‘Her don’t want none,’ said Ellen bluntly, and left the room. Cal pulled a face. ‘She doesn’t get any better,’ he said. ‘I’ll try again in a while, when Mother wakes up. She’s taking a nap at the moment.’
‘Please, I really don’t want tea,’ said Maddy, beginning to feel panic rising inside her. She longed to say what she had come to say and then leave immediately. Taking a deep breath, she spoke up. ‘I have something to say that will upset you, I fear, Cal. I cannot marry you.’
He stood very still. ‘What did you say?’
‘I cannot marry you. You did me a great honour in asking me, and for a while I thought it would work, but it won’t. The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that marriage between us would be a disaster.’
The colour had gone from Cal’s face. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What have I done?’
‘You haven’t done anything. Please don’t think that.’
‘But I must have done something. Everything was fine on Friday when we were at the meeting.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve been having doubts for some time, but I wanted you to go to the meeting and win your medals before I said anything.’
‘Blast the medals!’ Cal exploded. ‘If you were unhappy, you should have said so. We could have talked things over. We still can. What is troubling you? Is it the thought of sharing a house with my mother?’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘Then it must be me. Look, I know I’m a clumsy fellow and often I’m more blunt than I mean to be. If I’ve said something to upset you then it was unintentional, I promise you. I would never distress you for the world.’
‘It isn’t you. I keep saying that,’ cried Maddy.
‘Then perhaps it’s nerves. With the wedding not far off—’
‘No, it’s not that, either.’
‘Then for pity’s sake tell me what’s wrong! And how I can put it right?’
Maddy took another deep breath to calm herself. ‘There is nothing for you to put right because you are not in the wrong. When you proposed marriage to me, you set out the matter fairly and squarely. We worked well together, and saw eye to eye. Together we were making Oakwood more and more prosperous. We were an excellent partnership in business that would surely work just as well in marriage. Well, we were wrong. Business and marriage are two very different things. The union we were proposing was a very cold, matter-of-fact affair that could have produced nothing but a cold, matter-of-fact life ahead for the pair of us. You deserve much more than that, and I fear I am not the one to give it to you. What I can offer you is a mixture of balance sheets and misery, business matters and unhappiness. That is a terrible prospect for the future. I cannot condemn you to that. Therefore I am releasing you from all promises, and I return this to you.’ She slipped the gold and diamond ring from her finger and dropped it into his palm as she had done once before. This time, however, she would not be accepting it back.
‘But everything was going to be fine, the two of us working together,’ he said, looking down at the ring. ‘Things were going to be so grand in the future.’
‘No, they weren’t,’ said Maddy in a quiet voice. ‘We only fooled ourselves into believing they were because it was convenient. We overlooked major considerations such as human nature, and just how long the future might be, tied together and growing increasingly unhappy with each passing year because we had both discovered that life should be more than a business partnership.’
‘This is what you feel? And you have thought this way for some time? Then why did you not speak out before? Don’t you realise the wedding is less than three weeks away?’ He looked so grim that, amidst her other painful emotions, Maddy felt her conscience strike at her. Perhaps he was right, she should have spoken earlier. He was going to be humiliated by being jilted almost at the church door.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I made what I thought was the right decision in waiting. My one motive was to save you as much distress as possible.’
‘Then you are going a funny way about it,’ he cried. ‘Calling off the wedding at the last moment, and giving no sensible reason that I can understand.’
‘We would make each other unhappy. Surely you can understand that!’
‘But ours would not be the first marriage of convenience by any means. How do other folk manage?’
‘They might manage, but are they happy? I know I could not bear to be the cause of misery to you, no matter how advantageous our marriage might be in other ways.’
‘You are convinced of it. That we have no chance of being happy together?’ He spoke more quietly, in a voice full of sadness.
‘Yes. I am convinced.’ Gently Maddy folded his fingers over the ring. ‘It is not your fault, never think that. The flaws are all in me, and you can never know how much I regret upsetting you like this.’
‘If you are so certain, then there is no more to be said.’ His tone was abrupt, almost as if he wanted the conversation over and done with speedily. He opened his hand and held it out. ‘Please keep this,’ he said, offering her the ring. ‘I will never give it to anyone else.’
Maddy shook her head. ‘You will,’ she said with certainty. ‘Somewhere there is someone who will be right for you, and who will give you the happiness that I never could.’
As she spoke, her heart felt a sharp pain at the thought. But she knew she had spoken truthfully. More than anything else she wanted Cal to be happy. Turning on her heel, she went swiftly from the room and from Oakwood, hoping that Cal had not seen the tears begin to stream down her face.
* * *
‘What did you do a mazed thing like that for?’ was Jack’s blunt reaction when she told her family what she had done.
Maddy opened her mouth to give some sort of an explanation, but the words never came. She buried her face in her hands and gave herself up to a storm of weeping. When at last she had no more tears to shed, it was to find that Joan was brewing up the inevitable tea.
‘Why don’t you go and have a lie down, maid,’ her stepmother said kindly. ‘I’ll bring a cup up to you.’
‘I think I will.’ Not for the first time, Maddy was finding out how exhausting desperate misery could be. One alarming thought struck her. ‘You won’t go up to Oakwood, will you, Father?’
‘No, course not.’ Joan spoke for her husband. ‘He’m got more sense, and if he habn’t, I have.’
Much relieved, Maddy went upstairs to her tiny room. She expected to lie awake, going over her last meeting with Cal. Surprisingly she must have fallen asleep instantly, for she was not even aware of Joan bringing her the tea.
Sleep took away the tiredness, but not much else. Her unhappiness remained, along with an awful feeling of finality. It was over. Her relationship with Cal had ended, and she would have to rethink her future. She would have to find other employment, for one thing. It would be impossible for her to work for Cal now, but that was something which could wait. For the moment, knowing that he was no longer a part of her life was enough to occupy her entire heart and mind.
She could not have been asleep long, no more than half an hour, judging by the soft light of evening. Looking through her window she saw the swallows wheeling and screaming high in the deepening blue sky. Such beauty seemed to have nothing to do with her any more, and she felt a desperate sense of loneliness. But, she knew she could not hide in her room for much longer. Washing her face in cold water removed some of the heaviness she felt, and after she had changed her crumpled dress and brushed her hair she felt almost fit to face her family with the explanations they were awaiting.
‘You’m feeling better, maid?’ asked Jack solicitously as she entered.
‘Your tea’m stone cold, I’ll make a fresh pot,’ said Joan, reaching for her panacea for all ills.
Before Maddy could reply, an urgent hammering sounded on the door. Opening it, she was dismayed to see Cal standing there. The last thing she wanted was to be drawn into another long discussion abo
ut their chances of making a success of marriage. She could not bear that.
Despite her misgivings, innate politeness made her stand aside for him to enter, but he ignored her silent invitation. He stood on the doorstep, Cal Whitcomb at his most immaculate, in his well-brushed brown broadcloth jacket, carefully pressed breeches and spotless shirt, his hair gleaming like burnished copper, the sheen on his boots glinting in the evening sun. He had the air of a man who had dressed with the greatest care, and the tense expression on his face betrayed that he had come on a mission of great importance.
‘Maddy,’ he said, ‘I have thought a deal about what you said to me this afternoon and, upon consideration, one thing has struck me. You talked the whole time about my happiness and my welfare. You even seemed to put the blame for the ending of our betrothal upon something lacking in yourself. Oh, there were occasions when you talked about our future, but you were still really referring to me, I could tell. What I want to know is, what about you and your future happiness? Don’t they count?’
‘I’ll manage,’ replied Maddy.
‘But is that sufficient? That’s what you said to me, isn’t it? That to manage wasn’t good enough? It occurred to me that being so concerned for me meant you could not be totally indifferent to me, and it gave me hope. I have handled things badly, I can see. I wonder at myself for my blind stupidity, but maybe it isn’t too late.’
This was the very thing Maddy had dreaded. He knew now that she loved him, it could not have been very hard to guess, and he was about to swear that he would do his best to love her in return. That was the sort of man he was, kind and considerate, but could he not see that to have him making an effort to love her would be the worst sort of torture?
‘I have behaved like an unthinkable, unfeeling clodpole,’ he went on with unusual diffidence. ‘But I know where I’ve gone wrong. There have been no sweet words or tender moments during our betrothal, and there should have been. It is my fault. I have been a coward and I admit it. I feared you might be offended if I spoke such fancy trifles and that things would be spoiled between us. The truth is that when I truly care I behave like an idiot. Oh, I can flirt and dally with the best of them, as you know, but when it is important… Maddy, I’ve come a-courting, if you’ll let me.’
‘A-courting?’ said Maddy, her eyes wide.
‘Yes. I hope you’ll agree. You see,’ he went on hurriedly, ‘I can think of nothing more empty and wasted than my life without you. When you rescued Victoria I nearly went mad, thinking how close I had come to losing you. It had nothing to do with business or how splendid you have been for Oakwood. It had everything to do with how happy I am whenever I’m with you. You don’t feel the same, I appreciate that, but I fancy you have some affection for me, otherwise you would not have been so anxious for my welfare. Perhaps with gentle encouragement your love for me might grow, and you might come to care for me the way I care for you. That is why I have come a-courting like any green boy, to give us both a chance…’ His voice, which had been growing increasingly unsteady, faded to nothing. ‘Maddy,’ he said, regaining his composure with an effort, ‘please will you walk out with me?’
Maddy could not reply at first, she was too happy considering what Cal had just said.
‘I will,’ she said at last, her voice tremulous too. There is no need, for I could not love you more if we walked round the world together, but I will come with you, and gladly.’
‘You love me? You say you love me?’
‘I do, and have done for an age. That was why I wanted to break our engagement. I knew I could not bear to be your wife loving you so desperately yet fearing you did not love me.’
‘Oh Maddy, can there be two such fools in this world?’
He reached out to her, but as she went to take his hands she exclaimed, ‘You’re bleeding! Your poor palms, they’re scratched to pieces! What happened?’
Cal gazed bemusedly at his hands, as if momentarily he, too, had no idea what had happened. ‘The roses!’ he exclaimed in dismay. ‘I picked roses in order that I might come to you as a proper suitor should. I must have lost them on the way! Oh, what an idiot I am!’
Her self-assured, confident Cal sounded so bewildered and distressed that Maddy, laughing and crying with love for him, flew into his arms.
‘If the roses be bothering you, we’m plenty down the garden as you’m welcome to,’ said Jack, gently reminding them that they had an audience. ‘And if you wants a good place to do your courting, you knows where to go?’
Cal rested his cheek on the top of Maddy’s head. ‘On a May night such as this, with the moon rising and a nightingale singing in Duncannon Copse, where else but along the river?’
‘You’m learning, boy, you’m learning,’ Jack said approvingly.
With arms entwined, the pair of them set off down the garden and along the foreshore, to where the river ran sweet and slow.
‘They forgot the roses,’ observed Jack, watching them go past the bush unheeding.
‘They’m true sweethearts, boy, anyone can see that. What need have they with roses?’ said Joan. Then drawing her husband indoors, she discreetly closed the door on the departing lovers.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Headline Book Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Irene Northan, 1993
The moral right of Irene Northan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788633239
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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