The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

David knew that he was out of step with his own generation, and its determination to break through the social barriers which had contained and ruled every previous generation.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that there were so many of them; that they, those children born so closely after the end of the war, were by far the largest single element of the population, and so by their might, by sheer force of numbers, could make their voices heard.

  It interested him to see if this trend would continue; if the teenagers of the sixties with their music, their ideals, their refusal to bow to convention would continue all through their lives to attract attention, to rule and dominate.

  Faye was as unlike the women of his own time as it was possible to be. She had none of their determination, their aggression, their belief in their right to be as sexually active as they wished, whenever they wished, where they wished and with whomever they desired. She roused within him a deeply protective instinct, a need to nurture, that he had never previously experienced.

  He discovered that he was actively seeking her out, talking with her, coaxing her out of the shell she had withdrawn into.

  To Faye, David was a wholly new experience. She had never known that men like him could exist. He was kind, gentle… completely non-threatening. He talked to her, not at her, and when she answered him he listened.

  He told her a lot about himself… about his home and his family, and she found herself envying him, wishing almost fiercely that she could exchange her own past for one like his… one where parents were protective and caring… one where childhood was something to be looked back on with affection and pleasure.

  She was careful never to mention her own family until one day by accident she was caught off guard and spoke of her foster parents. Tense with apprehension, she waited for David to comment, to question… but he seemed not to have noticed, not to be aware of the panic gripping her.

  The more she got to know David, the more she liked him, and the more she knew that she could never reveal to him the truth about herself… that she could not bear to see the disgust in his eyes… to watch him withdraw from her as though she were unclean.

  Faye did not think of David as a potential lover; to do so would almost have been a sacrilege, even if she had been able to contemplate herself in such a physically intimate situation without fear. He was a friend, someone she looked up to…revered almost. Someone whose kindness she treasured, whose compassion drew her almost compulsively to him.

  She knew their friendship could only be short-lived. Soon she would be leaving university. David's post was only temporary. Ultimately he would be returning home, he had told her, to take over the management of the factory begun by his mother.

  Faye found it difficult to picture David's mother; David plainly adored her, but to Faye she sounded formidable… overpoweringly so. She knew their burgeoning friendship couldn't last, that soon she and David would go their separate ways, and so she treasured the time they spent together, the almost casual meetings which always seemed to lead to long, intimate discussions.

  She knew people were amused and curious about their relationship but she didn't care. David never made her feel threatened in the way that other men did. And even though she had never actually been alone with him—he was scrupulous about never inviting her back to his rooms or suggesting she invite him to hers—she knew that, if he did, she would be as safe as though they were in the middle of the university's crowded Student Union.

  And then the blow fell. The examination results were posted, and Faye discovered that instead of getting the coveted first she had hoped for, she had barely got an indifferent third.

  She walked away from the noticeboard almost physically reeling with shock. One tiny corner of her mind, still working logically, told her that in some way this was Jeremy Catesby's revenge, that he was responsible for her poor degree, even while the rest of her mind rejected the thought. The blame was hers… Somehow or other she must have misjudged the quality of her own work… Somehow or other she must have allowed her standards to slip. It was impossible… unthinkable that a tutor, someone in such a position of trust and responsibility, would actually use his power so corruptly.

  David saw her crossing the quadrangle, her face white with shock. By the time he had fought his way through the mass of students tumbling out of the buildings she was almost out of sight. Heading for the library, he recognised.

  He caught up with her halfway down the deserted corridor, reaching out from behind her to grasp her arm. He felt the shock that ran through her as though it was an electric current, her frantic 'Don't!' a shock of pain, fear and anger so intense that he felt them as though her emotions were his own. And then she saw him and her face flooded with colour.

  'David,' she said weakly. 'I…'

  'What's wrong?'

  She shook her head, almost unable to speak.

  'Come on, we can't talk here. We'll go to my rooms.'

  Numbly Faye allowed him to guide her along the maze of corridors. His rooms were bare and neat, almost monklike, their very austerity somehow reassuring. She allowed him to guide her gently into a chair.

  'What is it?' he asked her again. 'Your degree…?'

  'A third,' she told him sickly. 'I needed a first. I thought…'

  David frowned. It was common knowledge that Faye should get a first… and then he remembered overhearing a small snippet of conversation between Jeremy Catesby and one of Faye's other tutors. It hadn't meant anything to him at the time, but now…Jeremy wouldn't be the first tutor to punish a pupil by misusing his authority over them, but he must hate her a great deal if he had actually dared to withhold her rightful degree.

  His face very grim, he told Faye, 'Wait here.'

  Faye never discovered what exactly it was David said to Jeremy Catesby… how he threatened him… and she was sure he must have done so, but when he eventually came back all he said was, 'It's all right, I've seen the Dean. There's been a mistake. It does happen some-times. You were right. You've got your first… congratulations.'

  At first Faye refused to believe it, but David was insistent, and when he finally had convinced her the relief was so great that she felt almost light-headed… almost euphoric.

  'So what will you do now?' David asked her.

  Faye shook her head. 'I don't really know. Look for a summer job while I try to find something more permanent…'

  'A summer job—perhaps I might be able to help there… The library at Cottingdean is badly in need of cataloguing. Dull work, I'm afraid, and not all that well paid, but it would give you time to look round for something better. We aren't too far from London…'

  Faye stared at him. Work at Cottingdean… The Cottingdean about which she had heard so much… Live in David's home, meet his parents… At once she felt two equally strong and conflicting emotions.

  The first was an intense longing to accept, an intense wave of pleasure that David should actually want her in his home, that he should consider her worthy of it; the second was a sickening awareness of how unworthy she actually was… of how David would react to her if he knew the truth about her…of how his kindness, his generosity, his friendship would turn to contempt and rejection if he ever discovered…

  'You'll need time to think things over,' David was saying to her. 'Well, don't worry, there's no rush. Take as long as you like. Term isn't over yet, and if something more appealing comes along… well, don't feel embarrassed about saying so.'

  Something more appealing? What could be more appealing? Faye was beginning to realise that there was a part of her that asked nothing more from life than that she be allowed to stand in the sheltering protection of David's friendship for the rest of her life. His friendship… She swallowed as she made her way back to her own room. Not even with David could she contemplate the intimacy of sex. Sex turned men into violent destroyers, into cruel and sadistic inflictors of pain and humiliation. But David wasn't like that. David was different. And if he knew the truth about
her he would surely turn away from her in disgust. She shivered. Her past had become a double burden, a guilty secret she had to hide from the rest of the world. And she intended that it should remain her secret.

  Someone else, though, had other ideas. Jeremy Catesby was a vain man and, like all vain men, he could be extremely malicious when his vanity was bruised.

  He had enjoyed punishing Faye for her idiotic reactions to his advances. The scratches alone had taken weeks to heal, and his wife, who was no longer under any illusions about him, had told him viciously that she hoped they would leave scars.

  They hadn't, of course, but they had caused him to be the butt of his colleagues' mirth.

  It had been easy to get Faye transferred to another tutor, and even easier to subtly ensure when it came to marking her examination papers that she got only a third.

  He felt no compunction about what he was doing. The stupid bitch needed teaching a lesson, and as for her degree… Well, she would marry and have a parcel of brats and never use the damn thing. It was a waste of time educating women, although there were certain aspects of it that he personally found extremely enjoyable. The naiveté of his female students constantly amused him. They were so eager to fall into his arms, into his bed… They deserved all they got. Jeremy Catesby did not really like women.

  To be confronted by David Danvers demanding to see Faye's papers, threatening to expose him to the Dean if he did not retract that third and announce that there had been an error, had been an unpleasant shock.

  Jeremy had never liked David, and it galled him now that he was forced to give in. His wife would have something to say if he was dismissed from a second lectureship. She was already bitter and vituperative about his failure to secure one of the higher-status chairs. She had had her sights set on Oxford when she had married him, and so had he. If it hadn't been for the fact that her father was an Oxford don he would never have married her. She was too domineering, too demanding, too sure of herself to have any real appeal for him. Now he couldn't afford to divorce her, either socially or financially, and so he took his revenge against her and her whole sex in a series of amusing little relationships with his female students, leaving his stamp on them, so to speak, in the corruption of their ideals and the destruction of their belief in themselves as women, both sexually and intellectually.

  Jeremy Catesby was a destroyer by nature, and he longed more than anything else to destroy Faye.

  He soon found the way. A chance remark by the Dean about how well she had done considering her unfortunate start in life prompted some discreet enquiries into her background. It was easy to trace her adolescence back to her life with her foster parents.

  What he uncovered after that took longer, but the results far more than repaid the effort.

  Gloatingly he dwelt on what he had learned. The clever little bitch… all that pretence about being a virgin… about being so cool and untouchable. Saint David would have a shock when he learned the truth. He laughed to himself. Saint David and his whore… because that was what the girl was. No one could tell him that she hadn't encouraged the poor sod whose life she had destroyed. They all did it… all women were the same. Some of them just started earlier than others. You could see it all the time… provocative little teases, the lot of them, leading a man on, then protesting about it when they got what they deserved. And she must have enjoyed it, too… must have done to have done it for all those years. If she hadn't got herself pregnant no doubt she'd have gone on enjoying it, as well. Trust a woman to try and pin the blame on someone else…

  He discovered that he was sweating, his body suddenly hard with a mixture of arousal and violent energy. This was when he enjoyed sex the most: when his appetite was aroused to such a pitch that it became a pleasure to physically subdue the woman lying beneath him. It was even better if they protested. Then they gave him the excuse to punish them a little, to accuse them of leading him on, to enter them quickly, even violently so that he could concentrate exclusively on his own pleasure.

  He wiped his hand over his damp forehead, suppressing his physical arousal. Just wait until he told Saint David all about his precious Faye.

  He set the scene for the denouement well, chivvying his wife into organising a small cocktail party for his departing students.

  Faye was invited along with David. She wanted to refuse to go, but pride wouldn't let her. She had her degree, and nothing Jeremy Catesby could do or say could take that away from her.

  As a student on a grant with no parental support, Faye was always short of money, and certainly had none to spare for fashionable clothes. Her working uniform of pleated skirts and thick jumpers in winter, jeans and thinner tops in summer comprised the entire contents of her meagre wardrobe.

  She had no idea what on earth she was going to wear for the cocktail party. Instinct told her it would be a formal affair. It had been a hot summer, so hot that she had recklessly allowed herself to buy a soft gathered cotton shirt and a couple of short-sleeved T-shirts to supplement her jeans.

  Faye never wore clothes that revealed anything of her body. Actually almost too slim, she always chose clothes that added bulk to her slender frame, enveloping her figure so that she seemed almost shapeless. Make-up was restricted to the merest touch of lipstick, her hair invariably tied back off her face. The other girls had grown used to her lack of vanity, her refusal to make the most of herself, but when she joined the others on the immaculate lawns of the Catesbys' large detached house on the day of the cocktail party Faye was uncomfortably conscious of the amused and contemptuous glances of her peers.

  It was David, dear, kind, thoughtful David who came to her rescue, not touching her, and yet somehow comforting her with his presence at her side as he smiled warmly at her and asked what she thought of the Catesbys' garden.

  Faye did not like it. There was something hard and unappealing about the rigorously pruned and arranged rose-beds, the earth bare and weedless beneath the soulless display of, to her, over-hard blooms, the roses themselves set out with mathematical precision.

  'I don't like it,' she confessed to David. 'It seems so… so regimented.'

  'Good girl,' he approved. 'My mother is going to like you. She hates this kind of garden. Wait until you see the gardens at Cottingdean.' He smiled at her again, and the strangest sensation raced through her body, a combination of warmth and gratitude… an awareness of him as a person… as a man… a tentative, hesitant need to lean towards him, to touch the smiling curve of his mouth so that she could capture the wonderful essence of his smile.

  As she stood there staring at him, completely overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of her feelings, Jeremy Catesby joined them.

  'Well, well. Saint David and his devoted handmaiden. What a charming picture. So… innocent and unworldly…and of course so misleading. I really do admire you, David. I must say I think I would fight a trifle shy of a young woman with Faye's past. After all, as they say, there's no smoke without fire. Do you have much contact with your stepfather these days, Faye?'

  David heard the small sound that tortured her throat, saw the way her skin turned livid and then white, felt the shock-waves that burned through her body…felt her panic and fear and reacted instinctively to them, closing the distance between them, guarding her… protecting her.

  'You do know about Faye's past, don't you, David?' Jeremy continued with merciless pleasure. 'Or is it a little secret she has kept from you? Shall I tell him for you, Faye? I can understand your embarrassment. To have laid claim to virginity so determinedly and so solidly makes it very difficult for you to admit that, not only are you not a virgin, but you've already had one pregnancy terminated. She's quite a bundle of surprises, you know, David. Sleeping with her own stepfather, and then getting him sent to prison for it… Even her own mother rejected her, and no wonder…it's enough to make anyone turn away in disgust. Seducing her stepfather and then—'

  'No…no… no!'

  In the distance Faye heard someone screaming, t
he sound beating into her head until she ached for it to stop…until her whole body vibrated to the appalling agony of that unearthly sound of another human being's pain.

  The garden, with its garish, hard colours, twisted violently around her, pain exploding inside her, as the world turned into a fierce ball of red and black agony, a fire dragon with gaping jaws that devoured her into its darkness.

  'Faye… it's all right. It's all right now…'

  She opened her eyes. She was sitting in the passenger seat of David's car, or rather half sitting in it and half lying on David's lap. His cool hand rested on her forehead, gently stroking her skin, while the other hand monitored the frantic pulse in her wrist.

  'David…'

  She swallowed automatically as saying his name burst against the rawness of her aching throat.

  'David…'

  'Are you all right…?'

  Faye raised her head and stared out of the car window. There was a man on the other side looking back at her. There was something familiar about him, although it took her several minutes to place him.

  The surgeon from the hospital… Her heart leapt in shock. Liz… something had happened to Liz. Still confused and half in shock, she didn't stop to analyse that he could not have come in person to talk to her about Liz, that he could hardly have known where to find her.

  'Mrs Danvers… are you all right?'

  She opened the window, her movements made awkward with haste and shock. He had wrenched her so brutally out of the past that for a moment she had been totally disorientated.

  'Liz… my mother-in-law…'

  Alaric Ferguson realised instantly what she was thinking and cursed himself for interfering. Why on earth hadn't he simply left her alone? It was so unlike him to intrude on someone's else's privacy, but he had been worried about her.

  'No—no, there's nothing wrong,' he assured her.

  Nothing wrong…then why…?

  He could almost feel her withdrawing from him, her eyes shadowed and wary.