The Shadow of the Sycamores Page 27

  ‘I was going to wait until we were alone properly but I love you so much I can’t wait. Samara, will you marry me? Not straight away, of course.’ He stopped and fished in the breast pocket of his khaki tunic, bringing out a small leather-covered box. ‘We can be engaged. Look, I bought this in Edinburgh. I hope it fits but, if it doesn’t, any jeweller would alter it.’

  He lifted her left hand and slipped it easily on to her finger, looking at her in triumph that he had got the size right. If they had not been in a place where someone could come along at any minute, it is doubtful if he could have kept the promise he had made to her father several weeks before. His voice was hoarse and trembling when he murmured, ‘This means that we are bound to each other for life now, my dearest.’

  ‘I’ve felt bound to you since the day we met,’ she admitted shyly.

  Her parents were delighted to hear their news. ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t use up the drink that was left over at New Year,’ Henry crowed. ‘It would have been awful if we hadn’t been able to celebrate your engagement. Now, when is the happy day to be?’

  Mara turned expectantly to her fiancé, her happy smile fading when he said sadly, ‘I … think we should wait until … this war’s over. I might be … I might not come back and … I don’t want you ruining your life.’

  Fay stepped in quickly. ‘It’s time we made ourselves scarce, Henry.’ She grabbed his arm and almost pulled him through to the kitchen, adding, to save him protesting, ‘It’s up to them, dear. They have to come to their own decision.’

  As Mara could see, Leo had already made his decision, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying to talk him out of it. ‘I would far rather we didn’t wait.’

  ‘I hoped you would understand how I felt,’ he whispered, miserably. ‘I don’t want to tie you to a long life as a widow.’

  ‘But nothing’s going to happen to you,’ she said, sharply, the very thought of it making her feel sick. ‘I’ll pray for you every night you’re away from me – God won’t ignore me.’ Her voice broke suddenly. ‘And don’t you … go volunteering for … anything dangerous. Think of me first.’

  Jumping up, he crossed the fireplace and pulled her to her feet. ‘I’ll always be thinking of you, my own darling Samara, always, always, but I could not live with myself if I did anything cowardly. I promise not to take any stupid risks, but I have sworn to fight for my country and that is what I have to do – without having to worry about a wife at home, and perhaps a child who would be fatherless if I allowed my personal worries to mar my judgement. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘I love you,’ Mara said simply. ‘That’s all I can see.’

  ‘And I love you, with every part of me, you know that, but … my darling Samara, don’t make it more difficult for me. When I have to go, let it be without any restraint between us.’

  She said nothing more, letting his arms enfold her and trying not to think that there might come a time when those strong arms would no longer be there for her.

  Some ten minutes later, a gentle knock at the door made them step apart and Fay could tell that Leo’s decision had won the day, although Mara’s acceptance of it had probably not been given freely.

  William Henry Rae’s birth had been even more of an ordeal than Tina Paul had expected. Anna’s labour had lasted for almost forty-eight hours, her screams increasing in volume and intensity as the clocks ticked on. By the time the infant came into the world, it was not only Anna who seemed to have lost her reason. Jerry, naturally, was in a state of manic disbelief when he learned that he had a son. Was it possible in the short time since he had …? This, however, did not dim his joy at being a father.

  Tina, on the other hand, could feel no joy. Something had happened during the birth that had raised a horrible suspicion in her mind and she needed peace to think it over, to consider the implications and, hopefully, dispel the hovering unease. Anna was a demanding patient, however, and for the first week, Tina was at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day.

  The demands gradually lessened until, at last, Jerry said that he should manage to cope with his wife to let the nurse have a whole night off. Exhausted though she was, Tina found that she still could not sleep – her mind was too active, too anxious to get at the truth.

  Only a month after he went back off leave, Leo’s regiment was sent overseas and, from then on, his letters were written at any odd time, whenever he had a moment, and he deliberately kept them light-hearted. He could not tell Samara of the terrible conditions the British Tommies’ had to endure in the water-logged dug-outs, with the constant gun and shell fire giving them little chance to wash, eat or sleep. Their uniforms were caked with mud, their boots either soaking wet or rock-hard, their faces dark with stubble, their skins itching with ingrained dirt.

  No, he wrote of imagined birds singing on verdant trees and lovely, peaceful countryside, when the reality was nothing but devastation as far as the eye could see. He wrote of the camaraderie amongst the men, of evenings spent singing and joking, when, in fact, his companions were different each night, the death toll so high that those left alive were mixed together regardless of regiment or nationality. At times, they were shoulder-to-shoulder with Canadians and the next day it could be New Zealanders or Australians – the Anzacs had taken a terrible punishing too.

  He never mentioned the skirmishes, the retreats that usually followed any slight advances gained. He ignored the fierce fighting, the long marches from one battleground to the next, either forwards or backwards, as in the case of Ypres, having to return to recapture a town. He avoided telling her of the comrades he had seen blown to smithereens, of passing dozens of bodies as they trudged, footsore, to engage the enemy again, and nor did he mention the long straggling lines of refugees fleeing from their destroyed homes.

  Fortunately, there were some humorous incidents to relate, like the time a corporal was taking a drink from a fast-flowing river and his dentures fell out. He was dubbed ‘Gummy’ after that. The fact that the poor man had been killed about three days later was irrelevant, unnecessary to repeat. Then there was the little pug that had attached itself to the marching column one day and remained with it for some days. Nobody knew what had happened to it next but Leo left that out.

  There were long stretches of time, naturally, when there was no chance to write, not even a short scribble, and he explained these as ‘being on the move’, leaving Mara to suppose they were being transported by lorries or trucks, instead of Shanks’s pony. His powers of prevarication were so strong now that he sometimes thought he should take up writing as a career if he came through the war. If he came through – that was the crux of the matter. On his down days, he was sure that he would not but, during his very rare up days, he would picture holding Samara in his arms again, imagine them standing in front of the altar.

  ‘Do you promise to love, honour and obey her?’

  ‘I do. By God, I do! That’s what I’m fighting for.’

  He had enlisted to fight for his country but his mind was set on just one thing now – to survive. Dear God, all he wanted was to get back to his fiancée, to love her, to make her his wife. When next he was back on furlough, he wouldn’t hesitate. He would marry her by special licence. They wouldn’t want any fuss, no big spread, no church ceremony, just the two of them and the two witnesses they would need.

  Mara had been worrying about, and praying for, Leo’s safety. Newspaper reports were not encouraging and the soldiers, who had been home on leave from France, spoke of terrible slaughter but Leo’s letters were always so cheery. He was lucky to be in a place not too badly affected by the war. Maybe it was her prayers that had kept him out of the actual fighting so she decided she would pray even harder now.

  She hadn’t had a letter for a good while yet it didn’t really bother her. His battalion would be on the move again. They were probably well behind the front line, attending to things that had to be attended to. Some men had to do the mopping up and Leo was lucky to be one of
them.

  ‘Mara hasn’t had a letter for nearly five weeks now,’ Fay observed one night, ‘but she doesn’t seem to be upset about it.’

  ‘She’s likely putting a face on it.’ Henry shifted slightly. His left hip had been giving him a wee bit of bother this week. ‘She surprises me, though. I’d have thought she’d be worried sick.’

  ‘She says she prays for him so I suppose it’s good that she has faith in her prayers. I do my bit and pray for him too – and for all the poor men away from their families.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a trying time, right enough. There’s been a lot of sore hearts already … and likely a lot more before this war is finished.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be any sign of it finishing and it’s two years already.’

  ‘Aye and maybe two years more. Now, do you think we can go to sleep? I’ve to get up in the morning, remember.’

  Charles Moonie had been very hurt that Anna had not contacted him before she got married. He just could not understand what had happened. It had turned out that she had been pregnant but the child had been born not much more than two months after the wedding. Of course, she had been keeping company with Jerry Rae for about two months before that but they had been so young, so quiet and reserved that rape seemed unlikely and he doubted if they had fornicated at all, during that time, willingly or otherwise. In any case, the actual deed must have been done months before she started seeing Jerry.

  Charles’s heart missed a beat. He had … not exactly raped Anna but he had fornicated with her – and she had been unwilling. He had not planned it for he had loved her deeply, still did, but his body had let him down. Like in the old days. Just being close to a girl had made him lust after her and most of the time he hadn’t even attempted to deny that lust. At various times before her death, his mother had been forced to pay off at least three girls he had impregnated but it was his Aunt Maggie who had pulled the plug on him. The father of this girl – he couldn’t recall her name or even what she looked like for she had meant nothing to him – had come to the house demanding that he marry his daughter but they were common, working-class people and Aunt Maggie had been only too pleased to give them cash to be rid of them.

  Unfortunately for him, she had also been only too pleased to commit him to this place. There had been nobody to kindle his lust, not the least little temptation … until Anna Cairns put in her appearance.

  There was no doubt about it. It was he who had fathered Anna’s child, not Jerry Rae.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Henry was devastated when Willie came one morning to tell them that Janet had passed away peacefully in her sleep. ‘I canna stop,’ Willie went on. ‘I’m on my road to tell Abby and Pogie.’

  Henry turned to his wife when his father went out. ‘You’ll maybe not believe this, my Fairy Fay,’ he said, softly, ‘but I loved that woman like a mother.’

  ‘I know, my dear, I know.’ She, too, had loved Janet – perhaps not as much as she loved her own mother, who had died some years earlier, but pretty close to it. ‘It’s not my turn to write to Nora but I think I should. I’m sure they’d want to know … after what they did for her.’ She should have known that it was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘I’ll never forgive myself,’ Henry muttered, his voice breaking. ‘If only I’d noticed we hadn’t heard from her for weeks, I could have prevented …’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, my poor Tchouki. Even if you’d gone to see her, that devil Ledingham would have fooled you into thinking she was all right.’

  ‘But she’d have told me the truth. I’d have seen for myself …’

  ‘He wouldn’t have let you see her, and, anyway, he had frightened her out of her wits. She’d have been too scared to say anything.’

  ‘I’d have known, though.’

  Understanding that nothing would make him feel any different, she said, ‘I’d better not write till we hear when Pogie can do the funeral. Max and Nora might want to come.’

  ‘Nothing would have kept Max away,’ Nora Dalgarno told Fay on the morning of the funeral, ‘though he’s worried sick about his job just now. His boss is seriously ill, not expected to live long, and his nephew, the only heir, says he’s not sure if he’ll keep on the estate or sell up. I told Max he’d better not ask the day off. If he makes a wrong impression on the man now, he could lose his job whichever way the wind blows and we’d have nowhere to go …’

  ‘But Max is a good, reliable chauffeur,’ Fay pointed out. ‘I’m sure he’d easily get another job. In any case, maybe the nephew won’t sell the estate after all. By the way, how did you travel up? Max didn’t get the loan of a car?’

  ‘There’s only one car now and Max’s boss is a cripple, so he hired a man to drive him for the day and we came on the train. The journey wasn’t that bad but we’d have been quicker if we could have come by road.’

  Giving a quick glance at the clock on the mantelpiece, Fay stood up. ‘I made a pot of broth yesterday so I’d better put it on to heat. The men should be back soon if they don’t want to be late for the funeral.’

  Henry and Max, uncomfortable in their best suits and the collars their wives had starched as stiff as boards, were on their way back from their walk. They had not seen each other for a few years and, because of the circumstances, it had been quite an emotional reunion. Childhood memories flooded back, youthful exploits were smiled over and their fellow workers at The Sycamores discussed. They recalled Janet’s many kindnesses to them but not one word was said about her terrifying experience at the hands of the man she had married in all good faith. They knew that, once they started down that path, they were liable to lose control and, on this the last day they could show their respect and love for her, they had to have full command of their senses.

  As it turned out, when the pitifully few mourners were sitting at the funeral tea, this was the first subject to arise. Fay did her best to divert Willie when he brought it up, then she remembered that, apart from Max and Nora, Henry and herself, the others had only got to know Janet since she had been taken to Ardbirtle. This resurrection of the tragic incident was too much for the two youngest men who began to weep openly. But Pogie, almost ten years older and well versed in preventing grief from getting out of hand, steered the conversation round to some more recent memories of the deceased woman, who had devoted much of her life at Oak Cottage to helping the Rae family as a whole.

  The ordeal, thankfully, did not last too long. Max and Nora had to catch the train to Aberdeen, in time to get the last connection that would take them to Cove.

  For some time after the last of the mourners had left, Willie and Nessie sat silently by the fire. Both in their eighty-first year, the commotion of so many people in the house at one time and the strain of trying to appear normal under anything but normal circumstances, had proved too much for them. At last, Nessie gave voice to what she had been thinking. ‘I wonder which of us’ll be next to go?’

  ‘Losh sakes, woman!’ her husband exploded. ‘Stop being morbid.’

  ‘It’s not morbid, Willie, it’s just facing facts. I often wondered, since Janet came here, if you thought more of her than me.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’

  ‘I watched you sometimes and it looked like you could tell her things you never told me. Like she was your wife and I was the incomer.’

  ‘Ach, that’s daft.’ Willie fell silent again, needing time to consider it and, assuming that he didn’t intend to discuss it, Nessie rose with the intention of making another pot of tea. She was quite hurt that he hadn’t reassured her for it was horrible to think she’d been playing second fiddle to Janet all these years.

  While she was on her feet, however, she spotted two bottles still sitting on the dresser – whisky for the men and port for the women – with very little in either.

  In a few seconds, she handed her husband a half full tot glass of whisky – all that was left – and sat down with what had been in the bottle of port – somewh
at more than half a much bigger glass – tipping it to her lips like a seasoned toper. Willie was astonished. He had never once seen Nessie take strong drink of any kind before. She hadn’t even taken one when everybody else was knocking them back earlier on.

  ‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ she exclaimed as she laid down her empty glass, mistaking his expression for disapproval. ‘I needed something stronger than tea!’

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Look, lass, I’ll be honest wi’ you.’

  ‘I wish you would.’

  Her low voice, with a slight catch in it, made him wish he had spoken about this years ago. The thing was he just hadn’t thought it was necessary. ‘It was you that suggested we should bring her here in the first place, if you mind? I wasna that keen on having a stranger in the house, especially another female. I’ve ken’t some women that nag at a man every hour of the day – you included, for a good few year.’ He gave a weak smile, then carried on, ‘But you changed, thank the Lord, and you couldna have been a better wife to me. But Janet was an unknown quantity that first day.’

  He rose to add some water to his tiny glass to eke out the liquor, then sat down again, took a dainty sip and visibly relaxed. ‘That’s better! A man needs a bit o’ Dutch courage at times. Well, now, I’ll get back to what I was saying – though it’s about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. At first, although I was heart sorry for Janet, I was a bit scared o’ her. I couldna think what to say to her but, once I got to ken her better, I could see she was different from the other women I’ve come in contact wi’. She never said a thing unless we asked her opinion first and she never criticised me – or you, for that matter. And, when she was fit enough, she helped you in the house as much as she could and she started the bakery and all. Not only that, she helped Abby and Fay wi’ their bairns and … Oh, Nessie, I can see by your face I’m going at this all wrong.’