Wise Child Read online

  Until she met John Hammond she had been content to give herself to God. She had no need of living men, those coarse, impure creatures. Then, two years ago John Hammond broke away from the rigid chapel and joined their church. Sarah set eyes on him. She set eyes on him and fell into that enchanted state of romance, 'such stuff as dreams are made on ...'

  At last she understood the passion behind poetry and works of art. Her heart raced at the sight of him. She knew that everyone saw her as eccentric - deep, intense and obsessive. To make John love her she had to change, become soft and sweet, pliable and frivolous.

  She did everything she could think of to make John Hammond love her. For two years she never missed a chance to show herself in an attractive light. She contrived to be invited to the places he might be. That part had been easy. Old Man Hammond was ambitious for an alliance of Pilkington and Hammond and he invited her to all the Archerfield social events. Mutual friends did the rest.

  She spent long weekends at country houses all over Cheshire, bored if he did not come, in seventh heaven in this presence. She infested his environment. He could not tum his head but she was there, devouring him with her eyes. And for all that time he, her only love, never noticed her love for him. He never saw what all their friends saw, that when she gazed at him she was not the touchy, intense woman whom men avoided. She was pretty. Love shone in her watery blue eyes and her heart melted. And he? He saw her as a friend he could confide in. He confided in her his hopeless passion for a farmer's daughter.

  Once and only once did he need her. Once, he weakened and made love to her in his own home where she was a weekend guest. He came into her bed in the dead of night. He came into her room, begging, 'Sarah! Comfort me, will you?'

  The act was shocking and painful but she sacrificed herself to his need. Her dear, dead mother had told her that married women must put up with it to please their husbands, because for men it was the necessary foundation of marriage. Sarah suffered it because John needed the comfort of her body. Afterwards she had not been able to stop crying. It was a mixture of relief that he had stopped doing it to her and happiness that it had come to pass. And he, her love, her John mistook her tears of joy for those of regret.

  It was then, to stop her from crying, that he held her close and said, over her weeping form, 'I am sorry, Sarah! Oh, so sorry, Sarah!' She could not stop crying and he continued to apologise. 'I've used you, Sarah. Please forgive me. I proposed to Elsie. She turned me down. My heart is breaking...'

  Her crying became louder while he, perhaps afraid that she might wake the household, held her tighter and said, 'I can't believe I have behaved like this. I'm disgusted with myself. Forgive me, Sarah! I regret it with all my heart.'

  He had apologised for making love to her! He was disgusted. He asked her forgiveness and said he regretted it. He repeated it all, in his letter. She trembled when she thought of his letter. She had read it so many times, his words were imprinted in her mind.

  Archerfield House.5 January 1915.My dear Sarah,

  Where have you been hiding these last weeks? My letters have gone unanswered. I have missed you. I wanted to talk to you and I have not seen you since the night last November when I came, undeserving, to your bed and you gave yourself so generously. Your love gave me great comfort. I am glad there have been no repercussions. My one regret is that on that memorable night it was clear to both us, from my ineptitude as a lover and the storms of tears that overcame you, that I was not the man for you.

  I want you to be the first to hear, before the announcement in the papers, that Miss Catriona Mackenzie and I are to be married in Edinburgh next week. We met at Christmas and immediately lost our hearts to one another. I know you will wish us well and I hope that you, my dearest and best friend, will become as beloved a friend to Catriona as you are to me. Yours for ever in friendship. John.

  Now - what could she do? Kill herself? Death was preferable to disgrace. Who could save her? Her father's voice broke in on her thoughts. 'Sarah!'

  Sarah turned away from the window to face him. Their office boy was standing in the open doorway, in uniform. 'Look who has come to see us, Sarah,' Father said. 'Our junior clerk. He's in the Cheshires. My old regiment.'

  She remembered him, the lad who'd been the life and soul of the counting-house. She studied him. He was holding his head back, chin tucked in, his peaked hat shading his eyes. Shouldn't a man take his hat off in the presence of a lady?

  'Well,' she said slowly. 'Little Frankie.' He was only an inch shorter than she was and she was tall; five feet ten inches tall. 'Who ever would have thought it?'

  He gave her a supercilious look as if he were mocking her. He snapped to attention, whisked his hat off, tucked it under his arm and made a little bow. 'Lieutenant Chancellor. At your service, ma'am.'

  Was he making fun of her? Sarah blushed for her rudeness. There was boldness in his eyes as he held her gaze. Sarah's blush deepened.

  Father said, 'Now then, Sarah! Mind your manners. Invite the lieutenant to dinner tonight. It will be good to have a bit of company. What with all your friends engaged to be married or off to war…'

  'And my last hopes gone, do you mean, Father?' she snapped as she swung round on her heel, picked up her coat and hat and went past both of them to the door, hearing her father, behind her, explaining her rudeness to the office boy.

  ‘Don't mind Sarah,' he said. 'She is a very sensitive girl.Too sensitive for her own good. Now…about dinner tonight...'

  If Frank thought Archerfield a splendid house, then Pilkington house came a close second. It was set back from the road in Park Lane, the dignified residential area of Macc. where the professional classes lived. Inside it was a palace: fine maple floors, Portland stone fireplaces. Chinese carpets, modem tapestries, art nouveau lamps and figures - all periods and styles jumbled together to exquisite effect.

  They dined, seated at one end of the long table. First they served him River Dee salmon with Chablis white wine. Frank had never eaten such food. They served a red claret with entrecote steak that ran with pink juices. There were no other guests. Just Frank, who quickly became merry from the wine, a sober Mr Pilkington and a very different Sarah from the clever girl he knew from her visits to the office.

  Sarah was wearing a green velvet dress with a deep pointed neckline. He had only ever seen her in severe tailored costumes in dark colours. The dress suited her, drawing attention from the thick waist to her big bosom that was plump and white and swelled over the top of her dress as if there were not enough room for it all to fit inside her camisole. Looking at her across the table you could forget the keen, avid eyes. They said in the office that she had 'bats in her belfry' - and try to imagine what the rest of her body was like, to wonder how it would feel to bury your face in that deep, soft cleavage.

  He must stop thinking such thoughts and concentrate on the food and Mr Pilkington's conversation. Mr Pilkington gave him port to drink with the Stilton cheese. Sarah excused herself at this point, saying rather rudely, Frank thought, for he had only ever dined with men in the mess that it was late and she was going to tell the servants they could have the rest of the evening off.

  Mr Pilkington evidently was used to her ways and without the distraction of Sarah's full bosom across the table from him, Frank gave his host all his attention. His former employer was talking to him as an equal, reminiscing about his young days when he had been an officer with the Cheshires. Before the table was cleared, Mr Pilkington said, 'Come to my study, Frank. We must have a serious talk over coffee. I have a proposition for you. Afterwards we'll join Sarah.'

  In the study Frank relaxed over coffee, cognac and cigars, and the conversation turned naturally to Pilkington Printers and the new orders that were flooding in for the camouflage print.

  Mr Pilkington said, 'We will have to take on more hands. We are employing women now. Women workers - not just designers.' He refilled Frank's brandy glass as he spoke, dismissing with a wave of his hand Frank's half-hearted
protests. 'The girls are coming out of their homes, making shells and casings in the small factories that have gone' over to armaments. The churches have lent their halls to the town council for use as Christian hostels for working girls from the villages.'

  Frank was mellow and relaxed. The cognac made him feel wise and confident so it startled him when Mr Pilkington abruptly changed the subject from war to his worries. 'You know that Sarah is my heir?'

  'Yes.'

  ‘She has had a disappointment.'

  Mr Pilkington as a boss was distant and watchful and Frank was surprised by his lack of reserve. He said, 'In what way, sir?'

  'Sarah has gone into a decline since John Hammond married. She used to come into the office, interest herself in the mill. Now she goes nowhere but to church. She won't accept invitations. Women are highly strung, irrational creatures, Frank. My late wife was the same.'

  'John Hammond?' Sarah Pilkington was about ten years older than John Hammond. And Sarah was clever. She could never have wanted to marry a dim fellow like Hammond. He said, 'Sarah is a very intelligent girl, sir. A lesser man would be afraid to marry a woman who is cleverer than he ...'

  'Or richer!' Mr Pilkington gave a harsh laugh. Then he stood, refilled their brandy glasses and placed a hand on Frank's shoulder. His voice went low, confiding, deliberate. There was no mistaking that what be was about to say was well thought out. 'Old Man Hammond wanted to buy me out. His son was not tempted by the property settlement and a directorship at Pilkington Printers, which will go to the man my Sarah marries.' He watched Frank's face.

  Frank jabbed his fingernails into the palm of his hand to prove to himself that he was awake and not dreaming this extraordinary interview. He said, 'Is this the proposition, Mr Pilkington?'

  Mr Pilkington, with an expression of intense sadness, said quietly, 'I want to see my daughter married. She is shy, oversensitive, and has not much youth left.'

  Frank said, 'I can't be bought, Mr Pilkington.'

  There was brightness in the old man's eyes. 'I am not trying to sell my daughter. Sarah knows nothing of this. Let us go and join her.'

  And it was there, in the drawing room, when her father had gone to bed and the servants had been sent away and told not to disturb them, that Sarah enticed him. She invited him to remove his jacket because, she said, 'The fire's blazing. You're hot, Frank.' The fire was blazing. He was hot. He discarded the jacket. Then Sarah, with her long, slender fingers played with the buttons on his shirt. She came closer so that the scent that rose from the deep valley between her breasts intoxicated him, urging him to bury his face in her.

  She leaned back, inserted her slender fingers between the buttonholes of his shirt, playfully, loosening them. This was not the behaviour of a girl who was pining for somebody else. His very breath was heated. He was growing hot and hard. But he was not sure what she would allow him to do - or what she expected him to do.

  And it was there, on a gilded chaise-longue in Pilkington House, that Frank discovered how easily he could be seduced. For soon there was no doubt in his mind. Sarah was excited. She found him attractive and she was intent on seduction. Before he even kissed her she became coy, provocative. 'Loosen the hooks on my dress, Frank. Please'? The bones in my bodice are cutting into me.'

  He waited for a few moments, watching her, to be sure that this was what she wanted. And she glanced down at her hands, bit her lip and said, ‘Please. Kiss me. Don't make me ask ...'

  He pulled her close, roughly, because she had made him feel unequal to her. He pressed his fingers down on her chin, to make her open her tight-pressed lips. He would show her he could do what she wanted. He knew how to kiss a woman. He held her fast. His tongue explored her mouth while his fingers expertly unfastened the hooks on her velvet dress and tugged it down to her waist. Then he stopped and held her away from him. The seams were tight. They had made marks all over her pure white flesh that was every bit as soft as Elsie's. He suspected that she had drunk a little too much, for she whispered, 'Careful! I have never done this ... Don't hurt me ...'

  He did not tell her that he had never done this before either, never completed the act. He made her stand up while he took off her clothes, so that she could call a halt at any moment if she chose to. She did not utter a word but her strange, wary eyes were misty and her beautiful hands were helping him undo laces and suspenders. Those slender white hands were guiding his head down on to her heavy bosom that was pendulous but full and so ripe it inflamed him beyond reason.

  Quickly he unfastened his clothes and pulled her down on to the rug. He had done more than this with Elsie and been able to stop himself. But this time the woman was as heated as he. She was shaking with nerves and excitement and her breath was coming quick and shallow on his neck when he caressed and kissed and held the big swollen breast she was offering to him, like a mother to her infant.

  Her trembling fingers were moving all over his shoulders as he pressed her long, slender legs apart. And he stroked his finger inside her until she became slippery so that he could go into her slowly, not to hurt her. She gasped and made a little stifled cry of pain and he held back a little until she said, 'Now. Do it now. Quickly!' and went soft and weak under him. She clung on to him as he thrust himself deep into her generous enveloping body, experiencing astonishing sensations and excitement like no other, at the same time discovering his appetite for, his delight in and his great talent for indulging in what Ma and Elsie called 'the sinful lusts of the flesh.’

  And when it was over Sarah wept like a woman demented; like a woman who had lost her virginity against her will. He held her close, tenderly. He kissed her tear-stained face and told her that it was his first time. Making love to her was the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to him. He did not think he could survive their being parted, for already he was thinking of next time. And please would she stop crying and kiss him because he wanted her again.

  She stopped crying at once. She loved him, of course. But did he love her? Was she not a foolish virgin? Had she not made a cheap, silly fool of herself? He kissed her passionately. There was nothing cheap or silly about her. Nor - and he smiled as he said this - was she a virgin any longer. If not here, now, again, could he see her the following night? And the next?

  It was no surprise when her father demanded of his commanding officer that Lieutenant Chancellor be given leave to wed. They were married by special licence three weeks later, the week before he embarked for Gallipoli. He would be away for almost two years. It would be 1916 before he set eyes on their son.

  And here, in the hills above Bollington, almost ten years later, all this reminiscing about Sarah and his first sexual experience was making him hot and hard and impatient for Elsie. Where the hell was she?

  Chapter Three

  The drystone wall was high where the lane dropped. Elsie could not see over it, and red-faced and breathless, she ran the last yards to the lane end. The Alvis was there, facing downhill towards Bollington with the engine running.

  Frank leaned over to open the door. 'You're hot and bothered! Hop in the back,' he said. The cleft in his chin went deeper and his hazel eyes were blazing with love for her. He was rugged and virile and as she hauled herself up, Elsie's heart was hammering.

  She lifted her skirt above her knees and clambered in. 'Sorry I kept you waiting. Our Lil didn't want me to leave.' She had to cock one leg over the long front seat to get into the back and when she was straddled with one toe on the narrow back seat she heard him chuckle, felt his hand sliding inside her thigh until his fingers touched the soft skin above her stocking tops. Shuddering pleasure took hold of her as her insides went weak with need of him. 'Stop! Don't you get enough?' she teased as she dragged her leg over the top and dropped lightly on to the seat.

  'I can't. I can't get enough of you.' He roared with laughter, pushed the long gear lever and released the handbrake. The great lumbering vehicle rolled down the hill. 'Where to, love?'

  'Anywhere. I've brought
a picnic. Have you a corkscrew?' He laughed. 'Don't ask such questions. You'll get a rude answer.'

  'Never mind the rude answer,' she said, as if it were some clever quip. 'You know what I meant.' His humour lifted her out of herself, cheered her as much as a bottle of sherry. 'Where are we?'

  'Palmerston Street. I'll stop in Flash Lane.'

  She saw his capable hands on the wheel, those hands that fIred and mastered her body as no other man could. She had tried to feel for others what she felt for Frank. She attracted suitors easily, and when Frank had cut the ground from under her feet ten years ago -when he had shocked everyone by marrying Sarah -she had gone a bit wild. She could not bear to think about the time Frank had deserted her. Even when she drank too much to deaden the pain, it flooded back.

  Yet it was not desertion. She had only taken it for granted that the years and years of being first, friends, then sweethearts would naturally lead to marriage. She turned down John Hammond because she expected Frank's proposal. At that time John Hammond had followed her everywhere. He invited her to look over his mill as if to say 'This could be yours if you marry me.'

  John Hammond used to call at Lindow, to ask her parents, 'Would you and Elsie like to go out for an afternoon's motoring?' She was twenty then, ingenuous, and she never suspected his intentions, though John asked her to Archerfield on any pretext. 'Will you help me look at the silk: pattern swatches and choose the curtains for the music room?' he'd ask one day. 'Would you like to see the new bathrooms we've had installed?' he'd say the next. He was a photographer. Would she pose? She did those things. She was not shocked at John's suggestion that she pose nude. She had no self-consciousness about her body but she refused to take all her clothes off in front of a camera. However, she giggled a lot and at last went halfway - stripped to the waist, she allowed him drape her in a diaphanous silk, and stood for ages while he posed her this way and that and studied her until he got the light, the angles and the focus right. How naive she'd been not to have expected John's proposal. It came when Frank was away in training at Eaton. She refused him. She turned down the·richest, most handsome man for miles around - the 'catch' of Cheshire. She was saving herself for Frank.