by Jess Foley
‘Ah, yes, I know.’ Her fingers around Blanche’s wrist tightened. ‘But it will all come to you in time, Blanche. You’ll see. You deserve the best – and it will come to you in time.’
One bright day in mid-June of the following year, 1899, Blanche answered a knock at the door to find John Savill standing on the doorstep.
‘Uncle John …’
He smiled at her. ‘Is it convenient, Blanche …?’ He was taking off his hat.
‘Of course.’ Beyond his shoulder, at the end of the narrow lane, she could see his phaeton. ‘Please – come in.’ She stepped back and allowed him to enter. When she had closed the door behind him he said softly: ‘Perhaps I might see your mother in a little while, but may we talk privately first for a minute or two?’
‘Yes, of course …’
She led him into the front parlour where they sat facing one another.
‘How is your mama?’ he asked.
‘Going on quite well, thank you. She seems to be improving, but her progress now is very slow.’
‘She can’t be left.’ It was almost a statement.
‘Oh, no. I’m afraid not.’
He frowned.
‘What is it, Uncle John?’
He gave a little shrug. ‘I worry about you, Blanche.’
‘Oh, you have no need to worry about me. I’m all right.’
‘Are you? Truly?’
‘Yes, believe me.’
‘I wonder about you – what’s happening to you.’
‘I’m managing.’
‘Are you happy, Blanche?’
‘Happy?’ She paused for a moment then smiled at him. ‘I think I’m – coming to terms with – with reality.’
‘Oh, dear. That makes it sound quite a feat.’
‘No, no. It’s time I did.’
He said nothing for a moment, then: ‘Blanche – I want you to remember something …’
‘Yes?’
He sighed. ‘I have a responsibility towards you, you know.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘Oh, indeed there is. I took you from your home and – and gave you a kind of life that was different. Don’t think I’m unaware of that.’
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘But how far can it take me, Uncle John? It won’t keep me forever. At some time or other I have to be responsible for myself. And I am now. I’m eighteen years old, and what I do now is my own decision.’
He gave a little nod. ‘I just want you to know, Blanche, that if you ever want anything – anything at all – you have only to ask.’
‘I’ll remember that. And thank you.’
‘You have no need to thank me. I owe it to you. But apart from that – I would want to help you if I could. You know that.’ He reached out and took her hand in his. ‘You mean a great deal to me, Blanche. You’re like a second daughter to me. You’ve given me so much over the years – not to mention what you’ve given to Marianne.’
‘No, Uncle John,’ she pressed his hand, ‘– it’s what you’ve given me.’
They sat in silence for some moments, then Blanche said:
‘I hear from Marianne quite regularly. She seems to be reasonably happy at school in Brittany.’
Savill smiled. ‘I think “reasonably” is the right word. She’s managing well enough, I suppose, anyway. Though I know she’d be happier if you were with her. Did she tell you that we’re going away in the summer, to Sicily?’
‘– Yes, she mentioned it.’
‘Just for a while. We think – Gentry’s father and I – that Marianne and Gentry should see a little more of one another – get to know each other a little better.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure you’re well aware of the fact that we’d like Marianne and Gentry to marry one day. If they find they’re suitable, of course. And there’s no doubt that they’re very fond of one another – but as it is, with Gentry now living in Sicily again, and Marianne in England, they don’t get that much opportunity to meet.’ He shrugged. ‘So, as I say, we’re going out to Messina to stay for a while.’
‘When do you leave?’
‘In a couple of weeks – when Marianne returns from Brittany. We shall stay in Sicily for a few months. Harold will look after things for me here while we’re gone.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘You know, I’m not getting any younger, Blanche, and I’m getting tired. I find I let things get on top of me as I never used to, and I’m looking forward to doing nothing at all for several weeks.’
Marianne came to visit Blanche when she returned from Brittany and again a week later before her departure for Sicily with her father. On that second occasion the two girls sat for a while in the kitchen with Sarah. When Marianne got up to go Blanche walked with her out into the lane.
Beside the carriage they stopped, facing one another. It was a bright, warm day, and Marianne was wearing a new summer dress of pale blue linen which she had bought on a trip to London. She looked very elegant and very beautiful and Blanche was suddenly very much aware of her own worn dress and apron.
‘I wish you were coming with us, Blanche,’ Marianne said. She and her father were to leave early the next morning. Savill had already called to say his goodbyes.
‘Yes, but I’m afraid it can’t be.’
‘Perhaps another day.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I don’t want us to – to lose touch,’ Marianne said. ‘We won’t let that happen, shall we?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘It’s strange sometimes without you, Blanche.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m getting used to it now, but at the start, when I went to Brittany on my own – it was odd not having you there.’ Marianne smiled. ‘I was so used to having you with me all the time. Like a sister.’
Blanche nodded. ‘It’s what we get used to, I suppose.’ She added to herself: And I’m getting used to a different life now. It was a time of goodbyes. She was saying goodbye to all the connections with her old life. Marianne was going away, and soon she would have gone away for good. Even sisters went their own ways eventually …
Marianne stepped forward, putting her arms around Blanche, drawing her close, pressing her cheek to Blanche’s cheek. ‘I love you, Blanche. Don’t forget me, will you?’
Moments later as the carriage was moving away towards Hallowford Blanche thought of Marianne’s words. It’s more likely, she thought, that you, Marianne, will forget me.
The knowledge that Savill as well as Marianne had gone from Hallowford that summer left Blanche for a while with a strange feeling of being cut off from much of her past. Their departure also placed her even more firmly in her present situation, and she wondered what would be the outcome. Perhaps she would just remain there, she thought, caring for her mother and her brother. As it was, her future was a mystery. She could see nothing beyond her present situation.
Beyond the confines of Colford, Britain was occupied with larger matters than Blanche’s future, and as the summer wore on the worsening situation in South Africa was the subject of daily reports in the newspapers. With so much indignation on behalf of the British immigrants in the Transvaal who were being denied their rights, there was no shortage of those who believed that Britain should go out there and teach the Boers a lesson.
To Blanche, living and working in the cottage, it all might have been going on in another world, on another planet. It was no part of her own life. And even when Ernest came home in mid-October to announce that Britain was going to war with the Boers, she found that she was barely touched by the news.
‘It won’t last five minutes, though,’ Ernest said. ‘Not with England on the side of the immigrants. They’ll soon teach those damned Boers what’s what.’
The next day all possible thoughts of the war, and of anything else that was happening beyond the walls of the cottage were wiped away.
Sarah had felt discontented that morning, as she was wont to do at times – a discontent due to her inability to do all the things that had previously come so easily to her. She fel
t sometimes that she would never get used to it, her new situation. Having led a very active life, she often found her enforced sedentariness frustrating and depressing. Not only could she not walk with the unquestioned ease of the past, but the continuing weakness in her left arm denied her so many of her past occupations. And it seemed now that she would get no better. For a while with all the manipulating and exercising of her limbs she had made astonishing progress. But after a certain time the progress had ceased, and she had been left as she was now, with her strange, ungainly gait, a much diminished power in her left hand and arm, and the muscles of the left side of her face pulled down.
That morning Blanche had entered the kitchen to find her standing beside the range looking at herself in the small mirror that hung there, her hand covering the left side of her face. At Blanche’s entrance Sarah quickly dropped her hand and started almost guiltily away. Then, turning, she caught Blanche looking at her. She gave a sad little smile that lifted only the right side of her mouth.
‘I’m just a foolish woman,’ she said.
‘Nonsense. Don’t say that.’
‘It’s true. To still be thinking on how things were – how they used to be. Lord, I’ve known enough disappointments in my life to realize by now that there’s no changing the past. Good God, if I could I wouldn’t know where to stop.’ Her hand moved back to her face, her fingertips touching the flesh over the immobile muscles. ‘I used to be pretty once …’
‘– I’m sure of it.’
‘Once. Your father certainly thought so.’ Into Sarah’s mind came a sudden picture. Trowbridge on an evening in winter. Ollie writing with his finger on a window. Mist on the glass as she breathed upon it. Words appearing. Love me, love me, Sarah Keane. ‘Once,’ she said.
She turned and looked out through the window to where the grey October sky hung over the little strip of garden. ‘And now I feel I’m keeping you back – you and Ernest.’
‘No, that’s not true.’
‘Oh, Blanche – I might have had a stroke, but it hasn’t affected my knowledge of what is the truth. Without me you might be – anywhere now. You’d be in Sicily.’
‘No. There’s no place for me there.’
‘There would be if it weren’t for me.’
Blanche avoided her eyes. ‘Anyway, it’s a good thing I’m not there – in Sicily.’
‘Why?’
Blanche shrugged, raised her eyes. ‘I’d be in the way there now.’
‘In whose way?’
Blanche did not answer. Sarah’s eyes gazed into her own. There was a little shadow of knowledge in them, of concern. ‘It’s that young man, isn’t it? Gentry.’
Blanche hesitated then said: ‘It doesn’t matter if it is. I’ll never see him again.’
Sarah watched her turn away, opened her mouth to speak but was overwhelmed by a sudden rushing in her ears. With the sudden fullness in her head, the feeling of nausea, she was all at once aware of what was happening. She gave out a choking cry, and was vaguely aware of Blanche spinning to face her. She lifted her hands to her head, her eyes rolling up in their sockets. The next instant the darkness swept over her.
It was what they had feared, a second haemorrhage.
All that afternoon and evening Blanche and Ernest sat beside Sarah’s bed as she lay unconscious. Dr Kelsey, calling at midday, had looked grave after his examination of Sarah, and had left giving precise instructions for her care. Everything, he had said, would depend on the next few hours.
Side by side at Sarah’s bed, Blanche and Ernest sat through the night, waiting for some sign, the movement of a hand, the blinking of an eyelid. There was nothing. Then, as the first light of day crept into the room through the gap in the cheap curtains, Sarah slipped away.
She was buried on a late October day in the Hallowford churchyard, beside Ollie and the children. The morning had been frosty and cold, but later the sun had shone through surprisingly bright and warm. Beside the grave Blanche and Ernest stood with bowed heads, while on the nearby yew tree the mistle thrushes ate the scarlet berries. Later, when Ernest’s tears had ended he had seemed somehow numbed.
Back at the cottage Blanche had tried to get him to eat something. He had little appetite, though, and after toying with the meal she placed in front of him he apologetically pushed it to one side. He sat in silence for some moments then said quietly, a note of bitterness in his voice, already hoarse with his grief:
‘You mustn’t let it get to you, too, Blanche.’
She didn’t understand. ‘What d’you mean, Ernie?’
‘You’ve been given a chance to make something of yourself. Don’t throw it away. Don’t be like Mam.’ He sat staring ahead of him, his mouth a thin, tense line. ‘It’s the poverty. It takes everything away and gives nothing in return. And it’s that that took Mam. It wasn’t any apoplexy – not really. It’s the loss, the continuing loss. And seeing it, you think to yourself sometimes that it’s a wonder that a person can go on as long as they do. Mary, Arthur, Agnes, Dad. How much can a person take? You have a life like ours, with all the losses – and those losses chip away at you, long after they’ve happened. And in the end it’s like there’s not enough to keep you upright. And you know that with just one more it will all go. But it doesn’t. And you keep on. But even so it eventually wears you down.’ He reached out, his large hand closing gently around Blanche’s wrist. ‘You mustn’t let it happen to you, Blanche. You must get out as soon as you can. Stay in this situation and it will only drag you down too.’
She said nothing, just gave a slight nod. His eyes burned into hers. ‘You listen to what I’m telling you,’ he said fiercely. ‘You’ve got to get out while there’s time.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Well, I have to say that as regards your education you seem well qualified for the position, Miss Farrar. But on the other hand you are rather young.’
Having already been interviewed by Mrs Andrews – and presumably having passed the test – Blanche now faced the woman’s husband. She sat in a wing chair before him in the library of Highfield, the Andrews’s house on the edge of Ashton Wick, a village two miles to the west of Colford. In his early fifties, David Andrews was a solicitor, a tall man, lean and angular, with a heavy moustache. ‘When we advertised the post,’ he said, ‘my wife and I rather had in mind someone a little older.’
‘I shall be nineteen next month.’
‘Even so …’ He looked perplexed. ‘And how will you get here every day, from Colford?’
‘Walk.’
‘You won’t mind that?’ He gestured to the window, beyond which a November sun shone down on a well-kept lawn. ‘It’s a fine day today – but what about when the snow comes. Two miles isn’t far – but in very bad weather it might seem a very long way.’
‘I’m young, sir. A two-mile walk won’t mean much to me.’
He smiled. ‘Well, I can’t say much to that, can I? And I daresay we would manage somehow if the weather grew really severe. Right. We’ll agree then, shall we?’
‘Thank you.’
‘And you can start immediately?’
‘Tomorrow if you wish?’
‘That will suit us fine. And the salary is acceptable to you?’
Seventy pounds a year was not a fortune, but it would keep her independent, and added to Ernest’s wages they would manage very well. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ He got up. The interview was over. Blanche rose and took his outstretched hand. ‘We have a bargain, Miss Farrar. And we’ll start tomorrow sharp at nine, yes?’
‘I shall be here.’
He showed her to the door. As she turned to take her leave she saw beyond him, standing in the hall, the two children, eight-year-old Robert, and his seven-year-old sister Louisa, who were to be her pupils.
She walked the two miles to Colford with a light step. Finding the position as daily governess to the Andrews children had lifted a great weight from her mind. After her mother’s death she had remained at
the cottage caring for Ernest, but it was not a full-time job, and anyway, she had wanted to get out and find work of her own. And now she had a position; she was making a start, at last – a start with her own life. And it would still enable her to care for Ernest – as she wanted to. With lessons for the two Andrews children ending each day at three, she could still get back well in time to prepare Ernest’s evening meal and keep the cottage in some sort of order.
When Ernest returned from work that evening, Jacko at his heels, Blanche told him of her acquisition of a job. He was pleased for her.
‘Mr Andrews was concerned about my age,’ Blanche said, ‘– but on the other hand, I think they had not had many responses to their advertisement. So – I was lucky.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short,’ Ernest said.
The following morning, just before nine o’clock, Blanche was admitted to Highfield and shown to the schoolroom on the second floor. A few minutes later her two pupils were brought into the room by Mrs Andrews, a short, nervous-looking little woman, who – rather reluctantly, it seemed – left them alone with her. Then, with the two children taking their seats at a table facing her own, the lessons began.
And Blanche found herself enjoying the work far more than she had expected to. At first the children were very shy with her, but as the day wore on and their shyness receded, they began to emerge as bright and affectionate, eager to please and to do well, and possessing keen, inquiring minds and lively personalities. At the end of that first day Blanche left the house with a feeling of hope and confidence.
In her continuing quiet life, Blanche, like most of the British, found herself relatively untroubled by events in such a far-off place as the Transvaal.
But the conflict there was gathering momentum. With the continuing improvements in international communications the reports of the war’s progress were not long in reaching British shores, and after the early reports of success – the defeat of the Boers at Glencoe – to the general surprise there came astonishing news of victories for the enemy. Not only did Pier Joubert win a decisive battle against British forces under George White, but the very next day he presided over the surrender of Ladysmith. The British, to the great surprise of everyone but their enemies, were not getting things all their own way. Even so, it was said all over England, the British troops were experiencing only a temporary setback. Once they had come to terms with the new terrain, they would easily win through. That not everyone in high places concurred with such sentiments, however, was evidenced by the fact that before November was out Canadian and Australian volunteer forces were on their way to South Africa.