Saddle the Wind (38 page)

Sarah awoke later on. In her strange, thick voice, she said she was in no pain and that she felt comfortable. After helping her to wash, Blanche prepared her a very light breakfast and, with difficulty, persuaded her to eat a little. After that, Sarah lay quiet again.

Blanche was tidying the cottage later that morning when Dr Kelsey called. After examining Sarah he accompanied Blanche into the kitchen. The extent of the paralysis showed that the haemorrhage had been severe, he said, and once again emphasized the need for very careful nursing over the next few days and also over the weeks that followed. ‘It will be necessary for someone to be with her all the time,’ he said.

Blanche nodded. ‘And after that time?’

He shrugged. ‘We shall see. But you must understand – she’ll never be as she was.’

Marianne called that afternoon, on the way to meet Gentry’s train at Trowbridge. She had brought with her various dishes prepared by the cook at Hallowford House. Blanche repeated to her what Dr Kelsey had said. Marianne nodded; they both knew what it meant – it would be impossible now for Blanche to think of going to Sicily.

That evening John Savill came to the cottage again. There he told Blanche and Ernest that he had found a nurse for their mother – ‘A reliable woman,’ he said, mentioning the name of a Mrs Melcome, a woman in the next village. He would pay for her to come and care for their mother. Ernest looked at Blanche as she sat there.

‘It’s up to you, Blanche,’ he said.

Savill added: ‘If Mrs Melcome comes in you would still be able to travel to Sicily if you wish, and, later, to France.’

Blanche gave a little smile. ‘I thank you, Uncle John,’ she said, ‘but I can’t go now. My place is here.’

A few minutes later she followed him out to the carriage. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘If you wish to go I’d make certain that your mother got the best care.’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps you could stay with her for a while until she’s making a good recovery – and then join Marianne in Sicily at a later date.’

She thanked him again, then said, ‘I can’t. My mother needs
me
right now. I was never here at any other time when she needed me. I can’t leave her now.’

The next day, Thursday, at mid-morning, the Savills’ carriage stopped at the end of the lane. It was taking Marianne and Gentry to Trowbridge where they would take the train to begin the journey to Sicily.

Marianne had come to bid Blanche goodbye. In the cottage doorway they embraced and then Blanche walked out with her to the front gate and stood watching as she walked back along the lane and climbed into the carriage. And then suddenly Gentry was there, climbing down, coming quickly towards her. Reaching her side he stood before her for a moment in silence then held out his hand.

‘Goodbye, Blanche.’

‘Goodbye, Gentry.’

They kept their voices low, although they could not be heard by Marianne in the carriage.

Gentry released her hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘– about everything.’

She nodded.

‘Oh, Blanche,’ he whispered suddenly, ‘I wish you were coming with us. I wish you were going to be there.’

‘Gentry – please. Marianne will be there – and that’s the way it should be.’

‘I know, but –’

‘We couldn’t do anything to hurt her.’

‘No. It’s just that …’ He let his words trail off.

Blanche sighed. ‘What happened between us was never meant to happen, Gentry. Now we must forget that it ever did.’

He said nothing. After a moment she held out her hand again. Perhaps, she thought, we shall never meet again.

‘Goodbye.’

Gentry did not miss the note of finality in her voice. He took her small hand in his. ‘Goodbye, Blanche Farrar.’

Then he was walking back along the lane and a minute later the carriage was disappearing out of sight on the Trowbridge road.

The days, the weeks went by. Summer mellowed and the harvests were brought in. In the hedgerows hazelnuts, elderberries and blackberries ripened, while on the heath the bracken grew shoulder high. At the cottage when Sarah recovered sufficiently to leave her bed the old couch was brought into the kitchen and she spent the greater part of her days there in the company of Blanche.

Towards the end of August Marianne returned, suntanned and radiant after her summer in Palermo and Messina. At the cottage in Hummock Lane she visited Sarah and Blanche and sat in the small kitchen telling of her experiences. And so many times in her narrative Gentry’s name came up, and Blanche could see – who could have missed it? – how much in love she was. Blanche did not want to hear about Gentry, though, did not want to hear about all the wonderful times they had had together, and looking at Marianne as they sat opposite one another, she reflected on how much everything had changed. It was as if her own life had come to a stop, while Marianne’s was suddenly beginning. Her own life had come full circle; now she was back with her mother – where she had begun. Where, she said to herself, she belonged.

A little later she walked with Marianne from the cottage to the front gate. There Marianne turned to her and took her hand. ‘Let us know if there’s anything you want, anything we can do,’ she said.

‘I will.’ She would not, though, Blanche knew. She could never now go to them at Hallowford House, asking for their charity. She had taken enough during her life, and now she had come to a turning point, and she would ask for nothing more.

Back in the kitchen she spent some time manipulating her mother’s left leg and left arm. It was a regular twice-daily routine, when for a period Blanche would try to encourage a greater degree of life into Sarah’s sluggish limbs. It was a slow business, though, but even so, it had shown results, and Dr Kelsey had admitted himself surprised at the extra mobility which Sarah had gained over the weeks since her attack. She could walk now – albeit with an ungainly swinging of her left leg – but even her gait was improving. Now when Blanche had finished helping her mother with the day’s exercises Sarah took a child’s rubber ball in her left hand and sat trying to squeeze it in her grasp – another means of trying to coax additional life into her wasted muscles.

As Blanche worked in the kitchen she looked at Sarah manipulating the rubber ball and reflected how much a part of their routine it now was. And her own life had settled into a routine, she said to herself – up in the morning to get Ernest’s breakfast and then help her mother to wash and dress. That done she would start on the chores around the cottage – the cooking, the cleaning. And so the days would go by, only Sundays showing any variance of the pattern, for on that day Ernest would not spend long at the farm. For the rest of the time the days melted one into another with hardly anything to mark the difference between them.

That December Blanche was eighteen. Marianne’s birthday was a week later, and Blanche was invited to Hallowford House to join in a celebration dinner. She
was undecided as to whether to go, but in the end, after considerable urging from Ernest and her mother, she accepted the invitation and on the evening in question the phaeton came for her.

On her return she was quiet and uncommunicative, and Ernest and Sarah looked at her with concern.

‘Is something wrong?’ Ernest asked. ‘Didn’t you have a good time?’

She shrugged. ‘Yes, it was fine.’ She got up and, making some excuse, went into the front parlour. After a moment Ernest followed her in.

‘What happened?’ he said.

‘Happened?’

‘Did something happen?’

‘No. We had a very nice dinner. Mr Savill, Marianne, her Uncle Harold, and I …’ She paused. ‘And I should not have gone.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not a part of my life anymore.’

‘How can you say that? Marianne’s like a sister to you. And Mr Savill’s like a father.’

She nodded. ‘I know. And here am I with a foot in both camps. And I can’t keep my balance, Ernest. And if I try to keep it up I shall fall over.’

Following the dinner party at Hallowford House Blanche decided not to go there again. That part of her life was over, she said to herself. There had been all those years when she had grown up beside Marianne, but now those years were over. It was time now that they separated and led their separate lives. In any case, Marianne would probably be leaving Hallowford one of these days when her year at finishing school was over – probably to go to Sicily to live – as Gentry’s wife. Blanche had to recognize the fact: she had no further part to play in the lives of the inhabitants of Hallowford House, and it
was time she began to think of her own life. And she would have to do with it as much as she could. Not that she had any reason to complain, she said to herself – after all, she had had a good start, and a good education – which alone should fit her for something.

Sarah was in the kitchen when Marianne called at the cottage a few days later to invite Blanche to tea, but Blanche, she was surprised to see, declined the invitation. Sarah looked at the two young women as they talked together – Marianne in her fashionable dress, Blanche with her hair tied back, and wearing one of her oldest frocks. After Marianne’s departure Blanche turned to find Sarah looking at her with a little expression of concern. Blanche smiled at her.

‘Are you all right, Mama?’

‘Yes, thank you, dear.’ Sarah nodded, then said, ‘Don’t cut yourself off from everything, Blanche.’

‘I’m not.’

‘And don’t do it on my account.’

‘Oh, Mama.’

As Blanche came to her chair, Sarah reached out her right hand and took Blanche’s wrist. Blanche frowned, smiling: ‘What is it?’

Sarah looked into her eyes. ‘I never understood you, Blanche. And I underestimated you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have a strength I never knew you possessed.’

Blanche smiled at her. ‘No, no …’

‘Yes.’ Sarah sat in silence for some moments, then she added:

‘I know what you’ve given up for me.’

‘I haven’t given up anything.’

‘Ah, yes, I know.’ Her fingers around Blanche’s wrist tightened. ‘But it will all come to you in time, Blanche.
You’ll see. You deserve the best – and it will come to you in time.’

One bright day in mid-June of the following year, 1899, Blanche answered a knock at the door to find John Savill standing on the doorstep.

‘Uncle John …’

He smiled at her. ‘Is it convenient, Blanche …?’ He was taking off his hat.

‘Of course.’ Beyond his shoulder, at the end of the narrow lane, she could see his phaeton. ‘Please – come in.’ She stepped back and allowed him to enter. When she had closed the door behind him he said softly: ‘Perhaps I might see your mother in a little while, but may we talk privately first for a minute or two?’

‘Yes, of course …’

She led him into the front parlour where they sat facing one another.

‘How is your mama?’ he asked.

‘Going on quite well, thank you. She seems to be improving, but her progress now is very slow.’

‘She can’t be left.’ It was almost a statement.

‘Oh, no. I’m afraid not.’

He frowned.

‘What is it, Uncle John?’

He gave a little shrug. ‘I worry about you, Blanche.’

‘Oh, you have no need to worry about me. I’m all right.’

‘Are you? Truly?’

‘Yes, believe me.’

‘I wonder about you – what’s happening to you.’

‘I’m managing.’

‘Are you happy, Blanche?’

‘Happy?’ She paused for a moment then smiled at him. ‘I think I’m – coming to terms with – with reality.’

‘Oh, dear. That makes it sound quite a feat.’

‘No, no. It’s time I did.’

He said nothing for a moment, then: ‘Blanche – I want you to remember something …’

‘Yes?’

He sighed. ‘I have a responsibility towards you, you know.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Oh, indeed there is. I took you from your home and – and gave you a kind of life that was different. Don’t think I’m unaware of that.’

‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘But how far can it take me, Uncle John? It won’t keep me forever. At some time or other I have to be responsible for myself. And I am now. I’m eighteen years old, and what I do now is my own decision.’

He gave a little nod. ‘I just want you to know, Blanche, that if you ever want anything – anything at all – you have only to ask.’

‘I’ll remember that. And thank you.’

‘You have no need to thank me. I owe it to you. But apart from that – I would want to help you if I could. You know that.’ He reached out and took her hand in his. ‘You mean a great deal to me, Blanche. You’re like a second daughter to me. You’ve given me so much over the years – not to mention what you’ve given to Marianne.’

‘No, Uncle John,’ she pressed his hand, ‘– it’s what you’ve given
me
.’

They sat in silence for some moments, then Blanche said:

‘I hear from Marianne quite regularly. She seems to be reasonably happy at school in Brittany.’

Savill smiled. ‘I think “reasonably” is the right word. She’s managing well enough, I suppose, anyway. Though
I know she’d be happier if you were with her. Did she tell you that we’re going away in the summer, to Sicily?’

‘– Yes, she mentioned it.’

‘Just for a while. We think – Gentry’s father and I – that Marianne and Gentry should see a little more of one another – get to know each other a little better.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure you’re well aware of the fact that we’d like Marianne and Gentry to marry one day. If they find they’re suitable, of course. And there’s no doubt that they’re very fond of one another – but as it is, with Gentry now living in Sicily again, and Marianne in England, they don’t get that much opportunity to meet.’ He shrugged. ‘So, as I say, we’re going out to Messina to stay for a while.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘In a couple of weeks – when Marianne returns from Brittany. We shall stay in Sicily for a few months. Harold will look after things for me here while we’re gone.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘You know, I’m not getting any younger, Blanche, and I’m getting tired. I find I let things get on top of me as I never used to, and I’m looking forward to doing nothing at all for several weeks.’