She laughed shakily. 'Now, this minute. Sooner if possible.' It wasn't possible, of course, and somehow she would have to avoid having any sort of a showdown with Blake.
Nick said thoughtfully, 'It might be managed—if you're really desperate, Maggie. Could you be ready to leave in—' he looked at his watch '—in about ten minutes? I've got a taxi ordered to take me to the airport. When we're there we could see if something could be fixed up. If there's no seat available on this flight—and I shouldn't think there will be—perhaps it could be arranged for you to take my ticket and I would travel on a later flight. I'm not in any great hurry.'
'Oh, Nick, if only you could—' She broke off, biting her lip. 'I'm taking advantage of your good nature and I shouldn't—'
He said drily, 'I can recognise an urgent need to escape when I see it, girl. Come along, get into some travelling clothes, pack a bag and let's get out of here.'
He didn't add, '—before Blake gets back,' but she knew that was what he was thinking.
In the end, Maggie travelled alone. She stood beside Nick outside Passport Control and wished he were coming with her. 'Thank you, Nick, you've been wonderful. I can't tell you—Oh goodness—' a hand flew to her mouth—'I should have left a note or something for Blake.' She tried to smile as she added, 'All runaway wives leave a note, don't they?' but the smile was a ghastly failure. She was remembering that other note she had written the night before her wedding. The one she had torn up.
Nick pulled out notebook and pencil. 'Scribble something,' he said, 'I'll see Blake gets it.' His face was deadpan. He wasn't saying what he thought of Blake, but he was making his opinion quite obvious: if Maggie had found her marriage unbearable, then the fault wasn't on her side.
She took the pencil and wrote: 'I can't take any more, Blake. I need to get away by myself. I'll contact you when I feel able to, and we can make arrangements about a divorce.' She started to write 'Sorry about—' and then crossed it out. There were faults on both sides, but she didn't think she need apologise to Blake for anything.
She gave the notebook back to Nick and he tore out the page, folded it and put it in an inside pocket. 'No other message?'
'No,' she said. 'Goodbye, Nick, and thanks again for everything.' She reached up and kissed him quickly and gratefully.
'I'll see you?' He made it into a question.
She knew what he was asking. 'Give me time, Nick dear,' she said.
'Of course. Well, you know where to find me. It's up to you, Maggie.'
She nodded and picked up her hand luggage. Nick stood looking after her, a twisted little smile on his mouth, until she disappeared among the passengers, but despite her gratitude Maggie had forgotten him almost immediately. For now, after all this time, despair had taken over completely. She was leaving Blake behind— soon he would be half a world away from her—and if she ever saw him again it would be to arrange a divorce. The tears gathered thickly in her eyes as she stood in the queue at the passport control desk, waiting her turn. She had been so sure, at the salon, so wonderfully, joyously sure, that the tenderness in his eyes, in his voice, had meant that he loved her.
But she had been mistaken. It had not been love, it had merely been pity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
'And that's how it was,' Maggie told Catriona, some forty-eight hours later. 'When I got to London I booked in at a hotel, but I couldn't settle down on my own. I was trying to pluck up courage to go home and face Mother, but in the end I funked it and—so I got on another plane and came up here to you.' She glanced apologetically at her sister-in-law. 'I'm afraid I've rather barged in on you, Catriona, I hope you don't mind too much.'
She shivered. She had been shivering on and off since she got on to the plane at Hong Kong. Her sister-in-law said briskly, 'You're cold, Maggie.' She got up and threw a couple more logs on the fire in the huge hearth. 'That's the worst of living in the North—the summer's soon over.' She went across the big, comfortable room and pulled the curtains, shutting out the darkening, tree-fringed garden. Then she sat down again and studied Maggie's slender form, hunched up in the corner of the sofa.
'I'm very glad you did come to me, Maggie dear, but I'm sorry things have turned out like this so soon. Are you quite sure Blake wants this other woman?'
Maggie nodded. 'Quite sure. She was his old love and she turned up again. It's happened before. Just a sordid little eternal triangle, and I didn't fancy being the odd one out.' She winced, remembering the two of them meeting and kissing in that shopping arcade.
Catriona's eyes were warmly affectionate. 'You must stay with us as long as you want—until the bairn comes, if that suits you. I'd like fine to have a bairn in the house again.'
Tears gathered thickly in Maggie's eyes. It was embarrassing not to know, from one moment to the next, when she would start to cry helplessly. On the plane from Hong Kong she had worn dark glasses, but the stewardess had spotted that she was upset and had been kind and concerned and tempted her with a special cocktail. Everyone had been so kind—Nick, Catriona, even the stewardess whose name she didn't know. Everyone but the one person whose kindness she wanted most. And he didn't care about her at all. She fumbled for a handkerchief and blew her nose, feeling a moment's anger with herself. It was so out of character for her to go to bits like this. 'I'm just being silly,' she gulped. 'Sorry, Catriona.'
Catriona moved to the sofa beside her and patted her arm. 'You've had a bad time, my dear, and what you need now is rest. A nice warm bed and a good sleep. Come along now, I've put the electric blanket on, and your room's warm.'
As they climbed the stairs Maggie whispered, 'James? What's he going to think?'
'Och, don't you worry your head about James. Your brother's very, very fond of you; he'll back you up any way he can. And the girls will be thrilled to have you Here. Jessie's old enough to understand that you've come back to have your baby because the climate in Hong Kong is too hot. That's the way we'll put it to them when James brings them home from their party in Edinburgh shortly. I won't let them disturb you tonight, you need your sleep.'
Maggie looked at the cosy bed, its white coverlet shading pink in the glow from the electric fire, and doubted whether she would ever sleep again. Her head felt as if it were full of buzzing insects, skittering round and round, but she thanked her sister-in-law and dutifully slid out of her clothes and into the warm bed.
'That's fine now.' Catriona appeared again with a glass of malted milk and a plate of buttered oatcakes. She indicated two white tablets on the tray. 'Swallow these, they're quite harmless,' she said, 'and I'll guarantee you'll sleep the clock round. Goodnight, Maggie dear.' She leaned and kissed Maggie's cheek, a rare gesture from the unemotional Catriona.
Alone in the room, Maggie sipped the malted milk, forced a bite or two of the oatcakes down her dry throat, and pushed the tablets out of their plastic moulds.
'Sleep the clock round,' Catriona had said. Maggie swallowed the tablets, turned out the light and closed her eyes. She wouldn't much care if she never wakened again.
For five days she lived from hour to hour, from minute to minute, refusing to allow herself to think of the future. She was almost sure now about the baby, and Catriona persuaded her to visit her own doctor, who confirmed what she had suspected.
The doctor was an elderly Scot, grey-haired, with shrewd eyes and a kindly smile. He looked keenly at Maggie's white, strained face and said, 'Your sister-in-law tells me you've been living in Hong Kong?'
'Yes, I—I found the climate too much for me this time of the year. Terribly hot and humid, and there was always the risk of typhoons. I—persuaded—my husband to let me come back to Britain for a time.'
The doctor's eyes narrowed. 'And your husband? He's staying out there?'
'Oh yes, he has to. His work—' She couldn't meet the doctor's searching gaze.
He nodded thoughtfully. 'I see. Well, your sister-in-law will look after you fine. A practical, sensible body!'
Maggie left the surgery
with a wad of leaflets and an appointment at the ante-natal clinic.
She visited the clinic next day and tried not to notice the curious glances of the other young mothers-to-be. She knew she looked ill—her mirror told her so—and one or two of the others tried to draw her sympathetically into their circle, but Maggie found herself quite unable to join in the friendly exchange of progress reports and knitting patterns, so after a time they left her alone.
The days passed with a strange, oppressive sense of unreality. Her brother James was all for telephoning out to Blake and challenging him to 'put his cards on the table' as he expressed it, but Maggie persuaded him to do nothing for the present and he grumblingly agreed. Catriona was her own kindly, practical self and was obviously trying to make Maggie's life seem as ordinary and calm as was possible in the circumstances.
Jessie and Jean were the greatest comfort. They were on holiday from school and rapturous that Auntie Maggie had suddenly appeared in their midst. They were avidly interested in the coming baby and fussed round Maggie like two little old women, bringing her a footstool and making her put her feet up, enquiring solicitously whether she was feeling tired, tempting her with snacks filched from the kitchen when their mother wasn't looking. 'Because you have to eat for two, now, Auntie Maggie,' Jessie assured her solemnly.
Catriona remonstrated with them not to bother their aunt, but Maggie pleaded, 'Oh, do let them stay. They're such darlings and they help me to—'
To what? To forget? But there was no hope of doing that. The memories were too vivid and too painful.
She wrote to Ling San, saying how truly sorry she was to have had to leave at such short notice, without saying goodbye or explaining. 'But I could see that the opening ceremony was going splendidly and I'm sure you will be really successful with the new venture. Nick may have explained a little about my difficulties. I only hope that one day we may meet again and meanwhile, the very best of luck with "Nu Yu".'
From day to day she put off contacting her parents in Amersham. It would have to be done soon, but the prospect appalled her. Catriona was a little perturbed that Maggie's mother should be left in the dark. 'Would you like me to ring her and explain a little?' she suggested. 'I'd be tactful and not alarm her.'
Maggie went very white. 'Oh, just give me one more day. There's so much she doesn't know and it's going to upset her dreadfully. She was so happy about my marriage and she never dreamed that everything wasn't right.' She paused. 'But you did, didn't you, Catriona?'
Her sister-in-law looked wry. 'It was only a sixth sense,' she said apologetically. 'I just felt that one day you might need a refuge—we all do sometimes. But you will let them know tomorrow, won't you, Maggie? Promise me.'
Maggie nodded. 'I'll ring home tomorrow evening, when Daddy's back,' she said.
After lunch next day Catriona said, 'I've got a dental appointment this afternoon and I'll be gone a while. Mr Stewart's mother is more or less confined to the house with arthritis and I always look in to have a chat with her when I'm there. Do you mind being left on your own, Maggie? James is coming home early to take the girls to the swimming baths. It's a weekly ritual and he looks forward to it.' She hesitated. 'Would you like to go along too?'
Maggie shook her head. 'No, I won't go with them, I think,' she said, and she thought Catriona looked slightly relieved. Probably James liked to have his daughters to himself now and again. 'I'll be okay. It's a gorgeous day—I'll go for a walk in the glen and get back in time to have tea ready for the swimmers. I'll make some of those gingerbread biscuits the girls like, shall I?'
James's home lay some miles from Edinburgh, in a fold of the hills. The long garden ended in a wild patch, known to the family as 'the wilderness'. Beyond that a stile opened the way to a little glen. Protected from the winds by the hills around, low-growing trees flourished and a tiny stream bubbled down from the hill above. The girls loved 'their' glen and Maggie had spent hours playing with them here in the few days she had been in Scotland. Walking alone here now she tried to keep remembering the fun the girls had had, and close her mind to her constant yearning for Blake. It was weak and absurd, this continuing passion for him when he didn't want her and had shown her so in no uncertain way. Where was her pride? she asked herself. Why couldn't she hate him?
She walked along slowly, the turf soft under her feet, the dead leaves crackling as she walked. It had taken longer than she expected to make the ginger biscuits and it was almost time to turn back, to be there when James and the girls arrived home, tired and hungry as they certainly would be.
She paused, watching the stream bubbling over its stones, incredibly clear and pure. The mist was getting up now, rising from the ground like puffs of white smoke and the autumn air had turned chilly without warning, as it did in the North.
She shivered. The little glen seemed to have lost its charm suddenly, to have become a cold, forbidding place. She turned and began to run through the rising mist—straight into the arms of a man who had approached silently from the direction of the house.
Maggie gave a little gasp. 'Oh, I'm sorry, James, I didn't see—' She blinked up at him. 'Blake! Wh-what are you doing here?'
He stood impassively, holding on to her arms, where he had caught her in her flight. 'I'd have thought it obvious. Looking for my wife, of course.'
She thought she was going to faint. She must be dreaming—or going mad. In the semi-gloom she thought she saw that tenderness in his face again. But she wasn't going to be taken in this time.
She drew away from him. 'You didn't need to come all this way, surely? I promised to get in touch. I would have done in a day or two. I—I just wanted to be alone for a bit. To think things out.'
'What is there to think out?' he enquired.
'Oh, Blake—surely—' Her voice trembled un-controllably. 'You don't have to pretend to be so dim. You and I, of course, and our marriage. And Fiona.'
'Ah!' he breathed. 'I think I see now. You saw Fiona in Hong Kong and you jumped to certain conclusions?'
She began to walk quickly towards the house and he fell into step beside her. Suddenly she stopped and faced him. 'How did you know I was here?' she asked.
'I didn't, but it wasn't too difficult to discover. Naturally I thought you'd make for your home in Amersham. But I didn't want to waste time going there, so I contacted your father at his office.'
She gasped. 'You've got a nerve, Blake! I didn't want to upset my parents—that's why I came here. My mother and father don't know—anything.'
'So I gathered,' he said dryly. 'I had a bit of explaining to do, but in the end I managed to convince your father that there'd been a stupid misunderstanding and ask his advice as to where I might find you. This was the first place he thought of. He phoned through to your sister-in-law this morning. I had a word with her myself and she suggested I come straight up here and talk to you.'
'She had no right to,' she said, her voice shaking. 'I didn't want to see you again.'
'Didn't you? Didn't you, Maggie? Are you telling me the truth?'
'Yes,' she said defiantly. She tried to draw further away from him, but the path between the trees was narrow, and she was uncomfortably conscious of the tall, hard body so close to her own as he adjusted his pace to stay beside her. She quickened her steps, stumbling over buried tree roots. She had to get away before that fatal chemistry began to work in her blood. Already she felt weak with longing to throw herself into his arms, to plead for—for what? A new beginning for them? How futile could you get?
'Well, that's a pity,' he said, 'because I wanted to see you. I've come half-way round the world to do it, as you may have noticed.' His voice was tense; she recognised that he was holding himself under control with difficulty.
'Oh, I have noticed. I think you've wasted your time. I'm perfectly willing to agree to a divorce on any terms you like, if that's what you wanted to ask me.'
'It wasn't what I wanted to ask you,' he said grimly.
Suddenly he gripped her arm
and spun her round to face him. She struggled, but he had hold of her other arm now and she was helpless.
'I'm tired of pussyfooting around like this—you've got to listen to me, Maggie.' He shook her, not very gently, and she heard the familiar anger rising in his voice.
'I don't want to hear—let me go!'
'Shut up!' He gave her another shake.
She was almost in tears now. 'Why can't you leave me alone, Blake? I told you I'd agree to a divorce, if you're so desperate to marry Fiona.'
He lifted his head to the overhanging branches. 'Oh God, what a stubborn little chump it is! Now listen, you—' He gave her another shake and her teeth chattered. 'I don't want to marry Fiona. I can't think of anything I'd like less than to be married to Fiona. And I can't think of anything I'd like more than to be married to you, Maggie. And I mean married. Not this stupid game we've been playing for weeks. I know I behaved badly, but that was some time ago and since then things have changed.'
She stared at him blankly as the mist swirled round him, blurring his expression, glistening on his face, on his dark hair. His eyes were colourless, holding hers like steel magnets. She couldn't look away.
'Just—just put it into plain words, will you?' she said shakily.
There was a short silence and she heard his quick intake of breath. 'I love you,' he said. 'I can't put it plainer that that. And I think maybe I could make you love me, given time.'
Maggie was silent. These were the words she had longed to hear from him, dreamed of hearing, but now she had heard them there was a blank feeling of unreality, of anti-climax. He didn't really love her, he couldn't. Not all of a sudden like this. He was once again using her for some plan of his own.
She said in a small voice, 'Thank you for telling me, Blake. Now, I think we should go in, the others will have come home by now.'
'No,' he rapped out. 'Give me a chance, for God's sake!' His arm shot out with a violence that shocked her. His mouth came down on hers and it was hard and angry, and cold with the wet mist that covered both their faces. His lips moved savagely on hers as if he could somehow force a response from her. For a moment she submitted, then her whole body stiffened with resistance. She couldn't—wouldn't—go through all that again. The burning desire, the promise of heaven, the bitter disappointment.
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