Whisper on the Wind (77 page)

‘Tomorrow …’ Cupping her face in his hands, he smiled into her eyes. And many a one, he supposed, would have answered his probings with
Paul? Paul Rennie, wasn’t he called
? and shrugged it off. But not Roz, who had never lied to him.

‘Well then, you soft old thing,’ she whispered. ‘Does that make you happy?’

‘It does, sweetheart. And never change. Always be you. Don’t ever have secrets.’

‘I’m too old for things like that.’

Once, there had been secrets. She hadn’t told him about being adopted until he’d asked her to marry him and she’d said, ‘But had you forgotten? What about our children, Jonty?’ And he’d said it didn’t matter; that they’d adopt half a dozen, if that was what she wanted.

So she told him, then, about herself being adopted and about a pregnant young servant girl called Megan who’d had red hair and green eyes. She’d asked him if he still wanted her, now he knew she wasn’t a real Fairchild. And he’d said more than ever, because having children together, their
own
children, would be just about the best thing that could happen to him.

Yet there was still one secret left. Only Meggy knew about the little carved wooden box with her precious things in it. Roz had locked that box a long time ago then walked through the watermeadows and thrown the tiny key into the river. Afterwards she had said, ‘When I’m gone, Meggy, take that box, and burn it. Don’t try to open it – just do as I ask?’

Meggy knew where the box was kept; hidden behind one of the cruck beams in the little gable-end attic, so high up she would have to stand on a chair to take it down. Only her green-eyed Megan knew about her box of secrets, her long-ago things. A brittle brown carnation, once pink; a picture postcard of Micklegate Bar; a brass button from the tunic of a wartime navigator; a leaf from a copper-beech tree; a photograph.

‘Well, just one,’ she smiled. ‘Only a little secret, between me and Meggy. You’d let me have one, wouldn’t you?’

‘One. But only because I’m rather fond of you.’

‘Right, then.’ She rose to her feet, a little slowly, a little stiffly. ‘You can get on with your paper, now. I think I’ve got things sorted. Only Kath and Marco to see to. Do you suppose they’ll be all right at Gatwick or should I give Martin a ring and ask him to have them met?’

‘
Met
? Good grief, Roz, they can get themselves across London all right. Lord knows they’ve done it often enough.’

Marco and Kath. They’d had to wait, too, but they’d made it in the end. And Kath and Roz close as ever. Like sisters, still.

‘Mm. Think I’ll give her a ring, all the same – just to be sure. It won’t take a minute.’

‘Want to bet?’ he murmured, folding his arms comfortably, abandoning his reading.

So much change, he pondered. Once, in the old days, Roz couldn’t have dialled Italy. Fifty years ago, making a long-distance call even at home had been a hit-and-miss business. There’d been a waiting-list for trunk calls because there was a war on but now you pressed buttons on a bright red telephone and you were through to Italy in seconds and Kath on the other end as clear as if she were in Helpsley.

But everything had changed. The old machines were long gone and only to be seen in farm museums these days. Now great harvesters made short shrift of a field of corn, throwing it out ready threshed at one end and straw at the other. And another machine waiting to gobble up that straw and thump it into bales, all neat and tidy and easy to stack. Changes for the better, mind. Jonty Ramsden had always been a machine man. But
ready threshed
, mind you, and gone for ever the noise and dirt of winter threshing days.

He smiled, remembering Kath, fresh from the city and wide-eyed with delight. No landgirls now, bless ’em, and Peacock Hey bought by a southerner who was something in stocks and shares and travelled to London by Inter-City every day from York because it was less of a bother, he insisted, than travelling from Epsom to his offices in the West End.

The Air Force had quickly left Peddlesbury once the war was over, he seemed to remember, the aerodrome – didn’t they call them
airfields
, now – ploughed up and all the ugly makeshift buildings gone. Only Peddlesbury Manor left there, just as it was before it all started, only now it was converted into four desirable residences for people with more money than sense who fancied living in a quarter of a Victorian mansion.

Fifty years gone and Young Jon farming the land, now, and Roz coming up to her sixty-ninth birthday. Forty-five good years together that had slipped past so quickly. Frightening, almost, if you were daft enough to let yourself think about it. He smiled across at her, then closed his eyes.

‘Going to have forty winks, darling?’ She returned the smile.

‘Not if you want to talk.’

‘I don’t, thanks.’

No use talking about her age and feeling incredibly sad if she let herself think about it overmuch. Selfish, really, because she’d had so many happy years with Jonty and it was awful it wasn’t possible to live them all over again and do exactly the same.

She flinched as a sudden clap of noise hit the room and she turned to the window automatically, but it was gone. One of the planes that sometimes flew over, now, booming and crashing, missing the treetops by inches, it seemed. No use looking. These modern bombers were gone before you knew it; only the sound of their angry passing left miles behind them. Angular, ugly, wedge-shaped contraptions; not like the graceful old Lancasters. You could see a Lancaster long before you could hear it; when it was just a speck in the sky you knew it was coming and you stood there, listening, watching it grow bigger, counting and worrying and –

‘Jonty?’ She pushed back her chair and walked over to where he sat. ‘Why did you ask about Paul? After all this time, I mean – out of the blue?’

‘Don’t know, really. Just thinking back, I suppose.’

‘You know I love you?’ She leaned over the back of his chair and laid her cheek on his head.

‘Mm.’ He reached to cover the hands that lay on his shoulders with his own.

‘And I always have, Jonty. I’ve loved you
differently
, but equally well.’

‘I know, sweetheart. I know.’
And I have loved you my darling woman, as long as I can remember, and I’m too old to change now.

‘Well then. No more talk about –’

‘No more talk, Roz. Away with you, and phone Kath. And by the way, I –’

But already she was gone. Quicksilver Roz. Probably half way to Italy, he shouldn’t wonder. Smiling, he closed his eyes again.

‘I love you, too,’ he’d been going to say, but it would keep because she knew it, and anyway there was always tomorrow.

He would tell her tomorrow.

WHISPER ON THE WIND

Elizabeth Elgin is the bestselling author of
All the Sweet Promises, I’ll Bring You Buttercups, Daisychain Summer, Where Bluebells Chime, Windflower Wedding, One Summer at Deer’s Leap
and
The Willow Pool.
She served in the WRNS during the Second World War and met her husband on board a submarine depot ship. A keen gardener, she has two daughters and five grandsons and lives in a village in the Vale of York.

I am grateful to Joan Broadbelt, Mary Burton, Ann Osmond, Adeline Polese, Giovanni (John) Polese, Valerie Pratt and the late Andrew (Dodge) Bailes who gave generously of their time, knowledge and memories when this book was being written.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins
Publishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain as a
Grafton Original 1992

Copyright’ Elizabeth Elgin 1992

Elizabeth Elgin asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work

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