Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

He sat abruptly, with his feet on the floor and his back to her. His head was bowed; he was leaning forwards. He was upset. She wanted to touch him, to run her fingers down the centre of his back, to go back in time so that he’d never asked her. As she was wondering how such a thing might be done, he reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was folded in half, but she could see there was a letter inside. ‘Here’s your time,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘I’ve been recalled to my unit. I report in a week.’

Juniper made a noise, almost a gasp, and scrambled to sit beside him. ‘But how long…? When will you be back?’

‘I don’t know. When the war is over, I suppose.’

When the war is over. He was leaving London and suddenly Juniper understood that without Tom this place, this city, would cease to matter. She might as well be back at the castle. She felt her heart speeding up at the thought, not with excitement like an ordinary person’s, but with the reckless intensity she’d been taught to watch for all her life. She closed her eyes, hoping that it might improve matters.

Her father had told her she was a creature of the castle, that she belonged there and it was safest not to leave, but he’d been wrong. She knew that now. The opposite was true: away from the castle, away from the world of Raymond Blythe, the terrible things he’d told her, his seeping guilt and sadness, she was free. In London, there’d been none of her visitors, there’d been no lost time. And although her great fear – that she was capable of harming others – had followed her, it was different here.

Juniper felt a pressure on her knees and blinked open. Tom was kneeling on the floor before her, concern flooding his eyes. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’

She’d had no need to tell Tom any of it and for that she’d been glad. She hadn’t wanted his love to change, for him to become protective and concerned like her sisters. She hadn’t wanted to be watched, her moods and silences measured. She hadn’t wanted to be loved carefully, only well.

‘Juniper,’ Tom was saying. ‘I’m sorry. Please, don’t look like that. I can’t bear to see you look like that.’

What was she thinking, turning him away, giving him up? Why on earth would she do such a thing? To follow the wishes of her father?

Tom stood, began to walk away, but Juniper grabbed his wrist. ‘Tom – ’

‘I’m getting you a glass of water.’

‘No,’ she shook her head quickly, ‘I don’t want water. I just want you.’

He smiled and a stubbled dimple appeared in his left cheek. ‘Well, you already have me.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean yes.’

He cocked his head.

‘I mean I want us to get married.’

‘Really?’

‘And we’ll tell my sisters together.’

‘Of course we will,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want.’

And then she laughed, and her throat ached but she laughed despite it and felt lighter in some way. ‘Thomas Cavill and I are getting married.’

Juniper lay awake, her cheek on Tom’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, his steady breaths, trying to match her own to his. But she couldn’t sleep. She was trying to word a letter in her mind. For she’d have to write to her sisters, to let them know that she and Tom were coming, and she had to explain it in a way that would please them. They mustn’t suspect a thing.

There was something else she’d thought of, too. Juniper had never been interested in clothing, but she suspected that a woman getting married ought to have a dress. She didn’t care about such things, but Tom might and his mother certainly would, and there was nothing Juniper wouldn’t do for Tom.

She remembered a dress that had belonged once to her own mother: pale silk, a full skirt. Juniper had seen her wear it, a long time ago. If it were somewhere in the castle still, Saffy would be able to find it and she would know just what was needed to resurrect it.

London, October 19th, 1941

Meredith hadn’t seen Mr Cavill – Tom, as he’d insisted that she call him – in weeks, so it was a tremendous surprise when she opened the front door to find him standing on the other side.

‘Mr Cavill,’ she said, trying not to sound excited. ‘How are you?’

‘Couldn’t be better, Meredith. And it’s Tom, please.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not your teacher any more.’

Meredith blushed, she was sure she did.

‘Mind if I come inside for a moment?’

She shot a glance over her shoulder, through the other doorway and into the kitchen where Rita was scowling at something on the table. Her sister had recently fallen out with the young butcher’s assistant and been terribly sour since. As far as Meredith could tell, it was Rita’s plan to ameliorate her own disappointment by making her little sister’s life every bit as miserable.

Tom must have sensed her reservation for he added, ‘We could go for a walk, if you prefer?’

Meredith nodded gratefully, closed the door quietly behind her as she made her getaway.

They went together down the road and she kept a small distance, arms crossed, head bowed, trying to seem as if she were listening to his good-natured talk of school and writing, the past and the future, when really her brain was scurrying ahead, trying to guess at the purpose of his visit. Trying very hard not to think about the schoolgirl crush she’d once nursed.

They came to a stop at the same park where Juniper and Meredith had conducted their fruitless search for deckchairs back in June when the weather had been hot. The contrast between that warm memory and the grey skies now made Meredith shiver.

‘You’re cold. I should have thought to remind you about a coat.’ He shrugged his arms from the sleeves of his own, handed it to Meredith.

‘Oh no, I-’

‘Nonsense. I was getting hot anyway.’

He pointed at a spot on the grass and Meredith followed readily, sitting cross-legged beside him. He spoke some more, asked her about her writing and listened closely to her reply. He told Meredith that he remembered giving her the journal, that he was delighted to think that she was using it still; all the while he plucked strands from the grass, rolling them into small spirals. Meredith listened and nodded and she watched his hands. They were lovely, strong but fine. A man’s hands, but not thick or hairy. She wondered what they would feel like to touch.

A pulse in her temple began to throb and she felt dizzy thinking about how easily such a thing might be done. All she had to do was reach out a little further with her own hand. Would his be warm, she wondered, would they be smooth or rough? Would his fingers startle then tighten around her own?

‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘It was mine, but I’ve been recalled to my unit so I need to find it a good home.’

A gift before he went back to the war? Meredith’s breath caught and all thought of hands dissolved. Wasn’t this the very sort of thing that sweethearts did? Exchanged gifts before the hero marched away?

She jumped as Tom’s hand brushed her back. He retracted it immediately, held his palm before her and smiled, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that the gift, it’s in my coat pocket.’

Meredith smiled too, relieved but also somehow disappointed. She returned his coat to him and he withdrew a book from its pocket.

The Last Days of Paris, a Journalist’s Diary , she read, turning it over. ‘Thank you… Tom.’

His name on her lips made Meredith shudder. She was fifteen now, and although perhaps only passably pretty, she was no longer a flat-chested child. It was possible, wasn’t it, that a man might fall in love with her?