Past Love (Part Four of The People of this Parish Saga) Read online

  For, whatever people said, it was still shameful to be an unwed mother and Deborah experienced that sense of shame keenly, and seldom went out. People could be so cruel, even in Wenham. Hubert Turner, to whom Sophie and her daughters owed so much, was now engaged in an apparently engrossing conversation with several of the pious ladies of the parish who looked after the church, did the flowers and embroidered hassocks to ease the arthritic pains of the older members of the congregation while attending divine service at the church of St Mark.

  Connie, looking round, smiling and waving, anxious not to exclude anyone, was the first to see a stranger hovering on the edge of the crowd, a dark-haired, good-looking man with a weather-beaten face, aged about fifty. He wore a well-cut dark grey suit, a white shirt and a discreet blue tie. His black hair, plastered back, was grey at the sides and sparse on the top of his head. There was something about him that was familiar, but she couldn’t place him and she tugged at her husband’s arm.

  “Carson, who’s that? The face is familiar but I can’t think why.”

  Carson followed her gaze whereupon he was seen by the stranger who, hailing him, made his way through the crowd, hand outstretched in recognition.

  Carson also searched the recesses of his memory, but was unable to come up with a name. Nevertheless, with a broad smile on his face, he clasped the hand of the man, who said:

  “I can see by the look on your face you don’t remember me, Carson.”

  “Forgive me,” Carson said, feeling embarrassed. “Was it in the war?”

  The man shook his head.

  “Bart!” cried a voice behind him. “Whatever are you doing here?” Sarah Jane Yetman was staring at the man with an expression of astonishment, almost outrage on her face.

  “I realise I’m the uninvited guest –” the visitor began.

  “Bart Sadler. Of course!” Carson pumped his hand warmly. “Everyone is welcome here. There were no invitations. Connie, you remember Bart Sadler, Sarah Jane’s brother?”

  “Bart Sadler ... Bart Sadler...” The whisper echoed round the room as everyone turned to stare.

  Bart Sadler, their looks seemed to say, back from the dead.

  “And where did you spring from?” his sister demanded, her tone far from welcoming. “After all these years and not a word.”

  “Sarah Jane, I think we can discuss these matters in private.” Bart tried to lower his voice. “I have only just arrived in the town, and heard there was a christening ...”

  “And what made you think you would be welcome?” Sarah Jane said shrilly as Abel appeared at his mother’s side and quietly took her arm, whispering something in her ear.

  “Bart, you are very welcome,” Carson said hastily. “But I hardly recognised you.”

  “Sixteen years is a long time, Carson. You’ve changed too.”

  “When did you leave Wenham?” Carson took his guest’s arm and led him over to a table on which there was a plentiful assortment of food, bottles of wine and champagne. Filling a glass he held it out to him at the same time handing him plate. “Eat all you wish, you must be hungry.”

  Bart was. He took the plate and moved along the table from dish to dish taking his fill of home-cured ham, local beef, farm chickens, salads of all kinds, minted hot potatoes from the kitchen gardens.

  “Well before the war, Carson, 1912 or thereabouts. Seeing there was little future in my living as a stonemason I went abroad to South America. There I discovered tin and copper ...”

  “And were you able to make a living from that?” Carson looked at him with polite interest.

  “A fortune. I am glad to say that, although I am just over fifty, I have made enough money to retire, and live in comfort for the rest of my life. I thought I would return to my roots, to my native land which I have always loved. I intend to settle, to find or build a home and, maybe, seek a bride, for I have never married.”

  His eyes, which had been restlessly roving the room, seemed finally to alight on the person he was seeking. She, for her part, stood at the far side of the room gazing at him, as if mesmerised, rather as a rabbit watches a stoat who is about to seize it by the neck and, with one deft movement, kill it.

  As Bart and Sophie Turner gazed at each other across the room, memories for each came flooding back. Pleasant, obviously, for one; terrifying for the other.

  Too late, Sophie tried to avert her eyes and, as Bart walked towards her, she looked around as if for some means of escape, but the crowd hemmed her in. Then he stood in front of her and she found his presence, his nearness, almost as overwhelming as it had been sixteen years before when she, the rector’s daughter and widow of a man in holy orders, had lain in his arms savouring the delights of illicit love.

  “Sixteen years is a long time, Sophie,” Bart said gently as, with a slight bow, he reached for her hand.

  “How are you, Mr Sadler?” she replied coldly.

  “Very well, thank you, Sophie. But why such formality?” His expression had a hint of mockery, and a feeling of rage welled up inside her, but his proximity almost rendered her speechless. “I hear you have become the rector’s wife. My, how the Church do attract you, ma’am, the daughter of a parson and then married to two, one after the other.”

  At a loss as to how to reply, Sophie turned gratefully as a voice spoke behind her and a hand touched her arm.

  “Sophie, my dear, it is almost three and you have the children’s Bible class at four.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing, Hubert,” she said, turning round swiftly. “Hubert, I think you remember Mr Sadler, Sarah Jane’s brother?”

  “Of course I remember you, Mr Sadler.” The jovial rector warmly shook Bart’s hand. “But you have been gone from here a very long time.”

  “Too long, Mr Turner,” Bart said in his deep, mellifluous voice, reminding Sophie agonisingly of those endearments once whispered in her ear. “Now that I am at home I hope to settle. A little belatedly, I know, but I have to congratulate you on being so fortunate as to have persuaded Mrs Woodville to be your wife.”

  The Rector beamed.

  “Wasn’t I fortunate?”

  “I was already on the point of making preparations to go abroad, so I missed the wedding.”

  “How fortunate too that you escaped the war,” Sophie observed with studied irony.

  Bart looked at her sharply. “I wanted to return and serve my King and country, I assure you, Mrs Turner. But I was unable to find a ship. It was no joy to me to be so far away from hostilities in Europe.”

  “Good day to you, Mr Sadler,” Sophie said abruptly, taking her husband’s arm and turning her back on the last person she wished to see in the world.

  “My dear, I don’t think that was very polite,” Hubert protested, looking uncomfortable. “You were very abrupt.”

  “I have no liking for Mr Sadler. He is an unsavoury character and I am sorry to see he has come back to Wenham. Now we must hurry home, my dear. The day has made me tired and I have my class to prepare for, as you reminded me.”

  “Certainly. I’ll just gather up the youngsters,” Hubert replied amiably. “Now where is Timothy ...”

  Bart Sadler stood for some time watching Sophie and her husband as they walked towards the door, a smile on his thin lips. His attention was then taken by a youth who had gone over to Sophie and Hubert and appeared to be arguing with them. Sophie was becoming very cross as the rector put his hand on the youth’s arm as if reprimanding him. The boy jerked his arm away as another, who closely resembled the rector and looked a year or two younger than the first, also came up and joined in the argument.

  “Dear dear,” Bart said to a man standing next to him. “There appears to be some altercation going on. Are those the rector’s two sons?”

  The man nodded. “And as unalike as chalk and cheese. Sam, the one you see arguing with his mother now, is a tearaway. He never does as he is told, gives her and his father a lot of pain, whereas young James is the apple of his parents’ eyes. As dev
out and clever as he is a good and obedient son, the image, as you can see, of his father.”

  “Do I know you?” Bart looked at the man, who shook his head.

  “I am not a Wenham man, sir, but I have the good fortune to be married to a Wenham lady. You may know her. Elizabeth Yewell?”

  “Of course I know Elizabeth Yewell,” Bart said, spinning round. “Where is she? I would like to make her acquaintance again.”

  “Oh, she’ll be gossiping with her friends,” the man said, taking a card out of his pocket and handing it to Bart. “My name is Graham Temple, a solicitor of Blandford. Did I overhear you say you were looking for property in the district? I should be delighted if at any time my firm could be of service to you,” and he put his card into Bart’s outstretched hand. Bart stood for a few moments examining it thoughtfully. When eventually he looked up a pair of twinkling blue eyes were gazing merrily at him.

  Elizabeth’s smile was mischievous, her manner coquettish. Bart, as if anxious to recover from Sophie’s snub, looked at her with delight. Elizabeth Temple was a handsome woman: tall, fair and blue-eyed. She had a sense of style and dressed well. Her besotted husband, who had been a bachelor until he married in his thirties, could deny her nothing. The consequence of this was that, like her mother before her, whom she very much resembled in looks as well as character, Elizabeth got through a vast amount of money. Her mother, Agnes Woodville, was not there that day.

  “So you do remember me, Bart Sadler?”

  “I am most happy to see you again looking so well and, if I may say so, prosperous. Your husband is a very fortunate man. I think the last time you and I met you were a milkmaid on my brother’s farm.”

  Elizabeth seemed not altogether pleased at the reference.

  “I was very young then, Bart Sadler. Since then I have been married and widowed. Mr Temple is my second husband. My first husband was a victim of the war.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that.” Bart produced a cigarette from a silver case, offered it to Elizabeth, who shook her head, offered it to her husband who also declined and then, selecting one, lit it.

  “Then you may also not have heard, Bart Sadler, that since the time you were here I have learned that my mother and father were not Ted and Beth Yewell, as I had been led to believe, which is why I was brought up as a servant, but none other than Sir Guy and Lady Agnes Woodville. There!” She flashed him a look of triumph. “What do you think of that?”

  “I am very impressed.” Bart blew smoke towards the ceiling. “That is to say I am amazed. That must have caused a stir in Wenham.”

  “Oh, it caused a stir all right.” Elizabeth chuckled maliciously. “There were a few red faces. The only one who had not known was Carson who had been left in the dark as much as I ...”

  “And who has behaved impeccably towards my wife ever since,” Mr Temple said with an air of outraged virtue.” He removed her from the wretched hovel in which she had been incarcerated due to the illness and poverty of her then husband, and gave her a home. Although not a man of means he paid for the late Frank Sprogett’s hospital bills from his own pocket. He has been kindness itself to Elizabeth’s children by Mr Sprogett, all of whom are here today,” he glanced around, “and then when I was fortunate enough to have Elizabeth accept my proposal of marriage he gave her away, and he is godfather to our own first-born.”

  “Not a man of means?” Bart asked somewhat incredulously, looking around the splendid drawing room with its painted ceiling, its intricate cornice resplendent with gold leaf, the family portraits of Woodvilles by revered masters going back hundreds of years. “I would have thought this room alone was evidence of a man of considerable means.”

  “At that time he, er ...” Mr Temple paused awkwardly, “at the time we are speaking of.”

  “Before he married Constance,” Elizabeth said meaningfully. Bart Sadler smote his brow theatrically, as if he had suddenly remembered something.

  “Ah, now I do recall ... yes, yes it all comes flooding back. Carson was due to marry Constance Yetman before, was he not? I couldn’t quite place Lady Woodville. Put her in context, so to speak. She has so changed I hardly recognised her from the time when she was the timid little ward of Miss Fairchild. Maybe I made an indiscreet remark, I don’t know. I hope I didn’t offend her ladyship.” He looked anxiously towards the door where Connie stood surrounded by friends who were on the verge of departure, among them the rector, his wife and two sons, still arguing. “And then, if I remember right, the reason Carson was marrying a lady so singularly ill-endowed, at that time, so unprepossessing to look at, was that she was an heiress. So he married her after all?”

  “After he came back from the war without any money.” Elizabeth nodded her head. Despite her affection for him, her innate meanness of spirit made her unable to resist malicious gossip even about those for whom she professed to care.

  “But people say he never touched a penny.” Mr Temple was at pains to make up for his wife’s unkind innuendo. “He has done well on his own account, he and Constance married for love and, as a couple, are blissfully happy. Elizabeth spent some time living in this house, a year or two while Mr Sprogett was so ill and before we were married. Isn’t that so, my dear?” Mr Temple looked for confirmation to his wife.

  Elizabeth’s mouth set in a grimace.

  “Please don’t ask me about Constance Woodville. I would hate to spoil a happy day. The truth is,” she looked again at Bart, “Constance was jealous of me. She couldn’t stand the fact that Carson offered me and my family a home. She nearly called off the wedding. As if the family hasn’t done me enough harm! No, we didn’t get on then and we don’t now, but Carson takes no notice of her. He says I am his sister and I deserve respect which I do not get from Constance.” Elizabeth shut her mouth firmly and threw her husband, who was wiping a perspiring brow, a dark look. “Maybe I speak out of turn, but that is the truth.”

  “Dear me,” Bart said with a bemused air. “Sixteen years away is a long time, I do have a lot of catching up to do. And, tell me, what of your mother, the other Lady Woodville, Elizabeth? Where is she now?”

  “That too is a very long story,” Elizabeth said archly, and suddenly clutched his arm. “You must come and dine with us, Bart. We can tell you a thing or two about what has been going on at Wenham, in the years you have been away, that will make your hair stand on end.”

  Chapter Two

  Constance Woodville sat in her nursing chair clasping her sleeping baby at her breast, her feet comfortably up on the footstool in front of her. She lay back, her own eyes closed, conscious of the same feeling as, she imagined, the baby had: repletion, fulfilment, happiness. Henrietta exuded that lovely, fragrant baby smell of bath oil, soap and talcum powder, and tiny globules of breast milk adhered to the sides of the sweet, contented-looking little mouth.

  The child of elderly parents, orphaned at the age of eight, Connie had grown up a lonely and withdrawn child, insecure despite her comfortable circumstances, the prospects for her future unclouded by financial worry. Her own painful shyness and lack of looks worried her far more, even at a tender aged, as she grew older, she retreated more into her shell. She had been sure from an early age that physical love and marriage would pass her by, and prepared herself for a life of spinsterhood.

  And then Carson came along and, out of the blue, proposed marriage! Her universe expanded. She had never expected to be loved by anyone other than her father, who doted on her or, after his death, Victoria Fairchild, the woman who had adopted her.

  But Carson, encouraged by his family and her guardian, only wanted her for her money. Even then she would have married him, but he didn’t love her. Afterwards they each saw themselves as victims, but by then the damage was done. Collapse of her world; breakdown. Now a life of spinsterhood was assured, though it would be a well-heeled spinsterhood because by the time Miss Fairchild died Connie had been left several fortunes.

  Her wealth enabled her to throw off the bitter memorie
s of the past, together with the encumbrances of the ugly duckling, and emerge as a swan. She was helped in this transformation by a worldly Italian woman whose lawyer husband had looked after Miss Fairchild’s interests when they were exiled in Rome during the war.

  Naturally gifted musically and interested in the arts, Connie was introduced to a circle of sophisticated, artistic people where style was all important. She also learned how to change her appearance with the aid of a good cosmetician and hair colourist. This gave her poise and self-confidence, almost a new identity so that when, after the war, she returned to Wenham to sell her guardian’s house and finalise her affairs – to leave, she thought, Wenham for good – she captured the heart of the man she had always loved but who had not loved her.

  But Connie was afraid of having her love spurned yet again and this time the tables were turned. She was not to be an easy catch. He pursued her, but she ran back to Venice. Finally, like all good fairy stories, it had a happy ending, and on a beautiful autumn day in the year 1924 they had married in Wenham Church and ever since then her life had been a dream.

  Well, almost a dream.

  She very gently rose and laid the sleeping baby in her crib, tenderly tucking her up and kissing her forehead. Then she went and stood by the window of the baby’s nursery looking towards the little town on the hill where she had been born. Its whitewashed cottages gleamed in the spring sunshine and between it and the house where she now lived were acres of lush green countryside interspersed with copses, hedges and streams, with cattle contentedly grazing, well-tended fields, and birds flying frantically about completing their nests for their young. It was a lovely time of the year, a time for renewal and hope, and as she was about to turn and attend to the wants of her two little boys she saw a couple on horseback emerging from the copse at the bottom of the hill close by Crooks’ farm. Deep in conversation they paused to let their horses drink from the pond in the farmyard and Connie thought what a fine pair they made: Carson and his cousin Dora.