Past and Present - A Modern Day Romance of North & South

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - FROM LOVE COMES STRENGTH

Two o’clock in the morning and silence threw its impenetrable blanket across the village of Helstone. Margaret lay within the loving ambit of John’s arms, sleep elusive as it continued to dance on the outer fringes of her consciousness long after John had succumbed to its all-consuming embrace. It was no good. She couldn’t sleep however much she closed her eyes and willed herself, her thoughts too full with the prospect of leaving to permit her any sort of respite. Her body was restless despite its craving for the sleep that eluded her, her limbs heavy with tiredness and yet aching for liberty beyond the confines of the bed.

Very gingerly she turned onto her side, feeling John’s sleepy hold on her slip as if in slow motion towards the sheet as she eased herself away from him and climbed out of bed as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to disturb him, not when he looked so peaceful. She stood watching him for a moment as she pulled on her dressing gown that lay sprawled across the bottom of the bed, gazing lovingly down upon his sleeping form, shafts of moonlight playing over his beautiful face and half exposed chest amongst the ethereal shadows of the room. She longed to touch him, to push back the hair that fell across his forehead, but she didn’t dare for fear of waking him. Instead she turned and padded quietly towards the chair sitting beneath the open window, her bare feet whispering against the soft pile of the carpet. In the darkness she curled herself up on the chair, tucking her feet under her, and hugged the thin fabric of her dressing gown closer against her body in response to the crisp air that washed so freely over her.

Looking out, she saw a village enveloped in the monochrome shades of night, gossamer cloud strewn like thin, erratic patches of silvered cotton wool across the limitless ebony sky. The moon’s subtle light, unhampered at present by cloud, caught the surface of the pond just across the road from where she sat, making the water gleam like very dark, molten glass, the arms of the willow at its edge drawn as if with thick black lines from an italic pen as they drooped towards the glistening water.

The very stillness draped her in its intangible shroud, the soft, steady rhythm of her breath the only sound to mar the all-pervading repose that surrounded her. It was a world away from the perpetual hurly-burly of Milton – its very urbanisation the very thing that would always deny it the peace that salved her soul now and made the prospect of leaving all the more difficult.

“Margaret…”

The hushed ambience was broken by his sleepy call of her name and as she turned towards the bed she saw him fling himself onto his side and instinctively gravitate towards the spot that she’d not long vacated, his arms thrusting outwards to wrap themselves around her, only to flop with a dull thump against the empty mattress.

She didn’t expect him to react or to even realise that she wasn’t there, but he did, the fact that she wasn’t where he expected her to be causing him to awaken in an instant, his voice a hoarse cry of alarm in the darkness.

“Margaret?”

She heard the tremor in his voice and sought to soothe his confusion as he reared up in disorientated panic. “I’m over here.”

He dragged his head in the direction of her voice, scraping the hand not being used to support his body through his rumpled hair, himself doing what she herself had ached to do. “What are you doing? How long have you been sitting there?”

“Not long, “she admitted. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

He pushed back the crumpled covers that ensnared his body and came towards her, a lithe, sleek panther, his long legs reaching her within seconds as he crouched down, laying his hands loosely upon her thigh. ”Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

She couldn’t bear to see the worry that leeched so readily into his eyes, the haunting doubts that dwelt within them suddenly. Didn’t he realise how much he’d given her just by loving her, by allowing her to love him? That he had no reason to doubt anything about her, about what they had found together?