When he felt her hand on his shoulder he put up his own and gripped it.
‘The past is gone, Michael. Don’t let’s ever refer to it again.’
Even as she said this, Rosamund knew that it would be a long long time before she herself was able to wipe out the memory of the night she was drawn towards the motor cruiser lying at the end of the Cut. And she shuddered now with the thought that, but for a miracle, she would not be here, sitting in the warmth of the evening sun, but suffocated in the silt at the bottom of the dyke.
Why the woman had fallen into the dyke would always remain a mystery. Had Rosamund herself clutched at her in the last desperate moments when she was being flung into space? Or had the bank on which they were standing given way? They had found part of it broken down. Whatever had happened, the woman had been the first to hit the bottom of the dyke, and it was her last terrible scream that had brought Michael and Andrew flying to the spot…and only just in time.
It was her father who had given her, very briefly, a summary of the events of that dreadful night. The woman had been dead when they got her out, and she herself almost suffocated by the silt. But she could remember nothing at all from the time she realised that the boat was sinking, and only vaguely did she remember holding the bitter liquid in her mouth and letting it drip into the pillow of the bunk. But she knew now that except for this action she would have lain drugged with the phenobarbitone, as was the child, and been drowned as the boat sank.
‘Look at me.’ Gently she pulled at his ear, and when he turned to face her she made an endeavour to lift his mind from the past events by saying, ‘Tell me, what did you say to Clifford? Father tells me he came to see you.’
He looked at her as a slow smile spread over his face. ‘Oh, I said a lot to your cousin. I told him he was a fool to have let the grass grow under his feet.’
‘Don’t be silly. You said no such thing.’
‘Didn’t I though? He was a very sad young man when he left here. He’s a bit of a fool.’
‘He’s not; he’s nice, is Clifford.’ She could think that now.
‘I repeat, he’s a bit of a fool—more than a bit, to have ever let you go. Anyway, I made a bargain with him…a deal.’
‘A deal with Clifford? What about?’
‘He’s selling me the mill.’
‘No!’ She was sitting up now. ‘Oh, Michael, that’s sweet of you.’
‘Sweet nothing. I’ve got a business head. We are going to fit that place up into a first-rate factory. Your father and I have it all planned.’
‘Oh, Michael…!’
‘Don’t you, “Oh Michael!” me in that tone of voice. It’s merely a business deal.’
‘Kiss me, Michael.’
Bending forward, he kissed her tenderly on the lips, then said softly, ‘It will keep him occupied. But he must stay here with you, live near you, because he needs you.’ He now took her face between his two hands. ‘Life isn’t going to be too easy for you, my Rosie. It’s not fair, in a way, because you’re starting handicapped. There’s not only your father, there’s the child, and…there’s me. And I’ll be your biggest problem, Rosie. Oh yes I will.’ He moved his head slowly, ‘I’ll not let you alone—I know myself—I’ll claim your attention like a sick cow…or rather bull.’ He laughed. ‘And with it all I’ll be bumptious, arrogant, loud and demanding. This present quiet demeanour of mine, which is the outcome of shock, won’t last. You see, if nothing else I’m my own doctor. Moreover, there’s a poison in me that I pour over people I dislike and the result is that everybody is very uncomfortable, to say the least.’
She was smiling tenderly, her head on one side, and her voice had a serious tone as she said, ‘I know. I agree with everything you say about yourself and as Maggie would add, “That’s not the half of it.”’ She now put up her hands and covered his with them where they cupped her face as she went on, ‘But you forgot to say that the Fen Tiger is kind and generous. He is also compassionate, and loyal, and very, very loving…Dear, dear Fen Tiger…’
The last words were cut off and smothered against his coat, and his lips, moving in her hair, kept repeating, ‘Oh, Rosie. Oh, Rosie,’ and then softly he said, ‘That morning when I stood outside the solicitor’s office and realised I was a rich man I also realised something else, something that hit me with the force of a bullet in the head. It was that all this money, all it stood for…comfort, security, travel, even the best attention for the child…meant nothing…less than the muck under my feet without you, you and your love for me. And I became terrified from that moment of losing you.’
‘Well, you didn’t, darling.’
‘You’ll always try to keep on loving me, Rosie, even at my worst?’
‘I’ll love you best at your worst.’
‘Oh, Rosie. Things will never be easy for you, you’re made that way.’
In the darkness behind her closed lids she saw a picture of the coming years. As he had said, things would never be easy for her. Money in her case would not make all that difference, for money could not lessen the demands he had mentioned. The demands of her father, of the child, and…of himself—her Michael. They all wanted loving, mothering, but Mike most of all. Would she, if she could, change the picture that she saw threading the years? No, not one little iota of it. She had been made to give. That’s what brought her the most happiness—giving. She had been made for others to lean on, but the burdens she had now to bear would be light. Life would be light, for she had an overwhelming compensation—she had the unstinted, passionate, demanding love of this man…her Fen Tiger.
The End
The Fen Tiger (The House on the Fens) Page 21