Prologue
Kitty’s pregnant?’
Ted eased himself onto the topmost step, slowly lowering his head until it was cradled loosely in his palms. For a moment he was stunned. Pregnant! The word whirled inside his temple, causing a vague and distant ache.
‘What’s to be done now?’ persisted Mayse, his interfering, yet kindly, next-door neighbour.
‘Done? Lord, I don’t know.’
The news had winded him. He couldn’t think clearly.
‘This is all happening a little too fast. Can’t we discuss it another time? Tomorrow perhaps, after I’ve had a chance to sleep on it.’
Mayse shook her head, dark curls bobbing about her face. ‘For pity’s sake, Ted! Decisions have to be made. Won’t do any good to put them off. Tomorrow’s not going to make any difference. The problem will still be there.’
Hell, Ted thought, rubbing his tired eyes. He rose to his feet and paced along the verandah, back and forth, his boots echoing against the rough boards. Decisions, she wanted decisions. A jumble of ideas raced through his mind, none making sense.
‘So, Mayse, what would you suggest?’ he said at last.
‘You could marry the girl.’
He stopped his frenzied pacing and stood looking at her, shocked. Marry Kitty, his dead wife’s young sister?
‘I … I couldn’t. What about Maddie? It’s not even two months since…’
He couldn’t say the word. Dead! Dead! Dead! The expression fell in his mind as bright jewels, brilliant prisms of truth. Maddie: he’d never see her again, never know that same sweet smell of roses in her hair. That was the irony of it all. Maddie, his beloved wife was gone and here was Mayse pressing him into some arranged marriage.
‘Maddie’s dead,’ said Mayse gently, ‘and nothing can change that.’
‘What does Kitty say about all this?’ he asked wearily. He was thirty seven now, twenty years her senior. ‘What if she doesn’t want to marry me?’
‘Does she have a choice?’
Ted was silent for a moment, mulling over Mayse’s statement. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, I suppose not. No one will call a child of mine a bastard. Well, I guess that’s settled then,’ he added miserably.
Mayse hauled herself from the chair. ‘What will you tell Dan?’
Curious, he tilted his head questioningly towards Mayse. ‘What does my brother have to do with this?’
‘Kitty told me today that she and Dan were planning to marry after Christmas.’
‘Dan and Kitty!’ He stared at her incredulously. ‘You must be mistaken. Dan never mentioned any marriage plans.’
‘I guess everyone has a few secrets tucked away. Doesn’t do to lay your soul completely bare, does it now?’
‘So now I have to tell Dan that Kitty’s to be my wife, not his?’
How could he tell his brother that Kitty was carrying his child? That would be a gross betrayal of trust. Yet he had, he thought, betrayed them all. Dan. Kitty. Most of all, Maddie. In his mind he hadn’t accepted her death, hadn’t laid the memory of her properly to rest.