The Hidden Years Read online

'Something bothering you, old chap?' the doctor asked. He was overdue for retirement, thin and exhausted by the stress of trying to do the work of four much younger men. He had seen so much pain and suffering during the years of the war that he had developed a self-protective distancing mechanism, without which he suspected he might well have lost his sanity, but there was something about Edward that had always reached out to him.

  'It's about Lizzie, Miss Bailey,' Edward elucidated when he frowned. 'She became ill this morning when we were out… No one will tell me what's wrong with her.'

  The doctor wasn't a narrow-minded man. One look at the pale, tragic face of the young girl Sister had summoned him to see had told its own story. He had felt desperately sorry for her, and angry with her at the same time. They were such fools, these young girls, and the more innocent they were, the more foolish.

  Now, looking at his patient's tense face, he decided that if he hadn't known that Edward was an amputee he might almost have suspected… after all, presumably there was still a chance, albeit a very faint chance, that he could father a child.

  'Silly little fool's gone and got herself into trouble,' he said brusquely. 'That's the problem with these young girls… Their heads get turned by some young man, he tells them a few lies, says he loves them…pity, but there's nothing to be done about it. Rules are rules. She'll have to be sent home. Only got an aunt to go to, and by the sound of it she's a bit of a tartar, a friend of matron's who probably won't treat the poor child too well—but what can you do? We aren't running a home for silly young girls…'

  Edward stared at him in shock.

  Lizzie… little Lizzie pregnant… he couldn't believe it… he wouldn't believe it…

  'The man,' he demanded. 'The father…?'

  The doctor shook his head.

  'Dead, so I understand… Matron managed to get that much out of her, although she wouldn't give his name. An airman, by all accounts. Probably never intended to marry her anyway, they never do, although she'd never believe that, poor soul…'

  Lizzie pregnant, Lizzie who was little more than a child herself… So pure and so innocent, that he could have sworn… And then suddenly he knew the truth.

  Lizzie, his Lizzie was carrying Kit's child. He didn't question how he knew, or why he should feel this possessively fierce emotion towards Lizzie herself; he only knew that from the deep welling emotion inside him came two sure facts. The first was that Kit, his hated cousin, had destroyed Lizzie's innocence, had deceived and defiled her, had no doubt lied to her and deserted her, and the second was that he had to see Lizzie, to talk to her…

  He was awake for the rest of the night thinking and planning. The doctor had inadvertently let slip the fact that Lizzie was being sent home in disgrace in the morning. Always an imaginative man, Edward had grasped all that the doctor was not saying and, having grown up in a small enclosed community himself, he knew quite well how Lizzie and her child would be treated, if she was allowed to remain with her aunt.

  That could not be allowed to happen. Lizzie did not deserve to suffer that kind of pain, that kind of rejection. Her child… He stopped suddenly. Lizzie's child would be his nephew, his heir…Lizzie's child would one day inherit Cottingdean. There could be no other heirs. After all, Kit was dead, and he… well, he might as well be for all the use he was..:

  But he could be of use to Lizzie… He was still a man… in the eyes of the law at least… and not just any man. He was a man who now owned the house which would one day belong to Lizzie's child.

  Once, long ago, it would have been his responsibility to marry and provide heirs, heirs for the land and the house. Lizzie, though, already carried such a child, the only child of Danvers blood there could ever be. His brain spun with ideas, urgent and clamouring. If he were to marry Lizzie…

  His ears were buzzing. He felt curiously light-headed, as though he had suddenly discovered a wonderful and mystical secret, as though he had suddenly been admitted into an awareness that life could still hold hope, anticipation, a future.

  And as he lay back against his pillows, exhausted by the enormity of his thoughts, his plans, it came to him that fate might just possibly have relented, that she might after all have turned the tide and be handing him the lifeline he needed so desperately to hang on to if he was to make anything of the worthless remnants of his shattered life.

  He already had Cottingdean—what was to stop him having everything else as well? He had Kit's inheritance—why should he not have Kit's child? In his hands, under his care, with his love that child would, after all, grow to maturity with far, far more than Kit would ever have given it.

  And last, but most definitely not least, he would have Lizzie, gentle, beautiful Lizzie who walked through the dull greyness of his days like a rainbow, bringing them to life, giving them colour and substance.

  But would Lizzie want to marry him? She was young, beautiful, desirable…what if she would marry him now and then at some later stage leave him? She was so young—was it even fair of him to think in terms of marriage? Why not simply offer a home, a haven?

  Was it just because he knew how people would gossip, especially once they saw she was having a child, or was it because secretly all the time this was what he had wanted?

  Lizzie couldn't sleep either. The closer it got to morning the more afraid she became.

  Matron had left her in no doubts as to what her aunt's reaction to her condition was going to be. The enormity of the future that lay ahead for her was slowly breaking through the anguish of losing Kit. Kit who, she was just beginning to realise, had never been hers in the first place.

  Her heart started to beat painfully fast… she felt so frightened and alone. Even more than she had done when she had first been sent to live with her aunt.

  For the first time she found herself almost wishing there was no baby, but she suppressed the thought, ashamed of her own weakness. How could she deny Kit's child? Her hands closed protectively on her stomach as she begged the growing foetus to forgive her. Of course she wanted it, of course she loved it, of course any hardship she had to bear would be more than worthwhile.

  And then she remembered what it was like for the one or two women she knew who had given birth to illegitimate children—how they were shunned by the village women and sniggered at by the men, how their children were treated by their peers—and she felt her eyes burn with tears. One of them, a girl of her own age, had even taken her own life rather than face the gossip. She shuddered sickly, mortally afraid for her child and for herself.

  Oh, Kit… How could you leave me? I need you so much, she whispered silently in her thoughts. But Kit had left her, she was alone, and Kit had never really been hers anyway. Kit had been engaged to someone else. He had deceived her—and she had believed him. The bright, strong love she had thought so precious had been nothing more than the base metal of lust. She shuddered, remembering how little she had enjoyed Kit's sexual possession of her, accepting it only because of her love for him.

  Edward waited until the change of shift. There was always confusion around this time when the night shift went off and the morning shift came on.

  He commandeered another patient to wheel him to the small side-ward where Lizzie was lying.

  She heard his chair and. turned to look at him, her face flooding with embarrassed colour.

  Pity and anger filled him as he watched the way she almost cringed back from him. Already she was being marked by the stigma of his cousin's defilement. Already she had lost her fresh look of innocence. Already her body looked strained by the burden of the child she was carrying.

  Lizzie turned her head away as Edward reached her. The other man had gone, leaving the two of them alone after a muttered conversation during which Edward asked him to return for him in ten minutes.

  Tears burned her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at Edward. She knew from his face that he knew. Now, when no amount of anger and shock from others had been able to make her feel shame, Edward's quiet face did.r />
  He saw the way her shoulders heaved and fresh anger struck him. He could have killed Kit for this alone.

  'Lizzie, don't,' he said gently, touching her shoulder. 'It's Kit, isn't it? Kit, my cousin, is the father of your child. And it's my fault that you're here like this now. My clumsiness yesterday…'

  'Is it true that he was engaged to someone else?'

  Edward froze. He should have anticipated this. She had loved him, poor child… he had realised that instantly, knowing that Lizzie was not the kind to give herself to any man without believing that.

  For a moment he was tempted to tell her the truth, but he couldn't. 'Yes,' he said and then added quickly, 'But he told me the last time I saw him that he intended to break the engagement…'

  It wasn't perhaps entirely a lie. He knew that Kit had had every intention of marrying his fiancée but he had certainly never loved her. Privately Edward doubted that he had ever loved anyone other than himself, but he was not going to tell Lizzie this.

  'Look, I've only got ten minutes and I must talk to you. Please try to listen. I know how much you must be suffering, but it's important, not just to you, but to your child.'

  He felt the tension in her body and although she didn't turn round he knew he had her attention.

  'You realise, don't you, that this child, Kit's child will one day be my heir—that he will inherit Cottingdean from me, as I have now inherited from Kit. I know from Dr Marshall that you are to be sent home today to your aunt, and I suspect from what he tells me that she won't make you very welcome. Lizzie, you know as well as I do that I shall be an invalid for the rest of my life, dependent on the care of others, that it's very doubtful that I shall have a child of my own—but your child, Kit's child, has a right to be brought up at Cottingdean… after all, one day it will be his. I wish I could offer you the protection of my home as my cousin's widow, I wish we could freely acknowledge your relationship with him and the child's, but I'm afraid that that isn't possible. I want to take you and the child to Cottingdean with me, Lizzie. After all, it's his right and yours. If Kit had lived he would have married you and taken you there himself.'

  He was sure it wasn't true and that Kit would not have done any such thing, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her as much.

  'I want you to come to Cottingdean with me, Lizzie… I want you to marry me.'

  Lizzie sat up in bed and stared at him.

  Was she dreaming, or had Edward just proposed to her? She swallowed a hysterical desire to burst out laughing, more in agony than amusement. She had dreamed so long of Kit asking her to marry him, of being Kit's wife, that now to be asked to marry Edward struck her as such a parody of her dreams, such a mocking cruelty of fate that she almost didn't know how she could stand it.

  Marry Edward…Edward, nice and kind though he was, was an invalid, as he had said himself. Edward could never be a husband to her nor would she want him to be—not sexually. That part of her life was over. She would never again allow another man to love her as Kit had.

  Edward could never take Kit's place, but Edward could protect her, a small inner voice told her. Edward could throw a cloak of respectability around her and her unborn child. Edward could stop her being sent home to face her aunt.

  No, Edward was not Kit, but what man ever could be? She shuddered sickly, trying and failing to imagine even wanting to share with another man the intimacies she had known with Kit. Intimacies which even with the man she loved she had found painful, and distasteful. Intimacies which, if she was honest, she would be only too pleased to have completely removed from her life.

  Marry Edward. She ought to have already said no, so why hadn't she?

  'Think of the child,' Edward pressed, sensing all that was going through her mind. Her face was so clear, her thoughts so readable in her eyes.

  'Think,' he urged. 'I know what a sacrifice it will be for you, but it's what Kit would want for his child, his son—that he should grow up at Cottingdean.'

  He knew that Kit wouldn't have given a damn about his child, son or daughter, but he was never going to tell Lizzie that.

  'Marry me, Lizzie,' he demanded, suddenly bold and decisive, reminding her sharply and painfully of Kit, so that for a moment she was confused and lost.

  She felt so weak, so helpless… she had been so frightened, and now here was Edward offering her sanctuary, escape. Hope for herself and her child. And he was right, she acknowledged, taking a deep breath. Her son, Kit's son should be brought up in his father's old home, should be saved from the slur of illegitimacy.

  'It's what Kit would want,' Edward repeated firmly.

  'What Kit would want…' Yes, of course it was… Suddenly everything was so simple, so easy—she must do as Edward said, she must marry him.

  They would be safe then. She and her baby, safe for ever. The baby from the cruelty of others because of its illegitimacy, and she from the greed and pain of male sexuality.

  Once married to Edward she would be safe, protected from other men's desire. She would be Edward's wife and Edward would never be able to demand of her the physical intimacy she now feared so much.

  She was just eighteen years old but suddenly felt as though she were close to eighty.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Today Edward and I were married. Lizzie stared at the words, as though they were written in a foreign language and meant nothing to her. How flat and metallic they tasted in her own mind. How devoid of the euphoria and joy with which she had written of meeting Kit. Everything had happened so quickly. Edward had had to get her aunt's permission for the marriage, as she was under age. She still wasn't sure how he had accomplished it, since her aunt had flatly refused to have anything more to do with her. Now she was Mrs Danvers. Pain spiralled through her. Mrs Edward Danvers, when she ought to have been Mrs Christopher Danvers. Her eyes felt dry and gritty. She had cried too many tears already. She had none left.

  All at once she couldn't wait to leave the hospital, to escape to the new life that Edward had promised her. He was as excited as a small child about the prospect of returning to his childhood home. He had painted it for her in such glowing colours that already she could see it in her mind's eye. She wondered a little doubtfully how she would fit into such elegant surroundings. She had visited such houses with her aunt, and had always felt intimidated by them. All those pretty, delicate antiques, all that fragile china… those silky pastel carpets, and those polished, shiny floors.

  But at Cottingdean it would be different. Cottingdean would be her home. She would be its mistress, her child its heir. Her child… not just her child any more, but hers and Edward's.

  The only person to try to talk her out of it had been Dr Marshall. Had she really thought about what this marriage would mean? he had asked her gruffly—not just immediately, but for the rest of her life. Did she realise how long Edward could live? he had pressed when she stared apathetically at him, and then had added roughly, angrily almost, 'For heaven's sake, child, you must know the man can never be a proper husband to you. Right now you might not mind that too much… women in your condition seldom do… but afterwards, and in all the years to come…'

  When his meaning had sunk in Lizzie had flushed, not with embarrassment, but with guilt. Guilt, because all she could feel was relief and a sense of revulsion at the thought of such intimacy with any man. If she had not enjoyed sex with Kit then how on earth could she ever possibly enjoy it with any other man? No, she obviously was one of those women designed by nature to be sexually unresponsive. After all, Kit himself had hinted as much. Now she realised that he had been right.

  Dimly she was aware of Edward's kindness and concern for her, his attempt to protect her, but so vast was the ocean of pain that engulfed her, so all-consuming her misery and inability to focus on anything other than the knowledge that she must somehow endure the anguish of losing Kit for the sake of the child they had created together, that there was no room within her to comprehend anything else.

  By some alchemy
to which the female sex genetically held licence she had managed to transform Kit from the selfish, arrogant, uncaring man he had been into someone he was most definitely not. Already in her memory he was enshrined as a perfect human being, her one and only true love. Edward, her marriage to him, the kind of life they would live together, they were only dim shadows when compared to the bright glitter of her love for Kit.

  The vicar, who had performed during the years of this war more brief wedding ceremonies than he cared to remember, had been shocked by the appearance of this particular couple: the bride so young—too young, surely—the groom, so much older, so obviously very, very ill.

  Lizzie had been surprised to discover that Edward had arranged for a photographer to record the moment they left the church, watched by a largely silent group of onlookers.

  'It's for the child,' he had explained to her later. The child. Lizzie frowned, suddenly jealously anxious to protect Kit's rights to his son. This was his child she was carrying within her. Kit's child. And one day when he was old enough she would tell him all about his father…she would tell him. Her thoughts stopped abruptly, as she realised how little she could tell anyone about Kit, how little she had actually known of him, how dependent she would be on Edward to supply those details, that information… but Edward wanted to bring the child up as his own. He had already told her as much, and she had listened, too shocked in the aftermath of learning of Kit's death to do anything else.

  'If we don't marry there will be gossip,' he had warned her. She shivered suddenly, goose-bumps lifting under her flesh, and she stood stiffly beside Edward in the thin cotton dress he had insisted on her buying. She had been uncomfortable and embarrassed when he had handed her the coupons and the money, awkwardly insisting that she was to buy herself something pretty. It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she would rather use his gift to buy something for the baby, but something, some feminine caution that was unfamiliar to her warned her not to. The only dress she had been able to find was too big, its fabric cheap and flimsy, and no protection against the cold wind howling round the small churchyard.