Saddle the Wind

by Jess Foley

  Although it was not long after one in the afternoon the window curtains were drawn, so that the only light that came in was that from the landing by the open door, and the little that crept in through the cracks between the curtains.

  He saw Marianne at once as he entered. She was standing by the window, and although her slim figure was in shadow he saw her physically flinch at the abruptness of his entrance.

  He stood in the open doorway, gazing at her while she raised her hands to her face and turned away from him. There was silence in the room, a silence brushed only by the sounds of their breathing, then she said, her voice sounding heavy with the scars of very recent tears:

  ‘Gentry – what are you doing in Hallowford? I was astonished to learn that you’re here.’

  ‘By chance I saw your father’s solicitor, Mr Baron. He told me you were here. Marianne, what’s the matter?’

  She turned to face him now and he could see that her eyelids were swollen with weeping, though now there seemed to be a steady calm about her. ‘When I heard that you were downstairs I couldn’t believe it,’ she said. Then she added, ‘I wish you hadn’t come.’

  ‘Well, I have,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t want to see you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to see anybody. I don’t want to see Blanche, either. I thought I would; I had intended to, of course, but – no, not now.’

  ‘Marianne –’

  ‘I told Mary to tell you that I would write you a letter.’

  ‘I don’t want any letter from you, Marianne,’ he said, frowning. ‘Why didn’t you want to see me?’

  Disregarding his question she said to him, ‘Oh, Gentry, I’m so happy that you got back safely – now that that terrible war is over, and you’re safe again.’ She put her head a little on one side. ‘You look thinner, you know.’

  ‘Marianne,’ he said, ‘tell me what’s going on. Why didn’t you want to see me? Tell me. What’s the matter?’

  She turned from him again; she appeared to be fiddling with the catch of a small travelling box that stood on a table before her. ‘What makes you think there’s something the matter?’

  He stepped forward. ‘D’you think I’m seven years old, Marianne? And look at me. Please – look at me.’

  After a moment she turned to him once more, and in spite of her brave smile and the dimness of the light in the room he could see the misery in her eyes, the shock, the emotional bruising.

  ‘Marianne …’

  She swallowed hard while she faced him, and he saw the way she drew herself up, straightening, squaring her shoulders. ‘Gentry,’ she said after a second or two, speaking carefully, as if choosing her words, and the manner in which she spoke, ‘– this isn’t the way it was meant to be. This isn’t the way I imagined it – your homecoming. I’m sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m trying to be strong. And it’s not easy for me. Though you can see how cowardly I am in my refusing to see you. But there, I never pretended to have any great degree of bravery.’

  Gentry opened his mouth to speak but she quickly raised a hand. ‘Oh, please, Gentry – it’s difficult enough for me as it is.’

  He nodded. ‘Go on.’

  She took a breath and said: ‘I suppose your coming here – it might be the best thing after all. At least it – it will enable us to make a – a clean break.’

  ‘What – what are you talking about?’

  She looked down at her hands as they clenched and unclenched. ‘It’s all finished, Gentry. All of it. There’s nothing left.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

  She turned slightly, leaned over and picked up a newspaper. She thrust it into his hand – ‘Read it’ – and, stepping to the window, roughly drew back one of the curtains. In the sudden harsh light of the afternoon he stared at her, seeing clearly the extent of the misery in her face, the bereft look in her eyes. ‘Read it,’ she said. ‘Read it.’

  Reluctantly he moved his gaze to the newspaper in his hand. It was a local, West Country paper. He scanned the columns. ‘On the right,’ Marianne said, ‘– at the top of the page.’

  He found himself looking at a short column headed, Hallowford Man Found Dead. Beneath it he read:

  A report has come from a correspondent in Budapest of the discovery of the body of a man which has been identified as that of Mr Harold Savill, of Hallowford, manager of the Savill Mill in Trowbridge in Wiltshire. It appears that Mr Savill had been staying at the fashionable Hotel Gelert with a certain lady from London. Official reports state that Mr Savill left the hotel during the afternoon of June 4th and did not return. Later, following the hearing of a single gunshot on the banks of the Danube, Mr Savill was found dead, a bullet wound in the head. An inquest is to be held, but the authorities state that they do not believe that any other party is involved in the death.

  Gentry stared at the item. ‘And did he kill himself?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Apparently a letter was found on him. There’s no doubt that he meant to do it.’

  ‘But – why? Why should he kill himself?’

  She shrugged. ‘He had gone as far as he could. There was nowhere else to run to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She nodded. ‘You’re as ignorant as I was, Gentry. There I was in Messina, impatiently waiting for you to return, while all the time my uncle was going through my money as if there was a never-ending supply. And I was totally ignorant of it all. As you were. I had no idea. I was getting my allowance – so I saw no reason to have any doubts. I had no idea of what was happening. Though it appears that the signs were evident for anyone in this area to see.’

  Gentry gazed at her in growing incredulity. ‘He used your money?’

  ‘All of it. My father gave him power of attorney over everything until I came of age. I’ve had several meetings with Mr Baron who has found out as much of the story as he could. It appears that my uncle mortgaged the mill to the hilt – and this house and just about everything else – and put everything into motor car manufacturing.’

  ‘– Which failed.’

  She nodded. ‘Which failed. Oh, indeed it failed. A spectacular failure as failures go. And with it went everything my father worked for all his life. And everything he left for me.’

  Gentry could hardly take in her words. ‘It’s gone? All of it?’

  ‘Every penny.’

  ‘But the house, the land, the carriages, the –’

  ‘Gone!’ she burst out. ‘Please.’ And then more softly: ‘It’s all gone.’

  ‘Oh, Marianne – there must be something that can be done. There must be a way to –’

  She broke in: ‘There’s nothing. Do you suppose I haven’t been into it all, over and over, with Mr Baron. And if he could have found a way he would have done.’ She shook her head. ‘Believe me, there’s nothing to be done. It’s all finished.’ She turned, gesturing to the half-packed travelling box. ‘I’m just packing up a few things before I leave. The creditors are allowing me to the end of the week to get out of the house – and to take one or two personal possessions. I have a few little pieces of jewellery that belonged to my mother, some photographs, clothes. Just a few things.’

  There was no sign of tears in her eyes. He was astonished that she appeared so calm in the face of such a calamity. And then, looking at her, looking into her eyes, he saw that it was not a calm that was there; it was something else. It was as if a curtain had come down, shutting out the outside world, closing her in. It was the outward sign of a kind of numbness that he could see.

  As he looked at her she returned his gaze for some moments then, lowering her eyes, she put her hands together, her fingers working. Next moment she held out her hand. In her palm lay the engagement ring Gentry had given her. ‘Take it, please,’ she said.

  ‘– Marianne.’

  ‘Please, Gentry, take it. We have no future together any more. We did once, I thought. But in reality perhaps we neve
r did. Perhaps it only existed in the minds of our fathers. I don’t think you had much say in the matter, did you?’

  He did not answer. He stood as if stunned, Marianne standing before him, the ring lying on her outstretched palm. Then as he remained unmoving she stepped forward, reached out with her other hand and he felt the sharp hardness of the ring as she put it into his palm and closed his fingers over it. ‘You were to marry a girl with assets, with property. I have nothing. Anyway,’ she stepped back, ‘– now you are free.’

  Blanche was up in the schoolroom giving Clara her lesson when Lily came to the door to say that Mr Harrow was there to see her, that he was waiting in the library.

  Thanking the maid, Blanche quickly got up from her chair, a feeling of elation flooding over her. Since parting from Gentry on the train the day before she had waited impatiently for some word from him. And now he was here. ‘I must go downstairs for a little while, Clara,’ she said to the child. ‘Just get on with your lesson, there’s a good girl. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Farrar.’ Clara smiled at her and obediently went back to the task she had been set.

  Entering the library, Blanche found Gentry standing by the fireplace, watching for her appearance. Smiling, she moved quickly towards him, and then came to a halt as she saw the gravity in his expression.

  ‘Hello, Blanche …’

  ‘Gentry …’

  Something was wrong. It should not be like this. He should have come to her, taken her in his arms, but he had remained there, keeping his distance. They stood facing one another across six feet of carpet that was suddenly an unbridgeable chasm.

  After a little silence she said softly:

  ‘I’ve been expecting you. Waiting for you to come for me.’

  He did not answer, only lowered his gaze and looked away.

  ‘I’ve packed my trunk,’ she said. ‘So that I would be ready when you came.’ She tried to force a brightness into her tone, but the sound rang hollow in her ears. When he still said nothing she said, her words a melancholy statement:

  ‘– It’s not going to happen now, is it.’

  Raising his head, looking into her eyes, he said simply:

  ‘No.’ And now he moved to her, took her hands in his, holding them to his chest. ‘I’m so sorry, Blanche. I’m so terribly sorry.’

  He led her then to the sofa where they sat down, and where he told her of his meeting with Marianne at Hallowford House, of how she had tried to avoid him, and of her reasons for doing so; he told her of the suicide of Harold Savill, of Marianne’s loss of everything that had been hers; of her giving back to him the ring.

  ‘And God help me,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t take it. In one day she had discovered the loss of everything that had been hers. I couldn’t add to it, her misery. And I knew that you wouldn’t be able to do so either.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Could you, Blanche?’

  And seeing the end of all her new-born hopes she could only nod and murmur:

  ‘No.’

  The irony of the situation was almost incredible, she felt. Gentry, going to Marianne to break off the engagement, had found his release offered to him. And he had not been able to accept it.

  As she sat there she wept, silently, the tears spilling over and streaming down her cheeks. She felt as if her heart would break. For a very little time she had held a promise of happiness in her grasp, and now that promise had gone, leaving only emptiness in its wake.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ she said a little later, looking at him through her tear-stained eyes.

  ‘I shall return to Hallowford. And I shall take Marianne to Messina where we shall be married. She knows of course how I came to learn of her presence in Hallowford, but she doesn’t know I was with you at the time. She must never learn of that – from either of us. She agrees that you, as her sister and dearest friend, must be told of her present situation, and I said I would come here and tell you.’ He paused briefly. ‘And then she would like to see you. She couldn’t bear to see you before. She didn’t want to see anyone.’

  Blanche nodded. ‘Of course.’ It was all like some terrible dream. She knew, though, that it was only too real. Gentry had been hers, for a very little time, and now she had lost him again. Soon, very soon, he would have gone out of her life for ever.

  ‘You will be happy, Blanche,’ he said softly, intently. ‘You will be.’ And while a voice in her head cried out that such a thing could never be – not without him – he went on: ‘You’ll find the right man for you. Someone who will be able to love you, and will be free to love you, as you deserve.’

  ‘And you?’ Blanche said.

  He avoided her gaze, ‘Marianne is a good person,’ he said. ‘And I do love her – though in a different way. And I can make her happy – as she deserves to be – and I hope she can make me happy too. Though it will be a different kind of happiness from that which I’d dreamed of – with you.’

  He looked back into Blanche’s eyes. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘some things were meant to be. Right from the start it was all planned that Marianne and I should marry – without any real consultation of either one of us. And now – now it’s all going to happen, just as our fathers wished. And you and I, Blanche –’ he gave a sad shake of his head – ‘I don’t think we really ever had a chance.’

  After a little while he rose to go. At the library door he took Blanche’s hand, pressed it briefly and left.

  Two days later Gentry and Marianne left Hallowford for the last time. With their going Blanche felt as if a part of her soul had died.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ‘You’ve been quiet, Blanche,’ George Marsh said. ‘Preoccupied. Is there anything wrong?’

  At his words Blanche turned, smiling at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing wrong.’

  In the late morning sun they were seated on the fallen trunk of a dead lime, Jacko sitting at Blanche’s feet on the carpet of last year’s leaves. She bent and stroked his head. His tail thumped the earth a few times and she smiled and ruffled his ears.

  ‘He’s getting old,’ she murmured; then to Jacko: ‘You’re getting to be an old man, Jacko-boy.’ At her words the dog lifted his head and looked up at her with his soft brown eyes.

  He was going quite grey, she realized, and his gait had grown much slower of late, with an increasing stiffness in his joints. It occurred to her that not for some time had he chased rabbits or any of the other wild creatures which in earlier times had offered him such irresistible challenges.

  Absently stroking him, Blanche gazed off into the surrounding foliage.

  It was July, 1903. Marianne and Gentry had been gone from England for over a year now, and Blanche, following their departure, had done her best to come to terms with her situation and get on with her life at the Marsh house. The passing year had had its share of events. In the autumn Mrs Marsh had died. George had recovered his equilibrium after a time, though, and things had again become much as they had been. And the days and the weeks and the months had gone by, most of the time with little to distinguish one day or one week from the next.

  One bright happening in the otherwise dull pattern of Blanche’s existence had come in the shape of a letter from Ernest with the news that he was doing well in Bradford and that as soon as he was able he would come to Bath to visit her. Perhaps then, he added, if she wished to join him, they could arrange it – but not yet; he still had certain things he wished to accomplish. Blanche had answered his letter at once. She would like to join him immediately, she said. He had replied as swiftly that they must be patient a little while longer.

  That exchange had been over six months ago. Since that time she had heard nothing further from him, in spite of writing on several occasions. To her great disappointment and puzzlement, the last letter she had written had been returned to her, with Gone Away scrawled across the corner of the envelope.

  Her thoughts far away she ceased her stroking of the dog and he gently tossed
his head, nudging her hand into action again. ‘You,’ she said to him, ‘are an old rascal.’ Thinking of Ernest once more, she murmured to Jacko: ‘D’you suppose we’ll ever hear from him again? Or has he forgotten us?’ She patted the dog. ‘You haven’t forgotten him, have you? You still miss him, don’t you?’ She looked up and caught George Marsh’s eye. ‘There’s no doubt of it,’ she said. ‘Jacko still misses Ernest so much.’

  At the sound of Ernest’s name Jacko’s head turned slightly, ears pricking, alert. It was always the same.

  Whereas there had been no word from Ernest for some time now, she had heard again from Alfredo Pastore. Following his return to Sicily a year-and-a-half earlier he had written a number of times, but Blanche had not answered his letters and eventually he had given up. But now here he was again, saying that he would be coming to England and the West Country later in the summer. Perhaps, he said, they could meet, to which end he would be in touch with her again about the time of his arrival.

  Blanche was not affected in any particular way by his letter. It might be pleasant to see him again, she thought idly, but her feelings went no further, and it was almost a matter of indifference to her whether they ever met again. She put his letter aside and thought no more about it.

  Throughout the past year the one person with whom she had corresponded regularly was Marianne, whose letters, frequently arriving from Sicily, had made no secret of the happiness she had found with Gentry. Her last letter had arrived only yesterday.

  On this bright summer Sunday Blanche and George Marsh and Clara and Jacko had left the house for a walk, making their way to an area of woodland not too far from Almond Street. There, reaching a clearing, Blanche and Marsh had found makeshift seats on the trunk of the lime while Clara went off to explore the surrounding trees. And now Clara was coming into view again. Blanche watched her as she stopped, crouching to examine something on the woodland floor.