Lucy gently replied, “I’ll tell her when the time is right. I’ll tell her what a courageous and wonderful thing you did for love of your family. She’ll understand.”
“But I want us to move, Lucy,” he pleaded. “I know it’s the right thing for Mary.” Barney could not be dissuaded, and when she gave it more thought, Lucy could see the wisdom of his reasoning. So, she spoke to agents and even wrote away as far as Bedfordshire.
Before Mary’s third birthday, the cottage was sold. The same businessman who bought Leonard’s farm wanted it to extend and then sell on with a minimum of five acres of pasture-land. He had competition from another source, and between them they sent the price up, enough for Barney and Lucy to secure a sizeable property farther afield.
It wasn’t long before her efforts paid off. She got news of a house some two hundred miles away in a small hamlet near the town of Bedford.
The house was of some substance, a “proud and beautiful woman past her best” was how it had been described to her. Apparently the house had stood empty for many years and had gradually fallen into disrepair. Consequently it was going cheap for anyone who had the heart to bring it back to its former glory, and if not, then it was still habitable, with no apparent structural defects.
Because the journey would be too arduous for Barney, Lucy went with Arthur to view the house. She fell instantly in love with it. There was also a small house in the grounds, also brought to its knees by neglect and the elements. “If I move with you and Barney, I could set up a business in the village.” Arthur grew excited. “Meantime, I could work on the house. I’m not a builder, but I do know how to use my hands.” The truth was, he could not bear the thought of being so far away from Lucy in her hour of need, especially when Barney’s health seemed to be failing fast.
In truth, Lucy had seen Barney’s health deteriorate so much of late, that even though he fervently assured her to the contrary, she feared he may not be strong enough for the move.
On Lucy’s return, she thanked Bridget who had kindly stayed at the cottage with Barney while Lucy travelled South to view the house. “So, what did you think of it?” Bridget was excited, though she would miss her dear friend. “Was it as grand as they said?”
Lucy described the house in detail, its strong Victorian features, the high ceilings and panelled walls, the long windows with panoramic views across open countryside. “It could be beautiful,” Lucy told her. “But it does need a lot of work, though Arthur has come up with an idea.”
When Arthur explained it to Barney, he was thrilled. “That would be good,” he told him, “I’ve been so concerned about Lucy and the child. I could rest easy if I knew you’d be around to keep an eye on things.”
So the deal was done and plans were quickly underway.
In a few weeks time Barney, Lucy, Arthur and Mary, were away to pastures new; though for Barney it would never be a long adventure; they all knew that.
PART FOUR
Back to January, 1952
Mary and Ben
Twenty-one
While Lucy slept upstairs, Arthur Chives sat by the fire in Knudsden House, his mind going back over the years, and his heart both proud and sad. “Barney and your mother lived in that cottage together for two years,” he told Mary, while Ben listened. “The doctors had given him a year at the most, but Lucy brought him a degree of peace, and after a time they made a life together.” He smiled wistfully at the memory, for he had loved Lucy as much as she loved Barney. “To this day, she had never stopped loving him.”
“You were born out of that love, Mary.” Lucy’s quiet voice filled the room. “You’re so much like your father. You have the same beautiful eyes and the same gentle ways.”
“Lucy!” Arthur was horrified. “Dr. Nolan said you were to stay in bed.”
“Nonsense, I’m perfectly all right,” she argued. “There is nothing wrong with me, and I’m far from in my dotage, for heaven’s sake! Doctors don’t know everything. I’ve simply been overdoing it, that’s all.”
Hobbling but determined, she came into the room where she stood beside Arthur, her hand resting on his shoulder and her gaze bathing every inch of her daughter’s face. “Every time I look at you, I see Barney.”
Arthur looked at Mary and he, too, saw Barney in her every feature—softer and more feminine, yes—but strong and handsome too.
“I was there when you were born,” Arthur said fondly. “I waited in the sitting room with your father, while Dr. Lucas was upstairs bringing you into the world. When he heard your first cry, Barney went up those stairs like he was born all over again. He took you in his arms and oh, he was such a proud, happy man.”
When Arthur laid his hand over Lucy’s, she hardly noticed, though deep down she derived a measure of comfort from his touch.
Deeply moved by everything she had heard, Mary went to Lucy and taking her mother gently over to the armchair, she sat her down. “I never knew,” she said. “I never dreamed that was the secret you kept from me all these years.” She had learned more about her father and her own background in one evening, than in all the years she was growing up. There was so much to think about. The revelation that she had three half-siblings in America, plus the sorrowful knowledge that her half-brother Jamie had died before her, was a huge shock to her system, and she knew that it would take a long, long time to come to terms with everything she had learned tonight.
Lucy was glad that Arthur had chosen to tell the truth. “It’s been such a burden all this time,” she admitted now. “But I gave my promise, d’you see? I gave my promise and I could never break it.”
Arthur reassured her. “You didn’t break it,” he reminded her. “It was me who thought Mary should be told. I’ve always thought it was her right to know.”
Lucy smiled. “So you thought you’d tittle-tattle while I was laid up, did you?”
“I’m not sorry the truth is out,” he said stoutly. “I’m only sorry if I’ve upset you.”
Lucy sighed. “You did right, my old friend. You did right.” She turned to address Ben, who had been mesmerized by the whole story. “What do you think of my darling Barney?” she asked. “Do you think he was right in what he did?”
Lucy was testing him. In Ben she had seen something akin to Barney, but she needed reassuring.
Ben considered her question, and when he gave his answer, he gave it with a sense of wonder. “In all my life, I’ve never heard of such a man,” he said. “What he did was incredible. For the sake of his loved ones, he belittled and punished himself beyond endurance. I understand now what the inscription means. ‘He made the greatest sacrifice of all.’”
Lucy asked him another question. “In those circumstances, would you have done the same?”
Ben smiled inwardly. Already, because of what Arthur had told of Lucy’s strength of character, and because he had witnessed it for himself from the moment they met, Ben knew he was being tested, and he suspected her view of him would hinge on the kind of answer he gave.
“Well, young man?” As was her way, Lucy grew impatient.
Ben considered the question again, and when he answered it was as straight an answer as he could give. “Any man would be prepared to do whatever was in his power to protect his loved ones,” he told her, “but like a grain of sand or a drop of rain, each man is different. A man will be judged on his merit. Barney Davidson is the kind of man every other man would want to be, but I’m not Barney, nor could I ever be. All the same, I would hope that, given the same circumstances, I might find the courage and fortitude to do what he did. Other than that, I can’t say.”
There was a moment while they reflected on his words, before Mary asked of her mother, “What happened to my father? How did it end?”
Lucy gave a whimsical smile, “It ended the way we always thought it might end,” she said. “It was the most beautiful summer’s evening. We were sitting in the garden watching the sun go down, when Barney turned to me and told me how much he had come to lov
e me … but that he could never love me in the same way that he loved Joanne. She had been his life, while I had become his life.”
Lucy thought about Barney’s words, just as she had done on that memorable night. “I often wondered about that,” she said, “I thought it a strange thing for him to say, and for a time I couldn’t understand his meaning.”
Looking up at Mary, she took hold of her hand. “After a while, I did understand. What he meant was that he and Joanne had grown together, learned together and knew each other’s very thoughts …”
She paused, “… with me it was different. When Barney and I met, I simply became part of the family that was already Barney’s; I was an outsider coming in. But then suddenly it was just the two of us, and we learned to know and love each other. Like Ben said just now, he could not be Barney … any more than I could be Joanne. We’re all different and we touch each other’s lives in different ways. But love is love, no matter which way you look at it.”
“Thank you,” she said gravely, and he knew he had passed the test. “Love is love, and that’s what we had, me and Barney. We had such love to share, just talking and laughing and simply being together. And if I never have another day of contentment, I had more happiness in those two years with Barney, than most women have in a lifetime.”
Suddenly, Lucy shivered. “I’m tired now, my darling,” she told her daughter. “Take me back to my bed?”
Mary took her upstairs and when Lucy was made comfortable, the young woman asked, “Did you ever hear from Joanne, or the family?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, never.” Fearing that Mary had too many questions to which she might not have the answers, Lucy told her, “For reasons I hope you now understand, Barney did not want them to know about you.”
“So I have two brothers and a sister I may never see?” Though Mary had been deeply touched by the story of her father, she felt cheated somehow, filled with all kinds of regrets, regrets that she had never known him, and regrets that she was never told the truth. But now she knew it all, and it was as though a cloud was lifted from over her head. But what of the rest of her family?
“Will I ever meet them—Thomas and Ronnie, and my sister Susie?”
Lucy was not ready for this. “Leave me now, love,” she said. “Let me sleep.”
Quietly, Mary left. Tomorrow, when her mother was rested, she would ask again. And she would keep on asking, until Lucy agreed to reunite her with the family she had never known.
It was much later that Arthur tapped on Lucy’s bedroom door to check on her. Ben had gone home and Mary was in bed. Lucy herself was sitting up in bed, awake but at peace with herself.
“Ben is so much like Barney,” Lucy murmured. She had Barney strong in her mind tonight.
“Tell me something,” Arthur asked. “Do you think you will ever contact Joanne?”
“I made a promise never to tell them,” she sighed. “You made that same promise.”
“I know, and I’ve always regretted it. I kept it when Barney was alive, and I’ve kept it all these years, apart from informing Mr. Maitland of his death, as Barney requested. But I’ve never felt comfortable about it, Lucy. I think they have a right to know why he did what he did, the same as Mary had a right to know. God only knows how they have suffered all these years.”
When she remained silent, he asked her again. “Will you tell them, Lucy? Will you contact Joanne?”
Unable to answer such a momentous question, Lucy thought fleetingly of her daughter and Ben, and her heart was glad. There was magic happening between those two.
“I love you, Lucy.” Arthur’s voice was so close to her ear, she felt his warm breath against her skin.
“I know.” She turned to smile on him. “I’ve always known.”
“You never said.”
“Because there would have been no point and I might have hurt your feelings. You see, I didn’t love you back.”
“Do you love me back now?”
“I think so.” She turned away. “You realize I could never love you in the same way I loved Barney?”
“Will you marry me?”
“We’re too old in the tooth for that nonsense,” she laughed. But secretly she felt quite excited. She had had two children by two very different men—one full of darkness and one full of light—and yet had never been married. Maybe that was the next experience that Fate had in store for her.
For now, the moment passed and they were quiet again.
“When you get in touch with Joanne,” Arthur persisted, “will you tell her what Barney did for them?” Taking Lucy by the shoulders, he turned her round to face him. “I know Leonard Maitland gave you his address. You can get in touch if you want to,” he said. “They won’t have moved from the farm.”
Lucy patted the tip of her nose in a gesture of secrecy. “I might—and I might not.” Her smile grew mischievous. “But that’s another story altogether, don’t you think?”
Arthur knew that when Lucy was in this strange mood of hers, there was no reasoning with her. He kissed her then—not the kiss of a lover, but the kiss of someone who knew her well. “Good night, Lucy.” Smiling resignedly, he shook his head. “Sleep tight.”
For a while after he’d gone, she continued to gaze at the little photograph still lying on the eiderdown. It was the only picture she had of Barney, and it was her treasure. Taken on the day he took delivery of his new tractor, Barney stood beside it, a proud man, while Leonard Maitland recorded the moment forever.
Taking the photograph into her hands and looking down, she let herself be drawn back over the years, to summertimes and harvests, and picnics and laughter, when Jamie was always at her side and in her heart. There were glorious times with the Davidson family, all together and not a cloud in their sky.
“Happy days,” she murmured. “But it’s not the end, my darlings.”
Replacing the photograph, she glanced again toward the window, where outside, new love was beginning.
“Your father’s story is the most remarkable I’ve ever heard.” Ben had been deeply shaken by the turn of this night’s events, and if he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the man who was Barney Davidson.
“I never knew,” Mary answered thoughtfully. “All these years and I never knew.”
“Your mother said you looked like him.” Ben observed her small pretty face, and he had an urge to take her in his arms, “You have such a calmness about you, I can imagine you must also have inherited some of his character traits as well.”
Mary smiled. “I hope so.”
“I’m glad we met.” Reaching out he took hold of her hand, and to his delight she did not draw it away. “Do you think we might have a future together, you and me?”
Thrilled by his remark, her answer was to lean forward and kiss him. She looked into those dark, sincere eyes and at the strong set of his jaw and that air of confidence about him, and she thought of all that had passed long ago.
But that was not her life. This was her life, her’s and Ben’s, and suddenly, when she felt his loving arms about her, she knew it was where she belonged, with this man who she hardly knew, and yet she felt as though she had known him forever.
“You still haven’t answered me, Mary.” His voice was soft in her ear. “You haven’t said if you think we might have a future together?”
Turning her head, she looked up at him, “Yes,” her smile was content, “I think we might.”
Lucy saw it all. She saw them kiss, and she saw the tenderness in his embrace, and it made her think of Barney. “I hope you find happiness together,” she whispered.
Wearied and content, Lucy climbed into bed. For a while she lay awake, her mind back there where it all took place. It had been an amazing adventure. But it was not yet over.
For now, though, it was time to reflect, and be thankful.
About the Author
A major bestselling author in her native Great Britain, JOSEPHINE COX’s story is as extraordinary as anyt
hing in her books. At the age of sixteen, she met and married her husband, Ken, and had two sons. When her sons began school, Cox decided to go to college, eventually gaining a place at Cambridge University which she was unable to accept. Becoming a teacher, she set about renovating a derelict council house as the family home, coping with the problems of her own mother’s unhappy home life while writing her first full-length novel—all of which earned her a Superwoman of Great Britain Award after her family secretly entered her in the contest. Currently living in Bedfordshire, England, she gave up teaching to write full-time and is the author of nearly three dozen novels.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Praise
Resounding international praise
for the bestselling novels of
JOSEPHINE COX
“A gifted writer.”
Manchester Evening News
“If you are looking for a story with warmth, humanity,
and more than a touch of grit, you need look no further.
Josephine Cox is bound to carve a niche in your heart.”
The Northern Echo
“The perfect antidote to the melancholy of Autumn …
She does not disappoint.”
Daily Mail (London)
“Josephine Cox rules supreme as Britain’s
Queen of Romance.”
The People
“Josephine Cox has a way with words to
pluck the heart strings.”
Southland Times (New Zealand)
“Josephine Cox weaves an inviting fable … with
a touch of magic that gives life to her heroines,
however difficult the circumstances.”
Birmingham Post
Also by Josephine Cox
The Journey Page 30