The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  While Lucy smiled faintly at this, Biddy thought, He is like her. She’s not his grandmother, but he is like her.

  When the coach stopped, Biddy alighted, saying, ‘I won’t be more than a minute or so.’ And Laurence answered, ‘You needn’t hurry, we’ve got time and to spare.’

  Riah was waiting for her at the front door and she went straight into her arms, muttering, ‘Don’t cry, Ma. Don’t cry, Ma.’

  ‘I feel awful, lass.’

  ‘Yes, I know. You’re bound to. You’ll be lonely.’

  ‘Oh’—Riah shook her wet face—‘it isn’t that. I’ve got to tell you, an’ I’ve left it to the last minute. I should have told you long afore. It’s about this.’ She raised her eyes and her hand, indicating the house. ‘You see, the master didn’t leave it to me, not really. He said I could stay here, in his will, as long as I didn’t get married. But somehow he felt that I would, and anyway, whether I married or died, the house was to be yours, and I’ve kept it back from you for various reasons.’

  ‘It’s all right, Ma.’ Biddy’s face too was streaming now. ‘It’s all right. I know. I know.’ Riah rubbed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand as she exclaimed, ‘You know? How do you know? I mean…’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ve known for a long time. And, Ma, I hope I never come into it until I’m a very old woman.’ She smiled now through her tears.

  ‘Aw, lass, lass.’ Again they were holding each other close; then Biddy muttered, ‘I’ve got to go; they’re waiting.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. All this happening. You goin’ to France, of all places in the world. And he learned you the language. It’s strange. It’s strange.’

  ‘Yes, it is, Ma…Are you coming to the gate?’

  ‘No, lass, no. I…I’d only make a fool of meself. And look at me, in me house things, I’m not much to be proud of. Go on.’

  ‘I’ll always be proud of you, Ma.’ Their hands held tightly for a minute, then their fingers drew apart, and Biddy turned and ran down the drive.

  She was nearing the gate when through her blurred vision she saw beyond the back of the coach a well-known figure crossing the field at the other side of the road, and when she reached Laurence, who was holding the door open for her now, she looked at him and, a plea in her voice, she said, ‘Could…is there…I mean, is there a minute to spare? There’s a friend of mine.’ She pointed. ‘I’d like to say goodbye to him.’

  Laurence glanced at his watch. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Yes, barring accidents’—he smiled—‘we’ll be Newcastle in good time.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her glance darted from him to the figure sitting inside the coach before she turned away and hurried to the drystone wall bordering the field. When Tol caught hold of her hands across the wall, he muttered thickly, ‘All set then, lass?’

  ‘Yes, Tol.’

  ‘Good luck, then.’ He nodded at her; then his voice dropping, he added, ‘Don’t worry about things at this end.’

  ‘Me ma’s lonely. She’s lost. We’ve all gone now except Johnny, and I’m worried about him an’ all. I feel he could scoot at any time. He’s restless.’

  ‘Don’t you worry your head, I’ll have a talk with him. And…and I’m going to see your ma.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you get yourself away off the road and on your journey and I can get past you.’ His joking reply filled her throat and she leant impulsively forward and kissed him.

  Lucy had been watching the meeting from her side of the coach, and now she turned and, looking to where Laurence was standing once again glancing at his watch, she said, ‘It’s odd how she can create love and hate, isn’t it?’ And he replied, ‘Yes, as you say, Lucy, it’s odd.’

  The next minute he had his hand on Biddy’s elbow and was helping her up into the coach. Then with a word to Mottram, he climbed after her and banged the door, and as it closed they all knew, in different ways, that a period of their lives had ended and what lay before them were many difficult problems.

  Tol watched the coach until it had rolled out of sight, then slowly he went up the drive and knocked on the kitchen door. Receiving no reply, he entered the room and found it empty. He now knocked on the communicating hall door before passing through, but he could see no sign of Riah. He crossed the hall and gently pushed open the drawing room door; and there she was sitting huddled on the couch. She was sobbing so deeply that she wasn’t aware of his presence until his hand came on her shoulder, and she started with a cry that ended in a gasp. Then she straightened up and lay against the back of the couch, her face awash with tears and her breath coming in gasps.

  Taking a seat beside her, he took hold of her hand, saying, ‘Come on now. Come on. It isn’t as bad as that. She’s taking a chance in a lifetime. She’ll be somebody in the end, will Biddy. She’s somebody now; in fact, she always has been. But you’ll be proud of her, you’ll see.’

  ‘Tol.’ Her voice was small.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They’ve’—she gulped in her throat—‘all gone, except Johnny, and…and he’s threatening to run off. They’ve all left me.’

  ‘But they’re all alive, and doing well. You should be proud of them.’

  She lifted the bottom of her apron and rubbed it round her face, then muttered, ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I should, but I can feel nothing except’—she swallowed again—‘lost. It was…it is as if I’d never borne them. I’m lost.’ She turned her face fully to him now and muttered, ‘I’m lost, Tol.’

  ‘Well—’ his voice came low and deep as he said, ‘there’s a remedy for that, you know, Riah, any day of the week, or any minute of the day. And I’ll say this, I’m not asking you to marry me now. If you want to stay in this house, I can understand that, but there was nothing in the will to say you couldn’t love me, and me you. Now was there?’ He watched her screw up her eyes tightly; he watched fresh tears stream from beneath the closed lids; he watched her head droop on to her chest; and then he put his arms about her and drew her gently to him and, stroking her hair, he murmured, ‘You need me, Riah. You can’t go on fighting it off forever, and I need you. Oh, how I need you, because I’ve loved you from that first time I saw you standing with the bairns in the yard of Rowan Cottage.’

  He brought her face round to his now and his eyes held hers for a moment before he kissed her. Then he said, ‘For well or ill, Riah, that’s a seal as good as any marriage certificate to me. Come on, now, cheer up; everything’s going to be bright from now on. And look’—he shook her gently by the shoulders—‘I want a cup of tea made afore I get back to me work. I’m a working man you know, and—’ The smile left his face and, his voice quiet and low, he ended, ‘and like a working man I’ll come home to you tonight.’ And at this she closed her eyes and fell against him.

  The following day was Sunday, and Davey paid his usual visit accompanied by Jean.

  Both of them regaled her with the talk that was going on up in The Heights. And Davey said that it was a good job Maggie was safe in madam’s part of the house because such was the feeling, he understood, in the servants’ hall that they might have pulled her hair out. They thought it was most unfair that not one of them from the house had been given the chance to assist Miss Hobson.

  It was while Jean was helping Johnny to pick fruit from the orchard that Riah had Davey to herself. And although he wasn’t of a perceptive nature he couldn’t help but notice that there was a change in his mother; and he said so immediately. ‘You look bright,’ he said, ‘as if our Biddy had come home instead of gone off.’ And then he added, ‘How did you leave her anyway yesterday?’

  ‘Oh, we were…well, a bit upset, me more than her I think, because…well, I had to explain something to her that I should have done a long time ago after the master died. It’s about this house.’

  ‘What explaining had you to do to her? It’s yours.’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘What!’ He had been sitting
at one side of the kitchen table and he half rose now, and again he said, ‘What?…But he left it to you.’

  ‘Just on conditions.’

  ‘What conditions?’

  ‘Well, that I didn’t get married again. If I did, well—’ She paused now and he waited, and then she said, ‘If I did I’d have to move out and the house would go to Biddy.’

  ‘To our Biddy?’ His big face was screwed up. ‘But it can’t. Look, Ma, I’m your son and the eldest. What you own should come to me.’

  ‘Not in this case.’

  His mouth opened and closed twice before he said, ‘What…what if you died?’

  ‘It goes straight to her.’

  ‘No, be damned!’ He was on his feet now, and she too, and she yelled at him, ‘Yes, yes, be damned, Davey. And what are you making such a fuss about anyway? It’s only recently you’ve come back to the house; you wouldn’t come near it for years.’

  ‘No, not as long as he was in it.’

  ‘But it is still his house, and you’re in it.’

  ‘It isn’t his house, he’s dead.’

  ‘He may be but his influence is still here, and you must be thick-skinned if you can’t feel it.’

  ‘Feel his influence? He’s a spiteful bugger, that’s what he is, or was. God!’ He flung himself round, punching one fist into his other palm as he said, ‘I had it all fixed in me mind. I was going to leave up there now that you’ve got more money from our Biddy and Maggie, and I could turn this into a home garden, like vegetables and fruit to sell to the market. Some people make a mint taking fresh stuff into the market at the weekends. I had it all worked out.’

  ‘Well, you can damn well get it unworked out. The place’ll never be yours.’

  ‘It’s not right, after what he did to me.’

  She turned now, her face scarlet, her voice ringing: ‘He did nothing to you, it’s what you did to him,’ she said; ‘you crippled him and brought on his end quicker than it should have been. He did nothing to you.’

  ‘He tried.’

  ‘He did not.’

  He had his hands flat on the table now leaning towards her as he yelled back at her, ‘He had a damn good try.’

  ‘He didn’t. He didn’t. Not the way you put it. His mistake was in caring for you. Aye. Aye, he loved you and he mentioned the word and I didn’t understand it at the time no more than you did, but I know now he would never have harmed you, not in the way you’re making out.’

  ‘He’s harmed me now all right, hasn’t he? Spitting at me from the grave ’cos I would have none of him.’

  ‘You can think what you like, but I know one thing, he would have always seen to Biddy in some way or other, because he admired her having a mind of her own and a brain.’

  ‘Brain be damned! All she is is brazen. And I’ll tell you something about her that you don’t know, she’s been up to tricks on her own, because it’s going round the place that she came back from her leave all bedraggled and the front of her dress open down to the waist, and her hat on one side as if she was drunk. And she cheeked the housekeeper when she wanted to know how she got like that. You didn’t know that, did you?’

  No, she didn’t know that. She remembered now that Biddy had had a cut on her ear. She’d said she had tripped against some wire. But Biddy wouldn’t be up to anything like that: she had more sense.

  ‘That’s surprised you, hasn’t it, about your brainy miss?’

  ‘Well, all I can say to that, Davey is, whatever happened wasn’t of her doing. Somebody likely tried it on; and they would get as much as they sent if I know her.’

  ‘Yes, she’s such a clever bugger, isn’t she?’

  ‘Don’t you use that language here.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ As he turned from her she screamed back at him, ‘And don’t you tell me to shut up. By God! It’s coming to something.’

  ‘Aye, it is.’ He had rounded on her once again. ‘And when we’re talking plain, I’m going to tell you this. I’m not tipping up anything more: it’s everybody for themselves; I can see that.’

  ‘Very well. You’re entitled to keep what you earn. Thank God now I’ve no need of it. All I can hope is when you and Jean marry and start a family…’

  ‘Who said anything about marrying Jean?’ His face was stretched.

  ‘Well, aren’t you? You’re courting her.’

  ‘I’m damn well not, nor ever had any intention.’

  ‘Then why do you bring her here on a Sunday?’

  ‘I don’t bring her, she walks along of me. Remember, it was your wonderful daughter that brought her.’

  ‘But…but the lass understands…’

  ‘That’s her mistake then, isn’t it?’

  ‘She’s a nice lass. A good lass.’ Riah’s voice showed her bewilderment, and he said, ‘Yes, she might be, on top, but where did she come from? She’s from the poorhouse; nobody knows about her people. I wouldn’t be marrying anybody like that.’

  Riah’s voice was scarcely audible now, but there was a hiss in it as she said, ‘Then you better make it plain to her, hadn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to make plain. If she’s got those ideas, it’s her fault. And if there’s any explaining to do, I’ll leave it to you, because I’m off back now, and I don’t care if I never come back home again.’

  As he made for the door, she called, ‘Davey!’ And when he turned towards her, she said, ‘Those are my sentiments an’ all. I don’t care either.’

  He stared at her, his eyes widening slightly; then he went out and banged the door behind him.

  The world had gone topsy-turvy. Yesterday morning she had been in despair with the thought of the loneliness that stretched ahead, then last night she had experienced loving like she had never imagined it, for it had never happened that way with Seth. She had woken this morning and held the pillow to her that had cradled Tol’s head until the early hours of the morning, and when she had got up, it was as if the years had rolled off her and she was a young girl again, and this was her first love. And it was her first love. Yes, her first real love. And all morning she had floated around the house, her feet not seeming to touch the ground. Then she had baked and made a fine tea for Davey and Jean coming. And Davey and Jean had come, and Davey had gone, and she couldn’t recognise the nature of him. From where had he inherited such traits? Not from her. And oh no, not from Seth, because Seth had been a good honest man. But why was she searching for a match to his nature, because she could now hear her own mother speaking through him. He had the looks of his grandfather but the complete nature of his grandmother. Although she hadn’t recognised it then, she realised now it had shown on the day he took the pip because the master had been unable to buy him the pony. Everything was all right as long as it went his way, but if it didn’t then there were sparks flying. That had been her mother’s way too.

  Well, Biddy was gone across the seas. Maggie was in service. They had both gone from her, but she hadn’t lost them. And she hadn’t lost Johnny as yet. But she knew that irrevocably she had lost her eldest.

  Why was it that happiness was always bought through a heavy price?

  PART FOUR

  THE OUTCOME

  One

  Madame Arnaud’s house was situated outside the small village some distance south of Paris. It had once been a farmhouse and consisted of eight rooms all on the same floor. Madame Arnaud was living on a small pension and was pleased to let part of her house to supplement her income. What had been the farmyard proper now formed a terrace, on to which her visitors could walk from their sitting room, which was very pleasant in the summer but which formed a wind tunnel in the winter.

  Her present guests had been with her for some months now. They were Madame Lucille Millican and her sister-in-law, Mademoiselle Bridget Millican. Madame Lucille was a young widow, a tragic case really, so the villagers understood. She had married beneath her and the young husband had died, but her family would still not forgive her mistake. That was the English, th
ey knew nothing about love.

  But apparently there remained one member of her family who still had a heart and understanding, for her brother came out at intervals from England to see her. And, as Madame Arnaud had told the butcher, he was expected this very day and she hoped there had been saved the plumpest goose for her. And the butcher assured her that she would have the plumpest. And the grocer assured her that the sweetmeats and the crystallised fruits that she had ordered were all ready to be sent to the house.

  The whole village knew how generous Madame Millican’s brother was: his purse flowed with francs, and he was such a nice gentleman, everyone was out to please him.

  A little whisper had stirred through the village that perhaps Madame Millican was not quite a widow and her brother not quite a brother; but be that as it may, that was the way of the world and nobody was going to question it, not here in France. Of course, if such was the case, it would explain why the young person was having her baby in France instead of England, because the English were such hypocrites: a man could be found in his short clothes and a woman in her shift and yet they would both deny knowledge of each other; they were in that state merely to discuss the English weather, which, like their lying, was unbelievable…

  Back in the farmhouse, sitting at either side of a roaring fire, the two girls were knitting. Biddy had taught Lucy how to knit, and in return Lucy had taught Biddy embroidery. Over the months they had read together, studied French and tested it on madame and the villagers, whose French apparently wasn’t Parisian French but a patois, and caused both parties some fun during the exchanges.

  Altogether the days passed pleasantly, at least for Biddy, but for Lucy there were periods when she went into depression so deep that Biddy became worried. It was at these times she talked herself silly, as she put it. She told Lucy about her early life in the pit village, about the master, and went as far in an attempt to stir her interest as to relate his liking for Davey, and the result of it. This last instance had the desired effect and brought the question from Lucy, ‘He actually cut him down with the scythe?’