The Lost Daughters: A moving saga of womanhood

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  ‘It’s a pity it’s a little too late for skiing,’ Gerald told her. ‘I’d have loved to teach you.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve always wanted to learn to ski.’ Cathy hugged his arm and looked up at him. ‘Maybe we can come again next year and do that?’

  He didn’t meet her eager eyes as he replied: ‘Yes — maybe.’

  At night, wrapped in each other’s arms under the thick duvet they would lie and look out through the open shutters at the sky that looked like black velvet studded with diamonds. And in the mornings they would wake at dawn to watch the sun come up over the mountain tops, bewitching everything it touched with a breathtaking golden beauty.

  ‘I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,’ she whispered one night when they had just made love. ‘I don’t know how it’s possible to be this happy. Sometimes I feel I shall wake up soon and find it was all a beautiful dream.’

  Gerald turned his face away so that she wouldn’t see the guilt that filled his eyes. She was like a child, wide-eyed with delight at every new thing. Her unselfish and unquestioning love overwhelmed and terrified him. She had taken to marriage so wholeheartedly, giving herself without reserve. To her, lovemaking was new and exciting. She approached it with an eager, uninhibited adventurousness that enchanted him. He was so lucky. And so devious, his conscience insisted. He battled inwardly with the accusing demons that refused to leave him alone. He would make her happy. After all, she was in love with him. It would have broken her heart if he had sent her away. But had he encouraged her to fall in love for his own gain? And could he live up to her expectations? He closed his heart resolutely to the answers.

  Sometimes he would lie awake watching her as she slept the deep, untroubled sleep of the very young; trying to picture her as an older woman — trying to imagine what it might have been like if he had stayed married to Sarah. Or if he had married Kay. Or if the other — the only true, deep love of his life — could have been his. Until now he had refused to acknowledge to himself that this girl was the next best thing — the nearest he would ever get in this life to the one woman who had meant the world to him; the one woman he’d had no right to. Not that he hadn’t been punished in the worst possible way. If there was a God he had taken a terrible revenge for what Gerald had done. But he couldn’t be punished any more now. All that was over.

  *

  For the last two days of the honeymoon Gerald seemed a little unwell. Cathy fussed over him, but he brushed aside her concern, saying that it was merely the rich food. On the plane on the way home he slept for much of the time and Cathy had the chance to look back and reflect on their first weeks together.

  She was happy; happier than she ever remembered being. She had enjoyed her honeymoon so much. Being married to Gerald was her dream come true and their three weeks in Davos had been a wonderful experience in every way. And if Gerald hadn’t wanted to make love quite as often as she’d expected him to, it didn’t matter, she told herself. They had all their lives in front of them. Some things puzzled her though. Some nights after kissing and caressing her passionately he would turn away abruptly, leaving her bemused and unsatisfied. Was it something she did wrong? Was she too forward? There was no one she could ask. Johnny had volunteered no information about the intimate side of married life and Cathy herself had been too shy to ask. No doubt everything would sort itself out in time, she told herself.

  On their return to London they had planned to stay at the flat for a few days before going to Melfordleigh, but on the day of their return Gerald suddenly announced that he had to make a trip up to Edinburgh. Cathy begged to go with him but he was adamant.

  ‘It’s business. You’d be bored.’

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Nothing to do with Cuckoo Lodge. Nothing that need concern you.’

  ‘But I could look at the shops. I’ve never been to Edinburgh,’ she told him. ‘Besides, I’ll miss you.’ She went to him and slid her arms around his waist. ‘Please take me, Gerald.’ She stood on tiptoe to rub her cheek against his, but to her dismay he pushed her away impatiently.

  ‘I said no, Cathy. We may be married but we mustn’t start living in each other’s pockets. I’ll be back in a couple of days. If you want something to do you can start looking at furnishings for Cuckoo Lodge. Heaven knows there are enough shops here in the West End.’

  He was gone three days, but to Cathy it felt like three months. The flat seemed silent and empty without him. She did as he said — shopped around for fabrics and furnishing ideas. Gerald had said they would engage the services of an interior designer when the time was right. But Cathy wanted to choose the colour schemes and some of the fabrics herself. She wanted to put her own stamp on the house.

  When Gerald came home she was eager to show him the swatches of material and samples of wallpaper and carpet she had collected, but he seemed tired and preoccupied.

  ‘I’ll look at them tomorrow,’ he told her wearily. ‘Just now all I want is a hot bath and bed.’

  He slept almost as soon as his head touched the pillow; before she had time to tell him how much she had missed him, even before she could whisper the secret suspicion she had been saving up with such excited anticipation.

  ‘Pregnant?’ Gerald stared at her across the breakfast table. ‘For heaven’s sake, Cathy. You can’t be pregnant already!’ Swallowing her dismay, she smiled at him encouragingly. ‘I can. And I think I am. Aren’t you pleased?’

  He shook his head bemusedly. ‘But — we haven’t been married a month yet. Surely it’s far too soon to know?’

  ‘Well — for sure, yes. But I’m a whole week late and I have this really magic sort of feeling deep inside.’ She clasped her hands over her flat stomach. ‘Oh, just think, Gerald. It’ll be a Christmas baby. Won’t that be lovely? It’ll make up for all the misery last Christmas.’

  ‘I think we’d better wait and see before we start making plans,’ he said guardedly, his brow furrowed. ‘I must confess, Cathy, I hadn’t planned to start a family. Not at this stage in the proceedings. It isn’t the most convenient time to choose.’

  ‘Convenient?’ Crestfallen, she looked at his dour expression and felt her own happiness slowly beginning to deflate. ‘But — if we’re going to have children — why not have them now?’ She reached across the table to touch his hand. ‘You do want children, don’t you?’

  He drew his hand away. ‘Now that you mention it, Cathy, frankly, it’s not the most important item on my agenda. We should have talked about it, I suppose. I just assumed … ’He paused, looking at her face. She looked so downcast. Kay’s words came unbidden into his mind. She'll be expecting all kinds of things you either can’t or won’t want to give her. How could he have been so stupid as to take it for granted that she was taking care of contraception herself when the thought of it probably hadn’t even entered her head?

  As she rose and began to run out of the room he got up and went to her. ‘Cathy — don’t get upset.’ He took her by the shoulders and turned her to him. When she wouldn’t look at him he tipped up her chin and saw that there were tears in her eyes. ‘Darling, I didn’t mean to sound unfeeling. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. Getting the house finished and the school established is going to mean so much work and planning. You can see what I mean when I say it isn’t the right time, can’t you?’

  She swallowed hard. ‘I suppose so. It’s just … ’

  He drew her close. ‘But if it’s happened then there’s nothing we can do but make the best of it.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘And I daresay it will turn out fine in the end.’

  She looked up at him. ‘I was so pleased. I wanted you to be too.’

  ‘I am. At least, I will be — I expect.’ He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. ‘But as I said before, let’s wait a few weeks before we start thinking about furnishing a nursery, shall we?’

  Her eyes shone up at him through the tears. ‘I know you won’t mind once you get used to the i
dea, Gerald. Once the baby is here you’ll love it. And I know you’re going to make a wonderful father.’

  He held her close, cursing himself for all the fools imaginable. He visualised Kay’s sardonic expression when she heard the news that he was to become a father; imagined her incisive comments.

  But two days later when Cathy wakened to the familiar dull ache low in her back her heart sank with sick apprehension. For a long time she lay still, willing the inevitable not to have happened. But when she rose and went into the bathroom she knew beyond a doubt that for this month at least, pregnancy had been mere wishful thinking.

  Back in the bedroom Gerald did his best to hide his relief as he comforted her. ‘Never mind, darling. You know as well as I do that it wasn’t the best of times. Once we get the school up and running we’ll go all out for a baby if that’s what you really want.’

  ‘But — what if I can’t have any?’ she sobbed. ‘What if I lose it again?’

  He hugged her close. ‘You didn’t lose it, sweetheart. There wasn’t any baby to lose. It was just a little delay, that’s all; probably due to your changed lifestyle. As soon as the time is right we’ll have as many babies as you want. A whole football team if you like. Just you wait and see.’

  Cathy laughed shakily and clung to him. ‘Oh, Gerald, I do love you,’ she murmured into his shoulder.

  He held her close, aghast at the rash promises he had just heard himself making. What on earth was he saying? A child was the one complication he could avoid. And avoid it he would at all costs.

  They moved into Cuckoo Lodge the following week. The builders had worked hard during their absence. Two rooms had been completed, a room they would be using as a living room and a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, both temporarily decorated with plain colourwashed walls and furnished basically with the furniture from the flat. In the ground-floor utility extension the builders had finished work and a firm of kitchen fitters had moved in to install units and cupboards, cooker and other appliances. Meantime, Cathy cooked meals for them on a temporary electric stove and helped Gerald with the advance publicity for the school.

  A landscape gardener began work on the garden and the fashionable London interior designer, recommended to Gerald by Kay, a flamboyant little man with a beard and flowing white hair, arrived and spent a day walking round the house, making notes and suggestions for them to mull over.

  Looking back later Cathy remembered those first weeks as the happiest of times. Domestically it was like playing house or camping. And acting as Gerald’s secretary, planning for the school and discussing the final decor of the house and garden, was like taking part in an exciting and very grown-up adventure.

  At last the builders and decorators completed their work and moved out. No more tripping over pots of paint or ladders. The house was finally theirs. Gerald’s work routine and programme were arranged and advertisements appeared in the glossy magazines as well as the music journals. There were to be popular weekend seminars where young musicians could come and attend master classes with Gerald and other celebrated musicians. But during the week he planned to coach high-flying young pianists, preparing them for the concert platform. He decided that he would take no more than two resident students at a time and work with them intensively. The first of these, a grave young man called Robert Carr, sent to Gerald by a friend from the Guildhall School of Music, moved in and began work in early-July.

  Cathy, in charge of domestic arrangements, engaged a daily cleaning woman and a cook-housekeeper from the village. Maggie Penrose was recommended by Ivor Morris, the Welsh chef at the Admiral Nelson. He told Cathy that he had replaced her when the hotel decided to open its new upmarket restaurant. He knew her to be a good cook and had felt guilty about her ever since, he said. He was anxious to do her a good turn.

  Cathy liked Maggie on sight. Short and dumpy with a rosy complexion and fair hair scraped back into a bun, she had a no-nonsense air of reliability. Cathy learned that, like Johnny, she was a widow. She had two teenage children, a boy and a girl, who attended a secondary modern school in nearby Woodbridge. On the day that she came to be interviewed she looked round the gleaming new kitchen approvingly.

  ‘Well now, this is some kitchen. I’d enjoy working in this and no mistake.’ She ran her fingertips reverently over the smooth worktops. ‘A real pleasure that’d be to keep clean.’

  In her rich Suffolk accent she told Cathy frankly that she was a good plain cook, though she wasn’t averse to what she called ‘a bit of fiddling about’ too.

  ‘Nuthin’ I like better’n tryin’ out fancy new recipes when I got the time — an’ the ingredients, o’course. Though I ent no good at the twiddly bits,’ she warned. ‘Anythin’ you wants twiddly bits on you’d have to do it yourself.’

  Cathy hid a smile. ‘That will be fine, Mrs Penrose,’ she said. ‘I’m quite happy to do the twiddly bits.’ She looked at the woman speculatively. ‘There’s just one thing. I hope you like music, because you’ll be likely to hear a good deal of it if you come to work here? There’s a large studio in the barn at the back and another two smaller ones in the house.’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Oh, the kind of music Mr Cavelle plays is all right,’ she said generously. ‘It’s them twanging catarrhs I can’t abide. My kids is mad about them new Beatles — ’orrible row if you asks me, with their yeah-yeah-ing! A nice bit of piano music’ll make a change. I’ve always been very partial to that there Semprini m’self. He’s classical-like too.’

  There were five bedrooms on the upper floors at Cuckoo Lodge, plus the suite of rooms that Cathy and Gerald would share. These consisted of a bedroom, an adjoining dressing room and a bathroom. Gerald insisted that the dressing room must have a divan which would always be made up ready for use.

  ‘It might be necessary for me to work on quite late into the night sometimes,’ he explained to Cathy. ‘Robert seems to work best late in the day and as you know he isn’t an early riser. So as not to wake you I can always sleep in there if I’m late.’

  But as time went by she found herself waking to an empty bed more often than not.

  Now that summer was at its height Melfordleigh was once more alive with summer visitors. The quay was full of moored boats, their hulls newly painted and their sails furled. The little colony of holiday huts were full of the regular weekend artists who set up their easels daily to produce the souvenir pictures the tourists loved. The air was fresh and salty; the sun sparkled on the rippling water and at low tide the sandbanks gleamed like polished silver.

  Cathy often found herself at a loose end now that everything was finished and the school was running smoothly. She spent a lot of time down by the quay, watching the boats and admiring the artists’ skill. She loved to watch them capture the sea and sky with a few deft strokes of a brush. Once a week she went into Ipswich to do the week’s shopping, but apart from that she had very little to do. Gerald was busy all the time; totally preoccupied with his work. He put so much of himself into his teaching, and she knew of course how important it was to him. But often she was reminded of her lonely childhood, when her father would be busy teaching all week and out playing most nights. At least then she had her schoolfriends for company, and her Saturday music lesson with Dad to look forward to. She found herself thinking of him often and experiencing the aching loss of him afresh. Although she said nothing, it became more and more apparent with each day that passed that Gerald had hardly any time to spare for her at all.

  Word had somehow circulated that Gerald Cavelle, the celebrated concert pianist, was living at Cuckoo Lodge. One afternoon Cathy walked up the hill from the quay to find a little group of spectators peering through the gates. As she passed she overheard one of them say, ‘We might see him if we’re lucky.’ As she walked on she reflected wryly that she knew how they felt.

  As the end of the summer season approached and the routine at Cuckoo Lodge became established, Cathy found herself thinking more and more of Johnny. She missed the little house in Che
stnut Grove and the close family group. When she mentioned the fact to Gerald he looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘You’re not homesick, are you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. I’d like to see them all though. And hear all their news.’

  For a moment he looked at her. ‘Poor Cathy. It can’t be much fun for you. I’ll tell you what — as soon as I can see my way clear we’ll take a week off and have a holiday.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Oh, Gerald, that would be lovely. When?’

  ‘Well — not yet awhile. When there’s a break between students perhaps. We’ll see. Meantime, why not invite the Johnsons for a weekend? Robert is going home for a break the weekend after next. It’s his birthday, so we’ll have a couple of free days. The weather’s still warm. I daresay they’d enjoy it.’

  Cathy’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, Gerald, could I? I’d love Johnny to see what we’ve done to the house. I’m so proud of it all.’

  ‘Of course. You don’t have to ask, darling. It’s your home as well as mine. Ring Johnny today and see if they can make it.’

  Johnny was delighted to get Cathy’s call. She said that they were all well and, yes, she would love to come for the weekend. Matthew had recently passed his driving test and had bought a second hand car. He’d probably drive them over himself. She’d ring and confirm as soon as she’d checked with him.

  She rang back the same evening. She and Matthew would love to come. Mrs Bains felt that the journey would be too much for her. Her rheumatism had been playing her up lately and she really preferred to sleep in her own bed. Cathy swallowed her relief. Mrs Bains had obviously still not forgiven her for depriving Johnny of the white wedding she had planned.

  On the following Friday evening Cathy waited with eager anticipation for the first sight of the car and it was just after seven o’clock that Matthew’s dark green Austin A40 turned in at the gate. Cathy ran to meet them. She kissed Johnny, hugging her warmly as she got out of the car.