The Slow Awakening

by Catherine Cookson (Catherine Marchant)

  ‘…Yes, master.’

  He was nonplussed at her quiet frankness, but he saw that her eye was flickering now. Ah! Ah! he was getting through, was he?

  ‘Why?’ He moved round the table hanging on to the edge until he was within inches of her, and again he demanded, ‘Why?’ His voice ending on a bellow made her start, and she dashed towards the door and closed it, saying, ‘He…he sleeps lightly.’

  He took up her words. ‘He sleeps lightly you say? You look after my son. I put him into your—your care. I’ve had con-confidence in you. Do you…do you realise, girl, that I’ve had confidence in you? I’ve made bad blood ’tween my wife and B…an’…an’ Miss Cartwright, an’ myself all…all because of you. They have wanted to get rid of you. Perhaps they were wiser than me. I’m a man that doesn’t…doesn’t stand divided loyalties. You should know that by now. Tell me. Tell me why did you go, go over there? How d’you get to know them, that scum?’

  Kirsten stared at him. She saw that the master was drunk, very drunk. She had never seen him like this before, she had never heard him shout like this since the time he discovered that the jewellery was missing. She said simply, ‘He saved my life. Colum Flynn saved my life. He dragged me from the river and…and brought me up here. Mr Dixon helped him. Then I…I was walking by the river one day and I saw him and I thanked him. Just like that. I did not go across, master; he was in his own land and we talked over the space.’ She did not say over the wall, for she knew that even the mention of the wall would inflame his anger. ‘Then I met Dorry, his aunt, and she asked me up for a cup of tea. You see—’ she bent her head gently forward towards him as if imparting a confidence, ‘I knew nobody, I had nowhere to go.’

  The explanation was so simple, so truthful, that it penetrated his fuddled state and caused his body to slump, and he found he wanted to sit down. He looked around, then moved towards the couch and flopped onto it, his legs sprawled out, his arms likewise, and he stared at her. He stared at her for a long while. Then he asked a question softly, ‘You like them?’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  He asked another, ‘Why?’

  It seemed an unnecessary question after her statement but she answered, ‘They are kind, master, the kindest people I’ve met in me life. And they’re a family…a happy family.’

  He narrowed his eyes at her. The only one of the Flynns he had met was the young snot, whom he imagined living like a pig up in his sty on the hill, for he understood he kept pigs, besides making ropes. But she had said they were a happy family; she had said they were kind to her. He now brought his body thrusting forward, tense again, and demanded, ‘Kind, you say? Haven’t you had, had kindness shown to you in this house? C…come. Come; give me an answer to that one, girl. Haven’t you had kindness shown to you in this house?’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  His chin moved out and his lower jaw worked before he repeated. ‘Yes, master. There’s no con-conviction in that, girl. Weren’t you taken from the river and clothed and fed, and well paid? Aye, well paid. Do you know you get paid more than a wet nurse in London? Four shillings is their limit, an’ for the best of them, and you’re getting five now, aren’t you, five shillings?’

  ‘Yes, master.’ Her voice had a tremble in it now and he peered at her. The eye was flickering rapidly as if it were being worked by a lever.

  His voice stiff now, but more quiet, he said, ‘You know I don’t like that man or his people.’

  ‘I…I’ve heard it said, master.’

  ‘Then why didn’t that stop you from making their acquaintance?’

  ‘It…it was none of my business, master.’

  He was bellowing again, ‘None of your business, girl! When you’re in my employ everything that happens in this house is your b-business, because of the loyalty you owe me. I pay for your loyalty. Look at me, lift your head.’

  She lifted her head.

  ‘Come here.’

  She came, until her skirt touched his knee, and he grabbed her hand between his two broad ones and shook it vigorously up and down as he said, ‘I want you to promise me you’ll never go across to that place again, nor yet have any contact with the Flynn fellow.’

  He now watched her eyes widen; he watched the pupil drop right into the corner and stay there; he watched her lips part, then close, then open swiftly again, and he listened, in something akin to amazement, to the words tumbling out, for she was defying him to his face in a way no-one had ever dared do.

  ‘No, master. No, master, I couldn’t. They’ve been so good to me an’ kind. I like them an’ I wouldn’t hurt them for the world, an’ if I stopped goin’ I…I would hurt them an’…’

  With the flat of his hand on her chest he knocked her backwards, and she almost fell into the fire, only saving herself by twisting round and clutching at the mantelshelf. Then he was on his feet glaring down at her, swaying over her. ‘You understand that I can send you packin’ onto the road again, don’t you? Because it’s up to me whether your reference is good, bad, or in-indifferent. Do you understand th-that, girl? But no, but you wouldn’t go on the road, would you? You would go over the river, up the hill, into the pigsties.’ His face close to hers, his arms outstretched, one on each side of her head, his hands flat against the wall, he asked, ‘If I sent you packing where would you go, eh? Where would you go? Tell me.’

  Her body was trembling. She was staring, not into his eyes but at his mouth, at his teeth, tight clenched, and she knew that if she gave him the truth he would be angered still further. But she felt compelled to do so, for in this at least she need not deceive him, so she said, in a whisper, ‘I’d, I’d go to them; they’d be vexed else.’

  He didn’t move his position. His face hung over hers; he was staring down into it. This girl was the only female who had ever spoken the truth to him, with the exception of his grandmother and Great-Aunt Brigitta. He knew himself to be defeated, and at the same time he knew something else. Through his whisky-bemused senses there penetrated to his brain something that brought his body up straight and he stepped back and flopped onto the couch, but continued to stare at her.

  The end of a log toppling itself into its own ash broke the silence in the room, and he held out his hand to her and said, ‘Come here, girl.’ And she went to him, and he pulled her down onto the couch and, his voice as unlike that he had previously used to her as it was possible to imagine, he said, ‘My, my child needs you. You’re the only one he’s got in this establishment, you’re the only one he’ll ever be able to turn to except myself. We, we both need you. You understand me, girl? We both need you.’

  When she answered simply, ‘Yes, master,’ she didn’t fully understand, not until his hand came out and pulled down the lid of her right eye and stroked it gently. Then her shivering found a frightening depth in herself. It was as if she had a number of bodies, one inside the other, and the shivering was passing down and down and down to the central core of them all.

  When he rose quietly and staggered from her and out of the room, she sat perfectly still. She wanted to cry, bury her head deep and cry, because of the guilt that was in her, the guilt that had in the past moments doubled itself. More than ever now she was protesting: ’Tisn’t that kind, ’tis only because of him being hoodwinked.

  After a while she stood up and slowly began to undress and with each garment she took off she tried to shell from her mind this other feeling that was troubling her, the feeling concerning the master that had nothing to do with his being deceived. She asked herself what his attitude would be towards her tomorrow. But she wouldn’t know until late in the day, for when he was in a tear about anything he went off riding very early in the morning and didn’t return until evening. But sometime, however late, he would come and see the child, and then she would know …

  She was to know before the morrow, for the night had only begun.

  Taking an old cloak from the cupboard, one discarded by Mrs Poulter, she wrapped it around her calico nightdress. Then she t
ook a book from the top drawer of the chest and went to the fire, and there, sitting on the rug, she prepared to read as she did every night for a short while before going to bed. Tonight, however, she couldn’t give her mind to the book, but sat with it open in her hand, while she stared into the fire.

  This was usually the time of day she looked forward to having a bit read; besides she loved books for themselves, just for the look and the feel of them. There were hundreds of books in this house; the library was lined with them from floor to ceiling. The twice she had been in that room she had noted them; but she knew she’d never be allowed to touch one. Yet she would never be short of a book to read, for Colum and Mr Flynn had lots of books, almost fifty, and dozens on top of dozens of news-sheets from Hexham and Newcastle, and all full of interesting things.

  She could never get her fill of reading. But she rarely got the chance during the day. What is more, she never let anyone in the house catch her reading, for that, she sensed, would be something else for them to hold against her.

  The book that was on her knee now was very special; it was one that Colum laid stock by, it was the work of the poet Wordsworth. Colum was very fond of Wordsworth and could recite long poems by him. He knew all about his life and had promised her that one day, when the child was older and she could ask for a full day off, he would take her over the hills to the Lake District where the poet had lived. He talked about the poet’s friends as if they were his own. One was a Mr De Quincey who wrote pieces for the papers. Colum, she thought, was clever, very clever; she admired him as much as the rest of the family did, more in fact, for she considered he was too clever to be just a roper. Yes, she thought Colum was wonderful. Except for one thing. And it was strange that the flaw in him was the same that marred the master, the hate that the love of land bred in each of them.

  It was strange too she considered that with this thought in her mind she should look down on the open pages and see the heading of The Fountain. She knew The Fountain but she read it now slowly and thoughtfully.

  We talked with open heart, and tongue

  Affectionate and true,

  A pair of friends, though I was young,

  And Matthew seventy-two.

  Though the master wasn’t seventy-two, the verse seemed to apply to him; at least the way she had been able to talk to him, for she could do so because she wasn’t really afraid of him. But then the next verse was not appropriate:

  We lay beneath a spreading oak,

  Beside a mossy seat;

  And from the turf a fountain broke,

  And gurgled at our feet.

  They would never lie beneath a spreading oak.

  ‘Now Matthew!’ said I, ‘let us match

  This water’s pleasant tune

  With some old border-song, or catch

  That suits a summer’s noon.’

  It was as if the speaker had been obeyed for there came now from across the corridor the sound of the master’s voice singing, singing roaringly like men sang on fair days when they came rolling out of the taverns, hiccuping and spluttering.

  When she heard a heavy crash as if he were throwing one of his stone blocks across the room she rose to her feet and put the book away and hurried into the nursery and to the cot, where the child was now awake and whimpering, and she bent over him, saying, ‘There, there, me only. Go to sleep now. Go to sleep.’

  When there came another gabble of raucous sounds, louder now and from the corridor outside the nursery door, she looked with apprehension towards it; but it didn’t burst open, and the master’s voice became fainter as he went towards the gallery.

  The child was crying now and she picked him up and held him to her shoulder, rocking him and talking all the while: ‘There now. There now. There’s a good boy. It’s all right, nothin’ is going to harm you.’

  She had to walk the floor with him for some time while he sucked on a pap bag before his lids lowered and she could again place him in the cot.

  She stayed by the side of the cot murmuring soothingly for a little longer; then she could still hear the distant sound of the master’s voice bellowing out song after song, and to it were added the faint notes of the piano.

  The master could play the piano beautifully. She had stood in the corner of the gallery one day and listened to music floating up from the drawing room where the grand piano was on a dais near the long windows. Later she had mentioned the beautiful music to Mrs Poulter who had said, with some pride, that it was the master who played, and that he had more than a fair hand on the pianoforte.

  She did not go to bed now but sat on the couch; she was feeling uneasy, worried. She wondered if he would go on all night. Rose had told her that once he was drunk for a week—that was after his second wife had run away—and that he had practically worn out three horses riding hell for leather across the fells. He had, eventually, killed one; they had found him and the animal at the bottom of a gully, and it was a miracle that he himself was alive.

  It was about an hour later that she paid a visit to the pail closet at the end of the corridor. This had been given over to her convenience and to take the slops from the nursery. The piano playing had stopped a short while before and the house was quiet, there was no coming or going of servants, and she thought they were all retired, except perhaps Mr Slater and Mr Harris. Mr Harris never went to bed before the master, no matter what hour it was. When she stepped out into the corridor, lit dimly by the reflected light from the candelabra in the hall at the far end, she saw Mr Harris and someone else. It was Florrie Stewart, the second laundress.

  Florrie Stewart was a fat lump of a girl, with bust pushing one way and buttocks the other; she had a round pudding face and she laughed a lot. Rose indicated she was a loose piece, but Kirsten already knew this for hadn’t she seen her on the laundry floor with Mr Hay. Mr Harris was now leading her to the door opposite her own bedroom door. He was not forcing her, he was just guiding her, and although her head was bowed Kirsten got the impression that Florrie was giggling.

  She stood back in the shadow of the closet door and saw Mr Harris open the master’s workroom door, push Florrie in, then walk quickly away again.

  She herself now scurried down the corridor and into her room and she stood with her back to the door panting as if she had been running some distance, and not until she went to close her mouth did she realise that her lips had been drawn wide apart and her face screwed up as if in protest.

  Again she was sitting on the couch staring into the fire, the blue cloak tight around her now, her thoughts tumbling over one another, defending, excusing. The master was a man, moreover he was a gentleman. Gentlemen took their pick. It went on all the time. She had even heard Ma Bradley talk about it although she hadn’t understood the full meaning of her stories then. But just latterly, one day when the cook was off, Rose had taken her into the kitchen. Jane Styles had been there, and Ruth Benny, and the talk had come round to the master and how he doted on the bairn and how he had lost his wildness, and from there it had drifted to Lord Milton. Rose had said, there was a sly one if ever, and she knew what she was talking about for she had both a brother-in-law and a half-cousin at the Hall, and she said that when the mistress was away his lordship didn’t take them singly but in pairs; and at that they had all doubled up, falling over the table with their laughter. And when she had said that all the bairns on the Hall estate, from those in the farm cottages to the married quarters above the coach houses, were tall and thin, the girls nearly choked. And what about Mr Bowen-Crawford? said Rose. He was even worse, for he kept his own establishment in Newcastle, so it was said, from where he took his pick, and entertained his men friends.

  And now Kirsten recalled how Rose finished her tale. The grub at the Hall, she said, wasn’t first-class and couldn’t come up to what they got here; but then the master liked to keep everybody happy, especially the lasses.

  She went to bed. She felt sad, disturbed. She turned on her side, her hand under her cheek, and lay like t
his for a time before she went to sleep.

  She was brought from sleep, and a dream in which a voice was roaring against a thunderclap, and then she was sitting up in bed, and there, sprawling through the door on her back, was Florrie Stewart, and standing silhouetted across the corridor in the open door of the workroom was the master, and he was yelling, ‘To hell! Do you hear? Get to hell out of it!’ He was wearing a house robe of some black material and he had on his feet black slippers, and but for his fair hair she would have thought he was the devil himself.

  When Florrie Stewart, gasping and crying, turned onto her knees, a black-slippered foot came out and caught her full in the buttocks and sent her sprawling once more, and he bawled now, ‘Let me see neither one or other of your faces again.’

  As Florrie Stewart crawled away out of Kirsten’s vision, into it came Harris and she saw the master tower over him as if he were going to strike him; then taking his arm he thrust him aside saying, ‘She stinks! Do you hear? She stinks.’

  ‘Sir…’

  ‘Get out of my sight.’

  The valet disappeared and her doorway was now blocked by the master himself. She saw his head thrust forward as he peered into the darkness. Then he turned around and staggered back into his room, and just as she was about to jump out of bed and close the door she saw him coming into the corridor again, a candelabrum in his hand. Then he was again in the doorway, the light coming from above his head and onto her, and she sat frozen and fearful, knowing now what she was fearful of.

  He kicked the door closed behind him, and swaying from side to side he went towards the mantelpiece and placed the candelabrum on it, and as she watched him she hitched herself farther up in the bed and pressed her shoulders tight against the wall.