The Hills and the Valley

by Janet Tanner

  ‘I’ll have to get Hope out of her pushchair,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly. ‘Don’t you think she’s grown? Isn’t she a little picture?’

  ‘Yes.’ But his eyes were still on Barbara.

  She got Hope out of the pushchair and lifted her up. ‘It’s Uncle Huw. Look!’

  Hope turned her face into her mother’s shoulder. Barbara and Huw continued to smile at one another across her head. After a moment Hope began to wriggle. Barbara set her down and she toddled into the house.

  ‘We’d better go in.’ She noticed the bandage on his arm. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Oh, legacy of war. It’s nothing.’

  The hall was dim, heavy with the scent of roses. Her fingers found his and twined. ‘Oh Huw, it’s so good to see you!’

  ‘And you.’

  It had been so long. There was so much to say. Yet they said none of it. Nothing was important but being together.

  A voice from the kitchen: ‘Hope! What are you doing here?’

  It was Mrs Milsom. They looked at one another and smiled, then Barbara followed her daughter along the hall. ‘Hello, Milsy.’

  ‘Miss Barbara! Come to see Master Huw, have you?’ Mrs Milsom nodded and smiled, her multiple chins wobbling. ‘Go on then, the pair of you. I’ll look after Hope. She’ll be all right with me. Do you want a biscuit, Hope? Come on, you know where they’re kept, don’t you?’

  ‘She’s only just had her lunch,’ Barbara said automatically.

  ‘Never mind. This is a special occasion, isn’t it? I’ll keep an eye on her for you. I expect you and Master Huw want to talk.’

  Master Huw. At any other time it might have amused Barbara the way Mrs Milsom still referred to a man of twenty-six as ‘Master Huw’. Not today. She was aware of nothing but a wave of gratitude. Mrs Milsom knew a great deal more than she ever let on. She had been a part of the household for so long it was impossible to imagine life without her, always unobtrusive yet always there when she was needed.

  ‘Shall we go out then?’ Barbara asked. ‘It’s a lovely day. A pity to waste the sunshine.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Huw.

  Ordinary conversation. Just mundane words. Yet behind them so much emotion.

  ‘Be a good girl, Hope,’ Barbara said.

  Hope, her mouth full of biscuit, did not reply.

  Huw held the door open and they walked out together into the sunlight.

  Up the steep lane, Porters Hill, where Amy had run into Ralph’s Morgan with the lorry so long ago, they went, through the ‘V’ gate and into the first of the big uneven meadows.

  Here there was shadow as well as sunshine, from the oaks and chestnuts that scattered the meadows and provided shade for the herd of cows that Farmer Miles moved from one field to another throughout the summer. They followed the well-worn track across the first meadow, then climbed through a gap in the hedge so that they were in a steeper, more bumpy field, streaked by marshy patches where the underground streams ran and dotted by cowpats. The field was less pleasant than the first one but it was also more secluded, and as such had a magic of its own. The steep little banks were covered with springy grass and a carpet of tom thumbs and the occasional thistle scratched at Barbara’s bare ankles.

  As the path flattened and widened Barbara fell into step beside Huw and linked her arm through his.

  ‘Huw, I was so sorry to hear about Claire.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Claire seemed to belong to another life now; he realised with a shock he had not thought about her once since Amy had spoken to him last night about Barbara’s troubles.

  ‘It must have been terrible for you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’ He turned, looking at her directly. ‘I want to talk about you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. You’re not happy, are you, Barbara?’

  ‘Of course I’m happy.’ But her eyes were giving the lie to the words.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said.

  She shrugged helplessly. ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin. Anyway you don’t want to hear about my problems.’

  ‘Barbara, I have always wanted to hear about your problems. Do you remember when that Riddle boy was bothering you? You didn’t want to tell Amy, but you told me. And I sorted it out for you, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but that was just childhood problems. This is different. We’re grown up now. We don’t just think molehills are mountains. They really are.’

  ‘All the more reason why you should share them. I want to know.’

  ‘It sounds as if you already do. I suppose Mum has been talking to you. She shouldn’t have. She had no right.’

  ‘She’s worried about you – and so am I. But she only told me what she knew. She said you haven’t talked to her for months.’

  ‘Talking does no good. I’m married to him, Huw. That’s all there is to it. I made my bed and now I have to lie on it.’ She gave a small strangled laugh. ‘That might almost be funny if it were true. The thing is we don’t often lie on it – not together anyway. Thank goodness.’

  ‘Oh Barbara.’

  They were at the edge of the field, near the hedge. He sat down, pulling her down beside him. She sat upright, her feet drawn up beside her, pulling blades of grass and splitting them as if her life depended on it.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  She shook her head. She did not want to talk about it even to Huw. She did not want to think about the coldness interspersed with childish outbursts or the anger that seemed necessary to arouse him. And she did not want to admit even to Huw that her husband was one big sham, not a hero at all but a rank coward. That was the final indignity. If he had lost his reason through the trauma of war yet been a hero she could have stood it. But he was not a hero. When danger had threatened he had failed and in doing so had failed her too, negated her dreams, demeaned her somehow. With her head she had tried to understand and in part had done so. But her heart had refused to follow. To the outside world she could make excuses for him. But there was no remedy for her loss of respect for him. Nothing could erase her shame and scorn.

  Tears blurred her eyes and she turned away so that Huw should not see them.

  ‘He doesn’t hurt you, does he?’ Huw asked. His voice was ragged.

  She could not answer.

  ‘Barbara?’ His hand gripped her arm. ‘Does he hurt you?’

  She swallowed, wishing she could lie, knowing she could not.

  ‘Not very often.’

  ‘Bastard!’ He spat it out between gritted teeth.

  She twisted her head quickly. Her eyes were agonised.

  ‘He’s sick. He can’t help it …’

  ‘He’d be sick if I got my hands on him.’

  ‘Oh no, Huw, you mustn’t …’ She reached across, laying a restraining hand on his arm. At her touch she felt the muscle quiver and her breath caught in her throat. For long moments they sat unmoving, looking at one another as they had outside the house, only now Barbara felt as if all the life force was draining out of her limbs and she was being drawn up like a magnet into his eyes. Time was suspended. Then the magnetic pull grew stronger and they were moving almost imperceptibly closer, closer, until she could see only the blurred outline of his cheek and chin. She felt her lips tremble, drawn by that same magnetic force. They hovered, a breath away from his, then they were touching, clinging.

  He raised his hand to her face, brushing the curls away and leaving his hand there cupping her ear and holding her head steady while he kissed her. After a moment they drew apart, looking at one another with that same intensity, then they came together all of a rush as if they could no longer bear the wasted years.

  ‘Barbara … Barbara …’

  ‘Oh Huw …’

  The excitement was now a tight spiral at the very core of her sending tiny sharp shivers to spread through her like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. The light breeze which
stirred the grass whispered over her skin and started a million pinpricks of awareness. Her whole body, it seemed, was sensitised, her soul a deep pool of longing and she was drowning in it.

  Almost without being aware of moving she sank back into the grass, saw his face above her blotting out the sky, smelled his sunwarmed skin, felt the hard rippling muscles of his back beneath her hands as he leaned over her. Her heart was full. This was right. So right. They were together, isolated from the world by their love. He kissed her again, pushing back her dress from her shoulders and buried his face against her. The touch of his lips made her shiver again, a shiver of delight that linked the very core of her to the place where his mouth was pressed against her breast. The beauty of it made her weak. She shifted slightly beneath his weight and the grass scratched the back of her neck, but she was unaware of it except as a part of the overwhelming beauty of the whole. He took her gently with a restrained passion that made her ache with the need to be one with him, lifting her through the planes of delight to a pinacle of vibrant ecstacy, heights she had never dreamed existed, up, up, until she thought she would faint with the completeness of it. And then it was over and she was drifting back down the same path, warmed now, replete with love, until at last she lay contented in his arms.

  He rolled away and she half turned with him, unwilling to relinquish the contact, her face still buried in the open neck of his shirt, tasting the salt of his skin. For long moments they lay there in one another’s arms, the grass scratching beneath her bare legs, the sun warming above. She wanted to sleep, sleep here in this cave of love and seclusion, with the only sounds the drone of bumble bees in the clover and the distant lowing of one of Farmer Miles’s cows in the field beyond. But Huw moved, raising himself on one elbow and looking down at her.

  ‘I love you, Barbara.’

  ‘And I love you.’

  ‘I’ve always loved you.’

  ‘I know.’ It seemed like nothing less than the truth now; she had always known. ‘I’ve always loved you too.’

  A moment’s silence. Then he said: ‘You will leave him, won’t you?’

  It was as if someone had doused her with a bucket of cold water, shocking her back to reality. If he had said those same words a moment ago when she had been drifting on that beautiful plane she would have had no doubts. But now the real world had come close again.

  ‘Leave him?’ she echoed.

  ‘Yes. You can’t stay with him now. I won’t let you. Not now.’

  ‘Oh Huw.’ She sat up, covering her face with her hands. She did not want to face reality. Not yet. But there was no escaping it.

  ‘Look, I know it’s not easy with a war on,’ he said. ‘It’s almost impossible to plan from one week to the next and I have to be honest, I haven’t had time yet to work out how we can manage to be together. But I will. Leave Marcus, bring Hope and live with your mother for a time – she’ll be only too pleased to have you, I know. And as soon as I can work something out I’ll send for you.’

  She swallowed. Her throat was aching. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  He tutted. ‘Of course, I know it’s not ideal. I suppose if you really wanted to stay with Amy it wouldn’t be so bad. Now I’m to be based at Exeter it’s not that far away. And to be honest I don’t think the war is going to last that much longer anyway. Then things will be much more settled.’

  ‘No,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You don’t understand. I can’t leave Marcus.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t leave him?’ He was sitting up too now and there was an angry edge to his voice, a cover for emotion.

  ‘I can’t leave him.’ She felt small and lost, yet quite sure of what she had to do. ‘I married him. He needs me.’

  ‘But you don’t love him.’

  ‘No, but what has that to do with it?’

  ‘Everything. You don’t love him. He doesn’t even treat you properly. I won’t let you go back to him. You can’t!’

  ‘I have to. I don’t know what would happen to him if I left him. He’d fall to pieces completely. He might even commit suicide. He’s threatened to. If that happened I’d never forgive myself.’

  ‘That’s his problem.’

  ‘And mine too. I’m his wife. He’s sick, Huw. I couldn’t be happy with you if …’ Her voice tailed away as imagined horrors paraded before her eyes. ‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘there’s Hope. He’d never let me take her. I told Mum that. Can’t you imagine what would happen? The Spindlers would fight for her. There would be a terrible tug-of-war. Suppose I was to lose?’

  ‘You wouldn’t lose. No court would take a child away from her mother without a very good reason.’

  ‘The Spindlers could be reason enough. I can’t risk it, Huw.’ She covered his hand with hers. ‘Not even for you.’

  Their eyes met. He saw the absolute decision in hers and dropped his own. For a moment they sat in silence. Then he said, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’

  Her resolve wavered. ‘I don’t know.’

  He curled his fingers round her wrist. ‘I’m not letting you go again, Barbara. Not now.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Oh no. Please don’t let me go, Huw. I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘Though I don’t know how I can bear to let you go back to him.’ His voice had a hard edge. ‘To know you’re with him – to wonder what he’s doing to you …’

  She made up her mind. ‘I’ll tell him I want separate rooms. I’ll go that far. Only I can’t leave him. Not at the moment.’

  ‘And we’ll stay in touch?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes please. You can write to me at Mum’s. She’ll pass the letters on to me. And we’ll meet whenever we can. How long are you here for?’

  ‘Fourteen days.’

  ‘Can I see you? Every day?’

  ‘Try keeping me away!’

  ‘Oh Huw …’

  He pushed her back into the grass and once again she forgot everything but his nearness as he kissed her, caressed her and their bodies met in a fusion of love.

  ‘Why did you leave me?’ Barbara asked. ‘All that time ago, why did you write and tell me to find someone else?’

  They were in the field again; over the past week it had become their special place where they could be alone together, talking, loving, cherishing the stolen moments. Every day she had walked from Hillsbridge House to Valley View with Hope in the pushchair, then left the child in Mrs Milsom’s care while she and Huw were together. The housekeeper had been wonderful. She asked no questions, made no comment about their preoccupation with one another, yet seemed to understand their need for privacy. Her support was unexpected for she came of a generation raised on strict propriety, but in this instance her collusion was absolute. Perhaps it was because she had never liked Marcus, Barbara thought, whereas over the years she had grown as fond of Huw as the son she herself had never had and this was her way of getting her own back’at the golden boy from the leisured classes she so resented. Or perhaps over the years she had secretly hoped that the undeniable bond between Barbara and Huw would deepen into love and cement together the family which had become her life. Whatever the reason, she had made things easy for them and Barbara was filled with warmth and gratitude.

  The weather, too, seemed to be on their side. The skies remained high and blue and the air warm and what rain there was fell at night and was gone again by morning.

  ‘Why did you write me that dreadful letter telling me to forget you?’ Barbara asked again. ‘Was it because you thought I was too young?’

  It never occurred to her to ask if it had been because he had not loved her. She knew now that could not have been the reason.

  Huw was silent for a moment. Obviously Amy had never told Barbara of her fears. He sought around for an answer and decided on the truth.

  ‘Amy thought you were my sister.’ He felt her stiffen. ‘It’s not true,’ he said quickly. ‘But she thought we shared the same father. Haven’t you ever wondered why she took me in? Well, that was the
reason. She thought Llew was my father.’

  ‘But he wasn’t?’ Barbara said after a moment.

  ‘No. I discovered the truth too late. I was going to tell you everything was all right – there was nothing to stop us being together. But then I was shot down and by the time I got back to this country you were married.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. Her thoughts were churning. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘You can understand how I felt, stuck in France, knowing you were carrying on with that … that bastard … and not able to do anything about it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘Oh Huw, if only I’d known! I thought you didn’t want me. I was trying to forget you and Marcus seemed so charming. But I’d never have rushed into marrying him ifit hadn’t been for thinking you didn’t want me. I was just trying to forget.’

  ‘I know.’ And he did. Somehow without long explanations they were both able to read the other’s thoughts. But there was still something he had to ask her. ‘Have you told him yet that you want separate rooms?’

  She was silent for a moment. She could not lie to him, yet did not want to tell him the truth either, that she had not yet summoned up the courage to make the final break.

  ‘I haven’t had the chance yet. But I will.’

  ‘Oh Barbara! I can’t bear to think of you with him.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said hastily. ‘He hasn’t touched me. He very often doesn’t – for weeks on end.’

  ‘Well, I hope he doesn’t. And I hope you soon find the opportunity to tell him. You’re mine!’ His voice was fierce, his hands on her shoulders demanding and proprietorial.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m yours,’ she whispered and let him push her back into the grass.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  On Huw’s last evening Barbara dined with the family at Valley View. Marcus had had to be invited too, but he had declined, pleading a prior engagement with the manager of one of the Spindler farms, and Barbara was relieved. It was bad enough sitting through the meal with only Amy, Ralph and Maureen to witness her efforts to hide her misery, if Marcus had been there as well it would have been impossible.