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

by Nicola Thorne

  “Thank you, Sophie, but may I remind you that I have brought up three children by myself. I have had a house to maintain and staff to look after, though now that is reduced to two maids and a gardener. I think I can rest on my laurels after all these years.”

  “Please don’t think I meant to criticise you,” Sophie said hastily. “I chose my words carelessly. The fact is that I do worry about Deborah. It is true she hasn’t enough to do. She never felt the call of God that her father and I had and which we might have hoped would have been passed on to our daughters. Neither has she ever been particularly religious.” She looked appealingly across at the woman sitting opposite her. “I honestly didn’t mean to criticise you, Sarah Jane, please don’t think that I did. I know you have had a hard life and it was a thoughtless thing for me to say. Maybe we have not given you as much help as we should because we all thought you capable, and then you had the support of Eliza. I am sorry if we have neglected you, or misunderstood you.”

  “Oh, I have not felt neglected or misunderstood.” Sarah Jane gave a shaky laugh. “I think I gave into the depression and bitterness that followed Laurence’s death. I assure you I am beginning to see how much I’ve missed in life. I’m beginning to come out of my shell.”

  Sophie gazed at her thoughtfully, thinking of the tall, handsome but so very much younger man who had stood just behind Sarah Jane in the doorway giving, even from quite far away, an impression somehow of an intimacy, of a closeness that would not have been expected when one considered the age difference between the two.

  Maybe she was reading too much into the situation? On the other hand there was the use of her Christian name that seemed again unusual, when one considered that Solomon was a friend of her son’s, and Sarah Jane a much older woman.

  “Well.” Sophie got up. “I must be getting back. I have a meeting of my Mothers’ Union to prepare for. You wouldn’t by any chance be interested in joining the committee, would you, Sarah Jane? I know you attend the meetings sometimes. We have a desperate need of people to help our good work.”

  As she spoke Sophie turned towards the window and, apparently seeing something that interested her outside, went over and peered out as if to make a closer inspection.

  “I –” Sarah Jane began but got no further as Sophie gave an exclamation that made her hurry to her side. Sophie was looking at a car that had stopped by the bridge and at the two people who stood beside it, apparently engaged in earnest conversation, heads close together. Then, as they watched, the heads merged in what was unmistakably a kiss. The man put his hands on the woman’s shoulder, drawing her ever closer to him and then, as if afraid of being observed, they sprang apart and the woman started along the path by the river, heading towards the Rectory while the man stood for some time gazing after her.

  Deborah Woodville and Bart Sadler. No doubt about it.

  Sophie said nothing for a moment while Sarah Jane remained just behind her. Then she put a hand on Sophie’s shoulder and pressed it, as though to comfort her.

  “Now you know why she takes so many walks,” she said quietly in Sophie’s ear.

  “Did you know about this?” Sophie’s voice was scarcely above a whisper.

  “I have seen them before.”

  Slowly Sophie turned to face her.

  “Don’t you think you should have said something to me?”

  “Sophie,” Sarah Jane looked earnestly into her eyes, “Deborah is a grown woman, twenty-six or -seven I believe. Surely she is allowed to do as she likes? See who she wishes?”

  “I suppose it is because Bart is your brother.” Sophie pronounced his name contemptuously. “You feel you have to defend him.”

  “Not at all. You know that I disapproved of Bart as much as anyone. I too thought he had a great deal of responsibility for my husband’s death. He mixed in undesirable company ...” She paused not wishing to say more for fear of getting too close to the other aspect of Bart’s behaviour that concerned her guest. “But Sophie,” she went on, “Bart is an unattached man. Deborah an unattached woman. They are free to do what they like with their lives.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Sophie said. “Apart from his qualities of character, which leave much to be desired, there is a big difference in age, nearly thirty years.” Then, seizing her straw hat, she placed it firmly on her head and hurried out.

  Sarah Jane didn’t attempt to stop her but watched, rather helplessly, from the window, as Sophie half-walked, half-ran across the lawn.

  Sophie didn’t wait for Deborah to answer her knock but threw open the door of her daughter’s bedroom and marched in. Deborah was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, hands behind her head, when her mother seized her roughly by the shoulders and hauled her into an upright position. She then shook her hard before releasing her, almost throwing her back on the bed, and Deborah, entirely bewildered by this turn of events, sat there staring at her mother, wondering if she had suddenly gone out of her mind.

  “I told you not to see that man again!” Sophie shook her finger violently at her daughter.

  “What man?” Deborah stammered.

  “You know quite well what man. I saw you getting out of his car. Sarah Jane tells me that you meet frequently. How dare you, miss, under my very nose?” She raised her hand as though she was going to strike Deborah who, in all her years, had never seen her mother in such a rage.

  However, suddenly Sophie seemed to think better of it and, crossing to the dressing table, stared hard at herself in the mirror, as if she could scarcely believe what she had done. She agitatedly pulled down her sleeves, and ran a finger round the neckline of her dress. She then looked through the mirror across the room at Deborah, who sat on the bed, arms folded, staring at the floor.

  “Well, say something,” Sophie said, swirling round.

  “What can I say?”

  “Say that you won’t see him again.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  At these words of defiance Sophie strode across the room and raised her hand, whereupon Deborah jumped up from the bed and, seizing her mother by the wrist, gripped her arm with her own superior strength.

  “You dare touch me!” she murmured, “and the whole town will know of your affair with Bart Sadler, the fact that you had a child by him and that that is the reason you hate him so much and don’t want me to see him.”

  She paused and, releasing her mother’s arm, tossed back her head. “Anyway,” she went on, a sneer on her face, “most of them know already. Even the servants know. It is apparently fairly common knowledge that he was your lover, Mother. You used to go openly to his house and when you found you were expecting his child you persuaded poor Father, who had never hurt a soul in his life, to take pity on you and make an honest woman of you because Bart, who by this time despised you for your hypocrisy, would not.”

  “That is a lie!” Sophie whispered.

  “What is a lie? That you had an affair?”

  “Your stepfather always wanted to marry me ...”

  “But he was not Sam’s father, was he, Mother? For all these years you, the daughter of a priest and the wife of one, have lied and deceived yourself and others. You are a whited sepulchre, Mother, with your pretend piety, your business with church affairs, your excessive good works. Yet all the time you are a woman who –”

  “Stop, stop, stop!” Sophie flung herself on the bed and pressed herself against the pillows in a paroxysm of weeping.

  But Deborah felt no pity for her mother. Instead she gazed at her, her lip curled contemptuously.

  “Have a good cry, Mother. But please don’t threaten me any more. I shall see who I like, when I like, and I like Bart Sadler. He is good to me, kind. He does not treat me like a child as you do, or a fallen woman as everyone else does. He treats me like an adult and I enjoy his company.”

  “Even though he was my lover?” her mother said tremulously, looking up at her with eyes swollen by tears.

  “That was years ago.”

&
nbsp; “It doesn’t alter the situation. It is too horrible to contemplate ... it is, why, it is like incest! I don’t know how you can do such a thing, knowing what you know.”

  “Do what?” Deborah asked.

  “Well, I must assume, knowing the sort of man he is, and the sort of person, Deborah, that you are, that you are lovers.”

  She stopped and, sitting up on the bed, wiped her eyes, stuffed her handkerchief up the sleeve of her dress and attempted with both hands to tidy her dishevelled hair. She gazed at Deborah, who was now leaning against the wall still staring at her with that expression of ill-concealed contempt.

  “However much I may have sinned,” Sophie hurried on, “and I confess I did sin, I have spent the rest of my life repenting of it. I regard myself as the lowest of the low in the face of the Almighty from whom I never cease to ask pardon. Bart Sadler deceived me all those years ago, as I daresay he will deceive you. He was not worthy of my love, and he is not worthy of yours, if that is how you feel about him.

  “On the other hand, Deborah,” Sophie got unsteadily to her feet and walked across the room to the window from the corner of which she could just see the bridge where her daughter had her tryst with Bart, “maybe it is to be expected from a woman who was capable once of causing me so much pain. You disappeared for six months and in that time I aged a decade. Your poor stepfather could hardly carry out his parish duties he was so bereft. Every time I think of that terrible period I wonder how ever I endured it. Not a word, not a sign you were alive. Anyone capable of that is indeed capable of what you are doing to me now. What is more, you have never shown the slightest repentance for all the suffering you caused. Nor do you ever wish to see the son you brought into the world, which is something I can scarcely believe a mother capable of. You leave all that to me and your stepfather, who is a saint, as we know. Meanwhile you lead a life dedicated to yourself, your wishes, your desires. I cannot force you to be religious, but you never even go through the appearances. I can’t remember when you last went to church, unlike your sister, who has been a model of everything a mother could wish.

  “I never thought I would say this to you, Deborah, but you are one of the most selfish people I have ever known. I love you, for you are my daughter, my first-born. I see, however, that I have no more control over you and, God forgive me saying it, but I fear that from today nothing can ever be the same between us again.”

  ***

  Later, much later that night, as Sophie lay in bed unable to sleep beside the slumbering form of her husband, she repented yet again for having lost control of herself with her daughter. She should have resisted the temptation to say what she did, to tell Deborah the truth at last about her way of life. She knew she was stung, bitterly wounded, by what Deborah had said, by the open contempt in her daughter’s eyes. On the other hand she, Sophie, had said too much, been too frank. Even if what she told her was the truth she should not have said it. Well, not all of it.

  Towards the small hours of the morning she thought she heard the sound of a motor car draw up outside the house. She tiptoed out of bed and drew back the curtains and, by the light of the moon she saw the shape of Bart Sadler’s big shiny car, and Bart standing by the door, holding it open.

  Then she saw Debbie as she hurried along the garden path carrying a suitcase which she gave to Bart who, after kissing her firmly on the lips, ushered her inside the vehicle. Without another glance at the Rectory he drove away as silently as he had come.

  Like a thief in the night.

  Once more Deborah Woodville had fled; but this time her mother knew where she had gone.

  There was some consolation in this, but she knew that she would never, ever attempt to try and find her. She had paid a heavy price for her association with Bart Sadler and so, she was sure, would Deborah.

  For did not the Bible say that as you sowed, so you would reap?

  Dawn was greeted by a great clap of thunder signifying that the heatwave which had so afflicted the country was over, and the rains began.

  All day the torrent continued and for much of it Sophie stayed in her little sitting room, nose pressed against the windowpane watching the drops of rain which trickled relentlessly down like so many tears, as if the heavens too were weeping yet again for the loss of her once beloved child, Deborah.

  Chapter Eleven

  Carson knocked gently on the cottage door and then pushed it open and peered inside. The sitting room looked much as it must have in the days of his Uncle Ryder, who had lived there for a while before eloping with Aunt Eliza. That event which had brought such scandal to the town happened fifty years ago and, in the meantime, the cottage had had many different tenants all working for the Woodvilles or on the Woodville estate.

  Eliza, recalling those happy days, had even looked round it before she went to live with Lally, wondering if it might be suitable as a temporary home for her. But it was much too small: a sitting room, a kitchen with larder, three upstairs bedrooms and an outside privy. There was no bathroom, and washing was done in the kitchen or in a tub in front of the fire, which blazed now in the inglenook. One of these days Carson meant to add a downstairs bathroom, or perhaps turn the third bedroom upstairs into one. Maybe, in view of his new tenant, he would do it sooner rather than later.

  The furniture was old but in good condition. The floor was flagstoned and covered with rugs. There were chintzy curtains at the window, and a large bowl of chrysanthemums from the Pelham’s Oak greenhouses stood on the polished table in the middle.

  Carson heard a step on the staircase that led upstairs from the sitting room and saw Massie standing looking down at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I hope I didn’t make a noise.” Massie shook her head and came down the rest of the stairs to join him.

  “How is she today?”

  “She had a better night.”

  “That’s good,” Carson said. Moving Nelly from London to Dorset had been a difficult business, with many stops on the way for rest, even though he had gone to collect her in his comfortable motor car. Reaching Salisbury, Nelly felt unable to continue, a doctor was summoned and they rested in a hotel for two days before completing the journey.

  That was not the most minor of his problems, and the last weeks had been fraught, not least because of a deteriorating situation between himself and Connie, who had very much objected to the presence of Nelly at Pelham’s Oak, to the extent of threatening to leave and take the children with her. Hence a swift move to Ryder’s old cottage.

  “Would you like to see her, Sir Carson?”

  “Please drop the ‘Sir’ and call me Carson. I have asked you before, Massie.”

  Massie put a hand to her mouth and blushed.

  “I forget. It’s not that I should, because Nelly always talked so much about you. She always seemed to think she would see you again. She never bore no grudge, even when she saw in the papers you was a lord and was married.”

  “She’s a very good soul.” Carson almost choked on his words. “I hate to see her like this. I wish I’d known before, and I could have done something. Now,” he lowered his voice, “it may be too late.”

  The doctor’s prognosis was not good. Maybe six weeks, or six months. A year at the most. It was difficult to tell what the effect on her ravaged lungs would be of a good diet, rest and wholesome country air, also good medical attention which she had lacked. She had neglected her condition for much too long since symptoms first appeared.

  “I’ll go and tell Nelly you’re here. I know she’d like to be seen at her best.” Massie indicated a chair and Carson took his seat, looking broodingly into the fire.

  He had done what was right, he knew that, despite Connie’s protestations. He could not have lived with himself if he had ignored Massie’s pleas, and when he saw the state poor Nelly was in he had no regrets in bringing her to Wenham.

  But Connie had been furious. There was no other word for it. And in her defence the whole thing had been
a terrible shock. He didn’t like to recall too often the day he’d told her about Nelly after his return from London, of their affair twenty years before when he was a young man and how he’d lost her, never to find her again.

  Then there was the baby who had been deposited on Lally’s doorstep with a note pinned to its shawl commending him to her because she was “a good woman”.

  As Alexander grew older Carson had noticed increasingly a resemblance to Nelly, dark hair, almost black eyes, a child, then a man, from a Renaissance painting; but one who had now grown into a very, very different life style from his beginnings in a house for fallen women in Houndsditch where his mother had given birth to him.

  He was only a few days old when she left him on the doorstep of the Martyns’ home in Montague Square to which she had once been taken by Carson while his aunt and uncle were away.

  And that had been Alexander’s life ever since. What now to tell this exquisite, well brought-up, well-educated and well-mannered young man about his origins?

  Massie came down the stairs and beckoned to Carson who went up to the front bedroom, tapping on the door before entering.

  Nelly sat up in bed, her hair combed, her eyes shining, though her deathly pallor was as disturbing as it had been the first time he’d seen her.

  However, he thought she’d put on a bit of weight due to the nourishing food she’d been eating, the good care that had been taken of her, the rest in comfortable circumstances that she’d been getting.

  She held out a hand and he took it, perching beside her on the bed. He always felt immediately at ease in her company.

  “How are you, Nelly?”

  “I feel much better, Carson, thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to Massie.”

  “Her too, but if you hadn’t come, Carson, I would still be in that awful hole, threatened every day with eviction because we were behind with the rent. I think I would have died very soon if it hadn’t been for you.”