Guarded Passions

by Rosie Harris

  ‘I don’t think children should be encouraged to call strangers “Uncle”. It only confuses them,’ Helen said tightly and was immediately aware of Ruth’s puzzled stare. ‘I’ll go and prepare a meal for you both,’ she said to hide her confusion.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Hugh said quickly. ‘We’ll drive down to the pub later on and get something to eat there.’

  ‘Mum won’t let you do that.’ Ruth laughed. ‘She thinks I’m a dreadful wife because I don’t have a meal waiting to pop on the table at any hour of the night or day, just in case you should turn up. She always used to for Dad.’

  ‘You nag me now if I’m five minutes late!’ Hugh laughed. ‘I can’t bear the thought of what you’d say if I didn’t turn up at all.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t be as patient as Mum was with Dad. I’d probably throw it at you. She used to pander to his every whim; his word was law.’

  Helen went into the kitchen and closed the door firmly, shutting out the laughter that followed Ruth’s remarks.

  Automatically she began to prepare some food, but her mind was in a turmoil at the thought of Gary being there in her home. Meeting him in Ireland had been bad enough, but to have him under her own roof was a bitter pill to swallow, now that she was so sure he was Adam’s son. It was probably only for a couple of days, she reminded herself. Surely she could keep a still tongue in her head for just that length of time.

  Their short leave passed better than Helen dared hope. Gary kept out of her way, as if sensing her antagonism towards him, even though she did her utmost to conceal it. He spent most of his time out on the farm with Mark.

  Yet even that irritated Helen. She brooded over the way they had taken to each other so readily.

  Watching them walk around the farmyard together she was struck by the similarities between them; their height and the breadth of their shoulders was almost identical. Although he was only nineteen, working on the farm had developed Mark’s muscles and he carried himself like a military man.

  Helen wasn’t surprised, only numbly resigned, when Mark remarked conversationally, after Gary and Hugh had gone roaring off in Gary’s car when their leave was over, that someone had thought Gary was his brother.

  ‘Funny thing to say, wasn’t it?’ he persisted. ‘It was old Bill Thatcher that said it. Gary and I were standing at the bar in the Lion and old Bill was sitting in his usual seat by the fireplace. He stared across at us, and then pointed at Gary with that old pipe of his and said, “This ain’t your Ruth’s husband.” I told him it wasn’t and he sat there for a minute or so, drawing on his pipe, and then he said, “Be your brother, is it? Never knew before that you had an older brother.”’

  ‘Silly old man!’ Helen exploded.

  ‘When I told him I hadn’t got a brother, he just sat there nodding and shaking his head as if he was having an argument with himself and then he said, “Well, you have now.”’

  ‘And then I suppose you bought him a pint?’ Ruth said scornfully.

  ‘Gary did. He seemed tickled pink at the idea of being my brother.’

  Helen walked away. She didn’t want Mark to see the misery in her eyes but his words, ‘Gary seemed tickled pink at the idea of being my brother’, echoed over and over in her head. Yes, she thought, he would do. Deep down he knows the truth and wants to be recognised as one of the family.

  Gary’s image filled her mind. He was so like Adam in everything except the colour of his hair, that of course old Bill Thatcher, who claimed the gift of ‘second sight’ would see the resemblance when the two of them were standing side by side. They even had Adam’s vivid blue eyes and straight dark brows. Of course they looked like brothers! It was there for anyone to see and it worried her in case he went round voicing his suspicions. She could only hope that if he did, his babblings would fall on deaf ears, or be regarded as a sign that he was getting old and muddled.

  She was determined not to be undermined by gossip. Adam was dead and his past could remain that way, too. She had no intention of drawing anyone else into her private hell. Except Gary! She would dearly love to make him suffer!

  Her own bitterness frightened her. Gary could hardly help his parentage. She should be feeling sorry for him because he had been denied a father, not constantly seeking revenge.

  But had he? The question burned in her mind. Had Adam visited him when he was a child? Helen remembered Adam’s frequent long absences, the times when she didn’t see him for weeks, or even months. Work had always been given as the reason, and accepted without question. But had he sometimes spent weekends in London, visiting his son, watching him grow into a sturdy boy and then into manhood? Had his regular visits impressed the boy so much that he had determinedly followed his father into the Army?

  There was only one way to find out … to ask Gary. She shrank from doing so, afraid that once she started talking to him about his childhood, she might disclose what she thought to be the truth about his father. It was torture enough having him in her own home and seeing him on intimate terms with her own three children. To openly admit he really was a blood relation was out of the question.

  Helen could see that Hugh’s leave had unsettled Ruth, so it was no surprise when, at the end of the summer, since things had quietened down in Northern Ireland, she decided to rejoin him. Sally was over three months old and Hugh had only seen her once in all that time.

  Helen missed Ruth and Sally even more than she had thought she would, and she hoped Hugh’s tour of duty in Ireland would soon come to an end. Having them at Hill Farm had kept her so busy that she hadn’t had time to dwell on what she now thought of as Adam’s betrayal. Apart from that, she had actually enjoyed having a baby around the place, and it had been fun for Lucy.

  She felt cheated a few months later when Gary Collins was posted back to Chelsea Barracks while Hugh remained in Northern Ireland. Although things were still fairly quiet in Derry, she still felt anxious about them being there.

  Now that he was back in England, the farm became a second home to Gary. Whenever he was free he drove there, ostensibly to see Mark, but all the time he was in the house Helen felt he was watching her. Sometimes she caught a strange look in his vividly blue eyes, almost as if he knew her secret. It worried her, too, that Mark had begun to model himself on Gary, smoking as well as drinking.

  Before Gary had appeared on the scene Mark had rarely gone to the village pub. Now he went there most Saturday evenings. Encouraged by Gary, he had started picking up girls and this also worried Helen, even though she realised that, since he was twenty, it was only natural. She wouldn’t have minded so much if he had found a steady girlfriend. It was the type of girls, and the casualness of it all, that bothered her. She felt his cavalier treatment of women was a flaw in his nature, and feared it had been inherited from Adam.

  Gary was an unsettling influence in other ways. When Ruth had married Hugh, Mark had given up all thought of joining the Army. Without any pressure from her he had decided to make farming his life. Now, regaled by Gary’s anecdotes, and talk of Army life in general, his interest had been rekindled and she could sense his unrest.

  Her resentment against Gary and the way he was affecting her family increased until she could barely manage to be civil to him. Every visit he made inflamed her. She looked forward to the weekends when he was on duty, the weeks when he was away on exercises or courses.

  She was surprised when Ruth wrote to tell her that Gary had at last married Sheila. He had never mentioned it to her or Mark, as far as she knew. According to Ruth’s letter, no one had known about it until Gary was charged with not asking his CO’s permission to get married. When Gary was marched in to his CO’s office, a soldier on either side of him, and the charge had been read out, he had been reprimanded and warned, ‘Don’t do it again.’

  The two men standing stiffly to attention on either side of him, Ruth wrote, had laughed at the CO’s comment and, as a result, found themselves on a charge, while Gary had been let off with nothing more th
an a caution.

  As Helen read the news, she hoped that marriage would keep Gary away from Mark. In that she was mistaken. Gary still turned up regularly at the farm and always on his own. Sheila, he explained, was helping at the pub, and since Gary’s grandmother was now in her seventies, that meant Sheila was more or less running the place.

  Gary’s influence on Mark became more and more noticeable. He began to change from a likeable, willing young man to a hard drinking womaniser. He grew increasingly restless and moody. Helen suspected he regretted his commitment to the farm and, given the slightest provocation, would get rid of it when it legally became his on his twenty-first birthday. She dreaded that happening, since it made her own future so insecure.

  Often, when Lucy was in bed, and Mark out, Helen would sit down with pen and paper trying to work out whether, if Mark did sell the farm, she could afford to buy a small cottage for herself and Lucy.

  She wished there was someone with whom she could talk it over, but pride wouldn’t let her go outside the family for advice. She didn’t want to talk to Mark about it, in case he felt she was trying to pressurise him. That only left Ruth.

  When she phoned to ask her to come for a holiday, her own immediate problem went right out of her mind at Ruth’s news.

  ‘Must be telepathy,’ Ruth chuckled. ‘I was just about to ring you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m expecting another baby, Mum. Hugh and I are over the moon.’

  Chapter 24

  Ruth’s second baby, Anna, was completely different from Sally. Her hair was fair and straight, her face round and chubby and her eyes a vivid forget-me-not blue. She reminded Helen of Lucy as a child, although she was quite different in temperament.

  Right from the moment she was born Anna commanded attention. And, because of her appealing eyes and winsome manner, she always got it. Angelic-looking she might be, but she could be capricious as well as lovable. Helen thought she was spoilt, much preferring Sally, who was far less demanding.

  Ruth and Hugh wouldn’t hear a word spoken against Anna. She could twist Hugh around her little finger and, as she grew from a chubby toddler into a dainty little girl, she frequently did.

  When Anna was three, Hugh was posted to Hong Kong and, since it was for a two-year period, they decided that Ruth and the children would go as well.

  Helen heard the news with mixed feelings. She knew Lucy would miss Sally very much, since they were so close, yet, in a way, she was relieved that their friendship was being temporarily halted. Sally was very grown-up for a seven-year-old, but she felt it would be better for Lucy to mix more with girls her own age. Spending so much time with Sally was making her childish and also very bossy since, being older, she always took the lead.

  Helen welcomed the news that Gary Collins would also be going to Hong Kong for two years. In the seven years since she had first met Gary, her belief that he was Adam’s illegitimate son had grown stronger. Although she had guarded her secret for all that time it was a heavy burden. She still thought he was a bad influence on Mark and wished he would stop coming to the farm.

  She hoped that if Gary was out of the country for a couple of years Mark might settle down. He was twenty-six and she felt it was time he was married. It irked her to see the way he tried to identify with Gary, soaking up his tales of Army life, remembering incidents from the time they had lived in quarters.

  Although Mark ran the farm efficiently it was with no real enthusiasm and Helen often wished that he had gone into the Army when he had first been keen. Now, it was too late. Even if he was fit enough for that kind of life he was too old. At present, his entire life seemed to consist of the farm and weekend drinking binges, often with Gary. With Gary out of the way, he might find a steady girlfriend, and settle down.

  Far from helping Mark to settle, Gary’s absence only seemed to make him more discontented. He and Lucy quarrelled incessantly. Mark grumbled because Lucy wouldn’t help with chores, but she was adamant. She hated Hill Farm and not only wanted nothing to do with it, but couldn’t wait to get away.

  ‘As soon as our Ruth gets back, I’m moving in with her,’ she stormed after one of her frequent rows with Mark.

  ‘Don’t talk stupid.’ Mark sneered. ‘She won’t have room for you.’

  ‘I’ll share a room with Sally.’

  ‘A young kid like that! She’ll be great company.’

  ‘She’ll be almost ten when they come home from Hong Kong in October.’

  Mark refused to take her seriously but, like her, he was counting the days until Hugh and Gary arrived back in England. On his own, drinking and pulling the girls didn’t have the same appeal.

  Due to last-minute delays it was mid-December before Hugh’s company eventually returned to England. The moment Ruth phoned, Helen asked whether they were all coming to Hill Farm for Christmas and the New Year.

  ‘I was counting on you asking us!’ Ruth laughed. ‘We’ve nowhere else to go.’

  Helen breathed a sigh of relief. It was going to be a real family Christmas after all. She suddenly realised how much she had missed Ruth and the children, and how dismal even the farm had become in their absence. Having children around the place would be a tonic for them all.

  ‘Give us a few days to settle into our quarters, so that we don’t come back into complete chaos, and we’ll be with you. The whole company has leave, but Hugh will be one of the last to get away. He has a lot of extra responsibility now he’s a sergeant,’ she added a little smugly. ‘It really has changed him. He’s become terribly conscientious.’

  ‘He’s a sergeant! You never mentioned it in your letters.’

  ‘He was only made up just before we left Hong Kong.’

  Helen looked forward with increasing pleasure to having the entire family at home. She thought wistfully of just how much Adam would have enjoyed it.

  She went into the kitchen and busied herself. It didn’t do to sit and think about Adam; it always brought on the great yearning that she had never quite managed to erase, even though he had been dead now for fifteen years. Theirs had been such a perfect marriage … while he had been alive.

  It was only since he’d been killed that the obnoxious doubts had soured her mind. And even those couldn’t obliterate the love she’d had for him, or cancel out the longing she still felt to have his arms around her, and know his strength.

  Perhaps she should have married again, made a new life for herself, she thought pensively. Staying alone, devoting herself to Lucy and Mark had, in some ways, been shortsighted. Lucy would soon be working and earning enough to be self-sufficient. Mark didn’t need her, that was for sure. They only tolerated each other these days; there was no bond of understanding between them.

  Helen sighed as she reached for a mixing-bowl and began measuring flour into it. She knew Mark would like nothing better than to sell the farm. His enthusiasm was gone; it was just a job that had to be done each day and, although he applied himself methodically, the work was done automatically, without any real enjoyment or satisfaction.

  If only she had let him go in the Army. She hoped he would be less morose once the others arrived, and the house was alive again with voices, laughter, and children playing. She wondered what sort of change she would see in Sally and Anna.

  The first year Ruth had been out in Hong Kong she had written almost every week and often sent photographs. After that her letters had become less frequent and there were no more photos. Still, Helen thought, it didn’t matter now and it would make seeing them again all the more interesting.

  It was going to be a memorable Christmas. Mark had brought a seven-foot fir tree indoors and Helen and Lucy had decked it with tinsel and piled presents for everyone underneath. Helen also had two special gifts for the children – a kitten each. There was a fluffy grey one for Sally and a ginger and white one for Anna. She didn’t know if Ruth would let them take them back to quarters, but it didn’t matter. There was plenty of room for them on the farm and they would be
there next time the girls came to visit.

  The night before Ruth and her family were due to arrive, Helen set the alarm clock for seven, half an hour earlier than usual. She wanted to have all the chores done and lunch ready when they arrived. Ruth had said she wasn’t sure what time they would get away but that they would phone from London so she could meet the train.

  The morning dragged. Twice Mark came in for coffee, and to check if there had been a phone call.

  ‘Perhaps there wasn’t a box they could use at the station … you know how they get vandalised,’ Lucy said moodily.

  ‘What are you doing about lunch, Mum?’ Mark asked, coming into the kitchen again around midday.

  ‘Well, the table’s laid in the dining-room, ready for when they arrive, but if you don’t want to wait, you can have yours in the kitchen.’

  She was just reaching into the oven for the casserole, to dish some out for Mark, when they heard the car.

  ‘Who on earth …?’

  ‘Mum, it’s them, it’s them!’ Lucy called excitedly from the landing and came racing down the stairs to greet them.

  Confusion reigned. Helen bent down to hug the two small girls. Sally, with her serious brown eyes and mane of thick, dark hair that curled in tiny tendrils over her forehead, Anna with her huge forget-me-not blue eyes and blonde hair that flowed like a silken curtain over her shoulders. She held them at arms’ length to admire Sally’s pink dress with its pleated skirt and Anna’s matching one in blue.

  Then, as Lucy scooped them both up and took them into the sitting-room where the log fire crackled and glowed, Helen hugged and kissed Ruth, her eyes misty with tears of happiness.

  It wasn’t until Helen turned to greet Hugh that she saw Gary standing beside him.

  ‘Surprise, surprise?’ He laughed, and his intense blue eyes were mocking as they met hers.

  ‘Yes,’ Helen said stiffly. ‘Ruth didn’t mention you were coming.’