Take What You Want

by Anne Mather

  ‘Your father doesn’t govern your thoughts. You believed him. Just as you still believe him, deep inside. I wonder what he would say if he could hear you now?’

  ‘I don’t care what he would say-‘

  ‘No more do I. I don’t care what you say either, Sophie. Just go away and leave me alone. I can do without any of you.’

  How Sophie reached the car again; she never knew. She was shaking so much her teeth were chattering and Simon left her to go into an off licence and buy a small bottle of brandy which he opened and insisted on her drinking from. The raw spirit was warming; it made her choke and cough, but at least it banished the icy coldness which seemed to have entered her veins.

  Realising they could not go on sitting in the hospital car-park indefinitely, Simon eventually started the car and drove towards the exit. But as they were going out, two women were coming in, and one of them stumbled in her haste to avoid the car and fell, hitting her head against the brick wall.

  ‘Lord, it’s Emma!’ exclaimed Simon, stopping and leaping out of the car. ‘Hell, have I killed her?’

  The shock of the accident brought Sophie to life. She, too, jumped out of the car and ran to where Simon and his mother were kneeling by Emma’s still body, ‘Is she all right?’

  Laura looked up at her stepdaughter angrily. ‘It’s no thanks to you if she is!’ she snapped. ‘For heaven’s sake, Simon, can’t you see she’s been knocked unconscious?

  Go and get someone, a nurse or a doctor. She needs examining to make sure she hasn’t damaged herself.’

  Simon shrugged helplessly at Sophie and ran off, while Sophie wetted her handkerchief and dabbed at the bruising on Emma’s forehead. ‘Whatever happened?’ she asked, looking at her stepmother. ‘She acted as if Simon was about to run her down.’

  Laura looked as though she was going to refuse to speak to her stepdaughter, and then she muttered something non-committal. ‘I think she recognised you, if you must know,’ she replied curtly. ‘I expect she wondered what you were doing here.

  As I am wondering now.’

  ‘I—I had to see Robert,’ said Sophie quietly. ‘And I did.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Laura couldn’t hide her interest now, but Emma was stirring and Sophie’s reply was postponed.

  ‘Oh, what happened?’ Emma tried to struggle up on to her elbows.

  Laura soothed her gently. ‘You tripped, my dear, and hit your head. How do you feel?’

  Emma licked her dry lips, her eyes flickering over Sophie and showing her surprise.

  ‘I—I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all.’

  Laura glanced towards the lighted entrance of the hospital. ‘Well, don’t worry. I’ve sent Simon for help.’ She tried to make light of it. ‘An ideal place to have an accident — practically on the steps of the hospital!’

  But Emma seemed agitated now. ‘I’m all right, really I am,’ she exclaimed, struggling to get up against their restraining hands. ‘I don’t need help. I’m fine!’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Laura was adamant. ‘There’s no point in taking any chances when there’s no need to do so. I shan’t be content until you’ve had a thorough examination.’

  ‘No – ’

  Sophie could see Simon coming now. There were two men with him, one in a porter’s uniform, and the other obviously a houseman. She looked down at Emma.

  ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘Here’s Simon.’

  Emma was carried into Casualty on a stretcher and Sophie, Simon and Laura waited in Outpatients for her to emerge. Sophie couldn’t help recollecting Emma’s agitation and the possible reasons for it. What if she was not pregnant? Would anyone find out? Was that what was troubling her? Surely she had no need to worry about that.

  At this early stage, it would be difficult to deny without thorough testing. And yet…

  Turning to Simon, she said, ‘Did you notice how upset Emma appeared to be?’

  Simon nodded. ‘I wonder why.’

  ‘She could be concerned about losing—the baby.’

  ‘If there is a baby.’

  ‘Oh, what are you two saying?’ Laura overheard the tale end of their conversation.

  ‘Of course Emma’s expecting a baby. I’ve had two myself. I know the symptoms. A woman always knows.’

  Laura was so adamant that the spring of doubt which had risen inside Sophie as quickly was doused. Instead she sat on the edge of her chair, waiting impatiently for Emma to be announced unharmed and thus enable herself and Simon to leave.

  But Emma did not emerge. Instead the houseman who had examined her approached them.

  ‘You’re Miss Norton’s relatives?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ admitted Laura. ‘She—she’s going to marry my son.’

  ‘Is she?’ The houseman nodded. ‘Oh, well, I have to tell you that we’re keeping her in overnight.’

  ‘You are?’ Laura’s lips parted anxiously. ‘Is something wrong? It’s not the baby, is it?’

  ‘The baby, Mrs. Kemble?’ Sophie thought she would always remember the astonishment on the houseman’s face. ‘What baby?’

  Laura flushed. ‘My son—that is—Emma is—pregnant.’

  The houseman considered the notes on the pad in front of him. Then he looked at Simon. ‘You are Miss Norton’s fiancé Mr. Ydris?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘No. My brother.’

  ‘I see.’ The houseman looked troubled. ‘Well, I don’t know quite how to say this, but Miss Norton is not pregnant. On that I can reassure you.’

  Laura collapsed on to one of the wooden seats that lined the outpatients’ area. ‘Not pregnant?’ she echoed disbelievingly.

  ‘Not pregnant,’ assured the houseman firmly. He glanced at Sophie and Simon, and then looked at Laura again. ‘Obviously, you’ve — er — misunderstood your son’s and Miss Norton’s reasons for getting married, Mrs. Kemble.’

  Sophie had to sit down, too. Her legs felt like jelly, and this news, far from reassuring her, had knocked all the wind out of her. Oh, God! what a fool she had been, what fools they had all been! But that was no excuse. They had believed Emma before Robert, and that was unforgivable.

  Laura managed to look up. ‘You are—sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mrs. Kemble. A medical examination was not needed to confirm that fact.

  There are—outward signs. You understand?’

  Laura turned away, pressing her lips to the knuckles of one hand. Simon took command.

  ‘You say—Miss Norton has to stay in overnight?’

  ‘Oh! Oh, yes.’ The houseman consulted his papers. ‘Actually, I’m sure she’s going to be all right. It was not a serious blow to the head. But Miss Norton herself seems — nervous — agitated. Sufficiently so for me to recommend a night’s observation.’

  ‘I see.’ Simon bent and helped both his mother and Sophie to their feet. ‘I think we understand now. Thank you.’

  ‘Miss Norton will be free to leave any time after ten tomorrow morning, Mr. Ydris.

  ‘Then I suggest you tell her that,’ replied Simon, with a tight smile, and escorted the two women out of the hospital without permitting them a backward glance.

  ‘I think we could all do with a good night’s sleep, don’t you, Mother?’ he asked, urging them towards the station wagon. ‘In our own beds. At Penn Warren, hmm?’

  And mutely Laura agreed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SOPHIE sat on the side of the swimming pool, dangling her feet in the water. Looking down at the slenderness of her limbs, the bones which were revealed through the honey-gold skin, she wished she had not climbed on to Harriet Tarrant’s bathroom scales that morning. Until then she had been able to convince herself that her loss of weight was negligible, but now she knew that this was not so. The reason her clothes, even tight-fitting jeans, were hanging on her was because she had lost over a stone since returning to Corfu less than a month ago.

  She passed an impatient hand over her eyes. These past few days since Harriet had
been away on business had dragged. She had nothing to occupy her time. She had completed the work Harriet had left for her within a couple of days of Harriet’s departure, albeit working longer hours than her employer would have approved.

  Since then, she had wandered restlessly about the place, unable to rid her mind of the thoughts that plagued it.

  To begin with, when she first returned to Corfu after that tortuous interview with Robert and the subsequent discovery of Emma’s deception, she had felt numb, mentally paralysed, capable of only surface sensitivities. She had renewed her relationship with Harriet without explanation further than that Robert was going to be all right, and applied herself to her work automatically.

  Harriet had been wonderful. She had behaved as though nothing momentous had happened, had asked no questions, when dozens must have been trembling on her tongue, and generally made Sophie feel that in some strange way she had come home.

  Within such a warm and sympathetic atmosphere, Sophie’s temporary retreat from reality could not last. As the days went by, and the ice which seemed to have encased her heart melted, reaction of a different kind set in. Of course, she had had to confess the truth of what really happened on her visit to Conwynneth, and Harriet, for once, had had nothing constructive to say.

  And so that awful week had stretched into two, and then three … Sophie was often aware of Harriet watching her in those early days, but her understanding of the situation was such that Sophie felt no need to hide her feelings.

  Nevertheless, while the mind was capable of absorbing a tremendous amount of pain, the body was less resilient. Although Sophie tried to eat the food Harriet’s cook so painstakingly prepared for her, her appetite was practically non-existent, and she had found she could live on next to nothing. But living was one thing, remaining healthy was another. The combined strains of her existence were stripping the flesh from her body.

  With an exclamation almost of self-disgust Sophie plunged into the cooling waters of the pool. If she had lived a hundred years before, she thought impatiently, she would have been said to be pining away. Was she, an emancipated female of the twentieth century, to allow such a thing to happen? Time would heal all things.

  Already the words Robert had said to her could be relived without too much agony.

  If the spirit could take it, why must the flesh be so weak? An old Spanish proverb she had once read sprang to her mind: Take what you want, said God, it had said, take it—and pay for it. Well, she was paying now for the things she had taken for granted.

  She lunched alone on the patio and then sought the coolness of her room in the heat of the day. Although she never slept at this time she could not stand too much heat at the moment. She was a prey to headaches which she realised were the result of too little sustenance.

  She had been lying there perhaps an hour when she heard the sound of a car droning up the hill to the villa and relief swept over her. Harriet was home! Thank heavens for that.

  She slid off the bed and quickly dressed in a lemon cotton halter top and a short swinging cotton skirt. She stepped into thonged sandals and brushing carelessly at her hair hurried out through the wide entrance hall to where Harriet’s car was drawing to a halt on the forecourt.

  ‘Oh, am I glad to see you - ‘ she was beginning as Harriet stepped out of the car, and then halted abruptly when her father also emerged. ‘Daddy!’ Her eyes darted from one to the other of them. She licked her lips. ‘Daddy, is something wrong? Oh, God! it’s not Robert-‘

  ‘No, no, no, Sophie!’ Doctor Kemble strode towards her, grasping her forearms and shaking her gently. ‘Nothing’s wrong, so put that out of your head.’ He gave her a swift kiss and then looked admiringly at the villa. ‘My, my, this is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Mrs. Tarrant was not exaggerating.’

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ Harriet smiled encouragingly at Sophie, ignoring the questioning look in her eyes. ‘It’s cooler out of the glare, and I’m sure I can persuade Nana to make us some afternoon tea.’

  Sophie led the way into the lounge with its marble-tiled floor and cushion-strewn couches. She linked her fingers tightly together and then said: ‘Is—is Mummy with you?’

  ‘No.’ Doctor Kemble gestured for permission to sit down and Sophie nodded impatiently. ‘No, Sophie, she’s at Penn Warren. Simon is back at school, as you know, and someone had to look after him.’

  Sophie moved her shoulders helplessly. ‘I don’t understand, Daddy-‘

  ‘You’re not looking well, Sophie,’ he commented, his fine eyes showing lines of strain. ‘Mrs. Tarrant tells me you’re not eating.’

  Sophie shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Why are you here, Daddy?’

  ‘I invited him.’ Harriet had entered behind them after issuing the cook with her instructions. ‘Won’t you sit down, Sophie? Or do you want to go to the bathroom?’

  Sophie subsided on to a chair, looking expectantly at the pair of them. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘There has to be a reason for your coming.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘There is. Your father has something to say to you.’

  ‘Then what?’ Sophie could hardly contain herself.

  Doctor Kemble leaned towards her, his hands hanging loosely between his knees.

  ‘I’ve come—I’ve come to say that—maybe we were wrong, your stepmother and I.

  Maybe we shouldn’t have—forbidden Robert to have anything to do with you.’

  Sophie slumped. ‘What?’

  Her father sighed. ‘Sophie, don’t make this any harder than it already is. I’ve — I’ve admitted we may have been mistaken. It’s difficult to know what else to say.’

  Sophie jerked upright. ‘It’s a bit late to say anything, isn’t it?’

  Doctor Kemble looked at Harriet, and she shook her head. ‘It’s never too late, Sophie.’

  ‘But it is! You—you know—how Robert feels-’

  ‘I do. But do you?’

  Sophie caught her breath. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Sophie,’ her father was speaking again now. ‘Sophie, after you—after you left England, Robert asked to see you.’

  ‘What?’ Sophie stared at him.

  ‘It’s true.’

  Sophie blinked, trying to absorb what he was saying. ‘But—why?’

  Doctor Kemble shifted uncomfortably. ‘Your stepmother told him that you’d returned to Greece.’

  ‘But why did he want to see me?’

  Her father sighed again. ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘And when—when she told him I’d gone?’

  ‘He assumed—he assumed-‘

  ‘He assumed you didn’t want to see him again,’ put in Harriet shortly.

  Sophie gasped, staring disbelievingly at her father. ‘And you allowed him to think that?’

  ‘It was easier that way.’ Her father mopped his’ brow with his handkerchief. ‘Sophie, you know how your stepmother and I have always felt about you and Robert – ’

  ‘Oh, Daddy!’ Sophie felt physically ill. To imagine Robert’s reactions when he had found she had returned to Corfu without making any further attempt to see him filled her with horror. Particularly as no one had apparently seen fit to disabuse him of the reasons behind her behaviour. What must he have gone through? Had he believed she had been revolted by his appearance? ‘Oh, Daddy, how could you?’

  ‘Sophie, Robert was in hospital. He was still very weak, morose. Laura was convinced that once he was up and about again, once he had had time to consider – ’

  Sophie got abruptly to her feet and walked away from him. ‘So why have you come here?’ she demanded unsteadily. ‘To clear yourself in case any of this comes out later?’

  Her father looked defeated as she turned to face him. ‘No, Sophie,’ he replied heavily. ‘Not for those reasons. I came because Mrs. Tarrant came to Penn Warren and told Robert the truth, and he was in no fit state to make this journey alone.’

  ‘What?’ Sophie couldn’t breathe. Her throat was choked. She
stared incredulously at her father and then turned to Harriet. ‘You—you mean—Robert’s here? In Corfu? At the villa?’

  ‘No, Sophie,’ Harriet spoke now, ‘not at the villa. He drew the line at that. He’s down in the town, at the hotel where he’s booked a room. If you want to see him, you have to go to him.’

  ‘If—I—want—to—see—him!’ Tears began to overflow Sophie’s eyes and stream unheeded down her cheeks. ‘Oh, God, of course I want to see him!’

  ‘I told him that,’ observed Harriet calmly, ‘but I’m afraid he’s still a little self-conscious about his appearance – ’

  ‘Take me there!’ Sophie left her father in no doubt as to the strength of her feelings.

  ‘Oh, please, take me now!’

  Doctor Kemble would have got to his feet then, but Harriet stayed him. ‘I’ll take her,’ she stated firmly. ‘Then I’ll come back and we’ll have some tea.’

  The drive from the villa down the tortuous slopes to Corfu town had never seemed longer or more uninteresting. Sophie was tense with emotions too long denied and Harriet had more sense than to try and talk to her. However, when she stopped in the square before the hotel, Sophie turned to her and grasped her hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said tearfully. ‘I don’t know how, but I must repay you.’

  ‘Just be happy, my dear,’ said Harriet gently, her own eyes slightly moist. ‘And remember, your parents do love you, no matter how hard to believe that might seem.’

  Sophie nodded, impulsively kissed her cheek, and slipped out of the car.

  If the hotel receptionist thought there was something rather odd about a young woman who had obviously recently been weeping asking for the room number of one of his guests, he hid it admirably. Perhaps he imagined they were a married couple who had split up after a row, thought Sophie lightheadedly, as she walked along the corridor of the second floor to Robert’s room. Perhaps he was more accurate than he knew…

  She knocked at Robert’s door. She hadn’t the courage to turn the handle and walk right in. It was some minutes before the door was answered, and one look at Robert’s strained and tired face told her why. He had obviously been resting, and had shed his clothes for the coolness of a shower. His tousled hair was still damp, and a towel was hitched about his hips. The stitches had been removed from his cheek, and now only the savage scars remained.