His Diamond Bride

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY married a month later in the church where the others were buried. Joe, bursting with pride and triumph, gave the bride away, and afterwards Dee laid her bouquet of buttercups on her mother’s grave.

A few of Mark’s comrades from the Air Force were guests at the tiny reception held at home. These days, there were constant air offensives, taking the battle to the enemy, and hope for victory was daily growing.

Dee fell into conversation with Harry, a pleasant man who’d been a good friend of Mark’s and was his best man today.

‘Dashed if I ever thought Mark would find a woman who could tolerate him,’ he confided, laughing.

‘I come from a family whose women are renowned for being long-suffering,’ she assured him in the same tone.

‘Good for you! I say, look at that.’ He pointed to a small toy high on a shelf. It was the Mad Bruin, brought out to enjoy the occasion.

‘Mark won it for me at a funfair,’ she said.

‘It’s very like his, except that his had a frilly skirt.’

‘You’ve seen his?’ she asked, startled.

‘I used to. Not recently of course, because it went down with his plane.’

‘Mark took it with him when he flew into battle?’ she asked, scarcely able to breathe.

‘Yes, but don’t tell him I told you that. He smuggled it in secret and none of us were supposed to know, but I think it was his good luck charm, and it really did seem as though he had a charmed life. But in the end they got him, too.’

Someone called him and he turned away, leaving her free to think. Now she was a mass of confusion. Mark had treasured her gift so much that he’d taken it with him while he’d risked his life, and had continued to do so even after she’d broken their engagement. That knowledge caused a glow of happiness to go through her.

But he’d concealed it from her. So many times he could have told her; when they became engaged, when they were making love. Yet he’d chosen not to, showing that there was still a distance between them. Emotionally, he still hadn’t turned to her as much as she’d hoped.

And had their encounters really been love-making? On her side, yes, but on his? Hadn’t he yielded to desire because he needed to know whether his skills as a lover had survived? And hadn’t he married her because, although not exactly what he wanted, it was the best option now available in a devastated life?

But surely she’d always known this? She, too, was settling for what she could get because anything was better than life without him. She would be his wife and the mother of his children. He would never be romantically ‘in love’ with her. It was too late for that. But his affection would deepen and they would grow close.

She must simply hope for that.

But she refused to be discouraged. She had once promised to love him to the end, no matter what happened, and it was time to keep that promise.

She was taking a risk but it was one she had to take, otherwise her vow of love was meaningless. True love meant keeping on even when the actual emotion was hard to feel.

‘Hey, where are you? Dee?’

It was Mark, looking unbelievably handsome, just as she’d once dreamed he would look on their wedding day.

‘What’s the idea of wandering off alone?’ he chided. ‘They’re ready for the speeches.’

‘I’m coming.’

‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ He looked worriedly into her face.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said brightly.

‘Not sorry you married me?’

‘Of course not.’

‘No regrets? Sure about that?’

She touched his face. ‘I’ll never regret marrying you, as long as I live. Now, let’s go and join the others.’

The rest of the reception went splendidly. There were toasts and speeches, cheers and laughter. That night they made love gently, then lay contentedly together. It was a happiness she’d once thought she would never know.

But she had dreamed of how, on their wedding night, she could finally tell him that she was deeply, passionately, romantically in love with him. Now she knew that she couldn’t do it. She would have to wait longer for the right moment. It might be years in coming. Or it might never come.

His pride in his approaching fatherhood was immense. He was home every evening, something that made her an object of envy among her friends, and his whole attitude towards his wife, and marriage generally, exuded contentment. Dee knew that she was lucky, and that it was sheer perversity that made her long for some sign that she was more to him than just the mother of his baby, that he’d married her for more than the refuge she offered.

At last it was time for her to leave her job. On the last day there was a small party in the early evening, with speeches from Sister, Matron and even Mr Royce, who’d found the time to drop in. While he was toasting her, Dee looked up to see Mark standing in the door, a glowering expression on his face that she’d never seen before.

Now she recalled how he’d said that Mr Royce was in love with her, even advised her to catch him and make a ‘good’ marriage. But that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Surely Mark had abandoned that fantasy?

But his scowling face said otherwise.

‘I see that your husband has come to collect you,’ Mr Royce said genially. ‘Take her home, sir, and take the best possible care of her, because she means the world to all of us.’

Mark’s smile seemed fixed on by rivets. ‘I don’t need to be told to take care of my wife,’ he said in a soft voice that only Dee and Mr Royce could hear. ‘Are you ready to go?’

‘Yes, quite ready.’

He drove her home in the battered second-hand car that he’d bought to celebrate her pregnancy.

‘You should go to bed now,’ he said as they entered the house.

‘I’d like some supper first.’

‘All right, but then you go to bed. You need all the rest you can get.’

‘Excuse me, are you instructing me in a medical matter?’ she asked indignantly.

‘This isn’t medical, it’s husband and wife,’ he said illogically.

Joe was out that evening, which was just as well, she thought, considering Mark’s temper.

‘You’re not still making a fuss about Mr Royce, surely?’ she demanded, annoyed in her turn, and perfectly ready to have a row if that was what he wanted.

‘Shouldn’t I be? Do you really think he’s over you?’

‘I’m not sure there was ever anything for him to get over. It was just in your imagination.’

‘Like hell it was! Do you think I’ve forgotten that he’s the man you ought to have married?’

‘Who says?’

‘We both know it’s true.’

‘Then why didn’t I marry him?’

‘Because I forced you to marry me.’

Astonishment held her silent. After a moment he turned to see her properly.

‘We both know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Once I’d made you pregnant you didn’t have a choice. That’s what I was counting on.’

‘You were…counting…?’ She was groping for answers, trying to come to terms with this.

‘Why do you think I came to you night after night-?’ he growled.

‘Or I came to you.’

‘I was trying to make you pregnant, so that I could marry you.’

It took a moment for the full glorious truth of this to burst on her.

‘You wanted to-you actually wanted to marry me?’

‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’

‘I’ve never known. Why didn’t you just propose?’

‘Because I had no right. What kind of prospect was I? Nothing to offer you beyond a damaged body and a load of nightmares. I didn’t have the nerve to ask. But if you were pregnant it would be my duty to marry you, and I could square it with my conscience that way.’

Dee listened to this with mounting disbelief.

‘Don’t glare at me,’ he said. ‘Are you angry?’

‘Angry? Mark, have you never understood? I wanted to marry you, and you were determined not to ask me, so I became pregnant on purpose.’

‘What?’

‘I had to do it, to force your hand.’

‘Do you mean that you…that while I was trying to force…that all the time you were…is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes,’ she said through twitching lips. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. At least, I think it is. Oh, darling, it’s crazy. We each wanted to get married, and we forced each other. And all this time-’

The last words were almost drowned by his shout of laughter. ‘Come here,’ he cried. ‘Come here.’

Crowing with delight, she threw herself into his arms, kissing his face madly, fumbling for his buttons.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she urged. ‘We have to celebrate this in the proper way.’

But the words acted like a douche of cold water on him, making him freeze in mid-gesture and step back from her.

‘What am I doing?’ he groaned. ‘I must be out of my mind to even think of…I’m sorry-forgive me.’

‘Darling, it’s all right. We can go ahead.’

‘You’re pregnant. It could harm you-or our baby.’

‘Trust me to know about that. There’s a little time left before we have to stop, I promise you.’

She thought she’d swayed him. He reached for her with desperate hands, then snatched them back, groaning.

‘No, you’re just indulging me, but I won’t risk your health. Stay away. Don’t tempt me.’

He ran, and a few moments later she heard him in the garage.

She wanted to scream her frustration to the heavens. They had taken one more step along the road, potentially a happy step. He wanted her. He’d wanted to marry her.

True, he hadn’t actually said he loved her, but that would come, surely, the first time she could tempt him back into her arms? But he’d made it clear that the baby meant more to him than she did, so for the moment she would have to be patient again.

But she was so tired of being patient.

After her busy life, it was pleasant to have time for herself and to be cared for by two concerned men. In the afternoons she began putting her feet up, regarding her growing bump with placid contentment.

She was half dozing like this one day when there was a knock on the door. Opening it, she found Harry, the airman who’d been a guest at the wedding.

‘I’m afraid Mark’s not here,’ she told him. ‘He’s working on a car at the owner’s home.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to deliver this.’ He held out a large envelope. ‘It seems that all Mark’s things weren’t cleared out when he left and they found this recently. Very sorry. Can’t stop, I’m in a hurry.’

He blew her a friendly kiss and departed.

The envelope wasn’t sealed and she tipped the contents out onto the table. There were a couple of stray socks and a few papers concerned with his time in the service. It was while sorting through these that she came across the letter he’d written her and never sent:

…You were right to break it off. I’m a useless character and I’d be no good for you…

The touch of humility took her breath away. He’d spoken like that once before, after his injury, but this had been written before. Had he felt like this even back then? Surely in those days he’d been different, more at ease behind the mask of bonhomie?

From the garage came the sound of clanking as Joe worked away. Mark would be back soon. Gathering everything together, she hurried up to her room and shut the door. Safely alone, she resumed reading the letter.

…Do you still have the Mad Bruin?…let him remind you of me sometimes; even if it’s only the annoying things…never seem to understand when you want to be left alone…

But I never wanted you to leave me alone, she thought sadly. I wanted more of you, not less.

The letter became disjointed, suggesting that he’d returned to it often, while never finishing it.

Dee threw herself back on the bed, trying to come to terms with the discovery. Her heart was touched by the man she found here, a vulnerable man, not the cockily self-confident loudmouth he tried to present to the world. But someone who was secretly waiting for love to let him down-as it always had done, going back to his earliest days.

This was the true Mark, the lovable Mark, but still the one he concealed from her. The letter had never been sent. She closed her eyes, conjuring him up in the darkness, trying to see him as he must have looked when he was writing. Had he murmured her name?

‘Dee-Dee-’

She opened her eyes to find him sitting on the bed beside her, frowning in concern.

‘I was just dozing,’ she said, looking up at him from the pillow. She saw him looking at the letter in her hand. ‘Harry brought some of your things that weren’t returned before, and this was among them.’

‘So that’s what happened to it. So many things vanished, including my little bear.’

‘Harry said you had her in the cockpit with you when you went down. He told me that at the wedding. I wish you’d told me yourself.’

He took the letter and she watched his face. He looked sad and strangely older than only a few hours ago.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have read it,’ she said. ‘You never wanted me to see it, did you?’

‘Not then. I didn’t know how to face you. There was so much I wanted to say but I couldn’t find the words.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I was angry. You dumped me and it was a shock. My pride was hurt. This-’ he indicated the letter ‘-was me trying to say so and making a mess of it. It’s probably just as well I didn’t send it to you.’

‘Or maybe it’s a pity. Who knows what might have happened? I might have come to visit you.’ There was just a hint of hope in her voice.

‘Or you could have had an attack of common sense and stayed well clear of me.’

‘Does that mean you’re sorry we’re together, Mark?’

He frowned, as though not understanding the question. ‘How can you say that?’ he asked, laying a hand on her stomach. ‘Everything that’s worthwhile in my life, in the whole world, is here. All hope is here, all love is here, all life.’

He laid his face against her for a moment, then raised it and said gently, ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

He hurried away, taking the letter with him and leaving her smiling. There was joy to be found in his words, his all-embracing acceptance of her as the hope of his life. She tried to ignore a faint niggling disappointment that his affection seemed to lack the other dimension that would have meant so much. He’d turned to her as a refuge from horrors, something she knew was common to many men who’d been involved in fighting. It was more than she might have expected and if it wasn’t what she’d hoped for, so what? With the years stretching out ahead of them, it was time to be realistic.

Wasn’t it?

Gradually the war news became more hopeful. Mark was still in touch with many of his pilot friends, and they passed on information not yet available to the rest of the world. In September 1943, allied troops had landed in southern Italy. In January 1944, more troops reached Italy in what became known as the Anzio landings. Their progress was slowed down by fierce resistance, but they overcame it. Hope was in the air.

Then came February, when a few days became known as ‘Big Week’ as the allied air forces stormed across Europe. The three of them listened to the nightly radio bulletins and Dee tried to read Mark’s face, wondering if he felt excluded from what was turning into a triumph. But the smile he turned on her was always warm and tender, and his hand would reach out to touch her stomach gently.

Both Joe and Mark watched Dee like guard dogs. If there was a job to be done away from home it was always Joe who took it, and even he announced that he would soon refuse them.

‘This is the last one until it’s all over,’ he announced one morning, buttoning up his jacket.

‘Dad,’ she protested, laughing, ‘nothing’s going to happen for a few weeks.’

‘And I’m going to be here when it does. ’Bye darling. Take care.’

She settled down for a pleasant day’s sewing, but within an hour she knew she’d been wrong about nothing happening. Pain started tearing through her, growing greater and greater. She screamed and Mark came hurrying in from the garage.

All the way to the hospital she tried to stay hopeful. Her moment was coming. A few hours of suffering and she would see Mark hold their child in his arms, their eyes would meet in a moment of perfect understanding and the bond between them would be sealed as never before.

But, as they reached the hospital and she was wheeled away, she knew that something was badly wrong. The pain was agonising in the wrong way; blood was flowing out of her body in a terrifying river.

‘He’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘My baby is dead.’

‘We’re giving you a blood transfusion,’ the sister said. ‘Don’t give up hope yet.’

But Dee was a nurse. She knew the truth.

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘Oh, dear God, no!’

Mark had married her for this baby, hoping to find a haven for his tormented heart. Now she was letting him down.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No-please, save my baby.’

Then everything was dark.

For Mark, waiting in a corridor, time dragged with painful slowness. At last a middle-aged nurse emerged, sympathetic when she saw him.

‘It’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?’ he asked in a shaking voice. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he’d picked something up from Dee’s tension, without understanding it.

‘I’m afraid the baby was born dead,’ the nurse said.

He closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, his heart aching for his wife. She was suffering so much, with nothing to show for it.

‘But she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’ he asked huskily.

In the silence that followed he felt terror rise in him. ‘She’s going to be all right!’ he almost shouted.

‘Mr Sellon, I have to be honest with you. Your wife has lost a lot of blood. We’re doing our best, but things may not go well. I think you should be prepared.’

‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. You don’t understand. She won’t go away-because she never does-when I need her-she’s always there-’ He was breathing hard, as though he’d been running. ‘I want to see her.’

‘Of course.’ The nurse stood back to let him pass.

At first he couldn’t believe that the woman lying on the bed was Dee. His Dee was always full of life and vitality, but this woman lay as still as death, her breathing coming so faintly that it was almost noiseless.

‘Darling, wake up,’ he said urgently. ‘Look at me, talk to me.’

There was no response, no sound, no movement, and that frightened him more than anything. In all the time they had known each other, never had she refused him anything, save the time when she’d broken their engagement. And that had been the greatest misfortune of his life. Now she was refusing him again, and the spectre of the future made him recoil in dread.

‘You’ve got to listen,’ he said urgently. ‘I know you can hear me because-’ He stopped as he heard himself saying words he didn’t understand. How did he know this? And yet he did know. Somewhere, far back in his mind, he could hear a voice saying, ‘I know you’re asleep but maybe you can hear me, somewhere deep inside you… I do hope so because there’s so much I want you to understand.’

Once he’d heard those words and they had summoned him back from a dark place. Now they were his only hope.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, echoing the words in his memory. ‘Can my voice reach deep inside you? Please hear me. There’s so much I want you to understand.

‘I’ve never told you of my love because I didn’t know how, but I must tell you now because it may be my last chance. I think I loved you from the start. Remember how easily we could talk? That’s why I couldn’t commit to Sylvia. She was beautiful but you had something special about you, although I didn’t properly understand.

‘I was a young idiot, full of self-importance, thinking I was entitled to everything I wanted, especially girls. And all the time this feeling was growing in me but I couldn’t let myself admit the truth. It mattered too much. You mattered.

‘I was glad when we decided to pretend to be a couple because I wanted you to be my girl. So why didn’t I ask you? Because I was shy, and that’s the truth. There, laugh at me. I deserve it. I was a fool. If I hadn’t been, I’d never have lost you. I went out on the town to convince myself that I was still in charge, free of you, when the truth was I could never be free. And you threw my stupidity back in my face, as you had every right to do.’

Mark laid his head down on Dee’s breast. ‘Speak to me,’ he begged. ‘Come back to me. I love you with all my heart. I’ll never love anyone else.’

As he spoke, a door opened inside his mind and he knew that these words, too, were not his own, but had been said to him, long ago. He hadn’t recognised her love until this moment, but it was as true now as then, deeper with the depth of suffering, and his own love reached out in response.

Everything that mattered to him had come from the woman who lay in his arms, who would slip away if he couldn’t prevent it. He did the only thing that was in his power, laying his lips on hers, sending her a silent message of warmth and love.

‘Can you feel my love reaching out to you?’ he murmured, repeating what he now knew to be her words to him long ago. ‘It’s yours if you want it.’

For a long moment he held his breath, letting it out slowly as her eyes opened.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he whispered. ‘You came to me in the hospital when I was dying, and you turned me back. Now I’m here to do the same for you.’

‘Is it true?’ she murmured. ‘Is it really true?’

‘It’s true, my darling, more true than I can ever say. You’re the one, the only one. You always have been. Do you remember how you ordered me to get well, saying you were a bully? Well, so am I.’ He gave a shaky smile. ‘Woman, your husband is ordering you to get well and love him for ever.’

‘Then I must,’ she said.

‘Is that a promise?’

‘It’s a promise.’

‘I’ll hold you to it.’

Suddenly her smile was stronger. ‘Did I ever break a promise to you yet?’

He shook his head and spoke sombrely. ‘I love you, my wife. It took me too long to say it, but now I’ll be saying it every moment of all the years ahead. I love you. I love you.’

The months that followed were a mixture of grief and joy-grief for our dead child, joy that we had found each other at last. Everything was sweet and familiar, my darling, yet everything was new.

You became a little more possessive, always checking to see that I was all right. People used to say to me, ‘Doesn’t he suffocate you? Isn’t it annoying?’ But it wasn’t annoying. It was lovely being needed.

I remember 6th June which became known as D-Day, the start of the Normandy landings, when the allied army invaded the Continent again, this time in France. Now the final victory was in view. The war didn’t end officially until the following year but D-Day was the beginning of the end, and people sensed it, pouring into the streets to sing and hold hands, looking to the future with glad hearts.

We were there, too, standing with our arms about each other, trying to rejoice with the others. I was determined to put a brave face on it for your sake, but when I glanced up I found you looking down at me with an expression of such love and concern that I felt closer to you than ever before. That night my happiness had nothing to do with the looming end of the war. It came from knowing that I came first with you.

For a while we feared that I couldn’t have another baby, and I’ll never forget how tenderly you assured me that you didn’t care about that, as long as you had me. But then we found I was pregnant again, and before long we had Lilian. The following year Terry joined us. You wouldn’t admit how proud you were to have a son. People were just beginning to talk about women’s lib and you didn’t want to appear old-fashioned. So you tried to seem casual, but I knew you were bursting with pride and I had a little laugh-secretly, of course.

But no happiness is ever untroubled. The following year Polly was born and it seemed we could ask for no more. She was your favourite. According to Dad, it was because she looked like me. When she died suddenly, just before her first birthday, I thought you, too, would die. I believe you wanted to, although you never said so. We didn’t talk about it, just held each other in silence, night after night.

Your health improved. You got much of your strength back and Dad made you a partner in the garage. As he got older he eased off a bit, doing less mechanical work and helping to look after the children so that I was able to go back to work at the hospital. You didn’t like my working. In those days a wife and mother was supposed to stay at home, but you said I must do whatever I thought right.

I think it helped that Mr Royce had got married to a beautiful girl twenty years his junior.

Once I’d started work you never mentioned it, never complained, even helped in the house to make my life easier. People who’d known you before the war were astonished. ‘You should have seen him back then,’ they’d say. ‘You’d never have thought he’d turn out like this.’

If you had a fault it was that you were always losing things. How many times did I hear you cry, ‘Dee, where’s my-?’ Heavens, but you were the untidiest man in the world! Still are, come to that.

For a while there were five of us in that little house and it was very crowded, but we were happy, and when Dad died we really missed him. We watched our children grow up and make their own lives, and then we were alone for the first time.

Some parents are devastated when their young fly the nest, but you said it was like being newlyweds. We were in our fifties by then, but you were right.

What a time we had! We got quite exhausted. We thought of having a honeymoon, because we hadn’t had one the first time, but in the end we just locked the doors and had a honeymoon at home.

Then, in a strange way, we became parents again. Lilian gave birth to Pippa just when she was getting ready to go back to work, and she was glad when we offered to help out. We cared for Pippa part-time until she started school. And when she was a teenager we took her in because she and Lilian couldn’t live in the same house without squabbling. And now it’s a joy to have her here, our extra ‘daughter’, caring for us and understanding us better than anyone else.

I told her about having our ‘honeymoon’ at home, and she was scandalised. She thinks it’s not a honeymoon unless you go away and we should have taken that trip to Brighton that we once talked about. Perhaps she’s right. Is it too late? We’ve done everything else, could we still manage that, too? Oh, yes, let’s do it. Let’s have one last wonderful fling!

‘Are you crazy?’ Lilian demanded.

‘No, they’re crazy,’ Pippa laughed. ‘And why shouldn’t they be?’

‘Brighton? At their age?’

‘They won’t do anything energetic, just sit in the sun. I’ll be there to take care of them, and I’ll bring them home safely. Promise.’

A week later she drove Mark and Dee to the seaside resort in a trip that was planned to be as similar as possible to the one they would have taken years before. They stayed in a tiny bed and breakfast near the seafront and spent each day strolling gently along the promenade, or sitting in deckchairs on the beach. At these times Pippa moved away far enough to give them privacy, but always kept them in sight in case they needed her.

‘I really envy you two,’ she said once, when she’d just finished making them comfortable. ‘The way you are together-it’s wonderful.’

‘And one day it will be wonderful for you,’ Dee promised. ‘With the right man.’

‘No.’ Pippa shook her head. ‘Not now. I’m finished with all that.’

‘And you’re going to spend the rest of your life like this?’ Dee demanded. ‘Doing dead-end jobs and turning your back on love? I’m not going to let that happen. I’ve got plans for you, my girl. I’ve left you some money in my will, but only on condition you train for a proper career. No, don’t argue.’

‘But Gran, I-’

‘Listen my darling; Grandpa and I planned this together. We’ve had a wonderful marriage and we can’t bear to think of you losing out, when we want you to be as complete and fulfilled as we’ve been. Let us have the peace of knowing that we did our best to help you, and then we’ll always be part of your life.’

‘You’ll always be part of it anyway. You know that.’

‘You obey your Gran,’ Mark said contentedly. ‘I always have.’

‘I’ll-think about it.’

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ Dee said. ‘Be off with you, now.’

‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

She kissed them both and strolled away to the water’s edge, where she could paddle, yet still look up the beach and keep a protective eye on them as they sat in contented silence, eyes closed, faces raised to the sun, their hands entwined, like their hearts. This was how love ought to be.

I don’t think it will ever be like that for me, Gran, whatever you say, she thought. But you’re so convinced that you make me think I might be wrong. If, one day, a man comes along who helps me forget the past, maybe it will work out between us, because I’ll have my memories of you and Grandpa to remind me to hope and believe. I’ll never forget what you and he have taught me, and I thank you both with all my heart.