Whisper on the Wind (61 page)

‘
Talk?
’ Oh no, she couldn’t believe that. Not voices. She didn’t believe in voices.

‘Aye. One day you’ll call out to him – not really call, but cry from inside you. And he’ll answer you; all gentle and loving his voice will come to you. Like a whispering on a warm, soft wind it’ll be; nothing more than that. But you’ll hear him with your heart, and you’ll know the worst is over.

‘I never told anyone, till now – not even your gran. She didn’t want to be comforted. But the day you give in – the day you stop fighting the pain and go along with it – that’s when you’ll hear him. He’ll come to you like a whisper on the wind …’

‘Oh, Polly, hold me. I hurt so much – so very much …’

‘Hold you, lass? Nay! That would never do! You can’t use folk as props. You’ve got to pull your shoulders back and stick your chin out, aye, and soon you’ll have to learn to hold your head high, an’ all. So shape yourself, now. There’s Kath coming across the orchard and you with not so much as the gas lit under the kettle! And I’ll be away. There’s shirts to be washed and ironed today, and standing about isn’t going to get this old war won, is it? See you tomorrow, same time. I’ve got my own key …’

‘Poll Appleby – you’re a terrible bossy-boots and I love you very much. But you know that, don’t you?’

The woman who had come to Ridings as a fourteen-year-old servant, and stayed there through good times and bad, snorted and pretended not to hear, nearly colliding with Kath as she came in through the door.

‘What’s the matter with Polly? She was crying, Roz – oh,
no
!, You’ve told her?’

‘She knows,’ Roz said softly, fondly. ‘And Kath – she’s glad about it. She’s
glad.
’

‘Then there’s only Jonty to tell, and the worst’ll be over.’

‘Jonty. Yes – well – look, Kath; that’s something altogether different. Men don’t understand these things the way women do, you see. Leave it? I’ll know when the time is right. Believe me, I know Jonty better than you do.’

‘All right. But don’t leave it too long.’

‘Well, now, there you are.’ Grace looked up, smiling, as Kath pushed open the kitchen door. ‘It seems an age since I’ve seen you. I’ve missed you calling in for a drink, Kath, since you went to live at Ridings.’

‘I know. Not a month ago, yet it seems like a lifetime.’ She took a mug from the mantel and picked up the teapot. ‘So much has happened since I came here, Grace.’

‘Aye. Mrs Fairchild and Roz’s young man – both gone. How that poor lass is managing, I don’t know. Twice, in the space of a week. I used to think that this little corner of ours was cut off from the war, but it isn’t. Nowhere is safe from it. It makes me shudder to think what more could happen. They say everything comes in threes. Good luck, bad luck; births and deaths. Hear of one, you’ll hear of three. So what more is to happen, will you tell me?’

‘I’ll tell you, Grace, though I’ve tried not to. I even got around to thinking there’d been enough bad luck around here to last us all a lifetime without me adding mine to it. But Barney’s been wounded. He’s in a military hospital, near Cairo.’

‘Kath! And you never said! You kept it all to yourself. You must have been worried out of your mind.’

‘Worried?’ Yes, she had been. She still was, but worried for Barney, not for herself. And sick with fear about what was to come. ‘I suppose I am, though I’ve had a letter from him, since it happened; a nurse at the hospital wrote it and he seems just fine.’

‘Then let’s hope it stays that way and they send him home. North Africa’s no place to be when you’re wounded – not with the Germans having it all their own way out there. Best they send him home, Kath, where he’ll be safe.’

‘I suppose he’ll have to wait for a hospital ship.’

‘Well, don’t worry yourself any on
that
score. Even the Germans respect the Red Cross. They give hospital ships a safe passage. He’ll be all right.’

‘Yes. I know.’ Shrugging, she stirred her tea.

‘Then what’s bothering you? Because something
is …
’

‘Yes, it is. I’m worried about us – about me and Barney. I don’t know how things will be between us. We were only a few months married when he was sent overseas. It’ll be a stranger, coming home. We’ve grown apart, Grace. I haven’t seen him for more than two years and he’s still annoyed with me for joining the Land Army. He’s always been against women in uniform.’

‘Then he ought to be proud of you! I know Mat and I are glad you’re here. But there’s more to it than you’re telling me, isn’t there? Or am I to mind my own business?’

‘No, Grace – I mean yes, there
is
more to it. And I want to tell you because I know you won’t sit in judgement on me. I want Barney to come home – but not to me. I don’t love him, you see. I don’t think I ever did.’

‘And what’s brought all this on, will you tell me? Barney’s your husband, Kath, and he’s been wounded; the last thing he wants to hear is that you don’t love him any more. But you’re upset. We all are. These last few days have been a nightmare and we’d be less than human if we weren’t upset. So don’t do anything hasty, lass? Wait till he comes home and maybe you’ll feel differently, when you see him. There’s nothing wrong with your marriage that a week or two together won’t put right. It’s a terrible thing, being young in wartime, but give it time? Be patient?’

‘Yes.’ And why I’m not telling you the whole truth, Grace, I don’t know. Because I
won’t
feel differently when I see him; I know I won’t. And as for going back to that house with Aunt Min sleeping on the other side of the wall and listening, as his mother did; listening to every creak of that bed, every movement. Aunt Min, taking over where Barney’s mother left off. ‘Yes. We’re all upset; of course we are.’

‘So get yourself a piece of toast and dripping, lass. When our Jonty was a little boy it was always toast and dripping that made things come right. Cut yourself a slice and toast it at the fire. I’ll bet you aren’t feeding yourselves properly up there; bet you anything you like you’re not …’

Toast and dripping? Oh Grace, you dear, kind unworldly woman – it’ll take more than that to make it come right for me.

Problems, Kath was to think afterwards, sometimes had a strange way of solving themselves.

Tell Jonty, she had urged. Once Jonty knew, the worst would be over. And Roz had agreed, but later she would tell him, she said. When the time was right.

The time had not been right this morning, yet still it had happened. In the dairy, it had been, when Roz had taken a milk churn, tilting it toward her, rolling it to the door where the tractor and trailer stood.

Milk churns were heavy; even empty ones were far too heavy for a girl two months gone to be manhandling, and Kath had said so, angrily and loudly.

‘Roz! Will you stop that! How many more times must I tell you? Nothing heavy. No lifting, no heaving! You’ve
got
to remember. If you don’t you’ll harm that baby!’

‘Sorry, Kath. It’s just that I don’t think. I haven’t got used to it, yet. When I’m not being sick or feeling sick I sometimes forget. But I
will
be more careful, I promise, and –’

She stopped, gazing wide-eyed at the door. Kath turned and saw him standing there, and knew from his face that he’d heard. Every word.

‘Jonty.’ She was the first to find her voice. ‘How long –’

‘How long have I been here, Kath? Long enough! I heard, all right! How
could
you, Roz? How could you be so – so
selfish
! Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself? Didn’t you think of your gran and the hurt you’d be causing her? Didn’t you know that what you were doing was –’

‘Stop it, Jonty! Stop it!’ Roz’s voice was tight with fury, her eyes sparked anger.

‘– was – was dangerous and bloody stupid? Or was it a case of what Roz Fairchild wants Roz Fairchild takes – regardless?’

‘I told you to shut up! You’ve no right to go snooping and listening! This baby is none of your business – none at all, thank God! So go away and leave me alone. And if you dare say one word –’

She pushed past him angrily, running across the yard to the orchard gate, fumbling with the latch, flinging it open in a fury.

He caught up with her at the ruins as she ran panting across the grass and he pulled her roughly around, holding her wrists in a grip of steel.

‘Calm down, you silly little fool! Pull yourself together! I shouldn’t have said what I did and I’m sorry. None of my business – you’re right, but, Roz – why didn’t you tell me?’ His anger and shock were gone; now there was only sadness in his voice, and pain, plain to see, in his eyes.

‘Will you please let me go?’ she said softly, icily.

He relaxed his grip though not his hold. There were things to be said and he wasn’t giving her the chance to run. ‘Then don’t struggle. We’re going to talk, Roz, whether you like it or not. Okay – so you’re going to have a baby and as you said, it’s nothing to do with me. But let me help you. All right – so you want to keep it quiet and I can understand that – but have you thought what it’s
really
about?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Jonty, and will you let me
go.
’

‘Not unless you’ll tell me about it and let me help you; not unless you’ll talk about it calmly and sensibly and –’

‘Calmly? I
am
calm. It’s you who’s going on about it! And there’s nothing to say. Don’t you think I haven’t gone over it again and again these last two months? There’s nothing to talk about; nothing at all to be done. I’m pregnant with Paul’s baby and that’s all there is to it. And – and don’t bring Paul into it, because he never knew.’

‘You never told him? In heaven’s name why not? He could have married you …’

‘Oh, you’re just like Kath!’ She snatched her hands away then began to walk toward the house. ‘Don’t
you
go on about it, too. Kath said just the same. But I didn’t tell him, panic him into marrying me, so there’s nothing that you nor Kath nor I can do about it!’

‘All right. All right.’ He fell into step beside her. ‘But you don’t have to see this through alone.’

‘I’m not alone. Kath knows, and Polly.’ She lifted the loose cobblestone beside the door, taking the key from beneath it. ‘Do you want to come in?’

‘Yes, please. And I’m sorry if I was out of turn but it was a shock having it hurled at me. I couldn’t – didn’t want to – believe it.’

‘Not believe that Roz Fairchild had feet of clay, Jonty?’

‘Something like that. And I was jealous, I suppose.’

‘Of Paul? Still?’

‘Yes.’ He pulled out a chair for her then sat opposite at the table. ‘And I was angry, Roz. Not
with
you, but for you; angry that there’ll be gossip and sneers, that the baby will be –’

‘Illegitimate? A hedge child, as they call them around here? All right – so there’ll be talk – and sneers, too, I shouldn’t wonder, but at me, Jonty; not at the baby.’

‘So why don’t you marry me?’ He got to his feet abruptly, filling the kettle, setting it to boil. ‘Tea?’

‘No thanks. It makes me sick. And I can’t marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about me – nor you, either. I was thinking about the baby. Better if people point the finger at you and me, Roz; say we’ve jumped the gun. We can take it, but it wouldn’t be so easy for a child. If the baby were born in wedlock it wouldn’t be illegitimate, and when people had had their sniggers and gloats about you and me that would be the end of it – a nine-day wonder, it’d be.’

‘But it’s Paul’s child. Why should you take a load of flack for something that’s nothing to do with you? This child belongs to Paul and me, Jonty – it’s how I want it …’

She stared fixedly down at her hands, knowing that he was right. But nothing would ever change the fact that Sprog was hers and Paul’s. Besides, it wasn’t right to marry without love.

‘I mean what I said.’

‘I know. But marriage is for life, Jonty – not just to see me over a pregnancy. I’d be cheating on you if I said yes. You were always my dearest friend, until – until Paul. But marriage is for lovers, not for friends. I couldn’t love you – not
that
way. It just wouldn’t work.’

‘Then couldn’t we try to go back to the way things were? Before I fell in love with you and you fell in love with Paul – take it from there?’

‘We could try, but it still wouldn’t work. There would always be Paul between us, and Paul’s child. ‘But it’s good of you to want to marry me – so good that it makes me wish I loved you enough to say yes. And I
do
love you, Jonty, but I’m not
in
love with you. You see that, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I see it, but if you ever change your mind or if things get too much, well –’

‘I know, and I’m grateful. But be my friend?’ She held out her hand across the table and he took it in his own. It felt small and fragile and defenceless and he wanted to hold her to him so that no one should ever hurt her again.

‘Friends.’ He smiled, walking over to the cooker, turning off the gas tap. ‘And I won’t bother with tea. Best be pushing off. Am I to take it that no one else knows?’

‘Only Polly and Kath – and the doctor. It’s best, that way, for a little while longer.’

‘Okay. But I’ll be keeping an eye on you. No more heavy lifting. Are you coming back?’