Past Love (Part Four of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  “If I were a man I’d knock you down.” Waves of cold fury sweeping over her, Eliza bunched her fists inside her pockets.

  “Then I’m lucky you’re not, though I think I could defend myself.” As Bart looked at her his expression changed, and he held out his arms appealingly towards her.

  “Mrs Heering ... Eliza. Why do we have to fight? Why do you have to fight me? I am an innocent man. I am not the rogue you think I am. Believe me, I regret the day I introduced Laurence to Dick Wainwright. But it was not a malicious deed. I only wished to help him. It hardly amounts to a killing, does it, Mrs Heering? I only wish now to retire quietly in the countryside where I was born. I am very interested in horticulture and have some fine specimens on order from South America. I believe your late husband was a botanist too. I love this house.” He swept an arm expansively towards it. “I wish to restore it, to enhance its beauty. Upper Park, I assure you, will be quite safe with me.”

  “We shall see about that. I am quite unmoved by your words, Bart Sadler. I think you are a rogue and a cheat as your behaviour in buying or trying to buy, this house proves. I am glad I discovered your deception in time. I shall fight you. I shall not take a penny from you. I am going, as a matter of fact, this very moment to consult my solicitors.”

  Whereupon Eliza turned on her heel and walked swiftly across to the house.

  ***

  Dora pondered over the letter in her hand for a long time and then laid it on her lap and looked out of the window at the tree covered escarpment that led to the rock formation known as Simon’s Seat overlooking Wharfedale. In the garden in front of her window daffodils were in bloom and newborn lambs tumbled about in the adjoining fields.

  Yorkshire was May’s home county and, after travelling through the country in a leisurely manner, they had arrived at Skipton, where they stayed for some weeks in a hotel, going out each day to explore the celebrated Yorkshire Dales.

  One day they came across a house on a hill near Appletreewick overlooking the Wharfe, and, swinging on the gate, was a TO LET sign. To one side of the house was woodland. To the other a steep, tree-covered hill. In front the river meandered its way through the valley, past Barden Tower, on its way to join the River Ouse at Selby.

  The following day they arranged to rent the house, Dora paying the first three months’ rent and a deposit, and they moved in straight away.

  It was spacious, comfortably furnished with spectacular views. The garden was a little neglected but May soon had it in shape. She was very domesticated and they employed a maid and a cook to look after them, and a man to help in the garden. All staff lived out. May saw to all the household tasks, arranged the menus with cook and did most of the shopping or ordering by telephone.

  There were already stables and Dora bought a horse and joined the local hunt although it was the end of the season. It was a comfortable life and should have been carefree. But it was hard for either women to shed the worries of the past: May fretted about her children, and Dora about her mother’s homelessness and about Jean.

  Dora looked up as May came in and held up the letter.

  “Mother has dropped her case against Bart Sadler. The lawyers say there is no possibility she can win and it is a complete waste of money to try. He’s moved into Upper Park.”

  “I’m sorry.” May flopped down in the chair opposite Dora.

  “It has been an awful time for Mummy.”

  “It has.” May nodded sympathetically.

  “I feel I should have been with her, May.”

  May rose from her chair and, crossing to Dora, put her arm round her neck, bent to kiss her cheek.

  “Dearest, there was not much you could do. She seems to be very happy with Lally.”

  “I think she is, and comfortable. And it was not as though the house meant all that much to her. I mean the last years of her life with Julius were not very happy, at least I didn’t think so. Not like Riversmead where she was so happy with Daddy. Anyway, she has given up, paid the legal bills and decided to be forward-looking. But her letter sounds sad.”

  She put an arm round May’s waist. “May, I do think I should go over and see Jean. I could stop on the way and see Mummy.”

  “But why must you see Jean?” May looked at her aghast.

  “Because he is still my husband. I’m going to ask for a divorce, or an annulment as we never slept together. I’m going to move out all my stuff. We’ve got to decide something, May. It can’t be left in a state of suspension.”

  May left Dora’s side and, going over to the window, stood looking out at the view, at the river below them in the valley, the lambs skipping in the field, the myriads of tiny little leaves appearing on the trees which seemed to cloak the landscape in a soft green haze. Life burgeoning all round, and she and Dora together. It should have been idyllic.

  But she didn’t like the thought of Dora returning to Jean. It seemed like a threat.

  “We’re so happy here!” she burst out. “I might never see you again.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Dora said robustly. “I shall only be gone for a couple of weeks.”

  “What makes you think he will let you go so easily?” May swung round to face her.

  “Darling, he can’t keep me. He can’t force me to stay.”

  “But he loves you. You told me.”

  “I think ‘loved’ in the past tense. I can’t believe he really loves me in the way he used to. I think he is really angry with me now, if his letters are anything to go by.”

  May ran over and, kneeling by Dora’s side, took her hand. “Then don’t go,” she pleaded. “He may harm you.”

  “Harm me?” Dora looked at May with astonishment. “Jean is the gentlest of people. He would never harm me. I think he’s incapable of harming anyone ...” She put out a hand and stroked May’s brow.

  How she adored her, little May, so small and fragile, so much in need of her protection. Yet in the war it had been May who was strong. May who gave orders and Dora who took them.

  She clasped her hand.

  “Don’t distress yourself, dearest. I’ll soon be back. Would you like to live here permanently? Shall we try to buy this house? Shall we ask the agents if the owner will sell? I’m sure Mummy would give me the money.”

  May nodded her head slowly. “Then perhaps one day the children can come and stay. I miss them, you know.”

  “Of course you miss them, I know that.” Looking into her eyes Dora continued stroking her forehead as if trying unsuccessfully to smooth out the wrinkles that lined it. “You’d be a very unnatural mother if you didn’t.”

  “If Bernard will let them.” Sadly, fearfully, May looked past Dora and out of the window again.

  She didn’t add, “and if the children want to come.” Because what sort of mother was she, really, to have abandoned them?

  ***

  Jean Parterre wandered slowly along the vines that lined the hillside as far as the eye could see.

  All his. His pinot noirs, the finest grapes for the making of the finest champagne, lovingly tended by his workers and by him because, since Dora went away, the time had hung heavily on his hands.

  He knew now that she wasn’t coming back. She had gone off with May Williams whom she really loved. May had won and he had lost. The vines too were in leaf and soon, warmed by the summer sun, the grapes would ripen and grow plump until the vendage in the autumn when they would be put into huge panniers and sold to the négociants in Rheims and Epernay. So excellent was his produce that they always fetched the best prices.

  Jean turned to study the terrain around him, the River Marne snaking below. Those banks which had trembled to the sound of so many terrible battles in the war were now replanted and replenished. But scattered throughout the countryside were the many cemeteries that were the last resting places of the war dead, and now and again a rotting corpse was dug up from the newly replanted fields and, occasionally, someone was killed by an unexploded shell.

  The war had deep
ly scarred Jean. Luckily his estates had hardly been touched. Even some of his vineyards remained intact. He had, however, lost his family. His wife had gone off with another man and taken his children.

  He had felt like a lost soul without roots and had travelled to England where Carson took him in and gave him a temporary home, while, useful with his hands, he had helped restore Pelham’s Oak which had been badly in need of repair.

  There he had met Dora Yetman and had fallen in love with her. They had gone off together to look for Deborah, Dora’s young cousin who had eloped with a workman. They hadn’t found Debbie but they had found each other. Jean knew that Dora loved him then, but not yet in the way he loved her.

  He had thought in time that would come, with love and gentleness on his part, hopefully with willingness to learn on hers. However, he was wrong. He was loving and gentle, but Dora did not want to learn.

  If, as she told him, she was a virgin when they married, then she was one still. In time desire turned to frustration and sometimes rage, though he tried not to show it. But slowly their relationship changed. She began going home to her mother more frequently, staying longer. They found it hard to communicate when they were together, and there were long painful silences, a lack of rapport that could sometimes last for weeks. He had a woman in Paris but she was not Dora. He wanted Dora. He wanted her back, but now Dora had been away for nearly nine months. She was living in Yorkshire with May. She would not return.

  The only comfort he had were his vines.

  In the late afternoon, following his inspection and a good lunch at a restaurant in Epernay, Jean returned to his house and the first thing he saw was Dora’s tourer outside the front door. It was early spring but it was a warm day and the earth seemed to shimmer in the heat.

  He drew up beside Dora’s car, jumped out, slammed the door and ran into the house.

  “Dora!” he shouted. “Dora, you’re back!”

  He waited for her answer. There was none. The house seemed peculiarly deserted, even more than when he’d left it than now when he knew someone was there.

  He employed no indoor staff now that Dora had gone. A woman came part time to clean, do the washing and sometimes cook him meals. Otherwise he led a withdrawn bachelor-like existence.

  He stood outside the main salon, the door of which was ajar. He was sure he’d closed it when he’d left just after eight. Madam Jules might have left it open after doing a bit of cleaning, some washing. She often left at lunch time.

  He pushed the door open and there she was: Dora, perched on the window-sill, a cigarette in one hand, the other tucked under her arm: a meditative pose, languid and elegant. Her expression was inviting, almost coquettish, perhaps a little bit apprehensive. Dora was very good at concealing her feelings. She wore trousers and a tailored jacket, red shirt open at the neck. Jean thought she looked wonderful.

  “Dora,” he murmured. Her smile, he thought, was provocative. Quietly he shut the door, still wondering if he was seeing a vision, a figment of his intense imagination that so often had summoned up the memory of her physical presence.

  He advanced towards her, still murmuring: “Dora.”

  “I see I’ve given you a shock, Jean.” She jumped up stubbing out her cigarette, and he came up to her and gently kissed her cheek, briefly touching her arm.

  “It’s very good to see you,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Jean ...” She paused, looking into his eyes. “I haven’t come back for long.”

  “Oh!” He turned and, sinking into one of the deep leather armchairs, lit a cigarette, blew out the match and put it in an ashtray. His hands were trembling.

  “Jean,” she went on, coming to sit by his side. “It’s very difficult to say this ... but I’ve come to get my things.”

  “You’re leaving for good?”

  She nodded. She thought she saw tears in his eyes and turned her head away. He was so very vulnerable, so sweet, so patient. She’d forgotten just what a good sort he was. In many ways he was a victim of her selfishness, and suddenly she felt ashamed.

  It was possible to think that she was spoiling two lives, Jean’s and May’s, people she had bent to her will.

  “Stay just a few days?” Jean implored her. “You don’t know what it’s like here without you.”

  “Well, it will take me a few days to get everything together,” she said prosaically, suddenly feeling tired. This interview wasn’t going the way she expected; being away from Jean so long seemed to have made a difference. Suddenly it was as it had been between them when the times were good, when they’d been like buddies, comrades-in-arms, loving, but not – in her case anyway – in love.

  For several days it was as though she’d never been away. They seemed to grow into their old routine effortlessly. The weather was good, the Champagne countryside at its glorious best, the fruit burgeoning on the vines. She accompanied him on his tours of inspection, waited for him while he talked to the négociants, did some shopping in Rheims, went to look at horses as though she had never been away.

  They’d lunch or dine somewhere nice. She took a critical look at the house, noting what repairs were needed. It really was looking shabby, like an old bachelor establishment. Jean needed a woman around, even a woman like her.

  She put off getting her things together. May telephoned several times and she told her what a lot she had to do. She’d turn round and see Jean gazing at her with that sad, wistful expression. At night she lay for a long time wakeful, looking out at the stars through the open window.

  After a couple of weeks like this Dora knew that if she didn’t go away now she never would. Over dinner one night she told him.

  “I must go, Jean. It’s not fair to May.” She put a hand over his and saw there again in his eyes traces of tears.

  “I love you, Dora.”

  “I know.” She bent her head. “And I love you. But I love May too, and she is very vulnerable. Through me she left her family. I don’t really think I thought it through, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. The only thing to do. I can’t leave her in Yorkshire. Oh, Jean.” Dora bowed her head over his hand, on the verge of tears herself.

  But finally everything was packed into cases, the wardrobes and drawers cleared. Still she didn’t seem to want to go. She knew she was divided, torn in half between her love for May and her renewed love for the man she’d married five years before. The time they had spent together was reminiscent of those days when they’d gone after Debbie, the awareness of a coming together, an understanding that slowly burgeoned into love.

  The night before her departure they dined at home, a meal prepared for them by Madam Jules: escargots, a casserole made with plenty of rough red wine and a bottle of good champagne.

  “I came to ask you for a divorce,” Dora said after a long silence that had followed the end of the meal. “But I can’t.”

  “I don’t mind sharing you with May as long as you come back.”

  “Six months with May, six months with you?” Dora gave a wry grimace. “It seems odd, to say the least. I don’t think she’d wear it. But ...” Dora threw down her napkin and, rising from the table, held out her hand. “I suppose there are odder arrangements.”

  “If I knew you were coming back,” there was a catch in Jean’s throat as he spoke, “I could survive. Otherwise ... I think I will die.”

  She thought he’d said something like that to her before. Maybe he meant it. Maybe it was true and he would die of a broken heart. Dora stooped to kiss him lightly on the forehead and then, her own heart charged with emotion, fled the room.

  Upstairs her bedroom looked very bare. All the luggage had been taken downstairs to the hall. She knew now that she would leave some behind. She wanted an excuse to come back. She loved this house, she loved the Champagne area of France and, well, she loved Jean. In many ways she felt closer to him than she ever had before.

  She took ages washing, doing her teeth, running a comb through her hair.
She stood for a long time in front of the window before climbing into bed. In three days she’d be in Yorkshire with May. Then, as usual, she lay looking out at the stars.

  There was a slight click and the door gently swung open. She looked sideways and in the light of the moon she saw Jean at the door.

  He stood gazing at her and stretched out a hand. He crept towards her bed and slowly turned back the sheets and got in beside her. She didn’t try and stop him. For a moment they lay together and then her hand sought his.

  “Like that night in the Lakes?” she said. “Remember?” She was referring to the time they’d taken refuge at an inn in a snowstorm and they had slept together to keep out the cold, but nothing else had happened.

  “I remember,” Jean said.

  Only, tonight it was different.

  Chapter Six

  Sarah Jane Yetman sat upright in her chair, stiff as a ramrod, her eyes with their hard, unforgiving expression bearing down on her brother. Her lips were pursed and her hands were clenched tightly together in her lap. Her whole body bristled in an attitude of profound disapproval.

  “Sarah Jane,” Bart’s tone was firm but conciliatory, “it’s not a bit of use carrying on in this way. I have been back over a year and I mean to stay in the neighbourhood of Wenham. I have bought a fine house. Your son is engaged on work for me and is doing very well. I want to be friends with you. All the other members of my family accept me but you.”

  “There are good reasons,” Sarah said.

  “The only reason that I know is because I introduced your husband to Dick Wainwright with, I hoped at the time, the possibility of gain for us both. I did not kill Laurence. He killed himself. It is very unfair of you, of everyone in this town, to blame me for it.”

  “There was also the matter of Sophie Woodville,” Sarah Jane said with a sniff.

  “That was nothing to do with anyone but the lady in question and myself.”