Then Michael turned her face to his, his hand beneath her chin.
“I will never fail you, my darling,” he said. “We will build a life together and it shall be worthy of your trust in me. You are mine, my whole life, my whole happiness, we belong to each other for now and all time.”
It was as if he made a vow and, as he bent forward to seek her lips, Mona knew now that there was no going back.
‘I can’t tell him now,’ she thought. ‘Mummy is right, it would destroy his faith.’
Eighteen
Mona put her suitcase down on the platform and rubbed her aching arm.
It was very cold and still dark. Although she knew the road to the station well, she had some difficulty in finding her way even with a torch and stumbled against tufts of frozen grass and over the edge of the ill-kept path.
Now she looked at her watch. It was six-thirty, the train was due in two minutes.
There was no-one on the platform and the place seemed deserted, but as she heard the rumble of the train in the distance, a cart drove into the yard and someone got out. She hoped it was no-one she knew or who would recognise her. She had no desire to be seen. She felt guilty now – yet, when she made her decision in the early hours of the morning, departure had seemed the only way out of her difficulties.
‘I’m a coward,’ she told herself severely, admitting her weakness.
It was cowardly to run away from Michael and to leave her mother once again. But she felt she was incapable of standing up to their arguments, to their protestations, or indeed, to their pleadings. For she knew that they would plead with her. She could well imagine her mother begging her to stay, to take no irrevocable step, but to let things drift and, of course, eventually marry Michael.
If she stayed that was what she would do. Marry him, still haunted by the past, with the scars of memory still unhealed.
No, she couldn’t do it! Mona had realised that as she had lain tossing sleepless on her bed until, finally, she had made up her mind and risen to write a note to her mother. It was short and portrayed her feelings most inadequately, but she felt there was nothing else she could say, and her mother, in her wisdom and understanding, would read between the lines.
‘Forgive me, darling, but I am running away. You were right about Michael. I can’t hurt him – can’t bring myself to destroy his faith in me, but everything that is decent within me cries out in horror at the idea of marrying him at the moment. Perhaps my feelings will alter with time, perhaps not. But, until they do, I can’t stay here. You will understand that, even if you think me foolish. I am going to find some work, war work, in a somewhat belated effort to prove my loyalty to my country. Bless you, darling – forgive me for any pain this will cause you, and remember me in your prayers.’
That was all, and before she left the house she had very quietly laid the letter on the mat outside her mother’s door so that Nanny, taking in the morning tea, would see it and carry it to her bedside.
Packing hadn’t taken Mona very long. She was determined to take as few things as possible and only those that were absolutely necessary. But one thing she included, her red Morocco jewel case. She had made another decision as well during the still watches of the night.
When the grandfather clock in the sitting room struck six, she tip-toed downstairs and let herself out through the front door. As the chill darkness enveloped her, she had a sudden impulse to turn round and go back.
‘Am I crazy?’ she asked herself. ‘What am I doing this for?’
And then the answer came to her,
‘For the sake of honour!’
Yes, that was, in truth, the answer. For the sake of honour, her honour, a virtue she had forgotten in the past but which now seemed to demand not only consideration, but sacrifice.
The train came speeding into the station and Mona hurried back towards her suitcase. As she picked it up, she saw in the light of an open door the face of the other traveller from Little Cobble. It was Stella Fairlace.
“Good morning, Lady Carsdale.”
“Good morning.”
Mona’s reply was brief and not too cordial, as she clambered into the nearest carriage, but Stella followed her in. There were no other passengers and they each chose a corner seat facing each other.
“It isn’t often I see anyone from the village on this train,” Stella said conversationally.
“Do you often travel by yourself?” Mona asked.
“Whenever I go to London,” Stella replied. “It gets me up so nice and early that I can get everything done before luncheon.”
“Yes, that’s useful,” Mona said indifferently.
Opening her suitcase, she took out a book. She did not want to read, but at the same time she did not want to talk. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, to turn her problems over and over again in her mind, to ask herself whether she was doing the right thing or whether she was being so foolish as to throw away her last real chance of happiness.
But Stella was irrepressibly talkative. She was wearing her uniform because, as she explained to Mona, she had to go to the Ministry of Agriculture. The big, shapeless coat and felt hat she wore obscured a great deal of her attraction, yet it was easy to see that with good dressing she might be very lovely. She had the radiance of youth and perfect health, and Mona suddenly felt tired and old beside her youthful buoyancy.
‘I wonder, if I never return,’ she thought to herself, ‘whether Stella will marry Michael?’
The idea that Jarvis Lecker had put into her mind was still there and she remembered what a handsome couple they had made as she had seen them across the dancing floor.
‘The perfect wife for Michael,’ she told herself defiantly, and yet she knew that was not true.
Married perfection did not lie in a similarity of looks and strength but often in a contrast of personality. She and Michael were completely opposite to one another – perhaps that was why their love might be so completely satisfying – together they would make a whole, for in each could be found the missing complement of the other.
Michael! The thought of him made her heart ache. She knew now for the first time how much she was going to miss him. In a few days he had come to mean something tremendous in her life, yet she felt time was of no consequence, her love was not something that had grown day by day, or even hour by hour, but a thing that had always been there deep down within herself, and that in loving Michael she was merely uncovering an indivisible part of herself.
Michael. His very name struck some chord within her, and then abruptly she realised Stella was speaking and forced herself to attend.
“If you could tell me,” Stella was saying, “a place where I could buy a really pretty frock, I would be so grateful. I know how awful my clothes are, but I have never been able to afford nice things. Now I’ve saved enough out of my wages to have at least one smart frock – something well cut and in good material.”
“I will tell you the name of two or three shops,” Mona replied.
As she gave Stella the names and addresses and watched her write them down, her mind was asking the question.
