by Nancy Carson
‘It’s knocked him for six suddenly being faced with you as his twin brother, though. It has me, as well,’ she lied. ‘You’ll never know how much. But I suppose we’ll get used to it.’
‘But are you pleased?’
She lowered her voice. ‘Yes, of course I’m pleased. But I can’t believe that, while you were confessing your love and devotion for me, you knew all along that my husband was your brother.’
To her great surprise, his hand reached for hers and he squeezed it tenderly. She made no attempt to take it back and reproach him for it, but remembered its loving caresses over her naked body in those hot, perspiring nights of August.
‘That was what hurt most,’ he said. ‘I told you…I couldn’t help how I felt about you.’
‘Hopefully, your feelings have changed by now.’
‘My feelings are stronger now.’
‘Oh, Neville!’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Henzey, I’ll keep them under control. Trouble is, my love for you is not something that’s going to suddenly vanish. I should be a fickle fellow if it did.’
‘But you are a fickle fellow,’ she said, whispering acidly, turning away and freeing herself of his hand. ‘Fickle to your brother.’ She stopped to finger a plant and to put more distance between them and the others, for she was afraid they might overhear.
‘Maybe not so fickle after all. It’s just possible I’ve done him an enormous favour, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t doubt you have, with your generous offer. At least I hope so, for his sake. But how you can look him in the eye beats me.’
‘Oh, don’t chastise me, Henzey. What about our own little secret?’
The others had moved on, through the arbour, and Henzey could just about hear their buzz of indistinct conversation.
‘Secret? What little secret do you mean?’ Her voice was low, but her temperature was rising, for she was certain that he was about to confess his partnering her in bed. How should she react to that? Why indeed should she have to? Why could he not allow her to pretend that it had been Will?
He began to whisper. ‘Have you lost or mislaid something over the last few weeks?’
She frowned, side-tracked, mystified as to what he meant. ‘Nothing that I can think of.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Neville, I’m sure,’ she said, almost certain of herself for once.
He felt in his jacket pocket and dangled a key with a leather fob in front of her. ‘Then what about this?’
‘It’s a key.’
‘I know it’s a key. It’s your key, actually. It’s your spare key.’
She blushed vivid red. It was her key, and she could not deny it. She had all but forgotten that she had handed it over; that with it she had handed over her virtue.
‘You gave it to me. That night when it poured with rain. Remember? You also gave me Will’s raincoat.’
She sighed, hopelessly disappointed at the inevitable. Obviously he was about to point out to her what she had been aware of almost from the beginning. It was pointless now to pretend that she had not known. ‘So what are you driving at, Neville?’ she asked resignedly. ‘What are you trying to prove?’
‘I think you know already.’
He regarded her steadily, as if waiting for her response, but she merely shrugged, at a loss to know what to say. Images of the two of them making love with energetic passion flickered through her mind like a Hollywood film show, and the way he looked into her eyes it was as if he could peer straight into her mind and share the images too.
‘I love you more than life itself, Henzey,’ he said tenderly. ‘I would rather die than face life without you. I have such wonderful dreams of us being together, a vision of us both tending lovingly to a child. Our child, Henzey. The fruit of our love…But maybe it’s not to be. We can never belong to each other…I suppose I have to accept that.’
Henzey looked down to the ground, biting her top lip. Neville certainly knew her Achilles’ heel and how to exploit it. It would be useless to deny anything to him now. It would be pointless. But she had her pride. She still wished to cling to her pretence.
‘Neville, I’ve told nobody else and I think it’s only proper that you should be the first to know…that I’m pregnant now. I hope you’ll be happy for me, but you have to understand that it’s Will’s child I’m carrying…’
She tore away from him hurriedly, tears stinging her eyes, hoping she could stem them by the time she caught up with the others, not looking back at him, not waiting for him.
Chapter 26
Henzey could not sleep that night. Under normal circumstances the fuss and palaver with Will and his new situation would, in itself, have been enough to keep her awake. She might not sleep for nights yet, thinking about everything that had happened to her over the last few weeks.
Will, she knew, was asleep. His stilted breathing told her so. He had celebrated well his incredible good fortune, not only with champagne, then wine, but also with brandy, so he was entitled to sleep.
When they had arrived home, driven back by Neville, they had barely spoken. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts and Will was too overcome by what he had learned that night about his own origins for much talk. They would talk tomorrow. There was plenty to discuss.
She lay a while longer, unable to forget those steamy nights with Neville during which she had been loved hard and ardently. She had relished those midnight incursions into her bed. Seeking her softest, most secret places, Neville had left her more physically contented than she had ever been in her life: drained; exhausted; exalted; ecstatic. The pretence in her own mind then, that at last she might get pregnant, had added extra warmth and enthusiasm to this lovemaking.
She stared at the dim slit of night light that parted the curtains and slipped out of bed. In the darkness she found her dressing gown, put it on and crept down the stairs. There was a bottle of whisky in the cupboard in the kitchen. She reached for a glass and poured herself an ample measure, unusual for her, then walked outside into the back yard. As she sipped the whisky she saw how the stars lent an eerie sheen to the reservoir, and an owl screeched as it wafted windlessly over the tree tops. The September night had turned chilly but it did not bother her. She shivered only at the enormity of what she had done so secretly, and at her guilty conscience.
She had been unfaithful to Will. Whichever way you looked at it she had been unfaithful. It was a heavy cross to bear. Will had always been so kind and considerate, except in the one vital need she had, that had been driving them apart. He had provided a decent standard of living, had given her his love, his name, his home, his confidence and his trust; and she had betrayed that trust with another man. If only she could live with this burden of guilt and put it behind her there was the promise of an even better life to come.
But in her heart of hearts she knew that her yearning for her own child, and Will’s lack of co-operation, had been destroying her, urging her irrevocably to respond ever more thankfully to Neville’s outlandish visits. She had been preoccupied for months, and her preoccupation had been eating away corrosively at her former contentment. It was not that her love for Will was waning; it was not, she was certain it was not; but she’d been growing impatient and frustrated with him. She had been desperate for a child, and a desperate woman will go to any lengths.
She huddled inside her dressing gown for warmth and took a gulp of the neat whisky. It stung her throat and she gasped as it trickled hotly down, for she was not used to it. She looked out over the reservoir again, smooth, unrippled by any breeze. It was quiet. No trees stirred, no creature cried. The city slept. The only sound was that of her own breathing.
So what of the future? For she was almost certainly pregnant. Pregnant, but with Neville’s child. It had been nearly eight weeks since her last monthly bleeding. Only Neville had made love to her in all that time, and he had held nothing back. She was already craving for plums, buying them at every turn. That in itself was a sure
sign. So what should she do?
The whisky seemed to be making her light-headed already but she took another gulp. At least it might help her sleep afterwards. However, infiltrating her profound feelings of guilt, and perhaps abetted by the alcohol, was a sort of subdued excitement that irrespective of who was the father, she was at last carrying the child she’d longed for. It was overriding her self-condemnation. She had to see this deceit through and carry it off successfully, for she intended to have the baby.
She took her last sip of whisky, draining the glass; and shivered again. Then she turned and went inside. Upstairs, in their room, she slid into bed beside Will and he stirred.
‘Are you awake?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘I am now,’ he muttered irritably. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I can’t sleep, what with the excitement of everything. I’ve been downstairs.’
He slid his hand over the cool skin of her shoulders and down her arm. ‘You’re freezing. Cuddle up and let me warm you.’
As she submitted to his warmth this once, he found her lips and parted them with his own.
‘You taste of whisky.’
‘I had a drop when I was downstairs. I thought it would help me sleep. You don’t have to kiss me.’
He sensed her tenseness as his hands caressed her body. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, ’course I am.’
Encouraged, he kissed her again.
She didn’t really feel like making love with him, especially since he had not yet redeemed himself. But it had been so long she felt she ought not to deny him; and it might be over in no time anyway. So she closed her eyes and thought about those nights when Neville had loved her. As Will caressed her she could not help but imagine it was Neville and found that her appetite was whetted. She responded more willingly too, in the awareness that, for once, because she had caught him unawares, Will was not using a French letter.
He rolled easily onto her and she surrendered to the familiar rocking of his body, raising her hips to let him in more deeply. But it was turning out to be half-hearted on her part. She was unable to maintain the fantasy that it was Neville. She thought she sensed, for the very first time, Will’s reserve, his inhibition, his anxiety lest he allow his seed to enter her. Anyway, that’s how it seemed, and it was a perception that she resented. So when she sensed that he was ready to climax, she held him there vengefully, pulling him hard into her before he could withdraw. He groaned in ecstasy, his face in the pillow, and apologised for it being over so quickly.
They lay a while longer, talking quietly, skimming the surface of what had befallen Will, until he fell asleep again. Cocooned in his arms, she stared again at the ceiling and could just make out the shape of the gas light hanging over the bed. She heaved a profound, shuddering sigh of disillusionment, but stroked Will’s forehead as he drifted into sleep. She wished she still loved him with all her heart; she wished she was still as much in love with him now as she was before; but when they had made love this time, it was not like it had been during those highly sexual nocturnal sorties. It was not like it had been with Neville.
And comparison was inevitable.
At breakfast, Will was bubbling, but Henzey seemed subdued, he thought.
‘Did you sleep all right after?’ he asked as she put a plate of bacon, eggs and tomatoes before him.
‘Eventually,’ she replied.
‘You look tired.’
‘I am tired, Will.’ She placed her own breakfast on the table and sat down.
‘It still hasn’t struck me what happened last night.’
‘Nor me,’ she said, concealing the bitter irony in what she felt.
‘You don’t seem altogether pleased this morning. I thought you’d be overjoyed.’
She was shaking pepper over her breakfast. ‘Oh, I am, I am. It just hasn’t sunk in yet.’
‘No second thoughts?’
‘No, ’course not.’
‘I half expected to wake up this morning to find I’d been dreaming. But it’s no dream, Henzey…Tell me it isn’t a dream. Four weeks from tomorrow I shall be a director of Worthington Commercials…the family firm!’
When she’d finished chewing, she said, ‘It’ll mean a whole new way of life – for both of us, Will. Completely different. You realise that, don’t you?’
‘And what a change. Just think of what we’ll be able to do with all that extra money. Right away we’ll have that car we talked about…Something with a bit of class. I think I fancy a two and a half litre Swallow SSI – like Neville’s. A different colour from Neville’s car, of course. A nice maroon one, eh? Otherwise folks won’t be able to tell us apart.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I was amazed when I saw him without his beard. Weren’t you?’
‘You’re both very much alike. Very much alike. Anybody could be forgiven for mixing you up.’
‘I’ll hand in my notice tomorrow…By the way, we’re borrowing Neville’s seaside cottage for two weeks. I forgot to tell you last night.’
‘When?’
‘From the twenty-eighth.’
‘I wish you’d said sooner.’
‘It doesn’t make any difference. You’ll have to tell them at work that you want your two weeks holiday. They still owe me two weeks as well. I’ll take it as part of my notice. Then it’s a whole new career. Eunice says that Neville will show me round the works before that, though…I can’t believe this has all happened to me…to us.’
She dipped a piece of bacon into her egg yolk without enthusiasm. ‘Amazing, when you consider you’ve never been bothered about finding out who your real parents were.’
‘I know…Oh, isn’t it strange how things happen? Who’d have believed it? Who’d have thought it possible?’
When she’d swallowed the food she said, ‘You’re lucky in another way, Will – you get on well with Neville. Fortunate that, isn’t it?’
‘Well, I suppose, if I hadn’t, this would never have happened.’
Henzey shoved her plate away. She had no appetite for bacon and eggs. Instead she went to the pantry and brought out a brown paper bag containing some plums she’d bought the previous day. She wiped one on her apron and bit into it.
‘I’ve got a craving for plums,’ she said, in half a mind to explain why. ‘Had you noticed?’
‘God! How can you eat plums when there’s bacon and eggs and tomatoes on the table?’ He reached over and spiked the bacon that remained on her plate with his own fork. ‘I’ll finish yours as well, then.’
But both her courage and the opportunity evaporated in that instant. She would tell him some other time; when she could prepare properly what she wanted to say. There seemed little point in spoiling what, for him, was going to be a wonderful day.
‘So how are we getting to this seaside cottage of Neville’s?’ she enquired.
‘By train, I expect. How else?’
‘Neville not offered to take us?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t expect it, love. He has enough to do.’
‘Yes, I expect he has.’ She bit into another plum voraciously. ‘Will…I…I might take Wednesday afternoon off from work.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think I ought to visit Clara Maitland. She’ll be beside herself to learn that you’re the missing twin. I bet she won’t believe it. I bet she won’t believe how I failed to spot the similarity between you and Neville.’
‘His face was hidden by his beard, Henzey. You could be forgiven.’
She could be forgiven! If only. If only she could be forgiven for carrying Neville’s child she might even be tempted to confess it now. But that would take a lot more courage than she could muster; immeasurably more. It was impossible to tell him. Will was on the threshold of a dream. His hard work and engineering endeavours were about to pay off beyond his wildest imaginings. He was about to embark on a career that would change and better their lives inestimably. He had been offered the place that was rightfully his as a member of one of the most respected famil
ies in the city. She could hardly rob him of such glory. Besides, he needed her; more than ever now. In his eyes she was as much a part of it as he, and she knew it. Under no circumstances could she undermine it by telling him she was carrying his brother’s child; that Neville had been sneaking into their bed at night while he was working shifts. It would destroy him and his new-found success, alienate him from his newly discovered kin and, no doubt, end their marriage.
‘Maybe I should go with you,’ he said. ‘I daresay Clara and her mother would like to meet me. It would be like adding the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle.’
‘There’s no need yet.’ The truth was, she didn’t want him to accompany her. She needed to talk to Clara alone. Clara had always been her mentor when they worked together at George Mason’s. Now she had the urgent need to talk to her again. Clara was worldly. Henzey could confide in her. Clara knew the whole situation, and what Henzey wanted to tell her was only part of the same continuing story of Bessie Hipkiss. Only Clara would have the answers. ‘I’ll take you to meet them another time, Will,’ she said. ‘In any case, it would probably be more appropriate if you went with Neville.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ he agreed. ‘Good idea.’
Over the next few days Henzey’s thoughts wavered between thankfulness that she was pregnant, and regret, to thankfulness again. She was so absorbed with her predicament and so profoundly conscience-stricken, that she really did not feel like celebrating Will’s appointment with the same exuberance as he. He was high on a cloud, whereas she was squelching through a quagmire. Only when she had sorted out in her own mind what she should do would she feel more settled. Whatever happened, she must protect Will. He must not lose what he had just been accorded.
So on Wednesday afternoon she walked to Monument Road and caught a tram that would take her via Smethwick and Oldbury to Dudley town and Clara’s home. As she travelled through Smethwick’s bustling town centre, between rows of shops with their awnings lowered, through Oldbury and Tividale and eternal acres of factories and tall chimneys, it struck her that Bessie Hipkiss might have travelled this very route, seeking Theo Newton after having been turned away by Will’s and Neville’s father. What a strange coincidence that Henzey herself was seeking moral support from Theo’s kin, also carrying a bastard Worthington child.