having to shoulder the burdens her mother had carried… Of having to step into shoes which had never been designed for her… which she knew instinctively would cripple and hobble her. And already it was happening…already Faye was turning to her. How long would it be before she started to lean on her the way she had leaned on David and then on her mother?
Shocked and almost disgusted by the selfishness of her own thoughts, Sage took hold of Faye’s arm and gently pulled her to her feet. ‘Camilla will be waiting,’ she reminded her.
She had always liked Faye, albeit with the same kind of affection she might have felt towards a favourite pet, and it came as a shock to find herself almost close to hating her, to feeling as though Faye had set in motion a trap which was starting to close around her. Faye wasn’t the clinging type in the accepted sense of the word. On the contrary, she visibly and painfully struggled not to be so, and yet one was always aware of her desperate need for the strength of others, for the companionship and caring of others. Why she had never married again was a mystery to Sage. She so obviously needed the strength and devotion of a husband, of another David…but then men like David were hard to find, even if one looked, and Faye did exactly the opposite of that, preferring to shut herself off from the rest of the world rather than go out to meet it.
She couldn’t go on like this, Faye recognised as she followed Sage down the corridor. For a moment there in that small stuffy room she had virtually destroyed everything she had worked so hard to create…for a moment there with that male hand reaching out towards her, she had stupidly, recklessly come perilously close to throwing everything away, everything she had spent her entire adult life trying to achieve.
Why had she been so careless? Why had she over-reacted so dangerously? She could put it down to the shock of realising how very ill Liz was, but that was no excuse.
Thank God Camilla hadn’t been there to see… She swallowed hard, her mouth full of nervous saliva. She glanced sideways at Sage.
Her sister-in-law was far too astute not to realise that it was more than mere shock at Liz’s condition which had made her react so violently, but thank God she had not tried to question her, to dig and delve as others might have done. Surely after all these years she ought to have more command over herself, more self-control? Why had she behaved like that, and to a man so obviously unthreatening, so obviously well-intentioned? How on earth would she ever be able to face him again? She had seen the shock, the concern, the curiosity shadowing his expression as he looked at her, and no wonder… She wished that he weren’t Liz’s specialist, that there would be no occasion for her ever to have to see him again, but how could she refuse to visit her mother-in-law? How could she allow Sage to shoulder the burden of visiting her mother alone? How could she abandon Liz to the cold efficiency of the machinery which was keeping her alive when she owed her mother-in-law so much? How could she put her own welfare, her own needs before theirs? She couldn’t do it… She could only pray that the specialist would accept, as Sage seemed prepared to do, that her shock had been so great that it had led to her idiotic behaviour. A psychiatrist of course would have recognised immediately—but Liz’s specialist wasn’t a psychiatrist, thank God…he would have no inner awareness, no realisation… It was stupid of her to feel this panic, this fear, this anxiety. No one could, after all, compel her to talk about the past. To revisit and relive it…
She ached to be back at Cottingdean, to be safe, protected, within the haven of its womblike walls. By the time they reached the car she was trembling inwardly as though she had been running frantically in flight, a stitch in her side caused not by exhaustion but by tension, by her grimly clenching her muscles until they ached under the strain she was imposing on them.
Running, running…sometimes it felt as though she had spent her entire life in flight. Only with David had she felt safe, protected… Only with David, and with Liz, who knew all her secrets, knew them and protected her from them.
Liz… This was so wrong. She ought to be thinking of Liz, not herself—praying for her recovery, not because she needed her so much, but for Liz’s own sake. Please God, let me be strong, she prayed as she got in the car. Give me the strength I need—not for myself, but for Liz and for Camilla…and perhaps as well for Sage, she added, glancing at her sister-in-law, and wondering if the latter had yet recognised within herself the same fierce will-power that was Liz’s particular gift. And, like all gifts, a two-edged sword which could be honed in use for the benefit of others for the greater good, or sharpened on the dangerous edge of self-interest and used against other, weaker members of the human race.
Thank God for Sage: without her… She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, physically and mentally exhausted, longing only for escape, for peace of mind, and knowing how little chance she had of attaining either.
‘Did you manage to get through everything in Liz’s files on the proposed motorway?’ They were having tea, produced by Jenny, who stood sternly over them until it was safely poured, ignoring their protests that they weren’t hungry. Even in absentia Liz’s habits still ruled the household. Perhaps all of them in their separate ways were clinging to those habits, in an instinctive need to believe that in keeping them alive they were keeping Liz herself alive, Sage thought.
‘Mmm…’ she answered, responding to Camilla’s question, her forehead furrowing. She had read them, but nothing in them had given her any clue as to how her mother had hoped to prevent the construction of the new motorway. Far from it.
‘You don’t think we’ll be able to stop them, do you?’ Camilla guessed astutely.
‘It’s too soon to say, but it doesn’t look very hopeful. If the road was being constructed near a site of particular archaeological significance, or special natural beauty, then we’d have something to work on, but as far as I can see—’
‘Gran would have found a way,’ Camilla told her, almost belligerently. ‘But then I suppose you don’t really care anyway, do you? I mean, you don’t care about Cottingdean…’
‘Camilla!’ Faye objected, flushing a little. ‘That’s most unfair and untrue…’
‘No, she’s right,’ Sage said as calmly as she could, replacing her teacup in its saucer. ‘I don’t feel the same way about Cottingdean as the rest of you. It’s a beautiful house, but it is only a house—not a sacred trust. But it isn’t just the house that’s at risk; it’s the village as well, people’s livelihoods. Without the mill there’d be no industry here to keep people in jobs; without jobs the village would soon start to disintegrate—but I don’t expect that the planners in Whitehall will be inclined to put the needs of a handful of villagers above those of road-hungry motorists.’
‘Gran has offered them another site on the other side of the water meadows…’
‘Yes, on land which is marshy and unstable, and which will require a good deal of expensive drainage and foundation work on it before it can be used, as well as adding countless millions of pounds to the cost.’
‘I don’t know why you’re going to the meeting, when it’s obvious that you don’t care—’
‘That’s enough, Camilla,’ Faye reproved.
‘I do care, Cam. I just don’t know how Mother planned to persuade the authorities to reroute the road… I’ve no idea what she had in mind, and I can’t find out from what I’ve read in the files. I’ve no doubt she had some plan of action in view, but whatever it is only she knows… The best I can hope for is to use delaying tactics and to hope that somehow or other a miracle will occur enabling Mother to take over before it’s too late.’
Since all of them knew just how much of a miracle
