Between Friends
Page 39
Now Meg was different. It was not that she lacked honesty or a compulsion for hard work but she was afraid of nothing! She was blessed with the certainty that what they were about to do was entirely right. She had no doubts, no misgivings, having, it seemed, complete faith not only in herself but in him! It gave him the courage to step out with her bravely, though he did wish she would curb what to him seemed a quite frightening inclination to make up her mind in the blink of an eye. She appeared to see an opportunity even before he was aware they were looking for one, and had taken advantage of it, twisting it to her liking and wringing every drop of profit from it there was to be had.
Edie Marshall was to go with them since, as she said, what would she do with herself without Miss Hughes, soon to be Mrs Fraser, to work for. She could not get on with the wife of the chap who was to manage ‘Hawthornes’ for Miss Hughes, though he had begged her to stay, saying she would be an enormous help to him in the running of the inn. And so she would but she was used to Miss Hughes’ ways and could not learn new ones at her time of life. He was a nice enough fellow and would do well for Miss Hughes, and besides, Miss Hughes said she would be keeping an eye on the place. Well, she would since it belonged to her and Mr Tom now, lock, stock and barrel and she was not one to let a concern of hers get run down. She’d be over in that little motor car of hers to see Annie, she said, and the friends she had made in the village and if Edie liked she could come with her on her day off. Well, that had clinched it as far as Edie was concerned and she was looking forward to her new position as ‘housekeeper’ at the lovely old house, soon to be a hotel, in Derbyshire.
They had been there just a week when Martin arrived. He came out of the October sunshine, stepping between deep, dappled shadows and brightly moving shafts of light to stand just inside the hedge on the newly-scythed lawn and when Meg saw him her heart swooped in a great arch of joy, then, as he walked slowly towards her his face told her he had brought a vast and devastating sadness with him and she shivered. She was wearing a white dress. It was of muslin, light and pretty and simple, floating about her feet on the brick path. Her hair was pulled back carelessly, held by a narrow white ribbon to fall in a curly knot to the middle of her back but strands of it had escaped, as he remembered it had always done, drifting in soft curls about her white neck and ears.
There was a wooden seat against the house and a massed bank of rhododendrons, pink and purple and blood red, the broad leaves green and glossy. They grew behind her, towering above her head in magnificently dying profusion and the whole area around her was bathed in the clear light of the pale midday sun.
‘Martin?’ Her voice was wary, questioning.
He continued to walk slowly across the rough-cropped grass, his feet making no sound. He did not smile and yet his eyes held a compassionate warmth which told her that whatever it was he was to sadden her with, he was ready, as he had always been, to offer her comfort.
She had been digging with a small trowel as he approached, planting some green thing beneath the rhododendron bushes, plunging the gardening tool energetically into the black soil, pressing in the plant with strong fingers, heedless of the stains on her completely unsuitable gown. A thick rim of dirt had collected beneath her finger nails. She rubbed her hands against the soft fabric of her dress, leaving two black marks, then looked down and pulled a face and Martin knew she was putting off the moment when he would tell her why he was here.
‘Not quite the outfit in which to garden, Meggie.’ His voice was gentle and filled with some deep emotion.
‘No, I didn’t mean to start but there were some cuttings … Tom was busy …’ She put a trembling hand to her mouth, ‘The day was so lovely … warm … so warm you can hardly believe it is October already …’
Her glance drifted from his to encompass the sunshine falling about the fading beauty of the overgrown flower borders, to the softly moving shadows which the leaves placed across the wide expanse of lawn. The fragrant smell of autumn was everywhere, moving with the timid breeze over great wild swathes of pink ageratum, the lovely deep cream of skimmia and the fresh blue of lobelia. There was mallow, and daphne bushes of yellow and pink and white, and the magnificent gold of a stand of wallflowers, all growing as they had done for months, in complete and glorious abandon, untouched and unseen until now. There was a fire somewhere and the unique smell of burning woodsmoke, symbolic of the ending of summer, rose above the house and up into the pale softness of the sky. Trees stood about, fading but ageless, their leaves beginning to loosen and drift to the ground. Oak and elder and rowan and elm, guarding the boundaries of the property on three sides, the fourth opening out to the splendour of the Valley of Dovedale. He felt light-headed with the enchantment of it and had a moment to consider that this must indeed be the perfect place in which to linger on one’s travels and that Meg had chosen well, but he must speak and he could not soften the words, only tell her decently as she deserved.
But of course, she knew, for why else would he be clothed from head to toe in black.
‘Meggie.’ He put out his hand to her, ready for when she needed it.
‘It’s … it’s Cook, isn’t it?’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘Yes.’
‘When …?’
‘Last night.’
‘You were with her?’
‘Oh yes. I would have come for you, darling, but there was no time.’ The endearment seemed not at all out of place. ‘I was going to send the boy, the one who races for me, he is a good lad and reliable on the roads but … she went before …’ His voice broke and he could not go on and without a word they stepped into one another’s arms. He bent his head to rest his cheek against her hair and she pressed her face into the curve of his neck beneath his chin and their bodies strained to be close in their grief for the great lady, for she had been that to them, who had given three children her love and her caring heart and brought them from the dispassionate neutrality of the orphanage to the first home they had known.
‘She spoke of you and Tom.’ His voice was muffled in the soft mass of her hair and she could feel the sound of it move through the bone and flesh of her and somehow it seemed to soothe her savage pain. It was not the words he spoke but the vibrancy of his voice and the soft, reassuring impression of his breath against her skin and she could feel the relaxed way in which her body settled against his. Her arms held him more tightly to her and his were strong and supporting and though she had begun to weep now, a soft and quiet grieving, she had a great, comforting sense of knowing that she would not fall, could never fall now, with Martin to hold her.
‘What did she say?’
‘She was proud … I think she was as proud as if we had been her own …’
‘We were.’
‘Yes … and these last years … what you gave her …’
‘Not me, Martin … all of us …’
‘Sweetheart, it was you who had the courage to speak up against Harris …’
‘Don’t! Not now.’
‘She … she said …’
‘What?’ Her tears had wet the collar of his shirt and he could feel the warmth of them against his skin.
‘She said she wanted to see you settled. It worried her …’
‘Me?’
She could hear the emotion in his voice and when he lifted his head she looked up at him wonderingly, her eyes brimming still with tears, and there it was, in his, and he allowed her to see it at last.
‘Martin …’ His name sighed in her throat and through the sadness that was between them came softly stealing the unbelievable and breathless awareness of something so overwhelming, so precious, so right she was afraid to take it out and study it for fear it might slip through her fingers and be gone again.
‘She said that Tom and I were well able to get along since we were men and this is a man’s world, Meg, but that you were a woman and needed …’
‘What, Martin?’ She could not tear her eyes away from his and the joy which was begin
ning to throb through the veins of her body and move to her heart in great bewildering leaps was miraculous and true for it was answered in his.
He smiled. ‘She was wrong, of course, but she said you needed someone to look after you.’
‘Wrong.’
His eyes were a deep, rich brown and his mouth curled whimsically and the small scar in the corner deepened.
‘You need someone but not to look after you, my Meggie. You need someone to stand beside you, to understand you and allow you to become what your nature intended you to be. You are strong and though you are sad now you will overcome your grief and go on to fulfill whatever dreams you have. As I will. We are alike, you and I and we know each other well because of it.’
They looked at one another, sighing over the simple and obvious perfection of it. She put her cheek against his shirt front and he tightened his arms about her and as he did so Tom Fraser came round the corner of the house.
They did not see him, nor hear his approach across the grass and when the violence of him fell about them with the dreadful force of a stallion which will fight another who covets his mare, they were confounded. Their embrace had in it now, not only the unspoken awareness of what had just happened between them but their quiet grieving for Mrs Whitley. They had not kissed. They stood, not as lovers, but as friends who will comfort one another in any way they can and the sudden intrusion of this wild man who tore them apart so dreadfully flung them both into an unreal world so savage they did nothing but stand instinctively away from it. Martin was the first to recover and he put up an arm to defend her, just as though Tom was an intruder for in truth they could neither of them recognise this stranger.
Martin understood immediately and as he did so reality returned to Megan Hughes as well. She stepped between the two men and her face lost the luminous quality Martin had put there and sadness returned.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ Tom was shouting, ready still to pull her behind him, anywhere that would ensure Martin could not get his hands on her, but she would not have it for this was not the time for it. She spoke the only words which would, at that moment, quench the jealous rage which burned in him.
‘Tom, Martin has come to … oh Tom … what are we to do … Mrs Whitley … died last night. We were grieving for her, Martin and I … oh Tom, Tom … she is gone …’ Her face crumpled and she began to weep again and this time it was Tom who put his arms about her, understanding, he thought, the frightening scene he had just witnessed. He wept too as he comforted her and looked apologetically over her shoulder at the man who was his brother.
Later they sat in the small sitting-room which was to be theirs when the hotel opened and ate the omelettes Meg had put before them, none of them hungry, still inclined to silence as the realisation of Mrs Whitley’s death was finally accepted. They spoke softly of their days as children in her care and smiled at memories only they and she had shared and the pain eased a little. The funeral was to be at the end of the week, Martin said, at the small church where lately Mrs Whitley had worshipped and which she could see from her parlour window. It seemed she had asked for it, saying it would be but a step from one home to another.
They tried to talk of lighter things ‘You look well Meg,’ Martin said. ‘Being an hotelier agrees with you, it seems, and you too, Tom. Tell me about it.’ They were in perfect unison again, their shared past linking them together, as Meg told him about the purchase of the hotel and what she intended for it and Martin watched her approvingly. She had not changed, he could see that. She was as filled as she had always been with enthusiasm for the task in hand, whether it be setting himself and Tom to rights, baking up an enormous batch of scones for their supper, or just, as she was doing now, speaking of the future. She had matured, not just physically but in her own character for there was an air of confidence about her. Not blazing and defiant as it had once been but a quiet confidence, one that had no need to be shouted about. It gave her a poise, a maturity which in no way detracted from the young, breathtaking beauty of her. His eyes warmed in masculine appreciation of her womanliness but he was slightly tense in Tom’s presence for it had been very evident what Tom Fraser had in mind for Megan Hughes.
They brought his motor car from the front gates where he had left it and for ten minutes they stood in the autumn sunshine and admired the machine, just as elegant as his first but much smaller. She was the prototype, he explained, of the newest, low-priced, small engined vehicles he and Mr Robert were to manufacture, and which were to be aimed at the ordinary man who was beginning to feel he had as much right as his so called ‘betters’, to ride about in a motor car. She was economical to run and could reach the incredible speed of forty miles an hour! They were to have a dozen like her on the roads by Christmas, manufactured in a small factory he and the old gentleman had bought at Camford. They were partners in the venture but he was pretty sure it would all be his very soon for he meant to buy out the old gentleman as soon as he could raise the cash. At the moment he had a half share in it. Well, it was his bloody genius – smiling, trying to put some relief in the sad day – which had made them what they were and already there were enquiries coming in from interested purchasers. He was twenty-five years old and the success he once swore would be his had come. Not just as a racing driver but as the designer and builder of the motor cars he had dreamed of since he had first climbed on to a bicycle and he was not finished yet, he pronounced for he was to push on in another endeavour – one which was almost as dear to him now, as his passion for the motor car. His eyes were clear and steady with that bright light of determination which was as familiar to Meg and Tom as the lamp which had once shone serenely in the centre of the kitchen table at Great George Square.
‘This year, 1913 has become known as “The Glorious Year of Flying”, did you know, and that’s just what it is, by God. Earlier in the year I went over to Monaco for the first “Schnieder Trophy” contest … have you heard about it, no … few people have. There were only seven entries and I was one of them. It’s for seaplanes and I took one up belonging to a friend of Charles Hemingway. He was meant to do it himself but at the last minute he hurt his hand, or lost his nerve, or something. I didn’t win it but it gave me an idea of how aircraft are to develop. I haven’t flown since I got my Aero Club Certificate but damnation, if I can manage to get a craft of my own, I mean to. I’ve designed a glider. The government are interested now that the Royal Flying Corps has been founded. There are four squadrons at the moment and they are looking for likely designs.’
He was to build the glider in the hangar at Watkins Field, the ground they had bought at Camford and if he could find the finance, it would be in the air within six months. Mr Hemingway was old now and really no longer concerned with it all. Flying was for the future and the old gentleman had none but he, Martin Hunter, had and it was to be …
Tom Fraser watched him, feeling the magnetism of Martin’s strong personality pulling Meg into that fascination she had always known, a fascination she had shared in his love of anything mechanical. He himself had been the odd one out in the threesome, since for the life of him he could not seem to capture the taste for clattering along in a noisy contraption, smelly, and going so fast the beauty of the countryside could scarcely be appreciated. A bicycle was so much more satisfying, he had always thought. Quiet, slow, the exercise filling one with a feeling of well-being it was hard to beat. Now, it appeared, even the motor car was not enough for Martin Hunter. He was to take to the skies, had already done so, up there with the birds and where the hell would that lead him, he wondered, except down to earth with a crash, for surely only birds were meant to fly? He recalled the excitement they had shared at Blackpool but on looking back it had not been the aircraft which had filled him with delight, but the crowds, the sunshine, the laughter and the company of Meg and Martin. He had not believed then that it would catch on, this flying about in a thing which seemed scarcely bigger than a moth and he still believed it.
Meg leaned across the table towards Martin, the sadness of the day momentarily put to the back of her mind, as Martin had intended, hanging on to his every word, as Tom had seen her do a hundred, a thousand times and as she did so something sweet inside him cracked and for the second time that day he wanted to strike at Martin Hunter and draw blood. To hurt him badly and take that look of satisfaction from his face and the strange warmth from his eyes which were looking so searchingly into Meg’s. He wanted to let him see that he, Tom Fraser, though he might not be able to drive a motor car, or fly an aeroplane, had something special, something unique which Martin Hunter would never have.
He broke into their absorption with one another, his voice harsh with his ragged jealousy.
‘You haven’t told Martin our news yet, Meggie.’ He held himself rigidly for suddenly he was aware that the following moments would be, strangely, the most important of his life.
She pulled her gaze almost angrily from Martin and he was dismayed by the expression in it.
‘What …?’ She did not seem to know what he meant.
‘You haven’t told Martin about you and me.’ His eyes softened with his pride and his deep and endless love for her.
‘What about you and Meg?’ Martin stood up abruptly, his long body threatening, for of course they had no need to tell him. It was there in Tom’s wondering face and it was there in the dreadful agony in Meg’s eyes and at last he understood his own unease, that sense he had of something hidden and here it was, out in the open and in that moment he was stricken with pain for he had left it too late!