The Very Thought of You Read online

  It was a day or two before Elizabeth remembered to mention this to Thomas at dinner. He did his utmost to feign indifference, but was poleaxed by the news. Ruth going, at the end of the week? What would he do, what could he do?

  He had lost her. He had driven her away with his poem, he had harassed her, when all he wanted was to hold her and love her. How could he have been so foolish, when his daily hope lay with seeing her? He was plunged into misery and lay awake through the night, wondering how he might talk to her, express his love to her. Every nerve in his body felt raw.

  He saw her at lunch the next day and lingered to catch her afterwards.

  “I hear you are leaving us?” He looked up into her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so very sorry.”

  He did not flinch from looking right into her face, her clear face. She had to clasp her hands to steady them. Was that unhappiness she saw in his eyes – regret, even?

  “My father is ailing a bit, and I thought it would help him if I worked closer to home.”

  “Will you come back to us, or are you leaving for good?”

  “I think it is better that I begin again elsewhere.”

  “We will all miss you so much.” He paused, he looked up. “I will miss you.”

  “I will miss you all too—” She felt unable to say more, though her face perhaps suggested something else. She turned to go to her next lesson. Thomas watched her walk off, then wheeled himself away to his study.

  His heart was racing, he was frantic that he might not see her properly again before she left. But what could he say? He had nothing to offer her, despite his fantasies.

  He sat alone in his study, tormented by his own reticence. For so many years he had been dead inside, yet now that he had finally found someone to love, he would be denied any expression of his feelings. He had always wanted to give love – that was what he wanted to do – but he had driven Ruth away now, and she was going, would soon be gone, and he would not see her again.

  He did not know how to face his life without her.

  41

  That evening, released from her lessons, Ruth sat alone in her room. She was still troubled, but she felt something different now, too. She had a new understanding that Thomas was unhappy about her going. There was no mistaking the pain in his eyes as he spoke to her. Even if it was only a modest affection, a mentor-like fondness, she knew now that he had some tenderness for her.

  So she wanted to give him her letter. He might be disturbed by it, but she trusted, too, that he understood love, and could sympathize with the depth of her feeling. She read it again twice until, exhausted, she could not look at it any more. Then she put the pages unsigned into an envelope and sealed it.

  The next day, with her bags packed, she went down for her last morning’s lessons. After lunch she was to catch a bus to York, then a late afternoon train back home.

  She had her letter ready now, and her resolve made her calm. But she would have to give it to him in person: it could never be put through anyone else’s hands. She knew his timetable, that he had a spare hour straight after lunch, so she hoped to find him then in his study, alone.

  When the time came, she knocked at his door, shaking. The letter was in her hand.

  “Come in!”

  His face lit up when he saw her.

  “I came to say goodbye.”

  “Thank you,” He said, “thank you so much. I would have been so sad to have missed you—”

  “I have a letter for you,” she said.

  “A letter?”

  “Well, it’s just that—” Her voice dried up.

  “Oh Ruth,” He said.

  He looked up at her with eyes which said everything, but she could not bring herself to meet his face. She was overcome with shyness, with fear and hope together, but she handed him the envelope. He took it.

  “Can I read it now?” He asked.

  “Please, yes,” she said. But turned and edged away.

  “Thank you!” He said, but she was going, gone.

  The door was still ajar as he tore open the envelope and unfolded the sheet of paper inside.

  Dear Thomas,

  I’m fearful as I give you this letter, because I know it’s an imposition. But I did not know how to leave Ashton Park without saying goodbye to you properly.

  For what it’s worth, I wanted to tell you that I love you. Never before has anyone touched me so deeply – you have changed my life and I cherish everything about you. The reach of your understanding. Your generosity and kindness. The spark of your mind. Your fair-mindedness, and determined optimism, and your gentle courtesy – all are so dearly beloved to me.

  I have never loved a face more than I love yours, and I see it everywhere. Everything that moves me reminds me of you.

  I know my feelings are inappropriate, but I’m afraid this does not stop me from loving you. Yet I have no wish to disrupt your life beyond this letter – which is why I am leaving now, before my feelings reveal themselves in ways which might embarrass you.

  My love for you is very rooted after all this time. To cut it out now would be to cut off my own soul, so the tenderness is not going to go away. I may not see you in person, but you will always remain in my thoughts.

  Above all, before leaving, I wanted to say – I love you with all my heart, and I always will. I want to thank you for the profound joy I’ve had in the thought of you – and I wish you every good thing.

  Within moments of opening the letter, Thomas’s heart was quelled. Here were unequivocal words to still all his longings, set down in ink.

  The letter was truer, deeper than he could ever have hoped for. But Thomas was mystified that she could have so misread his feelings for her. How could she have failed to read his eyes?

  Now he was like an overwound clock, close to breaking – what if she should leave before he could respond to this? He wheeled himself out of his study, along the corridor and into the Marble Hall. Two children were playing badminton in the hour before afternoon lessons – Anna Sands and Mary Heaney.

  “Anna!” He called softly. She came.

  “Anna, I am very anxious to see Miss Weir before she leaves. Has she passed through this way with her luggage?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could I ask you to fetch her for me? I have no idea where she might be, but it is urgent that I talk to her.”

  Anna looked at Mr Ashton and saw his agitation. She dropped her racket and set off at once.

  “Anna—”

  “Yes, sir?” she turned, looked back.

  “Please, don’t stop until you have found her. I’ll be in my study—”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He smiled, and the child’s heart jumped with pride. To be running errands for Mr Ashton, to be doing something special for him – that always made her so happy. She ran to the staffroom, but Miss Weir was not there. She ran past the kitchens, out towards the classrooms where children were beginning to gather for lessons.

  “Where’s Miss Weir?” she called out, catching her breath.

  “She’s finished teaching us,” said one child.

  “She’s gone home,” added another girl, sure she was right.

  “Have you tried her room?” cried a boy, but Anna was already gone, tearing towards the stairs, afraid she might be too late.

  She arrived panting at the top floor of the great house, where Ruth had one of the maid’s bedrooms. She knocked in a hurry.

  The door opened, and there was Miss Weir, still packing her last books.

  “Mr Ashton sent me, he says it’s urgent, he must see you before you go—”

  Ruth’s head was swimming, and her heart racing as she followed the girl back downstairs.

  Anna was bird-happy now that she had done what she was meant to do. She almost wanted to deliver Miss Weir right to Mr Ashton’s door, to get his thanks, but the class bell was ringing, so she headed off to her next lesson.

  Ruth was alone now, as she knocked o
n Thomas’s study door. Some children ran past her to their classrooms, and she had to strain to hear his voice.

  “Come in!”

  She went in, more nervous than she had ever been before. She closed the door behind her and turned to face him.

  There he was, wheeling forwards to her.

  “Thank you for your letter, but you have completely misunderstood me—”

  He caught his breath and looked up into her eyes.

  “—I’ve loved you for so long, but I thought it was only me.”

  She could not speak but reached out for his hand, and at his touch her heart turned over. She knelt down beside him and buried her head in his shoulder, and they fell into an embrace. He held her, and stroked her hair, then looked deep into her face. Their eyes locked into each other, revealing all the tenderness and longing that had been hidden before. When at last they kissed, their faces were so close that they could see each other’s eyelashes, and the texture of their skin, and every beloved detail was one more thing for each of them to marvel at.

  “I love you,” said Ruth. Nothing else would do, just the one phrase which she could say now for the first time.

  “How could you not have known that I loved you?” He said, breaking into a smile. I love you – he could cry it to the heavens – every grief he had ever known was assuaged in this moment. He held her in his arms and breathed as deeply as he knew how.

  “I thought I had lost you. Don’t leave me,” He said. “Please don’t leave me.”

  42

  One of the Ashton kitchen staff was a red-cheeked girl called Sarah, from Newcastle. After many months at the school, she had grown tired of being locked away from city life and marooned with dozens of children. Instead, she wanted to take up a new job in a munitions factory. So she handed in her notice.

  A girl from the village was found to replace her, who could walk in every day. So Sarah’s room in the west wing was left empty.

  The children were always exploring the old house, and hunting for food. Anna and Beth sneaked a peep into Sarah’s room after she had gone. The place was bare, except for a chair, a single stripped bed and an old wardrobe.

  Anna swung open the wardrobe door with a creak and, sitting there, to their joy, was a Huntley & Palmer biscuit tin. They opened it at once. There was still a layer of biscuits, not stale yet. Anna and Beth took three each, then carefully stowed the tin back in the wardrobe and ran off into the garden to enjoy their feast.

  Nobody had seen them. It was their secret. Whenever they felt peckish, they could go along to Sarah’s old room and eat a few more of her biscuits.

  One autumn afternoon, when most of the children were out in the garden, Anna was hungry and decided to pay a visit to the biscuit tin. She clattered along the corridor until she came to that obscure part of the west wing where the empty room lay. She closed the door behind her and fished out the tin, then she sat in the open wardrobe enjoying the last of the biscuits, wondering if she should leave a couple for Beth.

  Suddenly, she heard the noise of someone coming, so she fumbled to shut the tin. The sounds came closer. She clambered inside the wardrobe and pulled the door behind her. She didn’t manage to close it fully – a crack remained – but she crawled to one side.

  The bedroom door was opening, and someone was coming into the room. The door was closed. Someone was locking it. Through the crack, just passing her field of vision for a moment, Anna saw Mr Ashton’s wheelchair, and Miss Weir pushing him. They moved to the other side of the bed, and she could see no more. She could only listen.

  The blood was thudding so hard in Anna’s ears that she thought they must hear her. She wanted to climb out and cheerily apologize for eating the biscuits, but they had locked the door. She would have to remain hidden and make sure she didn’t cough. She held her breath, terrified.

  It was then that she heard soft murmurs, sighs, quickened breathing, the creak of the bed – sounds she could barely understand, and yet she knew they were secret.

  Anna sat shaking inside the wardrobe with her head in her hands. Never before had she felt such shame. She did not want to eavesdrop, she wanted to cry out – her overwound body was screaming with cramp. But she sat close, tight, furled in a small ball, waiting for it all to be over.

  She moved her head round, and through the crack caught a glimpse of white naked shoulders against the bed. Quickly she looked away, but still heard strange sounds – soft private cries she had never heard before.

  She buried herself there for some twenty minutes, feeling faint, sick, trapped. But then it was over. The lovers dressed, without speaking much. She heard the door being unlocked, and out they went.

  Anna waited there in silence, still not daring to move. Until at last she unwound herself from the wardrobe and fled. She ran down the corridor and outside through the gardens, she ran along the grass terrace, and all the way to her favourite clump of aspens. The trees swayed in the breeze, and soothed her with the deeper, calmer air of life beyond people.

  Mr Ashton and Miss Weir? Could it really be so? She would not dare to tell anyone what she had heard.

  * * *

  For Thomas and Ruth, this was just one encounter in the passion to which they were now both bound. For each of them, every day now brought the hope of touching the other. They only ever had snatched moments together, always in daylight, in that stripped-bare room – but they still thought themselves in heaven.

  For two people who have longed for each other so dearly, thought Thomas, there could never be a joy so complete as the touch of skin against skin, fingers tracing faces, the warmth of an embrace. What had been so external with Elizabeth was now, with Ruth, charged with all the passion of true longing. Eyes finding each other, every inward part of him converging with her, their bodies unfolding into souls, both of them entwined in this private rapture of mutual love.

  The discovery of an empty maid’s room, to which Ruth could wheel him without difficulty, was a gift. It was he who first realized that they might find a moment’s privacy there, and he directed Ruth there.

  When they reached the room, they found a key in the lock, ready and waiting. Thomas locked the door from the inside.

  The space between them was electric. This was the first time they had been safely alone together, and the silence hummed, as if the air had been struck with a tuning fork. Ruth closed the window shutters, then turned to Thomas; their intimacy began.

  Their lovemaking continued, in the same room, whenever it was possible, with a steady increase in daring for both of them. They graduated onto the creaky single bed and felt each other, diffidently at first. Until the day of consummation. Thereafter, their desire grew frank and uninhibited.

  He had already told her that he could not father children, so they never worried about contraception.

  43

  Roberta was careful to make sure that nobody could keep track of her comings and goings with Billy in London. Her work pattern was erratic: sometimes she took day shifts, at other times she worked through the evenings. Meanwhile, she kept up polite contact with Lewis’s parents, on occasional Sunday visits. She was fond of them.

  “As soon as Lewis comes home, we’ll celebrate,” she said, and she meant it; she was looking forward to resuming family life, she missed all its rituals.

  But for the moment, she drew solace from her time with Billy. As was usual on a Tuesday evening, she posted a letter to her daughter, then made her way to Notting Hill, where he was waiting in their flat. She made an omelette for both of them, with eggs saved for the occasion. Then they made love languidly, and drifted into sleep before he had even withdrawn from her.

  But Roberta woke abruptly before midnight. There was the familiar sound of sirens and bombers, in a distant part of London.

  “We need to go into the shelter,” she said, rousing Billy.

  He tumbled out of bed, and they set off for the cellar of their building. Billy was soon asleep once more on his camp bed, but Roberta was too much
awake now. She had an interview with her boss first thing in the morning, and wanted to wear her best suit, which was hanging in the wardrobe at home. She would have to make an early start to retrieve it and change.

  By two in the morning, she still could not sleep, and the bombing was receding. When she heard the all-clear siren, she stirred a half-conscious Billy to say that she was heading home, to have her clothes ready for the morning. Then she slipped out into the darkness.

  It was a cloudy night, and there was still a distant rumble of anti-aircraft guns. But no German bombers over Kensington.

  She walked down Notting Hill and headed towards Holland road. Why “Holland Road”, she wondered. What had it to do with Holland? She had passed this street so often, yet never before had she thought about its name.

  Suddenly, a rogue plane buzzed through the clouds and, within moments, she heard a bomb exploding a few streets away. Panic seized her. She looked round for the nearest shelter, quickening her pace.

  Another plane passed, and another. All heading somewhere else, but still frightening her. She could see no shelter as she hurried down the road, but she passed railings masking cellar steps. I will have to knock on a stranger’s door, she thought.

  She ran down some steps and knocked on a basement door. No answer. The planes were still flying over. Please, please, let me in. She ran to the next house, and the next. No answer.

  It was as she reached the basement door of the fourth house that she heard an eerie whine above her head, followed by a deafening crash.

  When she came to, she could not move, though her head was free and she could crane it to either side. It took her a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t badly injured; just a throbbing left shoulder.

  It’s a miracle I’m still alive, she thought, wiggling her toes. Alive, and in one piece. I’ll just have to wait until somebody digs me out. “Help!” she called, and again, “Help!”