Sharon had her snack meal, washed her hair, then sat on the rug with her back against a humpty and the students' notebooks spread out around her. But it was just no use. She was seized by a restlessness that couldn't be endured a moment longer. And for such a stupid reason. She had brought home her design safely, but she had left her gloves in the Pontiac. They were expensive gloves, her Christmas gift from Maud and Ben Hallsworth - of fine black kid, to match her handbag, and lined with pure silk for warmth. How could she have been so forgetful? Or was it something deeper, a trick of the subconscious mind which seeks so disconcertingly to fulfil the forbidden wish? Why try to hide from herself the fact that in spirit she was there at the Raven, shamelessly eavesdropping upon three people? She burned to know how the encounter had turned out. The possibilities shot to and fro across her mind like the shuttle of the loom, weaving strange patterns.
She could, of course, leave home early tomorrow and pick up the gloves. But it might already be too late. Martin Hyde was a hustler. He'd be at the abbey taking photographs as soon as there was light for it; and then the pair would be off and away, with her gloves still tucked down the side of the car seat. Or she could phone the Raven now, only that meant going to a phone box. Once she was out of doors, her feet carried her of their own volition, swiftly, trembling with shame and passionate curiosity, to the Raven.
Yes, her gloves had been found, the girl at the desk told her. Mr. Hyde had been very put out that she wasn't on the phone, but he had intended calling at her house with them, first thing in the morning. Yes, the Hydcs were leaving immediately after breakfast. Mr. Hyde had already retired. It seemed he couldn't do without his eight hours' sleep. The girl smiled. 'And he was in a hurry to try out the four poster!' But Mrs. Hyde was still up. There had been some joke about her watching for the ghost of Abbot Geoffrey, seeing that tonight was full moon. A sweet person, so grateful for any little service. It would be a shame for Miss Birch to go away without having a word with her. 'Shall I tell her you're here?'
'Please don't bother. I'll have a look round and if I don't see her I'll leave her a little note about the gloves.'
The lounge appeared empty. Sharon had a quick look there and thought she would try the television room next. Then she saw a movement near the deep-set window.
They were standing very close and face to face, with the heavy velvet curtains half pulled back as if they'd been taking a look at the abbey by moonlight.
Neil was saying in a harsh voice that carried too well: 'Is he a good husband? Oh, I've seen the mink coat and all the rest of it, but what does that mean, anyway? A wife may be just a status symbol. Is he kind to you?… No, you don't need to answer that. I've met him.!
Jennifer Hyde said in a broken murmur: 'How could I love you so much and hurt you so much? It was a sort of madness.'
'God, it is a sort of madness,' said Neil. He took her in his arms.
Running home, the tears hot on her face, Sharon thought wildly: It's my own fault. Spying on them. And what did I expect? I've known all along that he still cared… Life is too cruel.
She would have liked to hate Jennifer, but felt only pity and impatience. It was for Neil that her tears fell.
Somehow he had to go on living and there was no way in the world of helping him, even now when she had suddenly discovered she loved him with all her heart.
CHAPTER NINE
Sharon's new carpet was down on the showroom floor and a lot of people seemed to be walking about on it, looking for mistakes: Mr. Ben, Frank Roberts, the sales manager and the head of the group's publicity. Sharon's knees were knocking together and there was lead in her stomach, as always. But very few alterations would have to be made on the loom pattern and the general verdict was favourable.
'It's all these young couples just setting up house we aim to interest,' said the publicity man. 'They have money to spend and they're looking for novelty. The girls wear fun coats, the men go for household gadgets and crazy wallpapers. I've seen an aquarium design, even a fairground. The most trendy layout for the dining-room has a photograph of Sorrento in glorious technicolor blown up to fill a whole wall.'
And Frank Roberts put in his word. 'There was a time when a couple would set up house on linoleum and just one carpet to last their lifetime - a good Axminster with a subdued all-over pattern that wouldn't show' marks. And oh, so dull!'
The sales manager was enthusiastic. 'Now that people have taken in a big way to wall-to-wall carpeting, the best-sellers will always be hard-wearing cords, cheap foam backed carpets and the new tweeds. But the more adventurous customers will go for quality squares in a novelty range - and Stroll in the Park is a winner.'
Mr. Ben, whose personal taste was conservative, had reservations. 'I agree with all you say - but give me Sharon's floral designs every time. This carpet costs a mint of money to make and it'll come in the top price range. The question is, will it please the top price customers?'
So then they were at it hammer and tongs, arguing costs and profit margins. When the business discussion was adjourned to Mr Ben's office, he said to Sharon: "Drop whatever you're doing and go up to the house. Maud has an arrangement of spring flowers that's so striking, I'd like you to paint it and see if it triggers off something.'
'Right away, Mr. Ben?'
'Right away.'
That was a command - and welcome. She was too happily excited by the success of her design to settle down to work in the studio on what happened to be a tedious 'casting up' job, more mathematics than art, and enjoyed the short walk up to the mill-owner's house. She took her light folding easel and what Adam called 'the infernal box' when he had to carry it up the fells on a sizzling summer day. It was a flat satchel containing a pad of quarter imperial watercolour paper, a collapsible water pot, a set of paints and half a dozen long brushes.
Spring sang in the wind today; but it was a treacherous siren song, tempting you to 'cast a clout' when goodness knew what bitter, squally weather still lay ahead.
In Mrs. Hallsworth's drawing-room Sharon set up her easel and made a light pencil sketch of the flower arrangement in a huge copper bowl, then did her watercolour. Afterwards she wandered off into the conservatory with its grapevine, peaches trained over an elegant steel framework under the glass roof, and tier upon tier of flowering plants.
Maud Hallsworth found her there and bade her have a cup of tea before she left. 'I like your watercolour. I wish I could have it framed at once!'
Mr. Ben liked it, too. He had dropped in home for a cup of tea and a sandwich before he set off to a meeting in Manchester. He stood the sketch-pad upside down, and he and Sharon contemplated it as they sipped tea. He gave her a shrewd glance. 'Any joy?'
Sharon hesitated. 'It would make a traditional floral design. And very nice, too. But it doesn't spark off any excitement. Perhaps I'm just not in the right mood.'
Now they both studied her, affectionately and with some concern.
Mr. Ben said: 'You're losing weight. Not one of these damn silly slimming fads?'
'We all feel a bit jaded now we've got to the low end of the winter,' commented his wife.
'How awful I must look!' said Sharon. She changed the subject quickly. 'Now the conservatory does excite me! I'd love to play around with the idea.'
Ben pulled a face. 'I warn you I shan't take kindly to grapes, peaches and plant-pots as a carpet design!'
'Oh, but it wouldn't be in the least like that! There would be a formal background suggested by the vine tendrils and that elegant steel mesh, and then the effect of sunlight filtering through so many delicate greens, and the principal interest would be gorgeous blurs of colour, the purple of grapes and passion flowers, the glow of the peaches and the sharp contrast of cherry pie.'
As Ben Hallsworth shook his head, Maud said: 'And why not? Wagner included In the Greenhouse in a glorious set of Lieder. Why not a Greenhouse carpet, too?'
Sharon laughed. 'I'm afraid music and carpets have different conventions!'
'T
alking of music, how is your friend Adam? It has always seemed to me a burning injustice that he wasn't allowed to take up that music scholarship. Did you know I went to see his uncle at the time? But, as Ben would put it, I had no joy. He said some very rude things about my interference. Mr. Longford and the canon had a go at him, too, but we may even have made things worse for the boy. Toiling away at that awful smelly wire works!'
'I thought he ran the office,' said Ben.
'Oh, in a small place like that the staff have to turn their hands to everything!'
It was true. Sharon thought of Adam's hands, which meant so much to him in his music. She had seen him with a crushed nail and nasty jagged cuts. If you were clumsy - and Adam was - you could have serious accidents with a coil of rusty wire.
'One would have thought,' said Maud, 'that you could coax Uncle Ezra to give the boy more liberty!'
Sharon stared hard at the upside-down sketch. 'I'm afraid we don't get on very well.'
'That's unfortunate, seeing that you two…' She received a warning look from her husband and stopped abruptly.
'Family obligations have to come first,' said Sharon.
Maud replied with vigour: 'Up to a certain point, yes! But I hope Adam will stand on his rights. And you mustn't feel tied for ever to that scamp of a brother.'
'What news of him?' Ben asked.
'I had a parcel from him at Christmas - an African carving, rather lovely: an oryx with delicate long horns. And a card, of course, but no news.' She added impulsively: 'After all your kindness, I hope he'll make a real go of it out there.'
Ben Hallsworth smiled broadly. 'You don't imagine we did it for Tony's sake?'
'You did it because a generous act is as natural to you both as self-seeking is to others!'
'Now you make me feel guilty,' said Maud. 'We had such an appreciative letter from Neil Haslam's parents after their visit. They said they felt he was among good friends and thanked us for looking after him. The truth is, we never see him socially. He refuses all my invitations on some excuse or other.'
'They're not excuses,' blurted Sharon. 'If you knew the hours he puts in at the Institute!'
'And to some purpose,' said Ben. 'I found him off- putting at first, but the fellow grows on one. His total integrity. In his dogged way, he moves mountains. He shamed Sutcliffe's and a couple of other firms into replacing some of the museum pieces by up-to-date stuff, and well they might, seeing how their own trainees will benefit. There's a better response on day release - he prodded my conscience over that! The end result is that engineering and textiles are doing extremely well and I believe the new hairdressing course is going like all get out, since there was a salon of sorts fitted up for the girls.' He cocked an eye at Maud. 'In the basement. From scratch. Lord knows where he picked up the equipment. He made no application to the governors.'
Sharon said passionately, startling them both: 'What would be the use? Mr. Cragill and the chairman block everything.'
Ben looked uncomfortable. 'I must concede that in spite of Doubting Thomas Cragill's forecast, the evening classes are thriving. I gather it's the with-it thing to join Miss Frith's Club Fran$ais. Smart's students are working on actual commissions. It gives them an incentive and cuts the running costs of the class remarkably. Do you know, I believe this is the first time our evening classes haven't fallen off disastrously after the Christmas break?'
Oh, what a singing pride and pleasure ran through Sharon's being to hear such praise! Neil had won every inch of ground by hard fight and she gloried in it.
Maud said: 'And a hotel room at the end of his day!'
Ben stood up, his eye on the clock. He drank off his tea. 'Nothing came of the Clough Head idea? A pity. He could have had the place at a bargain price and knocking it into shape would be a splendid leisure interest.'
But what heart was there in such a project? thought Sharon on the way home. The encounter with Jennifer Hyde had thrown his world once again into upheaval. Had they any plans for the future, any hope? Had Marty made Jennifer climb the tower that morning before they left or had photography kept him too busy? What a heavy heart she must have carried with her to Scotland. Sharon pitied her deeply, but what she had done to Neil was unforgivable.
And am I guiltless? thought Sharon. I'm not free to love him, yet I do, I do. What is to become of me now? What use is there in anything?
Today her work had won acclaim from Frank Roberts, whose artistic judgment she valued highly, and from the shrewd businessmen who dealt in facts and figures. But even over this little triumph there was a shadow. Her working sketch was still missing. She felt almost certain that Luc Priolly had slipped it into his luggage as a souvenir, but it might well fall into other hands and she hated to think what would happen if a replica of her Stroll in the Park appeared with a French label.
When she learnt that Monsieur Priolly, precariously over his crise de foie but wishing to keep Luc nearer home, had placed him with a carpet firm at Lyons, she wrote a short, friendly note asking him please to return her little park, as it was a working sketch and the property of Hallsworth's. She asked Hazel to enclose it with her next letter. Luc's reply contained a separate sheet over which Hazel puzzled for a long time before showing it to Sharon.
The sheet was headed: Au narcisse de Saron. For the rose of Sharon. With unsuspected talent, Luc had drawn a picture of himself lying in the park bandstand with his heart stuck full of arrows, and underneath he had written the reproachful message: Je n'y suis pour rien.
'He says he had nothing to do with it,' translated Sharon, embarrassed and not altogether convinced.
Hazel's tears brimmed over. 'Now he'll never come back!'
'How are the singing lessons going?' asked Sharon hastily.
Mr. Longford had been persuaded to take her in hand, and with this new interest her French correspondence languished. She sang at home, on her way to work, and all day long in the copyists' room, making Bernard threaten dourly to 'have her muzzled'. But this proved unnecessary. A slight cold led to laryngitis and poor Hazel lost her voice altogether. When she did recover it, she spoke only in a whisper and confined singing practice to the half-hour night and morning which Mr. Longford had laid down. Her laugh was the murmur of a soft breeze. 'An excellent thing in woman,' said Sharon to Adam.
'The poor girl has been through a rough time,' said Adam. 'But how grateful we are to Mr. Longford!' said Sharon. And they left it at that.
At least, Adam pointed out with satisfaction, she was 'getting over that silly affair.' How could he be so sure? How could you ever know what went on in the secret heart? She herself, for instance, never spoke of Neil Haslam. Their meetings were rare indeed. Yet he was constantly in her thoughts.
All her news of him seemed to come at second-hand, these days, through Betty in the office. With exams looming, said Betty, the man must be seeing Forms T(X)45 in his sleep. 'I'd like to make a bonfire of the lot, honest I would. As for those beastly oral tests…' Formal examinations in language subjects had been scrapped. As an experiment there were to be tape-recorded oral tests instead. But poor Miss Frith hadn't mastered the machine they used for class practice and Percy was always being called in to put it right. 'It's old and crummy, but they cut the new one out of our estimates. Oral tests my foot. Mostly they sound like the Chipmunks! What do you think of that?'
Sharon kept her thoughts to herself, but she had faith in Neil. He would win through in spite of obstacles, in spite of indifference, and fierce pride surged through her when she thought what he had achieved. That hair- dressing salon in the basement, Mr. Smart's students taking on paid commissions. Oh, a hundred bold improvisations! In the end, the governors were bound to be won over.
Then the blow fell. With several weeks of term still to run, she found a notice in her register one evening: a directive from County Hall which had been passed on without comment under the Roxley heading. All leisure classes were to close at once. The Institute would shut down for Easter two weeks earlier than se
t out in the syllabus 'on grounds of economy' and the usual summer courses were discontinued. She sat staring at the slip of paper. How could they do this to Neil? Right, so they would save running costs and salaries, as evening staff was paid at a rate per session; but it made havoc of the courses. A thin deal for everyone. Most of all for Neil, whose plans were forward-looking, practical. But he had refused to withdraw his report and this had united the governors against him. She remembered Mr. Ben's wry comment on the hairdressing course: 'From scratch. Without even asking us for a grant!'
And now County Hall was gunning for him, too.
She marked the register, then read the notice aloud and heard the shocked murmur that went round. Raising her voice a little, forcing a smile, she said: 'As this is our last class we mustn't waste a minute of it. We can't possibly finish the new design tonight, but I'll come round to each of you and suggest how you can go on with it at home.'
Half way through the evening a young girl whom she seemed to recognize as one of Miss Gorple's Commercial students scurried in, handed her a folded slip of paper and scurried out again. Another notice to read out to the class. 'All staff and students are invited to attend a meeting in Room 28 (S.W.) at nine o'clock.' Ten minutes before the time, the class was in such a ferment it was impossible to go on with any work. Outside they could hear feet hurrying, a babel of voices raised in argument, everyone making for the main building. Her students joined the crowd. When she slid her register into the rack, she found the office staff of two in a dither. Percy looked harassed to death, Betty pop-eyed with excitement.
Margaret Baumann - Design for Loving (1970) Page 12