The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

'Please, let's go… I can't…'

  'I have to wait to see the specialist,' Sage reminded her quietly. 'But you can go and wait in the car if you'd prefer… Perhaps your mother…?'

  She turned to Faye, who was if anything even more visibly affected than her daughter, but Faye shook her head and said doggedly, 'No, I'll stay with you.'

  Handing Camilla the car keys and watching her walk a little unsteadily down the corridor, Sage nibbled ferociously on her bottom lip.

  'I hadn't realised,' Faye was saying unevenly beside her. 'I knew she was very ill, but I hadn't…' She swallowed. 'Oh, God, Sage, I'm so scared… I can't bear the thought of losing her… I thought… I thought the worst was over and that it was just a matter of time… of recuperation, but now… And I'm being so selfish. She's your mother and not mine…'

  'And because of that I must love her more?' Sage smiled grimly. 'How naive you can be sometimes, Faye. You know the situation between Mother and me. We don't get on; we never have. Oh, as a child I wanted her love, craved it almost until I realised I simply was not and never could be the child she wanted—or another David… I don't blame her for that… After David, I must have come as a deep disappointment to her. I don't suppose you can understand. The whole world adores my mother… adores her and respects her…'

  'I do understand.'

  It was said so quietly that Sage almost didn't hear it. She turned to look at her sister-in-law and surprised such a look of raw pain in her eyes that she had to turn away again. It was as though she had momentarily opened the door into a private, secret room, and she withdrew from it with the instinctive speed of a nature that hated to trespass or impinge on anyone else's privacy because she valued her own so much.

  'Sage—'

  The fierce urgency with which Faye said her name caused her to look at her again, but just as Faye was about to speak the door opened and the specialist she had seen before, Alaric Ferguson, walked in.

  If anything he looked even more exhausted, Sage recognised. He gave her a distant glance before focusing properly on her, saying as he recognised her, 'Miss Danvers, Sister will have told you that we have had to sedate your mother in an effort to lessen the physical shock of her accident, and until we're completely happy that that has taken place we won't be able to do anything further.'

  'Her injuries—what exactly are they?' Sage demanded urgently.

  He paused, looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then said bluntly, 'We suspect there's some pressure on her brain—how much we can't as yet tell. In case you don't understand the seriousness of this, perhaps I should explain…'

  When he did so, outlining in brutal detail the small, very small chance of her mother actually recovering, Sage discovered that she was gripping the inside of her mouth sharply with her teeth to prevent her lips from trembling. Behind her she heard Faye give a low, shocked cry. She reacted to it immediately, spinning round to reach out to her, but the specialist had moved faster and as Sage turned towards Faye he was already reaching out to grip her arm and steady her.

  He wasn't the kind of man who appealed sexually to Sage—oh, he was tall, and probably well enough built if one discounted the exhausted hunch of his shoulders and the stoop that came from working long hours. True, his skin was pale from lack of fresh air, his eyes bloodshot, his dark red hair untidy and badly cut, but underneath his lack of outward physical gloss there was such an obvious aura of male strength and reliability about him that Sage was astounded to see Faye stagger back from him, her face white with deathly fear, her mouth contorted almost in a grimace of atavistic rejection.

  Sage knew that her sister-in-law preferred to keep the male sex at a physical distance, but she had never seen her react like this before, never seen her make a movement that was uncoordinated… never seen any emotion across her face as intense and primitive as the defensive rage which now etched it.

  For a moment she was too shocked to speak or intervene. The specialist looked as shocked as she felt, and then Sage saw shock give way to a mingling of curiosity and concern as he quickly withdrew from her.

  'It's perfectly all right,' he told her quietly. 'I'm sorry if I alarmed you.' With that he turned on his heel and left them alone.

  In the strained silence of the empty room, the harsh battle Faye was fighting for control of her body and breathing was painfully audible. Sage dared not reach out to her, dared not speak to her, never mind touch her. Her eyes had gone wild, feral almost like an animal's when the primitive instinct of panic overcame every trace of domesticity. It was almost as though, if Sage did reach out to touch her, Faye might sink into her hand the teeth she had bared in that shocking sharp snarl of rejection.

  Her skin, usually so pale, was now burning with colour. She started to shake violently, her eyes slowly focusing on Sage, their brilliance dimming as recognition took the place of rage and then gave way to flat, open despair.

  She was shaking so much that she could barely stand up, and very gently, very cautiously, Sage reached out to her and, when she let her take hold of her arm, led her gently over to a chair.

  Much as she longed to ask what was wrong, she suppressed the words, knowing by instinct that she wouldn't get an answer.

  'I'm so sorry,' Faye was whispering painfully. 'So very sorry… It was just the shock…'

  Of hearing about her mother's slender chances of recovering, or of being touched by the specialist? Sage wondered silently.

  'He could have broken the news rather less brutally,' was all she allowed herself to say. 'It's just as well Camilla decided not to stay…'

  The look of mingled agony and gratitude Faye gave her made her wince inwardly for her own lack of strength. Had she been her mother, there was no way she would have allowed the incident to be passed off like this… She would have insisted on routing out the real cause of Faye's reactions… Would have told herself that, no matter how much pain talking about it might cause Faye, in the end she would feel better for unburdening herself of whatever it was that had caused such a violent response.

  But she wasn't her mother… She avoided encouraging people to confide in her, to lean on her. Selfishly she didn't want their problems… their confidences. She was almost glad that Faye had withdrawn from her, that she was keeping whatever it was that troubled her so desperately to herself.

  'I think perhaps I'd better leave calling at my office until tomorrow. It's been a traumatic visit for all of us. We can't do anything to help Mother by staying here, no matter how guilty we might all feel about leaving her. The sister said they'd ring us immediately if there was any change in her condition…'

  'If she dies, you mean,' Faye said bitterly. 'Have you noticed how even here in a hospital, where they're dealing in death every day, they refuse to use the actual word? Not at all well… but never, never dying…'

  Watching Faye pound her fists helplessly against the arms of her chair, Sage wished she could give vent to her feelings as easily.

  She too was frightened, she recognised… No, her fear wasn't the same as Faye's… But it was there none the less. Hers was a selfish fear, she thought in self-contempt. Hers was a fear of having to shoulder the burdens her mother had carried… Of having to step into shoes which had never been designed for her… which she knew instinctively would cripple and hobble her. And already it was happening… already Faye was turning to her. How long would it be before she started to lean on her the way she had leaned on David and then on her mother?

  Shocked and almost disgusted by the selfishness of her own thoughts, Sage took hold of Faye's arm and gently pulled her to her feet. 'Camilla will be waiting,' she reminded her.

  She had always liked Faye, albeit with the same kind of affection she might have felt towards a favourite pet, and it came as a shock to find herself almost close to hating her, to feeling as though Faye had set in motion a trap which was starting to close around her. Faye wasn't the clinging type in the accepted sense of the word. On the contrary, she visibly and painfully struggled not to be
so, and yet one was always aware of her desperate need for the strength of others, for the companionship and caring of others. Why she had never married again was a mystery to Sage. She so obviously needed the strength and devotion of a husband, of another David…but then men like David were hard to find, even if one looked, and Faye did exactly the opposite of that, preferring to shut herself off from the rest of the world rather than go out to meet it.

  She couldn't go on like this, Faye recognised as she followed Sage down the corridor. For a moment there in that small stuffy room she had virtually destroyed everything she had worked so hard to create… for a moment there with that male hand reaching out towards her, she had stupidly, recklessly come perilously close to throwing everything away, everything she had spent her entire adult life trying to achieve.

  Why had she been so careless? Why had she overreacted so dangerously? She could put it down to the shock of realising how very ill Liz was, but that was no excuse.

  Thank God Camilla hadn't been there to see… She swallowed hard, her mouth full of nervous saliva. She glanced sideways at Sage.

  Her sister-in-law was far too astute not to realise that it was more than mere shock at Liz's condition which had made her react so violently, but thank God she had not tried to question her, to dig and delve as others might have done. Surely after all these years she ought to have more command over herself, more self-control? Why had she behaved like that, and to a man so obviously unthreatening, so obviously well-intentioned? How on earth would she ever be able to face him again? She had seen the shock, the concern, the curiosity shadowing his expression as he looked at her, and no wonder… She wished that he weren't Liz's specialist, that there would be no occasion for her ever to have to see him again, but how could she refuse to visit her mother-in-law? How could she allow Sage to shoulder the burden of visiting her mother alone? How could she abandon Liz to the cold efficiency of the machinery which was keeping her alive when she owed her mother-in-law so much? How could she put her own welfare, her own needs before theirs? She couldn't do it… She could only pray that the specialist would accept, as Sage seemed prepared to do, that her shock had been so great that it had led to her idiotic behaviour. A psychiatrist of course would have recognised immediately—but Liz's specialist wasn't a psychiatrist, thank God… he would have no inner awareness, no realisation… It was stupid of her to feel this panic, this fear, this anxiety. No one could, after all, compel her to talk about the past. To revisit and relive it…

  She ached to be back at Cottingdean, to be safe, protected, within the haven of its womblike walls. By the time they reached the car she was trembling inwardly as though she had been running frantically in flight, a stitch in her side caused not by exhaustion but by tension, by her grimly clenching her muscles until they ached under the strain she was imposing on them.

  Running, running… sometimes it felt as though she had spent her entire life in flight. Only with David had she felt safe, protected… Only with David, and with Liz, who knew all her secrets, knew them and protected her from them.

  Liz… This was so wrong. She ought to be thinking of Liz, not herself—praying for her recovery, not because she needed her so much, but for Liz's own sake. Please God, let me be strong, she prayed as she got in the car. Give me the strength I need—not for myself, but for Liz and for Camilla… and perhaps as well for Sage, she added, glancing at her sister-in-law, and wondering if the latter had yet recognised within herself the same fierce will-power that was Liz's particular gift. And, like all gifts, a two-edged sword which could be honed in use for the benefit of others for the greater good, or sharpened on the dangerous edge of self-interest and used against other, weaker members of the human race.

  Thank God for Sage: without her… She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, physically and men-tally exhausted, longing only for escape, for peace of mind, and knowing how little chance she had of attaining either.

  'Did you manage to get through everything in Liz's files on the proposed motorway?' They were having tea, produced by Jenny, who stood sternly over them until it was safely poured, ignoring their protests that they weren't hungry. Even in absentia Liz's habits still ruled the household. Perhaps all of them in their separate ways were clinging to those habits, in an instinctive need to believe that in keeping them alive they were keeping Liz herself alive, Sage thought.

  'Mmm…' she answered, responding to Camilla's question, her forehead furrowing. She had read them, but nothing in them had given her any clue as to how her mother had hoped to prevent the construction of the new motorway. Far from it.

  'You don't think we'll be able to stop them, do you?' Camilla guessed astutely.

  'It's too soon to say, but it doesn't look very hopeful. If the road was being constructed near a site of particular archaeological significance, or special natural beauty, then we'd have something to work on, but as far as I can see—'

  'Gran would have found a way,' Camilla told her, almost belligerently. 'But then I suppose you don't really care anyway, do you? I mean, you don't care about Cottingdean…'

  'Camilla!' Faye objected, flushing a little. 'That's most unfair and untrue…'

  'No, she's right,' Sage said as calmly as she could, replacing her teacup in its saucer. 'I don't feel the same way about Cottingdean as the rest of you. It's a beautiful house, but it is only a house—not a sacred trust. But it isn't just the house that's at risk; it's the village as well, people's livelihoods. Without the mill there'd be no industry here to keep people in jobs; without jobs the village would soon start to disintegrate—but I don't expect that the planners in Whitehall will be inclined to put the needs of a handful of villagers above those of road-hungry motorists.'

  'Gran has offered them another site on the other side of the water meadows…' .

  'Yes, on land which is marshy and unstable, and which will require a good deal of expensive drainage and foundation work on it before it can be used, as well as adding countless millions of pounds to the cost.'

  'I don't know why you're going to the meeting, when it's obvious that you don't care—'

  'That's enough, Camilla,' Faye reproved.

  'I do care, Cam. I just don't know how Mother planned to persuade the authorities to reroute the road… I've no idea what she had in mind, and I can't find out from what I've read in the files. I've no doubt she had some plan of action in view, but whatever it is only she knows… The best I can hope for is to use delaying tactics and to hope that somehow or other a miracle will occur enabling Mother to take over before it's too late.'

  Since all of them knew just how much of a miracle would be needed for that, the three of them fell silent.

  She wasn't looking forward to the evening's meeting, Sage acknowledged later as she went upstairs to change. She was not accomplished at using guile—she was too blunt, too tactless. She did not have her mother's gifts of subtle persuasion and coercion. She had no experience of dealing with officialdom, nor a taste for it either. She remembered that David had once tried to teach her to play chess and how he had chided her in that gentle, loving way he had had for her impatience and lack of logic, her inability to think forwards and to plan coolly and mathematically. No, the skills of the negotiator were not among her gifts, but for tonight she must somehow find, somehow adopt at least a facsimile of her mother's mantle.

  She recognised with wry amusement how much she was already changing, how much she was already tempering her own beliefs and attitudes—even her mode of dress.

  Tonight she was automatically rejecting the nonchalant casualness of the clothes she bought impulsively and sometimes disastrously, falling in love with the richness of their fabric, the skill of their cut or simply the beauty of their colour and then so often finding once she got them home that she had nothing with which to wear them.

  Not for her the carefully planned and organised wardrobe, the cool efficiency of clothes chosen to project a certain image…

  But tonight she would need the armou
ring of that kind of image, and as she rifled through her wardrobe she recognised ruefully that the best she could manage was a cream silk shirt worn with a fine wool crepe coffee-coloured skirt designed by Alaia. If it clung rather more intimately to her body than anything her mother might have chosen to wear, then hopefully that fact would be concealed by the table behind which she was bound to be seated.

  An elegant Chanel-style knitted jacket in the same cream as the shirt would add a touch of authority to the outfit, she decided, taking it off its hanger and glancing at her watch.

  Seven o'clock…time she was on her way. She thought fleetingly of the diaries, acknowledging something she had deliberately been pushing to the back of her mind all day.

  At the same time as she was eager to read more, to discover more about this stranger who was her mother, she was also reluctant to do so, afraid almost… Of what? Of finding out that her mother was human and fallible, and in doing so finding out that she herself was no longer able to hold on to her anger and resentment? Why should she want to hang on to them?

  Perhaps because they added weight and justification to her refusal to allow her mother into any part of her life, her determination to sever the emotional ties between them and to keep them severed—to continue to punish her mother. But for what? For failing to love her as she had loved David? For destroying her happiness— for allowing Scott to be taken from her? Or was she simply still inside an angry, resentful child, kicking at her mother's door, demanding that her attention and her love be given exclusively to her…?

  Exclusively… She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Had she wanted that? Had she wanted her mother to love her exclusively…? Surely not. She had always known that love must be shared. Or had she? Had she perhaps always inwardly resented having to share her mother with anyone else, refusing to acknowledge her right to love others, just as she had refused to acknowledge Scott's right to share his for her with his father, to feel that he owed his father a loyalty, a duty that went before even his love for her?