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

by Nicola Thorne

“That Bart Sadler was Sam’s father? Of course.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Well, in those days people used to talk. They still do, of course. They know that Sam is not my son, so they assume he was Bart’s. I think you place more importance on it than they or I do, my dear Sophie. You see,” he leaned very close and looked into her troubled eyes, “these things matter so little in life’s great scheme.”

  “You knew all the time it was Bart?”

  “I knew all the time, and I said to you when you told me you were carrying a child by a man you did not name that many sins were forgiven you because you had loved much, quoting the words of Our Lord. I say that again. You have always given so much of yourself, Sophie. You have been a wonderful mother and exemplary wife; a loyal servant of the parish and daughter of the church. Yet you go on chastising yourself for one little sin, and the other day you tried to kill yourself. God, in His infinite mercy, will forgive that too as He did the Magdalen.”

  “But Bart and Debbie ...”

  “That is unfortunate, but it is a fact. It is not illegal or sinful. You must put it out of your mind, Sophie, and resume the life of the virtuous woman you really are.”

  Clasping her hand to his chest he had tears in his eyes and his voice was thick with emotion. “My beloved wife. A pearl of great price, a jewel in Heaven.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Abel opened the door of his cottage next to Riversmead and stood for a while sniffing the air. The crocuses and snowdrops were out at the bases of many of the trees in the garden and the daffodils were in bud on the lawn.

  Nearly spring again and still the house was not quite ready. He was a perfectionist and so was Solomon. Ruth exceeded them both, so it was all taking longer than expected. But they should be in by Easter.

  His wife, however, was extravagant. Budgets went to the board where she was concerned. Her extravagance worried him because he himself was inclined to parsimony, his father having died a bankrupt. Daily he had to dig deeper into his pockets and debts were beginning to mount up, not alarmingly, but more than he liked. He had hoped Ruth would show some degree of frugality as did his mother who had had to scrape to make ends meet, despite the generosity of Aunt Eliza. And then there was her own mother, Aunt Sophie, who was the antithesis of extravagance in all things. Why couldn’t Ruth have taken a leaf out of her book?

  In a way there was an explanation for Ruth’s desire to spend money, possibly an excuse. They were both anxious to have a family, and so far Ruth had shown no signs of pregnancy. Why did some people, Debbie for instance, find it so easy, and for others it was so hard? Sarah Jane had said, tactfully, that it was early days, but they had been married nearly a year.

  Abel paused on his way over to the main house. It would be really quite dreadful, he realised, not to have a family.

  Ruth had set off yet again on one of her extensive shopping expeditions, he thought in the company of his mother, and he had returned for some papers he’d left behind.

  Maybe he could get a cup of coffee in the kitchen before he went over to the house to hurry up the workmen, the painters, plasterers and craftsmen putting the finishing touches. He pushed open the kitchen door and found Verity standing at the table pummelling dough.

  “Any chance of a cup of coffee, Verity?” he asked with his winning smile. “My wife’s not at home.”

  “Of course, Mr Abel,” Verity said obligingly, going to the stove and moving the kettle to the hob.

  “Gone shopping with my mother.” Abel sat on a chair by the side of the table. “Costing me a fortune.”

  Verity spooned grounds into the coffee pot, poured on boiling water and set it aside to brew. Then she got a cup and saucer from the cupboard, set them on a doily on a tray which she put in front of the young master.

  “Your mother hasn’t gone shopping with Mrs Ruth,” she said, keeping her eye on the contents of the tray.

  “Oh, I thought she had.”

  Verity shook her head and, judging the coffee was ready to pour, gave it a brisk stir.

  “Is she around then?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  He failed to detect any nuance in Verity’s voice and said: “I must have a word with her.”

  Abel finished his coffee, nearly scalding his mouth, and got up.

  “That was very good, Verity, thank you. Any idea where Mrs Yetman is?”

  Verity shook her head and turned back to the stove.

  Abel pushed open the green baize door that led from the kitchen to the hall and went across to his mother’s sitting-room. Empty. He poked his head into the dining-room and found Blossom polishing the table.

  “Have you seen Mrs Yetman, Blossom?”

  The servant shook her head.

  “I thought she’d gone out with my wife and it seems she hasn’t?”

  “Maybe she’s upstairs, sir,” Blossom was careful to avert her eyes, “in her bedroom.”

  “Ah!”

  Abel paused for a moment and then, crossing the hall, bounded up the stairs two at a time and reached the corridor outside his mother’s room when her door opened and Solomon Palmer emerged, casually adjusting the cufflinks on one of his shirt sleeves.

  For a moment the two men stared at each other. Solomon’s face seemed to pale and he looked anxiously back into the room.

  “What on earth ...” Abel began when the door to his mother’s bedroom slammed shut and he heard the key turn in the lock.

  “For God’s sake!” he exclaimed. “What in the name of heaven is going on? What are you doing in my mother’s bedroom?”

  “I think we had better go downstairs,” Solomon said gruffly, starting along the corridor. But Abel, instead of following him, knocked sharply on his mother’s door.

  “Mother, please open the door!”

  No sound. No reply. Again he knocked. “Mother I insist!”

  Suddenly he heard the sound of the key being turned in the lock and his mother threw open the door, her face also unnaturally pale. She was dressed in her robe and behind her it was apparent that some attempt, unsuccessful, had been made to straighten the bed.

  “Mother!” he cried in outrage, staring beyond her at the bed. “You’d better come in.” Sarah Jane put out an arm and drew him into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. “Please don’t make a scene. The servants will hear.”

  “The servants will hear?” Abel gave a hoarse laugh. “You think they don’t know?”

  “Did they tell you I was here?” Sarah Jane anxiously gnawed at a nail as Abel nodded.

  “Damn!”

  “Mother, what has been going on?” He looked over her shoulder at the bed. “It seems obvious you’re having an affair with Solomon!”

  “What point is there denying it?” Sarah Jane tightened the cord of her dressing gown around her waist.

  Abel flung open the door and found Solomon standing outside, as if uncertain as to what to do.

  “Come in,” Abel said, standing back, “and explain yourself.”

  “There is nothing to explain.” Sarah Jane defensively clutched at Solomon.

  “There is plenty to explain,” Abel persisted, glaring at them as Solomon responded by putting his arm protectively round Sarah Jane’s waist.

  “We love each other,” he said, finally finding his voice.

  “Do you realise what you’re saying? My mother is twenty-five years your senior.”

  Neither replied, and the silence seemed to inflame Abel even more.

  “How long has this disgusting state of affairs been going on?’’

  “What is disgusting about being in love?”

  “I find the whole thing disgusting, furtive and disgusting. I presume it has been going on for some time, as the maids seem to know about it? Have you no shame, Mother, no pride?”

  “I don’t think it’s shameful to love someone, and Solomon and I do love each other.”

  “I realised you liked my mother.” Abel turned his attention to his business pa
rtner. “You were always hovering by her side, but I was pleased. I never thought for a moment that sex came into it.”

  “I can understand you’re upset.” Letting go of Solomon, Sarah Jane’s tone was placatory. “I could hardly believe it myself.” She went over to the bed, making a feeble attempt to draw up the covers as though to conceal the evidence of her sin. “I liked Solomon, and then he told me that he loved me ...” She gestured helplessly. “Things just followed naturally after that.”

  “And this was, when?”

  “Some time in the winter.” Sarah Jane began to falter. “October I think? Maybe November.”

  “And you think copulating in the mornings with the maids busy about housework and probably relaying details to the whole town at large is acceptable behaviour?”

  “We don’t think of it in that way. We didn’t realise they knew.” Sarah Jane paused. ‘Solomon has been here all night. No one saw him come in. He is always discreet.”

  “Not discreet enough,” Abel trumpeted. “I thought you were going shopping with Ruth?”

  “I sent a message ... I said I had a headache.”

  “I want to marry Sarah Jane,” Solomon said boldly. “My intentions are, and always have been, honourable.”

  “The whole thing is impossible. It is disgusting. You’d better get out of here, Palmer. I’ll release you from your partnership and you can disappear. I’ll not have you making a mockery of the Yetman name. Ridiculing it. My father is still very much honoured in this community and my mother is besmirching his name. Frankly, Mother, I am ashamed of you cavorting with a man half your age.”

  ***

  Ruth Yetman sat with flaming cheeks listening to Abel’s story.

  “How terrible!” she said when he had finished. “Your mother will make us a laughing stock. As if my sister hadn’t done enough harm, now this. I think we should leave the area and then we shan’t have to listen to the tittle-tattle of small-minded people in the town.”

  “I think that’s a bit extreme.” Abel jingled the loose change in his trouser pockets as if to remind him of her spendthrift ways. He stood by the fire and Ruth sat on the sofa facing him. They had just finished dinner and he waited until they had coffee before telling her the events of the morning. Over dinner he had had to listen to a list of the purchases she had made in the town which had not improved his mood. “I don’t see why we should leave the area when we have done nothing wrong. We have a lovely house to go to and our lives in front of us. Why should we leave? People will soon forget.”

  “Oh, I don’t agree. People have long memories. They still remember how Aunt Eliza eloped with Uncle Ryder fifty years ago. When Debbie ran off with Bart Sadler all you heard were odious comparisons with Aunt Eliza and Uncle Ryder. ‘Bad blood in the family,’ they said and they’ll say it again.”

  “There is nothing actually immoral in it.” After a thoughtful pause Abel stooped to poke the fire. “I mean, they are both free.”

  “Yes, but they’re having an affair, aren’t they? Do you think that’s right, that everyone should know? Do you think it reflects well on your mother that she should have a relationship with a man younger than her own son? Personally, I think it’s disgusting.”

  “I do too.” Abel nodded his head several times. “Disgusting.”

  Abel looked at Ruth and felt remorse for his mother’s scandalous behaviour. Ruth was very fragile and inexperienced, a child-woman innocent in the ways of the world despite the fact that she had been a teacher for several years and lived away from home. It was this quality of almost childlike naïveté that had appealed to him, a wish to protect her. It also seemed to explain her extravagance as if, like a child, she didn’t know the value of money.

  He bent to kiss her on the cheek and put a hand on her shoulder. “Try not to worry too much, darling. I wish now I hadn’t told you.”

  She wished he hadn’t too.

  The following morning Ruth stood by the window watching Abel disappear round the corner of the cottage to his car. A hundred yards away was the main house with her mother-in-law inside, and perhaps Solomon too had again spent the night in torrid love-making. Yes, she wished she didn’t know. Now she would never be able to feel the same about Sarah Jane again, but would always associate her with something dirty and underhand.

  Ruth was a very proper girl, very correct. At school she was known as a goody-goody. She was liked, but she was never as popular as her sister. She was painfully anxious to please and succeed, to do the right thing.

  She was horrified when, at the age of eighteen, her sister ran off with a workman and returned pregnant. To this day she didn’t know how she’d lived down the shame. She left Wenham to train as a teacher in Bristol and taught for some years away from the town. Even there she’d led a sheltered life, living as a paying guest with friends of the family. She went to school at eight every weekday morning and returned home at four every day and, apart from that, scarcely ever went out except accompanied by the family friends to a social or whist drive in the church hall.

  When her cousin Abel started courting her she knew at once that it would be a very suitable marriage. He was someone like her: upright, God-fearing, hard-working. They were both supporters of the church, regular worshippers.

  Yet in her marriage Ruth had yet to experience sexual passion. She didn’t think it was very nice. She certainly didn’t think it was the sort of thing one talked about, even with one’s husband. She wished she’d known a little more about it before she got married. Naturally her mother, being deeply repressed, hadn’t said a word.

  Ruth decided it was one of those things that had to be endured for the sake of procreation. Only, so far, there were no signs of a baby and she felt nervous and edgy, prone to ups and downs, often not feeling very well.

  It would all be better, she was sure, when the house was ready, and so she had flung herself into that wholeheartedly, regardless of how much it cost.

  She knew that she disapproved of what Abel had told her about Sarah Jane because she disapproved of sexual licence, as she also disapproved of her sister and, especially, what her sister had told her about her mother and why she hated Bart Sadler so much.

  Her mother, who was always on her knees in church saying her prayers, who was always quoting the Bible and talking about how she and their father had travelled to a far-off country to save the souls of savages, a journey that had cost Father his life.

  It was unbelievable. It made the world seem such a wicked, dangerous place.

  ***

  Agnes Woodville sat looking at Sophie, who was up and dressed, but still not herself. She spent much of the day lying on the sofa in her little room reading devotional books, gazing out of the window on to the wintry landscape or just dozing.

  Agnes reached over and took her hand, patting it gently.

  “I would have come before, but Hubert told everyone you were to have no visitors. My poor dear, what an ordeal. You should have come and talked to me, dear Sophie. I’m sure I could have helped you.”

  Agnes paused as Polly came in with morning coffee which she proceeded to pour, thus momentarily putting an end to the conversation.

  Sophie gave a weak smile. She only just felt strong enough to see Agnes. It was true that Agnes was a very experienced woman of the world and probably could have helped her, were it not for the fact that the thought of confiding in Agnes had never occurred to her. If Agnes pitied her she pitied Agnes, who had had a hard life, much of it because of her own behaviour.

  Agnes was a Yetman, the daughter of John and half-sister of Connie. She had been married three times, first to an American, then to Guy Woodville, with whom she had had an affair years before and, thirdly, to Owen Wentworth, an adventurer who had given himself a false title and spurious fortune, and eventually made off with all Agnes’s jewels.

  Once again Carson had been enormously good to his stepmother, even though they had never got on. And Connie had been good too, allowing her to have the house belongin
g to her guardian which had been left to her. Connie made it over to Agnes for her lifetime and gave her an allowance.

  Of course Agnes had not been grateful. She never was. She was grateful to no one and “thank you” were words that sat strangely on her lips, if ever. She was always so sure she was right, and everyone else was wrong.

  She had always been a difficult, imperious, demanding woman who had refused to acknowledge her own daughter even after she’d married the father.

  Elizabeth had never forgiven her and never would, and the consequence was that Agnes had retired, a sad and bitter woman, to the house Connie gave her, and she stayed there most of the time seeing few people and scarcely any members of the family.

  Thus Sophie had been very surprised when Lady Woodville had been announced (Agnes having reverted to her former name and title when Owen Wentworth disappeared, but as he had never been found she was unable to get a divorce from him).

  Polly finished serving coffee and left the room, hopefully leaving the door ajar so that she could hear what was being said. She was in a great flutter of excitement as much was expected from her by the people in the town. She was a prime source of gossip from the Rectory, and if she had received a shilling for every tale she told she believed she would be a rich woman.

  But Sophie, who knew Polly’s reputation, saw the crack in the door and told her to close it carefully after her. The door clicked shut, and so thick were the Rectory doors that, however hard Polly pressed her ear to them, she was unable to hear a word from the other side.

  “It’s very kind of you, Agnes.” Sophie took a reviving sip from her cup and carefully replaced it on the table beside her. “Frankly I don’t think anyone could have helped me. I was not myself. God could help me, but I didn’t listen or place my trust in Him, as I should have.” Her gaze wandered to the book of the meditations of Thomas à Kempis beside her. “This will be a lesson to me not to place my immortal soul in danger again.”

  Agnes, who never went to church despite the fact that she lived next to it, gave a derisory sniff.