Disclaimer: Anthony Horowitz owns the creative rights to the characters of Paul Milner, Sam Stewart, and Iain Stewart (not to mention all of "Foyle's War"). Catherine Stewart, however, belongs to me alone.
Author's Notes: It is so good to be back after my month-long hiatus. I'm back to being hard at work on this story, and very happy to be so.
This chapter (and the next) were hugely challenging to write. Thankfully, only my superlative Beta, GiulliettaC, will ever know what a disaster the first draft was. I (and all of you) owe her a bigger vote of thanks than usual for steering me in a different direction.
Christmas Eve, 1942
Amidst a flurry of letters, telegrams, and phone calls, Sam got her Christmas wish: permission to bring her fiancé home for the holidays. Early afternoon of Christmas Eve saw Sam and Paul boarding a train for Lyminster. Sam could barely contain her anticipatory glee. Christmas Day fell on a Friday this year, and Mr. Foyle – unable to contain his pleasure at the sight of either Sam's ring or the enraptured expression on her face – had announced that she and Paul could be spared from work until noon the following Monday. A proper long weekend was stretching out before them, with Christmas thrown in for good measure.
It would have taken another Christmas miracle for Paul and Sam to enjoy the luxury of a compartment all to themselves for the trip, but they got the next best thing: a pair of elderly sisters burdened by so much paraphernalia that there was no room for anyone else but the four of them. One of the women seemed inclined to be chatty, but she fell asleep within ten minutes of the train leaving the station. Her sister, extremely hard of hearing, smiled in a friendly way at Sam and Paul, then kept her eyes on her knitting.
Paul unfolded that day's paper and began to read. For a few minutes, Sam amused herself by admiring her ring in the bright winter light that streamed in through the window. It made the opal sparkle and glitter as though the stone were alive. When she glanced happily at Paul, Sam saw, much to her annoyance, that he had lost interest in his paper and was gazing past her out of the window, looking preoccupied by something that troubled him.
"Paul," Sam whispered sternly, "You're worrying yourself about something and that won't do. Whatever is bothering you, tell me."
Paul shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "What have you told your parents about me?"
Sam rolled her eyes. So it was only nerves over meeting her parents.
"I told them that I think the world of you."
Paul raised his eyebrows in a way that indicated he wanted further details, so Sam went on. "I told them all about your career with the police and how Mr. Foyle thinks the world of you too – though he isn't madly in love with you, of course," Sam giggled.
She searched for his hand beneath the rustling newspaper and entwined her fingers with his, wishing that the other old biddy would nod off over her knitting, which would have allowed for the exchange of a few kisses.
"I told them about your time in the army," Sam continued, growing more serious, "And I told them that you're a widower."
"What did you tell them about us?"
"I said that we'd been seeing each other for six months. That we were friends first, for a long time, and that everything came about very gradually, and that I waited to tell them about us until I knew that we were really serious." Paul nodded absently as he listened, then brooded in silence for a few moments.
"I think that we need to tell them what really happened," he said at last, breaking the silence, "About me and Jane." For a moment Sam was dumbstruck.
"Have you taken leave of your senses!" she exclaimed angrily when she had recovered from her surprise, then remembered to lower her voice to avoid waking their travelling companion, "Tell them that you and Jane were married but estranged the whole time that you and I were seeing each other? Why on earth do we need to do that?"
"Sam, I told you how I lied to Mr. Foyle about already being divorced from Jane?"
"Yes, to protect me. That was very sweet of you; you didn't have to do that."
"When Jane was killed and I had to tell him the truth, I can't tell you how wretched it made me feel. The work we do…Mr. Foyle is supposed to be able to trust me and I betrayed his trust. I can't start out with your parents by not telling them the truth about myself."
"But I've already taken care of everything. All the important details. You really are a widower now. I want them to like you and I know they will. But not if we tell them the whole truth."
"This is too big an omission for us to make," Paul persisted, "And Jane's death was too recent, the circumstances too…spectacular. We kept a lot out of the papers, but it would be much too easy for your parents to find out, assuming they're not already suspicious that we've been seeing each other for six months without you breathing a word about it to them. That must seem odd already."
"You just think like that because you're with the police," Sam argued.
"Sam, your parents might not be in the police, but I'm sure they're not stupid. If we keep quiet about it, it's bound to come out sooner or later. And when it does, they'll have every reason to be very angry. It's better if we tell them ourselves at the outset. We'll have three whole days afterwards to try and get them to come around."
"I hope you realise," Sam interjected, "That I'm determined to marry you whether or not my parents give their consent. I'm of age and they can't stop me from marrying whomever I like. If anyone tried to make me choose between you and my parents, I would choose you without a second thought."
"It means a lot to me to hear you say that," Paul said gratefully, though he doubted that Sam had really thought the matter through very deeply. He knew that Sam's relationship with her parents had its stresses, and that she was glad to have escaped from the frustrating scrutiny that came with being a vicar's daughter in a small village. But Paul could also tell that Sam loved her parents and was beloved by them, with an undisturbed, uninterrupted certainty that had never been broken. She had never known what it was like not to have her parents in the background, ready to provide help or comfort as needed, and it was easy to see that she took that support and love for granted. Paul hoped that their relationship wouldn't be the cause of any serious falling out between Sam and her parents. His own mother had died when he was nine, and his father had died just as suddenly of heart failure a couple of years before the war, shortly after Paul had been made sergeant. Wistfully, Paul thought how nice it would be to have parents again, or something resembling parents. But he couldn't possibly hope to cultivate that kind of relationship with the Stewarts unless he was honest with them about his past behaviour.
"All right, Paul, if you really insist," Sam capitulated at last, "But I don't see what good will come of it." Now a sinking nervousness over introducing Paul to her parents dimmed the bright prospect of Christmas festivities. Sam consoled herself that, if worst came to worst, she and Paul could simply return to Hastings on Boxing Day and make a start on planning their wedding. That wouldn't be so bad, really.
...
Their arrival at the vicarage went well enough. Paul finally met Sam's mother, Catherine, and concluded that Sam must have inherited her father's build and colouring. Catherine Stewart was far shorter, slighter, and darker than her daughter, her hair a deep chestnut, threaded with silver.
Sam's parents offered Paul a warm welcome in combination with affectionate curiosity as to what sort of man should have won their daughter's heart. Sam's ring was admired. Paul and Sam were plied with tea as an antidote to the rigours of travel. They were each conscious within themselves of a heightened awkwardness, anticipating how the atmosphere would change after Sam's parents were made aware of the full circumstances surrounding their relationship.
After sitting together for a quarter of an hour or so, Paul asked Sam's father if they could speak privately, a request that was immediately granted. When the two men had left the room, Sam offered to help her mother in the kitchen, an offer gratefully accepted. They had agreed to split the initial burden of responsibility for talking to Sam's parents. Paul would make a clean breast of things to Sam's father while Sam dealt with her mother.
...
As soon as they were seated in Iain Stewart's study, Paul began, with grim determination.
"I wanted to tell you something; I would feel that I had put myself in a false position with you and your wife otherwise."
"Yes?" The serious mien of the young man before Iain was disquieting, but gave no real hint of the subject about to be broached. Clearly, this wasn't going to be the pro forma request for parental consent that Iain had been expecting when they entered his study.
"My late wife, Jane, only died about a fortnight ago. We'd been estranged for two years when she died, and we had been talking about getting divorced." Sam had convinced Paul to at least avoid the fact that Jane had wanted to be officially reconciled with him days before her death. Iain's face took on a look of frozen horror.
"And you and Samantha have been seeing each other for…how long?" he inquired faintly when he managed to find his voice.
"The last six months or so."
"While you and your late wife were still married?"
"Yes."
"Did Samantha realise this?" That his daughter would have deliberately ignored the moral code within which she had been brought up was even more appalling than the idea that she had been seduced by some…philanderer.
"Yes. I made sure that she knew that. I wouldn't have…misled her merely to enjoy the pleasure of her company. I know that my behaviour was very wrong and I wanted to apologise for it. I came to care very deeply for Sam almost without being aware of it, and then when I did…and discovered that she cared for me as well…I'm afraid I didn't have the proper strength of will to put a stop to our friendship."
Iain studied the young man seated in front of him, trying to reconcile the contradictions between Paul's behaviour as was being presented to him, and his character. Iain's first impressions of Sergeant Milner over two years ago still held sway: a decent and upstanding young man. The brief opportunity that Iain had enjoyed, less than an hour ago, of observing Paul and Samantha together, had nevertheless been enough to understand the extent of his daughter's happiness in her betrothed, as well as the ease and comfort with which they interacted.
And against all of this, the discovery that Paul and Samantha had been pursuing a romantic relationship despite the fact that he was already bound to another woman by the sacred ties of marriage. Had this been a Victorian melodrama, mused Iain, his next course of action would have been clear: to horsewhip Paul and to pack Samantha off to a convent or some such thing. Paul looked as though he half expected some sort of outburst of violent anger. Thank Heavens such an approach would be an impractical and outmoded piece of caricature; furthermore, it went against both Iain's inclination and his character.
Iain regarded the young man before him, taking in Paul's furrowed brow, drawn face, and anxious eyes, and concluded that the best course of action would be to eschew heavy-handed dramatics. Instead, he found solid footing for himself where he had always found it most reliably: by falling back on his pastoral office and his professional persona. Over twenty years of ministering to a parish had taught him to recognize both sincerity and contrition, two emotions that were writ large on the face of the young man seated before him. For the moment, he decided to treat Paul as though he were a congregant who had come seeking guidance. "May I ask, what happened?" Iain inquired gently once he had collected himself enough to speak, "Between you and your late wife?"
"She left me," Paul replied with a barely perceptible sigh, "I could never really understand why. We were happy enough, before the war. I thought we were, anyway. Then I went into the army and I was…badly injured in Norway. And when I came home, she'd… changed. She didn't want anything to do with me. My injuries…she thought they meant the end of everything."
Iain nodded his comprehension. He and Cathy had pored over, and parsed, and dissected Samantha's startling letter announcing her engagement. She had told them all about Paul fighting at Trondheim; how it had cost him his leg. Samantha had also laid strenuous emphasis on the fact that Paul's prosthesis made him quite as able bodied as anyone else, insisting that neither of them should treat him differently on that count. Seeing the man in person again, Iain acknowledged that he would never have guessed that Paul's legs were any less sound than his own.
"We tried to carry on for a while," Paul continued, "But Jane just…couldn't stick it – I don't know. She didn't even seem to try very hard, to be honest. She moved to Wales a few months after I came back home and went to live with her sister. She never wrote to me. I wrote once but she never replied. I intended to put in for a divorce on the grounds of desertion. But then she died before I had the chance."
Iain listened, lost in thought, wondering how often this scene in his office would be played out in the years to come, here in England and elsewhere. How many other married couples would find themselves unable to cope with the stresses that long absences and catastrophic injury would create? This war, this terrible war. The toll that it was taking on the moral fibre of society. This young man – the very picture of earnestness and respectability – was disclosing the circumstances which had led him to disregard the spirit of his marriage vows, though Iain prayed for everyone's sake (but most particularly Samantha's) that he had never contravened their letter.
"And how did you and Samantha become…involved?"
"Sam was…there," he began, and Iain saw the way the tense and worried cast of Paul's countenance softened perceptibly at the memories being called up. "I don't mean just… physically present," he added in clarification, "Jane had a way of not being anywhere near me even when we were sitting together at the kitchen table. Sam was…such a good friend. She made me admit that Jane had left, made me talk to her when she could see that I was upset. She rather took me under her wing after that, I think, always trying to draw me out of myself. I don't know what I would have done without her friendship. I didn't realise that what was growing between us went beyond friendship for a very long time. Sam recognized her own feelings for me before I understood the direction my own had taken."
Paul paused in his narrative, aware of an unexpected sense of relief bubbling up through him. Sam's father could have reacted in any one of a dozen ways to Paul's initial declaration, but he was choosing instead to listen, with a sympathy that reminded Paul of Sam herself.
For his own part, as he attended to Paul's account of his relationship with Samantha, Iain's heart went out to the young man in front of him. Iain thought that he could well imagine how adrift Paul must have felt in his wife's absence, especially given the bad terms on which they must have parted. Paul had said nothing of the loneliness and vulnerability he must have experienced, trying to move forward without a helpmate, but Iain could nevertheless hear the unspoken part of the narrative. Iain knew the extent of Samantha's kindness and empathy towards everyone she met, particularly when they seemed to be in trouble of some kind.
However, in spite of the genuine sympathy he felt towards Paul Milner, Iain's first concern was for Samantha's well-being. Paul's account of their relationship and its progression from friendship to love sounded very natural and believable, tallying for the most part with the account Samantha had given in her letter. But the clandestine element of their relationship, given Paul's relatively recent status as a married man, still suggested a host of disquieting possibilities that required some investigation.
"Paul – if I may? Please forgive the nature of this question, but… When Samantha left Lyminster, she had no experience of physical intimacy. Can you tell me if that is still the case?"
Inwardly, Paul allowed himself a small grimace at the question, imagining the vociferous indignation with which Sam would likely have reacted if she were party to this conversation. He could almost hear her demanding of both himself and her father what business it was of anybody's, and Paul tended to agree with Sam. Their own circumstances, until recently, had made physical intimacy between the two of them completely out of the question, and they had never discussed how far Sam's personal experience in such things went. From their own, more limited, experience of physical affection, Paul strongly suspected that Sam was still, in point of fact, a virgin, although that didn't really matter very much to him one way or the other. Even if Sam had already experienced complete physical intimacy at some point in her past, it didn't affect what Paul felt for Sam or impinge on the future that he hoped to build with her.
However, despite Paul's own views in this matter, and despite the friendly and sympathetic tenor of his discussion with Sam's father, Paul couldn't help but feel that his own disclosures required that he answer any questions that Iain Stewart saw fit to put before him. Paul even felt a small measure of relief to have a ready and truthful answer to offer Sam's father. It would be something of an exaggeration to say that all of the frustration and… discomfort of the months of abstinence he and Sam had endured were being recouped in this precise moment. But a conversation along these lines had been one of the ultimate goals on which Paul had focused his self-control. For both Sam and himself to be able to meet her parents' questions and her parents' eyes, without fear, without shame, and without prevarication.
"Sam's well-being has been one of my dominating concerns from the first," he replied calmly and without rancour. "I would never forgive myself if I let any harm come to her. Our relations with each other have never gone beyond what was proper."
Sam's father, in his turn, relaxed perceptibly at Paul's words. Iain supposed ruefully that he must sound incredibly stodgy and puritanical to his son-in-law elect, posing these questions about the state of affairs between Samantha and Paul. Over the years, he had encountered a wide variety of men who supposed, quite erroneously, that Iain's calling (and – in more recent years – his age) meant that he was unaware or unappreciative of the delights of physical intimacy. He still remembered vividly what it was to be a young man in love, and of the challenges involved in forcing one's bodily passions to bow to moral and social dictates. It had been the most marvelous of revelations, once he and Cathy were married, discovering the passion and pleasure that could be found in each other, their physical love made sacred by the holy state of matrimony and as yet undimmed by time.
But it was a different thing altogether, having a daughter to worry about; especially one who was living on her own in a world losing its moral compass. Maybe, Iain reflected, Paul and Samantha would have a daughter one day, and then they would discover the impossibility of trying to protect a girl growing into womanhood as the world turned inexorably and changed everything under their feet beyond all hope of recognition.
"Reverend Stewart, I can imagine what you must think of me," Paul continued speaking with great solemnity, "The initial circumstances of our relationship weren't ideal. But I love your daughter more than any woman I've ever known, and honour her. I asked her to marry me as soon as I was free to do so. I would have asked her much sooner if I could have. I intend to make her my wife. And I hope that we can have your blessing."
...
Sam's conversation with her mother was considerably more heated. Kitted out in a borrowed apron, Sam had been instructed to grate a large pile of carrots while her mother sifted flour for a cake.
"The ministry sent out some marvelous pamphlets all about how healthy carrots are and all the wonderful things you can do with them," Catherine Stewart expounded as Sam set to work, fighting back the urge to roll her eyes. Ever since the start of the war, her mother had treated the innumerable pamphlets distributed by the government with almost the same veneration that she would accord the Book of Common Prayer, trying to fulfil their recommendations on the rationing and preparation of food to the letter whenever possible.
"You don't need to use so much sugar when you cook with carrots," her mother went on, "Because they already have so much in them naturally, you see. Not to mention all sorts of vitamins that you couldn't get if you made a chocolate cake, for instance." Sam closed her eyes briefly and imagined a chocolate cake. She decided that baking one would be her first order of business once rationing ended. And she would smother it in butter icing. Vitamins could go and take a running jump.
"How do you like Paul?" Sam ventured when she opened her eyes. She'd best get her unpleasant task out of the way.
"Well, he seems like a very nice young man," Catherine began. She gave her daughter a penetrating look. "But Samantha, what aren't you telling me?"
Sam glanced up at her mother, her stomach sinking. Oh dear, she thought, Paul was right after all. Sam had forgotten just how difficult it was to keep things from her mother; she had an almost uncanny ability to scent secrets and then winkle them out of people. "Well, I did leave out something in my letter," Sam began, returning her eyes to the carrot that she was steadily reducing to orange pulp.
Catherine watched as her daughter squirmed a little in her seat, her face going pink. When she and Iain had received Samantha's letter, Catherine had interrogated her husband extensively regarding his memories of Paul Milner. Iain's recollections were somewhat vague but quite reassuring: a nice, polite, intelligent, well-spoken young man. So far so good.
Then, Catherine had re-read all of Samantha's letters from the start of her job with the Hastings police, hoping to glean more information. It was then that something had struck her as odd. There were frequent mentions of both DS Milner and DCS Foyle from the first. Sam was meticulous in describing their work in combatting looters, profiteers, and black market schemers. Catherine shared her daughter's frequent written outbursts of indignation that people could act so selfishly at a time when it was so vital for everyone to pitch in and do what they could for the war effort.
However, apart from these professional allusions, Samantha hardly mentioned Paul Milner at all. In her revelatory letter, Samantha claimed that they had been seeing each other since June, but there were no hints of anything of the sort in any of her letters from that period, nothing to distinguish them from the other letters that had gone before. Which suggested to Catherine that her daughter had been hiding something. And, apparently, her instincts were correct. As usual.
"Well…" Sam looked up again, "What I left out was when Paul lost his first wife. She only died about a fortnight ago. They had been separated for two years before that. She left him a few months after he was invalided home." There was an awful, pregnant pause.
"Do you mean to tell me," Catherine said, surprise and disappointment taking over her face and voice, "That you involved yourself with a married man?"
"Well Paul's not married any more. But yes, he was when we started seeing each other."
"I can't believe that you would let yourself be persuaded to do something you must have known was wrong. Your father and I brought you up better than that."
"Paul didn't persuade me to do anything," Sam shot back defensively, "I was the one who persuaded him. He would never have dreamed of asking me out if I hadn't made the first move."
Now Catherine was genuinely shocked. "Really, Samantha, I'm surprised at you!"
"Anyway, I didn't have anything to do with the failure of his marriage. His wife had been gone for well over a year by then. She was absolutely horrible to him. Paul sacrificed everything for his country and lost his leg, and his wife couldn't have cared less about him or his welfare."
"I suppose he told you that?" her mother asked contemptuously, beginning to wonder just what sort of situation Samantha had gotten herself into.
"He didn't have to," Sam responded with asperity, "I met his wife, before she left him. I saw how she treated him – like he was an embarrassment to her. Because of his war injury, for Heaven's sake." Sam's indignation grew as she spoke, as did the passion with which she defended herself and Paul. "Anyone else with an ounce of decency would have been proud of Paul for coping so well without his leg – you saw him just now. If I hadn't told you about his leg I'm sure you would never have guessed. But you should have heard her, Mother, talking like he was some sort of charity case. It would have made you sick. Paul didn't tell me about any of this. He never talks about her."
Sam paused for breath and wondered, not for the first time, what precisely had gone on between Paul and Jane. She knew that Paul was naturally modest in addition to being naturally quiet, and cautious, and serious. He was also terribly good looking, tremendously smart, kind and considerate, and he had a good, steady job with plenty of opportunities for career advancement. But he sometimes seemed to be blind to all of these tremendous personal qualities of his, and Sam suspected that Jane's poor treatment of him had something to do with that. It was a wonder to Sam that Jane should have relinquished such a gem of a husband without so much as a backward glance.
"You should have seen how broken he was when she left him," Sam added heatedly, remembering the sight of Paul slaving away at his desk long after normal hours in order to avoid returning to a cold, empty house.
"She may have had her own reasons for doing that, Samantha," Catherine Stewart countered nervously. As a vicar's wife, she had been privy to a host of nasty secrets over the course of her life and knew more than she cared to about the abuses that might ultimately force a woman to leave her husband. "How well do you really know this man?"
"Very," Sam retorted with energy, "I know Paul very well. I've known him for two and a half years. Even before we started keeping company, I would see him nearly every day at work. And Mr. Foyle thinks very highly of Paul, you know."
"What would Mr. Foyle know about how he behaves at home?" her mother demanded. "Suppose his wife left him because he drinks, or because he was cruel?" Catherine remembered so many horror stories from the last war, both heard from others and witnessed with her own eyes, of men who had returned from battle with damaged souls, who drank, and lashed out at their loved ones. This new war must surely be creating more…
"His behaviour outside of work is just the same as it is at the station: impeccable. He's not a teetotaller like Daddy, but I've never known him to have more than the odd pint after work."
"Have you ever seen him lose his temper?"
"Yes. Twice. It was never without cause. And he certainly wasn't violent when he did. I told Paul that this was a bad idea," Sam muttered in frustration.
"What was?"
"Telling you and Daddy about him and his wife. I wanted to just say that he was widowed and leave it at that, but he insisted that you should know everything. He said that he didn't want to start out by lying to you, but I knew you wouldn't even give him a chance once you realized that we'd started seeing each other while he and his wife were separated."
Catherine found that she had nothing to say to this further revelation, impressed despite herself that her son-in-law elect, whatever his faults, appeared to have a greater respect for the truth than her own daughter did.
"I know that we didn't go about this quite the right way, Mother," Sam continued, more calmly now, perceiving the implied advantage in her mother's silence. "I know you're disappointed in me and I'm very sorry for that. But Paul really is the most wonderful man, and I love him tremendously. It would mean so much if we could have your blessing, and Daddy's. But, even if you don't give it, it won't change our plans. I'm already of age. And this is the man I'm going to marry. I wouldn't have anyone else."
"Is there anything else you're not telling me?" Catherine asked, finding her voice again and directing her eyes pointedly at her daughter's waistline.
"No there jolly well isn't, Mother!" Sam hissed, bristling with righteous indignation. "In all the time I've known him, Paul has never been anything but a perfect gentleman, and the very soul of honour! We've never…" Sam struggled to contain an almost incandescent rage, reminding herself that her mother couldn't possibly know just how well the two of them had been managing to stay on the right side of propriety, or how much of the credit belonged to Paul rather than herself. Sam certainly wasn't about to go into details either. Anger deflating somewhat, Sam returned her attention to the carrot cake, wondering how she could persuade her mother that Paul deserved to be accepted into their family with open arms.
Sam was so absorbed by the combination of the work in front of her and her own train of thought, that she missed the softer, speculative look with which her mother was now examining her. And failed to realise how close she was, in truth, to getting her wish.