Leaves Before the Storm

by Angela Arney

  But something else troubled Henry. He knew he had to steel his nerves and tell Adam that he did not, and never had, loved him in the way he wanted. He shrank away from it; it seemed strange that Adam had appeared to have forgotten that terrible quarrel they’d had in London. How could he? Adam hadn’t lost his memory, but now he behaved as if Henry had never rejected him, continually touching him, talking to him in such loving terms that Henry felt embarrassed and repulsed. In fact Adam’s whole demeanour made his scalp crawl. He had to do something to stop it.

  He knew now that he’d been a fool not to see what had been staring him in the face all those years before. He should have known Adam was homosexual. Why had he never guessed? The answer was because he didn’t want to. He’d been enthralled by the glamorous life Adam lived with his bohemian, theatrical friends. They cast a spell over Henry, bound as he was by science and the often mundane nature of hospital life. The pleasure Adam took in his appearance, his vanity, had been a clue. But there had always been women. Adam slept with many women, but never the same one twice. Now Henry realized it had all been a façade, put up to give an illusion of a normal, red-blooded man. The type of man Adam played so successfully in theatre and films.

  And what about himself? Now Henry was forced to confront the uncomfortable truth of his own character. Why did he have no great passion for anyone? Not even Megan. He’d thought he had loved her, but it was a pallid, restrained affection. Only medicine, his skill at surgery and research really fired his senses. That had been his reason for living. Now that had gone. Destroyed that day on the beach at Dunkirk.

  But the most pressing problem now was that he had to grasp the nettle and tell Adam bluntly that there was no hope of any form of physical love between them. He would stop the visits to The Priory now and say that maybe they might build a different friendship in the years to come. He couldn’t cut Adam off completely, that would be too cruel. Adam was a dying man although he didn’t know it, and Henry knew he couldn’t destroy all his hopes. Time would do that.

  So Henry steeled himself to tell Adam on the next visit. But when Megan took him, any conversation that day was out of the question. Adam was burning with a fever and hallucinating.

  On the way back that day Henry said to Megan, ‘You never liked him, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t actually dislike him,’ Megan said after a moment’s silence. Henry could almost hear Megan thinking carefully. Then she said, ‘Adam has always been very fond of you, I know that.’

  There was something in her tone of voice that made him suspect that she knew more than she was letting on. But surely not. She’d never been in London in their company. She had only ever seen Adam when he been at Folly House, assiduously playing the country gentleman, enjoying himself buttering up Lavinia and the Jones family. Now he thought about it Henry realized that Adam had always more or less ignored Megan.

  She said nothing more, so Henry said, ‘Yes, I suppose he was.’

  ‘Not was. Still is,’ said Megan.

  Her reply left Henry feeling certain that she knew more than she was saying.

  Since the family quarrel about the money Gerald had stayed away from Folly House. No one bothered to enquire about him, or Violet.

  ‘Good riddance, that’s what I says,’ Bertha was heard to comment. ‘That Gerald never was no good.’

  Lavinia had tutted when she overheard but said nothing. How could she, when she agreed with every word? Although she did say that she thought Bertha was becoming a little too familiar.

  But Megan pointed out that, for good or ill, they had absorbed the Jones family into their lives; they were involved in the Lockwood family fortunes – or lack of them. Henry had asked them and they’d agreed to take a cut in pay to help out since the loss of his investments. So Megan felt Lavinia couldn’t start pulling rank on them now and said so, but quickly changed the subject when Lavinia became annoyed. It was no use, Lavinia was the older generation, and just didn’t understand how much things were changing. Instead she asked Lavinia whether they ought to invite Violet to Folly House. Violet was working now. She’d volunteered, apparently to Gerald’s fury, to do war work in one of the factories in Southampton.

  Gerald had told Henry about it. ‘Can’t understand the stupid woman,’ he’d said. ‘How can she work alongside the likes of Mrs Fox on the assembly line? She’s in a different class.’

  Henry told Megan that he’d pointed out that the war demanded sacrifices from all of them; this made Megan feel guilty as she wasn’t sacrificing anything. Unless you counted losing people, she thought miserably. She’d lost Rosie and Jim, and that was a sacrifice.

  Apparently Violet was welding aircraft parts. ‘She gets up at 4.30 a.m., cycles into Salisbury, and then gets a lorry which takes girls from the surrounding villages into Southampton at 5.30 in the morning.’ Lavinia delivered this information in shocked tones to Megan.

  ‘I’d hate to get up so early every morning,’ Megan replied. In fact, if Megan were honest she was finding it difficult to get up at all in the morning. Despite religiously taking the tonic Bertha had made for her and drinking mint tea every night, she was feeling more and more unwell, although she tried to ignore it.

  But she did telephone Violet and ask her to come over to Folly house on one of her days off. Violet accepted the invitation with an eagerness that surprised Megan.

  ‘It will be so nice to talk to another woman,’ she said.

  ‘But you are with women every day of the week,’ said Megan.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t talk to them,’ Violet replied. ‘They wouldn’t understand.’

  It was arranged for Violet to visit the following Saturday, but she arrived unexpectedly on the Friday night, covered in bruises and in an agitated state. That night there had been a fierce summer storm, and Violet had cycled the twenty miles from Brinkley Hall through thunder and lightning, as well as torrential rain without any kind of protection.

  Megan and Lavinia were sitting in the gold room, watching the pyrotechnics of the storm over the sea when the door burst open and Bertha came in, practically carrying a sopping wet, exhausted Violet.

  ‘My God!’ Lavinia rushed across to her. ‘Whatever has happened? Has there been an accident?’

  ‘No accident,’ said Bertha grimly. ‘Not to my mind anyway.’ She looked behind her. ‘Dottie, have you got that blanket I told you to get?’

  Dottie darted forward with a thick tartan blanket and Bertha wrapped it around a shivering Violet, while Megan pulled forward one of the big armchairs towards the fireplace. ‘I know it’s summer, Bertha,’ she said, ‘but I think we need a fire in here. It’s suddenly very chilly.’

  George came in with some kindling and soon there was a roaring fire in the grate. Lavinia got some warm bath-towels from the airing cupboard and together they rubbed and dried Violet, stripping her of her soaking clothes, and wrapping her in one of Megan’s warm winter dressing-gowns.

  Henry arrived in the midst of it all. To everyone’s astonishment he took charge. He felt Violet’s pulse and put his hand on her head. ‘Her heart is racing,’ he said, ‘but she hasn’t got a temperature, quite the reverse, she’s chilled to the bone. Bertha, please get a large glass of brandy. The sooner she has a sip of that the sooner she’ll stop shivering.’

  The telephone rang. Violet sat up like a startled rabbit. ‘If that’s Gerald,’ she whispered, ‘please don’t tell him I’m here.’ She reached out and grabbed Henry’s hand. ‘Please don’t tell him I’m here,’ she repeated.

  Henry took the call. ‘No, she’s not here, Gerald,’ his voice was firm and calm. ‘Yes, I’ll certainly call you if she arrives here. Yes. Yes, it’s an awful storm, isn’t it. Goodnight.’ After the call he turned towards Megan. ‘You’d better take her upstairs just in case Gerald comes. I don’t think he will, but we’d better not take any chances.’

  Bertha passed the brandy to Henry, who placed it carefully in Violet’s trembling hands. ‘I’ll just go and tell Dottie and Georg
e that they haven’t seen Violet,’ she said. Then she nodded towards Violet, who was sipping the brandy, ‘Don’t you worry about nothing. I’ll get George to hide the bicycle and we’ll all keep mum for as long as necessary.’

  Megan and Lavinia hurried a still trembling Violet upstairs, where she had a hot bath before being tucked up in Rosie’s old bed. Megan sat on the side of the bed. ‘Do you want to talk now?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ whispered Violet.

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ said Lavinia, settling herself in the Lloyd Loom chair on the other side of the bed. ‘It’s usually the best place.’

  ‘Gerald raped me.’

  Lavinia gasped. ‘How can you say that? He’s your husband. A husband can’t rape his wife.’

  ‘What else do you call violent sex when you don’t want it?’ replied Violet.

  There was silence. Megan thought back to her wedding night. Suddenly it leapt into her mind, vivid and frightening. Rape? No – she had responded. But would he have stopped if she had said no? Somehow she didn’t think so. The memory was humiliating and she shivered.

  Then she concentrated on Violet. Lavinia was speaking. Her tone was gentle. ‘Start at the beginning, Violet,’ she said, ‘and tell us how all this came about.’

  The unhappy saga of Violet’s marriage was revealed in Rosie’s cosy, pink, little girl’s bedroom, an innocent place at odds with the story. It was a story of violence from the very beginning. The reason for Violet’s absences from family gatherings in the early days was because she often couldn’t hide the bruises on her face, but when Gerald realized this he hit her where the bruises wouldn’t show. She showed them her back, which was scarred from beating with a leather belt. Gerald, it seemed, like to beat Violet into submission and then force her to have sex.

  ‘But why have you only run away from him now?’ demanded Megan. ‘Why didn’t you leave him in the beginning?’

  ‘I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He was so handsome and charming to everyone else. Besides I tried to please him. I thought that one day he would love me, not just love my money. But this evening we had a quarrel. About money again. He wanted me to give him control over my private funds, and I said no. That was my mistake. Then, when he began to beat me, I could see that he really hated me. I let him have the sex he wanted and then, when he relaxed his hold on me, I pushed him away and got up and ran. I didn’t have time to take one of the cars, and anyway I didn’t know whether they had petrol or not; he only puts in one gallon at a time. So I took my bicycle and cycled across the fields so that he couldn’t follow me in the car.’ She paused for breath and lay her head back on the pillows in exhaustion, then said in a small, tight voice, ‘If you make me go back to him I shall kill myself.’

  Megan put her arms around her. ‘No question of that,’ she said firmly. ‘You can stay here for the time being.’ Violet started up in agitation. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll hide you, Gerald will never know. But we will find you a place to stay that’s really safe. I think I know of a place.’ The Priory Hospital was running through her mind as a possibility. It was a hospital, the matron was a no-nonsense woman who, Megan sensed, might be sympathetic to Violet’s cause. If she would take Violet in until something else was sorted out, it would be ideal. She took Violet’s hands in hers. ‘Don’t worry. Your life with Gerald has finished. You need never see him again, except in court when you get a divorce.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll get a divorce? Gerald will say I’m lying.’

  ‘We shall bear witness to your injuries,’ said Megan. ‘Won’t we, Lavinia?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ There was a slight reluctance in Lavinia’s voice.

  Megan ignored the reluctance. Lavinia was another generation. Divorce never happened in her circles, but in Megan’s opinion divorce was the only answer for Violet. However, keeping Gerald away until that happened was another matter altogether. The sooner she spoke to the matron at The Priory the better. It was the only idea she had, and she hoped it would work. But she decided to keep the scheme to herself. If Henry and Lavinia didn’t know about it, Gerald couldn’t bully them into revealing Violet’s whereabouts.

  Of course, Gerald did come several days later to Folly House, but by that time Violet had left. The matron, Mrs Curry, was sympathetic and willing to help, and confessed to Megan that she herself had escaped into nursing from a violent marriage in Ireland. Megan, aided by George, smuggled Violet out of the house and took her to The Priory. Only George, Megan and Mrs Curry knew of her whereabouts.

  ‘She can help out on the wards,’ said Mrs Curry. ‘We don’t have many visitors, but when we do she can keep out of the way.’

  Megan was in her office, ordering in supplies for the winter wheat. Another month gone, the days followed on relentlessly one after another. Still no word of Jim. Pausing, she laid down her pen. He was so vivid in her mind’s eye, his luminous dark eyes, the lock of hair which always fell across his brow, his long sensitive fingers, and the music. She could hear the music. Oh, where was he? What was he doing in this hateful war? Was he still alive? Tears stung her eyes, to be blinked away. Weeping achieved nothing. He was alive. She had to believe that.

  Picking up the pen once more she concentrated on her diary, which she used to note delivery dates from the various suppliers. It was then that she noticed the little red tick in the corner of the calendar at the beginning of the month. She always marked the day her period was due with a red tick. She looked again and her heart lurched. Three and a half weeks ago and still no period. Nothing. Suddenly she knew why she had been feeling ‘off colour’ as Lavinia put it. I’m pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant with Jim’s child. But Jim has gone and I’m married to Henry. Yet again she was carrying another man’s child, not that of her husband.

  Clasping her head in her hands, she slumped across the desk and began to weep. There was no way she could possible get rid of the baby. It was part of Jim, perhaps the only part she’d ever have. But what about Henry? Oh God, what a mess!

  There was a tap on the door. ‘Go away,’ she shouted. ‘Go away.’ Then, realizing she couldn’t behave like that, she jumped up and wrenched the door open, only to stare into the face of a very startled policeman.

  Blowing her nose vigorously and muttering, ‘A cold I think. In the middle of complicated maths. Sorry I shouted,’ she looked at the policeman.

  The policeman was too polite to comment and stood hesitantly in the doorway. ‘May I come in? Mrs Jones, the cook, said I’d find you here.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, hoping that he wouldn’t notice she’d been crying.

  ‘Might be hay fever,’ he said helpfully.

  ‘Yes.’ Megan composed herself and sat back down at her desk. ‘Now what can I do for you, Sergeant…?’

  ‘I’m PC Hawkins,’ he said, ‘and it’s not so much as what you can do for me as what you can do for a certain Miss Rosie Barnes.’

  Megan’s head snapped up. ‘What’s wrong? Where is Rosie?’ She stood up. ‘I shall go to London.’

  PC Hawkins put up a restraining hand. ‘No need, Mrs Lockwood. I have the said Miss Rosie Barnes outside in the police car. She insisted she must come, she said—’

  Megan didn’t wait to hear any more. Roughly pushing past PC Hawkins she ran from the office, through the hall and outside to where the police car stood on the drive. There was no need for words. She just opened her arms and Rosie tumbled out of the car and fell into them.

  ‘Can I stay?’ she cried. ‘Say I can stay.’

  ‘Of course you can stay. Of course you can.’ Then they both burst into tears while a perplexed PC Hawkins stood by, looking embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

  Rosie came back to Folly House. She was going to stay for good. Henry even suggested to Megan that they should adopt her, so that she could officially become their daughter. The excitement of Rosie’s return even put the worry of her pregnancy to the back of Megan’s mind. Her condition didn’t show, so she made up
her mind to stay as slim as possible until she had decided what to do.

  It did cross her mind that she should try and seduce Henry into making love to her, and then she could pass the baby off as his. The more she thought of that possibility the more she thought it was the easiest thing to do. Firmly ignoring her conscience she made up her mind to do it. But every night she found a reason to put it off, and Henry himself never showed any sign of wanting to resume his marital rights.

  The event of Rosie Barnes’s returning to Folly House was the talk of the village. The V1 rockets, or ‘doodlebugs’ as everyone called them, had increased in frequency over southern England. Some had even fallen in the grounds of Folly House, in the forest. One had landed smack on Rosie’s house in Hackney. It was in the afternoon, when Rosie was at school, but her mother and younger brother were both at home and were killed outright. That day Rosie was collected from school by the social authorities and, as she had no other living relatives, she was put in a temporary children’s home in Shoreditch. She had run away. Not once, but three times, and each time she had made her way to the railway station at Marylebone and tried to find a train to Stibbington. Each time she was picked up, and eventually someone thought to ask her why she was trying to get to Stibbington, the trains for which left London from Waterloo, not Marylebone. She told them about Folly House, where she’d been evacuated, and about Mrs Megan Lockwood, who said she could come back at any time. So the police arranged for her to be brought to Folly House and for the said Mrs Lockwood to be asked if she would have her.

  Once Megan said yes, the arrangements were made very quickly. There were plenty of orphan children looking for homes, and the authorities were glad to get her off their hands. She went back to the primary school in East End village, and slotted in as if she had never been away.