She shrank from this confrontation, but Neil had been implacable. Now she said nervously: 'I remember it, too. You asked me if I would look at Mrs. Cragill's competition design and I said it would be cheating if I gave her any advice.'
'But you proceeded to do that very thing,' purred Mr. Cragill. You have an excellent memory and I can't think it has escaped you that you came to see us one Saturday, sat in that very chair, and suggested that my wife should base her design on a garden.'
'On your garden,' Sharon said swiftly.
'Why, yes, my memory is clear on that point, too.' Mr. Cragill chuckled. 'Now I come to think of it, Haslam, you called to run me to County Hall that morning and met Sharon just leaving.'
Mrs. Cragill, who had remained silent till now, blurted: You suggested vegetables. Silver beet and cucumbers!'
'Carrots,' said Sharon, 'because of the lovely ferny leaves.'
'You didn't consider it unethical to offer such detailed advice?' said Mr. Cragill. 'Fortunately we took it as a joke and made no use of the idea.'
'Why should you when you already had the complete design?' said Neil, his voice quiet and hard. 'It simply needed tracing on the embroidery canvas. I refer to the sketch which was rather carelessly left lying around in the path lab up at the Institute. Or Raikes may have shoved it in a waste paper container. You may have thought it had no value to Miss Birch, but it was unethical - to use your own word - to enter it for this damned competition.'
'I resent that, Haslam.' Mr. Cragill was beginning to look flushed. 'Rightly or wrongly, Sharon helped my wife with her design. Don't you think we should leave the matter there?'
'How can we?' Sharon suddenly blazed at him. 'It's a copyrighted design, the property of Hallsworth's and anyone who has visited the Design Centre in London recently or looked through our new pattern book will recognize it, just as Mrs. Collins did.'
She had dropped a bombshell. Myrtle Cragill went a ghastly colour and gave a little moaning sound. Her husband seemed to swell up. He looked very nasty indeed. Sharon had thoughts of an overripe cheese.
'We have been grossly deceived.'
Losing all patience, Neil exclaimed: 'Oh, come off it, man! You don't seriously suggest that your wife and Sharon Birch made an arrangement? To share the prize money perhaps?'
'You know perfectly well these things are never put in writing. They are not even put into words. Let us call it a friendly understanding in the - um - the service of art.'
'And a friendly share-out afterwards? That's a damned lie!'
'Take care, sir,' said Mr. Cragill balefully. 'You'll be sorry you interfered in this business. You're a stranger to Roxley or you would know, as we all do, that Sharon is kept short of money by that no-good brother of hers. And that Ezra Kershaw is an unconscionable time a - dying. We sympathize - knowing her circumstances. It is painful to see her, like Amelia Frith, having to take paying guests. I can only presume Hallsworth's decided to use a design they had rejected. Sharon should have come to us privately and explained her dilemma. We should have returned the cheque at once explaining to the organizers of the contest that there had been a little misunderstanding over the rules.' (Like the little misunderstanding over twelve green beans on a plate, thought Sharon, with a twinge of unholy pleasure.) 'And we should have asked them to send back the work.'
'They're to go on exhibition,' bleated Myrtle longingly. She clasped her hands and all the beads and bracelets tinkled an echo of her distress.
'As it is…' continued her husband.
'As it is, you will do exactly that.' Neil stood up. Sharon had never seen him look so angry. Before anything more could be said, he had taken her by the arm and whisked her out of the house. 'A friendly understanding!' he said savagely, and shut the car-door hard.
Close to tears, Sharon said: 'I'm glad they didn't offer us coffee. I really believe he'd have poisoned it!' And then, as they drove down the quiet lanes with dusk stealing down from the fells, to her shame the tears gushed forth. She bent her head into her hands. 'It's all so sordid. It has made me hate my lovely carpet. And to think I shall have to see it on people's floors for the rest of my life!'
'You precious idiot!' His voice held the rough, impatient tenderness which had so nearly been her undoing that night in his office when she had caught him at a very low moment. It made her heart lurch with longing. She feared his power to move her and had to keep reminding herself that all he really felt for her was compassion - and perhaps just a little respect for her talent. He valued her as a member of his staff and as a good friend to Jennifer, the woman he loved and had always loved.
She dried her eyes, sat up very straight and tried not to be so aware of his nearness.
'Samuel Cragill is a vindictive man and I'm afraid he'll make more trouble for you.'
'Ah, remember I have something on him now!' Neil said grimly. 'Do you know how narrowly he escaped being punched on the jaw tonight? Those filthy things he said about your circumstances - your brother and all the rest of it. And that sneer about paying guests. After your wonderful kindness to Jennifer!'
Sharon was perilously near to blurting out that she had welcomed Jennifer for his sake, though every day she liked the girl more. A hint of the truth and his precious visits to the cottage would cease. She must guard her tongue, guard her heart. She needed to set up a strong barrier against him. Adam?
A week or so later, Adam came to her door early one evening. He looked more untidy than ever and tired beyond belief. But through the weariness there shone out something new and resolute, as if he had grown in stature overnight. Surely he was no longer a 'cog', even in his uncle's estimation!
She asked him indoors, but he shook his head.
'I've things to see to.' He drew a hard breath. 'Sharon, my Uncle Ezra died suddenly this afternoon.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ezra Kershaw gone! Sharon found it hard to believe. It was as if one of the steep, lowering fells that hemmed in their valley had suddenly been erased from the landscape. Adam still seemed dazed by what had happened.
'He didn't go to work this afternoon. He said he wasn't feeling too good, which had me a bit worried. In fact, he'd asked the solicitor to call round, and a representative - a director - of the firm who want to take over our works. The housekeeper was present; he'd told her she would be needed to witness some papers.'
Sharon exclaimed: 'He'd made up his mind to sell!'
'Ah, but there was to be no cash transaction. So that when he died I'd inherit a share in the combined firm with a stipulation that I couldn't sell out my interest until a certain length of time had elapsed. Years and years, I bet! That was to make sure I couldn't get my hands on any large sum "to play fast and loose with". He wanted to die knowing my nose was stuck fast to the grindstone!'
'But it's monstrous!'
'That's what these chaps thought. They raised difficulties and the argument got very heated. Uncle Ezra suddenly stood up, the housekeeper says, and pushed back the wheelchair, shouting to them to get out of his house because they were rogues and swindlers. A staring look came into his eyes. He fell down. He was dead.'
Adam rubbed a hand over his eyes as if to clear away the vision that rose up before him. Sharon insisted that he must come in. 'I'll get you a drink and we'll sit quietly for a few minutes.'
'No. Really. If you knew the arrangements that have to be made.'
'Adam, I do know.'
Her mother's death, though not unexpected to Sharon, had been sudden when it came. Mrs. Birch had refused to see a doctor for a long time past and that meant there had to be a post-mortem. The Hallsworths were kind, but again and again she had wished for Tony to be there to cope with the official things and share her grief. He had been far away in East Africa. She thought of it sometimes when her glance fell on the laughing picture of him with the cheetahs. He had taken it himself and was proud of it. The self-timer, he said, was a mighty useful gadget. He needed so many useful gadgets! Now he had started making movie films of wild
life and the expense was fantastic, even at cost price. He was always hard up, in spite of his good job; and Sharon had the certain knowledge that it was just a matter of time before he 'felt like a change'. No job could last for ever with Tony. And then…?
She said earnestly: 'Your housekeeper is very capable, I know, but if there's anything at all I can do…'
You can wear my ring,' said Adam. He seized her hand. 'Darling Sharon, do you realize what this means to us? My uncle died before the business was actually agreed and signed. Everything is mine. I shall carry on at the works as usual for a while and I've told the housekeeper she has no need to start looking for another post yet. Eventually the merger or takeover, or whatever they want to call it, will go through and I shall be free. At last, at last! And the whole world in front of us!'
He dragged a crumpled paper from his pocket and frowned at it. It was his list of jobs to be ticked off. 'The next thing is to see Canon Wismer about the service.' He rushed away, not even saying good-bye.
The death of Ezra Kershaw at this particular moment of time gave Sharon the feeling Providence was taking a hand in her affairs.
Adam's freedom, which had seemed a remote contingency, a dream sequence which had passed before the dazzled eyes of both of them from childhood onwards, was now - or very shortly would be - a reality. She knew Roxley buzzed with speculation. But she was content, like Adam, to leave things as they were for the time being. For now that it came to the point, a merger between two lives bristled with more problems than a takeover at the wire works! Reason said 'Yea', her heart said 'Nay'; and in between lay a turmoil of doubts and loyalties and secret longings.
Jennifer, too, had some difficult decisions to make. It seemed that the affairs of a business efficiency expert were very, very complicated, and there was many an exchange of letters between Toronto and Roxley, Roxley and Newcastle and London, before a glimmer of order appeared.
Meanwhile she had regular air letters from Aunt Ada. The first of them asked her to thank her friend Sharon for the photograph of the grave 'with all the tributes to my dear boy.' The letters that followed gave homely details to keep Jennifer in mind of the pleasant house twenty miles distant from the great city, where she and Marty had lived with Aunt Ada. Five pheasants crowing on the lawn in the early morning, what do you think about that? And a red pileated woodpecker coming to the bird-tray. Gerry, the handyman, had put in the mesh frames on doors and windows as the hot weather began. 'He insists I buy a new sprinkler for the lawn and he's working on me for a motor mower. Would you believe it, Jenny, for that pocket handkerchief of lawn? He's bone lazy and I'm growing old.'
Jennifer shared all these letters with Sharon and they rejoiced together when the legal matters were settled and could be forgotten. A large sum now stood to Jennifer's credit at the bank. There were sound investments which would continue to attract a high interest rate, and she would receive a handsome pension payable anywhere in the world where she cared to live, just as long as she didn't earn or remarry.
'I don't enjoy being a rich man's widow,' she told Sharon in a rare moment of confession. 'The idea fills me with horror. Marty's money didn't interest me and I'm too young to sit around and do nothing, anyway. At present I have to hide away because the sight of me must turn people over.'
'No,' said Sharon emphatically. 'I've seen the disfigurement grow less in these few weeks. Soon there'll only be a few scars.' And what do a few scars matter to the man who loves you?
She was due to go into hospital again for a fortnight, and meanwhile she was beginning to get around and about in Neil's car. He had taken her to have a look at the old manor house which had so caught his fancy; and he had shown her the Institute.
'I'd like to go back to teaching,' she told Sharon. 'And let them keep their old pension! Anyway, I could afford to teach for nothing and I thought Neil might let me loose on his science students, just to get my hand in again. But when I saw his set-up…!' She threw out her hands expressively. 'Half the Institute appears to be shut. The place is moribund. Look, Sharon, there's something about this valley that I love dearly, but it's monstrous to see Neil's first-class brain and brilliant organizing ability thrown away.'
'Oh, but he isn't thrown away!' cried Sharon with passion. 'I know the early months have been tough.
There are a few old stick-in-the-muds on the board of governors and County Hall is cagey about future plans, but he could build up something rather splendid here if only they'd give him a free hand. In the end, he'll wear them down and they'll go his way, you just see if they don't.' She paused for breath. 'Nothing much happens in the summer, anyway. But I do know for a fact that John Ludlam - he's a farmer and a big noise in these parts - has approached him about putting a room at the disposal of the Farmers' Union for a discussion group on paper problems: form-filling, income tax and subsidies, all that sort of headache. Simple accountancy, you might call it. They want Neil to attend the meetings and advise them, and Mr. Ludlam guarantees he can get a strong group going, once the hay is in.'
She didn't mention that this had been her own suggestion when the formal Accountancy class fell through. Or that she had walked miles in recent weeks, putting the idea over to Farmer Ludlam and a few of his friends. She privately called it 'bull-baiting'!
'Also the day release courses are going like a house afire with the new equipment. Not from the authority, mark you, but donated by Roxley firms. It's a self-help effort. They're all backing Neil.'
Studying her kindled face, Jennifer said: 'And Sharon Birch is the cheer-leader!'
At which Sharon jumped up to make coffee.
Two social events took place before Jennifer went back to hospital. The first was Sharon's little party to celebrate Mrs. Collins' honourable mention in the embroidery contest. They had a sunny day for it, ate homemade scones and strawberries and cream, while Jennifer lay in the sun listening happily to the chatter. There was much talk of laid work, tapestries and quilting, but not a word about Myrtle Cragill and the odd thing she had grafted on to Sharon's briar!
An announcement had been made by the organizers of the contest. A competitor had 'withdrawn her work rather late in the day' and the third prize had therefore been awarded to another entry. Sharon showed Neil the paragraph without comment.
'And that's that,' he said with a rather grim smile.
But was it? Sharon could hardly believe Samuel Cragill would let them off so lightly.
The second event was a concert to be held in the abbey on a Friday evening for the restoration fund. What sort of a concert? Jennifer wanted to know when Adam came with tickets.
'Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,' said Sharon.
In fact, it was to be a little recital by Mr. Longford's pupils, preceded by items from a string quartet and followed by some organ pieces by Adam. Hazel Ormerod was to take part.
'Not a solo,' said Adam, 'though she does Mozart's Violet rather nicely. But she'd have a fit of giggles and wreck the whole show. We think she can be trusted in a duet.'
'Poor Hazel, you're too hard on her!'
'There are times when I could shake her till her teeth rattle,' said Adam, with a lack of gallantry that Sharon said she found deplorable. Adam gave a snort. 'You don't know what she's put us through with this Mendelssohn duet. But if we left her out she'd be miserable. What a girl!'
Sharon passed tactfully to the pieces he himself would be playing.
'Well, you know how hectic things have been.' He pushed a hand through his hair, making it all stand on end. 'No time to work up anything new. So it'll have to be Bach's Fugue in G Minor, which I'm afraid you've heard me play many times before. Then the Chorale Prelude on Ach, bleib bei uns. And I might finish with something light: that little organ piece of Wolstenholme's you used to like so much - Question and Answer.'
It seemed to Sharon that his look was unquiet and anxious. He was beginning to worry about the way time raced by, whole days, whole weeks, with
no private moment to settle all that had to be settled between them. Was there a hint of reproach? Did he see quite clearly that an opportunity could have been made, if she wished it?
The concert was a great success. Hazel's sweet, fluting voice wove its thread in the Mendelssohn duet without any faltering. Mr. Longford would be pleased with her, Sharon thought. But it was at Adam the girl looked so eagerly, for a mark of approval. And Adam was just climbing into the organ loft and never gave her a glance.
So far, Jennifer had shrunk from any public appearance, but Sharon could see she was dying to hear the concert and suggested they could easily find an inconspicuous corner at the back of the church.
Jennifer shook her head. 'I'm a freak. I wouldn't want Neil to feel…' Then, tortured: 'You don't know how I wish all this undone!'
But I do, I do, thought Sharon, remembering how she had seen them in one another's arms that night at the Raven. She said fiercely: 'He'll be happy and proud.'
They had Uncle Ezra's wheelchair at the abbey gate and Jennifer was lifted straight into it from Neil's car. Afterwards they waited till everyone had left before wheeling her out. She made Neil pause at Marty's grave and gazed for a long moment at the abbey, glowing rose- red in the serene evening light and the trees beyond in their radiant June leafiness.
'Elms, yews. But no maples. And not a single birch in sight!' Her eyes came to Sharon and she smiled. 'No, I'm wrong. If we're thinking in trees, you are just like a birch, isn't she, Neil?'
'That's right. Sweet as the rose of Sharon, white and slender as the silver birch,' said Neil lightly.
Margaret Baumann - Design for Loving (1970) Page 15