‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he began, ‘terribly, terribly sorry. I ...’
The stinging blow he received on his face was given with the kind of force he hadn’t imagined a woman capable of. He reeled backwards and clutched at the garden rail for support.
His hands went protectively, but too late, to his face, and he could feel blood trickling out of his nose.
‘And that’s what I think of you, Mr Woodville,’ Miss Fairchild’s voice rang with scorn. ‘Take care you never darken my door again, and if I ever see you anywhere else in this town, God knows what else I shall do to you.’
She then turned her back on him and marched along the path to the steps, mounting them without hurrying, and then slamming the front door behind her. Carson, his hands still clutching his face, stood looking after her, feeling the most wretched man in the world. He turned away and walked along the street, skirting the town so that he would not be seen, past the church to his waiting horse.
His own life ruined, it seemed that all he could do was to ruin the lives of others: innocent sufferers who certainly did not deserve it. And from that moment he knew that he would feel himself cursed.
Laurence Yetman, had he been asked, would have called himself a contented man. He was ambitious, but not over-ambitious, and with the help and support of his mother he had restarted the family building business after his father’s death. And in time, like his father, he became a master-thatcher and a master- builder. Yetman Bros (Estab. 1831, re-estab. 1899) in Salisbury Street in Blandford was a business to be proud of, and in a few years he had made it into a success. But he still needed work; bigger and more profitable projects, which was why the prospect of building a factory for Dick Wainwright had proved almost irresistibly attractive.
But before his business and his desire for success Laurence put the love of his family: his mate Sarah Jane, the three beautiful children she had borne him, and the happy home she had made for him at Riversmead, where his parents had also known the same sort of contentment. The freehold had been given to him as an outright gift by his mother when she married Julius Heering. As the eldest son, she felt it was his birthright.
Now, it was the beloved house, the thought of how he had set it at risk, that gnawed frequently at his mind as the days went by. The factory continued to grow and men had to be paid, materials bought and paid for, but there was no sizeable sum coming from Mr Wainwright.
Laurence walked round the floor of the factory near Dorchester which was now nearly two storeys high. It was well designed, and hidden from the road so that it didn’t become a blot on the landscape. Tall trees grew up in front of it, behind was a tributary of the River Piddle and, beyond that, a coppice.
Laurence stood surveying it with Perce Adams, his foreman, the man who had taught him all he knew, his father’s old friend and ally.
‘It’s coming up beautiful,’ Perce said. Then, stroking his jaw, he looked thoughtfully at Laurence. ‘Did you get any word from Mr Wainwright yet?’
‘No.’ Laurence threw him a troubled glance. ‘I’m going to see him on my way home. I keep on thinking of my house, which I’ve put up as security for this loan. If I can’t meet my commitments, I could lose it.’
‘Oh, you’ll not lose your house,’ Perce protested in amazement. ‘A man like you, a solid citizen born in the parish, and also in line to be mayor one day, I hear tell.’
‘Oh, I have this and that to do on the town council,’ Laurence said modestly, ‘but mayor is a long way off, Perce. I have to have grey hairs for that. Besides, I shall be very glad to see this building up and paid for, after which I shall have no more to do with speculative deals. Ever,’ he concluded firmly. ‘You can rely on that, because this has given me too many sleepless nights.’ Then he put a hand on Perce’s shoulder.
‘I’ll be off now, Perce. Once I get that money from Dick Wainwright I’ll feel a completely different man.’
The men shook hands, and Laurence walked off the site to where he had left his horse. He had toyed with the idea of buying a motor-car like his wealthier relations; had even got as far as inspecting one but, with the commitments he had, he felt that he should be in a sounder financial position before splashing out on luxuries.
A countryman, he had grown up in the saddle and felt comfortable in the saddle. Still, a fine car with his wife beside him, his three children in the back, might not come amiss one day as a symbol both of status and prosperity.
Laurence unleashed his horse and waved again to Perce, who was watching him; he circled the building with a feeling of pride, and after exchanging greetings with some of the men who were working on it, he set out on the detour that would take him to Wainwright’s house.
This was just north of Dorchester on the Sherborne road, and Laurence found it quite easily after he had been riding for about twenty minutes.
He sat for some time in his saddle, looking at the house where it lay in a gentle fold of the hills. It was a fine, large Georgian mansion, parts of it dating back to Elizabethan times; it was imposing, and on the grand scale, rather like Pelham’s Oak. It was ridiculous to imagine that a man who could afford to buy and maintain a house like this would not have the money. The very sight of it seemed such a confirmation of strength and security that he decided not to bother Wainwright, who would doubtless be at his lunch with the young wife he had recently married.
A man of substance and fortune, no doubt about that. Sarah Jane always said he worried too much.
With a feeling of relief Laurence turned away from the house towards Wenham, following the bridle-paths familiar to him since childhood, through woods and across rich fields, over hills and by the side of streams he loved. This was his land, his county: Dorset.
Laurence arrived home about an hour later in a good frame of mind. He was surprised to see his mother’s car at the door, and expected it was something to do with what had happened to Connie Yetman. The town had still not recovered from the abrupt cancellation of her marriage, and the younger Yetmans were naturally upset, although they had never been very close to Connie, who had been coddled and protected by Miss Fairchild since she was a little girl.
Yet everyone was indignant about what had happened to her, and Carson’s name was even less respected than before.
Miss Fairchild had immediately taken Connie away on what was supposed to be an extended holiday on the Continent. Eliza, who knew and loved Connie, was very distressed, yet she knew it was quite hopeless to try and talk to Guy, a man in love who was trying to press his fiancée into naming the date for their own marriage.
Laurence dismounted to open the gate. He hoped that nothing else was wrong; but he was in such a mellow frame of mind that he walked his horse up the drive and then stood for a few moments admiring the Heering car and thinking about how it would be when he had one like it.
At that moment he looked up and saw Eliza on the steps, gazing down at him. She had Felicity in her arms and Abel clutching one hand.
‘Hello, Mother!’ he shouted, raising his hat. ‘I was admiring your car.'
Eliza came slowly down the steps.
‘So I see,’ she said, brushing her son’s cheeks with her lips.
‘I’m going to have one like it one day. Maybe soon.’
‘I do hope so.’ There was something in Eliza’s tone that made Laurence look sharply at her.
‘Is there anything wrong, Mother?’ he asked, taking Felicity gently from Eliza’s arms and giving her a kiss.
‘I don’t know exactly if something is wrong. I’ll wait until you see Sarah Jane.’
‘Is she all right?’ Laurence, the worrier, was immediately anxious. ‘Nothing has happened to her or the children? Where’s Martha?’ Martha was usually the first at the door to greet her father, and she was missing.
‘Everyone is fine,’ Eliza said reassuringly. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it. There is nothing wrong with any member of your family, but Sarah Jane has a bit of news that may disturb you, I don’t know. I hope n
ot.’
She gave him a reassuring smile but knew it was hopeless as Laurence, his daughter clutched in his arms, ran up the steps and shouted through the house:
‘Sarah Jane! Where are you?’
After a few moments Sarah Jane came running down the stairs, some laundry in her arms, and stared at him in surprise.
‘What are you shouting for?’
‘Just to say I’m home.’ He put Felicity tenderly down on the floor and then embraced his wife. The smell of her always kindled desire in him, and he thought longingly of the night, when they would be beside each other. Nine years of marriage had done nothing to diminish his ardour.
‘My love,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘how lucky I am to have you. Now Mother worried me a little by saying that you had some disturbing news. What might that be? Let’s get it out of the way and then perhaps we can have some tea, because I’m thirsty.’
Sarah Jane broke away from his embrace and walked along the corridor to the kitchen quarters, first of all throwing the laundry into the laundry-room beside the kitchen.
On the kitchen table a newspaper was spread, and without further explanation Sarah Jane firmly pointed at a particular item.
‘I saw this in today’s paper. I don’t know if it’s significant or not, or even if you knew. I didn’t want to worry you. Your mother’s just like you, always jumping to conclusions.’
Laurence was conscious that Eliza had come into the kitchen and stood in the doorway listening.
‘It may mean nothing,’ she said, uncomfortably aware of Sarah Jane’s implicit reprimand. Her daughter-in-law was always so calm that sometimes she found it irritating. She never anticipated trouble, never let off steam.
Laurence picked up the paper and read aloud the news item his wife indicated:
Pendleton Hall for sale. (The headline ran over half a column of news.)
Pendleton Hall, the handsome Georgian mansion near Dorchester that has been the home of Mr Richard Wainwright for the past year and a half, is unexpectedly for sale through Dutton, Brock of Weymouth.
The sale is the more curious because Mr Wainwright has not only recently married for the second time, but had announced his intention of remaining in the locality and investing heavily in it.
In fact he is in the process of building a factory in the Piddle Valley with Yetman Bros of Blandford, which was to be the first of many enterprises intended to revitalise industry in the West Country.
When our reporter called to interview Mr Wainwright, the house appeared to be deserted. There was no answer after prolonged ringing on the doorbell.
Rumour suggests Mr Wainwright may even have gone abroad.
Laurence read the item through again and then sat down heavily at the table, resting his elbows on it, his head in his hands.
‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I had a premonition. I should never have trusted him.’
‘But just because his house is for sale it doesn’t mean he won’t pay for the factory.’ Eliza tried hard to stifle her own worry and doubts as she sat at the table next to him. ‘Then where is he?’ Laurence looked up at her. Eliza shook her head.
‘The strange thing is,’ Laurence continued, ‘I went to see him today, on my way home from inspecting the factory.’
‘And ...?’ Sarah Jane asked.
‘I didn’t go in. You know you always tell me I worry too much. Everything looked so substantial and so indicative of wealth that I thought it was foolish to doubt he would pay. Reassured, I didn’t even pass through the gates and made my way home in a happy frame of mind. To this.’ He began to read the newspaper again as if committing it to memory.
‘Well, don’t let’s panic,’ Eliza said. ‘For heaven’s sake, there has to be some simple explanation.’
But for once even Sarah Jane didn’t think so.
21
The cottage had no terror for Carson, no memories to make him superstitious.
‘You do know,’ Lally said, looking at him closely, ‘its history. Don’t you, Carson?’
Carson, standing as usual with his hands casually in his pockets, gazed with her at the thatched cottage in the grounds of the estate from which Ryder Yetman had fallen to his death, and nodded.
‘No one has ever lived there,’ Lally went on, ‘but if you would like to, you are welcome to stay for as long as you like.’
Carson reached out and put his arm around her.
‘You’re very good, Aunt Lally.’ Affectionately he dropped a kiss on her head. Maybe, Carson thought, he had always loved Aunt Lally because she was so thoughtful, so sincere and so feminine.
‘I’ve always been very fond of you, Carson,’ she said. ‘A maverick; a bad lad, impetuous, impulsive – as far from your Martyn relations as it is possible to be – and all the better for it, in my opinion.’
‘You don’t mind that then, Aunt Lally?’ Carson gave her a wry smile.
‘No, I don’t. I like it. I can tell you, Carson, when one lives with a man who never acts on impulse and thinks of nothing but facts and figures, it can be irksome.’
‘Does it mean, Aunt Lally,’ Carson’s grip round her shoulders tightened, ‘that you and Uncle Prosper are not getting on?’
‘Not as well as we should; not as well as we did,’ Lally said, turning away, aware of a lump that had suddenly come into her throat. ‘It started with the baby, Alexander. Perhaps it did seem absurd to adopt a foundling dumped on our doorstep. But I felt there was a purpose, that I was guided by someone or something beyond my control. I ...’she turned her lovely, limpid eyes on him ‘... I am not religious, Carson, or not particularly so – of course, I go to church at Christmas and Easter, and some Sundays in between – but I felt very strongly as though there were some power at work persuading me to keep little Alexander. And he has transformed my life, given it such meaning and purpose. However, it caused a rift between me and Prosper, a chasm that has deepened, and he now travels incessantly. You see what I mean by impulse? Prosper would never have done such a thing. Sometimes I wonder if he has a mistress on the Continent; but who am I to complain if he has? Formerly I gave everything to him, now I give it to Alexander.’
‘He’s a nice little fellow,’ Carson said absent-mindedly, his attention focused on the cottage which stood a few hundred yards from the Martyns’ house. It had been intended to house the servants, but none of them would live there because they were afraid it might be haunted by Ryder Yetman’s ghost.
The cottage was much older than the big house, which had been built by Julius Heering as a place in which to entertain his business friends, to impress them by his obvious wealth, the lavishness of his lifestyle. As it turned out, he never lived there. After Ryder’s death he realised that the love he had felt for Eliza for many years had a chance of being realised, and he knew she would never live in a place so near to the scene of her late husband’s death.
‘Could we see inside, Lally?’ Carson said, reaching for her hand. ‘I feel quite excited. It would be my first home, and it is very good of you to offer it to me.’
‘Poor Carson,’ Lally said, taking his hand, ‘you’ve been through a lot. I hope you will be very happy here and find the tranquillity you seek.’
‘I would never find tranquillity at Pelham’s Oak,’ Carson said roughly, ‘with my new stepmother, that’s certain. She is already storming around the place making changes, and that is before they are married.’
They entered the cottage, which had two sizeable downstairs rooms and three upstairs, intended as bedrooms for the staff. A feature that few Dorset cottages possessed was a bathroom and a lavatory with running water, installed to modernise the cottage at the same time as the main house was being rebuilt.
It was sparsely but adequately furnished, and Carson could scarcely get over his delight.
‘It’s truly lovely, Aunt Lally,’ he said, squeezing her hand again. ‘You’re sure Uncle Prosper won’t mind?’
‘He won’t mind, why should he?’ She looked surprised. ‘Beside
s, he and Roger are soon to travel to the Far East.’
‘Roger?’ It was Carson’s turn to be surprised. ‘Without his lovely young wife?’
‘Without Emma,’ Lally nodded. ‘The weather would not suit her. She may come and stay with me for a few days, so you will see her again.’
‘You had better not tell Roger that I shall be making eyes at his wife,’ Carson said impetuously, and then hastily corrected himself. ‘Of course, I don’t mean that, Aunt Lally. I should never dream ... I can tell you that, after my experience with Connie, it will be a long time before I am involved with another woman. Mrs Roger Martyn is perfectly safe with me.'
They strolled out of the cottage, and as they crossed the paved yard to the house Lally slipped her arm once again companionably through Carson’s.
‘You must try and put it all behind you, Carson.’
‘It is very difficult, Aunt Lally.’
Once in the house, they went straight to Lally’s comfortably furnished private sitting-room, its chairs and sofas covered in brightly coloured chintzes.
Carson sank into one of the chairs and, stretching out his feet, stared at them moodily.
‘I am not proud of myself, Aunt Lally, or of the distress I caused to Connie. I should never have allowed myself to be browbeaten by Father into proposing to the poor girl. It was a dreadful thing to do, and we are all to blame: Miss Fairchild, Sophie and Aunt Eliza, as well as Father and me. However ...’ he raised his head and looked at her ‘... I feel better for having undone it; purged, cleansed. I would have been a very unhappy man, and made Connie unhappy too.’
‘She was certainly not suitable for you.’ Lally, tactile like Carson, leaned over to pat his arm. ‘And you did the right thing. One day, hopefully, Mr Right will come along for Connie as, indeed, I am sure the right woman will come along for you.’
At that moment the door was pushed violently open, and Alexander stood there with his embarrassed nursemaid behind him.
The Rector's Daughter (Part Two of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 41