by Janet Tanner
So I was right! she thought joyfully. I should have done this long ago, given him some encouragement! Then his tongue was caressing hers and probing the soft recesses of her mouth, and as the answering excitement rippled through her body, thought was drowned by emotion.
Dizzy with desire, she pressed still closer. His hands were on her breasts, stroking, kneading, fumbling with the fastening of her bodice. Passion rose in her like a warm flood-tide. She pulled away slightly, arching her back so that the muscles of her throat pulled taut, and above her the stars seemed to dance and sway in the heavens.
“Ted,” she moaned softly. “ Oh, Ted!”
But suddenly, with even less warning than he had taken her, she felt herself thrust away. Bewildered still mazy from passion, she tried to slip her arms back around his neck, but he disentangled them roughly.
“Ted, what’s the matter?” Shock put a sob in her voice, but the tenderness had gone from him with the desire, and he shrugged almost angrily.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But why?” she cried. “Don’t you know I wanted you to?”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, turning away, and the sense of loss coming on top of her broken dreams was too much.
“It’s her—Becky—isn’t it?” she burst out. “ You keep thinking about her! Oh, why can’t you realize she’s gone, and I’m here? I could make you forget—I could. I love you, Ted, you must know that. I’ve always loved you. Oh, don’t turn away from me now, please don’t!”
“Rosa!” His voice was harsh, his features set. “For goodness sake, leave it!”
Despair brought tears to her eyes. “But, Ted, don’t you know I’d be good for you. We’d be good for each other. Oh, please …”
His face softened, a mirror of sadness, and he touched her arm.
“I said I was sorry, Rosa, and I am. This is all my fault, I know. I shouldn’t have let it come this far. But I liked you—I liked your company—and I thought, well, I thought maybe in time I’d come to feel differently.”
“And you will!” she whispered urgently. “You will, I promise you …”
He shook his head. “No, my dear. Don’t you see? You’re worth more than that. You deserve somebody to love you for yourself. Not just to pretend you’re someone else …”
She jumped, startled and hurt. So that was it! When he’d kissed her, held her, touched her he’d been pretending she was Becky! Dear God, it was more than flesh and blood could stand!
He saw the look on her face and stepped towards her.
“Rosa, I didn’t mean …”
But she jerked away, pride coming to her rescue. She’d thrown herself at him, and he’d just been wishing she was someone else. She’d bared her soul to him, told him she loved him even, and all she’d done was make a fool of herself. It was too late to take back any of these things, but at least she could redeem herself now.
“That’s all right. You don’t have to explain. I thought I could help you get over her, but I was wrong. That’s all.”
“Rosa …” he said helplessly, but her face was proud. In the moonlight, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders she looked more like a gypsy than ever, and the breath caught in his throat. With a sigh, he went to take her arm.
“Come on. I’ll see you home.”
But to his surprise, she shrugged away, tossing her head.
“I don’t think I’m ready to go home yet.”
“But…”
“I think I’ll go back to the fair. There’s sure to be somebody there I know. Don’t wait for me.”
“But, Rosa, I can’t leave you here.”
“Why not?” She laughed, a high, false sound. “I can look after myself.”
For a moment longer he hesitated, then he shrugged.
“Well, I’ll walk back as far as the fair with you, anyhow.”
“If you like.”
They walked side by side, yet a million miles apart. Ted was thinking that he’d made a mess of things and no mistake, and Rosa was concentrating on keeping the muscles in her cheeks steady. If she relaxed for a moment, she knew she would cry, and that would be the last of her pride gone.
The walk back to the market yard seemed endless, but at last they reached it.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Ted asked doubtfully, and she nodded, not looking at him.
“I said so, didn’t I? Go on, Ted, leave me alone.”
“All right, Rosa. Goodnight.”
Then he had gone, disappearing into the darkness, and she was alone. She stepped into the market yard, letting the noise and the activity swallow her. So that was it, she thought Ted had gone, and she had retained a little of her pride. But oh, the pain!
She stumbled into the yard, letting the crowd jostle her this way and that. Her throat ached, and she saw the bright lights as if through a haze. They blurred and spread and merged like a candle glow on a wet window. The music of the rides roared in her ears like the thunder of the sea, and tonight it held no magic for her. She wished she were in the woods with only the sounds of the night for company and nothing to disturb her thoughts. That was what she really wanted— to have time to think about what had happened, living it all over again—all the years of loving and waiting and hoping and …
A sudden commotion drew her attention, and she saw that a scuffle had broken out on the planking that surrounded the round-about. There was bumping and barging, and people were scattering in all directions.
Rosa, disgusted but not much worried, turned her back and slipped through the gathering crowd. Somebody was going to end up falling into the roundabout if they weren’t careful, and she didn’t want to be there to see it. Perhaps she’d go home now. Ted should be far enough away not to know she had no intention of staying to make a night of it alone. Once round the yard, then out of the gates and let the darkness hide her.
She passed the stalls, ignoring the calls of the barkers, and stopped for a moment to watch the laughing figures on the juddering cake-walk. Then she headed back towards the road.
She had to skirt the roundabout—there was no way she could avoid it—but she wasn’t much worried about that. She cut through on the opposite side from where the fight had started, too deep in thought to even bother to look in that direction. But a sudden yell made her jerk her head around just in time to see a man coming head first over the wooden balustrade above her.
Startled, she skipped aside, but even so the falling body bumped into her, almost knocking her over. He landed with a sickening thud on the ground at her feet, and she stepped back, drawing her skirts away in a panic.
A movement above made her look up again, and she saw another man crouching on the wooden rail. He was grinning, his face in the carbide lights brown and leathery like a monkey, and as she watched he vaulted the rail, landing on his hands and knees beside the first man. As he got to his feet and roughly prodded his victim with the toe of his boot, Rosa tried to edge away, but a crowd of rowdies now blocked her path.
Trapped, she watched in horror as the monkey-faced man hauled his victim to his feet and knocked him down again with a heavy punch in the stomach. He stood aside then, dusting down his hands and jacket and looking around as if to dare any of the onlookers to challenge him. As he did so, his eye fell on Rosa.
“Hello, hello, hello, and what have we got here then?” he jeered. “If it’s not the Hillsbridge Town mascot herself.”
Rosa shrank back, apprehension making her shiver. She did not know the man, but it seemed that he knew her, and she guessed he must have been amongst the Purldown contingent at the match that afternoon. Now, full of beer, he was on the rampage. Suddenly she wished she had not been so ready to let Ted leave her alone.
“Well, well, what are you doing here, sweetheart?” The monkey-faced man came closer. “All on your own, are you? Now that’s what I call the spoils of war!”
Rosa tossed her head, her eyes blazing with a confidence she was far from feeling. “Le
ave me alone, you ape.”
A flicker of anger crossed his features, then he began to laugh.
“Oh-ho, a little fire cracker! Well, that’s right up my street. But you want to support a good team, sweetheart. Now, if you come with me, I’ll soon show you this Hillsbridge lot aren’t worth bothering about.”
His face was too close. He reeked of beer fumes and stale sweat, and she felt her gorge rise. With a quick, almost unthinking reaction, she brought her toe up and kicked him on the shin as hard as she could. She saw his rubbery features fall slack with surprise, then with a snarl he lunged at her.
With a swiftness born of fear, Rosa ducked beneath his arm, twisting out and away and dodging on to the steps of the round-about, the only way that was clear to her. As she ran on legs that trembled she heard shouts above the deafening music, and she knew the man would come after her.
If only she could see someone she knew! She ran along the boarding, all eyes following her. Then she dived down into the crowd again, wondering wildly which way to go. Maybe if she climbed the wall at the back of the yard she could get away across the gardens. They’d be a sea of mud, but that was just too bad.
The wall was high and sheer. Cursing her skirts, she tried to find finger and toe holds, but there seemed to be none, and she realized in a flash what a picture she would make if she reached the top. There she would be, silhouetted against the darkening sky for all to see, and if anyone came after her across the gardens, there would be no escape.
A little sob escaped her, then turned to a scream as she felt a hand on her arm.
“Leave me!” she cried, spinning round.
But as she recognized Jack Hall she almost wept with relief.
“Come on, Rosa, I’m getting you out of here.” His voice had a quiet authority, but she shook her head, too frightened still to trust anyone.
“Leave me, Jack. They’ve gone mad, those Purldown blokes. They’ll lay into you especially, with your leg.”
She knew at once she had said the wrong thing. “I mean, you don’t want to get in a fight,” she said lamely.
He took her arm. “I can take, care of myself. If anyone bothers me, they’ll get my walking stick across them.”
There was a new hardness in his voice, and she shuddered.
“Which way, then?”
“Just follow me.”
She did as she was told, trotting along behind him with quick, nervous steps. Over by the roundabout there was still a rumpus going on, and she wondered if the mates of the man who had been thrown over the rails had caught up with monkey-face. But whatever the reason, there was no sign of him now. Jack led her to the outskirts of the crowd and out on to the road, and only then did she let her breath out in a sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Jack.” Of all the Halls, he was the one she was least at ease with. He was clever, he was different somehow, and she had always had the feeling that he must look down on her. She knew this was irrational, since Jack was usually in too much of a dream to look down on anyone.
Today, however, she was conscious of him looking at her differently, and she tossed her head, some of her confidence returning.
Jack’s eyes passed over her, then he began to walk, pulling her with him.
“Our Ted shouldn’t have left you there by yourself.”
“It was nothing to do with him,” she said haughtily. “I told him I didn’t want him to stay.”
“That doesn’t make any difference. He took you out, he should look after you.”
She tossed her head again. As fear ebbed, the pain began again.
“I’m not his responsibility any more—if I ever was.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s all over between us. His lamp’s still burning for Becky Church, and I’m not taking second place to a ghost.” Her voice was strong and confident, revealing nothing of the way she felt. He glanced at her, seeing the beautiful woman she had become and feeling an ache of fire within him.
“So that’s what it’s all about,” he said, covering his feelings as well as she had covered hers. “ When I met him outside the George I could see there was something up, but he wouldn’t say what. But I thought it was funny he’d left you alone. That’s why I came to look for you.”
“You came … to look for me?”
He didn’t answer, and suddenly she knew what she was going to do. She’d show Ted Hall once and for all! Why, she’d worshipped him since she was knee-high, and where had it got her? He’d taken her for granted, and now he’d left her all alone with the rowdies in the market yard. Perhaps it was time someone showed him he wasn’t so great after all. Perhaps it was time.
Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Jack, knowing with sudden certainty that for all his difference, he found her attractive. Supposing I was to go off with his brother, Rosa thought. Why, he’s a far better catch than Ted. He’s been a pilot, and he’s going to be a teacher. He’s even been to Buckingham Palace and been decorated by the King. And what will Ted ever be but a general dogs-body, drifting from one job to the next—if he’s lucky.
Egged on by the sting of rejection, she laid her hand on Jack’s arm. Looking up at him in the light of the swinging carbide lamps, she smiled—a smile that with her looks managed to be provocative in spite of the heaviness of her heart.
“Thanks for rescuing me anyway,” she said, and as an after-thought, “It’s easy to see why you were decorated, Jack. You’re quite the hero, aren’t you?”
A week later Ted left home, and Charlotte did not know whether to be glad or sorry. She would miss him terribly—after the long years when he was away, it was wonderful to have him back—but he was so changed, so restless and unhappy, and she thought it might be best for him to get right away and try to make a new life for himself, somewhere where Rebecca’s ghost did not walk.
“I thought for a bit he might be going to make a go of it with Rosa Clements,” she said to Dolly when she came down for one of her afternoon visits. “I don’t really care for the girl, but if she could make him happy, I suppose that’s all that matters.”
“Rosa’s all right, Mam,” Dolly said, “but our Ted isn’t going to forget Becky Church in a hurry.”
“No, you’re right there,” Charlotte agreed, wishing that Ted could be more like placid Dolly. After the first terrible upset of Eric being killed just before the wedding, Dolly had accepted it as she accepted everything, and already had a new beau—a boy from Bath who had been invalided out of the army suffering from the effects of gas, and who came twice a week to do Captain Fish’s garden.
“There’s something else worrying me, too,” Charlotte went on, changing the subject. “ I may be wrong—I hope I am—but I think our Jack is seeing her.”
“Jack?” Dolly repeated in disbelief.
“I may be wrong,” Charlotte said again. “But I’ve seen them talking out in the yard several times this week. And he went off last night without saying where he was going.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that!” Dolly was scathing. “ Not Jack. I’ve never known him take any interest in a girl—let alone Rosa.”
“Well, he’s older now. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t look at a girl sometime,” Charlotte told her, and she did not add that she was remembering a long-ago street party when she had caught Jack staring at Rosa with a very dreamy expression on his face.
“Rosa’s an attractive girl, the sort men go for,” she went on after a moment. “And she’s sly, too. If she made up her mind to it, our Jack would be putty in her hands!”
“Oh, Mam, you are funny!” Dolly teased her.
But Charlotte did not laugh. “With our Ted gone, it wouldn’t surprise me,” she said grimly.
And she had no idea how close to the truth her prophesy would turn out to be.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the spring of 1919, Jack began teaching at Hillsbridge Church of England School in the valley next to the church, but it was only a temporary measure.
“University! Well, I’m very pleased for you, Jack.” William Davies smiled. “And to think I thought I’d be doing well to make an uncertificated teacher of you! You’re doing it properly, and no mistake!”
“The way things are changing nowadays, I think I can make a better future if I’m properly qualified,” Jack told him. “I think I can get a government grant as an ex-service student, and if I put that on top of my officer’s gratuity, I should be able to manage.”
William Davies nodded. Things certainly were changing in the teaching profession.
“We’ve got a lot to thank Fisher for,” Davies said, referring to the recent education act named after H. A.L. Fisher, which had raised salaries and brought in a pension scheme for teachers among other things. “Though I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea raising the leaving age to fourteen. It’s not that I want to see child labour—far from it—but the classrooms are overcrowded now, and half of them don’t want to be there, anyway.”
Jack was surprised to hear his old mentor express this sentiment, but he could see he had a point. “They think it’s a waste of time, having to stay on another year when they want to be earning their living,” he agreed, “ but in the end they’ll come to realize it’s for their own good.”
William Davies sighed. “ Will they? I’m not so sure. And if they want to, the local authorities can raise it by another year. You know that, do you?”
Jack nodded and admitted to himself that he really wouldn’t relish the thought of having to teach unwilling fifteen-year-olds. The ones he had were bad enough, and he wasn’t sure he’d made too auspicious a start. It had been different at the board school with William Davies always within earshot, and he had been only a pupil/ teacher then. But now he was expected to wield his own authority, and he didn’t think he was doing too well. The children called him ‘ Hop-along’ and ‘Peg-leg’ and played him up whenever they could, and he hadn’t been very proud of the fact that one day the strict and old-fashioned headmaster at the school had had to come in and lay about him with his cane to restore order.