‘You’ve given this a lot of thought.’
‘Are you saying you haven’t?’
Of course she had. Being with Elijah, whether it was at his cottage or hers, had made Allegra feel happier than she could ever remember being. Any time spent apart from him dragged, and the thought of him leaving to return to barracks and then being sent to fight God knew where chilled her to the marrow. If she could, she would keep him safe with her at Winter Cottage, never to let him go again.
But even marriage wouldn’t keep him by her side where he would be safe. Married or not, he would still have to go and fight, and she would still be left alone in Melstead St Mary with her child. For herself she didn’t care a fig about marriage providing her with a veneer of respectability, but as husband and wife, would they spend the rest of their lives fighting prejudice, because in the eyes of some people they came from different worlds? Surely Elijah deserved better than that.
‘This long silence from you is not filling me with hope that you’ll say yes,’ he said.
‘Are you sure you know what you’ll be taking on?’ Allegra responded. ‘It’s not just me you’re marrying; you’re taking on a child as well. Another man’s child.’
‘Allegra, don’t you think I’ve worked that out for myself? Now for the love of God, it’s gone midnight and it’s the first day of 1940. Give me your answer before it’s 1941! Yes or no, will you marry me?’
Chapter Forty-Four
January 1940
‘Darling, I think it’s time we bought a bigger house, don’t you?’
‘Is that a statement of intent or a question?’ responded Arthur indifferently to his wife as he prepared for bed.
It was two o’clock in the morning, New Year’s Day, and he was standing at the side of the large four-poster bed debating with himself whether to put on a scarf as well as keep his dressing gown on. Their north-facing room caught the worst of the wind. He’d damned near frozen to death last night in this mausoleum of a house to which Irene’s parents insisted on retreating for New Year.
The very first time Irene had proposed visiting her parents in their Scottish house overlooking Loch Leven, he’d been more than happy to make the long journey; a week of shooting and fishing, and then hunkering down in a comfortable chair in front of a log fire with an endless supply of locally produced whisky and the newspaper had sounded just the ticket. But the reality was quite different. Yes, there was shooting and fishing to enjoy, but the log fires and whisky were always in short supply, the latter being kept practically under lock and key by the dour, miserable-faced housekeeper.
Irene’s family was bred from hardy puritanical stock – freezing-cold winds rattling through windows that didn’t fit properly in the casings were apparently good for one, put some backbone into a person. And then there was the endless socialising – it was Liberty Hall with people coming and going all hours of the day, the laird of this, the laird of that calling in to say hello. There wasn’t a moment of peace to be had. And as for all that blasted Scottish dancing and bloody bagpipes …
Of course, this wasn’t the first New Year in Scotland Arthur had been forced to endure, but somehow he’d hoped the tedium of it all would lessen with each returning visit, that he would become inured to it. No such luck!
‘It’s a statement of intent,’ Irene said, regarding him steadily in the mirror as she applied yet more face cream. ‘I just think that we’ve outgrown our present home. And’ – now she did turn round to look at him properly – ‘we’re going to need more space very soon.’
‘What for?’ Oh God, he thought, she hadn’t gone on a spending spree behind his back and bought a lot of new furniture, had she?
Her expression softened and she looked coy. ‘I’m going to have a baby. At last, darling, we’re going to be parents.’
The news took him off guard. Myriad questions flew to the tip of his tongue, but the one that came out was: ‘How long have you known?’
‘Since before Christmas, after I saw Dr Osborne.’
‘You didn’t tell me you were seeing him?’
She screwed the lid back on to the pot of face cream and placed it amongst all the other pots, tubes and bottles that cluttered the dressing table. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you,’ she said, ‘and judging by your expression, I have.’
‘You’re right, you have. Why didn’t you tell me before, though? Why wait until now?’
‘Because I wanted to keep the news until this very moment, to mark the coming of the new year. I wanted 1940 to start with something positive. I’m sick of all the talk about the war. It’s so depressing. You are pleased, aren’t you?’
He tried to think how he really felt, but could summon nothing genuine that he could put into actual words. He went over to her; clearly that was expected of him. ‘Of course I’m pleased,’ he lied.
‘You don’t look it.’
‘That’s because I’m worried what kind of a world our child will be born into,’ he said smoothly.
She grasped his hands. ‘Don’t say that. Not a word about the war. I’m so very tired of it. It’s all Daddy and his friends talk about. You are pleased that you’re going to be a father, aren’t you? Only you’ve seemed so distracted lately. All Christmas I kept thinking there was something you weren’t telling me, that there was something bothering you.’
‘It’s work,’ he lied again. ‘It’s damnably boring. I had hoped your father would find me a role with more responsibility.’
‘Would you like me to speak to him? I’m sure he could arrange for something better for you to do if I asked him. Especially now that you’re going to be a father.’
