by Penny Jordan
Ian was still waiting for her response. She looked at him as bravely as she could and saw from his eyes that he had guessed what the situation was between Lewis and herself. There was compassion and understanding in the way he was watching her, but there was sadness as well.
'I will go and see Edward,' she said quietly, ignoring Lewis's barely checked protest.
'If you'd like me to come with you—' Ian began, but she shook her head firmly.
'No, Ian. Thank you, but it's all right.'
'You've no need to be afraid of him now,' Ian reassured her. 'I know what happened yesterday must have terrified you.'
'I'm not afraid,' Liz told him. 'I know that when Edward has these… these attacks he isn't really responsible.' She bit down hard on her bottom lip. 'What will happen to him, Ian? Will he…?'
'If the drug therapy works and he agrees to keep it up, it should ensure that his outbreaks of rage are controlled. Of course, no one can take strong drugs over an extended period of time without suffering some adverse effects. It will mean that he's in a state of almost constant semi-sedation, and it's too early yet to say quite what effect that will ultimately have on him. Once he's back home… Well, we shall just have to monitor the situation very carefully. What we do know, though, is that those patients—admittedly patients with far more severe behavioural problems than Edward—who have already been on the drug for some time suffer a tremendous drop in motivation, but we are talking here about patients who for one reason or another are institutionalised.'
Liz shuddered, far too clearly able to see the picture he was drawing for her.
When Ian had gone she turned to Lewis with tears in her eyes. Silently he took her in his arms, comforting her.
'Liz, Liz, I know how you must feel,' he told her rawly. 'But you can't allow your natural pity for Edward to ruin our lives. If you stayed with him you'd virtually only be performing the duties that a trained nurse could perform far better. Can't you see, my darling, he's going to need constant care, constant watching? I know right now it might seem cruel—'
'I know what you're trying to say,' Liz interrupted him. 'But I can't…I can't just turn my back on him…I owe him so much.'
'You owe him nothing,' Lewis interrupted her. 'Look, if you must go and see him at least let me come with you.'
Liz shook her head. This was something she had to do on her own… Last night, held safely in Lewis's arms, anything had seemed possible, but today, this morning… She shivered slightly.
'I'd better go down to the village,' Lewis told her. 'They'll be wondering where on earth I am.'
Liz gave him a drawn smile.
'I'd like to move in here with you,' Lewis continued. 'But in the circumstances… Last night was something very special, but while you're Edward's wife, while you're still committed to him, even if it is only legally… Well, I don't want to tempt fate by being pompous and saying that it's against my principles to make love to another man's wife. I think last night showed us both how fragile my self-control is when it comes to you…' He smiled at the way her skin took colour, touching her face lightly with his fingertips, and then less lightly, passion darkening his eyes as he caught the betraying sound of her quickened breathing.
'I'm not saying this because of any hypocritical desire to pay lip-service to convention—there's nothing I'd like more than to tell the whole world that we're in love— but while you're Edward's wife…'
'I know…' Liz agreed shakily. 'I feel the same way…'
'So we're agreed, then?' Lewis continued. 'Until the divorce is set in motion, and you're free to leave Edward, we'll have to try to make sure that we don't spend too much time alone.'
'That shouldn't be difficult,' Liz told him wryly. 'What with the mill to run and visiting Edward…' She broke off as she saw his face, touching his sleeve pleadingly. 'Lewis, you do understand, don't you? I must go and see him…'
'Yes. I understand,' Lewis agreed gravely. 'I just wish you'd let me come with you. You've got such a tender heart, my love. I'm afraid… I'm so afraid that he'll find some way of keeping you…'
Liz closed her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder. What could she say? That she was mortally afraid of that as well?
Two hours later, as she followed the nurse into Edward's private room, she was thinking of Lewis, wishing that she had allowed him to come with her after all.
Edward was in bed. He turned his head as she walked into the room, his expression so listless and dulled that a wave of compassion swept over her. Behind the dullness she could see in his eyes the same pleading, agonised expression she had seen in the eyes of a stray dog she had found starving as it scavenged for food around the mill.
That dog was now housed in its own kennel at the mill, fed regularly and petted by her workers.
'Liz… Liz…'
Edward struggled to sit up when he saw her, reaching out to her with eager hands, his whole expression transformed to one of joy and relief.
'Liz, I want to come home… I don't like it here…' Momentarily the joy faded from his eyes. He looked confused and uncertain, like a child almost, and her heart sank, loaded down by an unbearable and unwanted weight of compassion and pity.
'Don't let them keep me here, Liz. Tell them that I'm going home… They don't understand…'
He was starting to tremble. There were tears in his eyes. They started to roll down his face as he pleaded with her to take him home.
A terrible feeling of sickness and despair swept over her. At her side the nurse was clucking professionally and advancing towards Edward, saying firmly, 'Now, come along. This won't do, will it? Poor Mrs Danvers is going to think we're mistreating you if you carry on like this.'
She turned to Liz and told her quietly, 'It does sometimes affect them like this. It can be a while before we can get the exact dosage of the drug properly adjusted. It can have a depressive effect on the nervous system.'
'A depressive effect?' Liz queried uncertainly, horrible visions of Edward growing distraught and perhaps even trying to take his own life filling her mind.
'It can do,' the nurse agreed.
As she looked at Edward, as she listened to him, Liz knew that there was no way she could tell him now that she intended to leave him. Just for one cowardly moment she wished it were possible for her to simply walk out of the hospital and out of his life forever, to collect David from school, and for both of them to walk away from Cottingdean and make a new life for themselves with Lewis.
But that was impossible.
As she drove back to Cottingdean she wondered how Lewis was going to react when she told him that she hadn't been able to tell Edward that their marriage was over.
At first he was angry, but then, when he could see how upset she was, he groaned and took her in his arms, telling her how much he loved her, how much he wanted her, and how he hated to see her so upset.
'Give me time,' she begged him.
'My darling, I don't want to hurt you, but, can't you see, it isn't going to get any easier? A clean break now…'
'I can't do it,' she told him painfully. 'I just can't… Oh, Lewis, if you'd seen him today…'
She started to cry. Lewis took her in his arms, wishing he could share her compassion for this man whom he only saw as vicious and dangerous.
Ian had announced that Edward would be in hospital for a full week.
Every day Liz visited him and every day he begged and pleaded with her to be allowed home, his distress so great that on each occasion she came away knowing it was impossible for her to even think of leaving him while his emotional and mental condition was so unstable.
Lewis had gone from being patient and understanding to demanding to know if it was him she loved after all.
Liz could understand his feelings, and his fears; she tried to reassure him, but all she succeeded in doing was increasing his resentment against Edward.
'I love you, Liz, and I want you as my wife. If you loved me in the same way you'd leave Edward. No mat
ter how painful it might be.'
'Just as you would have left your wife in the same situation?' Liz challenged quietly.
'Yes. Of course I would…' he began and then stopped, telling her abruptly, 'It's no use, is it? We're just going round and round in circles. Edward comes home tomorrow. I hate myself for doing this to you, Liz, but I don't have any alternative. Either you tell him that you're leaving then, or…' He hesitated and then looked at her and said flatly, 'Or I'll have no alternative but to assume that, no matter how much you might say you love me, that love isn't strong enough or compelling enough to make you want to be with me no matter what the cost.'
'Oh, Lewis… Please don't… Can't you see it isn't the cost in terms of my own guilt or pain? It's Edward—'
'Edward, Edward, always Edward. What about us, Liz? What about me? Don't you think I'm suffering, hurting? Don't you think I'm terrified of losing you?
'I'm giving you twenty-four hours, Liz. Twenty-four hours in which to decide whether it's me you want or him.'
For a long, long time after he had gone she sat motionless in her sitting-room, staring into space, unable to see anything other than his face and the pain in his eyes. Why was she even hesitating? She loved him. She wanted to be with him more than anything else on earth. But then there was Edward… Edward who looked at her with such helpless and pleading eyes… Edward who cried her name every time she walked away from him, Edward who was coming home tomorrow.
She hardly slept, her vivid, painful nightmares of emotional anxiety and unhappiness draining her small store of energy so that in the morning she was heavy-eyed and exhausted.
In the garden she picked some fresh flowers and then took them inside. The phone rang while she was arranging them and her heart leapt, her fingers trembling as she went to answer it. It wasn't Lewis, though, and as she replied automatically to the caller's concerned enquiries about Edward's progress she felt the ache in her heart intensify. She wanted to be with Lewis so much; would give up anything, everything, to be with him, but she was not free to do so…she was not free to make others suffer so that she could be happy.
When the ambulance arrived and the men helped Edward out and into his chair, she was appalled to see how gaunt he had become, how much weight he had lost.
Chivers was giving the men instructions as to where he was to be taken. For a moment she stood outside the small group, her heart and body gripped by iron bands of pain, and then she saw that Edward was looking at her and she forced herself to smile and step forwards.
As she reached his chair he took hold of her hand, gripping it almost painfully.
'Don't let them take me away again, Liz, will you?' he begged her as he was wheeled inside.
The change in him shocked and upset her. In the week he had been away he had changed, or so it seemed, from a man to a dependent child.
Was the change caused purely by his medication or did it go deeper? She shivered as she followed him indoors. Twenty-four hours, Lewis had said. Twenty-four hours.
It was while she was settling Edward in bed, and Chivers was downstairs making a pot of tea, that Edward took hold of her hand and said huskily, 'Ian told me about… about what I did to you, Liz. I didn't mean to hurt you…' He started to shake, tears filling his eyes. 'Don't ever leave me…'
She couldn't speak. Her own emotions were too raw… too painful. When Chivers came in with the tea she escaped to her own room to fling herself down full-length on her bed and to wish there were some way she could just close her eyes and make all the problems disappear.
An hour later Chivers came to find her, his face creased in worried lines of concern.
'It's the Major,' he told her anxiously. 'I don't think he's very well…'
'Not well…? What…?'
'He seems to have some kind of fever,' Chivers told her.
Quickly she hurried into Edward's room. He was flushed and feverish, his eyes too bright in his overheated face.
'I think we'd better send for Ian,' Liz told Chivers quietly.
When Ian came he examined Edward and then announced gravely that he suspected that Edward might have succumbed to a gastro-enteritis infection.
'It started in the maternity ward,' Ian explained to them. 'Normally an adult of Edward's age would be strong enough to fight it off, but in Edward's case…'
He looked so grim that Liz knew immediately that he was extremely concerned.
While he was talking to her the phone rang and she knew it would be Lewis wanting to know if she had spoken yet to Edward.
Her twenty-four hours were not yet up but she couldn't bring herself to speak to Lewis and explain what had happened, not with someone else listening, and so she let the phone ring unanswered.
'Edward is going to need constant nursing,' Ian warned her. 'If you like I could arrange for someone…'
Liz shook her head.
'No, I think Chivers and I can manage between us, and Edward is upset enough as it is…'
'Yes,' Ian agreed. 'Unfortunately it was necessary to keep him hospitalised in order to stabilise his condition and his medication, but I agree with you that it has had a severe effect upon him.'
Throughout the night Liz and Chivers took it in turn to minister to Edward. There was no doubt that he was gravely ill. At times he was almost delirious, and, as at last the cold grey dawn broke, Liz watched exhaustedly as he drifted into an uneasy sleep and acknowledged the painful truth.
No matter how much she might want to do so she could not leave him, or at least if she did… If she did she would feel so guilty that it would affect her whole relationship with Lewis, possibly destroying it, certainly souring it. She could feel tears stinging the back of her throat, still sore from its bruising at Edward's hands. The outward marks of the bruises had almost faded now. Ian had assured her that just so long as Edward continued to take his medicine there would be no further repetition of his violent attack. If only he were stronger, fitter—if only she could leave him with a clear conscience. If only he were not so dependent on her.
If she left…if she left he could not stay on at Cottingdean alone, which would mean that he would have to go into some sort of institution, and she already knew what would happen then. It would kill him… And she would have been the one to sign his death warrant. And why? So that she could be with Lewis.
She couldn't do it.
Wearily she got up. Was Lewis asleep in his bed at the pub or was he laying awake thinking about her, wanting her?
She would have to go and see him.
She rang him and arranged to meet him outside the village where it was quiet and no one was likely to see them. It had, fittingly, after so much fine weather, started to rain, and a soft grey mist hung over the landscape.
His car was already parked on the lonely cart track when she arrived. Lewis was standing beside it, his body tense.
As she got out of her own car and hurried towards him he came to meet her, demanding tersely, 'Well, have you told him?'
She shook her head, and then said huskily, 'I can't, Lewis. He isn't well… Ian says—'
'I don't give a damn what Holmes says,' Lewis interrupted her angrily. 'What am I supposed to do, Liz-keep on hanging around until Holmes decides he is well enough for you to tell him? How long will that take? A week… a month… a year… ten years?'
His bitterness, his sarcasm hurt her, but it was no less than she had expected. 'No… No, I don't expect you to do that.' She took a deep breath and then faced him, saying quickly, 'It's over, Lewis. I can't… I can't leave Edward… I know that now… No matter how much I… I love you… I can't leave him.'
She saw from his face how much she had shocked him. For a moment he was silent as he tried to take in what she was saying and then he said savagely, 'You mean you won't leave him… Why? Tell me that, Liz—why?'
'He needs me,' she told him shakily.
'He needs you… what about me, damn you?' He had taken hold of her and was virtually shaking her. 'Don't you think I nee
d you?'
She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes. Another minute and she would break down completely and she must not do that…
'Not in the same way,' she told him quietly. 'Lewis, don't you see if I leave Edward now it will be on my conscience for the rest of my life? It would spoil our love, come between us… I can't let that happen. You deserve a woman who can give herself to you completely and wholeheartedly, and I don't think I could live with the burden of what I'd done…'
'And yet you have no compunction whatsoever about hurting me,' he told her flatly. 'Don't I matter at all to you, Liz? Don't you care about me?'
Of course I care. The words were on the tip of her tongue but she forced them back. What use was there in saying them, in prolonging their mutual agony?
'What do you want me to do? Hang on here begging for the favour of the odd stolen hours of your company like a dog existing on scraps? I can't do that, Liz. It must be all or nothing…'
'And I can't leave Edward,' she reiterated. She was feeling sick and light-headed. If he took her in his arms now… held her… kissed her… She fought against her desire that he would do exactly that, that he might pick her up and carry her off, physically abducting her, physically taking the decision out of her hands, even while she knew it was impossible.
'So you've chosen him… He means more to you than me,' Lewis accused her heavily. 'It was all a lie, was it? You even love Cottingdean more than me. Our love was just a game…'
She wanted to deny what he was saying, but her love for him guided her, telling her that it would be easier for him if she let him go in anger rather than in love; that he would need that anger to sustain him in the days ahead; that it would be weak and selfish of her to try to tie him to her with her love when she knew that love was something she had to banish from her life.