‘Oh does it?’ Bart turned to Sophie, who was listening horror-struck, and sneered. ‘What does it say about forgiveness?’
‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I’m coming up to get you, Bart Sadler.’
‘Don’t be so crazy,’ Bart called, but they heard Laurence’s feet on the stairs. Sophie looked round, panic-stricken, for a hiding-place. But there was none, and then she found herself staring into Laurence’s eyes and saw the expression of incredulity on his face.
‘Sophie!’ he gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think she’s doing?’ Bart said with a louche grin. ‘Fornicating, that’s what.’
He was unprepared for Laurence’s blow to his face, and staggered sideways.
‘Oh Laurence, please!’ Sophie cried.
‘You pig,’ Laurence snarled, disregarding her, curling his fists and shaking them at Bart, who leaned against the wall, his hands tenderly fingering his lip.
‘I think it’s bleeding,’ he said, taking his hand away to examine it. ‘What did you do that for?’
‘I did it because I hate you, Bart Sadler. I hate what you did to me, but worse, I hate what you’ve done to this good woman.’
“‘Good woman”,’ Bart grinned. ‘That is a laugh. I’ll tell you, Laurence, if I wanted a good tumble in bed, I’d take a missionary’s widow any day. She’s no “good woman”. She’s a whore.’
Laurence hit him again with such force that this time Bart fell to his knees.
‘Laurence, please ...’ Sophie cried once more. ‘Please go. I know you’re distressed and upset, and so am I; but this brutality doesn’t help.’
‘Look, man,’ Bart muttered through lips that were beginning to swell, ‘if this fisticuffs is all about Wainwright rather than Sophie, save your breath. I didn’t know he was a bad ‘un. Nor do I know where he is. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help it and I can’t help you. I did my best. I was taken in too. Sophie is a different matter and none of your business. She’s old enough to know what she’s doing.’
‘Yes, I am, Laurence,’ Sophie said, raising her head, ‘and to be sorry for it; but you settle your business grievance with Bart, without violence please, then I think you should go.’
‘I should have known when you wouldn’t come up with any money something was wrong.’ Laurence turned his attention to Bart again. ‘And I heard you made a packet out of the commission he gave you for introducing me.’
Bart winced and tenderly touched his face again. ‘Not a packet, not a fortune. I stood to make an honest commission when you signed, and again when the factory was completed. Two per cent of the gross. Not a fortune.’
‘You recommended him.’ Laurence had started to shout again, and Sophie feared more violence. One of them might be killed.
‘I thought he was all right.’ Bart now seemed scared too. ‘He had a large house. He appeared to have money. I thought he was straight ...’
Laurence leaned down as though to hit him where he lay, but suddenly Bart got to his feet and lunged at him.
Sophie cried out as they fell into each other’s arms and, after a brief tussle on the landing, rolled down the stairs to the kitchen where they both lay heaving and panting ... but at least apparently unharmed and alive. She flew down the stairs and knelt by Laurence’s side.
‘Laurence, are you all right?’
‘He started it.’ Bart raised his head and winced again. ‘What about me, Sophie? Don’t you ask if I’m all right?’
‘I can see you’re all right,’ she said contemptuously. ‘You were feigning hurt in order to get Laurence to attack you again. Using ploys again, Bart.’ She shook her finger at him. ‘Little games like you played with me. Never honest, were you? Never capable of honesty to me or Laurence, or anybody, I suppose.’
Groggily, Laurence got to his feet. Blood streamed from a gash on his forehead and Sophie calmly went over to the tap, soaked a cloth in cold water and began to dab at his brow.
‘Laurence, this is terrible. It is a terrible thing to happen. The whole thing is awful. But what you think ... about me ... I know it looks bad. It is bad and I am ashamed of it; but we are to be married.’
‘Married!’ Bart roared. ‘We are certainly not to be married. Not after this. The way you rushed to defend him, to bathe his head before you even see how I am, or care. Married! I’m not the marrying kind anyway, Sophie. You should have realised that. I’ve been a bachelor too long.’
‘But you asked me!’ she found herself screaming at him. ‘You said you wanted to walk out with me as a preparation to be married.’
‘We would never suit, Sophie.’ Bart shook his head. ‘You’re too refined for a stone-mason’s wife. You’re too much of a prig. I’d always be minding my ps and qs, always be expected to have clean hands at table. Nice you are, but not for me. Sorry you had to find out like this, in this way ...’
‘Come.’ Gently Laurence touched her arm. ‘I’ll take you home. You can’t argue with a man without principles or morals. Get your things together, Sophie, and come with me.’
Sophie rode behind Laurence, with her head leaning on his shoulder. She was so tired it was impossible to keep it upright. She thought that, of all the terrible things that had happened to her in her life, this was one of the worst; to be shamed and humiliated in front of an upright young man like Laurence, George’s first cousin; a man who had known her all his life as the supposedly virtuous daughter of the Rector of Wenham. Now she really would have to leave the district, because she would never be able to face Laurence or his family again.
They didn’t speak, but he kept to the bridle-paths and narrow lanes so that they should avoid meeting anyone. When he got to the drive of Pelham’s Oak he reined in his horse and turned round. He looked, she thought, infinitely dejected, and she felt more guilty than ever.
‘Are you all right, Sophie?’
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Laurence began gingerly to dismount from his horse, obviously in discomfort, and then he reached up to help her.
‘It’s better the staff don’t see us riding together up the drive,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She dusted herself down as she got to the ground. ‘I feel so ashamed, Laurence. So unclean. Don’t tell ...’
‘I would never tell a soul. Poor Sophie.’ He gently touched her face and her eyes filled with tears. ‘We are all of us weak, and we all of us have to answer one day to God, and I can tell you I don’t know which is worse: the sin of lust or the sin of despair.’
His words disturbed her, and she was about to ask him what he meant when he kissed her abruptly on the cheek and, rapidly mounting his horse, turned in the direction of the gate and rode away.
She watched him until he was out of sight, but there was no clue to explain his behaviour or what he meant. She imagined, from the way he moved, that he was rather more hurt than he’d let on. Maybe hurt as much mentally as physically.
But she herself felt so totally drained of energy that she could scarcely drag herself up the drive to the house. Then she managed to force herself to stand upright and, with her shoulders back and head erect, walked up to the front door like a woman without a stain on her character or a mark on her soul.
Laurence Yetman woke and lay for some time, as he usually did in the early morning, listening to the sounds of the world outside wakening; conscious of the warm body of his sleeping wife beside him, their children tucked away in dreamland elsewhere in the house,
Usually he would give thanks, but today was different, as all the days had been since the bankruptcy notice was served and he knew that everything he had would be taken away from him; that he and his family would have to seek charity from their relations.
All he felt these mornings was a great void, a blackness, and the fear he felt threatened to overwhelm him until he got out of bed. Would that Mr. Wainwright had never appeared in his life, or that he could turn back the clock and follow a different path!
<
br /> Except for the death of his father, Laurence had suffered little in his lifetime and was unaccustomed to adversity. He was unused to things going wrong, to unhappiness, and he was a complete stranger to despair.
But for the last few weeks despair had gripped his soul, and although he tried to maintain the appearance of cheerfulness in front of others, especially the children, it got darker and deeper until he could see no way out of it at all.
He felt he had disgraced his family, his great-grandfather who had founded the business with scarcely any capital, his grandfather who had built it up, and above all, his beloved father who had revitalised it. It had been a story of well-being and modest success – until he indulged in a rash speculation without taking a few elementary precautions.
Now all those he loved and who depended on him were to share in his shame. People would pity him, and it was pity he hated. Maybe if he had had more misfortune in life he would have found this easier to bear. As it was, he felt he was being tested, and failing to pass.
He had been born in this house, and he loved it almost as much as he loved his family. Now he was to see it knocked down at auction, the victim of the harsh laws of bankruptcy.
Laurence got stealthily out of bed so as not to disturb Sarah Jane, tiptoed across the room to his dressing-room and, after sluicing his face and hands, got into a shirt and trousers and went downstairs to make a cup of tea.
It was only six o’clock and no one in the household stirred. The servants still slept in the loft and the outbuildings. Soon they would all be given notice, together with Beth and Ted Yewell, who had served the Yetman family for nearly thirty years. Well, there was no problem there. Eliza would gladly have them again.
Then there were the groom, the two gardeners and the coachman. They would all be found new positions and then, finally, the house and its contents, the offices and the half-finished factory would all come under the hammer.
Laurence lit the fire and made his tea, and then he sat at the table by the window drinking it, trying hard to see some sort of light through the haze that engulfed his mind. He shook his head, aware of a muzzy sensation, as though there were some kind of veil between him and reality. He couldn’t seem to see straight. He couldn’t see straight at all.
His red setter, Kimber, came up, wagging his tail, and Laurence bent down to pat him. He felt a sudden dizziness as though he was going to faint; and then he wondered if, after all, death wasn’t preferable to life, fairer to everyone all round? Tears came into his eyes as he stroked Kimber, and then he got up, put on his jacket, rinsed out the cup and saucer, and got Kimber’s lead to take him for a walk.
He hesitated while Kimber, wagging his tail, looked excitedly, trustfully up at him.
‘There, good boy,’ Laurence said and, once again, his eyes unexpectedly flooded over. He was in very poor shape. Too emotional; over-charged. He shut the door and Kimber abruptly stopped wagging his tail, disappointed that the promised jaunt seemed to be off.
‘I shan’t be a minute, boy,’ Laurence said, stroking his head, and then he went through the kitchen, along the hall to the parlour where Sarah Jane did her accounts and interviewed servants, and where outdoor coats and boots and a variety of equipment, for indoors and out, was kept.
In the corner was a cupboard which contained fishing-tackle, rods, lines, reels, a couple of tennis rackets, a football or two, and a gun which had belonged to his father.
He stared at it for a few moments and then gripped it firmly; he opened the breech, inspected it, took several cartridges from a box in a drawer at the base of the cupboard, and popped one in. The others he put in his pocket.
Then, with the gun under his arm, he went through the hall back into the kitchen and, calling Kimber, opened the door into the yard.
‘Rabbits,’ he said to Kimber, ‘rabbits,’ and the dog danced about excitedly and raced across the lawn towards the river, where a bridge crossed to Wen Wood, stretching all the way up the hill to the other side.
It was now daylight, and the sun, rising from over the hill, cast its beams on the frosty meadow which sparkled as though it was full of diamonds. A thick layer of leaves littered the grass, and from a few cottages that lay around him smoke had already started to rise. It was going to be a beautiful day.
Laurence stopped and took a great lungful of air as Kimber halted in the middle of the bridge, vapour coming from his mouth, begging his master to follow him. Laurence looked backwards to the house, to the town of Wenham topped by the square tower of St Mark’s Church.
He thought he had never seen the town, the countryside around, his house nestling amid the trees, so beautiful – with a mist rising from the river, and the birds wheeling overhead in search of a dwindling supply of food.
His land.
He crossed the bridge and walked steadily up through the woods. The sunlight cast patches of light on the ground and Kimber began snuffling through the undergrowth in search of the smell of the small animals of the wood; but Kimber was old, and they were usually too quick for him. He would plod up the hill, hoping that the rabbits would wait for him. Needless to say, they always got away.
Laurence went further up, and then paused again and looked back once more. He then continued his slow climb because Kimber was well ahead. In front of him Laurence saw that there was a movement in the undergrowth. He halted and saw a mother rabbit who, with two small babies crouching fearfully by her side, had successfully hidden from the dog, but was unaware of the man with the gun just behind her. Her ignorance of his presence seemed pitiful.
Their little nostrils quivering, the rabbits took a few tentative steps forward, perhaps afraid that Kimber would turn back and see them. Laurence quietly put his gun to his shoulder and took careful aim.
He saw the little family group in his sights and his hand gently squeezed the trigger. He was aware that the tears now were pouring down his face and his vision was momentarily obscured.
He lowered the gun, and the mother, still unaware of her peril, signalled her babies; they ran off, disappearing into the woods.
‘God give them life,’ Laurence murmured.
But what life was left for him? His span was finished, his day was done.
Kimber was far off now and could not see him, and with slow deliberation Laurence turned the barrel of the gun towards himself and peered down it.
And later it was Kimber who came home alone and told them his master was dead.
The day Laurence Yetman was buried there was nearly a riot in Wenham. All the windows of the Two Counties Bank were broken and someone had tried to drive a ram through the door. The police had to be called in the early morning and they roped off the bank, which, together with most of the shops in the town, remained closed all day.
Almost every citizen of Wenham was in the streets, lining the route of the funeral procession, and all those who could crowded into the church.
Mr Turner led the service and preached the sermon. He took as his text not the Bible, but the passing over the waters of Mr Valiant-for-Truth as described in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The congregation was quite electrified by Mr Turner’s sermon; few could recall one like it, even when Mr Lamb had been at the height of his powers, inviting doom, destruction and the awful judgment of a vengeful God to visit the peaceful town.
“‘Then he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him at the other side.’”
There was a hush in the church. Mr Turner descended the steps of the pulpit to join the Rector, both of them in black copes. The solitary organ played music from Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and then the bearers advanced, as the Rector gave the final blessing, to carry the coffin out of the church to the burial ground, where Laurence was laid next to his father, who had also been the victim of a tragic accident.
Because few people who knew Laurence, his happy nature, his outgoing disposition, thought it was anything else - except perhaps those who damaged the Two Counties Bank and guessed the truth.
One mou
rner missing from the funeral was Mr Becket, who had stolen out of the town under cover of darkness with his wife and children, never to be seen again.
In time the Wenham branch of the Two Counties Bank was closed and was replaced by another bank which, the citizens hoped, would have a more enlightened attitude towards those of its members who were visited by misfortune.
The sad little party assembled at Riversmead after the funeral. Guy and Agnes were still abroad, and so were Roger and Prosper, as well as Connie and Miss Fairchild. None of them yet knew that Laurence was dead; but the rest of the family gathered to give support to his grieving widow, his heart-broken mother and his children, who were almost too young to understand.
The Sadlers came, but Bart did not. Maybe he thought that the opprobrium in which Mr Wainwright was held would pass to him. Sophie moved around, handing out cakes and tea, her fortitude as a missionary allowing her to give words of comfort that still seemed automatic, almost pedestrian. It was really hard to bring relief to anyone afflicted by such grief.
Julius attended the funeral but not the reception. He went home, saying he felt unwell. He had scarcely seen his wife since the incident, as Eliza spent all her time with Sarah Jane and the children.
At the end of the day Sophie took all the children off to Pelham’s Oak, although she was in the process of moving, and finally widow and mother were left alone.
‘He can’t have known what he was doing,’ Sarah Jane said, as she had said numerous times before. ‘He would never have left me and the children ... Mother? He must have had a brainstorm, a moment of madness, of complete and utter despair.’
And, again, Eliza repeated what she’d said before in an effort to console not only Laurence’s widow but herself.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you know Laurence would never have killed himself. It can only have been an accident. He had too much hope, too much love, too much to give. He would never have let something like this bankruptcy get him down.’
Then suddenly she burst into tears. Sarah Jane patted her shoulder almost mechanically; then, when Eliza’s tears had subsided, she said in a voice that was curiously vibrant, positive and clear:
The Rector's Daughter (Part Two of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 45