Chapter Nineteen
Sarah came back from Sunderland on the afternoon of Saturday, the twentieth of March, on the day when Mr J. Proctor’s Sheila’s Cottage won the Grand National at Aintree amid cheers and shouts from the crowd, and the Soviet delegation walked out of a meeting of the Allied Control Council, the body officially charged with governing Germany, claiming the Western powers had snubbed them by holding a secret meeting in London to discuss Germany’s future. The first event was on the lips of most Londoners, the second - which had a part in precipitating the start of the Cold War with Russia - passed unnoticed by everyone, including Sarah, who was more concerned with the coming meeting with Lady Harris. The sun was shining and the sky was blue as she walked down Emery Place, and there was a scent of spring in the mild London air.
She had left Maggie feeling a lot better, although the old woman was going to be in hospital for a few weeks. Apart from severe bruising and cuts and grazes, her right leg was broken in two places, which, when added to her fluid retention problems and general poor health, constituted something of a problem, and one the doctors wanted to monitor carefully.
Rebecca, on the other hand, would be able to leave fourteen days after her confinement - if she had somewhere to go to, that was, and Sarah intended that she should have.
On entering the house, she made first for the kitchen, where she found Hilda and Eileen in the middle of one of their little skirmishes, which immediately emphasized she was back, and then to the morning room where Lady Margaret was sitting at Lady Harris’s desk sorting through some official-looking documents.
‘Sarah.’ Lady Margaret’s face expressed her delight. ‘How is everyone?’
Sarah filled her in quickly on the latest developments, enthusing first over little Lucy-Ann, before going on to say how Maggie was and finishing with the news that Matron Cox had died, as expected, the night she had phoned Emery Place. ‘Apparently the police went to her brother’s home, once they’d established who the Matron was, and the . . . the bodies of her brother and his wife were in the bedroom. She had obviously attacked them while they slept. The police think she used the same implement on them as she did on Maggie.’
‘How awful.’ Lady Margaret stared at her aghast for a moment before shaking her head and saying, ‘What a dreadful woman.’ And then, ‘Well, on to brighter things. I think your suggestion of Rebecca for the children’s nanny is a sound one. Of course, Lady Harris is insisting on some sort of probationary period, perhaps a month, something like that? But I have been thinking for some weeks that Constance needs more attention than I can comfortably give her. There are two free rooms on the staff landing, and one in particular is quite large, with room for a crib and so on. Have a look and see which you think is suitable anyway, and get Eileen to air it and make up the bed. The cot I used to use for Constance and William when we visited here is up in the attics, perhaps Eileen could see to that too, and there is plenty of bedding for the child.’
‘That’s so kind of you.’ Sarah was in no doubt that it was Lady Margaret’s influence with her mother-in-law that had sealed Rebecca’s appointment, and the older woman confirmed the thought as she smiled, saying, ‘What else are friends for?’
Rodney didn’t wait for Sarah to call him. He phoned her on the Monday evening and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she hesitated in accepting his invitation to the cinema on her first evening off that week, which happened to be on Thursday.
She argued with herself on and off over the next few days, going round and round in circles until she was sick of her own thoughts, and finally determined that seeing him occasionally as a friend, although probably not the most sensible option, was the less painful answer to her dilemma. Certainly every time she refused to see him she threw herself into a right tizzwazz, she admitted to herself, and it wasn’t as though she didn’t know the score. No, seeing him periodically was the best thing - she couldn’t bear the thought of losing contact altogether - and as long as she didn’t have to endure Vanessa’s company too, she would get by.
It didn’t seem quite so simple when Rodney arrived to pick her up on Thursday evening looking so good she wanted to eat him, but Vanessa’s words still echoed fairly frequently in her mind and were enough to take the edge off her hunger.
Sarah found the film, The Lady from Shanghai with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, wonderful but slightly shocking, something Rodney seemed to find very amusing as he teased her with the punchline, ‘I told you . . . you know nothing about wickedness’, once they were on their way home. She laughed, she forced herself to laugh, but suddenly she didn’t find it funny at all; it was too indicative of how he saw her. And Vanessa? Definitely a sultry blonde Rita Hayworth in her slinky black dress that fitted like a glove, with no back and hardly any sides. But Vanessa couldn’t have filled that dress like the voluptuous Rita Hayworth had. Silly though the thought was, it was comforting.
Rodney hadn’t mentioned his brother or Vanessa once beyond a brief, ‘I understand Richard has told you he’s living with me at the moment, and why?’ when she had first got into the car, and it was the very last thing she wanted to discuss, so when he dropped her off at 19 Emery Place at the end of the evening with the promise that he would call round and say hallo to Rebecca once she was in residence the next week, it was with some surprise she heard him say, ‘Unless the two of you would care to bring Lucy-Ann round to meet Richard that is? I am sure we could rustle up some sort of dinner if I speak nicely to Mrs Price.’
A nice cosy evening with Rodney and Richard, and perhaps Vanessa popping by to make the party complete? ‘I don’t think so. It’s going to take Rebecca a little while to settle in, and no doubt she’s still very tired after having the baby.’ Her voice was slightly cool but she couldn’t help it. He’d got a cheek, he had, whatever way you looked at it.
‘It was just a thought.’
She looked into his handsome face, into the grey eyes that were so kind, and wondered if the evening out had been such a good idea after all, and her thoughts made her voice even cooler as she said, ‘Good night, Rodney.’
And he had thought they’d been getting on so well there for a moment . . . Rodney straightened from leaning against the side of the car, where he had positioned himself after opening Sarah’s passenger door, and his voice was abrupt as he said, ‘Good night.’
He watched her as she walked up the steps and opened the front door, wondering if she would turn and acknowledge him again before she went into the house. She did, but there was no smile on her face as she raised her hand briefly before shutting the door behind her. Well, what did he expect? She’d made it clear enough in the past that their friendship was only of the most platonic kind. He walked round the bonnet and slid into his seat, resting his forearms on the steering wheel for a moment before straightening and starting the engine, his mouth grim.
She didn’t want to visit his home or get to know Richard any further, and why should she? He frowned into the distance as he drove along, feeling absurdly bereft even as he told himself he had no just cause for it. But it was no good, it shouldn’t matter so much but it did, and he was suddenly tired of trying to fool himself. He wanted her. No, not just want - want would have been easy to deal with, there were any number of females who could accommodate want - this feeling was more than just carnal desire. Why couldn’t he say the words, even in his mind? He loved her, damn it.
He revved the engine violently and a passing cat that was sauntering slowly across the road, got the fright of one of its nine lives.
He thought about some of the things she had said in the interval when they had sat and chatted over their icecreams. She’d looked beautiful, beautiful and fresh and virginal . . . He pulled his mind back from that avenue and concentrated on the conversation they had shared. Sarah had made it quite clear then how she saw her life developing, but he just hadn’t wanted to take it on board. A year or two more in London, now Rebecca was safe under Lady Harris’s protection, and then, once t
he time was right, nurse’s training - possibly in Sunderland, she had thought. Her face had come alive when she’d talked about that. She’d make a damn fine nurse, and there were still plenty of poor devils left from the war who would appreciate a smiling face and a genuine heart. He’d been fortunate to emerge with two arms and legs; yes, he had, he ought to remind himself of that more.
He drove steadily to his house, parking the little Morris Minor outside, the Rolls having found a new home in a lockup some miles away. But before going in, he glanced up into the dark velvet sky that was alive with stars, and then stood, mesmerized, as he kept looking. He had to put the past behind him, go forward and not look back. He couldn’t forgive, not yet, he had lost too many good friends and seen too much to forgive just yet, but it was time to make peace with himself.
It was cold but not damp, the pavements were dry and the street was shadowed and deserted, and as he stood quietly looking upwards suddenly some of the old determination from his youth was there.
Why shouldn’t she come to see him in a different light? The thought gripped him, making his heart thud. Why shouldn’t he keep trying? For weeks, months now, he had been fighting this feeling that had steadily grown from that first encounter in Meg Cole’s little hall, and why? Age didn’t matter, not really, and Sarah wasn’t young in the giggly, flighty sense some girls of her age were anyway. And his life was more straightforward now than it had been for years.
He breathed in deeply, drawing the crisp frost-tinted air deep into his lungs. No, this thing wasn’t done with yet.
Chapter Twenty
It was the last week of May, and the old adage that Maggie was fond of - ‘Don’t cast a clout until May is out’ - was proving true, the weather having been wet and blustery and unusually cold, unlike April which had been warm and dry. But Sarah hadn’t had time to notice the weather as she had juggled all the different facets of her life with ever-increasing speed.
The task of helping Rebecca to settle in to the routine and demands of her new job had been time-consuming, often necessitating a comforting pair of arms for little Lucy-Ann, and a shoulder for her mother to cry on after a tiring day when Rebecca was battling with baby blues on top of everything else. But the last week or so things had been going really smoothly, and Sarah felt they were winning at last.
Rebecca had said much the same thing the night before as the two of them had sat in the kitchen enjoying a last cup of cocoa together, the rest of the household having gone to bed and Lucy-Ann fast asleep and curled froglike on her mother’s lap, with her nappy-clad bottom sticking up in the air and her face resting against Rebecca’s bosom.
‘It was worth going through everything with Willie to have her, you know.’ Rebecca’s hand was lightly stroking the baby’s downy head as she spoke. ‘I can’t imagine my life without her, or you.’
‘No, you’re stuck with the pair of us,’ Sarah agreed softly, smiling into Rebecca’s contented face.
‘I was petrified at the thought of coming to London at first but I needn’t have been, everyone’s been so kind. And I think, in a funny sort of way, that it’s been the best beginning I could have had with Lucy-Ann. Everything is so different down here, there’s been nothing to remind me about the bad times and it almost seems as though it’s always been just me and Lucy-Ann.’
Sarah nodded understandingly before she said, ‘You’ve done really well, I’m so proud of you.’
‘I don’t know what I would have done without you, especially that first week after Willie . . .’ Rebecca’s voice trailed away for a moment, and then she said, her tone changing, ‘But that’s in the past and Lucy-Ann is the future.’
‘Absolutely.’
And the two of them had risen, yawning widely, and made their way to their respective rooms.
Sarah’s workload had not been helped by the fact that Lady Harris had been unwell and confined to bed for most of the last two months. The old lady had never had a day’s illness in her life before the attack of influenza at Christmas, and was proving a querulous and demanding patient, her frustration at the enforced idleness making the sickroom a place where the whole household trod on eggshells.
The extra duties hadn’t worried Sarah so much as Sir Geoffrey’s weekly visits to his mother, which, so Sarah understood from Lady Margaret, Lady Harris endured rather than enjoyed. However, the estrangement from her only child had worried the old lady a good deal in the early days of the separation, so seeing Sir Geoffrey every Tuesday afternoon was the lesser of two evils as far as his mother was concerned. Sarah tried to be elsewhere when he called, but on the two or three occasions when she had been unfortunate enough to come across him, the way he had looked at her had made her flesh creep, and the feel of his light, speckled eyes running across her skin had stayed with her a long time after he had gone.
So what with Rebecca and Lady Harris, and Lady Margaret asking Sarah to take on some extra administration duties besides the housekeeping accounts she had always been responsible for, every minute, it seemed, was catered for, and any time she could drag out of the air was spent at the hospital. But Sarah didn’t mind; in fact she welcomed the hectic pace - it stopped her from thinking too much. And one thing she knew she would have thought about, had she the time, was the little announcement which had appeared in the paper stating the separation of Dr and Mrs Richard Mallard of Greyfriars, Windsor. After her conversation with Richard, when he had appeared to want to keep his private affairs just that - private - she could only assume Vanessa had made the announcement for reasons of her own, possibly so she could be seen about with Rodney in the knowledge that it was all above board?
Whatever, since seeing the announcement she had been doubly glad she didn’t have a minute to spare, and her subsequent refusal of Rodney’s invitations to the theatre, or the cinema, or to dinner, had been made with that in mind.
Rodney had called at the house several times since Rebecca’s arrival, and usually Sarah coped quite well, but the once or twice Lucy-Ann had been awake, and she had seen him tenderly cradling the tiny mite, had been difficult. On one of those occasions he had mentioned how much he was looking forward to being a father one day, and she had found herself staring at him with something like disbelief on her face. Did he really think, even besotted as he so obviously was, that Vanessa would consider for one moment allowing her body to be stretched and pummelled by a baby? He’d get a rude awakening if he did. She recalled Vanessa’s comments on Christmas Day about a couple who had been unable to attend her lunch due to the unexpected arrival of their first child. Richard’s wife had been scathing, and no one who had heard her had been left in any doubt as to how she viewed motherhood and children. Still, perhaps Vanessa would make the supreme sacrifice? But she doubted it, she really did.
But it wasn’t Vanessa Sarah was thinking about on the rainy May morning as, her hands clasped round the warmth of her coffee mug, she stood gazing out of the long narrow kitchen window at a patch of grey stormy sky above. It was Maggie who filled her thoughts as her mind replayed their conversation of the night before. Maggie was well on the way to recovery and had been home for the last week, and it had been another milestone when she had managed to hobble down the street on her crutches and phone Sarah.
‘Sarah? You all right, lass?’ The old woman’s voice had been probing after the initial greetings were over. ‘Rebecca writes me you’re doin’ too much.’
‘Me?’
‘Aye, you. From what she tells me you’re one step off havin’ a broom stuck up your backside an’ whistlin’ Dixie as you go.’
‘Oh, Maggie.’ It was the first really good laugh Sarah had had in weeks. ‘You’re awful.’
‘Oh aye, I know it, hinny. You’re not the first to point it out.’
‘But how are you? That’s the main thing.’
‘Grand, lass, grand. Florrie’s booked me in for dancin’ lessons startin’ the morrer. Got me eye on one of them dresses that glitters like a Christmas tree an’ shows off all you�
��ve got up top.’
There was only one in all the world like Maggie, but how would the intrepid old woman take it if she mentioned her desire to search out her natural mother? And she would have to, sooner or later. She would hate Maggie, or Florrie for that matter, to think it in any way lessened the love she had for them, nothing could do that, but . . . She took another sip of coffee. Someone, somewhere, knew something, and since she had faced the fact that Rodney could only ever be a friend, and that she seemed destined to put all her dreams of a home and family into a career, the urge to find her blood kin had become even more urgent. She would have to mention it to Maggie, and soon - bring it out into the open and see how Maggie reacted.
As Hilda came bustling in from the small coldstore at the back of the house, where she kept most of the extra provisions donated from the farm at Fenwick, Sarah finished the coffee in one gulp. She had a million things to do this morning, the first being a quick inspection of Eileen’s progress in dusting and cleaning the morning room before Lady Margaret was down, and she couldn’t stand dreaming a moment longer.
Alone Beneath The Heaven Page 31