Anne Mather - Chase A Green Shadow

‘And I suppose you encouraged him,’ accused Tamsyn scornfully.

Hywel shook his head slowly. ‘Oh, no, bach. It was nothing to do with me. I was in South Africa at the time, and I knew nothing about it until I came home and found Joanna and Lance together again.’

Tamsyn compressed her lips. ‘And I suppose you approved of that.’

‘Naturally. Joanna has made your father happy. Would you rather he had been miserable all his life?’

‘How dare you imply that my mother would have been responsible for his own lack of confidence?’ Tamsyn was furious.

‘Call it familiarity, Tamsyn Stanford. And don’t get so angry. You didn’t expect to hear good things of your mother in Trefallath, did you?’

‘It seems to me that my mother was justified in refusing to allow me to visit with my father before now.’

‘Why?’ Hywel shook his head. ‘There are always two sides to every question, aren’t there? Perhaps if the two had been more evenly balanced, it wouldn’t have come as such a shock to hear the other side now.’

‘You don’t imagine I believe everything you’ve said, do you?’ exclaimed Tamsyn disdainfully.

Hywel made an indifferent gesture. ‘No matter. You’ll learn, bach. ’

It was nearly half past eleven when they began the descent into the valley. Tamsyn, who had not expected to feel tired yet, was beginning to sense a certain weariness in her limbs, and her head dropped several times. But she would not allow herself to fall asleep and risk waking to find herself with her head on his shoulder. Somehow she needed to avoid physical contact with Hywel Benedict.

Trefallath was, as Hywel had told her, merely a cluster of cottages, a public house, a school and a chapel. They ran through the dimly lit main street and then turned on to the rough moorland again, following a narrow road which badly needed re-surfacing. At last the station wagon slowed and turned between stone gateposts, and came to a shuddering halt before a low, stone-built house with lights shining from the lower windows.

‘Welcome to Glyn Crochan, Tamsyn Stanford,’ he remarked, almost kindly, and then slid out of the car.

As Tamsyn got out, light suddenly spilled on to her, and she realised the door of the building had opened and a man had emerged followed closely by the small figure of a woman.

The man greeted Hywel warmly, and then came round the car to Tamsyn with swift determined strides. ‘Tamsyn!’ he exclaimed, and there was a break in his voice. ‘Oh, Tamsyn, it’s good to see you!’

Tamsyn allowed her father to enfold her in his arms, but she felt nothing except a faint warming to his spontaneous affection. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she responded, as he drew back to look into her face. ‘It’s good to see you, too.’

‘My, how you’ve grown,’ went on Lance Stanford in amazement. ‘I—I expected a child. It was foolish of me, I know, but I could only think of you that way.’ He released her shoulders but took possession of her hand. ‘Come! Come and meet Joanna again.’

He drew her firmly after him round the car to where Tamsyn’s stepmother waited. Tamsyn had been so intent on appraising her father, noticing how young and lean he looked, how his hair still sprang thickly from his well-shaped head, that she had paid little attention to anything else. But now, as she followed her father round the car, she looked towards the opened door where, in the shaft of light, Joanna Stanford was standing.

And then an almost audible gasp rose to her throat to be checked instantly. Joanna was small and dark and attractive, in a yellow silk dress that moulded her figure in the slight breeze that blew off the moors. She was also most obviously pregnant.

Tamsyn’s eyes darted swiftly to Hywel Benedict’s and she encountered his sardonic gaze resentfully. He could have told her. He could have warned her of what to expect.

And yet that was exactly what he would not do. He would make nothing easier for the daughter of Laura Stewart.

‘Joanna darling,’ her father was saying now. ‘Here she is, at last. Here’s Tamsyn! Don’t you think she’s grown into quite a young lady?’

Joanna smiled and kissed Tamsyn’s cheek, welcoming her to Trefallath. In a more receptive mood Tamsyn would have glimpsed the appeal in Joanna’s dark eyes, but right now she was too absorbed with her own emotions to make anything more than a desultory response, and avoid making any obvious remarks.

‘Come, let’s go inside,’ said her father, after these preliminary greetings. ‘Hywel, you’ll come in and have a drink with us?’

‘Thank you, no.’ Hywel plunged his hands deep into the pockets of his tweed suit. Tamsyn looked at him rather desperately. Now that he was going, now that he had unloaded her cases and placed them on the step for her father to deal with, she was loath that he should go. She scarcely knew her father, after all, and during the past five hours she had come to know Hywel Benedict disturbingly better than that.

‘Er—thank you—for bringing me here,’ she said unevenly.

Hywel looked down at her mockingly. ‘It was a pleasure, bach ,’ he responded.

‘Will—will I see you again?’ Tamsyn didn’t quite know why she should have asked such a question and she was aware that her father was beginning to chafe with impatience to get her inside.

‘Without a doubt,’ said Hywel, opening the door of the station wagon. ‘Your father knows where I live. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

Lance Stanford raised his hand in farewell and the heavy vehicle turned and drove away. Tamsyn glanced back once as Joanna urged her inside, into the warmth and light of the polished hallway, and then gave her attention to her immediate surroundings.

She awoke reluctantly next morning, feeling the rays of the sun as it played upon her eyelids. She rolled on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillows, not wanting to remember where she was, or think of the prospect of the days and weeks ahead of her.

Her room was small but compact, with a single, spring-interior divan and oak furniture. Used to fitted carpets, Tamsyn had found the linoleum-covered floor rather chilling to her feet, but there was a soft rug beside her bed where she had undressed the night before.

The night before …

She sighed. She had not made a good impression and she knew it. She thought perhaps her father had been disappointed in her attitude, but she couldn’t be sure. Her own feelings were easier to assimilate. She had found her father the same gentle man he had always seemed to her, but she felt no real emotion towards him. And Joanna it was difficult to see in any other light than that of the woman who had broken up her parents’ marriage. It might be true that Laura had not been the ideal wife for a man like Lance, but nevertheless, that didn’t alter the fact that it had been her father who had left her mother, not the other way around. She had expected it to be difficult, coming here, but not half as difficult as it was going to be now that she had found that Joanna was pregnant.

She ought not to be shocked, she had told herself over and over again, but she was. And why? Her father was still a young man, after all, barely forty, and it was only natural that he and Joanna should want children. But if only they had not chosen this particular time when Tamsyn had to be there, to see it. She had made no comment about Joanna’s condition the night before, and nor had they. But sooner or later she would have to, and she dreaded it. She didn’t know much about pregnancies, but judging by Joanna’s size it could surely not be much longer before she had the child. And where would she have it? In hospital? It seemed unlikely when her father was a doctor. So she would have it here, quite possibly while Tamsyn was staying.