A Time of Hope (Part Five of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  Bart was indifferent to the opinion of the townspeople of Wenham. After many years abroad he, once a ne’er-do-well, had returned to Wenham a rich man and all he cared about was becoming even richer. He had thrown himself into creating new business enterprises and had begun to neglect his capricious, wilful, and also rather selfish, wife who had caused a good deal of hurt and embarrassment to her family when she was a teenager by eloping with a workman and bearing his child. Thus Deborah was twice ostracised: for her past as well as for her present.

  Deborah turned to Bart whose head was still bent over his figures.

  “As you don’t want to talk about it –” she began.

  “Deborah, it is not worth talking about. These people don’t matter at all to me.”

  “They do to me.” Deborah’s cheeks had started to flame.

  “That’s your affair. Look,” he raised his head and gazed at her wearily as though she had begun to irritate him, “do whatever you like. I’ll fall in with your wishes.”

  “In that case we’ll go. I’ve decided!” Deborah said and flounced out of the room. Her husband flinched as the door banged behind her and, for a few minutes, he sat gazing thoughtfully at it.

  The age gap of twenty-seven years was really a very large one. Too large when you coupled it with a young woman who thought only of herself, when he would have preferred a docile obedient woman who thought only about him.

  Chapter Three

  October 1932

  Bart Sadler halted awkwardly on the threshold of the cream and gold drawing room which was, once again, the scene of a splendid reception at Pelham’s Oak. He did, in the end, feel very nervous, although he had assured himself he would not. After all why should he? He was man of substance, a power in the community, a town councillor, maybe a future Mayor of Blandford. He had married a beautiful young wife and fathered her child. Reminding himself of his importance he squared his shoulders, thrust out his chin, made sure his black tie was properly centred and tucked his wife’s hand firmly under his arm. He gave their name to the functionary at the door who called in loud clear tones, “Mr and Mrs Bartholomew Sadler.”

  Simultaneously, it seemed, everyone in the room stopped talking. All eyes swivelled towards them as they walked towards the receiving line stationed just beyond the door.

  It was a moment of truth.

  Carson, first in line, reached forward to shake Bart warmly by the hand and kiss Deborah on the cheek. Eliza, a little more formally, took Bart’s hand avoiding eye contact. He bowed, looking at his feet.

  “Happy birthday, Mrs Heering.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Happy birthday, Aunt Eliza.” Eliza looked up and took Debbie in her arms. For a few moments, the women clung together. “I so missed you,” Eliza whispered in her ear.

  “Me too,” Debbie whispered back. Then, after a short pause she asked. “Is Mummy here?”

  Eliza released her niece from her embrace, stepped back and shook her head. “I thought she’d come, she said she would, but at the last minute she sent a note to say she had a headache. Your stepfather is here.” Eliza pointed to where, a few feet away, Hubert Turner hovered, an anxious expression on his face.

  Deborah hesitated only a moment and flew towards him.

  “Oh, Father!” she cried. “It is so good to see you.”

  “And you, my dear.” The emotional rector wiped a tear from his eye. A collective sigh seemed to rise from those in the room still entranced by the drama being enacted by the door.

  “Your mama had a headache,” the Reverend Turner said. “I think she wanted to come but ...” he glanced behind Deborah to Bart, who was watching the proceedings. Debbie nodded as if she understood.

  “But I do wish you would come and see us, my dear. Your dear mother pines for you, and the sight of her grandchild.”

  Debbie glanced at Bart, who stood with a black scowl on his face. “One day, perhaps.”

  Hubert nodded, and reached out to shake Bart’s hand.

  Bart and Debbie then completed the handshakes – Dora and her husband Jean, and Hugh – before joining Hubert once more and then losing themselves in the crowds where, slowly, almost reluctantly, conversation had resumed again. Few backs were turned on them. Everyone wanted to see what happened, or if anything would happen. On a night that promised to be full of surprises no one wanted to miss a thing. Bart Sadler and his wife at the Woodville home was an event.

  There were many at Eliza’s seventieth birthday who were well acquainted with Bart Sadler. His family were prominent in the locality: they had farmed hundreds of acres for years; his sister had married a Yetman. Many of the more prominent citizens did business with him, or sat with him on the town council to which he had been speedily elected. A man of so many parts, such wealth; the town needed him. They knew him well, and gradually they drifted towards him shaking him by the hand and introducing their wives who were anxious to gawp at the couple who had been a source of such delicious scandal. In a way it was a pity that it was all over and tiresome respectability had intervened.

  Slowly quite a crowd gathered round the hitherto ostracised couple and, watching from the far side of the room, now that the stream of new arrivals had reduced to a trickle, Eliza could not help but be intrigued by the attention given to Bart and his wife. She had had to steel herself to shake his hand, but it had been done. It was a problem no more. She would invite them to Riversmead and they undoubtedly they would one day ask her to her former home. She would see her great-great niece. Imagine being a great-great aunt at the early age of seventy! In a way it was something of an achievement. Observing them absorbed by a curious crowd she thought that, in a way, Bart and Deborah deserved each other, though perhaps ‘deserved’ was not the word. Deborah had hurt many people and shown little gratitude for many kindnesses that had been done to her. Dora and Jean had once scoured the country for her when she went missing. Carson had taken her into his home when she fell out with her mother. In the end she had run off with a man no one liked. Maybe it was simply that she and Bart suited each other, locked together in mutual selfishness and self-esteem, with little care for the feelings of others.

  It was an evening of contrasts, of pleasure and pain. Pleasure to see so many friends, pain to know that family discords continued. Elizabeth was studiously ignoring her mother, Agnes, who sat on a chair in one of the corners, a glass of champagne in her hand, looking dignified, but a little frail and perhaps rather lonely. In a minute she would go up to Agnes and invite her to sit at her table for supper, but then what would she do about Elizabeth who was entertaining a coterie all of her own, as far away from her mother as she could get? Or Sarah Jane who had arrived with her husband, Solomon Palmer, whose extreme good looks enhanced the age difference between them. Sarah Jane, it had to be admitted, was looking a little worn.

  Enjoying a moment alone as the receiving line broke up and its members dispersed among the guests, Eliza helped herself to a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. She contemplated not only the people who filled the room, but the beautiful room itself with its ornate plasterwork and cornices, the magnificent crystal chandelier, and the oval painting of Diana the Huntress, attributed to Sir Thomas Thornhill, the eighteenth-century painter, who had also owned a house in Dorset not far from Pelham’s Oak.

  Off the drawing room was a larger reception room, only used for big occasions when there was to be dancing. It was being prepared for supper with small tables lit with glittering silver candles.

  Eliza had seen so many occasions in these rooms over the years. The one which most vividly came to mind was the wedding reception for her brother, Guy, and his new wife, Margaret, in 1880, which was when the modern history of the Woodville family began. It was the first time Eliza had become conscious of her heritage. She had been just eighteen, a rebel on the threshold of life, caring little for family icons and convention.

  The last time this room had been used had been for the baptism of Carson’s only daughter, Netta, no
w with her mother in Venice.

  Eliza gave a deep sigh and looked up to find Alexander gazing down at her, his face creased with concern.

  “Are you all right, Aunt? You look so sad on your birthday.”

  “No, I’m not sad.” She took his hand. “I was just thinking over many eventful years. Let’s go and say ‘hello’ to Agnes. She does look a little lost.”

  “No one seems to talk to her.” Alexander obediently set out with Eliza across the floor.

  “Well, a lot of people don’t know her now. She’s become rather a recluse since Owen Wentworth ran off. Oh, I suppose you’re too young to remember that.”

  “Tell me about it.” Alexander looked intrigued but, above the noise of the crowd, could hardly hear Eliza’s reply.

  “I’ll tell you another time, this is not the place.”

  Although she was alone Agnes seemed quite content, sipping her champagne and observing the crowd. However, as Eliza and Alexander approached her face broke into smiles and she half rose as Eliza stooped to kiss her.

  “You look so lovely,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re …”

  “Shh,” Eliza smiled, finger to her lips. “I can’t believe it myself. And I can’t believe it of you Agnes.” She stepped back to admire the woman in front of her. “Your outfit is ravishing.”

  Agnes gave a tight little smile of pleasure. “Thank you. I think so too.”

  Agnes had always been fashion conscious, even at home alone she maintained high standards. Her evening gown of grey silk had a high neck and long sleeves tapering to the wrists and seemed, as well as the acme of fashion, to cling to a body which had defied the years. Agnes was not slender, too many years of good living had inclined her to plumpness, but her flesh was firm and supple and kept in control by good corsetry and dignity of bearing. In her younger days her breasts had been celebrated for their beauty and admired by many men even though few got any closer than a glance from a distance.

  Agnes had had all her jewels stolen by Owen Wentworth, the man who had married her and so grossly deceived her. As they had not been insured they had not been replaced, so she did not glitter and gleam like half the overdressed women in the room, whom she far outshone in elegance. She wore a pair of rather good diamond earrings that Connie had given her, and her hairstyle was simple, if unfashionable. Rather like Lally, almost her exact contemporary, she clung to the old style which suited her: tight curls and waves, a little like Queen Mary, only hers were blonde, but not too blonde so that the onlooker was left wondering if it could possibly be natural.

  Agnes accepted Eliza’s compliment and Alexander’s admiring look with equanimity and patted the seats on either side of her.

  “You must keep me entertained, though just looking around does that. I never saw so many people in my life, most of them strangers, most of the women plain. When do you think my dear family are going to come and see me? Apart from Dora and Carson, a word or two with Hubert Turner, I have spoken to no one. Am I some kind of pariah? Have people forgotten I was once mistress of this house? Don’t I deserve some kind of memory, some respect? I think I should have been in the receiving line, Eliza. I’m surprised I wasn’t asked.”

  Eliza blushed. “I imagine Carson thought there were enough people there, Agnes. I mean, so many hands to shake ...”

  “Don’t make excuses,” Agnes snapped. “You can’t take me in. You feared a scene with my daughter. Elizabeth might have snubbed me.”

  “Would have snubbed you, Agnes,” Eliza interjected. “It would not have been pleasant.”

  “The truth at last.” Agnes glared at her malevolently. “I hear my niece Sally Yetman is here. Her father, my brother Hesketh,

  I believe did very well. Died of a heart attack, poor man, some time ago. I don’t suppose she even knows who I am.”

  “Oh, but she does,” Eliza glanced around. “She wants to talk to you. Very much.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  Eliza looked thoughtful.

  “I would say not so much pretty as nice. She seems an awfully nice girl and I’m glad Carson asked her. He invited all that branch of the Yetman family, but Sally is the only one who came. See, she’s with Dora now.” Eliza pointed to a group of people in the middle of the room, mostly young or youngish. Among them was a tall, fair woman of about thirty who bore a remarkable resemblance to her cousin.

  “You see,” Agnes said plaintively, “they have no time for me, those young people. Ah well, it’s all I can expect I suppose now that I have no money and am dependent upon charity. They know they won’t inherit anything from me.”

  “Oh, Agnes,” Eliza protested, “that is a silly thing to say. The situation is not as bad as that.”

  “It is as bad as that,” Agnes insisted, stamping her neatly shod foot. “And what about my granddaughters, are they going to talk to me?” She spoke rapidly as if she was afraid her audience would go away, and her tone grew increasingly querulous.

  Eliza attempted to stop the torrent by patting her hand. “My dear the evening is young. I am sure all that will happen in good time.”

  “I will fetch Mary if you like,” Alexander said eagerly. “I know she is dying to talk to you.”

  “Then why does she not come?” Agnes looked at him reproachfully. “Is it because her mother won’t allow it? I was in half a mind whether to come or not, but Carson was persuasive and even sent a car for me, which was rather nice of him considering we haven’t always seen eye to eye.”

  Those eager, piercing eyes of hers – slightly menacing like those of a bird looking for its prey – darted about again. They were violet and rather small, close together, calculating, missing nothing. They followed Alexander as he made his way through the throng, stopping every now and again to greet someone he knew.

  “He’s so handsome,” Agnes murmured. “He has a look of his father ...”

  Eliza glanced at her sharply.

  “How on earth do you know?”

  “Oh I know.” Agnes pursed her mouth knowingly and smiled mysteriously, the squiggly curls bobbing up and down as she nodded her head several times.

  “But how ... ?”

  “A little bird told me. Does he not know yet?” She looked slyly at Eliza, who shook her head. “Well, he should. It’s not right that he doesn’t know who his parents were.”

  “I know,” Eliza said. “Believe me, it troubles me, but it is up to Lally to tell him – I think it is her duty – and yet she can’t bring herself to.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Well ...” Eliza glanced at her sideways. “In a way you can understand it. He might have divided loyalties. He might feel very angry. You can’t predict how he will react. They have such a rapport that she cannot bring herself to, for the moment, though I daresay she will in time.”

  “I don’t think it’s fair to the boy,” Agnes began, but stopped when she saw Alexander approaching with Mary Sprogett close by his side.

  The girl looked radiant, her fair hair and blue eyes offset by a dress of turquoise taffeta, the bodice ruched over her tiny bust, the narrow shoulder straps accentuating her slim white shoulders. The fashionable mid-calf length of the skirt showed her white silk stockings and dainty pointed shoes which appeared to be made of the same material as her dress. Agnes, always deeply conscious of fashion, looked at her with approval as she held up her powdery cheek to be kissed.

  “Well, my dear, I haven’t seen you for quite a while.”

  “No, Grandma.” Mary sounded nervous.

  “Mother doesn’t allow it, I don’t suppose.”

  “No, Grandma.” Mary’s voice quivered, as though she was afraid of this remote and august relation.

  “Well, what will you do if she sees you now?”

  “She’s gone into supper. In the other room.”

  “Will you tell her that you saw me?”

  “I have wanted to see you,” Mary burst out, her voice ringing with sincerity. “But ...”

  “I know, my dear,
I know.” Agnes held up a hand on which there was a solitary platinum wedding band, the only thing Owen Wentworth had left her with (and that only because she was wearing it at the time of his theft). “There is no need to explain, but if you can come and see me, I would like it. I would like it very much indeed. And,” she looked up at Alexander, “bring this young man with you. I like him too. Now run off to Mania and tell your sister and brother they must come and visit me too ... when they can.”

  “Yes, Grandma.” Mary flung herself at Agnes who, for a moment, clung to her with a very real emotion. As the girl pulled herself away, Eliza saw there were tears in Agnes’s eyes.

  “I will come, Grandma. I will come soon.” Alexander held out his hand, Mary clasped it and sped away with him across the room anxious not to offend her mother.

  Agnes dabbed her eyes. “That was all very emotional. Not the thing for a party. Not the thing at all.” She looked over at Eliza and smiled. “I don’t think you’ve any idea how much a gesture like that means to me. Mary is a very sweet girl. I hardly know my grandchildren. Elizabeth has been very cruel to me. And,” she cocked her head towards the door, “I like that young Alexander very much. Don’t you?” She looked across at Eliza, who nodded but, to her dismay, found that for some reason her heart was full of foreboding.

  Even in Agnes’s lonely old age Eliza felt that, somehow, she was still capable of much mischief.

  Carson wandered among the supper tables talking to his guests, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, leaning over, an arm round one, a hand on the shoulder of the other, thoroughly enjoying himself. He was surprised how wholeheartedly he had thrown himself into the party. Perhaps it was because it helped to take his mind off his marriage difficulties: his wife’s intransigence and lack of cooperation.

  It was at a time like this that the family was particularly important, and he had gone out of his way to track down people with whom they had long ago lost touch. It was Dora who had been keen to trace the branch of the Yetman family of which she knew almost nothing. She had only been eleven years old when her father died. It was the first time Dora had seen her cousin, Sally Yetman, since she was very small and Carson had never met her.