Wait For the Dawn (32 page)

What if she went to Capinfell? Her father would be pleased to have her back in the family home, but what would happen when he became aware of her condition?

And what about her child? When the baby was born she
wanted the best for it. What should she do? The questions turned over in her mind.

By the time she fell asleep, late that night, she was no nearer finding any answers.

Arriving at the store at her usual time the next morning she went first to see Mr Watson, the superintendent of the postal order department and apologised for missing the previous day’s work, and said that she had been indisposed. He responded by saying that he thought she had been looking a little pale just lately and hoped that she was feeling better. She thanked him and went to her work-table. It would not be long before she was leaving the company altogether.

The interminable day dragged on while she arranged various sales and wrote to customers about their orders, but eventually five-thirty came round and it was time to leave. She put on her hat and jacket, took up her bag and joined the other clerks making their way from the staff entrance.

As she stepped out onto the pavement, a figure came forward from her right, moving into her path.

‘Mr Canbrook.’ She came to a halt, facing him.

‘Hello, Miss Halley . . . Lydia.’ He was holding a small bunch of miniature roses, and a little self-consciously offered them to her. ‘I brought you these,’ he said.

‘Well . . . thank you.’ She took the flowers from him. ‘How nice of you.’

The other office workers were streaming around them, and Lydia stepped over towards the wall of the building, out of their way. Mr Canbrook moved with her.

‘What are you doing in Redbury?’ she asked.

‘I had a little business here, and I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and call on you. I didn’t have your address, but you told me where you were working.’

Lydia smiled. ‘Well – it’s quite a surprise, seeing you here.’

He hesitated then said, ‘Are you in a hurry to go somewhere?’

Where could she be going? She had nowhere to go. She had no plans. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just going back to my lodgings.’

‘Are they far away?’

‘Not too far. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I take the omnibus.’

‘If you’re walking I’d like to walk with you, if that’s all right.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’ He would be pursuing the answer to his proposal, she thought. There was, of course, only one answer that she could give.

He looked up at the sky. ‘It looks a little grey, but I don’t think there’s any rain coming.’

They set off along the pavement together.

‘We can walk through the Gardens,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s the route I usually take.’

‘Fine. You lead on.’

At the end of Queen Street they turned left on to Patton Crescent and from there made their way through the entrance into the park. Mr Canbrook looked about him as they entered and gave a nod of pleasure. ‘Ah, this is very nice.’

‘Yes – it is.’ Lydia could suddenly see herself and Guy walking in these same gardens. She thrust the image away.

There were numerous other people on the paths, either taking late afternoon strolls or using the ways as short cuts from one part of the city to another. As Lydia walked at Mr Canbrook’s side she waited for him to raise again the matter of his marriage proposal. He said nothing of it, however, but spoke of other things, the weather, the
harvest, his draper’s shop. Lydia knew, though, that it was only a matter of time and she would have to give him her answer.

The wide oval pond was ahead of them, and at its rim three or four small boys crouched, managing little boats, their parents or nursemaids standing nearby or sitting on the benches. Mr Canbrook gestured towards a couple of vacant seats further on around the rim of the pond and said, ‘What do you think? Can we sit down for a minute?’

‘Yes, if you wish.’

They walked round to a part where there were no people, and sat down on a bench facing out over the water.

Silence between them. Lydia, not knowing what to say, waited for him to speak. After a while she raised the flowers to her nose. ‘They’re lovely,’ she said; ‘they’re so pretty,’ and then laid them down beside her. At last Mr Canbrook spoke.

‘I lied to you, I’m afraid.’

‘You – you lied? I – I don’t understand.’

‘I told you back there that I had business here in the town.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I haven’t got business here. I came just to see you. That was my only purpose.’

‘I see.’

He gave a sad little smile, and added a sigh. ‘I have a feeling that it’s a bit too early, is it? Too early to ask you for an answer, I mean.’

‘Oh, Mr Canbrook –’ Lydia turned to face him. ‘I don’t need to have time to think about it. I could have told you when you asked me on Sunday. My answer then would be the same as it is now. I’m very sorry. Really I am.’

‘Ah . . .’ he said, ‘so you’re turning me down, are you?’

‘I don’t have any choice, sir. I respect you enormously, and I do thank you so much for your offer. I don’t dismiss it lightly. It’s just that – oh, it wouldn’t work – for all kinds of reasons.’

He did not speak for a moment, then he said, ‘What are they, those reasons?’

‘Oh – really – is it wise to go into them?’ She wished now that she had given him her answer at their meeting on Sunday. It would have saved this embarrassment now, and any discomfiture. ‘Can’t you just – just – accept it?’

‘I did tell you I was persistent,’ he said.

‘Yes, you did.’

‘So, please. I would like to know,’ he said. ‘Tell me, please.’

‘It sounds so cruel,’ she said, ‘to just say it bluntly like this – but – but I don’t love you. Surely you realise that.’

‘Oh, I do. I knew that. I never expected that you’d say you do. I can live with that.’

‘Can you?’

‘Of course. What are your other reasons?’

‘Don’t you think it’s important – that it’s vital – to have love in a marriage?’

‘There would be love in it,’ he said. ‘I can love enough for both of us.’

‘Oh, Mr Canbrook . . .’

She turned away from him, avoiding his steady gaze. She should not be sitting discussing this matter with him. It did no good to either of them. It was no help to her to spin it out like this, and also it did no good to him, to protract the matter. Better she should just say no, and end it for good and all.

Suddenly a wave of nausea came over her and she leaned forward, her gloved hands up to her face.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

She pressed her hands to her stomach and drew in the air in gulps, at the same time closing her eyes. After a few moments the sick feeling began to fade. Another minute and it had almost passed and she straightened again.

‘You don’t look well,’ he said. ‘You look so pale around your mouth. What’s the matter?’

‘I – I’m all right.’ She continued to breathe deeply.

‘You don’t look all right to me. Tell me what’s the matter.’

‘It – it’s not important. I’m all right, really I am.’

‘Well . . .’ he said doubtfully, ‘if you say so.’ A little moment of silence between them, then he added, his words accompanied by a rather rueful smile, ‘I have to say – the look on your face when you saw me waiting outside the shop back there. It wasn’t the most encouraging.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She felt as if she were in a fog. Her mind was spinning. Here was this man, this perfectly nice and pleasant man, totally engaged by his own preoccupations, and she could not become involved in them at all. She could not get past the miseries in her own heart and mind. Her brain was full of questions and doubts and desperation, a desperation that threatened at any moment to flood to the surface and bring her down.

After a second she took a deep breath and said, ‘Mr Canbrook, I’ve got to go.’

‘Oh, please . . .’ As she moved to rise from the bench he reached out towards her. ‘Please, don’t go. Not yet.’

‘Oh, but . . .’ For a second or two she hovered, half risen from the seat, then allowed herself to be urged back down. Sitting on the bench, she leaned forward, eyes tight shut, her mouth opening in anguish.

‘Oh, Miss Halley!’ he breathed. ‘What is it?’

She did not answer. She could not answer. Suddenly great gasping sobs burst from her throat and she pressed her clenched fists to her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle them.

‘Don’t,’ he cried. ‘Oh, my dear girl, don’t! I beg you, don’t. I can’t bear to see you cry.’

She sobbed again, the sound repeated over and over, her whole body shaking as she bent low. ‘Mr Canbrook,’
she cried through her tears, ‘please go. Please leave me.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not like this. I’m not leaving you like this. Tell me what’s the matter.’

She turned to him now, her face full of pain and anguish, the tears streaming. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said with a little moan. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why, what is it? Tell me, please.’

Through her tears she gave a sudden, bitter little laugh, the sound utterly sad in the late afternoon air. ‘I’m like Hansel,’ she said.

‘Hansel?’

‘Yes. Hansel in the forest. The birds have eaten all my crumbs and I don’t know which way to turn.’

Then, the sobs racking her body, she got up, and flinging herself from her seat on the bench, turned and headed away.

Hurrying with no idea of direction, she moved from the pond into a little grove of trees that grew nearby, and here she came to a halt and stood there panting, the tears coursing down her cheeks. Canbrook was at her side in seconds.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

She shook her head and turned from him, looking off through her tears into the shadows of the little grove.

‘I can’t bear to see you like this,’ he said. He paused. ‘Is it me?’

‘You?’ She turned to him now. ‘No, it isn’t you. It’s only me. It has nothing to do with you.’

‘Come. Come and sit down. Come and tell me about it.’ He reached out to take her hand, but the moment he touched her she drew away. He let his hand fall back to his side. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘tell me – you’re in some sort of trouble, some awful trouble. What is it?’

She did not answer.

‘Tell me what it is,’ he said.

She turned her face away from him again. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can. Of course you can. I don’t understand what can be so dreadful that it can affect you like this.’

‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘you can’t understand. You wouldn’t believe it either.’

‘I’ll believe anything you tell me. I told you, I love you.’

‘You can’t love me,’ she said. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘I know you. I’ve known you for years.’

‘No.’ She hesitated briefly, then added, ‘I’m not the girl you think I am.’

He thought about this for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can tell me that would put me off. My feelings for you are – so strong.’

‘Your feelings, you say.’ There was bitterness in her voice. ‘They won’t withstand everything.’

He frowned. ‘What is this dreadful thing you’re hinting at?’

‘Oh, if I told you it would finish your feeling for me for ever.’

‘I think I should be the judge of that.’

Still she faced away from him, and still he waited. Then after a little silence she said, almost whispering, ‘I’m to have a baby.’ When she heard no response from him she lifted her head and turned to face him, looking for the horror in his gaze. There was no trace of it. ‘Well?’ she said. The tears were drying on her cheeks. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Or are you too shocked?’

He did not speak for some seconds, then he said, ‘Such things happen all the time. It doesn’t change you in any way.’

‘You think not?’

‘Of course.’

‘Unfortunately not everyone will see it like that.’

‘More fool they.’ He gave a little shake of his head. ‘Did you think I would be so horrified that I would turn from you?’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’ She thought of Mrs Obdermann. ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

‘Those people – they can’t know you.’

‘But you don’t know me either.’

‘I know enough.’ He waited a moment then said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’

She replied with doubt in her voice, ‘Yes.’

‘The child’s father . . . how does he feel about this?’

She hesitated. ‘He doesn’t know.’ And to forestall a further question: ‘I have no intention of telling him.’

Mr Canbrook opened his mouth to speak again, then halted before he had begun. After considering his words, he said, ‘Well, it’s not for me to ask the whys and wherefores of that. You’ve got your reasons.’

She nodded. ‘Anyway, now you know.’ She moved to step past him. ‘I must go. I’ll get my flowers and I must go.’

He followed her to the bench where her posy lay forlornly on the seat. As she picked it up he stepped forward and said: ‘Don’t go yet. I still need to talk to you.’

She remained standing.

‘Sit down – please.’

She sat, and he sat down beside her. He regarded her for a second or two.

‘You said just now that you didn’t know what to do.’

‘I don’t,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t see any way out.’

‘What about your father? He’d help you, surely.’

‘I wouldn’t know how to tell him. I dread telling him.’ The tears threatened again, and she swallowed and was silent while she gathered her strength. ‘Yesterday I was given notice to get out of my lodgings. The landlady guessed at my – my condition – and made her feelings clear.’ She looked away from him, over the water. ‘So in a
week or so I shan’t even have a place to live. I’ll have no choice but to go back to Capinfell, and I shall have to – have to put up with the shame. As will my father.’ She turned to him now, smiling at him although the corners of her mouth were pulling down. ‘Go on back to Merinville, Mr Canbrook,’ she said. ‘Go on back and forget all about me.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I could ever do that. You’re that set in my mind.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘As you see, I’m not the woman for you.’

‘You are.’

She frowned. ‘Not now.’

‘You are,’ he said. ‘My feelings for you haven’t changed.’