The Body on the Beach (The Weymouth Trilogy) (20 page)

‘Thank you for telling me, Mr Berkeley. I can well imagine that you make a reluctant messenger. I shall have to ask him about it. I shall do so when the time is right. I
suppose that I shal
l have to find some way of supporting us all. If we take a small apartment in town I may be able to
earn some more – I may
be able to
build up my
sewing work
from home.
If I work every day I may be able to earn just enough for us all to live upon.
’

Andrew looked at her incredulously.

‘You are not seriously contemplating supporting him from what you can earn?’ he said.

Kathryn looked back at him blankly.

‘But of course I am. What else would you expect me to do?’

‘But he will only gamble it all away. You know he will. He’s a bad lot, Kathryn – a lost cause, and you will only be sending good money after bad. I try to limit the stakes we play for and I try to ensure that he wins some
thing every so often
but he’s such a hopeless
, useless
card player
that
he still manages to lose more than ever he
w
ins.’

‘So that’s even more reason for me to take care of things. Surely you can see that I must?’

‘But Kathryn – think about it for a moment
– why should all the burden fall upon you? It is not right. Why should
you
have to support
him
all the time? It should be the other way round. It is
Giles
who should be supporting
you
. You have already given him everything you own. What more can he possibly expect?
You have given him everything and still you give him more.
God, Kathryn, how I wish...if only you were mine...how different things would be for you. How respected – how appreciated – how
cherished. And little Bob – what a blessing he has in that child – such a little ray of sunshine in a horrible bleak world. He has everything a man could desire – everything that I myself would most value on this earth - and yet he...he...I do not know how to express the utter hatred and contempt in which I hold him. He has perfection here at home and all he does is abuse it.’

Kathryn listened to him in great distress.

‘Andrew – please,’ she said. ‘Please don
’
t talk in such a way. He is my husband. I cannot allow you to say such things about him.’

‘But surely,
Kathryn, surely he has forfeited any right he had to be known by that name? Think about it. He has
neglected you,
abused you,
robbed you,
beaten you. He has taken your dear aunt from you. He has sold your house and land. He has taken your happiness away. Why, he even tried to sell you – to sell you to the highest bidder for the night. How could he do that? How could it even enter his miserable
, callous
head to do such a thing? To auction his own wife? The wife who is as perfect a woman as ever set foot on this earth? Kathy, Kathy, what more does he have to do to you to make you walk away? What more does he have to do to you to make you come to me?’

Kathryn tore her hand away from his and covered her face with her hands.

‘Come and live with me, Kathy,’ he urged her again. ‘I would give you so much love you would drown in it. Leave him. Leave that monster of a man. Let him go the devil – it’s as much as he deserves. We will go away – I shall sell Belvoir and buy somewhere else – somewhere we are not known – in The Netherlands maybe, or wherever you choo
se – I care not, as long as it’
s with you. Bob should have a proper father. We should all have so much fun. My, how that little boy would blossom – how much joy he would bring to us,
how much happiness
. Please, please leave that man and come and live with me. Nobody need know that we are not married. We shall be husband and wife
just a
s much as if we had solemnly vowed to be so in the church – you have my promise, Kathy. I would never, ever
abandon
you.’

‘Please, Andrew. Please. You are tearing me half apart.
Listen to yourself.
Just listen to what you are saying to me.
You say that no-one would know. No-one would know that we are not married. But you would know, Andrew. You would know, and I would know, and God would know. Our sin
s
would come back to haunt us
, I know it
, and God would rightly punish us for
them
. Please believe me when I say that I want to be with you above everything.
I have fought against my feelings for you in vain. I have tried desperately to school my mind, to think of you just as my friend. It has made no difference. Not one iota of difference.
You fill my
thoughts from dawn until dusk -
every minute of every day
– and you have done so since the very day that I found you on the beach
.
I
am desperate to give you my love.
My whole being aches to do so.
But it cannot be. It must not be. It is wrong. I can never leave my husband. I cannot even think of it.’

‘So you are fully decided. You will remain with this monster to have your whole life sucked out of you, bit by bit?’

‘But it is not my decision to make,’ she wept. ‘You talk as if there were some choice in the matter. But there is no choice
in the matter
at all. He is my husband, Andrew, my husband. I married him in church. I made the most binding promises to him – the most binding promises a woman can ever make to a man – and I made those promises in front of God. I made my vows in front of God. I promised God that I should be faithful to my
husband. That I would
honour him, obey him. That all my goods were his goods. That I would stay with him, for better or for worse, for as long as we both should live. I did not say that I should stay with him only for as long as I wished to. I did not say that if life got hard or I met someone I loved better, I would leave him. There were no ifs and buts in my promise to him. You must know that.  And if it suits God to test out my promise – to see how much I really meant by it – then that is his prerogative. It is not for me to question him. I must submit to his will. I am only here by his grace, after all.’

Andrew was silent for a moment.

‘Do you love your husband, Kathy?’

‘I...I...’ Kathryn could not lie to him but she was not prepared to say the words that he so desperately wanted to hear. ‘I
thought I loved him
. I married him for love.’

‘That is not what I asked you. I asked you, do you love the man now?’

Kathryn lifted her head and looked at him reproachfully.

‘I cannot say it, Andrew. You know I cannot say it.’

‘And will you just stand by and let him kill you, slowly but surely? Will you let him murder you, Kathy, by sucking all that is good, all your love and sweetness, all your absolute devotion out of you when I would nurture and care for you, when I could make you complete? Is that what your promise to God means?’

‘Andrew, please – you are making things so much more difficult for us both.
Two wrongs cannot ever make a right. You know that as well as I do.
Think about it.
Think about the repercussions of what you are asking me to do.
My husband has stripped me of everything that I own. I have nothing left but my self respect, my own sense of morality, my own sense of what is right and what is wrong
to pass on to my son
. And you are trying to strip me even of that. What would you think of me – what would I think of myself – were I to leave him now and run t
o you? I should be worthless, in
my
own eyes and in yours
. What would you think - eh? What would happen when we had a quarrel? You would always expect me to be off – to run away at the first sign of any trouble. How could I hold my head up ever again, knowing that I was a lost woman, living a life of sin, breaking my promise to God every day of my life? What would my son say when he was old enough to understand?
How would our children feel, knowing they were bastards, the objects of ridicule and shame?
There is nothing I have left in this world, Andrew, except my own self respect. Giles is my husband. What ever I think of him, what ever I would wish – that things were otherwise, that I could live with you in happiness and love for ever – we both know that it simply cannot be. I would not be me – I would not be the woman that you love – if I were to do what w
e both most desperately wish to do
.’

Andrew flung back his head, closed his eyes, and gave a out a deep sigh. Much as he could wish it otherwise, much as he did not want to admit it, he suddenly realised that Kathryn was absolutely right. She could not leave her husband. They were bound together for life. His eyes remained closed for a long, long time. He was silently weeping, weeping for the dream that had so suddenly
and completely
been snatched away from him for ever.

‘Yes,’ he said at last, his voice breaking. ‘Yes, mijn
liefde
, you are absolutely right. Much as I abhor it – much as I would wish it otherwise – I can see that you are absolutely right. I cannot press you to break your promise to God. It is mean and selfish and it would doubtless come to haunt us in the end. I cannot press you any more. It would be cruel and wrong. But I have to say it – I have to say this to you, just this once – I have to tell you that I love you more than life itself.
I cannot find the words – I do not think that the words exist - to express just what you mean to me.
We were born to be together, Kathy, of that I am c
onvinced
, whether it be in this life or the next.
You know that, don’t you,
lieveling
? And, please believe me, please believe me when I tell you this. What ever happens – what ever the future might bring for us both – please remember that I shall ever be your most loyal and devoted friend. I shall always be here for you, I shall always be here when you need me, come what may.’

And with that, he took her in his arms, held her for a moment as if his whole life depended upon it, collected his horse from the shed, mounted it, and galloped off furiously down the hill.

While Kathryn remained sitting just where she was, in the garden at Sandsford House, reliving th
is
interview over and over again in her mind, Andrew was mentally
pummelling
himself as he rode furiously towards the Esplanade, and home. His emotions were in tumult. He was feeling angry, misused, resentful. He wanted to hit out at something – or somebody – or to throw himself off his horse and tumble down the cliffs to his death. But at the same time he was feeling immensely proud – proud of the woman whom he loved so passionately, proud that she held such strong beliefs that they could guide her through every trouble that might befall her, and immensely privileged that he was the one that she depended upon, and that he would never let her down.

It had been humid all afternoon and as he entered Weymouth he was greeted by a great clap of thunder, followed almost immediately by a flash of lightning
so bright
that i
t caused his horse
to rear up in surprise
. Then came the rain – a slow pitter patter for a second or two, followed immediately by such a torrential downpour that everyone who was out scuttled quickly into the building nearest to them to escape it. The building nearest to Andrew was the Royal Hotel. Bethinking to himself that this would provide him with the perfect excuse to drown his sorrows he left his horse in the capable hands of one of the ostlers, and dashed up the steps to take his place at his usual table by the window of the Royal’s public bar.

It appeared that his good friend and gambling partner Mr Ignacious Brewer had been similarly caught, and been provided with a similar thought, for no sooner had Andrew sat at his table than that gentleman materialised before him and begged his leave to join him.

In the absence of anything else to say, their mutual investments in the regeneration of Weymouth provided enough topic of interest for them to while away an hour or so, during which time Mr Berkeley downed rather more shots of brandy than was usual for him, and doubles at that. Mr Brewer was a little more circumspect for once and was somewhat amused by his friend’s unusually excessive consumption. Thinking that perhaps he had very little to return home to he suggested that he might like to take his dinner with him. To this Mr Berkeley readily assented and so after another quick round or two they set off arm in arm together the very short distance to his house in Gloster Row.

The rain had just about stopped by this time although the world was very wet, with great puddles in the roadway and drips galore to catch the unwary. Andrew followed his host (a little unsteadily) up the steps into his house and made his way in
to his usual haunt in the
study
at the front
. The house was quiet for once. The children must be out somewhere. He sat down opposite the open door from the hall and took up a newspaper. The printing appeared somewhat blurry. No problem. He wasn’t much interested in it anyway. Mr Brewer had remained in the hall. He had seen a letter on the table and, when he opened it, he gave out a low ‘tut tut’
of annoyance
.