The Touch (62 page)

Too terrified of losing her and the moment to think of going to the saddlebags, wherein lay blankets, a mackintosh, a supply of kerosene, he put her down on his clothes, and she was so exalted that she knew nothing beyond his mouth, his hands, his skin. When he eased her shoulders out of the dress to bare her breasts and gather them against his chest, a huge stab of some utter pleasure shook her to the marrow and wrenched a groan from her. Yet it went on and on and on….

Who knows how many times they made love on that hard bed amid the rain? Certainly not the lamp, whose flame diminished to a pinpoint and snuffed itself out.

But finally Elizabeth lay in an exhausted sleep, and Lee, wide awake with the wonder of it and her, was forced to remember reality. Though it physically hurt to leave her, he groped to the patient horse to extricate the spare kerosene and his watch: three in the morning. It would be a late dawn because of the heavy skies and the rain, but not more than two hours off. Since he had found her, the others had not, and a frantic Alexander would be ready to go at dawn with that part of Kinross not needed to stem a flood. The level of water in the pool had risen considerably, and would continue to rise; he would have to move Elizabeth anyway. And how were they going to deal with this? The one thing he could not let happen was to have Alexander find them still entwined like the lovers they had become.

Lee slipped the saddlebags from the mare and carried them back to the rock, unscrewing his flask of brandy.

“Elizabeth! Elizabeth, my love! Elizabeth, wake up!”

She stirred but muttered mutinously back into sleep; it took him several minutes to persuade her to sit up, but once she had taken a little brandy she roused fully, shivering.

“I love you,” she said, a hand on either side of his face. “I have loved you forever.”

He kissed her, but pulled away before the whole thing could start again; she was chilled to the bone, only sustained by the night’s excitement, the warmth of his body.

“Put your clothes on,” he said—not an order, but a plea. “We have to go before Alexander mounts a full-scale search.”

It was too dark to see her face beyond a blur, but he could feel the anxiety and tension flood into her at the mention of that name. On went the clothes; he wrapped a blanket around her and put the mackintosh over that, then refilled the lamp and lit it to guide them.

“Do you have any shoes?”

“No, I lost them.”

It was a struggle to get her across the horse’s withers; still, once he was in the saddle and had a good hold of her, they could talk as he rode, curbing the mare, which sensed home and a warm stable in this direction.

“I love you,” he started, not wanting to start anywhere else.

“And I love you.”

“There’s more to it than that, though, dearest Elizabeth.”

“Yes. There’s Alexander,” she said.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“Keep you,” she said simply. “I couldn’t bear to let you go, Lee. It’s too precious.”

“Then will you go away with me?”

But reality had asserted its claim on her too; he felt her shrink against him, felt her sigh. “How can I, Lee? I don’t think Alexander would let me go. Even if he did, I still have Dolly to look after. I can’t desert Anna’s child.”

“I know. Then what do you want to do?”

“Keep you. It will have to be a secret, at least until I can think more clearly. I’m so tired, Lee!”

“Then our secret it is.”

“When will I see you again?” she asked, alarmed.

“Not until the rain’s over, my sweet love. If we have floods, a week at least. Let’s make it a week anyway.”

“Oh, I’ll die!”

“No, you’ll live—for me. We will meet at the pool seven days from this coming dawn. That will mean an afternoon, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to keep our secret?”

“I’ve kept myself a secret since I married Alexander, so why should this be any different?”

“Go to sleep.”

“What if something happens and you can’t come?”

“You’ll know through Alexander, because I’ll be with him. Go to sleep, my dearest.”

WHEN LEE rode toward the house shortly before dawn shouting that he had found Elizabeth, her sleeping form was gently handed down to a white-faced, shaking Alexander, who carried her into the house and Nell. When he emerged, brimming with gratitude, it was to find that Lee had given the mare to Summers and taken himself home to Ruby.

“That’s rum,” said Alexander, frowning.

“Oh, I dunno, Sir Alexander,” said Summers with superb logic, “the poor coot was wet through, and he’s a much heftier man than you. Your clothes won’t fit him, will they?”

“True, Summers. I’d forgotten that.”

So it was about thirty-six hours later before Lee had to endure Alexander’s fervent thanks, delivered at the hotel after what Alexander said had been a visit to old Brumford, his lawyer.

“Is Elizabeth all right?” Lee asked, feeling that to express anxiety was natural under the circumstances.

“Surprisingly, yes. Nell’s a bit flummoxed. She was all set to deal with anything from pneumonia to a brain fever, but after a twenty-four-hour sleep, Elizabeth woke up this morning fresh as a daisy, then ate an enormous breakfast.”

Alexander, however, looked anything but fresh; his eyes were redrimmed, his face drawn. Though he was clearly trying to look jaunty, it wasn’t working.

“Are you all right, Alexander?” Lee asked.

“Oh, lord, yes, perfectly! It just gave me a bit of a fright, coming out of the blue like that. I really can’t thank you enough, my boy.” He looked at his gold wrist-watch. “I have to take Nell to the train. What a grand girl! With you at my side again, I can wish her well in Medicine.”

Nothing that Lee wanted to hear, though it relieved him that Nell was leaving Kinross. A grand girl, yes, but as sharp as a tack and no friend to him—or, he suspected, to her mother.

I hate it! thought Lee. All this subterfuge and sneaking around. There’s only one thing worse than having Elizabeth this way, and that’s not having her at all. I can’t even tell my mother what’s happened.

He didn’t have to. The moment he walked into the hotel trailing water all over the carpet, Ruby knew.

I have lost my son. He’s given himself to Elizabeth. And this is the one subject I dare not bring up with him. He hates it but loves her. To want is one thing, to get what you want is quite another. Oh, pray this doesn’t kill him! All I can do is light candles at that abode of sanctity, the Tyke church.

“My goodness, Mrs. Costevan,” said old Father Flannery (he always accorded her the dignity of a married title), “you’ll be coming to Mass next!”

“Fuh—bother that!” snarled Ruby. “Don’t get your hopes up, Tim Flannery, you old soak! I just like lighting candles!”

And perhaps she does at that, thought the priest, clutching the fistful of notes she had thrust at him. He had enough here to drink the finest Irish for months.

ELIZABETH AWOKE into a whole new world, one that she hadn’t—couldn’t have—known existed. She loved and was loved. The dreaming phases of her sleep had been filled with images of Lee, but to wake and know they were real—! Some twist in her mental processes had blotted out all memory of visiting Anna’s grave, of the roses, of walking into the bush with the blind drive of an animal seeking its home, intent only on reaching The Pool. What she remembered was Lee finding her there, and all the wonderful, beautiful, glorious emotions and sensations that had followed. To have lived as a married woman for twenty-three years and never to have understood what true marriage was!

Her body felt different; as if it truly belonged to her soul, rather than was a cage imprisoning her soul. No aches or pains plagued her when she woke, not even a tiny stiffness. I was dead, and Lee gave me life. Almost forty years of age, and this is my first taste of pure happiness.

“Well, you’re finally compos mentis!” said a brisk voice: Nell moved to the bed. “I can’t say you had me worried, Mum, but you’ve slept for almost twenty-four hours.”

“Have I?” Elizabeth yawned, stretched, made a purring sound.

Her daughter’s shrewd eyes were fixed on her face, and wore a puzzled look; had Nell only known it, this was one of those situations Ruby had referred to, when her own ignorance of life rendered her blind to what someone more experienced would have seen immediately. “You look absolutely splendid.”

“I feel it,” said Elizabeth, the shutters beginning to come down. “Did I cause much trouble? I didn’t mean to.”

“We were frantic, especially Dad—he had me very worried. Do you remember what you did? What you were thinking of?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, speaking the truth.

“You must have gone miles. Lee found you.”

“Did he?” Her eyes looked up at Nell with mild curiosity, nothing else. Elizabeth was an expert at secrets.

“Yes. He took Dad’s horse—it never occurred to any of us that you’d move at the speed of light in that weather, so Lee had the least likely alternative. Dad would rather have found you himself.” Nell shrugged. “Still, it doesn’t matter who found you—the important thing is that you were found.”

No, thought Elizabeth, the important thing is that Alexander didn’t take the horse. Then it would have been Alexander who found me, and I would still be his prisoner.

“I suppose I was a mess?” she asked.

“That’s putting it mildly, Mum! You were caked in mud, slime, God knows what. It took ages for Pearl and Silken Flower to get you clean.”

“I don’t remember being bathed.”

“That’s because you were sound asleep. I had to sit at the top of the bath and keep your head out of the water.”

“My goodness!” Elizabeth swung her legs out of the bed. “How is Dolly? What does she know?”

“Only that you’ve been ill, but that you’re all right now.”

“Yes, I am all right. Thank you, Nell, I’d like to dress.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, I can look after myself.”

An inspection of her body in two big mirrors revealed cuts and bruises galore—strange, that they didn’t hurt a bit—but nothing that betrayed what had happened at The Pool. She closed her eyes, sagged in relief.

Alexander came in a little later. Eyes wide, Elizabeth gazed at him as if she had never seen him before. How many times had he made love to her between her wedding night and the onset of her illness when she became pregnant with Anna? She hadn’t counted, but many times. Yet never once had she seen him naked, or wanted to. He had known that much, and not forced the issue. But only now, because of what she and Lee had done together, did she understand. Where there is neither love nor physical desire, said her newfound insight, nothing can ever happen to improve matters. And yes, Alexander had done his best to change that. But he was a driving, straightforward man whose physical desires reflected his nature; by no means unsubtle, but learned. I never shook with want for him, she thought. There is nothing in him, nothing he could do to me, that could lift me to that exalted, ecstatic state I have just known with Lee. I could no more have borne to have a shred of clothing between my body and Lee’s than I could have sent him away from me. I wouldn’t have cared if the whole world watched, or if it ended, with Lee’s hands on my skin and my hands on his. When he said he had always loved me and always would, it was like coming home. Yet how can I tell this man any of that? Even if he could bear to listen, he wouldn’t begin to understand. I don’t know what happens between him and Ruby; with no other yardstick than Alexander and me to go by, how could I? But from today everything has changed, everything is different, everything is a source of wonder. I have undergone a miracle, I have lain with my beloved.

Alexander was staring at her as if at someone he knew he ought to know, but didn’t. His face was lined and looked older than she remembered it—how long ago seemed Anna’s death! To her he seemed to have lost essence, but she gazed at him with all her usual tranquillity, and smiled.

He smiled back. “Are you hungry enough to eat breakfast?”

“Thank you, I’ll be down shortly,” she said serenely.

So they settled together at the table in the conservatory, upon whose transparent, white-ribbed roof the rain beat down so steadily that the panes ran in shimmering ripples.

“I am hungry!” said Elizabeth in amazement, wading her way through grilled lamb chops, scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes.

Nell had joined them; she was going back to Sydney shortly.

“You must thank Lee, Elizabeth,” said Alexander, not hungry.

“If you insist,” she said, swallowing toast.

“Aren’t you grateful to him, Mum?” Nell asked, surprised.

“Yes, of course I am.” Elizabeth reached for the chops.

Alexander and his daughter exchanged a rueful glance, then abandoned the subject.

Having eaten her fill, Elizabeth went to see Dolly; Nell, about to accompany her, was detained by her father.

“Is she right in the head?” he asked. “She’s so unaffected by what happened.”

Nell considered the question, then nodded. “I think so, Dad. At least, as right in the head as she’s ever been. You used the correct word—Mum is fey.”

WHEN HE REALIZED that Elizabeth had gone missing, Alexander suffered a shock of such magnitude that he knew a part of him would never get over it. For most of the last twenty-three years he had thought of Elizabeth as a thorn in his side—a staid, prim, frigid creature whom he had married for all the wrong reasons. He’d taken the blame because the wrong reasons belonged to him, not to her, and tried to make amends. But her ever-growing distaste of him had wounded him to the quick, set off a chain of reactions founded in pride, resentment, self-esteem. The love of her that had come so soon after their union she had rejected, so he attributed the unhappiness that clouded both their lives more and more as time went on to her and her rejection of the love he had offered. Convinced himself that his love had died. Well, how could it not die, when it was planted in such unforgiving soil? And somewhere along the way he had lost sight of anything except his own thwarted impulse to conquer. All the while calling her a pillar of ice. Yet how could one conquer a pillar of ice? Grasp it, and it melted away into nothing one could take hold of.