Saddle the Wind (7 page)

Sarah felt she could weep. They had been so close once, and here they were like strangers meeting at the market. She stared at the range for a minute or two until, unable to sit there any longer, she got up, put down her cup and went out into the hall. There she stood in the silence, purposeless. After a few moments she opened the door to the little parlour and went in, closing the door behind her. Moving to the upright piano she lit the oil lamp on its top, sat down on the stool and lifted the lid.

The piano was very old. It had been given to Sarah’s father in lieu of payment for some long outstanding debt when she was a child. She struck a chord. The instrument had been out of tune for so long.

She began to play, softly, Mendelssohn’s ‘On Wings of Song’, a piece she had learned as a child. After a while she began to sing, her light contralto almost whispering in the little room:

… Bear thee to regions enchanted,
Where joy fills the rapturous day …

She became aware that the door had opened and closed again and that Ollie had come into the room. Self-consciously she broke off the song and turned to him with an awkward little smile.

‘Don’t stop,’ he said, moving to stand beside the piano.

‘Oh …’ She shook her head. ‘We’re both so out of tune these days – the piano and me.’

‘No, don’t say that.’

They remained there, she sitting on the piano stool, he standing, looking down at her. She dropped her eyes beneath his gaze.

‘Sing “Comin’ Thro the Rye”,’ he said.

It was a favourite song of his. Soon after they were married he had taken her to a concert at the old Trowbridge Town Hall where a soprano had sung the song. Ollie had never heard it before and, much taken with it, had tried to recall snatches of the words and the melody as they walked home. When they had got back to the cottage Sarah had sat down at the piano and, to his surprise and delight, had sung the song for him. ‘You know it,’ he had said, laughing. ‘How? How do you know it?’ ‘From my father, of course.’ ‘You didn’t tell me you knew it. You’ve never sung it before.’ She had shrugged, smiling up at him. ‘Well, I’ve sung it now.’

Now she said, avoiding his eyes, ‘Oh – that old thing. No – I can’t …’

‘Yes, you can. Please …’

‘Oh – well – it’s so late, and the children …’

‘They’ll sleep through anything, you know that.’

Making no reply she sat in silence for some moments, and then her fingers began to move softly over the keys. After a few chords she began to sing.

Gin a body meet a body, comin’ thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body, need a body cry.

She sang the song quite slowly, investing the words with the brogue she had learned from her Scots father.

Ilka lassie has her laddie,
Nane they say ha’e I.
Yet a’ the lads they smile at me
When comin’ thro the rye.

She sang the song through to the end while Ollie stood in silence, unmoving. When the last notes had
died away she stood up and put out her hand to close the lid of the piano. At the same moment he stepped towards her, his hand reaching out and closing around her wrist. She didn’t move for a second, then, turning, she looked into his face and saw that his eyes were tight shut. Still with his eyes closed he murmured her name, the diminutive that he had been accustomed to use in the past.

‘Sare …’

She remained where she was, held in the position of slightly bending. And then he opened his eyes and placed his other hand on her wrist, as if to prevent her escape. He didn’t meet her glance. Giving a little shake of his head, he said:

‘Sare … Don’t – don’t keep away from me – please.’

‘Oh, Ollie …’ She breathed the words, feeling her heart lurch.

‘I can’t bear it – for us to be like this.’

It was what she had wanted to hear. ‘No, Ollie, no. I don’t want it either.’

He looked into her eyes. ‘I know what I was like sometimes in the past, but –’

She broke in quickly: ‘Don’t talk about it. They’re gone, those times.’ She thought of the hard words she had said to him that night after she’d told him she was expecting the baby. ‘Let’s forget it, can’t we?’ she said.

‘Yes.
Yes
.’ He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it, then gently drew her to him and held her close. She was so aware of the feel of his arms about her. It had been so long since they had touched like this. He kissed her mouth, gently at first, but then more insistently, and she returned the kiss with gladness and relief. After a few moments he held her back from him a little and gazed at her. He gave a little nod, as if of confirmation.

‘Ah, Sare,’ he said, ‘you’re a grand, beautiful woman.’

He drew her to him again and his large hand came up, touched her breast and closed over it. He stroked and kneaded her soft flesh for a while, then his hands came higher and he began to undo the buttons of her bodice. She helped him, aware of the sound of his breathing and of her own. When she was naked before him he knelt and clasped her around the waist, his face pressed to her warm body. She felt one hand release her and then come moving between her thighs, higher, higher, to where she waited for his touch. She gasped, tipping back her head and closing her eyes.

‘Ollie …’

After a while he pulled away, and urged her onto her back. Moments later she felt the hard shape of him entering her eager body. She gave herself up to him, wrapping her arms around him, holding him prisoner as he moved inside her, filling her burning warmth with his own.

When it was over they lay together on the rug, at peace. Ollie’s arm lay across her while in her ear the sound of his breathing grew quiet again. After a time she turned her head, gazed on his closed eyes, and gently kissed him on the mouth.

As she entered the lane at the foot of the hill she saw Esther Hewitt moving away from the pump with a pail of water. Esther, turning, seeing her, came to a stop at the Farrars’ gate and waited.

‘So,’ she said as Sarah reached her side, ‘our Blanche is comin’ home, is she?’ In her voice was a faint note of resignation which Sarah didn’t miss. While Sarah had been away from the cottage Esther had been so glad of the little extra money she had been able to earn by helping out in the Farrar household. Blanche’s return to the cottage spelled the end of that extra income.

‘Yes, coming home,’ Sarah answered, and Esther nodded. ‘Well, it’ll be nice for you to be all together again.’

They stayed chatting for another minute or two and then Esther took up her pail while Sarah opened the gate and went around to the back of the cottage. There Arthur and Agnes left her to go and join Mary who was playing in the garden and she called after them not to dirty their clothes. As she moved to the scullery door a moment later she thought of Esther’s words:
It’ll be nice for you to be all together again
. Would Ollie think the same? she wondered.

Pushing open the scullery door she went inside, pulled the perambulator after her and set it near the wall. Ollie, as she had left him, was sitting at his easel. He turned and smiled at her. She returned the smile and then bent to the baby. Blanche was lying quietly for the moment. She would leave her there for now while she got the dinner.

‘Is Ernest still out in the fields?’ she asked Ollie as she took off her shawl and moved towards him.

‘Yes.’ He nodded briefly then turned and gave his attention back to the painting before him. The canvas depicted a number of men burning the stubble after the harvest had been gathered in. The scene was one of quiet drama. In a lowering, stormy sky clouds streamed out like grey, shot-riddled banners above a field in which the stubble burned in long lines of brilliant flame. The men, tension evident in every line of their muscular bodies, concentrated on containing the fire, while the smoke swirled about them before being carried up towards the clouds above.

Sarah stood at his shoulder for some moments, looking at the canvas, then she said, ‘Ollie, it’s magnificent.’

He turned to her, pleased. ‘You think so?’

‘Oh, yes.
Yes
.’

‘It’s not quite finished yet,’ he said. ‘But I’m hoping to get it finished today – if I get the time before the light goes.’

Since the spring Ollie had become much calmer, far more at peace. And it wasn’t only because the two of them had grown closer again, Sarah knew. It was also partly because of his painting. It was a similar pattern every year. During the short days of the winter the hours he could spend at his easel were limited, and there were always so many other things, more important things, to be done. With the lengthening days, though, he was able to find more opportunity to work at his painting, and any odd hour that he could squeeze in between his other responsibilities found him either at his easel or working on sketches in preparation for the painting that would follow. At such times, doing what he loved best, so much of his frustration seemed to vanish. He was clearly so much happier.

The picture now before him he had begun several weeks ago, working at it every Sunday, his one day off in the week. Today he had been sitting at his easel since eight o’clock that morning. When he was painting, Sarah kept the children out of his way as much as she could – easy on fine days but more difficult when they were confined to the house. This afternoon, she decided, after the children had got back from Sunday school, she would take them out for a walk if the weather stayed dry. That would give Ollie a little more time on his own.

Into her contentment a thought nagged faintly. She hadn’t yet told him that Blanche was home to
stay
. The thought stayed with her; Ollie’s relationship with the baby was a constant source of quiet melancholy in the back of her mind. She felt that he had still never truly
accepted the child, and that he was relieved that she spent most of the time up at the house. He rarely showed any interest in her, or referred to her when she was absent. It was almost as if during the time when she was away she ceased to exist for him. It was true that on those Sundays when Sarah brought Blanche back to spend some hours with the family he made token gestures to show a kind of affection, but, Sarah felt, they were only gestures; nothing more.

As she entered the kitchen to begin preparing dinner she suddenly thought of her meeting with Mr Savill in the stable yard. From the shelf above the range she took down an old broken teapot. It held a brooch that had belonged to her grandmother, and her mother’s wedding ring. Taking the sovereign from her pocket she placed it along with the other treasures.

When Ernest returned from his excursion in the fields they had dinner. Blanche slept peacefully afterwards and while Ollie returned to his easel Sarah got the three older children ready for Sunday school. Then, with Agnes and Blanche going along for the air, they set off for the church hall.

Ollie was still working when she returned, and while Agnes sat down to play with her doll she took Blanche – becoming restless back in the house – and laid her on a blanket in one corner of the room. To prevent her from straying she arranged a couple of chairs and a piece of wood to form a makeshift barrier.

Agnes grew tired after a while and Sarah put her upstairs in bed to sleep for a while. Then, with Blanche still crawling about behind the chair-fence, Sarah washed the dishes, tidied the room and put kettles of water on the range. When the water was hot she undressed herself and, standing in a wide tin bowl, washed herself from
top to toe. When she was dry she went upstairs and put on her second-best dress – the one for Sundays – undid her hair, brushed it and re-plaited it and then coiled the heavy plait around the crown of her head and pinned it in place.

As she went back down the stairs a few minutes later she heard the sounds of the children returning from Sunday school. Looking out at the sky, she saw that dark clouds had gathered and rain was beginning to fall. The thought of any walk was out of the question now.

After tea Ollie went back to his painting while the children went to play quietly in the front parlour. When Blanche began to grow fretful Sarah took her up into her arms. The baby wouldn’t settle, though, and she was crying loudly when Ernest came in from the parlour to get one of his books. After listening to the baby’s crying for a moment or two he said, ‘She always becomes a misery at this time of a Sunday, doesn’t she? She wants to go back up to the house. She doesn’t like it here.’

Sarah was about to make some angry retort when Ollie appeared, paintbrush in hand. Looking down at the baby he said: ‘Isn’t it time you took her back to the house?’

Sarah looked at him over the head of the crying child. ‘She’s not going back anymore, Ollie. Marianne’s weaned now, and there’s no longer any need for us to go there.’

‘Oh – I see …’ He nodded, then gave a shrug and turned back into the scullery.

Half an hour later, when Sarah sat alone with the baby still crying in her arms Ollie came back into the kitchen and sat down.

‘Have you finished?’ Sarah asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, not yet.’

‘You taking a rest from it for a while … ?’

‘No. I reckon I’ll stop now.’

‘I thought you wanted to finish it today. The light’s still good enough, isn’t it?’ The rain had stopped now, the clouds had passed over and the sky was bright again.

‘Oh, yes, there’s nothing wrong with the light.’

There was a little silence, broken only by the fretful sounds of the child, then Sarah said, frowning, ‘It’s Blanche, isn’t it?’ She shook her head distractedly. ‘Oh, Ollie, I’m sorry. But she’ll be all right soon. I just don’t know why she keeps crying the way she does.’

He gave a little smile. ‘No? Perhaps it’s true what Ernest said – perhaps she’d rather be up at the house.’

As they sat there Blanche’s crying began to grow louder and more piercing, and after a while Ollie got up and went into the front parlour to join the children. Sarah remained sitting there with the crying baby in her arms.

Marianne lay in her crib while Dr Kelsey bent over her. After examining the infant he straightened and turned to John Savill.

‘Well, she has no fever. I can’t see any obvious sign that she’s sickening for anything.’