It was a nightmare come true, Fraser coming back to find her occupying his flat, but the injustice of his question caught her on the raw. 'Where have I been? I've been visiting your aunt, that's where. Someone had to organise things while you were gadding about. Lorna had her operation yesterday.'
`Yes, I know that.' He closed the door behind her and hustled her into the sitting-room. 'I've just come from Merrifields. I'm sorry you had all the responsibility for Lorna, but there were things I had to do. And anyway, I didn't mean that.' Ile shook her impatiently.
I meant where have you been now? I rang the hospital as soon as I got here and they said you left Lorna over an hour ago.'
Her eyes widened. 'I—I walked.'
'And here I've been imagining you mugged or knocked down crossing the road.' He ran his hands through his hair and Bethan was curious to see the signs of strain in his face. Had he really been worried about her?
'Well, you're here now, so you'd better get packed,' he went on, and her stomach lurched sickeningly. She had known, of course, that if Fraser came back she would have to move out, but it hurt that he was so eager to get rid of her.
I'm sorry if you're annoyed that I've made myself at home here, but I never actually unpacked, so it won't take a minute to get my things.' She was turning away when he caught her arm.
'Bethan, of course I'm not annoyed. You silly girl, where else would you have stayed? But right now I'm taking you to Merrifields.'
'Merrifields!' Bethan stared up at him, her green eyes mirroring her amazement and dismay. It was the last place she wanted to go and she couldn't imagine why he had suggested it. 'Oh, Fraser, I couldn't. Anyway, what about Lorna? I'll find a hotel or boarding-house nearby so I cart visit her.'
'Lorna won't lack for visitors,' he said curtly. 'The family have worked out a rota system, and of course you'll be able to come back to see her. But until she's ready to go home, you'll visit her from Merrifields.' His hand like a manacle round her wrist he urged her into the hallway. 'Which bedroom are, you using?'
'The guest-room, of course. But Fraser, really, I can't ...'
Her case lay open on one of the chairs, her things still folded neatly in it. 'Get your spongebag,' he ordered, and when Bethan, returning from the bathroom with
her toiletries in her hand to find him calmly folding her nightdress and stowing it away, tried again to protest, he said quietly but with an odd note of tension, 'Ishbel's at Merrifields, Bethan. That's where I've been—after I settled some urgent business here in London and in Germany—hurrying her along.' He took her hand in his. 'She wants to see you very badly, and Beth, it's imperative you talk to her.'
She didn't question his last statement, indeed she hardly heard it. 'Ishbel Bethan closed her eyes, the longing to see her old friend washing over her. But Merrifields! How could she bear to go there, to all the memories it held?
As if he understood her hesitation Fraser said urgently, 'Trust me, Beth. I know I failed you once, but please, trust me now.' And something in his voice had her bowing her head in silent acquiescence.
Fraser drove fast and mostly without speaking, breaking his preoccupation only to ask after her comfort and to inquire how his aunt had stood up to the operation. And Bethan was glad of his silence. They were covering ground she had covered many times in the past, mostly with Ishbel, sometimes with her stepfather, occasionally—as now—with Fraser himself, or, as on the last occasion she had made this journey, wits her stepbrother Mark.
She didn't want to think about Mark and his callous deception, but on this journey into the past she was finding many things she would rather have forgotten crowding her memory. To blot them out she tried to fix her mind on Ishbel, but now the meeting with her was so near she found her palms going moist with apprehension. They had shared so much in their growing-up years, been so close. But ten years was a long time. Ishbel was a wife and mother now, had been for some time, her life and interests half a world away. It was inevitable they should have grown apart. Besides, there was the insuperable barrier of her responsibility
for the death of that child on the night of all those years ago between them. However tolerant and forgiving Ishbel was about it, they could never recapture the trusting closeness they had once shared. In fact, she wondered why Ishbel had gone to so much trouble so they could meet again.
It was only then that Fraser's claim of how badly Ishbel wanted to see her came back to her, that and his even more puzzling insistence that it was imperative Bethan talked to her. She opened her mouth to ask him what he had meant, but at that moment the car turned into a wide gateway flanked by a lodge and swept along the winding drive towards the sprawling old house standing on a slight rise.
'I don't think you'll find it much changed,' Fraser said quietly.
`No.' In truth Bethan couldn't see for the tears filling her eyes or speak more than that one word for the thickness in her throat.
The front of the house was bounded by a terrace with wide steps leading down to the lawn, the main entrance being round the back in the courtyard Fraser was driving into now, formed by the L-shape of the house, but he drew the car to a halt in front of a side door in the shorter arm of the L.
My cousin Angus and his family have the main house now,' he explained. 'Mother and Dad moved into the wing when Dad retired.'
She had been fond of Fraser's parents but now she shrank from seeing them. `Th-they' re here—your parents?'
Fraser got out of the car and opened her door, holding her hands firmly as he helped her to her feet. 'Stop worrying, Bethan. They've gone to visit Lorna this afternoon but they're looking forward very much to seeing you when they get back. There's only Ishbel here at the moment.'
'Not—not her family too?'
The pressure of his hands increased. 'Later. They'll
be here in a few days but we thought it was important Ishbel should be alone for this meeting.'
If that was meant to be reassuring, Bethan didn't find it so. Only there was no retreat. The door opened and she turned, her heart hammering against her ribs, to see a tall, tanned, superbly groomed young woman standing there, her glossy dark hair expertly cut into a short, sophisticated cap, her clothes proclaiming no expense had been spared. A stranger!
For the space of several heartbeats they stared at each other, and then Ishbel was leaping down the steps with all her old coltish grace, the grin splitting her face so heart-stoppingly familiar that Bethan could almost see the long, dark pigtail she remembered swishing from side to side like the tail of a restless panther.
'Bethan!' Outstretched arms wrapped round her and held her without restraint. 'Oh, Beth, it's so good to see you.'
'Ishbel.' Tears filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks, Bethan clung to her old friend, and it was some time before either of them could bear to draw apart. Slipping Bethan's hand through her arm Ishbel led her into the house, leaving Fraser to bring her suitcase.
'Oh Beth, let me look at you.' Ishbel held her at arm's length while grey eyes so much like Fraser's inspected her lovingly. 'You're so much more fragile than I remember.' Her voice held an aching concern.
Bethan smiled at her, warmed by that concern. 'I'm as tough as an old boot really. It's just that I'm still recovering after a spell in hospital.'
'The injuries you received in Beirut. Yes, Fraser told me.' Ishbel glanced towards the door and Bethan saw that Fraser had followed them into the sitting-room. 'Oh, Beth, we have so much to talk about, and I have something vitally important I must tell you.'
'Hold your horses, Ishbel,' Fraser broke in. 'It's late and I don't think Bethan's had any lunch yet.' He looked at her questioningly.
Bethan shook her head. 'I haven't, but I'm too churned up to eat.'
`Me too,' Ishbel echoed. 'Perhaps when I've got this off my chest. Ever since Fraser told me what had happened to you that night, my conscience hasn't let me eat or sleep.'
'He told you?' She glanced at him quickly, showing her relief that she didn't have to retell the
shaming story herself. And then she frowned. 'But why should your conscience trouble you, Ishbel? It was I who got drunk and killed that child.'
'But that's the whole point, Beth.' Ishbel's expression was a mixture of compassion and remorse. 'You didn't.'
'I think you'd better sit down, Bethan,' Fraser said as she stared at his sister blankly.
Hardly aware that he had pushed her gently on to the sofa and had seated himself beside her, his arm protectively round her shoulders, her attention was wholly on Ishbel who went on, 'And if I hadn't allowed Fraser to rush me off to visit relatives in Australia the morning after my party, no one would have thought you had. Even if I'd been told later what they were accusing you of, I could have come back and told them the truth.'
already explained why you were kept in the dark, Ishbel,' Fraser broke in tiredly.
'Yes, because you were afraid if I came back to England I'd get mixed up with Mark Latimer again.' Ishbel paced the rug. 'Maybe you did it from the best motives, Fraser, but neither of us comes out of this very well.'
'I really don't understand what you're getting at, Ishbel.' Bethan shook her head in bewilderment. 'I may not remember anything of what happened that night, but I do know the facts. I had way over the limit of alcohol in my blood and I was driving the car that killed that child.'
'And I'm trying to tell you you weren't driving that
car. You didn't even get drunk of your own volition. That was my doing.'
'Oh, now you're being ridiculous,' Bethan burst out disbelievingly. It's good to know you're in my corner, Ishbel, but you can't shoulder my guilt.'
'Listen to her, darling. Just shut up and listen.' The endearment and the sudden realisation of Fraser's arm warm round her shoulders brought a prickle to her skin, and she subsided in electric awareness.
'I know I'm not making a good job of explaining, but bear with me, Beth,' Ishbel pleaded. 'Because of my bit of well-meaning interference you've carried that child's death on your conscience for ten years. If I'd had any idea ...' She swung an easy-chair round to face the couple on the sofa and perched tensely on the edge. 'Beth, you'll remember what a starry-eyed, romantic idiot I was in those days? I was so set on getting you and Fraser together. Well, I knew you loved him and I was pretty sure he felt the same about you. But then he brought that awful Lisa Farraday along to my party. I was furious with him so I worked out this plan. I told him you wanted to see him in the summerhouse, and then I told you he wanted you to meet him there.'
Bethan swallowed a gasped exclamation, but she was unable to do anything about the scorching colour that surged into her cheeks as she thought of the implications of what Ishbel had admitted. Fraser had believed she had instigated that meeting! Inwardly she squirmed with mortification as she remembered how wantonly she had thrown herself at him, believing him to have arranged the meeting. No wonder he had been so contemptuously scathing when the girl who was more to his taste—the sophisticated Lisa—had come along to bring him to his senses.
So embarrassed was she, she would have moved away from him then, but his arm tightened round her, holding her close, and before he could comment Ishbel was saying miserably, 'Only the whole thing blew up in
my face. It was Lisa Fraser came strolling back to the party with.' She looked accusingly at her brother. 'And then you disappeared into the library with her for hours.'
'Only to do some telephoning,' Fraser said tersely. 'Calling the family in Australia to let them know to expect us and putting things in motion to secure our flight. I'd seen evidence that night that Mark Latimer and his friends were into drugs, and I meant to get you away if I had to do it by force.'
'Yes, well, I didn't know that, did I?' Ishbel conceded grudgingly. 'And you weren't to know' that by the end of that evening I never wanted to see Mark again. That's why I didn't make any objections about going with you.
'Anyway.' She picked up the thread again. 'When I went to look for you, Beth, I found you still in the summerhouse breaking your heart.'
Again embarrassment curled inside Bethan at this exposure of her youthful feelings, but far from displaying any embarrassment himself, Fraser's hand caressed her shoulder in a most disturbing way.
'I couldn't bear you to be so miserable on my birthday.' Ishbel bit her lip, looking ashamed. 'It was selfish, I know, but I didn't want anything to spoil my party. So when Mark suggested spiking the cider-cup you were drinking with vodka to cheer you up, it didn't seem such a bad idea. And it worked too. You perked up no end. But then you got really tight and I began to worry, though, even then I didn't suspect—it was only when you sparked right out, Beth, that I learned Mark had been tipping vodka into all your drinks.'
Ishbel shuddered. 'I was furious with him, and scared too. You were unconscious, you see. I wanted to put you to bed at Merrifields, call Mother or one of the adults to see if you needed a doctor. But Mark insisted on taking you home. It wasn't until after I'd helped him get you into his car I knew why he was so insistent.
He—he said if his father saw you in that state it'd cure him of thinking you could do no wrong.' Her mouth twisted in distaste. 'That really opened my eyes to what a bastard he was!'
Bethan was aware of Ishbel leaning forward to clasp her hands but her mind was whirling, trying to assimilate what her friend was telling her. 'I know I shouldn't have let him drive off with you without telling anyone,' Ishbel went on earnestly, 'but I was sure your stepfather wouldn't make as much of it as Mark seemed to hope.'
'But—but if ! ' Bethan floundered helplessly.
'Exactly.' Fraser's voice was grim. 'If you were unconscious
'And you were, Beth,' Ishbel broke in. 'Mark had to carry you out to the car and I strapped you into the passenger seat myself.'
'There was no way you could have killed that child, Beth,' Fraser finished, his arm turning her round to face him. 'It was Mark who was driving, Beth. Mark who knocked that little girl off her bike and who then put you into the driving-seat and left you to take the blame, somehow making his own way back to Merrifields. He'd have been careful to keep out of Ishbel's way, of course, but we know from the evidence given at your trial that he begged a lift back to London with one of his friends, complaining bitterly that someone had taken his car.'
It was as if a black pit had opened up at her feet. One part of her mind understood what Fraser and Ishbel were telling her and yet she fought against the knowledge, because to believe it she would have to admit her stepbrother had been guilty of the most appalling callousness.
'You don't know that was what happened,' she protested weakly, her eyes wide with horror.
'Oh, yes we do.' Fraser kicked the last tenuous hold on her own guilt away. 'The first thing Ishbel and I did
when we landed at Heathrow this morning was search Mark out. I hadn't seen him for years and I hardly recognised him. He's a wreck, Beth, existing from one fix to the next. Heroin, I should think. Anyway, it didn't take much pressure before he was admitting everything we've told you is true.'
Bethan gave a harsh, sobbing cry and the black pit at her feet yawned wider. For the first time since she had heard of her stepfather's death she could actually feel glad he hadn't lived long enough to know the truth; not just that his son had let her take the blame for his crime, sentencing her to rejection, loneliness, the unbearable weight of guilt. That hardly seemed to matter when she couldn't help remembering the police had told her their patrol car had come across the accident in the early hours of the morning and by then the little girl was dead. What mattered was that if Mark had got help at once, the child might have been saved. But he didn't. He had walked away and left that child lying there injured to save his own skin. The enormity of it filled her mind, and she slumped as the black pit rose up to swallow her.
Consciousness came back slowly, and with it a strange feeling of disorientation, as if part of her had been amputated. Her eyelids flickered up and she noted with uncaring detachment she was lying on a bed in a strange room, while beyond the w
indow the westering sun was a great brazen ball on the horizon. Light. Golden light dazzling her eyes, seeping into her pores, flooding her mind and chasing away the last dark shadows of guilt, filling her body with its warmth.
She no longer had the death of another human being on her conscience!
She gave a long sigh and immediately there was a movement at the other side of the bed. Turning her head she met Ishbel's anxious gaze. 'Thank goodness you've woken at last! We've been so worried.'
Stupidly Bethan's heart leapt at Ishbel's use of the word 'we', but steadied again as she glanced round the room. Obviously Fraser hadn't cared enough to share his sister's vigil. But when had he ever?
I'm sorry.' She could understand the panic she must have caused. 'I don't know what made me pass out like that.'
`You're sorry!' Ishbel fell on her knees beside the bed, clasping Bethan's hand. 'It's we who're sorry—Fraser and I. The one person in the world neither of us would have harmed, and between us we ruined your life. Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive us?'
Bethan's eyes widened incredulously. 'What is there to forgive? You couldn't possibly have known how Mark would take advantage of the situation, and as for Fraser, how could he be blamed for anything that happened?' Except for not loving her, and she could hardly blame him for that.
'But if I hadn't put vodka into your first drink, if I hadn't let Mark take you home and then gone rushing off to Australia the next day,' Ishbel said remorsefully. 'And I know how responsible Fraser feels that in protecting me, he threw you to the wolves.'
Responsible, Bethan thought painfully. That wasn't the kind of feeling she wanted from Fraser. 'What you and Fraser did that night, you both did from the best motives, she said quietly. 'But if you feel the need of it, then of course I forgive you. As for thinking you ruined my life ... it hasn't all been hard and dangerous, you know. There were some good times and I was able to do some good.'
Ishbel's Party Page 17
