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

by Nicola Thorne

  “Oh, definitely. Mary says she knows it is a boy. Not that I would mind a girl.”

  “Next time,” Pieter suggested.

  “Exactly.” Alexander smiled. “I hope for a large family. Mary would like one too.”

  As the doors of the lift slid open on the top floor, the outer door was pulled open by Alexander’s secretary, a young woman called Norma. He was at once struck by the look of concern on her face and said anxiously, “What is it Norma? Is something wrong?”

  Norma put her hand to her mouth and looked from Alexander to Pieter and back again.

  “Mr Roberts rang you from your home, Mr Alexander. He is most anxious that you should get there as soon as possible.”

  The room seemed very still, very quiet. In an effort to make it less clinical it had colourful chintzy curtains, and two easy chairs. But it still had that all-pervasive air of a hospital, with a single bed in the middle, a locker by the side, and a corner washbasin.

  Alexander shivered.

  If he looked out of the window he could see along Harley Street as far as the trees waving in Regent’s Park. He had tried to read the paper but it was useless. He was too restless. They had brought him tea and the doctor had visited him twice and given a report.

  The baby was a bad breech case and was stuck fast in the birth passage.

  Labour had come on very suddenly. One moment Mary had been resting and the next minute her waters had broken and she had been ringing frantically for her maid, who had at once called the doctor. The doctor, just around the corner, had come within minutes, realised Mary needed hospitalisation and had sent for an ambulance which took her to the private clinic.

  Time passed so slowly, so heavily. Alexander had never before been conscious of the fact that time actually weighed. It crept. It was heavy, leaden. He thought of his darling struggling in the labour ward and he wished with all his heart he could be with her.

  Time continued to creep by. The door opened again and the obstetrician, Mr Whatmore, reappeared, gowned, a mask round his neck. He was perspiring and grim faced. Alexander rose and went anxiously towards him.

  “I am afraid it is not good news, Mr Martyn, and there is no easy way to tell you this. I have to operate and, in doing so, I may lose either your wife or the baby, or both. I’m afraid I have to ask your permission to go along with this.”

  Instead of beating fast, Alexander felt his heart creeping along with the slow motion of time.

  “Is there no other way?”

  The consultant shook his head, and behind him a nurse produced a pad on which there was a piece of paper. Alexander signed it.

  Alexander stood by the window as the evening drew on. There had been no news for an hour except a visit from the nurse to offer him food and drink, both of which he had declined.

  “Any news?” he had asked. She had shaken her head.

  The cars passed up and down Harley Street, people on their way home, or to an evening out in the West End. A day was ending, night approached. He had never felt so alone, so vulnerable, in his life. He longed for Lally or Carson or Dora, or someone near and dear to him, to comfort him. He realised the meaning of family, and how foolish he had been to reject them: people he had known all his life and who loved him. There and then he vowed that if Mary and the baby lived, the first thing he would do would be to effect a reconciliation.

  The door opened and he spun round. The consultant appeared dressed in his suit. His weary expression told Alexander everything.

  “I am very sorry, Mr Martyn, to tell you we have lost your wife. It was impossible to save her. I thought I’d succeeded, but she was too weak and too distressed. Her heart failed. But,” momentarily he paused, “I must give you the good news that you have a fine, healthy baby daughter. There is no need for any concern about her at all.”

  And then that good, compassionate man took the weeping Alexander into his arms and tried to comfort him.

  Chapter Nine

  July 1934

  “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth, as it were, a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

  “In the midst of life we are in death ...”

  A solitary wail eerily broke the stillness as Mary Martyn’s coffin was lowered into the grave beside that of the mother-in-law she had never known.

  The churchyard was so full that the wailing mourner was hard to see, but the sound came from the back of the crowd and not from the immediate family who, supporting Alexander, gathered by the side of the grave.

  Carson recalled that on the day Nelly had been buried the sun had also shone, giving an awful sense of incongruity to the solemn proceedings. Then it had been spring. Now it was midsummer and the earth was ablaze with the bright colours of flowers and the variegated greens of the trees in the churchyard. The lime tree that had been about to burgeon the day Nelly was buried now had myriads of little pods which fluttered and danced, embodying the very spirit of life, in the soft breeze. It was as though everything in this place of death was vibrantly alive, giving some sense to the belief that the soul of the departed rises from the dead to rejoin the Creator in heaven.

  Beside him Alexander stood quite still, his head bent, his face utterly impassive as if he too had no life left in him. Tentatively Carson put a hand on his shoulder and briefly Alexander raised his head flashing him a grateful smile. In that moment an intimacy between father and son was born that made Carson rejoice even amidst the gloom, the awful all-pervasive sense of loss at the cutting off of the life of a young girl of such tender years. Out of such evil good might yet come.

  Even the rector, Hubert Turner, veteran of many a funeral, had been hard put to offer consolation to the mourners who flocked into the church. Several times he had faltered in his sermon to blow his nose loudly. There had been a lot of snuffling and coughing among the large congregation that filled the church and overflowed outside. The whole of Wenham had closed its doors and come to the funeral, not so much to honour Mary, who they hardly knew, but to support the Woodville family of which she, by however devious a route, was a member.

  The gravediggers finished lowering the coffin, withdrew the straps that had secured it and stood back beside the mound of earth they had dug the previous day. Hesitantly Alexander stepped forward, picked up a lump of soil and threw it on the coffin. He stood for a long time gazing at it and at the simple words inscribed on the brass plate:

  Mary Martyn

  1917-1934

  She was just a few days short of her seventeenth birthday.

  He stepped back and then the members of the family approached the grave, each one casting a handful of earth upon the coffin. Lally, supported by Dora and Eliza with Pieter Heering close by, didn’t go to the graveside but remained where she was in the shelter of the church. Grey-haired and frail, she looked like a little pale ghost, who might not long survive the girl who was being buried.

  Agnes Woodville stood a little away from the main body of the family – after all it had always made her feel an outsider – clad in black from head to foot, grim-faced. She had perhaps suffered more than others because, in many ways, this had been her doing. It seemed amazing that so much drama could be played out and accomplished in a year.

  Next to her was Sophie Turner and Ruth and Abel Yetman, behind her Sarah Jane and Solomon Palmer, Deborah and Bart. Jean Parterre and Sally Yetman also formed part of the family group. Connie had sent flowers, preferring not to undertake the long journey from Venice at such short notice.

  On the other side of the grave, and as far away from the family as possible, stood Elizabeth flanked by her husband Graham, Mary’s sister Betsy and older brother Jack. All were dressed in deepest mourning. Betsy never stopped snivelling despite threatening glances and a few digs in her ribs from her mother.

  Elizabeth and her family had arrived ahead of the cortège and most of the mourners, and had not addressed a single word to Alexander or to
anyone else.

  As the crowds began to drift silently away, and the gravediggers started to fill in the hole, Alexander stood in front of the cross that had been erected on his mother’s grave:

  Nelly Allen

  1889-1931

  This seemed to move him in a way the burial of his wife had not, although he couldn’t have been more grief-stricken. It released the tears that he had so far held back and, producing his handkerchief from his pocket, he wept silently for a few moments. Carson remained by his side protecting him from the stares of the curious.

  Alexander finally raised his head, blew his nose and smiled at Carson. The two men turned towards the church and the respectful crowd that remained behind, hands outstretched, to offer him condolences.

  Suddenly Elizabeth broke away from the shelter of her immediate family and rushed across the grass to Alexander, administering a sharp slap to his face that sent him reeling. Instinctively he put his hands up to protect himself as Graham Temple, horrified, roughly seized his wife by the arm to prevent her from aiming another blow.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Elizabeth bawled at Alexander. “You alienated my daughter from her family.” She raised her hand and pointed a quivering finger at him. “You were the cause of her death. You should be put in prison, locked up and the key thrown away. You –”

  “Come now, my dear,” the red-faced Graham tugged agitatedly at her, “this is no way to talk.” He looked up apologetically at Alexander, who had taken his hands from his face and was staring at Elizabeth, the imprint of her palm clearly visible on his cheek.

  “I am very sorry, Mr Martyn. My wife is beside herself with grief.”

  “Beside herself with grief.” Agnes snorted. “That’s a nice one.”

  Agnes crossed over to Alexander’s side. She confronted her daughter pointing in turn an accusing finger at her. “You’re a nice one to talk. If there was ever an unnatural mother it is you, Elizabeth. That poor girl eloped to get away from you. Don’t blame Alexander. He was nothing to her but kindness and love, whereas you,” Agnes’s loud, bold voice began to tremble, “you have not a kind sentiment in your body. Look at the way you have treated me, your own mother, a reflection of the way you treated your daughter. You –”

  “Agnes please.” Carson caught hold of her outstretched hand and forcibly lowered it. “This is no place for a brawl.”

  “She started it.” Agnes tugged angrily at Carson’s hand, but he held tight.

  “Graham, please take Elizabeth away.” Eliza commanded. “One can understand her distress, but this is not the time.”

  “Understand!” Agnes, nostrils flaring, retorted.

  “Please Agnes,” Eliza appealed to her. “Let us have a little decorum and respect for the dead.”

  Suddenly silence fell. The townsfolk who had stayed to gawp at this wholly novel and unexpected event, such as had never been witnessed in Wenham churchyard in living memory, began to slink away. They would talk about it for days, perhaps years, to come. It would be part of Wenham folklore, as was so much else of a scandalous nature to do with the Woodville family.

  Graham Temple drew his wife, who was now sobbing loudly, towards the church gate and Sophie put her arm round Agnes who, her moment over, had also dissolved into tears. She led her to the bench by the side of the church where she sat her down and, producing a handkerchief, began to dab at her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Eliza looked up at Alexander who still pressed his hand to his face. He nodded and sat down beside Agnes and took her hand.

  “Thank you, Aunt Agnes. What you did was very brave.”

  “What she did was atrocious.” Agnes’s whole body was quivering. “I never saw such a scene in my life. Coming from her.” She looked towards the churchyard gate where Graham Temple could be seen bundling his wife and family hurriedly into his car.

  Bart, accompanied by Deborah, came up to the group and held out his hand. “My condolences, Alexander. A terrible, terrible thing.”

  “Thank you, Bart. Thank you for coming.”

  “Will you come back to Pelham’s Oak?” Carson addressed Bart. “We have a small luncheon laid on for family only. We didn’t think it was the right occasion for a big wake, such as we have had in the past and to which we normally invite the townspeople.’

  “That’s very kind of you,” Bart said shaking his head, “but Deborah doesn’t feel too well and, as Sarah Jane and Solomon are staying with us, we thought we’d go straight back to Upper Park.”

  He shook Alexander’s hand again. Deborah put her face to his cheek, as did her mother and sister. Solomon and Abel also shook hands murmuring words of sympathy.

  “Where’s Mother?” Alexander asked suddenly observing that Lally was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Lally gone?”

  “She didn’t feel well, either,” Eliza said. “Dora and Pieter have taken her home. Perhaps you’ll go and see her later?”

  Alexander nodded, aware that, for the first time for months, he had instinctively referred to Lally as ‘mother’. Was it possible, he thought, looking towards the grave, now being filled in, that a man could have two mothers?

  He hadn’t yet seen Lally alone. She had remained at Forest House while he had accompanied the coffin to Wenham church where it had lain overnight. He had then joined the baby and her nurse at Pelham’s Oak.

  “Ready old chap?” Carson put a hand on his arm and Alexander nodded as Eliza again inspected his face.

  “I don’t think she hurt you very much, did she?”

  “She hurt my pride,” Alexander said tenderly fingering his cheek. “I deserved it.”

  “You did not,” Carson protested. “It is easy to be sentimental and forget what happened.”

  “But for you I have no doubt that Mary would have run away, as Deborah once did,” Agnes said firmly, “and may well have been lost to us for ever. Her mind was made up, and when I get the chance I shall lose no time in conveying that message to my daughter, monster that she is.”

  “I think you’ve said enough, Aunt, thank you.” Alexander looked up at her and, for the first time for many days, he managed the ghost of a smile.

  At the end of lunch Alexander, excusing himself without explanation, slipped out of the room and made his way on foot to the cottage a mile or so away where Massie Smith, his mother’s companion, lived. Alexander knew that when she was needed she worked up at the big house but, otherwise, she lived here on her own, dependent on the bounty and goodwill of Carson. This undoubtedly was why she had kept the truth from him the day he’d gone there with Mary in an attempt to find out more about Nelly. He hadn’t seen her since.

  Despite himself Alexander enjoyed the walk through the fields on this lovely day in high summer whose beauty was only spoilt by the fact that he had just laid his beloved to rest, an event which lay heavily on his heart. Without her he could feel no lift in his spirits.

  It was a relief to be away from the family. Much as he appreciated their uncritical support, it was an unnatural situation in which to be reunited with them after the passage of nearly a year during which so much had happened. Everyone had chosen their words very carefully and there was so much that was left unsaid, so much that needed to be said. He and Carson had yet to have a long talk, but that supportive hand on his shoulder at the moment of interment had spoken volumes. It was rather as if Carson had been trying to say, “I am here, man to man, when you need me.”

  For a few seconds Alexander stood outside the pretty little cottage gazing up at the window where that day, four years before, he had looked up from his horse and seen this rather strange, beautiful woman standing at the window looking at him. The window was open, as it had been then. He was struggling to control the tears welling up inside him when the door opened and Massie stood there, her face creased with sorrow.

  “Master Alexander,” she said stepping back. “What a surprise it is to see you. Please come in.”

  As he crossed the threshold she shut the door after hi
m and turning said, “I was so sorry to hear ...”

  Alexander nodded. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Please sit down.” Massie pointed to a chair and then took the one opposite him.

  “I say I was surprised to see you, Master Alexander, but, in a curious way, I have been expecting a visit. I knew you would want to hear about your ma.”

  “I would have come before, but I couldn’t,” Alexander said. “I was so hurt and upset that it was kept from me, that in the last months of her life, when I could have helped her, I was not told. I felt it was very cruel and wicked of my family, and so I found it hard to forgive them. Impulsively I decided to have nothing more to do with them.”

  “That was very foolish, Mr Alexander,” Massie said earnestly, leaning towards him. “If you will forgive me for speaking so bluntly. Nelly, your mother, wished for nothing but the best for you. She could give you nothing and she left you with that good lady in the hope that she would bring you up as a gentleman, which she did.

  “Your poor mother never enjoyed very good health. If you had remained with her it would have been a miracle if you had survived your childhood, and if you had you would have had a terrible life. But her circumstances meant that poor Nelly couldn’t have kept you. She had not the means, nowhere to live. She would never have abandoned you, but she would have lost you. Bad enough now but you’ve no idea what conditions were like in those days. She’d have had no choice. The Frances Roper Home was already arranging for the guardians to take you from her. You would have been adopted by strangers who no one knew or left in a foundlings’ home.’

  “But Nelly knew you was the son of a gentleman and she wanted you to be brought up as one. She made the sacrifice for you, and her thanks were that she succeeded. She was very proud of you and hearing your father, Sir Carson, talk about you going to university and that, and seeing you that day looking so handsome on your horse, gave her nothing but joy. She died a happy woman, I can tell you. Far, far happier than if the son she had given birth to had died in childhood, wracked by disease, or turned to crime and wickedness to support himself if he had lived to be a man. I can tell you, Master Alexander, life on the streets as we knew it was very, very hard and you should be grateful to that good lady who gave you a home and brought you up to be the fine man you are now.”