Читать книгу Josephine Cox Sunday Times Bestsellers Collection - Josephine Cox - Страница 33

WHILE LUCY SLEPT upstairs, Adam Chives sat by the fire in Knudsden House, his mind going back over the years, and his heart both proud and sad. ‘Barney and your mother lived in that cottage together for more than two years,’ he told Mary, while Ben listened. ‘The doctors had given him a year at the most, but Lucy brought him a degree of peace, and after a time they made a life together.’ He smiled wistfully at the memory, for he had loved Lucy as much as she loved Barney. ‘To this day, she has never stopped loving him.’

‘You were born out of that love, Mary.’ Lucy’s quiet voice filled the room. ‘You’re so much like your father. You have the same beautiful eyes and the same gentle ways.’

‘Lucy!’ Adam was horrified. ‘Dr Nolan said you were to stay in bed.’

‘Nonsense, I’m perfectly all right,’ she argued. ‘There is nothing wrong with me, and I’m far from in my dotage, for heaven’s sake! Doctors don’t know everything. I’ve simply been overdoing it, that’s all.’

Hobbling but determined, she came into the room where she stood beside Adam, her hand resting on his shoulder and her gaze bathing every inch of her daughter’s face. ‘Every time I look at you, I see Barney.’

Adam looked at Mary and he, too, saw Barney in her every feature – softer and more feminine, yes – but strong and handsome too.

‘I was there when you were born,’ Adam said fondly. ‘I waited in the sitting room with your father, while Dr Lucas was upstairs bringing you into the world. When he heard your first cry, Barney went up those stairs like he was born all over again. He took you in his arms and oh, he was such a proud, happy man.’

When Adam laid his hand over Lucy’s, she hardly noticed, though deep down she derived a measure of comfort from his touch.

Deeply moved by everything she had heard, Mary went to Lucy and taking her mother gently over to the armchair, she sat her down. ‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘I never dreamed that was the secret you kept from me all these years.’ She had learned more about her father and her own background in one evening, than in all the years she was growing up. There was so much to think about. The revelation that she had three half-siblings in America, plus the sorrowful knowledge that her half-brother Jamie had died before her, was a huge shock to her system, and she knew that it would take a long, long time to come to terms with everything she had learned tonight.

Lucy was glad that Adam had chosen to tell the truth. ‘It’s been such a burden all this time,’ she admitted now. ‘But I gave my promise, d’you see? I gave my promise and I could never break it.’

Adam reassured her. ‘You didn’t break it,’ he reminded her. ‘It was me who thought Mary should be told. I’ve always thought it was her right to know.’

Lucy smiled. ‘So you thought you’d tittle-tattle while I was laid up, did you?’

‘I’m not sorry the truth is out,’ he said stoutly. ‘I’m only sorry if I’ve upset you.’

Lucy sighed. ‘You did right, my old friend. You did right.’ She turned to address Ben, who had been mesmerised by the whole story. ‘What do you think of my darling Barney?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he was right in what he did?’

Lucy was testing him. In Ben she had seen something akin to Barney, but she needed reassuring.

Ben considered her question, and when he gave his answer, he gave it with a sense of wonder. ‘In all my life, I’ve never heard of such a man,’ he said. ‘What he did was incredible. For the sake of his loved ones, he belittled and punished himself beyond endurance. I understand now what the inscription means. “He made the greatest sacrifice of all.” ’

Lucy asked him another question. ‘In those circumstances, would you have done the same?’

Ben smiled inwardly. Already, because of what Adam had told of Lucy’s strength of character, and because he had witnessed it for himself from the moment they met, Ben knew he was being tested, and he suspected her view of him would hinge on the kind of answer he gave.

‘Well, young man?’ As was her way, Lucy grew impatient.

Ben considered the question again, and when he answered it was as straight an answer as he could give. ‘Any man would be prepared to do whatever was in his power to protect his loved ones,’ he told her, ‘but like a grain of sand or a drop of rain, each man is different. A man will be judged on his merit. Barney Davidson is the kind of man every other man would want to be, but I’m not Barney, nor could I ever be. All the same, I would hope that, given the same circumstances, I might find the courage and fortitude to do what he did. Other than that, I can’t say.’

There was a moment while they reflected on his words, before Mary asked of her mother, ‘What happened to my father? How did it end?’

Lucy gave a whimsical smile. ‘It ended the way we always thought it might end,’ she said. ‘It was the most beautiful summer’s evening. We were sitting in the garden watching the sun go down, when Barney turned to me and told me how much he had come to love me … but that he could never love me in the same way that he loved Vicky. She had been his life, while I had become his life, that’s what he said.’

Lucy thought about Barney’s words, just as she had done on that memorable night. ‘I often wondered about that,’ she said. ‘I thought it a strange thing for him to say, and for a time I couldn’t understand his meaning.’

Looking up at Mary, she took hold of her hand. ‘After a while, I did understand. What he meant was that he and Vicky had grown together, learned together and knew each other’s very thoughts …’

She paused. ‘With me it was different. When Barney and I met, I simply became part of the family that was already Barney’s; I was an outsider coming in. But then suddenly it was just the two of us, and we learned to know and love each other. Like Ben said just now, he could not be Barney … any more than I could be Vicky. We’re all different and we touch each other’s lives in different ways. But love is love, no matter which way you look at it.

‘Thank you,’ she said gravely, and he knew he had passed the test. ‘Love is love, and that’s what we had, me and Barney. We had such love to share, just talking and laughing and simply being together. And if I never have another day of contentment, I had more happiness in those years with Barney, than most women have in a lifetime.’

Suddenly, Lucy shivered. ‘I’m tired now, my darling,’ she told her daughter. ‘Take me back to my bed?’

Mary took her upstairs and when Lucy was made comfortable, the young woman asked, ‘Did you ever hear from Vicky, or the family?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘No, never.’ Fearing that Mary had too many questions to which she might not have the answers, Lucy told her, ‘For reasons I hope you now understand, Barney did not want them to know about you.’

‘So I have two brothers and a sister I may never see?’ Though Mary had been deeply touched by the story of her father, she felt cheated somehow, filled with all kinds of regrets, regrets that she had never known him, and regrets that she was never told the truth. But now she knew it all, and it was as though a cloud was lifted from over her head. But what of the rest of her family?

‘Will I ever meet them – Thomas and Ronnie, and my sister Susie?’

Lucy was not ready for this. ‘Leave me now, love,’ she said. ‘Let me sleep.’

Quietly, Mary left. Tomorrow, when her mother was rested, she would ask again. And she would keep on asking, until Lucy agreed to reunite her with the family she had never known.

It was much later that Adam tapped on Lucy’s bedroom door to check on her. Ben had gone home and Mary was in bed. Lucy herself was sitting up in bed, awake but at peace with herself.

‘Ben is so much like Barney,’ Lucy murmured. She had Barney strong in her mind tonight.

‘Tell me something,’ Adam asked. ‘Do you think you will ever contact Vicky?’

‘I made a promise never to tell them,’ she sighed. ‘You made that same promise.’

‘I know, and I’ve always regretted it. I kept it when Barney was alive, and I’ve kept it all these years. I didn’t even mention it when informing Mr Maitland of his death, as Barney requested in his last hours. But I’ve never felt comfortable about it, Lucy. I think they have a right to know why he did what he did, the same as Mary had a right to know. God only knows how they have suffered all these years.’

When she remained silent, he asked her again. ‘Will you tell them, Lucy? Will you contact Vicky?’

Unable to answer such a momentous question, Lucy thought fleetingly of her daughter and Ben, and her heart was glad. There was magic happening between those two.

‘I love you, Lucy.’ Adam’s voice was so close to her ear, she felt his warm breath against her skin.

‘I know.’ She turned to smile on him. ‘I’ve always known.’

‘You never said.’

‘Because there would have been no point and I might have hurt your feelings. You see, I didn’t love you back.’

‘Do you love me back now?’

‘I think so.’ She turned away. ‘You realise I could never love you in the same way I loved Barney?’

‘Will you marry me?’

‘We’re too long in the tooth for that nonsense,’ she laughed. But secretly she felt quite excited. She had had two children by two very different men – one full of darkness and one full of light – and yet had never been married. Maybe that was the next experience that Fate had in store for her.

For now, the moment passed and they were quiet again.

‘When you get in touch with Vicky,’ Adam persisted, ‘will you tell her what Barney did for them?’ Taking Lucy by the shoulders, he turned her round to face him. ‘I know Leonard Maitland gave you his address. You can get in touch if you want to,’ he said. ‘They won’t have moved from the farm.’

Lucy patted the tip of her nose in a gesture of secrecy. ‘I might – and I might not.’ Her smile grew mischievous. ‘But that’s another story altogether, don’t you think?’

Adam knew that when Lucy was in this strange mood of hers, there was no reasoning with her. He kissed her then – not the kiss of a lover, but the kiss of someone who knew her well. ‘Good night, Lucy.’ Smiling resignedly, he shook his head. ‘Sleep tight.’

For a while after he’d gone, she continued to gaze at the little photograph still lying on the eiderdown. It was the only picture she had of Barney, and it was her treasure. Taken on the day he took delivery of his new tractor, Barney stood beside it, a proud man, while Leonard Maitland recorded the moment forever.

Taking the photograph into her hands and looking down, she let herself be drawn back over the years, to summertimes and harvests, and picnics and laughter, when Jamie was always at her side and in her heart. Moving pictures in her mind; warm and real in her heart. They were glorious times with the Davidson family, all together and not a cloud in their sky.

‘Happy days,’ she murmured. ‘But it’s not the end, my darlings.’

Replacing the photograph, she glanced again towards the window, where outside, new love was beginning.

‘Your father’s story is the most remarkable I’ve ever heard.’ Ben had been deeply shaken by the turn of this night’s events, and if he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget this night nor the man who was Barney Davidson.

‘I never knew,’ Mary answered thoughtfully. ‘All these years and I never knew.’

‘Your mother said you looked like him.’ Ben observed her small pretty face, and he had an urge to take her in his arms. ‘You have such a calmness about you, I can imagine you must also have inherited some of his character traits as well.’

Mary smiled. ‘I hope so.’

‘I’m glad we met.’ Reaching out he took hold of her hand, and to his delight she did not draw it away. ‘Do you think we might have a future together, you and me?’

Thrilled by his remark, her answer was to lean forward and kiss him. She looked into those dark, sincere eyes and at the strong set of his jaw and that air of confidence about him, and she thought of all that had passed long ago.

But that was not her life. This was her life, hers and Ben’s, and suddenly, when she felt his loving arms about her, she knew it was where she belonged, with this man whom she hardly knew, and yet she felt as though she had known him forever.

‘You still haven’t answered me, Mary.’ His voice was soft in her ear. ‘You haven’t said if you think we might have a future together?’

Turning her head, she looked up at him. ‘Yes,’ her smile was content, ‘I really believe we might.’

Lucy saw it all. She saw them kiss, and she saw the tenderness in his embrace, and it made her think of Barney. ‘I hope you find happiness together,’ she whispered.

Wearied and content, Lucy climbed into bed. For a while she lay awake, her mind back there where it all took place. It had been an amazing adventure. But it was not yet over.

For now, though, it was time to reflect, and be thankful.