The Tower Room, page 31
There was coldness in Daniel Frenshaw’s answering glance. To Sarah he said, ‘I saw your grandmother leaving with your nice young neighbour a minute or so ago and I’ve let the Petersons know I’m taking you home. We’ll probably overtake Kate and her party. I must say goodnight to a few people and then, if you’re ready … ?’
He left Sarah and Clive alone. She wished he had not. Watching his tall figure walk away, she noticed that his limp was more pronounced and was concerned because she had learned, from secret observation, that it worsened when he was tired. She wondered what the trying and unexpected thing he had referred to actually was, and guessed it was the cause of his fatigue and the strain he was unable to hide.
Beside her, Clive said, ‘Sorry, Sarah — I shouldn’t have made that rags-to-riches remark.’
‘I agree. It was cruel, but let’s forget it.’
‘Can you?’
‘I already have.’
‘And how close we were and could be again — have you forgotten that?’
‘I haven’t forgotten our friendship, if that’s what you mean. It was never more than that, though I know you wanted it to be. I’ll always be grateful to you for channelling me into the right work, but I’ve already told you that. Now I’m going to make a suggestion which may surprise you, but I think you’ll realise it’s a good one. Find your Carla again. You’ve never told me much about her, but I think she was important in your life. Go in search of her. You once mentioned that she came to your father’s gallery from her uncle’s antiques shop in Paris, so why don’t you make a start there? I wonder if you realise how often you’ve mentioned her?
‘I think you hoped I’d be her substitute.’
*
Pru and her passengers were halfway home when unexpected birth pains began. They can't be — they can't be — I'm not due for another six weeks! Gritting her teeth, she drove on, thankful that the children, banked on cushions in the back, were tired enough to be quiet and that Kate was dozing in the passenger seat beside her. She began to time the pains by the face of her luminous wristwatch. Dammit, it was true — every twenty minutes from the first sharp back pain. Don’t panic, she told herself They can go on like this for ages. We’ll be home in plenty of time. She thrust aside the recollection of her second child’s birth, which had come in a mighty rush. That was unusual and not likely to happen again. She put her foot hard on the accelerator but this estate vehicle was of necessity not high-powered. But the interval between pains became narrower.
The reflection of headlights in the driving mirror dazzled her momentarily. She put up her hand to cut them off and was thankful when the driver behind dipped them, and it was then that a quicker and more devastating pain shot through her, causing her body to jerk and the wheel to spin and the estate van to swerve on to the verge and topple sideways into a ditch. She heard her children’s cries and Ben shouting ‘Mam! Mam!' as they slid downward and stopped, half overturned. The jolt pitched her on top of Kate. There was a cry from the old lady, and then silence.
In a daze Pru struggled to pull herself up, groping for the door handle above her and gasping as she did so, ‘Forgive me, Kate! I hope — I haven’t — hurt you — ’ and from the old lady came a reassuring sound, a sort of breathless grunt.
The door handle was beyond Pru’s reach. She managed to say, ‘It’s all right, kids, we’ll get out. Hold on to each other.’ Pain lulled for a moment and then came back more fiercely and through the mist of it she heard the following car stop, then pelting feet and voices and the door above her being hauled open to the sky, then a man’s arms were reaching down to her and a girl’s voice was calling, 'Gran — GRAN!’ Then she heard her own name, but the pains now clutched fiercely and without pause and Pru knew that the child was already close to birth.
*
To Sarah, waiting beside Kate seemed an eternity after Daniel had rescued Pru and she herself had helped the children to climb to safety and they had all been transferred to Daniel’s car. He had returned quickly to Kate, throwing a car rug to Sarah and then carefully extricating the old lady from her trap in the lower side of the vehicle below the steering-wheel. She had borne everything stoically, dazed but conscious. Daniel had put his jacket about her shoulders and lain her gently on the rug Sarah had spread on the ground and now wrapped around her. Then, squatting on the verge, she half lifted her grandmother into her lap and cradled her like a child.
‘Kate — are you badly hurt?’ Daniel’s anxiety sounded in his voice. ‘Pru’s in labour and I must rush her — ’
Kate’s thin hand lifted, weakly, dismissing him. She even managed a feeble shake of the head. ‘I’ll be back for you as quickly as possible,’ Daniel threw over his shoulder as he raced away. Then the world was silent until Kate opened her eyes and, with a shadow of her lovely smile, tried to whisper something Sarah could not hear. She bent over the old lady and kissed her, wrapped the rug even closer about her and went on cradling her, rocking her more gently than a child. Kate’s eyes never left her face and occasionally she summoned the semblance of a smile, but gradually the eyes became dim and the smile grew weaker. Then her lips moved uncertainly, feebly, and Sarah had to lean close to hear her whisper, ‘I’m … proud o’ ye, lass … that proud … ’ Then the voice died and the eyes no longer saw her.
*
Alone on this isolated stretch of country road, Sarah and her grandmother waited for Daniel’s return. Although it seemed an eternity, it was mercifully quick. He called as he hurried across the verge, ‘I reached the maternity hospital just in time and an emergency unit’s coming to examine Kate — ’ Then he reached Sarah and saw her face, frozen in grief. He dropped to his knees and cupped it within his hands and laid his cheek against hers, and only then did her tears erupt.
Carefully he lifted the old lady from her lap, carried her to the car, laid her on the long seat at the back and covered her, then reached again for Sarah and held her close. In silence she clung to him. She felt the power and safety of his body and wanted only to merge into it. His arms pressed her closer and his lips covered hers, not solely in comfort, and she knew in that moment what it was like to want to give herself to a man and that it would be beautiful to do so. And from an unknown distance Kate’s voice called to her. I told you, didn't I, Sarah? I told you you'd know what it would he like to love a man and want to be part of him. Beautiful, I said — remember?’
Twenty-Four
The loss of Kate Willcox shocked everyone inside and outside the abbey. Tenants crowded to her funeral and the potbank closed for the day to enable workers who had known her over the years to attend. The only absent one was Joe Boswell, but his wife was there, looking far from well. Returning to the smallholding because she had nowhere else to go, or the means to, seemed to have undermined the hospital’s good work. She looked tired and tragically resigned. When Sarah came and sat beside her and took hold of her hand, she smiled in mute gratitude, but they had no words for each other. In time, thought Sarah, I’ll work out what to do for her, but knew in her heart that so long as Boswell lived she could do nothing.
*
The following day a note awaited Daniel in his study.
‘You once said that a daughter should have compassion for a parent who errs and suffers for it, and you were right. Papa has always been there when I needed him, so I should have been there when he needed me. There is little I can do now, but at least I can be a comfort to him as his trial approaches.’
No more. No indication of how long she had gone for. No message to her mother and, of course, no mention of her child. He crumpled the paper and tossed it into a waste basket, feeling grateful for even a brief respite from the constant clashing between Cynthia and her daughter, and Brenda’s unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the pair of them. He felt sorry for Brenda, who had wanted nothing from life but the happiness of motherhood and the nice middle-class life of her neighbours. She was awed by the world of Dunmore Abbey, impressed by its beauty and its setting, grateful for the welcome Daniel gave her, but out of her element. Above all, she had a strong sense of maternal duty and could not understand her own daughter’s lack of it. She really believed that the hostility between Cynthia and young Margaret could not last.
‘It’s like a mother who doesn’t immediately respond to a baby,’ she had said one day, pleading on her daughter’s behalf. ‘She can be afraid of handling it, afraid of hurting it, but the feeling passes. I’m afraid it’s something I just can’t understand, but I’m sure that’s why Cynthia agreed to let her baby go, believing she really would be better off without her, and doubly so in view of the special care she needed. Since then, alas, Cynthia has had no experience with children, so naturally she was shocked when I arrived with Margaret. I blame myself for not preparing her and I’m sure the two of them will get on better when they really know each other.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘Oh, dear — do you really think that possible? That distresses me because I did think Cynthia would take to the child when she saw her. Margaret is so pretty and she does need a mother’s love.’
‘Which she has found with you, but will never find with my wife.’
To hear himself utter the words had surprised him, but they were true. A solution to the problem would have to be found, but at this moment all he wanted to do was sit back, close his eyes and recall the moment when he and Sarah had clung together in shock and grief and something deeper, so much deeper that he had thought of it time and again. He did so now, discarding his wife’s note and reaching across his desk to pick up Sarah’s early model of a dancing fawn. He often looked at it and sometimes placed it near at hand when he settled in his favourite armchair for an evening drink. It was the only thing he possessed of her.
He handled it now, feeling the crude texture which failed to hide the delicacy of movement in the tiny creature’s high-stepping limbs and the enjoyment which had gone into its creation, and then his memory went back to a long-ago moment in the turner’s shed at the old canalside place, and a cardboard box containing fragments of discarded pots on which she had experimented, revealing evidence of latent talent. The memory touched him. She had been tense with anxiety, expecting a reprimand; though he had not understood why. Relief when none came had spread across her young face. The picture came to him vividly, along with another near the entrance gates when she had faced up to Joe Boswell’s threatening fist, despite her ill-concealed loathing of the man and her clamped-down fear.
And then she had walked away across the potters’ yard and he had seen the grace of her coltish young figure and become aware of her approaching womanhood. She had been gauche and shy and poorly dressed, but she had walked with pride. His eyes had followed her out of sight, that lasting impression of her remaining in his mind. And now she had matured and had responded to his manhood in the midst of her grief, and in that moment he knew that the hideous memories which he had feared were to haunt her for ever had been eliminated in that silent, passionate and mutual confirmation of love.
*
Later, going downstairs for dinner, he met Brenda in the hall. She said anxiously, ‘Cynthia has gone to see her father — ’
‘I know. She left a note. When did she leave?’
‘After the telephone call. Almost immediately. I don’t know who was ringing, but it was early afternoon. She packed at once and Margaret helped to carry her bags down. That was a hopeful sign, I thought — that she didn’t call for a servant but wanted her child.’ (Or because a servant might ask where she was bound for or, if it were Hannah, display surprise because her mistress had not summoned her to pack her clothes or left any special instructions for while she was away … )
‘Did she say when she would be back?’
‘There was scarcely time, she left so hurriedly.’
‘And an incoming call, you say — not one she made herself?’
‘Well, I heard it ringing here in the hall and thought I’d better answer it and take a message, and right at that moment she came in from the garden and picked it up so, of course, I didn’t linger.’
So she’d left in a hurry, following a phone call which might, or might not, have had some influence on her departure. He now felt that to visit her father had not been her own idea, as her note implied. There could have been some pre-arranging. There was certainly no indication of how long she had gone for, only that she apparently needed more baggage than for a weekend. He recalled dismissing her hysterical vow to leave for ever if she were to be ‘trapped by a brat who meant nothing to her’, but she had calmed down after that and made no further threats — or any effort to smooth troubled waters of her own making. He had endured this disrupted life with mixed feelings of frustration and anger, combined with sympathy for Margaret and his mother-in-law. And now he was praying that wherever Cynthia had gone, she would remain there.
At dinner that evening Margaret chattered like a magpie released from a cage. She had visited the potters ‘over there across the bridge’ and was full of the fascination of watching them, especially the men spinning pots out of wet clay on whirling wheels, not one of them telling her to run away as her mother did whenever she intruded. ‘But there’s one man I don’t like. He’s big and smiles at me in a nasty sort of way, but he did let me have a try. He even guided my hands — ’
Daniel said quickly, ‘And how did he do that? And what was he like?’
‘He leaned behind me and put his arms over my shoulders, and I must say I didn’t like that because he was so close and smelly and his prickly chin pressed my cheek, and I hated it when he squeezed me in front — ’
‘Squeezed you in front!’ gasped Brenda. ‘Where?’
Margaret touched the buds of her potential breasts. ‘I pushed him away, of course, and the nice man in charge the chief thrower, I think he’s called — came straight across, shouting at him to get back to his wheel and threatening to report him to the Master Potter, but the man only laughed. The man in charge then asked if I was all right and I said of course, and I washed the mud off my hands and walked out. The chief thrower followed and said he’d see me safely as far as the bridge, but that wasn’t necessary because I know my way just about everywhere now. He was kind, but I could see he was angry underneath.’
Aghast, Brenda turned to Daniel, but his expression was so tight with anger that she knew he shared her feelings. All he said was, ‘Don’t worry, Brenda, I can guess who the man was and I shall deal with him first thing tomorrow. It will give me the greatest satisfaction to do so.’
Later, when Margaret had gone to bed, Brenda asked if it was really safe for Margaret to visit the workshops.
‘More than safe. Potters are honest, hard-working, decent folk, but sometimes there’s a rotten apple in a barrel, which has to be dealt with.’ He refilled her wine glass and continued, ‘Now we must talk about Margaret’s future and face facts. She is happy here only because you are with her. If you leave her to her mother, it will be a mistake. She needs you, she trusts you and she loves you. Facing facts again, when Cynthia returns the situation will be as bad as it has been all along — impossible and, for the child, unbearable. She needs a normal home life. She would get it only with you.’
‘But I’m her grandmother. For that reason I doubt if I’m the right person — a generation too old. It’s a mother she needs.’
Daniel smiled. ‘I’d like you to meet someone named Sarah Willcox. She was brought up almost entirely by her grandmother, following the death of her father and her mother’s remarriage. She had a wretched life until her grandmother rescued her from it. Now she’s the loveliest and most well-adjusted young woman one could meet.’ He added tactfully, ‘If caring for Cynthia’s child would be a problem financially … ?’
Brenda shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t. My husband may be something worse than a rogue but he has always provided for me. I have a house in a very good neighbourhood and the means to run it. If I choose to sell, it will fetch a high price, so I’m hanging on to it because I know Alfred will be unable to do anything more for me. It may even prove to be a matter of what I can do for him when he is released. What the verdict will be seems plain. Don’t think I haven’t been considering the whole situation carefully. I am still his wife and he is still my husband and — who knows? — prison may change him. It has been known, I believe. As for Cynthia, I realise that what you say about her is true — she would make a poor mother. One last thing — Margaret is not your responsibility so no offers of financial help, please.’
‘You wouldn’t be able to refuse if I made a transfer to cover Margaret’s care from the income Cynthia receives from me. But that is my concern and it depends on what transpires.’
Brenda said with surprising calm, ‘You mean, if she comes back. For your sake, Daniel, I hope she doesn’t. For Margaret’s sake, and my own because I love the child, I will gladly take care of her. And she has the same surname as myself, which makes it convenient because it confirms our relationship. Every child has to have a birth certificate and in the absence of a father, of course, the mother’s surname is registered instead. It is kinder than telling her that her mother didn’t even know who he was. And now I’m off to bed. We’ll leave tomorrow — it’s time we went.’ At the door, she turned. ‘You’re a nice man, Daniel. A fine man. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a wife worthy of you.’
‘She was the wife I chose, and I loved her at the time. I am only sorry you didn’t have a daughter worthy of yourself.’
*
Before he went to bed he went up to the tower room and gazed down on the lake and the cluster of workers’ cottages beyond. A light burned in the cottage where Pru and her family lived. Five children now — quite a family, he thought, not without a twinge of envy. She had come home from the maternity hospital with a girl this time.
