The Fleethaven Trilogy (28 page)

Jonathan nodded. ‘All the same, I bet if you took them away from it – inland – they’d soon miss it.’

‘Do you miss the city?’

He looked up from his sand drawing and gazed out
across the wide expanse of beach, across the water as far, if he could have seen it, as the foreign shoreline. ‘Not while I’m here, no. But when I was over there – oh, yes, I missed my home town – my home country.’

Esther’s gaze followed his own as she murmured, ‘I suppose they all do.’

By saying ‘they’ and not ‘you’ it was as if she was separating him from the men still over there, trying to make him believe he need not go back.

He was so totally unlike Matthew – like no man Esther had ever known. He held her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing each work-roughened finger with such tenderness that tears sprang to her eyes. He made no demands upon her. He never tried to touch her intimately, to fondle her breast or unbutton her blouse. He didn’t even kiss her mouth. He didn’t lunge at her in a frantic, boyish manner. He was courteous and caring and undemanding. But there was a look in his eyes when she met his intense gaze. Such a look as she had never seen before in any man’s eyes. There was desire – oh, yes, she knew that look – but with Jonathan there was more, so much more.

Esther was bemused and spellbound by him.

If they had not met during the day, as darkness fell Jonathan would slip away from the Seagull and come quietly into the yard of Brumbys’ Farm.

‘Look,’ he told her, holding out his hand to her as they stood in the shadows of the barn. On the flat of his palm lay a door key. ‘The landlord said I should have a key in case I wanted to go into the town and see a bit of night life.’

They smiled at each other. Now he could come and go freely from the Seagull, with no awkward questions asked.

Esther moved close to stand looking up into his face. She wanted so badly to put her arms about him, to lean her head against his chest, to feel his arms holding her tightly. The desire was so strong it was almost a physical pain. She steeled herself deliberately not to touch him.

‘Oh, Esther, Esther,’ he whispered hoarsely and touched her cheek with tender fingertips. ‘Every morning I get up and I say firmly to myself, “Today, I must leave.” ’ He smiled ruefully, ‘Yet by nightfall, I’m still here.’ He shook his head in disbelief at his own actions. ‘I would never have believed that a woman could make me shirk what I know is my duty. But you’re . . .’ He hesitated, searching for the right word. ‘You’re something very special. Do you know that?’

She reached up and pressed his hand against her face, holding his gaze with her own intense eyes. Slowly his head came down, as if he were fighting the impulse and yet losing the battle. Their lips touched, a gentle, feather-light brush. She heard him make a low sound in his throat. His lips moved against hers, his eyes closed and his arms came about her drawing her into his embrace. She put her own arms about his neck and pulled him even closer to her.

He lifted his head and loosened his embrace. He shook his head. ‘We shouldn’t. We mustn’t . . .’

His green eyes blazed. ‘Why? I love you, Jonathan, and you love me, don’t you?’ The words – never before spoken to anyone by her – came so easily and so naturally
to her lips that she never paused to wonder, to savour the sound of them and to revel in the meaning behind them.

He gasped at her directness, then smiled, won over by her honesty.

‘Don’t you?’ She was insisting on an answer from him. When he didn’t give one, she too released her hold on him and stood back, away from him. Quietly, she said, ‘Say ya don’t love me, and I’ll turn around and go. And ya can walk away from here – and never think of me again.’ She saw the pain in his eyes. She stepped closer again. ‘Say it – say ya
don’t
love me . . .’ She was daring him to deny her. In a whisper, she added, ‘If ya can.’

He groaned, reached out for her and enfolded her in his arms. ‘You know I can’t. I didn’t know it was possible to fall in love so quickly, so easily and – so completely.’

Triumphant, she laughed softly against his ear, standing on tiptoe to nibble his lobe with gentle teeth until he buried his head against her neck. ‘Why did I come here? Why did I ever have to meet you?’ he murmured.

‘Do you wish you hadn’t? Do you wish we’d never met?’

He lifted his head and cupped her face between hands that were gentle. ‘Oh, no. Never that! Maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t. But whatever happens, I shall never say I wish I hadn’t known you.’

He began to help her about the farm. She taught him how to milk the cows, how to harness and drive the horses into the fields.

‘I’ve told Mrs Harris that I’m staying on to help out a bit with the spring sowing,’ he told Esther. ‘I’m still on
sick leave from the army . . .’ His voice trailed away and he avoided meeting the enquiry in her eyes.

Esther had to bite her lip to stop the question being spoken aloud. How long? How long have we got left?

‘It’ll look better if we’re working together, if . . .’

‘Jonathan, ‘I don’t care what it looks like.’ She spoke sharply, trying to hide her fear of his leaving. At least she was determined to make the most of every minute. I don’t care what people think – or say.’

He shook his head sadly at her. ‘Oh, Esther, but I do. I care for your sake. I wouldn’t harm you for the world and when I think what people must be thinking, must be saying, about us – about you . . .’

‘Let ’em!’ Esther faced him squarely, her chin jutting forward. ‘It isn’t anyone else’s business. I’m not liked around here, except mebbe by the Harrises.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘So what’s it matter?’

‘It matters to me.’

‘Well, it shouldn’t. Besides,’ she added and was unable to stop the note of sarcasm creeping into her voice, ‘there’s nothing to know really, is there? For all your fine words, ya don’t show me ya love me!’

She turned away from him and with an abrupt ‘walk on’ to the horses, she moved away down the field leaving him staring after her. When she turned at the far end of the field, he had disappeared.

‘Will you stop that silly crying, Kate,’ Esther shouted.

The child’s weeping was quelled but she continued to hiccup uncontrollably. ‘Stop that noise, or I’ll give ya something to cry about.’

‘I (hic) can’t. Danny Eland pulled my hair ribbon off and wouldn’t give it back.’

Esther stiffened. Danny Eland! Her impatience at her daughter died. She was being so unfair to take her own irritability out on her child.

Where was Jonathan? Why had he gone off like that the previous afternoon and not come back? All the morning they had been together mucking out the stables and polishing the harness and then leading the horses out to the field.

‘You’ll have to show me what you want me to do to help with the sowing,’ he had grinned, and then she had made that stupid remark and off he’d gone. Why did she always have to open her mouth and let it say what it liked? she groaned inwardly.

All the evening she had watched for him. She had moved restlessly about the yard, going out to the field to do the milking instead of bringing the cows into the shed so that she could watch the lane. Any minute she expected to see his tall, slightly stooping frame appearing at her gate.

As darkness had fallen she had hustled Kate to bed and then she had stood most of the evening by the scullery window near the back door overlooking the yard and the lane.

He did not come.

Didn’t he love her any more? Had she driven him away so easily by her bluntness? Was he disgusted because she had hinted she wanted more from him – that she wanted him physically? She had not realized just how naive and inexperienced in matters of love she was, even
though she was a married woman and a mother. She didn’t know what was expected of her, how a man like Jonathan expected her to behave.

And there was no one she could ask. There was no one she could confide in. Not even Ma Harris and certainly not Will Benson – not this time.

Now, this morning, when Jonathan had still not appeared, she was venting her frustration on her innocent daughter.

‘There, there, Katie, Mamma didn’t mean it.’

She sighed, picked up her daughter and carried her outside the back door and round to the front of the house to sit on the grass in the sunshine. Taking the child on to her knee, her arms about her, her cheek resting against Kate’s hair, Esther gave her mind over to the problem of Danny Eland.

She should have guessed it would happen. He was only behaving just like the brother to Kate that he was. She prayed that they should never find out about their relationship to each other.

‘Boys are like that, Katie,’ she explained, stroking the little girl’s glowing curls, remembering her own boy cousins pulling their sisters’ hair and her own if they had half a chance. ‘You’ll have to learn to stick up for yourself, darling.’ As I had to do, she thought. For a moment the life she had led in her childhood came flooding back – the taunts of the other children about her bastardy, her aunt’s harsh tongue and rougher hand. Only for her gentle-natured Uncle George had Esther any kindly memories.

‘When you go to school there’ll be lots of boys like
Danny Eland. You’ll have to learn to put up with being teased.’

Kate looked up at her mother. She had stopped crying now, though salty lines still streaked her face. ‘I don’t think I want to go to school, Mamma.’

Esther smiled down at her. ‘You’ll like it when you get there. You’ll learn all sorts of things – how to read and do sums and . . .’

‘But I don’t want to be teased – I don’t like being
teased.’

‘No,’ Esther murmured. ‘No one does, but if you greet their taunts with a smile and a cheeky answer back, they’ll soon give up. You see, they’re only trying to upset you, to make you cry. If you don’t cry but laugh at them instead, they’ll give up.’

Kate seemed thoughtful, solemnly analysing her mother’s advice in a peculiarly old-fashioned way for one so young.

‘When do I start school? Danny says he’s going next year.’

Esther sighed. Danny, Danny, Danny – always Danny Eland. ‘About the same time, I think, though you’re a bit younger than him. I’ll have to see the teacher.’

‘But Danny and me – we’ll go to the same school? We’ll be together?’

‘Yes,’ Esther was obliged to tell her. ‘You’ll be going to the same school as Danny Eland.’

Kate scrambled up from her mother’s knee and ran across the grass towards the yard and the gate into the lane.

‘Kate. Kate, where are you going?’

The child shouted back over her shoulder as she skipped across the cinders, ‘To tell Danny I’m going to school with him.’

‘Well, really!’ Esther said, half-exasperated, half-relieved that childish quarrels could so soon be forgotten. Yet Kate’s association with Danny Eland brought Esther no comfort, no peace of mind whatsoever.

It was late afternoon before she saw Jonathan.

She had walked across the marshland beyond the road opposite her farm and up the rise of the far dunes. From here she would be able to see the houses at the Point and the Seagull. She could see the children playing round Ma Harris’s cottage, Kate amongst them and undoubtedly Danny Eland too. She could see Robert Eland on board his boat home spreading his nets, examining them for holes that would let the fish slip through.

She thought briefly of Beth. It was strange how they never seemed to run into each other. She could remember having seen her only once or twice since Danny’s christening, then only in the distance and Danny was four now. Certainly they had never met and spoken even though they lived only a few hundred yards from each other.

Then she saw Jonathan.

He was standing at the end of the Spit – her own special place. A lonely, motionless figure just staring out to sea.

As she watched him, the familiar fluttering began just below her ribs and she felt as if, even though she was out in the open, there was suddenly not enough air to breathe.

Then she was running, running. Bounding over the tufts of grass, jumping the sandy hollows, splashing through the rivulets winding across the marshy ground.

A little way from him she slowed, panting hard, watching him. Now she moved slowly towards him.

‘Jonathan.’ She breathed his name like a prayer. A prayer for forgiveness, for understanding.

He did not move.

His name caught in her throat on a sob. ‘Jonathan!’

She saw him jump physically and turn swiftly. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the sadness that was in his face before his joy at seeing her there filled his eyes with love.

He held out his arms to her and she ran into them. In that moment both of them were oblivious of the fact that they could be seen plainly from the cottages even though they were quite a distance away – and even more easily seen by Robert Eland on his boat if he cared to shade his eyes against the dazzling water and look in their direction.

Jonathan was kissing her mouth, her eyes, holding her fiercely in his arms.

‘I thought you’d gone,’ she gasped. ‘Gone away and left me. Forgive me . . .’

Between urgent kisses, he murmured, ‘We shouldn’t – we’ll be seen . . . Come – let’s go in the dunes.’

They ran along the narrow bank, clutching at each other, laughing with nervousness, with mutual joy. They gained the dunes and came to their special place, a natural hollow, sheltered from the sea breeze and safe
from prying eyes, hidden even from the coastguard’s look-out.

They sat down in the sand and she snuggled against him. He wrapped his arms around her and laid his cheek against her hair.

‘I couldn’t sleep last night,’ he said. ‘I stood at the window of my room in the Seagull, looking out towards your home.’

She giggled nervously. ‘I stood at me scullery window half the night watching the lane. I didn’t sleep a wink.’

He stroked her hair.

She rested her head on his chest. ‘We won’t quarrel ever again, will we, Jonathan?’ she murmured sleepily, for the sun was high and here in the hollow it was sheltered and warm. They lay back in the sand.

After the sleepless night tormenting herself that he no longer loved her, Esther just wanted to stay here safe and warm and happy for ever.