by Jane Corrie
Her uncle, however, had every reason, and promptly said so. 'What's it to you?' he asked bluntly. 'She ain't having no change of heart, if that's what you're counting on. She'll make the same decision she made before,' he added smugly, making no attempt to hide his satisfaction in rubbing salt in the wound, and Teresa could have slapped him as one slaps a naughty child.
Here it was again, she thought wearily; without realising it, her uncle had confirmed the fact that Carl had not thrown her out, as he had s spitefully stated a few moments ago. So her earlier suspicions had been right. She had chosen to live with her uncle rather than marry Carl, and no matter how conscience-stricken her uncle was unknowingly making her feel, it helped strengthen her resolve.
She rounded on her uncle, who soon lost his air of triumph as her scolding words made their point. 'That was an extremely uncalled-for remark, Uncle, and I've a mind to make you apologise for it. However, I'll forgive you only if you keep the conversation on more reasonable lines. It's very good of Carl to bother about me at all, considering,' she underlined the words, 'that I walked out on him.'
'Had no choice,' muttered her uncle, thoroughly
unrepentantly, but after catching her eyes and seeing the warning they conveyed, he shrugged to show his disapproval of the way things were going and added, 'I guess it ain't no use saying no. It's a free country, after all, if that's what he's a mind to do. I'm jist saying it's better forgot, that's all,' he concluded darkly.
Carl's fair autocratic head inclined at this rather belated climb-down on Patrick Rafferty's part, and having got what he came for, he strode to the door, and held his hand out to Teresa as he reached it. 'Teresa?' he said softly.
Teresa felt torn between the two men, but she was drawn by some compulsion she did not understand to Carl's side. Nodding mutely, she joined him, but did not take his hand as they walked to the front door.
'I'll see you tomorrow,' Carl said firmly, as he opened the door to let himself out. 'I'll pick you up from the office. You finish at twelve, don't you?'
She felt a rush of panic; he didn't intend to give her time to review the situation. If she didn't watch out she could still find herself being swept down the aisle to marry a man she didn't love, or even know. 'Oh, not tomorrow,' she said hastily, 'I've already made plans for tomorrow.' In a sense this was true, for it was Saturday, and Michael was taking her to the dinner-dance at Bathurst.
She felt her wrist caught, and winced as Carl's strong fingers bit into her flesh. 'Michael Oates, I suppose?' he said harshly. 'I might have guessed! He hasn't wasted much time, has he? Egged on, no doubt, by your uncle.'
Teresa gasped indignantly, 'This will be the first time he's taken me out, and it's not like that at all ! ' she added crossly.
`It had better not be! replied Carl savagely. 'I think I'll have a word with Master Oates,' he added darkly.
'Don't you dare ! flashed Teresa, no longer feeling sorry for Carl. Of all the pompous, overbearing males, he took the cake! 'Michael's been very good to me. And,' she added for good measure, 'as my uncle said just now, what right have you to dictate what I should do and shouldn't do?'
She found herself caught in a tight embrace, and being kissed in no uncertain manner. When she was weak and gasping he let her, go, and stood studying her through narrowed eyes. 'That's my right,' he said softly, 'and you're not going to be allowed to forget it. Okay, so tomorrow's out, but don't make any plans for Sunday evening. I'll pick you up at seven.'
Teresa watched him walk to the gate, and her smouldering eyes met his implacable ones as he turned to give her a mocking half-salute before getting into his car and driving off.
Well, she hadn't said, yes, had she? she fumed as she made her way back to the sitting-room. If Michael had plans for Sunday, she would very probably fall in with them! She simply refused to be bullied by Carl Elton, and how she could have ever agreed to marry him in the first place was beyond her understanding.
Her uncle gave her a searching look as she settled down in one of the old armchairs, and fixed brood-
ing eyes on the single bar of the electric fire he had switched on, for the evenings were beginning to get chilly now.
'You're not going soft over him again, are you, girl?' he asked warily.
Teresa's eyebrows rose, and she cast him a look of reproach. 'Of course not,' she replied with a note of surprise in her voice. Then she looked back, frowning, at the glow of the fire. 'What puzzles me is how we ever got together in the first place.' She sighed. 'Of course I don't really know what happened, but I'm sure I couldn't have been myself. He's so overbearing, isn't he? So used to giving orders and expecting everyone to jump to it. I suppose,' she mused, 'that's what comes with having so much money.'
'Sure, that's about the sum of it,' agreed her uncle enthusiastically, and warming to his theme, he added, 'And sure you weren't yourself, girl. Didn't he come across you when you'd just lost your folks? Sure, he caught you on the rebound, that's for certain.' He chuckled, 'He's come a cropper this time, hasn't he?' He shook his head in mock sorrow. 'I never thought I'd find it in my heart to feel sorry for an Elton, but I guess there's a first time for everything. He's over the moon about you, that's for sure, and he ain't the type of man to take kindly to a rebuff. No, sir, this time the tables are turned with a vengeance
Teresa sighed inwardly; he was referring to the feud again. It seemed he couldn't forget it, not even now when it should have been all over with. She recalled what Carl had told her about the Eltons
wanting to end it, but that the Raffertys had decreed otherwise. She looked at her uncle, who was now lost in thought. Perhaps if he'd married and had a family, instead of choosing a solitary existence and brooding on the past, things might have been different. Although, she mused, some folk thrived on past grievances, they were a kind of a lifeline to them, and if the truth was known, they actually enjoyed the verbal skirmishes the situation provoked. That her uncle belonged to this particular species, Teresa was in no doubt. It didn't make him a wicked man, just a provoking one.
'Course,' her uncle muttered, coming out of his reverie, 'you wouldn't know that part of it. I doubt your mam would have said much about that.'
Teresa felt a cloud of depression settling over her. She was now about to hear more about the wretched feud, and she really felt she had had enough for one day, it was only the mention of her mother that stopped her from actually saying so. Whatever Uncle Patrick was about to tell her obviously concerned her mother, and that Teresa did want to hear.
Her uncle coughed, as if embarrassed, and gave her a wry grin. 'Keep forgetting, girl, you don't remember anything, do you? Don't mind me, I'm an old fuddy-duddy, and my memory ain't what it was. Come to think of it, I did tell yer about your mam—she was sweet on an Elton, see, and got pushed into a job that took her to England. That's what I meant when I said it was different this time. It's a Rafferty now that's calling the tune—yes, sir!'
Teresa's interest faded quickly, for her uncle was back in the past again, and she was hungry for news
of more recent events. News that only Carl Elton could give her, if he so wished.
Her uncle broke into her reverie with an abrupt, 'Are you seeing him again?'
She looked across at him and wondered if he had guessed the trend of her thoughts. 'Yes,' she said quietly. 'I must.'
'No must about it,' replied her uncle belligerently. 'You ain't going to let him browbeat you again, are you?'
Teresa sighed wearily. 'I thought I'd made that quite clear,' she said slowly. 'I have no feelings whatsoever about him, but he's the only one who knew my family, and for that reason alone I must keep in contact with him.' She looked away at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap. 'In a way I'm using him, and I've not much taste for it.' She met her uncle's surprised eyes, and smiled sadly at him. 'That ought to please you,' she said quietly.
He had the grace to look a little shamefaced at this, but soon came back with, 'Well, you jist watch your step, my girl, that's
all. He's not a man to play fast and loose with. I'll grant him that, if nothing else.'
The following morning Teresa was due to see Dr Turnbull again, and as she sat in the small waiting-room, waiting to go in and see him, she wondered whether Carl had carried out his threat; for that was how Teresa had looked upon his suggestion of her seeing a specialist.
Seated a little while later opposite the cheery-looking, tubby doctor, she reaffirmed her thoughts
about her confidence in him. His easy-going and slightly vague manner camouflaged a sharp brain, and an intensely humane man.
She really hadn't much to report, but she could tell him of her delight when she found she had not forgotten how to type. 'Only a .small thing, really,' she said slowly, 'but it was a start, wasn't it?'
Doctor Turnbull smiled back at her, seeming pleased. 'As you say, it's a start,' he remarked. 'You'll probably get several nice little surprises like that, and then everything will gradually fall into place.'
'What about the headaches I seem to get when I try to think about the past?' she asked quietly.
He frowned thoughtfully. 'All part and parcel of what's happened,' he explained. 'You see, Teresa, the brain's a very complex instrument, and emotions play the devil with it. This headache is caused by your rejection of the memories that are trying to come back.' He held up a hand at her startled look at this disclosure, and went on before she could protest that she wasn't consciously suppressing the past. 'Without realising it,' he said gently, 'things build up. Grief takes its toll. You'd have done far better to give way to it, you know. As it was, you stifled it.' He gave her a considering look. 'For a girl who had just lost her family, and then her fiancé, you took it all a little too calmly. I have it from your uncle that he never saw you cry.'
Teresa's eyes left the doctor's kindly ones, and she looked down at the desk in front of her. So he knew the whole of it; of course he would have to, wouldn't he? she told herself dully.
'It's a very small town,' he went on, still in that
gentle voice that told her that he knew what she was thinking. 'I brought a fair number of the folk in this town into the world, and there's not much I don't get to know about, some time or other.'
Her gaze centred on her fingers clenched tightly together in her lap. 'Of course,' she murmured in a low voice.
Now don't worry about it,' soothed the doctor. 'We'll let old mother nature take care of things. Only when you're good and read,y will the puzzle fall into place. There's just one thing, though,' he added, his eyes studying the blotting pad on his desk. 'I want you to think very carefully before you commit yourself in any way—leave things as they are until you're back to normal again,' he advised her solemnly.
His pale blue eyes met Teresa's startled ones, and she was in no doubt as to what he meant. He had said he knew everything, hadn't he? Was this Carl's doing? she wondered.
Again the doctor correctly interpreted her thoughts, and gave her a wry smile. 'You don't want to listen to the local gossip,' he said in a half-amused tone, 'a lot of it is envy. If a man's wealthy, they call him lucky. It never occurs to them to think how he came by his wealth—or that he had to work for what he has. Given the same opportunities most of them would fail, simply because they hadn't the know-how, or couldn't be bothered to learn it; those are the ones that call themselves unlucky.'
Teresa knew that it was Carl Elton the doctor was talking about. Did her uncle come under the heading of the envious ones or the 'unlucky' ones? she
wondered. Unhappily, she had to admit the truth of that. It echoed more or less what Carl had said about the Raffertys' troubles being caused mainly by mismanagement, using the feud as a scapegoat for their failures.
Doctor Turnbull got up and patted her on the shoulder in a fatherly way. 'There's always. two sides to an argument, Teresa. I'm only saying, don't do anything you might regret later. Give yourself plenty of time.'
It was all very well, thought Teresa miserably as she left the surgery a little while later, for the doctor to tell her not to worry, particularly after having told her that she alone held the key to her recovery.
All the answers were there, she thought bitterly, shrouded in her subconscious because she hadn't been able to face reality. Was she such a weak character, then? Or was it grief alone that had caused the rejection, as the doctor had said? She would have liked to have believed that, but she couldn't be certain, for there was a thin dividing line between grief and unhappiness, and if it was the latter, then it left a lot of unexplained events to be accounted for.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Michael collected Teresa later that day to take her to Bathurst, she was in two minds as to whether or not to go, and was very tempted to plead a headache and call the whole thing off. But when she saw his cheery grin and his unconcealed pleasure at the prospect of spending an evening with her, she hadn't the heart to cry off.
As they drove to their destination she sat gazing out at the twinkling lights of the township in the distance, and her thoughts were not on the evening ahead, but still revolved on the morning's disclosures. It had not been easy for her to accept the fact that the answer for her dilemma lay in her own two hands, and if so, just what could she do about it? Receive yet another bump on the head? Her soft lips twisted wryly at the thought. Of course she could do exactly what the doctor had advised, and let nature take its course, which was easier said than done. What if she never regained her memory? She sighed deeply. It was an extremely depressing thought.
'A penny for them,' Michael remarked lightly. 'Or are you going all mysterious ovine again?'
Teresa sensed an underlying meaning in his words, and for the first time wondered if Michael thought that she was using her loss of memory to save face where Carl was concerned. Her uncle
wouldn't have been slow to state his views on the subject. But then Carl had thought so too, she recalled wearily. 'I saw the doctor today,' she said quietly. 'I was just thinking about what he told me.'
Michael glanced swiftly at her before returning his gaze to the road again. 'I don't know what you're worried about, Teresa,' he said soothingly. 'Everyone knows how it is. You've had a rotten deal all round.' He negotiated a bend, and drove the car into a parking area at the back of a large hotel. 'I should forget it if I were you. Just enjoy yourself. Did Elton try to talk you round?' he queried casually.
The question, though lightly asked, was not an idle one, and Teresa knew he had been waiting for an opportunity to bring the subject up. 'It wasn't a case of talking me round,' she answered despondently. 'It was more a case of introducing himself to me.'
Her voice was so low, and so weary that Michael, pulling up into the first space he came across, leaned over and patted her hand. 'Poor sweet,' he said consolingly. 'Well, it's over now. Promise me you won't give it another thought. We're going to enjoy ourselves tonight—and not only tonight,' he tacked on meaningly as he met her eyes, then seeing the doubt in hers he squeezed her hand tightly. 'You'll see,' he said quietly. 'This is only the start.'
'Michael—I can't promise anything,' she said swiftly. 'You do realise that, don't you?' she pleaded.
'I'm willing to risk it,' Michael replied gently, 'whatever happens.'
Teresa's spirits were at a low ebb as she allowed
herself to be guided into the hotel foyer. Michael was too nice a person to be hurt, and she only hoped to be able to keep him at a distance until she knew the state of her heart.
A little while later, after a delicious meal of iced melon, followed by rainbow trout with all the trimmings, with a little wine, Teresa felt more able to relax and push her worries out of her mind. Michael was right; she had gone through a bad time, and continually nagging at the problem wouldn't make things any easier: Answers never came when you pushed them, did they? she reminded herself. And how often did one get the answer to something they had worried about for ages, at a time when least expected? So she would forget her troubles, for this one night at least, and go ahead and enjoy
herself.
She had just reached this decision when Michael asked her to dance, and she gladly accepted. The music, like the meal, was good; no canned tapes here, but a small band which played each number and gave an encore when requested by the appreciative dancers.
Teresa wasn't sure, but she thought the dance was a foxtrot, and after taking the first few tentative steps found that she was a good dancer, and was elated at the discovery. Michael was good, too, and she let herself relax completely in his arms as they circled the floor. If his hold was a little on the close side, she did not demur. Why should she? She liked Michael very much, and told herself dreamily that she might even fall in love with him.
It happened when the music changed to a soft
haunting melody that seemed to stab at her very heart. For a moment or so she closed her eyes, and stumbled slightly. Michael's arms tightened around her. 'Are you all right?' he asked anxiously.
Teresa could not speak, but nodded dumbly. Her head began to ache with an intensity she had not experienced before, and as Michael led her off the dance floor she found herself wanting to scream out at the band to stop playing that tune.
After seating her back at their table, Michael caught the eye of a waiter and ordered a brandy for her.
'What is it, Teresa?' he asked worriedly, noting that her complexion was as white as her dress.
She shook her head; she couldn't tell him—not at that moment. She was too full of the discovery she had made a few seconds ago, for then she thought she had been in someone else's arms; a tall, fair man whom she had loved with all her heart—Carl Elton!
Now that it was out, Teresa knew a sense of peace. Her head no longer ached, only her heart, and it felt as if it were slowly breaking. Carl, it whispered. 'How could I have forgotten?' she asked herself silently.
