The Hidden Years

‘Not to mention his father’s title complementing your money,’ she had snapped back.

‘In my view you’re still far too young for marriage, Sage,’ was all her mother had said.

‘In your view, but not in the law’s…which is of course why Scott’s father had him dragged back to Australia… We love each other… Can’t you see…? Don’t you understand…?’

‘You’re nineteen, Sage—you might think you love Scott now, but in ten years’ time, in five years’ time you’ll be a different person. You’re an intelligent girl… You know what the odds are against marrying at your age and having that marriage last.’

‘You married at eighteen…’

‘That was different… There was the war…’

‘Which was virtually over when you married Father… Oh, what’s the use—you’re determined to keep us apart, you and Scott’s father. I hate you, I hate you both,’ she had finished childishly, racing upstairs to collapse in tears of anger and impotent and helpless emotion.

No, Scott might not have been able to stop his father taking him back home, but later…later, surely, he could have got in touch with her…come back for her…?

Now for the first time she was confronting a truth she had sought desperately and successfully to avoid for a long time.

If Scott had loved her, loved her with the intensity and passion she had felt for him, he would have found a way of coming back to her.

Never mind that he was his father’s only child…never mind the fact that he had been brought up from birth in the knowledge that one day he would be solely responsible for the vast sheep station owned and run by his father, and for all the complex financial investments that had stemmed from the profits made from those sheep. Never mind the fact that he had always known that it was his father’s dearest wish that he would marry the daughter of a neighbouring station owner, thus combining the two vast tracts of land. Never mind the fact that until he’d met her, Sage, he had been quite content with this future. Never mind anything that had stood between them. He had told her he loved her and he had meant it, she knew that. He had loved her as she loved him. He had wanted to marry her, to spend the rest of his life with her.

Or had he…? Had he had a change of heart back there in Australia? Had he somehow stopped loving her, stopped wanting her, blocked her out of his mind, started hating her for what she had done? She shuddered, remembering how his father had refused to see her that night at the hospital, how he had also given instructions that she wasn’t to be allowed to see Scott. He had blamed her for the accident, she knew that, but surely Scott, Scott who had loved her, understood her, been a part of her almost, surely he could not have blamed her? Even though…even though she deserved to be blamed!

She knew he had married… Not the neighbour’s daughter, but someone equally suitable from his father’s point of view. The daughter of a wealthy Australian entrepreneur. She ought to have been his wife…the mother of his children. But she wasn’t, and until now she had blamed her mother and his father for that fact. Now, abruptly, she was being forced to recognise that Scott’s love might not have been the all-consuming, intensely passionate, unchangeable force that was her own.

After the nightmare she did not get back to sleep properly and she was awake at seven when Jenny knocked on her door and came in with a tray of tea, served, she noticed, on one of the pretty antique sets of breakfast boudoir china that her mother had collected over the years. When her friends expressed concern that she should actually use anything so valuable Liz always smiled and replied that the pleasure of using beautiful things far outweighed the small risk of their being damaged by such use.

Sage frowned as Jenny put the delicate hand-painted breakfast set on her bedside table, and then said abruptly, ‘Jenny, that Sèvres boudoir set my mother likes so much—I’d like to take it to the hospital with me… I think once she’s feeling a little better she’d appreciate having something so familiar.’

‘Yes. That particular set always has been her favourite. She used to say that that special first morning cup of tea always tasted even better when she drank it from the Sèvres.’

She used to say… Sage felt her stomach muscles clench anxiously. Unable to look at the housekeeper, she said huskily, ‘Has there…? Have the hospital…?’

‘No, nothing,’ Jenny quickly reassured her. ‘And as they always say, no news must be good news. Don’t you fret…if anyone could pull through that kind of accident it would be your mother. She’s such a strong person. Emotionally as well as physically…’

‘Yes, she is,’ Sage agreed. ‘But even the strongest among us have our vulnerabilities… Faye and Camilla, are they up yet?’

‘Camilla is; she’s gone out riding, she said she’d be back in time for breakfast. I’m just about to take Faye her tea. I don’t think she’ll have slept very well… These headaches she gets when she’s under pressure…’

Faye… Headaches… Sage frowned. No one had ever told her that Faye suffered bad headaches… But then, why should they? She had long ago opted out of the day-to-day life of the house and its occupants. Long, long ago made it plain that she was going to go her own way, and that that way was not broad enough to allow for any travelling companions.

It was a perfect late spring morning, with fragile wisps of mist masking the grass, and the promise of sunshine once it had cleared.

The telephone was ringing as Sage went downstairs. She picked up the receiver in the hall, and heard a woman whose name she did not recognise asking anxiously after her mother.

‘We heard about the accident last night, but, of course, we didn’t want to bother you then. And it’s very awkward, really. There’s this meeting tonight about the proposed new road. Your mother was going to chair it… I doubt that we’ll be able to get it cancelled, and there’s no one really who can take her place…’

The action committee Faye had told her about. Sage suppressed a sigh of irritation. Surely the woman realised that the last thing they wanted to concern themselves with right now was some proposed new road…? And then she checked. Her mother would have been concerned; her mother, whatever her anxiety, would, as she had always done, have looked beyond the immediate present to the future and would have seen that no matter how irritating, no matter how inconvenient, no matter how unimportant such a meeting might seem in the face of present happenings, there would come a time when it would be important, when it would matter, when she might wish that she had paid more attention.

‘Faye and I have already discussed the problem,’ she said now, suppressing her impatience. ‘She suggested that I might stand in for my mother, as a representative of the family and the interests of the mill. I believe my mother had files and reports on what is being planned. The meeting’s tonight, you say…? I should have read them by then…’

She could almost hear the other woman’s sigh of relief.

‘We hate bothering you about it at such a time, but your mother was insistent that we make our stance clear right from the beginning, that we fight them right from the start. The Ministry are sending down a representative to put their side of things, and the chairman of the contractors who’ll be doing the work will be there as well… If you’re sure it’s not going to be too much trouble, it would be wonderful if you could take your mother’s place.’

Sage could hear the relief in her voice and wondered a little wryly if her caller would continue to place such faith in her abilities to step into her mother’s shoes once they had met.

‘No trouble at all,’ she responded automatically, as she made a note of the exact time of the meeting and promised to be there fifteen minutes earlier so that she could meet the rest of the committee.

‘Was that the hospital?’ Faye asked anxiously, coming downstairs towards her. If anything her sister-in-law looked even more drawn this morning, Sage recognised, turning to answer her, and even more frail.

Why was it that when confronted with Faye’s ethereal, haunted delicacy she immediately felt the size of a carthorse and twice as robust? And, even worse, she felt rawly aware that as her mother’s daughter she ought to be the one who looked harrowed to the point of breakdown.

‘No, it was a Mrs Henderson; she’s on the committee for the protest against the new road. She was ringing about this evening’s meeting. It’s just as well you’d mentioned it to me, otherwise I shouldn’t have had a clue what she was talking about. I’ve arranged to be there fifteen minutes before the meeting starts. I’m afraid that means I’m going to have to spend the afternoon reading through Mother’s papers and files, which means that you’ll be left to field telephone calls and enquiries.

‘Jenny was telling me when she brought my tea that virtually half the village came round yesterday to ask how Mother is. If you’re finding all this a bit much, Faye, and you’d like to get away for a few days…’

Immediately Faye went so pale that Sage felt as though she’d threatened her in some way and not offered her an escape route from the pressure she was undoubtedly suffering. She was so sensitive that the constant enquiries about her mother’s health, the constant reminders of how slim her actual chances of full recovery were, were obviously proving too much for her.

‘Oh, no…I’d rather stay here…but if I’m in your way…’

‘In my way!’ Sage grimaced. ‘Faye, don’t be ridiculous, nor so self-effacing; this is your home far more than it has ever been mine. I’m the one who should be asking you that question. In fact I was going to ask if it would be too much of an imposition if I moved myself in here for the duration of Mother’s recovery. And, before you say anything, that means all the extra hassle of my clients telephoning here, and I’m afraid I’ll have to sort myself out a workroom of some sort. I can take some time off but…’

‘But if Liz does recover, it’s going to be a long, slow process,’ Faye finished bleakly for her.

‘Yes. I was thinking about that this morning. Last night, in the euphoria of knowing that she was at least alive, one tended to overlook the fact that being alive is a long way from being fit and healthy…’

‘I suppose deep down inside I wasn’t ready to acknowledge then that Liz might not recover. I’ve leaned on her for so long…’ Faye pulled a small face. ‘I wish I could be more like you—independent, self-sufficient… But realising how dangerously ill Liz is brought home to me how much I’ve come to rely on her…’

So that was the reason for her sister-in-law’s wan face—well, there was one issue on which she could reassure her right away, Sage decided, and said bluntly, ‘I can’t promise you that Mother will recover, Faye, but if you’re worrying about the practicalities of life… well, should the worst happen, then please don’t. Cottingdean will always be your home. Knowing my mother, she’ll have done the sensible thing that so few of us do and already drafted her will. I’m quite sure that in it she will have made it plain that Cottingdean will eventually belong to Camilla…’ She saw that Faye was going to object and stopped her. ‘No…please don’t think I should mind. I shouldn’t… If anything, I’m the one who is the intruder here, who doesn’t belong, and, please, if you’d rather I went back to London and left you to manage here without me, don’t be afraid to say so.’

‘That’s the last thing I want,’ Faye told her honestly. ‘I couldn’t possibly cope on my own, and as for this not being your home…’ She went a faint and pretty pink with indignation. ‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’

‘Is it?’ Sage asked her drily, and then concluded, ‘Heaven knows how long you’re going to have to put up with me here, but I want you to promise me that if there are any problems caused by my presence you’ll come right out and tell me. I’m not very good at being tactful, Faye, nor at reading subtle hints of displeasure. If I’m responsible for something happening that you don’t like, just tell me.’

‘I think Jenny’s the one you ought to be saying that to, not me.’ Faye smiled at her. ‘She’s the one who’s really in charge.’

Sage had turned to walk towards the small sunny breakfast-room where Jenny had said she would serve their breakfast, and, as Faye fell into step beside her, the latter asked hesitantly,

‘And Alexi—will he mind that you’ll be living here and not—?’

‘What Alexi minds or doesn’t mind no longer matters,’ Sage told her crisply. ‘And if he rings up and makes a nuisance of himself, Faye, just hang up on him. I’d planned to visit the hospital this morning and then I ought to call in at the office—there’ll be a few arrangements. I’ll have to have my calls and post transferred here… Would you and Camilla like to come to the hospital with me, or would you prefer to visit Mother on your own, now that the doctor says visits are allowable?’

‘No, we’ll come with you, if you’re sure that’s all right…’

They were in the breakfast-room now. It faced south and was decorated in warm shades of yellow with touches of fresh blue.

Outside, Jenny’s husband was already working in the garden. The breakfast-room had french windows which opened out on to a small private terrace with steps leading down to a smooth lawned walk flanked by double borders enclosed by clipped yew hedges that carried the eye down the length of the path to focus on the statue of Pan at the far end of the vista.