Now she moved back closer to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again.
‘It’s – all right. It’s natural that you think you want to know. But you don’t, believe me you really don’t.’
Esther returned his gaze steadily. ‘I’m not afraid of the truth, however bad it is.’
‘No – no, I don’t believe you are.’ His eyes roamed wonderingly over her face, her hair and then came back to look once more into her eyes. Those steadfast green eyes that returned his gaze so directly. He leaned forward, lifting his hand to touch her cheek with gentle fingers.
For one breathless moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but as his fingertips brushed her cheek, he jumped physically as if he had been stung and stepped back abruptly. In the fading light of the evening, the firelight glinted on his hair and highlighted his cheekbones, his fine nose and firm jawline. His eyes were shadowed, but she could hear his rapid breathing.
Brusquely he said, ‘I shouldn’t be here – I must go.’
He turned, went out into the scullery and wrenched open the back door.
Esther followed him, the words bursting from her lips before she could contain them, ‘How long are ya staying?’
He stood very still, his hand on the latch, but he did not turn round. Muffled, the words came to her in staccato jerks. ‘I don’t know – but I must leave. Tomorrow – I’ll have to go – tomorrow.’
She felt the disappointment flood through her. ‘But I thought you were going to stay longer – a few days, you said.’ The words were out of her mouth before she thought to stop them. They were like a reproach. ‘Why must you go so soon?’
‘I must. Goodbye, Mrs Hilton.’ He dropped his hand from the door and the action was like a gesture of despair. He took a step forward, but still he did not look back. He walked away from her and though she stood watching him through the dusk all the way to the gate and into the lane, not once did he turn or wave.
By the set of his shoulders, it was as if he were afraid to look back at her.
Esther lay awake for most of the night haunted by the feel of the feather-light touch of his fingers on her cheek and then his sudden brusqueness.
She could not bear to think of his leaving in the morning, knowing that she would never see him again. She groaned aloud and buried her head in the softness of her pillow. What was she thinking of? What was the matter with her? She was a married woman with a child. She had only just met him and yet when she closed her eyes, she could see his face so vividly; his smile, the kind blue eyes, and yet his jawline was firm and his handsome face showed strength and honesty . . .
The following morning seemed to drag and Esther found herself watching the lane leading from the Point to the town. The lane he must walk down when he left. She snapped at Kate every time the child tried to catch her attention. She raced through the milking, even shouting at Clover and slapping her rump sharply when the cow moved restlessly, to be repaid by the cow kicking over the pail of milk and wasting it all.
Common sense would have told her she was being foolish and very unfair to Kate – and the animals.
But common sense seemed to have deserted her.
By lunch time when Enid arrived, Esther was so irritable that she decided that the only thing to do was to go up to her favourite spot at the end of the Spit to see if the place where the land and the sea and the sky became one would soothe and calm her – and maybe bring her to her senses.
Beyond the lane she climbed over the bank and crossed the marshland towards the East Dunes heading for the beach.
He’ll have gone by now, she told herself firmly. She must have missed seeing him pass by her farm gate. Yes, she reminded herself sharply, her farm gate. That was all that mattered. Her farm, her land.
She reached the Spit and walked the length of it, breathing in the sea air deeply. She bent and picked up a handful of earth, clutching it in her hand, holding it close to her body in that space beneath her ribs where she had felt, and still felt, that peculiar fluttering of nervousness when she saw Jonathan Godfrey – or even thought of him.
‘This land is mine,’ she said aloud to the sea and the sky as if daring them to refute her words. She threw back her head and closed her eyes and swayed with the soft breeze, wrapping the place around her like a cloak or, more to the point, a suit of armour. Nothing and no one mattered to her more than this land.
His face was still before her; she could not blot out the memory of his smile . . .
‘Mrs Hilton – Esther.’
The deep voice spoke so softly behind her that for a moment she thought she had imagined it carried on the wind, brought to her ears by her thoughts.
‘Esther?’ There was uncertainty in his tone now when she did not respond, did not move.
She opened her eyes and slowly turned to face him, tilting her head to look up at him. The wave of hair flopped forward over his forehead on which now there was an anxious furrow. Involuntarily, her fingers fluttered to smooth away his worry, but she fought off the desire, clenching her hands together and squeezing the earth she already held.
‘I – thought you were leaving. Have you come to say goodbye?’
He shook his head slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. ‘No. No, I’m not going yet.’
For a timeless moment they stood and stared at each other whilst the tiny waves lapped at their feet and the seagulls wheeled and dived and screeched above them.
Slowly she dropped the handful of earth she was holding and brushed the dirt from her finger.
‘I saw you from my bedroom window in the pub, crossing the marsh, coming this way,’ he was saying. ‘I was all ready to go – to leave, then I saw you walking out here all alone. And I couldn’t go,’ he ended simply.
He held out his hand to steady her as side by side they walked back along the narrow strip of land.
After a moment’s hesitation, for something told her that she was about to take a step from which there would be no turning back, she put her hand into his.
Twenty-five
THEY met every day. At some point in every day, they were together. Sometimes for a few snatched moments, sometimes for an hour. And for the rest of the time, he filled her mind.
‘When must you go?’ she would ask, fearful of the answer yet needing to know. ‘How long can you stay?’
‘A few more days,’ he would answer gently, ‘then I should go.’
The few days stretched into a week and then two and soon she ceased to ask ‘how long?’. She could make him stay, she told herself, she would make him stay. He had no need to go back to France. He’d been wounded, hadn’t he? He’d done his bit in anybody’s book!
They walked the seashore, side by side, not quite touching, and yet the closeness between them was like a physical embrace. They walked the dunes and they found a sheltered hollow that became their special place to sit and talk.
‘Where is it you come from?’ she asked him. ‘Lincoln, did you say? It’s a city, isn’t it? I’ve never been to a city.’ There was a wistful note in her voice.
‘Should you like to go?’ Jonathan asked softly.
She leant against his shoulder and looked up at him coyly. ‘Maybe – with you. Tell me about it?’
‘Well,’ he began, idly tracing lines in the sand, drawing a rough sketch-map to illustrate his words. ‘There’s a cathedral high on the hillside – built by the Romans, would you believe? It dominates the city. Wherever you are, you can see it standing proudly overlooking us all. Then the houses and streets sort of radiate out from it. There’s a steep hill climb with old houses built close together on either side – buildings so old you’d wonder sometimes how they still stand.’
Esther watched his face as he talked. Watched the memories of his home flitting across his face. Memories in which she had no place. She loved the sound of his deep voice. There was little trace in his speech of the Lincolnshire dialect that was so prevalent in the countryside, and so strong in hers.
&n
bsp; ‘Quaint little shops,’ he was saying, ‘and old bookshops – dusty and musty, but fascinating – all huddling together on the hillside. Near the cathedral there’s a castle with dungeons. It’s old too, though I can’t remember when that was built.’ He grinned at her ruefully. ‘I expect I was told at school, but somehow in your own home town you take things for granted. They’re there. You expect them always to be there, so you don’t bother.’
Esther nodded eagerly. ‘It’s like the sea here. It fascinates me. I love to stand on the Spit and watch it come swirling in around me, but the folks who’ve lived here all their lives never come to look at it. They just know it’s there.’
Jonathan nodded. ‘All the same, I bet if you took them away from it – inland – they’d soon miss it.’
‘Do you miss the city?’
He looked up from his sand drawing and gazed out across the wide expanse of beach, across the water as far, if he could have seen it, as the foreign shoreline. ‘Not while I’m here, no. But when I was over there – oh, yes, I missed my home town – my home country.’
Esther’s gaze followed his own as she murmured, ‘I suppose they all do.’
By saying ‘they’ and not ‘you’ it was as if she was separating him from the men still over there, trying to make him believe he need not go back.
He was so totally unlike Matthew – like no man Esther had ever known. He held her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing each work-roughened finger with such tenderness that tears sprang to her eyes. He made no demands upon her. He never tried to touch her intimately, to fondle her breast or unbutton her blouse. He didn’t even kiss her mouth. He didn’t lunge at her in a frantic, boyish manner. He was courteous and caring and undemanding. But there was a look in his eyes when she met his intense gaze. Such a look as she had never seen before in any man’s eyes. There was desire – oh, yes, she knew that look – but with Jonathan there was more, so much more.
Esther was bemused and spellbound by him.
If they had not met during the day, as darkness fell Jonathan would slip away from the Seagull and come quietly into the yard of Brumbys’ Farm.
‘Look,’ he told her, holding out his hand to her as they stood in the shadows of the barn. On the flat of his palm lay a door key. ‘The landlord said I should have a key in case I wanted to go into the town and see a bit of night life.’
They smiled at each other. Now he could come and go freely from the Seagull, with no awkward questions asked.
Esther moved close to stand looking up into his face. She wanted so badly to put her arms about him, to lean her head against his chest, to feel his arms holding her tightly. The desire was so strong it was almost a physical pain. She steeled herself deliberately not to touch him.
‘Oh, Esther, Esther,’ he whispered hoarsely and touched her cheek with tender fingertips. ‘Every morning I get up and I say firmly to myself, “Today, I must leave.” ’ He smiled ruefully, ‘Yet by nightfall, I’m still here.’ He shook his head in disbelief at his own actions. ‘I would never have believed that a woman could make me shirk what I know is my duty. But you’re . . .’ He hesitated, searching for the right word. ‘You’re something very special. Do you know that?’
She reached up and pressed his hand against her face, holding his gaze with her own intense eyes. Slowly his head came down, as if he were fighting the impulse and yet losing the battle. Their lips touched, a gentle, feather-light brush. She heard him make a low sound in his throat. His lips moved against hers, his eyes closed and his arms came about her drawing her into his embrace. She put her own arms about his neck and pulled him even closer to her.
He lifted his head and loosened his embrace. He shook his head. ‘We shouldn’t. We mustn’t . . .’
His green eyes blazed. ‘Why? I love you, Jonathan, and you love me, don’t you?’ The words – never before spoken to anyone by her – came so easily and so naturally to her lips that she never paused to wonder, to savour the sound of them and to revel in the meaning behind them.
He gasped at her directness, then smiled, won over by her honesty.
‘Don’t you?’ She was insisting on an answer from him. When he didn’t give one, she too released her hold on him and stood back, away from him. Quietly, she said, ‘Say ya don’t love me, and I’ll turn around and go. And ya can walk away from here – and never think of me again.’ She saw the pain in his eyes. She stepped closer again. ‘Say it – say ya don’t love me . . .’ She was daring him to deny her. In a whisper, she added, ‘If ya can.’
He groaned, reached out for her and enfolded her in his arms. ‘You know I can’t. I didn’t know it was possible to fall in love so quickly, so easily and – so completely.’
Triumphant, she laughed softly against his ear, standing on tiptoe to nibble his lobe with gentle teeth until he buried his head against her neck. ‘Why did I come here? Why did I ever have to meet you?’ he murmured.
‘Do you wish you hadn’t? Do you wish we’d never met?’
He lifted his head and cupped her face between hands that were gentle. ‘Oh, no. Never that! Maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t. But whatever happens, I shall never say I wish I hadn’t known you.’
He began to help her about the farm. She taught him how to milk the cows, how to harness and drive the horses into the fields.
‘I’ve told Mrs Harris that I’m staying on to help out a bit with the spring sowing,’ he told Esther. ‘I’m still on sick leave from the army . . .’ His voice trailed away and he avoided meeting the enquiry in her eyes.
Esther had to bite her lip to stop the question being spoken aloud. How long? How long have we got left?
‘It’ll look better if we’re working together, if . . .’
‘Jonathan, ‘I don’t care what it looks like.’ She spoke sharply, trying to hide her fear of his leaving. At least she was determined to make the most of every minute. I don’t care what people think – or say.’
He shook his head sadly at her. ‘Oh, Esther, but I do. I care for your sake. I wouldn’t harm you for the world and when I think what people must be thinking, must be saying, about us – about you . . .’
‘Let ’em!’ Esther faced him squarely, her chin jutting forward. ‘It isn’t anyone else’s business. I’m not liked around here, except mebbe by the Harrises.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘So what’s it matter?’
‘It matters to me.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t. Besides,’ she added and was unable to stop the note of sarcasm creeping into her voice, ‘there’s nothing to know really, is there? For all your fine words, ya don’t show me ya love me!’
She turned away from him and with an abrupt ‘walk on’ to the horses, she moved away down the field leaving him staring after her. When she turned at the far end of the field, he had disappeared.
‘Will you stop that silly crying, Kate,’ Esther shouted.
The child’s weeping was quelled but she continued to hiccup uncontrollably. ‘Stop that noise, or I’ll give ya something to cry about.’
‘I (hic) can’t. Danny Eland pulled my hair ribbon off and wouldn’t give it back.’
Esther stiffened. Danny Eland! Her impatience at her daughter died. She was being so unfair to take her own irritability out on her child.
Where was Jonathan? Why had he gone off like that the previous afternoon and not come back? All the morning they had been together mucking out the stables and polishing the harness and then leading the horses out to the field.
‘You’ll have to show me what you want me to do to help with the sowing,’ he had grinned, and then she had made that stupid remark and off he’d gone. Why did she always have to open her mouth and let it say what it liked? she groaned inwardly.
All the evening she had watched for him. She had moved restlessly about the yard, going out to the field to do the milking instead of bringing the cows into the shed so that she could watch the lane. Any minute she expected to see his tall, slightly stooping frame appearing at her
gate.
As darkness had fallen she had hustled Kate to bed and then she had stood most of the evening by the scullery window near the back door overlooking the yard and the lane.
He did not come.
Didn’t he love her any more? Had she driven him away so easily by her bluntness? Was he disgusted because she had hinted she wanted more from him – that she wanted him physically? She had not realized just how naive and inexperienced in matters of love she was, even though she was a married woman and a mother. She didn’t know what was expected of her, how a man like Jonathan expected her to behave.
And there was no one she could ask. There was no one she could confide in. Not even Ma Harris and certainly not Will Benson – not this time.
Now, this morning, when Jonathan had still not appeared, she was venting her frustration on her innocent daughter.
‘There, there, Katie, Mamma didn’t mean it.’
She sighed, picked up her daughter and carried her outside the back door and round to the front of the house to sit on the grass in the sunshine. Taking the child on to her knee, her arms about her, her cheek resting against Kate’s hair, Esther gave her mind over to the problem of Danny Eland.
She should have guessed it would happen. He was only behaving just like the brother to Kate that he was. She prayed that they should never find out about their relationship to each other.
‘Boys are like that, Katie,’ she explained, stroking the little girl’s glowing curls, remembering her own boy cousins pulling their sisters’ hair and her own if they had half a chance. ‘You’ll have to learn to stick up for yourself, darling.’ As I had to do, she thought. For a moment the life she had led in her childhood came flooding back – the taunts of the other children about her bastardy, her aunt’s harsh tongue and rougher hand. Only for her gentle-natured Uncle George had Esther any kindly memories.
The Fleethaven Trilogy Page 22