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

by Nicola Thorne

  It had been a terrible shock when they had learned about Solomon; but why should it have been? It was unreasonable of them not to wish her happiness. But at the time, a woman of fifty sleeping with a man twenty-three years her junior had seemed obscene, made worse by the fact it was their mother even though she had been a widow for twenty years.

  Martha rose, putting the cardigan to one side, and opened the long mahogany wardrobe. One section, where Solomon had kept his suits, was clear. The other showed a collection of dresses and ladies’ costumes for all occasions.

  On the top shelf were hats of various descriptions: pill-box, ones with rolled up brims, a Russian-style fur toque, several berets, a fez, turbans with draped bands. Some looked as though they’d never been worn.

  Next she went to the dresser and opened the drawers one by one. Everything was very neat. Underclothes pressed, folded and ready to wear: neat petticoats with lace tops, cami-knickers in crêpe de Chine with lace bodices and lace edging, satin panties and brassières, nightgowns of flowered chiffon still faintly perfumed. In the lower drawers were handbags and gloves, some of which also looked as though they had hardly been worn.

  All this was an eye-opener. Her mother had certainly got smarter, taken more care of her appearance, in recent years.

  The dressing table told the same story with a variety of cosmetics: creams, powders, lipsticks and rouges. Martha never remembered her mother wearing a hat or using make-up at all until Solomon came along.

  She wandered back to the dresser and began inspecting the selection of handbags, some in fabric for evenings, some in leather, many scarcely used. Some were wrapped in their original tissue paper. The one she must have taken the day she died had never been found. Discarded, perhaps, on some rubbish tip by the murderer.

  Murderer. Martha shuddered. It was a horrible word for a horrible deed.

  She took a selection of the bags and went and sat on the bed inspecting each one. She marvelled at this revelation of a woman who she felt she had scarcely known.

  She paused in the act of opening a bag made of fine black calf and gazed out of the window. Maybe they had been unfair to their mother. They should have tried to understand her better. But when she drank too much she had became an embarrassment, an object of pity and contempt rather than someone they should have tried to help and understand.

  Instead they had wanted to distance themselves from her. She remembered her mother falling over at Grandma Eliza’s party and having to be carried out of the room. On the few occasions she’d visited her in Brighton her mother appeared to have fortified herself beforehand for the visit.

  Initially, Martha supposed, there had been a hint of jealousy of their mother when she had remarried. It seemed a bit unfair that she had been married twice and neither of her daughters had married at all. She’d had three children, but Abel and Ruth were unable to produce any. Martha knew that Abel badly wanted a family. Sometimes she thought theirs was the legacy of bad luck, the suicide of their father followed by their mother’s years of depression, and now the awful fact of her murder.

  Felicity had had an affair with a doctor, but Martha had never had anyone. Her virginity weighed heavily upon her. She didn’t know why it was that she didn’t attract men, whether she was too cold or not flirtatious enough, but so far love had passed her by. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men. She did. She had quite liked Solomon when she first met him, and had wondered if perhaps he was interested in her when all the time it had been her mother.

  She wanted to love and be loved, to be married, to have children, a nice home, all the things that so many other people had. The sort of jolly, noisy, busy bustling place, with animals and people coming and going, that she dimly remembered from those days before father died. The sort of homes that her Uncle Carson and her grandmother, Eliza, and so many other people had, or used to have. Why not her?

  She looked up and gazed at herself in the mirror of the dressing room, facing the bed. She didn’t think she was bad-looking. Tall, but not too tall, slim but by no means thin. Quite a nice bust, she thought, not too big, not too small. She had brown curly hair, brown eyes and a rather olive skin like her grandmother. Martha smiled at herself in the mirror to reveal even teeth, a well-shaped mouth with an orangey lipstick which matched her colouring. She wore a beige linen suit and had left her hat and bag in the hall.

  Why was it, then, that at the age of twenty-nine she, a good looking woman and earning good money, appeared to be on the shelf?

  Martha bent her head and opened the bag still on her lap. It was empty as she had expected it to be, like the others, except for a clean handkerchief and comb and a little pillbox which, when opened, proved to be empty too.

  She was about to shut the bag and return it to the drawer when she saw something tucked in one of the side pockets and drew it out.

  It was a white visiting card and engraved on it in impeccably good style was a single name:

  Colonel A.C. George MC

  ***

  The police were excited by Martha’s discovery. They thought that ‘Colonel George’ could well answer the description of the tall, distinguished-looking man of military bearing with whom Sarah Jane had been seen during her last weeks.

  A hunt began for a man of that name in the bars, the hotels, the boarding houses and apartment blocks, as well as residences of all kinds in the smarter parts and less salubrious areas of Bournemouth. Hotel registers were examined, electoral lists, hundreds of shopkeepers questioned. Further afield the help of the army was sought, the roll of the holders of the Military Cross inspected. Other unsolved murders of women in the area and beyond were scrutinised for clues. Similarities in the method of execution were compared and assessed.

  Nothing. Another Colonel George proved to have no common characteristics with the one they sought.

  As time passed the police became convinced that the elusive Colonel George was their man, but his name together with his war record, were false and his whereabouts remained a mystery. The murder of Sarah Jane Palmer stood on the files of the Dorset police, unsolved.

  Chapter Fourteen

  January 1937

  For a modern man Bart Sadler had very Victorian ideas about parenting. For one who had been so determined to keep them, he had little to do with his children. When he was at home he saw them twice a day, spending a little more time with them at night than in the morning, when he visited them after breakfast before setting off for work. In the evening he would sit and watch them at play, or occasionally read them a story as they huddled round his knee.

  He still had a deep sense of grievance about Deborah, a feeling that he had been very badly wounded, a desire to do her harm, to get even with her. Deborah had never got on well with her mother particularly since her elopement with Bart, who had once been her mother’s lover. He understood she was staying with Carson at Pelham’s Oak now. Meanwhile, he was proceeding with the divorce although, acting on Carson’s instructions, the solicitor was putting every difficulty he could in Bart’s way. Deborah was making counter claims for the custody of the children on the grounds of Bart’s suitability as a parent and his many absences abroad.

  Helen was Bart’s favourite child. She was golden-haired, bright-eyed, good-tempered, good-natured – a happy, laughing child. She was not at all in awe of Bart whereas little James was, clearly ill at ease when his father entered the nursery rather ominously shutting the door behind him. Although still a baby, James missed his mother more than Helen who was Daddy’s girl. She had been told Mummy had gone away, but even she eventually began to ask when she was coming back. Bart had hoped that with the passage of time they would forget their mother, but they didn’t. They seemed to miss her more, especially James.

  On this particular evening towards the end of January Bart had read them a story and he now sat in a deep armchair in front of the nursery fire watching them at play. Helen was very sweet and protective of her little brother. The children could not have been more different. Ja
mes, in contrast to Helen’s fairness, had curly brown hair and brown eyes. He was an extraordinarily lovable and docile child, but so shy and nervous that he often made Bart wonder how a son of his could be so unlike him.

  As he looked at James playing quietly with his toys, while his sister skipped noisily around with her nurse, Bart was suddenly struck by something that had never occurred to him before. He leaned forward and stared intently at James for several seconds before calling his nurse over. She dropped what she was doing and came immediately.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I want to ask you something,” Bart said, indicating that she should come nearer.

  “Yes, sir?” Obediently Jemima bent down so that her ear was very close to Bart’s mouth.

  “Who do you think young James resembles? Me or his mother?”

  Jemima looked up, a smile of relief on her face at this seemingly innocuous question. Bart was greatly feared by all the staff, most of whom had at some time or other had received the sharp edge of his tongue. The nursery staff were no exception, particularly since Deborah had left and they were answerable only to him.

  Nevertheless, anxious not to be caught out, Jemima took some time in a careful appraisal of James before delivering judgment. Fearing a trap she decided to err on the side of caution.

  “Well, sir. It’s hard to say, but he don’t favour either. He is not like you, neither in looks or temperament. And the same with his mother.”

  “Exactly!” Bart said solemnly stroking his chin. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

  “What’s that, sir?” Jemima asked nervously.

  “Never mind,” Bart snapped. He jumped up and, without saying ‘good-night’ either to her or to the children, he peremptorily left the room.

  Jemima, hand to mouth, stood and watched him, her heart thumping anxiously, wondering with consternation what on earth she had done wrong.

  Sophie Turner hadn’t spoken more than a few words to Bart Sadler since their brief and, in her self-critical eyes, sordid affair had ended in the year 1912. Sophie was the daughter of a parson. She had also married a parson who had died while working in the far-off mission field. All her life she had been of a deeply religious disposition, devoting herself to God and His work, only to succumb to a temptation of the flesh for which she despised herself ever afterwards and felt the most enormous guilt. Shortly after their disastrous relationship ended Bart had gone abroad and Sophie had married the rector’s curate, Hubert Turner, who had long courted her. The son who was born to her in the course of the next year was not her husband’s, as he knew. He was a kind and compassionate, as well as loving, man.

  Bart Sadler’s undoubted son, Sam Turner, now twenty-two years of age, looked very much like his natural father. He was a tall, saturnine young man, with fine brown, hooded eyes and a mass of dark, untidy hair. His general impression was unkempt, his manner buccaneering. Although he had been well educated he had never taken to scholarship. He was clever with his hands and, on leaving school, had become apprenticed to a builder in Taunton with whom he also lodged. His parents were glad to have him so far away because when he was at home he was disruptive, and a bad influence on his younger brother, Timothy.

  Sophie awaited Bart with apprehension having been informed by her maid, Polly, that he had arrived on the doorstep and wished to see her on a matter of some urgency. She turned at the sound of a knock on the door of her sitting room and her voice weakened as she bade him come in.

  Bart stood for a moment on the threshold looking at Sophie before he turned and shut the door.

  “I can see you’re not very pleased to see me, Sophie,” he said, as he walked towards her.

  “I am never pleased to see you, Mr Sadler. Less now than ever. You know that. You almost destroyed my life and now you have destroyed my daughter’s. I would like you to state your business and be gone.”

  Momentarily Bart appeared uncomfortable and looked around for somewhere to sit.

  Sophie remained standing and in the end he stood where he was, facing her.

  “I think you do me a grave injustice, Sophie – and, by the way, I insist on calling you ‘Sophie’ as I once did.”

  “You may call me what you like,” she said frostily. “I shall never address you in any way but by your surname. I would prefer not to address you at all, not even to see you. However,” she shrugged, “I have my daughter’s welfare at heart and I suppose you have come to see me about her.”

  Bart shook his head.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked, producing a cigarette case. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in offering you one?”

  “Thank you I don’t smoke,” Sophie replied. “Do I understand you are not here about Deborah?”

  “That is in the hands of the solicitors.” Bart lit his cigarette with a gold lighter which he tucked back in the pocket of his waistcoat. He sat down, indicating to Sophie that she should do likewise.

  “Make yourself comfortable Sophie. I am not here to seduce you, you know. We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Such as?” Sophie’s face flushed with anger at the impertinence of his remark. She perched gingerly on the very edge of a chair and gazed across at him.

  “Our son, Sam.”

  “You want to talk about Sam?” Sophie asked, amazed.

  “He is my son is he not? Everyone says so.”

  “Oh, do they?”

  “There is no point taking that attitude with me, Sophie. You were pregnant when you married Mr Turner, pregnant with my child. I did not know it because you did not tell me, for reasons of your own, doubtless. But since I have returned to this area a number of people have told me in what haste you and Mr Turner were married. Even then he could not have fathered the child born to you a few months after the wedding unless of course he and you ...” Bart paused suggestively, giving her a sly smile. “I don’t believe for a moment that a man of the cloth would transgress the laws of God by anticipating the marriage act, unless of course led on by you, Sophie.” His gaze was so insolent that Sophie felt a fresh surge of blood rush to her cheeks. “I know what a temptress you were, what a hot-blooded woman, enough to stir the loins of any normal male, even a curate, you would imagine.”

  Sophie rose abruptly from her seat and walked towards the door. As she passed him, Bart caught hold of her hand and held it so tightly that she nearly cried out in pain.

  “Just you stay where you are, Sophie Turner, and listen to me. I’ve had quite enough from the women of your family. First there was you with your provocative, virginal ways – although a widow with children – coupled with ‘comehitherish’ glances, which drove a man wild. Then there was my poor, misguided sister Sarah Jane who accused me of killing her husband. Next came her mother-in-law, Eliza, who tried to stop me buying her house, for the same reason. Last, but by no means least, was your flighty little daughter, no virgin when I married her, the mother of a bastard, who repaid my kindness and the love and affection I gave her – to say nothing of all the gifts I bestowed on her – by cuckolding me with a man I now believe to be James’s real father.”

  “Oh no!” Sophie took advantage of a momentary lapse of attention on the part of her persecutor and pulled her hand away from his. She stood there rubbing the red weals his rough grasp had made and, gazing at him with hatred. She felt for the first time in her life that she would gladly have killed him had the opportunity and the means arisen. Appalled by the violence of her emotions she hurriedly sat down, aware that she was shaking violently.

  “I see you have disturbed yourself, Sophie.” Bart sneered. “And with reason. You say I have harmed your family, but look what they have done to me. Left me with the child of a cuckoo in my nest, a bastard who I am meant to feed and clothe.”

  “I don’t see how you can possibly ...” Sophie stammered, as Bart’s wrath grew more violent.

  “Have you ever looked at the boy? Studied him? No of course you haven’t because you’ve hardly ever seen him. You don�
�t know your grandchildren, Sophie, because you did not wish to know your daughter after she married me.

  A fine mother and grandmother you are, and Deborah takes after you! Well, James is a shy, timorous boy, neither dark nor fair. You will recall that Solomon Palmer, who bedded my wife and destroyed my sister, is of very similar appearance and disposition. For so mild a man he has done an enormous amount of harm. Appearances are important aren’t they, Sophie? They give us a clue to our origins, who our mothers and fathers were. When I returned to Wenham, to my poor sister’s funeral, I had the chance to observe young Sam from fairly close quarters, and I saw that he had the Sadler colouring and features – disposition too from what I am told – and I thought, ‘Yes, he is my son. Of that there is no doubt.”‘

  “Then what makes you claim him now? You left it long enough.”

  “Because I want him back!” Bart thundered. “I want him to know I am his father. I want him to live with me, to make him my heir and, in exchange,” he leaned forward jabbing his finger at Sophie like a madman, “you can have James. I want nothing more to do with him. Take him. Give him to his mother, do what you like with him.”

  Bart rose as if to signify that was the end of the matter, but Sophie no longer fearful, no longer trembling, stood up and faced him.

  “You can’t just discharge your responsibilities like that, Bart Sadler, and don’t think you can,” she said her firm, hard tone matching his. “Your name is on the birth certificate.”

  “That was before I knew ...”

  Sophie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. In law you are his father and you will have a hard job convincing anyone otherwise, whatever people say. As for Sam ... I don’t know that he would want to acknowledge you as his father. There is no proof there either, except gossip, and Sam will have heard little good of you from people in these parts to make him wish to be your son. Few people I know, if any, have a word to say in your favour, Bart.”