‘Cold, Mrs Woodville?’ She felt his hand on her back, and even such an impersonal gesture disturbed her.
Bart Sadler made her uneasy. He was a brooding, thoughtful man, and she had seldom seen him smile. He was tall and lean, with the hands of a man who laboured. Yet it was obvious that, if not a scholar or thinker, he was intelligent. She remembered what Sarah Jane had said about him; that even his family didn’t know him. She wondered if he had ever married, and if not, why not.
‘There,’ Bart said, pausing at last in front of a monolithic piece of stone which lay on its side as though it had been there since some prehistoric upheaval of the earth.
‘That?’ she enquired, pointing.
‘Oh, it doesn’t look much now.’ Bart sat on the stone and ran his hands sensitively over it. His gesture had all the intimacy of a lover. ‘But wait until I’ve hewed it and honed it. Have you any ideas for the design?’
‘The design?’ Sophie perched uneasily on the stone, taking care not to sit too close to him. Her sense of unease continued, and in many ways she wished she hadn’t accepted his invitation. But she had been thinking of George; she was sure she was thinking of George.
‘Did you have a cross in mind, Mrs Woodville, or something more subtle?’
‘Subtle, how?’ She knew she was talking in monosyllables and felt foolish.
‘Maybe I could do a few designs.’ His voice began to show a trace of impatience. ‘I should like to know the wording, too.’
‘I feel I’ve wasted your time, Mr Sadler,’ she said, getting up from the stone.
‘Not at all, Mrs Woodville.’ He stood up also beside her, and looked down. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘I can tell it from your voice.’
‘You mean, you don’t really want a stone?’ He put his hands on his hips, and now his face showed a sense of impatience too.
‘I don’t know what I want,’ she said with a feeling of despair. ‘Yes, yes, of course I want a stone. It is better than no memorial at all.’
‘You really want a window, don’t you?’ he asked, his voice sounding more gentle.
‘My husband wanted a window.’ She felt close to tears. ‘It was his dying wish.’
‘Then you shall have a window, Mrs Woodville,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘You shall have a window and a fine stone memorial. I shall see to both myself.’
‘But, Mr Sadler ... I cannot accept all that. Not possibly.’
‘Why not?’ He busied himself about the stone with a measure, and then smiled up at her. ‘I am a man of substance, you know. I have no family and no one to spend it on. I would regard it as a civic duty, as well as a Christian one, to spend the money on a tribute to George Woodville who, as far as I can tell, was worth two of his father.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Sophie, crestfallen, stared at the ground.
‘What sort of man lets his affairs get into such disarray that he has to sell his family house?’
‘Sir Guy has never been good at business. Never pretended to be.’
‘Good at nothing, from what I hear. Led his wife a dance when he was young. Spent all her money and then was unfaithful to her ...’
‘Oh, I’m sure not ...’ Sophie started up.
‘I’m sure yes, Mrs Woodville,’ Bart said firmly. ‘Though I will not sully your ladylike ears with the stories I’ve heard. His son Carson is no better. Now ...’ he put a foot on the stone and leaned one arm on it ‘... why does one turn out so good and the other so bad? Can you tell me?’
‘Oh, George was heroic.’ Sophie clasped her hands together, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He was so good, I can’t tell you; so responsible. He was like an angel, and so God took him. He never spared himself.’ She gazed up at Sadler. ‘You know what they say, Mr Sadler? Only the good die young.’
‘Beats me.’ Bart scratched his head. ‘But then I’m not religious, Mrs Woodville. I don’t want you to think I am. I never go to church. I don’t really think I believe in God.’
For a long time there was silence between them, broken only by the gentle, far-off sound of the sea.
‘Sometimes I wonder if I do,’ she burst out.
‘You, Mrs Woodville? A missionary?’ Bart made no attempt to hide his incredulity.
‘That is how it seems to be sometimes.’ She had a sense of relief that now she was telling him all this. ‘I wanted so much to return to New Guinea, but the mission society which sent me would not have me. That was a sore test of my faith in God. I wished then I’d never come back. And why did I come back?’ She looked up at him but he knew she didn’t want an answer. ‘Why, to carry out George’s wishes. I imagined I would be received, welcomed by his family, but I was not. I imagined they would want news of him, how he died, his last words; but they did not. I imagined they would welcome a memorial to their eldest son, but they rejected the idea as too painful. I had to wait until George’s mother died before I could set foot in the house ... and now I am to be turfed out of it again.
‘I tell you, I have had nothing but heartache since my return, Mr Sadler, and I wonder after all if there is a God to comfort us?’
And anxiously she peered at the sky as if seeking an answer. ‘As for your offer, Mr Sadler,’ she went on hastily, ‘I could not possibly accept it. Not possibly. Eliza and Julius Heering offered a stained-glass window in the old chapel in their grounds, but I turned it down. It used to be a cowshed!’ Her voice rose with indignation. ‘But now that Lady Woodville is no more and Sir Guy may go and live abroad, perhaps Mrs Heering and her husband, who I know is very wealthy, will subscribe to a window in the church. I could not possibly accept a window from you. But your very kind offer of a stone,’ – she gave him a sudden, brilliant smile that transformed her features from being merely handsome into a kind of beauty – ‘may well be acceptable. Indeed, it would be churlish to turn it down.’
‘That’s settled, then.’ Bart leaned down and gave her his hand. ‘I have a business project with Laurence Yetman and I’ll discuss it with him this very evening. There now, let me drive you back. Maybe we could pause at an inn for a bite of lunch on the way?’
‘Business with Laurence Yetman?’ she enquired. ‘May one ask its nature?’
‘A client of mine wants to build a factory this side of Dorchester.’
‘What kind of factory? I hope I’m not being too curious.’
‘Not at all. It’s to do with farm machinery. He has great plans.’
‘How very exciting.’ With her hand in his, Sophie daintily picked her way across the yard again, watched with interest now by one or two of Bart’s workmen who were eating their lunch.
‘It will make Laurence a fortune. I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t offer for Pelham’s Oak himself. Now that would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it? Keep it in the family?’
‘Are you serious?’ Sophie paused to get her breath.
‘Why not? He is half Woodville. If I had a family I would think of it myself, but I haven’t.’ He paused and solemnly shook his head. ‘But it’s no place for a bachelor now, is it, Mrs Woodville? No place at all.’
When Sophie got back from her trip to the stone-mason’s yard, she was in a state of such high excitement that it alarmed her.
Unused to trips away from Wenham, taking lunch at an inn with a man she hardly knew, she put it down to her little adventure. But as she skipped up the stairs to her room and took off her hat and coat, she was humming a tune under her breath.
‘You seem very happy today, ma’am,’ her maid observed as she took the discarded coat and hung it carefully on a hanger.
‘Why not, Ivy?’ Sophie gazed out of the window to see if she could see the back of Bart Sadler’s coach, but it was obscured by a drizzling rain which had started on their way home.
‘Certainly ‘t’in’t the weather, mum,’ Ivy said morosely. ‘Also, all the staff have been put on notice.’
‘Notice?’
‘Apparently Sir Guy is to sell the house.’
&
nbsp; ‘Has he found a buyer?’
‘Oh, so you knew, madam?’ Ivy’s voice was reproachful.
‘I have heard talk, Ivy. It has been going on for months.’
Sophie was now aware that her spurious happiness had completely evaporated. ‘But I didn’t think anything was decided.’
‘What will you do, ma’am?’
‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth.’ Sophie abruptly sat down. ‘I may go back to the little cottage if it is still free, or I may seek another missionary society and try and persuade them to let me go overseas now that my children are nearly of school age and can be sent away.’
‘Oh, Mrs Woodville, I am so sorry.’ Impressionable Ivy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘’Tis terrible, ma’am. Woodvilles have been here for hundreds of years.’
‘Never mind, Ivy,’ Sophie said with forced cheerfulness. ‘I have heard a rumour that it is possible someone connected with the Woodville family may buy it. There, what do you think of that? And if he does, he may well provide a home for us all.’
Sophie thought that when the sun came out, the world suddenly seemed a better place. It was awful to be so physically affected by the weather. Compared to her gloom a few days previously, when she had learned that Guy really planned to sell the house, today, as she trotted along the road that lay between Pelham’s Oak and Wenham in her little pony and cart, she felt completely different. For half the way it was possible to keep the great house in view. One passed it on a circular bend, and it slowly revealed itself – from the great stone portico to the oak that, tilting a little more each year like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, lay on the lawn to the east. How beautiful the ancestral Woodville home looked now in the summer sunshine, its windows twinkling like so many diamonds, the tall trees throwing their shadows on the white Chilmark stone of the walls.
And for how much longer would she call it home? But even that didn’t seem to matter today, and she kept her head and her spirits high as she crossed the bridge and, halfway up the street, turned into the drive of Riversmead. Jo Yewell immediately came out to take her horse.
‘Not at work today, Jo?’ she asked, alighting from the trap.
‘I finished with the butcher, Mrs Woodville,’ Jo said, taking the reins.
‘Oh, really? Didn’t you like it?’
‘I liked it well enough, but Mr Yetman has plans for me, Mrs Woodville. Now that Father is getting on, he said that he’d like me to take his place.’
At that moment Sarah Jane emerged from the house with her youngest child, Felicity, hanging on to her hand. She wore an apron and her hands were white, as though she had been baking in the kitchen. She greeted Sophie with obvious affection, and Sophie returned her kiss and then embraced Felicity.
‘You’ve come to see Laurence?’ Sarah Jane asked. ‘He said something about the window.’
‘That’s what he told me in his note. I think your brother is organising something. It’s very good of him.’
‘I told you he was good,’ Sarah Jane said. ‘He seems distressed that after all these years there is no memorial to George.’
‘He took me round his yard,’ Sophie knew she was anxious to discuss Sarah Jane’s brother. ‘I understand what you meant about your family’s feeling towards him. He is kind, but detached. And he does make me a little nervous.’
‘I think he likes you.’ Sarah Jane led her into the house.
‘Oh?’ Sophie flushed with pleasure. ‘Why is it he’s never married?’
‘He said he never found the right person.’ Sarah Jane stopped abruptly and, her face suddenly serious, looked at Sophie. ‘Take care, Sophie, that he doesn’t hurt you. He can be quite ... cruel to ladies.’
‘Oh dear!’ Sophie laughed nervously. ‘Like that, is he? I can assure you, Sarah Jane, I am not in the least interested in your brother. He is certainly not my type and I don’t think I am his. For one thing, he isn’t a Christian.’ And suddenly she remembered her own confession to him and regretted it. How foolishly one could talk at times.
‘He said you were thinking still of trying to return to the missions.'
‘It’s what I really want to do.’ Sophie removed her hat and gloves and sat down. ‘I feel it must be now or never.’
‘And the children?’
‘Deborah, at least, will stay here at boarding-school. I shall also try and find a place for Ruth. I’m hoping that you will be very kind and keep an eye on them.’
‘Of course we will.’ Sarah Jane scooped Felicity into her arms. ‘And in the holidays they will come and stay with us; but Sophie ...’ She paused awkwardly.
‘Yes?’
‘Is it wise ... after what happened to George? Is it wise or kind to run the risk of leaving the children, perhaps forever?’
‘There is no risk to me,’ Sophie said confidently. ‘I shall not go into the interior, I assure you, but shall remain at base, teaching the natives as I did before. If I take my quinine tablets regularly I need never have malaria.’
‘Did George not take his regularly?’
‘George didn’t have malaria. He had some kind of fever he had caught in the jungle. It did not seem to me like malaria at all, but jungle fever.’ Sophie paused and then gave a deep sigh. ‘I feel that I can only be true to the memory of George if I return to the missions.’
‘Well, if it is what you must do, you must do it.’ Sarah Jane was a practical, sensible woman and Sophie was grateful for her support and understanding. ‘You can rely on us ...’
With Felicity in her arms Sarah Jane went to the window and called out, ‘Laurence. Sophie is here.’ And there was an answering call back.
‘He’s doing something to one of the stables,’ she said. ‘He can’t sit still. Always buzzing around, full of ideas.’
A few minutes later Laurence entered the room, wiping his hands on a cloth.
‘Sophie, it is very good to see you,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘We don’t see enough of you.’
‘And will see even less.’ Sarah Jane leaned forward as Felicity struggled to free herself, to get into the arms of her father. ‘Sophie wants to return to New Guinea.’
Laurence looked puzzled. ‘But I thought they had turned you down?’
‘That was with the children. Now they are a little older I thought I could send them to boarding-school. I’m not sure about Ruth. She may be too young. Also, you see ... there’s the question of Pelham’s Oak. With Sir Guy gone ...’
‘Quite.’ Laurence nodded his head and frowned.
‘There’s a rumour you might buy it.’
‘Nothing’s settled.’ Laurence looked embarrassed. ‘It’s really Mother who is so keen on it. I’m not keen at all. I love this house. I was born here. Mother was born at Pelham’s Oak.’
‘Then why does she not buy it with Julius?’
‘That is exactly what I say,’ Sarah Jane nodded vigorously. ‘I am perfectly happy here in the house where Laurence was born. The only thing is, it is a little small for us.’
Laurence looked pained. ‘I am always enlarging and adding, until in the end the buildings will reach down to the river. But there’s also the question of affording it.’
‘I hope I’m not speaking out of turn ...’ Sophie looked from one to the other ‘... but Bart Sadler was telling me about a contract ...’
‘Oh, of course, you’ve been talking to him! Yes, he has introduced me to a client who may prove to be one of the biggest I have ever had. He wants to build a big factory near Dorchester, and then another and another. I shall have to take on more men.'
‘And a big house? I don’t think it’s wise.’
Sarah Jane shook her head. ‘I agree. I don’t think we should be pressured by Eliza or anyone.’
‘Nothing is settled.’ Laurence kissed his daughter’s hand.
‘Everyone keeps on saying that,’ Sophie said fretfully. ‘I wish something were settled and then I would know where I was.’
‘You need have nothing to fear, Sophie,’ Laurence said at
once. ‘If we ever contemplate buying Pelham’s Oak there will be plenty of room for you. Frankly, however, it would not be wise to bank on us. I don’t want to expand my business and move at the same time. It is most unlikely ...’
‘It’s kind of you to be so frank. I shouldn’t rely on you at all; but all the uncertainty – which has dragged on for nearly six months now – has increased my restlessness. I think I shall definitely try and return to New Guinea. I like to be useful and I was glad to look after my father-in-law, but if he goes as planned to live in Baden-Baden he will have no need of me. Besides, I don’t intend for one minute to settle in a German spa!’
Laurence seemed anxious to change the subject. ‘Now, I know you’re here to talk about the window. Bart discussed it with us the other night and we think the best thing is to open a subscription. The family will, of course, contribute, and then all George’s friends, some from school and some from Cambridge, will be sure to want to. Hubert Turner has already offered a hundred pounds.’
‘Oh, how generous!’ Sophie felt even more embarrassed. ‘Everyone is being so kind. You know,’ she said, suddenly looking around, ‘if I do go, I shall miss you all. I was beginning to feel settled again in Wenham.’
Sophie stayed for tea with the Yetmans and the children. She enjoyed their company, relaxed and at ease in their obviously happy family life, she was reminded of the days when she and George and the children shared such contentment. It was hard to be thrown on one’s own. She also had now to break the news to her own children about their possible fate, a task she dreaded.
The Rector's Daughter (Part Two of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 27