Married For His Convenience

Miss Sharples nodded. ‘I always say many hands make light work.’

‘Hardly original, but appropriate, I suppose.’ Mrs Crawford grunted in what might have been approbation.

‘This is a beautiful room,’ Miss Sharples ventured. ‘With excellent proportions.’

‘The house has been in my husband’s family for many years.’

Miss Sharples nodded. ‘But it needs furniture.’

Sarah quaked at this bald statement.

‘I sold it to send money for the heathens,’ Mrs Crawford explained fitfully.

‘But one cannot have the vicar to tea without proper furnishings and one needs to do so, that way one can properly direct him in the guidance of his flock.’

Sarah felt her lips twitch. Miss Sharples might just suit after all.

* * *

On her last evening, Sarah walked to the barn to bid her creatures farewell. She would miss them, particularly Portia and Cleopatra. She’d miss their animal smell, the warmth and understanding in their bovine eyes, the fact they did not know about mousey hair.

Or bastard daughters.

‘I’m sure I won’t find cows half as nice as you in London.’ She stroked the scratchiness of their rounded sides. ‘I’ve arranged for the boy next door to milk you and I am certain he will do a good job.’

On her return to the house, she had anticipated going straight to bed, but light shone from under the crack of the drawing-room door.

Pushing it open, she found Mrs Crawford sitting in an uncomfortably upright chair by the hearth. A small fire flickered, casting weird, elongated shadows.

‘I am glad you’ve come in,’ her guardian said. ‘I suppose you were talking to those animals. One of these days you’ll be saying they talk back.’

Sarah smiled. ‘They do, after a fashion. Did you need something?’

‘To talk to you,’ Mrs Crawford said, her back more ramrod straight than usual and her hands for once unoccupied, tightly clasped.

‘I would like that,’ Sarah said, sitting on the seat opposite.

‘I realised that I’m the closest thing you have to a mother now.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘And I recognise that somebody must speak to you and, given the situation, that person must be me.’ Mrs Crawford’s thin fingers unclasped to pick at a loose thread within her knitted shawl.

‘You need to speak to me?’

‘To warn you.’

‘About?’

‘A man’s needs.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah’s face flushed, as she suppressed a giggle. What a delightful scene this would make. But rather nicer to write than to live through.

‘You don’t need to—I mean, I understand a little. From the animals, of course.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s just it.’ Mrs Crawford’s hands worked at the wool with almost frenzied speed. ‘It is a system of procreation meant for animals.’

Sarah had never heard it referred to as a ‘system’ before. Not, she thought wryly, that it was a topic discussed at her limited social engagements.

‘Mrs Crawford, please do not upset yourself. Truly, I understand the basic concept and it appears most women survive. It will be no worse and no better with Lord Langford than with any other man, I suppose,’ she said, with determined practicality.

‘You mustn’t enjoy it.’ Her guardian spoke more strongly now as though, with the first awkwardness over, she had warmed to her task. ‘Only women like your mother enjoy it and they lead good men astray. Promise me that you will not enjoy it.’

‘I will do my—um—best not to enjoy it.’ Sarah touched the agitated fingers, stilling their movement.

‘It is a duty, that is all. A duty.’

‘A duty,’ Sarah repeated. ‘And if it gets me a child, it will be worth it.’

A mix of emotions flickered across the older woman’s face. ‘I used to think that. I used to hope, you know. I let him do it when I thought it might result in a child. I wanted a child.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said, seeing, with sudden sympathy, the barrenness of this woman’s life.

As though exhausted by the conversation, Mrs Crawford allowed her spine to bend. ‘Yes, I hope...I hope you are luckier,’ she said.

‘Thank you. You are... You have been kind.’

‘Well, I’ve done my Christian duty by you. I have never shirked my duty.’

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