The Hidden Years (58 page)

That what? That they could be lovers? she demanded
bitterly of herself. Hadn't she learned anything, anything at all from
the past?

She was a married woman with an ailing husband and a young
child… A married woman, moreover, who had willingly chosen
celibacy.

And yet as she looked at Vic standing there, remembering
how tenderly he had cared for her during David's birth, remembering how
gentle his hands were, how caring his touch, there was so much she
wanted to say to him that the words burned in her throat. So much she
wanted to say and yet could not say, because she knew in her heart of
hearts that, much as she liked him, much as she needed his strength and
companionship, she did not love him. That to allow him to think
otherwise would be to cheat not only Edward and David but Vic himself
as well; and so, even though it tore at her heart to do so, she
stretched out her hand to him, forcing her lips to curve into what she
hoped looked like a smile, and, shaking his hand, said as brightly as
she could, 'I'd better go.
Bon voyage
,
Vic… and remember, we're counting on you to bring back that
ram. I've got very big plans for our new flock…'

He laughed then, even though the laughter sounded slightly
forced.

They had talked, the two of them, or rather she had talked
and he had listened, as her enthusiasm had caught fire and she had told
him of how ultimately she would like to revive the old tradition of
weaving wool cloth locally from the Cottingdean flock… of
bringing back to life the old mill which belonged to the Cottingdean
estate, and which now lay empty and neglected, the water wheel which
had once powered its machine rotting in its weed-choked mill pond.

'Goodbye, Vic,' she whispered to him, her voice suddenly
deserting her as she leaned up and kissed him briefly on the cheek, and
then, without daring to look back, she turned and hurried to join the
others leaving the ship.

She didn't stay to watch it weigh anchor, getting back
into her car and setting off back to Cottingdean, forcing herself as
she drove homewards to concentrate not on what she had left behind but
on what lay ahead of her. That was where her life lay… In
Cottingdean with her son… with her husband… with
her responsibilities to them.

So she analysed the situation, defusing it until she was
sure she had made it quite safe… Until she was sure she
could return to her home and her family with her heart and mind clear
of any stain of guilt.

As she drove through one small village she had to stop to
allow a small procession of people to cross the road. They were
carrying an enormous heavily carved oak chest and as she watched them
it suddenly struck her that the chest would be ideal for Cottingdean's
empty hall.

On an impulse she couldn't define she stopped the car and
parked it, hurrying after the slow-moving procession, and then stopping
them to enquire breathlessly what they were doing with the chest.

'Throwing it out,' one of the men told her grimly. 'Been
cluttering up our front room since my old mother moved in with us, it
has, and now that she's gone the wife says it can go too.'

It was old… very old, worn in places, and very
dirty, and yet beneath that she could see the potential beauty of the
wood, could almost feel how much it called out for care and attention.

'I'll buy it from you,' she told him impulsively, not
allowing herself time to think, to hesitate. 'I'll give you five pounds
for it,' she added quickly. 'Six if you can secure it on the roof of
the car…'

It was plain that he thought she was crazed. He eyed her
uncertainly, saying dourly, 'Firewood, that's all he's good
for… Still, if you're sure you wants 'im… I don't
want no husband coming down here and making us take 'im
back…'

'No, no, he won't do that,' Liz assured him, quickly
producing six pounds from her purse and thinking how fortunate it was
that Edward had made her take some extra money just in case she should
decide not to make the return journey until the morning.

It took the men a good hour to secure the chest to her
satisfaction, but at last it was done, the money handed over, and she
was on her way home.

A feeling of well-being and excitement had replaced her
earlier
malaise
and, although she didn't know it,
she had just begun what was to be a lifelong love-affair with antique
furniture. There would be occasions when she would find and buy far
more valuable pieces than this ancient oak chest, but there would never
be a time when the thrill of finding them would exceed the sweet
pleasure she felt now, as she drove slowly and proudly along the empty
English lanes, humming contentedly under her breath, while the chest
rocked precariously on the car's roof.

The six months of Vic's absence were very busy ones; there
were the inevitable problems with the flock, and David was growing
quickly, a placid, endearing child with such a quality of sweetness
about him that sometimes he made Liz catch her breath in wonder. There
was nothing of his father in him… none of Kit's cruelty or
vice. He was his own person.

Vic wrote to them that the owner of Woolonga's prize rams
was being stubborn about selling them one of his beasts, and Liz formed
the impression that the Australian was tough and uncompromising, with
little room in his life for sentiment or emotion.

From Vic's letters she gained the impression that he had
fallen a little under the Australian's influence, and she began to
worry about whether, once he returned, Vic would ever be content to
settle for their quiet unexciting life. Vic was a young
man—just as she was a young woman, a rebellious inner voice
reminded her. It was a voice she didn't want to hear…a voice
she could not afford to hear.

They had a hard winter, but somehow or other between them
they managed to keep the flock's losses to a minimum. Liz lost count of
the number of nights she sat up with a birthing ewe, grimly determined
to honour the trust Vic had placed in her, reminding herself over and
over again of the night David was born.

The kitchen seemed full of orphaned lambs. She watched
David with them, surprised and moved by his tenderness towards them. He
was a child who seemed instinctively to sense the suffering of others
and feel compassion for it. She wondered sometimes if it was a good
thing that he spent as much time as he did with Edward… if
she ought not to be encouraging him to become more boisterous and
adventurous like the village boys—but they enjoyed one
another's company so deeply, communicating without any need for words.

Chivers had abandoned his care of Edward to help her with
the sheep, and just when she thought that winter would never be over,
that spring would never come, the snow started to melt; crocuses
blossomed in sheltered patches of the garden, and then best of all they
had a letter from Vic saying that he was on his way home and that he
was bringing with him their much-needed new ram.

There was nothing in his letter to say how he had managed
to persuade the Australian to part with this beast, but Liz was too
overjoyed by the news to worry about how such a miracle had been
achieved.

Vic himself arrived within weeks of his letter…
a sunburned, broader, different Vic, whose eyes seemed to look far
beyond the enclosed horizons of their own hills, a Vic who took her to
one side and told her quietly that he had brought more than the new ram
home with him.

'It was you who put the idea in my head,' he told her
quietly, and the sensation of knowledge and loss that touched her as he
looked at her made her throat close up in anguish.

'You've found yourself a wife,' she said simply.

'Yes. She's the daughter of Woolonga's foreman. The thing
is… the thing is, she's lived all her life out there in the
outback and it's a strange thing… a magic place almost. It
gets a hold of you. I felt it myself… She wanted to come
over here, to see what England looks like.' He smiled briefly and
painfully. 'But once we've got the ram settled in and I've found you a
new shepherd, I reckon we'll be going back to Woolonga…'

Woolonga… Woolonga… The name tasted
bitter in her mouth and as she raised her eyes to Vic's she now saw in
his all that he was not saying to her… all that he could not
say to her.

'Who knows?' she had said brightly. 'You might even bring
a pretty Australian bride back with you…'

But she had not meant it… had never meant to
drive him from her and from Cottingdean. They both needed him too much
to lose him.

The knowledge was like a knife twisting inside her, a
double-edged pain that came from knowing how much she would miss him
and from acknowledging her own selfishness. She had no right to expect
him to stay when she knew she could offer him nothing… Or at
least when she could not offer him what he would find with his new wife.

She had no right to even think of feeling what she was
feeling, no right at all.

She met his wife a couple of days later. Beth was a small
dark-haired girl with deeply tanned skin and vivid blue eyes. Her
manner towards Liz was both curious and slightly aggressive, and Liz
acknowledged with a sinking heart that the two of them could never have
forged an easy relationship. Whether because she felt that Liz was
somehow a threat to her own relationship with Vic, or whether it was
simply that, as a girl brought up in a land which did not acknowledge
any class barriers, she refused to treat Liz and Edward with the
old-fashioned deference given to them by Vic himself, Liz had no way of
knowing… All she did know was that, much as it made her own
heart ache, Vic's decision to make a new life for himself in Australia
was probably the wisest one for all concerned.

True to his word, though, he refused to leave until he had
found them a new shepherd he considered worthy of the task. This took
over three months, during which time Liz became heartily sick of
hearing from Beth the words, 'At the homestead,' and 'Woolonga.' Both
the sheep station and its owner, or so it seemed, were larger than
life, and certainly far more imposing than anything Cottingdean had to
offer. It was ridiculous to feel this resentment of a place she had
never seen, to feel that every time Beth boasted about Woolonga she was
challenging Liz to deny that Cottingdean was inferior to it in every
way, but that was what Liz did feel.

She was astonished to hear herself saying crossly to
Edward one evening, 'I shall be glad when young Vic and Beth
leave… I'm getting quite sick of hearing the name Woolonga.'

'Beth is homesick,' Edward pointed out mildly. 'That does
tend to make people defensive. I'll admit, though, she is a trifle
abrasive in her defence of all things Australian. I suppose part of her
is afraid that Vic will change his mind and stay on here.'

'Oh, he won't do that,' Liz denied flatly. She could sense
that Edward was watching her and remembered that Edward had always been
slightly antagonistic towards the young shepherd ever since he had been
the one to deliver David, and so, even though it hurt her to do so, she
added as carelessly as she could, 'And perhaps it's a good thing that
he's going… There's no real future here at Cottingdean for
him. This new shepherd is older, more likely to stay with
us—and from all that Vic says he's already settling in well
with the flock.'

'Mm… Well, I hope you're not going to be
disappointed with all this money you've laid out on this new ram. I
applaud your determination to build up the flock, but it's meat this
country needs, not wool…'

'At the moment it's meat,' Liz agreed, 'but I'm looking to
the future, to a time when goods aren't rationed… when
people want and can have a wider range of things. This country's
starved of good-quality cloth. Few companies make it any more, but
there's going to come a time when there will be a demand for it.'

'And
you're
going to provide it?'
Edward asked. 'My dear, I don't want to spoil your dreams…
Once, a long time ago, it's true that Cottingdean flocks produced
fine-quality wool, and wove it into cloth in our own mill, but those
days are gone… The mill is fit for nothing other than
knocking down, there's no machinery, no labour force,
nothing… and we certainly don't have the money to pay for
either. We can barely keep a roof above our heads…'

'It will all come in time,' Liz protested stubbornly.
'You'll see. This country needs new industry, people need what we could
produce. We will find a way.'

She heard Edward sigh, saw the way his mouth pursed with
rejection, and felt an intense build-up of frustration inside her. She
had so many plans, so many hopes… and so little of anything
else. Couldn't he see how much she
needed
to
believe in what she was doing? Couldn't he see how much she needed this
dream? After all, what else had she to occupy her mind? David wasn't a
baby any more and already scarcely seemed to need her… He
was such a self-possessed child… Edward was turning more and
more to Chivers for the physical help he needed and Ian Holmes and the
vicar for mental stimulation. She needed something in her life,
something to work for, something to challenge her… something
in which she could pour those energies which sometimes tormented her so
restlessly.

She was a young woman with all her life stretching out
ahead of her. What had happened with young Vic had opened her mind to
the pitfalls that could confront her, the dangers she could fall prey
to if she wasn't careful, if she didn't have something else to occupy
her thoughts, her time. It wasn't enough any longer to work herself so
physically hard that she fell into bed exhausted every night, and,
besides, they were getting to the stage where they had done as much to
the house as they could by themselves. What still needed to be done
needed expert hands. She
needed
this dream of
building from the ashes of the past a new, strong future for the house
and its lands. Sheep had been Cottingdean's wealth before and sheep
could be its wealth again. And if she no longer had anyone to share
that dream with her, if she had to pursue it on her own, well, then,
she would do so, she decided stubbornly.