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"He's supposed to be suffering from shock."

"Shock be damned!"

"Yes, that's what I've been saying to myself. About this cottage. Aunt Aggie, how many rooms did you say it has?"

"Six but mind, they're just boxes."

"And it is furnished?"

"Yes, if you can call it that. It was left as it stood at the beginning of the war and the stuff wasn't very great then."

"Could it be made habitable?"

"Oh yes. My, yes, of course it could. I'm only saying it isn't another Willow Lea, but it will be a grand little place when it has a good clean-up and some attention. All it wants is a handyman on it for a few weeks. I'm going down there in the summer and I'll rake out somebody and get the place shipshape."

"It will be ship-shape before that. Aunt Aggie."

"What do you mean, girl?"

"I've got to find some place, some place for the children, some place where he won't think of looking for us. I'm just going to pick them up and go. It wouldn't be any use asking him if I could, even for a few months, he' wouldn hear of it. He'd just shut me up. In one way or another he'd shut me up ... and effectively. No, the only thing is to pick them up and go."

Aggie was staring down at her niece.

"So you've made up your mind at last?" she said quietly.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Sometimes I've thought you must be barmy, for anyone else in your place would have made the break after Stephen if not before; and you know, sometimes I've thought he's got some weird power over you, keeping you there.

It's as if he's got you inside an elastic band, and he's just got to twang it and back you spring. "

"Well, Aunt Aggie, I won't spring back this time. My mind's been made up for me.... I ... I'm pregnant again."

Aggie's eyes and mouth, even her whole face, seemed to spread outwards before she exclaimed, "God Almighty! Are you out of your mind altogether to go and do a thing like that? Oh! God above!" She waved her two hands as if

in supplication and then said angrily, "But why weren't you careful? I warned you, girl."

"How could I be careful, Aunt Aggie, when I wasn't expecting to have to be. He only had an hour remember, and half of that was taken up with seeing his mother. I didn't think there would be any need for care.

These things just happen and you can't say at such a time as that, " No no, I'm not prepared for it".... It's no use, Aunt Aggie, it's done.

And don't look so upset. I'm not. It had to be this, it had to be something like this to bring things into the open. Andrew said that day, " Let my father tell him, it needs something like this to bring matters to a head", but that didn't work out. Or if it did, Donald's holding on to it like a secret weapon. But he can't hold on to this one. He won't be able to turn his back on this rising fact, or make any claim to it." With a crudeness foreign to her she patted her stomach, then rose to her feet. And as she got up Aunt Aggie sat down.

Of the two, she was the more agitated.

Grace looked down at Aggie now and asked, "Have you told Aunt Susie and Uncle Ralph about this cottage?"

"No, I only got in last night and I haven't been round there yet, although she was on the phone this morning to see if I was all right, all in one piece. I'm to go round there for tea."

"Then don't tell them about the place. Aunt Aggie, because if Donald started working on Uncle Ralph he would soon give himself away. Uncle Ralph is a strong believer in the rights of husbands."

"But you'll have to let me get something done to the place before going in, the roofs leaking at one side."

"Could we go down and see it?"

"Yes, we could make the trip, say, next week-end I couldn't do it this."

That'll do. I'll ask Aunt Susie to have Beatrice. Stephen will be all right at home. I'd like to be settled in it within three months.

" She did not say, " Before I start to show. "

Grace now went and stood near the window and looked down on the window-box.

"You know, Aunt Aggie," she said, "I've got a feeling I'm going to enjoy carrying this one. Donald would have to stretch his imagination some to lay claim to it. There will be nothing he can do about it, and you've no idea what a feeling of relief that is. Knowing that I won't have to witness any more daddy-boy acting. That in itself was a form of torture. Oh, Aunt Aggie, what an odd life I've had." She turned round now and smiled at Aggie, but Aggie could not return the smile she was crying quietly.

Four months later Grace was still at Willow Lea but poised, as it were, for take-off. One incident after another had managed to delay her flight, two of the most important of them being that handymen and materials with which to repair the cottage were difficult to come by, and not until just over three weeks ago had it become ready. Then Stephen went down with measles, followed in turn by Beatrice and Veronica. But now there were no more obstacles. She did not think of Donald as an obstacle, for he would know nothing until they were gone.

She hadn't been idle during the past weeks. Everything was packed, and, to make things easier for her, she was no longer under the keen eye of David. Three days ago he had taken up his new home in rooms over Stanley's shop. He had taken on a housekeeper, a Mrs. Maitland, a war widow with a child of three, and Grace felt, and hoped sincerely, she would soon change her name to Cooper.

She was already penning in her mind the letter which she would write to Donald later tonight telling him she was leaving him because she was going to have a baby, whose father was also the father of Beatrice and Stephen. She would tell him not to try to find her, for if he should and made to claim the custody of the children she would have to speak, and in court, about things which would be embarrassing and painful to both of them. So it was better, etc. " etc.

Over the past few weeks she had been taking certain of their clothing and belongings to Aggie's, and she was going now to get a box from the top of the nursery cupboard in which to pack some toys. In her own room she had just taken off the loose three-quarter length overall she usually wore, presumably to keep her dress clean when dealing with the children. The ritual of the four-o'clock drawing-room tea had ended, partly from choice and partly because meals since the advent of David's coming into the house had been somewhat erratic, so her wearing an overall, it being an attractive one, had brought no comment from Donald.

She was reaching to the top of the cupboard and had the box actually in her hand when her attention was drawn towards the door . and Donald.

He was staring at her. Her vocabulary had no words with which to describe his look. His eyes were not on her face but on the globe of her stomach, which was accentuated by her skirt and her extreme thinness.

He stepped slowly into the room, closing the door behind him. They had the nursery to themselves, for the children were at this minute racing across the drive, their yells rising up to the open window.

She did not try to cover herself up; there was nothing to do it with anyway, except her hands, and these she kept hanging idly at her sides as she looked at him, thinking that she would have given anything to avoid this. She had tried, she had done her best, he had treated her for months now with coldness, almost ignoring her for days on end, except when in the company of David or visitors, when his manner was so skilfully general that no-one could have picked out of it any particular attitude towards herself.

"You ... you're...."

' . Yes, I am. " Her voice was quiet and held no tremor. She did not feel any fear of him at this moment, nor any shame at the admission. At last, at last, the air was going to be cleared. The dreadful years of lying were finished, her life would be open and aired, and from this day forward she would keep it aired. If she was forced to live in sin, well and good, it would be all right with her.

That's how she was feeling one moment, the next she had her hands in front of her face shielding herself as she cried, "Don't! Don't!" In a split second Donald had whipped up from the nursery table a large, heavy, cut glass water jug. It seemed impossible that it wouldn't crash down on her head. She cowered almost double, when from the crook of her arm she saw it fall against the nursery cupboard, still held in his grip. Not until it had slid some way down the door did he release it, to fall to the ground with a crash but not to break.

She staggered back now away from him towards the wall. His face looked blue as if he was going to have a heart attack. He looked enormous standing there, his eyes pouring out their hate of her. Then much like those of an old senile man, the muscles of his body began to twitch.

His legs, his arms, his face, he looked all at witch With a swaying movement he turned and faced the cupboard door and, putting his arm on it, he leant his head against it.

Still against the wall Grace stood and watched him. She was trembling all over. She had always guessed that something like this would happen, that's why she had wanted to get away without having to bring the matter into the open. He had nearly hit her with the jug: the suave, polished, controlled minister had nearly hit her. The blow might have killed her, and the child. She had dealt a blow to his pride that all his veneer was no proof against.

He turned now but did not move away from the door, seeming afraid to leave its support, but he looked across the room to where she stood and after gulping twice in his throat he muttered, "You you've brought me to this, you've made me ... He looked at the jug, then his head drooped suddenly forward and he swung it from side to side.

"You've done this to me, shamed, humiliated...."

At this moment Beatrice's voice bordering on tears, came from directly below the open window, screaming, "No! Stevie. No, don't, Stevie."

Stephen answered but his words were not distinct and there followed another high scream from Beatrice.

Grace, knowing that Stephen must be up to something, wanted to go to the window, but she couldn't take her eyes from Donald. At this moment her whole being was filled with pity for him. She watched him stagger like a drunken man towards the low nursery table and stand with his knees against it for support. His body was still twitching and it twitched forward across the table as he groaned out under his breath,

"You're debased .. no better than a street woman ... a whore."

Her pity vanished.

"Who's to blame for that?" She did not allow him to get anything in but went on quickly, bitterly, "Well, tomorrow I'm relieving you of my de based self, I'm going ... and for good."

He pulled himself upwards, and as Beatrice's screeching reached an ear-splitting crescendo he thrust out a shaking hand towards the window and demanded in awesome tones, "The children, you'd leave the children?"

"No." She shook her head.

"No, I'm not going to ... As if he were jumping bodily into a breech to prevent some fatal catastrophe he now flung his arms wide and began to move in the narrow space between the table and the wall with the gestures of a rapidly animated clockwork being, and as he moved he shouted, " You can't leave my children . my children. You would leave them motherless and with disgrace on them. Do you hear? Disgrace! "

The jerking movements stopped for a second before he went on, again gabbling, now almost incoherently, about his children, his children.

Grace looked at him.

He was like a child putting up a defence mechanism. He would not listen to the words that he knew she was about to say, "I'm taking the children with me." He would not admit such a possibility. If he talked fast enough about his children, then she couldn't possibly say she was taking them. His attitude now was like that of some backward individual who had only the sound of its voice to prove its power.

Suddenly she shouted as she sometimes did at the children, "Stop it!

This minute! Stop it, I say! " And when he stopped and stood staring at her, the sweat running down his face, she said in slow definite tones, " I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm taking the children with me. Do you hear? And . and I'll tell you now . they're not your children.

" There, it was out.

He bent low and placed his hands on the table looking like some great orang-outang in this attitude. His voice even held some animal's guttural quality when he said, "They are my children; you'll never get them from me

. never. Do you understand that? Never will those children leave my side, I swear on it. "

"Stevie! Stevie!" Beatrice's voice was still screaming from the drive, and Grace shivered now as her calmness seeped from her and fear took its place.

In his bent position, with his head up, they were on eye level and they stared at each other while Beatrice screamed. They stared at each other until slowly Donald straightened himself up and, groping for his handkerchief, wiped the sweat from his face. He stood looking downwards for a few minutes taking in great breaths of air, and then, in a voice more like his own now, he said without looking at her, "I want to hear no more, and I will forgive you if you will promise before God that this will never happen again."

"I don't want your so-called forgiveness, and I give no such promise."

His head came up slowly and he stared at her again.

"Grace ... I said I would forgive you. Don't you realise just what it has taken for me to say those words? I'm a priest of God, but I am a man and you have done me a most grievous wrong, the most grievous wrong

" Grievous wrong? Huh! " It was a laughing sound but the muscles of her face did not stretch. In her head was a rising spate of swear words, which some part of her was trying, unsuccessfully, to press down. She nodded quickly at him now as she said, " Once again I'll say to you:

don't be such a bloody hypocrite. Grievous wrong. Oh, my God! "

"Stop that swearing. I won't have it, do you hear? Call me hypocrite or whatever your trivial mind suggests, but I won't have you swearing in my presence...."

"Mammy! Mammy! Mammy!" The words rose up in a paroxysm of screaming, and such was their intensity they forced Grace to the window, and as she went there threw bitterly over her shoulder, "Grievous wrong."