A Fall from Grace - Maggie Ford (have you read this book TXT) 📗

She would wake up to he, tearful and sleepless, planning all sorts of mad schemes to get her back, imagining a helpless child; unloved, living a life of drudgery, misery, hunger, and, dear God, beatings, maybe locked in dark cupboards by those who’d adopted her? Never could she truly see her as living happily, loving and loved by those who’d adopted her, for how could they truly love a child that was not their own. And surely some faint instinct would make her daughter fret for her true mother, just as she fretted for her?

Common sense told her she would no longer be a baby but a little girl, almost six years old now. Yet all she ever saw was the tiny little face gazing up at her as she had held in her arms for less than what, a minute, before she was snatched away from her?

Anthony gone, the need for James to help her trace the child had been growing to almost an obsession though most times she curbed the need to badger him. This morning after another miserable dream, her determination to confront him was so strong that she even vowed to threaten to leave him if he didn’t at least try. Never before had she resorted to such an ultimatum. James had been so kind to her, happy to grant her smallest wish – except this one it seemed. She had tried to make allowances – his age, his never having had children about him, her child not being his – always finding herself losing the argument. But this morning she would fight him if need be.

She needed someone to love, to love her. The man who had given her that wasn’t here any more and James was a poor substitute. He had married her purely for companionship, for which she’d been prepared to settle in the belief that with all his money and influence he would trace her baby for her. How wrong she’d been, saddled now with an old man.

In Anthony she had found the passion she’d been missing. Now even that was gone – would not come back, of that she was certain, finding it hard to believe that he’d merely been dallying with her, having a good time at her expense. Left desperately needing love she would find her child, hold her in her arms again, protect her with every ounce of her being.

At breakfast she said suddenly, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot lately of the baby I had before we met.’

He glanced over at her from the little side table where their breakfast had been laid out for them and she noticed at that moment just how old he was beginning to look. Now sixty-three, his age showed in the sagging jowls of a rounded face, the face that had become a little podgier this last year or so, his stomach a trace more portly, while she was twenty-four, a young woman still.

He came to the breakfast table and sat down, placing his plate of kedgeree in front of him, his face expressionless as he poured his coffee, drew the sugar bowl towards him and stirred in a teaspoonful of sugar, sipping the brew, taking his time. It was almost as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘James, did you hear what I said?’

Replacing the cup on the saucer he remained looking down seemingly busy forking over his kedgeree. Now, he said quietly, as though addressing his plate, ‘It was a long time ago, my dear, when you lost your baby.’

Madeleine felt suddenly angry. ‘I didn’t lose her, James. She was taken from me!’

There was another long pause. She waited, growing angrier by the second until she thought she might burst; hard to keep her voice steady as she said, ‘I really thought when you married me that you would help me find her, as you promised to.’

Now he looked up at her. ‘I did not promise, my dear. I said I would try were it humanly possible – which has not proved to be the case. But you obviously interpreted it as a definite yes, hearing only what you wanted to hear. I have never deluded myself that an extremely comely young woman as you, my dear, would wish to marry an elderly person such as myself unless it was from a hope of availing herself of my ability to pull strings…’

‘I never…’

‘Of course you did,’ he interrupted. The hitherto mild voice suddenly became sharp, a tone he had never before adopted with her.

‘And I in turn married you purely for companionship as well you know. I made that quite clear to you. I have never lied to you on that subject.’

‘But you did lead me to believe you would try to trace my baby.’

‘Time appears to have clouded your memory I think. I gave you no reason, Madeleine, to believe any such thing, although I recall you alluding to the fact that you’d had a child given up for adoption and hoped one day to be in a position to trace it. It would have been wrong of me to make such an empty promise to help you, knowing how impossible it would be to fulfil. Even less possible now, after all these years.’

‘So you were leading me on,’ she cried angrily. ‘Seeing me as gullible, so you could marry someone to keep you company in your old age. Why me – why not some elderly, lonely woman your own age, or was it that you merely fancied a younger woman around you so you could show her off?’

‘I really think we should stop there, my dear!’ He stood up suddenly, making her jump. His tone, though hard, was controlled, though the words, ‘my dear’, far from their usual gentleness, were brittle.

‘I’m sorry, James!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’

‘No?’ The query was hard.

Things were getting out of hand. She’d never seen this side of him before. Always he had been ever polite and gentle with