Saddle the Wind

by Jess Foley

  Mrs Coolidge came soon after the doctor’s departure. She had heard the news and was waiting for the summons. On her arrival she was shown up to the bedroom where she began to lay out the body.

  As Mrs Coolidge worked upstairs James Carver, Mr Savill’s groom, came with a letter for Ollie. There was no answer required, James said, and Sarah thanked him and he went away again. In the kitchen Sarah went to Ollie where he sat beside the range. He made no move to take the letter, nor showed any interest in it. After a moment she opened it and read it aloud. Mr Savill had written of his great regret at their sad loss and then gone on to say that Ollie need not report for work until he was ready to, and that his wages would not be affected. Ollie made no comment.

  Later, when Mrs Coolidge came down into the kitchen to say that she had finished her work, Sarah made her a cup of tea. Ollie went back upstairs to the bedroom.

  He didn’t come down again that night, even for his supper, no matter that Sarah went up and tried to persuade him. Later, after she had seen the children in bed she returned to the door across the landing and found it locked. Trying to make as little noise as possible she shook the handle a few times and, with her mouth close to the keyhole, softly called.

  ‘Ollie …’

  There was no answer. After a moment she called again. ‘Ollie – please – open the door and let me in …’

  He still didn’t answer.

  ‘Ollie …’ she whispered again at the keyhole, kneeling there on the tiny space of the landing. ‘Ollie, please … Ollie, don’t shut me out. She – she’s my child too …’

  On the other side of the door Ollie made no sound, and eventually, choking back her tears, Sarah went back into the children’s bedroom. There, taking Mary’s place, she got into bed beside Agnes.

  She didn’t sleep for a long time, but lay wakeful in the darkness, the sleeping Agnes’s breath like a caress upon her neck. In the other bed Arthur and Ernest slept soundly. The tears from Sarah’s eyes ran down onto the pillow.

  The inquest, held at the Three Tuns tavern was, as Kelsey had said it would be, a mere formality. It was soon over, bringing the expected verdict of accidental death. No members of the Farrar family were present.

  Mary’s funeral was planned for the following Friday, and up till then Ollie spent much of the time sitting beside her body, first up in the bedroom, and afterwards, when she had been placed in her coffin, down in the front parlour. On the Thursday night he sat polishing the brass coffin handles.

  On the morning of the funeral he and Jack Hewitt brought out the coffin and, followed by Sarah, the children and other mourners, hoisted it onto their shoulders and set off along the lane towards the village churchyard.

  In the cemetery Mary was laid in the earth. Nearby a flowering cherry was bursting into bloom and around the boles of the silver birches the daffodils were out, standing up straight and brilliant yellow in the newly springing grass. Around the grave Sarah and the children stood weeping. Ollie’s eyes were dry.

  Later, back at the cottage, Sarah set about getting dinner. When it was ready she called Ollie and the children and he took his place with them at the table. He had hardly eaten anything since Mary’s death and Sarah was astonished at how gaunt he had become in such a short time. She watched now as he picked at the food for a minute or two and then put down his knife and fork.

  ‘Ollie,’ she said softly, ‘– please try to eat something. You’ll be ill.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

  That evening after the children were in bed the two of them sat together in the kitchen. For the most part they were silent. Sarah sewed by the light of the lamp while Ollie stared into the fire. Outside a fierce wind had sprung up, howling around the chimney, throwing itself at the windows and rattling the front door. On the table beside Ollie’s chair stood a small jar holding the primroses Mary had given him that last morning up on the hill. They were dead now, but he wouldn’t have them moved.

  Into the quiet of the room Ollie said:

  ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘– Your fault? Ollie, what do you mean?’

  ‘I told you to send them outside to play. If I hadn’t done that she’d still be here.’

  ‘Ollie, you musn’t say that. You musn’t think such a thing.’

  He nodded, as if in confirmation of his words. ‘Now she’s gone. She’s gone and I don’t know how I’ll manage.’

  ‘Ollie, don’t …’

  ‘It was for her – the painting – all of it. It was all for her.’

  Sarah felt tears start in her eyes and a lump rise in her throat. ‘Please, don’t say that. You have other children. Ernest, Arthur and Agnes and Blanche – they need you – and your caring. So do I.’

  He turned his gaze from the glowing coals and looked at her. There was a strange haunted look in his face and his hollow eyes seemed to burn into hers. Then on his mouth came the ghost of a smile.

  ‘I love you, too, Sare. And I love the children. I truly do. But – I don’t know – somehow with Mary it was … it was like she was a – a part of me – and I don’t know how I’ll manage properly without her. She was all I ever wanted in a child.’ He shook his head. ‘I expect as time goes on I’ll get used to it. I’ll be able to live with it and get over it. I mean – people do, don’t they? Till then – I suppose all I can do is try to get through the minutes.’

  Over the following days Ollie spent his time in the cottage or walking in the lanes and the fields around. When he was at home he would sit silently in his chair, sometimes getting up to look at Mary’s unfinished portrait on the easel in the scullery.

  Although it pained Sarah to see him so utterly desolate, she was glad when he stayed about the cottage. When he went out she worried until the time of his return, which was often late in the evening when the children were asleep. She herself could never go to bed until he was indoors, always waiting until he was home and safe.

  On the Friday, a week following Mary’s funeral, he stayed out late again and Sarah once more sat waiting for his return. The high wind was back and was moaning about the cottage walls. Then, at last, close on midnight, he was there.

  He came into the room, looked at her for a moment and sank down into his chair. He was still wearing his coat. From the opposite chair Sarah gazed into his thin, hollow-cheeked face. His eyes were dry, and the thought went through her mind: If only he would cry … if only he would let go and give vent to his misery … He had wept over his paintings, but not a tear had he shed over Mary.

  They sat there in silence while he stared into the fire’s embers and she fought the urge to go to him and wrap him in her arms.

  After a while she murmured to him that it was time to go to bed. He nodded.

  ‘Are you coming, Ollie?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yes, in a minute or two,’ he said. ‘You go on. I’ll be up in a little while.’

  ‘All right. You won’t be long, will you?’

  ‘No, I won’t be long.’

  She went on upstairs then and got ready for bed. Later, lying in the light of the candle she heard his soft footsteps on the stairs. Then the door opened and he came in. He had taken off his coat and boots. He stood for a moment looking down at her then sat on the bed at her side. She reached out and pressed his hand. ‘It’s such a wild night. Come to bed …’

  ‘Ah, in a minute. I want to see Arthur …’

  ‘Arthur? What for?’

  He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I hit him,’ he said. ‘When he came into the kitchen that day and told us what had happened, I lashed out and hit him. It’s been on my mind.’

  ‘Oh, Ollie, I’m sure he understood that you – you weren’t yourself. Anyway, he’ll have forgotten it by now.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ He rose, took up the candle. ‘I must go and see him.’

  ‘Ollie – he’ll be asleep.’

  He paused momentarily. ‘He’ll soon get off again.’ Moving out onto the landing he
closed the door behind him, leaving Sarah in darkness.

  Softly Ollie crept into the children’s bedroom, moved silently between the two beds and put the candle down on the chair between them.

  Turning to the bed on the left he looked down at the sleeping form of Agnes. She lay almost buried under the bedclothes, only the top part of her head visible. He put his hand over her head, just a fraction of an inch from touching. A little blessing, and then he turned and looked over at the other bed.

  Arthur slept on the nearside, Ernest beside him. Ollie stood looking across at the elder boy for some moments, silently mouthed some words and then moved his glance to his younger son. After a second he crouched and whispered the boy’s name.

  ‘Arthur …’

  Arthur stirred briefly and then settled again into sleep.

  ‘Artie …’

  Ollie whispered his name once more, closer to his ear. Arthur stirred again and this time awoke, opening his eyes.

  ‘Papa …’ he whispered, and then, frowning: ‘Is something the matter?’

  Ollie gazed back at him for some seconds, then finally shook his head.

  ‘No, it’s nothing at all, son. Go on back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.’

  He straightened, Arthur’s eyes, puzzled, still upon him. Ollie stood looking down at the boy for a moment then reached down and brushed the boy’s cheek with the back of his hand.

  ‘Goodnight, Artie.’

  When Sarah heard Ollie leave the children’s room she relaxed a little, expecting any moment that he would return to her. Instead she heard the faint sound of his feet on the stairs. Then in a moment the sound faded away again, drowned by the wind as it buffeted the house.

  The sound of the wind was somehow soothing. And she was so tired. Lying there, waiting for Ollie, she closed her eyes. She thought of Mary. She had loved her with all the power that her ability to love had allowed, but somehow, somehow, they had to go on. Somehow they had to try to begin, no matter how slowly, to pick up the threads of their lives again …

  She lay still, listening for any sound of Ollie downstairs, but she could hear nothing but the wind. She pictured him sitting in the kitchen before the dying fire, staring into space. He needed time to get over it. But he would do it in time.

  Exhaustion from tension and grief lay like lead weights on her eyelids. After a while she fell asleep.

  There was a noise coming from down below. Something banging. It sounded like one of the kitchen window shutters. She sat up in bed, realising as she did so that she was alone. Ollie hadn’t come back upstairs. She turned and reached out to light the candle, and then remembered that Ollie had taken it. She remained sitting there in the dark for some seconds then pushed back the bedclothes, swung her feet onto the floor and got up. Wrapping her old coat around her she opened the door and, in the dark, made her way down the narrow stairs.

  When she opened the kitchen door a few moments later she found the room in darkness. She lit the lamp and looked at the clock on the shelf. It was just after quarter-past-three. There was no sign of Ollie. Moving to the window she secured the banging shutter and then went into the front parlour. That too was empty. Entering the scullery a moment later she discovered that Ollie’s boots and coat were gone. She found also that the easel was bare. He had gone out somewhere, taking the little unfinished portrait of Mary with him.

  With panic rising in her breast she went from the back door and around the house to the front gate. There she gazed up and down the lane while the wind tugged at her coat and whipped at her hair. There was no sign of him anywhere. After a time she went back into the kitchen and lit the range, then sat down beside it, waiting and watching.

  When the dawn came up she was still sitting there.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twelve

  Sarah glanced at the clock as she put on her coat. Almost twelve-fifteen. Agnes would be back from church at any moment. After fastening the buttons Sarah stood before the glass where she touched at her hair and adjusted her bonnet. As she did so Arthur came in from the back garden with some yellow chrysanthemums he had just cut.

  ‘Will these be all right, Mam?’ he asked. ‘There’s not much left.’

  She turned to him. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you, Artie, they’ll be fine.’

  Arthur took a piece of newspaper and wrapped the flowers in it. He was fourteen now. Like Ernest before him and Agnes after, he had left school at ten, though with his disabilities it hadn’t been easy for him to find and keep employment. At first Mr Savill had offered him work in the mill but Sarah had declined on account of the dust in the atmosphere, which, she was afraid, would only worsen the boy’s condition. Later, when his health had improved somewhat, she had secured him a job at the Woolpack Inn in Trowbridge where he cleaned the knives and the guests’ boots and shoes, and did any other of a hundred odd jobs, each day walking the four miles there and the four miles back. He had kept it up for some time, but then had fallen ill and the job had been lost. Afterwards he had found work as odd-job boy for a wealthy family in the next village, but again lost it through sickness. And so it had continued. But then, miraculously, over the past year his attacks had lessened in their severity and in the frequency of their occurrence, and eventually had ceased altogether. Gradually he had become stronger, and had put on weight, with colour coming to his cheeks. The job he had found then, as assistant to the local butcher, Grill, he still held after more than a year.

  As Sarah gave a last touch to her collar, Agnes, wearing her coat and bonnet, came through the door. She was eleven years old now, and often when Sarah looked at her she could see herself so clearly. Agnes had the same smile, the same wide hazel eyes, the same tilt to her chin.

  At this particular moment Agnes had an air of excitement about her, and was slightly out of breath.

  ‘Well?’ said Sarah. ‘How did it go?’

  Agnes laughed. ‘Oh – Billie Norman on the organ pump – I think he must have fallen asleep – or else he got carried away with the singing.’ Her laughter rang out. ‘The organ died dead away right in the middle of “Jerusalem the Golden”!’

  While Arthur joined in Agnes’s laughter Sarah said, ‘But your solo. How was that? Was it all right?’

  Agnes nodded, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, yes, it went well! Oh, but Mam, I was that nervous to start with, I tell you! My heart was poundin’ away like a hammer. But it was all right, it really was – and after the service the vicar stopped me and said how nice it was.’ She gave a breathless little laugh and hugged herself. ‘Oh, but I was ever so pleased afterwards. It really did go well.’

  ‘Good. Well, I shall be there tonight to hear you. You are to sing it again tonight, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  Today was the day of Agnes’s first choir solo. She had joined the church choir just over a year ago, after appearing at a concert held in the village at the Temperance Hall. That evening, holding a pink rose and wearing a white muslin dress that Sarah had made for the occasion, she had sung ‘A True Little Heart and a True Little Home’. Sarah had almost wept with pride. Afterwards the church choirmaster had come to Sarah and asked whether Agnes would like to join the choir. She had a remarkable voice, he said, particularly in one so young.

  Agnes had left school just that past summer. Sarah would like to have kept her there a few years longer in the hope that she might eventually have been equipped to find work as a governess somewhere, but there just wasn’t the money. And anyway, apart from a passion for music, Agnes had no real aptitude for studying and book work, and where the competition for such employment was so fierce there was no guarantee that at the end of her studies she would have been able to make a living for herself – particularly when, even at the best of times, the pay for such work was so poor. So, she had found a job with Thompson, the village baker, helping in the bakery and the family house, fetching and carrying from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon. She didn’t enjoy it, but it would do until something better came
along. Any spare time she had she spent with the choir or playing the old piano in the front parlour.

  ‘Was Blanche there this morning?’ Sarah asked.

  Agnes nodded. ‘Yes, with Marianne and a woman I’ve never seen before.’

  ‘Ah, yes, one of Mr Savill’s friends. Blanche mentioned them.’ Sarah paused. ‘I’m glad Mr Savill heard you sing.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I must go. There’s not much for you and Arthur to do – just set the table and keep an eye on things. I shan’t be long.’

  With her words Sarah took up the flowers and left the cottage.

  As she made her way along the lane the November day was cold and damp and the last of the morning fog was still hazing the trees beyond the hedgerow. Dead leaves scattered beneath Sarah’s feet as she walked.

  As she drew near the church she saw that the time on the church clock was just after half-past-twelve. She always chose this time, in the period of quiet after morning service when all the worshippers had gone home to finish preparing Sunday dinner. Now as she entered the gates she saw that there was just one other person in sight, an old woman, who bent over one of the graves. She recognized her as Mrs Perkins, the widow of a gardener who had once worked with Ollie up at the house. Sarah quietly exchanged greetings with her then made her way over the grass to the grave beneath the cherry tree, almost bare now of its leaves. There she laid the flowers on the grass and took up from the grave a chipped earthenware pot. The roses that she and Arthur had placed in it two Sundays before were dead and she took them out and dropped them in the rubbish bin near the hedgerow. Then she moved to the rainwater butt, filled the pot again and returned to the graveside.

  When she had put the chrysanthemums in the pot she placed it back in the earth, straightened and looked at the headstone. Mr Savill had paid for it. On the stone were engraved the words:

  MARY

  BELOVED DAUGHTER OF

  OLIVER AND SARAH FARRAR

  BORN 19TH MARCH 1873,