Saddle the Wind (6 page)

That night in the nursery at Hallowford House she lay in the bed beside the crib in which Blanche and the Savill baby lay sleeping. It wouldn’t be long, she knew, before they were awake and demanding to be fed.

The pillows beneath her head were softer and fuller than those at the cottage and, like the sheets that were drawn up to her throat, were without darns.

As she lay there in the silence she thought of the children at home in their own beds, and of Ollie. It was an odd feeling lying there alone. It was the first time she and Ollie had slept apart since their marriage. She missed the warmth of his body beside her and the ever present feeling of the children being in the next room. Stranger than the strange bed and the strange room was her separation from everyone.

With Arthur and Agnes beside her, Sarah walked up the hill towards Hallowford House.

August had gone out, and now they were in September. On the heathland over to her right the late-flowering heather was in full bloom while the bracken was turning sere, the hawthorn berries red, and the tall, pink blossoms of the rosebay willowherb had changed almost overnight into candles of cotton-wool-like seeds that drifted away and floated on the breeze like snow. Another summer was dying. Time passed so swiftly. At the end of the previous year Britain had gone to war, fighting the Boers in the Transvaal. It had ended quickly – with Britain’s astonishing and humiliating defeat, a defeat soon followed by the granting to the Boers of ‘complete self-government’ – subject to several attached strings and Her Majesty’s suzerainty.

To Sarah and many like her some of the events happening in the world outside Hallowford might have been fiction rather than fact. Information came with the newspapers, but the events rarely touched her. There was always so much to occupy her mind and her time.

As the trio drew closer to the top of the hill Agnes skipped on ahead. Sarah looked down at Arthur as he limped along at her side. Gently she squeezed his hand. As they exchanged smiles she listened for any warning in the sound of his breathing. He had had several bad
attacks over the past few weeks and this was the first time in nearly a fortnight that he had been outside.

When they reached the brow of the hill Sarah paused to look up at the sky. The sun was bright but clouds were beginning to move in from the east and the breeze was growing fresh. She gave a sigh for the vanishing summer. Eight months had passed since the birth of Mr Savill’s daughter and now here they were on the rim of autumn again. Most of the harvest was in, and over on the distant hills she could see areas of blackened earth, scorch marks left by the burning of the stubble. It made her think of the painting Ollie was working at back in the cottage scullery. The thought of Ollie brought a momentary frown of preoccupation to her brow but she thrust the thought aside and moved on. She was going to Hallowford House to bring Blanche home to the cottage.

In her desire for the baby to get to know her family – even if only to some limited degree – Sarah had done the same thing almost every Sunday since the spring, wheeling Blanche down to the cottage in the old perambulator and taking her back again later in the afternoon. This Sunday was different, though. Today Blanche was coming home for good.

Reaching the side gates of the house Sarah went across the yard and entered the house by the back door. There, leaving the children in the kitchen in the care of Florence she went upstairs to the second floor where she knocked on the nursery door. The nurse, Ellen Jessop, answered the knock at once. As Sarah entered the room a moment later she saw that the two infants were lying on cushions on the thick carpet, enclosed in a square pen.

Indicating the pen, Ellen said, ‘Mr Savill had it delivered yesterday. There’s no keeping them still for long these days.’

Sarah murmured her approval. Blanche had been crawling for three weeks now and the Savill baby, Marianne, had just begun. Looking at the neatly made pen, Sarah thought how very different it was from the makeshift fence they now erected on Sundays in one corner of the kitchen at home.

Sarah packed Blanche’s few belongings in the old shopping bag she had brought and slipped the handles of the bag over her arm. As she did so she heard children’s voices and moving to the window she looked down onto the stable yard where she saw Agnes and Arthur following James the groom as he carried feed to the horses. ‘I’d better go,’ she added, ‘before they get up to mischief.’

She moved then to the pen in which Blanche lay contentedly on her stomach next to Marianne. Blanche’s curls were very fair, while Marianne’s straight hair was as dark as her mother’s had been. Lifting Blanche up, Sarah settled her securely in the bend of her left arm and moved across the soft carpet. In the open doorway she stood and looked back. She didn’t expect to see the nursery again.

Bidding the nurse goodbye, Sarah, with Blanche in her arms, left the nursery and closed the door behind her.

Downstairs she settled Blanche in the perambulator, said goodbye to Florence and let herself out. Arthur and Agnes came towards her as she emerged into the yard. As they reached her side she heard a voice call to her:

‘Mrs Farrar …’

Turning her head she saw John Savill coming towards her. She waited. Since that night last year when Marianne had been born and Mrs Savill had died she had seen him only on those occasions when she had been in the nursery and he had come in to see Marianne.

Now, coming to a stop a couple of yards away, he wished her a good morning. She returned his greeting, smiling shyly at him. Then she watched as he lowered his glance to the two children who stood beside her, their large, solemn eyes gazing up at him.

‘And who have we here?’ he asked, smiling at them.

The children remaining silent Sarah released a hand from the perambulator and gently cupped the back of Arthur’s head. ‘Go on – say “How do you do” to Mr Savill – and tell him your name.’

Arthur shook his head, though, and pressed closer to Sarah’s side. ‘No?’ She looked from him to Agnes on her left. ‘What about you, Agnes? Aren’t you going to say “Good morning” to Mr Savill?’

Agnes lowered her eyes and moved nearer to her mother. Sarah shook her head and said with a little shrug, ‘We’re not going to get much out of them, sir. I’m afraid they’re shy.’

‘So it seems.’ John Savill eyed them kindly for a moment or two and then dipped a hand into his trousers pocket, brought out some coins, sorted through them and held out two pennies. ‘Here – one for you …’ he held it out to Agnes, ‘– Agnes, isn’t it?’

Agnes nodded and, shyly thanking him, took the coin. Then Savill turned to Arthur. ‘And what’s your name, young man?’

‘Arthur.’ Arthur whispered the word, and a second coin was held out.

Arthur thanked him, clutching the penny. Then as he and his sister gazed at one another, eyes wide with wonder at their unexpected gifts, John Savill raised his eyes to Sarah again.

‘You’re taking Blanche home, are you?’

‘Yes, sir. Home to stay, this time.’

He nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll be glad to have her back
with the family.’ After a pause he added, ‘But you must bring her back here sometimes – to see Marianne.’

‘Yes, sir, I will. Thank you.’ Sarah smiled at the gesture, although she knew that now that Blanche and Marianne were parted they would remain so.

Another little silence, then Mr Savill said:

‘I’ve never really thanked you for all you did that night …’

‘Oh, sir –’ Sarah protested, ‘there’s no need …’ And it was true; he had no need to put his gratitude into words; he had shown it in so many different ways since that night. Not only had he paid Sarah for her services as wet-nurse, he had also instructed the cook to provide the Farrars with numerous items from the Hallowford House pantry from time to time. In addition to this he had informed his rent-collecting agent that rent from the Farrars was no longer required.

‘You did a great deal.’ He raised his head and looked up towards the nursery window. ‘Without your help I might have been left with nothing. Instead –’ he lowered his glance again and smiled, warmly, ‘– I have my child, my daughter. Thanks to you. And each time I look at her I think how easily she too could have been – lost.’

Sarah said nothing. He stepped closer and bent to peer down at the sleeping baby in the perambulator. ‘Your little girl – Blanche – she’s a beautiful child.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He straightened and reached into his pocket again. A moment later he was reaching out. ‘Here …’ Taking Sarah’s free hand he put a coin into her palm. ‘Something for Blanche too.’ He smiled. ‘Just a token – of my gratitude. After all, she played her own special part, too.’ Then, before Sarah could thank him he was wishing her a good morning once more, smiling a goodbye to Agnes and Arthur and, turning, was moving away across the yard.

When he was out of sight Sarah opened her palm and saw a gold sovereign there.

‘What did Blanche get, Mam?’ Arthur asked. ‘Did she get a penny too?’

‘– Yes.’ Sarah nodded as she lied. ‘Yes, she got a penny too.’ She dropped the coin into her pocket and, with the two children beside her, set off for the gate.

Outside, beyond the shelter of the high wall that encircled the stable yard, the strengthening wind whipped at her skirt. There was a chill in the air now, too, and she bent to Arthur and pulled the collar of his coat more closely about his throat. ‘Come on, we’re going home now.’

Home
. The word echoed in her mind and the sudden thought came to her that the cottage was home for herself and Ollie, and Ernest, Arthur, Mary and Agnes, but it wasn’t for Blanche. Home for Blanche was the nursery at Hallowford House. That was the only real home she had ever known. Oh, yes, there had been the Sunday visits to the cottage, but Sarah couldn’t pretend that such brief episodes could have counted for much in the baby’s experience of life. And, she reflected, just as Blanche really knew only the nursery of Hallowford House, so, too, she was truly only familiar with those faces she saw around her there – Sarah herself, the nurse, the nursemaid, Lizzie, and the other baby, Marianne. And even Mr Savill to a degree. Compared to Blanche’s familiarity with those faces, her father and brothers and sisters must be almost like strangers to her.

Strange, Sarah thought, the changes brought about by the birth of Marianne and the death of Mrs Savill. They had affected her own life and that of Ollie, and Blanche and the other children. The lives of all of them had been altered to some degree or other.

At the very beginning Sarah had spent most of her
time at the house, feeding the two infants, being nurse to them and sleeping beside them in the nursery. Then with the arrival of the nurse proper she had moved into the little bedroom next door. Her brief visits to the cottage had been made between the babies’ feeds. She had looked forward to those times. Ollie and the children had missed her presence and resented her absences – particularly in the evenings when they were accustomed to be all together.

But gradually things had grown easier. After a period when the changing pattern of the infants’ feeding gave her more time she had been able to get down to the cottage more frequently, there to clean and cook for Ollie and the children and generally spend more time with them. Also she was able to resume her old task of doing the Savills’ laundry, doing it in the scullery of Hallowford House.

And now things were returning to normal. Both babies were completely weaned now. Even the laundry had been done back at the cottage over these past couple of weeks.

Earlier, though, the situation had brought problems. Not with the children – she didn’t think they had been harmed by her temporary absences – but with Ollie. There was no doubt that at the start it had prolonged and strengthened the estrangement that had developed between herself and him.

There had been no sexual closeness between herself and Ollie for some time while she was carrying Blanche, and afterwards, following the baby’s birth, when things might have begun to grow easier between them, she had left to spend her nights with the two infants, only seeing Ollie for brief periods in the evening and at weekends. And then at those times there had always been work of one kind or another waiting for her, added to which the
children had always been around. As a consequence she and Ollie had rarely found themselves alone for more than a few minutes at a time. So there had been no real opportunity for them to regain anything of their former closeness, and they had remained apart, like polite strangers, as if each of them was afraid to make the first move.

The situation had continued throughout the winter, until at last, in May, there had come the time when the two babes could go through the night without the need for food and Sarah was free to move back to the cottage each night and sleep in her own bed once more.

She could recall so well that first evening. Leaving Blanche at the house she had returned to the cottage just before eight, in time to see the children into bed and hear their prayers. Then, somewhat self-consciously she had gone back downstairs into the kitchen where Ollie was sitting sketching. He had looked up as she entered, and put his sketchbook aside, and she had realized suddenly that his hair was neatly combed, that he was freshly shaven and that he had put on a clean shirt.

She made tea for the two of them, and they sat drinking it, facing one another beside the range, talking of this and that. The conversation was awkward, though, both of them aware that they would be spending that night together. They spoke of the children’s school work, of Ollie’s painting and his work on the land, of Mr Savill and the folk up at the house. But no mention was made of what was uppermost in their minds, and Sarah began to fear that they had gone beyond some point of no return, beyond the point where they could relax again in each other’s company, and be close. And perhaps they would continue like this, she said to herself – except that as time went on they would grow even further apart. Then, moments after the thought had come to
her mind, the desultory conversation dried up altogether and they were left sitting there, avoiding one another’s eyes and unable to think of anything else to say.