But it was up to him to untangle those threads and make a clean break. Look at Sarah - she had defied all the odds to make something of herself and follow her own star, so how could he continue to whine and whinge to himself about something that had always been within his power to control? His shoulders went back slightly.
He had never expected to survive that hellhole of a camp, but he had, unlike many of the poor blighters who had been incarcerated with him. He was thirty-eight years old; that meant he still had a good thirty or forty years of useful productive life in front of him.
He turned and continued walking again, his footsteps crunching on the glazed surface of the snow. It was up to him what he did with that time, but by heavens - he breathed deeply, enjoying the feel of the crisp air in a way he hadn’t done for years - he was damned if he was going to waste it.
Chapter Twelve
‘And you say she’s staying with Maggie and Florrie now?’ Hilda was cooking sausages and onions as she listened with avid interest to Sarah relating the events of the weekend first thing on Tuesday morning.
Sarah nodded. ‘They’re going to the solicitor this morning while the bruise on her face is still visible.’ She had been sparing in what she had told Hilda, merely mentioning that Willie could be violent on occasion.
‘Strike while the iron’s hot.’ Hilda was in full agreement. ‘Talking of which . . .’ She put down the heavy copper frying pan she was holding and moved closer to Sarah, who was having a cup of tea at the kitchen table, and said, ‘His nibs was here over the weekend while you were gone, bold as brass and twice as shiny.’
‘Sir Geoffrey?’
‘The very same. Apparently it had to do with the separation Lady Margaret has asked for. I don’t think he thought she would go so far as to make it official. Anyway, Lady Harris showed him the door sharpish and he went off with a flea in his ear. It looks like Lady Margaret is serious about not having him back.’
Sarah nodded. It wasn’t news to her; Lady Margaret had indicated her intentions during the increasingly frank talks they had enjoyed over the last few weeks.
‘I had to put Eileen in her place about it all, by the way.’ Eileen was Peggy’s replacement, a pert fifteen-year-old who had an answer for everything but who, nevertheless, did half the amount of work and took twice as long as Peggy had done. ‘She’s far too nosy by half, that one,’ Hilda continued, drawing her chin down into her neck disapprovingly. ‘Always asking about this, that and the other.’
‘She’s not like Peggy,’ Sarah agreed quietly, rising from the table and brushing a few crumbs of toast from her dress. She was glad Peggy was settled and happy. The Cole family were all very fond of her and the son of the house, young Michael as Rodney referred to him, seemed to have taken the new lodger under his wing. She had met Michael once, on her last visit to the house the day before she had left for Sunderland, and had found him to be a tall, surprisingly shy and sweet sixteen-year-old, with a gentle face and quiet manner. Perfect for Peggy, she thought now, as she left the kitchen to begin the day’s work.
It was later that morning, as Lady Harris was finalizing the arrangements for the Christmas break, the family having decided to spend some weeks at Fenwick, that her employer mentioned Sir Geoffrey’s visit.
‘In view of recent developments which I’m sure Hilda’s already informed you about’ - Lady Harris smiled, she knew her cook’s indulgence for gossip - ‘I’ve taken the precaution of having the locksmith call yesterday. You and Eileen will be here alone for some weeks and I would prefer to know the house is secure.’ The old lady rose, walking quickly across to the bureau and taking a lavender-coloured envelope from one of the drawers, before returning to Sarah and handing it to her. ‘This is your new set of keys, my dear. I have one, along with Lady Margaret. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Lady Harris.’ What had it cost her to lock her son out of her house and her life? Sarah asked herself as she looked down at the envelope. This same son who had, until a few weeks ago, been everything to her. Her thoughts made her voice soft as she said, ‘Is that all?’
‘For now. However, once lunch is over I am sure Lady Margaret would like you to supervise the packing of the children’s trunks, and possibly her own. I understand Eileen has everything ready.’
Sarah nodded. It was going to be strange to have the house all to herself - or almost all to herself, she corrected silently. Eileen would still be around, but she had nothing in common with the young maid, who had none of Peggy’s natural warmth and amiableness.
The family departed for the country on the seventeenth of December, and Sarah went for an interview at the hospital the following day in answer to the advertisement for voluntary workers. She was eagerly snatched up for the current rota. Could she please start that evening as they were
so
short of helpers due to the influenza outbreak? And so she found the next few days leading up to Christmas were full and busy.
She spent the whole day on both the twentieth and twenty-first, the Saturday and Sunday, working on the children’s ward, feeding the babies their bottles and the toddlers their food, reading to them, playing endless games and getting the smaller ones to sleep when they were fractious, and by the end of Sunday evening she couldn’t remember when she had felt so tired. But content. Content and fulfilled.
She received a letter from Maggie and Florrie on the Monday morning. Both women were averse to using the public telephone situated at the end of the street, being extremely distrustful of what they considered an unfathomable invention, and consequently had communicated only by letter since Sarah had been in London. The letter informed her that Willie had been round to see Rebecca, cap in hand, and Florrie had stopped him coming over the doorstep.
Sarah didn’t trust the cap-in-hand approach any more than Maggie and Florrie appeared to, and she nodded in approval as she read that Willie had been given short shrift.
They added that they had heard from Maud, who’d got it from her sister, that Matron Cox had gone to live with relations down Scarborough way, and was out of the picture so to speak. So, Sarah wasn’t to worry about anything but enjoy her Christmas, and they’d see her in the new year as soon as she was able to pay them another visit.
The Tuesday post brought a carefully worded letter from Rebecca that said very little beyond that Willie had called but Florrie hadn’t let him into the house. Sarah read Rebecca’s letter through twice, then sat down immediately and wrote to her friend telling her to be strong and to stick to her guns. Willie was dangerous, very dangerous, and never more so than when he tried the soft-soap approach. That was how he had got Rebecca in the first place.
She spent the rest of that day making trays of sweets for the children at the hospital with the last of the extra Christmas rations in Hilda’s cupboard. Rodney hadn’t called her. At four o’clock, when the sky outside was a sombre grey and all the sweets were parcelled up with shiny paper, she acknowledged the disappointment she had been keeping at bay for the last few days.
He hadn’t called her
. Not that she had expected him to, she told herself fiercely. She hadn’t, not really, not at the bottom of her. But it would have been nice, that was all. She’d enjoyed the drive back down to London when they had chatted about this and that, and she thought he had; but, as Maggie had taken great pains to point out several times on that Sunday just over a week ago, he was a busy man, an influential man, and no doubt his social life matched his hectic working life. No doubt.
At six o’clock the telephone rang as Sarah was watering the plants in the drawing room, and when she lifted the receiver and heard Rodney’s voice saying, ‘Hallo? I would like to speak to Miss Brown please,’ she suddenly found she needed to sit down.
‘This is me - I mean, it’s Sarah.’ She took a deep breath. She sounded like a babbling idiot.
‘Sarah? It’s Rodney, Rodney Mallard. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, and you?’
‘Overworked and underpaid, this outbreak of influenza is playing havoc with my beauty sleep. Sarah, I was called to the Coles’ last night, the old lady isn’t too good, and I saw that young girl, Peggy is it? while I was there. She tells me the family are away in the country and it’s just you and the new maid there for Christmas lunch, is that right?’
‘Not exactly.’ She paused, willing her voice to sound natural as she said, ‘Eileen is going home for a couple of days, actually. I told her she could as I shall probably be at the hospital for most of the time anyway.’
‘Hospital?’
‘Oh, just some voluntary work I’m doing,’ she said quickly.
‘You’re doing voluntary work at the hospital?’
She didn’t know why he sounded so surprised - hundreds of people did the same sort of thing all the time. She found she didn’t like his reaction and her voice reflected this when she said, ‘There’s nothing unusual about that, is there?’
‘No, no.’ There was a pause, and then, ‘Well yes, actually, I mean for a girl of your age. Don’t you want to go to the cinema, to dances, things like that, with any free time you have?’
‘I can still do that if I want to.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Another pause and then he said, ‘About Christmas lunch, I wondered if you’d like to spend the day with me, actually. There is a little party on at my brother’s, they always have one on Christmas Day, and I’ve already mentioned you. They would love you to come if you’re free.’
She moved the phone away from her ear, staring at it for a moment before she returned it to her face and said, ‘Oh, I couldn’t. I mean it’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t impose like that—’
‘Impose?’ He interrupted her before she had the chance to say any more. ‘You won’t be imposing, I do assure you. Richard and Vanessa are having fifteen or sixteen to dinner at the last count, the more the merrier as far as they are concerned.’
‘But . . . but I couldn’t . . .’
‘Are you free?’
‘Well yes, but—’
‘That’s settled then.’
‘No, really—’
‘
Sarah
.’ His voice was quiet now, soft and deep. ‘It would spoil my Christmas dinner to think of you eating a solitary meal all alone, so look on it as a favour to me. I don’t get to enjoy many meals without an interruption of some kind or other, so take pity on a poor starving man. All right?’
There was a silence, and Rodney found he was holding his breath although he had no idea why, and then when her voice came quietly saying, ‘If you’re sure they won’t mind I’d love to come,’ he breathed out slowly, shutting his eyes for a brief moment.
‘Good, good.’ His voice was louder, jolly. ‘I’ve arranged for a locum over Christmas Day so I can definitely say I’ll pick you up at eleven. Is that all right?’
‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
‘Goodbye till then.’
‘Goodbye.’
Sarah found she was smiling as she put down the receiver, the other hand pressed against her chest where her heart was pounding. Christmas Day at his brother’s house? Christmas Day with Rodney? But then the smile dimmed. What was she going to wear? A chill of reality caused her to sit up straighter. Oh, why hadn’t she thought of that before? If it was going to be a party everyone would be in their best bib and tucker, and she had nothing remotely suitable. And the people who would be there, they were bound to be the bridge club and musical soirée type, the social élite of Windsor.
Not that she wasn’t familiar with such as they - Mrs Roberts had chosen her circle of friends carefully from only the most influential of Sunderland’s upper class, and she knew the chatter that went on at dos like this one and how to conduct herself - but she had only seen it all from the other side, so to speak. She would have absolutely nothing in common with any of them.
She was sitting on a very lovely reproduction Louis XV chair, and now, as she raised her gaze and glanced from one exquisite piece of furniture to another, her mind was racing. This was their world, not hers - she was a housekeeper, for goodness’ sake. She hadn’t been born with a bronze, let alone a silver, spoon in her mouth.
But he had wanted her there. The thought crept in, driving away the chill of panic. He needn’t have phoned her, after all; he had thought about it and then asked her. But . . . she glanced down at the neat practical dress she had on, which was another of Rebecca’s efforts, him wanting her there didn’t solve the problem of what she was going to
wear
.