Holding On (52 page)

Fliss drew her feet up on to the edge of the window seat, wrapping her arms about her knees and resting her chin upon them. Would Grandmother have approved of her resistance? Would she not have persuaded her that her place was with her husband? Yet the room held no such reproach. The bow-fronted bureau was empty now of her papers, and Fliss's own writing pad with other odds and ends lay on the blotter, but the tall glass-fronted bookcase still held Freddy's favourite books just as the corner cupboard contained her precious pieces of glass and china.

Slipping from the window seat, Fliss went to look at these treasures. Some of the pieces had come to The Keep with her grandmother so many years ago but she recognised the pretty candlesticks in Bristol blue glass, remembering that they had been a birthday present from Uncle Theo. It was the year that the twins had been eighteen and she'd worn her first real grown-up dress to dinner that same evening. Even now she could remember the apprehension she'd felt as she'd hesitated outside the drawing-room door. Plucking up her courage she'd pushed the door open and stepped inside – and seen Hal's expression: surprise, puzzlement and a dawning awareness. That had been a wonderful moment and she remembered, too, her own reaction: joy, the sense of power, overwhelming love.

Fliss turned away, staring up at the two great Widgerys, one each side of the fireplace. Seeing Hal here with Jolyon, talking to him in the playroom last night, aware – how terribly aware – of the love flowing silently between them, had jolted her confidence. She could cope as long as she was not faced with temptation. At this thought she laughed aloud, imagining her grandmother's impatience at such feebleness of character. Miles had tried to ‘persuade' her – at the time it had seemed more like blackmail – by evoking her grandmother's memory. One night in bed he'd held her tightly after an emotionally disastrous lovemaking, his face pressed against hers, and she'd been quite unable to think of any suitable words, except for those which now seemed to swim permanently in the uppermost layers of her thoughts. ‘
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
' However she was not sorry enough, not enough to back down, to give in . . . She'd hugged him closely, tears threatening, hanging on desperately to her resolve, and he'd turned his head a little, freeing his mouth from the long strands of her hair.

‘I wonder what your grandmother would have thought about all this?' he'd murmured. ‘She always rather approved of me, didn't she? Dear old Freddy. She told me to take care of you and I've tried to do my best. I wonder what she's thinking now?'

Just as earlier his ‘Well?' had released her from her guilt, so had this assault on her love for her grandmother renewed her strength. She'd felt herself grow heavy in his embrace until she'd been unable to bear his proximity for another moment. She'd slid out of his clinging arms, saying that she was going down to make coffee and to her enormous relief he had not followed her with more recriminations. Instead, to her surprise – and relief – on her return she'd seen that he'd fallen asleep. Clearly his distress had not been enough to keep him awake. Yet it was a pattern that had been repeated at intervals during those last few days. He'd been quite happy for the twinnies to be sent on to The Keep whilst the house was cleared. Not only would they be out of the way but it would give him time to be alone with her. It was no longer hurtful that he had no desire to be with his children during this short time left to them and, anyway, she'd found it easier herself not to be obliged to keep up certain pretences for their benefit. With them gone she and Miles had been able to be perfectly natural together, hiding nothing, and she'd been able to concentrate utterly upon him.

Dealing with the house had given him other opportunities to lay siege to both her guilt and her love for him. She'd continued to remain firm in her belief that after the two years – or even before – there was a real possibility that they would be together again, although she would not be drawn on
where
this reunion might take place. Nevertheless, he'd decided to sell the furniture. This brought the chance to reminisce, to invoke the past, but here he'd had no power to move her. They had chosen nothing together; no reminders of cheerful shopping trips or hopeful plans could be brought forward here to touch her heart. The house and its contents had been Miles's own and she had been nothing more than a very welcome guest. She'd collected together the few possessions she'd brought with her and they'd agreed to keep the portable belongings which had made their naval quarters homely. These she would take with her to The Keep.

The drive to Heathrow had been agonising. At the end they'd both been equally upset, pride and anger dissolving finally into other gentler emotions, and he'd held her tightly just before he'd boarded the plane.

‘I do love you, Fliss,' he'd said, his voice muffled against her hair. ‘You must believe it.'

She'd reassured him as best she could and, when the plane could no longer be seen, she'd stopped waving and returning to the car had sat for some time, crying bitterly. She'd managed the drive back to Dartmouth and had written to him that same evening in another attempt to comfort him, to underline her continuing support and love, but, once she'd achieved this, grief overtook her again and the night was a long and miserable one.

The next morning the last of the furniture had been collected and she'd been free at last to drive to The Keep. As she'd walked about the empty house she'd been oddly glad that their last day together had culminated in her night alone here. It was fitting that it should finish in the little house in Above Town but she'd been filled with an overwhelming relief at the knowledge that now, with Miles gone, she need not return. If they were to go forward at some distant time then it would need to be a completely new start, conceived and planned together.

Thinking of Miles, that next, final, morning, she'd stripped the bed, packed up the few remaining odds and ends and then gone from room to room making her own private farewells. Several days before he flew out they'd gone together to The Keep so that he could say his goodbyes and had taken with them most of the small items, but there'd still been a few things which had been required up until the last moment. In the kitchen, beside the boxes to be put into the car, had stood the ginger jar. She'd stood, holding it between her hands, remembering, and she'd wept again, for the small losses, for the tiny bitter failures and for the inadequacies of love. At last she'd put the boxes in the car, taking the ginger jar last of all, wrapping it about with a rug and placing it carefully on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

By the time she'd arrived at The Keep she was exhausted. As she'd driven in beneath the arch of the gatehouse she'd seen that Uncle Theo was sitting on a bench in the courtyard and she'd known that he was waiting for her. Swallowing, lips pressed together, she'd climbed stiffly, wearily, out of the driving seat and stood looking at him. He'd risen to his feet and, leaning on his stick, had come towards her, hand outstretched, smiling his own particular smile. As her hand found his, clinging on tightly, he'd drawn her close and kissed her.

‘Welcome home, Fliss,' he'd said.

Now, remembering, her courage returned. ‘I've promised Uncle Theo,' she'd said to Hal last night in the playroom, when their love had threatened to engulf them.

‘And I've promised Jo,' he'd answered.

Well, there was no doubt that these two would prove powerful consciences should they be needed: Theo with his direct, clearseeking look: Jolyon with his innocent, childish gaze. Between the man and the boy they should be able to run straight.

Fliss turned away from the Widgerys and glanced at her watch. She and Hal had promised the children that they'd all go for a walk before tea and, with one last grateful glance about her, she picked up her jacket and went out.

 

Out on the hill the late April sunshine was hot. Across the valley on the round green hills, sheep grazed, lambs at foot, straying over the new growth of sun-warmed grass. Beyond the hedge, where the pink and white hawthorn blossom hid the chaffinch's nest, the rooks wheeled in a ragged flock behind the tractor. The newly ploughed earth was a dark pinky red, almost maroon in its damp richness, contrasting sharply with the bright emerald of the turf. From the shelter of the woods the cuckoo called, clear and evocative in the quiet of the afternoon.

The children were already far ahead, racing after Rex who had put up a rabbit and was in hot pursuit. Strolling more slowly, Hal and Fliss watched them reach the banks of the river and pause to paddle in the shallows where the rippling water was clear and the sunlight shimmered in the green depths.

‘Remember all those dams we built?'

His voice broke the companionable silence between them and she took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders and frowning slightly as though she were returning from some distance.

‘Of course I do. And Susanna tumbling over and getting soaked to the skin.'

‘We stripped her off and dried her with my shirt . . .' he said cheerfully.

‘. . . and dressed her in Mole's jersey to bring her home,' she finished.

‘Ellen wasn't all that pleased,' he remembered.

‘ “Going swimming and not even May yet”,' quoted Fliss.

‘ “Whatever next, I wonder.” Susanna was a terror. I fear that Podger is destined to be just such another.'

‘What a wretched girl Kit is,' said Hal, chuckling. ‘Poor Podger. No one will ever recall that she was named Alison for your mother.'

‘I'm afraid you're quite right . . . So you went to Sin's fortieth birthday party. And how was it?'

He shook his head, wincing. ‘Don't ask. What a crazy pair they are. I like old Clarrie, though. He's really good news.'

‘Too old for Kit?'

‘Oh!' He frowned as if surprised by the suggestion. ‘I should have said so. He's like a mother hen looking after them both. They're clearly very fond of one another but no more than that I should have thought. Not that I'm a very good judge of other people's feelings.'

‘Well,' she said lightly. ‘It was just a thought. She still misses Jake, even after all these years.'

‘If you really love someone,' he said, after a minute or two, ‘I don't think that time has anything to do with it.'

The silence held a different atmosphere now. Fliss dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket, forcing herself to think about Miles, knowing how important it was that he should remain vividly in her mind.

The children were running along the river bank, disappearing into the spinney and, as they approached, Hal and Fliss could see the bluebells' luminous glow within that dim interior, the rippling, spreading azure lake which carpeted the earthy floor, lapping the tall smooth boles of the beech trees.

‘Remember Mole running round the spinney?' murmured Hal. ‘Who would have believed then that one day he'd be a Commander of one of Her Majesty's submarines.'

‘Superstition is a very powerful thing,' she answered. ‘I remember that just before I went out to Hong Kong I came down here by myself. I was so frightened about going, hating the thought of leaving everyone behind. I decided that if I ran round the spinney everything would be OK.' She shook her head and fell silent.

‘And was it?' he asked at last.

She shrugged. ‘Well, except for Ellen dying while I was away. But then it might have been so much worse, mightn't it? If I hadn't, I mean.' She began to laugh. ‘What a twit I am. What difference can it possibly make, after all?'

‘You never know,' he said, slipping an arm lightly about her shoulder. ‘Let's not take the chance, shall we?'

The children and Rex came running out into the sunshine and overtook them, climbing the hill towards home and tea, whilst somewhere high above them a lark began to sing.