Guarded Passions Page 2

  ‘Then prove it!’ Helen exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Go to university and, at the end of that time, if you both feel the same way about each other, then you can marry … with my blessing.’

  ‘It’s no good, Mrs Woodley. Our minds are made up,’ Hugh said firmly. ‘We intend to marry right away. I want Ruth to come with me when I’m posted to Northern Ireland.’

  ‘When you are what!’

  Ashen-faced, Helen rose from her chair and stared at Hugh. ‘No!’ Her voice cut like a lash. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. You’re the first man she’s been out with! It’s sheer infatuation on her part. In three months’ time she’ll have forgotten what you even look like,’ she added relentlessly.

  She felt full of remorse as she saw Ruth’s eyes brim with tears and her mouth begin to quiver. She longed to hold her close, to comfort and warn her – she had long experience of Army life and she didn’t want Ruth to go through the agonies of loneliness and uncertainty that she had endured.

  ‘There’s no need to raise your voice or make a scene,’ Ruth told her coldly. ‘You can’t stop me from getting married. I am eighteen, you know!’

  ‘And you’re going to university.’

  ‘No, Mum! I only agreed to go because I wanted to get out of this dead-and-alive hole. Don’t you understand? I feel trapped. I need to meet people of my own age, see some life, and have fun.’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘It was the only way I could find out if others think like I do and want to sit up all night drinking coffee and talking non-stop about the things they believe in and care about. I want to be able to do crazy things, like drive to the beach for a midnight swim without people raising their eyebrows, or trying to stop me.’

  ‘Ruth! Listen to me …’

  ‘No, Mum … you listen. Life was great when we lived in the barracks. There was always something happening, like discos and parties. There’s not even a youth club in this dump.’ She flung her arms wide. ‘I want to live again!’

  ‘Ruth, stop it!’

  ‘You don’t understand Mum, do you? It’s all right for you, you don’t need excitement. You don’t even like music. Look at the fuss you make when Mark has his stereo on.’

  ‘Leave me out of your row, I can fight my own battles.’

  Ruth and Helen both swung round at the sound of Mark’s voice. He was standing in the doorway, frowning angrily.

  ‘But she doesn’t understand, does she?’ Ruth yelled. ‘She always makes you turn it down. Neither of us ever has the guts to stand up to her. Look how she creates if you want to go into Winton to a football match. And so you stay at home. You’ve got no real friends. You spend all your time working on the farm.’

  ‘Just shut up, Ruth,’ Mark growled. ‘If I don’t mind, then why should you care?’

  ‘That’s just the point, Mark, you ought to care. You have an even worse life than I do. You haven’t made any friends at all since we came to live in this dump. Don’t forget we only moved here because Mum wanted to. She was all right … she had Donald …’

  ‘Shut it, Ruth! You’ve said enough.’

  ‘In fact, more than enough,’ Helen snapped, her cheeks flushed with anger. ‘I think it might be a good idea if you went to your room and stayed there until you’re ready to apologise.’

  ‘There you go again, treating me as if I’m a child. I’m a woman, Mum. I’m going to get married … that’s final.’

  ‘If you do marry this man it won’t be with my blessing,’ Helen shouted. ‘I won’t encourage you to throw your life away. And as for you,’ she exclaimed bitterly, turning on Hugh, ‘go! Get out of my house! I never want to see you again.’

  ‘How can you talk like that, Mrs Woodley?’ Hugh said quietly. ‘I understand from Ruth that you were married at eighteen. You didn’t throw your life away, did you?’

  For a moment Hugh’s dark eyes held hers in an hypnotic stare, as if he could read the secrets in her very soul. Then the muscles round his mouth tightened and, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, he moved towards the door.

  ‘No!’ With a startled cry, Ruth grabbed his arm. ‘If Hugh goes, I shall go with him,’ she sobbed.

  Helen knew from the expression on her daughter’s face that she meant it. She glanced quickly at Hugh, expecting to see triumph in his eyes. But he wasn’t even looking at her. His arm was encircling Ruth, holding her close. And the tender devotion on his face tugged at Helen’s heart.

  As Hugh’s dark head bent slowly, almost reverently, until his lips gently touched Ruth’s, Helen turned away, tears in her eyes. She was defeated and she knew it.

  Helen remained downstairs late into the night knowing it would be impossible to sleep. It was as if someone had turned the clock back … back to 1943 when she had been eighteen and just as adamant as Ruth about marrying the handsome soldier who had captured her heart.

  Memories of her life with Adam came flooding back, some joyous, some sad. There were the long hours of loneliness, when they’d been separated, for weeks or even months. There were also the treasured moments of passion, when need and desire had made their love a burning fever, almost too wonderful to endure.

  Chapter 2

  As the morning sun sliced the blue-and-white floral curtains and cast dancing shadows on the peach-coloured velvet headboard, Helen Price opened her eyes, looked around her pretty bedroom and sighed blissfully.

  The day that had been ringed in red on her calendar for so many months had dawned at last and she was home. Her school-days were finally over. She had finished with crowded, noisy dormitories, living by the bell, lessons and compulsory games.

  She stretched lazily, before checking the time on her bedside clock. Not that it mattered, she reminded herself; she could lie in bed until mid-morning if she wanted to. Exams were over, school was over, and the future stretched ahead like an endless reel of blank paper. She smiled to herself, wondering if Miss Butts, her former English teacher, would have approved of such a simile. It seemed strange to think she would probably never see her again, or any of the girls she’d lived and studied with for seven years. Most of them were going straight into the Forces. In fact, she seemed to be the only one not exchanging her gymslip for a uniform, she thought, wistfully.

  The last time she had been at home she’d tried to persuade her parents to let her join up, but neither of them would even consider the idea.

  ‘Don’t you think this family’s done enough to help the war effort?’ her father had snapped. ‘My chauffeur’s in the RAF, the gardener’s in the Navy, our cook’s working in a munitions factory, and even the housemaid has joined the WRNS. Your mother’s done more than her share of war work as well. When she was Billeting Officer she sorted out all the evacuees sent down here from London and now she’s so involved with Red Cross work that I’m left with no help at all in the surgery. And you’re talking about volunteering! Well, you can forget it. University for you, my girl.’

  Helen stretched again. University was months away; there was still time to try and make them change their minds.

  She heard her father unlock the door to the surgery, which had been built onto the side of their rambling, old stone house. Even the war hadn’t managed to interfere with his strict routine, she thought, as she threw back the bedclothes and padded over to the window. Leaning out, she noticed how overgrown the garden looked. Before their gardener had gone into the Navy, the lawn had always been as smooth as a bowling-green and the flower beds a riot of colour. Now, the borders were full of weeds and even the grass needed cutting.

  Jimmy will have a fit when he comes on leave, she thought, as she pulled on a pink linen skirt and hunted for a blouse to wear with it.

  The house had the same neglected air. It was clean and tidy, but there were no welcoming bowls of flowers anywhere and no savoury smells coming from the kitchen.

  As she rinsed her breakfast dishes, Helen saw her father hurrying towards the garage.

  ‘You’ve finished surgery early, Dad,’ she called through the open kitch
en window. ‘Do you want a coffee before you start your rounds?’

  Dr Price stopped. A tall, spare man, he was neatly dressed in a dark grey suit, offset by a crisp, white shirt and striped blue and grey tie. As he passed a long, thin hand over his greying hair, he stared at her in surprise from over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses.

  ‘I’d quite forgotten you were at home, Helen. Your mother has just telephoned from Bulpitts for this medicine,’ he said, holding out a wrapped bottle. ‘Could you take it along to her?’

  ‘Yes, of course I can, but who’s ill?’ she asked in alarm. Bulpitts was owned by the Bradys who were family friends. Donald and Isabel, though a few years older than Helen, were almost like her brother and sister.

  ‘Didn’t you know, they’ve turned the place into a military hospital?’ Dr Price said in surprise. ‘Your mother has taken on the job of Matron. I hope it’s only going to be temporary,’ he added in a worried voice, ‘she has enough to do here with all the servants gone.’

  Sturbury has certainly changed since the war, Helen mused as she walked past the Post Office and General Shop. Instead of their usual colourful displays, the windows were full of official-looking notices about ration books, clothing coupons and blackout regulations.

  Since Sturbury was surrounded by farms, it was hard to believe that the people living there had to put up with shortages of dairy foods and meat, just the same as those who lived in towns.

  Even the gardens of the grey stone cottages she passed, which should have been a riot of colourful sweet-smelling flowers at this time of the year, were either neglected or turned over to vegetables.

  Up until now the war hadn’t really affected her life very much. She was occasionally shocked by what she read in the newspapers about bombing raids and the injured, but she hadn’t actually come face to face with any suffering. The nearest bombs had been in Bristol, thirty miles away.

  In fact, until now, the only disturbances they’d known in Sturbury had been the arrival of the evacuees, and being asked to donate their iron gates and railings to help in the war effort. Now, it seemed to be catching up with them.

  At St Margaret’s she’d grumbled along with all the other girls if butter was in short supply and when, twice a week, on meatless days, they were served Woolton Pie, a concoction of vegetables topped by a fatless pastry crust that tasted like cardboard. That, and being expected to economise on hot water and remember about blackout regulations, had been all the discomforts she’d experienced.

  As she reached Bulpitts, it seemed incongruous to see ambulances and army vehicles, all camouflaged with mottled green markings, parked on the wide, gravel drive. At the front door of the gracious old Georgian building, an armed soldier challenged her to stop.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she told him, ‘I’ve come to deliver some medicine.’

  ‘May I see your identity card?’

  ‘I’m not carrying it,’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Wait here. You’ll need an escort.’

  ‘You needn’t bother. I know my way around this house blindfold,’ she announced airily.

  ‘Sorry. We have our orders,’ he told her in clipped tones. ‘Please follow me.’

  He escorted her to the Guard Room, where the sergeant in charge seemed equally suspicious even though she showed him the medicine. He insisted on accompanying her to one of the large front bedrooms to find her mother.

  Helen couldn’t believe her eyes when she went into the room that had been Isabel’s. The lace drapes had all been replaced by heavy blackout curtains. All the carved oak bedroom furniture, even the canopied four-poster bed, had gone and in their place were eight narrow, iron bedsteads. Mrs Price, in a blue print dress covered by a starched white apron, a red cross emblazoned on the front, was leaning over one of the beds, dressing a young soldier’s leg wound.

  ‘I’ll be back in a second,’ she said, taking the medicine from Helen. ‘Find someone to talk to – they all need cheering up.’

  Shyly, Helen stood in the middle of the room, conscious that eight pairs of eyes were watching her. Colour rushed to her cheeks as several low whistles reached her ears, and someone called out theatrically, ‘Water! Water!’

  ‘Why don’t you start with me?’ a voice said from the bed nearest to her, and a pair of vivid blue eyes, under a thatch of thick dark hair, met hers challengingly.

  For a moment she was tongue-tied as she studied the long, broad-shouldered figure lying on top of the bedcovers. Then, with a cautious grin, she shook her head. ‘You don’t look ill to me,’ she told him.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ he exclaimed in mock dismay. With an exaggerated groan he made a pretence of lifting his left arm, which was encased in a plaster cast, then letting it fall back heavily onto the bed. Before Helen could reply, her mother had returned.

  ‘Come along, dear, and have a look around. Poor Donald won’t know the place when he comes home.’

  Helen felt a mounting mixture of sadness and exhilaration as she followed her mother through the various rooms and saw all the changes that had been made. The sight of so many young soldiers lying there, some heavily bandaged, brought home to her the reality of the war.

  ‘Isabel was horrified when she saw it all,’ Mrs Price said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘She looked very smart in her WAAF uniform. That greyish-blue colour suited her. She came to collect some of her personal belongings before everything went into store. She says that from now on she’ll spend any leave she gets in London.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘With her parents. Colonel Brady is something at the War Office,’ her mother told her briskly. ‘He and Margaret have a flat in London. She decided that if he was going to be at the heart of things then she wanted to be there as well.’

  ‘And Donald?’

  ‘I’m not too sure what he’s going to do. We’ve stored his things up in one of the attics.’

  As they reached the hallway, Mrs Price looked at her watch. ‘I must get back to the wards. Now, what are you going to do for the rest of the day? You’ll have to see to your own lunch, I’m afraid. I don’t finish work here until mid-afternoon.’

  ‘I haven’t really made any plans. I might go and see Aunt Julia.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if you’ll find her at home. She’s very involved with civil defence these days and always seems to be out organising ARP wardens and so on.’

  ‘Whatever for? There haven’t been any bombs near here,’ Helen said in surprise.

  ‘Not yet, but you never can tell. Jerry seems to be coming further and further inland these days. If he does strike then we want to be ready for him. The Civil Defence help with ambulances, too, so it’s very useful work your Aunt Julia is doing.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it is,’ Helen said hastily. ‘I think I’d better go,’ she said, grinning, ‘before you find work for my idle hands.’ In her starched Red Cross uniform her mother seemed so different, so full of her own importance. It was almost as if she was actually enjoying the war and the role she was playing.

  ‘We could certainly do with some extra help,’ her mother agreed. ‘Still,’ she added, giving Helen a gentle push, ‘you run along and enjoy yourself. When we know which university you’ll be going to we can decide how you fill in your time until the new term begins.’

  Out of curiosity, and because she needed time to think, Helen wandered around the gardens at Bulpitts. She was dismayed to find that the once sweeping green lawns had been rutted by army lorries and the flower-beds had all been ploughed up and planted with potatoes and cabbages.

  Even the box hedges that lined the path leading to the water-gardens were ragged and overgrown. And, when she reached the ponds, she found they had been cleared of lilies and turned over to watercress. The pagoda summerhouse, where in the past they had taken afternoon tea, was now being used as a storehouse for the flat, wide baskets used to harvest the watercress.

  Despondently, she made her way to the Silent Pool. The smallest of the ponds,
it was shaded by a willow tree and hidden away in the far corner of the gardens. When she and Donald had been quite small, Isabel had told them a terrifying story about a child that had drowned there and how its ghost still haunted the spot.

  After Isabel had gone away to boarding school, the Silent Pool no longer held any terrors for them, and the stories they built around it were much more romantic. Donald claimed there was an old legend that said if you stood at the side of the Silent Pool, closed your eyes and concentrated hard, when you opened your eyes again you would see the face of the one you were to marry, reflected beside your own in the water. It was a game they often played, and always it was each other’s face they saw when they gazed down into the mysterious dark depths.

  Now, as she walked towards the pool, through the tangle of weeds and overgrown grass, Helen felt the old compelling urge to ‘test the magic’. The willow fronds swept down over the water, almost completely cutting out the sunlight, obscuring the brilliant July day and making it shadowy and mysterious. She shut her eyes as she counted to a hundred. Then she opened them and stared down into the mirrored surface of the dark pool.

  She saw the smooth oval of her own face, framed by long hair that was brushed back from her brow and spread like a fan over her shoulders. As she smiled at her reflection she was startled to see a man’s face reflected beside her own. It wasn’t Donald’s round, full face, but one that was strong and lean and topped by a shock of close-cropped hair.

  She turned quickly, then jumped as she saw the khaki-clad figure standing next to her.

  ‘Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘Are you following me?’ she asked sharply, recognising the young soldier who had spoken to her in the ward.

  ‘Of course!’

  His answer took her by surprise. She studied his tall, lithe figure, the broad shoulders and slim, tapering waist. Standing there in the shadows, with the sun behind him, he looked like the statue of a Greek god. His disarming smile, revealing strong, even teeth, made it difficult for her to remain aloof.