The green hills of Dorset swept gently down to the cliff which made a precipitous drop to the sea. Above, the sky was sapphire tinted with gold where the sun's rays caressed the filmy edges of lacy cirrus, floating cirrus, teased by the wind.
Loretta Sedgewick stood barefoot on the sand, nuzzling her toes into the warmth while her heart beat a throbbing tattoo as she saw at last the man she had come here to meet. Her face became animated, her deep blue eyes alive with eagerness and love. A soft smile parted her lips as the man drew nearer and she saw that he responded.
'He's far too old for you,' her mother had chided a few hours earlier, anxiety shading her eyes. 'Forty, and you a mere eighteen. Do you realise, child, that when he's fifty you'll only be twenty-eight, and the children's father will be old enough to be their grandfather?'
'I love him, Mother, and so what does age matter?' But a doubt had been born which refused to be crushed no matter how hard she tried. Nevertheless, there was nothing in her greeting to reveal her secret as she extended eager hands and said, 'You made it, Lee! I felt so happy when I saw you coming round the bluff!'
He took her gently in his arms and all her doubts fled. How long for? A shadow passed over her eyes.
'Dearest, what is it?' Lee kissed her before she could reply. 'You look troubled, sweet.' He held her from him, his brown eyes all-examining. She noticed the grey at his temples, the fine-drawn lines along the sides of his mouth; she glanced at his hands, where blue veins were showing…. It seemed that she was aware of these things for the first time, she mused as her eyes lifted from his hands, which were holding hers, to his face again. Now she realised that his skin was not nearly as clear as Philip Darlington's, the boy next door who several years ago had sworn he was going to marry her when they grew up. A sigh escaped her as doubts returned; she looked at the man she loved and spoke frankly to him, telling him what her mother had said when she knew her daughter was going out to meet the man whom Mrs. Sedgewick wished with all her heart had never come into Loretta's life.
'Mother's very upset about you and me,' she said finally, and to her surprise Lee was nodding his head and his eyes were slowly darkening. A frown came to his forehead and stayed there.
'Twenty-two years is an awful lot, darling,' he said at last, but drew her close all the same, as if he would not look upon her face and see the reaction to his words.
She pulled away, a tear bright on her lashes. 'We love each other,' she whispered huskily. 'I told Mother that age isn't important.'
He looked at her and she knew he was troubled and sad. Why, she thought rebelliously, had she been born so much later than he?
'Men don't live as long as women-'
'How do you know that? It's an old doctor's tale!'
Faintly he smiled. He thought: She is so very young, too young to face the realities of life. 'It's been proved, dear. And so, if we suppose-'
'I'm not supposing anything! Why, it is the most foolish and unprofitable thing to do!' Her tiny foot lifted from the sand and came down again heavily. 'You're young now so what does the future matter? We could both be killed together in a car or airplane crash.'
'Darling,' he said patiently, 'you've just said it's foolish and unprofitable to suppose anything, remember?'
'I want to marry you,' she stated firmly. 'Let the future take care of itself!' And she lifted her face, offering him her lips, which he took, passionately… and yet she sensed a difference….
'Let us walk along and sit down,' he suggested. And as they walked he asked if she had told her mother she wanted to marry him.
'Of course. I know you haven't asked me yet, but it's what we both want-and know we shall have,' she added defiantly as an afterthought, but again Lee was shaking his head. They sat down on a rock ledge and his arms slid about her slender waist. Again she lifted her face; he did not take the offering of her sweet young mouth but stared at her instead, taking in the firm yet feminine contours of her face, the delicate blue veins beneath the fragile covering at her temples, the curving brows above eyes so expressive they told you everything. He touched her golden hair, tenderly, lovingly, and then he closed his eyes and his lips moved convulsively.
'I'm too old for you, dearest.' The words seemed to stick in his throat, so hoarsely were they spoken. 'Far too old, Loretta. You see, dear, although it is all right now, and would be five years hence, afterwards, when I am fifty-'
'I shall be only twenty-eight. Yes, Mother told me-just in case I was so dumb I couldn't count!'
'No need for that,' he admonished in that stern voice which had thrilled her from the very beginning. 'Your mother does happen to be right. She's a mature woman with a great deal of good commonsense, whereas you are a mere child who wants something so badly that she is too stubborn either to be advised or to look for herself and see what is likely to happen-what must happen, for we can't stop the clock, you know.'
She wanted to retort that she did not care but the doubt was strong now, built up by Lee's assertions, which were merely a supplement to her mother's. Was she a mere child? Wanting her own way so badly that she refused to listen to those with more sense than she? Yet why should she listen! She had a mind of her own; she had made her choice and that was that!
'I want to marry you,' she said and added that she wanted the wedding to be soon.
'There's nothing to wait for,' she added. 'I can be ready in a couple of weeks.'
Lee had to laugh. 'My child, it is usual for the lady to wait to be asked.'
'We're living in modern times.'
'Pity, for if we hadn't been then you'd have had to wait until you were twenty-one for your mother's permission to marry.' He paused but she made no comment and he went on, taking her hand and absently passing a thumb over the back of it. 'I think, my love, that we ought to wait a while-No, please let me finish. I have a suggestion and it is this: I've been offered a job as estate manager on a large citrus farm in South Africa. I feel I should take it and go there on my own. After six months I shall write to you-'
'Six months! Six whole months!'
'-to say if I still want to marry you,' he continued, ignoring the interruption. 'If I do not write, it will mean that I have had second thoughts-that I feel the age gap is far too great.' He had turned away so she saw only his profile. But she realised just how difficult it had been for him to voice those words and she knew he was deliberately hiding his expression from her. She swallowed, trying to relieve the dryness in her throat, for she knew that Lee would not budge from the decision he had just made.
'You're cruel!' she cried. 'Have I no say in this matter?'
He looked at her. 'You know you haven't,' was all he said for the moment. But when she remained silent he added gently, 'If I do write, dear, and you still want to marry me, then you will come out to me in Africa. However, during the six months you yourself might have second thoughts and decide to call the whole thing off-'
'I never shall! And I shall die in six months!' she told him tragically.
'If you have changed your mind,' he went on with only a slight smile to denote his hearing of her complaint, 'then you will ignore my letter.' Again he looked at her, holding her chin firmly in his hand. 'Is that all very clear to you, Loretta?'
Her mouth twisted convulsively. 'You're cruel,' she repeated. 'How can you bear to leave me for six months when you love me-? Perhaps,' she said accusingly, 'you don't love me at all but have only been playing around. And taking this job in Africa is the way you have chosen to get away from me now-now th-that you're-t-tired of-of m-me!'
He took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. She felt him quiver against her and said contritely, 'I'm sorry, darling. I know you mean it for the best-well, what in your opinion is the best for me-' She shook her fair head vigorously. 'But it isn't the best, Lee! Oh, please, don't do this to me! It isn't for the best, I tell you!' she added as his face hardened.
'It is what I believe is for the best,' was his quiet assertion after a pause. 'It's the honourable way and one which I mean to follow.'
'But the choice is all yours and that's not fair!'
'Initially the choice is mine, yes. Afterwards, should I write to you, then the choice will be with you.'
That was all. Argue she might, but without success. Loretta tried for days but finally she found herself seated opposite to Lee in a restaurant, eating a farewell dinner which she felt was choking her.
***
She looked down at the cake her friend had made for her, then, stooping, she blew out the candles.
'I feel quite old,' she said, but laughed as she sat down opposite to Maura who, since the death of her mother when she was twenty, had had a small flat on the outskirts of Dorchester, the city in which both she and Loretta worked. Loretta now shared the flat, for her own mother had died eighteen months ago leaving her alone in the world, except for an aged aunt whom Loretta saw only about twice a year. 'Twenty-five and on the shelf!'
'Only because of your own choosing.' Maura passed her the knife and Loretta cut the cake. 'I sometimes wonder if you had a disappointment in love when you were young.'
'Funny you should say that,' reflectively as Loretta passed a wedge of cake over to her friend.
'You mean-you did have a disappointment?' Maura looked curiously at her across the candle-lit table which she had set with such care a couple of hours earlier, while Loretta was out-sent out deliberately to do some shopping for the week-end.
'I was eighteen….' The story was unfolded in a matter of sixty seconds and there was very little expression in Loretta's voice as she uttered the final words, 'He didn't write, so he mustn't have wanted me after all.'
Maura was frowning heavily. 'He was far too old for you and he obviously knew it.'
'Oh, he knew it all right and so did everyone else-except me.'
'You must have known he was too old, must sometimes have seen yourself a widow, your kids fatherless when only comparatively young.' She shook her head, her brow still creased in a frown. 'He was a gentleman, honourable, and I hope he is happy even though I do not know him and never shall.'
'He liked the country and so I feel he will be happy on the land.'
Maura bit into her cake. 'You know nothing of what happened to him, nothing at all?'
Loretta shook her head. 'No, how could I? He didn't even leave me his address-said it was for the best in case he decided he wouldn't write.' She gave a wry grimace. 'I expect he knew I'd worry him with letters, so he guarded against it.'
'You don't seem upset about it all.'
'After seven years? I don't feel anything. I can't now even bring his face into focus.'
'He'll be forty-seven.'
'I know,' she mused, wondering how she would feel were she to come face to face with him at this moment. 'It's a funny thing, Maura, but I was so sure he would write, so confident that he'd not be strong enough to resist marrying me.'
'Well, he obviously was strong enough.'
Loretta merely nodded her head and changed the subject, saying she must pay a visit to the village where she had lived with her mother until eighteen months ago. 'I've a few friends and acquaintances whom I correspond with as you know,' she went on, 'and they're always asking when I'm going back to have a day seeing them all.'
'Want me to come with you? I'm free on Saturdays now that we have extra staff.'
'Will you? I'd like the company. We could go in my car.'
'It's settled, then.' Maura took another bite of the cake. 'Next Saturday?'
'That'll suit me fine.' Loretta was looking forward to the visit, but little did she know what an upheaval it was to bring about in her life.
***
She drove first to the old school which had been converted into a delightful house some years ago after the school closed, its pupils having been gradually reduced until there were only a dozen or so left. Mrs. Drinkwater lived there with her middle-aged daughter, a spinster so attractive that it was a puzzle to everyone that she had never married. The two greeted the girls cordially and offered them tea and cakes. The next stop was at a small cottage on a hill occupied by an ancient widower who always used to be telling Loretta that he would like to become her stepfather. Mr. Wilkins also offered them tea, but apologised for not having any dainties to give them.
'Times have become hard for us pensioners,' he said with a deep sigh, 'and so cakes and biscuits and the like have to be given the go by when you've to budget the way I have.'
'Don't worry, Mr. Wilkins.' Loretta smiled. 'We've just had more than we wanted at Mrs. Drinkwater's.'
'She's a fine cook. Makes some tasty cakes, and now and then brings me a couple. Much appreciated-kindly of her, yes kindly.'
The last call was at the post office where Miss Pilgrim had been the postmistress when Loretta was there. Miss Pilgrim was an eccentric and no mistake, and so absent-minded that if you left her a parcel it was hit or miss whether it caught the next post or one a week later. She had left a fortnight ago, Loretta was told by the new people, a Mr. and Mrs. Greason who had already been doing the place up.
'But you must come in,' said Mrs. Greason when Loretta would have turned away. 'Come and see what we are doing to the place.'
The two girls entered, unable to say no to the smiling invitation. Mr. Greason was plastering the living-room wall and his young son was cleaning up the mess he was making.
'It's a good thing we have our Saturday afternoons off,' he was saying a short while later when again the girls were drinking tea at the kitchen table. 'It gives us a day and a half every week. What a mess the place is in, though! Miss Pilgrim wasn't all that old that she couldn't do something towards keeping the property in good order.'
'You should have seen the rubbish and old letters and the like we've found behind the shelves-You'll remember the shelves, Miss Sedgewick?'
'Yes, she kept so much on them that we always wondered how she'd go on if ever she decided to move.'
'There was a sort of cavity behind them and it's our opinion that when she became inundated with clutter she swept the lot into a heap and tossed it into that cavity.'
'Let the young ladies take a peep at what we removed,' suggested her husband. 'Or have we burnt that lot along with what we took from the utility room? Gee, that was cluttered, I can tell you,' he added turning to the girls. 'We had to shovel it out into the yard and there we set fire to the lot.'
'We haven't yet burnt the rubbish we found behind the shelves.'
'Then take them and show them.'
The girls exchanged glances which plainly said they weren't in the least interested in Miss Pilgrim's accumulated rubbish, but at the same time there were gestures of resignation for they had no intention of snubbing these charming people. And so they left their tea to go into a shed in the yard and there they just stood and gasped.
'Letters!' exclaimed Maura. 'Letters which, presumably, had not been delivered to their owners.'
'Letters and other papers-forms gone brown with age, and even money. We found two ten-pound notes and one fiver.'
'And stamps,' put in her husband who had come behind them.
'But it's the letters,' persisted Maura bending down to pick one up in spite of the dust and grime. 'Some people-expecting letters. Why, it's criminal!'
'She was very absent-minded,' inserted Loretta, herself stooping to pick up an undelivered letter which was yellow with age. 'Mrs. Gregory. I knew her. She died when I was about sixteen.'
'Mr. Wentworth,' murmured Maura, now fascinated. 'Who is he, I wonder, and did he suffer disappointment when this never arrived-' She stopped abruptly as Loretta, her face drained of colour, stood staring down at an envelope she was holding in a hand that trembled. 'What's the matter?'
Loretta swallowed hard. She held forth the envelope, pointing to the stamp. It was at the name which Maura was looking and her lips parted slowly. But no words came. Instead, it was Loretta who said, 'My letter… from Lee. Look at the date….' Tears gathered in her eyes even though there was no pain in her heart. It had all been so long ago… seven years… 'He wrote… but had no reply. He thought I had changed my mind, believed I'd let myself be persuaded not to marry him.'
'Miss Sedgewick, what is all this about?'
The voice of Mr. Greason came to her from a long way off, but she looked up and said in a voice scarcely audible, 'This-this was from a man I l-A man I once knew.' She had almost said a man she had loved, then realised that gossip would be flying round the village and she had no wish for that. 'You can see it was for me-' Again she held it out, this time in front of Mr. Greason, though his wife's head came forward too. 'I'll take it, if I may?'
'Certainly you can take it. But look at the date! Was it something important…?'
'What a question!' Maura was exclaiming ten minutes later as she sat beside Loretta in the car. '"Was it something important?"'
'Fate,' murmured Loretta, putting a hand to the pocket of her dress and hearing the paper rattle. 'It wasn't to be that Lee and I should marry.'
'I reckon fate was doing you a good turn,' was her friend's quiet rejoinder. 'By now, love, you'd be regretting the impulsiveness of youth.'
'Perhaps.'
'No perhaps in it. He's forty-seven now. We were saying so the other day-on your birthday. Three years off fifty.'
Loretta gave a sigh but said nothing. She was anxious to read what had come for her so long ago. Poor Lee, waiting for a reply and as the weeks and months slowly passed he would have had to accept that he had lost her, lost her because of his own act in going away. Yes, poor Lee. Loretta's soft compassionate heart ached for him and she wished she could go to him now, but that was impossible simply because she had not the money for the air fare to South Africa. She had helped Maura with decorating the flat; and, like Maura, she had treated herself to new curtains and covers for the bed and settee which she had in her room. There was the repair to the car, not paid for yet, and she needed some new clothes and shoes. Hard it was to make ends meet, what with the rise in rent for the flat, the big electric and telephone bills…. You tried to reduce them, but even if you did the rates would go up so you were back to the beginning again. No, she could not possibly go out to South Africa to see Lee.
The contents of the letter were brief to the point of austerity.
Just to let you know, dear, that you were right when you wanted to marry me. I miss you so now it is with you.
Love,
Lee
Loretta showed it to her friend later, once they had arrived back at their flat.
'I want to cry,' quivered Maura as she handed it back. 'Even though I know in my heart it was for the best.'
Loretta looked at her as she folded the paper and put it back in the envelope. 'You seem so sure.'
'I'd not like to think my husband was forty-seven and me only twenty-five.'
'But I shall now die an old maid.'
'Rubbish!'
'I never seem to take to the ones who take to me.'
'You've a crush on Derek Spencer, that's why.'
'A married man with a wife he adores and two of the cutest kids alive.'
'He's something, though.'
'And more!'
'Well, he's not for you, so you might as well start looking elsewhere.'
'I don't think I want to bother. I'm very happy here with you.' She was looking at Maura as she spoke and now she found herself frowning and asking if anything were the matter.
'What could be?' Too careless the tone and the manner of Maura as she glanced away towards the window which overlooked the antiquities-the Roman remains of a house and wall-which were beautifully displayed with surroundings of well-cut grass and some shrubs and trees.
'You seem strange-somehow.'
'I don't quite get you.'
'Come off it!' Loretta knew for sure there was something the matter. 'Is it a secret?'
'Is what a secret?' procrastinated Maura, but she was soon being persuaded to 'spill the beans' as Loretta had put it. 'I've met someone nice-it was love at first sight as you might say. I didn't tell you because he went away only a week after we'd met, but he writes and I know he'll propose when he comes back in a couple of months' time.'
Naturally Loretta was taken aback, but her response was swift and sincere. 'I'm so happy for you, Maura. Will you be married right away-what I mean is, soon after he returns?'
'I feel he'll not want to wait very long,' answered Maura frankly and with a blush which spoke volumes.
'So you'll want the flat?'
'To tell the truth I haven't even thought about it. Ron and I haven't reached that point yet and he might have plans for buying a house. After all, this flat isn't very big.'
'But plenty big enough for two,' Loretta was quick to point out.
'I suppose it is.'
'Do you want me to begin looking round?'
'Not yet.' Maura frowned. 'Oh, let me think more about it first! I too have loved having you round, sharing the flat with me, and the expenses. I was grateful when you came as I'd been having nightmares about what a flatmate would be like-and how I'd get rid of her if we weren't compatible.'
'Let me know as soon as you can, Maura, as it's not easy to find a comfortable place to live at the price I can afford.'
'I'll give you plenty of warning,' promised Maura, who was still frowning, a sign of unhappiness, and her friend was swift to assure her that, were the positions reversed, she would be just as eager to get married.
'After all, it's one of those things we each knew could happen,' she went on with a smile. 'It could have been I who had found someone.' Her thoughts flew quite naturally to Lee… and she was wishing she had the money for the visit to South Africa.
Fate… She was thinking again of fate when, only ten days later, she had been summoned to the offices of a Dorchester solicitor and told of her aunt's death and the will she had left. She was handed a letter and she sat there, reading it and feeling glad she had always made the effort to go and see Aunt Alice because, living in an Old Folks' Home, she had little pleasure in her life-at least from the outside world. Loretta's mother had made her promise always to make the effort, and now Loretta had nothing to reproach herself for because it was less than three months since she had made the long train journey up into the Lake District to see the old lady and spend a few hours with her before returning to Dorset the same night.
'My dear Loretta,' she read, 'you must do as you like with this little legacy, but I would be happy to think you would spend it on a holiday-a cruise or something equally romantic. I want you, dear, to buy a memory with it if possible but, as I have said, it is yours to spend as you please and you might just consider a holiday to be an extravagance.' It was signed and there were two crosses after her aunt's name.
To buy a memory…
'Have you any idea what you will do with this money?' inquired the solicitor merely for conversation and to break the silence which followed Loretta's reading of the letter, for she seemed to be sunk in thought.
She glanced up. 'Yes, I do have an idea,' she replied with a smile. 'I'm going to have a holiday in South Africa.'
***
'I know I should do something more sensible with it,' Loretta was saying ruefully a few hours later when she and Maura were having their evening meal. 'But it was Auntie's wish that I go for a holiday, and so that is what I intend to do.'
'You can take a holiday elsewhere.' Maura was concerned, fully aware that, because she was feeling unsettled now at the flat, Loretta was going to Africa solely to find Lee and see if he still wanted to marry her.
'Of course I can, but I want to see Lee. I have his address now, so unless he has moved I can find him easily. If he has moved, surely there'll be someone who can tell me where he is.'
'You're crazy!'
'I haven't said I intend to marry him, Maura,' laughed her friend, but Maura was not amused.
'If he asks you, then you're lost!'
'He's nice, Maura,' responded Loretta nostalgically. 'We had such happy times together.'
'He wasn't so old then.'
'He could be very young for his age.'
'And it could be the opposite! He could be crippled with-with gout or something of the kind!'
'Gout?' Again Loretta laughed. 'He was as fit as an athlete.'
'I don't suppose he's as fit as an athlete now.'
'What of your Ron? Do you expect him to be senile by the time he's forty-seven?'
At that Maura had to see the amusing side and she joined her friend in laughter. 'It's just that I'd like to think of you marrying someone just a little older than yourself-five years older would be just about right.'
'Thirty. Well, who knows what is in store for one?'
'You might meet someone there if only you'd not jump into anything with Lee.'
'I'm seven years older now, remember. I was impulsive at eighteen, but I've sobered up a bit since then.' She looked affectionately at her friend. 'Take that troubled frown off your face, love. I shall promise you I'll not do anything silly, or make a decision I am likely to regret.'
