Arian (27 page)

Sarah looked around her at the elegant drawing room, the luxurious carpets, the matching drapes, with wry amusement. She had everything a woman could desire, a lovely house, a generous allowance, and yet she had nothing.

She hadn’t realized how much she would miss Geoffrey. His presence had been a constant source of reassurance, allowing her a rightful place in society. More, he had given her the feeling of being needed, loved almost. Except in the bedchamber, he had been an exemplary husband. And now he had left her.

Her son, of course, she yearned for. She longed for the touch of his soft cheek against hers, the feel of his silky hair beneath her hands and yet, strangely, she missed Geoffrey’s gentle presence almost as much.

She couldn’t blame him for walking out on her, not now that she’d had time to reflect on her actions. She had shamed him, taken away his dignity by going to the bed of another man and it had all been in vain, there was to be no child.

Sarah had been devastated when she had miscarried Calvin Temple’s baby. She had remained in her bed for days, tended by a hired nurse, a stranger who naturally assumed the child was the product of a happy marriage. But since the nurse had departed, there had been nothing but the loneliness of empty days and even emptier nights. The staff she’d grown used to were gone to Geoffrey’s new house and just a few new servants employed to replace them. Hardest of all to bear was the almost certain knowledge that after her ordeal, there would be no more pregnancies.

She rose to her feet. She must see Geoffrey, must speak with him, beg his forgiveness. Perhaps he would come back to her. It was a faint hope and she knew it but at least she must try.

She walked into town, bemoaning the fact that Geoffrey had left her no transport of her own. He had taken the elegant carriage the groom kept polished to perfection and even the stable of fine horses was gone. The big house had become like a deserted ship, she thought in sorrow.

Once in town, she was able to take a cab to Geoffrey’s new home on the outskirts of Swansea. She sat in the worn leather seat, hearing the turning of the wheels and the sound of horses’ hooves with a sense of isolation. No-one cared if she lived or died, she might as well resign herself to that fact, she told herself gloomily.

Geoffrey’s new home was modest, settled in the folds of the hillside overlooking Mumbles Bay. The wash of the sea soothed Sarah and as she climbed down from the carriage a slant of sunlight warmed her. She moved towards the door feeling a little more optimistic.

‘Want me to wait?’ the driver called after her. ‘It will cost a bit more, mind, but it might be worth it, you won’t find another cab out by here in a hurry.’

Sarah scarcely looked at him. ‘My husband will take me back into town,’ she said and then added, ‘Thank you,’ in a voice that was anything but gracious.

The driver flicked the reigns and the horse jerked the carriage into movement, and Sarah watched for a moment before squaring her shoulders and turning once more towards the house.

‘Sunrise’ was a two-storeyed building with a flat frontage made of mellow stone. The windows were small. The place was little more than a glorified cottage, no place to bring up her son, she thought indignantly.

She was about to ring the bell hanging outside the porch when she heard the sound of laughter from the garden at the rear of the building. She warmed as she heard Jack’s voice and quickly she skirted the bright garden and made her way around the perimeter of the house.

She caught her breath as she saw Jack, his head thrown back, childish giggles shaking his frame. Geoffrey was holding a ball above Jack’s head and as Sarah watched, he threw it to the other man who pretended to drop it. Jack immediately snatched it up.

‘You’re piggy-in-the-middle, Chas!’ he said excitedly.

It was then that Geoffrey caught sight of her. He immediately stiffened, a guarded look coming over his face, the laughter vanishing. Sarah felt unaccountably saddened and a little jealous – she had never made Geoffrey look so happy.

‘Mammy!’ Jack’s delight at seeing her was a balm. She caught him as he flung himself at her and held him close, revelling in the warmth of his small body and the feel of his arms around her neck.

She kissed his face all over and hugged him as though she would never let him go. After a time, Geoffrey moved slowly towards her.

‘Come inside, Sarah,’ he said. ‘We can’t talk out here.’ He gave Chas a look full of apology and unmistakable love, and Sarah, for the first time, understood a little about how her husband felt about his lover.

‘I haven’t come to cause any trouble,’ she said quickly. ‘I was lonely. I wanted to see Jack … and you, Geoffrey.’

She felt, rather than heard, the sigh that came from Chas. She glanced at him and he appeared fearful and uncertain. She felt sorry for him.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to be difficult, I promise.’

She could see at once that she had made the right move. Geoffrey’s tone was warmer when he spoke.

‘We shall have some tea together. Would you like your mother to stay for tea, Jack? Chas can stay too,’ he added defensively.

Jack’s smile was radiant. ‘Mammy, have you come home to stay?’ he asked and Sarah forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat.

‘We’ll see, my lovely,’ she said, her voice thick with emotion and Geoffrey looked at her sharply.

‘Sarah …’ he began, ‘I’m sorry but—’

‘Don’t say anything, not now, Geoffrey,’ she said quickly. ‘Just let me enjoy my time with you both.’

Inside the house, Sarah saw that it really was quite spacious. The building extended back a long way and though it was not to be compared with the house Geoffrey had given her, it was quite charming in its own way.

They ate a tea of crusty bread and jam and sweet small cakes in the brightly painted, sunlit nursery suite. Chas had tactfully left them. At least, Sarah thought, her husband wasn’t so besotted as to live openly with the man.

Jack chatted to Sarah constantly and his conversation centred around his father and Chas whom Jack seemed to hold in great affection. Sarah suppressed the pang of jealousy at the thought that Chas seemed to be supplanting her in her child’s life.

Later Geoffrey sent Jack to play outside. ‘Find your nurse, there’s a good boy. Tell her you need a wash. I shan’t be long.’

When the door closed behind her son, Sarah looked at Geoffrey and suddenly she was tongue-tied. How could she ask him to come back to his old life when he was so patently happy in his new one?

‘I’m glad I came,’ she said at last, ‘if only because now I understand a little of what your … your friendship with Chas means to you.’ She sighed. ‘And Jack, he’s obviously settled down and is very happy.’ Her voice broke. ‘I wanted you to come home, Geoffrey, for everything to be as it was before.’ She drew a ragged breath. ‘Now I can see that a reconciliation is out of the question.’

‘I couldn’t go back to living a lie, Sarah, but please don’t feel too badly about things.’ He glanced at her quickly. ‘You’ll soon make a new life for yourself but I don’t think it wise for you to bear a child to another man, do you understand me?’

‘There will be no child, not now, not ever,’ Sarah said and Geoffrey took both her hands in his.

‘I’m sorry, Sarah, sorry for your unhappiness but there isn’t much I can do to help you. One point I would reassure you on; divorce between us is not an option I would ever consider, you’ll always be cared for financially.’

‘I never wanted a divorce anyway,’ Sarah said emphatically. She thought of it, the shame of being an outcast as Eline Temple was, the sniggering and sneering, the outright hostility that had driven Eline away from Swansea. She shuddered. ‘No, divorce is not for me, Geoffrey.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He leaned forward. ‘Be discreet in whatever you do,’ he said. ‘That is only fair to me and to our son.’ He pressed her hand lightly.

‘I know you miss Jack now but, if I’m honest, I feel that you are not cut out for motherhood, you care too much about … well, about other things. Believe me, you’re better off as you are.’

Sarah felt defeated, too defeated to argue with him. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Geoffrey, but if you will just allow me to see more of Jack I promise I won’t try to influence him against Chas in any way.’

Geoffrey looked at her levelly and released her hand. ‘I believe you, Sarah. We’ll have to see how everything works out. Remember this though, in many ways you are a fortunate woman. You have money, respectability and your freedom.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Sarah rose to her feet and looked at Geoffrey regretfully. ‘If anything should happen to change things, if you and Chas should fall out, please come back to me Geoffrey. I would be a good wife to you. I mean that.’

‘I know.’ He looked away from her to the garden where the sun was now slanting long shadows over the lawn. He was a man she no longer knew. In truth, Geoffrey never had been hers, his heart had always been with Chas and now she’d lost even the little of him she’d had. He turned and caught her glance and his eyes were those of a stranger.

‘Can your groom take me home?’ she asked almost humbly and Geoffrey smiled at her in obvious relief.

‘Of course. Goodbye Sarah, take care of yourself.’

She turned once to look back from the carriage window and saw that Jack had rejoined his father and was laughing happily, hugging Geoffrey’s legs. Sarah knew, in that instant, that she was leaving one part of her life behind her for ever.

Arian was tired. She had worked hard all day in the workshop and once dusk fell and the light was too bad to see properly, she’d set about delivering the boots and shoes that had been standing stiffly on the shelves as though in an unspoken rebuke because they were lying idle instead of protecting the feet of their owners.

At last the deliveries were done, her basket was light on her arm and she was on her way home.

Home, it had a hollow ring. The one room where she slept and spent the little free time she had, seemed almost like a prison. She was weary of staring at the same four peeling walls and the one old picture of a woman at a well gazing up at a handsome youth, wearier still of witnessing the happiness that was an almost tangible thing between Eline and Will Davies.

Arian was lonely, she felt unloved and unwanted, an onlooker into the lives of others. She tried to tell herself she was a valuable asset to the small business, she could pick out good leather at a glance and she was getting better at the day-to-day tasks of tapping the boots and shoes. She worked hard and earned the small wages that Will was now able to pay her and yet she was unfulfilled, itching to find something else, something that just escaped her grasp. Perhaps that something was happiness.

As she entered the premises of Will and Eline’s small shop, she breathed in the scent of
cawl
, the nourishing, economical soup Eline was fond of making and although she was hungry, the thought of making a third at the scrubbed table was enough to take her appetite away.

‘Home then?’ Eline was setting the table in the warm kitchen, her face shiny from the heat and Arian knew that this life couldn’t be easy for the woman who had once enjoyed marriage to Lord Calvin Temple and all the luxuries that state brought.

And yet there was a sheen of happiness about Eline, a glow that pronounced her contentment for all the world to see and that was the sort of feeling that money couldn’t buy.

‘I’ve got news for you,’ Eline said, leaning on the table, her hands red and work-worn. ‘Will and I are going to be married on the weekend.’

‘Married?’ Arian said in surprise. ‘But where? Who is going to marry you?’

It was difficult enough being a divorced woman but to be remarried in any of the local churches was little short of impossible.

‘There’s a vicar up in the valleys, near the mountains of Brecon, he’s willing to marry us.’ Eline was jubilant. ‘It was Will who found him. A strange man, is Vicar Marriot, a foreigner by all accounts but very liberal in his views. He says that so long as the marriage is registered properly there will be no problem.’

‘I’m glad for you, Eline,’ Arian said quickly, feeling she’d been tactless, bungling even, in her tiredness. ‘I really am happy for you.’ And yet there was a sinking feeling within Arian that she couldn’t quite identify.

She supposed that being in the house she had served some sort of purpose, she had been a buffer; just in case anyone in the village had found out that Eline and Will weren’t already married, her presence would have gone some way to regularizing the position. Now with Eline and Will about to be wed, she was going to be an unnecessary burden, Arian thought dismally.

She ate her meal in silence, listening to the excited chatter pouring from Eline’s lips. ‘I’ll wear my new daffodil-yellow frock and I might as well throw caution to the winds and get a matching hat.’

‘You should look very nice,’ Arian said forcing enthusiasm into her voice. ‘What about shoes? You’ll need new ones.’

‘Wait here,’ Eline rose and moved into the back room, returning after a few minutes with a box that rustled mysteriously.

‘I’ve been working on these in secret, anticipating my wedding day.’ With a flourish, Eline brought a pair of pigskin boots out of the wrappings and held them aloft.

‘Oh, Eline, they’re beautiful!’ Arian didn’t need to pretend enthusiasm now, the boots were in various colours, the calf dyed and stitched together by Eline’s expert hand. The predominant colour was soft gold, giving the boots a richness and a distinctiveness that shouted good taste.

‘That’s not all.’ Eline shook out the folds of paper and produced a cape worked in the same patchwork design and colour as the shoes. ‘This is mainly for decoration,’ Eline said, ‘but a cape will be useful if it’s cold up in the mountains.’

‘You’re brilliant,’ Arian said warmly, ‘and Eline, you should patent the idea. The capes and matching boots would sell like hot cakes, I’m sure of it. Will you let me contact the papers, put an advertisement in? It could change our fortunes. You must realize how good these things are.’ She handled the cape almost reverently.