She nodded. ‘Two doubles, then.’

‘And ze light hand wiz ze tonic?’ the man said with a crack of a smile.

‘That’s the ticket.’

‘You’ve been here before?’ Isabel asked when they were alone.

‘Once or twice,’ he said. ‘Jacqueline likes it.’ He smiled. ‘She says it makes her believe the war never happened. The man must have remembered we had champagne.’

‘Oh.’ With the unexpected mention of Jacqueline’s name, all Isabel’s feelings of uncertainty returned.

‘What is it?’ he asked, concerned. ‘Are you still angry with me?’

‘Hugh, I didn’t hear from you and I was worried,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘And now . . . now you tell me you bring other girls here. To drink
champagne
.’

She was put out when he laughed and said, ‘Is champagne so immoral? I didn’t know. Anyway, Jacqueline isn’t a
girl
, she’s a married woman. No, that doesn’t sound quite right either, does it? Look, she’s hitched up to this chap Michael, who works for Military Intelligence, didn’t you know? He’s away a very great deal and she gets lonely. I’d be a poor friend if I didn’t take her out occasionally to cheer her up.’

The way he explained it made sense and she felt a measure of relief. And yet she remembered the way Jacqueline had been at party, how she had practically fawned over Hugh. Isabel glanced up at him, wondering if she had the courage to speak of this, but she saw only innocence in his hazel eyes, and warmth, so said nothing.

‘You do believe me, my darling?’ he begged and she nodded. She believed him.

At that moment their drinks arrived. Next there was the ordeal of ordering food, French dishes she’d never heard of, but which Hugh decided for her, then the shaking out of napkins, the laying of cutlery. Thick soup was brought in wide-brimmed plates, white rolls in a silver basket. Finally they were left in peace.

Hugh hardly touched his soup. He said gravely, ‘I must explain about my mother. The attack was unusually severe. A reaction to dust, the doctors think. From the spring cleaning.’

‘Poor lady,’ Isabel murmured. ‘How is she now?’

‘Much better.’ He smiled. ‘She kept me very busy running errands. I hardly had a moment to telephone.’

Isabel nodded, allowing herself to be pulled round, placated, as she desperately wanted to be. He hadn’t neglected her, not really; it was right that he was solicitous of his mother. He’d tried to ring. Jimmy had admitted he’d forgotten to tell her and she’d given him a dressing down for it. Suddenly she began to feel hungry. The soup, when she ate, was warming, delicious.

‘I should have tried the office again,’ Hugh admitted. ‘Somehow when you’re down in Suffolk it’s easy to let time drift.’

‘It didn’t drift for me, Hugh,’ she told him. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind, that you regretted our day together.’

‘No, far from it,’ he said, putting down his spoon and regarding her earnestly. ‘I thought about Brighton all the time, how sweet you were. And then the business with the burst tyre; you were so steadfast, so patient. I told Mother all about it.’

‘And what did she say?’ Isabel, sensing the importance of Mrs Morton in his life, was anxious.

‘She was impressed. She’d like to meet you,’ he said lightly. ‘Really though, not every girl would have put up with that situation as cheerfully as you did.’

‘Perhaps you underestimate our sex,’ she said, her eyes dancing.

‘No, it confirmed to me that you’re special,’ he said. ‘I feel I’ve waited a long time to find you. Since I lost . . . well, you’ve read about her in
Coming Home.’

‘The girl who was Diana?’ Part of her was curious about the girl who’d died, but another part felt that mention of her was an intrusion.

‘Her real name was Anne. Anne Sinclair. I’ve taken girls out since, of course, but I’ve never met anyone . . . Oh, as bright and pretty and smart as you.’

‘Stop it,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’ll have to go through doors sideways, my head will get so big.’

‘It’s a beautiful head. You’re completely beautiful.’

‘Shh, people will hear you!’

‘I don’t care if they do. I love you, Isabel.’ He seized her hand and imprisoned it in his, regarding her with an expression of such sincere adoration that the very last trace of doubt was washed away. The previous few days didn’t matter. All the times she’d felt confused, unsure of him, the misunderstandings, didn’t matter. Everything was all right, after all.

‘Oh, Hugh’ she whispered joyfully. ‘I love you, too.’ She’d never seen him so happy. He kissed her hand, then leaned across and brushed her cheek with his fingers.

‘Isabel, my dear girl,’ he murmured. ‘I know this will come as very sudden. You may think we haven’t known one another long enough, but this week I’ve come to feel sure about it. I’ve waited so long to find you, and now here you are. I love you so much. You’re so darling and funny oh, and passionate about things. I can’t bear to risk you slipping away.’

‘I won’t slip away, Hugh. Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘I don’t. I want to be with you all the time.’ He took a breath. ‘Do you think you could take me on, Isabel?’

Take him on? What did he mean?

‘Don’t look at me so oddly. I’m asking you to marry me.’

For a moment she was so surprised her mouth opened but she couldn’t speak. It had all happened so fast. Could it be only a week ago that he’d first kissed her? She’d known for a long time that she loved him, of course, but still . . .

She could hardly think straight. A warning voice in her head said she should wait to answer, but she ignored it and instead raised her face to him like a flower and spoke from the heart.

‘Yes,’ she said, and watched as his eyes filled with wonder and delight. They stared, holding hands across the table, smiling stupidly at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Never had she felt so perfectly, ecstatically happy.

‘Would m’sieur like ze champagne now?’ the head waiter asked when he brought the next course and found the pretty mademoiselle gazing in wonder at a ring sparkling on her finger.

They decided that it shouldn’t be a long engagement. Hugh didn’t want to wait. There were no real difficulties about money and his flat was large enough to suit them both, at least for the moment.

In the end they rejected the idea of a mad dash to a register office. Isabel felt it wouldn’t be fair on her parents. Pamela wanted her daughter to have a ‘proper’ wedding in a church, not that they were a church-going family by any means, but that was the way her family in Norfolk had done things, and Isabel remembered that her mother had missed out.