Arian

by Iris Gower

  She alone would shine, the respectable Mrs Frogmore who was rich enough to run a fine establishment.

  Gerald’s position in the household had now been elevated from steward to adviser and though she knew he wasn’t considered socially acceptable, no-one would be unmannerly enough to complain.

  She would flirt, of course she would, though she wanted nothing from the young men she was inviting. Her aim was to draw Gerald’s attention to herself once more, to inspire him with jealousy and make him feel he would be lucky to have her in his arms. It had worked once before, the night when Calvin Temple came to dinner, for Gerald had sensed that Calvin and she had something between them and it made him hot for her.

  ‘I’m glad you came early, tonight,’ Sarah said. ‘I feel so close to you, Gerald. You have become such a good friend.’ She looked away from the fleeting expression of displeasure on his face with a feeling of triumph. He might be a very clever man but it took a woman to run rings around him.

  Her plan was working. By pretending she was no longer interested in him, she was fanning his desire. His need to possess was strong and he had the usual man’s reluctance to give up that which he deemed was his.

  That it was this self-same emotion that held him to Arian was a truth Sarah couldn’t deny, but by the same token, he couldn’t rid himself of his proprietary feelings towards Sarah.

  The doorbell chimed and a flurry of guests arrived together as often happened. Eddie, the handsome young doctor recently come down from London, was among the first. He kissed Sarah’s cheek and held out his hand to Gerald though his expression was guarded.

  ‘Evening, Mr Simples. Bearing up, I hope.’ He didn’t enquire after Gerald’s wife for which Sarah was profoundly grateful.

  She was busy then, involved in the business of greeting her guests. She smiled up at Paul Marchant, a handsome man by anyone’s standards. He owned a shipping fleet, a small one perhaps but thriving, by all accounts. He was still very young but a man to be reckoned with all the same.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ Sarah smiled up at him. ‘You must be so busy with all those ships to see to.’

  Paul shrugged and bent to kiss her hand, and Sarah’s nerve ends tingled. He was extraordinarily handsome with deep, almost violet, eyes and hair bleached blonde by the sun. His fair skin was tanned and beneath his well-cut jacket his shoulders were broad and straight. She could admire him as she would admire a fine painting but Sarah’s interest was never far from Gerald. He was talking to one of the simpering young ladies who blushed furiously, dimpling up at him.

  Sarah felt a flash of jealousy wondering what he was saying to the girl but she forced herself to ignore him. She mustn’t let him see that it irritated her to see him hold court over such an admiring audience.

  She deliberately slipped her arm through Paul’s as the gong sounded. ‘Will you take me in to dinner?’ She flashed him her most enchanting smile.

  ‘I’d be delighted.’ He moved beside her, so tall and well made, and Sarah knew that before Gerald had come along she would have been eager to get Paul between the sheets. She glanced up at him and he was looking down at her, his eyes knowing, as though he had read her thoughts. She smiled up at him like a conspirator; they were two of a kind, she and Paul Marchant.

  As they moved towards the dining room, she hoped fleetingly that the staff had risen to the occasion and that nothing would go wrong, she so wanted this evening to be a success.

  She deliberately sat next to Paul, chatting animatedly to him, drawing him out about his business. ‘What sort of goods do you carry on your ships?’ She put down her knife and fork and leaned towards him, fully aware that Gerald was watching her. Paul leaned closer.

  ‘You are not really interested in me, are you, Mrs Frogmore?’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I think I know just who it is you are interested in, however, and I’m quite happy to play your little game with you.’

  She smiled. ‘You are too clever by half, Mr Marchant. I just knew we would see eye to eye from the first moment I saw you.’

  He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. ‘I don’t mind taking the part of the adoring admirer, I’m only sorry there won’t be the sort of conclusion that I could wish for.’ He winked. ‘Catching a man is the usual reason for such magnificent acting. He must be a very special lover because I’d say you’re a lady who would know the difference.’

  ‘How right you are,’ Sarah said playfully. ‘I think you will go far in all sorts of ways.’

  ‘Not so far as your bedchamber alas,’ Paul said and though he sounded regretful Sarah was well aware that a man like him would never lack for female company.

  Dinner passed very pleasantly. The food was good, the choice of courses provided something every guest could enjoy. Later, as she led the way into the drawing room, Sarah chose a seat where she had a good view of everyone present and took stock of the situation.

  Gerald, she noticed, was sitting with young Miss Cummings and her disapproving mother. Mrs Cummings wanted some eligible young man to be paying court to her rather plain daughter and, to her irritation, the best the girl could do was to employ the half-hearted interest of a married man.

  Sarah smiled to herself. By the end of the evening, Gerald would be putty in her hands. Miss Cummings with her simpering ways would bore him within half an hour.

  She felt light-headed although she had drunk very little wine. Her evening was a success. Mentally, she thanked her stepmother, for it had been Emily who had indicated the sort of food she should serve to the people she was entertaining in her home.

  Emily had been taken aback by Sarah’s insistence that the unmarried girls she invited should be among the plainest in the area, but then Emily knew Sarah of old and was more than a little grateful that she and John were to be spared from participating in the evening. As a staid married couple, at least in Sarah’s eyes, they were dispensable.

  Sarah’s gaze rested on Paul Marchant who had moved away to talk to the uninteresting, though obviously wealthy, Miss Bridie James.

  Bridie might have been Emily’s one mistake. She was very young, newly come to the neighbourhood and staying in the most unsuitable premises with some relative or other on the outskirts of Swansea, and though not striking in appearance, her figure was well formed and comely and her hair was a glorious shade of red.

  Sarah concealed a smile. At one time she might have been piqued to lose the attention of a handsome young man like Paul but now, all she wanted was to have Gerald at her side.

  Sarah moved among her guests with an ease born of an inner sense of satisfaction; when Gerald was in the room, close to her, she was happy. She caught his eye and he smiled and she allowed herself to return it for a brief moment before turning away. She congratulated herself that she was playing just the right sort of game. Gerald was beginning to be puzzled by her behaviour, not quite sure of her any more. That he was intrigued was obvious because she could feel him watching her.

  Deliberately, she moved towards Paul and the young Miss James and sat alongside them. Bridie smiled an ingenuous smile, not at all upset that her cosy chat with a handsome young man had been interrupted.

  She was the sort of young woman who was so naïve as to believe that infidelity was something that would never shadow her own life. Sarah could see it in the innocent upturn of her eyes. For a moment she felt almost sorry for Bridie James. She had a great deal to learn about men.

  ‘I hope you’re enjoying my little get-together,’ Sarah said pleasantly and Bridie smiled. Her face was immediately transformed from plainness to beauty. Dimples appeared in her cheeks and her eyes seemed lit from within.

  ‘It’s kind of you to invite me,’ Bridie said in a soft voice tinged with an Irish accent. ‘I don’t know many people in the area as yet.’

  ‘Oh?’ Sarah examined her carefully. Bridie’s clothes were of good quality and a fine diamond pendant hung around her throat. She was from a well-heeled family, no doubt about that.

  ‘
I thought your parents owned a shipping line operating from Swansea,’ Sarah concluded.

  ‘That’s right,’ Bridie said, ‘but I’ve been away from home for some time now. My father wished for me to be convent educated, he thought it for the best.’ Her voice faltered and Sarah remembered that Bridie had recently lost her father.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She reached out instinctively to touch the other girl’s hand. ‘I know how precious my father is to me. You have all my sympathy, my dear.’

  Paul Marchant leaned towards Bridie and Sarah saw his look of concern, expressed with just the right amount of respect, and a sceptical smile touched her lips. Bridie would be a good catch for Paul; they were involved in the same sort of business. It was probably one of the reasons Emily had cleverly included them both on the guest list.

  ‘Do excuse me,’ Sarah said in her best voice, she didn’t want Bridie to have any reason to feel superior to her though in all fairness, she didn’t seem to be that sort anyway. ‘I must try to share myself with all my guests.’

  After that, the evening seemed to drag. All Sarah wanted was to have Gerald on her own. She felt sure that the first thing he would do would be to take her in his arms. She warmed at the thought and her blood seemed to tingle in her veins. She loved him with a passion that in all her passionate life, she had never known before.

  It was Bridie who made the first move to leave and Paul Marchant was on his feet in an instant. ‘Perhaps we could share a carriage?’ He suggested and Bridie smiled up at him.

  ‘Don’t you think that would leave us open to gossip and speculation?’ A small smile curved the young woman’s lips and Paul Marchant hesitated for a moment, uncertain about the situation.

  Bridie relented. ‘It will be very kind of you to share a cab with me,’ she said. ‘Maria my nanny is waiting for me in the kitchen. She will be more than adequate as a chaperon, I’m sure.’

  It seemed an eternity before the last of the guests departed and when she heard the front door close, Sarah looked across the room at Gerald. She longed for him to come and take her in his arms, to kiss her mouth, to carry her upstairs and to lay her on the bed. Instead, he stared at her morosely, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I suppose it’s about time I was going too.’ He seemed disconsolate and Sarah felt she was melting with love for him.

  ‘You needn’t go, Gerald,’ she said softly. ‘I know how lonely you must be these days.’ She didn’t dare mention Arian’s name. She moved towards him and put her hand on his arm.

  ‘No strings attached, mind,’ she lapsed back into her Welsh accent. ‘There’s plenty of room here and you needn’t even see me, if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Thank you, Sarah,’ he said but he seemed abstracted, far away from her and Sarah resisted the impulse to put her arms around him. If she wanted to win him, she must be careful not to rush him, not to make him feel obligated or trapped.

  ‘Well, I’m tired, I’m going to bed.’ She moved to the door. ‘Why bother to take a carriage home? Stay the night at least, choose your room. Take the east side of the house if you like, it’s quiet there, private too. You won’t be disturbed.’

  He met her eyes, recognizing the meaning beneath her words and for once there seemed to be genuine gratitude in his dark eyes.

  She blew him a kiss. ‘That’s settled then. Good night, Gerald.’ She floated upstairs knowing that she had won a battle, however small. She opened the door of her room and then closed it firmly with a click of finality. For tonight, she would sleep alone, but soon, very soon now, all that would be changed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Arian sat outside in the garden of Jono’s house and stared across the valley at the hills beyond. She felt at peace for the first time in many months, cosseted and warmed by Jono’s regard for her. He asked nothing in return but she knew he gloried in the fact that she was looking well, her thin frame filling out, her face losing its high-cheeked gauntness.

  Arian sighed softly. Today she had the house to herself. Jono was working and Bridie had gone on a shopping spree, taking her old Maria with her. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, feeling relieved there was nothing she need do, just sit and rest and recover from the sickness that had upset her mind as well as her body.

  She heard the sound of light footsteps coming around the side of the small house and smiled, expecting Fon to come into view, her hair ruffled by the breeze, her skirts whipping around her ankles.

  She and Fon had needed each other these past weeks, Arian to talk about the failure of her business, not to mention her marriage, while Fon spoke mostly of Patrick, how she missed the boy, how lonely the farm seemed without him and how grateful she was that the other children had not fallen prey to the fever.

  Arian’s sense of anticipation faded as she saw not Fon rounding the corner of the house but Sarah Frogmore. As usual, Sarah was well dressed, her hair beautifully coiffured.

  ‘Arian,’ Sarah’s voice was surprisingly warm, ‘I felt I just had to come and see how you are. Over your sickness now, I trust?’

  Arian rose to her feet. ‘How did you know where I was?’ The question was clipped, her voice full of apprehension but Sarah didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Oh, Gerald knew you would be here, in Clydach, I mean.’ Sarah smoothed down her skirts. ‘It took a bit of hard work on my part to find exactly where but I’m not one to give up easily.’

  She sat on the wooden bench, arranging her skirts carefully and Arian stared down at her. ‘What do you want?’ She told herself to be calm. There was nothing Sarah could do, nothing she could say to hurt her. That part of her life was over for good.

  Shakily, Arian sat opposite Sarah wondering what she could possibly want with her. She was soon to find out.

  ‘Look, I want to help you, Arian. I mean you no harm, please don’t look so worried. I wondered if I might help you to prove your marriage was not really legal.’

  ‘Why do you want to do that? You wouldn’t benefit either way, would you?’

  ‘Oh, no, certainly not,’ Sarah said breezily. She was at her most ladylike today. Sarah enjoyed pretending she was from the upper-crust society of Swansea, choosing to forget that her father had been a humble cobbler before his marriage to Emily Grenfell. ‘I wondered why you didn’t go to France to try to find out the truth about this so-called marriage.

  Arian looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why do you care?’ She knew the question was direct, blunt even, but she was past being polite. ‘What’s in it for you? Even if Gerald turned out to be a single man he couldn’t marry you.’ As she spoke, Arian felt a pang of hope. What if the marriage wasn’t legal? She would be free, free of Gerald Simples and free of the past.

  ‘There’s really nothing I could gain from all this,’ Sarah said softly. ‘I am, as you know, a married woman myself. It’s just that you are obviously unhappy in this marriage and so is Gerald. It would surely suit you both to be released from vows you made under duress.’ She produced a piece of paper.

  ‘Look, I copied this name down from some certificate Gerald had in his possessions. It’s the name of a priest and of a church, it might just be of help.’

  ‘But we weren’t married in a church.’ Arian looked at the name Sarah had written. It was one she didn’t recognize. The so-called priest who had married them was Father Alain, a name imprinted on Arian’s mind, part of the nightmare she’d experienced in France.

  She tried to think clearly. She didn’t trust Sarah. She must have some ulterior motive for wanting Gerald’s marriage to be illegal. Probably, she just wanted Gerald Simples all to herself, without any encumbrance. Well, Sarah was welcome to Gerald.

  Arian rose to her feet and took the paper. ‘Thank you for calling.’ Arian moved away. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me I really am …’ Her words were interrupted by Bridie who came into the garden carrying a tray.

  ‘I’m home. I’ve stripped the shops bare and now I thought we’d have some tea.’ She glanced politely at Sarah and
nodded. ‘You don’t mind if I intrude into your conversation?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Sarah moved to help Bridie with the tray. ‘You are the reason I called, actually.’ She chose to ignore the fact that she had been handing out advice to Arian. ‘I’m having a small afternoon sometime next week. The invitations will come out formally, of course, but as we hit it off so well the other evening, I took the liberty of calling on you unannounced.’

  ‘Very kind of you, I’m sure,’ Bridie said. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. Visitors are more than welcome, with or without leaving a calling card.’ It was a mild rebuke but Sarah was thick skinned enough to ignore it.

  ‘You got on so well with that young captain, I thought you two might like to meet again.’

  Arian stood for a moment listening to the inconsequential chatter of the two women. She wanted no more discussions with Sarah Frogmore and yet she liked Bridie and it would be rude to refuse to take tea with her. Reluctantly, she returned to her seat.

  ‘You two know each other well?’ Bridie placed the tray on the garden table. ‘I suppose it’s inevitable that your paths should cross, both of you coming from Swansea.’

  ‘Of course we know each other,’ Sarah gushed. ‘We have been through some trying times together, haven’t we Arian?’

  Arian was tempted to blurt out the truth, that she had caught Sarah in bed with her husband, but she thought better of it. She didn’t wish to embarrass Bridie.

  ‘You could say that.’ She took the elegant bone china cup that Bridie had bought to replace Jono’s crude pottery and drank some of the tea gratefully. What had promised to be a peaceful afternoon had turned out most unexpectedly. Still, Sarah had raised a doubt in Arian’s mind. Perhaps a trip to France would be worth it. There was a faint hope that her marriage to Gerald was invalid.

  She would discuss it later with Bridie who knew quite a lot about the shipping that went in and out of the port. Perhaps she could arrange for them both to take a short trip across the channel.