by Jess Foley
Sarah looked at the clock. Just after three. Blanche would soon be there. Moving to the table she glanced briefly, approvingly at the two short ranks of small sponges that were cooling on a tray, and then began to set out cups and saucers and plates. Stopping momentarily, she put a hand to her head. She had a slight headache, which had been with her all day, a dull throbbing sensation that had continuously made its presence felt. She realized now that the headache was worse; not only that but there was a strange feeling of fullness in her head, added to which she felt slightly sick, as though she could vomit.
She swallowed hard, trying to force back the sensation of nausea and, setting down the little pitcher of milk on the tablecloth, moved to a chair and sat down. The pounding in her head grew stronger.
As Blanche got out of the carriage at the end of the lane Mr Savill said he would send the phaeton for her at the appointed time. Blanche thanked him, said goodbye to him and Marianne and, as the carriage set off once more, made her way towards the cottage.
Rising with difficulty from her chair, Sarah walked slowly from the kitchen into the scullery, from which window she could look along the lane to the junction with the main Hallowford to Trowbridge road. Now, standing before the window, she gripped the small table in front of it as a wave of giddiness washed over her. On the lane she could see the slim, elegantly-dressed figure of Blanche as she came towards the cottage. Sarah registered the sight for a moment but then her awareness was swiftly dissolving under the pressure from the throbbing pain in her head. It was stronger than ever, and now she could hear strange noises in her ears, like the rushing of water. She staggered slightly and, reaching out, clutched desperately at the sink. Her fingers grasped it, but in the next moment her grasp was slipping away as consciousness left her and she fell to the floor.
Ernest, summoned quickly from his work by the son of a neighbour whom Blanche had sent to the farm, ran back to the cottage, the dog at his heels. He got there to find his mother lying insensible on the old couch, with Dr Kelsey in attendance and Blanche waiting worriedly close by. Their mother had suffered apoplexy, Ernest learned, and was paralysed down her left side. On hearing this he at once burst into tears. Blanche comforted him, after which Dr Kelsey told them that their mother had a chance of recovery with careful nursing. But great care would have to be taken, he said. The stroke had been caused by a haemorrhage in the brain, due to the bursting of a blood vessel, and great care would have to be exercised to ensure that it didn’t happen again. The vital time, Kelsey added, would be over the next two or three days, during which time she must be kept extremely quiet and disturbed as little as possible. Any undue disturbance, he said, could bring about a recurrence of the attack.
‘Her – her paralysis …’ Ernest said. ‘Will she get over that?’
Kelsey paused before he answered. ‘We don’t yet know the extent of it – and won’t until she recovers consciousness. But if she’s much affected it’s very doubtful that she’ll make anything like a full recovery – though she might make a very good partial recovery. The next three or four weeks will tell. At the end of that time she should, with care, be out of danger. Also at that time you’ll see any signs of recovery of her powers.’
Before the doctor left he gave instructions for Sarah’s nursing – though there was little that could be done for the present during her state of unconsciousness, he said, except to maintain extreme quiet and keep her lying down.
When the doctor had gone – with the promise to call again the next morning – Ernest and Blanche brought Sarah’s bed downstairs and erected it in the front parlour. Then, gently and carefully, they laid Sarah upon it. With nothing more they could do for their mother for the present, Blanche set about making tea for Ernest and herself.
As they drank it there came a knock at the front door and Ernest opened it to find there James, the Savills’ groom, come to take Blanche back to Hallowford House. Blanche told him that her mother was ill and that she would have to stay with her. She would, she said, send Mr Savill a message the next day.
When James had gone, Ernest noticed dully that Blanche had changed into one of Sarah’s frocks; her own dress and cape, which she had worn to London, were now hanging behind the door of Sarah’s bedroom.
As Ernest sat at Sarah’s side, watching over her, Blanche prepared a meal for him, then sat near him as he ate, the plate on his knee, beside Sarah’s bed.
Later on Mr Savill himself came to the cottage to inquire after Sarah’s condition. Blanche brought him into the kitchen where they talked quietly. After a little while, exacting the promise from her to let him know if there was anything her mother needed, he left.
That night Ernest prepared to sit beside Sarah and watch over her. Blanche tried to persuade him to go to bed, but he would not, insisting on remaining there, sitting on the chair at Sarah’s bedside. Just after eleven o’clock Sarah showed signs of regaining consciousness, and minutes later she opened her eyes. Ernest, trying to keep back the tears, held her hand while she tried to ask what had happened. As he and Blanche had feared, she had difficulty in speaking; her speech was thick, as if her tongue would not obey her commands, while the left side of her face, particularly the muscles around the left side of her mouth, seemed to have fallen and to have lost their power.
Ernest told her that she had had a slight stroke, quickly adding, however, that she would be all right in time with careful nursing. The doctor, he added, would be calling to see her again in the morning. ‘Meanwhile you’ll have to put up with Blanche and me looking after you,’ he grinned.
A little later Blanche again tried to persuade him to go to bed. ‘I’ll sit with her,’ she said. ‘You must have your sleep. You have work to go to in the morning.’
He shook his head. ‘How can I go to work? Someone’s got to be with her.’
‘I’ll stay with her. Don’t worry, I’ll care for her. And if she needs you I’ll send for you. In the meantime you go on to bed.’
He nodded and got up from the chair. Sarah was sleeping again now. After whispering a goodnight to her he moved silently away from her bedside. In the doorway he said softly to Blanche, a perplexed frown on his brow:
‘How are you going to make your arrangements – about going away?’
Blanche shook her head. ‘We won’t discuss it now. You go on to bed.’
‘But you’re leaving the country in a day or two.’
‘Go to bed, Ernest. Please.’
‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Blanche. Wake me if – if anything happens.’
‘Don’t worry – I will. But she’ll be all right.’
Sitting in a chair beside Sarah’s bed, Blanche spent the night in alternate periods of sleeping and wakefulness. And even during the times when she slept it seemed that half her mind was alert for any sign of alarm from Sarah. When Ernest, followed by Jacko, came downstairs just on five-thirty he crept into the parlour and found both Blanche and his mother sleeping. After spending a few silent moments at Sarah’s bedside he went softly out of the room again. A faint noise from the kitchen a little later awakened Blanche and she went out there to find Ernest washing. She told him that their mother had spent a restful night, after which he urged her to go back and try to get some more sleep. She would not, but set about preparing his breakfast. Following the long, uncomfortable night Blanche’s limbs ached and felt stiff, but after moving about the room for a few minutes she felt better. After feeding Jacko, Ernest ate the breakfast of oatmeal and eggs which Blanche had prepared for him and then, after looking in on Sarah once more – she was still sleeping – he called the dog to him and together they left the cottage.
Sarah awoke later on. In her strange, thick voice, she said she was in no pain and that she felt comfortable. After helping her to wash, Blanche prepared her a very light breakfast and, with difficulty, persuaded her to eat a little. After that, Sarah lay quiet again.
Blanche was tidying the cottage later that morning when Dr Kelsey called. After exam
ining Sarah he accompanied Blanche into the kitchen. The extent of the paralysis showed that the haemorrhage had been severe, he said, and once again emphasized the need for very careful nursing over the next few days and also over the weeks that followed. ‘It will be necessary for someone to be with her all the time,’ he said.
Blanche nodded. ‘And after that time?’
He shrugged. ‘We shall see. But you must understand – she’ll never be as she was.’
Marianne called that afternoon, on the way to meet Gentry’s train at Trowbridge. She had brought with her various dishes prepared by the cook at Hallowford House. Blanche repeated to her what Dr Kelsey had said. Marianne nodded; they both knew what it meant – it would be impossible now for Blanche to think of going to Sicily.
That evening John Savill came to the cottage again. There he told Blanche and Ernest that he had found a nurse for their mother – ‘A reliable woman,’ he said, mentioning the name of a Mrs Melcome, a woman in the next village. He would pay for her to come and care for their mother. Ernest looked at Blanche as she sat there.
‘It’s up to you, Blanche,’ he said.
Savill added: ‘If Mrs Melcome comes in you would still be able to travel to Sicily if you wish, and, later, to France.’
Blanche gave a little smile. ‘I thank you, Uncle John,’ she said, ‘but I can’t go now. My place is here.’
A few minutes later she followed him out to the carriage. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘If you wish to go I’d make certain that your mother got the best care.’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps you could stay with her for a while until she’s making a good recovery – and then join Marianne in Sicily at a later date.’
She thanked him again, then said, ‘I can’t. My mother needs me right now. I was never here at any other time when she needed me. I can’t leave her now.’
The next day, Thursday, at mid-morning, the Savills’ carriage stopped at the end of the lane. It was taking Marianne and Gentry to Trowbridge where they would take the train to begin the journey to Sicily.
Marianne had come to bid Blanche goodbye. In the cottage doorway they embraced and then Blanche walked out with her to the front gate and stood watching as she walked back along the lane and climbed into the carriage. And then suddenly Gentry was there, climbing down, coming quickly towards her. Reaching her side he stood before her for a moment in silence then held out his hand.
‘Goodbye, Blanche.’
‘Goodbye, Gentry.’
They kept their voices low, although they could not be heard by Marianne in the carriage.
Gentry released her hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘– about everything.’
She nodded.
‘Oh, Blanche,’ he whispered suddenly, ‘I wish you were coming with us. I wish you were going to be there.’
‘Gentry – please. Marianne will be there – and that’s the way it should be.’
‘I know, but –’
‘We couldn’t do anything to hurt her.’
‘No. It’s just that …’ He let his words trail off.
Blanche sighed. ‘What happened between us was never meant to happen, Gentry. Now we must forget that it ever did.’
He said nothing. After a moment she held out her hand again. Perhaps, she thought, we shall never meet again.
‘Goodbye.’
Gentry did not miss the note of finality in her voice. He took her small hand in his. ‘Goodbye, Blanche Farrar.’
Then he was walking back along the lane and a minute later the carriage was disappearing out of sight on the Trowbridge road.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The days, the weeks went by. Summer mellowed and the harvests were brought in. In the hedgerows hazelnuts, elderberries and blackberries ripened, while on the heath the bracken grew shoulder high. At the cottage when Sarah recovered sufficiently to leave her bed the old couch was brought into the kitchen and she spent the greater part of her days there in the company of Blanche.
Towards the end of August Marianne returned, suntanned and radiant after her summer in Palermo and Messina. At the cottage in Hummock Lane she visited Sarah and Blanche and sat in the small kitchen telling of her experiences. And so many times in her narrative Gentry’s name came up, and Blanche could see – who could have missed it? – how much in love she was. Blanche did not want to hear about Gentry, though, did not want to hear about all the wonderful times they had had together, and looking at Marianne as they sat opposite one another, she reflected on how much everything had changed. It was as if her own life had come to a stop, while Marianne’s was suddenly beginning. Her own life had come full circle; now she was back with her mother – where she had begun. Where, she said to herself, she belonged.
A little later she walked with Marianne from the cottage to the front gate. There Marianne turned to her and took her hand. ‘Let us know if there’s anything you want, anything we can do,’ she said.
‘I will.’ She would not, though, Blanche knew. She could never now go to them at Hallowford House, asking for their charity. She had taken enough during her life, and now she had come to a turning point, and she would ask for nothing more.
Back in the kitchen she spent some time manipulating her mother’s left leg and left arm. It was a regular twice-daily routine, when for a period Blanche would try to encourage a greater degree of life into Sarah’s sluggish limbs. It was a slow business, though, but even so, it had shown results, and Dr Kelsey had admitted himself surprised at the extra mobility which Sarah had gained over the weeks since her attack. She could walk now – albeit with an ungainly swinging of her left leg – but even her gait was improving. Now when Blanche had finished helping her mother with the day’s exercises Sarah took a child’s rubber ball in her left hand and sat trying to squeeze it in her grasp – another means of trying to coax additional life into her wasted muscles.
As Blanche worked in the kitchen she looked at Sarah manipulating the rubber ball and reflected how much a part of their routine it now was. And her own life had settled into a routine, she said to herself – up in the morning to get Ernest’s breakfast and then help her mother to wash and dress. That done she would start on the chores around the cottage – the cooking, the cleaning. And so the days would go by, only Sundays showing any variance of the pattern, for on that day Ernest would not spend long at the farm. For the rest of the time the days melted one into another with hardly anything to mark the difference between them.
That December Blanche was eighteen. Marianne’s birthday was a week later, and Blanche was invited to Hallowford House to join in a celebration dinner. She was undecided as to whether to go, but in the end, after considerable urging from Ernest and her mother, she accepted the invitation and on the evening in question the phaeton came for her.
On her return she was quiet and uncommunicative, and Ernest and Sarah looked at her with concern.
‘Is something wrong?’ Ernest asked. ‘Didn’t you have a good time?’
She shrugged. ‘Yes, it was fine.’ She got up and, making some excuse, went into the front parlour. After a moment Ernest followed her in.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘Happened?’
‘Did something happen?’
‘No. We had a very nice dinner. Mr Savill, Marianne, her Uncle Harold, and I …’ She paused. ‘And I should not have gone.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not a part of my life anymore.’
‘How can you say that? Marianne’s like a sister to you. And Mr Savill’s like a father.’
She nodded. ‘I know. And here am I with a foot in both camps. And I can’t keep my balance, Ernest. And if I try to keep it up I shall fall over.’
Following the dinner party at Hallowford House Blanche decided not to go there again. That part of her life was over, she said to herself. There had been all those years when she had grown up beside Marianne, but now those years were over. It was time now that they separated and led their separate lives. In
any case, Marianne would probably be leaving Hallowford one of these days when her year at finishing school was over – probably to go to Sicily to live – as Gentry’s wife. Blanche had to recognize the fact: she had no further part to play in the lives of the inhabitants of Hallowford House, and it was time she began to think of her own life. And she would have to do with it as much as she could. Not that she had any reason to complain, she said to herself – after all, she had had a good start, and a good education – which alone should fit her for something.
Sarah was in the kitchen when Marianne called at the cottage a few days later to invite Blanche to tea, but Blanche, she was surprised to see, declined the invitation. Sarah looked at the two young women as they talked together – Marianne in her fashionable dress, Blanche with her hair tied back, and wearing one of her oldest frocks. After Marianne’s departure Blanche turned to find Sarah looking at her with a little expression of concern. Blanche smiled at her.
‘Are you all right, Mama?’
‘Yes, thank you, dear.’ Sarah nodded, then said, ‘Don’t cut yourself off from everything, Blanche.’
‘I’m not.’
‘And don’t do it on my account.’
‘Oh, Mama.’
As Blanche came to her chair, Sarah reached out her right hand and took Blanche’s wrist. Blanche frowned, smiling: ‘What is it?’
Sarah looked into her eyes. ‘I never understood you, Blanche. And I underestimated you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You have a strength I never knew you possessed.’
Blanche smiled at her. ‘No, no …’
‘Yes.’ Sarah sat in silence for some moments, then she added:
‘I know what you’ve given up for me.’
‘I haven’t given up anything.’